She started pointing out other features as we walked through the house, which looked like a slightly larger version of the town house where we were already staying. In all honesty, the tour was pretty boring. Even my father looked like he was just nodding along politely as Elana showed off the exact appliances and other amenities that we’d already seen when we’d first arrived at Eureka Cove.
“So these are all Guidant prototypes?” Dad asked as we stood in the kitchen.
“Prototypes, yes,” Elana agreed. “Except for the products we already have on the market. I’ve found that my own employees are the best beta testers there are. In fact, the whole idea of having the bulk of my workforce live on campus was to test-drive the technologies I hope to put in every household in the world.”
“I’d hold off on those toilets,” Eric mumbled.
“Oh, the toilets are already on the market,” Elana said with a wave of her hand. “They work perfectly well if you follow the instructions. Trust me, Eric, we have much buggier experiments going on. But for every miscalculation, residents of Eureka Cove get half a dozen wonderful new technologies before anyone else. Drone delivery systems, robotic service staff, driverless cars, smart shopping . . .”
“Smart shopping? What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a pilot program here on campus,” Elana explained. “When residents of Eureka Cove buy things, they don’t use cash or credit cards but instead their handprint, which is directly linked to their employee account. That way, we have a running data stream of what they purchase and where they purchase it. We know if you usually buy a banana every day at your school cafeteria. When we know how many bananas get bought, we can make sure the cafeteria knows, too, so they can always order the right amount. You won’t have to worry about the stores running out of items you need, and the stores won’t have to worry about wasting money on ordering too many.”
“Cool,” Eric said, but Dad looked appalled.
“And that’s not all. If, after we start mapping your preferences, you stop buying bananas, we can contact you to see if you just forgot for a day or if you’d rather we started stocking apples instead.”
Dad shuddered—this time I was sure of it. “Sure,” he said, “it’s all fine when we’re talking about bananas, Eric. But this is really about privacy. I’m sure you can think of a lot of things you might want to buy without having your employer know about it. And when you add in that they know where and when and how much you’re buying . . .”
Eric’s face turned pink, and I realized that I could think of certain things I didn’t want anyone to know about, either. Was this really how everyone in Eureka Cove bought things?
“Yes,” Elana admitted. “The privacy issue was a concern to our employees at first, too. It’s sometimes hard for people to grasp the value of progress.”
“Or maybe they don’t see it as progress,” Eric muttered.
“But”—she smiled in triumph—“they soon saw that the convenience of the system far outweighed any perceived invasion of their privacy.”
“Perceived invasion?” Dad echoed. “You’re keeping track of their schedules, their diets, you’re emailing them to quiz them about casual preferences—”
Elana wagged her finger at him. “That’s why I like you, Dr. Seagret. You aren’t afraid to express your opinion. I don’t want to surround myself with yes-men who agree with me just because of who I am. You have no idea how hard it is, when you’ve reached my level, to find people who will give it to you straight. And I need my team to be made up of true visionaries.”
“Visionaries you can keep tabs on?”
Elana’s mouth snapped shut, and she seemed to consider this for a moment. Finally, she spoke. “I can understand how this must be a sensitive subject for you, Dr. Seagret, given your experiences.”
Dad narrowed his eyes. “What do you know of my experiences, Ms. Mero? Have you been collecting data on me, too?”
Eric and I exchanged glances. Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about where we’d live on campus after all. The last time Dad thought someone was keeping tabs on him, we all wound up staying in a tent and boiling our drinking water.
She straightened. “I can see I’ve hit a nerve, and I’m sorry. I truly believe this is a misunderstanding.” She looked at us. “Perhaps we should send the children home, and you and I can sit down and discuss this in detail.”
I was pretty sure Dad would turn her down, and that we’d be packed out of Eureka Cove that very night, but soon enough, Eric and I found ourselves in the front seats of one car, heading back to the visitors’ town house, while Dad and Elana Mero zipped off in another.
“Well, that was awkward,” Eric said.
“Yeah.” I fisted my hands in my lap. “I thought she might take back her job offer on the spot.”
“I thought Dad might freak out and make us all go off grid again.”
“Me too!” We were quiet for a moment, contemplating this. Even Idaho seemed like a better option.
“Ms. Mero kind of freaks me out,” Eric said. “What was all that talk about the end of the world? She’s as obsessed as Dr. Underberg.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But she hasn’t built a whole underground city.” That we knew of, anyway.
“No, but she put a satellite in space just to watch for asteroids,” Eric replied. “That’s pretty extreme.”
I shrugged. Listening to Anton and Elana talk at dinner tonight, it wasn’t extreme enough. We could end up going as extinct as the dinosaurs.
Still, there was a difference. Dr. Underberg had built Omega City to save us, in the event of an asteroid or a nuclear war. Even if Guidant did detect an asteroid with their satellite, what could they do? Like Dani said, Omega City was gone, and despite all I’d seen today, it didn’t look like Guidant had a plan to save us. Just . . . warn us.
Eric watched the buildings fly past. “Dad’s right. I don’t like the idea of everything we do being tracked and recorded like that, even if it is supposed to make things more convenient for us. Once you start to think about it, it’s creepy.”
Never had my brother sounded more like my father.
“They have a record of everything we’ve done here. Like the smart court and the boats and the cars and stuff. They know what we all ate for dinner tonight. They know how many of us are in the cars or on the smart courts.”
“Except when the system doesn’t work right,” I pointed out. “Like how it didn’t notice Howard was on the court.”
“Right.” We lapsed into silence again.
“But just because they know,” I said, “doesn’t mean they want to do anything with that information. Or that they’re able to.”
Though even as I said it, I knew that didn’t make it feel any better.
ERIC AND I arrived back at the town house to find Howard shut away in the boys’ room, listening to the numbers station, and Savannah locked in the bathroom.
“Are you okay?” I said to the firmly closed bathroom door.
“Yeah,” added Eric. “You didn’t get eaten by the toilet, did you?”
I gave him a look.
He shrugged. “I’m dead serious. Those things are a menace.”
I tried knocking again. “Sav? What’s going on?”
“Send Eric away,” came a voice from inside.
“Why?” he asked.
“I mean it!” she cried. “Get rid of Eric.”
I glared at him, but he just shook his head. “No way. Now I’ve got to know what’s happened.”
Throwing back my shoulders, I tried to copy Dad’s tone. “Eric,” I said, “I’m sure you can think of a lot of things you don’t want to know about that may have happened in there.”
It worked. Eric went pale, then made himself scarce.
“Okay, Sav,” I said, trying the handle. “He’s gone. Let me in.”
The lock clicked free, and I entered, then gasped.
Savannah sat on the edge of the bathtub, her face glum. Her shirt was off, s
he had a towel wrapped around her shoulders, and her hair looked like she’d put it through a cotton candy machine. It was a massive blond cloud, frizzing out in all directions. The air smelled strongly of burnt rubber.
“Oh” was all I could think of to say. Yeah, way better that Eric didn’t see this. He’d never let Savannah live it down. “What—”
She pointed at the counter behind me, where the hairstyling machine lay in cracked pieces. It looked like Savannah had taken to it with a hammer. “It’s that stupid machine! I had it set to loose waves.”
Loose tidal waves, maybe. I bit back a smile.
“Don’t laugh! It almost melted my face off!”
“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands. “Can I, um . . . touch your hair?”
She nodded tearfully, and I reached out to the fluffy mass, trying to pat it down. It crumpled like tissue paper beneath the weight of my fingers, and I grimaced. “Is there . . . gel in this? Or . . . cement?”
Savannah whimpered.
“So I guess it’s not just the smart courts and toilets that need a little work.” I frowned at her hair. “Let’s try cream rinse?”
Once I had her head under the faucet and the bird’s nest on top of her head lathered up, I told her about the house and the debate Dad and Elana had had over privacy.
Savannah groaned. “Only your dad would pick a fight with Elana Mero the night she offers him a job,” she said as I glopped several handfuls of conditioner into her hair and began to massage.
“Well, he has a point,” I said.
“So does she—ow!” Savannah yelped as I attacked her with a detangling comb. “People don’t always know what they want. How many bananas do you think go to waste in stores all the time? If they knew what everyone wanted, they could stop all that.”
“True.” I picked up another section of hair. They were obsessed with saving the planet around here. If the smart shopper system worked, they could eliminate wasted products, as well as save on whatever fuel might be used shipping things to the store or hauling garbage away.
“So if people have to sacrifice a little privacy for the sake of the Earth, then I’m all for it,” said Savannah. “Think about recycling and composting and all that other stuff. No one likes separating out their recycling. You probably don’t remember this because you were only there in summers, but they just started doing recycling back home a year or so ago. And everyone complained at first, but now they realize it wasn’t so bad after all. And they’re helping the planet. Sometimes people just have to be encouraged to do the right thing.”
I tugged out the final snarl and tossed her a towel. “Now you sound like Elana. She said people didn’t understand the importance of progress.”
“Well, your dad sure doesn’t.” Savannah patted her hair and surveyed the final damage in the mirror. “This is the best job offer he’s had in years, and he’s going to blow it.”
“So you want him to move to Eureka Cove?”
She pulled her shirt back on and turned to me. “Better here than Idaho, Gillian. At least here you’re close enough to visit.”
Yeah, but Dad getting a full-time position at Eureka Cove wouldn’t change my parents’ custody agreement. I still owed Mom the next year, and she was still moving us out west.
And if Dad took the job, he wouldn’t need to keep working on the Shepherd book. According to Mom, that would be better for all of us. We wouldn’t be in danger of retribution from the Shepherds for whatever Dad uncovered.
On the flip side, the Shepherds would get away with . . . well, whatever they were doing.
Savannah and I looked at each other in the mirror. Despite our best efforts, her hair was still a mess. As the strands dried, broken bits were sticking out, crimped ends poking up all over her head like straw sticking out of a hay bale.
“What do you think I should do?” Savannah asked.
“Did you bring any hats?”
There was a knock on the door. “Gills? Savannah? Are you two ever coming out of there?”
“He’s such a pest,” said Savannah. “What is it, Eric?”
“Um . . .” My brother trailed off. “It’s the Shepherds. They’re here.”
12
CROOKS
I YANKED THE DOOR OPEN. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE SHEPHERDS ARE HERE?”
Eric and Howard blinked at us. “Whoa,” said Eric. “What happened to your hair?”
“None of your business,” Savannah snapped. “And what about the Shepherds?”
“Howard thinks he’s translated one of the number code messages, and he says it’s about the Shepherds.”
“I don’t think it,” Howard corrected. “I know it. The message has to be correct. The chance that I could translate a code that was wrong and also made up a real message is practically impossible. It says so right in the book.”
“Show me.” If there was one thing Howard was good at, it was solving riddles. Last year, he had been the one to figure out the clues leading to Omega City. Maybe that’s why Dr. Underberg had sent him the code book—if it really was Dr. Underberg. We exited into the hall and headed toward the boys’ room, Savannah swiping her ruined hair into a messy bun as we went.
Papers covered with grids of numbers and letters in Howard’s messy handwriting were strewn all over his and Eric’s beds.
“Since we started recording, there have been three transmissions from the numbers station: one after ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ one after ‘Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,’ and one after ‘There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.’ There were also the two I wrote down earlier today: ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ and ‘Hey, Diddle, Diddle.’ And I think it’s like your dad said. The codes change with every new transmission.”
I looked at the mess. “So you’re trying to break all of them?”
Eric jumped in. “There are two options here. One is that the code has a key that only the people the code is meant for know.”
“Sort of like the word ‘Omega’ in the message Dr. Underberg left you in the code book?” I asked Howard.
“Yes,” said Howard. “Dr. Underberg knew I’d try that word. An outsider would never think of it. In this case we have no idea who these messages are meant for, so if it’s a keyword like that, we’d never be able to break the code.”
Eric interrupted. “The other option would be like Dad said—that the keyword was in the message itself.”
“So I tried to do that.”
“We tried to do that,” Eric said. “I filled out some of those stupid grids, too.”
“We started trying to break the code using every word in every poem.”
“Yikes,” said Savannah. “That’s what you’ve been doing in here all this time?”
Eric glanced at her hair. “Yeah, who had a better time?”
Savannah went quiet.
Howard handed me a sheet of paper. “But it was all gibberish. Until this one.”
I looked down and saw the words “Mary Had a Little Lamb” written at the top, and then, underneath, a grid of numbers and letters.
“I tried it with ‘Mary,’ then ‘had,’ then ‘lite’—”
“Light?” I asked.
“L-I-T-E,” he clarified. “It’s ‘little” without repeating letters. Anyway, that wasn’t it, either. Then I tried ‘lamb’—”
“We get it,” Savannah said.
“Well, we made it all the way down to ‘white.’ When I tried out the cipher with that keyword, we got results.”
“‘Shepherds ready to move on target at Eureka Cove.’” I eyed Howard. “You’re sure there’s no way this could be an accident?”
Howard shook his head, and a chill stole across my skin. I’d wanted to help Dad with his Shepherd book, but the last time any of us met a Shepherd, it was Fiona, and she’d tried to kill us.
“It’s practically impossible,” said Savannah. “There’s no way that particular sentence could be an accident, or that there would be another way to translate it.” She shivered. “
What could it mean?”
“There was nothing else?” I asked.
“Nothing that we’ve been able to figure out yet,” said Eric. “Howard just translated this one and then we came and got you right away.” He looked proud of himself. “See? I told you I was on your side for the next crazy theory.”
Yeah. Except this wasn’t crazy at all. “Okay,” I said slowly. “We need to figure out the rest, then. And we need to show this to my dad when he comes home.”
“But what do we think it is?” Savannah asked. “Why would someone be talking about the Shepherds here at Eureka Cove?”
I stared at the message, but I had no idea. We didn’t even know who was sending the messages, or who they were sending them to.
“This doesn’t actually say there are Shepherds here.” I tapped the page. “This is just an informational message. Someone is telling someone else that Shepherds are ready to move on . . .”
“Something,” Eric finished. “Some target. So pretty much an utterly useless message for the rest of us.”
He was right. The message told us nothing. We had to find out more. “Pass me some paper,” I said. “And tell me how to make a grid.”
So we all sat down for Howard’s crash course on encryption. It wasn’t actually that hard, just time-consuming. All you did was make a grid with five numbers across, then five down. Next, you picked a keyword and filled that in on the first line of the grid, then continued with the rest of the alphabet, skipping over the letters that you’d already used in the keyword. After that, it was just a matter of using the key to translate the number strings from the recording.
But even with four of us trying to break the codes, all the other numbers came out like gibberish.
“What do you have?” I asked Savannah after a while.
She rolled her eyes and stared at the paper she’d been working on, something from a recording of “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.” “‘Glbsh vranay, plbmicki enoshka.’ That’s from ‘quite.’ You want to hear ‘contray’? That’s ‘contrary’ without repeated letters.”
“Is it any better?”
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