The Truth App

by Jack Heath

  ‘Well,’ Jarli said, ‘that would explain why they didn’t hear it.’

  ‘Jarli!’

  Jarli turned around. His mother and his sister hurried through the ward towards him, escorted by Amon.

  His mother wore a red dress which reached her sandals. She usually washed off her makeup after finishing her shift at the post office, but today she hadn’t. Mascara and tears had left dark streaks on her cheeks.

  Kirstie looked like she’d just walked out of a horror movie. Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open. She moved as though she’d forgotten how her legs worked. She wore an oversize T-shirt with the lead singer from Paint Rocket on it, which clashed with her bright blue school trousers—Mum must have grabbed her when she was only halfway through getting changed.

  Mum hugged Jarli.

  Kirstie stared numbly at Dad.

  ‘You’re OK,’ Mum whispered, kissing the top of Jarli’s head. ‘You’re OK.’

  ‘Mum,’ Jarli said, embarrassed. ‘The police are here.’

  Mum noticed the police for the first time. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘We’re investigating the accident,’ Constable Blanco said.

  ‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Jarli said for what felt like the billionth time. ‘Mum, a man tried to kill me and Dad. He rammed our car deliberately, and then he followed us here. He tried to shoot me.’

  Mum’s eyes widened. ‘Is that why there’s such a big crowd outside?’ she asked the police.

  Blanco avoided the question. ‘We’re still trying to find other witnesses to corroborate your son’s story, Mrs Durras.’

  Jarli didn’t like the way she said ‘story’. It was as though she thought he’d made the whole thing up.

  ‘It’s Mrs Wilburn,’ Mum said. She had kept her name when she married Dad. Only telemarketers called her ‘Mrs Durras’.

  ‘My husband will tell you what happened,’ she continued. ‘Why is he still unconscious? Jarli said he was talking.’

  Dad groaned. It was as though Mum’s voice had brought him back to life.

  ‘Glen!’ Mum cried. She squeezed his hand tightly. Jarli and Kirstie crowded around the other side of the bed, forgetting all about the cops.

  Dad smiled. ‘Hey, Josie,’ he croaked. ‘Hey, kids. What’s going on?’

  ‘You’re in hospital,’ Kirstie said.

  ‘There was a car crash,’ Mum said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘A car crash?’ Dad squinted up at Mum. ‘Is everyone OK?’

  Mum sighed. ‘Looks like it.’ She went to squeeze Dad’s arm and then realised the needle was in the way. She patted him on the head instead.

  ‘Mr Durras,’ Blanco said. ‘I’m Constable Blanco. Do you remember anything about the other driver?’

  Dad hesitated. ‘What driver?’

  ‘The driver of the other vehicle. In the crash.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Dad said. ‘I don’t remember the crash.’

  Jarli’s heart sank. If Dad didn’t remember, Jarli was the only one who knew what the old man looked like.

  Then Jarli’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

  Jarli gasped. DAD WAS LYING. But why?

  ‘Excuse us, Mr Durras,’ Blanco said.

  The two police officers stood up and walked away through the ward. When they were out in the corridor, they closed the door behind them.

  ‘I’m just going to the bathroom,’ Jarli announced. He grabbed his phone and ran up to the far end of the ward. When he got to the closed door, he pressed his ear against it.

  The cops were talking in the corridor, but Jarli couldn’t tell what they were saying. He dug out his phone, opened Truth and held the phone against the door to the ward.

  Words started appearing on the screen.

  >You think he’s lying?

  >The dad, or the kid?

  >Either one.

  Jarli had discovered this feature by accident. He had left his phone on the kitchen bench near an old radio. Truth had transcribed every word of the broadcast, even though the radio’s volume control was turned almost all the way down. The phone’s microphone had picked up the vibrations through the bench.

  >You saw the crash site. No sign of another

  vehicle.

  >Other than the damage to the car. Looked

  like multiple collisions to me.

  >Yeah, but we don’t know they were all from

  tonight. The major impact was probably from

  the streetlight outside the motel. The minor

  damage could be from years of careless driving.

  >Why would the kid lie?

  >I’m not saying he’s lying. He could be in shock.

  >The dad might know more than he’s saying. Let’s

  get his family away from him. See if that loosens

  his tongue.

  >OK. But we shouldn’t spend too much time on

  this case. It’s probably just an accident. Hugo

  Niehls’ disappearance is more important.

  Hugo Niehls. It took Jarli a moment to place the name. Dad had mentioned it in one of his late-night phone calls. Dad worked for a data-security company, so it wasn’t unusual for him to be secretive. But now it sounded like one of the people he had talked about was missing. Was that a coincidence?

  >You happy with that?

  >Yeah. Let’s get rid of the family.

  Jarli quickly stepped away from the door and ran back through the ward towards the hospital bed.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Kirstie asked. ‘The bathroom is that way.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jarli said. ‘Hey, what’s that out the window?’

  He was trying to distract her, but there really was something out there. A strange light, blinking between the blinds.

  Kirstie, Mum and Dad all looked.

  ‘Plane,’ Mum said.

  ‘UFO,’ Kirstie said at the same time.

  Jarli opened the blinds. Dozens of people were standing outside. Some held video cameras or microphones. Others lifted smartphones up high for a better view. The light was from a drone, filming the hospital from above.

  As soon as the people saw Jarli, they started yelling. All those wide eyes and open mouths alarmed him—it was like something out of a zombie game. He backed away from the window.

  When the police told Jarli the hospital was surrounded, this was what they had meant.

  ‘More reporters,’ Blanco said from behind him. ‘That’s all we need.’

  She walked over to the window and opened it wide. ‘Hey!’ she yelled down to the people on the lawn below. ‘Get lost! You can’t show the faces of anyone who hasn’t been charged yet. You know that. We’ll make a statement when there’s something worth saying.’

  She slammed the window closed and shut the blinds. One word stayed stuck in Jarli’s mind: yet.

  Mum was astonished. ‘I didn’t know there were that many reporters in Kelton,’ she said.

  ‘There aren’t,’ Blanco replied. ‘They’ve come from all over the state.’

  ‘To cover a car crash?’

  Jarli sank down into his chair, wanting to disappear. They weren’t here for the car crash.

  Kirstie had already found the remote for the TV on the wall opposite Dad’s bed. She turned it on and clicked through the channels until she found the news.

  ‘Check it out,’ she said. ‘We’re on TV!’

  ‘. . . only minutes after we spoke to him on the phone,’ said a woman with perfectly coiffed hair and bright red lipstick. ‘At this stage, Jarli’s condition is still unknown.’

  In the background, Jarli could see the outside of Kelton hospital. It was surrounded by hundreds of people.

  Jarli recognised the woman’s voice. She was Dana Reynolds, the reporter who had called him in the ambulance.

  The headline down the bottom of the screen said,

  TRUTH-APP BOY FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE AFTER CAR ACCIDENT.

  ‘We’ll have more on this story after the break,’ Reynolds said grimly.
The TV cut to an ad for dishwashing detergent.

  Jarli felt sick. It was as though the TV had convinced him that he really was dying.

  Mum sat down next to Dad’s legs. She looked at Jarli.

  ‘Well, “Truth-app boy”,’ she said. ‘What have you done this time?’

  BENEATH THE RADAR

  ‘Did you ever stop to think about what you were doing?’ Mum demanded.

  They were back in reception, waiting for the police to finish questioning Dad in the ward. Jarli hoped he would tell them something about the old man, but he still seemed pretty out of it.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jarli asked.

  ‘When you were making that app. Did you, at any point, wonder if it was a good idea?’

  This sounded like one of Mum’s trick questions, where both answers were wrong.

  ‘This isn’t my fault,’ Jarli said.

  Mum pointed through the glass doors. The car park was so full that some of the reporters had parked on the grass. Jarli couldn’t see any of them from here, but he could hear the babble of distant voices.

  ‘That’s your fault,’ Mum said. ‘Those people are going crazy over you.’

  Jarli was annoyed. His app was so great that it had made him world-famous overnight. Mum was supposed to be proud of him.

  ‘I didn’t invite them here,’ Jarli said. ‘I only posted the code online so people could help me test it.’

  ‘Without thinking about what might happen. Just like when you hacked into Mr Kendrick’s emails.’

  ‘I guessed his password,’ Jarli muttered. ‘That’s not really hacking.’

  ‘You worked out which web host the school used, got into Mr Kendrick’s mail servers and deleted one of his emails, all without asking yourself: is this a good idea?’

  ‘The email was from me. I sent it to him by accident.’

  ‘But you hacked in deliberately.’

  ‘If Mr Kendrick had seen that email, he would have failed me for sure. You’re the one always going on about my grades.’

  ‘You must have put hours into this lie-detector project. If you put the same amount of effort into your schoolwork instead of this dangerous program—’

  Jarli snorted. ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘Did it not occur to you,’ Mum said, ‘that some people might have secrets they want to keep? They might not take kindly to an app exposing them.’

  ‘Well then, it serves them right for lying in the first place,’ Jarli said.

  ‘He doesn’t get it, Mum,’ Kirstie said, yawning. ‘He’s always been too honest.’

  ‘How can you be too honest?’ Jarli asked.

  ‘Well, if I asked you how my hair looks—’

  ‘Greasy,’ Jarli said immediately. Kirstie clearly hadn’t washed her long black hair in a few days.

  Mum stifled a snort.

  ‘See?’ Kirstie said. ‘Now I’m mad at you. But if you’d lied, I would have been happy. And you wouldn’t be about to get punched.’

  She hit Jarli in the upper arm. Jarli yelped. His shoulder was still sore from the crash.

  ‘Kirstie, don’t hit your brother,’ Mum said automatically. Jarli had heard her mutter those words in her sleep once.

  ‘But if people are allowed to lie,’ Jarli said, ‘then no-one will ever tell you how bad your hair looks, and you’ll never get around to washing it.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Kirstie said. ‘I’m not a slob.’

  ‘And when I tell you that your hair looks good,’ Jarli said, ‘you can trust me. Because you know I’m willing to tell you when it looks bad.’

  ‘When’ve you ever told me my hair looks good?’

  ‘It’s a hypothetical. I mean . . .’ Jarli trailed off. Something Mum said had finally caught up with him. Some people might have secrets they want to keep.

  What if that was the reason for the attack? What if the old man had a secret, something Jarli’s app had exposed?

  If he wanted revenge, HE WOULD KEEP COMING. He had a ute, a gun and who knew what else. And since no-one really believed he existed, it wouldn’t be long before he caught up with Jarli again.

  Before Jarli could finish this thought, the two police officers emerged from Dad’s ward.

  ‘You can go back in now,’ Constable Blanco said. She gave Mum a card. ‘Call us if your husband remembers anything else.’

  Jarli remembered everything, but she didn’t give him a card. She left without even asking him to describe the old man in detail. She clearly didn’t trust his version of events.

  It was so unfair. Jarli had made the app not just because he hated being lied to, but because he hated being disbelieved. The app had made him a celebrity, and now people seemed to trust him less than ever.

  He followed Mum and Kirstie back into the darkened ward. Dad was asleep. Mum and Kirstie sat next to him. Kirstie pulled out her phone and started playing a game. Jarli wondered how much longer they would have to stay here. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the old man was still around, waiting for his chance to strike. Jarli wouldn’t feel safe until he was at home, with all the doors and windows locked.

  Mum looked like she wanted to continue their conversation, but didn’t want to risk waking Dad. So she just sighed and looked out the window.

  Relieved, Jarli brought up a social media app on his phone. Ignoring the thousands of notifications, he typed in a quick post. The police might not believe Jarli about the old man, but surely someone would.

  He hit publish, wishing he had thought to check the number plate the second time he saw the ute. After a moment, he wrote a follow-up message:

  Both posts were public. Surely someone would see the old man or his ute around.

  Jarli had told Anya he would let her know what happened. He didn’t have her number, but he found her profile easily enough. According to social media, they had a couple of mutual friends. Jarli was amused by her profile pic and motto.

  He started typing.

  He figured he should probably message Bess, too.

  He got a response almost immediately.

  Rummaging through the chest of drawers near Dad’s hospital bed, Jarli found a notepad, a bible and a pen. Dad’s phone was in there too, on top of his clothes. Someone had neatly folded them, even though they were ruined. It looked like the doctors had cut them off him with scissors.

  Jarli took the pen and started trying to draw the old man’s face on the notepad.

  It didn’t really work. Jarli wasn’t a great artist, and the more he tried to picture the guy, the more details slipped away. Were the frames of his glasses round or square? Had the hair poking out from under his baseball cap been grey or brown?

  All Jarli remembered clearly was those two tiny eyes, like evil sultanas.

  He gave up on the drawing and did an image search instead. Old man black glasses. He found a picture which looked kind of like the guy, and sent it to Bess.

  She responded fast.

  Someone’s phone buzzed.

  ‘Turn that off, Jarli,’ Mum said wearily.

  ‘It’s not mine,’ Jarli said. He opened the drawer and found Dad’s phone vibrating on top of his sliced-up clothes. The name on the screen said BEN GORMAN.

  Dad worked for a data security company. Mr Gorman was his boss.

  Jarli went to turn the phone off, but Mum saw the name. ‘Is that Ben?’ she said. ‘It’s 4.00 a.m. Why is he calling?’

  ‘Maybe he wants to offer me a million dollars for my app,’ Jarli said pointedly.

  ‘Didn’t you already give your app away for free?’ Kirstie asked.

  Jarli opened his mouth, then closed it again. She was right. He had only shared the code so people could help him test it, but now that it had gone mainstream, he had missed his chance to sell it. His app had gone viral, and he wasn’t going to earn anything.

  A wave of grief crashed over him. He could have been a millionaire! A billionaire, even. And now . . .

  ‘Answer the phone or give it here,’ Mum said impatiently.
>
  Jarli answered it. ‘Hi, Mr Gorman.’

  ‘Jarli, hi.’ Gorman sounded rattled. ‘You’re all over the news. Is your dad OK?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Is he awake? Talking?’

  ‘Not right now.’

  ‘What about you? Are you alright? And Josie and Kirstie?’

  ‘I’m fine. Mum and Kirstie weren’t in the car.’

  Jarli heard Gorman breathe out. ‘That’s good. Is your mum there?’

  Hearing him, Mum held out her hand for the phone.

  ‘She’s here,’ Jarli said. ‘But can I ask you a quick question first?’

  ‘Uh, sure,’ Gorman said.

  ‘Do you think I made a mistake, putting the code for my lie-detector app online for free?’

  Mum sighed impatiently.

  Gorman hesitated for a moment. ‘Depends what you were trying to achieve,’ he said finally.

  ‘The news said two million people had downloaded my app,’ Jarli said. ‘If I’d been selling it for 99 cents, then I’d have almost two million dollars.’

  ‘Or maybe you’d have nothing, because no-one buys anything anymore,’ Gorman said grumpily. ‘And your app would be full of bugs, because no-one else had tested it for you. Plus, the people who wrote the speech recognition algorithm you used might be suing you for copying their code. In fact, they might do that anyway.’

  ‘I credited the original programmers,’ Jarli said. His voice came out sounding small.

  ‘Relax, kid,’ Gorman said. ‘Did you want to make money, or do you just like writing code?’

  ‘Both, I guess.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry. You might have opened a can of worms, but at least you got everybody’s attention. When you search for coding jobs in the future, this will look really good on your CV. Put your mum on.’

  Jarli handed the phone over.

  ‘Ben,’ Mum said. ‘Thanks for calling.’