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“Are you saying that you can let these things loose in a crowd, and they’ll attack only one person?”
“It’s called assassination, and yeah, that’s what the guys at Peyton seem to think this does.”
Suddenly, Chloe’s magnet analogy took on a whole new dimension, because Amelia was standing there telling me that like a metal to a magnet, these nanobots would zero in on a single individual, based on their DNA. You let them loose in a crowd, and they set their sights on their preprogrammed target, leaving everyone else unharmed. I wasn’t sure exactly how to rate this development. On the one hand, instead of killing thousands of people, this weapon would only kill one. On the other, that one person could be the president.
Suddenly, of the two negative outcomes I’d considered earlier, the one where Connors-Wright deployed the bots and killed his father was looking good, because if Amelia actually got a hold of this technology, there was no telling what she would do with it, or who she would sell it to. The Big Guys were going to freak, or at least, they would have, had I actually been able to tell them about it.
“I said what I came here to say.” Amelia raised the gun again and backed toward my window. “You know the rules. Tonight, you tell no one. Tomorrow, Walford Park, three o’clock, winner takes all. You can do all the recon you want, but move in on the target before three, and you can consider your cover blown.”
And then, with stealth that would have made Bubbles proud, she disappeared out the window and into the night.
CHAPTER 28
Code Word: Liberty
“I’m in, but I am NOT wearing one of those stupid skirts.” I knew even as I said the words that I would, in fact, be wearing many a stupid skirt, and that something about this whole scenario wasn’t quite right. I didn’t have time to ponder it, though, because the next order of business was filling the last open slot on the Squad.
I listened and talked and made quips about Bitch Quotients, but even as my mouth moved, I knew that I couldn’t be here again. I’d already done this. Today wasn’t my first day on the Squad, and we’d already chosen April.
Hadn’t we?
Kiki McCall. April Manning. Hayley Hoffman.
The names were flung back and forth and the other girls debated in slow motion. It was all “legacy this” and “aptitude for climbing” that. And just as we were getting ready to vote April in, I realized what was wrong with this whole situation—other than the obvious.
I wasn’t wearing any clothes.
“Dance with me, Toby.”
Jack? What was Jack doing in the Quad? He couldn’t be here. If he knew about us, we’d been exposed—permanently. More importantly, he couldn’t be here—I WAS NAKED.
“Come on, Ev. Just one little dance.”
DOES NO ONE BUT ME REALIZE HOW BAD THIS IS?
“Dance with him, Toby,” the twins ordered, and then they were dancing—with my brother.
“Hey, Tobe,” Noah said. “Looks like you’re naked, huh?”
I tried to cover myself—I grabbed at papers and books and tried to position my hands to cover the worst of it, but there was no hope.
“Dance with me.”
“Dance with him.”
“Dance with him.”
I DON’T WANT TO FRIGGING DANCE WITH ANYBODY! I WANT TO WEAR CLOTHES!
“Here,” Lucy whispered. “Put this on.”
Gratefully, I grabbed the clothes she shoved at me, but they disintegrated in my hands until all I was holding was a tiny silver tiara.
And then we weren’t in the Quad anymore, and I was wearing clothes and Jack and I were dancing.
“What’s that on your head?” he asked.
I reached up and tore the tiara out of my hair. I threw it to the ground, and when it hit, it burst into a million microscopic pieces, and all of a sudden, the pieces were crawling and moving and growing smaller by the second until they were invisible to the naked eye.
I could feel them on my skin, then, burrowing in.
My lungs stopped working. I lost all feeling in my legs. And for some godforsaken reason, Brooke’s mother was making out with Mr. J in the corner, and Paris Hilton was standing there, watching.
My body was giving out, my face was contorting, and the last thing I heard before darkness seeped over my mind was a lisping “That’s hot.”
I bolted straight up and, my mind still all cloudy with unwanted images, I tried to assess the situation. I was lying in bed, fully clothed, it was pitch-black outside, and my necklace had gotten tangled up in my hair as I’d slept. It took me a few seconds to remember why I was sleeping in my clothes. I’d been so busy following the “rules” and NOT calling in my encounter with Amelia Juarez that I hadn’t bothered with pajamas, and in the midst of my ceiling staring, I must have fallen asleep.
I blinked several times, trying to get the image of Brooke’s mom and Mr. J out of my head. This was one of those times when I was severely glad that my dreams weren’t prophetic, because ew. And also, the whole naked dreams thing was really starting to get to me. And Jack in the Quad? Hopefully, my subconscious wasn’t trying to tell me anything with that one. I was also somewhat disturbed by the fact that in the past two days, Ryan Seacrest and Paris Hilton had both made cameos in my dreams. Before I’d joined the Squad, I hadn’t even known who either of them was, and I would have preferred to wipe their existence on this planet from my consciousness altogether.
Groggily, I stumbled out of bed and across the room to my computer. I hit a few keys to wake it up, and then typed in my log-on password, wondering if anyone had discovered my previous night’s hacking yet.
I had my answer soon enough. My remote access to the Squad mainframe had timed out, and all of that information was gone, but the files I’d gotten from the Big Guys’ computers were still there, exactly where I’d left them. Slowly and as meticulously as I could, given the fact that it was the middle of the night and I was still half-asleep, I deleted the files from my hard drive one by one, erasing any evidence that they’d ever been here.
I’d hacked into the Big Guys’ database to find Amelia Juarez, and instead, she’d found me. I didn’t need their files. I didn’t need their help. All I needed was the rest of the Squad with me at Walford Park by three o’clock today. Together, the ten of us were a match for anyone. Amelia Juarez wanted competition?
We’d give her competition.
I shut down my computer, careful to disconnect it from the internet first. If the Big Guys hadn’t realized I’d hacked them and hadn’t hacked into my system to see what I knew, I wasn’t going to give them the excuse or opportunity to do so from here on out.
