Changing tactics, I addressed Dylan’s mom. “Hello, Mrs. Baker, I’m Allie, a friend of Dylan’s. I need to see Dylan, it’s extremely important.”
Josh Baker turned his head over his shoulder, folded his arms, and used his back to prop the door open. “I just told her that Dylan’s on restriction.”
Dylan’s mom merely swatted her hand as if she were keeping a fly out of her face. “Just let her in for a couple minutes, Josh. It won’t hurt his restrictions.”
Dylan’s dad opened his mouth to protest, but I beat him in speaking. “Thank you, thank you very much, Mrs. Baker. I won’t take long.” I smiled at Dylan’s mom and hurried toward Dylan’s room.
Knocking on his door, I barely waited for his grumbling reply before opening it.
“Allie?” Dylan’s eyes grew so wide I thought they were going to pop out. He swiveled his desk chair around and stood up slowly, moving like he was in a daze. “What are you doing here?”
“Dylan, it’s worse than we thought. My grandmother won’t believe me. She and the police in Sunnyville think I have gone crazy. When I tried to tell them about Oceania they said it was a story I made up from being kidnapped and held somewhere. They won’t believe me.”
“But how did you get here?”
“That’s the worst of it. A seamobile was left at the beach…our beach. The mayor really does know everything. She has someone up there in Sunnyville. I know it. We have to return to Sunnyville with some sort of irrefutable evidence of Oceania that we can show everyone. I need you and Dr. Wilcox to come back with me.”
“That won’t be possible.”
“Why not?”
“Dr. Wilcox is under house arrest just like me. Guards are at his door just like my parents are here guarding me. The mayor came up with this big story on how I hacked a database and changed the grades of everyone in my class. It’s all a lie, but it did the trick with my parents. I’m not going anywhere with them here.”
“Okay, but is there any way I can find proof of Oceania and bring it back with me?”
“Hey, you’re not going back to the surface alone.”
“But you said…”
“I know what I said.” Dylan smiled mischievously and hurried over to his desk. Reaching underneath the area where his chair was supposed to be, he dropped a panel revealing a high-tech device that resembled old-style laptops. “Say hello to my Hacker 3000. It helps me get into any system I would like.”
“So how is that going to help us?” I walked over to stand by Dylan.
“I’m going to hack into the database that runs all of the data analysis for my parents at the lab. If I put in some false information showing that one of their analyses came up with significant results, they’ll go running to the lab and forget all about guarding me here.” Dylan’s fingers began flying away at the touchscreen keyboard.
A voice came from outside Dylan’s door. “Visiting time is up; you need to leave now, Allie.”
“It sounds like your mom is calling me out.”
Dylan nodded but didn’t quit his typing. “Meet me just outside the building. Be careful, though, the mayor thinks you escaped. That’s probably why the seamobile was at your beach. She’s looking for you. I’ll be out soon.”
“All right.” I turned and left Dylan’s room, closing the door gently behind me. Walking to the living room, I saw Dylan’s mom sitting next to his dad on the couch. “Thank you once again.”
“Did you get it solved? Your life or death situation?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did.” I ignored the glare coming from Dylan’s dad as he glanced up from the reader cradled in his hands, and I left the apartment.
Feeling a little relaxed knowing that I would have help, released the tension I didn’t realize I had in my shoulders, as I pressed the elevator button. It took a while for it to arrive, but when it did, I stepped inside joining the three other people already standing there. Glancing at the side panel, I saw the button for the lobby had already been pressed, so I merely stood there quietly until we reached the ground floor.
At the lobby level, I waited until I was the last one to leave the elevator and decided to wait outside the lobby doors. I tried to shake the paranoid feeling that all the cameras in the vicinity were turning to monitor me, but I couldn’t help it. I just felt watched.
I don’t know how long I waited, but suddenly, sirens and alarms went off. I noticed Dylan’s parents run out the door first, then not long after many others followed them. In the throng of people rushing out, I was thrown into the corner. I pressed against the wall of the building, trying not to get knocked down and trampled as people continued to flow out of the lobby.
Out of nowhere, a hand flew out and grabbed my wrist. “Allie, we need to go!” shouted Dylan above the roar of the sirens and scattering people.
I didn’t protest, but instead, allowed myself to be led through the crowd. We were lost in the midst of people and I realized this was the perfect cover.
“Did you do this?” I asked.
Dylan took a chance to glance back at me with a grin and a nod. “Yeah, I figured it would ensure my parents got out of the building if the faulty data points didn’t. Also, it allows us to be lost in the crowd, which creates the perfect diversion.”
I couldn’t help shouting out, “Brilliant!” and laughing.
In the confusion, we easily boarded a train and were probably not noticed by anyone in doing so. The train to Central was empty except for one teen our age sitting by himself in
