While Peter and Kat joked about how their families would react to their disappearances, Jackie people-watched to fill the time.
The parlor buzzed with students. It was close enough to Ravensburg’s town center to attract a crowd, but far enough to require a car to get there, so most of the customers walking through the door were older teenagers with car keys dangling from their fingertips and the occasional younger sibling trailing behind them.
Over half of the students wore uniforms, which wasn’t a surprise considering how Ravensburg had a reputation for well-funded schools. The largest in the small town, Ravensburg University Prep, was involved in the same sports league as Brookwood’s. Jackie remembered Jay laughing at how bad their basketball team was. Sure, Ravensburg Prep was never any good, but no one denied that their jerseys were cool.
“Okay, listen closely kids.” Peter set his elbows on the sticky table and folded his fingers together. “I’m about to spill some major tea here.”
Jackie cringed. “Please don’t.”
“No.” Kat shook her head and stuck the spoon into her bowl of ice cream. “You absolutely cannot pull off that phrase.”
Jackie was nearly positive she’d seen Kat conceal a grin.
“Out of all the crazy rumors these idiots could come up with, the one about Kat and I running away together caught fire? I mean—don’t get me wrong—I could do much better, but considering my current school reputation, that’s got to be the best compliment I’ve received in years.” Peter lowered his hands, eyes sparkling at the mere idea of this alternate reality. “I thought for sure people would throw a party to celebrate my disappearance.”
Jackie took another bite of strawberry ice cream. The image of Peter’s locker popped into her mind, but she didn’t want to ruin this for him. “There was one girl who was really concerned about you.” Jackie set her bowl down. “Short hair, book club.”
Peter frowned as though he had to fetch her name from the deep recesses of his mind. “Oh, her.” A short chuckle. “You guys wouldn’t believe it. She reads so slow. And she wears those stupid socks all the time. You know, the long ones with those weird designs.” He pointed to his ankles, encouraging Jackie and Kat to imagine them.
Kat was about to take another bite of ice cream, but she stuck her spoon back into her bowl and slammed it onto the table. “What’s your problem?” Her voice wasn’t sharp. It was more of a firm pry than a jab. “And what’s your problem with everyone else?”
Peter drew lines through the ice cream with his disposable wooden spoon. Jackie wasn’t sure what flavor it was, but it looked plain. Butter pecan maybe?
No, most likely vanilla.
The smile never disappeared from Peter’s face, but something was off. Kat must have sensed it too, because the next time she spoke, her voice was softer than before. “If you want people at school to treat you better, maybe you should stop talking trash about them on your blog.” Kat pointed her spoon at him. “I’m still not going to forgive you for calling me an entitled feline.”
“With a fake smile.”
Kat blinked. “What?”
“I called you an entitled feline with a fake smile.” He stopped playing with his ice cream. “I was at least right about the second part, wasn’t I?”
Kat’s eyes fell to the bowl in front of him. “You not gonna eat that?”
Peter shrugged. “It’s been a while since I last had ice cream.”
“How long is a while?” Jackie asked.
Peter jammed his spoon into the ice cream and raised his chin. “Almost two years.”
“Two years?” Jackie’s eyes doubled in an instant. “I practically live off this stuff.”
“Now that,” Kat said, taking another bite, “is probably the only thing we have in common.”
Peter scooped a bite of ice cream onto his spoon, but something stopped him from raising it to his lips. Jackie wanted to know what that something was. Maybe her interest in understanding Peter was because of the game. Maybe it wasn’t. But would it hurt to ask?
“Why’d you order if you’re not gonna try it?” Jackie said.
“Kat’s the one who ordered. But who said I wasn’t?” Peter lifted the spoon halfway to his mouth, chest-level. “It’s just weird. I feel like I gave up on ice cream a long time ago.”
“Yeah?” Kat asked. “Why’s that?”
“It’s not healthy, and unlike most kids, I actually care about putting a normalized drug into my body.” His gaze was fully focused on the curve of ice cream resting on his spoon. It was the most ridiculously shy scoop of ice cream. A little speck of white on a wooden spoon. But the boy looked at it as though the bite were about to attack him. Was he afraid? What was there to be afraid of?
Peter stuck the spoon into his mouth.
Jackie and Kat continued eating, keeping Peter in their peripheral vision.
“Wow.” He chuckled as he eyed the empty spoon. “Interesting.”
Silence blanketed the table. Jackie tried to silence her thoughts, but they wouldn’t disappear. The memories of Peter flooded her memory. He’d lost Nicholas. His room was neat and organized and practically sparkling, but it didn’t seem like his mind was. The memory she’d received from the first level’s capsule gave her the impression that something had changed. What happened to the old Peter Moon?
“Okay, let’s say we win the game, which we will.” Peter stuck his spoon back into the vanilla ice cream and pushed the bowl away. “It sounds like we restart the day and forget that any of this even happened. But what if we lose?”
“The jerk has a point.” Kat shut her eyes, considering the possibility. “The day won’t be reversed. Which means—”
“We disappear, to put it lightly.” Peter wasted no time. “And Jackie stays in this timeline.”
“No.” Jackie ate her last bite of ice cream, but it took all of her strength to swallow. The idea of being stranded in a world where she was the only person alive to know about Capsule left her sick. Yet at the same time, the thought of losing her memories wasn’t pleasant either. She was conflicted, but she knew one thing for sure—she wasn’t losing the game, especially not after everything they’d sacrificed to get here. “That’s not happening. We got this.”
All they had to do was complete the levels. Three students from Brookwood High challenging an invisible mission together. Whether they hated each other or not, they were a team.
Jackie couldn’t stop a smile from appearing on her face.
All three of them were smiling.
A buzz. Kat broke their gaze to check her phone.
“Who’s that?” Peter asked.
“It’s nothing.” Kat turned her phone off and started for the door, tossing her empty bowl and spoon into the trash bin on the way. “Shall we?”
15:05:22
THE INCREASED FREQUENCY of redwood trees towering over the SUV implied that they’d reached the northern end of Ravensburg. They sat in near-silence, nothing but the crackling of the rock radio station filling the empty space between them, but even the music had merged into the background.
Peter sat in the front this time, his head leaned against the seat belt strap, eyes closed. Sleep had overtaken him, and even a mere glance in his direction made Jackie tired. The bags under his eyes, usually cloaked by his motivated nature, were now bolder than ever—his defining feature. In his left hand was Jackie’s phone, which he had previously been using to navigate before she’d said, “I know where to go from here.”
Jackie concealed her own yawn and focused on the road. The capsule better be somewhere obvious.
The Level Four pop-up had read QUASSO DRIVE. Jackie had been on the lengthy road before during the occasional family trips to Clay River in Grovestown. Unfortunately they were still an hour away from the start of the road, and once they would arrive, the capsule could be located anywhere along Quass
o Drive for miles.
Kat rummaged through her backpack, breaking the silence. “So those power-ups I saw on the second page earlier—what do they do?”
“They’re all different. I’m pretty sure we get a new one after each level.” Jackie’s eyes widened. Right, I forgot to check for a third power-up. She turned to Peter, who rustled at the sound of their discussion. “Hey!”
Peter jolted forward, nearly dropping Jackie’s phone in the process. Now that she’d seen the bags under his eyes once, she couldn’t unsee them. He opened his mouth to question Jackie’s urgency, but the words caught in his throat when he saw Kat in the back seat. “Really? Sour Patch Kids?” Peter ran a hand along the top of his head, smoothing out his tousled hair. “Way to rot your teeth.”
Kat zipped her backpack, chewing while she spoke. “It’s worth the temporary pleasure.”
Jackie frowned. “Peter.”
“Yeah?” He turned Jackie’s phone on and typed her password. Both Peter and Kat had memorized it by now. “What’s the problem, Player?”
Kat stifled a laugh, and Jackie rolled her eyes. “I think there’s a new power-up. Can you check?”
Peter swiped to the second page of Capsule, tapped the badge labeled THREE, and read the power-up description aloud. “Freeze time for five minutes. Surroundings will halt, but the countdown shall remain active.” He raised his head, humming as he gathered his thoughts. “The first two power-ups only cost one hour to activate, but this one costs two. Don’t you think it’s sketchy how we haven’t had to use any of these yet?”
“Not sure.” Kat tossed the bag of Sour Patch Kids onto the floorboard of the SUV. “We really should though. Freezing time? I’d love to see that one in action. Remind me what the other ones do?”
Peter tapped the first two badges. “Bonus Memory and Battery Recharge.”
“Bonus Memory?” Kat asked. “Like an extra level or something?”
“Experience a bonus memory from another mind. The memory of interest must be stated upon activation.” Peter shook his head. “Seems more like reading someone’s mind. Seeing into their past.”
“That’s sick.” Kat laughed. “But like—the good kind of sick.”
Jackie could hardly focus on their conversation. Peter was right. Something was off about the fact that they hadn’t used any of the power-ups. Normally a game introducing new features would require the players to actually use those features for success, but they hadn’t needed them. It was almost like they’d been playing the game on easy mode.
“It’s a pattern, isn’t it?” Peter caught Jackie’s eyes, breaking her train of thought.
A speed limit sign appeared around a curve in the road. Jackie pressed the gas pedal harder, realizing she’d been driving ten miles too slow. “What’s a pattern?”
“Level One was my memory, Level Two was Kat’s, and then Level Three switched back to me.” Peter counted the levels on his fingers. “If the memories alternate between us, the next one’s probably about Kat too.”
“Maybe.” Kat’s raspy voice shattered Peter’s enthusiasm. “But if there’s really a pattern, then how does the fifth level work?”
Peter opened Jackie’s phone again, searching the game as though he might find evidence to calculate an answer. Maybe Level Five was some kind of boss, or perhaps one of Jackie’s memories.
If it were mine, Jackie thought, what would it be about?
All of this thinking about the game was growing exhausting. Jackie turned the radio volume up, forcing her thoughts to clear.
I see your head down there, scared to be unaware.
Jackie recognized the Cuffed Up song as Danger, Danger. Hearing the band brought her back to the day Peter and Kat had first been announced missing, when she arrived home from an afternoon run listening to Cuffed Up’s song Small Town Kid. She hadn’t realized how much her life had changed since then. At the time she’d known nothing more than Peter’s and Kat’s names, and now she was driving them hours away from home when she’d normally be playing Mystery Bullets with Eugene, blanketed under the safety of her glowing bedroom’s LED lights.
What’s worse than the unknown? Breaking that status quo of yours.
“Oh damn.” Kat’s voice raised a pitch, freeing the tightness from Jackie’s shoulders. “I like this song.”
You hate, we love each other, don’t we?
You hate, we love each other, slowly?
Jackie grinned as Kat sang along with the lyrics. “You listen to Cuffed Up too?” She glanced into the back seat before Peter tapped her on the shoulder.
“Eyes on the road, Jackie.”
She grinned and increased the music’s volume, drowning them with the lyrics. As Jackie turned around a few more curves in the road, she thought back to the new memories she’d obtained from the past three levels. She couldn’t say she knew Peter or Kat, but it was crazy to consider how much she’d learned about them in only a matter of hours, and despite how hard she tried to deny it, she truly hadn’t ever wanted to learn more about anyone as much as she wanted to learn more about Peter and Kat.
Relate? To one another, can we?
We’re both dangerous.
Peter dropped Jackie’s phone onto his lap, unable to focus on his Capsule research with the increased volume. “Great.” He nearly shouted over the music. “More noise—exactly what this world needs.”
“True,” Jackie said, trying to avoid another one of Peter’s tangents. She failed.
“You know what I listen to? Lo-fi. It’s just interesting enough to draw slight attention to its existence and increase focus, but not quite interesting enough to distract you from what you’re working on.” Peter waved his pointer finger in the air. “Perfect for productivity. I support the hype.”
Kat’s phone chimed from the back seat. She stopped singing along with Danger, Danger. “You’re such a nerd.”
“And you, Your Honor, are texting when our lives are literally threatened by the clock.” Peter glanced back at her. “Who is it?”
Kat typed on her phone keyboard. “It’s nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, let me see.”
“You were the one complaining about privacy earlier.”
Peter reached into the back seat and ripped the phone from Kat’s grip.
“Hey!” Kat swiped for her phone, but Peter leaned forward against the dashboard—out of her reach—and scrolled through her screen. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Jackie tried to read the text from over Peter’s shoulder, but the font was too small from her distance and she knew she had to focus on the road. She instead searched Peter’s tense expression for a clue as to what the messages were about. With every glance between Peter and the windshield, his jaw dropped lower into an eventual sigh.
“You monster.”
Peter tossed the phone back to Kat and folded his arms onto the dashboard to use them as a pillow for his head.
“What happened?” Jackie waited for Kat or Peter to speak up, but neither said a word, so she repeated her question louder. “What happened?”
“Kat.” Peter’s arms muffled his voice. “I thought you said he let you borrow it.” He raised his head to turn off the radio, and the lyrics paused during the final repeat of the chorus.
You hate, we love each other—
The car was quiet now. Too quiet.
Jackie faced Peter. “Borrow what?”
He pointed to the windshield. “Focus on the road.”
“Fine.” Jackie gripped the steering wheel tighter. What a jerk. She continued driving, careful to slow before every curve. She tossed the word borrow around inside her head, picturing Peter’s face from earlier and trying to decipher what kind of text conversion could possibly concern him so much.
Jackie slowly pressed the brake pedal, meeting another sharp curve in the roa
d.
No.
She moved her foot back onto the gas pedal to speed up.
There’s no way.
“It’s not like Owen suspects me or anything.” Kat leaned her head against the window. “It’s really not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Peter banged a fist against the window. “We’re joyriding. We don’t even have a proper excuse for doing this. What are we supposed to say? A magical video game made us steal it?”
“No one’s gonna find out.”
“Well we don’t know that!”
Jackie gulped.
I’m driving a stolen vehicle.
This entire time she’d been driving a car that not only wasn’t hers, but hadn’t been borrowed with proper consent either. She took deep breaths to suppress the oncoming panic. “I don’t even have my license yet.”
Kat leaned forward, set her hand on Jackie’s armrest, and spoke smoothly into her ear. “Everything’s fine. Just get us to Quasso Drive. There’s hardly anyone out here anyway.”
“Shit.” Peter covered his face with his hands.
“What?” Kat removed her hand from the armrest, disappearing into the back seat. “Oh.”
Jackie’s entire body went tense. “What? Did Owen find out?”
“Just focus on the road, Jackie.” Kat took a deep breath. “Just focus on the road.”
And Jackie saw it.
Oh, she saw it.
In the rearview mirror was the image of a police car. It was right behind them, threatening their entire plan. Threatening everything and everyone. The deep breaths no longer calmed her. She panted, hands turning white from the pressure of her grip on the wheel.
“Calm down. We’ll be fine if we don’t draw attention to ourselves.” Kat spoke with no emotion, nothing but a robotic voice of reason. “You know how to drive. You’ve gotten us this far, so just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“I don’t have a license,” Jackie muttered under her breath. “I’m driving a stolen car and I don’t have a license.”
Capsule Page 15