The Future Will Be BS Free

by Will McIntosh

  “We just need to hang on. They won’t be able to touch us once we release the app.”

  “I don’t care about the app. I just want my safe, boring life back.”

  “Quit your whining,” Rebe called from farther back. She was squatting by an open circuit box, working to disable the GPS signal without setting off the alarm.

  “Look,” I said, ignoring Rebe, “nothing is going to stop us. Just say that over and over.”

  Boob huffed, annoyed. “Come on. It’s the president.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t know what they’ve got to hide, but Mr. Chambliss said it: this thing scares the hell out of them.”

  “You don’t know what they’ve got to hide?” Rebe said. “Vitnik’s network just broadcast a video of us testing a memory-wipe weapon. Vitnik claims all the profits from her products go to charity. Everything she says is a lie.”

  “But everyone knows politicians are crooks,” Basquiat said. “There must be more to it if Vitnik is this desperate.”

  “It’s an election year,” Rebe said. “She doesn’t want any surprises.”

  “The important thing is, this world is messed up and we have the power to fix it,” I said. “Theo saw it. All I could think about was how much money we were going to make, but Theo understood from the start. We can change this.”

  Boob shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for, Gregorious the Great. Changing the world doesn’t necessarily make it better.”

  “Come on, Boob. We told each other our worst secrets.” Basquiat spread his hands. “Has it really ruined your life? I feel better. Sam’s right. It would be a good thing for the whole world to cast no shadow.”

  Boob didn’t look convinced. Or maybe he just looked like a guy who had to go to the bathroom and had nowhere to go. “Just wait until you have to tell the truth every second of your life. Do you realize it will be impossible to throw someone a surprise party?”

  “Maybe it’s time to find out what it’s really like.” I unzipped my pack and pulled out the Tupperware container where I’d stashed the prototype for safekeeping. I handed it to Boob. “Keep us honest.”

  “Patrol, twelve o’clock, twenty-four hundred yards,” Kelsey called.

  “Everybody down,” Mom said. “As down as you can get.” She took Beltane’s rifle. “You and Chambliss are a happy couple out for a little jaunt. They shouldn’t have your faces logged yet. If it goes to shit, signal to me and I’ll come up shooting. Kelsey, too.”

  Beltane put her arm across Mr. Chambliss’s shoulders and leaned in close to him.

  A few minutes later, the boat slowed to a stop. The rumble of another, bigger boat filled the air. Beltane raised her hand and waved enthusiastically. “We’re on our honeymoon.” She held up her left hand, inviting the patrol to admire a nonexistent engagement ring.

  Beltane waved a second time. Our boat began to move again.

  When we were safely on our way, Beltane came to the back of the boat. “Let me see your packs.”

  “No.” Rebe clutched hers.

  I handed mine to Beltane. She knelt, unzipped it, and began tossing stuff overboard. I opened my mouth to protest, but Beltane cut me off. “We’re behind enemy lines now, so listen up while I explain how we avoid detection in hostile territory. We travel light and move at night. During the day we crawl into the thickest brush we can find and remain silent until sunset. We move slowly and deliberately. The team leader will raise her hand every few minutes. When she does, stand still and listen. Avoid breaking or disturbing vegetation.”

  Beltane moved on to Molly’s pack as she continued reciting the rules for avoiding detection in hostile territory. It did not sound like fun.

  The sun was below the horizon, the clouds pink, as I slipped over the railing into the tepid, waist-deep water and followed Boob toward the shore, which was forest as far as I could see in either direction. I scrunched my toes to hold on to my sneakers as mud tugged, threatening to pull them off.

  There was a splash behind me. Kelsey had vaulted over the railing, the last one off. The boat, set on autopilot, pulled a U-turn and rumbled toward deeper water. It was listing noticeably to one side.

  “There you go.” Kelsey stood watching the boat as the back left corner sank farther, until water poured over the rail.

  The weight of the water made the boat suddenly corkscrew. It spun back toward shore.

  “No. No, no!” Kelsey called as the back end sank completely underwater and the nose turned up toward the sky. The engine gurgled and died; the front end slipped slowly into the water.

  And then it stopped.

  Kelsey slapped the water. “Damn it.” Two feet of the boat’s nose jutted out of the water.

  “Let’s go,” Mom said. “Hopefully they won’t see it.”

  Kelsey jogged out of the water, still cursing. “It’s like a road sign, pointing the way we went.”

  There wasn’t much we could do about it. It wasn’t like we were going to swim out and try to push the boat into deeper water.

  We stopped on the bank and rubbed mud on our clothes and faces under Beltane’s watchful eye, then headed into the woods until we were invisible to anyone who might happen to cruise past on the river.

  “Which way?” I whispered.

  “Northwest,” Kelsey answered. “Into the Catskills. Nothing but wilderness.”

  “What’s the plan?” I asked. “We can’t manufacture in the wilderness.”

  Mom stuck her face close to mine. “Right now the plan is to get so far off the feds’ radar they have no way to find us. Then we think about next steps.”

  “Fine, but as soon as we’re clear, we have to find a way to get truth apps out there. That’s the whole point of this, and it’s the only way we’re going to be safe for long.”

  Kelsey hefted his pack. “This way.”

  Beltane led the way. We walked like we were in a minefield, choosing each step carefully to avoid stepping on dry twigs or disturbing foliage. When we’d gone no more than a hundred yards, Mom raised one hand and we all stopped and listened.

  All I heard was peeping birds getting a last meal before bedding down for the night. We moved on.

  A beetle was crawling near my face. I flicked it away as quietly as possible. Dried mud was caked in the corners of my eyes, but I couldn’t wipe it out because my fingers and clothes were filthy, too. I had dozens of mosquito bites. I was no longer exhausted, because as soon as we’d crawled into the thick brush we were lying in, I’d passed out and slept for probably eight hours. Now I was just uncomfortable and bored out of my mind. We had to lie here—not talking, not moving—until dark, which wouldn’t be for another six or seven hours.

  I passed the time playing songs, sometimes entire albums, in my head, and trying to figure out how we were going to manufacture the truth apps. I had identified four electronics factories within thirty miles of New City that were sitting idle. My plan had been to approach one of them and cut a deal, but that was out now that we were wanted terrorists. We’d have to build them ourselves, one at a time at first, like we’d built the prototype. For that we needed materials, which meant we needed start-up funds. Our only hope was Rebe’s person in the black market distribution business. If we ever got out of this, we’d have to contact her, hope she was interested in a deal, and have cash.

  Molly touched my arm. When I raised my head to look at her, she was wide-eyed with panic. She looked out through the brush emphatically.

  I followed her gaze, but I didn’t see anything.

  And then I did. A pair of Army green boots, gently lifting and coming back down. As dread washed through me, a second pair appeared, no more than ten feet away from us. There seemed no chance they could miss all nine of us, split into three clusters. As the soldier passed through a clearing, I caught a glimpse of his bearded face ringed by bulletproof
fabric.

  The soldier raised his right arm, looked left and right, then pointed. For a second I thought he’d discovered one of our clusters, but he picked up his pace and disappeared through the foliage.

  I let out a breath. My racing heart began to slow.

  * * *

  —

  Rebe grabbed my arm, stopping me. “Wait a minute.”

  Beltane spun, pressed a fingers to her lips, livid. She’d made it clear that just because we’d reached the deep wilderness of the Adirondacks, we shouldn’t relax. And I had to admit, so far her strategy had worked. We’d tiptoed our way past neighborhoods, right through a few backyards, and made it here without being discovered.

  Rebe cupped her hands around my ear and whispered, “That News America video made us celebrities. Celebrity villains, but still, celebrities. We should record the truth and post it on BuckyHead. Vitnik will take it down, but by then it will be all over the place.”

  I nodded. That might help. If anyone would believe our message over News America’s, it was the droves of teens who hung out at BuckyHead. At least there’d be something out there to combat the lies News America was broadcasting.

  We stopped the others and laid out the idea.

  “Is this worth the risk?” Beltane asked Mom.

  “We need allies. Of course it is,” I said.

  Beltane ignored me, waited until Mom gave her a tight nod.

  Mom, Kelsey, Beltane, and Mr. Chambliss spread out, forming a perimeter to ensure no one was close enough to overhear us. For the first time in two days, we spoke in normal voices.

  “We’ll need to connect to the net for only a millisecond to upload the message,” Rebe said. “For a blip like that, I can rig a baffle so it looks like we’re sending it from New Jersey, or wherever.”

  “It’s also a way to let our parents know we’re still alive,” Molly said.

  We sat on the ground and planned out what we wanted to say.

  “You should read the message, Molly,” I said as we put the finishing touches on it. “No offense to the rest of you, but Molly has this quality, this sincerity. People will trust her.”

  Molly seemed startled. “Thanks.”

  “I agree,” Boob said. “And for the record, Sam was speaking the truth just then.” I’d forgotten about giving Boob the prototype.

  Molly laughed. “Good to know.”

  “Needless to say, I agree,” Basquiat said.

  “Okay. I’ll do it,” Molly said.

  “Here we go, then.” Rebe activated the recorder on her phone and pointed it at Molly.

  “So here we are”—Molly spread her arms—“the evil terrorists News America told you about. Except, it’s a lie. That video they’re broadcasting is fake. We did invent new technology, but it doesn’t wipe your mind, it tells you when people are lying to you. That’s the real reason President Vitnik is trying to kill us. She doesn’t want people to know the truth, especially in an election year. Here—I’ll show you how it works.” Rebe nodded to signal the video had been switched to Molly’s POV. She slid on the app glasses. “Sam? If you’d give me a hand?”

  “Sure.” I stepped out to face Molly.

  “This is Sam Gregorious, one of the other terrorists in our vicious gang. Sam, how tall are you?”

  “I’m six foot nine,” I said.

  “See how the readout jumped into the red? That’s because Sam was lying. How old are you, Sam?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “That time Sam was telling the truth, so the needle barely moved. Are you a member of the pro-Russia anarchist group, Seela?”

  “Hell, no.”

  As we’d planned, Molly turned to Basquiat. “How about you, Basquiat? Are you a member of the pro-Russia anarchist group, Seela?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Notice how the needle jumped into the red?” Molly said. “Basquiat was lying.” She turned to face Boob. “How about you, Boob? Are you a member of Seela?”

  Boob shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

  “Rebe, how about you?”

  “I am a member of Seela.”

  Molly nodded to Rebe. Rebe shifted the POV back.

  “We want everyone to have this technology. That way we’ll all know who the liars are, and together we can create a future that’s one hundred percent bullshit-free. Please, help us get the word out. Spread this message. And if someone out there could please make sure my mom sees this, I’d be grateful.”

  Rebe lowered her phone. “And, cut.”

  Basquiat threw his hands in the air. He ran to Molly and lifted her off the ground. “That was vascular!”

  When he finally set Molly down, I was waiting to hug her. “Nice.” I tried not to notice how incredibly good it felt to be in her arms.

  “And”—Rebe worked her phone—“it’s live.”

  There was a little town nestled in the valley we were skirting. The main street was five or six blocks long. Church bell towers poked above the trees. Chances were not many people lived there. When the Depression hit, small towns emptied. People stampeded toward the cities, because that was where the few remaining jobs were.

  I was eleven when it happened, old enough to know something awful was going on, but too young to understand it. I didn’t understand economics well enough to grasp the specifics, but I knew that Russia had tanked our economy through a cyberattack on our banks. Something having to do with derivative swaps, which I understood only in the most general way. They’re like bets. You place a bet on how the dollar is going to perform against another currency, or whether the price of gold is going to go up or down, without buying the dollars or the gold. Russia bought a ton of these swaps, or sold them, or both, while pretending to be U.S. banks, and they purposely made really bad bets.

  Molly fell into step beside me. She looked exhausted, and her hair was damp and matted.

  “How you doing?” I whispered.

  “My father is dying right now. And for all I know our neighbors abandoned my mother when that first News America video was released, and she’s shut inside alone, starving.”

  I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing we could do about it. Hopefully her parents had seen our video and at least knew Molly wasn’t part of Seela.

  Just ahead of us, Rebe was talking to Mr. Chambliss in hushed tones.

  “What I don’t understand is, why didn’t they just show up at my garage and say, ‘Hey, DHS here, what you’re doing is a threat to national security,’ and confiscate it all?” Rebe said.

  Mr. Chambliss tapped his temple. “Because the technology isn’t just in the hardware, it’s in your heads. Even if they took everything, you could start over. And you’d know you were being monitored, so you’d go underground. Plus, there are five of you to keep track of. It’s more complicated than it seems.”

  “So why not just kill us, right off the bat?”

  “Killing kids is risky, even for Vitnik. Safer and easier to throw a few dollars at you and get you to walk away. If that doesn’t work, then take the risk and kill you.”

  Up ahead, Mom stopped in her tracks and cursed.

  I looked around, trying to figure out what she was upset about. Then I saw it. A drone, round, the size of a wren, mottled green and brown for camouflage.

  Kelsey raised his rifle and fired, the report no louder than a bottle of champagne being uncorked. He hit the drone with his third shot, and it burst into fragments that dropped to the ground.

  Kelsey lowered his rifle. “Not that it matters.”

  “We have to get far away from here in a hurry.” Mom consulted her map, then pointed at Beltane. “On point. Head west. Four miles to Denning Road. Highjack the first good-sized vehicle that passes.”

  Beltane darted off into the brush, quick as a startled deer.

  Mom spun tow
ard us. “I need you to give me everything you have left. You can rest once we’re on the road.”

  We ran.

  I had no idea how fast soldiers might get here. Unless a platoon happened to be close by, it seemed like they’d have to send a helicopter after us.

  By the time we’d run maybe two miles, I was pretty sure I was going to vomit. My mouth felt thick and phlegmy; my lungs were burning so badly they felt scraped raw. Mom was carrying Rebe. I glanced back: Boob was forty feet behind me, visible as flashes of color through the foliage. Kelsey was somewhere behind him.

  “There!” A woman’s voice, to our left. Her shrill tone startled me.

  A heavyset man with a graying beard burst out of the brush, pointing a big automatic pistol. “Freeze!”

  Three other men and one woman followed him out of the brush. They wore jeans, boots, T-shirts. These weren’t soldiers or federal agents.

  “We got ’em. We got ’em,” a guy about my age said.

  “Drop your weapon. Immediately!” the heavyset man shouted at Mom, who was pointing her rifle at him.

  Mom held her ground. “You don’t really want to die for them, do you? Because you’re dying if this goes down.”

  News America must have aired an alert, calling on citizens to go after us.

  “They’re lying about us,” I said. “We don’t—”

  The kid my age pointed his gun at my chest. “Hands at your sides. You move your hands, I will shoot you.”

  He thought I had a gadget that could wipe his memory. I could see the fear in his eyes.

  “We’re gonna be heroes.” The kid’s hands were shaking. “We’ll probably get to meet the president and everything.”

  “Be quiet, Porter,” the woman said.

  “Put down the weapon,” the heavyset guy repeated.

  “We’re no threat to you,” Mom said. “We just want to go on our way.”

  “You’re a threat to everyone,” the woman said. She was wearing a Snoopy T-shirt.