“No, I don’t. I don’t get how you can sit there and say you shouldn’t be telling me what I have every right to know!” I shout.
“Well, I have responsibilities that you couldn’t possibly understand,” he yells back, leaping up from his bed and pointing at me. “I feel bad that there have been some mishaps, but I’m the one who is getting burned at the stake here, for things that aren’t even my fault. And I have to answer to the stupid board, and investors, people who have put all of their money and time into this project. You don’t! If things blow up any further, my career, my reputation, and everything else in my life is ruined. So please spare me the dramatics, okay?”
I’m completely unfazed by his attack on me. Maybe it’s because I can hear Cathryn’s voice telling me that Patrick is in over his head and isn’t meant for the immense stress of big business. Maybe it’s because of the way he’s biting his lip, like he does when he’s feeling guilty about something he’s done or said. Or maybe it’s because he really is family to me.
The thing is, none of it matters more than the safety of innocent people, and my father’s legacy.
“What else is wrong with Elusion? The hijacked signals can’t account for the Escapes being unstable. I haven’t done anything to dismantle the settings on my Equip or the app,” I say.
“This conversation is over,” Patrick says, and this time he pushes right past me, practically knocking me over as he leaves the bedroom. I wobble a little but then catch myself on a nearby dresser and follow him out into the hall. There’s something bigger going on here. I’m still not getting the whole story.
“And what about my dad? Why am I seeing him in Elusion?”
He doesn’t even turn around. He just keeps walking away.
“Answer me, Patrick! Someone spray-painted fifty-twenty on the wall of the warehouse. I know that number means something.”
“I want you to leave,” he says.
“I know it’s dangerous! You need to recall Elusion, and stop the national release. You need to do it before somebody gets killed.”
“You don’t know anything!” he shouts as I follow close behind. “None of these stories can be substantiated. Even the doctors don’t have conclusive reports.”
“I have proof!”
He stops so fast I almost run into him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, turning around to face me.
“It means . . .” I hesitate as I meet his eyes. “I have files from your computer.”
He backs away from me as if I slapped him.
“When I came to Orexis to visit you the other day, I copied them onto a QuTap.”
“You’re not capable of translating quantum files,” Patrick says, squinting with confusion.
I shift my eyes away from him.
“Of course,” he says, a coldness in his voice I’ve never heard before. “Does this have anything to do with your new friend Josh?”
I don’t respond.
“No one will be able to crack the files on that QuTap,” he says, taking a step toward me. “Your father was the best cryptologist I’ve ever known, and he’s the one who encased them.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say, as I move toward the door. It whooshes open, sensing my body movement. Before I can walk out, Patrick’s fingers wrap around my bicep and he squeezes, just enough for me to become momentarily frightened of him.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You stole valuable corporate information. It’s a felony—you could go to jail for this, Ree.”
I look him in the eyes, and when I notice they are beginning to water, my legs buckle. I feel his hand slipping down my arm, his thumb tracing my skin from my elbow to my palm. After what I just told him, Patrick is still concerned about me. And if that’s true, shouldn’t I still be worried about him, even though he’s letting me down in a way I never imagined he could?
But when I stare even deeper into his eyes, I finally see the desire-filled look that Josh informed me about in Elusion. It scares me more than the forceful way he took hold of my arm only seconds ago. More than disintegrating Escapes or visions of my dead father.
“You have one day,” I murmur.
Then I bolt out the door and don’t look back.
FOURTEEN
IT’S NEARLY FOUR A.M., BUT I’M WIDE awake. The light is on beside my bed, my copy of Walden open on my lap. I’ve read it from cover to cover at least a dozen times since I got home from Patrick’s apartment a few hours ago, trying to find something in these pages that would make up for the fact that, thanks to Josh, Avery has the QuTap and I don’t.
My focus is almost obsessive; I’m searching for hidden meanings in each sentence, hoping that some kind of pattern might come to light. I pull out my tab and start a list of quotes that seem to connect to each other, or sound like something my father might say, like Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good. Or Things do not change; we change.
But one line really jumps out at me every time, though I haven’t yet jotted it down:
To be awake is to be alive.
I close the book and reach into my pocket, hoping to find my black stylus there so I can add it to the list, but instead I pull out a wrinkled ball of paper. I smooth it out flat against my book, which is now lying in my quilt-covered lap. As my palms press firmly against the paper, ironing out the folded corners and crinkles in the middle, I look at the words that are written on the page over and over and over again in a frantic scrawl.
HATE OUR NEW LAND
HATE OUR NEW LAND
HATE OUR NEW LAND
I remember picking this note up off the floor in the foyer, where Patrick had thrown Josh up against the wall, most likely dislodging it from Josh’s back pocket. Then something strange happens. Just as I’m about to fold up the paper, the words kind of blur a bit, so that some letters are sharper than others. Next my gaze shifts to the title, which is at the top of the book cover, along with the author’s name.
A gasp escapes from my lips. This can’t be.
I lunge over to the nesting table at the left side of my bed, nearly knocking off the glass of rice milk I went to the kitchen for two hours ago. Thankfully, that’s where my stylus is, so now I can scribble on the screen of my tab and test out my theory to see if it works, or if I’m just delirious from sleep deprivation.
I write the phrase Hate Our New Land, grasping the stylus hard with my fingers, and then begin to rearrange the letters, just like in the word puzzles my dad and I used to play. When I’m through, my heart almost explodes.
Nora’s note is an anagram. The letters also spell out:
Walden Thoreau.
I erase all the letters on the tab and write everything out a second time, to make sure I didn’t mess anything up, but there it is, plain as day.