The Survival Code Read online

  push 642E3233h ; [EBP-28h] Push string ws2_32.dll

  push 5F327377h ; [EBP-2Ch

  mov cx, 7465h

  push ecx ; [EBP-30h]

  push 6B636F73h ; [EBP-34h] Push string socket

  mov cx, 6F74h

  push ecx ; [EBP-38h]

  push 646E6573h ; [EBP-3Ch] Push string sendto

  Like all his stuff, it’s clean. Precise. A tiny little packet of code. Just 376 bytes. There’s something about it though. Dad says that, to catch bad guys, we have to think like they do. To understand why they do what they do. Malware. Bots. Worms. Ransomware. He writes these to show how they work and how to stop them. The code was supposed to be helpful.

  Instead, it was...ominous.

  MacKenna changes the image on the screen to a picture of a traffic jam. “Dr. Marshall’s theories on everything from social media use to traffic patterns helped The Opposition suppress votes. For example, in Georgia, they were able to spread a rumor online that Carver had defeated Rosenthal by noon that day. Experts estimate that Dr. Marshall’s rumor was responsible for a significant decrease in voter turnout among Rosenthal supporters who—”

  Dad left The Opposition last year for reasons that aren’t clear to me. I snort. “It wasn’t my dad’s rumor, MacKenna. He only wrote the program that—”

  The first few rows of the class turn to face me.

  I snap my mouth shut and make a show of examining my laptop screen.

  Mom makes her way up my aisle and clears her throat again. “Miss Marshall, if you’d like to pass feedback to the presenter, please do so using the online form.” She pauses near my desk, stares at the D00MsD4Y code on my screen and stuffs her hands in the pockets of her brown corduroy pants.

  I minimize the code window.

  “Let’s stay on task here,” she says.

  “Um...okay, Mom—uh—I mean, Mrs. Novak,” I stammer.

  MacKenna almost jumps at the sound of her own last name. She continues her presentation but with less enthusiasm than before. “Two years ago, Dr. Marshall became convinced that not even the antidemocratic antics of The Opposition would be enough to save the world. He adopted the nickname Dr. Doomsday and wrote this book.” She holds up the safety-orange paperback manual again. “It’s a weird combination of survival advice and bizarre ramblings. The reader is told to always carry waterproof watches. Oh, and also that the world is going to end at any minute.”

  I turn in my seat to check on Mom. She’s returned to the table at the back of the room and is sitting there serenely, making notes in her grade book. Like it doesn’t bother her at all that she’s basically listening to a lecture about what destroyed our family.

  It bothers me.

  Mom spent a long time trying to pass off Dad’s obsession with prepper doomsday drills as a midlife crisis, until last year when she finally decided she’d had enough and tossed him out. I get it. It’s not fun to spend all your weekends in an underground bunker trying to figure out if you can live without plumbing, or at seminars on how to suture your own wounds.

  The fact that Mom is for The Spark and Dad is sort of for The Opposition didn’t help.

  At the front of the classroom, MacKenna reads some passages from Dad’s book and puts a couple of his illustrations on the e-chalkboard. She concludes her report with, “Dr. Doomsday’s Guide to Ultimate Survival, a top-selling and often-quoted book, perfectly represents the way that The Opposition has used paranoia and propaganda to seize power.”

  MacKenna ends her presentation by putting Dad’s giant face back up on the e-chalkboard. She snaps the book shut and returns to her seat.

  Someone in the front row mutters, “It isn’t paranoia if people are really out to get you.”

  A blonde girl speaks up. I should probably know these people by now, but truthfully, I prefer my online friends. “Do you think it’s true?” the girl asks. “What they said on the news? That President Carver wants to disband the Senate? That he’s considering martial law?”

  A nervous energy surges through the classroom, and everywhere I look I see worried faces.

  “We won’t know anything for a while, and we need to remain calm until we do.” Mom glides up the aisle and turns off the image of Dad’s nodding head. “Excellent analysis as always, Miss Novak, although a bit off topic as your book choice doesn’t address any of the causes of the New Depression. I’m afraid I’ll have to deduct some points for relevance.”

  MacKenna frowns. “The relevance is that The Opposition doesn’t actually care about fixing the economy. They’ve done as much as anybody to cause the New Depression, because it helps them. It keeps people desperate enough to do anything.”

  Mom smiles. “You’ll need to do a better job making that connection in your written report or you’re looking at a B here.”

  The bell rings. I close my laptop and shove it in my backpack. Mom stands by the door, saying goodbyes and giving out homework reminders.

  Before MacKenna gets up, I lean toward her. “That was mean.”

  She drops her backpack on top of her desk. “It was the truth.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry you hate me, but that was a pretty crappy way to get revenge. And to scare the hell out of everybody.”

  She cocks her head to the side. “I don’t hate you, and I don’t want revenge.”

  My face heats in an equal mixture of embarrassment and anger.

  MacKenna stands and comes closer. “Listen, there’s something that you need to know—”

  I don’t get to find out what I need to know.

  Mom waves us toward the door. “Girls, you need to get a move on it. Charles is waiting.”

  Charles is my little brother. He goes to an elementary school around the corner, and we pick him up each day after school.

  The classroom is clear, and Mom’s formal demeanor falls away. She approaches our desks. “MacKenna, Ted—Mr. Johnson showed me your article about the incident in the school office. Your piece was well written, well researched and deserves to be on the school website. I’ll speak with him and see what I can do.”

  A kind of disgusted frown crosses MacKenna’s face. “I can talk to him myself, Stephanie.”

  Mom tucks a strand of shiny hair behind her ear. “I’ll at least put in a good word for you.”

  We both finish putting our stuff away, and Mom walks us to the door.

  In the hall, there’s an argument in progress between the school’s two football coaches. Strictly speaking, the teachers aren’t supposed to talk politics at school. But they find ways to air their differences. One of the coaches wears a red shirt and the other a blue one. They make jabbing motions at each other and the names “Carver” and “Rosenthal” drift up the corridor.

  Mom stares at the scene. “Do you ever wonder what is wrong with this world?”

  Farther up the hall, a student in a black baseball cap crashes a library cart into the double doors.

  This breaks Mom out of her reverie. “You should get on the road. People are on edge today. I want you to go straight home.”

  I try to give her a reassuring smile. “Everything will be okay, Mom.”

  MacKenna swings her backpack over her shoulder. “Think so, do you?”

  I cross my arms. “My dad made us do survival drills for floods, hurricanes, droughts, famines, nuclear war, foreign invasion and the collapse of the government. And do you know what happened?”

  “What?” MacKenna asks, sounding genuinely interested.

  “Absolutely nothing. Every day, I wake up, and everything is the same as the
day before. Life goes on.” I step out of the doorway without waiting for a response.

  MacKenna is a few steps behind me in the hall.

  “Until it doesn’t,” she says.

  The coaches stop talking as we get closer.

  “Go straight home,” Mom calls after us.

  DR. DOOMSDAY’S GUIDE TO ULTIMATE SURVIVAL

  RULE ONE: ALWAYS BE PREPARED.

  Outside, it’s sunny with an empty blue sky that stretches on forever.

  I swing my backpack over my shoulder as we cross the mostly empty campus. The town can’t afford to plant winter grass, so everything on the ground is yellowing and dry. The kid who crashed the library cart zooms by on an electric scooter, a blur of dark hair and green camouflage clothes, missing us by only a foot or so.

  MacKenna jumps back. “Hey, watch it, Navarro!”

  “You know him?” I continue to stare, watching the scooter move across the uneven, rocky parking lot toward the football fields. This info shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She knows everyone.

  “Um, yeah,” she says as she walks and digs in her bag for the car keys. “He’s in my Physics class. Oh, and his mom runs the district nutritional services. He’s the guy who tossed me out when I tried to break into her office.”

  MacKenna sets a fast pace. She might have hated me at first sight, and she can’t stand living in the outskirts of Phoenix, but she positively loves my little brother and doesn’t want to leave him stuck at school.

  “Wait. You broke into someone’s office?” I ask, struggling to keep up.

  “I tried,” she says as we arrive at the shiny white Prius 18 that Jay bought for us after the wedding. “I’m telling you there’s something up with those tofu nuggets they serve on Thursdays.”

  We hesitate in front of the car. She’s about to say—

  “That story’s got legs.”

  We’re supposed to share the car, but MacKenna usually insists on driving. This would probably have been okay, because I don’t like to drive anyway—drills where we practiced rolling out of a moving car is what passed for driver’s education with my dad—but MacKenna’s way of rebelling against her move from Boulder has been to stubbornly refuse to use autodrive or to memorize any of the street names or directions. If I don’t pay careful attention to where we’re going, we end up lost.

  MacKenna slides behind the wheel and gets the car going. The library cart guy is gone as she steers us onto the street.

  I want to ask more questions about both the mysterious boy and when MacKenna manages to find time to break into the school, but I have to focus. “Turn right on Howser,” I tell her when it looks like she’ll miss our turn.

  The drive to Cory Booker Elementary takes about five minutes from Rancho Mesa High. The neighborhood around the school has held up pretty well. The houses are old, and their brick designs look better than some of the newer stuff you see farther out in the suburbs. Charles is sitting on the curb with his copy of The Encyclopedia of Tropical Plants in front of his face. He’s probably the only eight-year-old in the Grateful Gardeners Book Club.

  “Whatcha doing?” I call out the window as he gathers his stuff then tumbles into the backseat. As usual, Charles is wearing a gray blazer and neatly pressed khaki pants, and, no, that’s not the school’s uniform. It’s his dress-for-the-job-you-want outfit, and I guess the job he wants is that of a ninety-year-old landscaper.

  “Researching the practicality of growing Dendrobium cuthbertsonii here in a greenhouse environment,” Charles says. When I don’t respond, he adds, “Orchids,” in a know-it-all tone.

  MacKenna laughs.

  Her expression turns serious as she exits the school parking lot. “Which way?”

  “Left,” I tell her. “I need to stop at Halliwell’s.”

  “Why?”

  Part of me doesn’t want to tell her, but she’s going to find out anyway. “Snacks,” I say.

  MacKenna frowns. “Stephanie told us to go straight home.”

  I tug at the ribbing of my T-shirt, which suddenly feels too tight around my throat. Since when does MacKenna pay attention to what Mom says?

  “It’s on the way. I’ll be in there for two seconds.”

  Charles leans forward. “Maybe they’ll have this week’s seed packets for my Click N’Grow.”

  For a couple minutes, it’s quiet except for the occasional sound of Charles turning one of the thick pages of his book.

  “You know what Phoenix needs?” MacKenna says as we continue through Rancho Mesa. “More suburbs. I mean, why only cover half the planet with your urban sprawl when you could gobble up the whole thing?”

  Sigh.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, I meet my brother’s eyes.

  “Jinx,” he says, “in my class, Tommy said democracy is dead and Dad killed it. Do you think he did?”

  “Well—” MacKenna starts to answer.

  “No,” I say. “That’s just some dumb kid repeating what he heard at home. Dad didn’t do anything wrong.” Well. Not technically, anyway.

  “Right,” MacKenna says, under her breath.

  I turn around and smile. Try to be reassuring. It’s clear from Charles’s worried squint that he heard MacKenna.

  “But Dad is for The Opposition?” Charles asks.

  “I guess,” I say. My smile fades. “As much as he’s for anything.” Dad’s always been more theoretical. It’s hard to explain that our father has become this odd bundle of obsessions with computer science theories and survivalism. I barely understand it myself.

  Charles closes his book and looks out the window. I face forward again, haul my bag onto my lap and get out my half-drunk bottle of water from lunch.

  MacKenna adjusts her designer sunglasses. I’m surprised she doesn’t make more snappish remarks about Dad. I’m even more surprised at the nervous frown that remains on her face.

  “You’re really worried about the inauguration? That something is going to happen?”

  She hesitates. “I don’t know. Not... Not exactly. I mean, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I guess that’s the problem. There’s something about the world right now that feels off. Unpredictable.” She pauses again. “I’m... I’m going to the Rosenthal rally at the university tonight. You should come too.”

  I’m in the middle of a sip and almost spit out my water. “You think Mom doesn’t want us to stop at the market but she’s going to let you go on campus tonight?”

  “Toby will be there,” MacKenna says, indignantly.

  Toby is MacKenna’s brother and a freshman at ASU. He lives in the dorms.

  “I doubt it. Mom’s worried that there’s going to be some kind of riot. She’ll probably make us all be home for dinner.”

  We stop at a traffic light, and MacKenna turns to face me with a smile. “You’re the one who keeps saying that nothing is going to happen. That life will go on. Why don’t you prove it and convince your mom to let us go?”

  I’m thrown back against my seat as we speed away from the green light. “There is no way on earth you’re getting out of the house tonight, and I have my...”

  “Video games?” she finishes.

  In the backseat, Charles snickers.

  I exhale in relief when MacKenna pulls the car into the Halliwell’s Market parking lot. Because of the Sugar Sales Permit waiting list, old stores like these are the only places that carry Extra Jolt soda. I have to buy it myself, because Mom won’t keep any in the house.

  She thinks too much caffeine rots your brain or something.

  Halliwell’s is a squat brown building that sits across the street from the mall and is next door to the town’s only skyscraper.

  The First Federal Building was supposed to be the first piece of a suburban business district designed to rival the hip boroughs of New York. The mayor announced the construc
tion of a movie theater, an apartment complex and an indoor aquarium. But the New Depression hit, and the other buildings never materialized.

  The First Federal Building alone soars toward the clouds, an ugly glass rectangle visible from every neighborhood, surrounded by the old town shops that have been there forever. Most of the stores are empty.

  We park in front of the market.

  Our car nestles in the long shadow of the giant bank building.

  Charles gets out and stands on the sidewalk in front of the car.

  MacKenna opens her door. She hesitates again. “Listen, I know you might not want to hear this or believe it. But my book report wasn’t about hurting you or getting revenge. I’m trying to get you to see what’s really happening here. That Carver’s election is the start of something bad. We could use you at the rally. You’re one of the few people who understands Dr. Doomsday’s work. You could explain what he did. How he helped Carver cheat to win.”

  “I’ve been planning this raid for months,” I say. My stomach churns, sending uncomfortable flutters through my insides. I don’t know what it would mean to talk about my father’s work. What I really want to do is pretend it doesn’t exist. Pretend the world is normal and whole.

  I reassure myself with the reminder that there’s no way MacKenna is going to the rally either.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Charles give us a small wave. Before MacKenna can say anything else, I get out and grab my backpack.

  Inside Halliwell’s, I pick up a blue basket from the stack near the door. The small market is busy and full of other people shopping after school or work. The smell of pine cleaner hits me as we pass the checkout stations. They are super serious about germs and always cleaning between customers.

  I leave MacKenna and Charles at the Click N’Grow rack near the door to check out the seed packets that my brother collects. Dad got Charles hooked on this computerized gardening that uses an e-tablet and a series of tiny indoor lights to create the ideal indoor planter box. Each week, they release a new set of exclusive seeds. Their genetic modifications are controversial.