The Unseen Read Online Free PDF Page A

mom said.
    “I look forward to hearing all about it,” David’s dad said, looking at David’s battered face.
    Kari checked the places on the Net where the hacker community generally convened and found all of them inexplicably empty. Slow couple of days. The water running in the bathroom stopped, so Kari rolled off of the bed and stopped overriding her vision with windows from the Internet. She was happy to return her attention to the real world; her online search had brought no good news. Reports from the eastern border between the Middle States and the United States were scary; the fighting had caused large numbers of human casualties. This civil war is the biggest waste of lives and money that I could ever imagine.
    Aubrey appeared from out of the bathroom, wearing clothes that made her look like a girl playing dress-up in her mom’s clothing. Kari laughed as Aubrey looked down to survey how she looked.
    “That bad?”
    “Don’t worry—we’ll find a recycler and printer soon and get you some clothes that fit.”
    “The sooner the better.”
    “Agreed,” Kari said. “You ready to head out?”
    “Yeah, but . . .” Aubrey shied away from finishing what she was going to say. She didn’t need to; Kari already knew what Aubrey was thinking. Kari felt her heart sink a little, as much as she’d looked forward to living on her own during school, it wasn’t everything she had dreamed it would be.
    “You want to stay with the Pratts.” Kari said what Aubrey didn’t want to.
    “Don’t hate me.”
    “I don’t. I get it; there will be more of a social life down here. West Dakota can be a little on the boring side of things.”
    Aubrey nodded her head in agreement. “You know, you could move down here a little closer to me.”
    “Funny how that would also move me closer to David,” Kari said.
    “You’re right, that is funny.” Aubrey shrugged and walked into the room to help Kari with her bags. Kari shook her head and opened the door into the hotel’s hallway. Aubrey brushed by her and continued the conversation. “I mean, after the dance, it doesn’t seem like such a horrible idea to live closer to your boyfriend, does it?”
    Aubrey had been insistent last night that she wouldn’t go to sleep until she had heard every detail. Even the details that Kari had a hard time describing, such as how her first kiss had felt.
    “I don’t know if I’d call him my boyfriend . . .”
    “But living closer would be nice.”
    “If I move closer, will you live with me?” Kari asked.
    “Yes! Kari, of course!” Aubrey dropped the bag she had been carrying and hugged Kari tightly.
    “Not too close, but within a quick auto-auto ride,” Kari clarified. “I can’t promise you’ll go to the same school or anything, but we’ll be around people.”
    “I’m so excited, and Mom and Dad will be happy that I’m staying with family,” Aubrey said. Her excitement was wearing off on Kari, and she couldn’t help but be excited as well.
    “I’ll see if I can set up a call for you and your parents on my way home tonight, but it might take me a few days to get a secure line with the current state of things.”
    “No worries. Whenever you can set it up will be great. It’s not like they’re worried about me anyway. They still think I’m part of some super-secret government school for the gifted.”
    “Really?” An auto-auto pulled up and opened its doors. Luckily there was no one else inside, so Kari and Aubrey climbed aboard, and they had enough room to comfortably fit Kari’s bags.
    “Yeah, that Marshal guy made a convincing pitch to me and my family about how I could help with some special projects that they needed a ‘youthful perspective’ on. It was only after I got to his prison that I figured out what was really going on. He forced me to write cheerful messages to them every week about how much I loved life and stuff. They told me that if I didn’t play along, he’d tell my parents that I had