“They’re lying about us,” Molly said. “Can’t you see that?”
The heavyset guy’s eyes flew open. He jerked violently as muffled pops filled the air. The others jolted as well, like a thousand volts were being shot through them. It wasn’t until they were on the ground that I saw the blood.
Beltane stepped out of the brush, her eyebrows pinched. “Get their guns.”
Molly was sobbing. Mom was squatting, head down, eyes glazed. Kelsey was turning around and around, scanning the terrain for threats.
Beltane gestured toward the bodies. “Get their guns. I told you this would get ugly. Take a good look. This is what ugly looks like.”
The kid who was excited about being a hero was lying across his mother. A face-sized bloom of blood blotted out most of Snoopy on her shirt. The big guy was the worst; he’d been hit at least a dozen times.
Rebe helped me retrieve the guns. I tried not to look at their faces. They’d thought they were doing the right thing. In their eyes, we were the bad guys.
Even when lying across a stack of cardboard boxes, I could feel the vibration running up from the floor of the semi’s trailer.
“Is that it? Are we done switching?” Rebe asked. We’d switched vehicles twice in twenty minutes, in case we were being tracked via satellite.
“I think that’s it for now,” Mr. Chambliss said, his mouth full of Oat-N-Honey Crisp cereal. That’s what was in the cardboard boxes. Cereal.
I tried to rub the dried mud from the corner of one eye with my dirty fingertip. My entire body was throbbing, my head aching from exhaustion. I couldn’t sleep, though; I kept seeing that guy jerking as the bullets hit him.
“Those people. I feel so guilty,” I said.
“Lie,” Boob muttered, almost to himself. I’d thought he was asleep.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s a lie.”
“I’m not lying. How could I be lying about a thing like that?”
Boob huffed in frustration. “You’re right. This thing that people are dying over must not work.”
It wasn’t true that I felt guilty about the people who’d died? I stared at the boxes of cereal stacked deep inside the truck. Was it guilt? I felt sick about it, sad about it, but did I feel guilty?
“I feel bad for those people, but I’m relieved Beltane showed up when she did,” I said. “I’m glad it was them and not us.”
Boob nodded. “That’s the truth.”
“Damn.” Mr. Chambliss was lying on top of cardboard boxes stacked three high, his face dimly lit by the glow of his phone. “Don’t you dare point that thing my way.”
“Why’s that, Mr. Chambliss?” Boob asked.
“Because I don’t want to know how big a lying son of a bitch I am.”
“Lie,” Boob said.
Mr. Chambliss looked startled. “See? I’m even lying about why I don’t want you to know when I’m lying.”
“Cast no shadow, Mr. Chambliss,” Basquiat said. “It’ll do you good.”
Mr. Chambliss grunted and went back to his book.
“I don’t feel bad for those people in the least,” Rebe said. “They’re the ones—”
“Lie,” Boob said, interrupting her.
“What’s a lie?” Rebe asked.
“ ‘I don’t feel bad for those people.’ ”
Looking flustered, Rebe pulled her knees up to her chin.
“Whoa.” Molly was looking at her phone. “That video we made is actually helping. Vitnik’s people released a virus that replaced every copy of it with a version where we’re back to being terrorists, but lots and lots of people saw the video before then, and they’re talking about it. Sixty-one percent of the people talking about it believe our version. Silhouette Lark is talking about us constantly.”
“We should make another,” Rebe said. “Keep the conversation going.”
So we did.
* * *
—
“I still don’t understand how they found out about our project in the first place.” Rebe flicked a Cheerio at Boob’s head.
Boob clutched the spot where it hit, then muttered, “Cut it out.”
I knew how they’d found out, but I doubted telling Rebe did anyone any good. Then again, cast no shadow.
“Did you hack into any government computers when you were finding us free processing capacity?” I asked.
Rebe nodded. “Like six. Why?”
“One of them noticed. They must have contacted the FBI, who analyzed what sort of data was being processed, and figured out what we were doing from the data.”
Rebe covered her eyes. “Crap. So this is my fault.”
“No, it’s not. You were doing your job, and we were all aware of what that meant. We all missed it. Even Theo.”
Mr. Chambliss sat up, laughing, his legs dangling off the boxes. “Talk about a small world. We’re going to pass within thirty miles of our esteemed president. She’s doing a campaign appearance in Belvidere. Maybe we should stop by and ask her why she’s trying to kill us.”
“You think the Secret Service agents would shoot us on the spot, or take us around back first?” Rebe asked.
“The crowd would beat us to death before Secret Service got the chance,” Boob said. “By now our faces are as familiar as Elvis’s.”
It was strange, knowing the person who wanted us dead would be so close. Why did Vitnik want us dead, though? That question was driving me crazy. What sort of secret was so awful she would kill to keep it quiet? Maybe she killed people routinely, and that was what she was trying to keep hidden by killing us. Maybe it was something worse.
“Lie,” Boob said to Rebe.
I hadn’t heard what Rebe had said, but she smacked Boob in the shoulder. “That’s getting annoying really fast.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
What I wouldn’t give to have ten minutes with President Vitnik while wearing that prototype. I wouldn’t even have to ask questions; I could just let her talk.
“Wait a minute.” I could just let her talk. “If I could get close to Vitnik without being recognized, maybe we could get something juicy on her and post it on BuckyHead. That would prove the truth app really does what we claim, and simultaneously put Vitnik on the defensive.”
I looked at Boob. “Did I get through that without telling any lies?”
He shrugged. “It was all opinion. How could you lie?”
“You’d be taking our only prototype into the lion’s den,” Basquiat said. “Is that wise?”
“It’s a risk, but I think we’re desperate enough that a risk is warranted.”
Basquiat didn’t argue.
Mr. Chambliss was typing in the air.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Locating the nearest party supply store. We need to get some liquid skin.”
Mr. Chambliss studied my face, his nose a foot from my fake one. He reached out and smoothed the seam on one side, then nodded. “Looks good.” He turned his attention to Molly.
My upper lip felt strange; the fake teeth made it bulge slightly. I could actually see my upper lip when I looked down. I’d never been able to see any part of my face besides my nose before.
Rebe nudged in beside Mr. Chambliss. “There’s going to be automated surveillance all over the place, designed to pick up suspicious behavior. Don’t just stare straight ahead. Look around. Make eye contact with people. Also, don’t seem nervous. Don’t touch or rub your face. Don’t blink rapidly. Don’t pace or shift from foot to foot. Keep your heart rate under one thirty.”
“So it’s okay if I vomit, or wet myself?” I asked.
Rebe rolled her eyes, raised one hand like she was going to smack me upside the head, then patted my shoulder instead. “Just grin like an idiot and you’
ll fit right in.”
They dropped Molly and me off in front of an abandoned strip mall. We headed down a broken sidewalk, toward the packed Walmart parking lot.
I looked around as I walked, just as Rebe had advised, my hands stuffed in the pockets of my jeans. Most of the stores and businesses along the road were empty.
“I dreamed this,” Molly said.
“Just this walk, or going to Vitnik’s rally?”
“The whole rally. I’m remembering only now because this walk is giving me a déjà vu–ish feeling.”
“Does it all turn out okay?”
“We’ll be fine.”
We breezed through the plastic and metal detector.
“Heads up, hats and headwear off,” a recording repeated on loop as we waited to pass through a long, narrow channel single file. A bank of cameras running automated facial recognition checks lined the channel.
A Secret Service agent watching from outside the channel aimed a steel pointer at me. “Step out, please.”
Heart pounding, I stepped through the steel half door he held open. Molly kept walking.
“Raise your arms.” The agent patted me down, starting at my neck and working his way down. We’d done our research. I was fairly sure this was a random check, which shouldn’t involve ID. If he asked for ID, I was dead.
As he patted my legs, he looked up, studied my face. “Where are you from?”
“Pittsburgh.”
He stood, gave me a long look, then pointed at the door. “Enjoy the rally.”
Feeling a wash of relief, I hurried through the run and found Molly waiting at the end. There were thousands of people jamming the parking lot, tailgating, drinking beer, munching Vitnik-brand weenies the president’s people were handing out at a Vitnik weenies truck. Some rally-goers were wearing Vitnik T-shirts, or had painted their faces red, white, and blue. Molly and I headed toward the stage. The truth app usually worked up to a distance of twenty-eight feet, but with all these people wearing phones, the signal interference might shrink the effective range.
As we reached the edge of the crowd, Molly took my hand and threaded us forward. It felt good to have her cool, small hand in mine. Whenever someone gave us a look, Molly smiled brightly and gestured ahead, giving the impression we were trying to reach friends. She even looked sincere when she was totally lying. We got within twenty feet of the podium before the crowd became too tight for us to move any closer. We stood there holding hands until Molly finally gave mine a squeeze and let it go.
I studied faces in the crowd, curious to understand who these people were who actually supported this woman. There weren’t many young faces, but other than that, they looked like any random crowd. There were black people and white, Latino and Asian. They didn’t look stupid, but if they liked Vitnik enough to be here, they were. Unless they were here for the free food. That was a definite possibility.
The town’s mayor, a little guy with a big head, introduced Vitnik. He went on for a long time. People around us huffed impatiently.
When Vitnik finally strode onto the stage, my skin crawled. With her dyed-black bobbed hair and her features blurred from too much plastic surgery, she reminded me of an old actress who couldn’t stand the thought of looking her age. I locked the truth app onto her and turned on the record function.
“Hello, Belvidere!” Vitnik cried, raising her hands as background music swelled. “I’m glad to be here.”
Lie. It was working—I was close enough.
“Now, before I get to happier news, I have to talk about the blues, those kiddie commies who should be home with their mommies.”
The crowd erupted in boos so loud I felt them in the pit of my stomach. The music fell to an ominous bass. It was unnerving, knowing the reaction was for us.
“I know. They’re sick. They’re rabid clowns who need to go down.” Vitnik pointed at the ground as the crowd cheered. “That’s right. Put ’em down.” The music rose, and her words—Put ’em down—echoed robotically through the speakers.
She worked the crowd. The economy had turned around, and rapid growth was just around the corner. I didn’t need the truth app to tell me that was a lie.
It was a combination concert, high school pep rally, and doomsday cult meeting. We were a special people; a magical, powerful people. Russia was the devil. Those things, at least in her mind, were true.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” I said, my voice low.
There was nothing here we could use against Vitnik. It was nothing but platitudes chanted at high volume and set to music.
“We’re rising, rising! But that’s not surprising.”
The crowd loved it. Molly and I hooted and clapped so we wouldn’t stand out, but I was barely listening.
“It was worth a try,” Molly said.
“…the Russians hit us with a cyberattack—”
I snapped alert as the needle jumped. Lie.
“We couldn’t stop them, but it’s time for payback—”
Lie. When she chanted, We couldn’t stop them, the needle went off the charts. I didn’t understand. How could that be a lie? What, she didn’t try to stop Russia from wrecking the U.S. economy?
My skin began to tingle, like a shiver that kept going. The truth app was never wrong, though. Vitnik was lying. She didn’t try to stop the Russians. Why would the president of the United States want to wreck the U.S. economy? Why would she want half the people in the country—in the world—to lose their jobs and go hungry?
I was eleven when it happened. I’d been more interested in the Incredible Hulk than politics back then, but I remembered Ms. Moreno, my fourth-grade teacher, talking about the crash right after it happened. That had also been an election year, and Vitnik, running for reelection, had been trailing up to that point.
Up to that point. When the crash came, people rallied to the known quantity, the former general.
Could anyone be so cold-blooded?
Yes. I was pretty sure Vitnik could.
When the rally ended, we moved with the flow of the crowd. I waited until we were almost to the rendezvous point before I cued up the recording and handed the glasses to Molly.
“Did you get something?” she asked.
“Just watch it.”
“Oh my—” I steadied Molly as she stumbled on the broken pavement. She pulled off the glasses. “Do you understand this?”
“I think I do. Let’s get to the truck first.”
The truck rumbled up beside us and the back door rolled up. Basquiat gave us both a hand inside. Rebe closed the door as soon as we were in.
“Anything?” Mr. Chambliss asked.
“Maybe.” I expanded the screen. The president sprang to life on the wall, the truth meter displayed in the top left corner.
“…the Russians hit us with a cyberattack—”
Murmurs and exclamations filled the tiny space as the needle jumped.
“Listen to this next one,” I said.
“Too late to stop them—”
The cab went silent.
“I don’t understand,” Basquiat said. “She didn’t try to stop them? That makes no sense.”
I looked at Mr. Chambliss, who was perfectly still except for his eyes, which were tracking left to right and back again, like he was watching something the rest of us couldn’t see.
“Mr. Chambliss?” I said. “Am I reading this right?”
“Home run, Sam, Molly. Grand slam.” He patted my shoulder. “Holy crap.”
“What?” Rebe said. “What’s so amazing?”
Mr. Chambliss looked around, spotted his water bottle, and took a long drink. “Sam?”
“The Black Monday cyberattack happened a month before the election. Vitnik was behind in the polls. When Russia attacked and the economy crashed, voters rallied
around Vitnik, the ex-general, even though she’d had a crap first term. They figured she’d keep us safe.”
Mr. Chambliss shook his head. “Hard to believe. She purposely left us open to that attack. She threw the whole country under the bus to get reelected.”
“No wonder she’s trying to kill us,” Basquiat said.
Rebe stared down at her phone, like she was dying to put it to good use. “We have to get this out there.”
“We have to get the truth app out there. No one’s going to believe this without one.” I turned to Mr. Chambliss. “We have to get production under way.” All this suffering because Vitnik had wanted to get reelected? Because she wanted to keep her theme park running and her applesauce selling? That was just sick.
“I don’t see how we do that while we’re running for our lives,” Mr. Chambliss said.
I picked up the walkie-talkie sitting beside an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. “Mom?”
“What’s up?” she answered.
“I want everyone to hear this. I understand it’s risky, but we need to get production under way now. Today.” I caught Basquiat’s eye. He nodded.
“We’ll talk about this once we’re safe.”
“No, Mom. I’m sorry, but no. We need to find a place where we can set up production. Then we need to get in touch with this distributor and convince her to bankroll us. We need magnets, coil—”
“Sam, if I have to, I’ll die to make this happen, but I won’t watch you die. We have Vitnik, the entire U.S. Army, and a few hundred million gun-toting citizens after us.”
“They’re after us because Vitnik doesn’t want truth apps out there. We need to get tons of them out there, and for that we need a factory, and an army to protect that factory, so Mr. Chambliss is going to need to crank out supervets while we crank out truth apps—”
“If I could make a suggestion.” Mr. Chambliss was looking at a 3-D map of the East Coast on his phone. He tapped a point on the map. “Mineral Point, Pennsylvania. Home of the Mineral Point Home for Disabled Veterans.” Mr. Chambliss closed the map. “I’ll have to work quietly. Identify a few anti-Vitnik types from their social media posts and peel them away, then snowball from there.”
The Future Will Be BS Free Page 13
