Morgan Abrams
22 days until arrest
It’s not like you haven’t thought about this. Two weeks stuck in your bedroom with nothing else to do made it hard not to. Brayden is wrong about Rivka. He has to be. Whatever is going on with Cassandra, it’s all some horrible coincidence of timing with that freak Imago attack.
Rivka should be grateful, honestly, that you’re going to all this effort to prove to a 17-year old boy that you kind-of-sort-of definitely still hate that she’s not a terrorist and to not get Security involved.
Could at least do you a favor and– A janitor wheels a trash bin across an intersection at the far end towards your right. You have to force yourself to breath normally. If you look like you’re sneaking around, people will assume that you are.
Deep breath. Relax shoulders. Okay.
The static is muffled by walls and closed doors, but you don’t need to pick up on clear details just to figure out which rooms are occupied or not. Suppose it’s possible you could run into Brayden’s girlfriend around here (how the hell does he have a girlfriend anyway?).
Better, for now, you think, to stick to empty rooms. With Rivka’s spare ID card in hand, you’re able to get into anywhere you want. An unused office behind one door, nothing interesting inside. Another is a janitorial closet.
A third door opens into what looks like a server farm. There’s row after row of thin black computer cases loaded onto a metal-frame shelf, a long desk with a handful of terminals complete with keyboards. A monitor propped up in the corner gives the view of a completely different room. It’s not that different a space from the observation room where Rivka sits when she has you do telepathy exercises, actually.
Another room opens into an empty lab, long tables furnished with large, heavy looking blocks of equipment. Centrifuges? Electron microscopes? For having grown up around all this stuff, you sure haven’t paid that close attention to any of it before. There’s a table against a wall with violet-colored lamps beaming down through the darkness onto stacked plates of petri dishes.
You close that door in a hurry.
The next empty room you find ends up being some sort of storage. Rows of black metal cabinets against the wall with free-standing shelves in the middle, lit from above as you step inside. There’s rows of glass vials, petri dishes, microscope slides all carefully labeled and organized. Replacement parts, boxes of tissues, pens, paperclips – but it’s what’s all the way in the back that catches your eye.
Between two filing cabinets is another, smaller set of shelves. Packed from edge to edge with cardboard packages which feature a familiar-looking white rectangular box on the front. The same box from the video – from the Imago attack – from Rivka’s room.
Shit.
Or. Maybe… maybe this is a good sign? If there was really something bad going on here, some sort of sinister plot, it couldn’t be this obvious right? Security would figure it out in minutes. Right?
‘Amnica Air Filters’ the packaging reads in big garishly yellow bubble letters once you get close enough to resolve the blur of shapes into something readable. You pick up one of the boxes, turning it over in your hands. Heavier then you expected. The marketing copy all over it gives it the fever-dream quality of a scam product, something spat out by AI.
‘Protect your home and loved ones from airborne disease?’
You look over the shelf. There must be dozens of these things crammed in here. Maybe you could try opening one of them up and– An alert siren pierces the silence, echoing down the hall as emergency lighting flickers on, casting everything in an ominous red glow.
You jump, dropping the box you’re holding. It bounces off your foot with a plastic crunch and you wince, more in sympathy than any actual pain.
Fuck!
With shaking hands, you crudely shove the box (still at least externally undamaged) back onto the shelf.
You pull your phone out, still vibrating with incoming messages. Another lockdown? But this one is for a completely different part of the arcology. Over in Hydroponics, that’s like, two towers away. At least you’re not in any immediate danger, but why would everything go into lockdown over here too?
Semaphore Log
🍏RottenApples.Ltd🍏
Centimorgan: everyone okay
WilyRiley: You got the lockdown notice too?
Centimorgan: yeah
Centimorgan: everything okay over there
WilyRiley: Everybody’s on their phone in class lol
WilyRiley: All the doors are locked
WilyRiley: It’s not even near us
WilyRiley: You’re in Central, right? What about over there
If Rivka comes looking for you during a lockdown, you damn well better be exactly where she told you to be. If you aren’t… The door handle turns uselessly as you try to leave the storage room.
Locked.
Awesome.
Centimorgan: everything’s locking over here too
Centimorgan: wtf is going on
Centimorgan: the super says the lockdown is in gamma, not central or epsilon
WilyRiley: Talk about overreacting
Centimorgan: is Brayden there
Centimorgan: did he get a heart attack and die
Centimorgan: did he get eaten by monsters
Centimorgan: trip down a flight of stairs maybe
B-Max6969: I’M FINE
Centimorgan: damn
You linger in front of the door, chewing the inside of your cheek and feeling caught between tasks without direction. The damn door continues refusing to open, no matter how hard you try to jiggle the lock. Not even repeated slapping of the ID card will get the reader light to turn green.
If you had your tablet on you then maybe you could… you don’t know, plug it into one of the computers and override the lock that way? Thought you were being careful by keeping it away from Rivka, and here’s your reward.
That’s it, you’re never leaving your room without it again.
You fiddle with your phone for a few minutes. Maybe you’ll get lucky and Rivka is stuck back in the blood draw room now. She’ll never know you were here.
Right, because you and luck are on such great terms.
PDA A*
M: is Rivka available?
A*: Hello Rosalyn, Rivka is busy at the moment.
A*: She has requested you wait in her office until the lockdown clears.
M: uh
M: the doors are all locked. i’m uh
M: i’m stuck in a storage closet
A*: That doesn’t match with my report from the Superintendent.
A*: You are not presently in the lockdown area.
A*: Rosalyn.
A*: Why are you in a closet?
M: …I was bored?
Oh, shit, you forgot to uncorrect the autocapitalization on that last one.
No, not the important thing here right now Rosalyn– you mean Morgan– fuck, focus!
You flip through your contacts to pull up Rivka’s number. For a moment it seems like the call isn’t going to go through – or maybe Rivka is just going to send it directly to voicemail – until, “What?”
“It’s– it’s um, me?” An uncomfortable stretch of silence. “Morgan?”
“Obviously.” There’s a pause, the sound of her shifting her phone to the other side of her head. “What do you want? I’m in the middle of something.”
“D-d-didn’t you notice the, um, the–”
“The lockdown? Of course I did.” The tone of her voice shifts, softens. It’s almost worse than if she snapped at you. “It’s nowhere near us, Morgan. You’ll be fine. Just wait in my office and I’ll come collect you once I’m finished here.”
“The um, uh– w-w-well–”
A heavy sigh breathes out over the phone. You can imagine Rivka looking up at the ceiling. “You didn’t listen to me, did you.”
“Uh–”
“You went wandering off.”
“Y-yeah.”
“And now you’re stuck somewhere you shouldn’t be.”
“…yeah.”
“So? Just unlock the door yourself.”
What?
“I… c-c-can’t… do that…?”
There’s a long silence on the other end of the line.
You chew on your lip. Wow you hate phones! How are you supposed to tell what the other person is thinking like this?
Finally, there’s a deep sigh. “Where are you?”
You glance around the room, find the label over the doorway and read it off to her.
“What are on earth were you doing in there?”
“…b-b-being bored?”
“Stay where you are. I’ll be there in a moment – and don’t touch anything.”
She hangs up the call without waiting for a response.
Okay. Okay, just stand still. You can do that.
At least you won’t be in trouble.
Probably.
You glance at your messages; nothing important. Just Brayden and Riley speculating about what caused a lockdown this time. Brayden’s been combing the Chattrnet for any signs of a second Imago attack but there’s been nothing posted so far. You slump against the wall and slide down to the floor, giving into the headache you’ve been trying to ignore.
Rivka must have some sort of like, super-access card or something to get past all the locked doors? What the hell did she mean ‘just unlock it?’
Unwilling to get caught in the middle of messing around with Rivera’s lab equipment, you settle for taking a few dozen pictures of the air filters. Briefly debate the risk of getting caught opening one of the boxes and promptly decide against it.
With nothing else to do, you call up the newest chapter of Super Nova on the Chattrnet Fic boards and settle in for a long wait.
***
The clacking rhythm of heels and cane against tile coming from the other side of the door gets your attention. You tear your eyes away from your phone (TTTT is so right, there’s definitely something rainbow-flavored going on between Nova and Lynne) just in time to see the door handle twist and swing open.
Backlit by the hallway lights, you find yourself staring up into Rivka’s disapproving frown. She hefts her phone in her free hand, ending a call as she enters the room.
“Don’t sit on that floor, it’s filthy.”
You get to your feet, pocketing your phone. “S-s-sorry.”
She slips her phone into the front pocket of her lab coat, looking you over with the kind of professional interest an entomologist might reserve for a three-legged bug. “Would it kill you, Morgan, to just, for once in your life, do what I tell you to do?”
That’s not fair, you do plenty of things she tells you to do.
Just not all of them.
Rivka gives you a look over the top of her glasses. “No one likes a pedant.”
She steps past you and takes in the state of the room. Doesn’t ask if you touched anything. Knows you’d lie regardless.
You’re left trying not to be caught holding your breath, chew the inside of your cheek bloody as Rivka stalks a circle around the room, eying every item she passes. She stops at the shelf full of air filters, frown tightening.
“Morgan,” she starts.
“Is-isn’t the-the-the air already um, filtered?” you blurt out. Heart pounding in your throat.
She jerks her head around to stare at you, the question throwing her off. “What?”
“I just– I th-th-thought it was um, it was weird? To– to have so many.”
“Some of our work requires very tightly controlled conditions,” Rivka answers.
And an obvious scam-looking product is the solution? That doesn’t seem like Rivka’s style at all.
“It’s nothing to concern you.” Rivka turns away from the filters, returning back to the door and gesturing you to follow. “Come on, might as well get on with things and give my good-for-nothing grad students something useful to do.”
You follow her out of the room, watching as she shuts the door behind you with an audible click of the lock.
***
When the two of you reach the exam room, the red lock light on the door gleams back at you both. She taps her phone against the reader. It beeps in acknowledgement but the lock stays red. Rivka huffs an irritated “Of course” and puts a hand on the plate, rapping her fingers against the plastic.
After a few seconds of intense silence you can feel something pulling through the static. The buzzing hum of the electrical current running through the wall and the lock warbles and changes pitch and half a second later the light on the lock beeps green.
You stare. What the hell just happened?
Rivka catches you looking. “Don’t start yapping about this, it’ll make trouble,” she orders.
Right, because you’re in such a big habit of that.
That earns you a sharper look, and then Rivka turns away. Yanks the door open and marches inside without checking to make sure you follow. Barks orders to the man half-asleep and listening to an audiobook at the desk by the door. Goes so far as to pull the pods out of his ears and orders him to start preparing the cards and models in the exam room.
He glances in your direction as you step inside, pulling the door shut behind you. “Aren’t we in lockdown?” he asks, rubbing his ear.
“So what?” Rivka snaps. “I’m not paying you to sit on your ass. Get to work, chop chop.” She does a cutting motion hands for emphasis before chasing him out of the room into the adjoining one, visible through a one-way mirror that stretches across the far wall.
You stand awkwardly by the door as Rivka stalks across, pulling a bottle of water out from under and cabinet and walking back to shove it into your hands.
“It’s not water,” she corrects you. At your hesitation she rolls her eyes. “Just drink it, Morgan.”
With great reluctance, you obey. Rivka takes a seat in front of a bank of computer screens, angled to also give a view of the other room. The not-water is fizzy and bitter to the taste, making you sputter. What is this? Soda? Is she trying to poison you now?
“You need the electrolytes. Now get focused, I want to see where your baseline is at today.”
“D-d-d-do I–”
Yes,” Rivka answers without waiting for you to finish the sentence. Rude. She waves the objection away. “It’s nothing you haven’t done a hundred times before and I want to verify the past two weeks haven’t left any permanent damage.”
Permanent damage. Right. Because god forbid anything happen to your glitch, it’s the only thing you’ve got going for you. You put the flavorless soda down on the table. Rivka frowns but doesn’t push the issue as you do another round of breathing exercises.
The guy who had complained about working during lockdown when you came sits down to be your proctor. Samir. He’s… nice enough? You guess? At least, for one of Rivka’s ever-rotating cast of overworked and underpaid grad student employees. He sticks strictly to the script instead of trying to small talk you, a formalism you find yourself incredibly grateful for, even if it’s because he finds the whole mind reading thing creepy.
At least he’s trying not to be obvious about it. It’s not like you want to be picking up all this stray information about his life or his girlfriend any more than he wants you to.
The first dozen or so exercises are all straightforward: a screen between you and Samir. The next phase gets harder, when not even Samir knows the card or shape in question and you’re forced to guess. Rivka claims she has people who consistently get this part correct in the 80-90% range but it’s never felt like anything more than random chance to you.
Every now and then, Rivka’s voice cuts in over the intercom, her attention split between the network of cameras which capture every angle of the room and the reams of data on the compute monitor in front of her giving out brainwave patterns and electromagnetic field data. She’s never encouraging exactly. For either one of you. Usually it’s critique, or instructions to repeat a given trial in a particular manner.
Once you start hitting the list of things you demonstrably can’t do – that no telepath glitch could possibly do – she starts getting more insistent about testing the limits of your ability. More so than she has been in a long time. No you can’t lift a flash card with your mind. No you can’t predict which card will be twenty-seventh from the bottom. On and on it goes.
“Morgan,” her voice cuts through the silence. “At least try, for fuck’s sake.”
You offer an apologetic smile to Samir from across the table, wanting to assure him that you don’t like this any more then he does. He sits, nailed to his seat. Sweating profusely, hands over the flashcards, face down.
Impossible or not, nobody you’ve worked with likes this last part. It’s called ‘telepathy’ not ‘mind control.’ If you could do anything like force Samir’s hand to move, you’d have figured it out by now. That stupid halloween party would have ended way differently for one.
Better to fake it, going through the motions just enough to convince Rivka you tried and fail rather than have to really, truly focus in on one person enough to viscerally feel whatever combination of disgust, anxiety, fear, or worst of all: fascination, that a given proctor might have.
It takes another three ‘failed’ tests before Rivka decides you’re finished with an irritable “That’s enough.” Samir slumps in his chair and you can feel the release of tension in his shoulders.
You sit there, feeling increasingly out of place while he cleans up his side of the desk. Takes a deck of flash cards back from you, straightens them out and puts them back into their storage box.
The door opens and Rivka marches in. “Get up,” she commands, only to then pin you back in your seat with a glare. “Not you.”
Samir startles, nearly drops the box in his hands. “Dr. Abrams–”
“We are done,” she continues, cutting him off before he can even voice the question, “so finish cleaning up and clear out.” She takes the seat he vacates and thrusts another can of that horrible soda across the table at you.
You stare at it.
“Unfounded assumptions are unfounded limitations,” she says. Gestures with a hand towards the soda. With extreme reluctance you open it and force down a sip. “ESP, Telepathy, Psionics, Glitch Mechanics, whatever bull term you want to dress it up with—this remains a young field. We can not limit ourselves with preconceptions about what is and isn’t possible. Understood?”
Uh huh. Right. This lecture again. No one ever in the history of the world has been able to prove an ability to directly affect another person solely with the power of their ~mind~ but you’re going to be the exception. Sure.
Riley went through a phase a year back or so where she joked you had a backstory out of a movie as some company super-experiment.
You wish.
If you’re an experiment, you’re like, the failed prototype that only ever comes up as a single line of world-building.
The sigh from Rivka’s side of the table borders on exasperated.
You watch, wary, as she pulls something out of her pocket – her phone it turns out – and places it on the table between you. You look at it. Then at her. What? What does she want you to do?
“Open it.”
Glance at the phone, back to her.
“This is not a trap, Morgan.” Yes, that’s definitely exasperation. “Just– just try.”
Fine.
This is some new kind of test then. Or practice exercise. Or whatever.
You pull her phone over to you and stare at it, feeling increasingly stupid as you tap in a random combination of numbers which, to no one’s surprise, doesn’t work.
The static buzz washes over you. Quiet as it is with just you, Rivka, and Samir in the other room putting away the test materials. He’s humming tunelessly under his breath. Already checked on his girlfriend, is planning out their dinner date tonight once the lockdown lifts.
Rivka on the other hand is nearly a closed book, as always. Mere hints leaking out around the edges. Against your better judgement you press up against the static thrum of her thoughts, the feedback doing absolutely horrible things for your migraine, bringing the dull ache back to full intensity. A blind spot threatens the center of your vision in your left eye.
You give up immediately. Press the palm of your hand against your eye, trying to rub the pain out.
Rivka sighs. “You know better than to try that.”
You wince. “S-s-sorry.”
So, okay. You’re not going to just… pull the access code form her mind, obviously. Assuming she’s even thinking about it right now, which, knowing her, she probably isn’t.
Okay then… so… what’s the trick?
The more you can stare at her stupid brick of a phone the more you can hear the electric buzz of it, right there under the static. Like the light fixtures, or the computer screens. It’s quiet, but it’s there.
Are you… supposed to do something with that?
Out of nowhere, into the audible humming silence, Rivka says, “I’m still looking for a suitable replacement therapist.”
You keep your gaze focused on phone. Shrug. The amount of excitement at the idea of having yet another person trying to pry into your brain can be measured in negative numbers.
“It’s important for someone your age to have an effective support network,” Rivka says, with all the hypocrisy of someone who’s never had a friend in her life. She’s frowning when you risk a glance up at her, no longer looking at in your direction but focused on the one-way glass that separates the exam room from the observation room.
“Isolation warps people,” she says.
You study her face further, expecting some sort of incoming lesson or pithy saying. But no, nothing. No elaboration. There are dark circles under her eyes, worse than they’ve been in months. Is she doing stimulants to skip sleep again?
There’s a gold chain around her neck, you finally realize. Hadn’t looked long enough before to register it, but that’s new. Rivka’s never gone in for jewelry before, some kind of necklace? A pendant?
“Morgan, focus.”
Pull your eyes back down to the table. The phone is an old model, practically ancient. 70s maybe? You don’t know, you’re not an expert. It’s just… bulky, and you know there was that 70s trend of everyone having personalized AI assistants you could carry around with you. Nowadays you can just quiz the arcology or the resident city Superintendent and get all the same information.
Is A* housed on this thing? You’ve never wondered about that before. It’s possible, you guess. Even if it was, it’s not like you can read A*’s mind and get the lock code that way. It doesn’t have a mind to read, for one.
As you nurse the horrible fizz-drink, you try another sequence of numbers at random. It doesn’t work, of course. 6 digits though. That’s…
You lean back in the chair with a groan. What the hell does she expect you to fucking do with this? How are you supposed to just– just divine a one in a million number? Or whatever the odds are – you don’t know, you didn’t do the math.
You sit there, staring at the phone. Samir’s gone out the door at this point. Finished whatever clean up he was working on and is back at the table in the observation room, browsing his phone and – no damnit, focus.
You try a number, her birthday. Doesn’t work. Okay, what about… nope, your birthday doesn’t work either. A warning prompt comes up saying two more attempts before lockout. Awesome.
“Don’t try to be clever, Morgan. Just do it.”
Okay, fuck you too, Rivka.
You jab another sequence into the phone, 138720, glaring up at her as you do.
The phone unlocks.
What?
Rivka takes it back, looks the screen over then locks it once more.
“Now do it again,” she says as she slides the phone back over to you.
You repeat the same code, just to be sure.
To nobody’s surprise, it doesn’t work.
Fuck.
***
Your head hurts so bad right now.
Not just your head, you can swear you can feel the pounding straight through your brain. The migraine pulses with your heartbeat, the glare of the ceiling lights like little sunspots of pain across your vision even as you squint against them, sunglasses secured back in place.
You only get Rivka’s phone unlocked one more time before she finally says you’re done for the day. A mercy maybe, but you find yourself wishing for a much more final kind of mercy after all that.
Tissues stuffed up your nose to absorb the blood, breathing through your mouth, you let her lead you back over to the observation room where you promptly slide down to the floor against the wall. Head tilted up, tasting the copper post nasal drip against the back of your tongue.
“You’ll keep practicing,” Rivka says. “You’re not completely hopeless. Not compared to the others in your test group.”
Oh good, put that on your tombstone: ‘when graded on a curve, he wasn’t completely hopeless – Morgan Abrams 2175–2192.’
Rivk’as voice is back to its normal, cold professionalism. “Your initial test results look to be normal, by the way. No permanent damage or lasting reduction in your abilities, even despite your stunt in January.”
Great.
Can you go home now?
“It’s best if you remain here with me until the lockdown lifts.”
Fuck. You groan. The last thing you want right now is to stay standing.
“Just sit in a corner or something. Quietly.”
By which she means, no freaking out or humming or rocking back and forth or any of the other dozen odd ‘weird’ things you have to constantly keep in check to avoid making a scene of yourself in public. You know, as opposed to Rivka, who is always one hundred percent completely normal at all times.
“Don’t get fresh with me.”
Every other kid at least has the privacy of their own mind to mouth back to their parents. Not you though. Unfair.
You don’t give her any further acknowledgement and she doesn’t wait for one. Is already typing up something on the computer, a progress report? Who cares. A quick check in with Riley and Brayden, nothing long enough to risk Rivka picking up on anything – just, assuring them both you didn’t drop dead – and then Super Nova is back up on your phone and you pull your headphones back on. Can’t read for your life when you’re like this but that’s why text-to-speech exists.
By the time the lockdown finally lifts you’re still only halfway through the chapter. Nova caught in a pivotal moment, forced to choose between keeping up her secret identity or protecting her best friend (and maybe romantic interest? Is that allowed? That’s the kind of thing that trips the censors, isn’t it? They’re both girls, but the way BA keeps writing them…).
Had to put the phone down before long.
Head’s between your knees to avoid the light. Can’t push any further, no matter how much you want to. The monotone TTS audio blurring together, your brain barely able to think. You fiddle with your headphones, play something more familiar to zone out to. Another Ysme Wonder album, one of her compilations of vid performance collaborations.
Gives you something better to fixate on than where the oozing mush of your brain wants to go with, which is everything wrong with your legs (so many things, don’t even start).
Don’t know how long you stay like that before Rivka notices. She pulls you up by the shoulder. Decides the migraine is bad enough she’ll have to escort you back herself.
It’s humiliating to have to be led back by the hand like this. Eyes screwed shut against every pinprick of light reaching around your sunglasses. Headphones muffling the world. It’s not enough, of course. Can still pick up far too much from everyone around you. By the time the two of you get to the transit hub, you’ve stopped paying attention to it as best you can. All of it so much static washing over you.
A memory of being younger, young enough to be carried home. Face pressed into the crook of an arm. Crying. Screaming. Too much. Too much. Make it stop. None of that now. Mouth shut. Feet still. Arms at sides. Don’t draw attention. Don’t embarrass her further. Chew the inside of your cheek hard enough to taste blood.
Barely notice the rest of the trip back. Only the sharp halt of Rivka’s movement in the hallway and the force of her hand bringing you to a stop with her. She clicks her tongue and hisses under her breath before she launches into a whispered conversation that you’re in no state to follow along with. Arguing with A* through her own implants, maybe. Then there’s a squeeze of your hand and the two of you are moving again.
Stepping through the front door of the apartment, Rivka lets go of you and straightens her outfit. Wipes her expression blank. You stick to routine. Kitchen. Glass. Water in glass. Meds. Meds in mouth. Swallow everything with water. Straight to bed.
You fall onto the covers face first.
It’s not until well after 8 at night that you start to feel like you can function again. Mouth and eyes dry from dehydration. Ultimately though, it’s nausea that forces you out of bed. Hovering over the toilet, cursing yourself until you finally cough up a gob of dried blood, phlegm, and bile.
Rinsing your mouth and brushing your teeth afterwards, you feel weak. And cold. Should have forced yourself up and eaten hours ago. Stupid. Rivka’s gone. Back to work, you guess. You could ask A* if you really wanted.
Your phone is still on the kitchen table. Looks like A* tried to wake you up, at least. Not that you could hear it out here. Thanks anyway. The device buzzes in your hands as you stare at the screen, bringing a series of increasingly concerned text messages from Riley to your attention.
Oh shit. You completely forgot.
Semaphore Log
🍏RottenApples.Ltd🍏
Centimorgan: i’m alive! I’m alive
Centimorgan: sorry riley
Centimorgan: I didn’t mean to drop off like that
WilyRiley: Dude you know I’m gonna get worried
WileyRiley: Like, every time you drop off the planet from now on right?
Centimorgan: please don’t
Centimorgan: she just had me busy doing stuff for her
Centimorgan: and then I got another migraine and after the lockdown
Centimorgan: I just kind of went straight to bed and zoned out
Centimorgan: i’m so sorry
Centimorgan: hands on knees emoji
WilyRiley: Thank fuck
B-Max6969: You saw the news right?
Centimorgan: no?
Bringing up your newsfeed and it takes a second read-through before your brain catches up with the scrolling list of articles on the front page. A second Imago attack in the Hydroponics tower. No casualties this time, just property damage.
Centimorgan: oh
Centimorgan: this is real
B-Max6969: Yeah it’s real
B-Max6969: A second attack already? What are the odds
WilyRiley: Fucking blows they didn’t close school early
B-Max6969: You just want to get out of school
Centimorgan: i’m sorry I can’t read good right now
Centimorgan: or write good apparently
Centimorgan: do they know what happened?
WilyRiley: Nothing official, I think?
WilyRiley: I’ve been blowing up my brother’s phone about how Security’s going to fix this
WilyRiley: and he’s all like ‘I don’t know anything’ and ‘I’m just a grunt’
WilyRiley: Useless!
B-Max6969: You okay now?
Centimorgan: uh
Centimorgan: yeah
Centimorgan: tired, sorry
Centimorgan: um
You hesitate, fingers on the touchpad.
Centimorgan: i found your weird boxes, Brayden
Centimorgan: they’re just air filters
Centimorgan: 0384172192.img
Centimorgan: weird cheapo air filters
WilyRiley: sick
B-Max6969: Air filters???
B-Max6969: And they’re just… lined up in a closet like that?
Centimorgan: they’re not bombs or whatever
B-Max6969: I’m telling you, that Imago had some kind of reaction to it
B-Max6969: I bet if we look into today’s attack we’ll see the same thing
WilyRiley: Great idea dude, thanks for volunteering
B-Max6969: Ha Ha
B-Max6969: My parents were already barely letting me outside of the apartment
B-Max6969: You think they’ll let up /now/?
Centimorgan: then go talk to your girlfriend? It’d be easier to help her if she was
Centimorgan: you know
Centimorgan: actually aware of us
B-Max6969: I know! I know! Jesus
B-Max6969: It’s just complicated
WilyRiley: That’s guy for: “i’m feeling guilty about trying to spy on you” FYI
B-Max6969: Fuck you, Riley
B-Max6969: That’s it though Morgan?
B-Max6969: You didn’t like, find anything else?
Centimorgan: not really
Centimorgan: nothing relevant
It’s not lying.
What? It’s not!
For one thing, telling them about the weird phone trick Rivka taught you would just turn into this whole thing and Brayden would jump to conclusions but it doesn’t actually prove anything. And all those air filters are just… out in the open. Whatever’s going on with Cassandra, it’s unrelated. Has to be.
You take your phone back to bed with you, not up to microwaving or ordering take-out which means this bag of chips will have to serve as dinner. Salt, carbs, and vinegar, that’s like, three of the major food groups right there.
You finish talking with Riley and Brayden, divvying up tasks. You promise to dig through the security records, look into today’s attack and and to put together a list of locations Rivka wanted Cassandra to put the air filters if Brayden and Riley will be the ones to go check them out.
How did this suddenly turn into so much work?
Later. You’ll do it later. When your brain feels less like liquid jello.
Something sticks into your leg as you roll into bed, forcing you to sit up again and pat yourself down. Out of your pocket you pull out Rivka’s back-up ID card, her face in its ever-present scowl staring back up at you.
Oh.
Oh right.
Fuck. You did take that didn’t you.
You should probably be more afraid of how this is going to inevitably screw you over down the line but fuck it. You do not have the energy to panic right now. You shove the thing under your mattress.