The Survival Code, page 36
* * *
For the next couple of days, we take turns driving. It’s forty hours of eating gas station food and barely stopping to use the bathroom.
Occasionally, we come across a café with internet access. I search for information about Charles.
I don’t find anything.
MacKenna’s getting more comfortable wearing the lame T-shirts and leggings we pick up in tourist shops. When we stop, she uses the computer too. Searching for details about The Spark. Trying to locate Rosenthal. His whereabouts are still unknown.
At first I can’t understand why she’s still looking. Rosenthal, wherever he is, can’t help us. But one day I catch MacKenna staring at this quote.
People need a reason to live just as much as they need a way to live.
It’s from one of David Rosenthal’s last speeches from the campaign trail.
Dad tried to teach me how to survive. But in the end, survival takes more than guns or protein bars or fighting skills. People need something worth surviving for.
We need hope.
This is what The Spark is for MacKenna. It’s about more than just abstract politics. It represents our own ability to save ourselves. For MacKenna, The Spark is hope.
Maybe The Spark could give me hope too.
We arrive at Xcalak, a blue beach that takes my breath away. It’s evening as we pull in, the sky a pastel painting beginning to shift from blues into the reds and pinks of sunset.
Navarro parks next to the only thing around—a tiny, dilapidated wooden shack.
We all lean forward and stare.
“And we’ve arrived at...an outhouse?” MacKenna squints at the shack.
But she doesn’t know my father the way I do.
It’s not a shack.
“It’s a bunker.”
Inside, the shack is cramped, with boxes of books and old furniture, just like the shed back home. We move stuff around until we come across a hatch on the floor. It uses the same lock combinations as the bunker back home.
The stairs descend to almost an exact duplicate of Dad’s basement.
There’s a comm center. A tiny kitchen. A massive amount of stored food and supplies.
And bunks.
A bunk for Dad. A bunk for Charles.
They’re gone.
I find myself putting a few books on Charles’s bed, like if I put them there, he might suddenly materialize.
Navarro runs the drill. He turns the comm center equipment on and is soon monitoring blowing palm trees and a calm sea. The radar sweeps an empty landscape. He scoots the bin of burner phones in my direction.
Jay keeps making comments about Mom. Looking for signs that his life with her wasn’t a lie. “She took Charles. She clearly cares about him. Somewhere, deep down inside, she loves him...and us.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that Mom took Charles for leverage. I think this might be Jay’s drill. His plan to keep going. His way of pressing forward.
I remember Ramona Carver. What happens when a predator tries to raise its own prey?
At least Mom needs Charles. Hopefully that will be enough to keep him safe for now.
When everything is set up, MacKenna and Navarro turn their attention to making something edible for lunch out of the buckets of dried food.
I’m supposed to get a cell phone set up for everyone, but instead I take a shower.
When I come out, I notice Dad’s got an old PC pushed into the corner of his desk. Desperate to feel some kind of connection to him, I press the power button. The screen powers on, showing a blinking command prompt.
I turn my head...and that’s when I see it.
Tall stacks of three-inch floppy disks. In various colors.
My heart stops as I realize what this is.
The encryption key.
Before I can examine them, MacKenna calls my name. She and Navarro have managed to turn a bucket of dried fiesta enchiladas into dinner. I almost wolf them down.
Afterward, MacKenna goes up to the surface and sits by the water. I find her under the palm trees with one of the books from the shed. She must be desperate for reading material, because she’s resorted to raiding Dad’s bookshelf. I don’t know how she can stand to read a boring Western.
I sit as close to the water as I can without letting the cold waves touch my bare feet. “Listen, I have to talk to you.”
She looks up from her book and kind of smiles. “About you and Navarro? About kissing?”
“What? No!” My face heats up.
She makes a face. “Right. Whatever.”
I force myself to take a deep breath. “I think I found something. The encryption key. Or at least I found the way to get it.”
She drops the copy of Showdown at Yellow Butte into the sand. I can see she’s not really reading it so much as using it as writing paper. It’s also got bunches of folded, yellow notes inside. The inside is covered with her loopy script. “How?” she asks.
“My dad.” I choke on the words. “One of his ideas was using old-timey floppy disks as a way to hide data. Basically, what you do is, you copy the data to the disk and then make a small nick at a certain place in the plastic. It can be read back once and then it breaks. There’s a ton of old disks down there, and an old PC. We just need to put each one into the PC, copy its data and put the program back together.”
She picks at one of her fingernails. “I don’t know what that means. But you’re telling me we could fix the computers at the bank?”
I look into her brown eyes. “Or not.”
She turns to watch the tide.
“We could use the program as leverage to get my brother back. Or help Jay. Or maybe both. Or maybe access the bank computer to get money. To get help.”
The edge of a wave rolls over my big toes.
The sun crashes into the horizon, creating a spectacular sunset. Oranges and reds blend into violets and blues. Soon, the stars will sparkle above.
I think of everything that we’ve lost. That we’ll never get back.
It’s all there. Like a weight on my chest.
I watch her profile.
She stares at the horizon. “Or...have you ever thought that all the wrong people end up with all the money? What would you do if you could change that? If we can access the bank data, that means we can change it, right?”
“Right,” I say.
Her gaze snaps back to mine. “You want to start a revolution?”
I face the ocean again, put my feet into the cold water as the tide creeps up the sand. “Not really,” I say. “What I really want is my brother back.”
And revenge. Lots of revenge.
I watch the blue sea and fidget with the rough sand under my fingertips. “But I also want my brother to have a life worth living. A world worth living in.” That might mean doing something revolutionary.
Right at that moment, I understand.
I am not what I once was.
We’re always making choices, and it’s no longer possible to choose to do nothing.
I am The Spark.
I face MacKenna again.
“What do you want to do?”
* * *
Thank you for reading Day Zero.
Will Jinx and MacKenna start their own revolution?
Will they ever see Charles again?
Don’t miss Day One!
Only from Kelly deVos and Inkyard Press.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Fat Girl on a Plane by Kelly deVos.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While I have made my best efforts to ensure that the technical information and code snippets in this book are correct, some changes have been made (including the use of fictionalized, internal IP addresses) due to safety and security concerns. Thank you to my technical readers and technical consultants, including Neem Serra, Sheldon McGee, Sarah McGee, Jim deVos and the Arizona IoT DevFest community. Any mistakes are my own.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you so much for reading this book.
So many elements of this story were inspired by my daughter, Evelyn. She is part of a generation of teenagers who are thoughtful, engaged and determined to leave this world in better shape than they found it. Day Zero’s message of hope is ultimately that today’s young people have the power to effect great change.
A million thanks to my fantastic editor, Natashya Wilson. I will always be so grateful for your help in building this story and this world, and for your assistance in breathing life into my fierce girls.
Thank you to the incredible team at Inkyard Press, including Evan Brown, Linette Kim, Shara Alexander, Bryn Collier, Laci Ann, Margaret Marbury, Gabrielle Vicedomini and Connolly Bottum. I am so in love with the cover of this book and I have to thank Kathleen Oudit for art direction and Elita Sidiropoulou for design. Special thanks to Laura Gianino for her tireless work spreading the word about my books.
A writer needs readers, so massive thanks to the HarperCollins Children’s sales team for all their hard work in bringing this story to store and library shelves.
Thank you to my friends and family, especially my mom, May Porter, Cassidy Pavelich, Amie Allor, Shanna Weissman and Debbie Pirone. As always, thank you to my BFF, Riki Cleveland, for friendship and always being willing to read my horrible first drafts.
To the AZ YA/MG writer community. Thank you all, especially Amy Trueblood, Dusti Bowling, Stephanie Elliot, Kristen Hunt and Lorri Phillips, for your wit and wisdom.
Thanks to my early readers, including Laura Taylor Namey, Kristina Pérez and Kaitlyn Sage Patterson. I am also grateful to Maya Rock for invaluable editorial feedback. Any mistakes are my own.
For me, the struggle of the sophomore novel was real, and no one put up with more than my wonderful husband, Jim deVos. Thank you for your unconditional love and support.
During the writing of this book, I lost an amazing friend. To Cory Weissman, it’s hard to imagine life ever being the same without you. But every day I will try to honor your memory by being a little bit better of a friend, being open to new things and new adventures, and being unafraid to wear my heart on my sleeve. Thank you for all the fun and friendship.
Fat Girl on a Plane
by Kelly deVos
SKINNY: Day 738 of NutriNation
No. You can’t just buy two seats in advance. That would be easy.
Let’s say you weigh five hundred pounds and know for a fact you can’t fit into a single seat on the plane. It doesn’t matter. One person equals one seat reservation. You can thank global terrorism for that one.
I’m waiting for my flight to New York to start boarding.
I watch the fat girl at the airline counter. She’s about the same age as me, with a cute pink duffel bag that’s covered with patches.
The girl’s talking to the flight attendant, trying not to cry. “What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to get home?”
Maybe I should tell her how it works. Two years ago, I was her. Two years ago, I weighed three hundred and thirty pounds. They said I was too fat to fly.
I would tell her one thing.
There’s nothing wrong with being the fat girl on the plane.
soScottsdale
Title: We’re SoReady for an Early Look at GM
Creator: Cookie Vonn [contributor]
Okay, Scottsdale, time to retire those bling jeans once and for all because new Fall fashions are on the way and it’s shaping up to be a great season. This weekend SoScottsdale will attend a Gareth Miller preview meeting held at G Studios in NYC. What is a preview, you ask? Well, if you’re Vogue editor Anna Wintour, top designers invite you over early in their preseason planning process to kiss your ring and show you their fabric and production samples. If you’re SoScottsdale, you get ten minutes with the biggest name in fashion and a behind-the-scenes look at his plans for New York Fashion Week. What does Miller have in mind? Expect more knitwear that transitions perfectly from runway to store shelves, dressy denim and a color story that combines neutrals with gem-tone bursts. Next week, we’ll update you on everything you need to know to plan your Fall and Winter wardrobe.
Notes: Marlene [editor]: Nice work, Cookie. Rework that opening sentence. Our advertisers sell lots of bling jeans!
FAT: Two days before NutriNation
Here’s what happens. You have to show up at the airport and hope for the best. Flight attendants get to decide if you’re too fat to fly.
I’m on my way to New York. Tomorrow, I get to see my first fashion preview. I’m the SoScottsdale blog’s nod to the brave new world in which 48 percent of Americans are classified as overweight.
I don’t know if I’m going to make it there.
This is how it starts. There’s a plane change at O’Hare. I get the feeling the airline employees are watching me from behind the counter. I tell myself how paranoid that sounds. But I find myself pulling my arms close to my body, trying to look as small as possible in my seat in the waiting area.
The smallest of the three of them, a petite gray-haired woman, approaches me as I sit in a long row of passengers waiting to board. She gestures for me to join her near a window that overlooks the runway. In the distance, the lights of Chicago’s massive buildings twinkle through the terminal’s windows. There are people in those buildings, coming and going, moving through their homes and offices, sending signs of life into the darkness.
“I think you’ll need a second seat, dear.” The flight attendant has a bright, cheery demeanor. Like she’s Mary Poppins when not on duty in her faded cotton-wool-blend uniform. “This is awkward, I know.”
“I’m on a layover. I haven’t gotten any bigger since I got off the other plane forty-five minutes ago,” I say.
She smiles at me. Fake sympathy. “We have to go by what we see, dear. You know, depending on how full the flight is. We have to make a judgment call. I realize it’s awkward.”
Yep. Awkward.
I follow her back to the ticket counter.
These are my options:
a) Pay for a second seat. That’ll be $650. Plus tax. But oh, there’s a problem. The flight is sold out.
b) Wait for a flight with extra empty seats. That’ll still be $650. Plus tax. When I get home, I can call the hotline for a refund. But oh, the next flight with empty seats is, um, tomorrow.
You’d think Ms. Spoonful of Sugar would have thought this through a bit before she dragged me up to the counter.
“I don’t have six hundred bucks,” I say.
“Maybe you could call your parents, sweetie,” she suggests.
I scowl and adjust the sleeves of my hand-knit cashmere sweater. “My parents aren’t sitting by the phone with a credit card.”
“A young girl like you—” People always tell me I look like I’m twelve years old.
“I’m seventeen,” I say. “And if it weren’t for the plane change, I’d still be on the flight.”
“We have to make a judgment call,” she repeats.
“I just want to get to New York.”
“I’ll put you on standby,” she says with another insincere smile. “If everyone checks in, you’ll have to wait for the next flight. If not, I can sell you another seat.”
“How am I supposed to pay for it?” I glance behind me at a bald man who shifts his weight and rolls his eyes, checking his watch every few seconds.
“You’ve got about an hour to figure that out, dear,” she says.
It’s an agonizing hour. I’ve got less than twenty bucks in my bank account. I can’t get ahold of my mom. I’m pretty sure the last time she paid child support, Grandma spent the money on Pampers.
I consider calling the blog office and decide I’d rather walk back to Phoenix than tell my boss, Marlene, I’m too fat to fly. She’s throwing a massive bash for her grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary this weekend and her assistant, Terri, has four kids with the stomach flu. The situation is a perfect storm that won’t happen again. I won’t get another chance to cover an editorial preview as a student intern. A Gareth Miller preview. Real designers at work.
I run my fingertips over the Parsons application tucked in my bag. Fred LaChapelle will be there. He’s the dean of Admissions, and Miller is his favorite alum. I’ve been dreaming of Parsons since I was five, when my grandma handed me a biography of fashion designer Claire McCardell and I couldn’t read the book’s words but I saw the clothes and I felt them. McCardell invented American sportswear in the World War II years and was the first woman with her own label. McCardell’s women roamed sandy beaches, rode their cruiser bicycles to small-town markets and used cocktail dresses like weapons. They were free and fabulous and powerful.
I hoped, and wished and believed, that this was who I was meant to be. McCardell studied at Parsons and I know, more than I know anything else, that I need to start there too.
My portfolio will get me in. On paper, I’m the perfect applicant. The daughter of a supermodel who can stitch in a zipper in my sleep. In real life, I’m not Barbie; I spent my summer frosting doughnuts for eight bucks an hour instead of hanging out at Michael Kors, and it’s tough explaining why my mom made $1.2 million last year but the ATM makes a boing! sound when I stick in my card.
Still, I make magic when I make clothes. If I can get Miller and LaChapelle to see that, then it won’t matter that my grandma’s rainy-day fund is barely enough to cover the application fee to the school. They’ll make sure I get a scholarship and, come next year, I’ll be packing for Parsons.
You have to make this work. In my head, I repeat this mantra over and over.
But what happens if I can’t get on the plane? I can’t afford a hotel. My luggage is already checked. It’s going to JFK with or without me.
