by J C Lane
“No. No, I can.”
“Give it to me. That way, if something happens, it’s my own fault.”
“But—”
She wiggled her fingers.
He hesitated, then handed over the square, sliding the others into his pocket.
Five minutes until the next transmission.
Amanda took another deep breath, held it, and let it out. She imagined she was PeruvianGoddess13, lining up a shot to kill HotNerys666. She breathed slowly, counted her heartbeats, relaxed her shoulders…and slid the metal underneath the watch.
Nothing happened.
She slumped. Solo caught her under the arms, holding her while she shook. When the quaking ended, Amanda straightened. “Duct tape?”
Solo grabbed a roll off a shelf and tossed it to Amanda. Amanda ripped off a swatch and held it out. With a little maneuvering, Solo slid the tape under the band, pulling it up and around until no part of the watch was touching Amanda’s skin. Amanda took a shaky breath. “It’s almost time.”
They gathered around the monitor showing Amanda’s transmission history. X keyed something in. The countdown appeared on the screen. Silence descended on the basement, except for X’s fingers, drumming on the desk.
Three, two, one…
The watch remained still.
A green dot appeared on the map, further north, and a little to the east. Almost to Wrigley Field.
Solo shrieked and hugged X, then Amanda. Amanda smiled over Solo’s shoulder, and X smiled back before sinking onto the stool.
“You did it,” Amanda said. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem,” X said breezily. “Except for me almost having a heart attack.”
They all laughed, too loud and too long.
The basement door creaked open and X’s mom called down. “Everything okay down there?”
“Perfect, Mrs. X,” Solo called.
“Good. Why don’t you all come up? I made a new cake recipe, and I need some guinea pigs.”
“What do you say?” X asked Solo.
“I say I could eat the whole thing.”
“Oh, yeah? I say you couldn’t.”
“Guys,” Amanda said, “what next?”
X blinked. “You mean, other than cake?”
“I mean, about this DarwinSon1 and Ref who think it’s okay to kill someone for fun. To kill me.”
“They need putting down,” Solo said. “In a non-violent way, of course.”
X frowned. “Can we talk about it over cake?”
Amanda’s stomach growled. “I think we’d better, but one more thing.” She held out her wrist. “Disconnect this baby from the Internet. I don’t want anybody to track me down.”
“Can’t,” X said. “Not until we’re done leading DarwinSon1 on a wild goose chase.”
“So as soon as It realizes what we’ve done, It can backtrack and find me the old-fashioned way, with It’s own technology.”
“Afraid so. We just have to hope It doesn’t notice until we’re ready.”
Amanda didn’t like it, but she knew he was right. “Fine. Now, how about that cake?”
2 p.m.
Brandy
“I don’t see her anywhere.” Brandy cornered her two men in the front lobby of the aquarium. “Where is she?”
There had been a location transmission from that very spot, or near enough, only five minutes earlier. Now there was no sign of that stupid girl. How could she have possibly slipped their net?
Thug Number One—Brandy hadn’t bothered to learn his name—cleaned his sunglasses. “Perhaps she’s in one of the neighboring museums. Turns out she’s been with that tour group all day, and the aquarium is the present one on their list.”
“Is the rest of the group still here?”
“I believe so. But she’s not an actual member of it, and she knows her location was just sent.”
“How did she get away?” Brandy’s voice rose in a whine. “We were watching all the exits.” She turned on Thug Number Two. “We were, right?”
“Yes, Brandy, we were.”
“Ms. Inkrott to you. Now you guys go find her. If she’s not here, she’s close.”
Thug Two wanted to say something, Brandy could tell, but she stared him down. She was not going to let some hulk of a man intimidate her. She could always tell Daddy, and the man would be fired in an instant.
The men strode away, talking in their headsets and whatever, and Brandy’s stomach growled. She hadn’t had a decent meal in forever, like the day before. She found the restaurant and took a seat. Nothing on the menu looked good, but she ordered a grilled four-cheese sandwich and fries. That would have to do.
She’d just gotten her drink when the conversation from the next table over drifted her way.
“I don’t even know who she is,” a girl was saying. “She just showed up in the tour group. I could swear she didn’t start out the day with us.”
“I never saw her before,” the guy with her said.
Brandy swiveled in her chair just enough to see them. The girl was interesting. Bright blond hair that couldn’t possibly be her real color, bright pink lipstick, tons of eye shadow, and sparkles all over. And a guy’s sweatshirt. Brandy hated the style. But she loved the words coming out of that painted mouth.
The guy was a year or two younger, Brandy thought. Messy brown hair. Sulky expression. Slouched in the seat so that his legs stuck out around the girl’s. But not in a sexy way. More like familiarity without an ounce of embarrassment. Family, maybe.
“Well, I wish I still hadn’t seen her,” the girl said. “She slinks in and all of a sudden it’s like Adam forgets I’m alive, with all her bounciness and no makeup and everything. Might as well call her Nature Girl. Makes me sick.”
“Where is she now?”
“Where do you think? Off with Adam somewhere. Slut. I wanna kill her.”
“She’s gotta go away at the end of the day, right? It’s not like she can go home with us if she didn’t come with us.”
“I guess. But Adam’s still going to remember her, and he’s got her phone number now. They’ve probably already hooked up on all the social media sites.”
Brandy couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up and moved her chair over to the table. The girl and guy looked at her with surprise, the girl’s pink lips making a perfect O before she frowned. “What do you want?”
“The same thing you do.”
The girl waited.
“I heard you talking. The girl who stole your boyfriend is the same girl I’m looking for.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been tracking her. I know she got into a tour group and has been hanging out with them all day. There can’t be two girls doing that. What’s her name?”
The girl stared at her. “What’s your girl’s name?”
“Laura Wingfield. She’s from Illinois. I’ve been trying to find her all day.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate her as much as you do.”
“Hmm.” The girl leaned forward. “What did she do to you?”
“Does it matter?”
The girl cocked her head. “What are you going to do when you find her?”
“Make sure she doesn’t steal anymore boyfriends.”
“How?”
“None of your business.”
“It is if I help you find her.”
Brandy smiled. “You would do that?”
“If it means I get Adam back.”
“We can make that work.” Brandy looked at the guy. He was cute, in a younger, bad guy kind of way. “Are you going to help?”
“Why should I?”
“You don’t want to help your friend get her boyfriend back?”
“She’s not my friend. She’s my sister.”
“Revenge for what?” The girl was asking again.
Brandy tapped her perfectly manicured fingernails on the table, staring across the room at another group of girls. They looked like ordinary girls, but most likely one of them—if not all of them—got what they wanted without even trying. None of them had any fashion sense. Their hair was up in weird buns with headbands. It was like a soccer team had descended on the museum, and would suddenly start a game in the foyer.
Gross.
“Revenge for being who she is,” Brandy finally said. “Perfect, without even trying.”
The girl nodded, like she knew what Brandy was talking about.
“So what’s your name?” Brandy asked.
The girl raised her eyebrows. “What’s yours?”
“Brandy.”
“Sydney.”
Brandy looked at the guy, who held up his hands. “I’m nobody. I’m just sitting here.” Both girls stared at him. “Actually, I’m taking off so you can plot…whatever.” He got up and slouched away. Brandy watched his butt. Pretty nice.
“So how are you going to help me?” Sydney said.
Brandy smiled. “We’re going to help each other. You’re going to find out where she is, and I’m going to…take care of her.”
“You mean you’ll have someone beat her up or something? I mean, won’t someone know? It can’t be messy, or loud, or anything. Not if we’re in our tour group.” She widened her eyes again. “Unless you wanted me to get her away from everybody. I could probably do that. She’d believe anything, she’s so naive. I just have to steal her away from Adam.” Her face went stormy again. “And I’ll have to make him forget about her. Maybe she won’t be so pretty after she gets beat up.”
Brandy liked this girl. She spoke her language. “You don’t have to get her away from anybody.” Brandy scooted her chair closer. “I have a way to kill her that no one will even notice. She’ll just drop dead.”
“Kill her?”
“Sure. Do you really think Adam will forget about her if she’s available? Especially if he thinks you had anything to do with her getting beat up.”
“I don’t know. Killing her is so…bad. Right?”
Brandy glared at her. “She stole your boyfriend.”
Sydney tapped her fingernails on the table, and glanced around like she was being watched. Finally, she stopped, but still didn’t look at Brandy. “So I don’t have to be like, involved, once I find her for you? You’ll…take care of everything?”
“Once you get her in my sights you can be wherever you want. Be right beside her, or maybe not right beside her, but close enough that Adam can see you didn’t have anything to do with it. You can even try to help her when she goes down.” Brandy loved that idea, the wronged girl showing how much she “cared.” “I promise, it won’t be messy at all. Not a drop of blood.”
The girl agreed quickly. “Sounds good. But how will you do it? Poison? Drugs? How can you get anything in her food?”
“She’s not going to eat anything.”
“You going to stab her? Shoot her with a dart?”
Brandy rolled her eyes. “Just shut up, will you?” She leaned forward and hissed her next question. “Did you notice she’s wearing a smartwatch?”
“Oh, my gosh, yes. She’s looking at it all the time, like she’s afraid someone’s going to steal it. Like who would want that huge, ugly thing?”
Brandy held up her wrist, displaying her own watch. “It’s part of the Game.”
“Wait. What game?”
Brandy filled her cheeks with air and tried not to strangle the stupid girl. Maybe she should kill her too. “Remember? I told you I was chasing her all day?”
“Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with—?”
“Just forget it. Nobody’s going to steal the freaking watch. Because nobody can take it off. Laura—” she could hardly stand to say the name “—thinks it’s just a communication thing, like it tells me every half hour where she is, and she can use it like any smartphone to check stuff on the Internet, or whatever. But here’s the killer.” She leaned even closer, so close she could smell the other girl’s shampoo. “If I get within twenty feet of her all I have to do is push this button…” She showed Sydney a special screen on her own smartwatch. “And her watch will shoot her full of some nasty drug. Stop her heart within seconds. Boom. Dead. Just like that.”
Sydney’s eyes widened even further. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I know. Isn’t that the most awesome thing ever?”
Sydney blinked at her. “How did you ever get set up with something like this?”
Brandy sat back, checking her fingernails. “When you have as much money as I do, you can pretty much get set up with anything.”
“But…how did you find Laura? I mean, why her? Did you know her from somewhere?”
“Oh, no. I just paid this lady, well, my folks did, and she found a whole bunch of candidates to choose from.”
“What lady?”
“We call her the Referee. It’s her job to make sure I have the kind of experience I want.”
“Who is she? Is she from some kind of company that sets it up?”
Brandy rolled her eyes. “Who cares? As long as I get to hunt down this girl, it doesn’t matter.”
Sydney frowned. “But why exactly is Laura running from you? Does she know what’s going on?”
“It’s a Game of Tag. She got a thirty-minute head start, and now I chase her down until I Tag her.”
“Is there a place where she’s safe? Or does she just keep running and running?”
This girl was getting annoying with all her questions. “Home Base is Water Tower Plaza. One of my guys saw her there, but she got away. Daddy fired him. Ever since, we’re just a few minutes behind. I have to get her first, and I’ll win.”
“You mean you’ll beat her.”
“No, I mean I win the whole Game. There are two other Its. If I beat them, I get another Game for free.”
The girl went white. “There are more of you? All chasing Laura?”
“Nah, they have their own Runners they picked for whatever reason.” Brandy frowned. “You have a problem with this? All we’re doing is making it right. Things have gotten all out of whack. I’m supposed to be the one with the good life, but so far it’s girls like Laura who get it all.”
Sydney stared at her, then slowly smiled. “And now we get to make it right.”
Brandy smiled back. “You got it, girlfriend.” Brandy gasped and held up her wrist, showing Sydney the two-thirty transmission, a map with a green dot. “It might not take long to get our revenge. She’s still in this building.”
“How can you tell?”
“See that other green dot, right there, just by the new one? She was here last time, too.”
“Where?” Sydney glowered. “Probably in a corner somewhere with Adam.”
“I don’t know, but she’s close. All you need to do is bring her closer. Are you ready?”
“Absolutely.” Sydney pulled out her phone. “It’s time I got started with my part, and bring this whole thing to an end.”
Tyrese
Tyrese raced through the gate at Wrigley Field, not stopping to respond to the ticket-taker’s “Enjoy the game!” He halted in the middle of the walkway for his watch to indicate he’d reached Home Base. But it wasn’t that easy.
Your destination is 568 feet ahead.
The GPS was pointing him toward the outfield bleacher section.
Tyrese wanted to punch something. Hadn’t he come far enough? But he wasn’t going to quit now. He stormed around the promenade, searching for Robert, lungs heaving like he’d just run a sprint.
He reached the bottom of the bleacher section. The
smartwatch didn’t change. He shook it, banged it, pushed the buttons.
Your destination is 60 feet ahead.
Underneath the scoreboard.
Tyrese sprinted up the steps two at a time, dodging fat, shirtless men, women in bikini tops and tiny cut-off shorts, and drunk frat boys with painted chests and faces. The frat boys cheered him on, the fat guys didn’t notice him, and the girls ogled him with wide open eyes. Tyrese ignored them all. A vendor in a bright yellow shirt called out that he had cold beer. Tyrese crashed past him, spilling a cup of the frothy stuff down a woman’s shirt, leaving her husband screaming at the vendor.
He reached the top. Still no change on the watch.
Stumbling, yelling, “Excuse me!” he charged down the row to the middle aisle, next to a man with a big drum. The man gazed up at Tyrese. Tyrese gazed at his watch. The watch flashed once.
You have reached Home Base.
Tag, you’re It.
Charles
As soon as the limo dropped Charles at Wrigley Field he pushed his proximity meter.
Runner is out of range.
He had bought a ticket online, since he knew he’d need it eventually, and trotted through the gates, irritated that he had to stop to have his ticket scanned. He’d been kicking himself since receiving the last transmission. He’d been so sure Amanda would take him on another roundabout trip. This straight shot toward Home Base was a surprise.
As he waited for the last transmission, comfortable in the privacy of the limo, he’d analyzed the data from the lab’s computer. Amanda had done an expert job erasing her tracks, and it was only through Charles’ skill that he was able to dig out one small clue leading him toward a particular cyber destination. He’d just found it when the location transmission came through, informing him he was about to lose the Game.
While the limo raced to the ballpark Charles had dissected the reconstituted code further to realize Amanda had visited a chat room. A very private, secure place that had been in existence for quite some time. Who had she been in contact with? The Ref hadn’t given Charles a list of Amanda’s Contacts, saying only that the Ref would make sure she wasn’t involving her friends and family, but Charles wondered if the Ref had missed someone important. Amanda, being a champion game player, would have friends in the cyberworld who wouldn’t show up in her personal life.
