Immoral Code

by Lillian Clark

  “Clear?” she asked.

  I peered through the window. “Yup,” I said, and left my post to join her.

  Nari plugged the flash drive into one of the computer’s USB ports and opened the file I’d loaded on it. This was the easy part, printing Santiago’s fake Foster Innovations employee ID. The hard part had been the hours it’d taken me to make the thing. Graphic designer, I was. Magician, I was not. The hologram wasn’t real. The magnetic strip and QR code were fake rather than existing ones lifted from the FI system, since using those might—inadvertently, of course—frame an actual FI employee. But at a glance, hell, under pretty close scrutiny, it looked damn good.

  I turned the ID printer on, and we let it warm up. Nari saved the ID image into its queue and hit print.

  Yep, damn good.

  She printed a spare, just in case, then went to eject the drive, but I stopped her.

  “Wait,” I said. I reached for the mouse and added five more image files to the printer’s queue. She cocked her head in question, and I wiggled, waggled?, wriggled? my eyebrows at her. “Just in case.”

  Star wipe to the next Tuesday, March twelfth, seventeen days left in the countdown and my friend Madeline and me walking down the hall toward my locker after pottery, our last class of the day.

  “You meeting Nari this afternoon?” Maddie asked. She leaned against the next locker as I loaded my chem and AP English books into my bag.

  “Yeah.” I’d have told her we were headed to Marty’s Closet, but since I couldn’t invite Maddie along and she loves the place almost as much as me, I didn’t. “What about you?”

  “Driving down to Eugene to see Emily.”

  Emily is Maddie’s girlfriend, a year older and studying…something at UO. “Kick-ass,” I said, and shut my locker. We wove our way through the crowded hall toward to the main doors. “Did she stick with Design this time?”

  Madeline laughed. “No. She’s officially ‘undeclared.’ Her adviser told her to stop switching her major after the third time. This semester she’s taking everything from a business management class to sculpture with some intro to history and biology sprinkled in. Dropped calc last week, though, so she’s crossed engineering off her list at least.”

  “A Renaissance woman!” I cheered.

  “Ha, yeah,” Madeline said. “Or just fickle as hell. She’s waiting to feel inspired by something.”

  “Hey. That is capital-V Valid.” We reached the door and I used my hip to shove it open. “Tell her I say hey. And maybe see if there are any cool shows or anything we could see down there this weekend.”

  “Will do.”

  Bellamy and Nari waited out front beneath Nari’s umbrella. They waved, we waved back. Maddie peeled off toward the parking lot, in a hurry to get on the road toward Eugene, and I joined Nari and Bells under the umbrella.

  “Ready for this?” Nari asked, beaming. “This” was a search for, drumroll, props. I was neon-level excited.

  “Does a chow have a blue tongue?”

  “I dunno, do they?”

  I smiled wide. “Yup!”

  It was drizzling. Drizzling. What a ridiculous word. Though I guess it’s better than saying “the fat gray air fizzes all over you like it’s telling you some pointless and infuriatingly boring story and spitting while it talks.” Because brevity.

  “How’s Maddie?” Bellamy asked.

  “Good. Going to visit Emily.” I looked around. “Keag and Santiago didn’t want to come?”

  We started toward the parking lot and my dad’s car. He’d let me borrow it that day, like he did plenty of days, since he likes to ride his bike to work anyway. Keagan and San are the only of us with their own cars, but San’s is a two-seater, which leaves Keag to shuttle us all around most of the time, or at least when he isn’t working. My parents offered to buy me one, ’cause I’m privileged like that, which sounds shitty, I know, but shittier is not recognizing that I’m privileged. I asked them to spend the money on marriage counseling instead, or to put it in my Europe fund. They went with the fund. Nari’s parents can afford to buy her a car but won’t because they’re very much “the world doesn’t owe you anything; earn it yourself” and “just because we have money doesn’t mean you do” people.

  “San’s teaching swim lessons,” Bellamy answered, and looked to Nari for Keagan’s whereabouts.

  I jumped off the cement retaining wall that separates the slope of the school’s lawn from the parking lot. Bells jumped after me while Nari crouched and stepped down daintily in her skirt. We rehuddled under the umbrella, and Nari shrugged. I widened my eyes at Bells. She widened hers back. Because

  (1) Nari always knew where Keagan was.

  (2) That’s it. They’re basically conjoined. Nari and Keagan. Narigan.

  “So…,” I started. We kept walking, narrowing to single file with me in front and Nari in the middle to pass between the cars. “What’s that about? The shrug.”

  I knew they’d been fighting. What with Keagan hating this whole idea and all. But it wasn’t fighting fighting. At least not what I’d call fighting. Voices screeching, doors slamming, tires squealing as the car ripped away in a cloud of selfishness and abandonment. But a burnt sienna sort of fighting, teetering between a tangerine-colored normal and a sludgy discordant brown.

  “I don’t know,” Nari said. “Maybe I don’t care where Keagan is right now.”

  “But you always care,” Bellamy said behind her.

  “Well, so, I’m taking a break.”

  “From?” I asked.

  “Caring?” she said. “At least about trying to change his mind.”

  I glanced back. Nari watched the ground, carefully avoiding the puddles between the cars to keep her shoes dry. Bellamy watched Nari, looking guilty. I guess I could’ve said something, but I didn’t know what, if anything, would help.

  I stopped short in the lane in front of my dad’s Honda. Nari bumped into my back. “Oh, for—” I groaned. There was a condom on the antenna. Again.

  “Fantastic!” Nari said, sarcastic. “Nothing like a bit of light harassment to round out the day.”

  I reached into my bag and ripped a blank piece of paper out of a notebook. “Bully Lite,” I said, using the paper to pull the condom off and throw it on the ground without touching it. “Misogyny for calorie counters.”

  “Diet Sexism,” Bellamy added. “All the flavor of torment with none of the guilt.”

  Nari glared down at the condom, nose wrinkled in disgust. “Barret?”

  “Barret, Derrick, Martin.” I unlocked the car. “Who even cares anymore?” Condoms on my dad’s car and in my locker, wrapped those times at least. A picture that made the rounds every so often, some porn star with my head photoshopped on her body. The rumors that resurfaced every few months like someone was spinning a chore wheel of who to harass and I was one of the brightly colored wedges.

  And spare me the “you do it to yourself” argument. Trust me, I’ve heard it. “If only you’d smooth your edges a bit, Reese,” my mom would say, gesturing to my hair and clothes and me in general. “You could at least try to fit in. No one’s making you wear such a big target on your back.” For real, folks. My mother. The queen of throwing boulders inside her glass house while standing on a soapbox made of toothpicks and adultery.

  And even better than her acting like I earn my own harassment? Like she has any room to criticize how I conduct my life? I’m the one who caught her.

  You think the idea of walking in on your parents is bad? Try doing it when the man in the bed isn’t your dad.

  “I care,” Nari said, opening the passenger door. She shook the rain off her umbrella and collapsed it before climbing into the car. We closed our doors in three metered beats. I started the car and waited, letting it heat up.

  “Which is noble, Narioka Diane. But also p
ointless. Remember what happened when I reported that picture? I’ll give you a hint. It rhymes with ‘schmothing.’ So it seems like there’s two options.” I flipped on the windshield wipers. “One, spend a bunch of energy trying to get Barret in trouble for crap I can’t prove he did, thereby proving to people whose opinions I already don’t care about that I’m not actually a slut. Which is doubly shitty because that’s like acknowledging I’ve been slut-shamed and that being a ‘slut,’ as in a female person who likes to have sex, is something worth feeling ashamed about. Sprinkle in the choice to either keep my being ace out of it, which means erasing part of myself, or add it to the conversation and open myself up to a bunch of aphobic bullshit, and it’s triply shitty.

  “Or, second option: Ignore it. Bide my time. And in a few short months, never look back.”

  “Okay,” Nari said, pulling her lip gloss out of her bag. She flipped down the visor to use its mirror and gave me a quick Dr. Okada side-eye. “Or third option, you finally let me use d0l0s.”

  I cranked up the heater and held my hands in front of the vents, funneling the warming air up my jacket’s sleeves. “If I ever want their identities sold or to have them framed for murder or cyberespionage or something, I’ll let you know.”

  I pulled into the parking lot at Marty’s Closet, and we piled out. On a list of Reese’s Favorite Places, this one, being a costume shop–slash–consignment store stuffed full of amazingness, was like number four. Which was extra nice right then as the latest Barret strike had left me feeling like my whole body was covered in one of those peel-off face masks that I’d left on too long.

  Marty, or whoever the actual buyer was, as I don’t know if Marty is even a real person, culled the best and the weirdest from the armies of old tracksuits and mom jeans that usually end up in thrift stores, stocking only the finest of oddities alongside some choice new stuff. Case in point, that day the mannequins in the window were dressed as an authentic vintage disco dancer; an exorbitantly priced stormtrooper; an utterly inauthentic, utterly latex, utterly X-rated nurse; and basically me: leggings with a loud and colorful print, oversized tank with a kick-ass graphic, vintage waist-length leather jacket, and scuffed suede riding boots. Though my ankle boots weren’t suede and had those rad neon-colored stretchy laces that curl up all tight so they don’t need to be tied. Thanks, eBay!

  We walked through the door into the dry warmth of the shop, and my skin relaxed. Like peeling off the mask all at once, revealing that deliciously clean feeling beneath it. The left wall was a majesty of wigs. Short, long, curled. Blunt bangs, shaggy, A-line. Black, brunette, blond, red, purple, green, rainbow. More costumed mannequins lined the other walls on a shoulder-high shelf. There was an old-fashioned deep-sea diver, an eighties punk rocker, a mod princess, a cop. Racks of clothes and spinning displays with an incredible assortment of additions and accessories crowded the floor.

  I went for the wigs, Nari for the fake eyelashes, Bellamy for the masks.

  “What do you think?” Bellamy asked, voice muffled by the full unicorn head she wore.

  Nari clapped, demurely, like a beauty queen. “Glorious.”

  Bells pulled the mask off and brushed her staticky hair from her face. “Hard to see out of, though. And breathe in,” she said, then walked away.

  Nari held up a set of neon-orange lashes with gold stars glued to the tips. “What do you think? My new everyday wear?”

  “Do it,” I said. “I bet you the glitter wishes of a thousand mischievous pixies that the following day no fewer than six underclassmen will be wearing them.”

  “If I’m going to start a trend, I’d rather do it with these.” She grabbed a set of chrome lashes with matching press-on nails from the display.

  “Those would get you five thousand glitter pixie wishes.”

  “Deal.”

  Bellamy came back, now wearing an epic tiara and a pair of demon fairy wings, and asked, “What’s the plan?”

  “The plan”—Nari plucked a wand with purple fluff and a glittery plastic star out of a bin and handed it to Bellamy—“is for Reese to wander, to steep, to season, to await Inspiration with a capital I.”

  Inspiration. For the part of the plan I was, as previously mentioned, neon-level excited for. Performance art as distraction. The chance to have an entirely purposeful public meltdown.

  I wandered, trailing my fingers along the racks of costumes and clothing, skirting the spinners and other displays. Until I saw the bottles of fake blood.

  I picked one up, handle looped over my finger, and held it up for Nari and Bells to see. “Inspiration achieved.”

  Simple right-to-left wipe to Thursday, March twenty-first, and a sunny-ish late afternoon in my backyard with Nari, eight days till the doing of the deed.

  “How much did these set the slush fund back?” I asked, curling the clear plastic earpiece over my ear. I set the small two-way radio she’d given me to the right channel and clipped it to the pocket of my jacket. We’d all been pitching in what we could to cover the expenses of this scheme: my props, San’s disguise, gas and supplies for the trip, the hotel room in San Francisco, and, apparently, spy gear for her and Santiago.

  Backing away across my yard, Nari put on her headset and pulled the mic down in front of her mouth. I heard the click of her radio turning on, followed by her voice in my ear: “Like eighty bucks.”

  I lifted my mic to my mouth, pressed the button to speak, and said, “Not bad, Dr. Okada.”

  She dropped into a quick curtsy, then finished crossing the lawn.

  Speaking of money, aka the whole point of this plan, why worry about a slush fund at all, right? Why scrimp? Why not go all in on a few credit cards in preparation for taking as much from Foster as we want? Why not enjoy an advance on those ill-gotten gains? Also, why stop there? Why not a backpack of bullion for each of us, slung over our five separate shoulders, heavy beneath five separate satisfied glances back, as each of us boards our plane/train/bus/ferry toward our separate corners of the earth, where we’ll hide, swaddled in luxury, until it’s safe to reunite and plan our next job?

  Well, because we’re not greedy thieving assholes; we’re opportunistic thieving avengers! For real, though, the money isn’t the point. The point is Bellamy going to MIT, which, yeah, takes money. A lot of it. Also screwing over Bells’s dad for screwing over her and her mom, though this part is more “perk” than “purpose.”

  Really, that’s it. And I’m cool with that. I don’t need the money. Bells does.

  “Why don’t I get one of these?” I asked.

  She turned on her toe to face away from me, skirt flaring as she spun. “Because you are the bait. And bait doesn’t wear a wire.”

  I pressed the little button again. “Nope. Try again. The bait always wears a wire. Or, if we’re going with fishing, you know, a hook.”

  “Fine. The distracting spectacle never wears a wire.”

  “In case I get caught.”

  I watched her back. She stilled, staring at the fence along the back of my yard that needed new stain, or the neighbor’s tree across the alley or something. A light click preceded her voice. “Yeah. In case you get caught.”

  That was a fun thought. Orange. Like kumquats and, uh, oranges. And jumpsuits.

  “So. What is my plan? To, you know, not get caught.”

  Nari turned around to look at me from across the yard. “You just need to give San enough time to get in unnoticed, since that’s when the lobby’ll still be full. After that…” She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. Run?”

  “Run.”

  “Yeah. And hope they don’t chase you.”

  Pixel fade to midmorning Sunday, March twenty-fourth, also known as five days until The Thing That Shall Not Be Named, but only because we couldn’t agree on a name, and when I’d get to use that fake blood, huzzah! Tomorrow we’d leave for Redwoo
d National Park, where we’d be “camping” all “week” for “spring break.” Okay, not all of those quotes were strictly necessary, but you get the idea. Camping was a cover. We’d stay a night for authenticity and to break up the drive, then move on.

  We sat around Bellamy’s little four-person kitchen table, Keagan in a chair pulled over from the living room, each of us nursing some version of coffee courtesy of Nari, munching on bagels courtesy of Bellamy’s mom, who was at work, and stared at blueprints.

  Yes, actual blueprints. Or, well, copies. Plus security-guard schedules, employee records, timetables, Robert Foster’s personal schedule, and that of every person connected to it.

  “So,” Keagan said, smiling like an idiot, laying it on thick. “How’s everyone’s morning been so far? Mine’s been—” He gave us a thumbs-up, winked, and clicked his tongue. “I ate pancakes for breakfast.” He turned to Nari and repeated, “Pan-cakes,” enunciating carefully. She grinned into the plastic lid of her coffee cup, not meeting his eye. “Perfect, poofy, pillowy pancakes. Oh, and I had some juice. Green juice, in case you guys were wondering.”

  “And maybe some coffee?” I asked. “Other than that extra-syrup, extra-whip, extra-shot, extra-rapid-heartbeat mocha latte?”

  “Why, yes, Reese! I did!” He looked himself up and down, patting his chest like he was searching for something. “Does it show?”

  Bellamy and Nari giggled. I rolled my eyes.

  Smiling, San shook his head. “You’re vibrating, dude.”

  “Hey, if I’m going to be some hard-core getaway driver, the least I can do is give it my manic best, right?” He smiled too wide. “Right?”

  “Right,” Bellamy echoed. She eyed the blueprint spread out on the table, its corners held down with random junk: a bright red stapler, a Darth Vader bobblehead, an AP Physics book, and an actual paperweight, a glass sphere with a rendition of the solar system frozen inside. “Where do we start?”