Futureland, p.13
Futureland, page 13
“Fine, fine,” I said to Itza. “Well, could I project Yusuf’s Holo-pet from this band? Just as a test.”
“I believe that is possible, Detective. Hold, please.”
The giant column in the center of the room whirred and sparkled. The room lights darkened and came back up after a few moments, but I didn’t see Ali. I looked around for the little neon-blue sugar glider, but I couldn’t find him anywhere.
“Itza, are you sure it worked?”
“The process was initiated and completed,” she said. “Perhaps there was a glitch with wearer compatibility.”
“Ugh,” I grumbled. My ears got hot with frustration. This would be so much easier if I had my band.
I thought about going back up to my room to get my Futurelink band, but I heard Inaya’s voice in my head, nagging me for messing up the variables in her experiment. If I took off the band before she came back, I would probably throw the brain-wave readings off.
I couldn’t use Yusuf as a tester—he’d realize that I’d taken his band. In fact, I’d been hiding it from him under my long sleeves for days. His frustration about it going missing had eventually turned into sadness. He’d almost stopped talking altogether.
I’d have to go get Uncle Trey to run the test projection or something. Way more work than I planned for. I turned to exit the chamber and a rush of kids met me, screaming and shouting and pushing to the front for their chance to step into Itza’s chamber.
“One at a time!” I hollered.
Jeez. Futureland was already open. I wouldn’t have any time to test the Holo-pets’ new functionality. A flash of guilt came over me. Mom was counting on me, and I’d failed. But everything had worked when Yusuf and I did the race in Future Trek, so it would probably be okay, right? I hoped so.
I left the chamber, stepped out into the bright lights of Futureland, and looked around. It was a light day. A few families moved around the park casually, kids sucking on lumi-pops and downing solar shakes all swirled together with chocolate, sparkling sprinkles, and cream. I maneuvered around a few people and their Holo-pals on my way to catch a Jet-Blur pod back up to the condo.
But then I saw Yusuf.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it wasn’t Yusuf. Maybe a Yusuf-rev. Or an evil twin. But we met eyes as he strode across the park like a zombie. And even though his mind seemed somewhere far away, I knew it was him. And he wasn’t acting sick anymore.
Yusuf stepped across the park in a slow, measured way, his hands clasped at his waist. He had an arch in his back that pinned his shoulders in perfect posture and lifted his head up high. Yusuf took one step at a time, flowing across the park in smooth strides like a ballroom dancer. His expression was blank as he stared straight ahead.
“Yusuf!” I called. He didn’t turn. “Yusuf!” My heart began to race.
“Hey, mister!”
“Huh?”
A little kid with a neon tongue and bright candy stains all over their face tugged on the back of my jumpsuit.
“Hey, mister!” the kid repeated. “Our fake pets won’t show up.”
I glanced back to see where Yusuf was going. He moved steadily toward the main entrance terminal at the front of the park. My eyes darted quickly back and forth as I tried to listen to the park guest but not lose sight of Yusuf.
“I’m sorry, kid, I have to—”
“But they won’t show up!” the kid whined. “You’re supposed to help. Don’t you work here? You got the suit on.”
“Yes, yes, I work here,” I admitted, irritated. “Look, did you go into the chamber? All you have to do is go in there and get a band—”
“But I did!” they said, holding up a projection band that matched the shade of their tongue. “I went into the spinny thing and told the lady what I wanted, but when I came out, my pet wouldn’t show up.”
I looked back toward the front of the park. Yusuf was gone.
Ugh! I faced the kid again.
“Hey, I’m sorry about your pet, okay?” I tried to tell the kid. “But I have to do something really important right now. I’ll send somebody to help you. Can you be patient for, like, ten minutes?”
“Five minutes,” they said.
“Ugh, okay. Five minutes.” Whatever. “I’ll be back, okay?” I turned and got ready to rush off in the direction I had seen Yusuf go.
“Okay,” the kid agreed. “Just watch out for that thing.”
“What thing?” I said.
The kid pointed over my shoulder. I looked behind me and saw nothing, then followed their pointer finger, up, up, up to Futureland’s ceiling. I saw a small, fluttering object bouncing up and down on the glass. I pulled my Future-vision goggles out of my pocket and slid them onto my face, tapping the right lens twice to start the binocular setting.
The jittery, flittering thing on the ceiling was no object. It was an animal. And it wasn’t even really on the ceiling. It was outside on the roof.
And after a split second, I realized it was Ali on the roof!
A neon-blue sugar glider flipping and zipping across the top of Futureland, outside the park. How did he get all the way up there?
“What in the world—”
A commotion started all around me. Park guests rushed to the side walls of Futureland to peer down to the ground below, cupping their hands on either side of their eyes to examine Central Park’s Great Lawn beneath us. I used my goggles to look down.
Dozens of Holo-pets, maybe even a hundred of them, were all outside the park. An array of spectacularly colored hybrid beasts that the outside world had never, ever seen before. Some of them tried to graze on the grass. Others scampered off or flew away. A few of them even trotted behind joggers, who picked up the pace as soon as they noticed the strange creatures pursuing them.
“Hey! My pet’s outside!” a guest yelled. Frustrated chatter started up from the other guests, too.
This has to be a glitch. These pets can’t leave the park. And even if they could…can they interact with the outside world?
I looked back toward the entrance of the park. No Yusuf. I started to panic. I could chase after him, but I had no clue where he had gone. And this Holo-pet situation was quickly turning into an emergency. I needed to find Mom and Uncle Trey. ASAP.
I sprinted back to the main terminal, using the elevator to get down to the condo. I dashed through the open doors into the hallway leading to our living room hollering out, “Mom! Uncle Trey!! The park! Everything is—” Then I froze in my tracks.
“Inaya?”
Inaya stood in the kitchen, wiping tears and trying to steady her heavy breathing in between sips from a tall glass of orange juice. Mom sat next to her on one of the breakfast bar stools, rubbing her back.
“Inaya had a little scare, Cam-Cam,” Mom said. “But she’s here now. She’s safe.”
I stepped closer and could see stains from tears running down Inaya’s cheeks. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded, sipping from the glass again.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” Mom said. “I’ve got a call on hold.” She rushed around the corner.
“Wait, Mom, the Holo-pets—” I tried to explain, but she was already gone.
Inaya took another deep breath, then one more gulp of juice before speaking.
“Sorry I’m late.” She wiped her eyes and reached into her bag. “I’m never late. But I had to take a detour. He was following me, Cam. It was so creepy.” Inaya shivered. She pulled the brain scan stickies out of the bag and pushed them onto my temples before booting up some program on her tablet.
“He?” For a moment, I forgot all about the Holo-pets gone wild in the park. “Following you?”
She nodded again, continuing to fidget with the tablet. “The ninja. Dressed in all black. From the other morning. He was standing across the street when I left the shelter to come to Futureland. I even took the long route, but he followed me the whole way. I got scared, hopped in a taxi, and rode around until I could make it back here. Whoever it is knows where I live. He watched me walk out of the shelter. I called my parents, but I’m scared to go home.”
“You can stay here for a little while,” I said, my heart racing at the idea of the creepy masked boy following Inaya around the city. “We will figure it out.”
“Thanks, Atlanta Cam.” She removed the stickies from my face. “Well, I’m sure you knew this already, but your brain looks fine. I’m guessing you haven’t been feeling strange or hearing any secret commands in your sleep? Your scans are almost identical to the ones we took three days ago, aside from some current elevated stress levels. I’m sorry. Maybe we were wrong about the band.” She paused, studying my face. “You good?”
“I guess,” I said uneasily, before I suddenly remembered. “Shoot, the park! Yusuf! I have to find my uncle Trey. Come with me?”
“Never a dull moment with you, huh?”
Inaya and I rushed to the elevators to get back upstairs to the park terminal. I called Uncle Trey from my band on the way.
“Yusuf?” he answered.
“Huh?” I said, confused. “No, it’s me, Cam.”
“Oh, hey, nephew,” he said. “Why are you calling from Yusuf’s band?”
I put my palm to my forehead. “Uh, uh, where to start? Look—Uncle Trey, something is wrong with the Holo-pets—”
“I’m already on it,” he cut me off. “To be honest, I don’t have the first idea about how these things glitched their way out of the park, but I’ve got some maintenance-revs down there capturing them and bringing them back in now. We’re going to shut down the Holo-pal exhibit for the day until we figure it out. You okay, kid? You sound stressed.”
I paused to listen to myself panting heavily. Inaya and I stepped out of the elevator only to see Uncle Trey from behind, manipulating several projections screens. He turned and noticed us, and we ended our transmissions.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” I answered, even though my heart still felt like it was trying to pump out of my chest. “I was just worried about the pets. So, wait. Everything is good, then?”
“Everything is under controooool,” Uncle Trey said coolly, still flipping through screens and entering commands for his maintenance-rev army. “You know, when you work in Futureland maintenance for as long as I have, you learn to expect the unexpected. Anything can go wrong on any given day. But we’ve got guests to please. And your parents still ain’t hearing nothing about closing this place down while we work out the kinks, so…we gotta be ready to solve problems on the fly.” He looked to Inaya behind me and cocked his head. “Oh, hello,” he said. “Name’s Trey. I’m Cam’s uncle. With whom do I have the pleasure?”
“Inaya Bagayoko, Harlem’s own,” she said, and they exchanged smiles.
“Now that’s what I call a name!” Uncle Trey remarked. “And ooo-wee. Harlem.” The dazzle of memory danced in his eyes. “Boy, I used to have some good times out there. Used to go down to Sylvia’s all the time.”
“That’s my block!” Inaya said with pride.
“Right on, right on.” Uncle Trey high-fived Inaya. “Harlem’s own, huh? You all right with me.”
“Uncle Trey, we’ve got to find Yusuf,” I interrupted, my nervousness still clawing at me.
“Where’d he go? Sure be easier to find him if he had his own band on.” Uncle Trey laughed.
“This is serious!” I said, jumping up and down anxiously. “I saw him in the park before the Holo-pets glitched. He was walking toward the exit. Getting ready to leave.”
“Whoa, whoa. All right, I get it. Calm down for a second.” Uncle Trey looked over all the security screens. “I’ll check the surveillance feeds for the park and see what I can see. In the meantime, can you two go down to the ground and make an announcement? I know the Holo-pets spooked the people in Central Park. Just make a quick apology and summarize what happened. Local news is down there.” He rolled his eyes. “They’ll love that.”
“Okay,” I said, sighing with relief. “Thank you. And no problem. We’ll head down.”
Inaya and I lowered ourselves off the terminal and into the green zero-gravity beam. We floated through the air, all the way down to the ground, while the people below clapped and took pictures. Once we landed, I straightened up my clothes and used the microphone on Yusuf’s band to speak to the crowd.
“Hi, everyone,” I started. “Sorry about the mishap. Looks like we added a little extra nature to the park today.” People around chuckled. “What you saw were—”
“Cam,” Inaya whispered, tugging at my sleeve. “Cam!”
“Huh?” I lowered the band for a moment so the microphone wouldn’t pick up our voices. “What is it?”
“That’s him.” Her voice quivered. “That’s the boy who was following me.”
Inaya pointed into the crowd, where I saw a figure dressed in all black. A ski mask covered his entire face except for the eyes. He stepped forward through the crowd. Realizing people were still watching me, I raised the microphone again while trying to keep my eyes on the boy at the same time.
“What you saw were some of our newest attractions,” I said. “Holographic pets. Looks like even pretend pets can be mischievous enough to get out of their kennels. We’re sorry for the scare, but if you’re interested in getting your own Holo-pet, come visit Futureland sometime!”
People laughed and clapped again before starting to disperse. The boy in black pushed through the crowd, going against the tide of everyone departing. Inaya slid behind me, ducking behind my shoulder, and held on to me tight. When he finally made it to us, his chest heaved and made a rattling sound as he struggled to steady his breath. His eyes were green, and poking out from beneath his mask was one tiny tuft of red hair.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
The boy didn’t speak. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. He placed it into my hand gently, then turned and bounded away. I unfolded the paper and read it to myself.
“What does it say?” asked Inaya. “Cam…”
“We’ve got to go back to the park,” I said, my heart dropping into my stomach. “We’ve got to find Yusuf. And then we’ve got to get outta here.”
don’t wear the bands
get rid of all the holograms
leave New York while you still can
THE ARCHITECTS ARE COMING
ANGEL: I feel a little bad for making a chat without CJ and Yusuf
EARL: Yeah, me 2
RICH: they never respond anyways
RICH: they are having their own adventure in NYC. we need to plan our research trip so we don’t fail social studies. it’s in less than 2 weeks
ANGEL: I know. You’re right. It just still doesn’t feel right.
RICH: yeah
EARL:
Hey…anybody wanna play Word Buddies? I made nine words from the letters E-A-T the other day.
Helloooo? Anybody?
Smh y’all are no fun
Saturday, February 13, 2049
8:03 p.m.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
My heart thudded in my ears as I pounded my fist against the door of Yusuf’s hotel room in the Black Beat. Uncle Trey hadn’t seen him on the surveillance footage, and after the park closed, he didn’t come to the Guest Hub to help with cleaning and closing. Alejandro and Aurielle usually delivered all of Yusuf’s meals and cleared his empty plates. So as soon as I stepped into the hallway and saw the full tray on the floor, my palms started to sweat.
Knock, knock, knock. “Yusuf?”
No answer. I held my Futureland ID up to the door and heard the lock click. I pushed the door open slowly, sticking my head in.
“Yusuf?” I looked all around the room and its connected bathroom. I poked my head into corners and even looked under the bed.
No Yusuf.
My breath shortened. The last time I had seen Yusuf, he was kinda…gliding through the park—in a trance, moving just like those people from the news broadcast. Just like the marchers who fainted beneath the park that day. He was headed toward the exit of Futureland.
What if he’s gone? My stomach somersaulted with guilt. I watched him leave and didn’t go after him. Instead of worrying about the Holo-pets, I should have made sure Yusuf was okay. Especially since he hadn’t been acting like himself lately.
My body felt numb, except for some slight tingling in my fingertips. I grabbed ahold of the sink in Yusuf’s room to steady myself. I splashed some cold water on my face and took a deep breath. I have to tell Mom and Dad.
I rushed back to the condo and burst through the door, sprinting into the living room.
“Mom! Dad! Yusuf is—”
“They’re still out. Meeting on meetings,” Uncle Trey said, sitting in the reclining chair with a huge bowl of cereal in his lap. He spooned crunchy flakes into his mouth and smacked loudly. “But they wanted me to tell you that the IT people are almost finished with your Futurewatch. Bad news, though—they say it’s corrupted. They’re trying to trace the source and save your data, but you’ll probably need a new watch,” he said through a crunchy mouthful.
I shook my head and plopped down on the sofa. “Great. Just great.”
“Sorry, kid,” he said. “They were almost done with it, but some more of those creepy messages came in, so they wanted to do another round of tests. They think it’s a bot, though.”
