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

Wait, I realize, and quickly check a database: Nell’s mother’s name is Ellen Reinhardt. They’re talking about Nell; Nell’s missing mother is here. I start trying to analyze the implications. This means she left Nell on purpose and let her believe that she’d been kidnapped. That is cruel. Steph’s mother also disappeared and left her loved ones unsure of what had happened to her—but she didn’t leave Steph. And she had a good reason.

Ellen must have had a reason. Was it a good reason?

In the car, Nell gasps when she sees her text, and Steph says, “What’s wrong?”

“My mom,” Nell says. “They have my mom.”

“What do you mean, they have your mom? Do we need to mount another rescue?”

“Her mom is a member of the group,” I say. “She’s not a prisoner like Glenys was; she’s a participant. But she’s there, in the house, talking with the other adults.”

“How do you know this?” Nell asks sharply.

“Well, they decided to bring the robot into the house. I’ve just been using it to eavesdrop.”

“Can you play us what they’re saying?” Nell says. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

“Is that a good idea?” I ask, genuinely unsure and hoping for an answer from Steph.

“Yes, it’s a good idea. Let me hear what my mom is saying, Cat! If you can!”

“I can,” I say, since Steph isn’t objecting.

“As long as they can’t hear us…” Rachel says.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “This will be a one-way broadcast only.”

25•  Steph  •

I plug the phone into the car stereo so that we can hear it clearly through the speakers. We’ve come in mid-argument. “She’s not replying,” a woman’s voice says.

“That’s my mom’s voice,” Nell whispers.

“We should have just brought her here when we brought Sonia,” says another voice. “There are five sheds, after all.”

“Bringing both girls here at the same time was a recipe for a conspiracy. They’d have reinvented Morse code if they’d had to.”

“Nell’s never yet found a fence she didn’t try to dig under or climb over,” Nell’s mother says. I glance back at Nell, who’s shrinking back in her seat, her forehead furrowed.

“We had a plan,” a man says. “It just involved bringing Sonia back into the fold first, then using her loyalty to inspire Nell.”

“I think that’s Brother Daniel,” Nell says.

“Let’s get the snowmobile,” another man’s voice says.

There’s a brief argument cut off by a man’s voice saying, “No,” at which point, the other voices go silent. “Are you thinking of shooting out their tires and hauling all four back to base? We are not kidnapping the other girls. Talk about a way to bring the law down on our heads. I promise you, even if they didn’t tell anyone where they were going, they’ve been seen.”

There’s a pause.

“I think that’s Brother Malachi,” Nell says. Glenys nods in agreement.

“You still have legal custody of Nell, don’t you?” That’s Brother Daniel again. “So you have every right to bring her here as a mother. Every right. No drama necessary. You know where to find her. There’s no rush.”

The adults start arguing again, and it’s harder to make out individual voices. I hear someone talking about the laws about runaways. They discuss calling Glenys’s parents, who apparently aren’t on-site, and someone else suggests “mobilizing the troops,” which makes Nell and Glenys shift nervously. There’s a break for some tea, and then someone notices the bag in the corner. “What’s in there?”

“The robot. I thought we could—”

“You brought it back here?”

“I mean, what was left of it—”

There’s a loud noise, and then the connection goes dead.

“Sorry, friends,” CheshireCat says. “I do believe that’s the end of the robot.”

For a minute or so, there’s no conversation. I turn up the heat, which is finally kicking in properly.

“Well, they’re not chasing after us, at least,” Rachel says. “Right now, anyway.”

I turn to look at Nell in the back. “So. Your mom. Wasn’t kidnapped.”

Her face crumples, and she pulls up her scarf to hide herself. She shakes her head, not speaking. Glenys wraps her arms around Nell, and Nell looks up at her after a minute and says, her voice cracking, “This isn’t right, you shouldn’t have to comfort me,” and Glenys just strokes her hair silently.

The big, pressing question is where we’re going now—how exactly we’re going to hide Glenys. I look at Rachel, who’s looking at me. “Let’s just all go back to New Coburg for now,” Rachel says. “No one looking for Glenys will think to look there.”

We stop for food at another roadside diner, somewhere past Wausau. I’m still cold, or at least, stepping out of the warm car makes me start shivering violently. Nell orders the Farmhand’s Special for Glenys, along with coffee for both of them and extra bacon; the rest of us get pancakes. Glenys eats and eats and eats.

“Were they not feeding you?” Rachel asks.

“They gave me some food,” Glenys says a little defensively, and eyes the unfinished pancake on my plate.

“I’m not going to finish this. Did you want it?” I ask and push it across the table. “Rachel, do you think your mother would be okay with it if we all slept over tonight? I can call my mom and let her know I’m spending the night in New Coburg. She won’t mind.”

“We don’t really have space…” Rachel says. “Oh, but you know who does? Bryony.” She pulls out her phone and starts sending her a text. “If she says it’s okay, we can all sleep over there and figure out what to do next.”

“I’m not going back,” Glenys says.

“No, you’re not,” Nell says.

I really want to bring up Rajiv—I want to ask Glenys if she knows what he was doing there—but Glenys’s eyes well up and she presses her face silently against Nell’s shoulder. Nell wraps her arms around Glenys, and I really feel like dealing with Glenys’s trauma should take priority.

We dawdle over coffee refills while Rachel negotiates with Bryony and I text my mother. (I text, Snowing. Spending the night in NC.