Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer [best e ink reader for manga .txt] 📗

he’s a bad dude and by the way I called the cops? They’re going to think I was either looking for online hookups or trying to buy drugs.

Hermione: Well, if they think that guy was trying to pick you up or sell you drugs, they’ll be on board with him being arrested, yeah? Think positive.

Greenberry: My school is really strict about cell phone use. If I take my phone out in class, they’ll confiscate it and I’ll lose it for a week.

Marvin: Will your school pass along emergency messages?

Greenberry: One time my orthodontist appointment got canceled and they let me know.

Marvin: So “Your orthodontist appointment has been canceled” can be code for “Evil stalker dude might be headed your way.”

Greenberry: But what if my orthodontist appointment ACTUALLY gets canceled?

Hermione: We could make it an ophthalmology appointment.

Firestar: FOR SURE though, you’ll know if he flies somewhere?

CheshireCat: I hacked his phone. When you buy a plane ticket, it sends confirmations and reminders to your phone.

Marvin: Just going to point out again he could have a burner phone.

Hermione: Seriously, though, if you’re heading somewhere to commit arson or murder or whatever, you don’t want to fly. Airports are full of cameras. Rental car agencies practically demand your DNA. If you drive across country you’re less likely to get caught.

CheshireCat: And if he does take a burner phone and drive, his phone will be sitting untouched for days. That would also be very uncharacteristic for him. And driving is slow.

It would take him 31 hours of drive time to reach LBB and Georgia, 46 hours to reach Boston, 47 hours to reach Maine, and 41 hours to reach Raleigh.

Marvin: Yeah. My dad always insists it’ll be three days to California, and it’s always four.

I bet Arson Dude could do it in three.

Probably not in two unless he has an autonomous car.

Hermione: Taking an autonomous car somewhere to commit a crime would be even stupider than flying. They log

everything.

Marvin: How sure are we that he’s smart?

LittleBrownBat: If I’m right, he got away with kidnapping once before.

So smart enough for that.

Be careful.

20

Steph

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that is gorgeous,” says a girl in my English class whose name I don’t even know. “Rachel drew that for you, right? I wish I could get her to draw something for me.”

Rachel’s drawing darkened overnight to a rich black. It really looks like a tattoo and should stay sharp and dark for at least two weeks, unless I spend a lot of time in the sun. Unlikely, this time of year.

Other kids roll up their sleeves or pull back the collars of their T-shirts to show off their own body art: there’s a girl with a wolf picture on her shoulder and a girl with a detailed flower on the underside of her arm. They admire Rachel’s art and tell me who did theirs (not Rachel, but there are some other kids in the school who are good with ink).

At my feet, my backpack has both my laptop and my mother’s laptop, along with our most important papers from the box of paperwork, a Suncraft Farms Breakfast Bar Variety Value Pack, and my toothbrush, just in case. Hopefully, I won’t need any of my textbooks today, because they didn’t fit.

I try to pay attention in my classes, but my stomach is churning with fear, even though CheshireCat has promised to let us know if anything happens with my father. My father has been a threat for as long as I can remember, but never an immediate threat. I’m used to living in a constant state of mild anxiety. Actual fear is new. Ordinarily, my mother would have pulled me as soon as the news stories ran about the hacked robot. Certainly she’d have pulled me after my friends all found my father’s web page. If she’d had any idea what was going on last night, we’d be halfway to Texas right now. She’d be trailing the IV lines and bags of antibiotics and all the rest down the highway as she took us south in the van.

Sometime during math class, it suddenly occurs to me that one of the articles mentioned in passing that my mother got kidnapped out of her bedroom while she was sleeping, and that’s probably why she wants to barricade our door every night, and I think about all the times I complained about the fire hazard and feel a wave of guilt.

Of course, if she’d gone to the damn hospital when she first got sick, she’d probably be out by now. She’s still in there, not answering my texts, because she put it off and put it off until her appendix ruptured. Thinking about that makes me angry, which is a lot less awful than guilt.

I run through scenarios in my head: fleeing to the yurt (seriously, a yurt?), fleeing back to Thief River Falls, fleeing to some cave in the woods. Are there any caves in the woods near here? The problem is, the thought of fleeing without my mother is too horrible to really contemplate. Especially since she’s stuck in the hospital. Easy to find. Maybe I should call the hospital and talk to them about the danger my mother is in. I try to imagine how that conversation would go. Maybe Rachel will have some ideas.

I check my phone compulsively for texts, but there’s nothing.

In art class, we’re all working on pastel still-life drawings when the school secretary comes in. Normally, messages are carried in by the robot, so that in itself is odd. She’s having a conversation with the teacher, and they’re looking at me. They’re looking at me with interest. They’re looking at me the way staff and teachers look at someone with an interesting story.

My blood turns cold, and I know, without a doubt, that even if I haven’t gotten word from CheshireCat, he’s here.

My father is here, and I need to get the hell out.

Rachel is across the table from me, and I scoot over to show her my picture.

HELP, I