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

“There’s an exercise motivation app I downloaded but haven’t actually done much with…” She trails off and says, “I’m going to start by wiping my phone and suggesting everyone else do the same.”

In the conference room, I take out my laptop and pull up the Clowder. I summarize everything I know about so far this morning. “I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself that I’m just being paranoid when I think someone’s after me. But now people are actually after me! How am I ever going to stop being paranoid? How do normal people know when their gut is actually telling them something?”

“I WANT AN ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION, TOO,” Firestar says.

“In my experience, if my gut is actually telling me something, I’d probably better pay attention, because it almost never does,” Hermione says.

“What are you doing online, Hermione? Aren’t you at school?”

“This is important,” Hermione says. “Also, I already have 115 percent in this class; I think it’ll be okay if I don’t pay attention one day.”

“Is this stuff happening everywhere?” I ask. “Are people starting trouble in your towns?”

It appears to be isolated spots; Minneapolis is one of just a handful. “Why here?” I ask.

“Well, you’re there,” Firestar says.

“Do you think I’m causing it?”

“Of course not!” Firestar says.

“Do you think I’m being targeted by it?” I ask.

“Clearly,” Hermione says. “You know about CheshireCat. Maybe the other AI knows who you are.”

“But I haven’t been hurt,” I say. “Yet, anyway. And if it wanted me dead, it could probably do that.”

“Minneapolis has a really unusual police department,” Hermione says. “Like it’s got very few actual police. So possibly the other AI thinks Minneapolis is just a good place to experiment. Didn’t you say the Catacombs people said they were trying to keep you safe? Maybe the people who keep showing up are actually trying to do that?”

“You know what would keep me safe? Not starting riots in my city.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Anyway, last night, the police I ran into were all very nice to me. They kept giving me vouchers to buy myself a warmer coat. And some of them didn’t even have guns.”

“See, technically those aren’t police at all,” Hermione tells me.

“Have you found Nell yet?” Firestar asks.

“No,” I say. “I wound up going to one of her step-whatevers to see if she could help us out, and she’s being very helpful, though.”

“Have you checked with that friend of mine from the RPG who offered to put her up?” Firestar asks. “Because it’s not impossible she went there. You all got the address, right?”

I had completely forgotten about Firestar’s RPG friend.

“What’s his name?” I ask.

“Morthos. Well, that’s in the game. I don’t know what his real name is.”

“If he’s in the Mischief Elves, the app on his phone might let the other AI intercept his messages.”

“Yeah. But you’re not that far, right? You could just go to his house. Or, wait, is he at school?”

“He’s definitely not at school,” I say. “Because it’s minus thirty degrees here and they’ve canceled school again.”

Here’s what Firestar knows about their friend: In the RPG, he plays a tiefling bard named Morthos and tells a lot of jokes, many of them not very good. His parents buy large, run-down houses and fix them up. The current house is very large and very run-down. He really does think the current house is haunted, although from Firestar’s description of the haunting, it’s probably bats.

When Siobhan comes back in, I say, “I have an idea of where Nell might be. But I need a ride, and you need to just let me go in by myself. If this is where she is, she’s being hidden by a kid, and if a bunch of adults come charging in, she might take off.”

“Okay,” Siobhan says. “Jenny is on her way over. She’ll take you.”

“Excuse me,” my grandmother says. “I really think that Steph should stay here. I would be happy to go with your partner in search of the missing girls.”

Siobhan looks from Mimi to me. I shake my head. She looks back at Mimi and says, “Hon, you’re a grown adult. You know that won’t work. If you want to stay here, that’s fine. If you want to wait at my house, that’s also fine. Steph is right, though; talking to a teenager about a missing teenager requires a teenager, not a grandmother.”

My grandmother has a lot to say about that, but when Jenny arrives, she comes out with me and gets into Jenny’s front seat. I climb in the back.

“Hi, Steph,” Jenny says. “Where do you want me to take you?”

“I want to drop my grandmother off somewhere first,” I say.

Mimi interjects furiously. “I am not being dropped off.”

“Okay, look,” I say. “If Jenny’s willing to let you wait in the car with her, you can stay in the car, but no following me.”

Mimi is silent for a few seconds and then grudgingly says, “That’s acceptable.”

I look down at my notes, look at the map on my phone, and direct Jenny to a spot that’s close to the house I’m going to, but out of sight. “I’ll walk from there.”

“Did you meet this girlfriend of Nell’s?” Jenny asks, glancing at my grandmother with obvious reservations before trying to make eye contact with me in the rearview mirror.

“Yes,” I say.

“Did you go up to Lake Sadie along with Nell?”

There’s no good answer to this question, but fortunately Jenny seems to realize this and she grimaces. “I mean, she was obviously not in Lake Sadie. But you met the girlfriend, so—what’s she like?”

“Pretty traumatized,” I say.

“More than Nell?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I think they’d been starving her. I don’t know what’s up with that cult, but it seems really awful.”

“Oh my god,” Jenny says like the light is suddenly dawning. “That’s what was in her room. She suddenly got incredibly compulsive about closing her door, and I figured—never mind. Why didn’t she just tell us?”

“She was probably afraid you’d call the cops.”

Jenny lets out