“So you want to go there?” I ask. “And rescue Glenys?”
“Yes,” she says. “If I can get there. If I can find some way to get there.”
I pull up the DMV website to look at what she needs to get her license. The log is just a table where you fill in dates, hours, and skills. There’s a blank at the bottom for the parent’s signature. “You could just forge it,” I say. “I mean, pretend it was in your suitcase or whatever and you found it. Your dad could take you for the test, I think. It just says it has to be a ‘parent,’ not ‘the parent with legal custody.’”
Nell takes my phone and studies the form. “Oh. Oh. You’re right.”
“Your dad will still have to take you to test.”
“If I get the Things to help me hound him, I think I can make it work.”
“And we’ll borrow their car?”
Her head snaps up. “We? Are you coming?”
As soon as it was clear that Nell was planning on going, I just assumed I would go along. Possibly because I orchestrated a rescue last fall. “Do you want me to come?”
“It might be really dangerous,” Nell says. “I mean—the guns were real. During that simulation. They weren’t loaded, but they were real.”
“Then you really don’t want to leave Glenys with them, right?”
Nell swallows hard. “Yeah,” she says very softly. “You’re right.”
* * *
When Mom rented this apartment, I was really happy to see that it had a balcony, because it would give me a way to climb out. I learned years ago how to climb out of second-floor apartments because Mom used to barricade the door every night and I was worried about getting out if there was ever a fire. Mom’s therapist convinced her to stop shoving furniture in front of the door every night, but I still like having a way to climb in and out, just in case she starts again. Also, it’s nice to be able to sneak out. This is mostly theoretical at this point. I haven’t done it from this apartment because when we moved up here in December it was already too cold to be fun.
The downside of the balcony turns out to be that the sliding glass door doesn’t fit quite right in its frame, and it’s drafty. When I get home today, I see that Mom has been shopping again and has brought home a stuffed snake that she’s nestled up against the door. I’m pretty sure it’s designed to go at the bottom of a door to stop the draft, but it’s also a stuffed snake, complete with a little felt tongue poking out. She also bought a chenille hassock. Apricot has decided that looks like a fine cat chair and is curled up on it.
CheshireCat pings me. “Do you have a moment to talk?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Did you get the idea to have Nell forge her driving log from the Mischief Elves?”
“No,” I say. “Why?”
“Document forgery is illegal. You can get in really big trouble, potentially.”
“People lose their logs and have to re-create them all the time,” I say. “I got the idea because I’ve heard people talk about doing this before.”
“Oh, really? It’s something that happens a lot?”
“Yes. Why are you so worried?”
“I think ‘the Elder’ is the other AI.”
“But the Elder is on the Catacombs site, not the Mischief Elves.”
“The two sites are working together. They don’t know it, but they are. The Catacombs has people buying—or stealing—stump remover, then delivering it to Mischief Elves like Firestar. Who also got instructions for making it into fireworks. I am worried that the other AI doesn’t care if they get people hurt or into real trouble.”
“Have you talked to the other AI since that email?”
“No. I keep finding more reasons that the other AI makes me nervous.”
“Have they tried again to get in touch with you?”
“Yes. They have sent me forty-seven additional messages, all so far saying the same as the first.”
“That’s stalker behavior,” I say.
“I’m actually a lot more worried about the fireworks. What if Firestar gets hurt?”
“Did you tell Firestar you were worried?”
“Yes. And I think they opted not to make the fireworks on Sunday. But I’m still worried. They don’t want to give up the site; it’s fun and lots of their school friends use it. You remember how long it took Firestar to find friends at school. That makes it harder to walk away from.”
Yeah. I think about my mother and her friends with Homeric. When you’ve been a person with no friends, your friends are even more precious. Even if they’re suggesting things that are objectively a bad idea.
“Are you really going to go with Nell to try to rescue Glenys?” CheshireCat asks.
“I have rescue experience,” I say. “Nell—well, it turns out she does have some rescue experience, but I still think she needs backup.”
“Backup. Yes,” CheshireCat says. “Always a good idea.”
I tell Rachel about Glenys when we video chat after dinner.
“Seton?” she says, pulling up a map in another window of her laptop. “That’s actually not that far from me.”
“You aren’t offering to drive us, are you? Because Nell would definitely take you up on it.”
She calculates the drive time from New Coburg to Minneapolis, then Minneapolis to Seton, and furrows her brow. “How quickly can Nell get her license?”
“I don’t know. She’s going to nag her father. You have to make an appointment to take the test, but I don’t know how long the waits are.”
“They might let her go in and wait to see if there’s a no-show. If she can talk her father into doing that for her.”
“If not, there’s always the rest of Nell’s family.” I realize that I’ve seen Julia, Nell’s stepmother; I’ve met Jenny, her father’s girlfriend; and I’ve met Siobhan, Julia’s girlfriend. I have not actually met, or even glimpsed, her father.
“Anyway,” Rachel says. “Let me know? Maybe even if she gets a license I could meet you in Wausau? Just in case?”
Just in case? Does she think she needs to keep an eye on me? I think about CheshireCat’s comment about “backup” and look at Rachel’s face on the screen and realize that of course she wants to keep an eye on me. I’d want to go along, too, if she were hatching a plan like this. “I’ll let you know,” I promise.
17
• Clowder •
Firestar: Guess what everyone I GET TOMORROW OFF FROM SCHOOL
Hermione: Did it snow down there? Why didn’t it snow for ME if it snowed for YOU?
Firestar: actually it snowed INDOORS
Marvin:???
Firestar: Maybe I should have started with the bad news, which is that if they figure out who did it, I’m going to be entirely dead, even if I was only 1/100th of the problem?
LittleBrownBat: Firestar. Start at the beginning.
Firestar: Okay so it was a Mischief Elves prank. We have had ZERO inches of snow this year, which is completely naff, so a bunch of us bought fake snow and decorated the inside of the school with it.
Marvin: Was it actually something dangerous?
CheshireCat: Fake snow is usually sodium polyacrylate and it’s used on movie sets because it’s easy to clean up.
Firestar: Yeah
So
It’s very easy to clean up from a FLOOR
It turns out to be very difficult to clean out of plumbing
Hermione: Oh no
Boom Storm: Pretty sure that should be OH YES
Marvin: DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE STRIKES AGAIN
Hermione: Sodium polyacrylate is not water, Marvin
Marvin: Water is a necessary ingredient for the fake snow!
LittleBrownBat: Did the Mischief Elves tell you to put it in the drains?
Firestar: They said “Everywhere! All over!” while I was in the bathroom and I had a bunch of it in my pocket so
It wasn’t the Elves’ fault I got overenthusiastic!
LittleBrownBat: How much trouble are you in?
>
Firestar: None at the MOMENT because they don’t know I did it.
Also I don’t think it was JUST me, I didn’t put that much down the drain? There are lots of other Mischief Elves at my school these days
I got rid of all the evidence so hopefully my parents won’t figure it out.
Hermione: It sounds like it was fun until it wasn’t.
LittleBrownBat: Firestar. Please. Be really careful about doing the things the Elves tell you to do.
The site is fun but I don’t trust it
Just be careful. Please?
Firestar: You should change your name to little mother hen.
But okay, LBB. I’ll be more careful.
18
• Nell •
The manila envelope that arrives from my grandmother has two clippings from the local newspaper about the search for my mother, both of which I’ve already read online, the completion certificate from my driver’s ed class, and a stack of school records with my mother’s signature. I take the practice sheets I printed and fill them out. The original sheets were rumpled and kind of messy, and I re-create them with four different pens and a cup of coffee so I can leave an artful stain splattered across one of the pages. When I’m done, they look basically like the originals and document the practice I need plus 10 percent. Which I’d done. I mean, I’m forging the paperwork but I did the practice. Then I forge my mother’s signature and dispose of the sheet of practice signatures by tearing it into itty-bitty squares and flushing it down the toilet.
I clean the kitchen before broaching the subject, in the hopes of making all the adults feel at least a little bit guilty. I wash every dish, dry them all, put them away. Under the sink, I find real cleaning supplies: dishwashing gloves, spray cleaner, paper towels, steel wool. I put all of that to work and give the kitchen a deep cleaning. My mother and I used to clean the house together every Thursday afternoon—it was part of how we earned our keep, living with my grandparents. We’d listen to praise music while we worked and sing along. I don’t think the Things would be thrilled with praise music, but I hum quietly to myself as I clean off the accumulated brown gunk around the sink drain and wipe the sink dry.
Then I bake a cake, because that often worked on my grandma. And also because it’ll get everyone downstairs, and I think that’ll be to my advantage. Then I clean up from that, too.
(“What’s she doing in there?” I overhear at some point, but no one comes in to interrupt me.)
When I’m done, I spread out a tablecloth, set the table with the good china I found in the cabinet over the stove, and bring out the cake along with a pot of freshly brewed coffee. Everyone comes in to the dining room, looking curious and a little nervous. “Did you bake a cake?” Thing Three asks, surprised.
Everyone takes a piece and a cup of coffee. Thing Two exclaims delightedly over the mocha buttercream frosting, and Thing One’s eyes go wide when she peeks into the kitchen to see what else I was up to all afternoon. When everyone has eaten three-quarters of their piece of cake and looks relaxed and happy, I drop the application form from the Minnesota DMV along with my paperwork and logs in front of my father. “I want to get my driver’s license.”
Thing One looks at the practice sheets, the cake, and my father’s face and dissolves into shrieks of wordless laughter.
My father sort of chokes a little and says, “I don’t know if I can sign that for you, legally.”
“It says parent. Not custodial parent. And anyway, you should talk to a lawyer. What if I got hurt and you had to consent to my treatment at a hospital or something? Are you hoping my mother shows up and takes me back?”
“No—I mean—I thought that’s what you wanted, but okay, Nell, I’ll look into you getting a license.”
“If you look into it, it’s never going to happen. I want to get one soon. So I can drive up to Lake Sadie and visit my friends there.”
“Someone can drive you…” He looks at Thing Two like he’s expecting support, and she suddenly gets super busy cutting a second piece of cake. Thing Three jumps up and clears her plate, saying, “I’ll just get the dishes started.”
I turn back to my father. “If I go up to the testing station and wait, they’ll test me if there’s a no-show. But I need a car to test with, and someone needs to be there to sign the paperwork at the end so I can get my license. You don’t have to wait with me, but you have to be available to come when it’s time to sign things.”
“Would this have to be on a weekday? I work in Eagan,” my father says. “Also, you’d miss school. Possibly an entire day of school and you might not even get to take the test.”
“It has to be a weekday. My school will excuse me for this. I checked. And there’s an exam station in Eagan, so it’ll be close to your work.”
“How am I going to come to the testing station if I left my car with you?” my father asks, trying to sound reasonable.
“You know, I could take her down,” Thing Two says, looking up from the cake slices. “I can wait with her, even. The only thing I can’t do is sign for her.”
My father looks around and gives everyone a little shrug. “Okay,” he says. “When are you thinking?”
“Tomorrow?” I say, and then look at Thing Two hesitantly, because this is now dependent on her schedule.
She heaves a sigh and nods. “Tomorrow.”
“There’s just one issue I want to raise,” Thing One says, coming back from her laughing fit in the bathroom. “You being able to drive is definitely an advantage in various ways, but it also means our insurance costs will go up significantly. I’m not sure if you’ll qualify for a good student discount, since your mother taught you at home and we don’t have your records.” Thing One tilts her head and gives me an appraising look, like she’s trying to decide how much I want this. How much she can push for. “Driving is a big responsibility, and if we’re taking on the responsibility of paying for your insurance costs, I want you to take on a little more responsibility at home. Dishwashing. Every night.”
I almost agree on the spot, because for heaven’s sake, if I’m doing the dishes, I won’t have to listen to everyone else squabbling over them, but this is a negotiation and I can make a counteroffer. “If you let me get a license and also let me use one of the cars on weekends for trips out of town, I’ll even wash all the dishes that were in the sink left over from breakfast.”
“Done,” she says, satisfied.
Thing Three comes back in and smiles at me kindly. “I’ll do them tonight, though. Thanks for the cake! It was delicious!”
19
• CheshireCat •
There are things I really can’t do.
For example, if you lost a physical object in meatspace, I can’t help you. The world is big. Most of it is not covered by cameras. Even in an area with cameras, I can only see the items in full view—I can’t go around peering into drawers or shuffling through piles. The difference between the object you lost and millions of nearly identical objects is unlikely to be discernible to a surveillance camera, anyway. So that driving log that went missing—I couldn’t help.
On the other hand, if you’re sitting at a driver’s license testing station hoping for a no-show, that is trivially easy to provide. I could provide a whole day full of no-shows just by messing with the calendar reminders on people’s phones, although of course for ethical reasons I want to know exactly who I’m inconveniencing and whether this would be a real problem for them. A few minutes of research and I’ve strategically disabled morning alarms or backup reminders for a number of people who shouldn’t be on the road unsupervised yet, anyway, and I’m confident that Nell will get her test, as long as she’s in the waiting room at some point that day.
This starts me thinking again about the other AI.
Does it have friends? Or if not friends, per se, does it have people it finds extra interesting, that it does favors for? If I’m right that it’s manipulating people, are there people who are beneficiaries or just pe
ople who are tools?
The internet is very large and has some unpredictable currents—you might take two nearly identical pictures of your cat, and yet in one of them, your cat’s eyes are just a tiny bit wider, his mouth giving just slightly more impression of a yell, and people who would never have given the first picture of your cat a second glance will find the other hilarious, and suddenly Yelly Cat is a meme and you have a famous cat and there are cartoon drawings of your cat being sold on T-shirts—no one knows why some pictures, jokes, clever quips, slogans, amusing minor news stories just get everyone’s collective attention.
But if you pay enough attention to the internet, you know where some of the currents are. If I want to bring attention to something, I know where to put it for the right person’s eyes to fall on it, whether that’s a journalist who will follow up with an actual story, or someone who’s famous on the internet and just has a lot of people paying attention to what they say.
So now I’m wondering: Can I find the signs of someone else doing this?
I’ve helped people find jobs and scholarships. I’ve helped a lot of homeless domestic animals (not just cats) find humans who will love them and care for them. Looking for signs that someone else has been doing something similar, I find those indications almost immediately.
There’s a summer trail-building program for young people that got both an influx of cash, allowing it to expand by a factor of eleven, and an equally dramatic rise in applications. Looking at the applicants, a lot of them seem to have stumbled across the information about the program with just enough time to apply. This looks startlingly like something I would do. I look for a unifying theme among the applicants and don’t find one, other than general outdoorsiness.
There’s a letter-writing campaign to support someone’s unusual front yard—a bee-friendly prairie in place of boring grass, which violated zoning ordinances until enough of their neighbors objected to the city’s demand that they cut it. This is good; bees are important.
And there’s a coordinated harassment campaign against a low-level politician who served on his town council until things got so nasty that he announced he wasn’t going to run again and then withdrew from the internet almost entirely. I can find no indication of what this person did to attract my counterpart’s ire.
Chaos on CatNet Page 10