The End of Ordinary

by Edward Ashton

  “Well,” she said. “That and the fact Devon hasn’t heard from her avatar since it broke the first wall.”

  I looked back and forth between them.

  “Avatar?”

  “Yeah,” Marta said. “She brought some kind of a cracker program with her on a pin drive. You didn’t think she broke Bioteka security on her own, did you?”

  Devon scowled up at Marta.

  “I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve never lost contact with him before. He might just be really, really busy.”

  I looked at her.

  “Him?”

  “Him,” she said. “It. Whatever.”

  “Another minor detail,” Micah said. “Devon has no idea what those diagrams mean, and no idea how to dig into them to find out.”

  Devon turned to face him.

  “I’m not hearing a lot of useful information coming from you, pretty boy.”

  Micah laughed.

  “You’re the brains here, my friend. I’m moral support and comic relief.”

  “I’m not really into engineering,” Devon said. “I think things are much more interesting in silico than in vivo. Hannah would probably know what this stuff is. We just need to wait for her to come back. In the meantime, I’m sure Inchy will check in soon. Maybe when he does, we can have him pull up some kind of genetic-engineering-for-idiots thing.”

  “Inchy,” I said. “Your friend, Inchy?”

  Devon turned to look at me. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, shook her head and turned away.

  “You know what, Jordan? Don’t ask questions if you don’t want the answers.”

  Nobody seemed to know what to say to that, so we watched the screens in silence for a while. Eventually even I could see that the diagrams were repeating in random order.

  “Devon?” I said. “Have you ever used this thing to crack a serious security system?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I mean, I guess technically it depends on how you define ‘serious,’ but yeah.”

  I took a step closer. The more I looked at the stuff going by on the monitors, the more it looked like the kind of nonsense that you’d put into a fancy-ass screen saver.

  “Just out of curiosity,” I said, “what, exactly, were you expecting to find rooting around in Hannah’s dad’s stuff? Did you think there’d be a file on his desktop labeled ‘Doomsday Plans’ or something?”

  Devon shrugged.

  “I’d say to ask Inchy, but like I said—he’s out of touch for the moment. Anyway, wasn’t this whole home invasion Marta’s idea? I’m just doing what I’m told here.”

  I looked down at Marta. She closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Look,” she said. “I’m just as new to this whole saving-the-world thing as you guys are. It’s obviously not as easy as the vids make it look, but I think . . .”

  She broke off in mid-sentence. Devon’s eyes widened, and Micah lurched to his feet. I turned around.

  There was a man there, standing on the threshold between the den and the hallway. He was dressed in black from head to toe, and wearing what looked like high-end tinted comm glasses. His jaw was hanging open, and one hand was reaching for something holstered on his right hip.

  I don’t remember deciding to jump him. I remember thinking, He’s gonna shoot me, and I remember being on top of him, pinning his face to the floor with one hand and ripping what turned out to be a taser away from him with the other, but I honestly have no idea what happened in between. After that it’s just flashes—Micah yanking me to my feet, Marta screaming, Devon laughing, crashing through the front door and stumbling into the yard, piling into my ride and going.

  My next really coherent memory is of my heart pounding so hard in my chest that I thought my ribs were about to break, and Devon poking her head into the narrow space between Micah’s shoulder and mine and saying, “Will someone please tell me what just happened?”

  “Well,” Micah said. “I’m pretty sure what just happened is that my boy Jordan assaulted a peace officer. We all then aided him in escaping, thus making ourselves accessories to his crime. As a result, we are now fleeing for the Canadian border, which I am totally sure this thing can get to on one tank of gas.”

  “That wasn’t a cop,” Marta said.

  I twisted around to look at her, a tiny flutter of hope rising in my chest. She was wedged behind my seat in what looked like a really uncomfortable position, but I didn’t get the impression that was the reason for the scowl on her face.

  “What do you mean?” I said. “He looked like a cop.”

  “Watch the road,” Marta said. “And no, he didn’t. Not everyone in jackboots and a black windbreaker is a cop. Did you notice his badge?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s because he didn’t have one. Cops have badges. He wasn’t a cop.”

  “Okay,” Micah said. “So who was he? Please tell me Jordan didn’t just beat up Hannah’s dad.”

  Marta laughed.

  “Oh, I wish. No, that guy was definitely not Hannah’s dad. He works for the same people, though. I recognize the uniform. He was Bioteka security.”

  Marta shouldered her way up into a semi-sitting position. That forced Devon to twist around until her face was pressed against the rear window.

  “You know,” Devon said. “We probably shouldn’t be talking about our jackbooted friend in the past tense.”

  Micah glanced back at her.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that’s him coming up behind us.”

  I tried to look back over my shoulder then, but I couldn’t see anything but the back of Devon’s head.

  “Seriously?” I said.

  Micah craned his neck around.

  “Yeah, that’s definitely him.”

  “So?” I said. “What now? Do I floor it? I can definitely outrun him.”

  “I don’t think so,” Marta said. “Right now, you’re just in trouble with CorpSec. You blow through the speed limit, and you’ll have real cops on your ass. He can’t do anything as long as we’re moving. Pin it at the limit and drive.”

  I dropped my side window, leaned out and craned my neck around until I could see behind us. We’d just pulled onto the highway, and I was gradually accelerating, but there was definitely something coming up fast from behind. It was a three-wheeled single, all black. The Bioteka logo was stenciled on the nose.

  “Get your head back in here,” Micah said. “Watch the road. Hitting a Jersey wall will definitely hose your escape plans.”

  He pushed a button on the console, and the window slid up. I yanked my head back just in time to keep from being decapitated.

  “What do we do?” I said. “He’s right behind us.”

  Micah shrugged.

  “I’m planning to claim that you kidnapped me.”

  “Yeah,” Devon said. “That works for me too.”

  Marta slapped the back of Micah’s head.

  “Don’t be an asshole,” she said. “Your friend is literally crapping his pants here.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Your friend is figuratively crapping his pants. Happy?”

  I nodded.

  “Right. So Micah, will you please reassure Jordan that he is not about to be dragged off to NatSec Supermax?”

  Micah sighed.

  “Fine. Jordan, you are not going to be arrested. Your father will not have to jet back here from Davos to bail you out of the county lockup. If this guy is really corporate security, there’s honestly not all that much he can do.”

  I held up his taser.

  “Plus, I’ve still got this.”

  Marta put her hand on the taser, pried my fingers back one by one, and took it away from me. I let her have it, then glanced over at Micah.

  “He can’t shoot us or anything, can he?”

  Micah shrugged.

  “Depends on how pissed he is, I guess.”

  The th
ree-wheeler was right behind us by then. As I watched through the mirrors, it swung out into the left lane and pulled up beside. The man inside held his phone up to the side window. A second later, mine started buzzing.

  “What the hell?” Marta said. “He’s got your digits?”

  I shook my head.

  “Proximity call. Cops and NatSec can do that. I didn’t think CorpSec could, but . . . I guess I was wrong. Should I answer?”

  “Sure,” Micah said. “Doesn’t hurt to talk, right?”

  I sighed and thumbed my speaker on.

  “Hey,” I said. “Um . . . how’s it going?”

  Mr. CorpSec was not amused.

  “You need to pull that thing over! Now!”

  I looked over at Micah. He shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll do that.”

  Devon stuck her head between the front seats.

  “We’re bigger than he is,” she said. “Can’t you run him off the road or something?”

  Micah laughed.

  “That would not be a good idea,” he said. “Remember, we’re trying to avoid getting the actual, government-sponsored law involved here. Downside? We can’t do anything to him. Upside? He also can’t do anything to us.” He leaned over me and spoke into my phone. “You don’t have a gun, do you?”

  Mr. CorpSec stared at us through the window, his face twisted into a furious scowl.

  “No,” he said finally. “I do not have a gun.”

  “Right,” Micah said. “In that case, we are definitely not pulling over.”

  We rode in silence for five seconds, then ten. I was just thinking about ending the call when Mr. CorpSec said, “Can I at least have my taser back?”

  “Huh,” I said. “Why would we give you your taser back?”

  Marta reached around Devon and pressed the taser into my hand.

  “Oh, give it back to him,” she said. “It’s not like he can shoot our tires out with it, and as far as I can tell, stealing corporate property is the only actual crime we’ve committed so far.”

  I thought about it for a minute. I couldn’t see a downside, as long as we never stopped driving.

  “Fine,” I said.

  I slid my side window down, and motioned for him to do the same.

  “Hey,” I said. “Catch!”

  I thought of myself as a great athlete, but that wasn’t strictly true. I think it’s fair to say that I was a great runner, but there’s a special part of your brain that’s responsible for calculating velocity and distance for purposes of throwing and catching. In my skull, I’m pretty sure that part shriveled up and died in utero. Also, my left arm was next to useless. I made an honest effort to get Mr. CorpSec his taser back, but the throw was low and behind and the wind kind of took it, and it wound up bouncing off the side of his scooter, kicking hard off the pavement, and then crunching under his right rear wheel.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Mr. CorpSec looked up at me. He opened his mouth to say something, but I’d already closed the window.

  “So,” I said. “I think that went well.”

  Believe it or not, it was another fifteen minutes before anyone bothered to ask where we were going. By that time, we had a kind of a Pied Piper thing going on I-90. I was clinging to the speed limit like it was a life raft, and Mr. CorpSec was matching pace with us in the left lane, staring at us through his side window, trying to use psychic powers to melt our faces. There must have been forty or fifty cars lined up behind us, flashing their lights and honking.

  “Hey,” Devon said as we passed the Waterloo exit. “Check this.”

  I turned around. Devon squeezed aside to let me see a ratty-looking Honda that was riding our bumper. There was a man standing up through the sunroof. He wasn’t wearing pants.

  “Nice,” I said. “How long has that been going on?”

  “A few minutes,” Devon said.

  “At first he was just waving his ass at us,” Marta said. “I guess when we didn’t pull over, he felt like he needed to up his game.”

  “Hey,” Devon said. “Speaking of pulling over—when, exactly, are we going to do that?”

  “Why? Micah asked. “Gotta pee?”

  She slapped the back of his head again. It didn’t seem to be bothering him much.

  “No,” she said. “I do not have to pee.”

  “I do,” Marta said.

  Micah turned to look at me.

  “What about you, Jordan? Tiny bladder overflowing?”

  I shook my head.

  “I pretty much peed myself a while ago.”

  “Good.” He turned around again. “Seriously, Marta?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Seriously. I mean, it’s not an emergency thing yet, but if you’re really headed to Canada . . .”

  “We’re not headed to Canada,” I said. “We’ve barely got enough gas in this thing to get to Syracuse, and I don’t think our friend in the next lane is gonna give us ten minutes at a filling station, even if we can find one out here that still sells hydrocarbons. The one on Five Mile Line is the only one that still has gas pumps in all of Monroe County, as far as I know.”

  “Okay,” Devon said. “So what’s the plan? Head to Briarwood? Maybe if we find Hannah, she can tell this guy that we weren’t home invaders, and he’ll leave us alone.”

  “Oh, for shit’s sake,” Marta said. “You honestly think he showed up to investigate a break-in?”

  “Yeah,” Devon said. “What else?”

  Micah sighed.

  “Your avatar got honey-potted, Devon.”

  “No,” Devon said. “Inchy does not get honey-potted.”

  “Well,” Marta said. “Today, he did. Jordan called it. Your little friend is smart enough to crack your public-school IT system, but my dad’s got like a thousand guys who spend all day thinking about how to keep people like you out of his business. The security net caught your cracker, put up a front to make it look like you were in, and then called in the cavalry.”

  “Okay,” Devon said. “So if Bioteka security really knew somebody was trying to breach their walls, why did they just send in one half-assed rent-a-cop? I mean, wouldn’t something like that be worth calling in the real storm troopers?”

  Marta shrugged.

  “The incursion was coming from one of their engineer’s home systems. They probably just thought he’d picked up a virus from a porn site or something.”

  I looked over at Mr. CorpSec. He was on his phone, waving his hands around and shouting.

  “That’s all really interesting,” I said, “but it doesn’t help fill our gas tank, or empty Marta’s bladder. Where are we going?”

  “Well,” Marta said, “we could just give it up.”

  “True,” Micah said. “Face the music, right? Beard the lion in his den.”

  “Lions don’t have dens,” Devon said.

  “What?”

  “Lions don’t live in dens. They live out in the open, like hobos. Also, they don’t have beards.”

  Marta closed her eyes, breathed in, held it, and let it out.

  “Fine,” she said. “Forget the lion part. We can just grab the tiger by his tail, okay?”

  I turned to look at her.

  “Meaning?”

  She smiled.

  “Want to come to my house?”

  21. In which Drew meets Devon’s best friend.

  Her name was Mariah, and she was taking an air-breather to Chicago. She was short, dark haired, maybe a few years older than me, wearing scuffed-up flats and a rumpled business suit. I managed to brush my hand against hers in the security line, and I got that same almost-painful tingle that I’d felt from the hostess in Mika’s—except this time, it ran all the way up into my brain.

  “So,” she said as we were pulling our things back together on the far side of the scanners. “Do you have time to grab a drink before your flight?”

  I smiled, and my stomach twisted up in a way that it hadn’t since I was
seventeen.

  “Sure,” I said, and glanced down at my phone. “I mean . . .”

  I actually didn’t have time. My shuttle was boarding in fifteen minutes. I bit my lip and hit the booking app. There was one more jump to CNY that day, but it wasn’t for three more hours, and the transfer fee was four hundred dollars.

  “Look, um . . .”

  She smiled, and touched my arm.

  “It’s okay, Drew. Maybe next time?”

  She leaned in close, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in.

  “What are you wearing?”

  I shrugged. I was pretty sure that I mostly smelled like flop sweat at that point.

  “Whatever it is,” she said, “you should go easy on it next time. It’s dangerous.”

  The shuttle home was bigger than the one I’d taken out in the morning, and laid out more like a standard atmospheric jet, with three seats on each side of a central aisle. I had a center seat in the back, in between a tall, ghost-pale redhead and her short, shaved-headed Asian girlfriend. Apparently, they’d hoped that if they took the window and the aisle, nobody would buy the seat between them. They both glared at me when I sat down, as if I’d ruined their plans deliberately. As soon as they started talking over me, I asked if one of them wanted to switch seats. They traded a long look, but then the bald one shook her head.

  “Don’t think so,” she said. “You bought the cheap seat. Live with it.”

  Ordinarily I would have had something snarky to say to that, but just at that moment I was trying not to imagine her climbing on top of me, so instead I just closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.

  I’d like to say I wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation, but the truth is that I was too wired to zone out, and I was pretty much hanging on every word. The redhead, whose name was Grace, was upset about something that someone named Tam had said to her at a party the night before. Gia, her friend in the window seat, was clearly trying to talk her down off the ledge, but Grace was having none of it. If Tam hadn’t meant to say what she said, she would have apologized right away, wouldn’t she? And anyway, why was Gia taking Tam’s side on this? It’s not like Tam was there for her when all that stuff with Sara went down last Christmas, right?

  It was at that point that Gia tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Dude, would you mind putting that thing away?”