Still Point

by Katie Kacvinsky

  I picked up the drive and handed it to Clare. “Give this to Molly,” I said. “Tell her to program it so the message plays.”

  “You mean . . . ?” my mom asked.

  “I trust him,” I said. “Besides, we have what we want now. We have the listservs.”

  “Can’t you track your dad?” Scott asked me.

  My mom’s eyes widened. “What?”

  I laughed. “I’ll show you,” I said. I told Scott to open up the GPS program on his phone. I scanned my wrist and we searched for the twin signal. My dad was in Salem, Oregon, thirty miles away.

  “Hold on,” Scott said, and zoomed in. “He’s at a detention center in Salem. It’s the only one in Oregon. Pretty small; only about eighty kids are in there.”

  “Why would your dad have interest in this DC?” my mom asked.

  “Maybe he knows people inside,” Clare said. “He’s probably trying to get evidence.”

  “Or maybe he’s trying to clean up all the evidence against him,” Scott stated.

  My heart jabbed against my ribs. “My dad isn’t working with the DCs, Scott,” I said through my teeth. “He isn’t a murderer.”

  “He killed a student,” Scott reminded me.

  “Because he was saving the lives of other kids,” I stated.

  “How are DCs any different? Killing off the rebellious kids to save the innocent ones?”

  “Stop it!” I yelled at him, and my feet were scrambling toward him before Jax grabbed my wrist. “Take it back, Scott.”

  “You guys, let it go,” Jax said. “We’re on the same side here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Scott told me. “I’ve despised your dad for a really long time. I can’t instantly forgive him and start rooting for him when he helped build a world I can’t stand. He’s not my father.”

  “Instead of standing here arguing and trying to guess what your dad’s up to, why don’t we go and find out?” Jax offered.

  Scott and I both turned to look at him.

  “Now?” we both said.

  “We’re only thirty minutes from Salem,” Jax said.

  “What if he’s with the cops?” my mom asked.

  “It will make it more fun,” Justin said. He was already on his feet. “You up for it?” he asked me.

  All I needed was the edge in his eyes. It was like a spark plug at the end of a fuse. But more than anything, I wanted to prove Scott wrong. I wasn’t sure which was more fulfilling—succeeding or proving people wrong.

  I stared down at the two drives, lying patiently on the table. I knew it wasn’t time to think, it was time to move.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Justin, Jax, Scott, and I stood in a tree graveyard beyond the electric fence looking up at the gated enclosure of the Salem Detention Center. Compared with the boring beige sky-rise of the LADC, where I served for six months, the Salem center had the architectural design of an ancient brick colonial estate. An ornamental tower stood at its center, bold and intimidating, as if it had eyes constantly viewing the commodious grounds. Rusted iron crests clung to the borders of boarded-up windows.

  We stood a hundred yards away in the distance, staring at the old building with a mixture of intrigue and aversion.

  “It used to be an insane asylum,” Scott told us. “Then they reopened it as a hospital, but the nurses all quit. They said the supply rooms were haunted.”

  Jax nodded. “I heard they have an old autopsy room, and a crematorium full of cans of ashes from all the prisoners who died inside.”

  The bricks were painted white, but the white had chipped to reveal shades of red underneath, making them look alive, with blood and bones, like a human body slowly decaying. Green ivy leaves wrapped themselves up the sides of the building like spindly arms and fingers. It was haunting and fascinating, but what disturbed me more was the idea that there were living people trapped inside.

  “Are you sure it’s a DC?” I asked.

  Justin pointed to one of the back wings of the building, where spaces for tall, arched windows had been removed and filled in with bricks and cement.

  “I think they only use that section for the DC,” Justin said.

  The sky was gray, and a light mist matted my hair against my face. The turf grass between us and the DC was pockmarked with puddles. Dead trees stood around us. Their gray limbs held spokes of straggly branches, drooping with green, stringy moss.

  “There’s still a catacombs underneath,” Scott said. “That’s how they moved the inmates around, so people never had to see them.”

  “This place is giving me the creeps,” I said, and zipped my coat up to my neck. “Has my dad moved yet?”

  Scott shook his head. We had been standing at the south end of the DC for an hour; my father was on the north end, waiting on a side street one block from the entrance. From our angle we could see the entrance drive, all the way to the security gate.

  “Look,” Jax said. We all glanced up just as a white van appeared on the entrance road. There were no windows in the back of the van, and the cab windows were tinted black.

  “That’s not your dad,” Scott said. He pointed to the map. “But he’s moving.” We all hunched closer and looked at Scott’s screen, where the yellow pixelated image of my father moved along the map, toward the entrance road.

  We crouched down behind a line of jagged tree stumps, watching from about fifty yards away. A black car suddenly sped up the road behind the van.

  “Enter: Mr. Freeman,” Scott said with a smile. We all watched the road ahead of us.

  The van pulled off to the side to let my father’s car pass, but it pulled over behind the van. Both cars idled for a few seconds, and I looked between Justin and Jax. Their faces were locked on the road. I felt my heart drum in my chest.

  Two men got out of the van, and a third swung open the back door and jumped down. My dad calmly got out of the passenger side of the car, wearing his usual black business coat and pants. His driver got out as well; he was twice as thick around as my father. Even from fifty yards away his bulky chest was intimidating. It made me feel better.

  “Are they armed?” I asked.

  Justin and Scott used a binocular function on their phones to stare up the road. “I don’t see anything,” Justin said.

  My heart was dribbling against my ribs. I peered at the van as if I could see through the metal walls. “Do you think they’re taking students inside?”

  “It looks pretty casual,” Scott said. “It’s probably just a delivery truck.” He pulled his phone back and started typing. “I’ll do a search for the license plate and see if anything comes up,” he said.

  I backed up a step. My dad didn’t do casual conversations. He wouldn’t be wasting his time out here to meet with equipment drivers.

  The van driver led my dad’s escort inside the back of the van. I swallowed as he stepped inside.

  “Let’s go down there,” I said. I looked between Justin and Jax. “Something isn’t right.” Jax nodded and started to follow me, but Scott grabbed my arm and held me back.

  “They’re just inspecting it,” Scott said. “We’re here to watch your dad, not help him. We don’t know if he’s worth helping yet.”

  I was about to argue when two of the men grabbed my dad and shoved him away from the van. The third man jumped out of the back and slammed the doors closed before my dad’s driver could get out. They all ran for the ditch.

  “Dad!” I screamed. I hurdled broken tree stumps and sprinted along the fence toward the entrance drive. I could hear the electric buzzing current as I ran, but my heartbeat was even louder.

  “Maddie!” Justin yelled behind me. Just then a succession of explosions ripped the van apart, blowing the roof off with an orange gust of flames. The flames curled and billowed into a cloud of neon orange fire. A black brume of smoke hung in the air and floated for a beautiful, horrible moment before it collapsed with a sigh and fell to the ground.

  I stopped,
hunching down and covering my face from the hot gust of wind shooting off the explosion.

  The smoke cleared and men scuffled to their feet. My dad was getting up off the ground behind his car, where he had dived in time to avoid the explosion.

  “Dad!” I shouted again. Justin and Jax caught up with me, and we sprinted down to the wreck. Puddles of water kicked up around us as we splashed through the marshy turf field.

  My dad was trying to move around his car to get to the burning van, but one of the men kicked him in the ribs, knocking him backwards against the trunk. His head smacked against the car, and he tumbled off the side to the ground. Justin stopped running long enough to fire a shot, and the man who’d kicked my father fell to his knees and toppled onto the ground next to him.

  My feet were soaking wet and as heavy as weights, but I trudged as fast as I could.

  The other men raised guns in our direction. Justin picked one of them off, while the other stumbled toward my father, who was pulling himself off the ground. Justin was moving faster than I was now.

  The driver aimed a gun at my dad, but Justin shot and I saw the gun fly out of the man’s hand. Justin shot again and the man fell flat on his back, his arms stretched out from his sides.

  We tumbled down to the pavement, and I caught my dad’s arm.

  “Dad,” I said. He looked at me with wide eyes, glistening with shock. He looked ahead at the burning van. It crackled and popped with life. The metal frame cooked and singed and squeaked, melting in the heat like a steel skeleton.

  “Dad, we need to move, now,” I said, and pulled him away.

  “Do you have keys?” Justin asked my dad, pointing to his car.

  “In the ignition,” he said slowly, his eyes captured by the flames.

  “I’m sorry about your friend, but we need to get out of here,” Justin told him. He looked at the burning van. “Scott,” Justin said into his phone, “come down here and see what you can find. And send some backup. We’ll find the nearest boat launch.” He opened the driver’s door of the car.

  “Let’s go!” Justin shouted.

  I climbed into the back of the car, shoving my dad inside with me. Jax sat in the passenger seat next to Justin. Justin turned the car around and tore down the pavement, burning the tires against the asphalt and kicking up loose rocks.

  My dad blinked out of his daze and started to register what was happening. “What are you doing here, Maddie?” he asked.

  I held up my wrist. “You told me it was a twin signal,” I said. “Are you honestly surprised?” Before he could answer, I kept going. “Why have you been lying to me? Even Mom?” My entire body was shaking. I had so many reasons to hate my father, but I was still shaking with fear from coming so close to losing him.

  “I got a tip that Vaughn was using trash labs to make drugs for the DCs,” my dad said. “We’ve been investigating. I couldn’t tell your mother. I couldn’t tell anyone.”

  “Why? Why can’t you just tell us what you’re planning?”

  “It’s not that easy,” he said. “I’m trying to keep you all innocent from this.”

  Justin peeled around the corner, and I grabbed the side handle to avoid smashing into the window.

  “Sorry,” Justin said.

  “You’ve been working with Richard, haven’t you? You’ve been letting this happen?”

  “No, Maddie. I swear my life on it.” He looked at me and his dark eyes were pleading. Something inside of them let go. A tight grip finally loosened. “I’ve been fighting digital school since the day it became a national law. I’ve been on your side this entire time.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What?” I shouted over the noise of the engine. Justin was driving 90 mph down the city roads, and we kicked up a shower of dust as the car skidded around a sharp corner. My dad grabbed hold of the seat belt across his chest.

  “Can you please slow down, Justin?” he shouted.

  “I’d love to. After we lose this guy,” Justin said, and pointed his thumb at the back window. I looked around and saw another van down the block.

  For a second, Justin’s eyes locked on my dad’s in the rearview mirror. They wore identical stubborn expressions. My dad’s features softened and his mouth cracked into a smile.

  “You never give up, do you?” he asked Justin.

  Justin didn’t have to respond. The answer was obvious as he peeled around another corner. Jax was quiet and stared straight ahead, probably wishing he’d never met me.

  “You’re just like your parents,” my father told Justin. “Your dad, especially.”

  Justin’s mouth tightened and he glared at my dad in the mirror. “Like you would know,” he shot back, but then his shoulders stiffened, like he was piecing something together.

  “You remind me a lot of your dad. You’re even more determined than he was.”

  “You know my dad,” Justin said. It wasn’t a question.

  My father nodded. “Best man at his wedding.”

  Justin’s face hardened. His fingers were white around the steering wheel.

  “College roommates in Arizona. That’s how we met. There was a group of us that hung out. We called ourselves the McMinns. It was the pub we drank at. Your father and I were both set on changing the world, so you could say we had a lot in common.”

  I looked from one of them to the other.

  “And Mom?” I asked.

  “She and Elaine used to be best friends. They used to garden together, hike, camp. Then we had kids and it got tougher.” My dad looked at Justin. “I remember when you fell into a campfire when you were little, Justin. Your dad told me about it. He said you were fireproof.”

  My stomach rolled. I felt nauseous, both from Justin’s driving and from the truth finally rushing at me, overflowing the banks of my mind. Justin stared at my dad in the rearview mirror.

  “You have an interesting way of treating your best friends,” he said, and my dad glared back at him.

  “How’s that?” my dad asked. “By helping them escape from jail? By personally relocating them to Eden, so they wouldn’t be executed? That’s what I did, Justin.”

  “Why didn’t my parents say anything?” he asked.

  “I told them not to,” my dad said. “For my protection and theirs.”

  “Wait a second. You’ve been on our side the entire time?” I asked.

  My dad nodded. Justin started to slow down when we turned onto a gravel road following the twisting banks of the Willamette River. I looked behind us and the van was gone.

  “I changed my mind about a year after I started DS. I could already see where it was going.”

  “Then why did you let it happen?” I asked.

  “I needed money to fund it, and Richard Vaughn was the only sponsor at the time. So he took control of it. I never intended it to become a national law. I just wanted it to be a choice, from the very beginning, a safe alternative. But people were so terrified after M28, it just snowballed. People thought it was some kind of a cure.”

  “But you let it happen,” Justin repeated.

  My dad frowned. “I knew the only way to fight it would be to stay at the top. That was the only way I could keep any kind of control.”

  “How have you been fighting it?” I asked him.

  He looked directly at me. “I’ve had help. Haven’t you ever wondered why your mom and I differ so much on the digital system? She’s always encouraged you to question it. We meant to encourage you, Maddie. We always have. But I never could. I could never say those words to you. I’ve been just as trapped as you.”

  “Wait, you’re saying this whole time you’ve agreed with Mom?” The outside world was becoming a blur. The rocky landscape blended into the gray river as too many thoughts crammed my vision.

  “I’m saying DS has gone too far. And I’ve known that for a long time, but I’ve become powerless to stop it. A couple of years ago it occurred to me that one person might be able to shut it down. That was you. I let you meet Jus
tin last year. I allowed him to find you. I wanted you two to meet. I knew you’d join his side.”

  I shook my head as this all filtered in. “So, you’ve been using me?” My voice rose into a shout. “If you hate DS so much, why don’t you just end it?”

  “I can’t, not after it became a law,” he said. “The only way I can bring down DS is to stay in power until it’s voted on again. If I had stepped down, or been fired, Richard would have replaced me with someone he could control, and then I would have had no way to intervene. I needed to stay in this seat for the national vote. It’s the only chance I have at shutting DS down.”

  My mind was spinning. “All those things you said to me. You put me down for years. You told me I was wrong.”

  His eyes fell sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Maddie. I had to say those things.”

  “Why?”

  “All of our wall screens were tapped. Ever since you broke the law, not only are you screened, but so am I. All of my sites have been tapped. All of our phone lines are bugged. Our home has been screened since you were fifteen. They would have known. Even if I told you in secret, I couldn’t risk the chance that it would slip out.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “So instead you’ve been lying this whole time?” I rubbed my hands over my face. Too many thoughts were punching my brain. Relief, anger, betrayal, hope. They all mixed and mashed and I couldn’t think straight.

  “You could have let me in on this. And Mom.”

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  “Protect us? By hiding everything? We’re supposed to worry about you. We’re your family. Isn’t that what a family is for? To tell one another, to worry for one another, or be happy for one another? To be there for one another?”

  “I couldn’t take that risk. The only way I could protect you and your mother was to keep both of you ignorant. That way if anyone ever questioned you, you would never have to lie.”

  “You willingly let me go into a detention center! I was almost killed.”

  “I tried to keep you out,” my dad snapped back. “The first time I helped notify your team that you were arrested. That’s why you were intercepted. The second time the police were already involved. I couldn’t do anything at that point. I tried to schedule meetings with Richard, and when he refused, I showed up unannounced. And you know how well that worked out.”