Bluescreen (Mirador, #1)

“Se?orita Carneseca,” said Goyo. His face appeared on her screen, as scarred and craggy as the surface of an asteroid. His voice was deep and gravelly; his left cheekbone was pocked with a chemical brand. “You have something to tell me.” He spoke with the confidence of someone people obeyed; his time was precious, and if you used it, you’d better be worth it.

“There’s a new drug in LA called Bluescreen,” said Marisa. “It’s—”

“I know what it is,” said Goyo. “Rich-kid drug. Not my problem.”

“It is now,” said Marisa. “My sister came home with some today, says she got it at school. She’s in sixth grade at José Olvera Elementary.”

Silence. She could hear background noise: faint music and indistinguishable voices. Goyo stared at her, and she swore she could feel her life draining away under his stare. She bit her lip, wondering what she’d gotten herself into. Finally Goyo spoke again. “Thank you. We’ll take care of it. Your brother has a good sister.”

“Don’t hurt anyone,” she said, hopelessly, “I don’t want to start a war—”

“I said we’ll take care of it,” said Goyo. “We’re done now.”

The line went dead.





THIRTEEN


Marisa slept fitfully, dreaming of Chuy dead on the side of the road; of Pati walking stiff and zombie-like, creeping through the house, opening Marisa’s door, reaching for her head, forcing a Bluescreen drive into her headjack—

Marisa bolted upright, wide awake and sweating. She didn’t have a clock in her room—who needed one, when you had a djinni?—so she lifted the blackout curtain over her window, peeking out at the city beyond. It was still dark, but sparkling with the lights of a million streets and nulis, for Los Angeles never truly slept. Over it all the sky was a dead, slate gray. Dawn was still a few hours off. She walked back to her bed, shivering despite the warmth, and lay down on the sweat-soaked pillow. She lasted seven seconds before getting up again, too uncomfortable, too nervous.

She turned on Huitzilopochtli and checked the time: four in the morning. Seventeen thirty in Mumbai; twenty in Beijing. She pinged Jaya and Fang with a chat, but got nothing. They were probably playing Overworld. In another two hours Sahara would be waking up to join them for Saturday practice, but with Anja and Marisa both gone . . .

What are we going to do about the Jackrabbit Tourney? she wondered. Barely a week and a half away now. Even if she got her djinni back in time to play, she was missing too many practices. She was holding back the team.

Instantly she felt bad for thinking it—putting her own troubles above Anja’s. Marisa was just grounded. Anja had someone else’s fingers in her brain, just waiting for the chance to strike.

“As long as I’m up,” said Marisa, “I may as well make myself useful.” She opened a net window and tried to log in to her bank to pay Bao back, but without her djinni to verify her ID she couldn’t do it. The bank locked down her account, flagged it as suspicious, and emailed her a notification that someone was trying to log in under her identity. She shook her fists at the computer screen and tried the same thing in Yosae Cybersecurity, hoping she could upload the virus code to their user submissions board, but ran into the same problem. She grimaced at the screen, baring her teeth, and created a new account, hiding her connection behind another string of straw men.

New malware discovered in the wild, she wrote. Street name: Bluescreen. Please add to virus definitions immediately. She attached the code, just as she’d tried to do with Anja, and posted it to the message board.

A moment later she got a response from someone named SparkleTime: Heartbeat?

Marisa raised her eyebrows; Heartbeat was her Overworld call sign, and HappyFluffySparkleTime was Anja’s. Was this Anja? She typed a response on the message board, saying something that Anja would recognize, but that wouldn’t give away their real names to anyone reading along: Brentwood? Anja’s neighborhood.

She waited just a few seconds before the next post popped up: Seagate, Position000. The name of a free chat program, and . . . Marisa wasn’t sure what the second word was supposed to be. Anja’s Seagate username? She downloaded a copy of Seagate, started to create an account, and froze. If they were really worried about somebody reading their conversation—and Marisa was really, really worried—then Anja wouldn’t announce her username directly. The word had to be a clue, not an actual name. “Position000,” said Marisa out loud. “What does Anja know that I know, but which someone trying to eavesdrop doesn’t?” Her position on . . . politics? Overworld? The players on an Overworld team held specific positions, just like any other sport; Anja was telling her to base her new username around that. She created a chat account called Spotter000, and sent a request to Sniper000.

Marisa? asked Anja, accepting the request barely half a second later.

Anja? asked Marisa.

Awesome, sent Anja. I thought that was you. Djinni still down?

My dad shut it off, sent Marisa. I could probably get it running again, if I go around the password in his admin account, but then the bad guys would be able to find me so . . . here we are.

Irony is the worst, sent Anja.