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CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.

Chapter Three
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
About
Sample Chapters
Contact
Short Stories
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.
CHAPTER 2 Milan In School (continued) “But I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” protested Milan. “It’s a misunderstanding.” The depth of the hole he was in was now dawning on him. He was sitting in the “student’s chair,” facing the headmaster of Hejn Secondary who was on the other side of a very large desk. Milan was trying hard to channel Dano kool. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working, but he hoped that at least he wasn’t fidgeting too much. Ms. Dietze, the headmaster, was a striking, slim, refined woman of about forty-five with coolly knowing blue eyes. Today her lipstick was very dark and her eyelashes whitened to match her hair. The collar on her black and white houndstooth suit framed her face and lent her an almost Elizabethan air of authority. The lack of chip jewelry was conspicuous, unusual for a woman of her position. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the holo screen hovering above her desk. The room was agonizingly quiet as she silently followed Milan’s offNet trace. “You may leave us now,” the headmaster eventually spoke, addressing Mr. Vuga, who was hovering behind Milan like a hungry vulture, “and please close the door behind you.” Mr. Vuga was visibly reluctant and disappointed, what with missing the pleasure of punishing a student, but he had no choice. “Young man, the truth is that my hands are tied,” Ms. Dietze said as soon as they were alone. “First, you lied. You were offNet.” “But it was due to a misunderstanding and I wasn’t doing Xgames or anything,” repeated Milan almost mechanically, quite sure by now that his situation was hopeless. “Yes... your trace shows that... but nevertheless I have no choice. You were offNet. Regrettably for you, the rules are quite clear... and you were, after all, caught in the act.” Ms. Dietze spoke in a forbidding measured tone that turned students into intimidated blobs of wobbly jelly. She absently tapped her long fingers on the huge desk, the clicking of her sharp blackSilver nails making the only sound in the awkward silence. Milan could think of nothing to say so instead he looked straight ahead, trying hard not to stare at a flash of red lace that poked out of Ms. Dietze’s low neckline. “But unfortunately there’s more, isn’t there?” she eventually spoke again, with pauses just long enough to be unnerving. “This portal you were playing around with is very seriously off limits, young man... and... I see here that attempting to hack this portal is an infraction of the Freedom and Liberty Act... meaning it is considered by CivDef and the Ministry of Freedom to be... potentially... a terrorist matter?” There was perhaps just the tiniest touch of sarcasm in the headmaster’s voice. Ms. Dietze wears a red lace bra? “Milan, I’ve known you for years and I cannot begin to catalogue my gratitude to your mother for all she has done for this school and for education in general. You’ve always been a good student. And I know you consider yourself a gRazer. Whether or not the gRazer community agrees, I don’t know. I do know that your portal entry attempt was, to put it charitably, extremely ham-fisted, and then you made no effort to hide your trace. You are a very foolish young man and in very serious trouble. You obviously lack both the knowledge and the talent to be Switch, yet only someone associated with that particular community would have access to the codes you so clumsily attempted to use. Clearly someone passed them on to you...” Milan was quite certain his mother didn’t own any red lace bras. There was another long silence. “You keep insisting there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps you’d like to explain that and tell me what’s going on? You can start by telling me where you obtained these portal codes...” Milan put away thoughts of red lace bras and silently cursed Audrey. It was all her fault. Of course she should have known that he just had a junky old app, and that he was in study hall and using the school eyeVid. She had to have known. But, as much as he felt like he could kill her right now, he wasn’t going to turn her in. Not Audrey. Milan hesitated at first, but then he decided that he had nothing to lose if he opened up and honestly explained how he got into this fix in the first place. “Well, it’s about Dano...” “Who?” “Dano. Dano Kalen.” “Dano Kalen? Yes, I remember him,” the headmaster noted frostily. “It’s a shame someone so bright didn’t graduate with the rest of his class.” “He hasn’t been around for three days,” replied Milan. “And... ?” Ms. Dietze asked. “His reliability, if I’m not mistaken, was never exactly unimpeachable, was it?” “But ma’m,” Milan blurted out. He tended to talk fast when nervous, and he was getting more and more nervous as this went on. “Well, like, that was school, but, well, that’s not it, not what I’m talking about now, I mean, what I mean is that what he says is always juice, and that’s the problem... and I looked for him everywhere. I looked in all the places, and I looked to see if there was something in SIMface or some Weibo or something somewhere, and, well, there wasn’t and...” The headmaster held up her hand for Milan to stop. A white gold bracelet slid down a black lace sleeve. “Young man, you’ve looked for Dano everywhere but in Real, which is where I would expect to find someone of the gRazer persuasion, no doubt amusing himself in some utterly disreputable place.” “But, but—what I’m tryin’ to say is that there’s a really weird thing going on, ‘cause it’s not just like he’s just disappeared, it’s like he’s really disappeared. There’s nothing anywhere. Like try googling. You keep getting...” Ms. Dietze held up her hand again. She scanned her holoVid for a while, and as she stared at the screen the look on her face morphed from frosty to dead serious. “My advice to you, young Stemberg,” she said after a pause, her voice hardened, “is to cease searching for Dano Kalen. You will not find him simply because, as far as we are all concerned, as of today, he doesn’t exist, and never did.” With mouth wide open in astonishment, Milan stared at the headmaster. “Catching flies will not change things, young man. I repeat, Mr. Kalen no longer exists, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop searching for him.” What? No. This couldn’t be happening. Ms. Dietze knew Dano! Hadn’t she just said so? So how could he now not exist? But before any of this could sink in, she continued. “And you, you are in deep, deep trouble. I understand your panic at discovering your friend had vanished, but unfortunately that doesn’t change things. I cannot overlook your offNet violation.” The headmaster’s wintry eyes sliced into Milan’s. The point was inescapable. “I will, however, overlook your botched hacking into the portal, as the Freedom and Liberty Act is, officially, not strictly speaking a school concern. I will say nothing, but I can’t promise the authorities won’t come looking for you. Still, given who your mother is, maybe they won’t.” Milan mumbled something which Ms. Dietze dismissively waved away as she quickly made some entries on her holoVid. “I don’t like what has happened to your friend Dano, and unfortunately there is very little I can do about it, but I do know someone you can talk to. I have no idea if he can help, but you can trust him.” Ms. Dietze quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Milan. “Hide this,” she said somewhat mysteriously, “in your pocket. Now!” It was clear she meant it. Just then there was a loud knock and Mr. Vuga, all red-faced, breathless and uninvited, burst into the office. “Sorry to intrude, Ms. Dietze, but I, ahh,” Ms. Dietze had always made Mr. Vuga feel somewhat awkward, “thought it might be a bit of an, umm, emergency, as it were. Your vid went dead a few seconds ago. Is, ahh, everything in order? You never know with students these days...” Mr. Vuga growled as he looked at Milan, clearly thinking (or at least wishing) that maybe young Stemberg had gone berserk. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Vuga. I know that by bursting in here you are quite correctly following regulations,” Ms. Dietze threw a knowing little dark-lipped smile. Mr. Vuga felt uncomfortably disarmed. Milan just sat there, stunned, wondering if it was he or the world that were going more mental by the moment. “I’m not sure how I managed, but I crashed the system. You know how these things are, and unfortunately I’m not too good at computers,” Ms. Dietze lied, “but, there, it’s up now.” Mr. Vuga seemed unconvinced, but there was not much he could do. He stood there wiping sweat off his face with a grimy old handkerchief, looking sullen and awkward and not certain how to act. This was the first time he had ever barged in on the Headmaster. The CCTV had never blanked out before. “I think we’ve taken care of matters, then,” Ms. Dietze said, in her deliberate way. “You may both go... and Mr. Stemberg, remember, I will schedule a date for you to face Mr. Vuga’s disciplinary committee. Until then I will be keeping a close eye on you...” As Milan stood up Ms. Dietze gave him a sharp look. Milan hastily exited the office, wishing he knew what it meant.