by Barry Lyga
Cassie stared. This was her buddy? Oh, come on. How had she found her? That flicker of anger flared up again. She didn’t want to be rude — oh, wait. Actually, she didn’t care much about being rude.
Whoever assigned buddies had made a poor match. Sarah was her polar opposite: short where Cassie was long, blond where Cassie was black, white where Cassie was brown, smiling where Cassie was … well, not. Definitively, absolutely not.
Sarah was talking, but Cassie wasn’t listening and cut her off midsentence. “Thanks, but I don’t really need a buddy — which is why I left without you,” she added pointedly.
She tried to scoot around Sarah, already tapping on her phone to pull up the map of the school.
“Cassie! Wait! I can help you!”
Cassie groaned and looked up at the ceiling. Her eyes landed on the blinking green light of the Zi Technologies IndoorWatch Camera mounted there, and she had a dawning realization that she’d been a fool to think she could escape from her buddy. Or anyone, for that matter. It was easy to forget there were cameras everywhere, recording all the time, hidden in plain sight. Even in schools.
Seizing the opportunity Cassie’s pause had given her, Sarah dashed over. “Listen, I get that it probably sucks to transfer schools as a senior. I would hate it myself. But I’ve been assigned to escort you — it’s this thing we do in student council — so can you at least let me show you around a bit? This way I don’t get called out for letting the new kid get lost or something.”
Cassie exhaled a groan. “I really don’t need —”
“Well, obviously you don’t. But here we are.”
Cassie shifted her hips, eyeing the long corridor ahead of her. She had no idea where it led. The map posted on the school’s website was for crap.
“I promise I’m normal,” Sarah added. “I’m not going to murder you or anything.”
Cassie held up her hand. “Fine. I give.”
A small grin slowly took over Sarah’s face. “Oh, good,” she said lightly. “Surrender. Just like a good little victim.”
Cassie snorted. This girl was weird. Had Cassie actually been in the market for friends, she’d possibly put Sarah on the list.
Friends, no. A quick guide? Well, OK.
Westfield seemed like every other high school. With a pang she quickly brushed away, Cassie thought about her old school, her old friends. Six months ago, after what happened to her dad, Cassie had buried her grief and had an epiphany: friendships, or relationships of any kind, weren’t worth the hassle. Those old friends had reached out — some of them every day for weeks and weeks — but Cassie eventually blocked all their numbers, even those of her two best friends, Adena and Max. It wasn’t until now, with Sarah giving her the lay of the land at Westfield and chatting away as though they were going to be great friends, that Cassie began to wonder if she’d underestimated how hard it would be to go through senior year without them. Or with anyone.
One year, she told herself as Sarah diverted them from what looked like the gym doors and made a sharp left down a long hallway. All she had to do was survive one year at WHS. No sense trying to put down any roots when she was going to be transplanted in ten months.
“The labs are this way, and over there is the theater. What do you do, Cassie?”
“What do I do?”
“Art? Acting? Tennis? Code? What’s your thing?”
“Oh.” In her old school … before … that had been easy to answer. She was Harlon McKinney’s daughter, so she hacked. But now? “Nothing, really.”
“Well, there’s so much to do here, if you’re into that. Here’s the library, and there’s the auditorium,” Sarah said, pointing. “And there’s the media center over there, right past the courtyard.”
The courtyard. Where dozens and dozens of kids were gathered, some of them shouting and cheering. The Hive Mob. It was time to #DumpSkylar.
“Cassie?” Sarah finally noticed that she’d stopped, whirled around and trotted back. “Come on, we — oh.”
“There’s a Hive Mob,” Cassie said. She was staring at the crowd. The sound of it, a steady thrum of voices and feet stomping, filled the hallway. Flashes of the previous day’s Hive Mob danced in her memory, leaving her unsteady and a little unsure about whether what was happening in front of her was real or just a flashback.
“Yep. But the bell’s gonna ring soon, so we should go.”
Cassie nodded toward the crowd, which had filled the courtyard, an open-air space with a few trees, a smattering of grass and some benches.
“What about them? They’ll all be late, right?”
Sarah shrugged. “Basically, any student can be excused at any time to go participate in any Hive Mob that involves a Westfield student. So even if it’s during exams” — Sarah made a face — “we’re free to go.”
Cassie raised her eyebrows. Impressive. Her old school had pretty strict anti-Hive rules. The thought of being able to join one no matter when or where it was happening … and her mom wouldn’t even know …
“But it’s a joke,” Sarah added. “Only the popular people ever trend positive. Each week, a certain crowd decides who will be the targets, and everyone just follows along. It’s not even real justice. It’s just —”
The bell rang.
“Cassie,” Sarah warned. But Cassie’s mind was already set.
“See ya, buddy,” she said, and rushed toward the courtyard, her skin feeling like fire.
*
The courtyard teemed with everyone at Westfield, it appeared, except for Skylar himself. (Well, and Sarah.) They were chattering, checking their phones, the sound of BLINQs forming a symphony Cassie found herself craving. The atmosphere was almost festive.
If Cassie knew anything about high school, it was this: it’s a battleground. She could see immediately which groups were in charge. The beautiful people, as they’d been called at her old school, were the most obvious to spot: the sunlight bounced off their shiny hair, their contoured faces. Then there were the techies, the sect Cassie most closely fit in with at her old school, who tended to congregate on the edges. They had a confidence that rivaled the beautiful people’s, but they seemed more approachable. Cassie knew from experience, though, that if you did approach the techies, it had best be with something smart to say.
There were the badasses and the middlemen and the artists and the athletes, though as the world had grown more digital many of those groups had been diluted, weakened over time. Not many people cared these days if you could throw a touchdown pass or paint a picture, unless you also knew how to translate your winning moments into viral gifs. The more important question was, could you kick off a trending topic? Did you have the skills to doxx?
What you looked like mattered — it had always mattered and always would matter. What you could do mattered only a little less, and had changed dramatically, even in Cassie’s lifetime.
Cassie moved around the perimeter of the courtyard and looked up toward the second floor of the school. Even the hallways were full, serving as an overflow space for the Hive Mob. This was gonna be good. She felt that charge again, the same one from yesterday, like her fingertips were buzzing. The heavy rage inside her rose up, as eager to be expended as Cassie was to be rid of it.
Cassie nudged a girl with sleek black hair and retro cat’s eye glasses who didn’t look exactly friendly but at least not hostile. “So what did Skylar do?”
Glasses Girl looked her up and down. Finding Cassie’s black jeans and rumpled denim shirt acceptable, she broke into a grin and revealed the whole story.
With every word, Cassie felt herself start to deflate.
It turned out that Skylar, a junior, had been dumped by his girlfriend of four years, Izzy. As payback, Skylar had tried to start a vicious campaign to turn people against Izzy by sharing “secrets” about her — things she’d said to Skylar about her frien
ds and family, about school, about him. Tried, but failed. People quickly caught on to what Skylar was doing and turned the tables on him, calling him a misogynist, an abuser. The backlash was brutal. #DumpSkylar was trending locally within hours of his failed attempt.
It couldn’t be the whole story, Cassie knew. Because if #DumpSkylar was just about a heartbroken guy sharing low-level secrets from his ex-girlfriend … well, Cassie would need to find something to kick. Hard.
She kept her voice steady. “So what’s the Hive verdict? Level 1? Level 2?” She could check her phone or tap her earbud for the answer, but Glasses Girl looked like she wanted to share.
There were five Levels of Hive Justice, each one denoting the severity of the crime and the spectrum of possible punishments. Most offenses trended locally only and were Level 1. Within each Level was a Range, which determined how long the Hive had to enact its justice. At Range 1, you only had a day, so you’d better act fast. The Ranges grew exponentially, and by the time you got to Range 5, the Hive had an entire year to get to you. Such a time span was theoretically possible for any Level, but in practice the algorithm that determined such things rarely punished a meager Level 1 crime with anything greater than Range 2. At higher Levels, your chance of higher Ranges increased, as did the severity options for punishments the Hive could vote on.
Glasses Girl actually squealed. “Level 1! Range 1, so we gotta do it today. We get to dump garbage all over him!”
Cassie closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Sure enough, her earbud pinged and told her It’s #garbagedump time! There had to be more. “And then what?”
When she opened her eyes again, Glasses Girl was narrowing hers. “What do you mean? That’s his punishment. It’s been voted on. It’s a good punishment because he tried to dump garbage about Izzy. Get it?”
Sensing the rise in tension, a few girls quickly appeared behind Glasses Girl, fixing Cassie with blank stares, the kind she’d perfected herself the day she turned thirteen.
“Everyone’s out here waiting to throw garbage on someone who got dumped and acted out?” Cassie shook her head, exasperated. There was real shit happening in the world, and Westfield High wanted to waste time on stuff that didn’t matter?
Maybe if she knew Skylar and Izzy, it would have mattered, but Cassie found the cold satisfaction of Hive Justice boiling into hot anger again. This was useless to her. It was kid stuff.
“This is what the Hive agreed to.” Glasses Girl crossed her arms across her chest defensively, as though Cassie had insulted her mother.
“This is ridiculous,” Cassie fumed. “Are you really wasting your time with this crap? Are you kidding me?” Something from a conversation with her dad bubbled up in her memory just then: Punch up, Cass. Never down. “I’m not gonna spend my time on some douche who’s sad his girlfriend broke up with him.”
Glasses Girl gasped. One of the other girls — tall, with red hair — cocked her head, suddenly showing interest. “New girl, am I right?”
Cassie shrugged. She’d already said more than she should have.
“Too good to join a Hive Mob?” the redhead taunted lightly.
“A shitty one like this? I’m just saying, I like to spend my time on stuff that changes things. I was in a mob yesterday for a guy who ruined his family’s lives. That one mattered. My dad always said, ‘Punch up, not down.’ ”
The redhead laughed. “Who the hell is your father and why should I care?”
Cassie felt her cheeks burn. She was the daughter of a tech god, but she’d never in her life traded on Harlon’s name or history. She wasn’t about to start now.
“Never mind. I’m just saying — the whole point of the Hive is justice. Justice is for big things, not a lovers’ quarrel.”
“General consensus is that all Hive Justice is important,” the redhead said coolly. She pushed some of the other girls aside and joined Glasses Girl in front of Cassie. From the way the other girls let her, Cassie could tell she was one of the beautiful people. “Because, of course, by definition it’s the will of the people. It’s an elitist stance to say that any one crime is more or less important than any other. That’s for the Hive to decide, not the individual.”
“Exactly, Rowan,” Glasses Girl said, and the remaining girls nodded, crossing their arms.
“Sometimes people are wrong,” Cassie countered. She could hear Harlon in her ear, everything he’d said over the years about Hive Justice. How it started out as a way to save the internet, and with it, the world. How it was a valid path people could use to take power back from the government, from the tech companies. How it had disrupted the world’s long-held views of justice. Her dad, she remembered, a little smile appearing on her lips, was all about disrupting. She gestured around at the crowd. “If you Hive Mob over petty crap like this, you’re making a joke out of the whole thing.”
The redhead, Rowan, raised her eyebrows. “What an … interesting perspective.”
“What’s your name?” Glasses Girl asked.
“Why, so you can start a social campaign against me for thinking this particular mob is amateur hour?” Cassie snapped.
Rowan smirked. “Just more petty crap, right?”
Before Cassie could respond, Rowan and her friends began to filter away, joining the crowd.
Cassie was glad to see them go. She sought out empty space to find a path out of the courtyard and back to the hallway. She’d long since lost interest in this excuse for a Hive Mob. She’d have to find a release for her fury elsewhere.
As she edged in between the spaces, finally reaching a part of the hallway that wasn’t packed, she heard a roar go up behind her. Skylar had arrived. For a moment, she considered staying.
But then, a flicker. Up ahead, on top of a row of lockers, something was perched. Moving. Cassie caught it out of the corner of her eye, the kind of movement that could be nothing, or could be everything.
She took a step forward, debating. She wasn’t sure which way to go to get to her class (where was her “buddy” when she really needed her?), but the long stretch in front of her felt like the obvious direction. So she continued on, approaching the flicker, which had stilled.
And then a boy landed, hard, on the floor in front of Cassie.
His sneakers made a startling squeak. His black jacket puffed up behind him like a balloon before perfectly settling down. Under it he wore a black T-shirt that said CODE IS POETRY in white monospaced letters. Cassie’s fists curled in again; it was fight or flight time, and her body had already decided to stay and fight.
“Sorry,” the boy said, straightening, settling his long limbs. “I didn’t see you there.”
Right. Someone hadn’t seen all five feet ten inches of her walking alone in an empty hallway.
“Yes, I’m often told I’m invisible,” she said.
He fixed his gaze on Cassie. His eyes were green, serious. “I don’t think that’s true.”
He looked at her for so long that she went still. Something about his eyes, his leather jacket, the whole damn thing made her anger cool. An ice cube melting into hot soup.
And then he smiled. Cassie doubted he’d even admit that, since it was just the tiniest curling up of the lip. But she saw it. And it made her flush. Her mouth went dry. She regretted not putting on lipstick.
But most importantly, she realized this was the longest eye contact she’d had in months. No one looked at each other anymore like that; most of their interactions were digital.
“Watch where you’re going next time,” she snapped, stepping around him. She strode down the hall, her boots echoing.
*
Eventually, she found her first-period class. And her second, third and fourth, a forgettable mix of annoying teachers and ringing bells and gossip about Skylar, who was apparently walking around Westfield with food scraps and rusted cans and empty bottles dangling from his neck. Finall
y, lunch came.
As Cassie shoved her textbook into her backpack, Sarah, who was in the same fourth-period advanced calculus class, approached her.
“Whoa!” She threw her hands up in mock surrender. “Quadratic polynomials really piss you off!”
“It’s not that,” Cassie fumed. “It’s that I’ve already taken advanced calc. But it’s the highest math class here, so my mom’s making me retake it so I don’t” — she made air quotes — “lose my skills.”
“Nightmare!” Sarah said. “What does your dad say about it?”
Cassie concentrated on hoisting her already-too-heavy bag onto her shoulders. It was the perfect way to avoid meeting Sarah’s eyes and thereby avoid the question, though she was sure a spark of anger flickered visibly across her face. If Cassie had been on her way to being friends with Sarah, that comment alone would have made her reconsider.
As it stood, weeks ago she’d decided — almost subconsciously, deep inside the bones that still ached at the memory of her old life — that relationships, even the special ones, weren’t really worth it in the end. People weren’t worth what it cost to lose them.
“Where’s the caf?” Cassie changed the subject, leading the way into a crowded corridor. Sarah pointed in the opposite direction from where Cassie was headed.
“Over here, Magellan. By the way, I told my friends to save an extra seat for you, if you’re up for eating with us?”
Cassie shrugged; it’s not like she had anyone else to sit with. She and Sarah cruised past the senior wing and the library, through furtive hookups and selfie poses and locker slams. In the caf — big and crowded and smelling of day-old sandwiches, even though that should’ve been impossible — Sarah showed Cassie the lunch options and stuck close by as Cassie grabbed an apple and a bag of pretzels.
“I thought we were eating with your friends?” Cassie wondered as Sarah led her to an empty table.
“Hmmm,” Sarah said, rearranging the lettuce and pickle on her sandwich. “Maybe they got stuck in line. Doesn’t matter.”