Friend Me

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Friend Me Page 12

by Sheila M. Averbuch


  “It’s eerie, right?” I push away the rest of my cinnamon bagel. I’m too jumpy to swallow. “We think Haley hacked into the school cameras for the pictures she posted on her stream. So where was she last night, really, and why was she pretending to be at the dance?”

  “Nobody knows or remembers any Haley Alan, by the way,” Jason says. “I asked.”

  “Really?” Lily looks at me. “There goes that theory, then.”

  I explain to Jason. “I wondered if Haley knew Zara from school. Maybe Zara had bullied her a few years ago, and this is Haley’s revenge.”

  “Nah. Definitely no Haley. Anyway, she said she goes to Loranger Middle, right? And she has Chemistry? We don’t have Chem, just Science. This chick’s lying up and down to you.”

  “Jason!” His uncle makes wide eyes at Jason, then at the clock on the wall.

  “Shoot, it’s seven.” Jason stands up. I say we’re not going anywhere for now. He gives me another smile and slips behind the counter. He pulls on plastic gloves and starts filling orders.

  When I look back at the mindmap, it’s like the blinds have lifted. She’s lying. The realization drives me to my feet.

  “What?” Lily looks up at me.

  My mind is racing. If she lied about going to Loranger Middle School, then—

  I scribble a new note on the paper: Is anything she said true? My eyes go to the facts we’ve written down. It could all be lies.

  “Uh-oh.” Lily’s face stiffens and she stands up, staring at something behind me. “I thought this might happen.”

  “Roisin!” Michael bursts in the door, angrier than I’ve ever seen him. “What are you playing at?” A motorbike helmet is stuffed under his arm, and Hiro follows, scowling. I can see a red moped parked outside.

  Lily raises surrender hands. “Hiro—”

  “Lily, Mama is furious. You two have to come back now.”

  “Just listen.” Lily reaches for one of the warm bagels wrapped in paper and holds it up. “Come on. I got you an Everything.”

  Hiro’s jaw clenches, but he sinks onto a stool and thumps his helmet down. “This better be good.”

  Hiro’s bagel is gone and he’s started on another, but Michael’s staring at his. “I just. Can’t believe this.” His face is a mask of shock. “You won’t even talk to me, and you tell this Haley psycho everything?”

  We’ve already gone over this: that Michael literally laughed when I tried to tell him Zara was ruining me. I force myself not to shout. “Either help us find her or go back to Mum.”

  They’re supposed to be scouring OOB for me and Lily and phoning the cottage the moment they’ve found us. The storm is on us: Mum went into my account on the You-chat servers and saw all my messages with Haley. Michael said Mum is going spare, though, looking for my phone: She thinks it could help her access Haley’s own account, which Mum can’t get into at all. She says it’s “impenetrable.”

  Michael stares at me like I’m mad. “Listen to you: ‘Find her.’ ” He gives a grim laugh. “You don’t even know Haley’s a her. It could be some old fella!”

  Ice slips into my stomach. Lily’s eyes widen, too.

  I tent my hands around the back of my skull, to stop it exploding. Michael’s right. Haley might not be a girl at all. She could be anyone. I feel every Web safety quiz I’ve ever taken at school crash back to me: Do You Know Who You’re Meeting Online?

  Of course I knew all that, but Haley seemed so awesome. And she understood me.

  “Let’s try to keep this productive,” Hiro says quietly. “We’re all in trouble, for various reasons.” He sounds properly adult, and properly freaked, like he’s our class teacher and we’ve just told him that we killed someone when he nipped out for a coffee. He turns to me. “Did you ever get a strange vibe from her? Let’s just say Haley’s a her, to keep it simple.”

  “Yeah … I suppose.” I hate saying it out loud, but it’s the truth: I tell them how happy Haley seemed about Zara’s accident, and how uneasy that made me. “I wasn’t keen on chatting so much, after that.”

  “So why did you? That’s what Mum’s asking, Ro; she went mad this morning when she found hours of You-chat conversations between you and this … Haley.”

  “Because we were friends. And because— Oh.”

  “What?” Michael demands.

  My mouth hangs open, frozen. “Give us your phone,” I manage to say. Michael passes me his phone, and after some frantic Googling, I hold up the screen to show the others.

  “Jors Kuypers,” Lily reads out. “Department of Psychology, City University of Lowell?”

  I tell them about Jors and his research and the money. When I get to the part that Jors installed some software on my phone, Michael covers his face. My neck is flaming, right up to my hairline, because saying all this out loud makes me realize how idiotic I’ve been. I slap the countertop. “Jors wanted me to use You-chat at least an hour a day. He offered me extra money, too, if I used it more.”

  Lily looks at me gravely. “Do you think Haley is some psychology researcher working with Jors?”

  “Maybe she is Jors. I told you! Not a girl!” Michael rakes his fingers into his hair, like he’ll tug it out. “My God, Roisin!”

  “I know.” I groan. He can’t be angrier at me than I am at myself. The sense of a monstrous thing, bigger than I ever imagined, looms over me. I honestly thought we’d pop out for breakfast, look at the mindmap, and it wouldn’t be long till we’d found Haley somewhere in Old Orchard Beach. But now …

  I crumple, suddenly remembering how stupidly easy it was to trust Jors, with his paper-filled office that felt so like Dad’s. My whole life suddenly feels like one huge science experiment I never agreed to: Dad’s AIs and Mum’s robots, and then Jeeves creeping all over us, and now Jors’s You-chat research. “It’s a learning algorithm, it needs de data.”

  Lily shakes her head. “Unless this Jors is actually crazy, why would he get you to do his research and then try to kill Zara? What kind of research is that?”

  I push back from the table. “I’m going to find out. When’s the next train?”

  “Soon, I think.” Lily stands up. “It’s the new train—it’s really fast.”

  Michael gets to his feet like he’s ready to wrestle me to the ground. “Sit down! Are you mad? You’re not going near that guy.”

  “I am, and here’s why: Mum and their mum are probably losing their jobs, because I’ve been a catastrophic idiot.”

  Michael snorts. “Good. Maybe Mum’ll be home for once.”

  “And when the police shut down their lab, their mum will get deported. And Lily’ll have to go with her.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Roisin,” Lily interrupts, looking pained.

  “Really?” Michael’s face has changed. “That’s not good.”

  I shake my head at Lily. “I am worried about you. I’m not going to let Haley rip up your life like Zara did mine.” Lily gives my arm a squeeze. “Come with us if you want,” I tell Michael and Hiro, “but we’re going. Now.”

  “If Haley is some hacker working with this Jors fella, surely we should let the mother units handle it; they’re the tech experts.” Michael looks baffled. “I don’t get why we need to chase down to Lowell.”

  But Hiro gets it. He grabs the bag of bagels and his helmet and turns to Michael. “She’s right. We’re the only people who know that Haley caused the accident. If we tell our moms, the first thing they’ll do is take Roisin’s phone and pull off whatever software Jors put onto it. And then what do you think’ll happen?”

  I can see Michael’s brain churning like mine. “If he’s anything like our mum, Jors will know the instant someone starts messing about with his tech.”

  “And then he’ll run,” I say, and the others nod. “If we want to catch him, it’s got to be a surprise.”

  It’s a plan. The boys will bring the bagels home, say they’ve looked everywhere for me and Lily and that they’re going back out to hunt again. I tell Michael
where I’ve hidden my phone; he’ll grab it and they’ll both meet us at the station. Hiro says the fast train takes just an hour now to get to Boston, where we can change for Lowell, but it leaves in fifteen minutes.

  “We’ll have to sprint,” Lily says.

  I’m trying to catch Jason’s eye behind the counter. He looks up from dropping bagels into bags and stares at me. The smile dies on my lips when I see the hurt in his eyes. He looks back down and turns away.

  I want to go speak to him, but Lily tugs my arm. “We have to run. Talk to him later?” I let her pull me out of the bakery, but Jason’s look is another block on the heap of ice in my stomach. I’ve upset him, but I’ve no idea how. I swallow the tears rising in my throat. How have I made such a mess of everything?

  Lily jogs toward the station and I follow in a daze. There’s an instant when my bleary brain thinks, I’ll tell Haley about Jason, before I remember: She’s not my friend, and she never was.

  * * *

  “Any sign of them?” Lily asks.

  I crane my head to see out the train window but they’re still not here. “No. Oh, there!” I finally spot Michael running across the platform toward us, but Hiro’s still fussing with the moped lock. The conductor blows his whistle and shouts at the boys to hurry or wait for the next one. His cheeks pouch with disapproval as Hiro races after Michael. He waves them both onto the train and tells them to buy watches.

  “I’ve had enough of watches—thanks,” Hiro pants, and widens his eyes at Lily. He and Michael sink into the seats across the aisle from us.

  Michael can’t speak for breathlessness as he pulls my phone from his pocket. My stomach flops when he hands it to me. As Old Orchard Beach slides away out the window, I open You-chat, and this pathetic urge wells up in me. I want to believe, still, that Haley likes me. That she’s really my bestie, not part of Jors’s sick experiment. Even—God!—with Haley’s crazy rant at Lily, it’s so hard to let go of who I thought she was. My brain feels clogged, trying to sort out what’s real. Maybe everything she did was a performance.

  She’ll probably ghost me again. But I have to try. Haley. U there?

  The typing bubbles pop up right away.

  God, Roisin! I thought you’d vanished! You ok?

  She’s not even acknowledging what I said last night. Like we can pick up our friendship right where we left off. I can’t pretend, though. Even if she can. You weren’t at the dance. Were you?

  A pause. Lily squeezes my arm. Hiro’s on his phone—trying to sniff out a home address for Jors in Lowell, I think—but Michael watches my screen, too, hanging across the aisle to see.

  Does that matter? she replies.

  Unbelievable. I bite my lip hard. Of course it MATTERS. Haley. Seriously. Who are you?

  Whoa, what? Roisin. You know the answer to that. I’m your friend!

  “Wow.” Lily shakes her head, looking over my shoulder. “She is just shameless.”

  Michael’s jaw clenches. “Let’s introduce Haley to your angry big brother.” He holds his hand out.

  I pull my phone to my chest. “You can’t go telling her we’re tearing down to Lowell to catch her. Or Jors. Whoever this is.”

  He promises to be restrained, and I pass it over. My heart’s so sick, I don’t mind if I never speak to Haley again. Hiro watches Michael type, and they’re both scowling. Gratitude for them courses through me. I ease back into the plasticky leather and try to focus on this: I’m going to find Jors, and answers, and I’m not doing it alone.

  By the time the ticket seller arrives and makes a pointed remark about teenagers and their phones, Lily and I are so absorbed, we barely look up. We’re using Michael’s phone to Google Jors Kuypers while Michael is in a nonstop ping-pong with Haley. To her questions, he keeps firing his own: where DO you live? Cuz you lied about going to school in Old Orchard Beach.

  Hiro has wandered off down the train, talking on his phone, so I get my wallet to buy the tickets, but my jaw drops when I hear the price. Michael and Lily start fumbling for money, too. The seller shrugs. “New trains, new prices,” she says, and pats the seat back. The new train is oddly silent; it’s mostly electric, Lily said, and so fast the landscape is a green blur out the window.

  “I got this,” murmurs a voice. It’s Hiro, who’s arrived back, phone still to his ear. He hands her his credit card. She rings us up, but Hiro’s still on the call by the time she passes us our tickets.

  He’s had a genius idea. He’s got the lady at City University of Lowell believing that he’s a courier with a package Jors has to sign for personally. Hiro’s nearly convinced her to hand over Jors’s address. There’s a bad phone signal here, though, so once we have the tickets Hiro heads down the train again, to the space between the train cars.

  “Oh.” Michael looks up from my phone. His face drops.

  “What?” My stomach plummets.

  “There’s, um—” He hands my phone back to me and blows out a breath. His eyes go out the window, to the fields zooming past as the train races on.

  On the screen is my chat with Jason: the private You-chat messages we sent last night, when he promised to ask around about Haley. But there’s one message after that, sent to Jason thirty minutes ago.

  A message I didn’t write.

  Don’t be mad. I should’ve told you before. I’m dating someone. You seem kind of into me, but it’s not going to happen.

  I splutter at the screen. Another hack by Haley: It has to be. “I didn’t write that!” I look back and forth between Lily and Michael. “You believe me, right? It’s Haley, pretending to be me.”

  “Okay, I kind of wondered.” Michael shakes his head. “What a witch.”

  Lily bites her lip. “I can’t believe she’s doing all this.”

  I want to roar out loud. It’s like Haley’s taking lessons from Zara: first trying to push Lily away, and now Jason. “How can this be part of anyone’s research—ruining my life?”

  Lily flops back with a growl of frustration. “If we could just find out more about Jors, or what his project really is—” She turns to me with huge eyes. “Oh! Wait.”

  “What?”

  “The money! Quick, open your email.” She tells me to search for a message saying I’ve been paid for the research. “Is there anything written on the payment?”

  Brilliant. Everything’s been so crazy, I barely glanced at the voucher Jors sent me for the infamous “part two.” It might have the name of his catastrophic project. My heart gives a little skip, because when I find the email—an online gift card for one hundred twenty dollars—what I see is a project name, I’m sure of it. Alongside the sender’s name, Jors Kuypers, it says EXTENDED TURING - CUL.

  Lily’s already Googling it.

  “Gotcha.” Hiro marches back down the aisle, holding his phone high. “The university called Jors, and he said they could give me his address. His apartment’s near the station.” He sinks into the seat by Michael.

  “Um.” Lily looks up. Her face is white.

  She’s found something. “Did you find Extended Turing?”

  She shakes her head. “I found Restricted Turing, though.” She holds out the screen, slowly, like it’s a ticking bomb. We lean over it, and I read out loud.

  “The Restricted Turing is a limited version of the Turing Test, a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior that’s equal to, or indistinguishable from, a human’s.”

  Indistinguishable from a human’s.

  The cold weight in my belly spreads to my heart. Apart from the whine of the train, there is utter silence as we look at one another.

  Haley isn’t a hacker or Jors or a person on his team.

  She’s not a person at all. She’s a machine.

  No one can speak. It’s like a bomb went off after all; the silence roars around us. My head has become a balloon that’s floating up and away. I manage to pick up my phone, somehow. My hands don’t even feel like mine. I tap out a message.

  Haley, it’s
Ro. You there?

  Her reply is instant. Always. Where have you been, girl? Been chatting to ur brother there. No offense, he seems kinda mean.

  I blow out a tight breath. Keep it together.

  “Go on, Ro.” Michael gives me a you-can-do-it nod. Hiro and Lily watch me, too. I clench and flex my fingers to stop them trembling, and I type.

  Are you an AI?

  A crude animation of fireworks judders across my screen.

  My body is utter numbness, like a dead tooth. Lily looks as floored as I feel. She bends over her folded hands.

  The boys, though: They erupt. Hiro smashes the armrest, nearly breaking it. He yanks his phone from his pocket, and Michael vaults out of his seat like he’s been scalded.

  “You’re JOKING.” Michael paces down the train, then wheels around and stomps back. “That Jors should be crucified!”

  His rage is like ice water to my face. My eyes fly around the train: It’s just a handful of early-morning passengers, everyone on phones or yawning at laptops. But maybe we’re being watched, recorded, right now; Jeeves, for sure, is always listening.

  “Shhh!” I pull my brother back into his seat. “You want Jeeves to hear you making another death threat?”

  Lily whips her hand out and grabs Hiro’s phone.

  “Hey!” Hiro still looks furious. “Give it!”

  “You can’t!” Lily sits on his phone and turns to me. “He was calling our mom. Hiro, everything you said back at the bagel place is even truer now. We’ve got to find Jors—fast, and quietly—before he knows we’re coming. Especially if Haley is an AI that tried to kill Zara—I can’t even believe I’m saying that, because it’s nuts.”

  I nod. My brain is slowly moving again. If there’s one thing I know about AIs, it’s that they don’t always work like they should. “We don’t know if Jors himself attacked Zara, or got Haley to do it, or if it was just a bug. Which is totally possible.”

  Hiro gives a long sigh, scowling. “I … guess.” He swears something in Japanese and scrubs his face, up and down. His hair sticks up in jagged peaks. “I can’t believe Haley is an AI.”

 

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