by Lisa Bunker
is
betrayed
Arli?
Hello?
Hello?
FORTY-SIX
WHEN ZEN OPENED her eyes, nearly tipping out of the chair, the muted gray of early morning glimmered outside the window. It had been like this before. As she slipped deeper into the Cyberlandium trance, everything else went distant, and the energy of pure focus flowed smoothly in her body and her mind. She had gone for up to three days at a time with almost no sleep, taking quick naps, then driving onward. She guessed she had been asleep for an hour, maybe two. Her neck hurt from her head hanging forward, but she felt rested.
She was hungry, though. And she needed hot water too. She was sick of smelling herself. Would the Aunties hear? No matter. It was morning. Realm of normal. The question was, did she have the emotional resources right now to face the mirror? To see her face? Let alone her body? Quick easy answer—NOPE. Not even one glimpse, thank you very much. She sighed. Time once again to practice a skill long since refined: the no-see no-feel protocol.
In the bathroom she left the light off, and as she undressed in the dim she took care to keep her eyes pointed exclusively at porous, opaque things. The towels hanging on the rack. The shower curtain with its printed design of rabbits dressed in kimonos. Once naked she also had to keep her eyes up and away from what was down there. A soap-scummed round mirror hung on a loop of plastic rope in the shower. She reached in first and turned it to the wall.
Once in, the delicious hot water sluicing down over her, she let her eyes linger on the rack of bottles, playing games with their letters to keep her eyes from straying. For example, the bottle that said “shampoo”: the font they chose, if you flipped the word upside down, it looked like “oodways”—“goodways” minus the g. Arli would get a kick out of . . . Oh, wait. If they were still friends. Was Arli the hacker or not? And if vo was, why did vo react that way? Betrayed? Seriously? Wasn’t that a bit extreme? What did vo think, that Zen had no sense of right and wrong at all? Come to think of it, she was feeling offended herself—feeling harshly judged by veir over-the-top reaction.
Zen frowned, pushed the thoughts away, got back to the protocol. The no-touch places were her eyebrows and one other. She let soapy water stream down through instead. And as she toweled off after, she bunched the whole towel into a bulky wad, thick enough so that she couldn’t feel shapes through it. One small gift: the steam helped with the mirror situation. She wrapped one towel around her head and another around her body, snugging it tight under her arms, then eased out the door.
On her way back through the kitchen, Zen paused to extract a couple of energy bars from a cabinet she knew opened noiselessly. Her bare feet made no sound on the linoleum. Nonetheless, when she turned back, Aunt Lucy was standing in the archway from her bedroom.
Zen startled. Her hand jumped up to her forehead—yes, the towel was low enough. She wouldn’t have to explain the missing brows. In her mind she groped for words to deflect and separate as quickly as possible. She so didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. She had a trance going.
Except, how could she not respond to the smile her aunt was giving her? A gentle smile, with soft eyes. “Good morning, Zenobia,” Aunt Lucy said, keeping her voice low for Aunt Phil, still in bed.
“Um . . . good morning.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, a little. Thanks.”
“Did you sleep well?”
Hardly at all, but it wouldn’t do to go into that. “Yes, thank you.” A pause. Manners kicked in. “How about you?”
“Middling,” Aunt Lucy said. “Just middling.” She sighed, pulled her robe tighter around herself, crossed to the fridge, and took out a carton of orange juice. “Oh, my mouth is dry,” she said. “Would you like a glass?”
“No, thank you.” Aunt Lucy poured her juice and leaned against the counter to sip it. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Zenobia, there’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
Something in the way she spoke put Zen on guard. Was this going to be something about the girl project, some pulling back? Something, even, about how Zen’s living with them in their apartment might someday come to an end? The tentative, unexpected tenderness she had started to feel instantly snuffed out. Shields up. She stepped back toward her bedroom door, preparing to flee. “What?” she said.
Aunt Lucy took another moment before speaking, and Zen trembled through an adrenaline surge. Then Aunt Lucy said, “I was wondering if . . . Your Aunt Phil and I, every year we throw a Halloween party, and what I was wondering was, would you maybe like to invite some of your little friends?”
This was so different from what Zen had been dreading, it took her a couple of seconds to respond. What? A Halloween party? Little friends? “I am not five years old,” she said coldly.
Aunt Lucy blinked. “No, I know that,” she said.
Zen took another step backward. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d not treat me that way.”
Aunt Lucy’s brow furrowed. She opened her mouth, then hesitated. Her face closed up, and she said, “I apologize. I won’t bring the idea up again.”
“Good,” said Zen, and turned and left the kitchen.
Safely back in her room, door locked once more, she changed into sweats and a cotton top—the one with the huge flower. Thanks to the awkward encounter with Aunt Lucy, her quicksilver mood had returned to rageful simmer. Which suited her fine. She had more work to do.
Starting on one of the energy bars, she returned to her preparations. She had Natalie’s mother’s website at her mercy now. But that was only one. What about Robert? More in-game retribution? No, not enough. Something sharper was definitely called for.
With the parents’ names in hand from her earlier dip into the school records, it was a short search. Crabby, bullying Mr. Grant worked at a law firm. And, my goodness—a sign-in for the admin portal, right there on the front page. It might take a while to get in, but she knew her skill. Soon she would have access to the inner workings of his company’s computer network too.
FORTY-SEVEN
AUNTIE-KNOCKING WOKE her. She struggled through a moment of deep confusion. Where was she? On her bed. What, why? Oh yeah. Apparently her stamina was less than it used to be, and she had succumbed to exhaustion shortly after finding her way into Mr. Grant’s computer system, sometime after a quick-grabbed lunch. She rolled and looked at the window. Evening light out there. She had slept the afternoon away.
Her mouth tasted like dirty-bathroom smell. She worked it, trying to unglue the parts, get some cleaner spit going. Another knock. “Come in,” she croaked. She sounded sick. She felt sick.
The Aunties entered. Concern stated. Forehead felt. Surprise expressed at missing eyebrows—a sudden icky squirm moment. The bandana had come off while she slept. But then Aunt Phil, always so radically accepting, said, “Groovy,” and went to fetch a damp washcloth. That was good. Zen’s face felt cooler and cleaner after. Temp taken. Normal. Soup offered and accepted. A dinner setup appeared on the desk, laptop shoved to the side. Of course Zen had closed the screen.
After dinner she was instructed to get some more rest and call for help if she needed it. No more mention was made of silly Halloween parties, thank God. The Aunties stepped out. Zen listened to their voices on the other side of the door, discussing her. By their tones—words too faint to catch—Aunt Lucy was worried and Aunt Phil was saying it would be all right. They went away, and she was alone once more.
Revived by soup and pampering, she opened her computer screen once again. No messages from Arli. Not that she had expected any. And it didn’t matter. Apparently vo wasn’t the hacker outlaw she had briefly imagined ven to be, and was now off somewhere feeling all fragile and virtuous and affronted. Something about that thought made Zen feel uncomfortable—a dim sense that she was being unfair—so she pushed it away. Back to solo. Fine.
She re-accessed her work spaces and began to construct an exploit for Robert’s dad’s firm. No radio in headphones this time. Pure silence. Diamond clarity. Detachment. Focus. It was, in fact, like a drug. Everything else went away, and that was so exactly what she needed right now.
Three or four hours later she sat back again and stared at the eternal blinking cursor, taking a little time to reorient to reality. She massaged her hands and worked the kinks out of her shoulders and back. She needed to pee, and slipped out to accomplish this without rousing any Auntie-attention. Quiet and dark behind the curtain in the arch to their room.
Then back, and the deliberate careful typing of the single command that would set both exploits into motion. She did the Enter key finger float. She put her hand back in her lap. As always, the reverent pause. And something to do with the pleasure of power, too. I have made a thing. I can make it go anytime I want. But I choose not to, not just yet. But I have made a thing. I can make it go. . . . A simple looping chant. A last breath before the plunge.
Out of habit only, momentarily lulled, she picked up her phone, glanced at the screen, and read what was there before she could stop herself. A text from Arli. Time-stamped about an hour ago. Short—just two letters: FS.
Zen looked at the two letters for a long time. She looked back at the computer screen. The cursor blinked at the end of its line of characters.
She looked back at the phone. “You make me crazy,” she snarl-whispered at it, at the text’s sender through it. “I don’t understand you. Every time I think I have you figured out, you do something else that I don’t know what it means. Or how to react to it.” No answer, of course. But an image rose in her mind of Arli sitting in a beanbag chair in secret candlelight. Vivid imaginary Arli looked up, tipped veir head, and did an eyebrow-quirk that said the same as words, Yeah? So, what are you going to do about it?
Zen blew out an exasperated breath. Glowered at the letters. Drummed agitated fingers on the desk.
FS.
Fieldwork Sanctum.
For Short.
Friend . . . Salvation. Zen rolled her eyes, but then resumed glowering and drumming. Salvation. A word with weight in her life. A word that had been used with great Meaning by others around her. She remembered a laying on of hands. She remembered a submersion. And it was true that she had felt . . . something. But, looking back now, she could not feel sure that anything had really happened. Somehow the words had just stayed words. Maybe because she had not been who they thought she was. They had saved the wrong person. A boy who didn’t actually exist.
Which meant, Zen, her real self, was still free. Unsaved, but free. Free to choose her next move. It was a choice that felt like more than just what to do in the moment. It felt like the choice of who she was going to be from now on.
Press Enter, and that was a step down one path. As long as she kept to this path, she would walk alone, but she would feel safe. For whatever reason, she had been blessed with a mind that, in Cyberlandium, could wield great power. She could rule. And in Cyberlandium, the eternally excruciating puzzle of having a body that didn’t match her brain just went away. It simply didn’t matter.
Or, FS.
On this path, no certainty. Messy messy humans and all the confusion and risk that came with engaging with them, trying to listen to and understand them and then to say something in return. On this path, anyone, even the friend you had started to feel you could actually trust, could say the stupidest thing and whack you out into the cold. And then something you said without the least intention of causing hurt would whack that same friend out into the cold too. And then you felt . . . yes, facing it now . . . then you felt guilty and horrible and didn’t know how to make it right.
What it came down to: turn away, or turn toward.
Another minute balanced on the knife edge. Zen sat and breathed. She wondered what was going to happen next. She had no idea, none at all. She only waited to see what she would do.
A little time later, the curtain blew in and out, in and out, pushed by a chilly autumn breeze in an empty room.
FORTY-EIGHT
IT HAD BEGUN to mist. Cold dampness just wet enough to take the form of tiny droplets. The streets were still busy, though. It was not too late on a Saturday night. From the bridge over the highway Zen saw many lights flowing in both directions—bright haloed headlights going one way, hazy glowing red taillights the other. She put her hoodie up over her bandana and let her walk slip back into an older stride, more hunched, the legs pistoning forward rather than swinging through the hips. Sometimes it was still useful to have a boy body. If, for example, it would be safer for someone glancing to mistake you for a boy.
As soon as she could she got off the arterial, shifting over to the quieter suburban street that paralleled it. There were some train tracks to cross. Beyond them, a sense that the elementary school was somewhere over in this direction. She wasn’t sure exactly where, but as she hesitated at each corner, one choice always felt best. She knew she would find it. Meanwhile, the chilly, damp dark and the monotonous rhythm of walking blunted her mind. A wild snarl of feels lurked down inside somewhere, ready at the first provocation to surge up, but for now she let the walking and the dark soothe her riled self.
There it was. She recognized the low cinder-block buildings and the sparse grove of tetherball poles. At the front entrance bright lights shone, but around the sides and back, long stretches lay in near-darkness. That was good for a pause. Creepy shadows.
But what were the chances, really, that anyone—anyone but Arli, anyway—would be hanging out at an elementary school on a cold, wet Saturday night? She knew from life in Arizona: the dark wasn’t actually all that scary. At some point she had pushed through the childhood fear, and had found the dark to be uniformly empty and quiet. Even peaceful. She moved forward again, walking as soundlessly as she could. The wet helped. Not even the tiny dry scraping of grass-blades against her sneakers.
Behind the school, yellow-tinged gray rather than black: the light of the surrounding city filtering down, reflected by the low clouds. The concrete stairwell, when she reached it, did contain at last, near the bottom, something approaching real darkness. She couldn’t tell from the top if the door was open. She took a couple of breaths to work up her nerve, then descended. At the bottom she pressed gently on the door. It creaked back. Inside, absolute darkness at last.
Never without her phone, of course. As easily leave a hand behind. She activated the flashlight. That was good for some horror-movie lighting effects. The restless stark beams. The black shadows leaping and bobbling with every move. But she had spent so much of her life in tunnels of one sort or another. It felt almost homey.
She made her way through the maze, retracing the first long passage, then the twists and turns after. At length she saw the soft orange glow of candlelight ahead. One more stop to gather her strength. Then she moved forward again. She stuck her head around the last corner.
Candles flickered. Nine of them, Zen saw, counting. Arli sat in the beanbag chair opposite the one vo had had before, facing the entrance.
“Turn off your phone,” vo said.
FORTY-NINE
“JEEZUM, YOU’RE BOSSY.”
“Please?”
Zen turned off the flashlight.
“I mean, all the way.”
“Jeezum . . .”
“Please? Seriously. It’s not really away if you can still look things up and stuff.”
Zen stood still a moment, then, slowly, powered her phone down. She stuck it in the pocket of her hoodie, which she then took off, being careful not to dislodge the bandana. Lastly, she wrapped the sweatshirt around the phone for extra padding. She flumped into the other beanbag chair. The same spurt of foam beads poofed up. The air was warm and stuffy and smelled of mildew and burning candles. Off down the tunnel, something ticked monotonously.
Zen looked
at Arli. Away again. At again. Sometimes vo was looking back, sometimes not.
Being together without speaking felt odd, but okay. And now that she was actually looking at ven, it seemed obvious what to do. This was her friend Arli who was looking at her, with a face that had pain and anger in it, but that was also, still, open. So what if vo had lectured her so cluelessly about gender that one time? So what if vo hadn’t turned out to be the hacker-companion she had briefly imagined ven to be? She had hurt her friend. She had to make it right.
Zen opened her mouth. Closed it again. Opened it again. Said, “I get it now, that you would never do such a thing. And, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I suggested that you could.”
Arli said, “You believe me. That it wasn’t me.”
“Yes. I believe you.”
Arli’s mouth trembled. “Thank you. Because, you know, I would never. Just, not.”
“Okay.”
“You know how I feel about the gender stuff. And Dyna is my friend. And anyway, you know I know what it’s like.”
“What what’s like?”
“Being someone other people see as a freak. Or a threat.”
More silence. Then Zen said, “Me too.”
Arli met and held her eyes, but didn’t speak. Vo nodded. Zen nodded back. They were taking each other’s word for things, then, tonight. That felt good.
After another long silence, Arli said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Okay.”
“It’s . . . private. Not a thing many people know about me.”
“Okay.”
“And I’d appreciate if you don’t mention it to anyone else.”
“I won’t.”
They sat in silence a while longer. Then, not looking at her, Arli said, “You may have noticed I miss a lot of days of school.” Vo glanced up, so Zen nodded. “Well, there’s a reason. I have a thing with anxiety.” Another glance, checking Zen’s reaction to the word. She kept her face calm. “Not just, like, oh no, maybe something bad might happen anxiety, but really bad, crippling anxiety. Sometimes panic attacks.”