The Takedown(22)

Thank you for submitting your recent application to Yale University. This e-mail verifies that the admissions committee has received your electronic submission and will be considering it shortly.

What? No. I hadn’t submitted anything.

I swiped into my pending submissions. Harvard. Brown. Columbia. Every application was marked “completed.” Half the essays weren’t even finished.

Cue me abruptly standing up. Cue my chair falling backwards. Cue Audra—hand to chest—staring at me like I was insane. Cue the substitute shouting, “Ms. Cheng, sit down now,” as if I were a notorious troublemaker. Cue me grabbing the lav pass off the wall, then sequestering myself in the tiny third-floor faculty bathroom so the girls wouldn’t find me.

Question: Why haven’t hiding rooms been built into high schools?

I mean, when things go wrong, we flee to bathrooms. I didn’t know where to sit. On the toilet? On the grody, pee-splashed floor tiles? Finally I sank to the floor by the sink. At least the door locked, so no one would see me.

Clenching my head in my hands, I told myself maybe this wasn’t so bad. I could finish the essays, then call the schools one by one and beg to resubmit, explaining that Scholar had screwed me over. Yeah, right.

As if reflecting my state of mind, my Doc let out a horror movie–style scream. Last night, I’d updated my contacts. So, before looking, I knew that AnyLies had just txted.

Aw, having a bad day? Don’t worry. I think community college has rolling admissions.

Wait. What?

moi You cracked my college apps?



As hard as I could in the small space, I threw my Doc at the bathroom wall. It bounced, unmarred, to the floor. That’s what crack-proof coating got you.

Too bad they didn’t make it for people.





Twenty minutes later, my face now composed, I sat in Dr. Graff’s outer office, in one of the mansion’s two turrets, completely numb. My surroundings felt like a reminder of everything I’d been robbed of. When I imagined myself in Congress, I secretly imagined that space, with its Tiffany lamps, worn brown leather chairs, and floor-to-ceiling old-skool bookshelves.

I’d plotted my future out perfectly. Excellent service record and grades would lead to an excellent college and excellent internships. Except now they wouldn’t. A mean-spirited video prank was one thing. But submitting my college apps? That wasn’t just making my life miserable. AnyLies had just successfully derailed my entire future. Girls with sex scandals attached to their name need not apply.

“Excuse me one moment,” I said to Dr. Graff’s secretary; then I hurried into the hall and went to the closest water fountain, afraid I might vomit. Only pretending to drink, I let the lukewarm water run over my lips as I waited for that throw-up feeling to go away.

“Pull it together, Kyle,” I murmured. “You will not puke in a water fountain on top of everything else.” Please tell me I wasn’t going to puke in a water fountain on top of everything else.

The sheer pitifulness of the thought made me straighten up. I purposefully scrolled through my Doc until I found it: President Malin’s quote about the South Korean blackout.

Evil might have won today, but we are cleverer, more resourceful, and have the most powerful friends in the world. We are not to be beaten by them. We are the ones who will conquer Evil.

Audra said something like that, too, on a near daily basis:

“FCK them small betches.”

Calmer, I went back into the office. No sooner had I sat down than the outer door opened. Forgoing a hello, Mom tossed her bag next to me and said, “You didn’t respond to any of my txts. How’s it going?”

I flipped my hand back and forth, saw that it was shaking, and sat on it instead. “No one dumped a bucket of blood on my head or stabbed me in the belly with a sharpened spear, but it’s still early.”

Although they did submit my admissions applications.

I should have told her right then what AnyLies had done, but I couldn’t stand corroborating Mom’s suspicions that this was an act of revenge. What I needed to figure out was how they’d cracked my Scholar password. Even though it was too late, I flicked into Shield, scrolled down until I came to the Scholar icon, then tapped Change Password. Sharma had insisted I set Shield to change and record all my passwords on a weekly basis, but well, a lot of good that did me. Before closing out, I selected Apply Change to All, thereby updating all 112 of my profile logins.

I swiped my Doc off and set it a little ways away on the bench, unable to shake the feeling that AnyLies was actually right there in my Doc, watching me.

Dr. Graff blew in a few minutes later and swiftly ushered us into her office. In her most approachable moments, Dr. Graff could best be described as efficient, no-nonsense, and chilly. But she’d always been friendly to me. After all, in her top-performing high school I was her top performer. Once we were all seated, she swiped right to the chase.

“I’m sorry to see that the video has only gained traction since last night. Luckily, the news outlets haven’t picked it up yet. But first things first. Mr. Ehrenreich insists this video is a forgery. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Cheng”—Dr. Graff took a breath—“but I do need to confirm this with Kyle. As I’m sure you’re aware, video-editing technology such as this is not easy to come by, if it exists at all.”