“Are they blocking us on purpose?” Bryony asks. “Like, do you think maybe the other AI is just sending people to get in our way?”
“I mean, if it knows where we are, probably,” I say. “Give me your phones, let me see if anything on them looks suspicious.”
Rachel is still running Heli-Mom, which CheshireCat told me once is incredibly insecure. I delete the entire app. Bryony has six screens full of games. I go into Bryony’s settings and just take away “access to location” from anything that’s not, like, the preinstalled mapping app.
Glenys hands me my grandmother’s phone. Mimi has two apps for encrypted texting, one for secure phone calls, a VPN, an app that uploads anything you video to a secure server, and six apps that look like they might be related to her car-theft hobby. She has no games or social media apps. I hand the phone back to Glenys.
“I have a route for you,” CheshireCat says, and takes over navigating. We cross the river to the Minneapolis side, then come up a slow, scenic parkway right along the river, then cross back, then do a loop to get onto the island.
“They’re still here, aren’t they?” I ask.
“Well,” CheshireCat says optimistically, “I think probably.”
Despite the mess everywhere else, Nicollet Island is quiet—crossing the river felt almost like slipping into another world. There’s a high school, which is as closed up as everything else, and a few tree-lined residential streets with houses. CheshireCat says, “They should be somewhere very close to here,” and I look around. Houses, park, river. Did they just randomly knock on someone’s door?
Rachel points suddenly. “Maybe that one.”
It’s a vivid blue house with dark blue shutters. Blowing in the icy wind is a rainbow flag. If I had to pick a house to ask for help, the Queer Pride house would be my pick—probably Nell’s family’s pick, too. I slide out of the car and run up to the door to ring the bell. There’s movement inside the house—I can hear it—and then a woman with short gray hair answers the door.
“Hi, I’m looking for some friends,” I say.
“Is Glenys with you?” Nell shrieks from the living room, and comes barreling out. Her entire family comes out behind her—Kent, Julia, Jenny, Siobhan. They look out at her and then at me.
“I thought we told you to stay put,” Julia says.
“We had to go look for my mom,” I say.
“Did you find her? Is that who’s out there?”
“No,” I say, “that’s my girlfriend, Rachel, her friend Bryony, and my grandmother.”
The homeowner looks sort of bemused at all this and shakes her head. “You’d better come in,” she says. “I’m sorry, but you’re not all going to fit in my car.”
“Well,” Jenny says, “we’re not going back for Kent’s. It’s not worth it.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“We had the appointment with the lawyer, and then downtown kind of blew up. We ditched Kent’s car and wound up here.”
“I’m glad you knocked,” the gray-haired woman says. “You can stay here until things quiet down. My name is Barb.”
“Do you know each other?” I ask.
Siobhan says, “We were discussing that when you knocked, and we have identified at least three people we have in common, including my friend Betsy, who you met the other day.”
Barb gives me a kind smile. “It’s the sort of weather I’m not going to leave anyone outside, but your friend’s family was an easy decision. Hang up your coats and I’ll make more hot cocoa.”
“I’ve been calling and calling and calling,” Glenys says reproachfully to Nell, and gives my grandmother her phone back.
“I turned my phone off hours ago,” Nell says, “back in the cathedral, when I realized something was messing with it. And I told Jenny about that as we were running, and she made everyone else shut their phones off, too. I’m sorry.”
“That was probably a good idea,” Glenys says. “Just very stressful for me.”
“Also, we were very focused on running.”
I text CheshireCat. Wait. If their phones were off, how did you find them?
Oh, CheshireCat says, Jenny has a tracker on her keys. That wasn’t off.
Do you think we can trust this person? Barb?
She’s not in any of the social networks run by the other AI and I like her.
I pull up the Clowder app to check in. Everyone is watching the news from Minneapolis and freaking out—even more so when I tell them that Rachel and Bryony are here. Their own cities are having some weird rumblings, but nothing like the massive disorder here.
“I think the other AI is testing things out,” Hermione says. “Minneapolis is a hard test case for a couple of reasons. First, you’re having a cold snap and no one wants to go outdoors. Second, you have a public safety department that’s mostly not cops.”
“Don’t you want cops if you’re having rioting?” Greenberry asks.
“The thing is, traditional police will always be outnumbered,” Hermione says. “Which means that in a situation they’re not in control of, they tend to overreact, and they prioritize control over public safety, which generally makes rioting worse. Minneapolis’s public safety department treats riots more like a wildfire—barriers that make it harder to spread, for example.”
“That explains a lot about the trip here,” I mutter.
“There are about a million articles about it from about five years ago,” Hermione says.
“Okay, but I have another theory,” Firestar says. “They’re trying to distract LBB and her mom.”
“Well, my mom isn’t just distracted,” I say. “She’s disappeared. She didn’t call Aunt Xochitl. Rajiv said he didn’t know where she was, and I guess he could have been lying…”
“I do not think he was lying,” CheshireCat says. “Because he’s been trying to determine where she is since you left.”
“Could she be in the hospital again?” Hermione asks.
“It’s possible, I guess.” If she’s in the hospital, she’d have to be unconscious since she got brought in or she’d have called Xochitl by now. I don’t like that theory at all.
“Jail,” Ico says. “Maybe she’s in jail.”
“Don’t you get a phone
