The Unseen Read Free

stairs and into the dance .
    You can do this. If you can outsmart Henderson and break Aubrey out of prison without anyone getting hurt, you can handle a stupid high school dance. Besides, none of the awful people from home will be here.
    David let go of her hand and instead extended his elbow to escort Kari up the stairs. It was a little too chivalrous for her taste, but she doubted she could make it up the stairs without at least a little bit of assistance. As they climbed the stairs the music grew louder, and Kari grew less confident with each step. At the doors of the old brick building, a dozen enforcement officers were forcing students to pass through a series of security checkpoints.
    “Seems like a little much for a dance, doesn’t it?” Kari whispered to David as they passed through two different metal detectors.
    “Things have been pretty tight around here since the assassinations,” David said in a hushed voice when they finally cleared security. “We’re lucky they even let us have a dance at all.”
    Kari nodded, as that made sense. The civil war had been drawing down to a political resolution after half a year of heavy skirmishes along the borders. The Coastal States had been losing their fervor for the fight as casualties rose and the catastrophic economic damage continued.
    It also helped that the war was unpopular among the public and elections were coming up. It had looked positive enough that Kari had considered allowing Aubrey to wait out the rest of the war in Henderson’s prison. But then the president of the United States was assassinated in the Oval Office, and everything went crazy.
    The fighting had escalated to the point where both sides were considering a draft. Then, just two weeks prior to the Senior Ball, the chief executive officer of the Middle States was found dead in Dallas, Texas.
    Since then the entire country, and world, had been on lockdown. Given the circumstances, Kari could understand extra caution, but it felt like there could be a better use of the manpower than a high school dance. Unless high schools around here are worse than they are back in North Carolina.
    That was Kari’s only frame of reference, as she hadn’t enrolled in school in West Dakota after escaping from prison. The only reason she had stayed in school as long as she had was to keep her parents from knowing the truth about her hacking ability. And that worked out so well . . .
    “Let’s go check it out,” David said over the sound of the music. The hallway inside the entrance was decorated with fake cherry blossoms that must have matched the theme, but seemed a heavy contrast to the electronic music flowing through the building. Kari and David stepped into the main hall, which was filled with fog, laser lights, and people dancing. It was exactly what Kari pictured a high school dance would look like. They both stopped and stared at the mass of teenagers jumping up and down and grinding in the middle of the room.
    “Well,” Kari said.
    “Well . . . let’s see what’s at the refreshments table,” David said. “Can’t start dancing in the middle of a song anyways.”
    “Good idea.”
    After a minute, David and Kari deduced that the table with punch and snacks was located on the other side of the crowded, musky room. They picked their way through the throng of dancing people; it was surprisingly tedious work, as it was difficult to predict what the dancing teenagers were going to do.The snack table was lightly populated with some generic printed snacks, likely from the school’s own printers, and the punch bowl was under constant surveillance by a diligent teacher.
    “Not great,” David admitted.
    “No, this is perfect,” Kari said. “This is my first and only high school dance, and I want the true experience. And this is exactly the high school dance experience.”Kari picked up a rather bland looking cookie from the table and bit into it. David grabbed a couple of cups full of pink punch