Still Point (19 page)

I dug it out of the mulch and wiped it off with shaking fingers. I glanced at Justin as I tore through the opening. Something was starting to come together, even before I opened my dad's letter.

The air was quiet. There wasn't even a breeze. Just the sunlight, just my breathing and my heart racing. I opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of real paper. It was old stationery with a brown border. The note was written in my dad's elegant cursive.

 

Madeline,

I knew you would find this. All I have to do is tell you not to do something and it's like a spark fueling you to do it. It's always been that way with you, which, I have to say, impresses me.

When you were fifteen years old, you stole listservs that had access to millions of people, to every person in the country attending digital school. I know you and your friends would love to have access to this information. So, here is my graduation gift to you. All of those listservs. I trust you'll use them wisely.

 

I shook the envelope out and two storage drives fell into my hand. One was labeled “DS” in white block letters. I stared down at it, so small, just this tiny pebble in my hand. There was another drive, black and unlabeled. I looked back at the letter.

 

I have a favor to ask of you. Since you will likely be contacting all of these people the day of the national vote, would you spread another message as well? I have a news feed attached to the other drive. It's the same speech that I will be giving at the end of the vote, and I want everyone to hear it. I can't be certain my message will be broadcast nationwide, but you can help make it happen. This file is set on a timer. The message will play after the vote is announced. It will only play one time. You'll have to trust me, Maddie.

I have so much to explain to you. I hope, one day, that I'll get the chance.

I love you.

Your proud father,

Dad

 

We sat outside for an hour, dissecting my dad's letter. We read it a dozen times, looking for anything to decode. But my father wasn't playing games. Scott checked the drive my dad gave us, and all the listservs were there. We had access to more than two hundred million people. It was in our hands.

“Do you think he's trying to bring down digital school?” Clare asked.

“If he wanted to end it, he could, anytime he wants,” I said. “He owns the program, doesn't he?”

“The government owns it,” Justin said.

“At least we have all the contacts now,” Clare said.

“At a cost,” Scott reminded us. We all looked at the black drive lying in the middle of the patio table as if we were afraid to touch it.

“Can you try to crack it?” Justin asked.

Scott shook his head. “It's designed to self-destruct if anyone tampers with it before the timer. It scrambles the message.”

“We could decide not to play it,” Clare suggested.

I looked at my mom for advice.

“I'm at a loss, Maddie,” she said.

“Your dad has a plan,” Justin said. “It sounds like he's had it for a long time. It would just be nice to know whose side he's on.” He pointed at the drive. “That message could be a last resort, to prove all of us wrong. To undo any progress we make at the vote. Can we really take that chance?”

I picked up the drive and handed it to Clare. “Give this to Molly,” I said. “Tell her to program it so the message plays.”

“You mean . . . ?” my mom asked.

“I trust him,” I said. “Besides, we have what we want now. We have the listservs.”

“Can't you track your dad?” Scott asked me.

My mom's eyes widened. “What?”

I laughed. “I'll show you,” I said. I told Scott to open up the GPS program on his phone. I scanned my wrist and we searched for the twin signal. My dad was in Salem, Oregon, thirty miles away.

“Hold on,” Scott said, and zoomed in. “He's at a detention center in Salem. It's the only one in Oregon. Pretty small; only about eighty kids are in there.”

“Why would your dad have interest in this DC?” my mom asked.

“Maybe he knows people inside,” Clare said. “He's probably trying to get evidence.”

“Or maybe he's trying to clean up all the evidence against him,” Scott stated.

My heart jabbed against my ribs. “My dad isn't working with the DCs, Scott,” I said through my teeth. “He isn't a murderer.”

“He killed a student,” Scott reminded me.

“Because he was saving the lives of other kids,” I stated.

“How are DCs any different? Killing off the rebellious kids to save the innocent ones?”

“Stop it!” I yelled at him, and my feet were scrambling toward him before Jax grabbed my wrist. “Take it back, Scott.”

“You guys, let it go,” Jax said. “We're on the same side here.”

“I'm sorry,” Scott told me. “I've despised your dad for a really long time. I can't instantly forgive him and start rooting for him when he helped build a world I can't stand. He's not my father.”

“Instead of standing here arguing and trying to guess what your dad's up to, why don't we go and find out?” Jax offered.

Scott and I both turned to look at him.

“Now?” we both said.

“We're only thirty minutes from Salem,” Jax said.

“What if he's with the cops?” my mom asked.

“It will make it more fun,” Justin said. He was already on his feet. “You up for it?” he asked me.

All I needed was the edge in his eyes. It was like a spark plug at the end of a fuse. But more than anything, I wanted to prove Scott wrong. I wasn't sure which was more fulfilling—succeeding or proving people wrong.

I stared down at the two drives, lying patiently on the table. I knew it wasn't time to think, it was time to move.

“Let's go,” I said.

Justin, Jax, Scott, and I stood in a tree graveyard beyond the electric fence looking up at the gated enclosure of the Salem Detention Center. Compared with the boring beige sky-rise of the LADC, where I served for six months, the Salem center had the architectural design of an ancient brick colonial estate. An ornamental tower stood at its center, bold and intimidating, as if it had eyes constantly viewing the commodious grounds. Rusted iron crests clung to the borders of boarded-up windows.

We stood a hundred yards away in the distance, staring at the old building with a mixture of intrigue and aversion.

“It used to be an insane asylum,” Scott told us. “Then they reopened it as a hospital, but the nurses all quit. They said the supply rooms were haunted.”

Jax nodded. “I heard they have an old autopsy room, and a crematorium full of cans of ashes from all the prisoners who died inside.”

The bricks were painted white, but the white had chipped to reveal shades of red underneath, making them look alive, with blood and bones, like a human body slowly decaying. Green ivy leaves wrapped themselves up the sides of the building like spindly arms and fingers. It was haunting and fascinating, but what disturbed me more was the idea that there were living people trapped inside.

“Are you sure it's a DC?” I asked.

Justin pointed to one of the back wings of the building, where spaces for tall, arched windows had been removed and filled in with bricks and cement.

“I think they only use that section for the DC,” Justin said.

The sky was gray, and a light mist matted my hair against my face. The turf grass between us and the DC was pockmarked with puddles. Dead trees stood around us. Their gray limbs held spokes of straggly branches, drooping with green, stringy moss.

“There's still a catacombs underneath,” Scott said. “That's how they moved the inmates around, so people never had to see them.”

“This place is giving me the creeps,” I said, and zipped my coat up to my neck. “Has my dad moved yet?”

Scott shook his head. We had been standing at the south end of the DC for an hour; my father was on the north end, waiting on a side street one block from the entrance. From our angle we could see the entrance drive, all the way to the security gate.

“Look,” Jax said. We all glanced up just as a white van appeared on the entrance road. There were no windows in the back of the van, and the cab windows were tinted black.

“That's not your dad,” Scott said. He pointed to the map. “But he's moving.” We all hunched closer and looked at Scott's screen, where the yellow pixelated image of my father moved along the map, toward the entrance road.

We crouched down behind a line of jagged tree stumps, watching from about fifty yards away. A black car suddenly sped up the road behind the van.

“Enter: Mr. Freeman,” Scott said with a smile. We all watched the road ahead of us.

The van pulled off to the side to let my father's car pass, but it pulled over behind the van. Both cars idled for a few seconds, and I looked between Justin and Jax. Their faces were locked on the road. I felt my heart drum in my chest.

Two men got out of the van, and a third swung open the back door and jumped down. My dad calmly got out of the passenger side of the car, wearing his usual black business coat and pants. His driver got out as well; he was twice as thick around as my father. Even from fifty yards away his bulky chest was intimidating. It made me feel better.

“Are they armed?” I asked.

Justin and Scott used a binocular function on their phones to stare up the road. “I don't see anything,” Justin said.

My heart was dribbling against my ribs. I peered at the van as if I could see through the metal walls. “Do you think they're taking students inside?”

“It looks pretty casual,” Scott said. “It's probably just a delivery truck.” He pulled his phone back and started typing. “I'll do a search for the license plate and see if anything comes up,” he said.

I backed up a step. My dad didn't do casual conversations. He wouldn't be wasting his time out here to meet with equipment drivers.

The van driver led my dad's escort inside the back of the van. I swallowed as he stepped inside.

“Let's go down there,” I said. I looked between Justin and Jax. “Something isn't right.” Jax nodded and started to follow me, but Scott grabbed my arm and held me back.

“They're just inspecting it,” Scott said. “We're here to watch your dad, not help him. We don't know if he's worth helping yet.”

I was about to argue when two of the men grabbed my dad and shoved him away from the van. The third man jumped out of the back and slammed the doors closed before my dad's driver could get out. They all ran for the ditch.

“Dad!” I screamed. I hurdled broken tree stumps and sprinted along the fence toward the entrance drive. I could hear the electric buzzing current as I ran, but my heartbeat was even louder.

“Maddie!” Justin yelled behind me. Just then a succession of explosions ripped the van apart, blowing the roof off with an orange gust of flames. The flames curled and billowed into a cloud of neon orange fire. A black brume of smoke hung in the air and floated for a beautiful, horrible moment before it collapsed with a sigh and fell to the ground.

I stopped, hunching down and covering my face from the hot gust of wind shooting off the explosion.

The smoke cleared and men scuffled to their feet. My dad was getting up off the ground behind his car, where he had dived in time to avoid the explosion.

“Dad!” I shouted again. Justin and Jax caught up with me, and we sprinted down to the wreck. Puddles of water kicked up around us as we splashed through the marshy turf field.

My dad was trying to move around his car to get to the burning van, but one of the men kicked him in the ribs, knocking him backwards against the trunk. His head smacked against the car, and he tumbled off the side to the ground. Justin stopped running long enough to fire a shot, and the man who'd kicked my father fell to his knees and toppled onto the ground next to him.

My feet were soaking wet and as heavy as weights, but I trudged as fast as I could.

The other men raised guns in our direction. Justin picked one of them off, while the other stumbled toward my father, who was pulling himself off the ground. Justin was moving faster than I was now.

The driver aimed a gun at my dad, but Justin shot and I saw the gun fly out of the man's hand. Justin shot again and the man fell flat on his back, his arms stretched out from his sides.

We tumbled down to the pavement, and I caught my dad's arm.

“Dad,” I said. He looked at me with wide eyes, glistening with shock. He looked ahead at the burning van. It crackled and popped with life. The metal frame cooked and singed and squeaked, melting in the heat like a steel skeleton.

“Dad, we need to move, now,” I said, and pulled him away.

“Do you have keys?” Justin asked my dad, pointing to his car.

“In the ignition,” he said slowly, his eyes captured by the flames.

“I'm sorry about your friend, but we need to get out of here,” Justin told him. He looked at the burning van. “Scott,” Justin said into his phone, “come down here and see what you can find. And send some backup. We'll find the nearest boat launch.” He opened the driver's door of the car.

“Let's go!” Justin shouted.

I climbed into the back of the car, shoving my dad inside with me. Jax sat in the passenger seat next to Justin. Justin turned the car around and tore down the pavement, burning the tires against the asphalt and kicking up loose rocks.

My dad blinked out of his daze and started to register what was happening. “What are you doing here, Maddie?” he asked.