Elusion(26)

He stands up and puts his tab in his back pocket. “I have to go. See you in the halls.”

“Okay,” I say, hoping that he might look at me again and see that what he’s told me hasn’t made me think less of him.

But he walks straight out the door, and Caldwell calls me back into his office.





SIX


WHEN I GET BACK HOME FROM SCHOOL, Mom has already left for work, but the glowing orange text on the left-hand corner of the InstaComm wall shows she also left me a video message. After tossing my bag on the floor, I plop down on the couch and kick off her nurse clogs, extending my legs so I can rest my feet on the padded U-shaped ottoman. I fish out the remote from in between two seat cushions and press a blue square button, which accesses the message from the database.

An image slides across the screen from the right, showing a picture of her, all prepped for a long night at Inner Sector Medical’s critical-care unit. Her hair is swept back, and she’s wearing the oatmeal T-shirt that she layers underneath the top of her scrubs. She’s even wearing a little makeup, which brings a subtle warmth to her complexion that I haven’t seen in a while. I find myself smiling at her, even though in the snapshot she’s just looking straight ahead, her mouth slightly open.

I press the green oval button next and the message begins to play.

“Hi, honey. I’m sorry that we’re missing each other tonight, especially after what happened today.” Her gaze dips down for a second and she pauses, like she’s trying to figure out the right thing to say. When she looks back up, her eyes are a little glassy, and my throat tightens.

“I don’t blame you for being angry, but I had to agree with your principal about your punishment. Two weeks of detention may seem harsh to you, but it could have been a lot worse.” She flashes a hint of a smile and I know the worst is over.

“I’ll be back in the morning. Hopefully I’ll catch you for breakfast. There are waffles in the freezer,” she says, smiling. “Sleep tight.”

The video ends, and I sigh in relief as I close the viewing window on the screen with the remote. The impromptu chat we had with Caldwell this afternoon was pretty brief, and I couldn’t really tell how Mom was going to react once she didn’t have a school administrator huffing and puffing at her. I’m so thankful that the whole thing didn’t blow up in my face at home, because two weeks of detention is not going to be a walk in the park.

I’m about to shut the InstaComm off when an envelope icon bursts to the center of the screen, spinning in a circle with the number one in the center of it. I click the Upload button on the remote, and the IP address is from a sender who’s not in our list of contacts. The message has a large attachment, which instantly makes me wary, but my curiosity gets the best of me, so I open it anyway.




Hi Regan,

I was able to retrieve A’s vlog. Thought you may want a look.

JH

PS: Hope you don’t mind.

Zoe’s in my chem class, she gave me your IC info.



I press the Launch key on the remote. As the file loads, I think about how much Josh had to go through to unearth Avery’s vlog, especially since it had been completely scourged from all the Net caches.

I guess that master badge in computer science wasn’t a joke.

Soon a still photo of Avery appears in front of me, her eyes already piercing through the screen. Her curly hair is hanging loose around her face and down to her shoulders, and her glasses sit on the end of her nose. I hit the Play button and then jack up the volume so I won’t miss a single word.

“I have breaking news in the Elusion story. Someone with insider information got in touch with me after the big Orexis press conference announcing that Elusion received CIT approval and the program would be launched nationally,” she says, her voice seemingly filled with more emotion than an aspiring journalist should really have.

I lean in, staring Avery down with a scowl.

“My source tells me that there is a hidden object inside all the Escapes—a firewall, to be exact—that lures uninhibited and vulnerable users closer to it every time they use Elusion, stimulating some kind of neurological response. We believe this firewall was specifically designed by developers at Orexis to create a biological addiction to their product so they could make billions!”

I throw my hands up in the air. Avery is totally fabricating things. I have never seen one of these firewalls of hers while in Elusion, and I was just there with Patrick.

“And it’s working. Orexis stock is at an all-time high. Elusion users are finding themselves going back in more and more often, unable to control their urges. And the CIT did nothing to stop them. A new scourge is about to affect our country, turning the people we love into . . . E-fiends!”

E-fiends?

A tad dramatic, but I have to give her credit—she looks like she believes what she’s saying.

“Soon my source will go on record to verify that Orexis falsified their test data to get their precious safety seal! Soon this company will be brought to its kn—”

I hit the Pause button, and given the surge of anger that’s slicing through me, I’m surprised I don’t throw the remote at the screen.

But as much as I wish I could just discount Avery as a nasty, pathological liar, I can’t. And that’s what makes me even more frustrated.