Still Point (16 page)

“Would having all my dad's listservs still help, so you can start sending messages to everyone in DS? Or is it too late for that?”

Justin shook his head. “Maddie, it isn't worth it. I don't want you to get caught again.”

“Oh, that's too bad.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why?”

“It's just one of the reasons I came home,” I said.

“How do you detach people from technology?” Clare wondered out loud, tapping the toes of her tennis shoes on the edge of the coffee table.

We all sat in Scott's living room. There were about a dozen people at his apartment, all Digital School Dropouts. Justin had organized the meeting so we could meet Shawn, who was in charge of recruiting rioters along the East Coast. There were four regions in the country. Justin led recruiting in the West, Shawn in the East, and two more regional heads managed the South and the Midwest. They met up once a month for meetings.

Shawn was older than the rest of us, in his thirties, and he dressed professionally in a blue button-down dress shirt and dark brown khaki pants. He even wore dress shoes. Half of us wore rubber flip-flops. We considered pulling on a pair of socks dressing up.

It was 11 p.m., and we were all wired on caffeine. Half-empty pizza boxes and empty soda bottles were scattered around the table.

“No one's succeeded at it before,” Scott said. “Technology always wins.”

“Then take away the technology,” Gabe suggested.

“We could spread a nationwide computer virus,” I offered. “It would be like a cyber black plague.”

“It's been done,” Shawn said. “It was more like a cyber sneeze. It was patched up too quickly.”

“We tried destroying the DS signal. That went over well,” Justin said, and we shared a smile.

“We could detonate a nuclear bomb high enough in the atmosphere to cause an electromagnetic blackout,” I offered.

Molly rolled her eyes. “We want to encourage change, not an apocalypse,” she said.

Clare nodded. “Hospitals would close. Millions of people would die. That might not be the right message to spread.”

“And there's the whole radiation side effect and getting-ahold-of-plutonium challenge,” Shawn added.

“People are afraid of illness,” Gabe said. “Let's release a study that shows computers cause blood clots in your brain that can lead to instant death.”

“That hasn't been proven. You can't catch anything from a computer,” Scott said.

“Justin, your thoughts here?” Clare asked.

We all looked over at him, like he had all the answers, because we believed he did. He had hardly spoken the entire night. Unlike the rest of us, Justin had an amazing capacity to listen.

“Showing people is a lot more inspiring than telling them,” he said. “Scare tactics are what got us into this mess. Just be honest. Show people they have options. People will see you living a different life, one that's radically different, and they'll wonder. They'll ask questions. So be ready to have answers. They're living a bunch of ones. Help show them that.”

“‘Ones?'” Clare and I asked at the same time.

“Yeah,” he said. “It's something my mom and dad used to make me sit down and figure out whenever I saw them. One to Ten, they called it. They told me that life is about the tens. That's what we remember.”

“What's your rating curve?” Shawn asked.

“Look at what you do in a single day, and rate how much of an impact it has. Let's say you stream television shows on your wall screen all day. You catch up on seven seasons of your favorite show. What's the reward?”

“It's a ten,” Scott said, “if it's a good series.”

“Okay,” Justin said. “But what's the impact? What have you
done?
”

“I've thoroughly entertained myself,” Riley said.

“
You,
yeah, it's all about you being entertained, but have you done anything for anyone else? What's the impact?”

“One,” Riley said with a frown.

“Let's say you game all day,” Justin continued.

“Hey, don't put down video games just because you suck at playing them,” Scott said.

Justin smiled. “Okay, but what's the impact? Have you made any difference in anyone's lives?”

“So, what's your point?” Scott asked.

“Look at it from another side. What are some of your highlights? Think about the last six months. What do you remember?”

“Meeting you guys,” Gabe said.

“Celebrating Maddie's birthday,” Clare added.

“Ruining a curve on a test by getting a perfect score,” Molly said. We all groaned.

“Setting everyone in a detention center free.” I smiled.

“Okay,” Justin said. “So, those are tens. Why?”

We all listed reasons. We did something selfless. We put somebody first. We reached out to people. We connected to people. We challenged people.

“You made an impact. I get that ones are fun, they're easy, they're relaxing. We all need to do ones once in a while. But when you look back on life, what's going to make it fulfilling? A bunch of ones? Or tens? What do you want your life to add up to?” He shrugged. “My parents always made me think about this. When I was younger, we'd sit down and discuss our tens. It almost became a competition, and pretty soon, we hardly had any ones.”

“Thanks for making me feel incredibly lazy,” Riley said.

“Yeah, way to one-up all of us,” Clare said.

Justin smiled. “All I'm saying is, let's show people how to get back to tens.”

 

I walked into an extra bedroom Scott used for an office and found Molly sitting behind a desk. Every wall screen was turned on, and I felt like I was standing inside a Jumbotron. She was going over some spreadsheets on a screen in front of her. I sat down on the couch next to her desk and curled my feet underneath me.

“Do you know Jax Viviani?” I asked.

She nodded. “Of course I know him,” she said. “He's almost as famous as you for pissing off the government.” She looked over at me. “He created software that collected names of all the kids being released from detention centers. It intercepted the information when it was transferred through the government files. I don't know how he did it—we haven't been able to figure out the program coding.”

“What do you think of
him?
” I asked.

Her expression turned sour. “I don't think of him. We don't talk to him anymore. He's a skater.”

“A skater?”

She turned her office chair to face me. “It's what we call people who bail on us. We intercepted him a few years ago when the cops traced him. We don't intercept people to do our one good deed for the day. We save people's asses so that they'll join our side. It's our recruiting process.”

“What happened with him?” I asked, intrigued.

“Nothing. He hid in a safe house for a while. He came to a few meetings. And then he skated. I heard he does counseling, which I find funny,” Molly said. “What does he know about helping people? He never even graduated from high school.”

I smiled to myself.

“I'm trying to recruit him,” I said, and Molly arched her eyebrows in surprise. “I haven't told Justin yet. I haven't told anyone except Clare. I don't want to get people's hopes up until Jax actually gives me the software we need.”

She laughed. “Don't bother, Maddie. We've been trying for years. We even offered him money. He said if we bugged him one more time, he'd stop offering his apartment as a safe house.”

Molly turned back to her desk and touched the wall screen. A video of Scott's kitchen appeared. She started scanning every room in the apartment.

“Where's Scott?” she mumbled. “He's supposed to bring me Shawn's recruit list.” She focused on the living room and used her fingers to zoom in on Scott.

“He needs to shave,” she observed. I looked at Scott's patchy beard growing in around his chin.

She turned up the volume, and we could hear conversations in the living room. The party was dwindling. Clare and Gabe sat on one couch, leaning into each other and talking, their feet tapping against each other. Scott was typing on his flipscreen. Justin and Shawn were talking on another couch.

“Can they hear us?” I asked.

She shook her head. She zoomed in on Shawn and Justin, and we picked up their conversation.

“Where are you living these days?” Shawn asked him.

“Here and there,” Justin said, and Shawn smiled.

“I hear that's a charming location.”

“For some people,” Justin replied.

“You ever consider settling?” Shawn asked.

I used my fingers to zoom out, and the conversation faded.

“Okay, turn it off,” I said. “This is spying.”

“Duh,” Molly said. “Why do you think we have these screens? It's great research.” She zoomed in on Justin and Shawn again, and the speakers picked up their conversation again.

“So, what do you think?” Shawn asked him. “Are you in?”

Justin's usually calm face was tight. I couldn't help myself. I leaned closer to the screen and listened.

“Why out east?” Justin asked.

“I'm trying to get all the regional heads together in one place,” Shawn said. “It's getting tough to do this all from a distance. And if we actually get some publicity at the national vote, we need to group forces while the attention's hot. Now's the time to go two hundred percent.”

Justin crossed his arms over his chest and thought about this. “You want all of us to relocate?”

Molly and I looked at each other.

“This is so wrong,” I whispered.

“Shh,” Molly said. We both leaned back toward the wall to listen.

“I think we should stay spread out,” Justin said. “Work on one community at a time.”

“Why?” Shawn whined. “Isn't that what we've been doing for ten years? And what has it done?”

“We need to start establishing models that other people can follow. Work small and grow from there, instead of trying to get too big too fast,” Justin pointed out.

Shawn sat back, sinking deeper into the couch, his forehead creased. “You got a problem with the East Coast?” he joked. “Too fast-paced for your West Coast legs?”

“DS is centered in Portland,” Justin reminded him.

“We need to be where the action is. Megan and Cedar are already in. I'm just waiting on you. I figured you'd jump at the chance. I don't know why we're having this conversation.”

Justin drummed his fingers on his leg while he considered the offer. My heart felt like it was drumming as fast as his fingertips.

“When's the moving date?” he asked.

“Now,” Shawn said. “You can come back with me tomorrow if you want. There's a place for you to crash.” He frowned at Justin's hesitation. “Why am I trying to convince you? What's holding you back?”

My brain muscles started to tighten up.

Justin opened up his hands. “There's somebody here I can't leave,” he said. My lungs immediately expanded, and I looked at Molly and we both smiled.

“Vaughn,” Justin said. “I can't leave here until Vaughn's behind bars.”

Shawn and I both blew out an exasperated sigh.

“This reality show is lame,” I said. “Turn it off.”

“Wait,” Molly said, grabbing my arm.

“And there's another reason,” Justin continued. “I can't leave Maddie right now.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, and Molly and I slapped high-fives as if our favorite team had just scored a goal.

“Should I make some popcorn?” she asked me. “This is getting good.” We both turned back to the screen and waited for Shawn's reaction.

Shawn laughed. “Madeline Freeman? So the rumors are true.” He laughed harder, and I had the sudden urge to punch his digital image.

“Why is that funny?” Justin asked.

“It's beyond funny. It's impossible. J, what are you thinking?” He lowered his voice and I strained my neck to hear. “Are you using her for her connections?”

Something close to a growl came out of my throat. I picked up my hand to slap the wall screen, and Molly held it back.

“I recruited her because of her connections,” Justin admitted. “You think I wanted this to happen?”

“Then don't let it happen.”

Justin blew out a laugh. “It's a little late for that.”

“Listen, you need to let this one go. You can't bring Maddie out east with you. We'd just have her dad on our tails. It's way too risky. It sucks you have a crush, but you need to get over it.”

Justin laughed again. “It's more than a crush.”

“J, you told me a year ago your life was going to be about fighting DS.”

Justin's eyes were hard. “That hasn't changed.”

“Well, I'm telling you, we need you. Now. You can't be married to this mission and be there for someone else. Look at what your parents did to you.”

“Asshole,” Molly muttered.

“Let's say we win the vote,” Shawn continued. “Your dream comes true. We get to rebuild schools. You think you're busy now, fighting for the things you want? Just wait until you
get
the things you want. That's when the work really starts.”

Shawn stood up. He pulled a backpack off the floor and unzipped it, out a flipscreen. “I know you too well, Solvi. You never step down from a challenge. That's all this girl is to you right now, a challenge. Trying to date the one girl you shouldn't. I'm not surprised. But are you really going to throw away everything you've worked for, for a pink-haired kid?”

“Thanks to her, we're close to freeing every detention center in the country. Show the kid some respect,” Justin said through tight lips.

Shawn turned on his flipscreen and set it on the table. “We have a conference call with Megan and Cedar. But listen, I can't afford to lose you. You're the heart of all of this. You have way too much fire in you, man. Don't let that girl put you out.”