“Statistics show that kids who socialize face-to-face three to six hours a week have higher self-esteem,” Damon reported. “And even healthier immune systems.”
I smiled to myself. Imagine what interacting every day would do.
Mrs. Thompson’s eyes cut quickly to mine. “I’d invite Maddie to join, but . . .”
“I’m not exactly a teen role model,” I finished for her, and moved my glass to the side so a waiter could set down my dinner entrée. Everyone at the table turned to look at me.
“Grounded, as usual, aren’t you?” Mrs. Thompson asked.
I smiled politely and asked my mom to pass the water pitcher. “Actually, I’m not. I came home willingly.”
“After you broke out of jail?” Paul snapped.
I lightly bit my tongue to force myself to pause. “Detention centers aren’t jails, Paul,” I corrected him. “One of these days you’ll find out what’s really going on inside them.” I calmly poured water into my glass and offered to fill up glasses around me. “I can leave here any time I want,” I stated. “I’m choosing to be here.”
That ended the conversation. My mom’s eyes flickered toward mine across the table, her way of saying she was on my side. I concentrated on eating my dinner.
“How was the detention center?” Paul asked a couple of minutes later, with the nerve to smile.
“A blast,” I said, and tugged a piece of bread apart, pretending it was Paul’s head detaching from his body. I pulled my napkin over my lap and didn’t meet his eyes. I looked at his forehead instead, into that small little programmed brain of his. “I met some really amazing people who changed my life, and then we set it free, as you may have heard. So, thank you for the philanthropic opportunity.” I smiled widely.
“You didn’t free anybody,” he said. “It’s just on a lockdown, and the majority of people support those centers. The kids will all have to go back. You think you’re all a bunch of saints changing the world. All you do is cause a little trouble. You get a two-second mention in the news, and you think it’s going to make a difference. But you don’t change anything. You just make a mess for us to clean up.”
I glared at Paul, and his eyes trailed down my outfit.
“You look like a hooker. Where did you get that dress?”
I gritted my teeth. “Your mom loaned it to me.”
I looked away but I heard Paul shift in his seat. I winced, afraid he was going to pull a gun on me.
He leaned so close that I could feel his warm breath on my neck. “Don’t think for a second that I’ve given up on arresting Solvi.”
I took a sip of water from the long-stemmed crystal glass and looked over at him. “I certainly hope not.”
“If Justin ever crosses my path, I have personalized handcuffs waiting for him. I won’t let up, Maddie. And after I arrest Justin, you’re next.”
I looked away. Justin would be honored to hear this. But instead of encouraging the argument, I let it go. I didn’t bother giving Paul the satisfaction of looking annoyed. After all, I had been through enough to know how to beat people mentally. If a psychological mastermind at a detention center couldn’t break me, there was no way Paul could come close. So, I tried not to think. I reminded myself that sometimes the best thing you can do is to stop thinking and be aware. Absorb the now. Sometimes being aware is your greatest weapon. People don’t know how to do it anymore.
Becky excused herself to use the bathroom, and I watched her walk across the expansive floor. I looked around at the quiet atmosphere, masked by loud classical music. I watched people awkwardly try to be human.
After the entrées were taken away, before dessert was served, the emcee climbed the stairs to the stage and addressed the audience. He was old and cupped the microphone in a shaky hand, but his voice came out clear and strong and caught everyone’s attention.
“Tonight we have two important announcements. First, this evening marks the last face-to-face benefit event. To make it more convenient for everyone to attend, we will continue this annual event virtually from now on.”
He paused so the crowd could applaud his announcement. I joined in, clapping my hands loudly and thinking, Too bad there won’t be a DS program to celebrate next year.
“Tonight,” he continued, “we have something special to share with you. Before we hear from Kevin Freeman, the honored designer of DS, we will play a video that celebrates digital school’s great achievements over the last decade. So, here it is: Digital School’s Greatest Hits.”
Fantastic, I thought. As if the evening couldn’t get any worse.
He stepped to the side of the stage, and the lights dimmed overhead. Everyone was quiet as a screen along the entire front wall snapped on. A few seconds went by, and someone in the audience coughed. The screen buzzed and crackled and snapped off. The emcee stood at the edge of the stage and looked around the room with concern. That’s when I knew something was off.
The speakers crackled and the screen turned on again, and I pressed my hand over my mouth with surprise when Clare’s image appeared. She was sitting on a stool, and the background was a gray curtain. Soft light lit the space, like a professional photography studio. Paul heard me shift in my seat and glanced over at me.
Clare smiled and waved at the camera. “Thanks for meeting face-to-face tonight. You all look beautiful, and you smell fantastic.” I pinched my lips between my teeth. People in the audience adjusted themselves in their seats and looked around.
“The DS Dropouts took the liberty of interviewing a few students enrolled in your program. Here are our thoughts. We thought you should know, since this system affects us more than it’s affecting you.”
The image switched to a girl, young, probably in her early teens. Just like Clare, she was shot in front of the gray backdrop.
Am I happy? Well, according to my social sites, I rank in the top eighty-fifth percentile of my peers when it comes to popularity and group involvement. I had eighty thousand social invites this month! I had more than a hundred thousand messages. I don’t have the time to not be happy.
People looked around the room with confused expressions. My dad’s eyes were pointed dead center at me. I looked back at the screen, where another teenage girl was being interviewed.
According to my online dating program, my boyfriend and I are completely in love. We’ve passed eight out of our ten relationship compatibility exams. We scored nine point three out of ten for a match rate. He’s already proposed, but we haven’t met in person yet. I’m waiting for our next exam, which is a DNA study to genetically screen for our kids. There’s no point in meeting face-to-face until we pass all of our exams. I don’t want to get emotionally involved until our numbers score high. What would be the point?
The image switched to a young man, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, still carrying baby fat in his cheeks.
Do I have pets? Yeah, we have a dog. I think.
A couple of people in the audience coughed and cleared their throats. This time the speaker was a girl whose face was sad and serious.
My little brother is two years old. He spends about twelve hours a day online. They’ve made virtual daycare really interactive. He loves it. It’s easier on my parents, because they have so many online communities to get back to.
The polished ballroom floor squeaked against chairs scooting back. My dad was already on his feet, followed by Damon and Paul. People moved around on the stage, probably trying to cut the sound or the feed, but it kept playing and my eyes were mesmerized, my ears embracing each word.
Molly’s image filled the screen:
I blink twenty thousand times a day. That’s the only way to avoid looking at some kind of a screen these days—to close my eyes completely.
The camera zoomed in now, so faces filled the screen and you had to look at their eyes, into the depth of them, until you could see light reflecting back.
The first full face was a young girl’s.
I haven’t experienced violenc
e or unhappiness, but I haven’t experienced love either. There aren’t any roller-coaster rides in this life. It’s really entertaining and convenient and safe, but it’s all pretty flat, like a train that just circles in one predictable loop. I guess that’s the problem. There are never any crashing lows, but there are never any insane highs. It isn’t much of a ride.
Gabe was interviewed next. Seeing him made me homesick, like I was staring at family I hadn’t seen in years.
I want to meet somebody the way my parents did. Face-to-face. They didn’t get to know each other through messages or stalking each other’s profiles. They met in person. They got to know each other in person. That seems so much more exciting to me, and more intimate and mysterious and all the things I guess a relationship should be. I must be pretty old-fashioned. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and when I decide to date someone, I’m not going to ask for her number or her online contacts. I’m not going to get to know her through a screen. I’m only going to get to know her in person. I want to work harder to know her. I want her to make the same effort to know me. Aren’t we worth it?
A boy’s eyes filled the screen, so dark they were nearly black.
You think DS is safe? Well, I don’t think it’s safe at all. There’s something really cowardly about it. Everyone’s anonymous. You’re always hiding. You can backstab anyone you want. You can be as mean as you want. You never have to see the hurt inflicted on someone else. And that’s become okay. Yeah, DS has its advantages, but it opened up a ton of disadvantages. I’m bullied almost every day. Random nobodies can spread lies about me. And there’s no point in trying to turn these people in because they’ll just set up a new profile with a new name and do it all over again. You’ve made it easy to be mean. You’ve brought out the worst in us. People have more freedom to express whatever they want, but there’s no respect, because they don’t have to feel responsible for what they say. They’re anonymous. But it sucks being the person on the other end because you can’t fight back. You can’t defend yourself. If you’re going to say something mean to me, at least be bold enough to say it to my face. I’m afraid to leave my house because it seems like the world is full of jerks. Man, we are so disconnected. That’s what DS should stand for. A disconnected society.
Faces poured over the screen like a waterfall, so fast you could hardly see them. Clare’s voice spoke around us.
This is the paradise you all have created. What do you think about your system now?
The video snapped off and we were met with silence, the kind of silence that hits you like a crash, like cymbals or fireworks or a window smashing. Silence that leaves you shaken. The lights turned on and people sat in their seats, still staring at the screen. The emcee was fumbling with the microphone, trying to turn the sound back on. People were murmuring now, starting to talk for the first time tonight.
The overhead lights flickered and the energy in the room shifted with the lights. Chairs brushed back against the floor, and people were panicking.
The volume snapped on. “We apologize for this interruption,” the emcee said. “Please stay seated and stay calm. Our network lines have been hacked. This broadcast is nothing more than contraband by the DS protesters. We’ll be under way with the benefit video in a few minutes.”
Someone grabbed my arm, and the next thing I knew, a security guard was hauling my mother and me out of the dining hall toward an exit sign next to the stage.
“What’s going on?” my mom asked behind me.
“It’s just a safety precaution,” the guard told her. “In case things get escalated in there.” The guards took us down a long hallway until it reached a dead end and told us to stay there until they came back for us. My mom crossed her arms and I could feel her stare. She didn’t have to say it.
“This has nothing to do with me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t leave my seat the entire time,” I said, and pointed back toward the ballroom. “I promise you, I didn’t know this was going to happen. But don’t you agree with some of it? You would have said some of those exact same things.”
“Maddie—”
We were interrupted by one of the security guards. “Your husband needs you,” he said to my mom, and then he glanced at me.
“Stay put,” he said firmly.
My mom followed him through a door that led backstage, and it swung closed behind them.
Stay put, I thought. He obviously didn’t know me. An orange exit sign loomed at my side, tempting me. I needed to know.
Chapter Three
I opened the door and a cool wind pushed against my dress. I held my hands up to move my hair out of my face, and there he was, sitting on his motorcycle in the alley outside the hotel. His helmet was in his lap, and his dark hair reflected the moonlight creeping through thin wisps of clouds. My stomach twisted in a dozen directions at once, but he looked calm, like he expected me. His eyes trailed up my dress and settled on my face, and his eyebrows arched with surprise. He whistled through his teeth.
“Look at you,” Justin said.
I had momentarily forgotten about my hair and now ran my hands through it.
“Nice dress,” he said with a smile. His smile made me smile. I kept smiling, like an idiot—I couldn’t help it. I forgot how wonderful it felt to stare into eyes that accepted you and trusted you and loved you.
“You really want to piss your dad off, don’t you?” he asked.
“Apparently, so do you,” I pointed out. “You organized this?”
He grinned at me in this mysterious way. Some people come with a few chips and cracks, and even though they might be the strongest people you’ve ever met, there will be things about them that you can’t quite connect. There was something amazing and extremely frustrating about it.
“Didn’t you expect me to make an appearance?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Great video,” I said.
“I think we adequately pissed off the close-minded.”
“Is that your monthly goal?” I asked him.
“That’s my hourly goal. Isn’t it yours?”
I thought back to all the glares people had given me inside. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hard to stand up straight in there. And it’s not because of these shoes,” I clarified. “People hate me.”
“You just have to grow a shell,” Justin said. And that’s exactly what I didn’t want to do. I wanted to live light, not with a heavy shield around me all the time. Justin had a shell that took me a year to pry through.
I looked around the empty alley. “How did you know I’d come out here?”
“I’m friends with those security guards,” he said, and nodded toward the door. “They’re buying me a little time right now.”
I should have figured. “Nice connection.”
“How do you think I got in last year?”
“They told me to stay put,” I pointed out.
Justin smiled. “I told them to say that. I figured it was all the encouragement you needed to walk out here.”
I nodded because he was right. “You have me figured out.”
His smile disappeared and his eyes grilled me. “You’re impossible to figure out.”
We were both quiet for a few seconds. I thought about last year, how I left with him and we spent the night together. How much that night had changed me. How I had never wanted to go back to my old life again. Tonight wasn’t any different. I still wanted to run away.
A pipe stemming out of a grate in the hotel siding pumped steam into the street, and it floated into a thin cloud between us. It made me feel like I was drifting, like neither of us was anchored in this place, like we were just floating.
He studied me. His hands rested on his knees, and his feet started to bounce on the ground. I walked up closer to him, until we were close enough to touch. His feet shifted like he was about to stand up. He reached out and grabbed my hand, tentatively, like he was afraid I’d snap it back. He’d been car
eful not to touch me ever since I escaped from the DC, as if he thought he might break me. He looked down at my hand, lying on top of his, and his fingertips curled around mine, slowly, like a flower closing in on itself. He was acting like he shouldn’t be touching me, which was unnerving, since that was all I wanted him to do.
“You didn’t say goodbye.” His eyes dimmed when he said this. He looked genuinely hurt.
“I thought you’d all understand. Obviously, Scott didn’t,” I said. “He’s mad at me.”
“Scott’s mad at everybody,” Justin said. “It’s part of his charm.” He looked up at me. “He’s also pretty sensitive about loyalty.”
This word hurt, as if he were jabbing his fingers between my ribs. But only one thing really mattered. “Do you question me?”
He blew out a long breath. His hand trailed up my arm, all the way to my shoulder strap, and it made goose bumps rise on my skin. He pulled his hand away, and something in his eyes bothered me.
“No. I know you have your reasons.” He paused, like he was waiting for me to list them. I knew he had doubts.
“I want to figure out what’s going on with my dad. I want to see what he’s up to. And there’s another reason,” I added, thinking of my mom and how I felt like she needed me more than anyone right now. I knew I couldn’t leave her.
He nodded slowly, like I had just affirmed something. “I get it,” he said.
I met his eyes with surprise. “You do?”
“At first I was surprised, but I thought about it and you’re right. I can’t really blame you.”
I felt a chill and hugged my arms over my chest. “Wait. Right about what?”
“You made the right decision. I told you over and over not to get involved with me, that I wasn’t worth the trouble. I’m glad you finally came to your senses.”