“To headquarters for diagnostic tests.”
My body froze. What if they know about last night? What if something happened to my tracker when Harlow and Troy were playing around? I hadn’t noticed anything unusual until now. Maybe I’d missed a warning sign. Fear tore through me. I didn’t want to go through tracker tests.
“Hold on a minute. You’re not taking my daughter anywhere. I know you have tests you can run here.”
“Sir, it’s best if we do these tests at the lab.”
“You can do the tests here.” Dad crossed his arms and firmly planted himself in the doorway even though his thin frame didn’t block much of it.
“We can do them here but—”
“Then do it,” Dad said.
“Sir, it’s not recommended.”
“I don’t care. She’s my daughter, not yours. Get out your kit and do it.” Dad waited silently while the guard shifted his weight. I knew from experience if it came to a battle of wills, Dad could outlast anyone. “Unless you want me to report you for protocol violation.”
“Fine,” huffed the head agent. “Take her into the kitchen.” He disappeared out the front door, muttering something about government employees.
“Dad?”
“Just do what they say, and they’ll be out of here quickly,” Dad whispered in my ear as he followed me into the kitchen.
Thank goodness for Dad’s knowledge of tracker diagnostics. If my tracker had gone offline last night, I would have been screwed. The agent grasping my arm shoved me into a wooden chair at our kitchen table. My parents stood flanked by the remaining two agents, their faces etched with worry lines.
What are we waiting for? The anticipation clawed at me. The temperature in the room slowly rose with each passing tick from the clock mounted on the kitchen wall. Maybe I didn’t want to know what was coming.
Five minutes later, the head agent strode into the kitchen with a black kit. He unzipped it on the table. Five syringes with colored liquids and several other ominous silver and black instruments gleamed up at me. My lunch threatened to make a reappearance.
The head authority paced the kitchen. “When did you notice your tracker wasn’t functioning?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t.” I tried to remain neutral on the outside, but my insides were freaking out. I blinked twice again, trying another search, but nothing appeared in my vision. While having all the apps minimized was usually relaxing, it was now the source of my nightmare. If my tracker never came back online, would they have to perform brain surgery to replace it?
“How could you not realize your tracker was offline? Hasn’t your head felt a little empty?”
“No. I was on the network a little bit ago but shut off most the major functions to watch the news.” Maybe the agent was right. Maybe all the minimalist function stuff Dad always babbled about had made me miss something. But Dad had taught me that just because I had a tracker didn’t mean I should use it all the time. He always told me it wasn’t wise to solely depend on one thing. “What if one day it’s not there?” he’d asked which made no sense. He helped build the tech it’s not like it was going anywhere.
But I knew the truth. It was his way of grasping on to the quiet Shabbats he’d had as a kid. Ever since he’d had the tracker installed, he’d lost the ability to totally unplug. The blinking lights and minimized critical functions never fully went away. It was impossible to turn off a tracker. I’d never experienced a tech-free Shabbat. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to, either.
I respected his new way of observance, reducing his tracker to the least possible function allowed. Even though using trackers in any capacity on Shabbat was a complete violation of his faith in Judaism. At least that was what he believed. There was a big disagreement in the Jewish community about trackers and how to properly observe Shabbat with them.
The agent’s suspicious expression told me he saw right through my weak lie, even though I wasn’t lying. Most teens treated their trackers like another limb—always multitasking. I was an anomaly. And telling him I was Jewish would only further complicate things. Jewish beliefs didn’t mix well with trackers, and anything that challenged the tech was a threat.
“These things don’t just happen. Were you tampering with your tracker?”
I shook my head as last night’s antics replayed in my mind. To stave off his concern, I quickly added, “It rebooted a few times, but it didn’t seem strange.” We got software updates all the time.
“Messing with your tracker is a Class A felony. Don’t you think you should have told someone it was malfunctioning?”
I opened my mouth to answer but stopped when the agent next to me raised a large syringe with blue liquid.
“How many times does she have to tell you she didn’t tamper with it? And if she didn’t, no one did. She’s not a criminal.” Dad was a few minutes shy of going nuclear on the guy.
The agent side-eyed Dad and his unreadable expression, then tapped out the bubbles on the syringe and grabbed my wrist. I yanked away, but the agent slammed my arm against the table, pinning it down.
My body shook as the agent plunged the needle into my forearm. The liquid burned up into my shoulder then through my chest until my entire body exploded with the heat of an inferno. “What are you doing?” I asked through clenched teeth. “What is that stuff?”
The agent ignored me and jammed another needle in my arm before I had time to flinch. A low whine slipped out of me as the fire burning inside me blazed even hotter. Mom lunged toward me, but the closest agent caught her arms and held her back. Her expression silently said, “I’m sorry.”
When the burning sensation dulled to a tired ache, the agent grabbed a small black box from the kit. It resembled the device Travis and Harlow had used the night before, but I knew it couldn’t be the same. He placed the device on the back of my head. The agent in charge gestured for him to continue
A moment later, a stabbing pain thrust into my head like a sharpening knife carving into a drawing pencil, tearing away the exterior and revealing the raw material beneath. As the probe punctured the back of my head, a horrifying scream started inside my mind and worked its way toward my mouth until I could no longer contain it. Tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision. The pain cycled between stabbing and throbbing.
I slumped down in the chair. My drooping eyelids made it impossible for me to blink. With each breath, my lungs fought to expand. I didn’t have the energy to panic about my lack of air supply. I could no longer express the terror building. It bottled inside me with no exit, the weight excruciating.
I could no longer see the world through my vision. I was viewing Dad through a filter—like I was watching through myself instead of actually being there. And somehow in that room full of people, I’d fallen into a lonely oblivion.
“I’m so sorry.” Dad sounded like he was in a tunnel. “Kai, it’s almost over.”
The sound of his voice saying my nickname returned me to reality. I dug my fingernails into the sides of my chair to keep from falling out of it and pulled myself upright.
“What are you doing to me?” I tried to yell at them, but it came out as a hoarse whisper.
“Jumpstarting your tracker.” The agent pulled out a third syringe with red liquid and thrust it into my upper arm. The brief sting was a pinprick in comparison to the pain I’d already endured. My father gave me a weak, apologetic smile. His expression told me the tracker restart could be a long process.
My head vibrated as the box activated. The charred taste invading my mouth made me want to vomit. The agent read his monitoring device. I silently pleaded with the agent that he end my nightmare. He didn’t notice. Instead, he kept tapping the screen and checking the device latched on to my head. He pulled out a fourth syringe with yellow liquid and lifted it behind my head. “Don’t move.”
I sucked in a breath but felt nothing. My head was numb from the initial sting. “Is it…” My vision went white. “Uh, I can’t see anything.”
“That will pass. Your tracker is rebooting after a hard reset,” said a voice from behind me.
“How long will it take?”
“A couple of minutes.”
If my stomach was any indication, I didn’t have a couple of minutes. I coughed and choked down my bile then tried to slow my breathing.
After the longest “couple of minutes” of my life, my vision slowly came into focus. I blinked several times, each flutter of my eyelids releasing some of the weight holding them down. “That’s better.” I paused to make sure that really was the case. “Is that all?”
“No.” The word snapped out of his mouth. “We need to check your functionality. Open a mental pad.”
Not wanting to cause trouble, I blinked twice. A blank form opened in the upper right-hand corner of my vision.
“Did it work?”
Afraid to speak, I nodded instead.
“Good, now compose a message.”
The best I could come up with was
K.W.: Hi.
The letters appeared on the pad, followed by
K.W.: It’s Kaya.
“Okay, now what?”
“Send the message.”
Blinking twice, I thought of Dad. The message collapsed out of my view.
Dad blinked twice. “I have her message.”
The agent checked his device then motioned to continue. “Fine, one more test. Do a search.”
The first thought that flitted across my mind was asshole. I hoped a picture of the agent would pop up, but I quickly amended my thought to vacation in case the agent was monitoring my search. I pushed the thought out onto my link to the network. Instantaneously, images of beaches and airfare deals floated across the corner of my vision. I blinked twice to clear my field of vision.
“I think you’ve put her through more than enough today. It’s time for you to leave.” Dad’s tone was firm.
The head agent opened his mouth then closed it. He waved his agents out. The two by my parents walked into the hall. The one behind me removed the device. I shivered as the object slid out of my head. The crushing pressure in my skull eased. I ran my fingers over the raw area, catching them in the damp spot where the device had latched on moments before.
“Keep an eye on that tracker. Be certain it doesn’t happen again.”
“Okay,” was all I could manage to get out. As if I had any control over it. Of course, the authorities would put the blame on me rather than admit their tech was faulty.
The head agent dipped his head. “Thank you for your time, sir. Contact us if you have any more difficulties.”
Ha! Not likely. I was sure they’d be more than happy to beat down our door again should any issues arise. They clearly had no issue invading our home to violate my personal space.
Dad walked them out. When the front door slammed, I slouched in the chair.
Mom raced toward me and wrapped me in a tight hug. I tensed to stave off the emotional break, but the tighter I squeezed my muscles, the more painful everything became. When I lost the ability to hold everything together, I collapsed in her arms, quaking.
“It’s okay. It’s all over.” Mom rubbed her hand down my back, but her touch only made me shake more.
Tracker diagnostics was the furthest thing from okay, but I appreciated Mom trying.
Dad leaned against the doorway to the kitchen. Mom pulled away and started needlessly opening cabinets as if searching for something that wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
“How could you let them do that to her?” she asked, slamming another drawer closed.
“You know I didn’t have a choice,” Dad said. “This was the least invasive option.”
They were talking about me like I wasn’t in the room, but I didn’t care. A thick fog flooded my head, making their words slur together.
And before I knew it, Mom was in my face.
“Can I get you anything? A blanket? Want me to adjust your tracker settings to combat the pain?”
I gave her an “I’m fine” expression, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“How about I make spaghetti for dinner? I know it’s your favorite.”
“Thanks, Mom, but I’ve lost my appetite. I’m going to lie down.” I couldn’t imagine what the authorities would have done if they had hauled me off like Harlow. But their invasive probing had been more than enough.
Standing up from the table, I wobbled, gave Dad a weak shrug, and stumbled down the hall past all the smiling photos of our family. Despite Jake laughing in most of them, there was nothing to laugh about now. Funny, because it was usually his laugh that could bring me out of any funk. If only I could hear it now.
Too bad the authorities couldn’t do something useful like arrest Jake for refusing to answer tracker messages. It was brutal. Jake had gone away to school and it was like he was dead instead of one state over. College might be awesome, but there was no excuse for the three-word message he’d sent me months ago.
J.W.: Miss you, Kai,
was all it said.
Thanks, Captain Obvious, for the lame attempt at endearment. Jake had never said so little in his entire life, especially not to me. And he’d never ignored me this long, either. My parents weren’t the least bit bothered by his lack of interest, some parental babble about growing up and needing his space. I didn’t buy it, but I didn’t have a way to beat down his door and make him talk to me or answer my millions of messages.
I stepped past my room and turned the knob to his bedroom door. As boring as the day he’d left it, right down to the wastebasket full of crumpled-up paper that he never let anyone throw out for him. Only Jake was allowed to decide when he was truly done with a writing project. I kicked the can, and it crashed to the ground, spilling the wadded-up paper balls onto the floor.
He wasted more paper than me trying to perfect his stories and poetry. He never quit until it was just right. And rather than erase or store his musings on the tracker network, he insisted on having a pen in his hand and a clean sheet of paper to mess up. Jake loved to create, turn something into nothing and connect dots with words. He also didn’t trust that someone wouldn’t screw with his work on the network, so his most prized projects stayed in hard copy.
I bent to the floor and picked up a crumpled wad. If his most important work was on paper, then maybe there was something here to soothe me. I unwrinkled the first ball—nothing super enlightening, just the start of a poem about water and submerging in it. I wadded it up and chucked it into the trashcan. The next paper was more discarded poetry, about a cave and the darkness within. It had much better cadence to it than the previous one. I folded it and shoved it in my pocket. If I couldn’t have him, at least I had a piece of his writing.
I grabbed another paper ball and unfurled it. It was short, a few sentences, but surprisingly addressed to me.
Kai,
I’ve tried to write this so many times. I’m not sure how to say it. I don’t know if I can, so I’m leaving you this note instead. I—
My heart raced. I what? I flipped over the paper, but it was blank. What had he been trying to say to me that he couldn’t? I flopped onto his bed and held the note to my chest. I inhaled deep, slow breaths, hoping they would stave off the sadness.
I knew he couldn’t have left without a real goodbye and no further communications. We couldn’t last one hour at school without talking. His lack of contact from college was suspicious at best. And here in my hands was the start of an answer. But why had he never finished it? The hole in my heart that was usually filled by his laughter felt like a crater.
My head throbbed and swirled with thoughts. The mystery wasn’t solved, but I had one puzzle piece. And then there was the whole separate puzzle around why my tracker malfunctioned and the authorities busted down our door.
Everything in my life was falling apart and multiple puzzles were mixed in the same box. And the one person who could always help me
sort through the mess wasn’t here when I needed him most. Jake would have had fifty different explanations for why my tracker had malfunctioned.
Of course I could always ask Dad, but that meant sitting through hours of technical mumbo jumbo just to answer a simple question. It was never worth it.
Instead, I was left in the darkness wondering if the crazy tech in the woods had anything to do with the surprise brain probing. And if Jake’s half-written note told me anything, I was on my own to solve the mystery, which was harder to swallow than all the wasted paper on the floor.
Five
I raced through the halls before school searching for Troy. I’d prefer to talk to Harlow, but he never made it to school early and was ignoring my messages. Again.
He was getting as bad as Jake, and I needed answers about Troy’s little toy. Murmurs of the robbery filled the halls rather than the usual buzz about the big game and Harlow’s epic display of defiance. I’d completely forgotten about the crime until I’d stepped into school that morning. After the visit from the agents, the news sat on the bottom of my list of priorities.
I rounded the corner toward the student lounge and crashed into some freshman. My purse fell to the ground. Pencils, pastels, Kleenex, and lip gloss scattered across the floor. Glaring at the freshman, I collected my belongings.
When I rose to my feet, I found myself face to face with the wall Jake had painted his senior project on. It was a short piece of poetry about the importance of found family over blood. Most people thought it was about some secret girl he’d been dating. But I knew the truth. Jake had important people in his life, and a secret girlfriend hadn’t been one of them. If there’d been a girl, I’d have known about her.
He never had to tell me the poem centered around his best friend, Denny, Lydia’s brother. It hinted at how Jake and I had chosen to be friends in addition to our sibling bond after the accident. I’d refused to let Jake’s worst moments keep him down, helping him find his laugh again. In return, he’d shielded me from trouble and pain, making sure I found the right solutions to every problem I faced. Now the world played a cruel trick on me with the constant reminders that our once-indestructible bond was broken—possibly beyond repair.
Tracker220 Page 4
