Selfie: Device Kids Book One

by D. S. Murphy

  I went to the bathroom to clean my finger, but there was already a group of girls in there. They looked at me coldly, and someone was sobbing in the stall. Whatever it was, I didn’t need the drama, so I went outside instead, across the parking lot, and sat with my broken phone.

  “Gloria,” I whispered, tapping my thumb and finger together. “Are you okay in there?”

  My mother’s voice responded.

  “Everything is s-super,” she said, glitching. “I’m f-fine, how was your day at school?”

  By the time I made it to the lunch hall, everyone else had gathered at our table. I grabbed some food and joined them, but before I’d even sat down, I heard my name being called over the PA. My cheeks turned red as half the launch hall turned to stare at me. I wondered if they would have even recognized my name a few weeks ago. By my count this was the third time I’d been called to the principal’s office.

  “I’m coming with you,” David said suddenly. He stood up and came around the table. I felt like I should tell him he couldn’t just barge into the principal’s office, but something about his demeanor stopped me. There was a hard glint of confidence in his eyes I’d never noticed before.

  In the office I could see three teachers talking to a girl with blonde hair. When she turned and I saw her profile, I gasped.

  It looked like she’d tripped down the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Her eyes were red from crying, and she was wearing a huge straw hat, but I could still see every feature. I’m pretty sure one eye was larger than the other, but it was hard to tell since they were so bloodshot. I realized, I knew exactly what she looked like before, like I was looking at a photograph.

  “It’s Melissa,” I said quietly.

  “That’s Melissa?” David asked.

  Mr. Leister was waiting for us with Mr. Deckler and the new counselor, Vanessa Briggs.

  “Shit, this is going to be bad,” Brad said. I didn’t notice he’d followed us, too. Greg and Amy must have stayed behind.

  “Is it true?” Mr. Leister said as soon as we came in and shut the door. “Your science fair project, you’ve been hacking therabots. That’s why you’ve been so secretive?”

  “We can explain,” I said.

  “You don’t have to, Melissa told us everything. How you put illegal therabots into her drink when she wasn’t looking, then hacked them to alter her appearance.”

  “Hold up,” David said, “that’s not what happened.”

  “You in particular, Breanna, should have known better.”

  “It was my idea,” I said. “I just wanted to help my sister—”

  “Well it was reckless, dangerous. And you can forget about the science fair. We can’t let you compete.”

  “Says who?” Brad asked.

  “You haven’t even seen our project, what we can do,” I said.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Mr. Deckler said, pulling out a small vial and putting it on the desk. “You’ve been supplying stolen therabots to students and encouraging them to self-modify. Melissa showed us your online forms, the app you made. We may have to get the police involved until we get to the bottom of this. Just hand in all the files, all your research and test subjects. Everything you’ve built on school property belongs to the school.”

  “My ass it does,” Brad said.

  “Language,” Mr. Leister said.

  “Sorry,” Brad said. “I meant fuck you.”

  “If you refuse, I’ll have no choice but to expel you. Without a high school degree, getting into college will be difficult. You have until the end of the day to decide.”

  Melissa caught my eye and I could have sworn I saw her smirk, though it was hard to tell with all the skin hanging around her mouth. We were almost out of the room when David turned and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

  “Just to be clear,” he said to the teachers, “under the inner-judicial textbook section 1A257, paragraph five, the school will bear full legal responsibility for the actions of minors on school grounds, during school hours. You can’t prove that the app is ours, or that the therabots were stolen. You have one extremely unreliable witness, who has a personal vendetta and a history of bullying Brianna. Then of course there’s the Facebook profile set up to share Brianna’s naked pictures with adult men; which was created on school grounds, during school hours.”

  “Is that a threat?” Mr. Deckler said, with red cheeks.

  “I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if we kept this in-house for now, don’t you? Or are you ready to add a child pornography ring to your resume?”

  David smirked and followed us outside, shutting the door behind him. Mr. Deckler looked like he might faint.

  “That was awesome,” Brad said.

  “How’d you know about that Facebook group?” I asked.

  “It was an educated guess,” David said.

  “You bluffed,” Brad said, punching his arm.

  “Brianna, a word?” Miss Briggs said, opening the door. She glanced at the boys, but didn’t make them leave. They stood on either side of me protectively, like a pair of wolves.

  “I need to know for certain, did you do anything to Melissa with your app?”

  “No,” I said, “I swear.”

  “Okay, good. I think we can keep this off your record, you just have to collect and turn in your research. I can go with you now if you’d like—”

  “Nobody is laying a finger on our research,” Brad said.

  “I’m not sure you fully realize what you’re up against, this could be a national story overnight if we’re not careful. You could end up in jail.”

  “We’ll take our chances,” Brad grinned.

  “We’ll think about it,” I said. “I promise.”

  “Fine,” Miss Briggs said, “but do me a favor. If anybody offers you a way out of this, someone with the power and resources to protect you, take the deal.”

  ***

  “Was it one of you?” I asked when we were alone.

  “What? No!” Brad said. “Although she would have deserved it. And it would have been hilarious. Still, no. Messing up someone’s face like that, that’s another level.”

  “There’s no way,” David said. “You can’t program the bots without the person’s phone, it has a fingerprint lock. And you’d need to shock her with the dongle, it’s not like she wouldn’t notice.”

  “So what happened?” Brad asked.

  “She did it to herself,” David said. “She must have intercepted the bots of one of her friends and hacked her own code.”

  “That seems extreme, even for her.”

  “You were getting all the attention. She needed to get it back,” David shrugged.

  “We need to move the stuff,” Brad said. “Quickly, before they find it.”

  “I came in this morning,” David said. “Already moved everything to the trunk of my car.”

  “You’re a genius,” Brad said. His phone dinged and he pulled up a notification. “Damn,” he said, his eyes widening as he scrolled through his feed.

  “We just hit #1 in the app store, that’s over ten thousands downloads. And some people are actually paying for the upgrades.”

  “Have we made any money?” I asked.

  “Just over $20,000.”

  “A day?” David asked.

  “In the last hour,” Brad said.

  Mention Greg’s game.

  21

  We decided to meet up after school. None of us felt like hosting, so this time we went to the diner for bottomless coffees and apple pie.

  Greg had a game that night, so he left early. He’d been wearing his uniform all day.

  “Does he look taller to you?” Amy asked as he was leaving.

  “Maybe a couple of inches,” I said.

  After he was gone, the rest of us kept scrolling through feeds and reading the comments out loud. Some of the bigger news outlets had started talking about our app, then it got picked up with click-bait titles.

/>   Mysterious new app lets you alter your face.

  The real face swap.

  People were also starting to sell hacked or recycled therabots online, including several new startups that seemed to be sourcing their bots from China.

  My phone vibrated, even though the glass was cracked the notification still popped up.

  Susan Miles from GWN news, 7pm.

  “Oh shit,” I said. “I was supposed to be on the news today, talking about my Halloween costume.”

  “That dance seems like ages ago,” Amy said.

  “I know, right?”

  “Are you going to do it?” David asked.

  “What, the interview?” I asked.

  “The school wants us to turn in all our research, give up control. They might even sue for a share since we made it on the school grounds.”

  “Could they do that?”

  “It’s possible,” David said, “though, that also works in our direction. If we get in trouble for all this, we can shift blame to them. They’ll have to take some responsibility.”

  “We’re still protected,” Amy said, “so far. But as soon as you put your face out there, you’ll be a target.”

  “Take responsibility, take control,” Brad said. “Show them we aren’t just some dumb kids. We made something amazing. We should be proud of it.”

  “Proud high-school dropouts?” Amy said. “Mr. Deckler was serious about expelling us.”

  “Dude, we’ve made almost half a million dollars today,” Brad grinned. “That’s 100g’s each. But the app store doesn’t pay out until the end of the month. We could get screwed, it could get taken away from us. Fame is insulating.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Who wants to drive me?”

  David drove me to the studio, while Brad and Amy focused on replying to comments on the app and making status updates as people asked for new features.

  Susan Miles was blonde and just starting to show wrinkles. I recognized her from TV but when I found the entrance to the news studio, she didn’t look happy to see me.

  “Oh Dear,” she said, frowning. “You were supposed to get a phone call or message or something.”

  “About what?” David asked.

  “The segment we talked about over the phone, it’s been canceled.

  We’ve shifted direction on the story we’re running,” she said tersely. “I’m sorry, I can’t be seen talking with you.”

  She pointed towards the stage and I could see a girl sitting on a blue chair getting her makeup done. She turned and smiled at me over her shoulder. Melissa. She’d stolen my interview.

  Her features were already back to normal, and with makeup she looked as pretty and poised as ever. We stood in the wings of the studio behind a row of bright stage lights as the interview began.

  “This is Susan Miles from GWN news, and I’m here with a very serious issue. I’m joined today by Melissa Stanton, who was recently the victim of a horrific episode of cyber-bullying. But not just the online kind. Melissa, can you tell us, in your own words, what happened to you?”

  “A girl at my school found a way to hack the government’s new therabot program. First she made herself pretty to steal my boyfriend, then she poisoned me with therabots and changed my face. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t even recognize myself.”

  “I believe we have a picture of that, right Steve?”

  A picture flashed on the screen above them, showing Melissa’s grotesque face from earlier. Large nostrils, a shrunken nose, droopy eyes and thin lips. Under the pictures, a scrolling message posed a question.

  If we can hack each other, is anybody safe?

  “There you have it, a new form of self-mutilation, with devastating risks even for non users. All thanks to the government’s radical new health technology and a dangerous group of cyberhackers. And I’m told a version of this same program has even been released to the public, is that right?”

  Melissa nodded and held out her phone, showing the SelfX app.

  “I don’t know for sure, but this probably isn’t legal. And it certainly isn’t safe. She put her own sister in the hospital, permanent blindness, from what I hear. Someone should definitely look into that.”

  “One more thing, Melissa… do you know who is responsible for all this? Can you give us a name?”

  “Sure,” Melissa grinned, pointing at me. “It’s Brianna Harmond, and she’s standing right over there.”

  ***

  I froze as a camera swiveled towards me, and suddenly my face was on the large screen behind stage. My heart pounded as I studied my features. I was using the app and had on a few of my custom settings. I looked good, but frozen, like a deer in headlights. I stared directly into the camera, and somehow I could feel the people watching me. Thousands of them. My eyes itched and I knew they were getting bigger. I glanced up at the screen again and they flashed fluorescent pink. David thrust my sunglasses into my hand and I put them on hastily, then he grabbed my arm and led me out of the studio. No one tried to stop us.

  “Where do you want to go?” David asked, without turning on the engine. My chest was tight and I felt like a couldn’t breathe. David rolled down the window, then started driving. He stopped at a small local park.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked, as he got out of the car.

  “It helps me think,” he said, nodding towards the swings. “I think, after that, some fresh air will do us both some good.”

  I frowned but got out of the car and followed him. We sat in silence for a few minutes, swinging lightly, feeling the rush of air on my cheeks. The park was lined with tall dark pine trees and the playground equipment was red and rusty.

  “I can’t believe she did that,” I said.

  “It was just local news,” David said. “Maybe it won’t get picked up.”

  “She called me a bully. She called me a biological terrorist.”

  “It’s not all bad,” David said.

  I stared at him with my mouth open.

  “You wanted to go on TV, and you did. Though, showing that trick with your eyes wasn’t planned, it was still pretty interesting. I’ll bet we get a huge spike in downloads.”

  “Even after what she said about Megan? May cause temporary blindness?”

  “That wasn’t us, right? Wherever that code came from, it wasn’t what we released to the public. Maybe we rushed to market, but now people are using it. I have a feeling we’ll be tried in the court of public opinion.”

  David was too calm, but maybe it’s because it wasn’t his name and face that had been slandered on live TV.

  “But she basically accused of breaking the law; someone will look into it. Reporters, the government. They’ll find out about the stolen files and therabots.”

  “They’ll assume,” David said. “But they can’t prove it.”

  “We have to tell the others,” I said suddenly. “They may not have seen the news. Melissa didn’t name them, but it won’t be hard to figure out. Everyone at school has seen us together.”

  “Greg’s got a game,” David said.

  “Maybe the others can meet us there and we can talk after.”

  “Excuse me, Brianna?” my mother’s voice made me jump. I twisted around so quickly I almost fell out of the swing, but we were alone. My phone was in my pocket, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t activated the remote by pressing my fingers together.

  “Who’s that?” David asked.

  “Gloria,” I said.

  “Why’s she sound different?”

  “I modded the voice,” I said. I didn’t tell him it was my mom’s.

  “Yes?” I asked cautiously.

  “You have a new message from Megan. Sounds important, thought you should know.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Is she supposed to do that? Initiate conversation?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I broke her today, so she’s probably glitchy. I’ll patch her to a new phone after the game.”

  I put in my ea
rbuds to listen to the message. I don’t know why I wanted privacy, but I wanted to hear it first before sharing it.

  “What’s it say?” David asked.

  “I don’t know, it’s a lot of silence, and a few mumbled phrases. Game. Van. Fire. Doesn’t make any sense. I think she butt-dialed me.”

  We got back in the car and drove towards school. I texted the others to meet us at the game, and we waited outside in the parking lot. When the bright red sports car pulled up next to us and revved its engine, I thought it was just some asshole at first, but then Amy rolled down the window and pulled down her sunglasses at me.

  “You bought a car?” I asked.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I leased it on credit.”

  She was wearing all new clothes, and Brad was too, I noticed. He looked like he’d robbed a vampire emporium, with a shredded black T-shirt, ripped jeans and a new leather jacket. He almost looked like he was wearing eyeliner, but I knew it was the double eyelash trick from the app. It really made his eyes stand out.

  “We doing this?” Brad asked.

  “I haven’t been to a game since Freshman year,” Amy said.

  “I’ve never been,” David said.

  “Of course you haven’t,” Brad said.

  “I’ve never seen you at a game,” I said, glaring at Brad.

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of these things,” Brad said. “Present company excluded. Why are we here again?”

  “We should be together,” I said. “All this publicity, it could come crashing down on us. Greg should at least know, we may not be as insulated as we thought, even though the app was anonymous.”

  “We saw the news,” Amy said, putting a hand on my arm. “Melissa is such a bitch. You okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not exactly the positive spin we wanted for our launch. I’m dreading going home, in case my dad has seen it.”

  The game was already halfway over, but we found spots in the bleachers. Some of our classmates ogled us, eyes wide. It wasn’t just Amy and Brad’s new clothes. It was also me. They’d seen me naked. Now they’d seen my radioactive pink eyes glow on TV. I’d dressed conservatively in jeans, a black sweater and my leather jacket, but my pink hair still drew stares. We looked like an indie rock band. David seemed the odd one out; just a geek in glasses. He always wore simple, comfortable clothes, I’d heard someone else call him Mr. Rogers on occasion, thanks to the V-neck sweaters and collared shirts he preferred.