33 McKenna
McKenna
I’m not sure how long I’ve been asleep when I feel somebody shaking me. I open my eyes reluctantly and find some girl around
my age standing over me. It takes a couple of seconds, but then I recognize her from my nutrition class. I’m on the couch
in the second-floor lounge of Monroe Hall, where I’ve spent the last six nights curled up on various pieces of furniture.
It’s not so hard getting into the building, and it’s a lot more comfortable than sleeping at the desks in the library. Nobody’s
given me trouble for setting myself up here. It’s a big dorm, and people wouldn’t necessarily know I’m not one of the residents.
I’ve been making sure to get out early in the mornings, hoping others assume I just passed out studying or something. And
it’s been working pretty well. Except now I’ve got this girl, Mandy or Mindy or something, probably coming to mess it up for
me.
I sit up on the little loveseat and push my hair out of my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m up, I’m up,” I say. “What is it?”
“Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you, but it’s almost eight and I thought you might, that you might . . .” She’s got light brown hair, straight, shoulder-length, basically unremarkable, but I’m struck by how clean it looks, the shine on it making me realize what a mess I’m becoming.
I’m busy thinking about her hair instead of processing her words, but when they finally land, I jump up and start gathering
the old fleece blanket I brought in with me.
“Shit, why didn’t my alarm go off?” I look at my phone and see that the battery is dead. Great. Just great.
The girl looks back at me blankly. I don’t have time for this. If people notice me camped out here like some deadbeat off
the streets, I’m going to lose this as an option too. The light coming in through the window is glaring enough that it should
have woken me even without the alarm. Now it’s too late for me to shower, unless I want to bump into a shit-ton of people
coming in and out of the rec center, wondering why I’m using their showers if I’m no longer on the swim team.
“I gotta go,” I say, grabbing my tote off the floor and hurrying out with my blanket bunched in my arms.
Thinking about my gross morning breath and which campus building makes the most sense for doing my morning wash-up, it doesn’t
occur to me until I’m almost all the way back to my car on the other side of campus to wonder about Mindy or Mandy and what
exactly she knows about me.
Wednesday is my busiest day at school, and I’m exhausted when I finally walk into nutrition class at four in the afternoon.
I see the girl from the dorm sitting across the way, but we’re in a large lecture room that’s already filling up with other
students. She’s busy typing on her laptop and doesn’t look my way.
As class begins and Professor Dunwoodie starts her lecture on the role of diet in managing chronic disease, a text comes across my laptop.
Leo has been asking for my advice on how to talk to some girl he met. I felt pretty proud of myself when he told me a few
weeks earlier that I was the one who convinced him to look for teaching assistant jobs, but the romantic advice is trickier.
I don’t know anything about this girl, Tatiana, except that she’s a teaching assistant in the 3D printing class across the
hall from the class Leo’s helping in. I’ve asked him a lot of questions about her, but all he’s told me is that she goes to
the Catholic school a few blocks away from his high school and she has very symmetrical features. Maybe today will be the
day I convince him to talk to her.
Except when I read his text, I see that it’s not about Tatiana at all.
Is cheating always a bad thing to do?
Oh, crap. I can’t even imagine what this is about, but I don’t like the idea of Leo getting himself into trouble.
Normally, I try to avoid distractions like texting during class. I keep telling myself that if I’m literally living on the
streets to afford my degree, I’d damn well better make the most of my time here. But Leo’s text has me anxious to respond
right away.
Generally speaking, yes, it’s bad to cheat. Why do you ask?
I brace for his response.
I don’t want to say.
Me: How am I supposed to help if you won’t tell me what’s going on?
Leo: It’s something from a chat room, but they told me it was a secret.
Me: Look, Leo, I really want to answer properly. This sounds like a complicated situation. I’m in class, and I should be paying attention to the professor. Can you wait an hour before you do anything, and then we can text about it?
Leo: I can wait an hour, but I don’t want to text about it. I don’t want to write things down.
Me: I know you don’t like to talk on the phone, but maybe I can call you after class?
Leo: No, thank you. We shouldn’t talk on the phone.
My stomach lurches. I know he frequents a lot of aviation chats with tech wizards from all over the world, and I’m worried
he might really be in some sort of trouble.
Me: Ok, do NOTHING about this situation until you talk to me. Promise me. And meet me at the Sizz in 90 minutes. I’ll send you
the address.
Leo: Ok, I can meet you. I know where the Sizz is.
Me: Promise me you won’t make any final decisions. Promise!
Leo: Ok, I promise.
An hour and forty-five minutes later, I’m sweating under my winter jacket as I race to the Sizz.
In my hurry to get ready earlier this morning, I’d moved my car to a different lot than usual, closer to my first class.
But by the end of the day, I’d forgotten this and gone back to P-Lot, where I usually park.
After a few seconds freaking out that my car was stolen and I’d lost everything I owned, I remembered parking elsewhere, but then I had to hoof it all the way across campus again.
Those extra minutes traipsing back and forth cost me, and I’m worried Leo will think I’ve stood him up.
Of course he’s not answering his phone. I just hope he hasn’t left and gone off to do some awful thing with internet wackos before I could stop him.
But when I get to the Sizz, he’s standing right inside the doorway, wrapped in a hunter green puffer jacket with a matching
winter beanie on his head. His oversized noise-canceling headphones are positioned on top of the hat, covering his ears.
When he sees me, he moves the headphones to his neck.
“I don’t like maple syrup because it ends up touching all the foods on the plate,” he says.
“Hello, Leo. It’s so nice to see you after all this time,” I answer pointedly, and to my surprise, he seems to get the message
I was trying to send.
“Hello, McKenna,” he mimics back to me. “It’s nice to see you too.”
Not gonna lie. I’m impressed.
Once I’ve said hello to my old boss, Eleni, we settle into a booth. Leo doesn’t want any food because it’s not his usual dinnertime,
and I only order coffee. I still have one more container of Cup-a-Soup in my car, and prices here are sort of bougie.
“Okay, let’s hear what’s going on.”
Leo looks around us, like he wants to make sure no one’s listening.
“I got offered a job,” he says, then adds in a whisper, “from Shadow Jet Racing.”
“Awesome. What’s Shadow Jet Racing?” I ask, but he nearly jumps out of his seat.
“Shh, shh!” He looks around in a panic, but nobody’s paying any attention to us.
“Sorry.” I lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper and repeat the question. “What’s Shadow Jet Racing?”
“They’re an underground drone racing league.”
“Okay, I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”
At my words, Leo launches into a lengthy explanation of drone racing leagues. Apparently that’s a thing. There are aboveboard
drone racing leagues, like the aptly named Drone Racing League, where pilots race high-tech drones through specific real-world
courses. Evidently it’s an emerging sport, and there’s currently a Major League Drone Racing group in development, but there
are already strict regulations, standardized courses, large-scale production, and televised broadcasts. People compete for
prize money, trophies, and, of course, glory. Now this, the competitive aspect, I can relate to.
Leo then explains the underground drone racing leagues, where people compete at more local levels. The courses can be more
difficult because they’re unregulated, and because of this, they pose greater risk of injury to the pilots and spectators.
But people like the underground racing because it’s more accessible and amateurs can get involved more easily.
“Okay, so these people want you to race for them?” I’m not surprised. I’m aware of how deeply Leo loves all things aviation
and the time he’s spent building and flying his own drones.
“No, they want me to help them win.”
“Please explain.”
“I know how to hack into the software of lots of different drones. Once I’m in, I can adjust the settings to help Shadow Jet
know where their competitors are in real time. I can even alter the other drone’s performance mid-flight.”
“Oh my god.”
“I know. It’s actually very interesting how this type of hacking works.” He starts giving me technical details of what he needs to do from his computer in order to infiltrate the software, but I’ve never been techy, and everything he’s saying is gibberish to me.
“Leo, this isn’t the point. You said it’s cheating, what they asked you to do.”
“Yes, it is, but I can do things with the software that no one else can.”
“I’m sure it must feel nice to be so good at something, and you probably want to show it off, but we have to think about more
than just how you’d feel in the moment. Wait . . . How did these people even find you?”
“Through one of the Subreddits I like.”
Of course, because everything goes back to Reddit with these gamers and tech kids.
“Is it just the glory? Is that why you want to do it?” I think I can explain to him how that feeling is fleeting and how each
time you win something, your mind automatically starts worrying about the next contest, the next race, the next way to prove
you’re good enough.
“They said they’d pay me.”
I don’t like the sound of this at all. I’m about to say as much, but then I hear my name.