“So they don’t matter? You were going to let a mob burn their house to the ground because they vote differently from you?”
“Miss Tahe—may I call you such?”
Kari growled her approval.
“In the times that are coming, you may do well to think about which side you invest your energy in. We responded to the call for help when it became apparent that citizens of the United States were being attacked, as is our duty. However, lines are being drawn in the sand. Whether you like it or not, you need to think about which side you are on.”
Was it David’s family being attacked that he responded to or the mob members being attacked by my drones?
“Right now, I’m on the side that keeps houses from being burned down,” Kari said flatly.
“I’m afraid there are only two sides,” Henderson said. “One side is full people who would vote to start a war that will cost innocent lives. One side is willing to break this great Union that so many have died to preserve. One side is selfish enough to believe that trillions of dollars would be better spent on fighting each other than helping the poor. Are you on that side, Kari?”
“No,” Kari said. I don’t like David’s politics, but what does that have to do with protecting him from injustice?
“Good. I believe in you, Kari. Believe it or not, I want what is best for you. As a sign of my belief in you, I am going to disregard the events of last night. I am also going to withhold any investigation into how or where certain drones came from. I hope you remember this act of trust and friendship in the future.”
Kari nodded again. Nodding acknowledgement was safe; the things she wanted to say to him were not.
“Now that we have that taken care of, I would like to extend you a job opportunity. The US government believes that you would be able to contribute to the safety and privacy of our citizens in a meaningful way. You’d have full autonomy to work on whatever you’d like and the compensation would be unparalleled.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You don’t even want to consider it? Why don’t you take the night to think about it? Talk it over with your mom whenever she is able to come home, and call your dad.”
How closely have you been watching my family, Henderson?
“Sorry. I do only freelance work. I don’t do well with having a boss.”
“I see. Well, I’m glad to have finally have met you in person, Kari. And if you ever change your mind about my offer, be sure to let me know.”
“Is that all, Marshal?” Kari said as she stood to leave.
“Yes. And Kari, think about who’s friend you would like to be,” Henderson said as she left the room.
Kari stepped quickly past the guards who had escorted her. They no longer acknowledged her. Kari headed straight for the exit, but then she realized she had left her bag in the classroom. She changed course while figuring out a way to get her bag from the classroom without the other students noticing her. It was like one of her puzzle simulations.
Before Kari could start to think about what devices she could create to allow her to pull off the impossible task, the bell rang for lunch. Well, that’ll work. She hid in the closest bathroom and waited for the classroom to clear. She then walked briskly to retrieve her bag; to her relief, it had not been touched.
Kari walked outside the classroom and straight toward the road. She wouldn’t be able to order an auto-auto to pick her up from school while it was still in session, so she would have to walk to the closest store down the street to order one.
“They let you go, huh?” It was Sarah’s voice.
Kari kept walking.
“Come on, now, we have a right to know what kind of criminal we have in our class.”
Kari started to walk a little faster. Sarah hadn’t harassed her like this for years. Kari remembered from experience that the best way to handle this situation was to just ignore it.
“If they let you go, how come they still have David locked up?”
Kari stopped walking and turned around. Sarah was there with three of her lackeys. She looked extremely pleased to have finally gotten into Kari’s head.
“Why don’t you leave David alone?” Kari asked. “You think this is some kind of joke? This is real life, and we’re not kids anymore, Sarah, so how about you grow up?”
“The thing that I find to be a joke around here is you, Kari,” Sarah said.
“What is this about? Are you having a bad hair day and looking for someone to take it out on?”
“What this is about is you being arrested in the middle of class by armed enforcement officers. You can pretend you’re normal, but we all know the truth. You’re dangerous, and we want to know how dangerous so we can ask to have you removed from our class.”
“Please, do me the favor!” Kari’s heart was pounding, and her fists were clenched. Sarah and her friends had continued to approach her slowly during the argument and were now barely out of her arm’s reach.
“I’m certainly trying to!”
“Hey, Kari!” said Aubrey. Kari and Sarah turned to see her running up along with some of her friends and a few boys. “I heard you got called to the principal’s office. Is everything OK?”
“Called to the office? She was arrested,” Sarah said.
“Oh, hi, Sarah. You look nice today,” Aubrey said, slightly out of breath. “You OK, Kari?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about me, Aubrey,” Kari said, letting her fingers relax out of her fists.
“OK, good,” Aubrey said. “Guess what? Steve asked me to homecoming!” Aubrey pointed at a boy in the group behind her, who waved enthusiastically. Sarah and her friends whispered to each other and then turned and walked away. Kari watched them leave before responding to Aubrey.
“Thanks, Aubrey,” Kari said.
“Call me tonight, OK?”
Chapter Twelve
Early Monday morning, the Middle States announced that they considered the recent sanctions from the United States as acts of war and that they were considering the appropriate response. Kari wasn’t surprised, but she was tired. Lately, sleeping had been a problem she felt was justified. Not everyone was threatened directly by a US marshal when they were only seventeen years old.
The past three days had been long. Kari had checked the clock, news, and drone feeds every five minutes. She wasn’t sure if Henderson would change his mind and come to arrest her or if there would be another attack on David’s house. She hadn’t dared go back to her factory in person, so she had spent her days holed up in her bedroom, waiting for something to happen.
Aubrey called every night to talk and check up on her. Kari appreciated her protective friendship even though Kari wasn’t willing to tell her what was really going on. She didn’t want to risk Aubrey getting dragged into the situation as well. In fact, talking every night was probably enough to get her added to Henderson’s watch list. But Kari had enjoyed hearing about Aubrey’s recent romance with Steve. Aubrey’s excitement about going to the dance was almost contagious. Almost.
Kari hadn’t seen her mom much since the crisis began. Her dad had been scheduled to return a few days ago but hadn’t been able to make it home because of the chaos. As anxious as Kari had been before, she was twice as anxious now, for the fighting was poised to start at any minute. She sensed people were waiting for the official declaration of war to do something stupid.
People are always looking for reasons to be stupid. A civil war would be more than enough for the mob to try another run at David’s house.
Kari monitored the networks closely, waiting for the news that would help her understand how bad the violence would be now that war was all but official. If things were bad for coastal staters in the Middle States, then there would be retaliation against Middle Staters here on the coast. It was a chemical composition waiting for an impetus to get started.
Spending the past few days in lockdown only made her worry about what the past year of being monitored had revealed about her. Was sh
e under constant surveillance, or was Henderson looking only at the typical metadata information? The bigger question was, why was she being watched in the first place? She wasn’t sure who had tipped them off about her talents or how much they knew about her. She was convinced that if they had been watching her for that long, they had to know about her factory. And if they knew about the factory, they already had all the evidence they needed to arrest her. So why haven’t they?
Despite Henderson’s threats, Kari hadn’t removed the drones from outside David’s house. She had constantly kept a small view of his house in the corner of her vision. David’s family had been remarkably talented at not leaving their home; at times, Kari doubted they were still in there.
Why am I even watching over them? Henderson made it clear that if I were to be involved in any way, he would come for me, and my parents would kill me if Henderson didn’t.
It was the same internal struggle that she had been fighting for three days. It was a battle in which there was no clear winner. David didn’t deserve her help—she knew that much for sure—but he also didn’t deserve to be attacked. She was pretty confident she wouldn’t let a mob burn their house to the ground, but she wasn’t sure what level of threat it would have to be for her to get involved or to what level her involvement would entail. Would it be worth going to jail to keep some sad excuse of a mob from causing significant, non-life-threatening damage?
Kari didn’t usually leave her house during the weekdays, but feeling like she couldn’t leave because she was being watched made the situation different. Aside from watching David’s house and checking the news, she had spent a good amount of time plotting her revenge against Sarah. To Kari’s amazement, Sarah actually appeared to be responsible about securing her network accounts and information. Kari had taken the better part of two and a half days to crack into most of Sarah’s accounts.
Kari had exercised extreme discipline by not going into Sarah’s accounts and posting comments about Sarah’s diarrhea problems or something. That seemed fairly petty and not worth her time. Kari’s time was valuable, and she had spent a lot of it to break into Sarah’s accounts. Kari eventually decided that holding the power over Sarah’s accounts and choosing not to use it was good enough. Given the separation of the states and trying to decide how far she was willing to go to save David’s family, worrying about Sarah was insignificant. Sarah was insignificant. That’s really the best thing I can possibly do to get back at her. People like her want you to think about them, to care about them, because it’s their motivation. Indifference is the best response.
A notification went off in her mind chip, alerting her that the food she had started printing in the kitchen had been completed. Nothing like a custom-printed hamburger for breakfast on a cold day when you’re under house arrest. Kari left her room and walked into the kitchen. She picked the hamburger up with two hands and savagely bit into it with no regard for the mess it would make on her hands or face. You know this why you are out of shape, right?
Kari jumped as the front door of her house opened unexpectedly. I’ve been jumping at way too many door openings lately. Kari’s mom entered the house looking entirely exhausted. It was the first time Kari had been awake to see her since her mom had come home to check on her last Thursday.
“Oh Mom! You look so-o-o tired.”
“I am,” her mother said with a weak laugh.
“Are you going to be home long enough to get some sleep?”
“Yeah, we’ve started pulling double shifts to cover for each other so we can all take a turn sleeping. I get a whole eight hours off.” Obviously, that wasn’t enough.
“Well, you should get right to sleep then,” Kari said. Her mom worked too hard. Kari had always admired that about her. Kari liked to think she had inherited that from her mom, but she wasn’t sure she had the same focus.
“I will, don’t worry,” her mom said. “But how are you doing? I feel terrible that I haven’t been able to talk to my girl all week.” That was typical of her mom, work herself to death and think only about others.
“I’m doing fine, Mom,” Kari said, not wanting to burden her with any more problems than she already had.
“I’d like to believe you, but something tells me you want to talk about something.”
Maybe she does know me after all. She noticed her mom eyeing her hamburger, so she ordered another one to be printed. Kari set hers down, deciding to wait until her mom’s was ready.
“How do you decide what to do between two choices when they both have terrible consequences?” Kari asked. It was as direct as she dared to go. Her mom gave her one of those smiles that was full of empathy and regret, as if she had tried to shield her daughter from such choices, but, despite her best efforts, Kari had grown up.
“Those are tough. What I’ve always said is, ‘I choose the path that I can live with.’”
Kari had expected that answer. I’m not sure that’s meant to be applied as literally as it is here. If I help David, I really might end up dead. Her mom must have seen that her answer didn’t satisfy Kari.
“What that means to me now is, can I explain the choice I made to my daughter without feeling ashamed? If I take the easy way out of a situation, would I want my daughter to do the same thing?” Kari’s mom was getting emotional, which was odd for Kari to see. She must be pretty worn out from work or something.
“I want more than anything for my daughter to be better than I am, and that means making the choices I would want her to make.” Her mom was in tears now. Kari suddenly was, too. They had always had a strong relationship, but they weren’t really open with emotions in this family.
Kari tried to say thanks but couldn’t get it out. Instead, she pulled her mom in for a hug, even though her hands were covered with hamburger residue. Kari wasn’t a touchy person, but she would make an exception in certain cases.
Once Kari recovered, she whispered, “Thank you” and let go. She reached over and grabbed the freshly printed hamburger and handed it to her mom.
“Here. Eat this. It’ll make you forget all that stress at work. It’s a proven naturally occurring antidote to sucky times in life.” Kari picked up her own hamburger and took another comforting bite. She and her mom sat in silence together, eating their breakfast hamburgers. Kari quickly tried to send David another anonymous message. She needed to warn him that enforcement would be no help for his family and that she was now more determined than ever to help him.
I don’t have a daughter, but I have a mom, and I’m going to do what would make her proud. How could I tell her that I had the opportunity to help someone and chose not to because it was easier for me?
Chapter Thirteen
After Kari and her mom finished their breakfast, Kari went back to her room and resumed the waiting game. Occasionally, she tried to work on her drones or other ideas, but she had difficulty focusing.
Instead, she browsed the news sites, reading about the developments and projections of what could happen. The prognosis did not look good, but no major fighting had happened, so things seemed to be in a holding pattern. It’s only a matter of time, though. Something will happen, and when it does, they will come for David’s family again.
Kari knew that the five nearly unpowered drones surrounding David’s house would not be enough for the next time she needed to protect him. They had been out there for days, watching in the trees, slowly using their battery power. She had rotated through them, turning on one at a time to watch while the others remained powered down, but their batteries were still almost exhausted. Would the mob be twice the size? Would they actually invest in decent drones and weaponry? It would be worse the next time, and now Kari knew that enforcement would not be coming to help them.
In fact, after another mob attack on David’s family, enforcement’s only response would be to come directly to arrest Kari. I’ll get to know my new friend Henderson a little better. If she were going to defend David and be arrested for it, she needed to be prepar
ed. She would need more drones, and she would need to destroy any evidence that could be used against her, although she wasn’t convinced that evidence mattered to Henderson.
Kari needed to get to her factory, not only for her mental sanity but to get ready for what might happen. She would need to get the drones out of the factory and prepare it for the eventual enforcement raid. The problem was that she wasn’t sure enforcement knew about the factory, and she would risk alerting them to its presence. Also, they could be waiting for her to show up at the factory so they could arrest her among all the evidence they would ever need to prove she had created the drones. But five drones would not be enough to defend David’s house from a mob prepared to fight her drones.
It’s amazing how I keep finding myself in these lose-lose situations. But if I’m going to prison, it’s not going to be because I lost a fight with a lousy mob.
Now that her mother had awakened and gone back to work, Kari only needed to wait until dark. Government spying agencies typically would have no problem seeing her heat signature at night, but Kari had long since invented several devices that would make her trip to the factory a little less risky.
She hadn’t asked too many questions when a client had asked her to develop the heat-signature-masking technology a year ago. Once it was equipped, the device would mask her heat signature and her Internet connection and would make her invisible to most traditional radar and detection systems. It had come in handy several times since then, including when she evaded a gunship in her last simulation in the desert. The only problem was that once she equipped the device, the government would realize her heat signature had gone missing.
Kari had taken it upon herself to solve that exact problem instead of waiting to get paid to do it. It hadn’t taken her too long to figure it out, or so she hoped; it had never been tested in the real world. Using either of her inventions now would be risky, but she didn’t see any other options available to her. These are the exact type things I don’t want the government knowing about, especially if my client happens to be from the Middle States. But what other options do I have? It’s only a matter of time until I need those drones or until the government finds my factory. This whole thing would be a whole lot easier if David would just leave the coastal states until everything cools down. That was on the top of her list of things to talk about with David as soon as he answered one of her untraceable requests.
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