The Unidentified (20 page)

He was right. We couldn’t sit here in this public space for long without getting hassled by the authorities.

“Come on.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why? You’re not afraid of
me
, are you?”

“I don’t even know who you are.” I stood up. I was feeling something that was probably fear if I could admit that. “Who are you?”

He got to his feet too. “How am I supposed to answer that? You want a name? You want to know my likes and dislikes? To list the ethnicity of my ancestors? Would knowing any of these things answer your question? There aren’t answers to all questions. The simplest questions are the hardest ones.” He leaned in close. “Who are
you
?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came.

“Who are you when you’re alone? When no one is watching? What’s left then?”

My mind was empty. I couldn’t think of a single thing that felt true.

I watched his lips as he spoke.

“You are the unidentified.”

The door slid shut with the finality of my decision. I was going with him. I was sitting
in the van
of a strange guy who just answered “Can’t” when I asked him why he couldn’t tell me his name.

He had loaded my bike into the back, then climbed into the driver’s seat. When he held up his card to authorize the ignition, I was already starting to regret this. The motor cleared its throat, then continued to run silently.

The van slowly pulled away from the curb.

It hadn’t even taken much to get me to go with him.

Just a promise. He told me there was a place the Unidentified met. A place where they could sit for hours without the authorities harassing them. A place where intouch(r) signals were blocked. A place where they could talk without being overheard.

He promised freedom.

Things you are told are freedoms in fact limit your

choices.

That was true. There were only two choices. Go or don’t go. I went.

But maybe I was choosing my suicide?

I laughed.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, and returned to the uncomfortable outer-spacey silence. I watched the street signs and the people on the sidewalks and felt the separation between them and me. In the passenger seat of a stranger’s van, no one can hear you scream. I laughed again, my nervous reaction.

“You OK?” he said.

“Maybe I should just—”

“We’re here.”

We hadn’t gone very far. Just a few blocks through the city. Five minutes of regret.

“Here?”

We’d stopped in front of a prison. An ancient prison, unused for decades, but still standing in the center of the city.

I jumped down to the curb, relieved to be out of the van, but not exactly excited about the prospect of breaking into a prison. “How are we supposed to get in?”

He waved me over to the intersection, away from the wall . “This connects to one of the incomplete inmate escape tunnels.” He stood there holding open the grate to a storm drain, right in the middle of the sidewalk. Carefree in the bright afternoon sunlight.

“How did you find this?”

“Let’s just say I’m good at finding weaknesses in people’s defenses.” He reached out his hand to me. “After you.”

The choices were always the same. Do it, or don’t.

He lowered the grate behind the both of us. Grinning in the damp underground.

He whispered stories about famous escapes as we stepped carefully, crouched underground. “The prisoners we remember are the ones who escaped.”

“Yeah, but those stories were about the ones who got caught trying to escape. Not the ones who got away.”

“Huh, OK. You win.”

The tunnel led up to a cell block. All the barred doors stood open, rusty at their hinges. The sunlight highlighted the clouds of dust from our footsteps and increased the contrast of the cracks in the stone.

“So this place is just abandoned?” I asked, looking up at the individual skylights. “No one comes here?”

“We come here,” he said, leading me through the long corridors. “The stone wall’s block intouch(r) tracking signals, and it’s fitting, don’t you think?”

“I don’t…How?”

“The abandoned shopping centers were reappropriated for use as the education institutions of the Game, and we’re reappropriating the penitentiary into the headquarters of our resistance.” He ran his hand across the wall and pieces of it flaked off and rained to the floor. “They should’ve used prisons, right? When they were proposing the Game? If they were going to take over existing architecture, what better way?”

“The Game isn’t a prison,” I argued, weaving around the rubble of a crumbled wall . “It’s the only place we get to actually
do
anything, where we’re allowed to be.”

“It’s a system that makes the inmates grateful for their lockdown.” He leaned his weight to push open a door.

“Hah. You lose.”

“Do you always keep score?”

He turned and stepped closer to me, leaned down, and whispered, “Always.”

I followed him out into the yard. “Observation tower,” he said, pointing to the dominating structure in the center.

“Isolation cells. Warden’s office.” He took the stairs two at a time in the administration building. “The Game keeps us isolated from the outside world. How is that
not
a prison?”

He opened the door to a small office where I was met with semi-hostile stares from each of the Unidentified.

“What’s she doing here?” Sophia asked.

“I thought we were planning a party, and everyone’s invited?” he replied, joining the group.

Cayenne looked away and focused on her notebook(r) screen again, not saying a word. Tycho and Lexie kind of watched me from the sofa. I stood there awkwardly. They were the Unidentified, and I was the uninvited. What was I doing here?

Elijah whispered something to Sophia then came over to greet me.

“How’s Mikey?” Elijah asked.

“OK, I guess.”

“Tell him I said hi.”

“Yeah, OK.” I waited three forever-seconds, then added, “So, you’re planning a party?”

“We are indeed,” the voice of the Unidentified announced. He was perched in front of a window overlooking the prison yard.

I felt the intensity of Cayenne’s irritation from across the room.

“It’s going to be epidemic,” he continued. “An event to announce to the administrators that they can’t stop the force of our dissatisfaction. Once the word gets out.”

“A protest party?” I interrupted. “But haven’t you seen the news? Those don’t do anything.”

Lexie rolled her eyes and muttered something to Tycho. Way to make friends and influence people, Kid.

“Maybe,” he said, jumping down from the windowsill.

“But maybe an invitation to protest is more powerful than the protest itself.”

“She doesn’t need to know everything,” Cayenne snapped, still not looking at me.

“Not everyone can keep a secret like you can, Cayenne.” He grinned at her, then turned back to me. “What if the meaning wasn’t in the message? What if it was only a way to deliver a deeper idea? A method of distribution.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“What are you doing?” Tycho spoke up. “Don’t you know who her sponsors are?”

“A pariah virus,” he whispered, so close to me now.

I saw Lexie and Sophia exchange frowns.

“It’s a nasty little virus that infects only the Network system. It publishes all the user’s password-protected secrets to everyone in their contact list.” He slipped his arm around me. “The only way to stop it is to delete all your contacts before the attack phase. Can you imagine a system-wide status change? Everyone, all of us, dropping out of the system? The solidarity of choosing to be united by nothing?”

Cayenne stood up and shoved past him to leave the room. He watched her go.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Tycho muttered.

“What’s she going to do? Tell her sponsors?” He smiled at me. “I know who I can trust.”

Out in front of the Game entrance the next day, I confided in Mikey about my prison break-in.

He basically freaked out.

“Are you
insane
?” he shouted. “You could’ve…You could’ve…Do you even know what could’ve happened?”

“Yeah, sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to offend your sensitive sensibilities. Elijah said hi, by the way.”

“What?”

I just shrugged. “Besides, it’s not like
you
never do anything reckless.”

Mikey had a legitimate police record. He had “borrowed” his dad’s car one night after he got his license.

No easy feat, since he had to hack the authorization lockout. But he got it running, hilarity ensued, until his dad called the cops on him.

It was a completely disproportionate punishment for taking the car without asking. I mean, it wasn’t like Mikey pistol-whipped his dad and stole his ride. But because Mikey tricked the technology, the judge wanted to make it a big kids-don’t-try-this-at-home case and suspended his license and restricted his public access to a single home- to-Game route until he came of age.

“That’s not the same,” Mikey said, frowning. “What did he want, anyway?”

“He wanted to…” I decided not to tell Mikey about the virus, but I wasn’t really sure why. I think I wanted to prove to virus, but I wasn’t really sure why. I think I wanted to prove to the Unidentified that I could keep their secrets. “He wanted to introduce me to the rest of the group.” Was that why he took me there? He wanted me involved in their future plans anyway. Somehow.

“Oh my Google, it’s a cult!” he wrapped his arms around me like he was shielding me from a bomb blast. “I won’t let them brainwash you!”

I laughed. “You want to go in? Get decent seats?”

“OK,” he said, but still not releasing me.

“Mikey!” I shouted, and he let me go, laughing.

Inside, things were already revving up for the big War Game. The maintenance crews had synced the screens in the Pit into a single huge screen where the video battle would play. The elaborate stage where the two teams would be seated in front of their own monitors had already been set up. One of the workers was still untangling the console cords.

“But seriously,” Mikey said, taking a seat beside me.

“Who was that guy? You’re not seriously considering getting involved with them, are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t,” he said, popping a handful of Javajacks into his mouth. “It’s so trendy already.” He gestured around to some people in the crowd. They were wearing I AM A TARGET MARKET T-shirts.

That was fast.

“Hey, have you heard from Ari?” I said, checking my intouch(r). “She disappeared at After Hours and I haven’t heard from her.”

“Maybe she ran off to join the Unidentified.”

I shoved him, and turned my attention to the people around us.

The crowd was so hyped for the game, crackling with energy. TV crews from the sports stations were there covering the public event. It was open entrance for families and friends so they could come out in costume to support their team. The Pit was filled with screaming fans waving team colors: burgundy and black for Meat Hammer, silver and white for the Princesses. Mikey stood beside me, hooting and booing alternately.

p_phillips:
can you even see anything from down there? @KID Scanning the scene, I saw Palmer Phillips sitting in the VIP box seats with the other people on the It List. He waved.

I waved awkwardly back, not really understanding why he would be buzzing me.

p_phillips:
swift asked me to save you a seat @KID
p_phillips:
your boy wanted to make sure you had a good view of him blasting face @KID I quickly thumbed back.

kidzero:
i’m watching the game with friends, thanks.

@PALMER I put my intouch(r) away and pretended not to notice Mikey checking my stream on his own intouch(r). I wished all my friends didn’t know
every time
someone shouted me out on my stream.

Luckily, the speakers blared the title music, so if Mikey felt the need to make a joke about my new buddy Palmer, I wouldn’t be able to hear it now over the music and the ocean roar of the crowd.

The giant screen up front started to flash video stats of each of the players before they took the stage. We could see their season scores, weapon of choice, and which brand was sponsoring their play lit up large for all to see.

Meat Hammer’s team captain, screen-name kill One, came out first in full slacker-warrior gear. He took the stage, fists pumping in the air, as the crowd cheered and jeered.

His oversized portrait on the screen glowered out at the crowd.

Jeremy came out after him. His screen-name, swiftx, flashed below his picture on the screen, making it look like a mug shot. The way his dark hair fell over his squinty eyes made him look like a criminal superstar.

Junkmonkey took the stage next, jumping up and down and waving his arms wildly at the crowd. But the picture behind him was of Aggro8, who came onstage to pull Junkmonkey off again. The crowd laughed, but Aggro8 saluted solemnly and took a seat.

Then up on the screen, we saw Junkmonkey’s out-of- focus photo—as if he had moved when the picture was taken. We all laughed and craned our necks, searching the empty stage for some sign of him, but he was still backstage. Then he came running out and attempted to do a cartwheel. He failed spectacularly and the crowd cheered.

Kill One and Aggro8 were watching Junkmonkey’s antics disapprovingly, but Jeremy wasn’t even paying attention; he scanned the crowd.

When Save the Princess took the stage, I got swept up in the energy and squealed like a fangirl. In each of their pictures, they looked straight at the camera, expressionless and in control.

Elle (screen-name Elle) came out first. She was wearing an all -white track suit. Her hair glowed silver in the stage lighting, her eyes shaded by her pink-tinted glasses.

She stood on the side of the stage, waiting for the rest of her players.

Kasi Mohindra (screen-name Mo) followed after Elle.

She looked tiny on the big stage. Kasi had embroidered the number of kills she got over the season onto the sleeve of her uniform. Her entire arm was polka-dotted with multicolored skulls that continued onto her back. She pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear and waved to the crowd before walking over to stand next to Elle.