Take Me with You

by Tara Altebrando

  “I’m a worse dancer now than I was then, and that is saying something,” Eden said.

  “Give yourself a little credit,” he said. “Also, there’s no one here to notice how awful you are.”

  “There’s you,” she said.

  “But I already know!” He held up the cartridge. “Victory!”

  “We’re really gonna do this?” she asked.

  “We’re really gonna,” he said.

  They’d had pizza for dinner upstairs with just the moms. Dan—the dad—had gotten stuck at work and texted apologies. So now it was just Eden and Mark in the basement, and the moms upstairs, drinking wine.

  They danced, first, to “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction.

  “I’m sorry,” Mark said. “But this song holds up.”

  “It really does,” Eden said, winded when they were done. She plopped onto the couch. “I need to catch my breath.”

  “What should we do next? Oh, remember the one with the panda?”

  “ ‘Timber’!”

  “Yes! ‘Timber’! OMG. The best.” He collapsed onto the couch, too. They sat there breathing for a minute. “I think about your dad a lot,” Mark said.

  “You do?” Her face felt hot.

  “Why do you sound surprised?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it makes sense.”

  “He’s like the closest person to me who … died.”

  “Yeah, well, me, too,” she said.

  He slapped her on the leg with the back of his hand. “Quit being funny.”

  “I’m really not trying,” she said.

  “I feel like your dad sort of grounded my dad, and now I’m not so sure …”

  “Not so sure of what?”

  “I don’t know. He seems distracted. Or maybe just sad. It’s probably nothing.”

  “Probably,” Eden said, and then they sat there and watched the “Timber” pixelated panda dance but did not get up to join in. Eden looked around, noting how the room had changed over time—which was barely at all. It felt like a second home she somehow didn’t get to visit enough. A safe place. She said, “Can I tell you something that you can never tell another breathing soul?”

  Mark said, “That would certainly be the most interesting thing to happen to me this week.”

  She got her phone out and turned it off. “Where’s your phone?” she said.

  He pointed to the side table.

  She said, “Turn it off.”

  And then she told him all about Julian, and it felt good to just let it all out. Of course, Mark said all the right things.

  That’s messed up. Delete his number. I would never ask a girl for that.

  It felt so good that she thought about telling him about the device.

  Then she decided not to.

  Then she changed her mind. There was no way the device would ever know, and Mark was entirely trustworthy.

  “Okay, now you’re just messing with me,” he said when she was done.

  She shook her head. “I’m not.”

  “So how are you going to get rid of it or end it or whatever?”

  “At this point we’re still not sure, so the most likely thing is that we’ll bring it to the principal on Monday morning.”

  “That sounds smart,” he said. “And if you google for it, there’s … nothing?”

  “Nothing. Its name is Aizel, but there’s just nothing out there about it.”

  “You think it’s like … military?”

  “I have no idea! I mean, it’d be too crazy. Like, why would the military care about the four of us? And why, like, Astoria? Right now, it’s trying to figure out some kind of connection, and it says it’ll tell us. Anyway, whatever you do, don’t go start googling to try to figure out what it is.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t, okay? It’ll know.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Maybe it’s just an interactive game? Like Pokémon GO? Just something that’s designed to force you out of your comfort zone?”

  “I don’t have a comfort zone,” she said.

  “I’d like to think you have one here? With us? Or me?”

  “Of course,” she said, feeling emotion start to swell. But something wasn’t sitting right. About Nancy’s reaction when Dan had said he wasn’t going to be home on time—“You see?”—and her mother’s face and Mark thinking something was off with his dad. Eden said, “Hey, can you do one thing for me and don’t ask me questions about it?”

  “Anything for you,” he said.

  “Can you text me your dad’s phone number?”

  “Why?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “Yes, I can do that for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  She didn’t even want to articulate to herself why she was asking. And Dan Rankin wouldn’t be an NH, so it made no sense. Still …

  They just-danced some more then, and she felt lighter than she’d felt in a long time, and then they went upstairs and raided the freezer for ice cream, and it was so cold it hurt Eden’s teeth, but the rest of her was so hot from dancing that it almost felt good. The moms were on the living room sofa with their wine glasses.

  “Finally,” Nancy said, looking at her phone. “Dan’s on his way.”

  Eden’s mom set her half-full glass aside. “Well, we’re sorry to miss him but we really ought to get going.”

  At home, later, with her mother asleep, Eden went downstairs and compared the number Mark had texted her to the number of the mysterious “NH” in her mother’s phone.

  It didn’t match.

  Eden was beyond relieved.

  The device texted: Why’d you have your phone off for so long?

  Was at a friend’s. Didn’t want to drain battery.

  Tell me the name of your friend.

  Why?

  Why not? Also would you like me to text a photo to Julian?

  No! What? I deleted those.

  I did not.

  Eden’s heart thumped wildly.

  A car crashed into a tree.

  Some scaffolding was reported as unstable, the way Eden felt now. Like she might crumble in on herself.

  She wrote, His name is Mark.

  Thank you and good night.

  I want you to delete those pictures, she wrote next.

  I am sure you do.

  Have you figured out why it was the four of us yet?

  I sense I am getting close and that I will know after I am handed off to Ilanka.

  Eden went back up to bed, this time opting to leave her phone plugged in downstairs. Since those were the rules.

  User_error

  ILANKA

  The moms were drinking sparkling white wine while the dads talked by the grill. Smoke from the barbecue—breakfast sausages—was drifting up and out toward the river, creating a small patch of haze in front of the Empire State Building. Ilanka wondered whether anyone up there on the observation deck had those magnified eyes—big silver standing binoculars—trained on them. It was tempting to wave just in case.

  You could reserve parts of their building’s rooftop terrace for little gatherings like this; Ilanka’s parents did so at least a few times every fall and then more often in spring and summer. Sometimes—like today—they showed up without signing up and then had to have a chat with the building manager, but luckily no one else had reserved the space.

  “Did I see you talking to Eli Alvarez this week?” Svetlana asked.

  They’d moved away from their parents to sit in loungers by the closed pool. A helicopter took off across the river and rose into the sky like a futuristic robot bug.

  “I can’t imagine.” Ilanka tried to laugh it off.

  “Pretty sure I did,” Svetlana said.

  “Pretty sure you didn’t,” Ilanka said.

  “Pretty sure I did,” Svetlana said.

  “We gonna do this all day?” Ilanka checked her phone again
. She had a text from Marwan that said: There in five.

  “What’s up?” Svetlana said, nodding at the phone.

  “Just a text,” Ilanka said. She’d read a short article about the incident at his restaurant. One good thing about being Russian: even if your country was corrupt and hacked elections, you could pass for “American” if you wanted to.

  “Who from?” Svetlana said.

  “It’s a long story,” Ilanka said. She put a hand to her stomach. “I’m gonna go down and use the bathroom.”

  “Okay. TMI. Then we’ll do the thing? The movie?” Svetlana asked.

  “Oh,” Ilanka said. “About that. I’m grounded.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain when I get back. But I doubt they’ll let us go.”

  Ilanka went inside the building and punched the elevator down button. It was already there, so she got in and hit L and passed through the empty lobby to the front revolving door.

  Marwan was coming up the block on his bike. He got off to walk beside it and waved a perfunctory sort of wave, and Ilanka did the same back.

  When he got to her, he pulled the device from his bag and held it out to her. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks,” Ilanka said.

  “You need to be reminded of the rules?” he asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” Ilanka said, and she turned to go.

  “Well, it’s trying to figure out where it came from,” he said. “So if you can help with that in any way, that’d be great.”

  She turned back around. “How could I possibly help with that?” He was good looking, up close.

  “I don’t know, Ilanka”—he sounded tired and she felt sort of bad for being so sarcastic—“do you have a bag for it?”

  “No one pays any attention to anything,” she said. “I’ll grab a bag at the apartment in a minute.”

  “I’m not sure you’re taking this seriously enough,” he said.

  “Maybe you’re taking it too seriously?”

  He huffed. “Just get through the night and bring it to school tomorrow without messing up, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ilanka said, and did a fake salute.

  “Oh, and it disappeared briefly the other day.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Yeah, like it suddenly wasn’t where Eli and Eden had left it, and then it was back maybe five minutes later. So just … you know … keep an eye on it.”

  Ilanka said, “I’m not an idiot,” and headed back toward the building. She turned slightly just to see that Marwan had gotten back on his bike and was leaving.

  In the lobby, Svetlana was right there, on her phone; she had her bag with her. She looked up, then down at Ilanka’s hand and said, “What’s that?”

  Maybe she wasn’t taking it seriously enough.

  But for real. What could possibly be the harm?

  If Svetlana wanted to get in on it, the whole thing would become at least mildly less boring.

  Or maybe the whole thing would just shut down once a rule had been broken. The person who’d played this trick or test or whatever on them would reveal themselves and have a good laugh.

  She felt a buzz spread all through her body now at the idea of telling Svetlana. Of breaking with these three weird people she really didn’t want anything to do with.

  “It’s this device that appeared in Mr. M’s room the other day,” she said, voice shaking with strange emotions. “It hacked into the school app and sent messages to four of us, telling us to turn up in that room. So we did, and it’s been giving us rules to follow. Like some sort of game.”

  “Like what kind of rules?” Svetlana asked.

  “Like don’t leave the device unattended. Don’t tell anybody about the device.”

  “But you just told me,” Svetlana said.

  “Yeah … and it didn’t like blow up or anything, right? I mean, it’s some kind of game or gimmick. Clearly.”

  “I guess,” Svetlana said. “So you were talking to Eli.”

  Ilanka nodded. “Yeah, there’s four of us who have been taking care of it or whatever.”

  Svetlana studied it. “What else does it do?”

  “I don’t know, actually.” She didn’t feel like telling Svetlana about the wall of selfies. “I mean we have no idea what it even is, really. It had this countdown going for a while when it wanted me to take a shift watching it. So I guess it has a camera? And it’s probably got some kind of Wi-Fi? I don’t know.”

  “Sounds dumb,” Svetlana said. “If I were you I’d just dump it somewhere.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Ilanka said, feeling a smack of disappointment. “Anyway, we should go back upstairs. I just need to grab a bag to keep it in so my parents don’t see it.”

  “Or just throw it out right there.” Svetlana pointed at a nearby trash can.

  “Yeah, I want to get rid of it somewhere farther from my house just to be safe,” Ilanka said, though really she had no intention of getting rid of it, not yet. Let the others deal with it tomorrow; then it’d be their problem again.

  Svetlana was on her phone. “Okay, well, your parents said it was fine for us to go to the movies.”

  “They did?”

  “They did.” Still looking at her phone.

  “Okay,” Ilanka said slowly, remembering they were not actually going to a movie. “Where exactly am I supposed to go?”

  Svetlana didn’t look up, clearly didn’t care. “You could go to a movie.”

  Ilanka said, “I could go upstairs and tell them what you’re actually doing.”

  “You’re not going to do that.” She looked up now. “Anyway, I said we were meeting friends, so I can go now even if you don’t. Say you’re not feeling great. Whatever.” She pulled sunglasses from her bag and put them on, then walked out the lobby doors.

  Ilanka followed her. “You’re really leaving?”

  Svetlana just kept on walking.

  The device lit up and beeped three times.

  A voice came out of it: “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

  Svetlana was about to reach the corner. She turned and waved and said, “Really leaving.”

  In a frantic female voice the device said, “My friend just got hit by a car. Hurry. It looks bad. Real bad.”

  The voice sounded familiar to Ilanka. It sounded like her own.

  “Svetlana, stop!” she screamed.

  Svetlana stepped out into the street.

  ELI

  Sunday mornings were pretty much the only time the whole family was home together, or at least it felt that way. Had he even seen his parents since Wednesday, when this whole thing started? He must have. He’d eaten dinner with his mother and Lily at least once, hadn’t he? And taken Cora for walks? But between his mother’s work as an ESL specialist at a local school and his father’s job in security at a high-end hotel in midtown—but mostly because of all the running around of his sister that they did—he couldn’t be sure from one day to the next what home life would be like.

  Except on Sundays.

  On Sundays his father bought an actual newspaper to read and his mother made pancakes. His sister always asked for chocolate chips in them, which Eli always protested because it made them too sweet, but mostly he did it for sport. His sister liked to spar. She’d have probably been fun if she’d been born like five years earlier and was closer in age to him. How was it possible she was only eight?

  It was weird to share parents with someone whose life was completely different from yours.

  His phone buzzed, and there was a text from Ilanka: One of you has to come get this thing.

  “Eli, put your phone away,” his mother said.

  “In a second, Mom.”

  Cora was licking stray batter off the floor.

  The next text said, Svetlana saw it and I told her what it was.

  “Can I have the syrup?” his sister said.

  Another buzz: Just found out she was hit by a car.

  “What’s so important with you ri
ght now?” his father asked, picking Cora up and moving her to the other side of his chair.

  Buzzed again: Device did it.

  Who’s coming to get it?

  “Eli,” his father said. “Phone. Away. Now.”

  How would the device cause an accident like that?

  “In a second, Dad.”

  He took a few deep breaths and thought it through. He didn’t know Svetlana, really, just knew she was another gymnastics type.

  He wrote, Slow down. I’ll come meet you.

  She wrote back, Come NOW or I will smash it to pieces. Wait for me at the coffee place by the Mount Sinai ER entrance.

  I’m on my way, he wrote.

  Eden popped in: Me, too.

  Another text—this one from Marwan and just to him and Eden: Is this for real?

  Eli wrote, About to find out.

  “I’m sorry,” Eli said, grabbing a pancake and standing up. “But I’ve got to go.”

  “Go where?” his father asked.

  “A friend needs my help,” he said, and he left, ignoring his father’s protests and Cora’s barking.

  I can’t get away right now, Marwan wrote. Keep me posted.

  Eden wrote, We will.

  The hospital was maybe a ten-minute walk up Crescent Street. Eli crossed streets with unusual caution even though he knew it was crazy. The device wasn’t even close—yet—and also it couldn’t possibly have caused an accident.

  Though it had hacked into a traffic camera for Marwan.

  Could it do the same with traffic lights? But how could it rely on a car to arrive at just the right time?

  A man walking in front of him stopped at a poster taped to a streetlight—ripped the flyer down, crumpled it up, and tossed it in a nearby trash can. Curious, Eli plucked it from the trash and opened it up again. It was posted by the local police precinct and asked for information leading to the arrest of any of the vandals or perpetrators of hate crimes in the neighborhood. There was a tip line number to call. Lit with rage, Eli caught up to the man who had torn it down at the corner.

  “Hey,” he said. “Why did you take this down?”

  “None of your business,” the guy said.

  “No, I want to know. You think it’s okay? Everything that’s happening?”