[This excerpt is found on pages 2–6 of Haven]
The boy worked his way through the warehouse district like this, barely visible to the naked eye if anyone had been there to look, a black breath moving through shadows in fits and spurts, the pattern known only to him and the voice in his ear. They were working the south end of town, an industrial area only partially populated with tenants. One day the boy wanted to work the town center. One day he wanted to strike at the heart of his world’s smug reliance on technology. One day he wanted to leave his mark on Oculus headquarters itself. The voice had assured him he would get the chance, one day. For now, they practiced in easier areas, areas that only had cameras and the occasional noise-sensitive recording equipment.
He wore a backpack strapped tightly to him, preventing anything inside from clanking together. He stepped lightly, with a practiced balance and ease. There was no trash to avoid, no debris that might snap or crinkle under him. Haven was a clean town, with every inch observed and analyzed, cleaned, swept, and trimmed. The boy’s mind wandered to the DSA’s PSAs that played during every device’s ad breaks. He’d just seen one this evening while swiping through his Flick feed: a pristine park scene with a robin flitting to and fro, a smooth voice saying, “A well-kept living space improves mental clarity and mood by 8%, and having a well-staffed public works division provides thousands of jobs. The Haven way is a win/win!”
The boy rolled his eyes in loathing and shifted uncomfortably under the complete confinement of his outfit, sweating despite the cool autumn night. He thought about how good it would feel to peel off the mask and feel the night air on his skin. He imagined stepping out of the shadows, face bared to the cameras, fearless. He imagined what it would be like to be seen, to tell his parents exactly what he—
“Move, now, MOVE” the voice in his ear urged, snapping the boy out of his reverie. He jolted forward, turned a corner, and crouched behind the cement base of a short stairway. For the first time that night, his heart beat faster.
“What was that?” the voice hissed.
“Sorry,” the boy murmured, keeping his head low and looking around. He counted three cameras along the backside of the building. He knew they were only momentarily interrupted; there was never extra time in the blips to make mistakes or hesitate.
“Sorry,” the voice mirrored, mocking. “‘Sorry’ won’t save you from the Enclave if you get caught. ‘Sorry’ won’t save my ass if you get caught. Do you have any idea what that would do to my mom?”
“I know, man. I’m sorry,” the boy muttered.
A heavy sigh came through his earpiece, and then “Okay, the target is on the left of the stairwell you are currently cuddling with. Ten feet from the corner, ten feet from the stairs. Dead center. You’ll have six seconds. Don’t mess it up. You’ve got a blip coming in fifteen . . . fourteen . . . “
As the voice counted, the boy pulled off his pack. Inside were two spray paint cans, taped together, a stick spanning the top, connecting the nozzles. One can was full of black paint, the other full of a harmless gas, its nozzle replaced with a device that created a phasal shift in the sound waves produced. When the boy depressed the nozzles, the soundwaves would cancel each other out. Voila. Glorious, invisible silence.
“ . . . two . . . one . . . mark,” the voice said.
The boy ducked around the stairwell and strode to the wall, his hand moving in lines and swoops, his strokes confident, his mark on the building blooming into reality. It was black paint in a dark alley, and the boy’s eyes were shaded behind his mask, but he’d drawn this mark a million times. He could do it with his eyes closed.
“Three . . . two . . . one . . . on,” the voice told him, but the boy was already back behind the stairwell, pushing the cans back into his pack and cinching the straps tightly into place. He was grinning wildly, his heart pounding.
“Dude,” the voice said, sounding as if it had leaned back from the mic, “if we weren’t faking your bio stats right now, you’d probably be tagged for a heart attack. Deep breaths, man.”
The boy laughed at the voice’s chiding, though he knew they were far from out of the woods. He still had to blip surf back to the library where his geo-tag said he was spending the evening. He couldn’t help it though—he felt wild with elation and risk and independence. He opened and closed his hands, splaying his fingers wide and then clenching them tightly into fists, trying to give his energy a place to go so that it wouldn’t come dashing out of his mouth in a barbaric yawp.
“Take the drive in front of you for sixty feet, then pause, in three . . . two . . . shit, wait,” the voice hissed.
The boy wrenched himself back, reversing momentum and crashing into the corner.
“There’s a car coming,” the voice told him. The boy could hear the furious clicking of a keyboard. “Shit. Are you serious? A 3.7% chance the patrol would be here. I know they keep it randomized to prevent this exact thing from happening, but what are the odds that it would come tonight? I mean, I know the odds. 3.7%. But like what are the odds—”
“Hey,” the boy in the shadows whispered. “Shut up and tell me where the car is.”
There was more keyboard clacking and then, “Uh, it’s coming your way. I can’t mess with any cameras right now. Just . . . get invisible.”
The boy pressed his lips together and pushed his body harder into the double darkness of the corner of the stairwell.
“It’s one block away, coming up on the right side. Dude, we got so lucky. If it were coming on the left, it would turn straight into you and light you up. If it turns on your road, at least it’ll be coming from behind you.”
“Yeah, a lot of good that does if he sees the tag,” the boy said through gritted teeth.
“I know,” the voice said, anxiety making it petulant. “I’m just trying to look at the positives here. Geez.” There was another exasperated sigh, and then “Okay, it’s about 300 feet from the turn.”
The boy pressed back and closed his eyes, only to open them a second later. He would look this moment in its face. If the car came his way, he still had options.
“200 feet.”
He considered running before the car reached the turn, but with all the cameras functioning, he had no chance of getting away. He’d be exiled to the Enclave by morning. He imagined his parents’ faces. The fury in his dad’s stone-set eyes.
“100 feet.”
He could claim that he had no choice, that he was being blackmailed. He could fight. He could say the tag was already there. He could . . . see headlights. The building across the street was lit up by the approaching car, the bouncing reflection of light shining onto his wall, making his shadowed corner smaller and smaller. The voice in his ear went quiet. The boy held his breath. It felt like his heart also paused, waiting to see which way the car would go, which way his life would go.
The car passed the turn, continuing forward without slowing. The boy was plunged back into darkness, the shadows growing and swallowing him again. He released his breath and heard a simultaneous loud exhale in his ear.
“Oh my GOD, dude.”
The boy didn’t respond. He crouched in his corner, panting with stress and adrenaline. He squeezed his eyes shut, frozen, as all the disasters that had just flashed through his mind faded from view. “Get me out of here,” he muttered, inhaling deeply through his nose to slow his breathing.
“Alright, reworking your route now. Hold on.”
If anyone had been watching, they would have seen the boy crouch for a few more seconds before darting through shadows, moving in stuttering stops and starts in the opposite direction of the patrol car, which had moved far down the road. They would have wondered about the pack on his back and would have looked at the mark left behind: an insect drawn geometrically in black paint.
But no one was watching. The boy was invisible in a world that saw everything, real only to himself and the voice in his ear.
