Tracker220

by Jamie Krakover

  Any minute the authorities would overrun our tiny wooded refuge. I hoped trekking beyond the edge of the city was too much effort for the authorities. If only I could track them like they could track us.

  I thought about the First Responder app, then blinked. A moment later, the app appeared in my vision. It was meant for emergencies, part of the tracker alert install, but it should do the trick. Besides, the situation kind of was an emergency. Tiny red circles spotted the map. They were at least a mile away. But one dot rounded a corner and doubled back in our direction. Maybe it was a coincidence. But when a second circled the block and headed toward the outskirts of town, my stomach sank. Of course the authorities had nothing better to do.

  “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one.” Wes’s counting dragged my attention from the map. I blinked twice to minimize the app.

  I grabbed Harlow’s arm and yanked with all my weight, trying to pull his hand away from his temple, but he didn’t budge. Damn his muscles. I never thought I could hate them so much.

  “Six minutes!” Wes yelled.

  The silence persisted well beyond the point of uncomfortable. When I could no longer take it, I said, “Please. I don’t want you to get caught.”

  His muscles twitched with fury, an indication there was no stopping him.

  “Six minutes, twenty-two seconds,” Wes called.

  I maximized the first responder app again. The dots had closed the gap between us and them by half.

  I tried one last plea. “Enough is enough! The agents are on their way.”

  Harlow blinked, like he was trying to understand what I’d said, then lowered his hands.

  I let out a long breath in relief.

  “And that is how you break a record.” Harlow laughed like a mental patient. “What was my final time?”

  “Six minutes and thirty-three seconds,” Wes said.

  Harlow dropped the device at Troy’s feet. “Beat that.” He spun on his heel and paraded around the circle, waving his arms in triumph. A chat with HG appeared at the bottom of my sight. I opened it and a rain of money flooded my vision with an image of a proud Harlow standing among it. Behind him, Troy’s head had been pasted on top of a snorting pig.

  I had to hand it to Harlow. He certainly had a flare for getting even.

  Some of the guys patted him on the back, but a few stood silent. I remained next to Lydia, unsure what to say to Harlow. She’d be there for me not matter what. I couldn’t believe he’d taken the stupid bet so far. Thankfully, it was over and nothing bad had happened, other than Harlow dancing like a monkey and rubbing Troy’s nose in it. Everything would be fine as long as the red dots turned around. They usually gave up when trackers popped back online.

  But they didn’t.

  Harlow abruptly stopped parading around. No, not just stopped, he froze completely. As unmoving as a boulder. What’s he doing? As the question crossed my mind, dread swirled inside. They’d gotten to his tracker, controlling his movement. He wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if he wanted to. In a matter of minutes, the woods would be crawling with authorities. My stomach dropped. Why did I have to be right?

  On cue, the beating sound of the unicopters swooshed in my ears, growing louder by the second. The small crafts’ blades blew leaves up from the forest floor. Within moments, a spotlight beamed from above.

  “Stay where you are,” boomed a voice through the speakers hanging from the unicopter’s composite frame.

  Everyone scattered. Troy scooped up the device from the ground. Grabbing Lydia’s hand, he dragged her away from the clearing.

  “Come on, Kaya.” She held her hand out to me as she ran past.

  My mind screamed run, but my heart said stay. “I can’t leave him.”

  I hated myself for following the rules to the letter. Part of me wanted to bolt, be the rebel like my friends. e worse than facing tracker diagnostics was a lecture from my dad about morality. Brain probe or not, he’d make me apologize to the authorities for wasting their time, which was infinitely more humiliating if they had to chase me. It was pretty sick if you asked me. Not like they’d apologize to me for the drive-by lobotomy.

  My friends disappeared deeper into the woods, where they’d stashed their flying crotchrockets. My breath caught in my throat. I should have run.

  I hated that Harlow made me do stupid things. I hated my moral compass more. I was too smart for illegal activity, and yet there were the authorities circling above like vultures.

  Five unicopters landed around Harlow. Four uniformed agents stood up from their seats in the small, open-aired vehicles. In one fluid movement, they ducked under the upper part of the frame, briefly balancing on the running board before their combat boots hit the ground with a thud. They marched toward Harlow, leaving the unicopter blades running on low. The fifth approached me, flipping up the visor on his black helmet. The rest of his body was covered by the black authority uniform, complete with black gloves. The glint of the silver bands on his belt was the only hint of color.

  “Miss, what happened here?”

  “I… I…” A huge lump in my throat prevented me from speaking, which was good because I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell them anything.

  “This one’s in shock. Get the kit.” The agent reached out for my arm.

  I blinked and snapped to, yanking my arm away from him. “I’m fine,” I said. “Is he going to be okay? I don’t know what happened.” Playing dumb when it came to the authorities was usually the best tactic. Which was convenient because after this stunt, enough dumb had rubbed off on me.

  “Seems like a tracker malfunction. But we need to take him in for some diagnostic tests.”

  I nodded, sweat beading on my forehead. The authorities made my skin crawl. You couldn’t argue with them. They always made you feel like you’d done something wrong, even when you hadn’t.

  “Miss, you best head home. It’s getting late.”

  I forced a quiet “okay” in response. Heaven forbid they actually offered me a ride home. But they didn’t care about anyone’s wellbeing unless it involved a malfunctioning tracker or a bribe.

  He flipped down the visor on his helmet and jogged to his vehicle.

  An agent cuffed Harlow with the silver bands. When they clicked in place, a red light flashed three times before a loud beep rang out. Harlow swallowed as his shoulders relaxed. He clenched his fists a couple times, but his feet remained planted in place.

  Two agents hauled Harlow to one of the unicopters and slammed him into the rear-facing seat before securing the arm and leg straps into the clip at his chest. An agent jumped into the remaining seat in the front. He pulled back on the stick, and the vehicle rose toward the sky. As quickly as they’d swarmed in, they were gone—leaving me alone in the woods.

  Two

  At school the next day, I sat in History of Science and Technology waiting for Harlow to arrive. Mr. Jennings droned on about our current unit—desktop computers—while the class shifted in their seats pretending to pay attention to the lecture forced onto our trackers. Images of old tech and server rooms showed up in my vision in an attempt to prove how massive computers used to be.

  Despite the lecture screens taking up large portions of our vision, most of us opened other network windows and chat apps to pass the time. It was what everyone did when they got bored. I was constantly pinging Harlow about last night and yet no answer.

  I blinked and opened yet another chat window.

  K.W.: Any word?

  I blinked again and thought of Lydia, sending the message on its way.

  An instant later a chat bubble appeared with LY. I opened it.

  L.Y.: Nope. But think I can use it as an excuse to message Troy?

  I rolled my eyes and minimized the window without responding. She wasn’t going to give that up.

  Mr. Jennings rubbed his bald head with an exasperated look on his face. He knew what was going on throughout the classroom, but he couldn’t prove the lack of attention, beyon
d the random blinking and quiet snorts. Too bad for teachers the weekday ban on tracker surfing for students didn’t pass the popular vote. Despite all the distractions, I found desktop computers intriguing.

  But class had started thirty minutes ago, and Harlow’s absence tugged at my mind and refused to let go. It was third period already. Where the hell was he?

  My lack of focus was making my tracker screens on the right side of my vision minimize at random. I hope the authorities aren’t still holding him. A message from Harlow would have been nice.

  Wes’s hand shot into the air, drawing me from the agony of my unanswered chats.

  “Yes, Wes?” Mr. Jennings asked.

  “Why would anyone want a big machine they couldn’t take with them? Who wants a whole room of computers that takes hours to respond? I can message and access the network in a split second just by thinking about it.”

  The class groaned. Wes always asked an insane amount of questions that annoyed everyone. Normally, I’d continue to tune out, tracing doodles on my palm with my finger or outlining projects in the tracker’s drawing app. Art had ended two hours ago, and I was already itching to get my hands on more paper. Drawing on the tracker network didn’t have the same rush as moving a pencil in my hand. Not to mention it was impossible with Mr. Jennings’ lecture occupying valuable real estate in my field of vision.

  But I straightened in my chair, his question piquing my interest. The satellite link to our trackers let us access information by thinking of a topic. So why didn’t the desktop computer have something similar?

  “Technology develops and changes over time,” Mr. Jennings said. “The ability to keep a personal computer in the home changed the world.” The images in my sight shifted from racks that stretched floor to ceiling to monitors that could sit on a table to even smaller handheld devices with screens. “As the internet developed, information became more readily available, but not in the way we access it today.”

  I raised my hand. Not something I usually did in class, but a question nagged me.

  “Kaya?”

  A low murmuring erupted around the room. Is everyone staring at me? I shrugged it off. “So how did we go from inconvenient machines like the computer to what we have today? I mean, why didn’t someone just think of the tracker to begin with? We could have skipped over all this other stuff.”

  “Excellent question.” Mr. Jennings smiled, like I’d given him the perfect transition. “We have to start somewhere. Sometimes bigger is easier. Computers used to take up whole rooms. When they moved to desktops, it allowed for more advanced technologies. Society always wants something faster, smaller, and more accessible. Rufus Scurry took advantage of that when he invented Tracker220. What each of you carries inside your head is one million times more powerful than a desktop computer in a fraction of the size.”

  “So desire for something better drove technology?” I asked.

  “Exactly.”

  The door swung open. Harlow strutted up the third row of chairs toward the vacant one on my left. A breath caught in my throat as I inspected him. He appeared unharmed, wearing his number forty soccer jersey and comfortable jeans with the tear in the right knee. I let out a sigh of relief.

  “Mr. Green, nice of you to finally join us.” Mr. Jennings said.

  The class snickered.

  “You should have a note, check your inbox.” Harlow replied, as his attention caught mine. He smiled as he stretched his legs underneath the chair in front of him as if last night didn’t register in his memory. God, he was hot. There was something about that jersey.

  “Hey, babe.” He blew a kiss to me, and I melted like a hot chocolate chip cookie. My lips started to curl upward as he reached across the aisle and squeezed my knee.

  Since he confirmed that he was back to normal, I could focus on other issues. Like how I’d had to walk home alone last night and barely squeaked in before curfew because of his stupid stunt. And if it weren’t for tracker maps, I would have gotten lost in the woods more than once.

  I checked the front of the room to ensure Mr. Jennings was busy teaching and no longer paying attention us. “You get arrested last night and all I get is ‘Hey, babe’?” I crossed my arms over my chest and turned sideways in my chair so I could full-on glare at him.

  He flashed his perfect white teeth. When I said nothing, he shifted in his seat. “What did you want me to do? I didn’t think they were going to haul me off. It was a stupid game.”

  “I warned you.” I faced the front of the room, pretending to pay attention to the lesson.

  “Don’t give me that. You have no idea what I’ve been through.” His shoulders slumped. I hated it when he pouted, and he knew it.

  Be strong, Kaya.

  A blinking chat bubble with HG appeared in the lower left-hand corner of my vision.

  His message better be an apology.

  But I knew that it wasn’t. Against my better judgment, I thought about the message. It expanded in a tall, thin column next to Mr. Jennings’ lecture.

  H.G.: I still feel the stabs of the needles.

  I crossed my arms. He would not win.

  H.G.: It went on for hours.

  Oh great. He’d loaded a stream-of-consciousness app.

  H.G.: I lost count of how many needles… pierced my skull.

  I clenched my teeth. It sounded horrific, but he’d done it to himself. I’d warned him. He should have listened. Then he wouldn’t have been in trouble.

  H.G.: The only thing that got me through it was knowing you were safe.

  I flinched because he hadn’t known that. Something could have happened to me on that very long walk home. He was lucky nothing had. I could have tripped and twisted my ankle in the woods. Explaining to my parents why I needed an ER visit after a night out with friends would have gotten me grounded for an eternity.

  H.G.: Knowing I’d see you again soon.

  I crossed my legs and angled my head so I couldn’t see him out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t let him think it was okay. As bad as it was, it could have been so much worse for everyone. He could have dragged me down with him.

  When he let out a long breath, turned toward Mr. Jennings, and blinked twice, my heart sank. He was actually paying attention and taking notes. He never took notes. I always sent him mine. Maybe I was being too hard on him.

  I leaned across the aisle and put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  He blinked twice again to close out the program and turned to me. But I didn’t get the usual warmth from him. His faraway expression haunted me. “There were so many.”

  I didn’t need him to finish the sentence to know he was talking about the needles again. I’d never experienced tracker diagnostic tests, but I’d heard horror stories about Global Tracking Systems. Hours of scans, poking, and prodding. He must have been terrified having to go through that by himself. I grabbed his hand.

  “Afterward, they called my dad to pick me up. By the time I got home, it was four a.m., so my dad let me sleep in.”

  That explained the lack of messages. Harlow could sleep through a bomb going off.

  “Well, that was nice of him.” I rubbed my thumb over the scab on his knuckle. His father normally wouldn’t have allowed Harlow to miss any school. The tests must have been pretty bad.

  A red light flashed three times in my sight, signaling the end of class. The lecture window closed, and I let out a breath, relieved to have my full vision back under my control.

  “Read Chapter Five for tomorrow,” Mr. Jennings called as I grabbed my purse. A homework notice appeared in the corner of my vision and would remain there until I completed it. So much for having my vision back.

  Harlow took my hand, and we followed Wes into hallway. The hallway grew silent as a million people zeroed in on us. A flurry of whispers erupted. Most kept their distance as if they might get in trouble by association. But Troy strutted toward with Lydia a half-step behind him. I guessed she was still looking for that window
to talk to him.

  “Hey, Har, how was tracker juvie?” Troy didn’t bother to stifle the laugh that erupted which was rich from the guy who’d provoked Harlow.

  Harlow squeezed my hand tighter.

  Oh God! It was way worse than I thought. “Leave him alone. He went through hell last night. No thanks to you.”

  Harlow slung his arm around my shoulder. “Totally worth it, just to see your face when I obliterated your record.”

  “This guy is a legend. It’s all anyone’s talking about.” Wes high-fived Harlow to further prove how awesome the stunt had been.

  Troy’s face twisted in a poor attempt to hide the scowl on his face. “Whatever. It shouldn’t count if you get arrested. He didn’t prove anything except how to get caught.”

  Lydia giggled and whispered something into his ear. I guessed Lydia didn’t need an excuse to talk to Troy anymore.

  “Oh, bull. You’re just pissed I had the balls to obliterate your three-second record.” Harlow shot back faster than a message on the tracker network.

  “The balls? Ha! As far as I’m concerned, I beat you. Your consolation prize was a date with the authorities and a probe.”

  A chat bomb exploded in my vision and a picture of Harlow sitting in a chair surrounded by large needles appeared when the virtual dust cleared.

  The whole hallway snickered, and Harlow tensed. I wondered how long the thought of needles would get to him.

  Troy inched closer to Harlow, but he didn’t budge. Harlow pulled his arm from around me and shoved Troy against the wall. Troy swung his fist, but Harlow ducked and Troy lost his balance, falling to the ground.

  Seriously? “Knock it off. You guys are supposed to be friends.” First the arrest and now the fighting—I was about to collapse into a puddle of nerves on the floor. With my luck, I’d get an in-school suspension for trying to break up a fight.