All Chapters of The Honors Class Experiment: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

"That's 40 kids, Simon. Kids! Your own daughter, Holly, was one of them. Look at me and tell me why you did this! You're a teacher. How could you do something like this?"Officer Dylan Campbell planted both hands on the table and leaned in, staring me down. He was barely holding himself back. His eyes were red, his jaw tight.I leaned back in my chair and let my eyes close for a second.It had taken more out of me than I expected, lifting 40 teenagers."If you want to know why I killed them," I said, my voice flat, "ask their homeroom teacher, Natalie Martin. She knows."Dylan's fist hit the table hard enough to make it ring. "Natalie. Always Natalie!"We've already checked. Over the past year, you filed ten lawsuits against her. Every single one claimed she wasn't qualified to teach, and every single one got thrown out!"She's this year's model teacher for the entire province. She's done everything for her students! Right now, she's in the hospital, nearly collapsed from grie

"You," I said, cutting the lawyer off before he could finish. "Kyle Banks, right? Take the case. Keep me off death row. If you do exactly what I say, this will make your name."His expression tightened, disbelief and irritation mixing together. "Keep you off death row? Are you serious? You killed 40 people. This only ends one way."I didn't respond to that. "You're my lawyer. Whether you like it or not, you're defending me. Go to the school. Film Ms. Martin's routine with the new senior honors class and post it online as soon as you can.""Why?" The word slipped out before Kyle could stop it."Just do it. When you're done, I'll tell you why I killed them. That's your shot."The room went quiet. After a long pause, I heard his chair scrape back."Fine. I'll get it. You'd better not be wasting my time."Kyle worked fast.He came back the next day with his phone, looking worse than before, dark circles under his eyes, anger just under the surface."I got your video. It's alread

Silence swept the room and held for a full five seconds.Then the place exploded."What did he just say? He's retracting his confession?""With evidence like that, he still thinks he can deny it?""Unbelievable. He's a monster!""He only regrets it now. He's afraid of the death penalty, so he's stalling!"The judge brought the gavel down hard, his face dark. "Do you understand what you're saying? This is a court of law, not a place for games."The prosecutor rose at once. "Your Honor, he's trying to stall. The court shouldn't allow it."The parents in the gallery lost control."Get out of here, you monster! You killed my daughter and now you're trying to walk away from it? Give her back!""He doesn't want to die? Then we'll kill him ourselves! We'll do it together!""They can't charge all of us!"The crowd surged forward, slamming into the barrier. Bailiffs rushed in, holding them back as the room tipped toward chaos."Order! Order!" The judge struck the gavel again and ag

Natalie held herself together, but there was a tremor in her voice. "Doesn't this just show how disciplined our class is? The students know what they want. They stay focused.""Focused to the point they don't act human anymore?"I cut in, then turned toward the gallery, my eyes settling on Kyle. "A few days ago, at my request, my former attorney recorded Ms. Martin's routine with her new honors class. If it took a full year for the last class to reach that level of uniformity, you might call it effective teaching."I let the silence stretch, taking in the shifting expressions around the room."But Ms. Martin's only had this class for a few days. Why do they already look exactly the same? The same synchronized page turns. The same silent breaks. The same mechanical way of eating. How do you explain that? Is that discipline, too? Is that focus?"Every eye in the room turned to Kyle.He clearly hadn't expected this. A flicker of panic crossed his face, but it quickly gave way to p

Wililiam pulled up a neural activity chart. "This was reconstructed from residual brainwave data. The victims' actual time of death came well before Mr. Rivera acted. To be precise, brain function had already stopped several hours before the banquet began.""What?""That's impossible!""Then what about the footage…""Order!"The judge struck the gavel, though his hand shook slightly.William continued, steady but grim. "As for what we're seeing when Mr. Rivera intervened, our working theory is that the bodies were already dead. Residual activity from the cortical parasite maintained a minimal level of physical function. Once external force was applied, that activity shut down completely."That's why the initial autopsy pointed to mechanical asphyxiation. That was the final physical cause of death. But in reality, they had died long before that."He turned to Natalie. Her face had drained of color. She looked like she might collapse."In Ms. Martin, we found a more advanc