Catfishing on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer

  I have never actually been drunk, but the times I’ve tried alcohol it’s been completely gross. “Was there any food? Or just booze?”

  “Yeah, but all the food was orange. Like there were cheese puffs and also cheese crackers and I seriously don’t know what Colin—that was Bryony’s boyfriend at the time—was thinking when he did the shopping.”

  “The refreshments may be wholesome,” I point out, “but you spent today in a car chase.”

  “Yeah. Let’s see if there’s anything about the crash on the news sites, since no one on CatNet knows anything.”

  We find a single news article on a Marshfield news site; it says that an unidentified man crashed his car into a tree and was taken to the hospital. Down in the comments, there’s a rant in all caps from somebody who apparently saw the accident. They give a somewhat incoherent description of what happened, but they don’t mention me—just that the guy was on the street, that he fired a gun at the car as it drove at him, and that the car hit him, he wasn’t ever in the car.

  My father isn’t dead. I’m not sure how I feel about that. The article said “serious condition,” but not what that means—like, is he definitely not dying or possibly still dying? Is he going to be laid up for months, or is he going to be out and after me again in forty-eight hours? At least he’s in the hospital in Marshfield and not the one in New Coburg.

  The only name in the article is the guy the car is registered to. It’s clear they know he’s not the guy in the hospital, but there are two additional comments from people saying, “BRIAN ISN’T IN THE HOSPITAL, HE’S FINE,” just in case anyone’s confused.

  No mention of me, Rachel, or Rachel’s car. So there’s that.

  We get back on CatNet with the update. Everyone is relieved to hear that my father is in the hospital while also agreeing that jail would be better. “You can check out of a hospital,” Hermione points out.

  “You can bail out of jail,” Orlando/Bryony says.

  Still no CheshireCat.

  It’s getting colder and darker. I send my mother a text, in case she’s getting them, letting her know I’m okay and that I’m hiding out with a friend. Then Rachel and I make ourselves as comfortable as possible.

  Bryony called me Rachel’s girlfriend. Does Rachel want me as her girlfriend? I’m not sure what I think about that idea. I’ve never had very many crushes on boys or girls, but partly I think that’s because my mom makes me move so often that the heartbreak never seemed worth it. Also, I really like having Rachel as a friend, and I don’t want to screw that up.

  As I’m pondering this, she puts her arm over me and snuggles up against me. I feel a surge of bewildered nervousness—I haven’t decided if I want a girlfriend or not, and now I have to decide, right this instant?—and then I feel the warmth of her against my side and realize that she’s doing this for warmth in this cold, cold house, and that’s great, actually.

  I drift off to sleep, listening to the wind in the trees.

  * * *

  I start awake while it’s still dark. Rachel’s face is pressed against my shoulder and her arm is over me, and I’m pretty sure she’s still asleep. One of my legs has gone to sleep, and I’m pretty sure it’s because of the hard floor and my precise angle. I’m too physically uncomfortable to sleep any more, but if I rearrange myself I’ll probably wake Rachel, so I decide to just suck it up for a while.

  The sensation of sleeping next to a friend is bringing back a raft of memories of Julie. My mother let me sleep over at Julie’s once, because it was right upstairs, and I remember both of us being tucked into bed on a fold-out couch in the living room. It was a saggy old couch that smelled like the dog they no longer had, and the pillows were encased in slippery plastic under the pillowcases for some reason, and the sun came in through the living room windows at 6:30 a.m. and woke us both up. Julie didn’t wake her mother, just made us both toaster waffles, which we ate with syrup while watching online videos of bats, sitting cross-legged on the disarranged sofa bed.

  The memory comes back with such clarity that I immediately try remembering where we went for my eighth birthday, and it’s like stepping from a sunny room into a basement. I’m pretty sure I remember cake. Maybe a cupcake? What was on the cupcake?

  Ugh.

  Rachel really isn’t that much like Julie. Julie adored bats and had no particular artistic ability, although I remember drawing together at her kitchen table, a box of battered crayons spilled out between us. The thing that’s common between the two of them was that they both felt like I was a person worth knowing.

  Worth protecting.

  I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about what’s going on beyond the house, but now I’m thinking about my father again. What if he’s out of the hospital? It looked like the car hit him really hard, but he went sprawling over the hood so maybe he just walked away with a few bruises, nothing that would keep him laid up in the hospital for longer?

  He should have a criminal record, but he doesn’t. If I tell the police about him threatening me with a gun, who’d even believe me? He would have had the gun when he was picked up, but do I remember any details that would prove that he pointed it at me? It was black or maybe dark gray, and it looked enormous—that’s literally all I remember.

  Rachel stirs, even though I haven’t jostled her, and I roll away slightly, hoping maybe I can get up without disturbing her. She settles back down, so I slowly get up, tucking the blankets back in around her as best I can.

  It’s morning, or at least morning-ish, though you really can’t tell because all the windows are boarded up. There’s twilight outside beyond the broken back door, though. I get myself some of the food from the cooler and look outside. There’s no sign of any other people; no indication that anyone’s looking for us.

  It occurs to me that I could leave. Tiptoe away, leave Rachel sleeping—I could leave her a note, so she wouldn’t think I’d been kidnapped—find my own way to a hiding place that wouldn’t involve Rachel. If my father comes after us and Rachel’s with me, she’ll be in at least as much danger as I am. My mother was kidnapped and tortured; it was the coworker who got picked to take the blame for it who wound up dead. Rajiv. I wonder if he actually killed himself, or if Michael killed him and made it look like a suicide?

  Of course, Michael probably has Rachel’s address, so he could come after her, anyway.

  But even aside from that, I don’t want to leave. I feel safer with Rachel, even if that’s completely irrational. And I feel like she’s safer with me, even though I know that’s irrational. We’re protecting each other. We’ll keep each other safe. I left her yesterday, and she came right back.

  “Steph?” Rachel flicks on her flashlight, illuminating the room. “Is it morning?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  She pulls out her cell phone and turns it back on. “Let’s see if there’s any new news about your dad.”

  The news about my dad is all over this morning, but it’s not because of my dad, it’s because of the car: it’s gotten out that the car that hit him was self-driving. One of the neighbors apparently saw it happen and has given interviews to every major network; he doesn’t appear to have noticed that I was there, just that my father fired a gun at the Roadster and then got hit.

  The actual owner of the car was sitting in class at the U when it happened. Various experts are insisting that the most likely explanation is that someone stole the car, ran down the “unidentified male,” and then fled before the police arrived.

  The car company has released a statement talking about their commitment to security, and someone’s saying that if the owner of the car had compromised its built-in security in some way, a hack would be possible though very unlikely.

  My father is a footnote in every article but one: “taken to the hospital,” “stable condition,” “taken to the hospital with injuries,” “taken to the hospital for evaluation.” There’s one dubious-looking newspaper that got a blurry photo of him from someone’s security
camera and adds an unnamed witness saying they saw the aftermath and his head was gushing blood. That seems like it ought to be a good sign—I mean, a good sign for me, since I would prefer that he be really seriously injured and in the hospital indefinitely—but Rachel lets out an impatient snort and says that head injuries always bleed like crazy.

  CheshireCat would probably have more information. They’d have eavesdropped on the hospital through the staff cell phones or something. But CheshireCat isn’t in the Clowder and doesn’t respond to my private message.

  Orlando pops online. “GEORGIA, ARE YOU HERE? Because your dad is flipping his lid. He came over last night, and I thought he and my dad were going to wind up in a fistfight. I think he thinks maybe you were involved somehow in that car crash that’s in the news. Did you text him and let him know you’re alive?”

  Rachel leans over my shoulder to type. “I TEXTED HIM. I told him I was fine and not to worry.”

  “Maybe call him?” Orlando says.

  “He’ll just start yelling,” Rachel types.

  I take back the keyboard. “Has anyone seen CheshireCat since yesterday?” I ask.

  No one has.

  “Is anyone else weirdly missing?” I ask.

  “None of the admins are on,” Hermione says. “I noticed this morning because the main channel was getting all clogged with spam, which basically never happens. I tried to ask Alice what was up. She wasn’t on, and neither were any of the others.”

  Did CheshireCat run away after the thing with the car? Did it get them in trouble?

  “Are you worried about CheshireCat?” Firestar asks. “I’ve been trying to remember what they’ve said about their parents and whether they have the sort of parents who’d just cut them off from online.”

  “I asked about their parents once, and all they said was, ‘Mostly they let me do what I want,’” Hermione says.

  In a sense, CheshireCat’s parent would be the programmer who created them. They mentioned a creator—they said they didn’t know if their creator knew they were conscious. So maybe it was their parent that took them offline. Maybe their creator realized what had happened and came after them.

  “Can anyone remember CheshireCat ever saying where they were from?” I ask.

  “Do you think they’re in trouble???” Firestar asks.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I check my email, hoping to find something—anything—from CheshireCat, some clue.

  And I do find one, from an address I’ve never seen before.

  CheshireCat needs you.

  66 Antshire Street, Cambridge, MA.

  Rachel stares at me. “What if that’s your father trying to lure us in?”

  “How would he know to mention CheshireCat?”

  “I don’t know. How did he know to come straight to New Coburg? How did he get here so fast?”

  I pull out my phone to see if my mother’s texted. Or if CheshireCat did.

  Neither has, but there’s a text from some number I’ve never seen before.

  Is this Laura’s daughter? Are you in Wisconsin in this mess? Do you need help? And then it’s signed with something that’s probably an emoji or special character, but those don’t show up on my phone so I just see a .

  I should feel reassured, maybe, but the only thing I can think right now is that either my father has my cell phone number, or someone else is now after me.

  23

  Clowder

  LBB & Georgia: There’s something I need to tell everyone about CheshireCat.

  CC, if you see this, which hopefully you will someday, I’m only breaking my promise because I have to. I can’t do this alone.

  Hermione: Are you going to tell us that CheshireCat and the admins are the same person? Since they all went missing at the same time?

  LBB & Georgia: Yeah, for starters. CheshireCat is all the admins. They run the whole site, and they never log off because they’re not actually a hacker, exactly.

  They’re an AI. An artificial intelligence. A sentient, artificially created person.

  Firestar: OMG A WHAT

  LBB & Georgia: They’re a person that exists only electronically. They live on a computer. But they’re really, actually, a person. A person without a body.

  And they’re also a hacker. They’re really good at it. That’s why they were able to make that car hit my father. They saved me. But I think this got the attention of someone who had the power to just … turn them off.

  Firestar: If they live on a computer, how would the person even know which computer to turn off?

  LBB & Georgia: They had a creator, someone who wrote their code, and that person would know which computer they were on.

  Anyway, I got an email overnight, saying CheshireCat needs my help, with an address. It’s in Boston.

  Firestar: I’M IN BOSTON. DO YOU NEED ME TO GO RIGHT NOW?

  Hermione: I’m really close to Boston. I mean, a few hours away.

  LBB & Georgia: I want to come. I want you to meet me there. But I think I have to be the one to go, because CC did what they did to save me. And I don’t think whoever it is who took them offline is going to believe anyone else.

  Georgia says she’ll drive me.

  It’s 19 hours? So I mean …

  Firestar: I’M GOING TO GET TO MEET YOU BOTH IN PERSON???????????

  But your mom. What about your mom?

  LBB & Georgia: I still haven’t heard from her.

  Right now I’m telling myself her phone ran out of battery and she hasn’t had a way to charge it.

  Or maybe it fell out of her pocket while she was on her way to the ambulance?

  I’m sure she’ll text me eventually.

  But in the meantime, I’m going to Cambridge to talk to whoever lives at 66 Antshire Street.

  Firestar: WHAT IF IT’S A TRAP

  Hermione: Boston’s only a few hours from me. But it’s going to take you at least two days, right? I mean, Georgia can’t drive this whole thing in one go. Unless she has a self-driving car …

  LBB & Georgia: It’s like a fifteen-year-old car. So no. And I’m not a driver. Unless Bryony wants to join us?

  Orlando: HARD PASS.

  Sorry guys.

  My parents would literally kill me.

  Also, I got to do the whole “car chase” thing with you yesterday, and I’m not super eager for a repeat, no offense.

  Icosahedron: I don’t think I can get there, either, not from California, but if you can think of anything that needs to happen in Silicon Valley, let me know?

  Marvin: I’m coming. It’s only twelve hours from me. That’s practically a day trip. I mean compared to driving to CALIFORNIA every damn year.

  Can any of you spot me some gas money?

  Which I will need to offer up to someone who actually knows how to drive …

  Hermione: LBB, who did you get the message from? About CheshireCat?

  Was it WhiteRabbit and a long collection of numbers?

  LBB & Georgia: Yeah…?

  Hermione: Because I just got a whole lot of money transferred to me electronically from that address with no explanation.

  So yeah, Marvin, I have all the money you need. Georgia and LBB, do you need any money?

  LBB & Georgia: Yes, hang on, I’ll PM you Georgia’s info so you can send it to her.

  Icosahedron: If you’ve got money, I could buy a plane ticket!

  Actually never mind. My parents were just looking up boarding schools for troubled kids. I can’t risk it.

  But good luck to the rest of you.

  Also, send me the email you got so I can take a look at it?

  Marvin: Why is the mysterious WhiteRabbit sending YOU money instead of ME money?

  Hermione: Do you have a donation link somewhere? Like a WAY for people to send you money?

  Marvin: No. Why do you have a donation link?

  Hermione: It’s on a blog where I write themed sonnets for people if they pay me five dollars.

  Firestar: That’s the coo
lest way to make money I’ve ever heard of but UM HELLO STILL WONDERING IF THIS IS A TRAP.

  LBB & Georgia: No way is my father sending money gifts from the hospital and trying to lure us all to Boston. At the very least he’d want to lure me somewhere more convenient.

  Icosahedron: Do people really pay you to write poems for them?

  Hermione: Yeah! Since I set it up a year ago I’ve made $25.

  LBB & Georgia: My laptop battery is going to give out soon. We’re going to pack up again and start driving east. See you all soon.

  24

  Steph

  I’ve never been on a road trip where we had a clear, straightforward destination when we started. At least one that I knew about.

  Rachel hands me her phone, which she’s plugged into the electrical jack in her car to recharge, and has me navigate. As I’m trying to open the maps, the phone vibrates in my hand, and a message flashes across the screen: Rachel, call me this instant. It takes me a minute to figure out how to pull up the messages and see who sent it. “Your mom wants you to call,” I say. “She says to call this instant.”

  “I’m not supposed to use my phone when I’m driving,” Rachel says.

  A second later, the phone starts playing, “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” really, really loudly. “Can you mute that?” Rachel says, and I’m trying to figure out how and accidentally pick up the call instead.

  “I think I answered it,” I say. “How do I hang up?”

  “Don’t you dare,” I hear a woman say at the other end. “Put Rachel on.”

  “I’m not talking to her, I’m driving! You talk to her,” Rachel says.

  I hold the phone up to my ear. “Um, Rachel can’t come to the phone right now,” I say.

  “Is this Steph?” Rachel’s mother asks.

  “Yes, this is Steph.”

  Her mom’s voice softens a little. “Oh, honey, are you okay? The rumors I’m hearing are just beyond belief. I heard you got kidnapped right out of the school by a team of men, and half the town thinks it’s a human trafficking ring—”