The Takedown(86)

Mac set the tray on the coffee table.

“Oof,” Mrs. Logan said as, knees cracking, she hovered over it and began doling out mugs of mocha nut. “Don’t mind me, kids.”

Jonah sank into the couch with a satisfied grin.

“Actually, Ma.” He smiled sweetly. “Stay. Have coffee with us.”

“Oh, okay,” Jonah’s mom said brightly, though this could have been her intention all along as there were six cups of coffee on the tray. “It’s so nice to meet some of Jonah’s pals.”

As Mrs. Logan spooned sugar into her coffee, the wall screen behind her flickered to life. Jonah’s main G-File page—his real one—was on view. His profile pic was a joker from a deck of cards. Douche. Otherwise there was scant information about him. He was tagged in a few family photos, but they looked blurry, like someone had taken a filter to the parts just over his face. Other than that, there were only a few banal memberships to various movie and comic streaming sites.

“So,” he snorted.

Sharma smiled but didn’t look up from her Doc. The list of memberships updated first. Every site that Jonah had joined under an alias was now attached to his G-File. There were sites for making weapons. Sites for looking at porn—whether it was girl-on-girl, guy-on-guy, teacher-on-student, the list was nearly unending.

“Those are for work,” Jonah muttered.

But already other memberships were edging the porn ones offscreen. Amidst the hundreds of sites that were suddenly scrolling along, I swore the B&P site flew by. Audra sure had reach. Jonah spilled his coffee on the floor as he stood up and quickly sat back down.

“Whoops,” his mom said, and dabbed at the carpet with a napkin as, on-screen, avatars appeared for all of Jonah’s aliases, for his role-playing games, and for what I could only assume were hacker memberships.

“Jonah was just about to tell us about this new club he joined,” I told his mother.

“A club,” she said hopefully. “Like a school one?”

“Extracurricular,” I said.

Jonah pressed his lips together. “It’s nothing.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s not nothing.” Mrs. Logan had finished with the spill and now turned her attention to the coffee cake. “Who wants cake? Sorry, kids. Jonah always gets the first piece.”

Rory gazed at Sharma. “Be still my beating heart.” Then, cracking his knuckles, he said, “My turn.”

Now on Jonah’s G-File, under the video section, small clips filled the screen. It was all the videos he’d authored. Mine and Mr. E.’s was first, as it had the most views, but the other girls’ came right after.

“Wait,” Jonah said. “What are you doing?”

“Is that too big a slice, hon?” Mrs. Logan stopped cutting cake; in an aside to me, she mock-whispered, “Jonah thinks he’s getting chubby.”

As if his mother’s humiliation of him weren’t enough, on-screen there were now what appeared to be a bunch of old Batman movies that had Jonah’s head superimposed over Batman’s. Rory selected one. It whirled to life. It was immediately obvious, as Batman faced off against the Joker, that Jonah was playing all the parts.

“Harsh,” he whispered, then louder: “Stop it.”

“You don’t have to eat it all.”

Beneath the video, all the pics that Jonah was Woofered in began to surface. Pics you could normally only see through ConnectBook could now be viewed by anyone. Rory and Sharma had just uncoded his life and privacy faster than it took Jonah’s mom to cut a slice of cake.

“No!” Jonah shouted. “You can’t put all that…dessert…on my plate for everyone to see. This will ruin me.”

Mrs. Logan blinked once, twice, then chuckled. “Jonah, it’s just cake. You love cake.”

But then the sheer delight on four of the five faces around her finally caught her attention.

“What’s everyone looking at?”

She turned to face the wall screen.

Jonah shouted, “Safe America. It’s called Awareness for a Safe America.”

The wall screen flipped back to Jonah’s original, bare G-File.

“Dear me,” his mother said. “That sounds like quite the dope club. What does it do, JoJo?”

Jonah’s face was white. With shaking hands, he took the huge slice of cake his mother offered him.

“I’ll tell you about it later, Mom.” Jonah set the cake on the coffee table and sat on his hands. “Do you mind if I hang with my friends now, alone?”

Now that everyone was served, Mrs. Logan had just been about to sit. She covered the hurt over her revoked invite with a bright smile and patted Jonah on the head, then left. Sharma or Rory—who could tell which at this point?—was already bringing up the Encyclo screen for Safe America.

“You won’t find much written there,” Jonah said, correctly.

The definition stated that Awareness for a Safe America was a privately funded Internet-safety watchdog group. And that was about it.

“They found me. Messaged me through a Kruel Killers board—”

“Detective game where you hunt and kill serial killers,” Rory chimed in.

“—things like: ‘Interested in being a Kruel detective in real life? Make money finding RL Kruels.’ I thought it was spam. Except a dude I’m connected with on the game said he worked for them. That they’re legit. Said the work was fun and all-caps DOLLAR SIGNS. Zipped-lips face what kind of work. Didn’t take me long to find out. I totes hacked my friend’s e-mail. ASA had him scooping up Woofer pics of congressmen with chicks who did not equal-sign their wives—I sent ASA my e-sumé stat.”