The Unseen (2 page)

She logged back into the camera feed from the control room at the prison, where Henderson was yelling at his staff, and let it fill her entire field of vision. Kari overrode all of the screens in the room to show her simple message:
“Sorry about the scar, old friend. Please leave me and my friends alone.”

Kari grinned as she watched Henderson smash the tablet he was holding against the closest control desk. Kari closed the feed to the prison, returning her focus to her real world. She pulled the door open, not entirely sure she was prepared to face her final high school experience.

“Can I tell you how pretty you look yet?” David said.

Kari shook her head profusely in response from across the auto-auto.

“No,” Kari said. “This is already strange enough for me. Going to a school dance, wearing makeup, not to mention wearing this dress! The last thing I need is compliments.”
Kari gestured down her dress, a formal red gown with just enough sparkle to draw attention but not enough to be crass.

“I like the dress.”

“Stop. That counts.”

“Sorry, but it’s not my fault you look so nice.”

Kari glared at him.

“Fine,” David relented, “but can I ask you a couple of questions then?”

“Depends on the questions.”

“Did you break Aubrey out yet?”

“Why do you think I took so long to answer the door?” Kari said with a grin.

“You just did it?” David said. His voice filled with excitement at the news. “Wow! How’d you do it? I thought I told you I wanted to help!”

“I saw an opening, and I had to take it,” Kari said. “Sorry I didn’t wait for you, but I couldn’t pass the opportunity up.”

“That’s OK. I was part of the last prison break,” David said. He smiled at that, like the experience was a fond memory, but Kari didn’t remember it as fondly.
When she had broken herself and David’s family out of prison last fall she had nearly died. She had almost killed David’s family as well; it had been a violent, foolish escape plan that had still miraculously worked. Kari had never been able to confirm if any lives had been lost while they fled the Coastal States, but it was impossible for her to imagine that no one had been at least critically injured.

“So . . . did you use the hacking drones?” David asked uncomfortably, as if he had tried to change the subject, but failed. Kari realized that she must have looked upset from thinking about the past.

“No,” Kari said. “I don’t use those anymore. They’re too dangerous.”

“Well, they sure were helpful last time.”

“I didn’t want to do things like last time,” Kari said. “People got hurt, and I’m done hurting people with my inventions. Besides, your parents still haven’t forgiven me for the way I handled things.”

“That’s not true.”

“It feels like it’s true.”

“So how’d you do it, then?”

“I hacked the network and their communication system, and I sent orders as if they were coming straight from Henderson himself.”

“That’s brilliant!” David said. His constant belief in her had taken some getting used to, but she didn’t mind it much now.

“It was pretty easy from there,” Kari said. “I sent a couple of my new delivery drones to pick her up and slipped out of there practically unnoticed.”

“That’s horrible.”

“What?”

“The name—delivery drones. They need a better name,” David said. Kari tried to pretend like she was offended, but couldn’t help but laugh.

“
Well . . . they were designed to pick Aubrey up and deliver her here.”

David eyed her skeptically.

“If you have a better name, I’m open to suggestions.”

“I’ll think about it. Shouldn’t be too hard.” David grinned and straightened his red bow tie. “So she’s flying to Kansas then?”

“Yeah, she should be here sometime early in the morning.”

“So she’s going to go back with you to live in West Dakota?”

“I guess so. I haven’t thought about that part of things too much.” For some reason this caused David to laugh again.

“What?”

“You never seem to think past the initial escape.”

“Well, that’s the hard part.”

“I thought you said it was pretty easy this time.”

“What was your second question?” Kari said, glaring at David.

“What was that thud sound before you came to the door the first time?” David smiled at her knowingly. Kari tried to think of an excuse but couldn’t, so she just laughed. The auto-auto slowed to a stop, indicating that they had reached City Hall. Kari stopped laughing.

“That was fast,” David said. “You ready for Senior Ball?”

“I’m not sure,” Kari answered honestly.

“Well, too bad—you have to go. You promised me.”

“Technically, I only agreed to go to homecoming.”

The doors to the auto-auto slid open, and David stepped outside of the self-driving vehicle first. He turned back and offered Kari his hand, which she accepted.

The outside of David’s town’s city hall was lit by a number of drones carrying Japanese lanterns floating in front of the building.
The music from inside was clearly audible from the street, and few other late couples were making their way up the stairs and into the dance
.

You can do this. If you can outsmart Henderson and break Aubrey out of prison without anyone getting hurt, you can handle a stupid high school dance. Besides, none of the awful people from home will be here.

David let go of her hand and instead extended his elbow to escort Kari up the stairs. It was a little too chivalrous for her taste, but she doubted she could make it up the stairs without at least a little bit of assistance. As they climbed the stairs the music grew louder, and Kari grew less confident with each step. At the doors of the old brick building, a dozen enforcement officers were forcing students to pass through a series of security checkpoints.

“Seems like a little much for a dance, doesn’t it?” Kari whispered to David as they passed through two different metal detectors.

“Things have been pretty tight around here since the assassinations,” David said in a hushed voice when they finally cleared security. “We’re lucky they even let us have a dance at all.”

Kari nodded, as that made sense. The civil war had been drawing down to a political resolution after half a year of heavy skirmishes along the borders. The Coastal States had been losing their fervor for the fight as casualties rose and the catastrophic economic damage continued.

It also helped that the war was unpopular among the public and elections were coming up. It had looked positive enough that Kari had considered allowing Aubrey to wait out the rest of the war in Henderson’s prison. But then the president of the United States was assassinated in the Oval Office, and everything went crazy.

The fighting had escalated to the point where both sides were considering a draft. Then, just two weeks prior to the Senior Ball, the chief executive officer of the Middle States was found dead in Dallas, Texas.

Since then the entire country, and world, had been on lockdown. Given the circumstances, Kari could understand extra caution, but it felt like there could be a better use of the manpower than a high school dance.
Unless high schools around here are worse than they are back in North Carolina.

That was Kari’s only frame of reference, as she hadn’t enrolled in school in West Dakota after escaping from prison. The only reason she had stayed in school as long as she had was to keep her parents from knowing the truth about her hacking ability.
And that worked out so well . . .

“Let’s go check it out,” David said over the sound of the music. The hallway inside the entrance was decorated with fake cherry blossoms that must have matched the theme, but seemed a heavy contrast to the electronic music flowing through the building. Kari and David stepped into the main hall, which was filled with fog, laser lights, and people dancing. It was exactly what Kari pictured a high school dance would look like. They both stopped and stared at the mass of teenagers jumping up and down and grinding in the middle of the room.

“Well,” Kari said.

“Well . . . let’s see what’s at the refreshments table,” David said. “Can’t start dancing in the middle of a song anyways.”

“Good idea.”

After a minute, David and Kari deduced that the table with punch and snacks was located on the other side of the crowded, musky room. They picked their way through the throng of dancing people; it was surprisingly tedious work, as it was difficult to predict what the dancing teenagers were going to do.
The snack table was lightly populated with some generic printed snacks, likely from the school’s own printers, and the punch bowl was under constant surveillance by a diligent teacher.

“Not great,” David admitted.

“No, this is perfect,” Kari said. “This is my first and only high school dance, and I want the true experience. And this is exactly the high school dance experience.”
Kari picked up a rather bland looking cookie from the table and bit into it. David grabbed a couple of cups full of pink punch and took a long sip out of one of them. His eyes bulged with excitement as he swallowed.

“Wow!” David said excitedly.

“That good, eh?”

“It’s perfect,” David said. “It’s exactly what you wanted. Nothing has ever tasted more like Senior Ball than this punch.”
David handed Kari a cup, and she drank a small taste of it herself.

“You’re right,” Kari said, as she tried to get the poor-tasting mixture of cookie and peach punch out of her mouth. “That’s absolutely perfect.”

A hand appeared on David’s shoulder a split second before it yanked him around, sending his half-full cup of punch flying into his tuxedo. A handful of jocks in white tuxedos, each sporting a different-colored vest and tie, formed a half circle in front of David. They said something, but Kari couldn’t hear it over the music. David tried to pull away, but they held him in place. She reacted by instinct and stepped forward, ready to swing at the closest boy, but was stopped by a strong arm.

“But we just got here!” David yelled over the music to the boys gathered around him.

“And now it’s time to leave.” A tall, dark boy towered over David. His size marked him as an athlete, and the way that the other boys stood around him trying to look tough designated him as the alpha male in the pack. Kari hated alpha males.

“Leave us alone!” Kari shouted as she ducked under the arm blocking her and stepped up next to David.

“So your girlfriend is real, then?” The boy sneered at David before looking Kari up and down.
Girlfriend?

“Leave her out of this, Terrence,” David said.

“Back off,” Kari shouted at the same time. Terrence forced a laugh, and the rest of his crew followed suit. Kari glanced over to the punch bowl to see if the teacher who had been guarding it was going to step in. The teacher was missing.
Of course she is; they are always missing when you need them.

“This dance isn’t for you. This dance is the last chance for us to have a good time before we join the fighting. So how about you go and read your books and hide like the coward you are,” Terrence said.

“If you’re so eager to throw your life away, how about you get started on that, and you leave us alone,” Kari said. Deep inside she knew she wasn’t helping, but the more thoughtful part of her was always slower than the reactionary side. Terrence’s friends went quiet.

“Tell your pants to shut her mouth!” Terrence stooped, yelling the words into David’s face while the electronic music beat relentlessly on in the background. David looked to Kari for a single breath, his face telling her what he was about to do.
Don’t do it, David!
David threw his whole body behind punching Terrence in the face.

“You know,” Kari said, putting her arm around David’s shoulder, “high schoolers over here aren’t that different from back home, huh?”

“Actually, I think these ones hit harder,” David said, holding the ice pack to his right eye. The fight inside hadn’t lasted long, thankfully. David’s punch had simply cleared Terrence out of the way so his friends could jump David. Kari had started screaming, and the teachers showed up in time to only allow David to earn a few bruises and a single black eye.
The overwhelming crowd of eager witnesses blamed Kari and David for the fight, which led to their hasty expulsion from the dance.

“Sorry about this,” Kari said. “I know how much you wanted to go to the dance.” David shrugged and grunted at the same time, admitting it was both true and OK.

A boy in a brown suit and his date, who was wearing a huge peach dress, stepped passed where Kari and David were seated on the steps of City Hall. Kari watched them disappear into the security area as the music leaking from inside the building changed from a fast club song to a slow love ballad that Kari wasn’t familiar with.
Well, honestly, this went better than I expected.
David groaned as he recognized the new song.

“What?” Kari asked.

“This is the theme song of the dance,” David said. His voice sounded defeated.

“Well, we better dance to it then,” Kari said. The steps were wide enough here that Kari hardly had to use David’s shoulders to steady her as she stood up. David lowered the ice from his cheek and looked up at Kari in disbelief.

“Right here?”

“Yes. Now get up,” Kari said, staring down at him. She wasn’t sure whether to glare at him to let him know it wasn’t negotiable or to smile to try to convince him to dance with her. She smiled. David shook his head and set his ice pack down on the stairs and pulled himself to his feet. He brushed his tux off and then bowed slightly and offered Kari his hand.

“May I have this dance?” asked David.

“I already asked you to dance.”

“Fine, you may have this dance.” David grinned and stepped toward her and started to wrap his arms around her waist.

“Wait!” Kari said, causing David to jump slightly. Kari reached down and pulled off her custom printed heels and tossed them into the bushes off to the side of the stairs. “All better.”

David wrapped his arms around her waist, and Kari placed her hands behind his neck. The music was fainter out here, but in a way it set a better mood. A couple of the drones that were carrying the Japanese lanterns buzzed by them unnoticed as David twirled Kari around slowly. When she finished spinning, Kari found her eyes locked with David’s, and for the first time in her life, found herself in a piece of reality that felt too good to be true. David leaned in slowly, and Kari closed her eyes.