Scared little rabbits, p.20
Scared Little Rabbits, page 20
“Maddox? Samirah?” The program director peers down at us from behind the wire rims of his glasses. “What are you doing out here? I told you to wait in your rooms!”
“It’s my fault,” Emerson explains. “I asked Maddox to help me look for Reese.”
“She’s in there!” My voice sounds ragged as I point toward the second floor. “Upstairs! We have to—”
I don’t have time to explain. I move to push past both of them, but Emerson stops me.
“No, she’s not.”
“But Samirah said…”
“I saw Reese going up there,” Samirah contributes, looking decidedly uneasy beneath Dr. Carlyle’s scrutiny. “I came out here because Miranda—”
“Miranda’s missing too.” I speak tersely. Every instinct in me screams to get a move on. My body vibrates up and down on the balls of my feet. Forget Miranda. Find Nora. Find Reese! If the girls aren’t upstairs in their rooms, then we need to search. “We should all split up. Or maybe—” I break off and snap my finger as a better idea hits me. “The feeds! The surveillance feeds! If we log into the security server, we should be able to spot them. Unless…”
“Unless what, Maddox?” Dr. Carlyle has his hands on his hips, with a look on his face I hardly recognize. There’s something missing in his expression. An undercurrent of bemused affection. A look that says he knows I’m getting up to no good, and he might not condone my methods, but he approves of my enterprising spirit. That’s how he’s always looked at me.
But now there’s a tightness to his voice that I haven’t heard before. Not angry, exactly. I’ve seen Dr. Carlyle lose his temper once or twice, but this is different…and far more unnerving. There’s a hint of desperation behind those wire rims—like a man who thought he stood on solid ground, only to feel the earth give way beneath his feet—a man whose carefully crafted illusion of control has begun to flicker around the edges.
“Yes, Maddox?” he prompts. “Did you have something else to tell me?”
He phrases it as a question, but I can tell it’s not. The surveillance feeds… The hack… All the blood in my body turns to ice as I realize the truth.
He knows.
Dr. Carlyle watches me, eyes flashing with silent accusation, but Emerson intercedes before the program director can get a word out. He clutches a smartphone in his hand and taps at it quickly with his thumbs.
“Maddox is right. The surveillance feeds… I can’t believe I forgot about those!”
Dr. C freezes, catching sight of Emerson’s screen. “Is that—”
“We’re in,” Emerson mutters without looking up. “Here are the live feeds from Fenmore second floor, but I don’t see any sign—”
“Emerson!” Dr. Carlyle thunders, finding his voice at last. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Emerson turns toward him, matching thunder with a steely gaze. “I’m looking for my sister,” he says. “Whom you would not have lost in the first place, if this institution had the slightest sense for cybersecurity.”
Whoa.
The two of them stand toe to toe. Chests puffed out. And now I’m the one at a loss for words. I have to hand it to Emerson. The guy has balls of steel. Three years ago, he was a student here, and not a particularly well-regarded one. Emerson nearly faced expulsion for the sheer variety of ways he broke school rules. Only Eleanor, pleading with her parents for leniency, saved his ass. But now, with his ripped jeans and heavy metal T-shirt, Emerson stares down Dr. Carlyle like he owns this place.
Dr. Carlyle blinks first. He takes a step backward, conceding the point. He removes a handkerchief from the pocket of his blazer and mops his brow.
Emerson returns his attention to his phone. “What about the western edge of campus? Isn’t anyone monitoring the feeds over there?”
“No.” I say the word, but my voice is too hoarse for anyone to hear. Campus security might be watching the video feeds, but they won’t see Reese or Nora…or even Miranda. All those feeds have been altered since the night I sent the InstaQuest—the night Eleanor disappeared.
I need to tell them, but my throat is too tight to speak. I clear it to get their attention and choke out a few short words. “You won’t find them.”
Dr. Carlyle glances toward me.
“Not on the live feeds.” I address my words to the program director’s pointed oxford shoes. “Only in the archives.”
I feel sick to my stomach, like I’ve been standing in the sun too long, even though the sky above has gone a dreary gray. I lean against the stone balustrade beside me and bury my head in my hands.
Emerson will catch my meaning. He knows about the hack. Hell, he invented it. He looks toward me, eyebrows raised, but Samirah interrupts before he can utter a question.
“Look!” She peers over Emerson’s shoulder at his phone, pointing to the screen. “There! There she is!”
I look up, and my pulse quickens with hope. Nora?
But no. I see my mistake from the expression that transforms Samirah’s face. Not Nora. Not Reese. She just caught sight of Miranda.
29
The Overlook
NORA
You’d think the universe had sent me enough warning messages to last a lifetime. But no. Here I am again, huffing and puffing from the steep climb upward to The Overlook, with my sandals chafing at my feet and sweat pouring down my temples.
The view of the lake below does nothing to soothe my jangled nerves. The storm clouds overhead reflect against the choppy surface, turning the water from blue to an ominous shade of dark gray.
The wind has grown insistent. It whips at my hair, and a raindrop lands on my shoulder. I hold out my hand, palm up.
Drop. Drop, plop.
Those aren’t the misty raindrops of a passing summer sprinkle. They’re the fat kind that serve as a warning of an oncoming downpour.
Great. An exposed cliff in a thunderstorm? Probably not the wisest place to be. But I can’t go back. Not without Reese. Not without the visor.
I glance at the girl before me. Reese stands at the center of the clifftop with Eleanor’s visor concealing her eyes. She has her back to me, facing toward the yellow police tape and the ledge beyond.
I wipe my wet hand against my shorts and retreat closer to the trailhead under the branches of the nearest tree. “We shouldn’t be up here,” I call to Reese. “There’s a storm coming!”
She merely shrugs. “So leave if you’re afraid. Run along.”
If only I had my cell phone. I reached for it as Reese flung herself over the locked metal gate at the bottom of the trail, but I found my pocket empty. I must have left it in my room. Now I’m caught up here empty-handed. No visor. No phone. No way to call for help beyond the sound of my own voice, and the hasty message I traced in the dirt with the edge of my shoe before I clambered after Reese. I can only hope that some responsible adult—Dr. Carlyle, security, the police—will notice it and come after us.
Reese lifts the visor from her face and turns to confront me. “You should go back, Lowercase. This doesn’t concern you.”
Lowercase.
Something in the way she says that nickname makes me tremble. How can she still call me that, after everything that’s happened? I always assumed Eleanor was the one who refused to let me go by my real name, but I don’t know that for a fact. I never heard Eleanor say so to my face. It was Reese who changed the username on my InstaLove account. Reese invented that nickname in the first place. Didn’t she?
I think back, visualizing the scene on the first day of the program, surrounded by five laughing girls in Reese’s room. No, it wasn’t Reese. It was one of the others who first suggested “Lowercase.” Maybe Mirand—
Wait a sec.
Miranda…
Of course it was Miranda! How could I have overlooked that? How many times have I heard Maddox refer to her by the shortened form of her name?
M!
My eyes fly back to Reese. She lifts the visor to her face again. Her lips press together, and her jaw works from the way she grinds her teeth. Whoever lies on the receiving end of that InstaQuest, they haven’t responded yet. I assumed it was Maddox, but perhaps the letter M stands for a different name entirely.
There’s something else—some other detail I’m missing. I look down and force myself to focus.
M.
The single letter, M.
I’ve heard Maddox speak that nickname aloud, but I’ve seen it somewhere too. Weeks ago, at the beginning of the program, I saw it on a screen, not a visor. My laptop?
A hazy memory resurfaces. I was sitting with my laptop on that hidden bench behind the hedges, looking through the Maker Project ideas on TeenHack.
And there it was, that single-letter username: M.
What project had M posted? I recall feeling creeped out by it, but I can’t remember the details. Definitely not the modified potter’s wheel I saw in Miranda’s room…
I can feel my brain turning—trying and failing to retrieve a memory—like the spinning rainbow wheel on my laptop whenever my CPU usage spikes. I blink to clear the sensation.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Judging from Reese’s body language, I’ll find out M’s identity soon enough. She pulls her hands from her pockets, and her fingers ball at her sides in two closed fists.
“Come on, M,” she mutters. “Get your lying ass up here.”
* * *
MADDOX
My chest deflates as I look to the video feeds displayed on Emerson’s phone. A figure emerges from behind a closed office door, with a middle-aged woman behind her. The two of them hug briefly. Then the girl tugs her beanie lower over her forehead.
Miranda.
“That’s my office,” Dr. Carlyle says under his breath. “She’s with Ms. Peterson. She must have gone back for more grief counseling.”
Samirah looks to him. “Can I…”
He nods before she gets the words out, and Samirah takes off in the direction of the program director’s residence. To meet her girlfriend. To offer support and love. Because that’s what two people in a healthy relationship do.
But I wouldn’t know much about that, would I?
I swipe the back of my hand across my mouth and sink down on the marble steps. “What about Nora? What about Reese?”
“I’m looking,” Emerson replies.
“Try the gate. The one that leads to The Overlook. It’s serial number 19X9852.”
Dr. Carlyle lifts an eyebrow. “You know that off the top of your head, Maddox?”
I avoid his gaze—and the accusation in his voice. Yes, I know the serial number. I looked it up last night. That camera holds the evidence of my involvement in Eleanor’s fall. I probably signed my own death certificate by bringing it up in front of Dr. C.
But I can’t think about that now. Nora’s in danger. That’s the only thing that matters.
I keep my eyes trained on Emerson as he examines the image on his phone. “Nothing there on the live feed,” he says.
Of course not. The live video still bears the altered image I didn’t have the courage to remove. “What about the archived footage?”
From where I sit, my eyes are level with the cell phone in Emerson’s hands. I can’t see the screen, only the edge of his black rubber cell phone case cradled between his palms. I have no idea what he’s looking at when he sucks in a harsh breath.
“Emerson?” Dr. Carlyle prompts.
I lower my head, bracing for the blow about to fall. Emerson must have rewound too far back. Did he see me scaling the chicken wire fence?
“What the…” Emerson murmurs. His voice drops so low that next word comes out no louder than an exhalation of breath. “…hell?”
I rise and attempt a peek at the image on his screen, but he jerks the phone away. He shields it with his shoulder. I can only make out the black text box I’ve come to know so well.
InstaLove…
An InstaQuest…
“Who?” I ask him. “Who sent you that? Is it Reese?”
He answers in a strangled voice. “I think it’s—it’s from—”
But he never finishes his sentence. With no further explanation, he turns and bolts through the heavy wooden doors.
The Dropbox (Final Entry)
ELEANOR
https://bit.ly/dropboxL
Dropbox > Personal
File Name: Entry 1.txt
Created on: 7/1/2019
Visible to: Deleted
File Name: Entry 2.txt
Created on: 7/2/2019
Visible to: Deleted
File Name: Entry 3.txt
Created on: 7/9/2019
Visible to: Deleted
File Name: Entry 4.txt
Created on: 7/10/2019
Visible to: Deleted
File Name: Entry 5.txt
Created on: 7/17/2019
Visible to: Deleted
File Name: Entry 6.txt
Created on: 7/17/2019
Visible to: Deleted
File Name: Entry 7.txt
Created on: 7/17/2019
Visible to: Deleted
Breathe, L. Just breathe!
UGH. Third journal entry today. I’ve completely lost my chill.
I can’t remember if I logged out before I switched the visors. It’s been messing with my head all afternoon. I did, right? I must have. I remember selecting “Sign Out” from the menu and seeing the prompt to confirm.
And then I chose YES, right? And I blinked? I don’t know why I have the weirdest feeling that I didn’t.
I’ve been making too many mistakes. It isn’t like me. I forgot to clear the browser history from this terminal before I logged out and went to dinner. Anyone could have found it. Anyone! I should delete this whole dropbox. Stop writing things down. If someone hacked in and found it…
M would kill me. He’s convinced I’m going to slip up, and someone’s going to find out about us. It’s getting kind of insulting tbh. Would it really be so catastrophic if people knew we were together? I know, I know, I’m not 18, and he has his CEO image–> 500 employees depending on him–> Investors wouldn’t like it–> Blah blah blah blah blah.
Whatever, Emerson. Sometimes I think he loves his stupid company more than me. I’m blowing up my whole life to move out West. To be with him. My parents are going to freak when they find out. They’ve always disapproved of M. And Reese... Reese will never speak to me again. Like, how is that conversation going to go?
Hi, Reese. Yes, you are my best friend that I tell everything, except for this one secret I’ve been keeping…that I’ve been in love with your brother right under your nose…and my “relationship” with Maddox? The boy I told you broke my heart?
That was never real.
Fake fake fake. Nothing like a little augmented reality to cover up the truth. Your brother taught me that, Reese. Fake it till you make it. That’s his motto. Mine too, now.
It will all be so much easier after my birthday. Once I’m of age in California, we can apply for the marriage license that day. My parents will come around once it’s legal, once they know how serious we are.
If only Emerson would listen to me! All he has to do is change one parameter. So easy! Then Maddox’s Maker Fair demo will crash and burn, and nobody will question why Maddox is comforting poor Lowercase with her bumped head.
But no. M won’t do it, will he? God forbid he get his hands dirty. And I couldn’t access the server to change it myself. Not even with the visor. Unlike me, clueless little Lowercase actually has the presence of mind to LOG OUT of file servers before she closes them.
Whyyy???
So now, there’s only one move left. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I need to come clean. Tell Maddox the truth. He’ll cover for me in front of my parents if I’m honest with him. I know he will.
I should have gone that route from the beginning. Maddox wouldn’t have minded. Not after we broke up. I bet he would’ve helped me out of the goodness of his heart. Because he’s actually a good person. He’s not faking anything. Not like M. Not like me.
It’s not too late to fix it. Go. Now. Talk to Maddox. Make it right.
OK, that’s the plan. You got this, L.
Just breathe.
30
M
NORA
The first few warning raindrops have given way to a steady downpour. Tree limbs groan overhead in a sudden gust of wind. Those scattered branches won’t do much to protect me from getting soaked to the skin.
Reese, fully exposed to the elements out there on the shelf of rock, doesn’t seem to care. Water drips down her forehead, but she’s oblivious to the reality surrounding her. She keeps her full attention devoted to the visor—and whatever game she’s using it to play.
Something about her expression scares me more than the dark storm clouds. I need to get out of here. Now.
I turn to go, but pull up short. A new sound greets my ears. Footsteps, growing stronger by the second. Whoever M may be, I’ll find out soon enough. There’s someone running up the trail in our direction.
Maddox or Miranda? I’m not sure I care to encounter either of them on the narrow, rocky steps back down to campus. I shift my weight from side to side, hesitating.
The footsteps grow more urgent. They splash through puddled water as they make their way closer. Reese must hear it too. She turns toward the trailhead and squares her shoulders.
The owner of those footsteps climbs the final rise. At last, a head comes into view.
Not Maddox, thankfully.
Not Miranda either.
