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The Takedown

Page 23

by Corrie Wang


  “That didn’t come out right,” she said quietly, putting a hand on my back.

  “It’s okay.” I forced out a laugh. “It’s good advice.”

  She cleared her throat, then brightened. “How about I tell you the story of us?”

  When I was growing up, anytime life seemed bad, Mom told me the story of us. It began with how she met Dad and continued to the present day. The moral of it was that life might not be easy, but we four Chengs were scrappy, we somehow always clawed our way to the top, and most importantly, we had each other.

  But we didn’t anymore. And I wasn’t interested in this new ending.

  “Nah, I’m pretty tired.”

  She lingered for a few more seconds, then tucked Teddy in next to me. At my door she paused and said, “I love you.”

  I didn’t respond. After a beat or two, I heard the soft click of my door shutting. As soon as it did, I grabbed my Doc.

  moi I think we’ve both hurt each other. Maybe more than we meant. I just wanted to let you know, I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.

  Only after I sent it did I realize I could have written the same words to half the people in my closest circle. Maybe I really did need to examine how I treated people. Not to sound like a cheesy song lyric, but why do we damage the ones we hold most precious?

  Before I changed my mind, I added one more line.

  moi I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be txting you anymore.

  AnyLies’s reply was instant.

  Why. Not.

  moi I need to focus on other things now. Like my friendships, my family.

  I AM your friend. I’m the one who told you there were other girls. I’m the one who is looking out for you. Aren’t you tired? Tired of having to pretend all the time? Tired of no one understanding you? Tired of friendships that aren’t everlasting? Tired of being watched, but not seen? I get it. But you still don’t. Do you?

  I put my Doc down. I could feel the rage radiating off it.

  You will regret this.

  That was too much.

  moi Leave the video up for all I care. I have nothing left to lose.

  I wouldn’t be so sure. Enjoy the fall.

  The next morning, I left for school early. I checked my Doc and looked over my shoulder the whole walk there. Every second I expected a new something awful to drop from AnyLies. It felt like the countdown all over again, but this time it was silent. T minus three, two, one…

  I made it to Park Prep unscathed. After the security sensor checked me in, I used Ankle Breaker to hurry to the second floor, waited ten minutes until the Walk had to be over, then doubled back downstairs to Dr. Graff’s office. I told her secretary that Graff was expecting me.

  Dr. Graff’s expression clouded when I slipped into her office. Yesterday she’d given me a very specific directive and time frame. I’d ignored both. You just didn’t do that.

  “Kyle.”

  “Good morning. Sorry to interrupt. I know you’re probably busy, but I wanted to stop in before class and tell you I’m feeling fine today.”

  She tilted her head. “That’s good.”

  “And I have a feeling I’ll be feeling fine tomorrow and the next day as well.”

  She was getting it now. A haze of disapproval fogged her unblinking eyes.

  “So if you’d like to go ahead with what we discussed yesterday, you may call my mom and tell her I’m suspended.”

  My heart was beating like it was competing in a speed-beatboxing competition, but my voice stayed steady—thank you, debate prep. I almost apologized for being too forward, but I didn’t. “Never apologize for speaking your mind,” President Malin said in her televised special Elementary: Our Young, Our Future.

  No, let Dr. Graff endure my unwavering stare, because, in five hundred words or less?

  Today?

  I was someone you got the F out of the way of.

  “Thank goodness you’re here.” Fawn took my hands in hers. “Wait—are you supposed to be here right now? What about Graff?”

  “F Graff,” I said.

  So much for dodging the Walk. Fawn and Sharma were both waiting for me outside Graff’s office. Nothing about their outfits matched. It was the first time the girls and I hadn’t conspired on a theme in over three years.

  This morning, I’d woken to txts from Fawn about her mom nearly calling the cops because she thought the brownstone was being broken into when she got home last night. Sharma had txted the exhausted-face emote. It was their way of assuring me they hadn’t all gone to another house without me after they left. I wasn’t entirely sure I cared.

  “Why’s your Doc off?” Sharma asked.

  “Are you still mad?” Fawn asked.

  “All my friends have been lying to me for ten months. That doesn’t go away with a good night’s sleep, Fawnie. Sorry. I have to go. I don’t want to be late.”

  “What does it matter?” Sharma asked. “Sub already thinks you slept with Mr. E.”

  “Which is precisely why I refuse to create the impression that I’m tardy as well.”

  Fawn tugged at my arm and pulled me to a standstill.

  “None of us knew,” she said. “We had no idea B&P would be this huge. We thought we were just helping Audra with a goofy pet project and then it exploded this summer and at first we were just trying to help her keep up, and then we all felt like total scumbags for not telling you sooner, but were also kind of afraid of how pissed you’d be, and I totally understand if you never want to see our faces again. Only I hope that isn’t the case, because you’re one of my best friends and I’m so sorry I’ve been lying to you.” Fawn’s lip quivered dangerously close to the border of Sob Town. “I shouldn’t have taken that pic of you last night when you were upset. I thought it would lighten the mood. I feel like this is all my fault. Audra didn’t even come to school today.”

  “So what?” I said. “She was absent yesterday too.”

  “Yeah, but then she equaled busy. Now she equals upset. Are we all breaking up?”

  Fawn’s lower lip had fallen open as if she were emitting a silent wail. Sharma whipped her head to look at me, like, Are you seeing this? I let out a rush of air. Fawn and Sharma were good people and great friends. Without question they definitely belonged in the fostering-friendship category. I brushed Fawn’s hair off her shoulders.

  “Mommy and Daddy love each other very much, but sometimes Mommy and Daddy fight, and it’s no reflection on you….”

  Fawn flicked my hands away, but she was smiling now. “Doofus.”

  The half-minute chimes sounded over the loudspeakers. We all bolted toward the back stairwell.

  “B-T-W,” Sharma said as we ran upstairs. “Guess who came back from her li’l family vacay early?”

  “Jessie?” I asked.

  “Y-E-S,” Sharma said. “Saw her online Sunday night. Asked how the trip was going. She said: Finito. Said best part was her parents let her fly back early. Christmas night, I guess.”

  “Which means she could have taken those pics of me at Mr. E.’s. Maybe that was her on the train. Is she in school? Sharmie, did you say I’m dying to talk to her?”

  “Uh-huh. She quit the game soon as I brought it up. And no, she equals pretending she’s still away.”

  “Lucky,” Fawn said, thoroughly out of breath.

  “Fawnie, why are you up here? Your class is on one.”

  “I know,” she wailed as I powered on my Doc. “I didn’t want to miss anything.”

  I laughed and hugged Fawn, then Sharma and I slipped into class. But not before I sent a rapid txt. Just two words.

  moi Jessie. Please.

  The next four periods passed with me expecting to be called out of class at any moment. I had cold-brew jitters but with none of the perks of actually drinking a cold brew. But Dr. Graff never sent for me. And AnyLies never posted anything. So either both threats were only that, empty threats, or two different people were crafting my downfall right at that very moment. Either way, my
attendance record was safe for one more day.

  Then, finally, lunch. As Sharma lost herself in her online worlds, I stared at the cafeteria door. The one lucky thing about discovering yesterday that all my friends had been lying to me was that it had wiped Mac’s date almost entirely out of my head. I still hadn’t heard from him, so I thought there was no way he would visit me in lunch. But then, ten minutes into the period, he was sliding into the seat next to mine.

  I’d resolved to give him the cold shoulder all day. Was it immature that I was mad he went on a date with someone else immediately after I said I wouldn’t be his girlfriend at that moment in time?

  Sure.

  Was I okay with being immature in this instance?

  You bet I was.

  But now that he was there, all I felt was relief. I couldn’t wait to tell him about my fight with Audra and AnyLies’s new threat and how I’d stood up to Graff. He met my smile with a relieved one of his own. Sharma polished her glasses, put them firmly back on the bridge of her nose.

  “Wowza, guys. Mackenzie Rodriguez, is that a hickey on your neck?”

  The bite of liverwurst sandwich I’d taken fell out of my mouth onto my lap. Mac flipped up the collar of his shirt.

  “Nah.”

  “Yes it is.” An enormous un-Sharma-like smile lit up her sharp features. “Happy New Year to you two. Finally.”

  “Yeah, um.” I crumbled up the rest of my uneaten lunch, cleared my throat. “Mac went on a date last night.”

  Sharma’s head rocked back like she’d put on an EarRing and the volume was on high.

  “Whoa.” She held the next one longer. “Whoaaaaa. Yuck. Just, all-caps, YUCK.”

  Out the corner of my eye, I saw Mac’s expression fall. Dark circles ringed his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. It was almost as if…

  “Is that the same outfit you were wearing yesterday?” I asked.

  Mac shrugged.

  “It must have been a really excellent date if you didn’t even go home.”

  “What do you care?” Mac didn’t shrink from my gaze. “Not everyone thinks it makes them dirty to kiss me.”

  I wanted to mush my sandwich in his face. I wanted to scrub that hickey—could it be more enormous?—off his neck with my keys. So much for Mom’s theory that he didn’t want to hook up with anyone but me. I wanted to hunt down the chick that gave it to him and throw her in a solar trash compactor. Luckily, my Doc buzzed. I jumped.

  Rory—FaceAlerting me. I angrily swiped accept.

  “What?” I answered.

  “Have we reached an age when no one says hello anymore?” He was clearly at Headquarters. Behind him, two people were playing holobadminton with their hands. “So it’s not any of the girls.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Uh-huh. Or the nerdy guy, either. Turns out that I was actually friends with that guy, so I did a little profile scrolling. Dude’s darkest secret is that he belongs to a live-action medieval-battles club. I stayed up all night watching vids. Peeps run around a park in crazy getups and smack each other with foam weapons. It’s amazing. This one guy’s foam battle-ax was literally the size of a Hydrogen Coop. The dude and I got to messaging. I might join.”

  “Hydrogen Coop? Why’d you choose that reference?”

  “Uh, ’cause it was accurate?”

  A holobirdie flew straight at Rory’s head. One of the guys lunged for it. The collision rolled Rory out of the FaceAlert window. He wheeled himself back in.

  “Come on, you guys. I’m on business here.”

  “So that leaves eleven names.” Despite the fact that Sharma and I were pelting him with eye daggers, Mac swiped into CB, pulled our list from yesterday up on holo, and flicked away the girls and the medievalist. “My money’s on this normal guy with the avat profile pic. I mean, mira, what dude listens to oldies like Dave Matthews and Eminem, and also Primal Rage?”

  “A dude with no musical legitimacy.” Rory ducked and looked over his shoulder, waiting for another birdie attack. “Bro has traveled a lot for being only twenty. I’ll look into normal guy first thing after lunch.”

  “Already did,” Sharma said. “No activity on his account for two days now.”

  “Who said that?” Rory asked.

  Sharma shook her head and waved her hands in front of her: no, no, no, no. I kept my Doc trained on me and Mac.

  “Big deal,” Mac said. “So normal boy doesn’t like to be online. I haven’t checked into my accounts for at least two days.”

  “Technically, you have,” Sharma said. “Look, CB accesses your other sites. Click here, your profile shows what you’ve looked at online, where you’ve checked in, who you’ve…ew.” She stopped speaking. Her eyes shot up to me, then quickly away. “Normal boy doesn’t have that, which means…”

  “Ew”? What did that mean? And why had she looked at me when she’d said it?

  “Could be a dummy profile,” Rory finished. “Or he’s purposely covering that tracking stuff up, and why do that unless you’ve got something to cover up?”

  Behind me there was a loud crash. I squeaked in surprise—actually squeaked—and jerked around. Brittany Mulligan must have stood up too quickly and knocked her chair over.

  “What?” she asked when she caught me staring. “Afraid Ellie was coming to get you?”

  And although I desperately wanted to say, No, I just saw your shirt-and-pants combination, I shook my head. When I glanced at my Doc again, Rory was peering into the FaceAlert screen.

  “Are you actually in your school’s cafeteria right now? Kyle, do a wide-angle reverse view. Are you, like, surrounded by kids in space-agey uniforms? Is everyone eating adorable box lunches? Are owls delivering your homework assignments?”

  He snuck a finger beneath his glasses to rub his eyes, as if to better see the private school wonders previously denied him.

  “Rory, it’s a cafeteria. Not an anime spaceship for wizards.”

  “Feed a programmer’s offline experience points and reverse angle already.”

  I sighed. “Fine, there’s someone here I want you to meet anyway. Rory, computer hacker extraordinaire, allow me to introduce Sharma, computer hacker extraordinaire.”

  Sharma shook her head, whispering, “Don’t you dare,” even as she took her hair down from the pencil it was twisted up in, so when the Doc camera landed on her, glossy black hair was swishing across her shoulders.

  “Whoa,” Rory said.

  Sharma blushed and flapped her hand halfway between a greeting and a go away.

  “Sharma, meet Rory. He dropped out of college. What does ‘ew’ mean, Mac? What did Sharma see on your CB page?”

  Mac fully turned toward me so I could see just how far back on his neck that thing went. His nah-it-isn’t-a-hickey was the size of Greenland.

  “Oh my gosh. That’s hideous.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Mac asked. “I thought you liked being proven right.”

  Then he pushed back his chair and left. If Fawn or Audra were here, I would have been wrapped in a hug right now, but Sharma just studied me quietly.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Awkward.”

  When I turned my Doc around again, Rory was scowling. A txt from him hung over his FaceAlert screen.

  rory (cb techie) Hey. That whole dropping-out-of-college line only sounds good when I deliver it. It also means I’m only nineteen. Please turn the Doc around again?

  “Just find out what you can about normal boy, okay?” I forced a smile. “Oh, and Rory? Sharma wrote a program that makes Universal Translate recognize pig latin.”

  Rory clutched his chest and collapsed on his desk.

  “Not fair,” he murmured as I hit disconnect.

  Rory’s next FaceAlert came while I was in study hall. Before I accepted, I sent invites to Fawn and Sharma to silent conference the call. Two tiny FaceAlert windows immediately popped up on my screen. Now they could see and hear everything that I could and I wouldn’t have to try and repeat any
of this later. I blew them kisses, then tapped accept.

  “Am I on speaker or are you plugged in?” Rory immediately asked.

  “Plugged in,” I murmured. “Study hall.”

  “Okay, gotcha. You can’t talk. Is your foxy friend there?”

  “Not the one you like.”

  I reversed my screen so he could see Fawn. She was sitting next to me, smiling at her Doc. When she noticed herself on my FaceAlert window, she angled her own Doc away so we couldn’t see her screen, probably so Rory wouldn’t know she was silent conferenced in.

  Rory shrugged. “Not my type.”

  Gorgeous isn’t your type? I wanted to ask, but the study hall monitor was already looking at me, so I just shook my head in exasperation.

  “So, it’s definitely normal boy,” Rory continued. “I counted five firewalls around his profile. Or, you know, his dummy profile. Plus, get this, all the travel pics in his cache? They’re all stock photos. He bought them off this site BeenThereDoneThat.com.”

  moi Wait. You’re serious. You found him?

  Rory laughed. “Yeah, I told you we would. I mean, if it is a ‘him.’”

  Rory actually found him. Which meant this was all almost over. I felt the tingly rush of adrenaline of winning a debate, except this prize was so much bigger. I’d just won my life back. Fawn reached across the aisle and gripped my hand.

  “And hey, be careful. Nobody puts up this many firewalls without having something major to hide or without being serious about protecting it.”

  Who of the half dozen people who hated me would go through this much effort to make a fake profile? Intentional or not, there had to be a clue, either in the awful movies or music they made the dummy profile like or in the uber-WASP-y clothing sites they made him shop at. The fake boy’s avatar profile pic actually reminded me a little of Cobi Watkins. I couldn’t help thinking that this entire account reflected the exact kind of have-it-all-prepster that Audra—or Jessie, for that matter—would hate.

  moi You’re telling me this person’s dangerous?

 

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