Chaos on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer (detective books to read TXT) 📕

speaking through Steph’s phone. “If you can reach the car within five minutes, that may work to our advantage. If it takes more than ten, it will most definitely be to our disadvantage.”

“When will we get there?” Steph asks Cat. “I’ve lost all track of where we are.”

“You will need to speed up to make it in five minutes.”

It’s getting dark around us, and I’m not sure if it’s because it’s twilight or because the snow is coming down so much more quickly.

“Where’s the robot?” Steph asks.

“I found something useful to do with it. Just go to the car.”

Glenys’s face looks glazed, like she’s half-asleep, or maybe half-dead, and I tug on her arm. “Come on,” I say. “We need to run.” She stumbles but more or less keeps up. I can see the road up ahead, and then we’re crossing it, running behind the closed-up gas station, and my car is in sight.

“I can drive if you want to take care of Glenys,” Rachel says, so I hand her the keys, and Glenys and I climb into the back.

“Where’s Cat?” I ask. “She didn’t make it!”

In the woods, I hear a sudden barrage of gunfire.

“Go!” Steph yells at Rachel. “We’ll buckle our seat belts, I promise. We need to start moving!”

“But Cat—”

“Cat is safe at home; it’s just the robot we’re leaving!”

Oh. I suddenly remember that yes, the robot isn’t Cat.

“I’m fine,” the voice says from Steph’s phone. “I used the robot to let the air out of the tires of the minivan so they won’t be able to follow you. It’s also blocking the entrance to the garage, so they can’t pull anything out. You’ll just need to keep an eye out for the snowmobile.”

I buckle my seat belt, and then I reach over and buckle Glenys in, because she hasn’t moved.

“I’ll turn on the heat as soon as the engine warms up a little,” Steph says. She digs through her backpack and pulls out a container of hummus and a bag of baby carrots. “Glenys, are you hungry?”

Glenys takes the carrots and hummus with a whispered “thank you” and spends the next few minutes devouring them. Rachel turns on the heat full blast, and the feeling starts coming back to my feet.

My phone buzzes in my hand, and I see that I have a text from “Glenys.” “Where are you?” it asks.

I lean forward and ask Steph, “If I send someone a text, is there any way for them to see where I sent it from?”

“Give me your phone a minute,” Steph says. I hand it to her. She adjusts something and hands it back. “Before, probably not; now, definitely not.”

I text back, “Minneapolis.”

I get another text. “Stop playing games with me, Nell.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My father took me to Minneapolis after my mom disappeared.”

“If you want to see your mother, turn around right now and you can see her. She’s at the Fatherhold.”

I stare at the text in absolute disbelief.

Then a picture arrives: my mother. Staring at the camera, angry. Holding a hand-scrawled sign: TURN AROUND OR FACE JUDGMENT, NELL.

24•  CheshireCat  •

The robot gets ripped to pieces by a barrage of bullets—two of the legs go flying. It topples over in the snow, and it occurs to me to have it play dead. I shut off all the lights and the bits that make noise and wait to see what these humans do with it.

Through the microphones, I can hear the crunch of someone’s boots approaching through the snow. He picks up the robot, turns it over in his hands, and then drops it in a bag.

“Who sent that after us?” one voice asks.

“I think we both know who sent it,” the other voice answers.

A loud noise comes through the mics. I run the vibrations through a database of possibilities and confirm that it’s the snowmobile returning. I watch the GPS signal from the robot as we rapidly travel back to the house and inside. Since I’m not moving the limbs and I’ve cut power to all the lights, this robot could have up to eight more hours of battery life. That’s a lot of potential eavesdropping.

But it’s going to have to be audio only; the bag is covering the cameras. It’s a shame, because facial recognition systems are a lot more reliable than voice recognition, especially with the quality of the microphone in the robot. Still, there’s some good data coming through.

I can hear seven distinct voices. All are probably adults. Five are probably male, two are probably female, although I am basing that on pitch, which is not a reliable method of determining gender. I try to match the voices to data I find online, but the only one I’m confident about identifying is the man who goes by Brother Daniel. I try to assess the emotions in the voices—anger, tension, fear?—and I’m not sure. I upload some samples of their voices to see if one of my human friends can help me figure this out later.

Also, while I’m thinking about it, I place an order for a replacement robot to be shipped to Steph’s house as quickly as possible.

The adults here have discovered that Glenys is missing, although they are all calling her Sonia. As the conversation goes on, I decide they’re definitely angry, especially since someone says straight out, “I am so angry right now.” Someone else insists that he is not angry, not angry at all, and I don’t think he’s telling the truth and upload a sample so someone can confirm for me later. A voice I haven’t heard much says, “Maybe it’s for the best.”

Then someone else says, “Could it be Ellen’s kid? Wasn’t she friends with Sonia?”

“I told you leaving her behind was a mistake,” a woman’s voice says.

“Can you get her to turn around?”

“Hard to know.”

“What if you tell her you’re here?”

“Think she’ll believe it?”

“You could send her a picture.”

“I’ll try. But she has a rebellious spirit, which is why you didn’t want her