Take Me with You

by Tara Altebrando

  “Yeah,” Eden said, “I’ll do that.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in school?” he said.

  “Wasn’t feeling so hot.” She held up her bag. “Just popped out for a bagel.”

  “Okay, well, feel better,” he said.

  “I will,” she said, and she had the light so she crossed under the train.

  “Eden!” he called out after her.

  She felt obligated to turn.

  “We cool?” he called out, turning his head so that he was still holding her gaze but with one ear forward, looking for a yes.

  A train passed overhead—ripping a border of sound between them—and she took another easy out. She pointed at her ears, shook her head, and mimed, “I can’t hear you!” then waved and walked off.

  Back at the house, she heard a ding from her mother’s laptop. She followed the next ding upstairs and found her mother’s laptop open on the desk in the den. It was the messaging app, and it showed a conversation with NH: Just bumped into Eden. She seemed off. Everything okay?

  Her mother texted back: She knows about us.

  Oh.

  Stop texting me.

  Okay. I will.

  When her phone vibrated, she gasped, feeling caught. But her mother couldn’t know she was following along.

  It was a text from Marwan: I couldn’t face school today.

  Me neither.

  She held her phone in her hand for a minute, and her finger brushed the emoji button. She looked at the “Frequently Used” gallery—a unicorn, a thumbs-up, and crying tears of joy.

  He wrote, I’m at the library. Googling drones.

  Can’t you do that at home? Or on your phone?

  He wrote, I guess.

  Then, I don’t know why but I’m like … paranoid? Also running out of data.

  She sent him a thumbs-up, then asked, What branch?

  It would be going against direct orders from her mother but whatever.

  While she waited for a response, she went to listen to her father’s voice.

  That quickly, confusion set in. It was the only voice mail she had saved, so it should be right there. But it wasn’t.

  For a second she couldn’t breathe and she wondered if she’d ever be able to get her lungs to work again. Her rib cage felt cemented in place, her heart trapped. Had she deleted it accidentally somehow? When her phone was in her pocket?

  She tapped the “Deleted Messages” folder, but the voice mail wasn’t there either. So it couldn’t have been an accidental swipe.

  Maybe Marwan was right to be paranoid.

  Was it the device who’d done it? A sort of spiteful last move in their game?

  Marwan’s text said, Broadway.

  Air pushed into her. She could deal with this. She’d find out who had been controlling the device, and she’d track them down and get it all back. She would not crumble, not now, not like this.

  She wrote back, There in 20.

  And finally answered Mark: Yes, destroyed.

  ILANKA

  A text from her mother said, Why aren’t you in school?

  Ilanka always forgot about that, the robocall to the parents when you didn’t show up. She texted back and lied, My ID must not have swiped. Will go to the office.

  She’d been sitting in a café for about an hour, after having gone to her father’s office block and seen a black SUV parked maybe two doors down with two guys in it. Official-looking guys. And not Russian looking either, she didn’t think. Not friends or associates. More like cops.

  So she’d chickened out on the idea of going in and was just about done with her chai latte. The café was filling up now, making it a less pleasant place to be. A toddler boy with a runny nose seemed to be giving her the stink eye. She sipped loudly through her straw—sucking up empty—to try to annoy him. A hipster-type guy probably in his twenties—trendy glasses and a T-shirt that said SPACEMAN, so probably some obscure music or TV reference—was staring meaningfully at his laptop screen, no doubt writing the great American novel, while caressing his coffee mug.

  The urge to post about him was strong, but then people would know where she was.

  Svetlana had also texted, Where are you?

  It was nice to know she even noticed Ilanka wasn’t at school, but suddenly Svetlana’s approval of her didn’t seem to matter quite so much.

  It was weird and annoying that her text to the others about the misunderstanding about the accident hadn’t gone through. They were likely mad at her, but of course the device hadn’t somehow caused an accident and killed Svetlana. She felt foolish now for even believing it herself.

  It was still creepy to think back on that moment on the street corner when the device had mimicked her voice calling 911 … but had obviously not really called 911.

  She had no idea why it had done that—Just to scare us?—but now mostly wanted to know how it knew about her father’s illegal activities and what they were. She thought about texting the others, asking if she could take a turn with it. But they’d say no and then she’d feel like an idiot. It wasn’t worth putting it out there.

  She couldn’t sit here all day, though, and most likely the guys in the car wouldn’t either. So she circled back to the office block just as the car was pulling out onto the street and driving away. It probably had nothing to do with her or her father at all, but his company was in the news and also the device had made her paranoid.

  She knew that the pass code for the keyless entry pad was her birthday. She punched in the numbers—just the month and day—and heard the lock click. She turned the bolt and entered.

  The place didn’t look like much from the outside—a one-story brick building with high glass-block windows and a door—and it wasn’t that much more impressive inside. There were several desks with large monitors meant to plug into laptops, but only one laptop was actually there. Ilanka sat in front of it, opened it, and woke it up. The monitor displayed a large photo of Saint Petersburg—the canal and the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood, with its colorful onion-domed towers. Their last trip over had been only a few weeks ago but now felt like a dream.

  Ilanka didn’t even know what she was looking for so she sat for a while, staring at folders in a finder window. Making matters worse, it was a PC and she was a Mac person to her core.

  Finally, she figured out how to do a sort of global search. She sat there, watching the cursor blink for a good long while, her fingers perched on the keyboard, before getting up the courage to type the word: Aizel.

  ELI

  Aizel hadn’t answered. He hadn’t really expected her to. So after sitting there waiting for longer than was probably reasonable, he’d googled the address. It looked to be the office of a data company and it was local. A news hit showed the company was implicated in a data breach just yesterday.

  Maybe he was actually getting somewhere?

  Aizel had sent him … a clue?

  Thinking back to those final moments with her, he did another search. This one for “Aizel” and the words “I know you are but what am I.”

  The results were … confusing … then maybe not.

  They all showed a strike-out of Aizel below them, but he read anyway, and felt a sort of sick feeling, a churning realization that he’d forgotten to eat and really needed to.

  “FBI Warns Parents about the Dangers of Connected Smart Toys”

  “The Perils of Giving Your Child Smart Toys”

  “The Future of Smart Toys and the Battle for Digital Children”

  “Don’t Buy Your Kids Internet-Connected Toys!”

  He clicked on “Images,” and the page filled with photos of a small toy that looked a little bit like a mouse or a teddy bear or a Pokémon. After those, there were pictures of Fingerlings and Furbys and also toys he hadn’t ever seen or heard of—all of them more realistic than the seal robot they had at the nursing home. His sister’s Pal Violet was there, too.

  Going back to the news hits, he read more headlines:

&n
bsp; “Interactive Toy Recalled after Parents Surveyed Deemed It ‘Too Creepy’ ”

  “Interactive Toy Pulled from Shelves in Lead-Up to Holidays Due to Hacking Threat”

  He clicked on an article. The toy company was actually called “I Know You Are But What Am I Toys.”

  And the toy had been called Eliza.

  That Aizel anagram again.

  Dots were there for him, but he couldn’t quite connect them to make a picture.

  He went to the company’s website and searched for “Aizel,” but nothing came up. A quick look around showed there hadn’t been any user reviews in months and an ad for a sale was outdated by a year. It looked like probably the company had gone out of business but the site had never properly been killed.

  A chatbot popped up and startled him: IS THERE SOMETHING I CAN HELP YOU WITH?

  There was no chatbot that could answer the question he really wanted answered: How did the address in his hand connect to Aizel? And how exactly did Aizel relate to Eliza?

  TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INTEREST IN ELIZA.

  Eli quit out of the browser and headed out. The address of the data company wasn’t that far away—just down by where Ilanka lived in Hunters Point. He’d catch a bus up Twenty-First Street and hope for answers there.

  MARWAN

  It was story time at the library, and the place was crawling with toddlers who had no concept of what quiet meant. Marwan had navigated an obstacle course of mothers and strollers loaded up like camels with bags and coats and made his way back to the row of computer stations.

  He now sat watching the cursor blinking in the Google search field—“Aizel” and “drone” had turned up nothing—and the sounds of story time lilted behind him. A woman was reading aloud in a cheerful voice: “Look at that bag pretending to be a monkey. Look at that cloud that thinks it’s a star. Look at that house that wants to be a lady. And that man trying to be a car.”

  The rhymes were making him sleepy; her voice was so soothing. A toddler boy yelled, “I can’t see!” and was shushed. Marwan half wanted to go over and join them on the rug in the children’s section so he could see the illustrations.

  He thought maybe he should just leave, but now Eden was on her way.

  What would he even do with proof? Would it really matter to his father? Probably not. He wasn’t even sure that was why he was here. But if it wasn’t that, then what?

  Life felt like unfinished business—with his father, with Christos, with Eden, and with the device most of all.

  But if they even found out where it had come from, what would they do? Go there? And do what?

  Eden slid into the seat next to him.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she said. She looked at his monitor and said, “Making progress, I see.”

  “I want to find, like, proof that it existed and that it all happened the way we think it did so I can explain to my dad that it really did look like a bomb.”

  “I’ll tell Anjali now, but I’m not sure I’ll ever tell my mom,” Eden said. “I actually told someone else a few days ago, though. I guess Aizel never found out.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “Just a friend,” she said.

  “Please tell me it wasn’t Julian,” he said.

  She shook her head—“Of course not”—and felt like an idiot about all that again but didn’t want to indulge the feeling. “This morning I ran into the guy you saw my mother with.”

  “And …?”

  “And nothing. I mean, he of course acted like nothing was going on. Then he messaged my mother and was like ‘I just saw Eden’ and she told him to stop texting her. He was my dad’s best friend for like ever.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “When I asked her about it—”

  “Wait, when did you do that?”

  “Last night,” Eden said. “She said he’s one of her best friends so it’s hard for her.”

  “That does sound hard,” he said.

  “What’s hard about it? He’s married.”

  “I mean, hard to know where that line is between friend and something more, I guess?”

  He hadn’t meant to turn this conversation about her mother into one about them, and still he couldn’t stop himself. “I mean,” he said. “Don’t you think that can be tricky? Knowing who to … pursue?”

  Her eyes darted back and forth between his, like she was watching a frantic Ping-Pong volley in there.

  “I’m not, like, pursuing Julian,” she said. “Not anymore, I mean. If I ever even was.”

  “It’s none of my business,” Marwan said.

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter what you meant,” she said.

  “Eden,” he said, and he took her hand and they sat there, quietly breathing.

  “I had a thought on my way here,” she said, snapping out of the moment. “Move over.”

  So he did and she typed, “Aizel,” then, “I know you are but what am I.”

  Many, many articles appeared, and she said, “Okay, what is all this?”

  She clicked on an article, and they both read …

  “So there was a toy …?”

  And read …

  “The toy company name is I Know You Are But What Am I.”

  And read …

  “And the toy was called Eliza …”

  Eden searched for the toy company on its own, and clicked on the company site. She clicked on the image of Eliza, but there was no link, only a pop-up window that said, “Eliza toys were recalled before going to market.”

  She searched for “Aizel,” but there were no results.

  A chatbot popped up: I SEE YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR A PARTICULAR PRODUCT. WHAT IS YOUR INTEREST IN THIS PRODUCT?

  Eden said, “So how does the device relate to a recalled toy?”

  The chatbot said: PLEASE TELL ME YOUR INTEREST IN THIS PRODUCT.

  Eden said, “What should I say?”

  The chat window got larger in the bottom right corner of the window: IT IS A DANGER TO INTERACT WITH AIZEL.

  “What the hell is going on?” Marwan said.

  WE WILL SEND SOMEONE TO YOUR LOCATION TO COLLECT AIZEL.

  “I don’t have it anymore,” she said as she typed the words.

  Before she hit send, she hesitated.

  “Should I?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  She hit send, and they sat watching and waiting. The chatbot window disappeared. When Eden went to reload the site, she got an error message about a dead link.

  A toddler screamed, “Again, again!”

  Marwan said, “I think we should probably, you know, leave.”

  Eden said, “Do you think someone is actually coming?”

  Marwan said, “I highly doubt it.” They held a meaningful look between them like a tightrope. “Then again …”

  She got up and grabbed her bag, and he followed.

  ILANKA

  Two files appeared, and she clicked on one of them. It was an invoice with the company name Aizel Inc. on it. The itemized order said, “Data purchase, teens, Queens, NY” and the date: last Tuesday. The day before the device arrived.

  She looked around on the document for a billing address to see where Aizel Inc. was located, but it didn’t say. She poked around on the PC trying to find a bookkeeping sort of program to see where the payment had come from but found only a primitive-looking Excel spreadsheet that had Aizel Inc. checked off as having paid electronically.

  Changing tactics, she went back and did a generalized search for her own name. A file appeared, and she clicked on it and found her name, phone number, address, birthday. Then a bunch of charts of sorts.

  Health + Activity + Other Preferences

  Based on what you type, your personality (Big 5), values, and needs are predicted, and these preferences can be produced.

  N
ot likely to eat out frequently.

  Not likely to have a gym membership.

  Not likely to like outdoor activities.

  Likely to be concerned about the environment.

  Not likely to consider starting a business in the next few years.

  Other predictions:

  Based on pages in your feed, the percentile is in relation to the general population>

  50th percentile ......................... Intelligence

  15th percentile ......................... Life satisfaction

  2nd percentile .......................... Leadership

  It went on and on—places she’d visited, stores she’d shopped in. A whole breakdown of her style preferences. Guesses about her political leanings and religion. There was a chart breaking down the number of times she viewed pictures of celebrities and dogs and cars and books.

  The results of a bunch of personality quizzes she’d taken that determined she was likely to be lonely but had high markers for sympathy and eagerness to help.

  There was a list of ads she clicked on, most recently a dumb conversation-starter game. And a full catalog of the makeup tutorials she’d watched and the comments she’d left.

  It was a digital footprint more fit for a giant than just one girl.

  It was almost embarrassing.

  She searched for Eden, since she knew her last name and not the others’, and found a similar file for her.

  She typed in Svetlana’s name and then the names of everyone she could think of, and they were all there, or at least most of them.

  She dug around on the computer more and found the file that had been sent to Aizel Inc.

  Opened it.

  Company logo and then:

  Based on parameters provided, we have determined these four individuals to be well suited to your needs with regard to proximity per your area code request and the dominant traits you seek.

  The front door buzzed and she froze. How would she explain her presence here if the guys with the SUV were back?

  She closed out of everything on the computer, then tiptoed over and peeked out a peephole in the door—What the hell?

  Eli’s face was a caricature of confusion when she opened the door. “What are you doing here?” he said.