Elusion

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  So I select the Allow Access option, and the words “Entry Granted” appear on the screen. I keep Patrick’s message paused and reduce the video window so Josh won’t see it when he comes through the door. I twist my hair into a low ponytail and smooth back any errant wisps with my fingers. Then I tuck my T-shirt into my capri sweatpants and turn around to greet him, my hands twitching so badly I have to shove them into my pockets.

  When Josh walks in the room, he looks worse than he did a few seconds ago on-screen. The veins in his neck seem to be pressing hard against his skin, and his clothes look worn and wrinkled, like he slept in them. I’m so startled by his appearance I forget that we’re on the outs, and I walk over to him, reaching for his hand. His palm is damp and clammy, but then he traces his thumb over my wrist, and given my hazy, post-sedative state, that’s all it takes for me to come undone.

  I can’t let that show, though. Not just yet.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Not really, but I feel a little better now that you let me in,” Josh says with a tired smile.

  “You look like hell. No offense,” I joke, smiling back.

  “Actually, this is what two days of no sleep and twenty cups of pod coffee looks like.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Josh nods at the couch. “Mind if we sit and clear the air?”

  “Sure.” I let my hand slip out of his, just a fraction of an inch, but he catches it, squeezing a little so I won’t let go.

  Once we’re comfortable on the sofa, positioned opposite each other but close enough that our knees are almost touching, he launches into a speech that sounds like he spent hours preparing. Even so, he’s rubbing his hands nervously the entire time.

  “Regan, I know you think what I did with the QuTap was pretty shady. And you’re right, giving it to Avery without checking with you first wasn’t cool,” he says, pausing to take a deep breath. “I should have been honest with you from the start.”

  “Well, you can start now instead,” I say.

  “I was going to use one of my Ashville contacts to get the QuTap. But when I remembered Avery’s father worked for Tech Protect, I knew she could scrounge one up without much trouble.”

  “But how did you know that? Avery may talk about everyone else’s business on her vlog, but she never reveals anything personal.”

  Josh glances away from me, like he’s concerned how I might react to his response.

  “I knew because Avery and I . . . are friends,” he murmurs.

  “You’re friends with Avery?” I say, stunned. “The Avery who hates my guts Avery?”

  He shrugs, embarrassed. “I met her through my sister. She and Nora are pretty close. Have been for a couple years.”

  I cover my face with my hands for a moment as this admission sinks in. “So I’ve been ragging on her all week, and you didn’t think to tell me this sooner?”

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve. I made a mistake.”

  “Was it a mistake?” I challenge him. “Or did you know that I wouldn’t go to Orexis and steal that information off Patrick’s computer if I knew Avery was somehow involved?”

  Josh’s eyes flick back to me. “Maybe.”

  I open my mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. I suppose I didn’t expect him to own up to that.

  “Going to Avery wasn’t preplanned or anything. But she wants Nora back just as much as I do. That’s why she’s been so aggressive about the safety of Elusion since the beginning,” he continues. “Her heart is in the right place; she just goes about things the wrong way.”

  “I want to believe that, Josh. I do. But honestly, Avery can’t stand me because she loathes Patrick. How can you trust that she won’t keep certain information to herself just to shut me out? Or that she’ll leak what we’ve done to the public or the police? I’ve come too far for her to ruin everything.”

  “She promised that when she had a breakthrough with the QuTap, she’d set up a time to meet. She won’t screw us over,” he says. “Anyway, whatever crimes we’ve committed, she’s an accessory now. Her ass is on the line too.”

  I hesitate. I think he believes what he’s saying—I’m just not sure I can.

  “I’m going to earn your trust back, I swear. Just let me show you.” A faint sparkle returns to his gorgeous golden-brown eyes when he lowers his hand and gently grazes my arm. “So are we good?”

  “I think so,” I say, hoping that I’m not making a huge mistake by listening to my heart. “As long as you assure me that you two aren’t hatching some kind of diabolical plan together.”

  “To do what, exactly?”

  I contemplate telling Josh about what Cathryn said in her car last night—about setups and corporate spies—but it all seems so ridiculous now, especially since there’s another piece of evidence that connects Nora and my father’s lives. In fact, I’m kind of wondering if Cathryn maybe wasn’t trying to throw me off Patrick’s scent . . .

  God, if we don’t make more headway soon, how many more people am I going to add to this list of possible conspirators?

  “Nothing, just forget it.”

  There’s a brief moment where it seems like he’s going to lean in and kiss me, but he reclines instead, slouching down so he can rest his head on the back of the sofa. I’m disappointed, but I can’t really blame him for missing his cue. He’s hanging on by a thread.

  “So did you get anywhere with Patrick?”

  “Sort of,” I say.

  Then I replay the whole gruesome scene at Erebus Tower, giving Josh all the details of my showdown with Patrick—what he admitted to, what I accused him of, the ultimatum I gave him, and my shocking confession about the QuTap. When I’m done giving the blow-by-blow, Josh sits there, completely dumbfounded. Actually, after listening to myself tell the story, I’m dumbfounded too.

  “Wait, you bluffed Patrick Simmons, boy genius? He thinks we might crack the code.”

  I nod.

  “Wow. Didn’t think anyone but Avery could pull that off.”

  “And there’s something else,” I say. “Wait here.”

  I fly up the steps with a surge of adrenaline that floods through me, washing away any last residual effects from the Zolpidem. My mind is clear now, and I start writing a mental checklist of all the things I have to tell Josh about. Nora’s note, first and foremost, but also what happened between my mom and me. He and I didn’t spend that long apart, and there’s so much I want to share with him.

  So much that it frightens me a little.

  Once I get to my room, I grab my tab and zoom back down the stairs, where Josh is still sitting on the couch. I’m so excited to tell him about the anagram discovery that I begin prattling on about it without even noticing that he’s staring at the Insta-Comm wall. I explain how I rearranged the letters in “Hate Our New Land” so they spelled out “Walden Thoreau,” and bring up the diagram I drew on the tab’s screen. When he doesn’t react at all, that’s when I realize he’s not listening to me.

  My eyes track his gaze and I see that Patrick’s image is pulled up on the InstaComm. But the message isn’t paused like before—Josh seems to have listened to the end while I was in my bedroom retrieving my tab. I’m two seconds away from chewing him out for invading my privacy when he picks up the remote and replays the last bit of Patrick’s call.

  “Tonight at nine. Special invite code twenty-three hundred and one. You have to come.

  “I just heard from our lawyers. The news is going to break in a few hours, but I wanted to tell you myself.” He looks away from the camera, pausing, but when he glances back up, his eyes are heavy with a sadness I haven’t seen since . . .

  “Anthony Caldwell is dead,” Patrick says, his voice cracking into a million pieces.

  Then he leans forward and presses a button on his Insta-Comm wall, and the screen fades to black.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .............................................
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  FIFTEEN

  “SO WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL HER?” I ASK Josh. “About Anthony, or the anagram?”

  He and I are strolling down the old Detroit boardwalk toward a very conspicuous-looking Avery Leavenworth. She’s standing in front of the dilapidated Cullen Family Carousel, wearing the same light-enhancing sunglasses that Zoe had on the other day and a long trench coat. Her hair is pulled back into a loose, low ponytail, and her fingernails are painted black. It’s almost as though she doesn’t want to be recognized.

  “Guess I don’t want to scare the hell out of her, or give her false hope.” He zips his coat up and shoves his hands in the pockets. “Besides, she’s tense enough as it is already. She knows how close you are to Patrick and . . .” He shrugs.

  “And what?”

  “She doesn’t trust you,” he says, as if embarrassed.

  I watch Avery as we approach, her head bobbing to the left and the right, like she’s scanning the area, looking for someone or something suspicious. Like someone, namely me, has set her up. But she’s wrong. I’m pretty certain there’s nothing and no one around for miles, which is why Josh arranged this rendezvous at the carousel. The RiverFront Conservancy protected the landmark as long as they could, until all the small shops closed down and big businesses moved across the water to the Inner Sector.

  Now this area is all but deserted and the carousel is in shambles. The rain has stopped temporarily, and though we still need our O2s, the air is clear enough to see that the paint on the wood is peeling everywhere; the mirrors at the top are all broken and shattered; some of the horses are headless or legless—probably the work of teenage vandals rather than decay. It seems very fitting, meeting Avery here. The closer we get to her, the more I feel like we’re about to step onto a land mine. When she lifts up her shades and her eyes settle on me, her lips break into a scowl.

  Clearly, she’s feeling the exact same thing.

  “What about you?” I ask quietly. “Do you trust me?”

  He pauses, taking his hand out of his pocket and pulling me to a stop. “Yes.”

  His hand slides into mine; the sensation of his palm pressed against my skin is enough to calm my worries about whatever Avery has found.

  “Well, well. Aren’t you two sickening,” she says through her O2 speaker the moment we’re in earshot.

  “Don’t start, Avery,” Josh says, edging ahead of me a bit, a protective gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by either me or Avery.

  “I’d watch out if I were you,” she says snidely to Josh. “Patrick Simmons owns that ass.”

  “I warned you, Avery. Leave Regan alone. She’s on our side.” In spite of the fierce look in his eyes, he gives my hand a gentle squeeze.

  She blows out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, right.”

  I let go of Josh’s hand and step toward her. “I cracked Patrick’s computer, didn’t I? And I threatened him with the QuTap, too. If that doesn’t prove that I want to help find out the truth about Elusion, I don’t know what does.”

  “Wait, you did what?” Avery huffs, her forehead creased with sheer fury as she turns toward Josh. “If I get arrested for breaking that stupid cease and desist order, or anything else—”

  “I didn’t tell him that the QuTap was yours,” I interrupt. “I just said that he had twenty-four hours to recall Elusion or I was going to the press with top secret information.”

  “So you bluffed?” Her green eyes cloud over with skepticism. “Without even knowing what kind of data we had?”

  “Yeah, I did. And don’t act like you don’t do that all the time on your vlog. I bet you never even had a source at Orexis telling you anything.”

  “Don’t you get it?” Avery says through gritted teeth. “Now that you’ve tipped our hand, Patrick is probably tracking your every damn move so he can get his slimy hands on the QuTap. Do you have any clue how valuable it is?” she says, holding up the dime-size magnet.

  I swallow hard and cast my gaze down on Avery’s black lace-up boots, realizing that I haven’t really thought about what lengths Patrick might go to in order to make sure the QuTap ends up in his possession. Sure, he said that the files could never be decoded, but maybe he was bluffing too?

  I guess part of me still sees him as my friend, and that’s confused a lot of the boundaries in this twisted little game we’re playing. Josh must have considered that, because he didn’t intentionally shame me when I told him about my showdown with Patrick.

  My head bounces back up when I hear Avery chuckling like a sadistic circus clown. Her eyes flick over to Josh and she says, “What do you see in her? She’s as dumb as a pile of rocks.”

  “Quit wasting time!” he shouts, so loudly I’m afraid his O2 might crack. “Think of those kids in a coma, Avery. They could—”

  Josh stops himself short from saying the word “die.” I understand why. He can’t. To say it would be to admit that Elusion can kill, and with Nora missing, he’s not ready to deal with that possibility.

  I notice the sadness on Avery’s face, and it grinds our argument to a startling halt. Suddenly dancing in the dark corners of my mind is an image of Avery at school, playfully hipchecking a girl with a purple pixie cut as they walk through the quad together, laughing and carrying on. Then another recollection follows, and I see Avery with the same girl, holding hands and smiling at each other as they talk in front of the Traxx station near campus.

  Not like they’re friends, but more like two girls in love.

  As Avery’s eyes begin to well up with tears, it all makes perfect sense to me. The source of Avery’s anger is not much different from my own. We’ve both lost the people who matter most to us, people who are completely irreplaceable, and we’re doing everything in our power to figure out why.

  When the tears break free and streak down her cheeks, the animosity I have for her starts to soften. Josh reaches out and gently rubs her arm, like he’s sorry for upsetting her. All this time, he’s known Avery is his sister’s girlfriend, but kept that detail from me out of respect for Avery’s privacy.

  After clearing her throat a couple of times, Avery says, “Okay, let me get my tab.” Then she puts her sunglasses back on and rifles through her messenger bag. I lean toward Josh and place a comforting hand on his back, as if to subtly, albeit temporarily, surrender to Avery. He turns and winks at me—a sign of appreciation and familiarity that until now I’ve only had with one other guy.

  “All right, here we go.” Avery brings out her tablet and slides her fingers quickly across the screen.

  She spins around and lets us glance over her shoulder. Icons zip in every direction, almost making me dizzy. “First of all, you were right about the encryption. It’s a beast. Like CIA-grade stuff. I hooked the QuTap up to my dad’s best quantum, the one with the strongest analytic software, and it could only bust open a couple of them.”

  “Shit,” Josh says.

  “Just wait—the news gets better,” Avery adds. “The parse tree you guys found wasn’t programming code. That’s probably why you were able to decrypt it, and why you didn’t recognize it on sight, Josh.”

  “Then what was it for?” I ask while readjusting my O2 shield so I can get more oxygen to my lungs. I’m becoming pretty short of breath, and there’s no question why.

  “It’s actually a very detailed breakdown of a chemical substance. Sodium pentothal. Ever heard of it?” Avery presses an icon and a diagram of a molecular structure appears, spinning in circles on an invisible axis so that it can be viewed from all angles. The lines connecting the boxes are lit up in bright indigo and the letters are a deep shade of blood orange.

  “Yes,” I reply, so quietly I’m not even sure they hear me. Then I reach over Avery and press a virtual button on the touch screen that allows us to zoom in on the diagram. “It’s a fast-acting anesthetic.”

  Avery raises an eyebrow. “I’m impressed.”

  “My mom’s a nurse. She used to talk a lot about work at the dinner tabl
e.”

  “What does it do?” Josh asks.

  “Sometimes it’s administered for C-sections. They used to give it to death-row prisoners, right before executions,” I say. “Very powerful stuff.”

  “So what’s the connection with Elusion?” Josh’s voice is pinched with impatience.

  Avery minimizes the diagram and taps on an icon that transforms itself into a brief corporate memo typed on company letterhead.

  “There were a few ancillary files in the QuTap directory that I was able to bust open,” she says, her gaze shifting to me. From the strained look in her eyes, I can’t tell if she’s furious or concerned. Given how unpredictable Avery is, maybe it’s both. I’m a few seconds from finding out, and my stomach is churning so much I feel like I’m trapped on an old-fashioned dinghy in the middle of an ocean storm.

  “Read it,” she says, passing the tab to me and stepping to the side so Josh can take a peek, too.

  Confidential Memorandum

  To: David Welch, Chief Product Designer

  From: Bryce Williams, Senior Programmer

  Subject: high responders / trypnosis

  Prelim Analysis on v1 Elusion app and Equip have shown that in 8 out of 10 subject groups, adolescent users with highly responsive brain chemistry can be negatively affected by trypnosis due to their fast-growing synapses and sections of the brain that remain unconnected. (See chart 41B)

  The result is oftentimes nanopsychosis, a neurological condition that can be transient or lasting, depending on the amount of exposure.