“He said the device didn’t want to come to school.”
“Oh, come on!”
“What?” she said. “That’s what he said.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
“Just please come to the park?”
Eden’s friend that he saw her with most appeared in the hallway down at the opposite end and stopped short when she saw them. “Leahy sent me to check on you,” she called out, and her voice bounced and echoed.
Eden walked toward her, then turned and mouthed, “Please?”
Marwan nodded and started to feel like he’d have a hard time ever saying no to Eden.
EDEN
“All right. Spill it.” Anjali threw her lunch tote onto the table.
“Nothing to spill.” Eden took a sweep of the room, looking for Ilanka and not finding her.
Despite Eden’s protests, her mother still packed her lunches, and, every day, Eden was a little bit surprised by what she found. Today was one of those days when the cupboards were apparently nearing bare. Progresso Italian-Style Wedding soup in a thermos and half a piece of past-its-prime pita bread. There hadn’t, sadly, been any leftover pasta Bolognese.
They were at their usual table with Tristan and Thea, both of whom had gotten the school lunch, which was curry chicken. They both only really picked at it, but it smelled good.
“Have either of you ever seen Eden talk to that guy Marwan?” Anjali asked as she unpacked a sophisticated spread of salami and olives and cheese and crackers.
Tristan and Thea both shrugged. Eden thought about offering to trade lunches with one of them.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Why?” Tristan said.
“Twice today, I’ve seen them talking,” Anjali said. “Something’s up.”
“Nothing’s up,” Eden said.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Anjali said. “You have a crush on him.”
“Yes, you figured it out,” Eden said, rescuing a small meatball from her thick soup and hoping she’d never marry an Italian if this was what the soup would be like. “I have a massive crush on Marwan. I’m in love with him.”
It felt weirder to say that than she’d thought it would.
“Sarcasm can’t save you,” Anjali said, then turned to the other two. “She asked to be excused from calculus, and when she was taking too long, Leahy sent me to check on her and she was on the third floor with Marwan.”
Now Thea and Tristan seemed interested. Thea said, “The evidence does appear to be mounting.”
Eden worked fast, fabricating her lie, as she scanned the room again for Ilanka. “I left something in the music room yesterday, and he was there and took it and was giving it back to me.”
“In the middle of class. On the third floor?”
“Yes,” Eden said simply.
“What?” Anjali pressed. “What did you leave?”
“My water bottle.” Eden nodded at her bottle on the table, as if it were compelling evidence.
“But you didn’t have it with you when I saw you in the hallway,” Anjali said.
“I did!” Eden lied.
“Why did he take it? Why not just leave it there, like in case you went back for it?”
“I don’t know, Anjali. I can’t read his mind.”
“I thought you liked Julian Stokes,” Thea said.
A mini-meatball clogged Eden’s throat. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Anjali.”
“You told her?” Eden said after swallowing.
“Didn’t know it was a secret!”
Eden was about to grill her about anyone else she might have told when she spotted Ilanka over Thea’s shoulder. She left her spoon to float in her soup and got up. “I’ll be right back.”
She crossed the crowded room and stopped at the table where Ilanka was sitting. “Can I talk to you for a second?” Eden said.
“I guess?” Ilanka made a funny face at her friends, then stood and turned to Eden.
“We need to meet Eli under Hell Gate Bridge in Astoria Park after school. Something to do with the thing from yesterday.”
“No thanks,” Ilanka said.
“But you have to,” Eden said, feeling it to be true. Had there really been or had she only imagined a sort of panic in Eli’s texts about meeting up?
“No, I don’t,” Ilanka said.
Eden had never really liked Ilanka—for no good reason, really—but now felt her opinion had been confirmed.
Julian was one table away. She could turn his way and casually say hi. If she could only find the nerve. Was he watching her? She hoped so and hoped not.
“Ilanka,” Eden said. “I know we’re not friends or anything, but you were there so you’re part of this.”
“You guys actually took it?” Ilanka shook her head. “You should have left it there.”
“You have to come,” Eden said firmly.
“I don’t take orders from a little black cube, and I don’t take them from you either.”
Ilanka went to sit back down, and Eden’s anger rose from her toes to the roots of her hair. How did you get to be like that? How did you get to be the kind of person who just didn’t worry or care? When she turned to say hi to Julian—or even just smile?—he was looking the other way.
She met eyes with Marwan across the room; he’d been watching. She shook her head no.
They’d go anyway.
Or at least she would.
She was the only one she could control.
Didn’t her therapist say that again and again?
“I’m onto you,” Anjali said when Eden got back to the table. “Something funny’s going on.”
“If you say so,” Eden said brightly, and closed her thermos lid tight.
MARWAN
Marwan had music after lunch. He usually looked forward to it, but if Mr. M was back he’d have questions. Had Eli named them all by name when he’d said who was there? Marwan walked to class with Kartik and said, “Hey, you didn’t stop by the restaurant last night, did you?”
“Why would I do that?” Kartik adjusted his glasses, curious.
“Didn’t think so.”
“Marwan!” Mr. M said excitedly as soon as they walked in. “Come here. Tell me, what was that all about? You got that message from me that wasn’t from me?”
Freaking Eli.
“Yeah,” Marwan said as Kartik drifted away to a seat. “Weird, right?” Acting all casual.
“I don’t even know why the room was unlocked,” Mr. M said, moving their conversation to a corner by the window. “Did anything seem strange or off?”
“No,” Marwan said. “We just waited for you, then Eli messaged you, and we were about to leave and the fire alarm went off, so we had to leave anyway.”
“You left a window open,” Mr. M said.
“Nobody opened it that I remember, so it must have been open already?” (As if that mattered?)
“It’s just not great for the instruments,” Mr. M said. “Anyway, I told Principal Lambert that someone hacked the app.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Marwan said, then shrugged like it was no big deal.
“It seems not very well planned, though.” Mr. M was entirely too intrigued. “Like, why make you come here at all? What was the point?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Marwan said, noting that he was apparently okay lying to Mr. M. What did that say about him?
“You sure there’s not something more I should know? Something to do with the four of you specifically? Some ‘common enemy’ for lack of a better way to put it?” He half laughed.
“Not that I can think of,” Marwan said. And he’d been trying very hard. “I don’t even really know any of them.”
Mr. M didn’t look convinced.
Marwan shrugged and said, “Glad you’re feeling better.”
Mr. M said, “Thanks!” like he meant it, then looked at his phone. “Anyway, Principal Lambert’s at an off-site meeting today, but he’ll probably want to see you all tomorro
w.”
A train went by with its brakes screaming like tortured ghouls.
EDEN
Eli was under the bridge—an arch of metal spokes between two castle-like stone towers—sitting by a tree that was all knotted up on itself like it was mad that it wasn’t taller. The hill here was otherwise treeless, just a big expanse of grass that sloped down to the park road and East River. When he saw them he stood and waved his hands over his head. Marwan waved back. “There he is,” he said.
Eden said, “I see.”
Marwan had caught up with her on his bike just outside the park, and they’d walked in together, then along the river path—past a skateboard park, a playground, and an Olympic-sized pool that had been emptied back at the end of summer. She felt weird beside him now that she’d joked with her friends about being in love with him.
Why hadn’t Julian looked up at the right moment? It could have been so perfect.
She had her phone in her hand. Checked it. Her mom reminding her about therapy.
Up close, Eli looked pale and shaky. “Where’s Ilanka?”
“She’s not coming,” Eden said. “She said she doesn’t take orders from it or me.”
Eli said, “But my schedule is for the four of us.”
“Listen, man,” Marwan said. “You need to ease up on all this, I think. Let’s just return it, okay? We can go right now.”
“Listen, man,” Eli mimicked. “I haven’t slept, and I need you all on board or this is never going to work.”
“So what if it doesn’t work, whatever that even means,” Marwan said. “Let’s just bring it back to school and be done with it.”
“We can’t,” Eli said.
“Why not?” Eden asked, realizing that Marwan had been right. This trip to the park was a hassle. Everything about this whole thing so far was a hassle.
“Just listen to me, please,” Eli said. “The newest rule is that you can’t leave it zipped up in a backpack or whatever for more than an hour. I was up all night just making sure it was okay and not making any more rules. Then this morning it told me it has to ‘move to learn’ and to take it somewhere it could be around people but not school. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m so tired.”
“This whole thing has to be some kind of joke,” Marwan said. “And it’s not even funny.”
“I think he’s right, Eli,” Eden said. “Someone’s messing with us.”
“This isn’t child’s play,” Eli said. “Aizel is a serious piece of, like, AI machinery. Who at school could even get their hands on something like this? No one. That’s who.”
What was he even talking about?
“What’s ‘Aizel’?” Marwan said. “Why are you so freaked out?”
“Its name is Aizel,” Eli said. “If you google ‘Aizel,’ you really just get a Russian fashion company, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s Russian. It’s also a girl’s name. It means ‘one who brings luck or good fortune,’ if you believe astrology sites or whatever.”
“This is ridiculous,” Marwan said.
“You’re not making sense,” Eden said. It was a lot to take in, especially with Eli talking so fast, like a crazy person.
“I asked it who put it in the classroom, and it just said ‘they.’ ”
“Who is they?” Marwan asked.
Eli held up the device: “Tell them.”
A red message: They is they.
“And where are they?” Eli asked the device.
Everywhere and nowhere.
Eden’s Italian-Style Wedding soup was repeating on her, and she swallowed hard.
“Eli.” Marwan sounded calm. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound crazy. I think you need to go home and crash. So I’ll take it for a few hours, at least. We can regroup after you’ve gotten some sleep and figure out how to win if it’s a game or how to return it to its owner or whatever.”
“We can’t just return it,” Eli said.
“Why not?”
“It’s breaking a rule!”
“So what?”
“You do remember that it gave us the first few rules, then said or else?”
“But or else what?” Marwan said.
“Has either of you ever even seen, like, an AI movie?” Eli’s eyes were wild and bloodshot. “Because if you had you’d know that they mostly don’t end well. Like for the people. And I’ve had no luck trying to figure out what this thing even is—nothing on Google, and it apparently isn’t just going to tell us because I tried that—but I’m sure at this point that it didn’t come from school. So if it’s not a thing the school started, then what is it?”
“All right, calm down,” Marwan said. “We’ll keep it until we figure it all out. Just give it to us and, like, get some sleep, man. We got this.”
He nodded confidently, but Eden wasn’t feeling nearly so confident. And hadn’t Marwan just wanted to get rid of it? Why the sudden change?
“Okay, good.” Eli handed the device to him. “Give me your number and I’ll text you in a couple hours when I wake up. Remember. Can’t keep it in a bag for more than an hour.”
“Got it,” Marwan said, then recited his number.
Eli picked up his backpack and headed up the hill to the park exit. An older couple, like in their twenties, was making out on a blanket on the hill, and Eden hoped Marwan didn’t notice them, but they were right there and hard to miss.
It must be nice to be like that. To not care.
When Eli was out of sight, Marwan turned and headed for the water, taking long and determined strides.
Eden called out, “What are you doing?” and followed him, feeling a new kind of panic.
He pulled his arm back as if to throw the device, and Eden screamed, “No!”
He stopped and turned.
“Please!” she said.
“Fine.” He shook his head and then bent down and reached through the railing that ran along the path and set the device down on a rock. Small waves were lapping at the shoreline maybe ten feet away.
Was it low tide? High? Was a person expected to know these things? Did Marwan?
The sun shifted and sparked a skyscraper across the river—creating a sort of second sun. Eden had to squint and adjust to the new light.
“There,” Marwan said, standing and turning to her. “The park’s super busy so technically it’s sort of attended, just not by us. It’s not in a bag. I don’t think it’ll get wet at this distance. Someone will maybe find it in the next fourteen hours, so technically it’s changing hands. We’re covered.”
“I don’t know about this,” Eden said, wanting to be rid of it, sure, but … “What if Eli’s right, and it’s not from school, and it’s this really expensive thing?”
His deep brown eyes were calm. “Well, whoever owns it shouldn’t have trusted us with it. And anyway if they’re watching, they can just come and get it.”
He walked back up to the angry tree, then started to walk off, pushing his bike up the hill. She sort of couldn’t believe he was leaving it—and her—again. And she hated that he rode a bike; nobody in their right mind should bike in this city. He stopped and turned around.
“You coming?” he called out to her.
Eden hesitated.
Knowing it was there would haunt her.
But if she threw it into the water like Marwan had wanted to, maybe it would float away and wash ashore somewhere in the Bronx or on Roosevelt Island and become someone else’s problem. Or maybe it would sink and that would be the end of it. Maybe in a few months or years they’d see a commercial for some new tech company’s home device and they’d recognize it and look back and laugh about it—about how they’d all been a little spooked.
“Eden,” Marwan called out. “Please just leave it.”
She nodded.
He walked with her to the train—several long avenues—in silence.
They stopped to part ways on the sidewalk by the station steps.
Someone had spray-painted a blue stencil
of the earth and the words Save Yo Planet on the sidewalk.
Their phones both dinged.
The message was from an unknown number broken up with weird dingbats and symbols: WHY DID MARWAN DO THAT TO ME?
Eden saw in his eyes that Marwan had gotten the same message.
“I’m not falling for it,” he said. Then, “My phone is really hot.”
The device was texting them?
He passed his phone to his other hand. “Like crazy hot.”
Eden reached out and touched it; it was burning up, like it had been left in the sun for hours. “Weird,” she said. “Maybe power it down?”
He looked at it for another long second while Eden waited. “I’m locked out.”
“What?” she said.
“My fingerprint isn’t working. Neither is my pass code.”
“Just turn it off,” she said. “Maybe it’ll correct.”
Eden’s phone dinged another text. She read it aloud: “Tell Marwan it will not correct until the situation is corrected.”
Marwan said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Another ding. “It says, ‘Tell Marwan I will speak with him later.’ ”
He groaned.
“I’ll go back for it,” Eden said, and turned, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. “No,” he said. “Just don’t.”
She nodded; he released her arm.
Slipping his phone into his bag and then straddling his bike, he put on his helmet. It was good that he wore one even though she knew too well it didn’t always save you. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “But I’ve got to get to work.”
“Okay,” she said. Then she braved, “Talk later?”
He nodded and took off.
The shadows of people up on the platform were having a party on the balcony of a building across the street. Eden headed up the stairs and tried to think of something—anything but this—that she could talk about in therapy. Maybe Julian. But what would she even say that wouldn’t make her sound pathetic?
MARWAN
Marwan unlocked the restaurant’s metal gate and lifted it, then unlocked the front door and brought in his bike and turned on lights and opened the garden-facing windows. He liked opening up on weekdays—they only served lunch on weekends—because he usually had at least a few minutes to himself here when he did. He got himself a glass of water and took his phone out, and it wasn’t hot anymore; he turned it on again and it seemed to be booting up fine. So he started taking upside-down chairs off tables while he waited for it. When it rebooted, he’d put on the next beauty queen episode and text Eden and make sure she hadn’t gone back for it.
Take Me with You Page 4
