Phantom Wheel

by Tracy Deebs

  I should call her on it, but I’m glad she’s finally decided to see reason. With that thought in mind, I turn to Seth and Issa. “Okay? We good here?”

  “No, we’re not good here,” Seth complains. “But whatever. Gotta die sometime, right?”

  Issa glares at Ezra. “If you drop me, I will kill you.”

  “I won’t drop you, dulzura. I promise.”

  She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t you dare try to sweet talk me right before you make me jump out of a third-story window.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I feel honor bound to clarify. “No one’s jumping out of anything. There is a rope.”

  She just glares at me. “Potato, po-tah-toe.”

  “No, no. Not potato, po-tah-toe. There is an actual difference between jumping out a window and going down a rope.”

  Alika sniffs. “For you maybe.”

  For the first time I start to get nervous. “Maybe we should rethink this.”

  Ezra rolls his eyes. Then, very casually, he picks up a lamp and swings it hard through the huge plate-glass window. “Turns out you’re not the only one who can break a window,” he tells me. “Debate over. Now we’ve got about three minutes before they get through all the crap we’ve got barricading the door, so either you’re climbing out or we’re all screwed.”

  He grabs Issa and all but throws her onto his back.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieks as he grabs the rope.

  “You really didn’t think I was going to make you climb down that rope with your bad hand and messed-up arms, did you?” He wraps her arms around his neck. “Now hold on!”

  It’s the last thing he says before he gives the rest of us a quick salute and disappears over the window ledge with Issa attached to him like a limpet. Seconds later, they’re on the ground, and he’s waving for the next person to follow him down.

  “Who’s next?” I ask, but Harper’s already moving toward the window.

  “Screw you, Owen,” Harper says. Then she looks down at Ezra and calls, “You better catch me!”

  He widens his stance and holds his arms out in an I’m ready kind of way. “Damn,” she says again as she grabs the rope. And then she’s out too, scooting her way slowly and awkwardly down the rope.

  She almost makes it all the way down without getting tangled. But she gets stuck in the middle of the second floor, and Ezra calls up, “It’s okay. Just let go.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “You’ve got to!” he tells her.

  “Fine! But I want you both to know, you’re going to suffer for this!” And then she’s falling—straight into Ezra’s arms.

  “Yippee ki-yay, Mr. Falcon!” she kind of whisper-shouts as he lowers her to the ground.

  “What the hell is that?” Ezra asks.

  “It’s the line from Die Hard.”

  My brows hit my forehead as I stare down at her from three stories up. “That is definitely not the line from Die Hard,” I call down to her.

  She grins. “It is when it’s edited for TV.”

  “Oh my God.” I shake my head at her even as I turn back to the others. Behind us the guards start trying to open the doors, but they aren’t having much luck. Our barricade is holding. For now. “Who’s next?”

  “I hate you all,” Alika says as she grabs the rope I hold out to her. I try to help her, but she shrugs off my hands—then pretty much glides down the rope. She makes it down even faster than Ezra. The big faker.

  Suddenly, the doors crack open, and we’ve run out of time. There’s a bunch of furniture piled in front of them, but it won’t take the guards long to get through it. “You’ve got to go, Seth. They’re coming.”

  “I know. I know.” He grabs the rope, then calls, “If I land on you, I’m sorry!”

  He doesn’t even make it halfway down the rope before falling. “Shiiiiiiiiiiiit!” he screams all the way down, and I watch, terrified, as he plummets to the ground. Ezra tries to catch him, but Alika goes for him too, and all three of them end up on a pile on the ground, just as two guards come jogging around the corner of the building.

  “Damn it.” I launch myself at the rope and start going down. “Move,” I yell, and they do, scattering in all directions.

  I hit the ground running, literally, taking off in the same direction Alika and Seth are headed while the others scatter in the opposite direction. On the plane, we talked about what to do if we got spotted, and the goal is to split up and try to get to the party, partly because we can blend in with our tuxes and fancy dresses and partly because I figure even Jacento will be reluctant to go after a bunch of teenagers in front of the press. Especially with the story we have to tell.

  But Alika and Seth are heading in the wrong direction, and I can’t just leave them out here alone. Especially with security closing in. “Turn left!” I yell, as I catch up. And then we’re sprinting toward the building where the party’s being held, running as fast as we can.

  A glance behind me warns that our detour gave the guards a chance to catch up, and they’re closing in fast. Grabbing Alika’s arm with one hand and Seth’s with the other, I all but pull them up the stairs, into the building, and down the hall to the huge rotunda where the party is being held. Thank God for adrenaline.

  We’re almost there when two men in dark suits come out of nowhere, sliding in front of the double doors that lead into the rotunda. I freeze as I realize it’s Daniel Davies and the other guy from L.A., the one I’ve been trying to identify ever since Issa pointed him out on that footage of Roderick Olsen.

  And now they’re here, in front of us, aware of exactly who we are and what we’re trying to do. Which is probably why they’re very deliberately blocking our way. And while I’d normally plow right through them—I didn’t play football for a decade for nothing—the two guns they’ve currently got trained on us put things in a different perspective.

  I come to a halt, throwing myself in front of Seth and Alika. After all, I’ve already been shot twice. Third time’s the charm, right?

  Except they aren’t having it. As one, Alika and Seth step out from behind me so that we’re standing shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, making what I’m sure is one really, really large target.

  “You need to come with us,” the guy from L.A. says in lightly accented English.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Alika tells him. “You need to let us through those doors.”

  “The only place you’re going is to prison,” he answers. “Now start walking or I’ll make you walk.”

  “Try it and we’ll scream the place down,” Seth says. “There are an awful lot of party guests in there who would probably object to you shooting three teenagers. Think of the Jacento brand, if nothing else.”

  “You should spend more time worrying about your own skin and less time thinking about our brand,” Daniel Davies tells us. “Now move.”

  “Or what?” Alika replies.

  Suddenly both guns are trained on her.

  Which causes panic to slam through me. I send her a warning glare, but she ignores me.

  “Or I’ll shoot you right here.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s called murder. After all, my hands are up, and I’m not making any move to hurt you. Though I should tell you that I’m recording everything you’re saying right now.”

  The first guy laughs. “You think you scare me, little girl? You think I’m some police officer who actually cares about any of that? Where you’re going, no one will ever find your recording—or your body.”

  Panic turns to full-blown terror inside me as he aims his gun straight between her eyes. I start to throw myself in front of her, but Seth beats me to it. He dives straight at the guy, sending him flying against the door even as he knocks the gun out of his hand.

  At the same time, Alika kicks Daniel Davies in the balls so hard that he screams—and drops like a stone. And then she’s on him, kicking him in the head hard enough to make his eyes roll back in his head. />
  I turn back to Seth, who is now on the floor with the other guy as they both grapple for the gun. I make a dive for them, but Alika beats me to it as she slams her foot straight into the guy’s ribs. I don’t think I’m imagining the cracking sound I hear, especially since he lets out a howl loud enough to bring down the roof.

  Seth takes advantage of the guy’s injury to straddle his chest and starts banging his head against the marble floor over and over again until he passes out. I’d be lying if I said he didn’t look a little maniacal, especially with the rolled-up Kleenex hanging out of his bruised and swollen nose.

  Suddenly, Davies groans and I turn to take him on, but again, Alika’s already there. She kicks him one more time, and then he too is out cold.

  For long seconds I can do nothing but stare at them, mouth open. When I finally find my voice, I can’t help asking, “What the hell was that?”

  Seth shrugs. “I’m just really tired of people pointing guns at me and threatening my friends.”

  Alika nods as she dusts her hands off on her dress. “Exactly. Now let’s move, before the other guards find us. Earbuds in, everyone.”

  Still in shock, I push open one of the doors and put my earbuds in place as the others do the same. We slide in as silently and unobtrusively as we can. Then we slip into the packed crowd, weaving between people as we try to disappear.

  Roderick Olsen is onstage, getting ready to unveil the first kiosk. He’s holding the ends of a piece of bright red fabric, just waiting for the signal to tear it off so the world can see the first-ever Jacento charging station. Next to him on the stage are the president, the chairman of the board, and the chief technical and financial officers, all four of them grinning like they’ve just won the lottery.

  A quick glance behind me shows that the guards are causing a disturbance as they work their way through the crowd looking for us. I duck down a little—thank God Finnish people are so tall—and nod for Seth and Alika to follow me closer to the stage, deeper into the crowd. I look around for the others, but I can’t see them—probably because they’re hiding the same way we are.

  Olsen is speaking in what I assume is Finnish, so I don’t understand a word he’s saying. But it’s obvious from the energy flowing all around us that he’s catering to the crowd, getting them excited. And then, just as the music crescendos, he rips the cloth off the charging station.

  Applause thunders through the room, even before he hooks his phone up so that everyone can see the welcome Jacento has planned. But the moment his phone touches that charging station, the virus Alika designed takes control. Seconds later, it’s not Jacento’s triumphant message that scrolls across the huge screen towering above the stage. Instead, it’s the very simple one that started us on this whole crazy journey.

  YOU’VE BEEN PLAYED

  The crowd starts murmuring, and though I don’t understand what the CTO is saying, I know he’s as confused as the rest of the people in the room. He holds up his hands and mumbles something to the crowd as Olsen fumbles with his phone.

  And that’s when the first cell phone in the audience pings. And then another. Within seconds all we can hear are the various dings, pings, and buzzes of the phones around us as, one by one, every guest at the party receives a text.

  The same text.

  I glance at the screen of the woman next to me, who is frowning as she views the message that just came through her phone.

  Her screen reads: JACENTO OWNS YOU

  She shows it to her very concerned partner, whose own phone beeps seconds later. The woman’s phone dings again.

  JACENTO WILL SELL YOU TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER

  All around us, phones are beeping as the messages Alika and I wrote last night are delivered, one after another:

  BIG DATA KNOWS NO BOUNDS

  WE CONTROL YOU

  YOU’VE BEEN PWNED

  All around us people are checking their phones. They’re freaking out, trying to figure out what’s going on.

  Olsen’s freaking out now too, as he desperately tries to turn the app off and stop the messages. He pulls his phone off the charger, even tries to turn it off as he babbles incoherently into the mic. But nothing works. Phones continue beeping as the messages keep coming.

  People start backing away from the stage, the sound level in the room getting louder and louder as outrage wells up from all directions. And that’s when the pièce de résistance starts scrawling across the screen onstage—the letter Alika wrote on the plane just a couple of hours ago.

  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming. We’re so excited that you’ve got front-row seats to the biggest fraud ever perpetrated by a telecommunications company, in Finland or anywhere.

  Jacento is very proud of our new charging stations, a perfect example of a symbiotic relationship in today’s global economy. We charge your phone for you, and you give us access to your accounts, your social media, your every keystroke.

  But don’t worry. You can trust us. After all, big data is the future.

  And the future is NOW.

  Olsen takes one look at the letter and gives up trying to explain things away. Instead, he disappears behind the curtains at the back of the stage. Seconds later, the other officers follow him.

  “They’re running!” Alika starts pushing her way through the suddenly belligerent crowd. “We have to find them!”

  “We already have,” Harper says, her voice calm and steady in our ears. “They’re on the roof.”

  “The roof? What are they doing up there?” I push our way straight past the security guards, who suddenly have much more pressing problems than trying to find us. People have started yelling, and it looks to me as if they’re about to begin tearing the building apart piece by piece if someone doesn’t explain to them what’s going on.

  “I don’t know—” Harper starts to answer when the whirring rotors of a helicopter do it for her.

  I take off running, straight out the building’s main door and into the quad. Seconds later, the others join me. “That’s the one thing we didn’t think of.”

  “Who would?” Seth asks, bewildered.

  “I would. Or I should say, I did,” Ezra says as he pulls his laptop out of his bag and seats himself on the nearest bench.

  “You thought they’d try to escape via helicopter?” Issa asks disbelievingly.

  “I thought it was a possibility,” he answers with a shrug. “My dad’s helicopter is never far from him.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Issa replies as the helicopter climbs higher in the sky. More people are pouring out of the building now, coming to stand next to us on the lawn as they watch the helicopter start to fly away.

  “So what are you doing?” I ask, crowding close to see what he’s up to.

  “I’m grabbing their comm signal. And now I’m uploading code I wrote last year when I hacked my dad’s helicopter just to see if I could do it.”

  “Just to see if you could do it,” Issa repeats faintly.

  We wait for something to happen, all six of us staring at the retreating helicopter, looking for some sign that Ezra’s code actually works. And then it happens. The lights on the helicopter start blinking in Morse code.

  “SOS?” Harper cries. “That’s your big hack?”

  “No. That’s my way of knowing my code got in. This is my big hack.” He presses a few keys on the keyboard, and we watch silently as he slowly, carefully, inexorably drags the helicopter right down to the ground.

  It’s total pandemonium now, people milling so tightly around the helicopter that the men are trapped inside it as the company’s security guards try to figure out what to do. The whine of police sirens sounds in the distance, and the crowd starts cheering.

  Convinced that they’ll make sure no one gets away, the six of us do what we do best—fade quickly, and quietly, into the darkness.

  “Well, Ezra, I guess there’s only one thing to say now,” Issa tells him.

  “And what’s that?”


  “Yippee ki-yay, Mr. Falcon.”

  36

  Harper

  (5p3ct3r)

  I don’t know what to do, don’t know how to feel. Don’t know what to say to these people who in a matter of weeks have gone from strangers to competition to allies to my closest friends. I have to tell them about how I’ve betrayed their trust. I don’t want to keep my secrets any longer.

  A part of me thinks I should wait until we get back to San Francisco. After all, we are thirty thousand feet above the earth in a private jet that Ezra managed to charter for us, and if they get as mad as I think they will, tossing me off the plane might seem like a viable solution to them.

  At the same time, though, once we get back to San Francisco, things are going to change. Ezra’s parents will be there, and so will Seth’s and Alika’s. The six of us won’t be a team anymore. We’ll just be six kids with different lives and expectations who somehow managed to stave off a digital apocalypse. It’s hard to imagine, given everything we’ve just been through together, but once we get home, we’ll go back to being who we were before.

  That’s just the way it is.

  Which is fine. Better than fine. I liked my life just fine before, and I’ll like it fine once this is all over. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to tell the others the truth about what I did. Because we may not be a team for much longer, but we are friends. And that has to count for something, right?

  I grab a water from the galley refrigerator—more to give my hands something to do than because I really want it—then slowly make my way back to the main cabin, where the others are sprawled out on the reclining seats.

  “Hey, come sit by me,” Seth says, patting the chair next to him. “You’ll save me from the boredom of watching the four of them moon over each other.”

  “I object,” Owen says. “I am most certainly not mooning over Silver Spoon.”

  “And I’m not mooning over the Lone Ranger,” Ezra chimes in. “He’s a little too rugged for my tastes.”

  Seth rolls his eyes, then moans a little at the pain it causes his battered face. “You know what I meant.”