The Unidentified (15 page)

“Trust me”—Palmer tousled his ironic haircut—”I can tell you from personal experience, you are not going to want to miss this event.” He winked at Eva, sitting in the front row.

She licked her cherry-stained lips and looked back over her shoulder at the other Team Players all fidgety in their seats. Gross.

I shot a glance at Rocket to see how she was handling this announcement. It was disgusting. Kiss Off(r) was going to ride the rumors of Eva’s reputation just as much as all the guys in there wanted to ride Eva. I was about to leave Jeremy and go and comfort her when Palmer jumped down from the stage.

“Hey! New recruit!” I saw Palmer Phillips playfully pushing past Abercrombie Fletcher to get closer to me.

“Sorry it took me so long to spot you. You already fit right in.” He nodded to Jeremy’s arm slung across my shoulders.

“I usually take it as my solemn duties as spokesman to help the newly tagged get accustomed to life on the It List.” He grinned magnificently. You could kind of tell how he got to be the top-ranked player on Network. He was definitely charming.

But his fang tooth gleamed a little too sharkily when he smiled, and I glanced uncomfortably over to the table where Rocket still sat alone. Had going out with her just been one of his duties as spokesman?

She watched him talking to me now, the hurt of being recently dropped still fresh on her face.

“It’s quite a scene, eh?” Palmer said, spreading out his arms to embrace the preening mob of Fashion Fascists, the obnoxious Team Players, all looking like catalogue cut- outs.

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything appropriate.

“Still, it’s not all champagne soda pop and scene parties being It, you know?” Palmer confided in us. “There’s some generics…jealous generics, I bet…targeting people on the List. It’s getting out of hand. We shouldn’t have to worry about snipers.”

“Snipers?” Jeremy said, immediately interested.

“Yeah, someone vandalized Abercrombie Fletcher—”

“How do you vandalize a person?” I interrupted.

“Well, OK. They vandalized his jacket, but Abe really loves his jacket, you know? So yesterday some generics were shooting spit wads and stuff at him because someone had stenciled a bull’s-eye and the words I AM A TARGET MARKET on his back.”

“Any idea who did it?” Jeremy wanted to know.

“Yeah, have you ever heard of the Unidentified?”

Palmer asked as if he were talking about an obscure buzz band.

I froze, and Jeremy shot a glance at me.

He nodded. “I’ve heard of them. What did you hear?”

“That they’re this reckless antigroup with the best bad publicity since Kennedy Weiss got caught stealing those down-market jeans.”

“So, you think they’re…good? Even though they’re taking shots at your best friend?” I asked, trying to work out what he meant.

“Oh, yeah. They’re meffing genius.”

Mikey was in the Park, sweaty faced and picking fights with some final level danger jocks. The two hypertestosteroned adrenaline junkies looked like they were just barely tolerating Mikey.

“I’m modding a gravity bike, all from JunkYard spares.

It’s going to slide downgrade with nearly frictionless free- fall,” he was telling them.

“There’s no way you’re going to get any meaningful velocity in the Park,” the weasel-looking guy cut him off.

“And don’t pretend you can get any speed off-site, junior.

Four months to freedom,” he said, bumping fists with his friend.

“You think I’m going to wait until I’m legal to trick off campus?” Mikey argued. “My bones are so supple now. I’m not going to weenie out and squander my superhealing powers waiting for permission to ride.”

“Keep talking,” the guy with the physique of a fridge warned.

“Yeah, I’d stick to butt-boarding, son,” the other one said dismissively.

“Mikey!” I hissed, doing a frantic
c’mere
gesture.

Mikey waved back distractedly and ignored me. He kept insulting the two older players like he had a death wish.

I hopped down into the showroom and grabbed Mikey’s arm. “What are you doing?”

Mikey’s arm. “What are you doing?”

He shook me off. “Discussing breeze with these meaty gentlemen here.”

The lean-looking blond guy who recommended butt- boarding as a suitable pastime flipped him off.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Hey, you’re the Suicide Pit girl,” the blond guy said, pointing at me. “We were just talking about ways to recreate the stunt without the dummy.”

“Yeah, and minus the splat. Ideally,” the big guy said, squishing his hands together.

“Sounds more real than real, right?”

“Sounds like literal suicide, actually,” I said, then saw Mikey stalking out of the showroom.

“So do you know them?” the beefier of the two asked me, getting closer. “Do you know who they are? The Unidentified?”

“I…” I saw Mikey leaving the Park. “I have to go. And, um, don’t die. Okay?”

The guys hooted in celebration as if dying would be the most authentic outcome of their adventure. I wondered if I should let Harrison and Protecht know to keep an eye on them. You never knew with adrenaline junkies.

“Mikey, wait. What’s going on?”

“Since when did you decide to be BFFs with brands?” e said, spinning around. “Was this Ari’s idea?”

“No. She didn’t…” I could kind of understand why Ari was upset about me getting branded, but I didn’t think Mikey would make such a big deal out of it. I was prepared for some teasing, but not this. “Mikey, what’s wrong?” or some teasing, but not this. “Mikey, what’s wrong?”

“Guess,” he said. “You saw what happened with Ari—

and she only got cliqued with the Craftsters. You’re
branded
now, Kid. Do you even know what that means?”

“It doesn’t mean…This doesn’t change anything.” I laughed. “It’s not going to change
me
.”

“Right,” he said dully. “And you weren’t just partying in the VIP Lounge with Jeremy Swift.” He walked away.

A bass-heavy remix thundered in from just outside the Park. Hooting, whistle-shrieks, and man-shouts razored through the speaker-shaking noise. That Kiss Off(r) promo contest Palmer had announced was getting started. On a huge screen, Eva was applying product to her pouty lips.

There was already a line forming.

I tried to find Mikey in the crowd.

My intouch(r) buzzed.

swiftx:
you going to after hours tonight? @KID I froze, focusing on the words on the tiny screen. Was Jeremy asking me out? After Hours were these big Friday night events held in the Game after closing time. Ari had been trying to convince me to go since she got cliqued, but I’d never gone before. Partly because my mom didn’t like the idea of me being out late, and partly because I wasn’t interested in the
Idol
bands usually scheduled to play.

Up on-screen, Eva was making out with Team Players who had been lured out of the Park. She swapped spit with the more popular players, and smooched the other generics quickly before pushing them away. Her lipstick did remain impossibly in place.

I didn’t want to watch this anymore.

I felt my intouch(r) more than heard it.

swiftx:
come with me. @KID
kidzero:
ok. @SWIFT I searched for a path out of the mob and saw Ari standing with Rocket and the other Craftsters in the back watching the spectacle, disgusted too.

Slut
, Ari mouthed. And I glanced back at Eva Bloom.

Ari had always had a “no empathy” policy for Fashion Fascists. But I felt kind of sorry for her, up there getting mauled by males to sell lipstick to hostile girls.

I got a reply. I thought it would be Jeremy, but it came from Mikey.

mikes:
have fun. @KID Did that mean Mikey had seen me tell Swift I would go to After Hours with him? I couldn’t quite identify the feeling I had in my gut just then, but if I had to guess, it would be related to some species of eel.

I turned to see Mikey up on the screen, leaning in toward Eva. He looked like he was taking the Kiss Off(r) challenge literally, making determined efforts to suck the product from her lips.

The crowd laughed and cheered.

The eel feeling in my stomach twitched electric and stopped my heart.

It destroyed me to see him up there, stupid and insensitive just like any of the typical guys in the Game. I pushed my way out of the crowd, feeling so disappointed in him and… injured, I guess.

Worse was, I couldn’t let it show. Everyone was watching me. I was branded now. I had stream-groupies.

People were whispering about how Jeremy and I were linked. That we were a thing.

I felt completely unprepared for all the attention I was suddenly getting.

#pro_harrison:
you’re scheduled for security procedures review. 14.20. use VIP entrance @KID I asked someone in the VIP Lounge where I was supposed to go to meet my sponsors and she showed me to a door in back with a swipe-card lock. The little light flashed green when I swiped, and the door opened up to the hall of offices I’d seen in headquarters. The rush from having full access didn’t feel like freedom, more like that any second I was going to get caught.

I found the door with the new Protecht logo. They had used the picture I’d taken after the Unidentified rearranged the surveillance cameras into a creepy-intimate embrace to get past security. Apparently, corporate identity designers weren’t afraid of irony.

I knocked. Harrison was sitting at a desk with only a simple-screen computer, but all around him the place was wired with surveillance screens showing the rooms and passages on the different floors. Harrison’s attention seemed to be focused mainly on the Kiss Off(r) contest wrapping up outside of the Park.

He pulled out a seat for me and, without even saying hello, launched into a security briefing.

“This is stuff you should already know,” he grumbled.

“Don’t give out personal information to non-administration approved sites, don’t leave your notebook(r) unattended.

And don’t feed the trolls.”

I nodded.

“Also, never give out your password to anyone else.

Not your best friend, not your boyfriend.” He paused and gave me an uncharacteristic wink. “Well, in your case, it’s probably okay for you to give it to your boyfriend. Jeremy’s a good kid.”

I swallowed, embarrassed. Not only because granddad Harrison seemed to believe the rumors about my love life, but I was afraid that he would find out that Ari and I had exchanged passwords forever ago.

He continued on with his lecture. “Again, safety precautions you should already know. I can’t tell you how much energy we put into preventing hacker attacks only to have silly girls leave their notebooks(r) open for any charmer.”

I was offended by his “silly girls” remark, but didn’t say anything. I glanced at one of the screens running on his desk. What looked like intouch(r) comments scrolled endlessly down the display. I wondered which streams Protecht was subscribed to. By the amount of activity update, it looked like all of them. But there was no way Protecht could follow every update made on site. Right?

“You’re branded now. And you’re branded by the finest security and protection company in the market. You must exercise caution at all times. We can’t afford embarrassing leaks.”

I wondered why Protecht even bothered branding me if they thought I was such a liability.

“Now, as part of the agreement you’ve made with Protecht Securities, we’d really appreciate it if you used your particular skills to help us with fact-finding missions to improve the security in the Game.” He scrolled through a list on his screen. “What do you know about…”

I prepared myself to deny knowing anything about the Unidentified.

“Alibi,” he said.

“What?”

“There’s a program kids are installing on their intouches(r) that all ows them to input false GPS coordinates.”

“Oh.” Oh shit. That’s the program Tesla said Elle Rodriguez had created.

“Yeah, you see the problem with that,” he said, misreading the panic on my face. “If we don’t have accurate information as to the whereabouts of players we can’t effectively protect them.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll …um…listen for any word about that.” I wished I were a more skillful liar.

“These unauthorized programs are no joking matter.

Players think they’re being sneaky passing around a harmless tracker app to their friends. But it’s just the perfect cover to spread wormy malware. It’s Protecht’s job to find these bugs and squash them.”

I thought of the creepy eyeball icon pulsing on my notebook(r) and how quickly it had disappeared. Had I been infected by some kind of maggot code? Did he already know I had that app installed on my page?

“Is there anything else that has come to your attention in the past few days?” Harrison asked, examining my face.

What, you mean like a list of individuals suspected of

dropping paint bombs in the Pit, holding Illegal Arts

Workshops on how to get around Network security, and

vandalizing It Listers’ clothing to use them as target

practice? No.

“Yes,” I blurted out, afraid of what he might find hidden if I didn’t give him something. “There were some guys in the Park today talking about recreating the dummy drop prank for real.”

Harrison clapped his hands and it sounded like a gunshot. “I knew it! I told that little trendsetting pixie of yours it was a mistake to give more exposure to that film. ‘All subversive elements will be removed,’ she said.” He was talking fast now, pacing around the room. “She doesn’t understand how impressionable you kids can be.” He pointed a fat finger at me. “Who are they?”

“Who?”

“The boys in the Park.”

“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t get their names. I didn’t know—”

He grabbed the back of my chair and slid me over to his desk, in front of his screen.

He pulled up a program.

“What’s this?” I asked, staring at the screen.

“Profile,” Harrison grumbled. “It all ows us to do more detailed demographic searches based on physical criteria.”