The Unidentified (6 page)

“I saw who did it,” I blurted out.

“Wow, you’re terrible at this. You’re supposed to build up suspense before the reveal. I know your Media Literacy scores are low, but I thought you’d at least—”

“I’m not playing. I saw them.”

“What?”

“Well, I didn’t see who it was, but I saw them do it.

There were two of them, or maybe more, now I don’t remember what I saw.”

Mikey was quiet for a moment, then he said, “I can’t believe you actually saw it happen. I’m so jealous.”

“What do you mean?”

“How often is there a glitch in the Game? When something completely unprogrammed and unexpected happens?”

“Ari thought the sponsors did it,” I said. “And the Craftsters were more interested in the look than the action.”

Craftsters were more interested in the look than the action.”

“Your friends lack imagination,” Mikey joked. “There’s no way the sponsors came up with it.”

“How do you know?” I asked, but I already knew the answer too. I knew it from the second I saw the body tip over the edge. I felt it. The ache of an authentic moment.

The real thing.

“The sponsors can only
wish
they could come up with something that cool.” Mikey laughed.

“Did you see my souvenir?” I said, holding up my balloon-face wristwatch.

“Good game,” he said. “But is it wise to walk around with crime-scene evidence strapped to your arm?”

Could I get in trouble for picking up a piece of trash?

Was anyone even looking for who was responsible? I mean, besides us.

“Look,” I said, pointing up at the tell tale spy boxes, red recording lights lazily blinking. “Looks like whoever did it is not going to get caught. At least, not caught on film.”

All the old surveillance cameras, reminders of the building’s less-tech life as a mall, had been posed and repositioned in new angles. Instead of focusing on the passages and the Pit, they were pointing at each other in playfully paranoid staring contests.

I never really noticed the cameras before. They had always been part of the architecture, background scenery, but now it looked like they were creating some center-stage drama.

Two cameras in particular were angled toward each other so delicately that they almost looked intimate. Like other so delicately that they almost looked intimate. Like lovers sharing a secret, whispering that they only had eyes for each other.

“Cute,” I said and took an intouch(r) snapshot of the private moment. There was something so creepy-sweet about it. Surveillance cameras in love. Stalker romance.

“You want to see if there’s still time available in the Studio?”

I asked Mikey while saving the photo.

I was playing back the drum track Mikey had just laid down.

He was so good. I’d told him about the bird-wing beats I’d noticed in the Pit, and he captured the syncopated speed perfectly. It was just a snare drum rhythm, but it flew forward in my headphones. I listened not only to what we had recorded, but to the sounds that were missing. The sounds I needed to find to make the song complete.

Mr. Levy tapped on the glass, and I took the headphones off.

“Closing time, Kid,” he said.

“Oh, yeah. OK,” I said, looking at my intouch(r). I couldn’t believe it was already almost five o’clock. I backed up the drum track and got my stuff.

“I already had to chase Williams out of here,” Mr. Levy said. I craned my neck, hoping to get a glimpse of Tycho Williams. He was branded, but I swear I wasn’t a gawker. I just had always been really impressed by the music he made.

“What’re you working on?” Mr. Levy asked.

“Just a new track with Mikey.”

Mr. Levy looked back into the Studio. “Where is he?”

I shrugged. Mikey had left after recording. He liked the energy of playing, but lost interest when I started geeklistening on repeat. I could play it back over and over and never get bored, but Mikey says that was because I was hearing stuff that wasn’t there.

Mr. Levy was checking the other soundproof booths. I was the last one left again. “Whatever happened to that one track I heard…the ambient-room composition?”

“It’s not finished,” I mumbled. It was a music project I called
Background Checks
, and it made me uncomfortable that Mr. Levy had heard parts of it before it was complete.

He waited for me to log out of the Studio, then checked his player records to make sure everyone had logged out.

“Your songs are getting a lot of play at the Listening Library, Kid,” he said, lowering the clanking metal grate over the storefront. “Even though your constant name changes don’t make your uploaded tracks easy to find.”

I shrugged. “We can’t decide on what we want to call ourselves.” Mikey, Ari, and me often added our silly fool- around sorta-songs to the Library, releasing each track under a different band name. It made our songs unsearchable by artist, but coming up with inappropriate band names was half the fun of making music.

“But it speaks to the quality of sound you’re producing that your tracks are getting multiple listens despite no name recognition,” he continued.

“Oh, I haven’t been checking rankings,” I mumbled.

“Murdoch West from the Hit List has been asking me about new talent,” he said. “They’re looking for artists to promote. If you just played your stuff for them, you—”

“I’m going to miss the shuttle. See you tomorrow, Mr.

Levy,” I said, making my escape toward the escalator.

I didn’t like the way Mr. Levy was singling me out. I wasn’t interested in getting our songs on the Hit List—I just wanted to play with my friends.

My head felt kind of cloudy as I held up my ID and walked through the doors, exiting the Game.

The parking lot was almost completely empty. I’d missed Ari’s text that she was leaving if I needed a ride, and the last Game shuttle to my neighborhood was about to leave.

Mom was going to be pissed if I missed the shuttle.

She couldn’t afford to take time off work to pick me up and would probably have to ask Aunt Gillie to get me. Of course, she could just authorize my Game card to all ow me to take the metro. But she wouldn’t. She thought it was unsafe.

Mom was one of the millions of overprotective parents who loved the fact that players in the Game got intouches(r) with GPS tracking.

I took a seat on the shuttle, listening again to Mikey’s wing beats on my headphones. I thought about this morning in the Pit, the bird fight, the body drop, the soundtrack to the Unidentified film. Music box and white noise and bird wings.

I stared out the window and watched sunlight flash off parked cars in even bursts, almost like trumpet blasts. I wondered if I could get Ari to play trumpet, or maybe clarinet bird squawks were what this track needed.

I thought of Ari. Ari’s eyes.
Poo-brown eyes,
she said.

She wanted me to help her choose.
Things you think are
She wanted me to help her choose.
Things you think are
freedoms really limit your choices,
who said that? Lilac eyes. Sea foam eyes. Out the window. Eyes are the windows to the soul. Razor blade to your soul.
Choose your

suicide. We refuse to choose our suicide.

I took my headphones off, and shook my head.

My intouch(r) purred in my bag and I dug it out.

aria:
what doing? @KID I wasn’t supposed to text after I logged out of the Game because the wireless charges after closing time were insane. Mom freaked out when she got the bill after the first season. She had overlooked the hidden costs from the local service provider of the “free” intouch(r) that were mentioned in the fine print agreement when she signed me up for Level 13-17.

I promised Mom I would text only in emergencies after five. But this was Ari—this was important. So I replied.

kidzero:
nothing. new track, you should hear @ARI
aria:
so i saw that swift totally @ed you today! @KID I smiled, but then got self-conscious. If Ari noticed Swift @ed my name, then a lot of people could have noticed. I might have a bunch more subscribers following this conversation than usual.

kidzero:
don’t have the credit to text right now @ARI My intouch(r) purred again.

aria:
boo. you’re boring. @KID I unlocked the front door with the keycard from my shoelace keychain.

Mom wasn’t home yet, which wasn’t unusual. She worked Game hours fielding customer complaints for one of the telecom sponsors, but most nights she waitressed the dinner shift at her sister’s restaurant.

So I was left to forage for myself and our lazy dog, Lump, until she got home. My mom never bought the good kinds of snacks, but I had the Vending Machine in the Game to satisfy all my munching needs.

I fed the dog, and carried my bowl of semisweetened cereal to my room.

It was too quiet in my house. The silence was an itch.

I put on the music project I’d been mixing whenever Ari and Mikey punked out on band practice.
Background
Checks.
I recorded and looped “amplified room hum,” ulling apart ambient noise to find danceable rhythms and simple melodies.

I liked to play it when I was feeling this way, weirdly empty and uncomfortable. The quiet wasn’t so lonely if you listened to how much sound was hidden in silence. The fan rattle of overheating appliances, fridge motors, and like all the tiny vibrating tones of light bulbs and neon buzzes that we barely notice but surround us every day.

I got to the part that Mr. Levy had heard, where I’d amplified the faint chirps of my intouch(r) recharging and layered it with a fly trying to escape out a closed window. I thought about what he’d said about the Hit List cool hunter who would probably promote it. Ari would pounce on this chance, but I didn’t make this music to be an access ticket into the VIP Lounge. I don’t really know
why
I made this music, but it wasn’t to get me branded.

I opened my notebook(r). My intouch(r) default settings uploaded saved images automatically to the Network, and I found myself staring at the pic of the security cameras posing for each other. What kind of people went through the trouble of doing something like that? Who were they?

I clicked to view the dummy suicide video a few times.

Listened to the baritone voice say what the Unidentified wasn’t, giving no clue to what they
were
.

I closed my notebook(r) again and let the
Background
Checks
music bleed into the sounds of my own room. The heater turning on and off, trying to keep the homeostasis of warmth in the house, and the traffic from the street outside.

After a while I heard the TV switched on in the other room and the volume turned up.

It was the sound of my mom coming home.

“Kiddie!” Mom called out, and I turned off my music and went to see her.

Mom was collapsed on the sofa, watching the news.

She was always so exhausted; working all the time, stressing about making debt payments, and feeling guilty about not being here when I got home. I kissed the top of her head.

“Did you feed Lump?” she asked me automatically.

“Yeah.”

I always fed Lump when I got home, but she always asked. I could make a big deal out of it, tell her that I didn’t need her to remind me, but if she stopped one day, I would probably miss our ritual.

“I brought home some dinner,” she said, gesturing to a bag of restaurant leftovers on the table. I scavenged through the containers, happy to have some real-looking food.

“How was it tonight?” I said, helping myself to Aunt Gillie’s famous macaroni and cheese.

“Slow,” she said with the same tone she would’ve used if she had said “busy.” She hated it when it was slow because the tips were so bad it didn’t even make it worth her time being there, but she hated when it was busy just as much. The tips would be decent, but she was already so tired from working the phones all day, it took the last of her energy to have to race around all night.

“Why do you keep doing shifts there? Can’t Aunt Gillie find someone else to cover?” I said with my mouth full of food.

“You almost missed the shuttle today,” she said, sitting up and looking at me.

I flinched. Of course, she would be checking my GPS coordinates at closing time.

“Yeah, but I didn’t.”

She had that look, I could tell she was playing an imaginary horror film of everything that
could have
gone wrong if I’d been stranded outside of the Game without a ride. “Where was Ari?”

“She already left. I just lost track of time.”

“You need to take more responsibility for your actions,” he went on. “Your mistakes don’t affect just you.” I’d heard this all before.

“You worry too much.”

“Guess why,” she said simply. She turned back to the TV that was so old that you could tell you were watching a screen.

There were more reports of so-called minor mobs. I wondered who had so-called them that. It made them sound like no big deal, but maybe that was the point.

The government had just proposed legislation to raise the legal age to twenty-one. It threatened to extend the prohibitions against underage gathering in public places on to Bonus Level campuses too, and there had been protest parties. They showed clips of law enforcement using tear gas to break up “potentially illegal gatherings” and kids just continuing to dance in their gas masks.

I watched the images on the screen. It looked like it would’ve been a totally harmless party if the cops weren’t using brute force to try and stop it.

“I don’t want you getting caught up in what’s going on out there, Kiddie,” Mom said, watching a girl get dragged across the dance floor by the authorities. “As soon as the Game is done, I want you on that shuttle, and I want you home.”

8 TAG, YOU’RE IT I fumbled with my ID card at the Level 13-17 entrance. The doors wheezed open and the late-morning sun blazed through the skylight. I felt like an ant under a magnifying glass.

Operating on autopilot, I turned on my intouch(r) and felt it seizure in my hands with all my missed messages. I hid in the shadow of one of the “trees” at the edge of the Pit to read the texts without the sun glare on the display.