by Ari Goelman
He nodded again, looking wary. “I guess. Why do—”
“What if I get you to a computer with a direct connection to the Department’s network? Could you find the files having to do with me?”
A mix of emotions passed over his face. “You’re not serious.”
I gave him my best smile. “I thought you could be my date to Riley’s Halloween party. Someone as high up in the Department as Riley’s father must have a secure connection between his home computer and the Department’s servers.”
He stared at me. “Is this a super-deadpan joke? You can’t seriously … Are you really asking me to help you break into the Department’s system?”
“It’s no more illegal for you than for me,” I said.
He shook his head a little—not like he was saying no, but like he was trying to clear his vision. “Even if Riley’s father has a remote connection to the Department servers, it would be triple-factor protected. You’d need to know his password, have his security fob, and like borrow his eyeballs to get access.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That sounds awfully complicated. I think I’ll just let him log in for me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Come and see. I’m doing it anyway,” I said, realizing as I said it that I was telling the truth. “After sixteen years of not knowing what’s going on, I’ve had enough. You want to get something on your higher-ups so you keep your job? Come and help me. You know I’m not going to rat you out.”
“But you don’t know that I won’t rat you out,” he said.
“I’ll take my chances. Apparently you’re really into my whole package.”
He barked a quick, surprised laugh. “More so every minute.”
I’d feel worse about asking for Sasha’s help if I hadn’t seen your face last weekend, Dr. Corbin. If he rats me out, I’m no worse off—you’re not going to let me walk away, anyway. The only chance I have of staying free (and with my brain in more or less working order) is if I learn why you’re so interested.
Neither of us said anything for a few moments. I shivered a little and wrapped my fleece around myself tighter. “Hey. If you’re from a Ukrainian refugee camp, why don’t you have an accent?”
Seeing me shiver, he put his arm around me. I froze for a moment, then let him pull me toward him. “The Department has found that if they take kids before age eleven or twelve, they can teach them to speak with no accent. Ukrainian refugees are especially handy because we can pass as Caucasian Americans, but can be deported with no fuss. And there are plenty of us. I don’t even know where they found me—one of the camps in Romania? Belarus? The Department has a slogan: ‘Forget the past—be the future you want.’” Something in his tone caught my attention.
I turned to face him. “Are you lying again? That came out pretty fast.”
“I’m not lying,” he said. “But I have practiced that story. It’s what one of my teachers called a ‘sympathetic backstory.’ Reveal selective snippets that make people feel bad for you. The idea being they’re more likely to open up afterward.” He eyed me and snorted. “I’m sure you’d prefer the ‘brutal-truth backstory.’”
“You have a ‘brutal-truth’ backstory?”
“Sure,” he said, staring straight up at the silhouetted leaves above us. “Different technique. I tell you how I testified against the father of my best friend in middle school. I describe the look on the poor kid’s face as his father got sentenced to three years of Departmental detention, and as my friend realized it was his fault for telling me about his father taking him to antigovernment rallies.
“The idea is, if you tell people nasty stuff about yourself, they’ll think, ‘Shoot, if he’s telling me such horrible, revealing things, obviously I can trust him with my secrets.’”
“Does that work?”
“You tell me. This is the first time I’ve tried it. Do you trust me more now?”
“Are you going to help me next week or not?”
“Help you steal data from my employer’s computer system?” He tapped his fingers on his cheekbone, still staring up at the darkness. “Betray one of the world’s most powerful organizations?” He took a deep breath and blew it out, shaking his head. “Pffft. I’d have to be crazy to think that’s not a great idea.”
He took my hand. “I presume you don’t want to tell me how we’re going to do it?”
“I think we should take it slow,” I said. “I’ll tell you next Saturday.”
He laughed. “So, um. You want to fool around some more instead?”
“Actually. It’s been fun, but I gotta go.” I slipped off the platform, swung down on the nearest branch, and dropped a few feet to the ground, leaving Sasha invisible above me, shrouded by the bulk of the tree house and the surrounding foliage. I had to fight against the desire to immediately climb back into the tree house and tackle him. Stupid hormones.
Just between me and me: I have no idea why I didn’t climb back up there. Or why I left in the first place. I had nowhere to go. I could have stayed there all night as long as I was home by, say, 5 a.m., when my dad wakes up.
I think maybe I left because I didn’t want Sasha to think my body was like a reward for saying he’d help me. Or maybe because I didn’t want the physical stuff with him getting in the way of my brain working right. Or maybe it was none of that. Maybe it was just because that’s the fun of having a working brain. Getting to decide. Yes. No. Sometimes. Not all the time.
I’m sorry I can’t send this to you, Dr. Corbin, but I have a feeling you’ll be reading it someday. I have a feeling anyone who wants to will be reading this someday, posted on some website out of the Department’s reach.
If and when you do find yourself reading this, Dr. Corbin, I want to say, I’m pretty sure you’re getting Sasha’s reports. I’m pretty sure you’re the one who had the Department assign an agent to follow me in the first place. I want to tell you: you’re not fooling me. Sasha’s not fooling me either. If he helps me get access to my files, I’m sure he won’t just be doing it because of how much he likes me. I kissed him tonight because I wanted to. I hope he doesn’t tell you about our conversation tonight. I hope he doesn’t turn me in for trying to break into the Department’s system. But if he does, I won’t be surprised. Just disappointed.
Your friend
(but not really),
Lauren
CASE NOTES OF DR. FINLAY BRECHEL
December 10, 2031
Transcribed from interview:
Lauren, I’m here to help you. You know that, right?
You think you are. That’s almost the same thing.
I appreciate your trust, Lauren, and I’m going to ask—
It’s not trust. I can see your face. I know you think you’re here to help me. It so happens that that’s not actually why you’re here, but that’s not your fault. You genuinely don’t know the real reason we’re talking.
Ah. So what do you see as the “real” reason we’re talking?
I honestly have no clue. At first I thought it was to keep my real journals from being posted on the Web. But now … I don’t know. They’re still injecting me or spraying me with stuff most every morning—maybe Corbin is using you to measure the effects of whatever they’re shooting into me. I suppose it would be hard for her to tell that I was stupid again if I wasn’t talking to you.
But don’t you see? That’s exactly why I’m here, and that’s not a … a sinister motive. Dr. Corbin is trying to stabilize your condition somewhere between the dysfunctional naïveté you grew up with and your current paranoia. These sessions are helping her to tell what’s working.
Dr. Brechel, come on. We both know I’m not paranoid. I’m clear-eyed. The Department has almost unlimited power. Until the Emergency Act expires, they can detain whoever they want, for as long as they want. That’s not a paranoid statement, that’s just the truth. Dr. Corbin isn’t a philanthropist. She works for a company that makes money from conflict, that supplies weapons and propa
ganda—mostly to the Department, but also to paying customers all over the world. That’s not paranoia, either, that’s just the truth.
(silence)
It scares you when I say that, doesn’t it?
You can say whatever you want in these sessions. It doesn’t scare—
I think it does. Your knuckles whitened a little where you’re holding the pen. You’re not terrified, and you’re used to hiding your reactions, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. When I kept talking, your gaze flickered to the microphone, probably as you wondered if you’re supposed to report such inflammatory language to the Department when Paxeon is already getting a recording of these interviews. Then you looked back at my face and relaxed a little. My guess is that you decided it couldn’t hurt to include an additional note about my comments, just to cover your butt.
Lauren, of course I can’t help having a reaction to such—ah—incendiary comments, but it doesn’t mean you need to restrain yourself.
Ah. You’re right about that. (smiles at camera) You hear that, Dr. Corbin? I have no intention of restraining myself. Now or ever. Dr. Brechel, don’t you wonder why Sasha was following me?
I presume Dr. Corbin was concerned about you.
(laughs) Right. Just a concerned doctor, doing what any good doctor would do: ensure that a highly trained, very expensive government agent is assigned to follow her patient around. For weeks. Do you have any idea how much that must have cost the Department?
Seriously, Dr. Brechel. You must be wondering why Sasha was following me, assuming, I guess, that you believe he really existed and isn’t just a figment of my sick little brain. I was wondering that, too. Until I got access to the Department’s database. Then I—
Lauren. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I believe your condition is getting worse. Now in addition to paranoia, you’re manifesting delusions of grandeur.
Ha. Smart man. Makes you a little nervous when I start telling you secrets, doesn’t it? You want me to stop talking? Just stop asking questions. You don’t have to accuse me of “delusions of grandeur.” That’s kind of rude.
Lauren, I’m not accusing … I’m diagnosing. There’s no way that you actually hacked into the most secure computer system in the world. Your treatment didn’t suddenly make you a computing genius.
Have you still not downloaded the journal entries I posted online? Do you think that’s going to protect you, Dr. Brechel? You’ve already heard too much to just walk away. You may as well satisfy your curiosity.
But yeah, of course I didn’t “hack” into anything. This isn’t one of those movies from the ’20s where some brave hacker saves the day. Sasha and I did it together, obviously, and there was no hacking involved.
The Department’s agent helped you break into the Department?
We didn’t “break in” to anywhere. Download the damn journal, Dr. Brechel. It’s too late to run. You may as well know what you’re neck-deep in.
JOURNAL OF LAUREN C. FIELDING
Saturday, November 1, 2031
Dear Dr. Corbin,
Every time I write “Dear Dr. Corbin,” it seems a little more ridiculous, especially now when (a) you’re obviously not “dear” to me at all and (b) there’s no way I’m sending this to you, you evil little two-faced, hate-mongering, life-ruining witch. I hope someone shoves a wad of hundred-dollar bills down your throat and kills you with it.
No offense.
It’s after 1 a.m. and I’ve been lying awake staring at the screen of the old laptop I dug out of my parents’ attic. Reading and rereading the files you’ve been keeping on me since before I was born. Watching the video clips the Department has stuck in my file. You’d think that watching them once would be enough, but I keep finding myself opening them again.
I don’t know what I thought I’d find in my file. I thought … I hoped it would be something cool at least … something like … you’d deliberately created me as the perfect killing machine. That would suck, too—don’t get me wrong. To realize that my life before the operation had no purpose but to pop me out cold-blooded and clear-eyed … That would totally suck, but at least it would have been satisfying to be so badass.
Of course that would make no sense. No way there’s a high-enough profit margin in a human weapon. You could only sell me once, after all, and sixteen years is an awful lot of time to take on a single item. Plus the Department has plenty of human—and nonhuman—weapons already. So I should have known better.
But the truth … You didn’t design me to be a weapon so much as a … a production mechanism. That never would have occurred to me. A normal childhood stolen just so Paxeon could add another product to its inventory.
More and more, I’m thinking other people might be interested in what you did to me. I was already thinking about posting my journal entries, but after what I found out tonight, I’m thinking lots of people might read them. So I should probably start from the beginning of the night.
Tonight was Riley’s Halloween party. Riley’s birthday is the day before Halloween, so she’s been throwing Halloween parties as long as I’ve known her. When we were kids it used to be she’d have a few girls over and we’d watch a not-so-scary movie in her home theater and eat pizza and chocolate. Riley’s dad is high enough in the Department that even in the middle of the Emergency they had reliable power and (even more amazing to my nine-year-old brain) more chocolate than you could possibly eat. This was at a time when everyone else I knew was more or less living on soy product and vitamin drink.
Around seventh grade, Riley started inviting boys to her parties, too, and soon thereafter having live music and DJs. This year was going to be the most elaborate party yet. Riley had lined up two live bands and three DJs—there’d be different themes in different rooms and half a dozen movie stars showing up. A ton of security.
I dressed up as an eight ball. I wanted an excuse to wear all black, not to mention to shave my head—my hair was starting to look a little shaggy.
It would have been nice if I could have driven myself, but the Department of Motor Vehicles still thinks I have a disability, so I had to arrange for Sasha to pick me up. Which at least was better than asking Ev for a ride and having to deal with her being at the party (which she would hate), not to mention ultimately having to ditch her when Sasha and I slipped off to access the Department’s database (which she would hate even more).
I was waiting in our living room when Sasha pulled up in an old beater of a car. I ran out of the house, hoping to avoid introducing Sasha to my parents. Sasha walked around the car and opened the passenger door. He was dressed in a Hogwarts robe and a wizard’s hat, a little lightning scar drawn on his forehead. Very retro.
“Nice costume,” he said to me.
“Thanks. You too.” I stepped into the car and pulled the door closed. Too late.
“Lauren!” My mother rushed out of the house, hastily pulling her phone’s headset from her ears.
I got out of the car.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, regarding Sasha suspiciously. “Who’s this?”
“Hello!” Sasha put out his hand. “I’m Sasha Adams. Nice to meet you.”
“Angela Fielding,” my mother said, taking his hand. “Where do you two think you’re going?”
“Riley’s party,” I said. “I told you this morning.”
“I thought Evelyn was driving you.”
“Nope.”
“I offered to drive Lauren,” Sasha said. He was standing straighter than usual, his eyes wide and sincere behind his thick lenses. I realized he had actually shaved for the party—it was the first time I’d seen him without even a shadow on his upper lip. I wondered what his face would feel like when it was this smooth. What his lips would feel like without any stubble surrounding them.
My mother looked from me to Sasha. She obviously had no clue what to do. To be fair, for most of my life, it really wasn’t safe for me to go out with anyone she didn’t know very well.
“Laur
en,” my mother said. “You’re only allowed to go out with people on the safe list.”
I shook my head. “I know that used to be the rule, but that doesn’t make sense anymore. And it’s only to Riley’s house.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Fielding,” Sasha said heartily. “I promise I’ll drive straight to Riley’s party and then straight back here afterward.”
“Right,” my mother said, seizing on the idea. “You won’t go anywhere else on the way home, you got it?”
“Absolutely, ma’am.”
(Yes. He called my mother “ma’am.” Apparently it’s true about undercover agents for the Department having no shame.)
“We’ll be following the GPS in Lauren’s phone,” my mother said, with all the belated sternness she could muster. “If it goes anywhere but Riley’s house, we’ll call the police.”
“We’ll certainly keep that in mind, ma’am.”
I kissed my mom’s cheek before she could say anything else and got back into the car.
“Wait!” Evelyn jogged down the front walkway in her bare feet. Shoot. This was exactly what I’d wanted to avoid.
“Maybe next time tell your family before I get here,” Sasha said thoughtfully, leaning back a bit on the hood of his car.
“Shut up, please,” I said, watching Evelyn’s flushed approach. I got back out of the car.
“Where are you taking my sister?” she asked, glaring at Sasha.
I answered before Sasha could speak. “Sasha’s taking me to Riley’s party.”
“What, like, as a date?”
“Yeah,” I said, at exactly the same moment that Sasha said, “No.”
We exchanged glances.
“Not a date date,” I said.
“Technically, it’s a date,” Sasha said. “But not really.”
My mother looked confused and Evelyn looked suspicious. I started giggling. Turns out being nervous still does that to me.
I explained, “Sasha’s not invited, so he can only come as my date.”
“But really, we’re just friends,” Sasha said soberly. Which made me giggle even more. Whatever Sasha and I are, it’s not “just friends.” Every time I see Sasha, I’m torn by the urge to punch him and the desire to … do other things with him. I’m almost positive that’s not what you’re supposed to feel about your friends.
