by Barry Lyga
“We have to celebrate,” Rowan declared. “Going viral is ultimate goals.”
Cassie couldn’t quite figure out why. Yeah, it was a rush to get so many people paying attention to her, but … so what? Had she actually accomplished anything? Rowan seemed to think so, and Cassie wanted to ask why but figured it would just make her look like more a rube.
And given that Rowan’s idea of celebrating was much more expensive than Cassie’s meager bankroll could bear, it was a good time to break off anyway. She waved goodbye and ducked outside before gulping the last of her slushie in private. In a way, she was almost grateful to bow out.
Her earbud chirped for her attention. A text from Sarah.
Sarah usually texted Cassie every day, often not saying much of substance. Cassie typically ignored the messages and dealt with the fallout the following morning at school (which was manageable … Sarah was so easygoing about Cassie’s lack of availability that she never seemed to mind when Cassie left her hanging). But tonight, hearing Sarah’s name in her ear triggered some new emotions. She left her phone in her pocket and had the text read to her instead.
You’re everywhere! What in the world! You’re going to be famous!
With a resigned sigh, Cassie said, “Respond to Sarah: blushing happy face emoji.” She figured that was the perfect amount of balance between keeping Sarah at bay and acknowledging today’s momentous occasion.
When I was a kid, there was a difference between being internet famous and just plain famous, Harlon used to say. And no one wanted to be internet famous.
Cassie almost walked right into oncoming traffic when a soccer ball–sized sack of guilt rammed into her gut. She flipped the bird to a driver who honked at her and wondered what her dad would think of the fact that his only daughter was now, officially, internet famous. Or at least on her way to it, depending on how the rest of the evening played out.
Twenty minutes later she rounded the corner of her block just as an alert buzzed in her earbud. It was a sound she’d never heard before. She stopped for a moment and ducked under the awning of the dry cleaner’s to avoid the drizzle that had just started. At that moment, the voice of her phone’s digital assistant spoke:
WARNING.
APPROACHING LEVEL 1.
STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
Wait, what?
Impossible. She’d misheard. She pulled her phone out of her pocket to double-check.
A notification that took up the entire screen flashed back at her.
WARNING.
APPROACHING LEVEL 1.
STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
Cassie’s hand shook. The phone slipped out of her grasp and tumbled onto the sidewalk.
Level 1? Me? Cassie picked up her phone and frantically began pounding at it. She had to see what had happened with her BLINQ.
But her phone had locked her out. The only modes available to her were text and phone.
“Shit!” she cried, feeling panic rising. She’d never been locked out of her phone before. Is this how it happened when Hive Justice came for you? How did anyone survive?
The thought that she, Cassie, could be the subject of a Hive Mob made her entire body break out in goose bumps. But still, she reminded herself, this was ridiculous. Her BLINQ had been a joke. It had been smart! And biting! The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous this all seemed. If she could just explain to people … All she had to do was find a way to restore her phone to normal — she’d hack into it if need be, ignoring all thoughts of how risky that would be — and delete the BLINQ. Or reason with people who were condemning her. Or plead with them. Or …
She felt herself spiraling. And all she knew how to do when she was spiraling like this was to stop, take a few deep breaths and recap the situation. Usually, in her recapping, she’d discover things weren’t as bad as they’d seemed. So she paused, tried to focus on the falling rain and slowly counted to ten.
There. That was better. Her hands weren’t shaking anymore, and the cold sweat she’d broken out into was gone, replaced by the mist on the wind. She would call Rowan, she decided. She needed to hear someone tell her this was all going to be OK.
“Call Rowan,” she muttered into her earbud, and within seconds her phone was ringing.
Only it never stopped ringing.
“Girl, pick up,” she grumbled. Her heart was beating a little faster now, a little more erratically. She tried again, and then again.
After that, she texted. Have you seen our BLINQ? It’s going crazy. We’re approaching Level 1! What should we do?
In the rain, Cassie waited for what felt like forever for Rowan’s response. When it came, it slammed into her like a truck.
We? Rowan wrote. Try “you.”
“What the actual hell!” Cassie shouted. She was breathless now, a claw of fear stretching up her throat. This isn’t what was supposed to happen.
Cassie almost hurled her useless phone to the ground but managed to redirect her anger at a nearby hydrant instead. She kicked it with the flat of her foot over and over again, then screamed out loud when that did not satisfy.
THWACK.
She jumped. Meli, the owner of the dry cleaning place, was pounding on the window. Her eyes were wild. Cassie couldn’t hear her through the glass but she could read her lips: “Check your phone! Check your phone!”
She did.
LEVEL 1 ACHIEVED.
HOLD. DO NOT FLEE.
AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
“This is insane!” Cassie breathed. Meli tapped on the glass again.
“You should go home,” she mouthed.
Cassie waved and then pulled her denim jacket up over her head. As she was about to make a run for her front door, Sarah called.
“Hi,” Cassie said, surprised at the rush of gratitude she felt. “Did you see what’s going on? I’m at Level 1!”
“This is so crazy,” Sarah said agreeably. “How are you? Where are you? What possessed you to … Were you showing off for Rowan or something —”
“I’m fine,” Cassie interrupted. “This is nuts. When I came up with it, everyone laughed their asses off. And now she’s being annoying about it all.”
“What do you mean, annoying?” Sarah asked.
“She basically told me to deal with it on my own,” Cassie admitted. Thinking about it made her angry all over again. The joke had been Rowan’s idea. She’d wanted to go viral. And Cassie had! And now Rowan was going to pretend she wasn’t involved? She was jealous, Cassie decided. Jealous that she hadn’t come up with something as good as Cassie’s. In fact, she remembered, Rowan hadn’t come up with any ideas at all. She’d demanded everyone else do all the heavy lifting while she sat back and watched.
That was what Rowan always did, Cassie realized.
Cassie shook her head, trying to focus on the here and now. She was at Level 1, and she needed a plan, and she needed Sarah — and more aptly, Sarah’s brain — to help her. “I don’t know. Who cares? Listen, can you meet me right now? Or after dinner? Whenever. I could really use your help. I have to figure this out. Gotta get some people to upvote me and counteract the Condemns, you know?”
Cassie heard everything: the dripping of the rain, which had turned heavy and thick; the rush of water draining into the sewer under the curb; the sound of the bus pulling into the stop around the corner; Sarah’s breathing, cautious and quick.
“God,” Sarah finally said. “I wish … I wish I could. I do. I do. But I can’t. My dad’ll kill me if I leave the house tonight.”
Cassie waited a beat, finding her words. She thought about asking why, but it didn’t really matter. It was hard to admit to anyone, but mostly Sarah, that she needed support. “Look, I really need some help and Rowan doesn’t seem like she cares. Maybe I could come over there instead? That way your dad won’t get pissed.”
> Sarah was silent again, long enough that Cassie checked to see if her phone was still in service, or if some faction of the Hive Mob had remotely disconnected her altogether.
“Sorry, Cassie,” Sarah said, her voice small and distant. “I’m really, really sorry.”
Cassie stared into the middle distance as Sarah hung up. Nowhere to go. No one to help her.
Her fingers started moving on her phone’s screen before she could articulate her thoughts.
Dad, Cassie texted, I’ve had a super-weird day. I could really use your help.
Harlon’s reply was instantaneous. Mom and I are always here to help you.
Cassie ground her teeth. One of the major flaws of the bot: it thought Cassie and her mom were close.
But Dad, she wrote, I think I’m in some real trouble.
There’s good trouble and bad trouble, my girl. Which kind are you in?
It was a tough question to answer. No one wanted to be convicted by the Hive, of course. But then again, Cassie still wasn’t convinced she’d done anything wrong. A question popped into her mind: What if everyone who was convicted by the Hive felt the same way she did right now? Was it possible that the things Rachel said about the Hive …
No, the world was crazy, but not so crazy that her mom could actually be right.
I’m not sure yet, Cassie confessed to Harlon.
Harlon’s bot took a few seconds to respond. Cassie held her breath — was something wrong with the software? Would this be one of those times when she wouldn’t get a response? But then, finally, it came through.
Figure it out, my girl, and then you can take action.
10010700101
Figure it out.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Cassie remained at Level 1 overnight, with a Hold Action icon that meant the Hive algorithm had determined there was a good chance that her ongoing virality would bump her to Level 2. So no one was to take action; no range was assigned; no hashtag had been elevated. She was in limbo, wondering not whether she would go to hell but rather to which circle.
Hey, classics reference! Congratulations, Mom!
Not for the first time, she was relieved that her mom knew next to nothing about the current world and so wasn’t aware that her daughter was about to be handed some ridiculous punishment as a result of her joke.
In homeroom, Sarah paled at the sight of her, then flinched as Cassie slid into the empty seat next to her. “Oh, relax,” Cassie said, disgusted. “It’s not contagious.”
But everyone at Westfield had apparently received the same directive Sarah had: either avoid Cassie McKinney outright or openly mock her. She passed Skylar, he of #DumpSkylar fame, in the hallway and their eyes met in sympathetic solidarity. Well, Cassie thought, he appears no worse for wear. Eventually everything will be fine.
It was kind of freeing, in a way, being in Level 1. Quiet. In a few days, it would all be over.
But then, on her way to lunch, her earbud dinged again.
LEVEL 2 ACHIEVED.
HOLD. DO NOT FLEE.
AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
It was just as well, she realized dully, staring at her screen. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity to avoid the cafeteria — and Rowan — altogether and go hide out in the library.
Cassie knew no one who had borne a Level 2 punishment, but she’d followed Level 2 events online, of course. While Level 1s were awarded pretty freely (especially locally), the difference in virality numbers between Levels was exponential, so someone had to do something really wrong to jump to Level 2. But all in all, a Level 2 punishment — a few days without food; being shunned; having to apologize in an online video — would be bearable. Embarrassing, but not life changing.
In the media center, Cassie found an empty desk in a quiet corner and tried to make herself invisible while she strategized her next move. She had limited options. Talking to her mom was, naturally, off the table; she could only imagine how smug Rachel would be, how many versions of “I told you so” she would come up with.
Rowan wasn’t talking to her, which meant the rest of the group wasn’t either, just like a cluster of well-behaved remote-controlled robots. Her friends from her old school hadn’t heard from her in months, and Cassie knew she couldn’t go to them now. And how could she blame them? She’d ghosted them. They owed her nothing.
Glancing around the library, which used to house books and now was mostly just storage space for various technologies, Cassie felt the threat of tears behind her eyes. She had no one.
She couldn’t believe that that was what she once wanted.
*
Cassie was in a state of high-level misery when she got home. It was, she supposed, nice to know who your friends really were. But the circumstances were — to use one of her dad’s favorite terms — suboptimal. Especially given that it appeared she had no friends.
Level 2. She still couldn’t believe it. And the Hold Action icon remained. It was possible — likely, even — that it would go away and she would remain at Level 2. But the idea of hitting Level 3 was sheer madness. She just wanted this to be over already.
It was equally maddening that her mother managed to exist in a world where knowledge of the Levels, of the Hive overall, was negligible. She studied Rachel carefully when she got home, checking for hints that she knew Cassie was in a bit of trouble — or even, maybe, for an opening to discuss this with her — but amazingly, her mother knew nothing. So she switched to her default mode, in which she ignored Rachel to the very best of her abilities (hint: exceptionally well). Filtering Momspeak through her brain and keeping only the important stuff was a skill she’d mastered shortly after her father’s death, when Rachel had begun blathering at length on topics that were of no interest to Cassie. She employed those skills tonight powerfully, if she did say so herself, and managed to get to bedtime without contributing much more than the occasional grunt, nod or eye-roll to the conversation.
That afternoon she had been exhausted, zombielike. But now, she slipped into bed and knew immediately that sleep would not come. Not for her. She would be tossing and turning and checking her phone.
You could always turn the phone off, Cassie, said the voice in her head that sounded like her mother’s. The suggestion was true but impossible. Even with her phone limited to just voice and text, there was no way in the world she would turn it off. She couldn’t even tolerate the fifteen minutes it was unavailable to her during mandatory software updates.
And then — she remembered something. Rachel often had trouble sleeping and sometimes took melatonin to help herself drift off. She didn’t just take pills or drops, either: she had these chocolate candies laced with the stuff.
Cassie climbed out of bed, crept past the door to her mother’s room and sneaked into the kitchen. There, in a cabinet above the stove, she found the stash of melatonin candies, packaged in a cheerful red-and-blue box with the words SWEET SLUMBER! splashed across it in yellow.
According to the box, a partial dose — one candy — would help you relax. Two candies would really knock you out and three would send you into “blissful dreamland!”
She would settle for plain old sleep, honestly. Blissful dreamland seemed too much to hope for.
Those dosages were for old people, though. Younger metabolisms burned hotter and faster. Cassie figured she’d need a higher dose, so she chomped her way through five of the candy-coated slumber bombs. It felt weird slugging down so much candy at bedtime, but she made short work of them and then, satisfied that she’d solved at least this problem, headed back to bed.
10010800101
Cassie awoke to the sound of her mother’s voice and an insistent electronic bleating that seemed determined to bludgeon its way into her skull. She groaned and flapped her hands into the darkness. All she wanted was to go back to sleep.
But there was Rachel’s voice,
right there along with the endless pinging sound. Rachel, saying her name over and over again, and other things, too, speaking so rapidly into the thick air of night and sleep that it threatened to become one endless word.
“Cassie Cassie wake up wake up Cassie Cassie can you hear me wake up wake up wake UP sweetie wake UP we have to go we have to run Cassie Cassie for the love of God wake up …”
Cassie cleared her throat and tested opening her eyes. Her room was dark, her mother’s face looming close and huge and wide-eyed. “Now,” Rachel said. “Get up right now.”
“No, Mom. I’m tired. Can’t we do this in the morning?” It came out more like “Numuh, ’m tied. Kenny deuce inna mornin’?”
And then Rachel actually touched her, grabbed her by her shoulders right there in bed and shook her fiercely. Or at least, as fiercely as her mom could manage. Cassie had inherited Harlon’s height and broad swimmer’s shoulders and towered over her mom when standing. Still, the physical contact finally roused Cassie enough that she peered around the room, bleary-eyed and muzzy-minded.
“What the hell, Mom? Let me sleep.”
Rachel said nothing. She simply thrust Cassie’s phone in her face. It took a moment for Cassie’s vision to adjust to the sudden light in her eyes.
The pinging. Endless pinging. It was from her phone. And the screen was dead black except for a single, large, luminous numeral in the center.
5
No.
No way.
She blinked rapidly and shot up into a sitting position, snatching the phone from her mother’s grasp as she did so. Bringing the screen closer to her face — as though seeing the individual pixels would change things — she stared.
LEVEL 5 ACHIEVED.
LEVEL 5 ACHIEVED.
LEVEL 5 ACHIEVED.
INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE FORTHCOMING.
FLEEING THE CITY MAY RESULT IN
ENHANCED RANGE PENALTIES.
Level 5. Not Level 3. Which would have still been a shock, but would have at least made some kind of sense. No, she was at Level 5, and no matter how badly her mind wanted to contort the bends and lines of that number 5 into a 3, it just didn’t work.