Screen Queens

by Lori Goldstein

  Maddie!

  Why, I wish I knew you were in my sunshine-y state before now! I’m doing the pretentious thing and “summering” in Santa Barbara. Gah! Four books in, and still I can’t believe I’m one of those people using “summer” as a verb.

  I dare say I spit a splinter or two myself when your mom explained where you’re “summering.” Most impressive, Maddie! Your art of Roo still hangs above my dining room table. Still wish the powers that be would have accepted your version for book four. So, talent? That I knew. But I didn’t know you also had an affinity for the technology world. But then, why not? Limits are only good for speed and hot peppers, I always say. Your parents must be so proud. (Don’t roll your eyes at me, my dear—there are souls beneath those wireless headsets even still!)

  Enclosed, find the latest prototype of Gumberoo gear—would love to know what you think! The same has been sent to little Danny. Next time, reach out to me directly.

  Happy “weeding”!

  Esmé

  Socks, hats, tees, and the full series of books, signed by Esmé. The tee, sent in Maddie’s size, would be a nightshirt on Sadie. She’d love it.

  Maddie grabbed her toiletry kit and towel. Her whole shower, she replayed her argument with Sadie, knowing she needed to apologize. It was wrong to expect Sadie, who worshipped Ryan Thompson and Pulse the way Lucy had, to understand why she’d been so upset.

  As Maddie returned to her room and dressed, she tried to block the image of Ryan near Sadie. The one that rekindled the urge to shop for cobras.

  She reached for her messenger bag, peeled back the flap, and emptied the contents onto the desk. She stuffed the bounty of Gumberoo gear and all the books inside and began to sort through the junk that had collected in her bag since the program began. Sketches for the logo of the pet-grooming service they’d abandoned, a handful of pterodactyl drawings, flyers for their beta test and one for . . . Sadie’s presentation.

  Maddie brought her phone to life to check the time. She’d missed it.

  * * *

  * * *

  She ran all the way to the day camp, her heart exploding not from the unusual physical activity but from picturing the same look on Sadie’s face that she’d seen on Danny’s every time their parents missed a soccer game, a music recital, or . . . dinner.

  She’d slept through it.

  Seriously?

  She ran faster.

  What was wrong with her?

  Her feet kept moving and her head kept spinning and she didn’t see the skateboarder veering into her path until he was right in front of her. She leapt to the side, and the weight of her messenger bag dragged her to the ground. Her left hand and knee took the brunt of it, but she hopped right up, brushing off the dirt, no time to even let herself feel the pain of it.

  When she finally arrived, she caught sight of Sadie across the room in a black sleeveless dress, looking older than eleven, like a young Lucy, if it weren’t for the red hair.

  Shame infused Maddie’s every step, and she slowed as she made her way to Sadie. She tried for a smile as she asked, “How was it?”

  Sadie crossed her arms in front of her chest and shrugged.

  Maddie turned to the woman beside her whose own red hair suggested she was Sadie’s mom. “Hi, I’m Maddie, I’ve been—”

  “Oh, I know,” Sadie’s mom said. “My monkey hasn’t stopped talking about you all summer.”

  Sadie glanced at her feet.

  “I’m Rachel, and you’re really sweet for taking time to help my daughter.”

  “It was my pleasure. And actually, I should be thanking Sadie.” Sadie looked up at Maddie from under her eyelashes. “I would have been way more homesick without her.”

  A hint of a smile betrayed Sadie’s stoic face and pushed Maddie to again ask, “How’d the presentation go?”

  “She kicked ass.” Rachel side-hugged Sadie. “Tell her all about it, hon, while I go outside to call your MIA brother and revoke his car privileges for the weekend.”

  A flicker of hurt darkened Sadie’s eyes at the mention of her brother, and Maddie promised herself that, no matter what her future held, she wouldn’t ever let Danny feel like this.

  Sadie’s mom pecked her daughter’s head. “Course then we’ll be stuck with him, won’t we?” She sighed but gave a little smirk. “Sometimes parenting is a no-win situation.”

  After she left, Maddie nudged Sadie’s foot. “Kicked ass, huh? I’m just that good, I guess.”

  Sadie clutched her arms tighter.

  “Right. Okay . . .” Maddie sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, Sadie. Truly sorry. I messed up. I wanted to be here, I promise.”

  Sadie lifted her head. “Why weren’t you?”

  “I . . .” Maddie rubbed her hand against her shorts, trying to ease the sting of the scrapes from her fall and from the look in Sadie’s eyes. It might have been Sadie’s brother and Maddie’s parents, but it didn’t matter; Maddie knew what it was like to be let down by those you trusted most. “The truth is, I have no excuse. I was too busy having a pity party for myself.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Maddie’s throat went dry at Sadie’s immediate concern, and she forced out a “Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, it will be. You, uh, look nice, by the way. Certainly befitting a Pulse 10.”

  “Awesome,” Sadie said with a hefty amount of snort that surprised Maddie.

  “Maybe I’m the one who should be asking you if everything’s okay?”

  Sadie hesitated, staring at Maddie, before waving for her to get closer. Maddie did, leaning down to lessen the height gap.

  “See that kid over there?” Maddie turned, and Sadie cried, “Don’t look!” Sadie shielded her eyes. “But you see him?” Maddie nodded. “Okay, well, his mom’s a 10. I got him to introduce me to her and I was asking her about Pulse-a-palooza and she laughed at me. Like this: ‘HA!’ It’s not like I was asking to go, I just wanted to learn more about it and she—”

  “Was ridiculously rude. I’m sorry, Sadie.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure I care about Pulse-a-palooza that much anymore anyway. It was cooler when I sorta knew someone who was going to be there.”

  “Emma would have been great,” Maddie agreed.

  “Her feeds were always fun, way different than a lot of the other 10s. I’ve been following so many, and they just started to feel the same after a while. Like . . . I don’t know, like my tap-dancing porcupine. It works and looks pretty and all, but it’s almost too perfect.”

  “Like it was designed that way,” Maddie said without really thinking. But then, she started to. To think. About Ryan. And Lucy and Emma and the 10s.

  “I’m all for pretty.” Sadie flashed a sly grin. “But too pretty . . .” She brushed her bangs back and pointed to a couple of indents on her skin. “Chicken pox. Gives me character though, you know?”

  “And makes you real,” Maddie said slowly.

  “Unlike the 10s,” Sadie said.

  “Unlike the 10s,” Maddie repeated, and with each word a light bulb flickered in her brain. “Sadie, you’re brilliant.”

  “I know.”

  Maddie reached into her bag for her phone, but it started buzzing with a text from Lucy before she even unlocked it.

  Where are you? We need to talk about Ryan and Gavin.

  Maddie typed: And Pulse.

  This was important; Maddie knew it in her gut. Same as she knew Sadie was important. So she slipped her phone into her pocket. “Kicked ass, huh? Will you show me your presentation?”

  “Can’t get enough of that spiny thing, can you?”

  “Nope. Pretty awesome. The only reason I keep coming around.”

  “Ha!” Sadie cried, mimicking the 10.

  Maddie grinned and wrestled her bag off her shoulder. “Here. A little congratulations.”

&nb
sp; “Uh, you really need some lessons in gift giving, Maddie. That thing’s nasty.”

  “Just take it. And look inside.”

  Sadie did. “You . . . but how . . . Maddie, it’s . . .”

  “You’re welcome.” A warmth spread across Maddie’s chest. “I’ll explain next time, but trust me, that’s a much better fandom to be a part of anyway.”

  Sadie dropped the bag and flung herself at Maddie, giving her a hug that threw her off balance—in every way. Especially when she found how hard she was hugging back.

  After walking Sadie to her mom’s car, Maddie unearthed her four-leaf clover and squeezed. She’d given up a lot for Danny—and she didn’t regret it one bit.

  She waved goodbye and started back toward the dorms. Ryan, Emma, Lucy, Pulse, the 10s all looped in her mind. Over and over, something there but not there. Like the 10s. Surface. Fake.

  She increased her pace and texted Lucy: Pulse. It’s not right. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not right.

  Lucy: Sure, because Ryan runs it.

  Maddie: It’s more than that.

  Lucy’s text crossed Maddie’s: Because Ryan’s an ass.

  Maddie added: And sexist.

  Lucy: And manipulative.

  Maddie: And will do anything to win.

  Lucy: Like me.

  Lucy: It’s okay, it’s true.

  Maddie: Was true.

  Lucy sent a heart. Then ten. Then a gagging emoji.

  Lucy: He flaunts it. On the first day, remember? Joking that my low Pulse must be because of a glitch in the code.

  Lucy: He’s the glitch.

  He’s the glitch, Maddie thought. Pulse is his. The leader sets the tone. Everyone follows the leader. The leader who’s a sexist, manipulative, predatory, juvenile ass.

  Her thoughts were so rapid fire, she couldn’t type fast enough: What if he wasn’t joking?

  Maddie: What if there’s an actual glitch in the code?

  Maddie: What if it’s not by accident?

  Lucy: What are you thinking?

  Maddie: Not sure. But all the 10s are so . . . so perfect.

  Lucy: An advertiser’s dream.

  Maddie: Right.

  Maddie: Like it’s designed that way. Manipulated to be that way.

  Maddie: Do you think

  Lucy: He’s

  Maddie: His whole company

  Lucy: Is a crock.

  Maddie: Is a crock.

  Their texts crossed at the same time as they both crashed into something.

  Each other.

  Maddie pushed herself off Lucy, rubbing her wrist, which had collided with Lucy’s nose. Lucy pinched the bridge of it and jiggled her head.

  They faced each other, silently piecing it all together.

  Lucy spoke first. “We need—”

  “Delia,” Maddie finished.

  TWENTY–SEVEN

  BOOTSTRAPPING • Reinvesting initial profits as the sole method of funding a company, i.e., “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”

  DELIA CRAWLED INTO BED. She’d called in sick. All it took was two steps inside the student center and a glimpse of Eric’s light brown hair shielding his face as he hunkered over a keyboard, prying off a letter to clean out the caramel mocha latte, bison burger, or pot brownie crumbs stuck underneath, and she knew she couldn’t do it.

  She couldn’t spend the afternoon across from Eric after he’d seen her meltdown. She couldn’t spend the afternoon punching buttons on a microwave for ten dollars an hour that didn’t matter now that her parents had sold the theater. She couldn’t spend the afternoon pretending that her life hadn’t imploded all around her.

  So she didn’t. She sank her head into Lucy’s pillow, made softer thanks to the gift of Maddie’s plush sheets, and opened Delia’s Den.

  She’d been adding functionality to Ready for Hedy, a torpedo-based coding game that paid homage to the 1940s Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr. Her beauty supposedly inspired Disney’s Snow White, but she was also an avid inventor, with her work leading to the development of wireless technology used in everything from Wi-Fi to GPS to Bluetooth.

  Wanting to help the Allied cause in World War II, she focused on torpedoes, powerful weapons that, she reasoned, could be better controlled if they were radio-guided. But radio signals could be jammed. Along with her co-inventor, Lamarr came up with the idea for frequency hopping, a way of moving around on radio frequencies to avoid a third party jamming the signal. Skeptical, the military didn’t use it then, only integrating it after. Decades passed before she was recognized for her revolutionary work.

  The game was quickly becoming Delia’s favorite.

  She was lost in it when Maddie and Lucy charged through the door.

  “We know what he’s doing,” Lucy said.

  “Ryan,” Maddie said. “With Pulse. It’s—”

  “Manipulating—”

  “Everything—”

  “We’re sure of it—”

  “We just need to prove it.”

  Lucy stepped deeper into the room. She crouched at Delia’s bedside. “We need you to prove it.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Delia’s head was spinning from Lucy and Maddie being so in sync as much as from what they’d said about Gavin and Ryan and Lucy’s notebook and Pulse. The evidence was circumstantial. Yes, Lucy and Emma’s rankings shot up and down quickly—quicker than most? Delia wasn’t familiar enough with Pulse to know that. And Lucy and Maddie had no way to support their theory that Emma had brushed off Ryan’s advances, causing him to retaliate through Pulse in the same way they were convinced he had with Lucy. Still, there was the discrepancy in Emma’s social media feeds—that all her likes and favorites and everything were still high but her Pulse was Comatose. So . . . maybe?

  But the 10s? That everyone Crushing It was put there? Because beautiful faces, skinny waistlines, six packs, and pearly white teeth were coveted? Because who you knew, not what you knew, mattered most? That it all led to an endless loop of more likes and favorites and followers and popularity that drew advertisers like bees to pollen? That in turn meant Pulse drew advertisers and investors and enough cash to buy every theater in the country if Ryan wanted? Fund thousands of scholarships every year? Give him his hot tub and surround him with water views?

  That couldn’t happen because Ryan was manipulating individual accounts on a whim. It had to be in the code. In Pulse’s code. It had to be Pulse.

  “I don’t know,” Delia finally said.

  “But it’s possible?” Maddie asked.

  “Anything’s possible,” Delia said. “It’s just so . . .”

  “Slimy?” Lucy said.

  “Fraudulent?” Maddie said.

  “Wrong.” Delia moved her aging laptop to the end of her bed. If she were a 10 she would have had the newest one on the market. “It’s wrong.”

  But how could Ryan have done it? Delia ran through what she knew of Pulse—some of which was the same as Lit. The rankings had to be determined in real time by the app based on data from the user’s social media accounts. There was no hard-coded number associated with an account that could be changed with a stroke on a keyboard. The rankings would be regenerated any time someone loaded their Pulse account.

  So could Ryan hack it? No. But then again, he wouldn’t need to hack it. He controlled the source code. And the databases.

  Delia sat up straighter. Of course!

  The very thing she’d been immersing herself in for weeks. If Ryan was doing this . . . if he was manipulating Pulse rankings not just for himself but for all of Pulse in order to give advertisers what they wanted—or maybe even what they asked for?—he’d do it using the database. He’d need to have his own private list—a table in the database that only he could access. If the table had the person’s name and a
rating that Ryan could change at will, then the code would have to do what? Somehow override the automatically generated ratings. So the code would need to have a function that would check this table first to see if a user was in it. If a name was there, then the code would tell the program to display Ryan’s chosen rating. If not, then the normal calculated rating would appear. An extra step. One that could be done quickly enough. One that would change a person’s rating. For better or worse. Just as he’d done with Emma and Lucy. Just as he could do with anyone—for anyone. Anyone who offered him something in return.

  “Delia?” Maddie said with concern. She bent down at her bedside next to Lucy. “I know we’re asking a lot. And I don’t know how we’d even start proving it. But I think we have to.”

  “And not for me,” Lucy said. “This is bigger than me and Emma. Pulse changed the world. What everyone who comes here wants to do, and he did it. But what he’s changed it into is . . .”

  “Twisted,” Maddie said. “It’s bad enough that he makes eleven-year-olds anxious about their likes, but this, perpetuating the idea that beauty, that perfection, is everything? For profit? I can’t just let him. If we’re right, people have to know.”

  Lucy looked at Delia. “I know you’re here on scholarship and—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I was doing this for my parents—so they wouldn’t have to worry about putting me through college, but now . . . they sold the theater. I don’t need to win ValleyStart and work at Pulse for them.”

  “Oh, Dee, I’m really sorry,” Lucy said.

  “I can’t believe they actually did it,” Maddie said.

  Moisture glistened in Delia’s eyes. “It seems to be what they want.”

  Lucy put a hand on Delia’s. “And what do you want?”

  Her eyes traveled between Maddie and Lucy. She knew. She’d always known. Guilt weighed heavy on her chest because her parents selling the theater meant she was free to have it. “To be here. One day. Not at Pulse, but here, doing something good.”