Free to Fall (17 page)

“
Very
illegal.” I wasn’t trying to be judgy, but it came out that way. He slid back on the bench, away from me.

“Yes,” North said, sounding more guarded now. “Very illegal. Which is why my clients pay me a lot of money for my services, and why no one but you knows what I really do.”

“Which is what, exactly?” I asked.

“Most of my work relates to public image restoration,” he said. “A person does something embarrassing, pictures end up online, and with Forum’s ridiculous privacy policies, there’s no way to take them down once they’re up. Even if you hide the photos from your timeline, they’re still there. Same with wall posts and status updates. They live forever.” North shrugged. “So people pay me to remove them.”

“Rich people.”

“Very rich people. With a lot to lose. People who need my services but prefer that I not formally exist.”

“So your Forum profile—”

“Is there in case anyone starts digging. My name is real, but nothing else. All the check-ins, the status updates, the Forum chats—all fake.” He slid closer to me and took my hands. “I hid it from you because I didn’t want you to think I was that guy. I wanted to be real with you. I wanted to just be me.”

His breath smelled like coffee and breath mints. I kissed him right then, leaning forward so quickly my feet landed on his and our teeth knocked together before we found each other’s lips.

We pulled away a few seconds later, both breathless, him from surprise and me from the exhilaration of what I’d just done.

“I confess to lying to you and I get that? I should hide stuff from you more often,” he quipped.

I swatted him on the arm. “No. You shouldn’t. You get a one-time pass, that’s all.”

“I’ll take it,” he said, and smiled. Then his brow furrowed, and the giddy joy I’d been feeling evaporated.

“I need to see that file,” I said.

“Yes, you do.” North pulled a clunky iPhone from his pocket. It was nearly twice the size of my Gemini. He tapped the cloud icon on his screen.

“Wait, how do you have service?” I asked him.

“I’m using Wi-Fi instead of the Li-Fi. It’s the old communications infrastructure, before VLC replaced cellular. Since I’m here so much, I installed an access point on the roof.” He typed a few words onto his screen then handed it to me. He was quiet as I read.

By the end of the first page I thought I might puke. It was a log, like North had said, of everything I’d said and done since we arrived on campus, and every entry was written to make me sound unstable. I was “paranoid” that Dr. Tarsus hated me, “obsessed” with Lux, “evasive” about my mom’s past, and “preoccupied” with my mom’s necklace. Midway through the second page I stopped reading and closed my eyes.

North scooted over so he was next to me, and he put his arm around my shoulder. “Do you have any idea who she’s been sending this to?”

I shook my head, at a loss. Someone in the secret society maybe? Could this be part of their evaluation? It seemed plausible that they’d ask roommates for dirt. But why would mine throw me under the bus like that?

My eyes were still closed when North kissed my tear-streaked cheek. His nose was cold, and feeling it on my face made me smile despite everything.

“I should go,” I said reluctantly, handing back his phone. “I have class this afternoon, and I have to talk to Hershey.”

“Are you going to tell her what you know?”

“I have to. But I won’t mention you, don’t worry,” I assured him.

“Mention me all you want,” North said, standing up. “Tell her I saw the log on her phone and opened it. Just as long as she doesn’t know how I got the rest of it.” He gave me his hands and tugged me to my feet. My body bumped against his and I felt it all down my spine.

“Thank you,” I said, stepping back a little, putting some distance between us. If I stayed this close to him, there was no chance I would make it to my next class. “For finding the file, for showing it to me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and slid open the mausoleum door. Then he pulled me to him and kissed me, a thousand slow kisses, in the rain.

Hershey was sprawled out on her bed doing homework when I got back after my last class.

“Hey!” she said, all smiles. “How was your day?”

My gut twisted, like a towel being wrung out.

“I know what you did,” I spat, my voice tight, fully aware that I sounded like a sixth-grade girl.

Hershey’s smile faded. “Huh?”

“I read what you’ve been writing about me.”

Hershey went pale. “Rory. Oh, God. I can explain.”

“Yes,” I said, my voice like ice. “Please do.”

Hershey took a shaky breath. “The day I got into Theden, I got a call from Dr. Tarsus. I thought she was just calling to congratulate me on getting in. But then she said she needed my help. That another girl from my school had been accepted, but she thought the admissions board had made a mistake, and she needed me to help her prove it.”
Dr. Tarsus.
I put my palm on the surface of my desk to steady myself. It wasn’t the secret society after all. It was much, much worse.

Wringing her hands, Hershey went on. “She said they shouldn’t have let you in because of your mom. Because she was ‘akratic.’” Tears were rolling down Hershey’s cheeks, leaving streaks in her bronzer. “She said we could force your dismissal by presenting evidence to the executive committee that you were unstable, but that I couldn’t tell anyone what we were doing until she’d built her case. She said she’d make sure I had access to you, all I had to do was keep a log and record some conversations.” Hershey gave her head a hard, angry shake. “I should’ve told her to go f—”

I cut her off. Her
should’ve
’s were useless to me. “So she knows I hear the Doubt,” I said dully. “You were recording our conversation on Friday. That’s why you kept asking me about the voice.”

“No,” Hershey said firmly. “No. I haven’t written down or recorded a single thing since you helped me on Thursday night and won’t ever again.” She came toward me and reached for my hands, but I snatched them back. “Rory,” she said, “I am so sorry I did this.”

“Why did you?”

“I was flattered, I guess, that she’d ask for my help.” She sounded ashamed. “And by the time that wore off, too envious of you to stop.”

“You expect me to believe you did this because you
envied
me?” I let out a bitter laugh. “Wow, you must really think I’m an idiot.”

“Of course I envied you, Rory. You were a freaking Hepta and, worse, you didn’t even
know
it. Everything came so easily to you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.
Easy?
I worked my ass off to get here, and I’ve been working twice as hard ever since. And now you’ve taken all of it away from me.” Something caught in my throat. I pressed my lips together to keep from crying.

Hershey put her hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me, Rory. I’ll fix this. I’ll tell her I won’t do it anymore. Then I’ll go to the dean. I promise you, I won’t let her hang you out to—”

“Don’t you get it?” I spat, shrugging away from her. “It’s too late. You already gave her the rope.”

I turned on my heels and walked out.

17

I WAS OUTSIDE PARADISO
six minutes later, heaving from the run. I could feel my hair plastered to my forehead and could only imagine how crazy I must look. Sweatpants, no jacket in fifty-degree weather, nose red, eyes rimmed with the morning’s mascara. Not exactly how I wanted North to see me. But too late, he already had.

He left a customer at the counter to meet me at the door.

“Hey,” he said in a low voice. “How’d it go?”

“One of my teachers put her up to—” I stopped as my eyes landed on my lit teacher, who was watching me from the condiment station. North followed my gaze and lowered his voice even more. “Why don’t you head up to my apartment?” he said, pressing his keys into my hand. “I get off at five.” I slipped my Gemini from my back pocket to check the time. It was four-thirty.

“Okay,” I said, closing my fingers around the keys. My teacher wasn’t paying any attention to me now, but I felt the need to be stealthy. Maybe Tarsus wasn’t the only faculty member who wanted me out. Plus North wasn’t exactly citizen of the year. It didn’t help either of us for us to be seen together.

As I mounted the steps to North’s door, I toggled my privacy switch. I didn’t want Hershey coming to find me here. I didn’t want to hear her apology, partly because I was afraid I might forgive her.

I let myself into the apartment and locked the door behind me. Stepping out of my boots, I wandered over to North’s bookshelf in bare feet.

I let my finger slide over broken spines as I scanned titles. There were some I’d heard of and a bunch I hadn’t. Some were barcoded and covered in plastic, former library books, before libraries went completely electronic. Others were worn and water stained. The books on the very top shelf were hardbacks with tattered fabric covers, their titles etched in gold leafing instead of printed with ink.

The book on the end was shoved back slightly, recessed from the rest, so I reached for it to pull it forward. I started a little when I saw its title:
Paradise Lost
by John Milton.

I heard myself mumbling the words on the handwritten note my mom had left me. I hadn’t realized I’d memorized them.
I formed them free, and free they must remain til they enthrall themselves; I else must change their nature.
I pulled the book from the shelf and turned it over in my hands. The pages were uneven and yellowed, and the edges of the fabric cover were frayed. Gingerly, I opened to the first page. The paper was dry and splotched with age.

Paradise Lost

A Poem in Twelve Books

The author John Milton

This Seventh Edition, Adorn’d with Sculptures

Printed in London, 1705

I’d never seen a book this old. Early editions were super rare. And expensive. Which, it struck me then, might not be a big deal for someone like North. How much would rich people pay to have their transgressions erased? A lot, I imagined. I grazed the page with my fingertips, not wanting to damage the delicate paper. Gently, I began to turn pages, one by one, not so much looking for the quote as taking in the book as a whole, its eerie oldness. When I got to the third page, I stopped. Instead of words, this page was a watercolor painting. The caption beneath it read:

HIM THE ALMIGHTY POWER

HURLD HEADLONG FLAMING FROM TH’ ETHEREAL SKIE.

It was an excerpt from the text above, and with the image I could understand its meaning. God was casting an angel down from the sky. I turned more pages, looking for more pictures. There were many, each one stranger than the last and yet oddly familiar at the same time. When I got to Book Seven, I understood why. The caption beneath the illustration was:

GOD SAID,

LET TH’ EARTH BRING FORTH FOUL LIVING IN HER KINDE,

CATTEL AND CREEPING THINGS, AND BEAST OF THE EARTH,

EACH IN THEIR KINDE.

It was a depiction of the creation of Earth. There was a lion in the center of the page, its head an exact replica of the mask Liam had worn to the Masquerade Ball, and a cluster of other animals lined up beside it, some with horns and others with antlers, some spotted, some striped, all startlingly familiar. I turned the page, looking for Adam and Eve. We’d read parts of Genesis at the beginning of the semester, so I knew they were created next. I didn’t really need more confirmation, but I got it anyway. The faces of Adam and Eve I found two pages later matched the human masks I’d seen bowing to the serpent in the arena that night.

My eyes shot up to the ceiling in wordless thanks. This discovery felt purposeful, like I’d been led here, to this moment, to find these drawings, to make this connection. Both the note my mom had left me and the masks the secret society used were taken from this book. There had to be something more in these pages. Maybe a clue to what she was trying to tell me. I held the book against my chest and willed myself to find it.

There was a soft knock. “It’s me” came North’s voice through the door. I was still holding the book when I let him in.

“Milton fan?” he asked with a nod at the book.

“I think I might be,” I replied. “I’ll let you know after I’ve read it.”

“You want to borrow my copy?”

I looked at him in surprise. “Can I? It looks expensive.”

He laughed, reaching around me to close the door. “It was. But I assume you’re not planning to use it as a drink coaster. Of course you can borrow it. Books are meant to be read. On paper.”

“How retro of you,” I teased. North dropped his messenger bag and walked into the kitchen with a brown bag. As he opened the bag, my stomach growled in anticipation.

“Ham or turkey?” he asked.

“Turkey,” I said, hopping up onto his single bar stool as he slid my choice across the kitchen counter. The sandwich was panini pressed, the cheese dripping out from between dark crusty toast.

I bit into it. It was even more delicious than it looked. I hungrily took another bite before I’d even swallowed the first. North reached for my wrist, turning it over in his hand.

“
Greedily she engorged without restraint
,” he teased, pretending to etch the words into my skin.

I felt myself blush as I hurried to swallow. “I didn’t have lunch!” I said between chews.

“It’s a line from
Paradise Lost
,” he said, laughing. “Describing the moment when Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

“You know it well enough to
quote
it?”

“Well, that line in particular I remember because my aunt put it on the back of the first Paradiso T-shirt she ever had printed,” replied North. “The name Café Paradiso is actually a shout-out to Milton. And Università del caffè in Italy where she learned to make coffee.”

“‘I formed them free, and free they must remain til they enthrall themselves; I else must change their nature,’” I recited. “Book three, lines one twenty-four through one twenty-six.”

North’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Impressive for a girl who hasn’t read it.”

“Do you know what it means?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said. “It sounds like God talking about humanity’s free will. By making man free, he allowed the fall to happen.”

“The ‘fall,’” I repeated. “The fall from what?”

“For Satan, it was a literal fall from heaven to hell. For man, it was getting expelled from Paradise.” He flipped to the back of the book, to the final illustration. An angel who bore a striking resemblance to the statue in the cemetery was leading Adam and Eve out of Eden’s gates. The caption beneath it read:

THEY HAND IN HAND WITH WANDRING STEPS AND SLOW,

THROUGH EDEN TOOK THIR SOLITARIE WAY.

“In both cases, the created were trying to become like the creator and enslaving themselves in the process,” North explained, his voice all teacherly and cute. “That’s what Milton meant by the word
enthrall
—in Old English, it meant ‘to put in bondage.’ At least, a—”

“Enslaving themselves to what?” I asked, too curious to feel stupid.

“Their pride, for one thing,” North replied. “And their blindness. By believing the serpent’s lies, Adam and Eve altered their worldview. They saw the world differently after that. They could no longer see it for what it really was.” North smiled. “Thus beginning a perpetual cycle of shitty decisions.”

“But shouldn’t we be able to get past that?” I asked. “I mean, God gave humanity reason, right?”

“Reason didn’t do Adam and Eve much good,” North pointed out.

“But they didn’t know what we know,” I replied. “We’ve progressed so much since then. As society—and science—advances, shouldn’t we eventually be able to see the world for what it really is again?”

“That’s one view,” North said.

“What’s
your
view?”

North hesitated. “Have you ever heard the term noumenon?” he asked. “It’s Greek. From the word
nous
, which basically means ‘intuition.’”

Nous.
It was the word the serpent had used in the arena. An eerie feeling rippled through me, almost like déjà vu.

“I’ve heard of nous,” I said vaguely. “What does noumenon mean?”

“It’s a type of knowledge that doesn’t come from the senses,” North replied. “Truths that exist beyond the observable world. Science insists that noumenon is a fiction, that there isn’t anything that exists outside of the observable world. I think Adam and Eve made that same presumption when they ate that fruit. They thought they had all the facts. They couldn’t see how little they saw.”

They couldn’t see how little they saw.
It was the mistake I’d made in my practicum exam. Thinking I had all the facts. All at once I wanted to tell him about it.

“So every Theden student has to take something called the Plato Practicum,” I said, forgetting my sandwich. “It’s supposed to improve our practical reasoning skills through these simulated experiences. Kind of like virtual reality, I guess. We sit in these little pods, and the scenarios play out in 3D on a three-sixty screen.”

“Cool,” he said, and hopped up on the stool next to me. “What are the scenarios like?”

“Well, usually we’re given a set of actors whose actions we’re supposed to manipulate, and we’re graded on our choices. For our midterm on Friday, we had to choose who to evacuate off a crowded dock before it blew up.”

“What’s the goal?” North asked.

“Net positive impact,” I replied. “On society as a whole. The person who gets the best outcome relative to the rest of the class sets the curve.”

North nodded as if this made perfect sense. “So you’re playing Lux.”

I looked at him. “What?”

“What you just described—that’s exactly what Lux does,” North explained. “It manipulates individual users to achieve a net positive impact across all users.”

“How do you know so much about Lux? From hacking?”

“I know a lot about Lux from hacking, yes, but I know what I just told you from reading the terms of use. Which, I’m guessing from the look on your face, you still haven’t read.”

“It really says all that?”

“In arcane, impossibly hard to decipher legalese, yes.”

“So how does it work, exactly?”

“Well, Gnosis doesn’t share its algorithm, obviously, and I can’t see it because it’s on the back end of their server. But presumably they’ve come up with their version of a net positive impact function. They store user data in something called a ‘SWOT matrix’—basically it’s this little four-box grid cataloging a person’s strengths, weaknesses, op—

I finished his sentence. “Opportunities and threats.” North’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’s what we’re given in our practicum sims,” I explained. “I thought SWOT was something our teacher made up.”

“Nah, it’s a business term that’s been around for a while,” North replied. “But Gnosis has taken it to a whole new level. They use it to promote equilibrium—their word for lives that run smoothly. You should see some of their user profiles. The level of detail is insane. They have to be, I guess, for Lux to work the way it does. Every recommendation Lux makes comes from that grid.”

All of a sudden I couldn’t stop thinking about the moment when I’d chosen my cog psych research topic. Why had Lux put APD at the very bottom of its recommendation list? My mom’s diagnosis was in her medical file, so Lux had to know that I had a predisposition for it. So why wasn’t it at the top?

“I need to see mine.”

North started to shake his head.

“Please, just show it to me. I won’t tell anyone.”

North hesitated for another minute then sighed. “Okay,” he said finally. He balled up his cellophane wrapper and dropped it in the incinerator beneath his sink. “But only because you said please.” I expected him to pick up the tablet on the kitchen table, but instead he came around the island and walked toward the closet by his bed. “You coming?” he called before disappearing inside. I hopped off my stool and hurried in after him. He was standing in front of a life-size poster of Five O’Clock Flood, quite possibly the worst band in the entire history of the world.

“Uh, you have a poster of Five O’Clock Flood,” I said. “In your closet. I’m not sure where to start with that one.”

“Oh, Norvin is a big F.O.F. fan,” North deadpanned. He squatted on his heels, pulling out the tacks from the bottom corners of the poster, and the paper immediately rolled up, like a window shade. Where the poster had been was a narrow door in the wall with a finger sensor lock. “Welcome to my office,” he said, rising to his feet. He slid the tacks into his pocket and touched his thumb to the lock. There was a beep as it deactivated.

“Holy hi-tech.”

“Not really,” North said, pushing the door open. “The closet was huge, so I partitioned some of it off and put up a cheap fiberglass wall. If someone wanted in, they could knock through it with their fist. Hey, grab the closet door, would you? And lock it.”

I pulled the door shut and turned the knob lock, then followed North into the secret room. It was tiny, just big enough for a desk and ergo chair and two wallscreens. There was a stack of old laptops in the opposite corner, each on its own narrow shelf. North pulled out the chair for me to sit on then reached for the keyboard on his desk.