Awaken

by Katie Kacvinsky

  “Don’t talk about your mom that way,” Pat responded. Before Clare and Noah could throw out a reply, I grabbed Clare’s hand and pulled her toward the door.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I voted. “Nino’s sounds . . . interesting.”

  “There’s a hundred-dollar cover,” Pat said as he continued to type on his phone.

  “A hundred dollars?” Clare and I said together.

  “It’s the hottest club in L.A., a hundred’s cheap,” Noah said. “I’ll treat. It’s my idea anyway.”

  “For that price, it better come with model escorts,” I said.

  Pat turned off the wall screen and grabbed a jacket. “You won’t be disappointed,” he promised.

  The four of us piled into a ZipLimo and headed downtown to Third and La Cienega. Noah insisted the trick to getting celebrity treatment in L.A. was arriving in style. ZipLimos were in limited supply in the city, but Pat knew a promoter who reserved one for us.

  We swiped our fingerprints before the shuttle took off. My dad had set up a temporary fake profile connected to my fingerprint so police wouldn’t be able to track my movements, but my father still had constant access to my whereabouts. I was still on his leash.

  Clare ran her hand along the leather upholstery, and blue interior lights cast an electric glow inside the tight space. I leaned back in the seat and absorbed the smooth acceleration of the car. I was learning I needed motion in my life. I craved it, as if the movement outside of me charged movement inside. It reminded me I was more than a stationary object. I had legs for a reason. I wasn’t meant to be molded to a chair.

  Pat sat next to me, and his jacket sleeve brushed against my arm. I scooted over to give him room, or maybe because I felt safer putting space between us. In the four weeks I’d been in L.A., I’d spent most of my time with Pat. He was one of my only friends in town and even though I had my brother, Joe, he embraced the digital life—he worked, exercised, socialized, and dated on his computer. I’d seen him for only a few hours since I’d been in town, and I lived with him. But living had become so computerized, we rarely interacted in person. Even though we were divided only by three-inch-thick walls, we were living in separate worlds that clashed when they connected, like purple on red.

  “You should move down here,” I told Clare. I missed her energy. She was the friendship equivalent of a shot of caffeine.

  “I have to get back in a few days. I have a date,” she said with a bored expression, like a date was up there with vacuuming as her idea of fun. “I don’t know why I bother.”

  “Which site are you using?” Noah asked.

  “I prefer masochistic dating,” Clare said. “You know, face-to-face. I met this guy at a coffee shop.”

  Noah whistled through his teeth. “Impressive.”

  Clare shrugged. “It beats those awkward online interview dates any day,” she said.

  We all shuddered at this. My parents didn’t allow me to date, but I knew there were hundreds of match sites. They claimed they could pair you with your soul mate in thirty days or less, or your money back. They could go as far as genetic profiling, so you could see blueprints of your future kids. We wanted fast love. Drive-through dating. And we got it.

  “I refuse to use dating sites,” Clare announced. “Technology can now bring us love for six hundred dollars?”

  “A lot of my friends like them,” Pat said.

  “It’s because it’s set up like a video game,” Clare said. “You have to make it to level ten before you can virtually meet. And you have to rack up points in order to advance to the next dating stage.”

  Pat smiled. “Exactly. It’s like playing online soccer, except I’m trying to score with a girl.”

  “Romantic,” I said. “Don’t worry, Clare. Someday you’ll get swept off your feet.”

  “More likely by a train than a guy,” she said with a shrug, as if this were her fate and she’d already accepted it. “We haven’t heard from you in a while,” Clare mentioned to Pat. I knew what she was referring to. Since he had moved to L.A. to help manage Noah’s band, he’d dropped his friends back in Oregon.

  Pat shrugged. “I’m taking a break from all that,” he said.

  “You’re not going to fight digital school anymore?” I asked.

  His hazel eyes met mine. “It’s not the most dire concern in my life.”

  “Not when there’s excellent music to produce,” Noah added.

  “So you’re just giving up?” Clare asked.

  Pat flashed her an annoyed frown. “No, I’m just not that dedicated. I have other goals besides racing to save America’s youth from a world of digital prison,” he said. Pat always had a sarcastic side, especially when he was in the presence of me and Clare, but he’d never spoken against fighting DS before.

  “What if Justin needs your help?” I pressed.

  Pat checked a message on his phone. “I’m not off the schedule completely. You can call me a seasonal employee. I help out when we’re understaffed.” He met my eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, DS sucks, but now that I’m out of it, it doesn’t seem as bad. School’s just a part of life. You survive the monotonous boredom, you get out and move on. It’s like your mandatory torture years.”

  “That’s not why we’re fighting it,” Clare argued.

  Noah’s eyes were skeptical. “Hey, rebel twins, a lot of people actually like digital school. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  He looked from me to Clare and laughed at our identical frowns.

  “DS is easy,” Noah said. “You don’t have to waste time getting places. You don’t have to put up with all the drama being face-to-face creates. You don’t even have to get out of bed. I spent my entire high school career in my pajamas.”

  “Thrilling,” I said. “There’s a word for not getting out of bed all day. It’s depression.”

  “You have more time to do the things you want,” Noah argued. “It’s not that bad.”

  “It’s a trap,” I said. “People don’t know how to exist outside of it, that’s the problem. People might not be experiencing drama, but they’re also not experiencing anything else. It’s taking over our entire culture.”

  “Hey, Debby Downers, can we talk about something fun?” Pat asked. “Besides, Maddie, it’s not like you’re committed to fighting DS,” he reminded me. Just as he spoke, the limo turned the corner onto Third Street, and a neon billboard sign for Club Nino blinked down at us. A long line stretched along the side of the building, and the crowd turned to gape at the limo when we slowed down in front of the entrance. Some people were already poised to take videos, hands up and phones ready. Noah opened the door and we were greeted by a short bouncer in a suit and tie who held a scanner in his hand like a gun ready to fire at anyone who dared question his guest list.

  “Bouncers,” Pat mumbled under his breath. “They think they own the city.”

  The bouncer asked us if we had reservations, and judging from his deadpan expression, we could have shown up hovering in a spacecraft and he wouldn’t have been impressed.

  I started to shake my head but Pat announced we needed four seats.

  “We’re at capacity,” the bouncer said. “You’ll have to get in the back of the line.”

  Pat shrugged. “All right, if you want to turn down a member of the Managers. It might hurt your image, but that’s your call.”

  A few girls in the front of the line had already recognized Noah and started yelling his name. When he turned to wave he was greeted with shrieks and a swarm of lights from camera phones. A dozen glittery dresses bounced up and down.

  “Come on,” Pat said, and pulled at Noah’s sleeve. “Isn’t your music label throwing a party tonight?”

  The bouncer’s tight frown relaxed. “Wait, let me see what I can do,” he said, his tone changing from snobbery to flattery in less than a second. “I might have a few VIP seats open.” He typed on his screen, mumbled orders into his earpod, and, after scanning our fingerprints, ushered us thr
ough a side door and then up a flight of metal stairs. Noah turned and waved once more to his fans and was answered with shrieks so loud it made Clare cringe next to me.

  “I think the trick to getting celebrity treatment is to actually be a celebrity,” I told her as we walked inside.

  A security guard led us down a narrow hallway. The ceiling lights were a frosty yellow and I looked down at a see-through plastic floor, lit up underneath with colorful rotating lights. Techno music seeped through the walls, and bass pulsated the ground. I grinned and thought maybe the hundred-dollar cover charge was worth it.

  When we pushed open a heavy door into the main dance room, my smile quickly vanished.

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  About the Author

  KATIE KACVINSKY worked in the entertainment industry and as a high school English teacher before deciding to write full time. She currently lives in Corvallis, Oregon.