Middle Ground (7 page)

“Screw you. Sorry I’m not some cyber nerd,” Jeremy retorted.

“We prefer to be called cyber gods,” Scott clarified.

I looked at Jeremy. “They were going to put you in a detention center for that?” I asked.

“It was his third offense,” Scott added.

Jeremy rested his head on the back of the car seat. “I hate digital school.” He groaned. We all smiled at him. At least he was in good company.

“Looks like you were smart enough to get away on your own,” Justin noted.

“More like paranoid enough,” he said, but before he could explain, we heard car tires screech around the corner, and police lights flashed behind us. I bolted straight up in my seat but Justin didn’t flinch, as if he’d been expecting it. I frowned down at my shoes. I wasn’t dressed for sprinting from the cops tonight. Justin must have read my mind.

“We won’t have to run,” he assured me. He looked up at Scott. “I need a car.”

“I’m on it,” Scott said.

“And will you call an ambulance?”

I looked from Scott to Justin and wondered why we’d need one.

“Let me know how it turns out,” Scott said.

He threw another handful of chips in his mouth and the screen snapped off. Justin dimmed the interior lights of the shuttle, but the police car was so close behind us the blue and red lights illuminated the space like we were back on the dance floor in Club Nino. Jeremy looked down at his lap, and failure hung over his face. He told us to stop the car.

“I’ll turn myself in,” he said.

Justin looked insulted. “We have a no-surrender-to-the-cops policy,” he told him. He squatted next to the exit door of the ZipShuttle. There was a red emergency latch along the side with white letters that read
PULL ONLY WHEN ZIPSHUTTLE IS IMMOBILE
.

“Hold on,” he said to us, and pointed at handrails next to our seats. I curled my fingers around the metal handle and looked back at the cop car. The headlights were inches away, and a blinding glare filled the car. Blue and red beams orbited inside of the shuttle, and sirens screamed so loud my ears vibrated at the high decibels.

Justin checked to make sure Jeremy and I were ready. He pulled the lever down and I braced myself. The force of the car stopping so suddenly threw me out of my seat and knocked me to the floor, but I managed to hang on to the handrail. A crash shook the car as the shuttle derailed. We ground off the track, sending up sparks around us as the iron burned hot against the pavement. Metal bent with a wrench, and a dark object flew and smashed against the side of the train’s window.

The screeching and shaking stopped but I was afraid to lift up my head from where I had it pressed into my arms, dreading that the shadow that had collided with the train was a body. I heard movement across from me and a warm hand squeezed my shoulder.

“You all right?” Justin asked me. I slowly peered up and nodded; Jeremy was already out of his seat, poised to run. I let go of my grip, amazed my fingers didn’t leave indentions in the metal. Justin kicked the door open and told us to get out.

We jumped down to the street and I gasped at the totaled cop car behind us. I’d never seen an accident before. The ground was littered with glass and shreds of plastic, and the front end of the cop car was smashed and had disappeared underneath the rear of the ZipShuttle. The front window had been busted out and there were two white airbags filling up the space. The lights were still rotating, but the siren’s sound was out. The ZipShuttle wasn’t as badly smashed, but the back headlights were knocked out and the bumper was crumpled and folded underneath the car.

“We need to move,” Justin told me. He grabbed my arm to lead me down the street. I pointed behind us at the cops.

“Shouldn’t we check on them?” I asked.

“They’ll be all right,” he assured me. “That’s what the ambulance is for.” I could hear faint sirens in the distance. Before I could argue, a red sports car pulled around the corner and stopped inches from us. Justin opened the front passenger door, and the driver handed him something that looked like a switchblade. Justin grabbed Jeremy’s wrist and aimed a red laser at the lock to free the handcuffs. He used the same laser to unlock the bracelet that was tracking Jeremy and threw it on the ground, then smashed it with his foot.

“You’re lucky they didn’t use a skin tracker on you. That’s what they’re starting to do these days,” Justin said.

“A skin tracker?” Jeremy said.

“They embed it in your skin, like a tattoo. It lasts for a couple of days. We can’t intercept people if they have them.” He tossed the cuffs down next to the smashed bracelet. He was so unaffected by the accident it was disturbing.

“We were going forty miles an hour,” Justin said, not looking at me but sensing my thoughts. “That’s a ZipShuttle’s top speed. Those airbags are designed to withstand blows at sixty. I’ve been in accidents worse than that, so trust me, they’ll be okay.”

I scrambled into the back seat and Jeremy climbed in next to me. The driver whistled when he saw the collision and the road full of debris. His dark eyes had the same detached look as Justin’s, as if he’d seen this hundreds of times.

I looked back, and sure enough, I saw two policemen pushing free from the airbags. The hood of the cop car had flown off, and I assumed that was the shadow I’d seen smash against the window.

“Beautiful crash,” he said. “I give it a ten.”

Justin typed something on his phone. “Works every time,” he said. “Cops haven’t learned it’s rude to ride someone’s tail.” He introduced the driver, Matt, to Jeremy and me.

Matt asked where we wanted to go.

“How about some food?” Justin offered.

“There’s only one restaurant that’s open right now,” Matt said. “It’s a pizza place called the Cliff, over by the river. Amazing thin-crust.”

Justin said, “Deep-dish trumps thin-crust any—”

“Wait a second,” Jeremy interrupted, and he leaned forward between the front seats. “Are you seriously discussing pizza crust right now? After what just happened?”

“This is a pretty typical night for Justin,” I told Jeremy.

“I might still have cops after me,” Jeremy said. “Shouldn’t we be running for the border?”

“They won’t find you,” Justin said. “Your tracker runs on a wireless signal that I passed on to Scott, and he’ll program it into a train, or a shuttle. It will buy us time to eat and then Matt will help you out from there.”

Jeremy sat back in his seat, and his eyes passed over all of us. “Who the hell
are
you guys?” he demanded, and I started laughing. I had nearly been arrested
twice.
I should have been scared. I should have at least felt guilty for crashing a cop car. Instead, I was soaring. Rebelling had that effect on me; it was like a drug I was becoming addicted to. I liked the high.

“I’m Justin Solvi,” Justin told him and grinned over his shoulder.

Jeremy nodded. “I’ve heard of you. The founder of the DS Dropouts. The Godfather of anti-DS. You have a lot of fans.”

“I’m not the Godfather,” Justin said. “But there’s definitely a family history.”

“I’m Maddie Freeman,” I said, and Jeremy did a double take.

“Wait, Kevin Freeman’s daughter?” he asked. “I thought you looked familiar. My little brother thinks you’re hot. He has a digital poster of you up in his room.”

“What?” I said. “They have posters of me?”

Justin nodded. “I’ve seen them,” he told me. “You photograph really well.”

“By the way, I heard you were supposed to take the night off,” Matt said.

Justin nodded again and slipped his phone into his jacket pocket. “I was hoping to have a date.”

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” Matt said.

Justin looked at me. “You don’t mind, do you, honey?” he asked me with a smile.

“Not at all, sweetie,” I said, and blew him a kiss.

Matt parked on the roadside in front of the Cliff. The restaurant offered only outdoor seating; the entire deck was covered with a white tent, and underneath, the canopy was dotted with yellow twinkling lights, like a private sky of stars. Heat fans blew warm air around us and we followed the hostess to the back of the balcony. A handful of tables were occupied with nocturnal life—some people in dresses and clubbing clothes and other people casual in shorts and flip-flops. Matt and Jeremy sat on one side of our booth, and I slid in next to Justin. His arm naturally looped around my back, and his fingers played with the zipper on my dress. I did my best to study the menu but I had to force my mind to concentrate on food.

The Cliff was an appropriate name for the restaurant, since it was built on a rock overhang that had formed during the Big Quake, a massive earthquake that hit Los Angeles in 2037. People still talk about it. Half of the seaside hotels, houses, streets, and freeways slipped into the ocean. It was the largest natural disaster to hit the United States. All of the major highways were ripped up and spat out in the quake, as if the earth had opened its mouth and tried a bite of concrete but didn’t like the taste. Underground subways in California have been banned ever since. Buildings have also changed dramatically since the quake. All the sky-rises (the one I live in included) are built on a layer of rollers, and the buildings themselves are made out of suber, a material that can bend and flex. Engineers declared these buildings indestructible in any natural disaster: floods, earthquakes, fires, and tsunamis. And they were proven right. There have been two substantial earthquakes since ’37, and sky news coverage observed the buildings in all their synthetic glory, waving and gliding easily with the swaying earth, as graceful as dancers on a stage.

One of the most impressive consequences of the quake was a giant fissure that cracked through the city, beginning at the ocean and snaking its way to East L.A., forming a narrow canyon. Ocean water rushed in to fill the open crevice, which is now called the Hollywood River. Most people avoided the space but a few downtown businesses were gutsy enough to build in the exposed earth.

Golden lamps surrounded us, and the canyon walls blocked the wind. I could smell the dusty rocks and the salt water and I could hear the water lapping the sides of the bank hundreds of feet below.

We ordered, and then after the waitress brought our drinks, Justin asked Jeremy how he escaped from the cops. “What did you mean when you said you were paranoid enough to get away?” he asked him.

Jeremy took a sip from his drink. “I’ll die before I go into a detention center,” he stated, and his hard eyes said he meant it. “My best friend was sent to one last year. He lived next door and we hung out all the time with a couple of kids in my neighborhood. We all hated DS. He was in the detention center for only three months.”

“What happened to him?” Justin asked.

“I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “He’s home, and we’ve talked, but I haven’t seen him. He says he’s fine and he’s happy but he won’t meet me face-to-face. I stopped by his house once, and he wouldn’t even leave his room to talk to me. We talked through a wall screen. And his parents say he’s cured. But if being cured means dying like that, I don’t want it,” he said. “So I keep a tranquilizer gun in my room. I sleep with it. I carry it everywhere, just in case. I had it with me when the cops showed up.”

Matt nodded. “We’ve done virtual interviews with former DC students. That’s all they agree to—they refuse to meet in person, even though some of them used to lead face-to-face groups.”

“And they all claim they’re fine,” Justin added. “But most of them are on antianxiety meds. It doesn’t translate. No one who works at a DC is willing to talk either. It’s the one system we haven’t been able to hack into.”

Jeremy looked around the table nervously, as if he thought we all expected something out of him.

“Listen, I really appreciate you all helping me out, but don’t think I’m going to join your side or anything.”

“It’s not a side,” Justin said. “It’s a state of mind.”

“Okay, whatever you want to call it, it’s pointless. You know that, right?”

“Pointless?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s like having a local food drive to end world hunger. Your heart might be in the right place, but really, you’re not even making a dent in the problem.”

“I don’t want to make a dent. I want to inspire a revolution,” Justin clarified.

Jeremy smirked. “You can’t fight digital school,” he argued. “It’s the law. You might as well overthrow the government while you’re at it.”

I narrowed my eyes at this but Justin only looked amused.

“You’re right,” I said. “We might as well quit. We’ll just drop you off at the detention center on our way home.”

Jeremy’s smirk faded. “All I’m saying is remember who you’re up against. It’s not just the digital school; it’s our society in general. And the government doesn’t budge. It takes politicians twenty years to pass a new speed-limit law. You think you’re going to change DS anytime soon? Good luck.”

I watched Justin but he didn’t look discouraged. When people argued about his mission, it only fueled him. He seemed to thrive on proving people wrong.

“So how come no one intercepted
me?
” Jeremy asked.

“We have to be selective these days,” Justin said. “So many people are getting arrested we can’t keep up. We intercept only people we think will join us. No offense,” he added, “but someone who repeatedly gets busted for cheating isn’t high on our list of people we want to recruit.”

The waitress delivered a pizza, which she set on a metal stand in the center of our table. We passed plates around and scooped up slices, and the yellow cheese pulled apart like string.

“So what are you going to do if you actually win?” Jeremy asked.

“I’ll have my freedom back,” Justin said simply. “You think you’re free? You’re not. You live in a computer system. And you’re conditioned to think it’s the best thing for you. When it comes to technology, humans are as easy to train as rats in a cage.”

“What happens if you lose?” Jeremy pressed.

“I don’t see it as winning or losing. I’m just looking for a middle ground,” he said. “I get that technology is convenient and has its benefits. We definitely can’t live without it. We can’t go back to living in caves. But most people are so plugged in, they’re not even living in the real world. Our lives aren’t grounded by anything. Being too dependent on something makes you a slave to it. And I sure as hell won’t worship a digital screen. So I’m looking for a halfway point. A balance. It’s not just about ending digital school. It’s about having a choice.”