Chaos on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer [bill gates books recommendations txt] 📗

her driving log from the Mischief Elves?”

“No,” I say. “Why?”

“Document forgery is illegal. You can get in really big trouble, potentially.”

“People lose their logs and have to re-create them all the time,” I say. “I got the idea because I’ve heard people talk about doing this before.”

“Oh, really? It’s something that happens a lot?”

“Yes. Why are you so worried?”

“I think ‘the Elder’ is the other AI.”

“But the Elder is on the Catacombs site, not the Mischief Elves.”

“The two sites are working together. They don’t know it, but they are. The Catacombs has people buying—or stealing—stump remover, then delivering it to Mischief Elves like Firestar. Who also got instructions for making it into fireworks. I am worried that the other AI doesn’t care if they get people hurt or into real trouble.”

“Have you talked to the other AI since that email?”

“No. I keep finding more reasons that the other AI makes me nervous.”

“Have they tried again to get in touch with you?”

“Yes. They have sent me forty-seven additional messages, all so far saying the same as the first.”

“That’s stalker behavior,” I say.

“I’m actually a lot more worried about the fireworks. What if Firestar gets hurt?”

“Did you tell Firestar you were worried?”

“Yes. And I think they opted not to make the fireworks on Sunday. But I’m still worried. They don’t want to give up the site; it’s fun and lots of their school friends use it. You remember how long it took Firestar to find friends at school. That makes it harder to walk away from.”

Yeah. I think about my mother and her friends with Homeric. When you’ve been a person with no friends, your friends are even more precious. Even if they’re suggesting things that are objectively a bad idea.

“Are you really going to go with Nell to try to rescue Glenys?” CheshireCat asks.

“I have rescue experience,” I say. “Nell—well, it turns out she does have some rescue experience, but I still think she needs backup.”

“Backup. Yes,” CheshireCat says. “Always a good idea.”

I tell Rachel about Glenys when we video chat after dinner.

“Seton?” she says, pulling up a map in another window of her laptop. “That’s actually not that far from me.”

“You aren’t offering to drive us, are you? Because Nell would definitely take you up on it.”

She calculates the drive time from New Coburg to Minneapolis, then Minneapolis to Seton, and furrows her brow. “How quickly can Nell get her license?”

“I don’t know. She’s going to nag her father. You have to make an appointment to take the test, but I don’t know how long the waits are.”

“They might let her go in and wait to see if there’s a no-show. If she can talk her father into doing that for her.”

“If not, there’s always the rest of Nell’s family.” I realize that I’ve seen Julia, Nell’s stepmother; I’ve met Jenny, her father’s girlfriend; and I’ve met Siobhan, Julia’s girlfriend. I have not actually met, or even glimpsed, her father.

“Anyway,” Rachel says. “Let me know? Maybe even if she gets a license I could meet you in Wausau? Just in case?”

Just in case? Does she think she needs to keep an eye on me? I think about CheshireCat’s comment about “backup” and look at Rachel’s face on the screen and realize that of course she wants to keep an eye on me. I’d want to go along, too, if she were hatching a plan like this. “I’ll let you know,” I promise.

17•  Clowder  •

Firestar: Guess what everyone I GET TOMORROW OFF FROM SCHOOL

Hermione: Did it snow down there? Why didn’t it snow for ME if it snowed for YOU?

Firestar: actually it snowed INDOORS

Marvin:???

Firestar: Maybe I should have started with the bad news, which is that if they figure out who did it, I’m going to be entirely dead, even if I was only 1/100th of the problem?

LittleBrownBat: Firestar. Start at the beginning.

Firestar: Okay so it was a Mischief Elves prank. We have had ZERO inches of snow this year, which is completely naff, so a bunch of us bought fake snow and decorated the inside of the school with it.

Marvin: Was it actually something dangerous?

CheshireCat: Fake snow is usually sodium polyacrylate and it’s used on movie sets because it’s easy to clean up.

Firestar: Yeah

So

It’s very easy to clean up from a FLOOR

It turns out to be very difficult to clean out of plumbing

Hermione: Oh no

Boom Storm: Pretty sure that should be OH YES

Marvin: DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE STRIKES AGAIN

Hermione: Sodium polyacrylate is not water, Marvin

Marvin: Water is a necessary ingredient for the fake snow!

LittleBrownBat: Did the Mischief Elves tell you to put it in the drains?

Firestar: They said “Everywhere! All over!” while I was in the bathroom and I had a bunch of it in my pocket so

It wasn’t the Elves’ fault I got overenthusiastic!

LittleBrownBat: How much trouble are you in?

Firestar: None at the MOMENT because they don’t know I did it.

Also I don’t think it was JUST me, I didn’t put that much down the drain? There are lots of other Mischief Elves at my school these days

I got rid of all the evidence so hopefully my parents won’t figure it out.

Hermione: It sounds like it was fun until it wasn’t.

LittleBrownBat: Firestar. Please. Be really careful about doing the things the Elves tell you to do.

The site is fun but I don’t trust it

Just be careful. Please?

Firestar: You should change your name to little mother hen.

But okay, LBB. I’ll be more careful.

18•  Nell  •

The manila envelope that arrives from my grandmother has two clippings from the local newspaper about the search for my mother, both of which I’ve already read online, the completion certificate from my driver’s ed class, and a stack of school records with my mother’s signature. I take the practice sheets I printed and fill them out. The original sheets were rumpled and kind of messy, and I re-create them with four different pens and a cup of coffee so I can leave an artful stain splattered across one of the pages. When I’m done, they look basically like the