“I won’t pretend it’s going to be easy. But it will be worth it,” she says. She inserts a skeleton key into the faded brass lock before opening the door and motioning me inside.
Ducking under the ivy, I enter a living room with stone floors and wood-paneled walls. Cast in watery light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the cottage, a shallow tweed couch faces a large stone fireplace. The space is void of cameras and screens—the techiest thing is an antique record player that sits in an orange box on the hearth. It’s like the whole place is frozen in time, like I’ve stepped into a VR game set a hundred years ago.
I rub my arms against the chill in the room as a dizzying wave of homesickness washes over me. If only I could curl up with my cat on the cushy lounge in my old home theater to get lost in a movie. While I was growing up, my parents kept me under lock and key. Most kids were on the Networks since birth, so when they went public at sixteen, they already had fans, but not me. I was homeschooled by robots and nannies with the occasional VR field trip. Publicly, my parents said they kept me a virtual secret because they wanted me to have a childhood, but I think they didn’t want to risk revealing my true identity. Movies were my only link to the outside world—practically my only friends—and my only common ground with my dad. As an actor, he studied the classics, and I’d watched the entirety of his rare collection religiously. They were my life.
“Everything is going to be fine, Elisha. You’ll see.” Allard closes the door. The deadbolt clunks into place, jumping me back to my new reality. “You must be starving. Can I get you anything to eat? Drink? Should I start a fire?”
“No, thank you.” My stomach rebels at the thought of food, and my legs wobble, threatening to give out. “I think I need to lay down.”
“Of course.” She shows me down a hall to a small room with a single bed draped in wool. A light fixture resembling a space station illuminates a streamlined dresser. I try not to compare the sparse furnishings to my room at home—the king-size bed tufted with down, the French crystal chandelier, the dressing room equipped with a delivery portal for sponsored products, ensuring a constant rotation of sequins and bangles—all controlled by a swipe of my hand. I only had to speak the occasion I was dressing for, and, at a wiggle of my fingers, the closet would spin around me while my virtual stylist assembled an outfit in one minute flat.
As I catch a passing glimpse of myself in a mirror, my bruised and bloody face replicated with gold starburst rods radiating around it—at the center of the explosion—my breath seizes. Terrorized by the nightmare reflected at me, I quickly look away. It’s like I’m underwater again, fighting for breath, and I crumple onto the bed, trembling, the enormity of the night assaulting me. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, and a sob escapes my throat.
“Shhh… Here, take this.” Allard helps me sit up and hands me an orange cup. “It’ll help you sleep. And tomorrow we’ll begin your training so you’re up to speed when the others return.”
After choking down the sugary concoction, I bury my face in the pillow.
Allard sits silently with me, her hands pressed to my back, and lets me cry.
Eventually, the sedative works its magic, and the sobs slow.
“Welcome home, Elisha,” Allard whispers, lightly stroking my hair as I drift to sleep. “I promise you’ll find riches here you never knew existed. Everything is going to be okay. You’re among friends now.”
Friends. The word resonates, but I pass out before I dare dream it’s true.
…
When I wake, I’m battered, beaten, limp. Everything hurts. My throat is raw, and my lungs are sore. The night comes rushing back with a vengeance. Wanting to keep the memories at bay, I force myself to my feet, repeating my mantra: No looking back. Only forward. Don’t think. Move. I head into the hall in search of the bathroom and bump into Allard.
“Elisha. You’re awake.”
Groggy, I rub my eyes, reminding myself of my new name. “How long was I out?” I ask, my voice scratchy and hoarse.
“About twenty hours.”
“That was some strong stuff you gave me.”
“Yes. I thought you needed a good rest,” she says. “And a hot bath is in order, too.” She opens a door behind her and shows me into a spacious restroom with stone walls and a claw-foot tub bathed in natural light from skylights. Dropping a stopper into the drain, she turns on the hot water and throws in bath salts and bubbles.
Sweet lavender wafts up to me on the steam, and I can’t wait to soak my aching bones.
“Use these towels, and I’m going to run and get you a change of clothes. I’ll be right back.” She sets the fluffy green towels on a wood counter next to the sink.
“Thank you,” I say as she hurries out of the room.
While she’s gone, I force myself to examine my battered reflection in the gold-framed mirror hanging over the sink. A cut on my forehead erupts from a black bruise that radiates over my right eye and fades to a sickly green on my swollen cheek. I’m still wearing my beaded Balenciaga birthday dress, the sheath accentuating my lean frame and the beads somehow intact. I hate everything about it.
“I probably don’t need to wear asymmetrical makeup with this monster face I’ve got going on,” I say when Allard returns.
She smiles. “Probably not. I don’t think you’ll have any scars, though. You’ll need a makeup lesson in no time.”
“No scars that anyone can see, anyway,” I mutter, struggling with the zipper on the side of the dress, unable to peel it off fast enough.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” Allard says. “But when you’re done you can put this on. It’s your uniform.” She sets down a neatly folded stack of forest green cloth.
Unfolding the jumpsuit, I examine its boxy cut and cargo pockets. It’s the opposite of anything I would have worn in my previous life, and I’m grateful for its protective covering after so many months of forced overexposure.
“Actually, could you stay?” I ask. “I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts right now.”
“Of course,” she says. “Let me get something to sit on. I’ll be right back.”
After using the time alone to kick off my dress, I sink into the tub. The bubbles foam up over my shoulders, and the hot water is heaven to my stiff muscles. I relax until I’m reminded of the lake and the ever-present sadness that lingers in the recesses of my brain surfaces.
I miss my mom. We weren’t speaking when I died, but I wish I could go back to a time when I thought she loved me—to when the future was full of possibility—to laying safely next to her in my own bed with her arms wrapped around me. Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them away.
“I’m sure you have lots of questions,” Allard says, returning. She carries a small orange stool with two cups of tea balanced on it. “I was thinking after your bath we can have breakfast, and then I’ll give you a tour of the campus.”
“Cool,” I say, swallowing a sob, grateful for her distraction.
“And we’re also going to have to do something about your looks.” She sits, handing me my tea.
“I thought you said I wasn’t going to have any scars?” Sitting up in the tub, I take a small sip from the mug. The hot liquid soothes my parched throat.
“You won’t. I’m more worried someone might recognize you.”
“But doesn’t being a Disconnect mean no technology? How would anyone even know about me?”
“We may live off the grid, but it’s important we’re aware of what’s going on in the world. At Keystone, we’re a special legion of Disconnects. Our mission is to steal analog history—to preserve the truth—before corporations and the government can alter the past to benefit their personal futures. We’re in danger of entering a Digital Dark Age, where the only information available is digital. Tape recordings, printed books, films, photographs—proof of history—are decaying
and becoming scarce. Digital information is easy to tamper with, and there are forces at work that want current society to reflect their version of the past.” She sips her tea before continuing.
“Often, we’re after priceless works that are protected by the latest technology, so we have to understand tech even though we don’t use it ourselves. We have internet access in the Crypt—that’s our code-breaking library—and the TMI-feed is likely a guilty pleasure for some of the girls. They watch the Networks—they have to. For your Initiation Heist, you’ll be asked to go under cover in Influencer society, and you’ll need to know how to fit in—and how to hide in plain sight.”
“Initiation Heist?” I almost choke on my tea, the cup rattling in my trembling hands at having to reenter society.
“It’s the final test before becoming a full-fledged Keystone member with access to our top-level secrets, but don’t worry,” Allard says. “You’ll have plenty of time to learn our ways—and you’ll participate in a heist as an assistant to an Initiate—before you’re asked to lead a heist the following year.”
“Lead a heist?” My eyes bulge. “Right.”
Pressing her lips together, she represses a smile. “We won’t make you do anything you aren’t prepared for. Though, with your exceptional intuition, I suspect you’ll learn quickly.”
“No pressure,” I mutter, inhaling lavender, processing the enormity of what she’s telling me.
She laughs. “As you can imagine, invisibility is essential to being a thief. We don’t use technology because we don’t want to be tracked,” she continues. “We may shun the Networks and refuse to be ranked, but we’re not like Unrankables. They aren’t allowed to rank, while we choose not to rank.”
Unrankable. The word is quicksand in my mind. The worthless, greedy, lowest of the low. The unemployed, unmotivated poor who live off our handouts. My face must betray the prejudices so ingrained in me, because Allard straightens, a sad frown forming on her lips.
“I didn’t know that,” I admit, setting my tea on a shelf and sinking back into the tub. “I’ve always lumped Disconnects and Unrankables together. My parents taught me Index ranking is everything. If you don’t rank, you don’t matter.”
“This is a lot for you to get used to,” she says.
“It is…” I shake my head. “My mom used to say, ‘For you to matter, somebody has to be talking about you, eavesdropping on you—spying. Your worth is measured by your number of followers, your Index trade amount, your engagement rate. If nobody’s watching, nobody cares.’ It sucked, but I’ve lived and breathed my numbers forever. Who am I without them?”
“We’re going to discover that together. You have so many gifts, Elisha. Believe me—numbers don’t mean a thing. A one becomes a zero, and a life is erased? Not here. Here, you are always someone. You have purpose.”
For the first time in forever, I smile. “I hope that’s true. I’m so tired of BS people posting their BS lies. Nothing out there is real. If there isn’t a picture or your Life Stream didn’t record it, it didn’t happen, it didn’t matter. But the truth is, nothing matters. It’s all…stupid. Pointless.” Dipping my head back, I wet my hair.
When I raise my head, Allard’s sparkling eyes meet mine. “I think we can find out what matters to you. So, what do you say we get to work making you unrecognizable? I’m not worried about your face—by the time summer is over and everyone returns to campus, the collagen and other injectables should have worked their way out of your system. Whatever your mom was using to keep you looking like her will be gone, and we’ll see the real Elisha. But maybe we should start with your hair.” She holds up a pair of scissors. “Do you trust me?”
Pouring shampoo into my hand and working the soap into my hair, I consider her. She helped me escape. She’s taking me in. She’s the closest thing I have to family now… “Yes,” I decide, using a handheld shower head to rinse out the bubbles. “What are you thinking?”
“As you know, asymmetry is important to disguise yourself from the facial-recognition cameras that are all over the place. That goes for hair, too. I think we should chop it off. Maybe angle it just above your shoulders?”
I rub creamy conditioner into my thick locks, weighing my wet hair in my hands, recalling my mother’s signature windswept spirals. When she smiles in the cutesy, infectious way of hers while twirling a curl around her finger, she twists whoever she’s manipulating right along with her. We spent years growing my hair out in the hopes it would mimic hers but never quite succeeded. All I ever wanted was to be hers…but I was never enough. Her love fluctuated with my share price.
Thinking back to my debut on the Social Stock Exchange, I remember our last moments together before I went public and everything changed:
“After today, it will be up to you to keep your investors happy,” she said. “Always be a story—the more dramatic, the better. If you do, you’ll live in luxury. Your currency account will be forever full. If you don’t—if you fall from the Index—you’ll be Unrankable. Useless. And then you might as well disappear.”
Wrapping her arms around me from behind, she rested her chin on my shoulder, comparing our mirrored faces reflected on a wall screen. Our house was equipped with the latest in Life Streaming technology. Cameras recorded our every move, and our lives could be edited to movie quality and streamed direct to the Networks with less than a five-second delay.
But we weren’t live. This was a rare, private moment. One that was recorded only in my Book of Secrets; a palm-sized, leather-bound journal with thick vanilla pages. Real paper. A rarity. I kept it hidden in the zippered belly of my sleep sheep, my lovey for as long as I can remember. Its pages were finite, so I savored the moments I recorded, the memories meant for me alone.
I leaned against my mother, memorizing her slim grasp, wanting to stay her little girl but at the same time ready to prove I could fly.
“I love you, Mom,” I said. “Thank you for making my dreams come true.”
Taking my hand, she smiled. “That’s what we’re made of, my love. Dreams.”
Rinsing out the conditioner, I squeeze the water from my hair before pulling the plug on the drain. And now it’s time for the nightmare to be over.
Allard hands me a towel, and I climb out of the water, wrapping myself in soft fluff. As I towel dry my long, hand-painted locks, I picture my bloated lips shriveling, my cheeks deflating without the fat to fill them, and Ella is one step closer to dead for me. She’s destined to be overwritten with time, anyway, stamped out by someone prettier, more popular, more alive.
With a nod, I decide. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter Three
June 20X5, Keystone
“Few believe in Keystone’s existence,” Allard says as we walk through the forest. “And we like to keep it that way.”
The thin morning air is crisp and clean, smelling of sweet, wet dirt. Leaves pitter-patter in a breeze overhead, and fire is in the air. I’d love to collapse next to its warmth, but memories lie in the flames, and I force myself onward.
“There are a few buildings visible at ground level, like the Lodge,” she says. We pause in front of a dilapidated stone building with leaded glass windows and broken wraparound porches. It’s so covered in ivy it’s like the earth is trying to reclaim it. “This is our central meeting place.”
“People go in there?” Imagining what sized spiders lurk inside, I shiver.
She smiles. “Yes, but it’s not accessible through any doors or windows. You’ll see when everyone comes back from summer break. The entry points are locked this time of year…not that we couldn’t break in.” She winks. “But we’ll start your training elsewhere.”
“Thank God. That place looks like it could collapse at any second,” I say, following her past the Lodge, our path unmarked. “I’d rather not risk…” My lungs seize at the thought of being trapped inside, and I’m back underwater
, fighting for breath. Dropping to my knees, I cradle my head in my hands.
She lowers herself to my side and squeezes my shoulder. “You’re safe here, Elisha. Everything at eye level purposely appears abandoned in case someone ventures this deep into the forest.”
“Does that happen often?” I gasp for air. Am I always going to have these freak-outs?
“Almost never. Breathe with me.” She inhales, and I fill my lungs with her. “This part of the forest doesn’t show up on GPS maps or locators,” she says, exhaling. “The trees shield us from satellites, and we have a bit of technology of our own that ensures we remain undercover. Anybody who wanders back here is lost…or trying to find us. But we’re prepared for that. Otherwise, most of Keystone is underground or built high into the trees.” She rubs my back. “Breathe.”
We inhale and exhale together, and she stays by my side until my heart rate slows and the memories are safely tucked away. Squinting up through tears, I stare at the tips of trees disappearing into the sky, unable to discern any structures. “Do I have to learn to climb trees?” My muscles tense.
Allard laughs and helps me to my feet. “No. We have stairs. But we’ll explore those another day, too. This way.”
We walk for a few more minutes in silence until she stops in a seemingly random place and crouches down. “Today, we’re going to focus on the underground. This is the Vault.” She brushes away dirt and leaves from the forest floor to expose a trapdoor. Swiveling up a round, rusted metal dial, she reveals a combination lock hidden beneath it.
“This access code changes daily and is equated from the number of folds in the origami displayed in the Atrium—the Keystone cafeteria—at breakfast,” she says, turning the knob to a sequence of numbers so quickly I can’t register them. “But the Atrium isn’t open this time of year… There’s also a master access code. That’s one of the secrets you’ll learn once you’re initiated.”
With a click, a handle pops up.
Keystone Page 2