by C. L. Stone
After the first one took time to put together, I let go of Victor to wander off to a wall of cell phones. There were only a couple of other people in the store, so I was within sight. Victor was tapping at the new phone. I fiddled with display models.
I poked at an iPad display when another employee emerged from the back of the store. He carried a stack of cell phone cases and started loading them onto a wall unit. The face was familiar to me. I stared at him trying to figure out where I’d seen him before.
The boy must have sensed me staring because he turned. It wasn’t until I caught his full face that I remembered him being the nerd boy I’d bumped into in the waiting room of the school office the day before. Was it only yesterday?
“Hi,” I said. “You work here?”
The boy blinked at me in surprise. “Y ... yeah.” Maybe it was because of the store uniform, but he also looked distinguished. It was a good look for him to wear a polo and slacks.
“There’s school going on, isn’t there?” I asked.
His glasses shifted on his nose, sliding down a little. Part of the frame was crooked so maybe they didn’t fit right. “Y ... yes. I ... we ... I get out of school early.”
“How?”
“It’s my last year. I only needed two more classes.”
He looked so young, I would have thought he was my age, not closer to eighteen. “You’re a senior?”
“Something like that.”
I caught a glimpse of the nametag on his shirt. “Your name’s Wil?”
He touched the corner of his glasses, smudging part of the lens. “Y ... yes.”
“Can I ask you something?” This was great. He worked in a cell phone store. He ought to know. “How could someone duplicate a SIM card?”
His eyebrow arched up on his head. “You mean transfer the data from one card to the other or do you mean an actual copy?”
“I mean one person has an original and another person has a duplicate of the exact card.”
He brushed his fingers at the base of his neck. “I suppose if you had the phone. I imagine some hackers have a machine for that kind of thing.”
“What if you didn’t have the phone? Or the SIM card? What if all you had was the phone number?” It was the question that had been bugging me earlier. My phone was never out of my sight. I couldn’t believe that in the few minutes it was with Kota, it would have gone to anyone else. He wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t like Kota.
Wil shook his head. “Sounds impossible.”
“So they would need to physically duplicate the SIM card to intercept calls?”
“No. Someone can do that. It’s just hard to duplicate a SIM card without the actual SIM card.”
I tilted my head at him, reaching to brush my fingertips at his arm. “Wait, you can intercept phone calls without having the card?”
His eyes suddenly focused on my hand where I was touching him. I retracted my hand, unsure. I’d been around the guys too long, and didn’t know anything about touching. He stared back at me. “Sure. It’s actually easier if you just pick up on the phone signal.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked nervously across the room. “Are you sure you need to know this? Are you planning on hacking phones? You know it’s illegal.”
“I’m ... curious.”
“It’s kind of like cordless phones. Cell phones are similar. There’s a frequency flying through the air. All you need to have is some sort of scanner to catch the signal.”
“Will it pick up text messages, too?”
“I suppose if you could tap into the right frequency.”
“What would it look like?”
Wil gazed back around the store, as if nervous someone could overhear. “I don’t know if I should talk about it.”
“Please?” I pursed my lips, glancing back at Victor, but he was busy at the counter. I returned to Wil. “Can I tell you something?”
Wil lifted a curious eyebrow. “I guess.”
“I think someone at school has been listening in on my phone calls and intercepting my text messages. I just don’t know who.”
Wil winced. “Are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen those other kids? They’re kind of dumb.” He waved his hand in the air. “No offence. Not all of them. Not you. I mean.”
“But is it possible one of them could carry around a device that could listen in on phone calls?”
“Sure, I guess. Maybe if they had a friend that could make them one. I think I heard in the news the other week about someone carrying around what looked like a cell phone, but he was able to pick up all the phone signals around him. He also got arrested and sent to prison for like a million years.”
“So it can look like a cell phone?”
“Or a laptop. I’m sure if what you say is true, it’s some sort of electronic gadget. It wouldn’t have to be too powerful to pick up a phone signal. It just needs the right program.”
That wasn’t what I was hoping for. The school was full of students with cell phones. I was sure a few of them had tablets and other things. How could we find one device that picked up other signals among a sea of cell phones?
Wil watched me, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. “Are ... you okay, Sang?”
I straightened, startled again that he knew my name. But then, everyone at the school seemed to know. “Yes. Sorry, Wil. But thank you.”
“Any time, I guess,” he said.
I walked away and back to Victor. The assistant at the counter was finishing up the fourth cell phone. He handed the bundle to Victor, and bagged the chargers and boxes.
Victor fiddled with one of the phones. “Did you find a pink case?”
“I was looking for one?”
He passed the phone he was holding to me. “You can use the old one. I didn’t bring it with me.”
“Victor?”
“Hm?”
“What if whoever intercepted the calls didn’t duplicate the SIM card? What if he used a ... receptor phone? Like a cell phone that could pick up phone signals?”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “You mean like a scanner?”
“Yeah.”
Victor raked his fingers through his wavy hair. “I guess all he needs to do is be within range. But if we’re always on the move, then it’d be difficult. The thing would have to be near us all the time.”
“How close would he have to be?”
“Not sure. Within the same room, I think.”
I fingered the phone in my hands, unfamiliar and shiny with newness. “So if he wanted to intercept my cell phone signal with one, he’d have to follow wherever my cell phone went.”
“Right.”
“And he can follow a cell phone using the GPS tracker.”
Victor frowned. “That’s a lot of work,” he said. “That’s assuming your phone is going to be on all the time. You’ve had yours off for a while. I’m surprised this guy found my car at the spa. That was really last minute, random, and we didn’t have phones with us.”
That stopped my original train of thought, but I caught something in what he said. “So if he wanted to follow us to the spa, he had to follow us from somewhere he knew we’d be.”
“Yeah.”
“So he was at your house.”
His lips parted like he wanted to respond but he stopped short and stopped walking, too. His hand shot out, grasping the back of my head. He grabbed me, bringing me close and kissing my forehead in a quick peck. “Sang, I don’t care what Kota tells you. You’re an Academy girl.”
THE GOOD DOCTOR
Twenty minutes later, I was at the entryway to a familiar hospital building. I had the iPhone with me. Victor loaded it with the new phone numbers, and he loaded an app for Mr. Blackbourne’s emergency line, the only app on the phone.
Victor had warned me he was going to drop me off, and I needed to go inside and find Dr. Green. I wondered how he felt comfortable leaving me at the entrance, but
he said to hurry inside and I didn’t get a chance to question him.
When I crossed through the mirrored sliding glass doors, I found myself to be the old lost and alone Sang again. Despite everything they’d taught me over the weeks I’d known them, I felt braver when they were nearby.
As Victor had promised, there was a desk inside the front lobby. An elderly woman with silver hair, braided and tossed over her shoulder, addressed me. “Good morning,” she said with a pleasant smile. “Are you lost?”
“I’m looking for Dr. Green.”
“Ah, the good doctor,” she said. “One moment, dear.” She turned to her computer screen. She typed in a few letters, and clicked something with the mouse. She turned the computer screen toward me. “See this? This is where you are. This is where Dr. Green is. Looks like he’s visiting a patient. You can go see him if you’d like.”
They tracked the location of each doctor? Was I allowed to walk in on him while he was with a patient? I’d been to the hospital with my step mother a few times. That didn’t seem right. “Is he busy?”
“Never too busy, sweetheart,” she said, smiling warmly, reassuring. “Can you find your way?”
I nodded. Maybe I was wrong. “Thank you.”
She waved goodbye. Something in the ease of her smile was different than what I’d gotten from hospital staff in the past. On occasion, while my step mother was at a hospital, Marie and I had to accompany my father to see her. While the staff had been friendly, I always felt there was this barrier between us that could never be broken. We were guests.
Still, as I wandered through the quiet hallways, I occasionally passed an attendant or nurse who would pause and ask if they could help. I don’t know why, but it was sweet. It felt comfortable in the hallways. The décor itself surpassed that of other hospitals I’d been in. It wasn’t just clean; it felt like the interior was new and well maintained.
After getting turned around a couple of times, I asked a nurse upstairs for Dr. Green, and she pointed me toward an open door at the end of the hallway. I followed her directions and as I got closer, I recognized Dr. Green’s voice drifting down the hallway. I didn’t mean to pry, as I didn’t want to be invasive, but I peeked in the doorway.
“So there I was, on top of a pile of seashells, naked as a blue jay, covered in seaweed. I climbed over the top,” Dr. Green said, emphasizing by waving his hands over his head wildly. His sandy brown hair swayed in the air. “And I said, ‘Argh! What are you doing here?’”
The elderly woman in the bed soundlessly covered her mouth with her fingers and her shoulders shook with laughter. She did it so quietly, I didn’t even hear her inhale when she gulped for another breath of air between giggles.
Dr. Green laughed, resting a hand on his forehead. “You should have seen those boys. They ran so fast, you’d have thought I was the devil come to collect.”
The woman in the bed caught sight of me. She turned to Dr. Green, waving emphatically and signaling. Dr. Green turned on his heels, his doctor’s coat drifting up around his legs slightly as he spun. “Well, if it isn’t the future Mrs. Green.” He rocked his eyebrows up and turned back, winking at the woman in the bed. “Excuse me, won’t you? I have to ask my future wife where she might like to go on our first date.”
I tried to hide my surprise. I remembered Victor had once hinted that Dr. Green was a flirt. I tried not to take it personally. I told myself he was just being nice and amusing for the older woman’s benefit. Right?
The woman in the bed laughed, again without sound. She used sign language to say something to Dr. Green and he beamed, signing back and waving goodbye. I was surprised. I knew Kota and Luke communicated with sign language, but I didn’t know Dr. Green knew it, too. I had been practicing my own sign language with Luke, but Dr. Green’s and the woman’s hands were too fast for me to follow. I couldn’t figure out what they were saying.
He turned to me, hooked an arm around my shoulders, guiding me out of the room.
“What did she say?” I asked as he walked with me down the hallway.
“She said, ‘Lucky girl. Treat her right.’”
“And what did you tell her?”
Dr. Green laughed. “Well, wouldn’t you like to know?” Despite his bubbly appearance, his light green eyes were heavy with dark circles, and his chin was unshaven. The gruff look wasn’t horrible on him, but I wanted to ask him to sit down and rest since he looked so tired. He smiled at me. “Is it just you?”
“Victor doesn’t want me going with him now. There’s ... um ...” I twisted my lips, unsure of where to start talking.
“Long story?”
I nodded, losing my voice as I glanced around the corridor, wondering who was listening in.
He sighed. He squeezed me tighter by the shoulders. “Come on. The cafeteria here sells a wonderful apple pie. Love the hair by the way.”
I hid my smile as I followed Dr. Green through the corridors to a small hospital cafeteria. I let him pick out a couple of sandwiches, a couple of apple pie slices and two water bottles. I sat with him at one of the tables by the windows that overlooked a small garden between the hospital wing and another building next door.
While we ate, Dr. Green had me fill him in on what had happened since he last saw us. I got the feeling he knew some of it and mostly wanted to catch up on the last couple of hours.
“So I told him whoever it was probably followed us from his house,” I said. “Then he said he was going to get someone to go with him, but he wanted to drop me off here.”
Dr. Green nodded, licking his spoon of the last of the sugary filling he could scrape up from his apple pie dish. “Here’s what I want to know. Why tell you to get in the car the one night, and the next tell you off like he hated you?”
“That’s what I asked Victor. He just said he was crazy.”
“Crazy or not, sometimes figuring out how a person thinks will help us predict his next move.”
“Did you and Luke and the others manage to find that list of people in class?”
“Yes, and they were all accounted for today for your class, and none of them drive blue Corollas. I heard this morning from Silas that they’re checking out the cars belonging to their parents and even their grandparents. Most of those little monsters stopped texting you yesterday evening, actually.”
“Victor said they were getting replies back from ... from the guy.”
“And they sounded like nasty messages, from what I’ve heard. I’m afraid you’re going to have to deal with the fallout from that when you get to school.”
“I’ll be happy if they just give up on sending notes during class.” I sighed. “What about Mr. Blackbourne? And Kota? Did they figure out what’s going on with the fake bomb box?”
“They tracked down someone they thought had made the phone call,” he said. He spun his spoon around on his pie plate, as if trying to scrape up invisible crumbs. “But he had a reliable alibi. I think they’ve reached a dead end.”
I slid the plate with my half-eaten slice toward him.
He lit up, but checked with me about whether I was sure.
“Go ahead.”
“You don’t eat enough.”
“I can’t eat when I’m thinking.”
“Not me. I need something to keep my brain going.” He dove his spoon into the pie, picking out an apple piece and putting it to his mouth. “I think apple pie is my favorite. Although, ask me tomorrow and I might change my mind.”
I didn’t know what else to talk about. It felt like we were all at dead ends, except for Victor, and I wasn’t allowed to follow him. “Who was the lady you were talking to upstairs?”
His smile softened. “Miss Jenny? She’s a little sweetheart. She’s actually head of the Rose Society for downtown Charleston. She came in because she needed a replacement ankle bone. Hers shattered. The crazy lady was up on a ladder with a chainsaw trying to hack back one of her palm trees.”
My eyes widened. “Her? With a chainsaw?”
My lips parted in surprise and I sat back. “You’re not going to let her go up on the ladder again, are you?”
“Why not?”
“Well, because for one she just shattered her ankle.”
“Oh,” he said, and grinned. “I thought you were going to tell me she was too old.”
“That might be a good reason. Couldn’t she get someone else?”
Dr. Green shook his head, and some of the sandy hair fell into his eyes. “I’ve tried to tell her that, but she doesn’t listen. You know what she told me?”
“What?”
He curled his fingers at me to come closer. I leaned over the table. He bent toward me, looked me in the eye and said in a quiet voice, “She said the secret to long life is to never stop moving. The moment you stop, you’re dying.” He poked me in the arm and sat back. “That’s your lesson today. Expect a test tomorrow.”
I giggled a little. “Always teaching?”
“I don’t have to today,” he said. “That was just a bonus.” He polished off the last of the apple pie, licking the spoon like a lollipop. “Ready?”
“For what?”
“You’ll see.”
He collected our dishes and cleaned the table. He had me follow him through the corridors and up a couple of flights of stairs to the third floor. Down another hallway, he glanced back and forth at the names written on the white boards posted beside the doors. He came to a door without a name, opened it up and peeked inside. He opened the door further and ushered me in.
It was an empty hospital room, with a single bed beside a wide window that overlooked the parking lot and into part of downtown Charleston. I stepped quietly to the window, gazing out at busy people, again feeling the separation. Here I was, hiding from someone out there who was chasing me. I was avoiding school, and knew secret Academy things no one else would ever know. Me and them.