“How do you know?”
“Because it says so in the terms of use.”
“You’ve read the terms of use?”
North raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t?”
“Oh, come on. Nobody reads the terms of use.”
He shook his head. “You realize how whacked that is, right? You let Lux make decisions for you and you don’t even know how it makes them?”
I ignored this. “Okay, let’s say you’re right—”
“Which I am.”
“And Lux does know where I am right now. Why does it matter if I lie about it?”
“Because Lux uses a slicing algorithm,” North replied. “Which means it’s designed to detect patterns in events based only on narrow glimpses of a user’s experience. Let’s say you’ve been identified by Lux as a person who lies only when she feels guilty or when she’s trying not to hurt someone’s feelings or when she’s doing something she knows she probably shouldn’t be doing, like, I dunno, hanging out in some older guy’s apartment.” I saw the hint of a smile. “If you lie about where you are right now, then Lux will gather whatever data it can about this situation—including your location coordinates—and redirect you away from situations like this in the future. And I, for one, don’t want that to happen.”
It sounded a little conspiracy-theory paranoid to me, but the truth was I had no idea how Lux worked. Every time I got a pop-up box with a privacy notice or an update to the terms of use, I just hit “accept.”
I set my Gemini facedown on the coffee table and looked over at North. “So are we watching the movie or what?”
“So what’d you think?” North asked when the credits began to roll.
“It was . . . interesting,” I said.
“So you hated it.”
“No! I liked it. It’s just— I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it, that’s all. The voice in Ray’s head was supposed to be the Doubt, right? So are we supposed to feel sorry for him?”
North made a sound like a laugh. “You’re supposed to feel moved. Inspired.”
I felt myself squirm. The story was inspiring, that was the problem. Its message made me uneasy. The main character hears this voice in his head saying “If you build it, he will come,” so he decides to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield, and all these dead baseball players show up to play in it. Besides being totally random (why exactly were these baseball players just hanging around, looking for someplace to play?), I found it super irritating that we were supposed to buy that the guy just automatically knows what the voice means. The phrase is cryptic and totally vague and yet Ray somehow understands that “If you build it, he will come” means “Build a baseball diamond in your cornfield”? Yeah. Okay. I can totally see how he’d figure that out.
“It was just . . . implausible,” I said carefully, not wanting to totally tear into North’s favorite movie.
“Says who?”
I looked at him. “Um, me? A voice in his head told him to build a baseball diamond. In a cornfield.”
“And look what happened,” North replied. “He saved his farm. Made peace with his father. Brought people joy. Think of where he would’ve ended up if he hadn’t listened.”
I started to point out that losing one’s farm might be preferable to losing one’s mind, but I stopped when I saw North glance over at the wooden cuckoo clock on the wall. It was quarter to nine already.
“I should go,” I said quickly, before he could suggest it, and got to my feet. “Thanks for the sandwich. And the movie.”
“We should do it again sometime,” North said as he followed me to the door. “Now that I know that you’re more of a Rocky girl. No dead dudes or un-embodied voices in that one. Just stubbornness and punching.”
“Perfect,” I said, and stepped over the threshold onto the landing. I expected him to come out with me, but when I turned back around, he’d stepped farther back into his apartment, his body tucked behind the open door. I swallowed my disappointment. “Bye,” I said, giving him a little wave before turning away.
“Hey, Rory?”
“Yes?” Thank God shot through my head as I spun on my toes to face him. Maybe actually kissing him would put an end to all the thinking about it. My heart was drumming in my chest as I looked up at him, channeling a girl who knew how to be kissed. I wasn’t actually; the only boyfriend I’d ever had was in ninth grade and kissing him was like kissing a fish, all pinched lips and closed mouths.
“Don’t mention that we hung out to Hershey, okay?”
My heart felt like someone had squeezed it. She was so unforgettable that he remembered her name. I was certain I hadn’t said it.
“Sure.” My voice sounded flat.
“It’s nothing personal, it’s just—”
“It’s fine,” I said, flashing a smile. “I get it.” Before the moment got any more awkward, I turned and descended the stairs. Halfway down, I heard his door close.
He’s a private person, I told myself as I walked back to campus. “Or he’s completely embarrassed to be associated with you,” I muttered.
When I got to the courtyard, my eyes scanned the windows until I got to my own. The light was on. Hershey was still awake. With a sigh, I pulled out my Gemini to let myself in the main door. There was a new text on my screen.
BLOCKED NUMBER
A man built a rectangular house.
His windows all faced south.
What color was the bear outside?
As soon as I tapped the message, another one appeared:
You have thirty seconds to respond.
Instantly my heart was racing. It was from the society; it had to be. Part of their evaluation. But the question made no sense. What did the shape of the man’s house have to do with the color of the bear he saw? I felt myself start to panic. Was it a trick question? How could I possibly know what color the bear was unless I knew what kind of bear it was, and how could I know what kind it was unless I knew where the—
Suddenly it clicked. His windows all faced south. The house was in the North Pole. The bear was a polar bear. To the man, it would look white. I quickly typed my answer. Within seconds I got another text.
Well done, Zeta.
My breath whistled through my teeth as I let go of the breath I was holding. One down. How many more of these would there be?
Still jittery with adrenaline, I went to the common room for some tea. There was a group of second-years playing Scrabble on the couches, so I sat at one of the long study tables instead. An hour later I was still there, hunched over my screen, working through the hardest word puzzles I could find, the chamomile cold in my cup. Next time I heard from the society, I’d be ready.
I woke to the sound of a finger tapping a screen and the whoosh sound of e-pages turning. Hershey was sitting cross-legged on her bed, flipping through Vogue on her tablet. She’d been asleep when I finally made it back to our room at midnight, saving me from the inevitable inquisition. Or, rather, postponing it until now.
“If you didn’t want to come with us, you should’ve just said that from the beginning,” she said the moment I opened my eyes.
“I stopped by the public library and got sidetracked,” I told her, rubbing my eyes. I’d never actually been in the redbrick building downtown, but I’d read that it was open until eleven on Fridays and Saturdays, and based upon what Hershey already thought of me, it wasn’t a stretch for her to believe that’s where I’d choose to spend a Friday night.
Hershey was an excellent reader of people so I was fully prepared for her to call bullshit on my act. But she just sighed. “I worry about you, Rory. You’re working too hard.” Relative to you, everyone is, my brain shot back. Hershey hadn’t set foot in the library since we arrived on campus, and I hadn’t once seen her study. She tossed her tablet aside. “But I get it,” she said. “I just missed you, is all.”