The Unidentified (18 page)

“Why do you have to be so neg all the time?”

“I’m not neg, I’m just not interested.”

Ari rolled her eyes, popped the pill and chased it with some new beverage they were pushing at a nearby booth.

Whatever. Ari and Rocket wanted to walk around the booths some more and scan. I was kind of bored with that scene, but I followed along anyway. I wanted to win something.

Ari picked up necklaces and toys and accessories and cell phone cases and kept saying, “Is this me? Is this me?”

She was like interested in
everything,
but it wasn’t with the same enthusiasm as before. I noticed her heartthrob was blinking sort of comatose.

“Is this me?” Ari said again at the next booth.

“Ari. That’s, like, a spatula.”

Ari turned slowly to look at it. She stared at it, then giggled a little. “Yeah, but should I get it? Is it me?”

“I don’t know.”

I turned around because there was a lot of commotion at the table across the way. A kid had won a free game of Buy, Sell & Destroy. A huge plasma screen was showing his game. A crowd surrounded it, watching him play.

Ari stared at the screen, mouth open a little.

“Look at that. It’s so grab,” she said in a slow monotone. Her eyes were dull but her teeth shone bright.

I watched the kid play, and thought of Jeremy. I thought he wanted to meet me here. I started to get that eely feeling in my stomach again. Maybe he was just playing with me.

Maybe he announced to the whole school that he wanted me to come to After Hours just so he could stand me up.

I turned around to share this fear with Ari, but she and Rocket had disappeared. I couldn’t see them anywhere.

“You enjoying the music?” a man called out to me. It was Murdoch West from the Hit List. His smile reflected light like normal teeth, but that was the only thing about him that didn’t seem artificial. “I’ve heard so much about you,” he said. “Mr. Levy told me you were a talent.”

“Yeah?” I said, looking for an escape. I was done talking to cool hunters for the day.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Funny. It never would’ve come to my attention how many plays your music has been getting from our statistical engines. They’re sorted by artist, and you’ve had quite a number of name changes…”

If he was expecting a charming story about why we kept switching stage names, he wasn’t getting it.

“But when we compiled all the tracks you’ve played on and produced, we found that you and your band rank quite high in on-site playback.”

“Oh. Interesting.”

“Yes, isn’t it? So would you be interested in playing for us sometime?” He gestured to the stage where the DJ was still sweating out beats. “Here at After Hours?”

“What?”

“If we could focus your sound a bit, I’m sure you can be a hit. Of course, we’ll have to set up a terms-and-conditions meeting.”

“I’m already branded,” I said, shrugging. “So. Sorry I can’t help you.”

He smiled wider. “Oh. Well, I’m sure arrangements can be made—”

“What?” I said cutting him off.

“I said, I’m sure we can—”

“I’m sorry. I can’t hear you,” I gestured helplessly to the crowd around us.

“Well, maybe we can—”

“Right. It was nice to meet you!” I lied and vanished into the crowd.

I made my way to the edge of the crowd and climbed up the frozen escalator. There were groups of people scattered around the second floor. I snaked around them to get to an empty corner and threw myself down on an out-of- the-way bench.

The track playing now sounded like three balls bouncing on different surfaces and in different rhythms, highlighted with what sounded like a seven-year-old girl sweetly singing a playground rhyme in another language.

Bulgarian or Latvian or something.

The music was subjectively good. I mean, I liked it. But I still couldn’t make friends with the idea of playing here for Hit List. After dealing with Anica and Harrison, I had the feeling things would be a little more complicated than Murdoch West made it sound.

I wished Mikey wasn’t being such a jerk so I could talk to him about this. I looked around for Ari, and hoped she wouldn’t get word of Murdoch and his offer.

I stared at the blink blink blink of the heartthrob Tesla gave me. The moon-colored bead on my wrist flashed slowly and rhythmically like a glowing moth beating its wings inside. What was I doing here?

“Hey. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

I turned around, surprised to see Jeremy. “Yeah?”

He sat beside me. “Yeah. I was just…um. What’s that?” He reached down and held my wrist, watched the lazy pulsing of my heartthrob. I tried to explain what Tesla told me, how it worked and stuff. But I forgot all the technical explanations and could only finish with, “It pulses with my heartbeat.”

“Really?”

He held my hand a little tighter, staring at the light. All intense. This feeling crept up inside me that he was looking at something private, something he shouldn’t be allowed to see.

Just as I thought it, the little light started to blink faster.

Damn, I was being betrayed by my pumping blood-muscle.

Jeremy just sat there beside me calmly watching, or I guess he was calm, how the hell should I know? He didn’t have a signal flare brazenly announcing everything he was feeling inside.

Then he was kissing me. Just like that. None of that conscious
Oh, now he’s leaning in to kiss me
stuff. Just
Hello, I’m being kissed!

I started to laugh, a little laugh, but not a giggle. I don’t know why. A nervous reaction, maybe? Maybe it was a tickle from his soft lips, or maybe I was just happy.

Whatever the reason for starting, I couldn’t stop. I started to worry that he would think something was wrong.

“What?” he said, sounding insecure.

“Nothing,” I managed to say, followed by a bubbling laugh, and I kissed him to prove that nothing was wrong.

I couldn’t believe I was making out with Jeremy Swift.

That out of everyone in the Game, it was me sitting here with his lips pressed to mine.

Then for some effed-up reason, I started thinking about how I was wearing Kiss Off(r) brand lipstick and the thought echoed in my head,
Is Jeremy man enough to kiss off Kiss

Off(r)? Is Jeremy man enough to kiss off Kiss Off(r)?

I started to get a weird feeling, like people were watching me. That this was a kissing contest, and I might not be getting full points. I thought about the “Last Laugh” rack. I thought about Mikey. I pulled away, the experience of kissing Jeremy Swift not really feeling how I thought it would.

“Why did you ask me out over intouch(r)?” I asked. “We were in the VIP Lounge together, why didn’t you ask me then?”

“Well, I didn’t get a chance to get you alone,” he said, putting his arms around me. “You were with Tycho and then Palmer, and then you disappeared.”

I kind of wanted to argue with him. He posted on my intouch(r) stream, where everyone could see because he didn’t want to ask me out in front of anybody?

I went to stand by the railing. It was nice to be out of the crowd, up above it. To have a little space. Jeremy stood beside me. I looked up at him, but he was staring at something down in the crowd, frowning.

“How’d she get in?” he said. He was looking at Cayenne Lewis leaning alone against a planter. “I had

Harrison put her on the watch list.”

“Why her?”

He smiled guiltily and pressed his lips against my temple. “You know,” he whispered and wrapped his arms around me. “I saw her carving stuff into Game property. And I know you’ve been suspicious about her too. It’s one of the reasons I mentioned you to my sponsors.”

I froze a little. At the Terms and Conditions meeting, Harrison had said Jeremy had “recommended” me. But this sounded more like he had me put on a watch list like Cayenne.

There were squeals and screams from down in the Pit.

I could hear them even over the music. About a dozen people wearing white masks were weaving their way through the crowd, throwing water balloons at people dancing. Some people were getting soaked, but they still kept dancing.

Was this an Unidentified prank? I searched the edge of the crowd and saw Cayenne still standing there, arms crossed. Someone launched one of the small blue water balloons out from the crowd and it exploded across her chest. She was not amused.

I couldn’t find Ari or any of the Craftsters down in the crowd.

I checked my intouch(r).

kidzero:
can’t find you on the dance floor. time to go?

I hung around the edge of the crowd, watching people.

Not recognizing anyone. Waiting. I held my intouch(r) lifeless in my hand.

I went out to wait by Tesla’s car, but it wasn’t in the parking lot. There were no messages from Ari or the others saying they were going to leave or anything, but they had left. I’d told Mom I was going to stay at Ari’s, but I guess plans had changed. I wasn’t in the mood for the Truth-or- Dares of the Craftsters anyway, but it was still really shitty of them to leave me without a ride home.

kidzero:
nice. how am i supposed to get home?

I didn’t really expect an answer, and was kind of upset with myself for broadcasting how much they’d gotten to me.

Tesla replied a few minutes later though.

toy321:
??? ari said youre getting a ride home with swift. @KID
toy321:
sorry. @KID Jeremy had left already, and there definitely hadn’t been any talk about him taking me home. Mom would freak the eff out. Though I wonder how her maternal brain would weigh the cost-benefit ratios of a ride home with a boy vs.

no ride home at all .

Because I didn’t have a ride home.

I stood outside the front of the Game, my hoodie a little too thin to keep me warm and the night breeze blowing up my skirt in spite of the leggings. The huge parking lot was slowly emptying of all its cars. The red tail lights snaked off into the darkness. A car passed by with Abercrombie Fletcher hanging out of the passenger window, howling at the night.

I leaned against a low wall and pretended that I was also waiting for a ride. Who was I trying to fool? Maybe myself. I couldn’t stand admitting that the girls who I thought were my friends would abandon me so completely. And for what?

I pushed away from the wall and started walking.

A car pulled up beside me.

“Do you need a ride?”

I bent down to see who was driving. It was Cayenne. I kind of laughed, but nothing about this night was very funny.

“Just let me take you where you want to go,” she said impatiently. “I don’t like being in debt.”

I got into the car, pulled the door shut behind me. I mumbled directions to where I lived and didn’t say anything else.

Cayenne just drove on in silence.

I peeked over at her. When we passed under streetlights her face lit up white, and I could see the metal studs lining her ear, her pink cheek tattoo, and the cute curve of her nose. Her clothes were wet from the water balloon attack. Stained blue, by the look of it.

She kept her eyes focused on the road. I wanted to ask her why the Unidentified had soaked her or thank her for saving my ass and giving me a ride home. But I wasn’t going to risk polluting the silence. I could keep quiet. I turned to look out the window.

“Your friends ditch you?” she asked out of nowhere.

“No,” I lied. “Did yours?”

She kind of laughed. “Nah, they didn’t have an escort through security like some people. I’m sure your sponsors will be delighted that their control is impenetrable.”

“But the water balloons…?”

“That wasn’t us,” she snapped.

She flicked a piece of blue water balloon at me and I saw the words BLUE RUIN(r) printed on it.

“Apparently, it’s a really cool new drink,” she said, fake-chipper. “Pure water dyed cleaning-fluid blue.”

She stared angrily at the road.

“What’s your boss going to say?” My heartthrob started to flash annoyingly when I mentioned him, and I pulled my sweatshirt sleeve over my wrist to hide it.

“He’s not our boss,” she snorted.

“Who is he?”

She leaned over and started yelling into my hoodie pocket as if I were recording our conversation on my intouch(r). “Yeah, right, Protecht. I’m not naming names.”

“I wasn’t…I wouldn’t,” I stuttered defensively, but I thought of Jeremy and how confusing his connection to Protecht made things, and decided I wouldn’t trust myself either. “Besides, I would be more worried about Trendsetters.”

I noticed Cayenne get tense, sit a little straighter. “Oh, yeah?”

“Anica was asking about you. Well, not you personally.

But the Unidentified.” I couldn’t stop. “Well, okay. Maybe she mentioned you, too.”

“What did she say?”

“Something about Palmer being a heartbreaker?”

“Not about that!” she almost shouted. “I meant, what did she say about the Unidentified?”

“She said Trendsetters were trying a new strategy.

That they wanted to be
relevant
to a different crowd. That being a rebel never goes out of style.”

“Sounds like something she’d say,” Cayenne muttered.