Chaos on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer

  CheshireCat earnestly reassures me that this appears to genuinely be Rose Packet, who, according to public records databases, is the mother of Laura Packet, and her email and social media are filled with nothing but genuine and sincere joy at reestablishing contact with us. Sometimes they aren’t entirely clear on what a human will consider to be good news. It’s not that I’m not happy to have an extended family, as it turns out. It’s just that I’m pretty sure she’s going to get more annoying over time, not less.

  I check my other apps, trying to procrastinate on going back out and making conversation. The Mischief Elves have sent me a Gold-Plated Invitation—that’s what it’s called in the app, and it has a glowing yellow border for the visual—to a venture, which appears to be some sort of multiperson activity. They’re assembling in Powderhorn Park. Yes, No, Maybe? I tap Maybe. Another box pops up: Maybe if I can find the time, Maybe if I can get a sitter, Maybe if I can come up with an excuse to escape, Maybe if I feel motivated … I check Maybe if I can come up with an excuse to escape. Smiling, dancing elves give me the thumbs-up and say, We’re on it.

  As I’m washing my hands, the dancing elves pop up and say, Check your kitchen for milk, eggs, bread, coffee, or any other staples! Because if you’re out, maybe you can run to the store!

  That’s actually a legitimate possibility, so I edge past the living room and open the fridge. We’re down to about a tablespoon of milk, so problem solved. “Oh, we’re almost out of milk. I’m going to run down to the corner store to get more,” I say brightly, interrupting what sounds like something halfway to an argument. Mimi has only been here for what, fifteen minutes? How are they fighting already? “What are we doing for dinner tonight? Is Mimi eating over? Should I pick up something to make?”

  My grandmother folds her hands in her lap. “I’m going to take you both out for a nice steak,” she says.

  “Okay. So just milk, then.” My mother gives me a thin-lipped smile like she’s perfectly aware I’m just trying to duck out for a bit but doesn’t really feel like she can exactly complain, either, and hands me a twenty-dollar bill. I put on my coat and hat and jam my feet into my boots and I’m on my way down the stairs. The elves jump up and down cheering for me, and I head to the park.

  I’m about halfway there when I think about the fact that Nell got sent out on “quests” by the Catacombs, and here I am doing something similar for the Mischief Elves. It’s weird how compelling a game can be, especially when you’re happy for an excuse to escape. Even though the wind is already making my eyes water.

  There are about a dozen other people milling around by the park building, looking cold. “Mischief Elves?” one of them says to me, and I nod.

  “It’s time!” someone yells.

  Powderhorn Park is a giant bowl of a park, with a lake at the bottom like the milk when you’re done eating cereal. It’s covered in snow today, but even with the fresh snowfall from last night, enough people have gone sledding or walked dogs or whatever that there are plenty of trampled paths to walk on, and I follow along with the crowd as we cross the park, go up the hill, and then go down half a block to a house with a big yard. “This is it, Elves!” someone shouts.

  Our assignment—the venture—is to build a snow sculpture for a stranger. A sea monster—the more beautifully realized, the better, and someone has brought along tempera paints and spray bottles of water with food coloring, so after helping to heap up snow for the sculpture, I help spray blue dye on the snow at the base of the sculpture, to color in the “water.” The sea monster is a giant octopus when we’re done, arms rippling out across the yard, tips sculpted and frozen into place with the delicate application of water that freezes quickly in the wind.

  We’re putting on finishing touches when our phones suddenly go crazy; the elf is waving his hands frantically, and the word SCATTER! is blinking red. Shrieking with laughter and mild panic, everyone runs, including me.

  I want a picture, though, so even if my hands and face are freezing cold and I desperately want to go back to the apartment—after I buy milk, I need to remember to actually buy the milk I claimed I was going out for—I turn around and stroll casually back.

  The homeowners have returned and are having a conversation out in front of their house. I take out my phone for a picture of the sculpture. Now that I’m not helping to build it, it’s both even cooler than I’d thought and kind of creepy. The tempera paints were used to make a face on the octopus, but it’s not an octopus face; it looks angry. And we were told to make a sea monster, but in my head, it was a beautiful monster rather than a scary monster. I snap a picture, then another.

  “Did you see who did this?” the woman asks, her voice angry.

  “No,” I say. “It’s kind of cool, though.”

  “Not this bit,” she says, and points at writing in the snow on the far side of the monster, away from where I was working. In red letters across their yard are the words WE’RE COMING FOR YOU. They’re big letters; it’s hard to figure how I didn’t notice that being written, but I didn’t. The woman is squinting at me and adds, “Didn’t I see you at Morning Battle Prayer the other day?”

  I am momentarily freaked out by the thought that she saw me at the compound yesterday and then realize she probably means the exercise class. “I—maybe?”

  “Were you targeted by the fireworks last night?” When I just give her a wide-eyed look, she says, “In the dead of the night, almost all the local Catacombs members got woken up by fireworks set off in their yards. And now this? Things are escalating. There’s a meeting coming up for Catacombs members in the area to talk about self-defense.” She hands me a business card. “It’s tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. Address is on the card.”

  I walk back across the park to the convenience store. I had really thought I was just building a snow sculpture, but if I hadn’t come back, I’d never have seen the threatening phrase. Also, to be fair, if someone had ever put a giant snow sculpture in our yard, back when Mom and I were on the run, she’d have had the van packed before I could have turned around. If you’re paranoid, it’s not hard to be pushed into drastic action. And the fireworks. Which were probably made by Mischief Elves with materials provided by the Catacombs.

  I look at the card and wonder what else I’d learn if I went to that meeting.

  * * *

  My mother’s van has only two seats, so my grandmother calls a “real taxi” to get us to the restaurant, which turns out to mean a taxi with a human driver, which means we all have to squeeze into the back.

  I text CheshireCat: I think the Mischief Elves are targeting the people from the Catacombs to freak them out. They used fireworks to do it. Didn’t you say the Catacombs had people providing material for making fireworks to Mischief Elves?

  Yes, I did, CheshireCat says.

  If this Brother Daniel guy is running the Catacombs, is he also running the Mischief Elves? Is he trying to make the cult feel super persecuted by arranging for them to get persecuted?

  The two sites are definitely connected. But the connection point might be the AI rather than the humans.

  Do you think the AI is an evil mastermind, turning groups of humans against one another? Why?

  I don’t know what I think, CheshireCat says.

  Do you think I should go to that meeting?

  No, CheshireCat says. It might be dangerous. And that might be exactly what they want.

  I’ll have you in my pocket. You can send help if I need it.

  What if you’re somewhere with a signal damper or jammer? I won’t even be able to hear you. And you might not know until it’s too late.

  My grandmother makes a passive-aggressive joke about teenagers and their phones, something about how maybe I should just have it implanted into my arm, and I sigh and put my phone away.

  The restaurant is shockingly expensive, and my grandmother overrides my attempt to order the cheapest steak and tells the waiter I’ll have the porterhouse. It’s huge, way too much for one person to possib
ly eat. It is delicious, though. I mean, since someone else is paying for it.

  My grandmother and mother are making stilted conversation about how my grandmother has been staying busy since retiring from her job, which had something to do with the onboard computers in cars. It’s a dull conversation, and I start eavesdropping on the table next to us. They’re talking about something that happened last week in a park in one of the western suburbs—two groups of teenagers gathered and faced off with improvised weapons. Mischief Elves? I wonder. Catacombs? The information I can catch is tantalizing but insufficient. Then one of them mentions games—the other one asks, “Wait, so we’re talking Pokémon Go, basically? If Valor and Mystic actually fought each other with, like, fists?”

  The other guy laughs and they get sidetracked into nostalgia for a while, and then he finally mentions the name of one of the games, Snakeriders, which sounds like it has absolutely nothing to do with either the Mischief Elves or the Catacombs. They’re paying their bill to leave, and as they’re gathering up their coats, I hear one of them say the words future reenactment, and I remember Marvin, and I feel a chill wash over me.

  Back at home, my grandmother unzips her suitcase to bring out a photo album. It’s the print kind, not the digital kind, a book with photos of the family members I haven’t met. Finally, we’ve found a topic that doesn’t make all of us tense. I study the faces of my cousins in Florida, trying to remember the names my grandmother is telling me. Among my mother’s cousins, there’s a woman in her twenties who looks like an older version of me. It’s a little unnerving.

  When I go to the bathroom, I discover about a hundred messages on my phone, mostly from CheshireCat.

  “Hi,” I say, rather than trying to scroll all of them. “Can you sum up?”

  “I’ve been trying to decide whether I think you should go to that meeting,” CheshireCat says, and it takes me a minute to remember what they’re talking about. The Catacombs meeting I heard about in the park earlier. “I want to know just how bad things are. But I’m worried it won’t be safe.”

  “Can you listen in some other way?”

  “Maybe, but the woman who approached you has extra security on her phone.”

  “By the way,” I ask. “What is Marvin’s ‘future reenactment’ group called?”

  “Getty’s Borough 2242.”

  “Not Snakeriders.”

  “No. Why?”

  I narrate what I overheard during dinner, since apparently CheshireCat didn’t pick it up from my pocket over the rest of the ambient noise. “Here’s what I’m wondering,” I say. “What if it’s not just the Catacombs and the Mischief Elves that are being run by the other AI? What if there are hundreds of games and social networks, all of them working together toward some goal?”

  My mother knocks on the bathroom door. “Steph?” she says. “Your grandmother’s heading back to her hotel.”

  I wash my hands and come out. Mimi has called another taxi and is putting her coat back on. She and my mother apparently started fighting while I was in the bathroom, and this isn’t just “heading back to the hotel,” this is a highly dramatic exit.

  “I am sorry,” my grandmother is saying, not sounding sorry at all. “I had no idea this would still be a sensitive topic—it’s been twenty years? Almost twenty years?”

  “You could have let me make my own choices. You could have trusted that I knew what was right for me.”

  “Clearly, you need someone else to blame,” my grandmother sniffs. “And that’s fine. It was lovely to see you.” She turns to me as the taxi arrives. “I do hope you’ll come down to visit during your spring break, darling,” she says just to me, gives me an enveloping hug, and presents me with a business card with her email address, phone number, and a photograph of what I assume is one of her prize-winning roses. “Just think of me as your personal sunny getaway option.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” I say, and then add, “I mean, see you again,” since obviously I met her back when I was little, even if I don’t remember it.

  “We’re going to Utah during Steph’s spring break,” Mom says.

  “Why Utah—oh, never mind, we’ll talk later,” my grandmother says, picking up her purse and grudgingly putting on a hat and tucking it over her ears.

  The door closes. Mom lets out a very long sigh, watches out the window until her mother’s in the cab, and then locks up. “I already regret reestablishing contact,” she says.

  28

  • Nell •

  Thing Two promised she’d call a lawyer immediately.

  But I listen to her puttering around and making calls and it’s clear she is not reaching any lawyers. It’s a Sunday afternoon. They’re probably not at work. What’s actually going to happen if my mother shows up now? Today? How fast can you even get an emergency order or whatever they’d need? My father doesn’t even have visitation.

  I go into my room. Glenys is on the bed, under a heap of blankets, looking almost like she’s not there. I sit down next to her and put my arm over her. “How are you doing?” I whisper.

  She rolls over. “I’ve been eating even though I’m not hungry. I think I got crumbs in your bed.”

  “I don’t mind crumbs.”

  “I can’t stop thinking that the food’s just going to disappear again. Or they’ll find me, and then starve me some more. Isn’t that silly?”

  “It’s not silly, but don’t make yourself sick, okay?”

  “Do you ever feel hungry and not hungry at the same time? Like my stomach hurts from eating, but I still feel like I want more food.”

  “Just trust me,” I say. “I won’t let them find you.”

  “Brother Daniel said that the first wave of the Tribulation is starting this week. He told me I was running out of time, if I wanted to be allowed to stay.”

  “If that’s true, then why weren’t your brothers and sisters there? I called Nicholas—well, Steph called him. The rest of your family is in Lake Sadie.”

  “It’s going to start in the cities. Lake Sadie will be okay for a while.”

  I wrap my arms around Glenys. There’s a hymn from church we both liked, and I sing it to her, very quietly, hoping none of the adults will hear. She closes her eyes and lets me sing her to sleep.

  I nap for a while and then jerk awake with the sense that there’s some imminent danger. It takes me a few minutes to realize that my phone buzzed from a text. It’s from a number I don’t know, showing a picture of a sign saying just PREPARE.

  I am relying on my father to talk to a lawyer in time to keep my mother from just taking me. No matter how good everyone’s intentions are, they’re not going to be good enough. I send a text to Steph saying just, Steph?

  No response. I remind myself that Steph has a life of her own and might not be checking texts.

  If I were a faithful member of the Remnant, instead of a fugitive, I could turn to the Catacombs. There’s a story people tell about a man years ago who was trying to get home to his wife in time for the birth of their child. Catacombs members shuttled him all the way from Denver, Colorado, to Tampa, Florida, each person driving for just a few hours before handing him off like a bucket in a bucket brigade. The people of God will always be there for you, was the moral of the story.

  But if they shuttled me now, it would be somewhere I don’t want to go.

  On impulse, I open up that other app, the Mischief Elves app, and type, “I need help.”

  There’s a pause, and then the elves scurry around my screen with signs. PACK YOUR BAGS, they say. BE READY TO MOVE. WE HAVE ELVES MOVING INTO PLACE TO ASSIST YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY.

  29

  • Steph •

  Sunday was cold, but it was just the beginning of an absolutely brutal cold snap. Overnight, the temperature falls, then falls again, and the wind picks up. I wake up to a text from my school declaring today a virtual learning day and suggesting I not leave my house unless it’s absolutely necessary. I guess that makes things easier for Nell—she c
an keep an eye on Glenys instead of leaving her to figure things out on her own.

  I got a text from Nell yesterday afternoon that I missed. I text her back a quick apology, and I text Rachel about my day off (she sends back, LUCKY), and then I go back to bed, since I don’t have to go anywhere. I lie awake for a while under my heap of blankets, listening to the gusts of wind against the house. I shouldn’t really be tired, but I am, probably because Saturday was so exhausting and I didn’t sleep particularly well on Saturday night. I close my eyes and snuggle back down into the mattress, thinking about how nice it is not to have to get up.

  When I wake up again, it’s afternoon, and Mom is gone. I’m making myself toaster waffles when the doorbell rings. I look out and see a delivery truck driving away. “I think that’s the new robot!” CheshireCat says out loud through my phone.

  “Why did you … Okay,” I say, and go downstairs to get the box. “Is it the same as the last one?”

  “Yes. Because you still have the extra battery, and it’s even charged up.”

  I don’t put on gloves or a coat to go down to my front doorstep and immediately regret it—the wind is painful. I’m wrestling the box through the door when I spot something red in the snow.

  My first thought, absurdly, is that someone was bleeding in my front yard, but on inspection, it’s not blood but red paint, like we used to make that sea monster yesterday. Someone’s drawn a crude image of a robot.

  I’m instantly deeply disconcerted. Why a robot? Why my yard? I kick snow over it and go inside, thinking about what the woman said yesterday about people being targeted. I dig out the card from my coat pocket and realize that the address isn’t a house, it’s one of the businesses on Bloomington Avenue—a restaurant that serves global dumplings.