by Maya Rock
All day, anxiety has swirled inside me. As I handed my overdue Double A application in to the principal. As I met with Scoop behind the loud fridge in the cafeteria to make sure he’d stolen the wigs from the scene shop. As I sat between Lia and Martin during lunch, pretending Selwyn never existed.
I give up trying to eat after a few strawberries. They taste more sour than sweet. I dump the rest of them back into the big bowl in the fridge, wash and dry my plate, and return the uneaten bread to the bread bag. I go into the living room and lie down the couch for a second before straightening up Lia-style, checking myself in the mirror above the fireplace to make sure I nail it.
The doorbell chimes. I jump up off the couch and run to the door. I fling it open, smiling. Too exuberant? I’m already doing things wrong.
“You made it. I’m glad,” I say, struggling to come up with what Lia would say. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about tonight.”
Callen’s wearing his usual, a T-shirt—but this one’s pumpkin orange and isn’t faded at all—and jeans. He puts his arms around me, and I breathe him in. He feels so real and solid as I hold him, like he can withstand anything, and for the first time all day, the worry starts to fade.
“Whoa, tight grip.” He laughs above me, the skin around his eyes crinkling in that way I like.
“Sorry.” But I’m not. I finally let him go when I hear a camera swiveling. For a few seconds, I forgot about the suggestion. I take his hand and lead him up to my room, wishing I felt sexy. I hope my hand isn’t sweating.
We enter my room. It’s tidier than it’s been in months: I’d done a lot the night of Selwyn’s cut to make it spotless and even more when I got home today. Past projects are tucked away into drawers, books lined up on the shelves, mirror nice and clear. Soft evening light spills in from the open curtains.
“Plus ten,” he says, stopping at the desk and picking up Belle’s bottle. He flicks it, and a high-pitched note undulates in the air. I catch my breath, worried a Real behind the cameras might notice that the bottle is a reminder.
He puts the bottle down gently, and I relax. He surveys the rest of the room. “Everything’s so organized,” he says, smiling at me. “Not that I’m surprised. It’s very you.” He sits on the bed and plants his hands on either side of him. Now. Now. Now. I sit next to him. We have about two hours before Mom comes back. Our knees are touching. The seventeen cameras in my room flare at me.
“I can think of more fun things to do,” I say, pushing him down so he’s on his back. The words seem to stumble out of my mouth, but at least I get them said. I straddle him, but I don’t feel at ease like I did in the Brambles. My whole body feels heavy, like it’s working against me. I close my eyes, bend down, and kiss him.
He’s underneath me and pushes my tank top straps down, the microphone going with it. I think there’s actually a clause in the Contract about intimate situations. Microphones can be moved . . . I shouldn’t be thinking about the Contract. Even if it’s the whole reason I’m here. Kissing. I should be thinking about kissing. Thinking kissing. Frustrated, I open my eyes so that I can see his, but of course, they’re closed. I check the clock on my night table. Got to stay on track. Callen notices my distraction, and his eyes follow the path of mine and latch on to what’s next to the clock.
“Are those . . . ?” He sits up on his elbows and picks up the condoms.
“Um, yeah,” I say. “I mean, yes, of course. For us. Tonight.” My tank top straps are halfway down my arms, and I don’t know what to do with them. What would Lia say? “I’m so ready. Aren’t you? Don’t you want to?”
“Well . . .” I tense again. What if it doesn’t work? He starts to kiss me again, and I panic—is he going to go through with it? I can’t. My first close-up can’t be because of the Initiative.
He breaks off the kiss and mutters something, his eyes half shut so I can’t read them.
“What? What’s wrong?” My voice is too—so much more hesitant than Lia’s. “Don’t tell me you haven’t before,” I say, lacing the words with a hint of scorn. I pull my mic up so it’s lying on the pillow next to my head.
He reaches down and cups my cheek in his hand.
“I want to . . . one day,” he says. “I haven’t either.”
I’m both surprised and not by this. It’s odd for trac Callen, but not for the shy Callen I’ve known most of my life.
Callen drops his hand and finds mine and holds it. He turns, and our foreheads touch, like they did on the beach. I wish this were all the Audience wanted. Because it’s all I want now.
“Let’s do it,” I force out, pushing up his shirt again.
He looks over his shoulder at the clock. “Isn’t your mom coming home in an hour? This is so sudden and so rushed. You’re acting like . . .”
“Like what?”
“Lia,” he says reluctantly. Yes. It’s working. “She was always after me to close up, like it was some kind of competition.”
My mind scrambles, trying to come up with whatever will turn him off the most. “Well, isn’t it? We need to win.”
Callen raises his eyebrows, incredulous. It’s all I can do not to tell him everything—but I can’t risk his getting cut. I couldn’t live with myself.
“Come on,” I reach for his shirt again. “We don’t have much time.”
“Stop.” He pushes my hands away. “Nettie, this is crazy. Can we wait? Just until it’s a little more, I don’t know, just natural?”
“Why wait?” I pout. I get an idea. I get close to his ear. “We’ll get such great ratings.”
He recoils. “Are you kidding?” he says, switching to on-mic. Good. “Now you’re exactly like Lia.” He grabs his microphone from the bed and clips it back to his collar. I watch, hating his anger, but knowing that it’s exactly what I need to keep both of us safe.
He sits on the edge of the bed and ties his shoelaces in brisk, fast motions. I decide to leave my tank top straps hanging off my arms—I don’t want Media1 to suspect I didn’t try. I have to fight down every instinct I have to leave him alone when I reach over and put my arms around him, murmuring, “Why don’t you want to? You’re being weird.”
He throws my arms off and gets up. His face looks cold, his eyes icy. I lose my confident Lia pose, and I’m unable to speak.
But he can. “I think we need a break—maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while.”
I raise my head, facing the icy eyes straight on. “Okay,” I answer, making my voice small. He hesitates, lingering at the door. Like he expects me to protest. Snap back at him like I’m sure Lia did. But I just get up and start neatening the bed, turning my back to him. I hear him go down the stairs and out the door.
Chapter 21
The waterfall comes down in undulating blue-white ribbons. “I’m taking us under. You’ll like it—it’s an adventure,” Scoop yells into his mic, nearly swallowing it in his effort to make sure Media1 hears. I squeal with feigned terror as we approach the waterfall, bending down to check that the plastic tarp is firmly in place, covering the book bag and radio at the bottom of the boat. Done, I straighten up and brace myself for the onslaught of water, pulling my jacket above my head.
It makes a seemingly infinite hollow echo in my ears, like when I wear a shower cap in the shower. I laugh and pretend I’m having the time of my life, and Scoop seems chipper too, grinning while steering the rudder. Focusing on my performance makes it easier to ignore the water seeping into my jacket and the butterflies in my stomach. Scoop maneuvers sharply, turning the boat so each of the four cameras takes a turn underneath a heavy stream of water. I hold my breath until I see the red lights on two blink out, just as we planned. The other two, pinned on the bow behind me, stubbornly stay on.
Shivering, I shout, “Enough!” and jerk my head toward the jagged rocks behind me. Scoop follows my glance and changes the boat’s course.
“Oops,” he says as the bow bumps against the moss-covered rocks. Both working cameras get battered, but not enough to extinguish those stubborn lights. Scoop grows frustrated, long face tightening as he rams the boat again and again into rocks.
“Be careful!” I yell. At this rate, we’ll destroy the boat before we get to the cove by the Center. The cameras are still on. Time for the backup plan to the backup plan.
“I’m feeling seasick,” I call out, our signal, and Scoop steers the boat away from the rocks, while I covertly work the turquoise ring off my finger and fling my hand downward, sending it flying into the water. It bobbles in the water.
“My ring!” I cry, dropping to my knees and leaning over the side of the boat, my torso covering a camera lens, while I plunge my hand in the water, trying to rescue the ring in the view of the other camera. I fish the wire cutters out of my back pocket with my other hand. The ring sinks out of view—I had a feeling I might really lose it, and was ready.
I reach behind the camera, pop off the casing and use the cutter to slice open the wires clumped inside. Unnatural crisping. I’m hoping that Media1 will assume the rocks are responsible. I scoot over to the remaining working camera, mumbling on-mic about seeing the ring being carried away by a current and needing to stretch out one last time. Now that I have practice, I disable the camera in a couple of seconds.
“I can’t catch it.” I turn back around. “The ring’s gone, forget it.”
“Too bad.” Scoop pulls us away, aiming north, taking us along this last stretch of Avalon Beach below the Brambles. No red eyes, all the cameras dead. We round the tip of the island and sail south, parallel to Eden Beach. Tall, trimmed trees in the Brambles still loom above us for a minute and then we see the fence that separates the Brambles from the out-and-out wilderness at the outskirts of the Center.
“I took your advice,” I say, to fill up the audiotrack. “I ignored Callen.” I had told Scoop that Callen and I had broken up and that it hadn’t been my choice. I’d begged him for advice on how to get him back—all my dialogue designed to convince Media1 that the breakup was completely against my will. “He didn’t seem to mind,” I add.
“He will. By the end of the week, he’ll be eating out of your hand,” Scoop reassures me, sprawled on the bench at the prow, hand on the rudder.
“I hope so,” I say. I’m opposite Scoop, perched on the bench in the stern, toying with the nets the aquarium uses to dredge up specimens. Our front for being here. Officially he’s out on the water today to catch some mackerel for a finicky dolphin who refuses the aquarium’s stock chum.
“Are you ready for the Double A?” Scoop asks. “Conor showed me the poem he wrote to open the ceremony. It’s . . .”
“Totally depressing?” I twist around, haunted by the idea that Media1 might send a boat after us. There’s nothing but water.
Scoop cocks his head to the side. “No . . . just short. About childhood’s end. He’s right, you’ll never be as innocent as you were before the Double A.”
“So you feel less innocent?” My stomach twists as we drift closer and closer to land. Farther down the coast, I can see a docked freighter from the Sectors. I wonder if it’s the one that’s intended to transport the Patriots on Saturday.
“Not really, because I don’t think I ever felt innocent to begin with,” he says. “B—my family says I’m cynical.”
The boat swerves sharply as he directs it toward the shore, to an inlet covered in a thick tangle of shrubbery, near the chain-link fence. He nods at me: we planned out what we’d say next.
“Let’s put on some music.” I dig under the tarp and take out the portable radio, turning to a raucous teenaddict music station. I turn the dial past the contractually prescribed volume. Scoop says Media1 is used to technical difficulties with the boat, but I’m prepared to get fined. At least twice: for the volume and for the cameras.
“I’m turning the motor off—the vibrations keep the fish away,” Scoop says.
“It’s so relaxing out here.” I yawn into my mic. “I might even nap.”
The idea is to prevent Media1 from sending cricket teams. We want them to think we’re hanging out, but not talking.
“Go ahead,” Scoop says. “I can handle the nets by myself.”
He cuts off the motor and steers, tying the boat to a thick sapling bending over the water. He deliberately ties it loosely so that the boat jostles with currents, giving the audiotrack the impression that it’s still sailing. I inspect the foliage around us for cameras. None.
Scoop stands up gingerly, slithering off his microphone and battery pack and setting them next to the blaring radio. I sling the book bag with our supplies over one shoulder, and we scramble over the side of the boat and up the rocky bank.
Once we’re safely under cover of the trees, we stop to change. I unzip the book bag and pass him a purple jumpsuit, one of the wigs he stole from the scene shop, and wire-rimmed sunglasses that he brought from his house. Luz is taller and bulkier than I am, so the jumpsuit fits easily over my jeans and T-shirt. I pick up the straight blond wig Scoop got for me and pull it over my head, wiggling it until it’s snug. Scoop hands me a pair of black boots with thick soles, akin to the workman boots the Reals favor. The final touch is a pair of sunglasses I’d found in our kitchen junk drawer.
I watch Scoop move down the steep banks to the boat, going to stash the book bag in the bracken. The combination of the gray wig and the sunglasses makes him seem like a middle-aged man trying to look hip.
I walk over to the fence, grip a link in the wire-cutter’s jaws, and begin snipping through, wincing at the noise. Beyond the fence is a stretch of seemingly deserted land, but who knows? It might be on some Authority’s patrol route. Scoop clambers back up from the boat, and as I clip the hole, he yanks out the metal impatiently.
“Let’s go,” he says when I’m halfway done, forcing the cut section of metal links down and urging me through. I climb through, the space smaller than I’d like, the metal clawing my jumpsuit, and Scoop follows clumsily, cursing to himself as the metal snaps back at him, catching his ankle.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says, dusting off his hands. He checks his watch. “Four thirty. We have half an hour.” Media1 only allows island boats to be in the water for an hour. If a boat misses its check-in time, they’ll send crickets to the scene.
“Got it.” We walk straight out, toward the gravel road that leads up from the docks to the Sandcastle. I glance at the massive black freighter below. Authority are on the deck, small as ants from this distance. When I look up, my breath catches: three very human-sized Authority are stomping toward us, not thirty feet away, apparently headed for the ship themselves. I draw closer to Scoop.
“I heard they’re lifting some of the flight restrictions next week,” one says as they pass.
“I’d still avoid all the islands, even the so-called safe areas. Last year my cousin got pickpocketed by drownclown kids.”
“Figures,” the other says. He puts his hand on his forehead to block the sun. “Ship’s here. I hope this batch is ready for departure.”
Scoop and I exchange quick looks but move on without saying anything. The Center air is its usual collection of smells: salty cooking odors from the residential towers beyond Character Relations, gas fumes spewing out of the trucks climbing the hill from the dock on the beach, and the fresh, sweet smell of new spring flowers on the hill.
A long walkway extends from the road to the entrance of the Sandcastle. A short line of Reals waits there, all in purple jumpsuits. Scoop walks faster, about to get in line behind them, but I place a hand on his wrist.
“Look—there’s some sort of ID too,” I whisper. The code won’t be enough. Two Authority are standing by the doors, guns gleaming in the sun. As the Reals pass through, they hold up badges that an Authority inspects before presenti
ng them with a keypad to type their codes into.
We pass the turn and continue straight uphill, to the back of Character Relations. To our left, the ground slopes down, forming a valley that the Sandcastle rises out of. The courtyard is concealed from this angle. I study the building.
“There.” I point toward a rectangular basement window. I can’t see everything from here, but the glass looks cracked. “We can break the window and get in through the basement—you can cover me from the Reals while I do it.” We walk down the hill, keeping our pace slow and casual to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. I gesture for him to stand between me and the road and put the toe of my sneaker against the window, giving it a nudge. Nothing.
I time my barrage of kicks to coincide with a truck rumbling up the hill. Its loud engine drowns out the sound of shattering glass. Scoop glances behind him and gives me a quick smile as I kneel and sling my leg over the sill, wincing as shards of glass at the edges of the frame prick my jumpsuit. I have to go quickly. I put my other leg through, close my eyes, and drop into the darkness. For a second, I lie there, my head aching from the force of the fall. Get up. I rise to my feet and shake off shards of glass. The boiler beats pom pom pom. There’s only one patch of light, streaming in through the broken window I just came through. I hear Scoop struggling through. Loudly.
“Come on,” I say under my breath. A few seconds, and he tumbles down, even clumsier than I was. I flinch.
There’s a brief silence, followed by an “ow!”
“I don’t know how we’re going to get out,” I mumble, feeling my way among the ducts, passing the boiler, and finally grasping a doorknob. I open the door and step out into the hall with Scoop. Fluorescent lights buzz. I examine the ceiling for cameras and find none. We’re in a long and deserted hall.