The Takedown(76)

“Hydrogen Coop? Why’d you choose that reference?”

“Uh, ’cause it was accurate?”

A holobirdie flew straight at Rory’s head. One of the guys lunged for it. The collision rolled Rory out of the FaceAlert window. He wheeled himself back in.

“Come on, you guys. I’m on business here.”

“So that leaves eleven names.” Despite the fact that Sharma and I were pelting him with eye daggers, Mac swiped into CB, pulled our list from yesterday up on holo, and flicked away the girls and the medievalist. “My money’s on this normal guy with the avat profile pic. I mean, mira, what dude listens to oldies like Dave Matthews and Eminem, and also Primal Rage?”

“A dude with no musical legitimacy.” Rory ducked and looked over his shoulder, waiting for another birdie attack. “Bro has traveled a lot for being only twenty. I’ll look into normal guy first thing after lunch.”

“Already did,” Sharma said. “No activity on his account for two days now.”

“Who said that?” Rory asked.

Sharma shook her head and waved her hands in front of her: no, no, no, no. I kept my Doc trained on me and Mac.

“Big deal,” Mac said. “So normal boy doesn’t like to be online. I haven’t checked into my accounts for at least two days.”

“Technically, you have,” Sharma said. “Look, CB accesses your other sites. Click here, your profile shows what you’ve looked at online, where you’ve checked in, who you’ve…ew.” She stopped speaking. Her eyes shot up to me, then quickly away. “Normal boy doesn’t have that, which means…”

“Ew”? What did that mean? And why had she looked at me when she’d said it?

“Could be a dummy profile,” Rory finished. “Or he’s purposely covering that tracking stuff up, and why do that unless you’ve got something to cover up?”

Behind me there was a loud crash. I squeaked in surprise—actually squeaked—and jerked around. Brittany Mulligan must have stood up too quickly and knocked her chair over.

“What?” she asked when she caught me staring. “Afraid Ellie was coming to get you?”

And although I desperately wanted to say, No, I just saw your shirt-and-pants combination, I shook my head. When I glanced at my Doc again, Rory was peering into the FaceAlert screen.

“Are you actually in your school’s cafeteria right now? Kyle, do a wide-angle reverse view. Are you, like, surrounded by kids in space-agey uniforms? Is everyone eating adorable box lunches? Are owls delivering your homework assignments?”

He snuck a finger beneath his glasses to rub his eyes, as if to better see the private school wonders previously denied him.

“Rory, it’s a cafeteria. Not an anime spaceship for wizards.”

“Feed a programmer’s offline experience points and reverse angle already.”

I sighed. “Fine, there’s someone here I want you to meet anyway. Rory, computer hacker extraordinaire, allow me to introduce Sharma, computer hacker extraordinaire.”

Sharma shook her head, whispering, “Don’t you dare,” even as she took her hair down from the pencil it was twisted up in, so when the Doc camera landed on her, glossy black hair was swishing across her shoulders.

“Whoa,” Rory said.

Sharma blushed and flapped her hand halfway between a greeting and a go away.

“Sharma, meet Rory. He dropped out of college. What does ‘ew’ mean, Mac? What did Sharma see on your CB page?”

Mac fully turned toward me so I could see just how far back on his neck that thing went. His nah-it-isn’t-a-hickey was the size of Greenland.

“Oh my gosh. That’s hideous.”

“What’s the big deal?” Mac asked. “I thought you liked being proven right.”

Then he pushed back his chair and left. If Fawn or Audra were here, I would have been wrapped in a hug right now, but Sharma just studied me quietly.

“Sorry,” she said. “Awkward.”

When I turned my Doc around again, Rory was scowling. A txt from him hung over his FaceAlert screen.

rory (cb techie) Hey. That whole dropping-out-of-college line only sounds good when I deliver it. It also means I’m only nineteen. Please turn the Doc around again?

“Just find out what you can about normal boy, okay?” I forced a smile. “Oh, and Rory? Sharma wrote a program that makes Universal Translate recognize pig latin.”

Rory clutched his chest and collapsed on his desk.

“Not fair,” he murmured as I hit disconnect.





Rory’s next FaceAlert came while I was in study hall. Before I accepted, I sent invites to Fawn and Sharma to silent conference the call. Two tiny FaceAlert windows immediately popped up on my screen. Now they could see and hear everything that I could and I wouldn’t have to try and repeat any of this later. I blew them kisses, then tapped accept.

“Am I on speaker or are you plugged in?” Rory immediately asked.

“Plugged in,” I murmured. “Study hall.”

“Okay, gotcha. You can’t talk. Is your foxy friend there?”

“Not the one you like.”

I reversed my screen so he could see Fawn. She was sitting next to me, smiling at her Doc. When she noticed herself on my FaceAlert window, she angled her own Doc away so we couldn’t see her screen, probably so Rory wouldn’t know she was silent conferenced in.