“When all of these elements, including the app for Elusion, are engaged, trypnosis is achieved. At the risk of sounding immodest,” he continues, “it is one of the greatest achievements in science and technology. The consumer can be transported to a toxin- and stress- free alternate reality in the safety of their own mind.”
“Safety? How can you say that with a straight face?” says a loud, booming voice from the center of the auditorium. I spin around in my seat to see a bespeckled, auburn-haired teenage girl in a vintage army jacket, standing in a fighting stance and holding clenched fists at her sides.
Ugh. Avery Leavenworth.
“What do you have to say about Elusion addiction? It’s a big problem here in Detroit, especially with kids my age,” she barks. “I know my viewers would love to hear how you plan on addressing that. Although first you’d have to admit that your product is more like heroin than a great achievement in science, right?”
Self-righteous student activist and star of the famously stupid vlog AveryTruStory, she is impossible to miss at school because she’s always wrapped up in some kind of campus uprising. How did she even get in here? Did she really get legitimate press access? That never would have happened if Dad were around. He was very strict about which media outlets were allowed to cover his conferences. Apparently, Patrick is running the show a bit more loosely.
“Miss Leavenworth, Elusion is not a drug, and medical addiction isn’t possible,” Patrick says calmly. “If it was, then the CIT wouldn’t have approved it, now would it?”
“You’re screwing with people’s brain chemistry! You said so yourself!” Avery shouts, refusing to back down. “My sources tell me that the Elusion system releases levels of serotonin and dopamine so high it’s like the user is totally strung out.”
“No!” I yell. “You’re wrong!”
There’s a faint murmur in the audience.
Oh. My. God. Did I just jump out of my seat and scream that out loud?
I peer toward the stage. Patrick grins and nods toward someone beside him. Before I know it, a man dressed in black approaches me and clips a mike to my shirt collar. I shoot Patrick a discouraging look, hoping that he’ll step in and carry on this confrontation with Avery. But he just bows his head and smirks.
He’s giving me the floor. In front of thousands of reporters. On a day where I look like something stuck on the bottom of someone’s shoe.
“The serotonin and dopamine aren’t released,” I say, my words now reverberating throughout the entire auditorium. “That makes it sound like they’re coming from another source, which they’re not. All Elusion does is stimulate the body’s production of certain chemicals that are already in the brain.”
Avery crosses her arms over her chest and glowers at me like I just slapped her face, but that doesn’t deter me at all. In fact, it motivates me to press on.
“The sensors in the visor and the wristband both have safety controls that are monitored by a special server that keeps tabs on every single Equip. If the levels are too high, the signal is cut off. End of story.”
Patrick is practically beaming with approval when the audience claps for me. “I’ll take one more question. Yes, you in the green sweater.”
I sigh in relief as I unclip my mike and give it back to an Orexis staff member. I catch sight of Avery out of the corner of my eye. She’s being escorted toward the auditorium doors by two burly guards. Her mike has obviously been turned off, but her mouth is still moving and her face is red with rage. I think about following Avery outside and giving her an even bigger piece of my mind. How dare she throw accusations at Patrick like that, and give Dad’s prized work a bad name?
But before I can grab my bag or come up with any insults to sling, my tablet buzzes. I pull my tab from my back pocket and unfold it. A note has popped up on the screen.
Damn. If I don’t leave now, I’ll be late for yet another commitment, and Patrick is fielding a scandalous question about Elusion’s rising “virtual hookup” rate, which I definitely want to hear about. I’ve never had one of my own, but at school the rumor is that making out with someone in an Escape is way more intense than the real thing. Still, as much as I want to listen to all the details, I don’t have the heart to keep Mom waiting. I’m going to have to sneak away and text Patrick why I had to leave.
For a moment, I feel bad that I won’t be able to tell him in person what a fantastic job he did today, but from the adoring looks he’s receiving from everyone in the room, I figure he’ll get to hear it.
Maybe even a few thousand times.
Where is she?
I’m pacing inside the lobby of Morton & Wexley, Detroit’s largest and most prestigious depository. Every thirty seconds I look at the automatic doors, hoping to see Mom walk through them. I barely made it here on time—there were more Traxx delays, of course—but when I arrived, the clients’ lounge was filled with people who were hooked up to their Equips, zip-tripping in Elusion, and my mother was nowhere in sight. I scoped out the clerk area to see if the meeting had already started, but all the employees were either on their tablets or conducting business with their customers in the confines of their glass-walled cubicles.
I check my watch. I have been waiting for nearly a half hour, and the building is about to close down. I tap on my tablet to see if I can get a phone signal, but the reception is completely blocked, probably because the depositories in this sector are steel-enforced and take strict security measures so that people can’t coordinate a heist from inside the building with the help of their handheld devices.
After another minute ticks by, I throw up my hands in frustration and perch myself on the last empty chair, which looks more like a metallic sculpture than a place to rest. The Morton & Wexley waiting room is decorated in deep jewel tones and bathed in streams of light emanating from the rectangular, exposed-fluorescent-bulb chandeliers. A black uniformed maintenance man stands in the corner, ready to wipe the Florapetro grime off the marble tiled floors whenever a customer enters.
I drum my fingers impatiently against the curled armrest, praying that nothing bad has happened to my mom. Expecting the worst in a situation like this is pretty understandable, given what we’ve both been through, but I can’t afford to latch on to those kind of negative thoughts. Not here anyway.
“Ms. Welch?” A bald-headed man with a mustache is now standing in front of me, wearing a badge that reads Mr. Xavier Burton. “Are you and your mother ready to recover your father’s items?”
“I need a few more minutes, please. My mom still isn’t here.”
When he inspects his watch, his lips press together in a way that is all too familiar. My English teacher, Mrs. Thackeroy, has the same annoyed expression on her face when I’m late to her class, which is pretty often, considering that it’s the first one of the day. With Mom at home to look after, I never seem to make it out of the house on time in the morning.
“We’re only open for another ten minutes. You’ll have to come back tomorrow if she doesn’t arrive by then,” Mr. Burton says, straightening his suit jacket with a harsh tug at the sleeves.