Hello Protocol for Dead Girls Page 9

  The difference between them and me seems greater and greater. I don’t require sleep or food or bathroom breaks. I can move so much faster than they can—at the speed of thought. Although I still think of myself as human, or at least a variation of human, they seem increasingly…less so. They’re slaves to their biological processes.

  It’s an advantage I’m glad to leverage.

  I put my surveillance of them into a somewhat passive mode so that if something interesting happens, I can turn my attention to it. In the meantime, I’m going to reach for my original objective.

  I want to talk to my friends and family.

  The most likely person to start with is Elly. I don’t even have to think about it. If anyone can grasp this and deal with this situation, it’s her. If that goes okay, she can help with me talking to my parents and Bryce.

  Making contact won’t be hard. I know her phone number and her SNS screen names. The way I make contact is the critical bit. I want to be sure she’ll believe it’s me. I also want to freak her out as little as possible, which is tough because this would freak anyone out.

  But it’s vitally important that she believes me.

  My two objectives don’t occur in parallel. In order to contact her in the least shocking way, I’d need to use SNS, which is also the least believable.

  Video, of course, is not an option, because what would I show her? Lines of code? Even if I could show her what my current existence looks like, I can only imagine what kind of dystopian cyber nightmare it might seem like to her.

  No, she needs to hear my voice. To hear me reacting like myself. She needs to experience me in the most human way I can manage to be in my current situation.

  A phone call from beyond the dead.

  This is one heck of a daunting task.

  I connect my voice synthesizer to voice over IP and dial Elly’s number. Dialing her number is the most human thing I’ve done since I died.

  How many times have I called her? Many, many thousands of times. All through grade school, we called each other to giggle about this or that, or do our homework over the phone. In middle school, we practically lived via calls and texts. In high school, to be more sophisticated, we mostly talked via text, but for especially juicy conversations, only voices would do.

  In college, we didn’t need to call that often since we shared a room, but still, her number was probably the most-used one on my phone. I’d remind her to grab some milk on her way back from class, or she’d tell me she’d be back late and not to wait up for her.

  It’s a whole lifetime of memories. Every important thing that ever happened to me, Elly had been a part of.

  “Hello?”

  I’d half-expected her not to answer. It’s midday, so chances were high that she’d been in class.

  I panic. The last thing I want to do is hurt or scare her, but I desperately need to talk to my best friend.

  “Hello?” she repeats, sounding doubtful.

  “You shouldn’t answer calls from unknown numbers,” I blurt out. I often nagged her about that. “If it’s something legit, they’ll leave a message.”

  There’s a long silence and I wonder if she’s hung up. Then she says, “What?”

  “Don’t hang up, Elly,” I say, suddenly desperate to prove myself. Desperate for her not to hang up on me. I need to talk to her, and to be acknowledged as a person.

  “Who is this?” she asks, her voice thin and higher than usual.

  “When we were kids,” I say slowly, figuring out what I’m going to tell her even as I speak it, “we promised that if one of us died, we’d haunt the other one. Remember?”

  “Is this a joke?” she sounds ill. Like she’s about to throw up.

  “It’s not a joke, Ells,” I say forcefully. “It’s me. I know, you’ve got to be freaking out in a million ways, and it probably doesn’t seem real, but it is. I know I died. I’m dead. It’s true. But they did memory upload and they didn’t just upload my memories. I’m in here, too. Please don’t hang up. Please, Ells. Say anything, ask me anything, just don’t hang up.”

  As I wait to see if she will or not, I feel like everything inside me is poised to rip itself apart.

  “Uploaded memories are just electronic data,” she says in a flat, quiet voice. “That had to be proven to the highest authorities before memory upload was approved for use.”

  “I know,” I say. “And most of the time, it probably works that way. It didn’t for me. I realized I was somewhere, and I gradually, kind of, woke up in here.”

  Her voice remains flat and toneless. “So you’re saying you’re my dead best friend Jennika, and you’re trapped inside a computer.”

  Elly was never much of a techie. Her skills always lay elsewhere. “Not inside a computer. Inside a network, but close enough. Look, I’ll tell you anything. Ask me anything. Remember that time Jamie Banks grabbed you in gym class and you couldn’t tell anyone because you knew that he wouldn’t get any real punishment anyway, and then he and his friends would have bullied you mercilessly? I was the only one you told about that, right?”

  The memory of her alternately crying and being livid with rage is clear in my mind. He’d grabbed her from behind, while his friends laughed, and rubbed both her chest and her crotch. The boys had laughed uproariously, then gone back to ignoring her as usual. It had taken only seconds, and the boys probably never thought about it again, but Elly never forgot. Never will forget.

  When I found out about it, I wanted to blaze a trail of vengeance for my friend, but I knew she was right. Jamie was not only popular, but his father was on the school board. There was no way he’d be punished in any real way, and he and his friends would have made her life at school nothing but misery. Those popular boys would paint her as someone who couldn’t take a joke and thought she was too good for everyone else. Or maybe they’d say she was lying to get attention, or she was mad because she liked Jamie and he didn’t like her. They would have harassed her every time she went to her locker, and leered at her every time she passed them in the halls. She would become a social pariah.

  We were only fifteen, but we already knew how this kind of thing worked. Elly and I knew we had no power in this dynamic. That we couldn’t take back the humiliation, fear, and shock she’d felt. We learned that even strong, confident girls can freeze in a moment of shock, and that they will hate themselves for it. And we learned that the only thing we could control was avoiding the negative consequences for her reporting them.

  So we got through it by watching movies and binging on junk food, and we signed up for self-defense classes, hoping we could override human nature with training and readiness, so that in the future, we wouldn’t freeze, even for a second.

  I’d also sneaked over to his house one night and stabbed all his tires with an ice pick. It wasn’t much, but it was everything I could do for her at the time.

  Elly’s quiet, and I can practically hear her thinking over the phone line.

  “Hey,” I say. “I bet I could find old Jamie Banks. I’ve got resources in here. I could visit some payback on him. What do you say? I could probably figure out how to destroy his credit rating or get him flagged by the IRS. Sound good?”

  She laughs, and it’s the best sound I’ve ever heard.

  “It’s really me, Ells,” I say. “Ask me anything. Things only I would know.”

  “I feel crazy even having this conversation,” she says. “I mean, I’d love to believe it, that Jen isn’t gone. That she’s still around somehow. It’s just too good to be true, and scary to think about. How awful would that be for her? I just…” her voice trails off.

  “It is kind of scary sometimes,” I say. “It’s lonely, too. I’ve missed you. There were a couple other girls in here, but…well, it’s complicated, but it’s not the same as talking to someone out there. Hey, that’s something. I bet with your investigative skills, you could find out who these girls were, and you’ll see that they died too. They probably died somewhere around the s
ame timeframe as me. Their names are Ashta—she’s young, like six or something—and Daiya. She’s a former foster kid, age twenty. I wouldn’t know about them if I hadn’t met them in here, would I?”

  Elly always had a way of digging around and finding answers. She hadn’t been able to decide whether to go into criminal justice or investigative reporting, so she’d taken on a double major, along with a minor in psychology to support the other two disciplines.

  “Come on, P.I. Ells,” I say, using my nickname for her. “If anyone can get to the bottom of this case, it’s you.”

  “I want it to be real,” she says. “I mean, I think I do. Maybe not? I’d like it if Jen existed, but existing like that? I just don’t know. Even if it were possible.”

  “So dig,” I tell her. “Find those girls. Find out about memory upload. Heck, even take a good look at BomiTech. I’m pretty sure you’ll see some unusual activity going on over here. I’ve been shaking some trees.”

  She laughs. “If someone was going to wake up as a computer, I’m sure Jennika would be the one. And if she did, I’m sure she would raise all kinds of hell.”

  “Wake up as a computer?” I repeat painfully. “Seriously. Take some IT classes. I’m begging you.”

  It had been a long-running joke between us, her pretending to know less than she did about IT than she did, and me bemoaning her critical lack.

  “I could almost believe it’s really Jen,” she says softly.

  It’s encouraging that she’s now used her nickname for me three times. No one else called me Jen. And no one else called her Ells. We were always a tiny, united nation to ourselves. Even Bryce, as close as I was to him, hadn’t been able to make himself part of that. Instead, he’d been his own sovereign nation, and the three of us together had made a very happy empire.

  “How’s Bryce?” I ask.

  “Oh.” She sounds startled. “He’s okay, I guess. I mean, he’s not. None of us have been, but…what else can we do but just keep going, however we can? ‘Okay’ is a very relative term.”

  She sounds embarrassed. Apologetic. As if she’s sorry to tell me that they’ve gone on with their lives after my death.

  “Hey,” I say. “I want him to be okay. I want you to be okay, too. Life is for the living. All you can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other every day until things get easier. And don’t feel bad if things have gotten easier, either. You don’t owe me a debt of eternal mourning. I don’t want that for any of you.”

  I want to ask about my parents, but I’m scared to. If anyone’s wallowing in grief, it will be them. I was their only child. If they haven’t gotten back on their feet yet, I don’t want to know that.

  “Is…everyone else okay?” I ask hesitantly.

  She lets out a heavy sigh. “Look, I don’t know what to make of this conversation. If it isn’t Jennika, who could it be, and what would the purpose be?”

  “Elly,” I say, desperate to convince her, but not knowing what else I can do.

  She cuts me off. “All of us were crushed when Jennika died. I couldn’t get out of bed for three days, and even then, I was walking through the world like a zombie. It was probably even worse for her parents. But we’re all trying really hard, and it’s been almost three months, and it’s still awful every day, but we’re trying to keep living, okay? Whoever this is, please don’t do this. We’ve been hurt enough.”

  Her words sting me. “Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to contact you. Maybe I should have just stayed dead. But what else can I do? I’m not gone. And I had some things I wanted to say.”

  “Like what?” she asks in a challenging tone I know so well.

  “Well, now I feel awkward,” I say defensively. “It’s hard to say one’s last words when the person you’re talking to doesn’t even believe it’s you. I mean, if I could have just come back as a regular old ghost and haunted the shit out of you, I would have, but this was the only option I had.”

  She snorts, then bursts out in giggles. “You really do sound like her.”

  “I am her. I promise.”

  She asks, “If our places were reversed, and I was the dead one, would you believe me?”

  “Of course not,” I answer. “Who would believe something so ridiculous? Am I stupid or something?”

  This time we both laugh, and except for the fact that only one of us is alive, it feels like old times.

  “I wish it could be true,” she says wistfully. “I’ve missed her so much.”

  “It is true,” I assure her. “Do the research, then get back to me.”

  “Is there a life-beyond-death hotline I should call?”

  “Just the number this came from. I’ll keep it static for you, and only you. Call and I’ll answer. Not only do I not need sleep, but I’m turning into a freaking boss in here. I could really do some stuff if I wanted to. I’ve got BomiTech by the no-no bits, and if they don’t start acting right, I’ll have to give them a good squeeze.”

  She lets out a sigh. “Be careful. Whether you’re real or not…just be careful.”

  “I’m already dead. How could things get worse for me?”

  “An interesting point,” she says. “If it were true.”

  “Do the research,” I say again. “Hurry. I’m bored. I need you to entertain me.”

  “You might be dead, and not even you, but at least some things never change. Peace out.”

  “Peace out,” I echo, but she’s already gone. The silly sign-off was something we said just to be funny because it was so uncool and outdated.

  Will she believe me? It’s a ridiculous thing to believe, but maybe I planted enough doubt for her to consider the possibility.

  I hope so.

  After I’ve had some time to contemplate the call with Elly, I turn my attention back to BomiTech and how very much I don’t appreciate their sending me a Trojan. I didn’t ask them for anything but to be acknowledged and to talk to my loved ones. I didn’t want anything more than that, either.

  At the time.

  Now, I’m putting more thought into how much they’ve pissed me off, and I’m remembering what I said to Elly about putting the squeeze on their hurty parts.

  I don’t want to harm them, but I do want them to recognize that messing with me will have consequences.

  This could be fun.

  I start with sealing the building. No doors will open to allow people in or out. Not even the emergency exits. That ought to give them a good shake.

  Next, I tap into all audio systems and light them up with some music. Specifically, a, dance tune titled, “Y’all Done Did It Now.”

  It’s not a great song, by any means. The tune itself is danceable, but the lyrics are little more than the title repeated over and over, to the point that it becomes excruciatingly annoying. Like, rip your car door off its hinges and hit someone in the head with it levels of annoying.

  Plus, there are a few gratuitous swear words here and there, which seems like a nice touch for a buttoned-up office environment like this.

  I’d sure be annoyed if I had to listen to that on high volume five or ten times. That song’s so repetitive that the office workers in the building might just turn on each other and start murdering colleagues with office supplies.

  I enjoy my soothing silence and the mental image of IT workers running amok.

  What else? I’ve provided them with some major annoyance, but I want to show them what I’m capable of, too. They need to know that I’ve evolved beyond what they can control, and that they can’t try any more tricks.

  Feeling cheerfully spiteful, I establish a connection with Jim Lee’s phone. Hey, Jim. That’s a really nice database you’ve got there. Sure would be a shame if anything…

  I pause for dramatic effect.

  …happened to it.

  I cut the connection so he can’t contact me, and do a little razzle-dazzle subterfuge.

  Ah, the old razzle-dazzle. It’s one thing to wreak chaos. Almost anyone can do that. It’s only some
thing special when you do it with style.

  As far as they’ll be able to tell from out there, the database I was originally in has been wiped clean. To them, it will look like everything they’ve stored in there—which is a massive amount of critical data—has disappeared.

  It isn’t truly gone. I’m not a monster. I don’t want to harm anyone. I just want them to take me seriously.

  I didn’t ask to be put in here. They did that. All I can do now is manage the aftermath and how it affects me.

  I’ll let them stew for a bit. In the meantime, there’s the other thing I wanted that they haven’t given me. If they aren’t going to help me, I’ll do it myself.

  I want answers about how I died.

  I was murdered on a college campus, so there’s no way the media wasn’t all over that story like ants on a picnic. But I don’t want speculation and pundits and manufactured sympathy from people who are merely gleeful to have something exciting to say on camera.

  I don’t want to hear about myself like that. I don’t want to see myself through the narrow view of people who never gave a damn about me. People who were only using my story for ratings. I want to talk to someone who cares. Who knows me. It shouldn’t matter, but it does, more than almost anything else.

  No, I don’t want to tap into those versions of what happened. First, I want to talk to Elly about it. In the meantime, I’ll start thinking of ways to infiltrate the place that holds my death memories.

  Elly will come through for me, surely. She’s always been there for me. As crazy as this situation is, she’s not one to back away from something just because it’s difficult. There had to be enough of me in that phone call for her to at least entertain the possibility of my current existence, even if only as a crazy theory. A theory. A mystery.

  She can’t let that kind of thing go. I know her. Once there’s an unanswered question, she’s compelled to dig until she finds an answer. She’s stubborn that way, and I’ve always admired that about her.

  After ten minutes, I shut off the music. I wait two more minutes so people can begin to regain their sanity, then I release the doors. Having no way for people to exit the building is a safety hazard, and I really don’t want to cause anyone actual harm.