Elusion

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  “No, I haven’t. Why?”

  “It’s Avery,” Zoe announces, narrowing her dark eyes. “Did you see her latest vlog?”

  “No.” In fact, I make it a point to avoid Avery in all forms whenever I can.

  “You wouldn’t believe what she said about Orexis and Elusion.”

  I reach toward my pocket to grab my tablet, when Zoe places a hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t bother. Her whole site is shut down,” she explained. “Everyone is trying to locate the video, but all record of it has been wiped out, including the satellite sites that were streaming it.”

  I let out a groan. “What swill is she dishing now?”

  “Avery claimed that Orexis was involved in some sort of massive consumer deception. And then she said something about how the people responsible for harming the public wouldn’t ‘escape’ retribution or ‘elude’ justice, which isn’t even clever if you ask me.”

  “As if anyone with half a brain would believe her,” I say through clenched teeth. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

  “There’s more,” Zoe adds.

  “What else?” I ask, my eyes narrowing.

  Zoe cleared her throat. “She said that there’s an object or something inside the program that’s threatening users’ lives.”

  “Oh God,” I murmur.

  “Then Patrick had her site disabled,” she added.

  “Wait, did he tell you that?”

  Zoe raises her eyebrows, as if surprised by the sharp tone of my voice. I’m not mad at her, but I am feeling like a jerk for avoiding all of Patrick’s attempts to contact me. What if he was trying to alert me about this? What if he needed a friend and I wasn’t there for him because I was too busy acting like an idiot?

  “No. That’s what people are saying.”

  “Right,” I say, taking a deep breath.

  “Listen, Regan,” Zoe says. “Avery is in my comm class, and I know for a fact she’s determined to get into the journalism program at Northwestern. She probably figures if she makes a name for herself with a high-profile, controversial story, she’ll be totally unrejectable. I’ve been watching her numbers, and she’s gained over a million followers since she started posting vlogs relating to Elusion.”

  Suddenly, I see Avery standing at the end of the lunch line, her tray in her hands. She’s wearing her trademark horn-rimmed glasses and vintage army jacket over her uniform. Her freckled face is free of makeup, contorted into an obnoxious holier-than-thou expression as she scans the cafeteria. Our eyes meet, and she smirks as if challenging me.

  If she thinks she can slander my dad, she’s in for a rude awakening. “Someone has to stop her,” I say.

  In one swift motion, I leap off my seat and advance through the cafeteria. Ignoring Zoe’s pleas to stop, I make my way toward Avery with purposeful strides. She sets her tray down at a table of drooling groupies and crosses her arms, defiant.

  “Look who it is,” she says smugly as I step in front of her. “One half of the Orexis dog-and-pony show.”

  “What’s your problem?” I ask angrily. “It’s not enough for you to try and ruin Patrick’s news conference? This time you’ve gone too far.”

  “I’ve gone too far? Elusion is about to go live to the whole country, and your little boyfriend doesn’t give two craps that he’s hurting people with his lies!”

  “You are the liar, Avery,” I say, clenching my hands into fists. “I’m sick of your snide comments, and so is everyone else.”

  “I don’t think anyone gets sick of the truth. Just ask the millions of people who tried to download that video.”

  “You are full of shit, you know that?”

  “If that’s the case, then why did Patrick shut me down?” she snaps. “Is he worried that his precious CIT approval will get revoked when they find proof Elusion is addictive?”

  “I went to Elusion last night to see for myself if your claims were bogus, and guess what. I’m okay. See? Not addicted to anything, or on the verge of dying!”

  Avery takes a bold step forward and then another. We’re about the same height, but she outweighs me by least twenty-five pounds. Yet when she looks at me with venom in her eyes, I don’t even blink.

  “Do you know about the firewall, Regan?” she asks smugly.

  I open my mouth, praying that some solid smack talk will come out, but there’s nothing but dead air. I know what a firewall is, but something in Avery’s coy voice makes me think that’s not what she’s referring to. Even so, I can’t let on that I’m confused here.

  “What about it?”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t say.” Avery makes a fake pouty face, and the kids at her table snicker in response. “You’ll have to ask your boyfriend. His legal goons slapped me with a cease and desist order, so that means I can’t tell anyone what I know. Even you. But that shouldn’t matter, because he tells you everything, right? He wouldn’t keep a secret from you, even if it meant telling you that your father’s pet project is poisoning the minds of users. . . .”

  I don’t hear anything else that follows her insulting my dad. I also don’t know why I can’t hold back and stop myself from doing what I’m about to do. It’s just impossible not to scream “Shut up!” at Avery and slam the palms of my hands into her chest as hard as I possibly can.

  I catch her by surprise and send her staggering. She lands flat on her back, her glasses flying off her face once her head crashes against the floor. She turns to me and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her jacket, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits.

  A group of people in the lunchroom have formed a semicircle around us, excitedly yelling, “Fight, fight, fight, fight!”

  Avery gets up slowly, but I can tell by her flushed face that she’s about to lunge for me. We’re interrupted by the piercing sound of an electronic panic whistle. Mrs. Allen, a tenth-grade counselor and lunch supervisor, rushes toward us, the device dangling from a chain around her neck.

  “Ms. Welch!” she shouts at me. “Hitting and shoving are not permitted here.”

  I’m too shocked by my own behavior to reply. I’ve gotten pretty angry before, but I’ve never put my hands on anyone.

  “Avery, are you all right?” Mrs. Allen asks as she touches her hair, clearly worried the bun she’s constructed on top of her head is no longer secure.

  “Fine,” she says, though the small quiver in her lip would indicate otherwise.

  I smirk a little, thinking how easily shock can dissolve into satisfaction when you win a round against the Averys of this world. Too bad my victory is over the moment Mrs. Allen cuffs a cold, bony hand around my forearm and says, “Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going to tell her I’m sorry.”

  Principal Caldwell lets out a heavy sigh as he leans back in his chair and folds his hands into his lap. This can mean one of two things—either he’s about to give up trying to make me apologize to Avery, or he’s preparing himself for another round of Let’s Rationalize with an Angry Teenager! We’ve been playing this game in his office for almost twenty minutes now and I haven’t given in yet, so for his sake, I hope it’s option number one.

  “When it comes to violence, we have a zero-tolerance policy here. I could suspend you for what happened,” Caldwell says. “Now, I know you’re still going through a lot at home, and I’m sensitive to that. But the only way I can let you off the hook is if you apologize to Miss Leavenworth. End of story.”

  “Fine, suspend me. Anything would be better than sucking up to Avery.”

  It’s been over an hour since my hands pressed up against her chest and sent her flying to the floor. All the rage I felt then is still here, gnawing at my heart and throbbing at the base of my skull. I wouldn’t be talking to Caldwell like this if it weren’t.

  “Let me get this straight. You’d rather have a suspension on your permanent record than say two words to a girl you don’t like?”

  “Why should I tell her I’m sorry when I don’t mean it? She’s the one spreadin
g lies. She should be apologizing.”

  “Regan, according to this school’s code of conduct, Avery has the right to vlog about whatever she wants, as long as she doesn’t compromise the school.” Caldwell scratches the back of his head, his brow furrowing with frustration. “But you don’t have the right to harm her, or anyone else, just because you don’t like what they’re saying. Can’t you understand that?”

  Of course I do. His argument is more than sound. But I can’t back down. I won’t.

  “I’m not saying sorry,” I say, calmly folding my hands in my lap.

  “Okay.” Fed up, he springs from his chair and walks over to the InstaComm wall. After he presses a couple of numbers on the glass touch screen, it comes to life, revealing a vibrant image of his olive-skinned, black-haired executive assistant. “Lillian, could you patch me in to Meredith Welch, please? I need to speak with her about her daughter, Regan.”

  “Yes, Mr. Caldwell,” she replies, and then the screen goes black.

  My fingernails dig into my hands. The gnawing sensation is gone, and it now feels as though my chest is filling up with water.

  “Hold on,” I say, bolting up from my seat. “You don’t have to call my mom.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  “She’s going back to work tonight; this . . . this is only going to worry her. She’s been through enough.”

  But my attempt to reason with him is unsuccessful. “Please wait outside my office,” he says. “I’ll call you back after I’ve had a chance to speak with your mother privately.”

  I hear the sound of the automatic door sliding open. I see a message pop up on the InstaComm: Meredith Welch awaiting connection. Accept or deny?

  I reluctantly pick my bag up off the floor and slink out into the administrative office, which is filled with faculty members drinking shots of instant-brewed pod coffees and waiting for their meetings to start. My legs feel like rubber cement and I’m a little bit dizzy, so I stumble over to an acrylic bench and sit down.

  I am so, so stupid. Fighting the principal? How could I not see where that would lead? I bow my head and cover my face with my hands, imagining what Caldwell is saying to my mom right now and wondering how she’s going to react.

  Then I see a pair of polished brown boots march toward me.

  And now I’m locking eyes with Josh Heywood, who looks just as great in civilian clothes as he does in his military uniform. My lips immediately twitch up into a smile, despite the cyclone of emotions swirling inside me.

  “Mind if I sit with you?” He gestures to the empty spot on the bench.

  I scoot over to make room for him, pulling my bag in between my knees. I glance at my mom’s ugly clogs, once again embarrassed. Why couldn’t I have worn my own shoes today?

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, tucking my feet under the bench.

  “Admissions stuff.” He leans forward, pulling his tab out of his back pocket and showing me the application form that’s on the screen.

  “You’re transferring? To HSH?” My voice hits a squeaky pitch, a cross between excited and scared.

  He smirks a little bit. Damn, he is so good at noticing my every move, no matter how slight it is. I wonder if that comes with all the military training, or if he’s just paying special attention to me.

  “Yeah, Caldwell told me I could reenroll here after I served my time at the academy.”

  Reenroll. Which means he has gone to school here before.

  “Served your time? Does that mean you didn’t go there voluntarily?” I ask.

  He simply nods and starts keying in letters and numbers on his tab.

  “So what were you in for? Anything serious?”

  “Depends,” he says, avoiding my eyes. “How serious is shoving someone in the cafeteria?”

  Great. Josh has already heard about my run-in with Avery, which means it’s already all over the school intraweb. “I don’t know,” I say. “Depends how much they deserved it.”

  He laughs, and that jittery fluttering I felt at Patrick’s party is back.

  Josh whispers, “I heard some of the staff talking about you while you were in with the principal. Sounds like they think Avery had it coming.”

  “Well, she did.”

  I glance at Josh’s leg as it bobs up and down, and I grin. This small flash of nervousness chips away at his composed exterior, and I see a part of him that’s like me—a bit frightened about letting someone new and unfamiliar get close.

  “So what happened?” he asks.

  “Avery made all these false allegations against Elusion on her crappy, lame vlog, and she accused Patrick of being part of some kind of cover-up. Then she started to drag my dad’s name through the mud. The girl is just—”

  “Speaking her mind,” Josh interrupts.

  “What?” I must have misheard him. Why does he keep defending her?

  “Look, all I meant is . . . words are words. They don’t matter as much as you think they do. What’s important are the emotions behind them.”

  “Words are words?” My fingers curl around the strap of my bag, wringing it back and forth. “If that’s the case, then why did Patrick force her to shut down her entire site?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t watch the clip. What did she say exactly?”

  Just as I’m about to respond, I realize that I have no idea what Avery actually said. I never saw the video. All of my anger is based solely on what Zoe told me and what Avery admitted, which wasn’t much.

  “You never answered my question,” I say, changing the subject. “Why did you have to go to military school?”

  “I hit a guy.” Josh swallows hard, and I watch his cheeks flush a dark shade of pink. “I beat him up as he was coming out of the locker room, and got expelled. That’s why I was shipped off to the academy.”

  His chin dips down, his features strained. He seems too even-tempered to lose his cool like that, and I can’t help but wonder what provoked him.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “This kid, he . . . he hurt my sister.” Josh tugs at his collar and clears his throat; then, after a short pause, he continues. “It felt good at first, taking him down like that. But later . . .”

  When his voice trails off, my hand drifts over and settles on his shoulder. Josh inhales deeply and lets out a long, drawn-out breath, but then he shifts away from me so my fingers slip off his arm one by one.

  “All I’m saying is, sometimes it’s better to walk away than to act tough. When you cross the line and do something violent, there’s no going back,” he says. “It stays with you. Forever.”

  He stands up and puts his tab in his back pocket. “I have to go. See you in the halls.”

  “Okay,” I say, hoping that he might look at me again and see that what he’s told me hasn’t made me think less of him.

  But he walks straight out the door, and Caldwell calls me back into his office.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  SIX

  WHEN I GET BACK HOME FROM SCHOOL, Mom has already left for work, but the glowing orange text on the left-hand corner of the InstaComm screen shows she also left me a video message. After tossing my bag on the floor, I plop down on the couch and kick off her nurse clogs, extending my legs so I can rest my feet on the padded U-shaped ottoman. I fish out the remote from in between two seat cushions and press a blue square button, which accesses the message from the memory banks.

  An image slides across the screen from the right, showing a picture of her, all prepped for a long night at Inner Sector Medical’s critical-care unit. Her hair is swept back, and she’s wearing the oatmeal T-shirt that she layers underneath the top of her scrubs. She’s even wearing a little makeup, which brings a subtle warmth to her complexion that I haven’t seen in a while. I find myself smiling at her, even though in the snapshot she’s just looking straight ahead, her mouth slightly ope
n.

  I press the green oval button next and the message begins to play.

  “Hi, honey. I’m sorry that we’re missing each other tonight, especially after what happened today.” Her gaze dips down for a second and she pauses, like she’s trying to figure out the right thing to say. When she looks back up, her eyes are a little glassy, and my throat tightens.

  “I don’t blame you for being angry, but I had to agree with your principal about your punishment. Two weeks of detention may seem harsh to you, but it could have been a lot worse.” She flashes a hint of a smile and I know the worst is over.

  “I’ll be back in the morning. Hopefully I’ll catch you for breakfast. There are waffles in the freezer,” she says, smiling. “Sleep tight.”

  The video ends, and I sigh in relief as I close the viewing window on the screen with the remote. The impromptu chat we had with Caldwell this afternoon was pretty brief, and I couldn’t really tell how Mom was going to react once she didn’t have a school administrator huffing and puffing at her. I’m so thankful that the whole thing didn’t blow up in my face at home, because two weeks of detention is not going to be a walk in the park.

  I’m about to shut the InstaComm off when an envelope icon bursts to the center of the screen, spinning in a circle with the number one in the center of it. I click the Upload button on the remote, and the IP address is from a sender that’s not in our list of contacts. The message has a large AVI attachment, which instantly makes me wary, but my curiosity gets the best of me, so I open it anyway.

  I press the Launch key on the remote. As the file loads, I think about how much Josh had to go through to unearth Avery’s vlog, especially since it had been completely scourged from all the internet caches.

  I guess that master badge in computer science wasn’t a joke.

  Soon a still photo of Avery appears in front of me, her eyes already piercing through the screen. Her curly hair is hanging loose around her face and down to her shoulders, and her glasses sit on the end of her nose. I hit the Play button and then jack up the volume so I won’t miss a single word.