“Do we need to get out of the city?” Jenny asks.
“You would all be welcome to come to my house in Houston,” Mimi says.
“I’m not sure how much that will help,” CheshireCat says. “Minneapolis and Saint Paul are the current focus, but things are happening other places as well.”
“Have there been explosions anywhere else?” Mimi asks.
There’s a tiny pause, and CheshireCat says, “Not yet.”
Jenny shakes her head. “Why Minneapolis?”
I read CheshireCat the number from my texts. “I think that’s Rajiv’s number,” I say. “Is he in Minneapolis?”
“No,” CheshireCat says. “According to his location data, which admittedly might be falsified, he’s in Saint Paul.” They read an address.
Jenny pulls out her own phone and types in the address to pull it up on the map. “The guy you think maybe kidnapped your mother is at Can Can Wonderland?” she says in open disbelief.
“Is that unlikely?”
“Can Can Wonderland is this very artistic indoor amusement park. There’s a mini-golf course that was designed by artists and an arcade that has pinball machines from the 1970s and an artist-designed indoor roller coaster that was designed by my friend Elise. It’s … I mean, okay, if I were a supervillain, it would legit be my first choice for a lair. But it’s a very unconventional one.”
“This might be a lure,” CheshireCat says. “He is probably aware of my abilities; he may be using this to draw you in.”
“Well, that won’t work, because I’m not taking you there,” Jenny says. “If there was ever a time to call the police, it’s now.”
Nell shakes her head wildly. “If you call the police, they’re going to assume that Steph blew up the building! They’re not going to believe all this stuff about hacker friends! And they’ll take Glenys and send her back to her parents!”
Jenny rubs her forehead in obvious distress. “Okay,” she says. “No cops. But I’m dropping you kids at home, and maybe later I will take some actual adults over to look for a supervillain’s lair at Can Can Wonderland.” Under her breath, she adds, “How is this my life? Also, how would you even know if there was a supervillain lair at Can Can Wonderland?”
She pulls out from the parking lot and starts heading back to Minneapolis. I send a text to CheshireCat. Do you think Rajiv is actually at Can Can Wonderland?
Yes, CheshireCat sends back. Which doesn’t mean it’s not a trap.
WHY HERE, I say. Is this all a massive distraction?
Maybe, CheshireCat says. You are aware of your mother’s decryption key. Over the months, as migration to other encryption schemes has progressed, it has become less useful. But possibly the purpose of threatening you and your mother is to keep all of us too distracted to discern where we might be able to use it. Then again, Rajiv knows your mother and possibly you are simply the targets.
If he wanted to kill us, he could have, is the thing, I say.
Yes. But it’s possible he really does want to keep you safe from whatever he’s unleashing on everyone else.
Do you have any idea where my mother is?
No. But your mother is extraordinarily good at disappearing. And now that our foe is aware that I am able to discern holes in the visual data streams, it has increased the number of such holes by a factor of one thousand. There are too many haystacks to find the needles in.
I stare at that number.
Well, at least we know for sure that we’re dealing with the other AI, I send.
Yes, CheshireCat says. We’ve reached the end of other possibilities.
We pull up in front of Nell’s family’s house. Apparently, everyone bailed on work to deal with this, because all the other adults spill out as we arrive—Siobhan, whom I know, and the one Nell calls Thing One, and a short, balding guy with a beard, who I guess is her father. “Siobhan, Julia, Kent,” Jenny tells us, pointing people out.
All of us go into the house.
“I’d love to take you all out for lunch…” my grandmother tries one final time.
“The lawyer appointment is in a half hour,” Julia says.
“There are cold cuts in the fridge,” Jenny says to my grandmother. “Help yourself. And please stay here. We’ll be back soon.”
They’re taking Nell with them and almost get hung up on the question of whether to bring Glenys. The problem is, they’re not entirely certain whether the lawyer will have some complicated set of obligations involving Glenys, like what if the lawyer has to call the police to return Glenys to her own parents? In the end, they decide that plausible deniability is the safest option and leave Glenys behind, with a bunch of apologies and additional promises that everything will definitely be fine.
The door closes, leaving Glenys, my grandmother, and me in Nell’s family’s house.
“I’m making sandwiches,” Glenys says. “Since they said it was okay. Anyone else want one?”
“I’m not hungry,” I say, checking both my phones again to see if any texts from my mother have come in. Nothing. There’s a text from Xochitl, but it’s just saying that she’s tried some other contact methods for my mother, and none have yielded any results.
“Is there any roast beef?” my grandmother asks, following Glenys toward the kitchen.
“Aren’t you worried?” I ask her.
My grandmother pauses in the kitchen doorway and tips her head to one side. “You do realize that until last month, the only word I’d gotten from your mother in over a decade was two postcards? Your mother wore my worry out.”
“There’s roast beef,” Glenys calls.
As I’m pacing the living room, my phone rings.
“CheshireCat says you’re in this house,” Rachel’s voice says, “but I don’t trust them enough to just go knock on the door.”
I look outside.
Rachel’s car is in front. As I watch, she turns it off, and she and
