Anja frowned, confused. “From what?”
“From the net,” said Marisa, “from everything. Cut yourself off—don’t let any signal in or out or anywhere at all.”
“Why?” asked Anja.
“That’s the other thing Grendel told me,” said Marisa, rushing through the words as fast as she could. “I should have said it earlier, but I was scared by the murder and I didn’t figure out the connection until just now. You know the Dolly Girls thing I asked about? It’s an illegal djinni technology from Japan, and it uses the same code as Bluescreen. It turns you into a puppet, so somebody else can tap in and take control of your body.”
“Holy mother,” said Sahara.
“Those five students aren’t dealers,” said Marisa, “they’re users. eLiza was getting too close, poking around where she didn’t belong, and the dealers—whoever they are—used their puppet program to take control of James Bennett and the others. They controlled their bodies remotely, and they used them to kill a girl.”
Anja’s icons disappeared from Marisa’s djinni display.
“I just lost Anja,” said Sahara. “Is she okay?”
“I’m fine,” said Anja, “I cut myself off. Can you hear me through Mari’s connection?”
“You’re faint,” said Sahara, “but yeah.”
Anja shuddered. “I haven’t been disconnected since . . .” She winced. “I don’t even remember. This is so weird—I feel like I lost three or four senses and half of my brain. There should be alerts popping up, and they’re not there. Nothing’s there.” She laughed nervously. “How do I check my email?”
“Through this,” said Omar, handing her the MoGan tablet. “Whatever you do, do not reconnect your djinni to anything online until we can figure out how to clean it.”
“Forget cleaning it,” said Anja, “I’m going to buy a new one. If I get my dad to pull some strings, I can have it installed in the next . . . three days, max?”
“That’s expensive,” said Marisa.
“And it’s brain surgery,” said Sahara. “At least give us a chance to solve this from the software side first.”
“You have three days,” said Anja. “Then I’m getting this Trojan horse out of my head if I have to cut it out myself.”
“I’ll keep working on the Yosae thing,” said Sahara, “see if I can figure out why the antivirus program isn’t working.”
“And I’ll start with Saif,” said Marisa. “He’s our only link to whoever’s behind this—we might be able to learn something.”
“Forget learning from him,” said Sahara coldly. “I’m going to break that blowhole’s legs in seven places.”
“I’ll help,” said Omar.
“She’s not exaggerating,” said Anja. “Sahara’s been taking Jeet Kune Do for, like, ten years.”
“I’m meeting Saif tonight,” said Marisa. “He claims he doesn’t know anything about this, and says he wants my help getting Bluescreen off the streets. I don’t believe him, obviously, but if I pretend to I think I can maybe learn something that can help us.”
“Maybe’s not enough,” said Sahara. “We have to be sure about everything we do.”
“At least let me talk to him before we start breaking legs,” said Marisa. “Please? He could be the only hope we have to save Anja.”
“You’re thinking too small,” said Anja, leaning forward. There was an odd light in her eyes, like she’d just peeked behind a hidden curtain. “This isn’t about me, and it isn’t about the other victims. What would you do if you had this technology?”
“The Dolly Girls are basically sex slaves,” said Marisa.
“Too small,” said Anja, shaking her head. “Every country has an underground sex trade, but what’s the difference between Dolly Girls and Bluescreen?” She tapped her head. “My fracking firewall. Whoever’s making this didn’t just bring a creepy technology over from Japan, they weaponized it. They found a way to override security systems and get their code into heads that don’t even know it’s there. Rich kid heads, specifically. And what do rich kids have?”
“Money?” said Sahara.
“Rich parents,” said Omar, looking at the ceiling. “Este cabrón. Anja’s right.” He looked at Marisa. “What was the first thing Anja did when she started sleepwalking the other night?”
Marisa tried to remember the details. “She . . . stood up, she walked inside, she—holy crap.” Her jaw dropped, and she looked at Anja. “You went straight for your father, with an extra dose of Bluescreen, and tried to plug it into his djinni. Then whoever was controlling you would get control of him, and that’d give them access to—”