by Resa Nelson
By the end of the day, Zuri couldn’t help but notice the dirt under her own nails and the shocking stench of what appeared to be her own sweat.
She rushed into the shower inside and scrubbed frantically to rid herself of the dirt and the stench.
When Zuri went to bed that night, she thought about her plan before falling asleep. More and more, she believed her exit from VainGlory had happened because of some kind of strange mistake or misunderstanding. Her previous companion and fellow housemate Janice had shared not only her plan to escape with Zuri. Janice had also found a spare key card, which Zuri kept hidden under her mattress.
Now that Janice had been sent to Degeneration Hall, Zuri realized Janice couldn’t guide her anymore. It was up to Zuri to decide when to use that key card.
CHAPTER 32
Zuri wanted to run away and hide.
Standing in a crowd of dozens of people of all ages, Zuri felt smothered and trapped. While she’d been enamored of the hundreds of icons that had jammed around her in VainGlory, they hadn’t been able to touch her, even if that meant little more than brushing lightly against her. More important, Zuri had been in control. She had the power to dismiss icons any time she wanted or simply mute them.
She had no power to mute the people standing all around her, much less get rid of them with the wave of her hand.
How can people live like this?
Zuri kept her arms wrapped tightly around her torso like armor. As always, she kept her gaze on the ground in an effort to shut out the sight of the crowd.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t muffle their voices.
Standing beside her—monitoring her—John had explained that tonight’s event was called a lecture. Despite his clarification that one person would speak and all others would listen, Zuri saw no point in such a thing.
Even worse, Zuri wondered if the lecture was aimed at her.
A middle-aged woman stood at the front of a large hall, and most of the crowd sat on simple benches lined in rows facing her. Zuri stood at the back with John and others who arrived too late to find an empty seat. The woman said, “Almost everyone has a perfectly good brain. What I’m here to discuss is why we must pay attention to what we expose our brains to.”
Zuri despaired in waves of homesickness for the life she’d left behind. She missed her wall of icons. She missed her friends.
“While technology benefits our lives,” the woman continued, “it also has the power to diminish our brains. And when our brains are diminished, each one of us becomes far less than what we have the power to be. Instead of being fully fleshed-out human beings, we become the equivalent of paper dolls. Our thinking becomes superficial and simplistic.”
When Zuri scoffed, John gave her a hard nudge.
“You know I have a love-hate relationship with technology,” the woman said with a smile.
Everyone in the room except for Zuri and John laughed. But when Zuri peeked at him, she saw one corner of John’s mouth turn up.
“I don’t have to tell you about all the ways technology helps our province and the entire Kingdom,” the woman said. “But it has a darker side. If we depend too much on it, we fail to encourage our brains to work. If we spend too much time with it, addiction can be triggered. And then there is the matter of manipulation.”
Zuri closed her eyes and drummed up the memory of her home in the Platinum Tower. She remembered how her meals were delivered. She remembered Benjamin—the one with yellow eyes, before her brother Rameen infiltrated and took over her Personal Digital Assistant.
The woman paced across the platform on which she stood. “It can be difficult to tell when people have taken over any given channel of connection. People with agendas. People who stand to benefit if they succeed in manipulating us. But by questioning the source of information on these channels—by coming to lectures like this one or even having face-to-face conversations with others in the community—we can keep our critical thinking intact. We can keep our brains healthy and active. We can avoid becoming paper dolls.”
Zuri remembered the first day she’d arrived in VainGlory. Now, she thought of it as the best day of her life. That night, she’d presented Mae Lin’s work in the Carnival of Animals and then saved Karen’s life when the shark attacked her. Zuri remembered how people had admired her, how they’d loved her.
A lanky man with graying hair stood from one of the benches and spoke. “Old habits die hard. Sometimes I can’t help but go back to sites where I can talk to my friends. Friends I’ve known all my life. Some days it goes well, and everything stays civil.” The man paused and rubbed his head as if someone had clocked him. “But sooner or later one of them says something stupid, and I can’t help but call them out. Then they say something even more stupid. These people matter to me. I care about them. I don’t want to lose them. What do I do?”
The woman faced him and folded her hands together. “I think we all face that problem. Remember this: when your friends say something that makes no sense to you, they are probably reacting to something they’ve seen or heard with pure emotion. Odds are they’ve become so entrenched with the sites they love that their perfectly good brains no longer function at more than a superficial level. Your friends have lost their ability for critical thinking. They don’t realize that their emotions aren’t the same as facts. They think information is knowledge, but they’ve lost the ability to turn information into knowledge. They might as well be children lost in the woods who are convinced they know where they are and how to get out.”
Zuri remembered how she’d created the maze and its resounding success. She thought about all the endorsements she’d received and the breaking trends that made her famous.
“I get that,” the lanky man said. “But how do I talk to them? How do I help them?”
The woman’s voice sobered. “I don’t think you can. Not unless they come to a place like the Kingdom.”
The lanky man’s voice cracked with pain. “But I care about them.”
“I know,” the woman said. “But just because they’re acting like children doesn’t mean they are children. They’re adults. They’re responsible for their own actions and decisions, just like each of us is responsible for our actions and decisions.”
Zuri perked up at those words.
I’m responsible for my actions and decisions. Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I have to stay here. I can decide to go back to VainGlory. I can decide to stay there.
“It’s a new kind of war we’re fighting,” the woman continued. “And what each of us can do is resist the temptation to get involved with paper dolls who have stopped using their perfectly good brains. I’m not saying you should give up on your friends, but think of them as magpies who are distracted by every shiny thing without taking the time to think about what that shiny thing is or means or if it can harm them.”
When everyone applauded, Zuri joined with enthusiasm, because the people who were trying to dissuade her had unwittingly encouraged her to find a way back to VainGlory.
CHAPTER 33
The next day, Zuri concentrated on acting the way she suspected John Running Horse wanted her to behave. She worked hard in the garden, paying attention and following orders. When John asked what she thought of last night’s lecture, Zuri told him she felt inspired by it. She even forced herself to ask John a few questions and learned he’d earned a degree in agriculture in a province located 100 miles to the west.
Zuri hid her discomfort, even though every moment she spent in the harsh and all-too-real presence of another person made her want to scream. Last night, surrounded by hundreds of people she didn’t know, Zuri had never felt lonelier. The world around her seemed strange and uncertain. Fear seeped into her bones and filled them like marrow.
Once night fell, Zuri ate an early dinner and claimed to be exhausted from the day’s work. Alone in the bedroom she’d previously shared with Janice, Zuri went through all of her former housemate’s secret hiding places, relieved to fin
d the treasures Janice had concealed. A flashlight under a loose floorboard. An open-ended train ticket pushed to the back of a high shelf in the closet. A forged document on a slip of yellow paper that would allow her to enter VainGlory without question.
Keeping the lights off and the bedroom in the dark, Zuri stayed under the covers, hiding the fresh set of clothes she wore in case John should find a reason to bother her.
Finally, when the crack under the bedroom door showed the house had gone dark—meaning John had retired to his own room for the night—Zuri retrieved all her treasures, including the key card hidden under the mattress. Knowing the floorboards outside her room would creak and alert John if she tried to walk out the front door, Zuri opened one of the large bedroom windows, eased her way through it, and hopped onto the soft grass outside.
Moonlight lit up the complex in which the Recovery House stood. Once a village run by the fishing industry, dozens of houses ranging from salt boxes to colonials stood on either side of the Recovery House. The houses jammed close together, a remnant of fishermen needing no yards because they spent most of their time at sea. All of the houses faced the expansive open greenery of the town common. A white bandstand gleamed in the heart of the common, and sidewalks lined with iron streetlamps emitting yellow beams of light crossed its lush grounds like a lattice.
Glancing around, Zuri saw only a man walking a dog a few blocks down the street. Hoping he wouldn’t notice her, she strolled toward the common and entered through one of its decorative iron gates. Although she stepped softly, Zuri’s footsteps sounded too loud. She held her breath until she had crossed the common and faced a grand house on its opposite side.
Satisfied that the house stood dark, Zuri remembered what Janice had told her.
It’s where they keep all the technology for connecting with the rest of the world. No one lives there, but they keep it locked up. We can get in with the key card, get connected, and line up everything we need to get out of here.
Janice had warned they should avoid the front door, because she’d spotted security cameras on the porch.
Zuri circled around the side of the house and discovered what appeared to be an entrance to a mud room. Not wanting to draw attention from the house next door, which stood close enough to block the moonlight, Zuri noticed a tiny dot of red light next to the mudroom door.
The key pad.
She held the key card against it, grateful when the dot of red light changed to green in silence, instead of beeping loudly like many key pads. Zuri opened the door and slipped inside, listening for the click to make sure the door had latched shut.
Safely inside, Zuri turned on the flashlight, keeping its beam on the floor to avoid detection from outside. Finding nothing on the main floor, Zuri winced when she climbed the groaning stairway to the floor above. She soon found a windowless room and dared to turn on the lights.
A wall filled with screens came to life, along with the keypad gloves scattered on the long table beneath them.
Next to the keypad gloves stood a box filled with Slim Goggles.
Zuri’s heart raced with joy. Her fear and discomfort melted away at the sight of everything that had been so cruelly stripped away from her.
Not caring about the fit, Zuri grabbed the first pair of Slim Goggles and gloves, jamming them onto her body.
The cruelty of the world vanished, replaced by brighter and prettier sites. Unlike the wall of icons she’d experienced inside her Personal Bubble in VainGlory, everything she wanted was displayed on the screens in front of her, reminding her of the reality of the room in which she stood.
Still, compared to her nightmarish existence since arriving in the Middlesex Province, this poor excuse of using Slim Goggles felt like ecstasy.
Opening up to a sense of floating in a state of comfort and pleasure, Zuri sank into the world now allowed by the Slim Goggles, sinking into the welcome sense of being surrounded by all the sites she knew and loved. Even though Zuri didn’t dare log into any of them for fear that her family would trace her steps, this superficial access would provide all the details she’d need to escape.
A banner-like ribbon announcement displayed across all screens.
Exciting news from VainGlory!
Adrenaline surged through Zuri’s body. Desperate to know what that news promised, she reached out with her gloved hand and clicked on the banner.
One screen filled with a clip of Zuri with wrists handcuffed behind her back being led by a group of armed guards into an ornate marble building. An engraved sign above the front door read “Highest Judicial Court of VainGlory.”
Startled by the sight, Zuri pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the screen. “That never happened. No one arrested me.”
News bubbles popped into view around the handcuffed Zuri, each announcing its own commentary. Although the newscasters talked over each other, Zuri could pick out some snippets.
“After being convicted of the murder of Shepard Green…”
“… expected to receive a sentence … “
“Zuri Blacksheep now faces what could be a death...”
“… showed no remorse at the verdict …”
“… considered to be a psychopath although not diagnosed by …”
“Psychopath?” Zuri said out loud. She leaned closer to the screen. “Why are they talking about me? That can’t be me.”
And yet, every news clip showcased Zuri—not an obvious imposter, but someone who looked and sounded exactly like Zuri. “This is impossible. None of this ever happened. How can they be reporting it?”
“A better question is what do they have to gain?”
Zuri jerked her head up. Past the thin veneer of the world her Slim Goggles displayed, Zuri saw Rameen standing in the doorway alongside John Running Horse.
Her first instinct was to run, but both men blocked the only path out of the room. The fear of getting caught paralyzed her briefly, soon replaced by indignance.
Too late, Zuri noticed the rapidly flashing lights on the tracking band locked around her wrist. She’d assumed that waiting until late at night meant everyone would sleep through any alerts they might receive from the tracker. Apparently, she’d guessed wrong.
“Fine,” Zuri said, still sitting in front of the screen showing footage of her being escorted through the lofty halls of the courtroom in VainGlory. She gestured toward the screen. “What do they have to gain by this?” Before either man could answer, a new possibility occurred to Zuri. Standing with increasing indignation, she pointed an accusing finger at Rameen. “You did this!”
Rameen remained calm. “I did not.”
Zuri fumed. “How am I supposed to believe that? You hacked into VainGlory. You broke into my Personal Bubble disguised as my Personal Digital Assistant. You’ve already manipulated me. Fooled me.” She flipped her hands up in the air. “This is just one of your tricks.”
“It’s no trick,” Rameen said. “What you’re seeing is why I hacked into VainGlory. It’s why I came to save you.”
Zuri choked out a laugh. “Save me? From what?”
“Let me show you.”
Zuri swept one arm in a grand gesture. “Be my guest.”
When Rameen entered the room, John shifted to center his body in the doorway to block any hope that Zuri could get past him.
She took a step back when Rameen sat in the chair she’d abandoned.
Rameen focused his attention on a smaller screen next to the one showing Zuri in the courthouse as he donned a pair of keypad gloves. Navigating through a set of dialog boxes on the smaller screen, he entered a program that played back a recording that Zuri recognized at once.
“Do you remember,” Rameen said, centering and enlarging the recording, “the day we went into your storage space and found a locked door and a locked trunk behind it?”
Rameen waved one hand, and an image of the steamer trunk they’d found hovered in the air.
Zuri nodded, forgetting she stood behind her brother w
here he couldn’t see her. She remembered how along with the green-eyed Benjamin—who she now understood had been Rameen—she’d succeeded in opening the locked door but neither had found a way to open the box, which appeared to be an old-fashioned trunk that people used hundreds of years ago. “There was a label on it. With my name.”
“Yes.” Rameen glanced over his shoulder at her. “Do you remember who the box was addressed to?”
Zuri frowned. She remembered because it still struck her as odd. “Franklin Buckingham.” The inventor of the Personal Bubble and the owner of the company that manufactured it. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It took a while, but I can open it now.” Without waiting for Zuri to respond, Rameen tapped his fingers in the air, which resulted in the trunk’s lock changing color from gray to amber to green.
The lock popped open.
With a swift gesture, Rameen waved the trunk lid open. When an audio track displayed on the screen, he advanced the bar to the halfway point and then let it play.
A document floated out of the trunk, and a disembodied voice said, “… may reside in any residence earned in VainGlory as long as you comply with the laws of the city.”
In that audio recording, Zuri’s voice said, “Yes.”
“What?” Zuri said. “That’s my voice. What is my voice doing there? I never agreed to anything like that.” She paused. “What exactly is that?”
Rameen gestured toward the smaller screen, where the audio continued. “… with the understanding that a failure of compliance results in the loss of all rights.”
Again, in the audio, Zuri’s voice said, “Yes.”
Rameen paused the audio and waved up more materials out of the trunk displayed on the screen. “There’s a medical report for Franklin Buckingham. The other one is a report of your DNA.”
Zuri stepped forward. Placing both hands on the table, she leaned so close to the smaller screen that she had to ease back to regain her focus on it. “Heart failure,” she read from the medical report. “This says he needs a transplant.” She shifted her gaze to her own DNA report, which had been stamped with one word.