by D. S. Murphy
Amy sniffed, but then nodded. I couldn’t believe it was her and Greg against David and I. Brad was unusually quiet, I guess he was just going to stay out of it.
“I recommend we all cool off and wait till tomorrow,” David said. “We can make sure that the changes revert back and the mice are unharmed.”
“Most of them at least,” Amy grumbled. “Unless you want to try raising the dead, or add necromancy to your rap sheet.”
***
I waited for Brad after school next to his black Chevrolet Nova.
He raised his eyebrows when he saw me.
“Can I get a ride home?” I said. “I gave my skateboard to my sister.”
“Um… yeah, I guess so.”
He unlocked the doors and I climbed in the passenger side.
“We need to talk,” I said. He didn’t respond until we’d left school grounds. Then he turned his head and nodded.
“So talk,” he said.
“Maybe we don’t have to hack into the NHTC mainframes,” I said quickly. “Local doctors in the program that initiate treatment probably have the data we need.”
“This is why you wanted a ride home?” he said.
“What, you were expecting more? I thought I wasn’t your type,” I smirked.
“Yeah but why just me, why not tell everyone?”
“The others were set against the idea. I thought maybe we could just take care of it quietly. You’re the only one who could help do it.”
“You sneaky bitch,” Brad said. “Why not David?”
“He seems like a rule-follower.”
“And you and me are terrorists?” He smiled.
“I thought if we found the right files, and gave them to him after we did it, he’d probably use them. Plus, you hacked the 3D printer easily enough. This should be cake for you.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere. What about the others?”
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them?” I said.
He frowned. “I don’t like lying.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“It’s toxic. I try to avoid it. It’ll make things weird between us all.”
“We’re not lying, we’re protecting them. If anything goes wrong, they can deny any illegal activity. It’ll just be on me.”
Brad sighed and pushed his dark hair out of his eyes. The guitar charm on his leather bracelets caught my eye as it flashed in the sun.
“Fine,” he said finally. “But I have an errand to run first.”
10
We stopped at a grocery store first to pick up some things, then Brad drove to the end of town and pulled into a mobile home park, surrounded by a grove of tall pine trees. It was picturesque, but some of the homes were practically falling apart.
Brad knocked on one of the doors and gray-haired woman answered.
“Hey Grandma,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “I brought you some things.” Brad introduced me as a friend from school, and we stayed for a cup of mint tea. I listened as Brad’s grandmother asked him questions about school. A few times she repeated the same questions, and Brad had to repeat his answers word-for-word. After half an hour, Brad excused himself and gave the woman another hug.
“I’ll come check on you Thursday,” he said. “Maybe we can play some pool.”
“Thanks for coming,” she said, squeezing his hand. “It was lovely to meet you, Brianna. It’s been a while since I met one of Brad’s lady friends.”
“Sorry,” Brad said when we were back in the car. “Alzheimer’s. She has good days and bad days.”
“She’s sweet,” I said. “And lucky to have you.”
We drove across town and I pointed out the hospital. Brad parked across the street, but I wasn’t eager to get out of the car.
“If you’re going to chicken out,” Brad said, “now’s the time. We haven’t done anything wrong yet.”
“No, I’ve got this,” I said, wiping my palms on my dark jeans.
“So what’s your plan?” He asked.
“The computers are probably all on the main system. There must be an office or something. I’ll just login, find the files and send them to a usb drive.”
“You’re just going to walk in there?”
“I’ll say I need to use the restroom.”
Brad rolled his eyes.
“Shit Brianna, you suggested this whole thing. I thought you’d be a little better prepared.”
“Sorry I’m not as devious as your usual cohorts,” I glared.
Brad pulled out his laptop and slid his seat back a little. He placed a device in my hand, but he didn’t let go of it. Then he grabbed his thumb and pulled it off. It was some kind of rubber prosthetic.
“Just use this, okay?” he said, handing it to me.
“What the Hell is that?” I asked.
“Portable thumbdrive,” he said.
“It’s an actual thumb? What are you, James Bond?”
“You just slip it on—it has a wireless usb at the tip, but it needs to be within three feet of a computer to connect. Red light, starting. Green light, done. It’ll copy all the files it can find and clone the whole desktop. And you can do it right in front of someone and they won’t even notice. You should ask if you can see Dr. Jenkins between appointments.”
“Can’t I just sneak into his room when he’s not there?”
“And what, you’ll just wait around in the lobby until he’s not in his room? That’s dumb. Just break down crying or something and say you’re worried about your sister. It’ll need about ten minutes to pull the files.”
I scowled. I did not want to play the weak woman card.
“What? It’s believable.”
“I don’t want to rope my sister into this.”
“You got a better idea? At least it’ll get you in the room. Three feet, ten minutes. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, grabbing the device. I slipped the thumb over my own, took a deep breath, and got out of the car.
Three feet, ten minutes. I repeated it in my head like a mantra. There’s no way I was going to do the whole emotionally fragile routine though, because then Dr. Jenkins would probably call my dad or mention it on the next visit. This was going to be a covert mission. I raised my hoodie to hide my face and ducked under the cameras near the front door, but the receptionist smiled when she saw me.
“Hi Brianna, I didn’t think we were expecting you and your family to come by today. Just let me check the schedule.” Shit, I was hoping she wouldn’t recognize me.
“It’s alright, I don’t have an appointment. I was nearby and I started feeling sick. Would it be alright if I used your bathroom? I’ll be quick.”
“Of course,” she said with a wave of her arm. “No problem at all. Caught a stomach bug maybe?”
“Something like that,” I said with a smile. “Thanks.”
I went down the hall and ducked into the bathroom. I closed the door and leaned against it, taking a deep breath. After a few minutes, I cracked the door open and peeked outside. When the coast was clear, I darted to the end of the hall and started opening doors. The first room had cleaning supplies. The second was filled with files and boxes. The third was a medical closet with samples and lab results. A small computer was tucked into the corner, but it wasn’t turned on. The next room was a nice office, with leather books and a globe on the desk, next to a gold sign saying Dr. Jenkins. This was it.
There was a family photo on the desk next to a green fern, and a computer. I closed the door behind me and locked the door. The device beeped red when I approached the computer, making my whole thumb light up. I thought the most difficult part would be getting in and out, but as I stood there waiting I realized just how long ten minutes was going to be. What if someone found me in here? I might have to pull out the waterworks after all, and pretend I was just worried about my sister’s treatment, which wouldn’t be untrue. He might call Dad, but it would be better than getting arrested for trespassing.
I bo
unced on my toes as I watched the clock on the wall slowly ticking down the seconds. I was already feeling sick to my stomach when I heard voices in the hall.
“Janice, have you seen my keys?”
“Probably in your office,” a woman’s voice called back.
Shit. His keys were on the desk. Hopefully that would buy me a little more time. I glanced at the clock again. Three more minutes.
I heard muffled sounds as Dr. Jenkins tried to force the door open.
“I must have locked them in there somehow.”
“Here, use mine,” Janice said. I heard the sound of keys jangling outside the door. I wasn’t going to make it. I’d have to abort. But then I wouldn’t get the files, and we needed the files to launch the app, to make money for Megan’s treatment.
My eyes widened as I realized I was already inside the building with the therabots, and the keys to the medical cabinet were right there. I took off the thumb and stuffed it behind the fern, then grabbed the keys and climbed out the window. I shuffled along the ledge out of view just as the door opened. Luckily we were on the side of the building, and only about fifteen feet off the ground. I could jump if I had to. I found the nearest window and stepped into the hall, then ducked into the room where my sister got her treatments.
The cabinet opened on the third key and I grabbed two vials. I felt a little guilty, thinking about the other patients who needed this medication, but it was too late now. They probably wouldn’t miss a couple of vials, and it meant we could run the tests faster. I retraced my steps, going out through the window, hugging the wall until I was back outside Dr. Jenkins’ office. It was empty but the door was open.
I reached in through the window and grabbed the thumbdrive, which now had a green light on it. Then I set the keys back on the desk. Dr. Jenkins would find them later and think he was losing his mind. I hated to just leave them there. I picked them back up and quickly scanned each key with my phone. It might be smart to have a copy. Only for emergencies, I told myself. I couldn’t get in a habit of stealing.
***
I got back into Brad’s car and collapsed into the seat. Then I held up the thumb drive.
“You got it?” Brad asked.
“Yeah I did.”
“Nice. You’re tougher than you look.”
A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t have cared less what Brad thought of me. But now, with adrenaline rushing through my veins, I gave him a bold smile. Brad pulled up outside my house, and promised to send me the files we needed. I was reluctant to get out of the car, and he raised an eyebrow at me.
“We’re here,” he said.
“Yeah, I just... I wanted to say thanks.”
“Sure. I mean, I didn’t really do anything. You’re the one who broke in and stole sensitive government secrets.”
“Still, I couldn’t have done it without you. It means a lot to me. See you in school tomorrow.”
I wanted to go straight upstairs to my room, but Megan was waiting at the door with an impish smile.
“You got dropped off by a boy,” she said.
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did, I saw you.”
“Well, yeah, but not like that. He’s just a friend. We’re doing the science fair project together.”
“Oh,” she said, losing interest.
“How’s the board working out?” I asked.
She shuffled her feet and looked down.
“It’s a lot harder than it looks.”
“Well, keep at it and it will feel more natural. Let’s practice this weekend, okay? I’ll teach you.”
“That would be awesome,” she smiled. “How’s the project going, did you recover the therabots?”
“Yeah. It’s actually kind of amazing.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“This thing could get big, Meg. Like, money and fame big.”
“Really?” she asked. “So you could still go to college?”
“Have you been worried about that?”
“A little,” she said.
“Well, you don’t need to worry anymore. This thing could make enough to pay for your treatments, and we’ll have enough leftover for both of us to go to college. Sound good?”
She ran up and hugged me around the waist. I ran my fingers through her messy hair.
“But no more questions for now, and we shouldn’t talk about it at home. I need to keep a lid on this thing so that nobody else will steal our idea.”
Megan pretended to zip her lips shut and throw away the key, then grabbed an apple and headed to the couch. I realized she’d been watching more TV than usual, instead of playing outside or riding her bike. And she looked thin, but maybe that’s just because she was growing so quickly and I wasn’t used to her long arms and legs.
When I got to my room, Brad had already sent me an encrypted email with all of the documents from Dr. Jenkins’ computer. I told him that I wanted to be the one to break the news to David, and he didn’t seem at all envious.
Now that I actually had the files, I hesitated. What if David freaked out or told the others? But without them, it would take months to prepare for human testing. I spent several hours reading through the files and studies, but I didn’t understand most of it. I kept at it after dinner, until my eyes were getting drowsy. Then I took a break and made some tea. I grabbed a handful of cookies. Megan had fallen asleep on the couch, so I covered her with a blanket. The blue light from the TV made her look sickly.
Dad was at the kitchen table, frowning over bills, and wearing a pair of round glasses that made him look old. On the last appointment, Dr. Jenkins said the cancer cells were disappearing rapidly, but he also said she needed more treatment. Treatment my dad couldn’t afford.
I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger, but I wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing, while the system let Megan die a slow and preventable death, just because our family couldn’t afford to save her. We’d played by the rules before. We listened to the doctors, waited and hoped for the best. Mom died anyway. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
I gave Dad a hug goodnight, then went back upstairs. I scarfed down the cookies, and before I could rethink it, wrote a message to David. Operating files for NHTS Therabots and supporting files. I attached the documents, and after one final pause, hit send. Then I logged off and went to sleep.
11
I saw David’s text early the next morning.
Where did you get this?
Doesn’t matter. I wrote back. We didn’t get caught.
It was risky.
Not really, I said. Meet early?
K.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” David said, after we closed the door to the science lab. “It’s not fair to make choices for the group.”
“I didn’t. I made one choice, for me. I knew it would be faster to just get what we needed, instead of talking about it. Now you all have deniability. You don’t know where the files came from. You had no idea I was going to steal them.”
David scowled and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “That’s not the point,” he said. “You should have trusted me. I could have helped.”
“Brad helped,” I snapped. There was a pained expression in David’s eyes, and I realized he wasn’t just worried about getting in trouble. He was also hurt that I hadn’t included him.
“I do trust you,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I trust you to be a good person. And I didn’t want to ask you to do something that would be hard for you. I like that you always try to do the right thing. But sometimes somebody has to do the thing that nobody else wants to do. And I trust that, now that we have the files, you know the right thing is to use them so I can save my sister.”
David sighed, then nodded.
“What do we tell the others?”
“Nobody else has to know,” I said. “I guess I just didn’t want to lie to you about it.”
“But you’re happy to lie to Greg? And Amy?”
“Of course we can use it,” David said. “That’s not the issue.”
“It’s done,” I said. “We can’t change it now. What we can do is stop messing around with Frankenrats and figure out how to make it work on humans.”
“Just promise me you’ll keep me in the loop next time you feel like doing something stupid.”
I wanted to argue, but I needed David on my side, so I just nodded. I had a feeling we wouldn’t always agree on what classified as stupid, but the hard part was over. Now that we had the files, I was confident it would be smooth sailing.
After second period, Amy and I grabbed coffee at a convenience store down the street before meeting the others for lunch.
“So you got a ride home from Brad yesterday?” Amy asked as we were walking back.
“Um, yeah. Why?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I just—what happened to Greg?”
“Besides being in love with super hottie Melissa?”
“I see him looking at you sometimes,” she said.
Wait, what?
I stopped walking so suddenly I spilled some coffee on my shoes.
“Normal guy stuff. Checking out your ass.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“Maybe,” Amy said, smiling.
“Anyway, it’s not like that. With Brad. I just needed to talk to him about something.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, looking confused. She could tell I was lying. Now she was going to wonder why. Keeping secrets from her might be harder than I thought.
During lunch, David unveiled a new testing protocol, to speed up results. He didn’t mention the files, and Greg and Amy didn’t seem surprised he’d somehow figured out a solution on his own. It made me uncomfortable that he was lying, for me. But what the others didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. I was just glad we could move faster. Each test brought us closer to human trials, which meant launching the app and making enough money to cover Megan’s treatments.
A week later we’d done tests on over one hundred mice. The original batch of mice had reverted back to normal and still seemed healthy—except the one that died. But we hadn’t had another accident like that since, and I could see Amy was starting to relax. With the data we’d gotten from the NHTC research, David was able to plug the data into his calculations, which reduced the amount of guesswork involved.