Page 109 of Coldwire
My attention snaps over. I shove aside my whirlwind of panic over this mystery, needing to make room for whatever has gotten Kieren to usethattone.
“What is it?” I demand. “What happened?”
Instead of answering me, he loops me into the call. I connect to catch Rayna say, “… but Hailey altered our IDs just in time to show us as underage Medans rather than tourist Atahuans. They’re willing to let us go with a warning, but they need our parents to come get us.”
“Wait, wait,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“Lia,” Rayna groans. She’s clearly trying to keep her voice low, and she ends up sounding like she’s imitating a rattlesnake. “Maybe if you had picked up when I called you first! We’re in jail.”
“You’rewhat?” I screech. Kieren gives me a look. Now I’m caught up.
“Notjailjail, technically. The holding cells of a precinct. We got caught trespassing on military property, but we spun our story to only be ditching school.” Rayna’s voice grows quieter. If anyone is listening in on her, they’ll be able to parse even the faintest whisper with volume adjustment, so this ismore to make herself feel better about not getting overheard. “Please come get us. Change your IDs and put another twenty years on your birthdays. Hailey used the first exploit she was holding in her inventory, so our fake Medan identities run out in an hour, and it’s taken thirty minutes for them to process us.”
I smack my head forward, colliding with the seat in front of me. Kieren grimaces. Those exploits are made for underage Atahuans trying to get into nightclubs with fake ages. I can’t imagine changing an entirecitizenshipis going to hold up for the Medan authorities if they look closer.
“Okay,” Kieren says. “Okay, tell Hailey to see if she can extend the adjustment by checking its add-ons, but we’re on our way. Where’s the precinct?”
She sends the pin.
“Rayna,” I hiss, “this isfortyminutes away with traffic.”
“Pleeeeeease,” she whines. “Also, it needs to be the both of you. Hailey slapped her last name onto my ID in a split second to get rid of ‘Ward,’ so we’re pretending to be related.”
I pull my head back from the seat slightly, then thud into it harder. When I try to do it again, Kieren shoves his hand in front of the seat, mouthing,Stop that!
I thud right into his palm.
“Who is going to believe that?” I exclaim.
“They will if you both show up! Phenotypes are funny that way.”
I’m going to kill Rayna. This is going to be so bad for her final grade. Great for ours if we can get her out. But bad for her, nonetheless.
“We’re on our way,” Kieren declares. “Tell Haileyadd-ons!”
He ends the call.
“This is absurd,” I say, flinging my arms out. “You’ll need to change our IDs. And unlock our appearance filters so we can drag the aging bar in the direction no one drags it in.”
“I can do that,” Kieren assures me without hesitation. So much fornot a hacker.“I’ll only need a bit of time.”
“Plenty of time in traffic.” My eyes wander to the front, to the sleeping bot. There’s no way we can push an AI tour bus through Threto’s roads. It’s creeping near the end of the workday. Everyone will be heading home in their small self-driving cars, making rapid lane switches to speed up their route by a minute or two. Forty minutes on a map’s estimate is going to come to ninety in this behemoth of a vehicle.
I start to move.
“Lia,” Kieren prompts when he follows after me. “Are you going to contact your dad?”
An engine is rumbling loudly outside. As I’m hurrying down the steps of the bus, a motorcyclist detaches his bags from the back of his bike, hurrying up the steps of the museum to make a personal delivery. He’s left his bike very close to our bus.
“I can’t think about that right now,” I say.
“I thought you were great at multitasking.”
“We’ll deal with it after we get Rayna and Hailey.” My eyes trace the motorbike. It’s been left to idle. The ignition is still active.
The thought occurs to me. No time to second-guess it.
Without warning, I grab Kieren’s wrist and drag him with me to the bike. “Get started on our IDs. I’m driving.”
