G.I. Joe Classified, page 4
“And on the other hand?” asked Stan.
“The tech is ridiculously cool.”
Stan had to admit it was. And for a techie like Julien, it was probably even harder to resist.
“What do you think about joining that Average Joes club?” asked Stan.
Julien shrugged. “I think anything that keeps Zoro-me between me and Michel is a good thing.”
“I know that’s right,” said Stan.
“Besides, what have we got to lose?”
“Well, I get the feeling that Scarlett might be looking for trouble, you know?”
Julien grinned at him. “And that’s not you?”
“No, it is me. That’s the problem,” said Stan. “I promised my mom I’d be good this time. No fights, no suspensions. But if we’re going to be helping out other kids who get bullied, I won’t be able to help myself. I just get so mad, you know?”
“I don’t really get angry like that. But I do like trouble.”
“Hacker’s gotta hack?” guessed Stan.
Julien looked pleased. “You know it. But seriously, are you going to join or not?
“I don’t know.”
“I bet if you kept your head down, you could float through the next five years pretty easily.”
Stan made a face. “When you say it like that, it sounds super boring.”
Julien shrugged. “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .”
“I hear you.”
Then the lights in the auditorium began to dim.
“Here we go!” whispered Julien, looking excited in spite of himself.
Quiet electronic music began to play in the background as the lights went out completely. Then a single spotlight appeared onstage with Principal Zartan. He was dressed just as dapper as yesterday, although this time it was a pale blue suit with an orange tie and pocket square.
He smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “Good morning, students of Springfield Academy!”
Everyone began cheering like it was a rock concert.
Zartan raised his hands and gestured for calm. “OK, OK, enough buttering me up. Sheesh.”
The cheers died down.
“Now, we all know that online social media, Virtual Reality, even Augmented Reality are relics of the past—or rather they soon will be. Because Extended Reality is the way of the future!”
There were a few whoops from the audience, which Zartan didn’t seem to mind.
“Exactly. Why choose between the immediacy of the real, and the flexibility of the virtual, when you can have both? Before smartphones, everyone was disconnected from anything outside their immediate surroundings. After smartphones, everyone was staring at their phones and disconnected from what was right in front of them. But DeCobray’s Lyre XR device bridges that gap, inserting technology into your life so seamlessly, you can’t even tell where one ends and the other begins.”
He paused dramatically for a moment.
“You know . . . it’s a little bit like magic.”
Suddenly the auditorium lit up, but instead of a modern theater, it now looked like a clearing in a wooded grove. Fairies flew overhead, while little gnomes and elves scampered through nearby trees. Zartan was now dressed in a pale blue wizard robe, and the rest of the audience was also dressed in fantasy garb.
“Whether you prefer cozy fantasy or epic, with multiple configuration settings, the Magica filter is for you!” declared Zartan.
All the wizards and warriors and rogues and rangers in the audience applauded.
“But wait!” exclaimed Zartan. “What if you’re more of a sci-fi person? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with the new Sciffy filter!”
Now the auditorium appeared to be a vast room inside a spaceship. The walls and ceiling were all glass, so Stan could see the blackness of space stretching out all around them, with countless twinkling stars. Zartan looked like some sort of blue-skinned alien with big bug eyes. The students were a bizarre hodgepodge of blue, green, and purple. Some had antenna, others long pointy ears or snoutlike noses.
“Again, with multiple configurations, it doesn’t matter whether you prefer laser swords or teleporters, you can go beyond infinity where no one has gone before, plus ultra!” said Zartan, mashing up at least three different sci-fi properties as far as Stan could tell.
All the various aliens cheered.
“I’m glad you like the two newest Lyre device filters. Please test them out and send any feedback directly to my personal in-box. I can’t wait to learn what you think!”
Abruptly everything was back to normal, which Stan had to admit was kind of a letdown after the crazy visuals he’d just experienced. It had all looked so real that if Stan believed in fairies and space aliens, he might have thought it was. As everyone began to get up and go to their next period, Stan turned to Julien.
“OK, I can see why people get excited for these. That was . . .”
But Julien was still sitting, and there was a look of dread on his face.
“Julien?” asked Stan. “You OK?”
Julien looked up at him with haunted eyes.
“They pushed out two new filters to our devices without our knowledge or consent. Then they switched them on for all of us at once, also without our consent.”
“Oh, yeah.” Stan frowned. “I guess that’s pretty invasive.”
“Invasive?” Julien’s skin was starting to look a sickly gray. “It’s terrifying. Don’t you realize what this means?”
“I guess not,” admitted Stan.
“They can change the way anyone wearing this device perceives reality, at any time.”
“But we can tell the difference,” objected Stan.
“Only because they’re using obvious filters like magic and sci-fi. Things we know don’t exist. But what if they secretly pushed out a filter that only subtly changed how we see the world around us? Would we even notice?”
Finally Stan got it. “We wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between what’s real and what they want us to see.”
Now the cool tech device in his ears felt even more sinister than before. His hand hovered over it, wanting to pull it off. But he still wouldn’t be able to get through his classes without it. At least during school hours, they were all stuck with whatever reality Springfield Academy and DeCobray chose to show them.
OK, sure, that was scary. But Stan wondered, how bad could it really get?
CHAPTER
7
A REAL EMPTY TOWN
The day’s classes had been shortened to accommodate the school assembly. Yet the teachers didn’t seem interested in reducing the material they wanted to cover. The morning flew by so fast that Stan could barely keep up, much less worry about what his Lyre was or was not showing him.
Since Stan and Julien were both eighth graders, they had the same lunch period. After picking up food from the cafeteria line, Stan took a seat beside his new friend.
“I can’t believe how great cafeteria food is at Springfield Academy.”
He eagerly picked up his bacon cheeseburger with two hands and took a big bite. It was so delicious that it was several seconds before he realized that Julien hadn’t responded. He glanced over and saw that his friend looked even more freaked out than he had that morning.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Julien looked gravely at him for a moment, then said, “I want to introduce you to someone.”
“Sure.”
Julien stood up. “Cool.”
“What, like right now? Can I finish my lunch first?” he asked plaintively. It really was good.
But Julien’s eyes were fixed on something else and he spoke in a low voice. “This’ll only take a minute.”
“OK, I guess.”
Stan lovingly placed his burger back on the plate, then followed Julien over to another table where a boy with sandy blond hair sat enjoying his own bacon cheeseburger.
Suddenly, Julien’s expression brightened, and he spoke in a cheery voice. “Hey, Conner, how you been?”
Conner smiled. “Hey, Julien. What’s up?”
“You know, doing my thing. This is our transfer student, Stan.”
“Right! The principal introduced you yesterday. Welcome to Springfield!”
“Uh, thanks.” Stan wondered why Julien wanted to introduce him to this guy and why his demeanor had shifted to this weird fake cheerfulness.
“You ready for the next Smash tournament?” Julien asked Conner.
“You bet!” said Conner.
“You still maining Donkey Kong Junior?”
“Of course I am! You still maining Zelda?”
“Always and forever,” said Julien.
Conner chuckled. “Well, you better get ready to lose, then.”
“You wish, man. I’ll see you there.”
“Wouldn’t miss it!” said Conner.
Still smiling, Julien led Stan back to their seats. He waited until Conner turned his focus back to eating, then his cheerful expression dropped away. He rubbed his temples, as if that had been some terrible ordeal.
“Was . . . that a weird conversation or something?” asked Stan as he started to eat again. It seemed normal enough to him, but he didn’t know this Conner person, so maybe it wasn’t.
“No, it was a perfectly ordinary conversation,” said Julien. “I’ve had dozens like it with him. That’s the part that worries me the most.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tell your Lyre to turn off its display.”
“Display off,” Stan said.
A moment later, all the little peripheral information, such as date, time, and student information, disappeared.
“OK, it’s off,” he said.
“Look over at Conner.”
Stan glanced back at Conner, who looked exactly the same. He was calmly eating his food and occasionally gesturing with his hand, so he was probably watching a video on his Lyre or something.
“O . . . kay?”
“You still see him with the display off, right?” Julien asked tensely.
“Yeah.”
“Now, take off your Lyre.”
Stan was still looking at Conner when he took the buds out of his ears. So it was easy to see the difference.
Conner wasn’t there.
“What the . . .”
“You don’t see him anymore, do you,” said Julien.
Stan shook his head.
“OK, put them back on. I think if we keep them off too long during school hours, they’ll notice.”
Stan put his Lyre device back on and there was Conner again.
“I have so many questions,” he said.
“No kidding,” said Julien.
“First of all, he’s not really there, right?”
“Right.”
“How was I seeing him if I turned the display off?”
“Because the device wasn’t actually off,” said Julien. “It gets rid of the peripherals, but it can and apparently does project things even when you think it’s not doing anything.”
“So we were . . . talking to Conner while he’s somewhere else?” asked Stan. “Like video chat?”
“I really hope that’s the case, but I don’t think so. Why would he be pretending to be here?”
“So who were we talking to?”
“A really good AI version of Conner.”
“An artificial intelligence that can talk video games?” asked Stan. “But how would it know about your favorite character and stuff?”
“If both of our Lyre devices have been cataloging every single conversation we’ve had together, an AI could come up with a pretty good guess. And that’s not even the part that worries me most.”
“You think he’s missing, and for some reason the school is trying to hide that?”
“Missing,” said Julien. “Or taken.”
Up to that point, Stan still hadn’t decided if he wanted to check out the Average Joes club that afternoon. But now, having some troublemaking, martial-arts-skilled friends around to watch his back sounded like a pretty good idea.
“You know, I think I’m going to join Scarlett’s club after all,” he said.
“Same,” said Julien.
CHAPTER
8
A REAL CLUBHOUSE TOWN
Stan had assumed the club meeting would be in one of the classrooms, but when he messaged Scarlett about where to meet, she told him to find her by the soccer field behind the school.
The Springfield Vipers varsity team was warming up when Stan and Julien met Scarlett on the athletic field.
“Here, try to be discreet.” She handed them each a small metallic bag like the one they’d used the night before to block the signals for their Lyres.
Stan and Julien nodded to each other, then slipped their Lyres into their bags and put them into their pockets.
“This way,” said Scarlett.
They followed her to a small brick building nestled against the tree line that marked the boundary of the school grounds. It looked like it was meant to store gardening tools or something. Compared to the rest of the school, it was oddly rustic.
“This is our clubroom?” Stan asked.
“I know it looks like some kind of murder shed,” said Scarlett. “But it’s the only place on campus without video surveillance that we could reserve for an after-school club.”
The interior was much like he expected, with creaky wooden floors, exposed brick walls, and a couple of windows that let in a feeble amount of light. There were a few chairs scattered around and a large table in the center. Zoro-me was waiting for them, his arms folded across his chest, his black hoodie pulled low over his face like always. Stan wondered if that was to look cool or if he was self-conscious about his scars. Maybe a bit of both.
“I’m glad you two decided to come,” said Scarlett. “I know it’s kind of a risk.”
“I wasn’t sure, honestly,” said Stan. “The last thing I need is to get into more fights at school. But Julien figured out something today that makes me think being part of a group might be the safest thing right now.”
“What did you find out?” Scarlett asked Julien.
“There’s this kid in our class who looks like he’s at school but isn’t. The Lyre seems to be projecting some sort of reactive AI version of him that all students see, even when they think their displays are off.”
“Yeah, Conner Peterson, right?” asked Scarlett, not looking even a little surprised. “As far as we’ve been able to tell, five students went missing this morning.”
Stan stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish,” said Scarlett.
“So what does this mean?” he asked.
“We have no idea,” admitted Scarlett.
“Messing with our reality and spying on our messages is one thing,” said Julien. “But five missing kids? That’s on a whole different level.”
“I agree,” said Scarlett. “Finding those kids is our top priority.”
“Whoa, we’re going to find them?” asked Stan.
“Who else?” she asked plaintively.
He knew she had a point. Most students were so dazzled by all the cool tech, especially with the two new filters they just got. They were probably all wandering around magical lands or futuristic planets right now. And maybe that wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe whoever took the students had timed it to coincide with the Lyre update. So those kids were missing, and nobody even noticed . . .
Anastasia had accused Stan of having some kind of hero complex. And maybe that was true in some way, because he knew he couldn’t turn a blind eye to this.
“I’m in,” he said.
“Me too,” said Julien.
“I can’t promise you won’t get in trouble with the school,” said Scarlett. “Are you sure?”
“If I didn’t try to do something about this, I’d be having nightmares tonight,” said Julien.
Stan thought about his father. What would he have done?
“Yeah,” he told Scarlett. “I’m sure.”
She nodded gravely. “Then welcome to the Average Joes club. Let’s go help some people.”
CHAPTER
9
A REAL SECURE TOWN
Scarlett led them back to the school, then down into the basement, which didn’t have the same slick-looking glass and chrome appearance as the rest of the school. The floor was plain cement, and the space was partitioned into storage areas with chain-link walls. There were stacks of folding tables, chairs, and neat piles of sports equipment. None of them had their phones to light the way, so Scarlett flicked on a small pocket flashlight.
“Zoro-me has been keeping an eye on Michel and Anastasia’s movements,” Scarlett said quietly as her narrow beam of light bounced with her footsteps. “They seem to come down here a lot, sometimes even during class.”
Finally they reached a steel door at the far end.
“This is where they go.” She shined her light on a keypad beside the door. “Using that.”
“I don’t suppose you were able to see what they were typing?” asked Stan.
Zoro-me shook his head.
“But,” said Scarlett, “we think there’s another way through.”
“Where?” asked Stan.
She moved the light up to a narrow vent cover above the door.
They stared at it in silence for a moment.
“Someone has to squeeze through there?” asked Stan.
Scarlett nodded, her eyes on him. Zoro-me and Julien also seemed to look at him expectantly.
Stan’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to do it?”
Scarlett gave him a pained smile. “You are the smallest.”
He sighed. “Fine. You guys are lucky I’m not claustrophobic or anything.”
“We are,” agreed Scarlett.
He squared his shoulders and nodded. “OK, let’s get it over with.”
Zoro-me stood under the vent, then Scarlett jumped onto his shoulders with startling agility.
“Whoa, are you a gymnast?” Stan asked.
She nodded as she began unscrewing the vent. “Practically since I could walk.”
“I’m so jealous,” said Julien.
