“Maybe she did. But that didn’t stop her from sleeping with my husband and ruining my marriage. Didn’t you ever wonder why she didn’t want you to find your father? If you did, you’d know what she did. Everyone in town would know that she isn’t the victim here. And your mother likes playing the victim. It’s hard to get sympathy when you’re exposed as an adulterer. I could tell you a lot about her personality type, but I think you can figure it out on your own if you really want to.”
She’s lying. She knows what buttons to push because she knows how I feel. I’ve spent months telling her how I feel. The world swoops around me and I blink back the lightheadedness and notice the pottery sitting on the far shelf and how it resembles the vase on our living room end table and the piece on my mother’s nightstand. And then I think about the days before my father left. The silences. The way he stared at my mother and then at DJ, as if he couldn’t bear to lose him. I thought my father couldn’t handle the terror and unhappiness that come with having a sick child. I thought he was too scared to stay. Only, I was wrong. Dr. Jain is telling the truth, and it’s worse than anything I thought I knew. My father couldn’t handle knowing DJ isn’t his child. That loss meant more to him than I did. I wasn’t important enough for him to tell me the truth. Like my mother, he chose to leave me behind.
I don’t know what to do with the rage I feel, but I can tell by the gleam in Dr. Jain’s eyes that she wants me to be angry. She wants me to feel betrayed.
I do. But I won’t cry. Dr. Jain has taken enough. If it kills me, I won’t give her more. I swallow down the anger and do my best to sound calm when I ask, “My mother and your husband are the reasons you came back to Wisconsin?”
“No.” She smiles in a way that says she understands what I am doing and approves, which makes me angrier. “NEED is the reason.” She glances at her watch and frowns. “After years of research and development the program was finally ready for a controlled test. Since I know the area, it was easy for me to insert myself into the community in a manner that put me in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the data we received on our surveys. I could also monitor the reactions of the Network members after the site went live. It’s interesting, but out of all the subjects, circumstances made it so I knew you best, and yet you were the one who presented the biggest surprise. When your chance came to ask the network for something you needed, I thought you’d ask for a way to find your father. If you had, it would have changed everything.”
“Why?”
“If you think about it, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
The pain has faded but my mind is fuzzy. Yet when I think about it I do know. “Because my father couldn’t be a donor for DJ. Locating him wouldn’t qualify as a need.” And like the site states—there is a difference between a want and a need. “I would have been given a NEED fulfillment request.” DJ could live without finding Dad. A kidney is necessary. I’d like to think I would have ignored the request, but I’m not so sure that I could have given up on the chance to help DJ. I wouldn’t have cared about the consequences of fulfilling the request until it was too late. And then, like Bryan had, I would probably have done anything to prevent my mother or the people in this town from finding out what I had done. I would have been just as bad as everyone else. I might have been worse. It was all a trap. One that I escaped, because Dr. Jain played God and deemed my request a need.
Her smile is slow and satisfied. “See, I told you you’re smarter than people give you credit for. Yes, you asked for something that your brother will not be able to live without, and that changed everything for you. It also changed everything for Nate Weakley, who thanks to your request will no longer need that physics grade he wanted. I’m told he’s been delayed due to the snow, but he should be along soon. Weather is something we can’t seem to anticipate with any consistent accuracy. Human reactions, thank goodness, are much easier to predict. Otherwise, I’d be out of a job. As it stands now, this accelerated test has been far more successful than any of us planned.”
“The test is for the government?” I try to shake off the fog and I tug at my restraints. “This isn’t just about revenge for what happened between my mother and your husband.”
“Of course not.” She walks over to the whiteboard and picks up one of the markers. “Although this project would never have existed had it not been for that betrayal. I wouldn’t have taken a government job or been assigned to the design team that works to infiltrate and gain intelligence from foreign nations. I don’t know if this will make it easier for you, but everything that has occurred over the last few days will help keep our country safe for years to come.”
“How does Amanda dying or blowing up the school keep anyone safe?”
She shrugs. “Every culture has unique social structures that make it difficult to acquire data through typical channels, especially now that security measures are at an all-time high. Those who handle secure data have a heightened awareness of infiltration and are doing more to protect sensitive information. Information we need in order to keep our country and its citizens safe.” She takes the cap off the marker, adds the names Bryan VanMeter and Ethan Paschal at the bottom of the list, then steps back and points to the board. “High-school-age citizens, however, aren’t always on alert. Their parents aren’t either, no matter how much they claim to be watching. No matter how many warnings are posted, no one actually believes that online behavior can hurt their lives or the lives of others. Especially if there is a cloak of anonymity. Everyone feels shielded, safe, and invincible. Add the anxieties that come with being a teenager—the things you want and feel you need in order to be successful or admired or happy—and it’s easy to see how your demographic can be molded into a group that is willing and able to collect information for rewards. Especially if it is unaware of the importance of the data collected. After all, what’s the harm in taking a photograph of a neighbor’s house or printing off a file from a parent’s computer? It’s just a little thing. Correct? And what they need to make them happy is so much more important. Especially if all their friends are getting rewards. No one wants to be left out.”
She puts the cap back on the marker and returns it to the holder on the board. “Obviously, this accelerated model was intended to demonstrate how far I could push my subjects before losing their willingness to cooperate. I am now also able to pinpoint which personality types are best suited to which types of tasks, and which ones will be the most likely to report the network to their parents or to the authorities. The real program will expand the timeline and avoid the termination of Network members or government targets until the very end of the appointed cycle. There will, of course, have to be a few adjustments made for cultural differences and—” She stops and pulls a cell phone out of her pocket. Her eyes narrow as she reads the screen, and when she turns back to me, she no longer looks like the Dr. Jain who is always calm and in control. Her face is contorted with fury. “The police are on their way here.”
Officer Shepens must have gotten my message. He believed me. “Good,” I say as I struggle against the cuffs, hoping against hope that they might break.
“You should have just let things be.” Dr. Jain strides to the table, sits down at the computer, and begins to type. She stands again in less than a minute and walks toward me. “The one good thing is that we now know that the most important thing we can do to perpetuate each network cell is to identify those who fit your personality type and eliminate them.”
She pulls the gun back out of her pocket as I yank at my restraints. I know it’s pointless, but I have to try to save myself. I pull to the left and feel the chair tilt. It starts to keel over and takes me with it. Pain explodes in my shoulder as I crash against the concrete. My glasses skitter somewhere and I fight to get to my knees, to crawl or hide or something. I have to do something because out of the corner of my eye I see the blur of what can only be a gun aimed at me as Dr. Jain says, “It’s a shame, because I really didn’t want to do this.”
> Oh God. My heart stalls and I jump at the crack of the gun. But I’m not hit. I wait for the next shot to fire, but instead the gun tumbles out of Dr. Jain’s hand and she falls to the ground. Without my glasses, everything is out of focus. But I can still make out the trickle of blood oozing from Dr. Jain’s head, and I know. Dr. Jain is dead.
Sydney
“KAYLEE, GET UP.”
She blinks at him and then screams. Great. Although he figures if he were handcuffed to a chair, threatened at gunpoint, and then forced to watch as someone got shot in front of him he’d scream too.
“Hey, calm down. I’m here to help you. We have to get out of here, though. I think she hit something on the computer that’s going to blow this place sky high.” The wires that have no other reason to be snaking around the base of the room have to be attached to something. And he doubts that Dr. Jain or the United States government is interested in leaving evidence just lying around.
Hearing about the prospect of a bomb seems to get Kaylee moving. “I’m stuck to this chair,” she says as she drags herself to her knees and lets him help her get the chair back into an upright position.
The handcuffs are the same type that were used to restrain Nate. Good thing, because it means he has a key. “I’m going to get you free. As soon as I do, clear out of here. My truck is parked on the street. Nate’s in the back seat.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks as Sydney slides the key in the lock and turns it.
“I want to take a look at something. I won’t do anything crazy. I promise. Go.”
She does. She’s unsteady, but she’s out the door in a flash. He has to give her credit. The girl has guts. She’ll be back to look for him if he doesn’t get out of here soon.
Sydney walks over to where Kaylee’s glasses lie on the floor, picks them up, and slides them into his pocket. Then he heads for the computer and gets to work.
The system is incredible. Pretty sad it’s going to end up torched. Oh well, it’s not like he can just walk away with the hardware. And maybe someday soon he’ll have a setup like this of his own. After his stop at Dr. Jain’s house in Nottawa, breaking into the system is easy. The government should have taught the woman to change her passwords. It takes him only a few minutes to find what he’s looking for. He types her password again to verify his request. A confirmation message appears on the screen and he smiles as he hears a beep telling him the fail-safe has been set.
He pushes back from the computer and heads for the door. Before he ducks out, he looks back at Dr. Jain’s body and then at the wall filled with the names of people he’s known almost all his life. He reads the words at the top of the board: NOTTAWA EXPERIMENTAL EXCHANGE DIFFERNTIAL. The true meaning behind NEED.
As he runs down the drive, he sees Kaylee waving at him from inside the truck. He braces for the explosion he has set to go off. It’s time to wipe the slate clean. Kaylee smiles with relief as he gets closer, probably because she doesn’t realize how long he was hiding in the shadows. He heard everything Dr. Jain said, and he agrees. NEED is a pretty good idea. With some work, it can be better. The person he reached tonight at the Department of Defense was open to a discussion, which is good. Sydney knows he can either seize this opportunity or go down with the ship. He’s done too much to hang around and wait to be used as a scapegoat. He’ll stash some of the information in a secure place with some fail-safes just in case his new friends decide he knows too much, and then he’ll get in touch with them again to set up a meeting. He’s pretty sure that once he shares the ideas he has gleaned from his firsthand experience and explains to them that he can expose their super-secret plan if they aren’t careful, well, he’ll be able to help make NEED great.
Kaylee
TOWN TERRORIZED BY A STRING OF TEENAGE HAZINGS GONE WRONG
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DENIES ALL CLAIMS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE OR INVOLVEMENT IN TWELVE DEATHS
MERCENARY COMPUTER GAME INSPIRED TEENAGER WHO PLOTTED AGAINST TOWN
FIRST RESPONDER WRACKED BY GRIEF GIVEN LEAVE OF ABSENCE
I slam my computer shut without bothering to read the articles and try to shut out the beeps and chatter coming from the hospital hallway. How the news about what happened got screwed up so fast is beyond me. It’s only been three days since Officer Shepens and several other policemen arrived at Dr. Jain’s barn in time to see it burn to the ground. No one has been able to figure out who alerted her to their arrival. Her phone and mine went up in flames. Thankfully, the pictures I posted online still exist. Along with the damage to the school, those photos, the kids who are dead, and the fire that destroyed Dr. Jain’s house all confirmed that what I was saying was true. As did Sydney’s statements about why he came to the barn and how he got me out before I died. I thanked him then and have been hoping he’ll come by the hospital so I can thank him again. But he hasn’t. I plan to swing by his house when I get out later today. It’ll give me something to do besides going home—a place I don’t know if I’m ready to return to. And not just because of the reporters who my father says are camped out on our street.
My father.
When I woke up after the surgery to remove the bullets in my arm, I found him at my bedside, with my mother hovering behind him, and I smiled. Then I remembered. He’s sorry. She’s sorry. Everyone apologized for their mistakes and their secrets and all of the hurt they caused. I know I’m supposed to forgive them even though they say I’m entitled to be angry and they’ll give me time to work through my feelings. They’ve even suggested we go to a family counselor. Yeah, right. Like that’s ever going to happen. After Dr. Jain, I don’t plan on talking to a shrink ever again. Not even for DJ.
Although I will lie for him. He still doesn’t know about Mom’s betrayal and his biological father and I don’t plan on being the one to tell him. I refuse to break his heart. Mom can do that herself. For the last year I thought I knew what was right, and I turned out to be horribly wrong about almost everything. Things are messed up enough without me screwing them up even more. It’s a step in the right direction, I hope. A step away from the person Dr. Jain thought I was and the things she was certain drive me. I’m angry at my mother for cheating and my father for lying and I’ve shut them out when DJ isn’t around, even when they want to talk about his biological dad.
According to my mother, Dr. Jain’s ex-husband was tested months ago—not long after my father walked out the door. I think about how things could have been different had I known that before. But I didn’t. I’d like to think we’re all sorry for that, but the way my mother asks me to be careful of what I say to others about our lives tells me some things haven’t changed. Mom doesn’t want everyone in town to gossip about her mistakes. I understand the feeling, but I can’t be sorry that she’s the one who’s going to be talked about this time. If she had told me the truth, I would have done things differently. At least, I hope I would have. I’m so different now from the person I was only a week ago. It’s hard to tell.
The worst part is that DJ’s biological father isn’t a match. But he’s been quietly asking some of his family and friends to be tested, and now that my mother plans to break the news to DJ, he’ll be able to ask even more. The test for his cousin came back with a four-point match. He’s willing to donate. There are lots of steps between now and then, and maybe a better match will be found. If not, I’m glad to know there’s one person who is willing to help my brother. Seeing someone step forward to do something good without the promise of an external reward gives me hope.
DJ will be told soon about our father and his biological dad. I’ll help DJ when he learns the truth, and I’m going to try to forgive my mother for not telling me why she didn’t look for my dad when he left or what DJ’s biological father was doing to save my brother’s life. I won’t be able to forgive immediately and maybe I won’t ever be able to forgive completely. But I have to see if there’s more to me than the bitterness and distrust that Dr. Jain counted on. I don’t want those things to define me. Th
ere are no more secrets. NEED is gone. I have to find a way to move on.
“Hey.” Nate stands in the doorway, one foot in the room, one in the hallway.
“Hey.” Not exactly the best response, but I don’t know what else to say. I saw him once after he woke up from whatever drug he’d been given by NEED. But not since then. Between the questioning by police and the surgery and the revelations about my family, there wasn’t time to talk. Then there was, but he didn’t show up. Now he’s here. Things have changed. There’s no going back to what we thought we were or who I was. The old me would have shut Nate out. This me says, “Come on in.”
Relief flickers across his face. “I drove by the school on the way here. They already have crews cleaning and rebuilding. The offices need a hell of a lot of work, but the rest isn’t as bad as it could have been. My parents say that several churches in town are volunteering space for us to have classes until the school gets fixed. From what I’ve heard school will start again next week.”
“I guess you’ll have to study for that physics test,” I say.
“Yeah.” He looks down. “I guess, which kind of sucks. Personally, I think we should all be given straight A’s until such time as we come to terms with the trauma inflicted upon us.” He jams his hands in his pockets, a familiar gesture. “I was going to bring flowers, but your mom said you’re getting sprung today, so I figured I should probably wait.”
“You don’t have to get me flowers,” I say, because I can tell by the way he looks at me that he’s asking about more than carnations. And I don’t have any answers right now.
“Then I guess I did something right this time.” He walks to the foot of my bed. “I’m still figuring out what happened after I left your house. I was halfway down the block when Bryan drove up. He asked if I wanted a lift and I climbed in because it was Bryan and I figured there wasn’t anything to worry about. Wow, was I wrong. I would have guessed if Jack had been behind the wheel, but Bryan . . .”