Lal blinked.
“Deleting a pop-up?” asked Marisa. Lal glared at her, then blinked again. “You’re going to get a lot of those,” she continued. “Ad loops, bloatware, free offers from porn sites. Free offers from goat porn sites.” Lal was blinking almost constantly now, and Marisa looked at him coldly. “You’re a monster, Lal, and I can’t think of any better punishment than to throw you in with the biggest monsters on the net. If you’re good, you can crawl out of that virus-infested hole in four, maybe even three months. You’ll be in jail by then, though, so, you know: spoiler warning.”
Lal fell back on the VR chair, his eyes twitching involuntarily, his brain lost under an avalanche of malware.
TWENTY-FIVE
“The Foundation is claiming responsibility,” said Bao. “They said they built a virus to attack the djinnis, to show how easily they can be corrupted.”
Bao, Marisa, and Sahara were sitting in the hospital, watching the chaos, waiting to hear from the doctors about Anja’s condition. Omar had come as well, but the friends had refused to talk to him, and he’d left the waiting room almost as soon as he arrived. Marisa didn’t know where he’d gone, and frankly hoped she’d never have to see him again.
“How can the Foundation build a virus?” asked Sahara. “They hate technology.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t use it,” said Bao.
“I don’t like it,” said Sahara, folding her arms. “It’s too easy.”
“Nothing about this has been easy,” said Marisa, tapping the empty prosthetic dock on her shoulder. The hospital was even more crowded and desperate than it had been that morning—was it really still the same day? Even with most of the Bluescreen victims shuttled off to other hospitals, the Mirador facility was ground zero for the worst of the worst cases. It made Marisa cringe to think that Anja was among them.
Sahara nodded. “So the explanation shouldn’t be easy, either. There has to be more to this than some big, obvious villain. It’s too . . . well, obvious.”
“Just be grateful we got out clean,” said Bao. They’d left out the back of the building just as La Sesenta entered from the front, and from the sounds they heard Calaca was every bit as thorough in his destruction as he’d promised.
“I just wish any of my nulis had survived,” said Sahara. “This is the kind of stuff my show needs—not the secret, criminal stuff that could get me arrested, but the dramatic aftermath is awesome. I could be raking in the blinks right now.”
Marisa heard a voice cutting through the chaos—Mr. Litz had arrived. Anja’s father. She jumped to her feet, bracing herself for another rant about her bad influence on his daughter, but her heart plummeted when she saw that he was talking gratefully to Omar. That sneaky rat had been waiting for him by the front door. . . .
“Here they are,” said Omar, pointing toward Marisa and the others. “They won’t admit it, but it’s true.”
“What is he doing?” asked Sahara, scowling at Omar as she stood up. Bao stood as well, and Mr. Litz walked toward them. He shook their hands firmly.
“Omar has told me everything,” said Mr. Litz. “Thank you for saving Anja’s life.”
Marisa stammered, caught by surprise. “We . . . uh . . .”
“She’s our best friend,” said Sahara, handling the surprise far more effectively. “We’d do anything for her.”
“And some people would do anything to hurt her,” said Mr. Litz. “The news has been telling stories about Bluescreen’s ability to control people, and Omar has filled in some frightening details for me. Do you really think they were targeting me, as well? Targeting Abendroth?”
“You’re one of the most powerful men in Los Angeles,” said Marisa. “If they’d been able to corrupt you, all of that power would have been theirs.”
“It’s good to know we have such capable allies,” said Mr. Litz. “Thank you again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see Anja—father’s privilege.” He shook their hands again, then left them in the waiting room.
Marisa looked at Omar. “Somehow, this makes me like you even less.”
“Consider it a peace offering,” said Omar. “You hack computers, I hack people. He likes me because I always show him exactly the kind of young man he wants to see.”
“One day he’ll see the real you,” said Marisa.
“You he sees as a bunch of club-hopping losers,” said Omar. “Horrible influences on his only daughter. After this he’d never have let you see her again, but I vouched for you. I’m calling us even now.”
“Not even close,” said Sahara. “People died today because of you, and Anja is never going back to you.”
“I don’t expect her to,” said Omar. “It was never serious anyway.”