Rachel didn’t trust an internet connection in her home. Not anymore. While it was absurd, there was a part of her that could almost feel the Wi-Fi bandwidth shooting through her and enveloping her. She hadn’t reconnected the modem and didn’t plan on doing it anytime soon. No point making it even easier for the NSA to spy.
But she still needed access. She needed to be online. To track Cassie, as much as that was possible. To keep on top of the burgeoning ranks of her resistance.
So she ended up spending most of her time in her office on campus, where the Wi-Fi was fast and free, and where she could convince herself that the multitude of other users somehow disguised her signal from snoopers.
Honey, you just don’t understand how this works. Harlon’s voice in her head. He said that a lot, any time she complained about something tech related. I don’t try to speak Latin; you don’t talk tech, OK?
She knew that someone out there was skimming her bandwidth, watching everything she watched, learning everything she learned. That was the price she paid, the other side of the #MomArmy coin.
But they would only learn what everyone else knew already. She had no conduit to Cassie. No special knowledge. Let the NSA choke on the information abyss.
She sighed, yawned and rubbed her eyes. She’d paired her phone to her big desktop screen and now watched as BLINQ feeds scrolled by. The #MomArmy was on the move … virtually. Someone was organizing a boycott of Facebook, on the theory that if they could disrupt one social network’s algorithms, others might follow. “It’s all interconnected!” Aiden&Jenna’sMomma explained in an excited mix of text and emojis. “With enough numbers, we can make a difference!”
Right now, the only difference Rachel cared about was the mounting rage of the Hive as Cassie apparently evaded capture yet again. Rachel wasn’t sure which side of the family ninja skills came from, but Cassie had inherited them from somewhere. If the internet was to be believed (and that was a big if, even in the best of times), Cassie had managed to escape yet another Hive Mob, this one at a dance club/bar in a part of town so seedy that Rachel felt a shiver of paranoia just looking it up on a map.
It was a sign of what her life had become that she was not in the least bit concerned about her underage daughter in a bar.
Cassie had escaped. That’s all that mattered.
She cracked her knuckles and leaned in toward her keyboard, when there was a knock at her office door.
She wondered, Would the NSA bother knocking?
“Yes?” she called.
The door cracked open. Randall Worther, dean of the Classics Department, poked his head in. “Rachel. Do you have a moment?”
“Sure.” She had endless moments stacked atop one another, teetering and threatening to collapse and bury her with a lifetime of time itself. There was nothing in her life but each moment in which she lived and then the next, and she just had to get through them. Like pushing through tall grass, unable to see your destination, hoping it was still there.
Randall stepped inside and closed the door behind him. It was long after hours, as proven by his sartorial concession of loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. He was the sort of guy Rachel once would have accused of having a stick planted far up his posterior, but she knew that wasn’t fair. He had to project a certain image; it was part of the job.
“I’m sorry to bother you when you’re working late …” He gestured to a chair and she nodded.
“I’m not really working,” she confessed as he sank into the chair. “It’s just … not comfortable at home right now.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Right.”
He looked around the office for a moment, as though desperate to find something odd or interesting that he could hang a few minutes of small talk on. But Rachel’s office was still in the unpacking phase. She hadn’t shelved her books yet, nor hung anything personal on the walls. The office was an off-white cube with rather nice built-in bookshelves and a stack of boxes.
“I hate to have to talk about this …” he began, pointedly not looking in her direction. “But it’s my job. I hope you understand.”
Rachel leaned back in her chair. “What’s on your mind?”
“This … activism of yours …”
A knot formed in Rachel’s gut. “What about it?”
Haltingly, he continued. “We support free speech, obviously. It’s core to our mission as a university. But we also rely on a number of government contracts and research grants. This is a …” He fumbled, then finally resigned himself to looking up at her. “This is a tough thing to talk about. I know you’re under a lot of stress. But there are some important people — people above my pay grade — who are upset with the attention you’re bringing to the university.”
She knew her part in this discussion. She was to meekly accept the admonition, keep her head down, keep her voice lowered. Go along to get along.
Well, fuck that, she decided.
“Are you really sitting here and asking me to choose between my job and my child?” Her voice was tight and throaty.
“Of course not!” he exclaimed. “No one is saying that!”
“Because there aren’t a lot of ways to interpret what you’re saying. It sounds vaguely like a threat to my job.”
She’d hoped that her offensive posture would force him to stand down. Instead, he stood up, straightening his jacket.
“You’re new here, Rachel. Still on probation. Not tenured. I’m not making threats. I’m just giving you some advice — don’t make things difficult for the university, or the university will have no choice but to make things difficult for you.”
He left before she could reply. Which was too bad because she’d worked up a head of steam and was ready to put him on blast.
She could follow, but running after someone to yell at him didn’t really show a position of strength.
So she swallowed the retort, along with a toxic brew of rage, helplessness and regret, and returned to typing. There were hashtags to amplify, people to rally and a world to change.
If she lost her job, fine. If she lost her home, fine. If that’s what it took to have Cassie back, she would gladly give it all away.