“Whoa,” he says. “Jackpot.”
The room has half a dozen old-fashioned computer consoles and close to twenty screens, all dark. A film of staticky dust clings to their glassy surfaces. I notice two windows that overlook the moat are covered with a thin layer of blue plastic that’s peeling in places. At least we’ll be able to see from here if anyone’s approaching up the Main Drag.
I can feel Arself’s surprise, and a hint of disappointment.
What’s wrong? I ask.
We’ve never seen this from the outside, she says. It’s so boxy. So dead. How do we connect?
Burnham is already tapping at a couple of the keyboards. Nothing happens. He slides his hand behind one of the desks, and I hear a click. He tries a keyboard again, and the nearest screen lights up.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Burnham says. “Someone’s been here lately. Give me a minute.”
He pulls over a rolling chair, the only seat in the room, and starts typing. The next instant, his screen shows a view of the main entrance with all the turnstiles. He rolls his chair over to the next computer, flips another switch, and types some more. Soon half a dozen computer screens are up and running, some with indecipherable lines of glowing numbers, some with views of the empty streets and rides of Grisly Valley, and some with colorful, scrolling banner ads. Two more show U.S. and world maps.
Just above the central screen, one smaller screen shows a grid that seems strangely familiar, and as I step nearer, I’m surprised to see it’s running scenes from The Forge Show.
“Is this live?” I ask.
Yes, Arself says.
Linus, from behind me, says, “Looks like it.”
I glance over my shoulder to see Linus has paused just inside the door, like he’s keeping an ear tuned to the stairs. Burnham, on the other hand, is deeply engrossed by one of the other computers, and he answers as if he’s barely heard me.
“It was already set up like that,” Burnham says. “I just turned it on.”
This is so strange, I think, looking more closely at The Forge Show.
On the show, a thin girl in a blue dress and gold flip-flops is walking down the steps of the auditorium carrying a giant, plush bear in both arms. She’s no one I recognize, but plenty of viewers must know her because her blip rank is #1. She is currently the most popular student on the show. A flickering square next to her blip rank score looks like a pixel error of some kind.
“Why is this showing here?” I ask.
Is this your place? I ask Arself. Your headquarters?
She laughs with her odd bubbling noise. We don’t need a headquarters. Look how clumsy and slow this is. Still, it’s something. Let us in there.
Hold on, I tell her.
Burnham reaches up and gives the Forge screen a tap. The pixel error remains.
“Odd,” Burnham says.
“Bad reception?” Linus asks.
“No. Something else. A glitch.” Burnham goes back to typing. “Everything’s encrypted,” he mutters.
My fingertips begin to tingle. My heart gives a lurch, and my skin grows warm. As if drawn by instinct, I move to stand behind Burnham and watch his fingers move over the keys. I don’t understand what he’s doing, but my eyes focus on the code he’s writing as if it’s a language I might be able to decipher simply by concentrating.
I see, Arself says.
Linus shifts farther into the room until he’s standing on Burnham’s right, frowning at one of the screens.
“Would you look at this?” Linus says. “I think these circles are tracking viewers of The Forge Show.”
He’s peering at the map of the United States, and I notice now it includes an overlay of blue circles that subtly shift smaller and bigger, lighter and darker. The biggest, darkest circles are centered on major urban hubs: New York, L.A., Chicago. Smaller, lighter dots are scattered in the less populous regions like Montana, North Dakota, and Utah. The next screen with the map of the entire world shows similar circles. The circles are all bigger in the parts of the world where it’s currently prime viewing time, and they shrink to nearly nothing in places where it’s the wee hours of the morning.
The tingle in my fingertips turns into prickles, and then to burning. Arself is festering like black smoke in the back of my brain.
Let us in there, she says again. Please.
“May I?” I say to Burnham, setting a hand on his shoulder.
He looks up at me, startled, and then vacates the chair.
I take his place, uncertain what to do, but Arself confidently invades my hands. She reaches for an old-style computer mouse and, with an unearthly touch that reminds me of the guider over a Ouija board, she flicks the cursor to the flickering square of pixels next to the Forge School girl’s #1 blip rank. We click on it, and at once all of the screens go entirely black. Dead. The next instant, they light up with a grid of a thousand faces.
The effect is stunning.
“What is this?” Burnham says in a low voice. “They aren’t on the show.”
At first glance, the faces all seem to be looking at me, but then I realize they’re looking not quite precisely toward the camera lenses that are filming them, live.
I guide the computer arrow to the top left face and click on it. It enlarges to an eight-by-ten-inch split screen and shows a man eating a bowl of cereal. He’s facing toward me, his expression blank, and the flat glow of a computer screen is clearly reflecting off his features. He barely looks down at his cereal at all, and between bites, he appears to forget it entirely. He smiles dimly. He takes another bite of cereal and a drip of milk falls from his mouth back into the bowl.
“Can this be what I’m thinking?” I say in a hushed tone.
I told you before, Arself says. They’re The Forge Show watchers.
“Arself says they’re The Forge Show viewers,” I say.
“Unbelievable,” Burnham says.
He borrows the mouse from me and clicks on another profile. It, too, expands, and this person is a young teen girl with a swollen bruise around one eye. Dim gray light flickers over her features. Her mouth is a soft gap. Her head is on a pillow, her bare shoulder is hunched near, and the room beyond her face is dark. She barely has her eyes open, and yet her gaze shifts enough to convince me she’s watching something.
Burnham clicks on another profile, and another. Person after person is facing the camera and watching with varying degrees of interest and alertness. They are young people and old, of all races, in living rooms, bathrooms, and bus depots. What’s common to all is that they’re watching their phones or screens with solitary concentration.
“This is mind-boggling,” Linus says. “Is Lavinia seeing this?”
“Not too well,” Lavinia says into my ear.
“She says, not too well,” I tell them. I take off my hat and pull my earphone plug out of the phone jack, switching over to speakerphone so we can all hear Lavinia’s voice and vice versa.