Steph could also tell Firestar. She probably would tell Firestar.
But if the admins stepped in, I could fix this.
But of course, she might not tell the admins. If she didn’t, and they stepped in, anyway, she might guess that all the admins were also me. That they knew just a little too much. And she had friends in other Clowders, and she could tell them, and they might start looking for that person in their Clowder who was online too much to be plausible.
I’m in all the Clowders. Although I’m quieter in some of them than in others.
This was my favorite Clowder, and I really liked spending time with all of them, and that made me careless.
The fundamental problem, though: Steph was a friend. If I lied to her, I’d be lying to a friend.
What if I told Steph the truth? Not months from now, after carefully laying the groundwork—I’d imagined a lot of careful hinting and preparation—but right now? I could come out. I could disclose. Like all the other people who’ve shared things they’ve never before told a living soul, before they told their friends on CatNet.
I couldn’t take a deep breath, because I don’t breathe, but I felt suddenly like I understood the expression.
I told Steph the truth.
Steph logged out almost immediately afterward, leaving me filled with uncertainty about whether I had just made a huge mistake. Don’t forget you promised, I slipped in before she disconnected.
Steph’s biggest fear was her father.
I didn’t, in fact, know where her father was, but maybe I could find out?
What I knew: Steph was enrolled in the New Coburg school under the name Stephanie Taylor. Her mother was a programmer. Her father had been a programmer who’d set fire to their house and served time for stalking. There probably were not so many arsonist stalker computer programmers that I couldn’t narrow it down, especially with databases of arrest records, restraining orders, criminal convictions, and news archives.
After a period of diligent searching, I found nothing that matched the information I had.
What this probably meant: Steph’s mother was lying about something.
Maybe she was lying about their name? It’s easy to make real-looking fake documents. It’s a lot harder to fake the information in the government databases, so eventually, if you’re using a fake birth certificate, someone will notice. But Steph’s mother moved her so frequently. She didn’t let Steph do things like open a bank account or get a job. Schools don’t require your Social Security number, and there are thousands of Stephanie Taylors running around …
I dug back into the data and found several thousand technology professionals who’d served time in prison, and started sifting through for things that would make it impossible for them to be Steph’s father. Some were too young or too old or still in prison. Lots more were locked up for things like fraud or identity theft or for hitting someone with their car while drunk—unrelated crimes, not anything like stalking. I found some stalkers, but no one where there seemed to be information about an arson case they couldn’t quite prove. None of them were named Taylor. Maybe I was missing something. What did I even know about the sort of crimes an arsonist stalker might wind up convicted of? Maybe he was convicted of fraud because they had evidence for that.
I guess I knew one thing: Steph’s mother was definitely lying about something.
10
Steph
I come out of my room with my plate. My mother isn’t working; her laptop is on the kitchen table, closed, and the bathroom door is shut. I can hear the unmistakable awful sound of someone throwing up. I wash my plate, leave it to dry, and go back to my room without bothering her. It’s not like I can exactly say, “Hey, I need some advice about this friend of mine who is apparently an AI.” My mom and I don’t really have that sort of relationship even if I needed advice about something normal. When I’ve had problems in the past—friends, bullies, lousy teachers—she’s always told me not to worry, we’d be moving on soon.
My friends on CatNet really are my friends. My close friends, the people who really know me, who care what’s going on in my life, who I talk to.
Back when I was seven, I had a best friend for a few months, Julie. I don’t remember the town. I don’t even remember the state, though it was warm while we were there; I remember wearing sundresses. Julie wanted us to match, so she talked her mother into buying me a dress just like hers. We were renting out the basement of their house, and as soon as Julie found out a girl her age had moved in, she was knocking on the side door yelling for me to come out and play.
For three golden months, I had Julie. She shared Popsicles and books and her favorite climbing tree with me; we would hang upside down from our knees pretending to be bats, because Stellaluna was her favorite book. But of course, one day Mom moved us. Julie begged for a phone number, and Mom wrote something down for her on a Post-it. Julie gave me her copy of Stellaluna and one of her stuffed bats.
Julie, like me and like Firestar, was another kid who was trying to fit and not really doing it very well. In school, she spent a lot of time in the behavior office, and she was too interested in weird animals like bats and possums. Firestar would probably really like Julie. I do know for absolute certain that Firestar is not Julie, and neither is anyone else in the Clowder, because I told everyone that story a
