Morgan Abrams
~12 hours until Lockdown
As soon as Riley’s out of the picture, you’re sick. Or at least, sick enough to need to run to the nearest restroom, just down the hallway from the school entrance, arm braced against the toilet stall. Ready and waiting and regretting ever eating anything. Nausea churns at the back of your throat with an all-consuming burn. Nothing happens. Not at first. Not until you force it to happen, just to get it over with. Just so you can move on with your day rather than waste another minute in literal purgatory.
You buy some water from a vending machine afterwards to rinse the taste out of your mouth. Already feeling better. See? It’s fine. You put the guys laughing at your expense out of your head. It’s. Fine.
Technically speaking, it isn’t like you’re not allowed on school grounds or anything like that. Seeing as, technically speaking again, you were never officially charged with anything, or even expelled, merely moved to ‘a personalized home-learning regimen better tailored to suit the student’s unique educational needs.’
In practice, what this means is that once you slip past the pack of boys exchanging vaping tips right outside the restrooms, you’re on your own. For awhile, you’d spend all day shut up in your own room; these days, in exchange for actually doing your school work, you get to spend the rest of the morning hanging around the lobby of the 50th floor transit hub. Today’s chore is vocab games in Spanish and French on your foldable tablet before switching to reading another chapter of your chemistry textbook.
Rivka’s personal AI, named A* (A–Star, yes, like the black hole) has filled in as your teacher. Or lesson planner at any rate: assigning coursework, grading tests, sending you an unending series of reminders on your phone. Rivka has complained more than once about how expensive the home-schooling program was.
On the upside, as long as A* can see that you’re still doing the work, no one seems to care where exactly you’re doing it.
Once the morning rush dies down, the transit lobby for this floor of the tower is pretty quiet and it’s one of the few public places in this entire block of the tower that has decent outside windows. The best seats are the ones under the massive outer pane. Can curl up and watch the Boston skyline resolve itself as the morning mists burn away. Mostly skyscrapers here, though nothing else is as tall or massive as the other towers of the arcology.
Past that, there’s the seawall, like a line of grey cement marking the edge of the city. On the other side of that line, the crumbling ruins of flooded buildings stick out of the water. If you look long enough, you can make out tiny boats bobbing up and down in the bay, and amongst them plenty of construction cranes in the seemingly unending process of rebuilding the city.
TV screens blaring the news frame either side of the window. Another exposé on the rise of vigilante would-be ‘superheroes’ up and down the east coast. A brief image of Crow flits across the scene, interspliced with a dozen other figures in a grab-bag of clothing styles along the scale of form versus function.
You wonder what it’s like to have a useful glitch like Crow’s electricity. Something that would let you actually be somebody cool or admirable. Even if you told other people about your telepathy, it’d just mark you as even more of an outsider. Most telepaths you hear about in the media are like, secret police types.
Not that you’re bitter about it or anything.
You’re too young to be jaded. The therapist said so.
The floor under your feet shudders as a tram pulls into station, stopping briefly to let a handful of people on or off before pulling away again. Every fifteen minutes, like clockwork.
You can only follow the track so far, before it curves into the neighboring tower. The arcology is split into a circle of six semi-freestanding skyscrapers, with a seventh in the middle housing the main offices for Praxis. Three of the towers, including your immediate neighbor, remain unfinished.
You don’t visit the ground floor station much, way too busy and a worse window view, but there’s another tram station down on the ground floor that joins up with the Boston subway system. Pretty much the only practical way to get around the sea-walled sections of the city that Praxis has reclaimed.
No one bothers you as you work through the assigned lessons with your headphones on. An old Ysme Wonder album provides a background track; acoustic guitar interlaced with distortion and intentional audio glitches. You’ve listened to this album often enough you could mute the sound while humming along and still be right on beat a minute later.
After what feels like hours of metaphorically slamming your head into a wall while trying to solve chemistry equations on your tablet, your eyes start to wander around the atrium. The transit hub is already filling up with school kids again. Maybe you’ll hear from Riley soon. If not, you’’ll have to make your way to somewhere less crowded. The gym maybe.
Rivka decided you needed to work on your fitness and as much as you had been determined to hate the whole experience – the idea of becoming… muscular fills you with a thrumming nausea – somewhere in the past couple of months an excuse to spend on hour or two without thinking had come to feel like a reprieve. As long as you can avoid anyone from school, at least.
You shift position, stiff joints reporting complaints about your poor posture. Suddenly self-conscious about how you’ve sprawled yourself upside down across a row of chairs. When did that happen?
You check your messages. There’s nothing from Riley, just a notice that the next chapter of Super Nova was posted and another nudge from A*, reminding you that it’s the next American History unit you’re supposed to be starting today, not chemistry.
Great. Wish you had caught that before you wasted the whole day on it.
Chattr pings again, the notification replacing the one from A*.
Riley. Thank god.
–Chattr Log–
RileyTheMagnificent: Yo
Centimorgan: yo-yo?
RileyTheMagnificent: Dork
Centimorgan: actually did you know
Centimorgan: yo-yo ma was one of the most famous cellists of the turn of the 21st century
RileyTheMagnificent: That is not a real name
Centimorgan: it’s chinese, don’t be racist
RileyTheMagnificent: *I’m* chinese, I can’t be racist
Centimorgan: not sure it works like that
RileyTheMagnificent: Where do you even get this stuff
RileyTheMagnificent: Whatever, not important rn
RileyTheMagnificent: Get ur butt over here
Centimorgan: ?
Centimorgan: what’s up?
RileyTheMagnificent: Uuuuuuuh…
RileyTheMagnificent: Work
Centimorgan: work.
Centimorgan: you really suck at the whole secrecy thing
Centimorgan: you know that right
Centimorgan: read those articles I sent you already
Centimorgan: this is like
Centimorgan: priority alpha, i’m begging
RileyTheMagnificent: Okay!!! Geeze
RileyTheMagnificent: Are you coming or not?
RileyTheMagnificent: C’mon
RileyTheMagnificent: I NEED your muscle on this one
RileyTheMagnificent: Your big manly muscles
Centimorgan: gross
Centimorgan: stop
RileyTheMagnificent: Sorry
Centimorgan: it’s fine
Centimorgan: where
RileyTheMagnificent: Duh, the usual place
Centimorgan: awesome
Centimorgan: i love garbage
RileyTheMagnificent: Now who sucks at secrecy? :P
Centimorgan: thinking emoji
RileyTheMagnificent: Dork!!
RileyTheMagnificent: I can hear you rolling your eyes at me from all the way over here
Centimorgan: fine, let me rephrase
Centimorgan: /s i love garbage
RileyTheMagnificent: Is that /sincere or /sarcastic
Centimorgan: yes
RileyTheMagnificent: Smartass
***
“Had another three today looking for answer keys by the by, so here’s your split,” Riley says as she taps her phone to yours.
You mumble a thanks and confirm the transaction completes before putting your phone away. “So… w-w-what’s this um, this big job?”
Riley avoids looking in your direction as the two of you walk. She steps around a half-spilled bag of garbage someone just left on the floor of the hallway, kicking an empty can along the floor. Can feel the outlines of her trying to put together what to say ahead of time, which is unusual enough to start making you nervous.
“You know, it’s funny?” Riley’s voice lilts upward even as she continues not looking at you. “Everyone loves to have their fun but when they need help they never like, compare notes and figure out the assholes are getting up-charged.”
“Uh– Riley?”
“Like, I’m not sure the teachers even care? I was trading printouts with fucking Jacob Kensington right in front of Mr. Young and he looked me straight in the eyes and kept drinking his coffee without a word. Like, what’s up with that? Ugh this place always reeks.”
She waves her hand in front of her face, a vain effort to chase the smell away, the stench of the garbage dump reaching all the way down the hall. At least her implant issues from the morning seem to be gone.
“Riley.” You pull at her sleeve. “G-g-gonna fill me in or what?”
She flinches, slowing down her pace she watches you out of the corner of her eye as she talks, “Look – I know you’re gonna be mad at me, so let’s just get this part out of the way first–”
“Great start.”
“So.” Deep breath. “Brayden approached me after math–”
“No.” You stop dead. “No no no.”
“At least hear me out, okay?” Riley spins around and you realize with a sinking dread that she’s been mentally rehearsing this conversation the entire walk here.
“He– he g-got me arrested!”
To say the least of it.
“It’s not like you– I mean–” She winces, hastening to add, “like, it’s not like he was trying to set you up or something, right?”
You cross your arms. Hands balling into fists as the tension floods through you again.
“Look, he was telling me how sorry–”
“I d-d-don’t care how– how f-f-fucking sorry he is! His fucking new b-b-best friends – They fucking– Jason b-b-broke my arm Riley!”
Riley holds up a hand, silencing you. “Moumentai dude. I know, god okay, I know? Look, I’m not saying we all become best friends again and make bestie bracelets and sleepovers or whatever. But that wasn’t Bray’s fault. Besides, he needs something and he’s offering to pay extra. Like a lot extra.”
Have to switch back to ASL, you’re getting too inarticulate. “He’s lying. He’s a lying liar who lies. What are you even doing still talking to him?” You break off, throwing your arms in the air, chest heaving in impotent anger. How could she? She knows what happened!
Not all of it, sure, but the most important part at least.
There’s no ‘sorry’ good enough for that!
Skin crawls just thinking about it. You put up with – were willing to put up with a lot of stuff. Rivka told you to. Stressed it was important to keep your head down until everyone got bored. But then the party blew all that up and of course you shouldn’t have gone, of course it was a bad idea, but you wanted so badly to be normal for one night.
What a stupid wish that turned out to be. There’s something wrong with you and everyone can see it. And even then, you still might have gotten out okay if you hadn’t made the singularly bad mistake of trusting Brayden fucking Caddis-Psalter.
You don’t regret breaking his nose at school.
He never saw it coming, and to be fair, neither did you.
At least you don’t have to go to therapy any more and hear about how awful you are.
Riley winces. Her hand twitches, but she has the sense not to try and touch you. At least she has the grace to feel bad about this.
“You okay?” she signs.
You want to punch something, honestly. But you won’t. You won’t do it. You won’t be like that. Save it for when you’re alone. Deep breath. Hands in. Hands out. Good energy in. Bad energy out.
“I’m fine,” you sign back, motions curt. You’re not upset. Get it together. Throwing a tantrum about it now won’t fix anything that’s already happened. That’s what Rivka says. Or yells, usually.
“Sorry,” you add on.
“It’s okay. Whatever, right?” she says aloud before switching back to ASL once you’re in control enough to look in her direction again. “I can’t do this without you though. We’re a team, you and me versus the world, right?”
“I hate this.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be hating it and still get to buy all that Ysme Wonder crap you were drooling over? How much time is left on that doll pre-order?”
“Thirty-two hours – and it’s not a doll it’s a plushie.”
A limited-edition run of a cartoon-ified version of Ysme, complete with her own removable bass guitar. The pre-order pitch has been sitting at a hundred dollars shy of hitting production all month.
This is bold-faced bribery and she knows it.
“It’s a doll.” Riley grins back at you. “It’ll be fine. Just a single afternoon of the jerk, max. I promise. And hey, bright side, if he does try to pull a fast one, you can always break his nose again.” She mimes a punch –pow!– and you have to stifle a laugh.
Right. Moumentai. Take it easy.
Relax. Calm down.
“I guess I wouldn’t mind breaking his nose again.”
“See? Upsides either way.”
“I don’t want to have to talk to him.”
“Well yeah,” Riley scoffs, “I was gonna handle that. Obviously. Come on, trash mountain awaits.”
“Joy.”
One more turn around the corner and the hallway opens up into a square room, the wall lined with heavy metal hatches – trash disposal chutes. The largest ones, set into the far wall and big enough you could fit a person, are supposed to be kept locked. Or at least, you assume so. You’ve never tried to open one. Trash bags pile up against every corner of the room, filling it with the reek of rotting garbage. You have to pay a fee to actually throw stuff down, so it’s not uncommon for people to just let things pile up until someone else gets fed up enough to eat the cost.
It’s supposed to be illegal to do that, but Security can never seem to repair the cameras fast enough to catch anyone.
“Looks like we beat him here,” Riley announces.
“Where is he coming from?” you sign back.
“He had some after school thing? I told him I had to get my stuff and to take the long away around.” She shrugs and pulls out her phone, taps a message.
Silence stretches out between the two of you. You pace the perimeter of the room, fingers rubbing the hem of your clothes. Can feel the shapes of a dozen different thoughts circling around Riley’s head, her guilt over pushing you into this melding with your guilt over making a fuss about it.
You’re the weird one. The one with all the extra problems. Why are you being so upset over this? And Brayden’s paying extra, right? So it’s fine. It’s fine. Moumentai. You’ll hack whatever test score Brayden needs to cheat on, he’ll throw the two of you a stupid amount of money that means nothing to his rich-ass family, and everyone will be happy. The Halloween party, the punch, everything that came after? None of that matters.
“S-sorry,” you stutter out.
“Dude, it’s fine.” Riley rolls her eyes and waves your apology away. “It’s not like I didn’t know this was gonna be a sore point.”
“What does he even want?” you sign, chewing the inside of your cheek. Pull out your tablet and start tapping through folders. Might as well ensure this goes as quickly as possible.
She shrugs. “You’re the one who keeps saying not to talk business at school. But you know, aptitude exams for next year’s contracts are coming up fast, so probably exam answers or something. I’m just glad you don’t–”
You cut her off with an upraised hand, tilting your head towards the door. Can feel someone coming down the hall before you hear it. Like a sudden tingling in the back of your brain.
Here comes trouble.
***
You pull back against the wall before you can be seen. Riley stays in the center, crosses her arms, waiting. She puts on a fake smile as the worst possible person in the world enters the room. “Brayden! Welcome to my shop. No trouble finding the place, I trust?”
Brayden makes a face as he takes in the piles of garbage behind Riley. He tries to puff himself up to his full height, looking almost exactly same since you last saw him, save that he’s standing upright and doesn’t have his nose broken. Short blond hair that looks like it’s never been near a comb in its life. No bruises, no sign of any lasting damage. Now, it’s like you never touched him.
Is that relief or disappointment you’re feeling?
“Did you really have to drag me all the way out here?” he says.
Riley scoffs, shooting back a wide grin at him. “You’re the one that said, and I quote: ‘no one can find out about this,’ my dude.”
Brayden scowls. “Whatever. This place reeks.”
Yeah, well, a garbage dump is the perfect match for his personality as far as you’re concerned.
Brayden looks around the room, only just now noticing you. Eyes widening as he takes a quick step away, well outside punching range. “Morgan? Why the hell are you here?”
You raise a fist in the air and Brayden flinches, one hand coming up involuntarily between you and his face. Like he’s trying to ward off the memory of the last time the two of you were in the same room. Not so tough away from his ‘friends’ after all.
“Down boy.” Riley rolls her eyes, fighting to keep her face neutral. “Let’s all of us be professional as shit here. Morgan and I are in this together Brayden, come on, you knew that when you asked for help.”
You bare your teeth even as lower your arm, the self-satisfaction turning sour as quickly as it had arrived. Echoes of Rivka, furious on her arrival at the security station after your second arrest at school.
You cross your arms over your chest and keep up your glare.
Brayden shoots you another look. Anxious and something else you can’t read. It can’t be guilt. You’re mixing up who’s feeling what again. “I didn’t think you’d both be here–”
“Don’t worry about him. So!” Riley claps her hands together, fake smile plastered on her face. “What is it you need so bad? Exam answers? A test grade changed?”
“What? No, I don’t care about any of that.” Brayden wrinkles his nose. Takes an anxious glance back down the corridor before lowering his voice. “You guys can still get into the school systems?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets. Looks directly at Riley. Under his desperate effort to project a cool attitude he looks almost as jittery as you feel right now.
“Brayden, my guy,” Riley grins and spreads her arms out, “of course we can, how did you think this worked? Whatever it is, we can get what you need.”
“Right, right, yeah, so… can you guys get into other stuff too? Like the Super?”
Riley’s expression wrinkles at the question. “The… arcology AI? Like, which part of it?”
“Whatever part it is that tracks people.”
“What, you want to watch somebody sleep?”
“Riley,” Brayden interrupts, on edge. “Knock it off. Can you do it or not?”
Riley glances in your direction.
You shake your head. No! No way. He can go hang.
Riley looks back to Brayden, putting her smile back on. “My lawyer advises me not to comment, buuuut why not tell Auntie Riley exactly what you need.”
Auntie?
You shoot her a look, irritated.
You swear, every time she gets more elaborate with this speech.
Brayden doesn’t seem to notice. Isn’t looking at either one of you as he paces the room. “It’s Cass, okay? I’m worried she’s– I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing but–”
“No shit, your girlfriend?”
He has a girlfriend now? Since when? How?
Your one solace after the party was that Brayden came out of it almost as much of a pariah as you did. And now he has a girlfriend???
Brayden huffs, throwing his arms in the air. He continues pacing the floor, steps around a slumped over bag of trash. “She keeps going out at weird hours, skipping on dates, and she’s been really distant this last month or so, alright? Ever since she got this new internship, she’s just completely zoned me out.”
“You sure it’s not just stress?”
He shakes his head, emphatic. “I mean, that’s what I thought at first, but she won’t even talk to me about it.”
“Drugs, then.”
“No!” Brayden looks shocked at the very idea. “Jesus Riley, I’m worried she’s cheating on me. I need you to find out. Please.”
Of course Brayden turns out to be a controlling creep.
You really shouldn’t feel as disappointed in him as you do.
Ugh.
You shake your head wildly back and forth as Riley glances your way again.
She pretends not to see it. Walks up to Brayden and claps him on the shoulder, keeps him facing away from you.
“Okay, okay, sure.” Riley raises her free hand, mollifying him. “But seriously? You want to spy on your girlfriend, dude? Just stalk her on the Chattrnet like a normal person.”
“I’m not going to spy on her, you guys are!”
“Semantics.”
“Do you want my money or not? You can hack the Super, right? So you can get into the security cams? I just. I need proof or something, okay? Something I can confront her with. Get her to tell me the truth.”
“That’s not a small ask, B-man.”
“I don’t want to haggle. I can give you everything in my account. That’s two thousand dollars, okay? I need to know.”
Riley’s eyes go wide. Tries not to choke, coughs into her hand. “Wow. Okay. You are capital-S serious.”
“I don’t know who else to go to, okay? And I don’t need this getting around school either. My reputation’s in the toilet as it is.” Brayden twists his head slightly, brows creased as he steals a glance in your direction.
“We would never,” Riley sings. As if either of you have anyone left to even talk to. Gee, wouldn’t that be terrible, to have everyone you know gossiping over your personal shit. Wouldn’t that just suck? Wouldn’t that be the worst?
Riley pats Brayden on the back and lets him go. “Just a second, gotta consult with Morgan here.”
You keep your arms crossed as she approaches, glowering at her. This is a terrible idea. Messing around with backdoors to the school system is one thing, but poking into arcology security?
And for what? To help Brayden be a creep?
“What do you think?” she signs.
You shake your head.
She rubs her fingers together. ‘Big Money’ she mouths.
Yeah well, this isn’t the typical ‘answers on the next math exam’ request. Can you even hack the Superintendent to that extent? Well– It’s… actually kind of interesting challenge now that you think about it. Probably. Maybe?
It wouldn’t be enough to get access to just a single area, you’d need a way to follow and track them across the entire arcology, right? Maybe if– no!
No no no shut up shut up shut up.
“If we get caught over this, we could get arrested you know,” you sign.
Riley rolls her eyes, unperturbed. “They’re not gonna waste time going after two kids. They never have before, right?”
When it was just school stuff maybe, but this is messing with the security system for the whole arcology.
Doing that on fucking Brayden’s behalf, are you kidding?
“I don’t like this,” you sign.
Riley stares at you. Can feel the thoughts running through her head as she tries to make sense of it. Why are you being so difficult about this? Is it because of Brayden?
“Sorry,” you sign. “It’s not–” you glance in Brayden’s direction. “Well, it’s not entirely because of him. Besides, it’s wrong.”
“It’s wrong,” she signs back. Riley looks at you, incredulous. She steps closer, trying to shield your conversation from Brayden. Why, you don’t know, it’s not like he ever bothered to learn any ASL even when the three of you were still friends.
In quick, hurried motions she signs back. “You’re totally cool with hacking the school six ways to Sunday but this is where you draw the line?”
You take a deep breath. Hands in. Hands out. You’re getting worked up. And emotional. And worse, you’re getting Riley worked up. Making a feedback loop. Calm. Calming thoughts.
“At spying on people? Yeah. Changing grades and cheating on tests is fine,” you sign, slowing your hand movements. “School’s just a tool of imperial propaganda anyway,” you add, echoing something Rivka said during one of her rants after pulling you out of classes.
“Imperial what?” Riley signs back, blank faced.
You finger-spell the word for her, a flash of embarrassment running through you to match Riley’s. Usually this happens the other way around.
“Since when did you– whatever. School’s that and the company AI isn’t?”
Brayden watches the two of you sign back and forth with growing irritation. “What are you two talking about?”
Riley turns and holds up a finger to him. “We’re just working out some uh, technical details. Right, Morgan?” She looks back to you, switching back to ASL, “I can not believe this is the line you want to draw. After everything I–” Riley stops herself. Clenches her hands, and winces.
You wince too, a pang of guilt churning your stomach.
“Sorry.”
“It’s all rich people in Brayden’s world now. It’s not like they have souls. Hello? And hey, better it’s us doing it right? Who do you think he’ll go to next if we turn him down? We can limit the damage, okay?”
Do your best to ignore the dread gnawing at your stomach. You aren’t winning this argument, are you. You owe her more than you hate Brayden.
“Fine. Okay.”
The tension melts from Riley’s expression instantly. Her grin returns as she claps you on the shoulder. Aloud she says, “There’s that can-do attitude.”
“So you can do it? Thank fuck.” Brayden takes a deep breath, and then immediately regrets it, gagging on the smell of rotting food.
“You got the money on you, Brayden?”
He startles. “You can do it right now?”
Riley glances back to you. You shrug. Fine. Whatever. Who cares.
She flashes a thumbs up back to Brayden. “Sure? Why wait, right?”
His expression turns wary, hand drifting towards his jeans pocket. “Then yeah. I’ve already got it on a card like you said to.”
“Great.” Riley holds out her hand. “Half up-front. Half after.”
“Fine.” He pulls his card out, hands it over to her.
Riley flips it between her fingers before slotting it into her phone. That was, you have to admit, pretty cool. Once the phone chimes she hands the card back to him. “Pleasure doing business with you B-man.”
You step around them both, avoid Brayden’s eyes. You kick a bag of trash aside and gesture to the other two to follow. “C-c-come on. Let’s get g-going. If–if w-we’re doing this. Can’t do it here.”
“Anywhere’s better than this shitheap,” Brayden says.
We’ll see if he still thinks that in about thirty minutes.