Take Me with You

by Tara Altebrando

  She’d had a dream about her dentist injecting foot-long needles into her neck while telling her she was sick and would never get better.

  It was only one a.m., and she had no idea how she’d even get through the night.

  She checked her phone and saw a recent text from Marwan.

  Hope you’re not sleeping.

  I mean, I hope this isn’t waking you up. Somebody threw a brick through the restaurant window. Can’t sleep.

  I’m here, she wrote back. Awake. So sorry. Did the police come?

  Yes.

  She felt sick. Did you hear about the flyers all over Broadway?

  ????

  They say “Build the wall” or some garbage. You think same people?

  No idea. Also, isn’t that just old? Who’s still talking about a wall? Ridiculous.

  What happens now? With police?

  Probably nothing.

  She wanted to tell him her plan so badly but had to be safe.

  She almost wrote, I think my mom’s seeing someone she shouldn’t be. But that would be an overshare. So she didn’t. She only wrote, We should go to bed.

  Then, I can’t stop thinking about Svetlana.

  I know, he wrote. Same. Try to sleep and I will too.

  Her night-light cast a shadow of her white ceiling fan behind it, so it looked like there were two fans up there, and for a second she imagined the whole world was like that; everyone in it always two versions of themselves—one moving through life in broad daylight, and the other, a hidden shadow self, lying in wait.

  But waiting for what?

  There were stray cats out in the yard, wailing because they were in heat. They sounded like crying babies if you allowed your mind to think it, and it felt like crying could be contagious—even if it was only cats—except that Eden had a plan now, so she clung to that and closed her eyes and did not cry at all.

  Force_quit

  MARWAN

  He waited outside school for Eli so he could take the device, keeping an eye out for Christos. Not that he had any clue what he would do if he saw him but thought maybe he’d be able to read it in Christos’s eyes if he’d thrown the brick or even been in the car. He hadn’t given the plate to the cops in the end on the off chance it had been someone else.

  Eden was suddenly there, and she shoved a tightly folded-up piece of paper into his hand. “Look at this later. Do not let the device see it.”

  She seemed frantic—eyes darting around and looking anywhere but right at him; he didn’t understand what was happening.

  “Put it away now!” she said in a sort of shouted whisper.

  He shoved the paper into his pocket.

  Oh. She’d gone analog and come up with a plan?

  “Hey,” Eli said, appearing from out of a crowd of students heading for the door.

  “Hey,” Marwan said. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What was at that address? Did you find the guy?”

  “No one was home. We waited a long time. It says it wants to try again later.”

  “Like I’m supposed to take it there again?”

  Eli shrugged. “It just said to hand off to you.” He unzipped his backpack, took the device out, and held it out to Marwan.

  Eden’s friend was suddenly there—her hair up in pigtail-type buns.

  “Gotcha!” she shouted.

  They all passed panicked looks around at each other for a second.

  “So enough with the secrecy,” she said. “What is it?”

  “I’ll deal with this,” Eden said. “Just go.”

  Marwan let the device drop into his bag, then headed into the building. It felt strange to be in school at all. Friday felt like another lifetime. He headed for the bathroom to regroup before homeroom. Once there, he threw some water on his face to wake himself up—he’d barely gotten any sleep at all, thinking about the brick and Eden and Svetlana and ways to ditch the device (no good ones!)—then grabbed a paper towel to pat it dry; only there were none left. He used his shirt instead.

  “Take me out,” the device said in a female voice.

  So he did.

  In the mirror, he looked crazed. Would something bad happen to Eden’s friend now, too?

  There was a small spider in the sink, so he ran the water again to wash it down. It clung on to a hair by the drain, very much not wanting to die.

  The door to the hall opened, and a kid Marwan didn’t know walked in. Marwan didn’t move fast enough.

  “What’s that?” the kid said, eyeing the device.

  Marwan froze. “Nothing.”

  “Is that a bomb?” the guy said.

  “What? No,” Marwan said.

  “It looks like a bomb.”

  As if on cue, the device started a countdown.

  “Stop saying that,” Marwan said. “It’s not a bomb.”

  His hands finally dry, Marwan went to put the device away.

  “Let me see it, then,” the guy said.

  “No,” Marwan said.

  He was backing out of the room. “If that’s a bomb …”

  “It’s not! Stop saying it.”

  But it was too late. He was in the hall, shouting, “There’s a bomb!”

  Screams and feet pounding.

  “Why did you do that?” Marwan screamed at the device.

  The countdown disappeared.

  Don’t want to be here today.

  “You could have just told me that.”

  Well, now I officially suggest you leave.

  Marwan took a few deep breaths, put the device in his bag, then opened the bathroom door and joined the frantic evacuation. He went down the stairs calmly—as people around him pushed and fell and screamed and texted—and then through the crowded lobby.

  “If everyone will please calmly exit the building,” came over the PA.

  He went out the doors and out onto the sidewalk and just kept walking …

  EDEN

  Anjali’s features had settled into an intensively focused look of defiance and doubt trained on Eden.

  “Please just stop,” Eden said.

  Anjali repositioned her glasses on her nose in a swift movement. “Well, is it a bomb?”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Eden snapped.

  They were with a bunch of other students across the street from school—everybody on their phones—and no one seemed sure what to do. Should they wait around? Go home? So far, no message had come on the school app.

  “Then what is it?” Anjali asked.

  “It’s not a bomb,” Eden said.

  “Then what is it?” Anjali shouted.

  Eden shouted back, “I don’t know! Okay?” Then more softly, “We don’t even really know.”

  Was it the device that someone had mistaken for a bomb? What if it was a bomb, and they’d been tricked into giving it information and bringing it into school?

  If you believed Eli, there really was such a thing as weaponized AI. What if this was it? Where was Marwan anyway? Eden hadn’t seen him come out yet.

  She said, “I promise I’ll tell you what I know when it’s over.”

  But did Anjali already know too much? She’d seen it, but Eden hadn’t technically told her about it. Sure, she’d told Mark, but the device had no way of knowing that. Svetlana was the only other person who’d laid eyes on the device, and now she was dead. Probably there would have been an announcement about that in school this morning if this hadn’t happened first. They’d have grief counselors on hand. Ilanka would probably be absent for a few days, grieving with her family. Eden and the others would not go to the funeral. Because it wouldn’t make sense for them to. They barely knew her.

  Eden turned and looked squarely at her friend. “You need to go home and stay there until I tell you otherwise.”

  “Eden, please just tell me what’s happening.”

  Eden fought her annoyance. Hadn’t they just been through this? “Go home and wait to hear from me.”

  Her ph
one buzzed: Marwan asking her and Eli to meet him at the restaurant.

  “I’ve got to go,” Eden said.

  “Where?” Anjali said.

  An alert on the school app said that students who could safely and easily get home should go home, and that the others should convene at the movie theater around the corner where there would be police to help contact parents if necessary.

  “Just please go home,” Eden said.

  “Okay, okay,” Anjali said.

  Eden pulled her into a hug and said, “It’s almost over,” then headed toward the restaurant.

  She’d done it. She’d shoved the plan into Marwan’s hand and then, mere seconds later, into Eli’s. That was all that mattered.

  ELI

  The man with the binoculars was in the window Eli and the device had watched for hours yesterday. Eli pushed all the buzzers in the lobby. Someone let him in, and he climbed to the third floor and rang the bell of the apartment he figured was in the right spot.

  “What were you looking at?” Eli asked when the door opened and it was the right guy.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Did you call in a bomb scare? Is there a bomb?”

  “What? No. I figured it was a fire drill.”

  “No, bomb scare.”

  “Wasn’t me.”

  “Why are you always looking at the school with binoculars?”

  “Always?” the guy said.

  “I’ve seen you before,” Eli lied because he couldn’t explain the device’s video.

  “Let’s just say I’m a recreational bird watcher,” the guy said, and the way he said “bird” had double meaning.

  Eli pushed into the apartment and went to the window, where there was a clear view of several classrooms—one of which was the music room. “How often are you looking at birds in that room on the right on the fourth floor?”

  “Whenever it’s a slow news day or whatever,” the guy said. “Can you leave now? Before I have to call the cops?”

  “Last Wednesday.” Eli turned to him. “There were four of us there after school. No teacher. Just students. This ringing a bell?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “One of the girls is blond and …”

  “Did you see anyone in that room right before us? Like leaving something on the desk?”

  “Nope,” he said, and he reached for a pack of cigarettes and lit one with a lighter he drew from his pocket. “Thought I saw a bird fly into that room one day, though. Can’t remember which day, though.”

  At the window again, he pointed. “There’s pigeons on that roof over there. Dumb as oxes. Look at them. Here it comes.”

  From a high window, a woman tossed a loaf’s worth of bread crumbs onto the sidewalk, and pigeons dove for them with such force—and in such numbers—that it looked as if someone had opened a massive bag of dead birds and dumped them off the roof. One bird after another after another—fly-falling too fast—until finally they settled by the curb in a thrumming flock. Not dead after all.

  Eli faced the man. “You sure you weren’t specifically watching that day for a particular reason that you wouldn’t be allowed to talk about?”

  The guy exhaled a stream of smoke straight into Eli’s face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, man.”

  “So you didn’t see anything strange in the classroom?”

  “No.” He inhaled and spoke tightly. “What’s this about?”

  Eli was out of questions and stood there only a moment more, taking mental notes, if it were possible to take notes on how not to end up in life.

  “You should stop doing that,” Eli said. “Bird watching.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” the guy said.

  Eli watched a group of girls break free from a student cluster and walk off down the street.

  He grabbed the binoculars from the sill.

  One of them was … Svetlana?

  It couldn’t be but …

  He put the binoculars down and headed for the door, punched the elevator button in the hall. A train went by and a dusty lamp hanging in the hall shivered.

  The elevator came, and he punched the L button four times.

  “Come on, come on,” he muttered, watching the floors tick down.

  Out on the street, the girls were gone around some unknown corner.

  Anyway, he was losing his mind.

  Imagining it.

  Wishing it.

  Eden had shoved the piece of paper into his hands before taking off with her friend earlier. He took it out now and studied it.

  She’d lost her mind, too.

  It would never work.

  He had a text from Marwan and felt oddly grateful for it, for a place to go.

  EDEN

  The restaurant security gate was down—a wall of rolling metal—and the sidewalk sparkled with glass dust. Foot traffic on the street was light, probably because the block was mostly restaurants and it wasn’t really mealtime.

  She texted Marwan—I’m here—and he appeared inside and then unlocked and opened the door and raised the gate. The storefront glass nearest the kitchen area was mostly gone, just jagged edges around the rim still in place.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she said. “That looks dangerous.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m not sure when it’s getting fixed. My dad’s pretty shaken up. We’re closing for a few days.”

  “Understandably,” she said. “Is Eli here?”

  “On his way.” He pulled the gate halfway down after she stepped into the room.

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever been in an empty restaurant and didn’t especially like it. “What happened?” she said.

  “A guy saw me and the device in the bathroom and thought it was a bomb. Because look at me. And also, it started another countdown. Like it wanted him to think it was a bomb. Because the countdown is already gone.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Where is it now?” she asked.

  “Over there,” he said, nodding toward the open kitchen. “It hasn’t done anything since.”

  She turned her back to the device, reached into her back pocket, and took out her copy of the plan and held it near her stomach, eyebrows raised.

  “Do you think we should go for it now?” Eden asked.

  He shook his head no just as Eli ducked under the gate and stepped into the room.

  “Hey,” he said, and the feeling of the air, the walls, the lighting all changed.

  There had been some kind of tension—push and pull—going on with Marwan. Was that the first time they’d ever been alone? No. They’d been in Panera together and on the roof and that day they’d walked into Astoria Park together and then out. But somehow it felt like a first. Felt like the first time she admitted in a way her brain understood that she was attracted to him.

  “Why are we here?” Eli asked.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” Marwan said.

  “Wait,” Eli said. “Did the device do this?”

  Marwan nodded. “It seemed to want this to happen. It made me take it out of my bag and then started counting down when the guy walked in. It said it didn’t want to be there today.”

  Marwan’s phone buzzed and he looked at it. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “My father wants to know why the school and the police are asking where I am.”

  Eden said, “I thought you didn’t know the guy who saw you.”

  Her phone dinged. A text from Julian: Did that guy you hang out with really bring a bomb to school?

  She wrote back, No, of course not!

  “Who are you texting?” Marwan said.

  “No one,” she lied again. “Just someone making sure I’m okay.”

  “Well, I don’t know him,” Marwan said. “And I didn’t think he’d know me, but I guess he knew my name.”

  “What are you going to tell your father?” Eli asked.

  “I have no idea. But
I have to go deal with this now,” Marwan said. “Before things get worse for me.”

  “But what will you say when they ask about the device?” Eli said. “The kid saw it.”

  An idea took shape in her mind so quickly it was as if she were reading instructions.

  “We need something that looks like it,” Eden said. “Just some dumb black plastic thing.”

  “How will that help?”

  “I don’t know exactly yet; let’s go and we’ll figure it out.”

  Still reading the instructions.

  “Go where?” both boys said.

  “Ninety-nine-cent store,” she said.

  Marwan went and got the device, and the bag buzzed when he lifted it. He took the device out and walked it over to her and Eli.

  The message said: Should you go for what?

  “I don’t understand,” Marwan said.

  Eden just said, Should we go for it?

  She and Marwan looked at each other. She had nothing. She’d been so careful. It didn’t know … anything. But how could she explain …?

  Marwan was still holding her gaze when he said, “She was talking about whether she and I should, you know, be … more than friends.”

  Eden felt like a wave had crashed on her, one she hadn’t seen coming because she’d been facing the wrong way. She struggled to catch her breath in its undertow.

  “We’ve been, you know, talking about it,” Marwan said. “Talking about whether it would change or ruin things or not.”

  I don’t believe you.

  “It’s true,” he said, not looking away from her. “Other than you, she’s pretty much all I think about.”

  Eden’s heart was rising up in her, like trying to choke her from the inside out.

  I don’t believe that’s what she was referring to.

  “It was,” Eden said, her voice shaky. “It’s true.”

  The device went blank.

  Then it said: You are all lying.

  They stood for a minute waiting—a police car with a siren on drove by; two people in loud conversation passed on the street; the ceiling fan whirred a faint, pulsing buzz—and Eden felt like a sinkhole might open up right there in the restaurant and pull her through to the other side of something, the dark deep.