Teenybopper squabbles

CYBER SETUP

“I’m so sorry,” Ibrahim gushed, shaking his head and sitting down on the low shelf of the perfume display. “I’m so sorry. But I don’t understand, Nancy! I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“Ibrahim?” I asked, not understanding. He had his head in his hands now, and was clearly very upset. I could see tears forming at the corners of his eyes. But I had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean, what I want from you?”

Ibrahim shook his head and wiped at his eyes. “I should not have sent the e-mail,” he went on. “I’m sorry I tried to be your friend, Nancy! I know, you are with Ned. But why can’t you just let me be?”

I glanced at George, who looked just as lost as I felt. “E-mail?” she asked.

“What e-mail?” I added, turning to Ibrahim. “Ibrahim, I’m so sorry you’re upset. But I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, or what this has to do with your stealing George’s laptop.”

Ibrahim looked up at me as sharply as if I had slapped him. “I did not steal George’s laptop,” he replied. “I did exactly what you told me to do.”

Okay, now it was like he was speaking Martian. I looked to George for an explanation. “I…” I began, but couldn’t figure out how to continue.

George shook her head. “Listen,” she said, placing her hand on Ibrahim’s shoulder. “Let’s start at the beginning. You sent an e-mail?”

Ibrahim blushed and nodded, looking at me ruefully. “Nancy knows all about it,” he insisted.

“I don’t,” I replied. “Ibrahim, listen, I can see that you’re very upset, but I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. Will you explain it to me?”

Ibrahim’s eyes took on a glimmer of uncertainty as George patted his shoulder. “What was the e-mail about?” she asked gently.

Ibrahim sighed. He rubbed his eyes, then his temples as he cast his eyes to the floor. “It was an e-mail from me to Nancy,” he began. “It was… it was… oh, it would be better to show you.” He gestured toward George’s laptop, and she handed it to him. He opened the top, bringing it back to life, and brought up the Internet browser. After logging in to his e-mail and clicking on a few links, Ibrahim wordlessly handed George the computer back. He looked back at the floor as I stepped behind George to see the screen. He had brought up an e-mail from his “sent messages” folder.

FROM: IBRAHERO @ RHHS. EDU

TO: SLEUTHGAL 18@ FASTMAIL. COM

NANCY,

I WAS THINKING ABOUT YOU TODAY AND SMILING. I AM SO HAPPY TO HAVE MET YOU AND BEEN ABLE TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU THESE PAST FEW WEEKS. YOU ARE SO SMART AND GENEROUS, AND I THINK YOUR RED HAIR IS VERY PRETTY. I WISH WE COULD SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER. I KNOW THAT YOU ARE DATING NED, WHO IS A VERY FINE PERSON, BUT I WANTED YOU TO KNOW I THINK YOU ARE WONDERFUL. MAYBE IN THE FUTURE WE WILL MEET AGAIN.

WITH LOVE,

IBRAHIM

I felt myself blushing, reading over George’s shoulder. Okay — it wasn’t exactly a declaration of love. But I cringed thinking of how hard it must have been for Ibrahim to send, and how awful it must be to see me read it for the first time under these circumstances.

“Thank you,” I said softly, reaching over to touch Ibrahim’s shoulder.

He just grunted in response, not looking up from the floor.

George shot me an uncomfortable look that told me she felt as bad as I did. “Okay,” she went on in her gentle voice. “So you sent this e-mail. What makes you think —”

“Wait!” I interrupted as I realized: “I never got it.”

George raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t?” she asked. Placing the laptop on a high shelf, she began typing an address in the web browser. “Are you sure? You’ve checked your e-mail recently?”

“Just this morning,” I affirmed. I’d done a quick check before jumping in the shower. “That message wasn’t there. In fact, there wasn’t anything except spam.”

George frowned. “Huh.”

Ibrahim looked up at me curiously. “You…you never got the e-mail?” he asked.

“No,” I confirmed.

His expression lightened a bit. But he still looked puzzled. “Then that means…” He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

George touched his shoulder again. “What’s up, Ibrahim?” she asked him. “I still don’t understand how that e-mail led to you taking this laptop. What’s the connection?”

Ibrahim glanced at me, then back at George. He looked like a little lost boy — like something in his mind just wasn’t making sense. “I… got this message,” he said slowly, as though he were trying to figure it out as he spoke. “On BetterLife.”

George met my eye immediately. A message. On BetterLife. Just like Shannon, who’d been blackmailed into stealing my father’s files… and Ned, who UrNewReality was trying to blackmail into who knows what?

“Can we see it, Ibrahim?” I asked quietly. “Can you bring it up on George’s laptop?”

Ibrahim glanced up at me and nodded. “Sure,” he agreed. I was relieved to see that he appeared less angry with me. I guess once he realized I never saw his e-mail, I suddenly became a lot less threatening.

George handed the computer over, and Ibrahim logged on to BetterLife. Quickly accessing his messages, he selected one and immediately handed the computer back to George, almost as though he didn’t want to be exposed to the message again. “There,” he said, looking hesitantly over at me again. “Truly, Nancy, you had nothing to do with this?”

I shrugged. “Ibrahim, I haven’t sent you a message on BetterLife in weeks.”

“Oh boy,” George said, shaking her head as she read Ibrahim’s suspicious message. “Looks like our old friend UrNewReality, Nan.”

I stepped up behind her, peering over her shoulder at the message.

UNR KNOWS U. UNR KNOWS U R IN OVER UR HEAD HERE. UNR NEEDS A FAVOR, AND UNLESS U WANT EVERY 1 2 KNOW ABOUT UR CRUSH, U WILL DO WHAT UNR SAYS.

The e-mail Ibrahim had sent to me was copied in at the bottom.

“Wow,” I breathed. “This person — whoever UrNewReality is — is reaching out to practically everyone I know!”

Ibrahim looked uncomfortable. I turned to face him, suddenly realizing what he must have thought.

“You thought this was how I’d respond to your e-mail?” I asked him. “That I’d read it and immediately tried to turn around and use it against you?”

Ibrahim looked sheepish. “When you put it like that, it seems unlikely,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “But at the time… I didn’t see who else it could be. You were the only one I sent the e-mail to, Nancy. I didn’t want to believe it, but I thought maybe I hadn’t really known you at all.”

I sighed. “Oh, Ibrahim.” I leaned closer and tapped him on the shoulder. “For the record,” I told him, “ this is how I would have responded to your e-mail.” I opened my arms, he leaned in, and I gave him a big hug. “Thank you,” I repeated. “It means a lot that such a nice person thinks so much of me.”

Ibrahim gently pulled away, looking a little embarrassed. “Well,” he said, looking into his lap and blushing, “thank you.”

George made a face. “Enough, enough mushiness!” she insisted. “We have a mystery here, people! Ibrahim, you must have gotten another message with instructions on what to do today. Where is it?”

He took the computer back and selected the message. “Here it is,” he said, handing the computer back.

I leaned over George’s shoulder again. The message read:

UNR IS READY FOR YOUR HELP. UNR NEEDS 2 GET BACK SOMETHING THAT WAS STOLEN AND IS VERY IMPORTANT. U WILL GO 2 RIVER HEIGHTS PUBLIC LIBRARY AT 10:10 AM. U WILL WAIT IN THE BASEMENT. U WILL WEAR A DISGUISE. WHEN U HEAR A SHOUT… YOU WILL RUN 2 THE COMPUTER SECTION. THERE, U WILL FIND A SILVER

LAPTOP.

TAKE IT.

U WILL RECEIVE ANOTHER MESSAGE WITH INSTRUCTIONS ON WHERE 2 SEND IT….

George shook her head in amazement. “‘Something that was stolen and is very important,’” she read with a sigh. “UrNewReality was probably referring to all the messages from him on my computer, but it reads like the laptop was stolen.” She glanced at Ibrahim. “Is that what you thought?”

He nodded, looking ashamed. “I still felt strange taking something that wasn’t mine,” he explained, “but then I told myself, if something of mine was stolen I would want it back. And I wanted to help Nancy — even though I was angry she was making me do this.”

George nodded. “And you didn’t see us there.”

Ibrahim shook his head. “Not until you started chasing me,” he replied. “Then, I felt terrible — like something had to be wrong. If Nancy wanted me to steal back her computer, why would she be chasing me?”

“It wasn’t,” I said. “It wasn’t my computer, and I wasn’t the one blackmailing you, Ibrahim. I’m so sorry you got caught up in this. I really never meant for you to get hurt.”

Ibrahim looked uncomfortable again, shaking his head and looking down at his shoes. “It’s all right, Nancy,” he said quietly, almost too quietly to hear. “I am leaving soon with my family, and you are with Ned anyway…. I should learn my lesson and stay away.”

“Ibrahim,” I scolded. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

But he still looked unconvinced, refusing to meet my eye. Instead, he looked at George. “May I go now?” he asked.

George looked to me, surprised. “I guess so,” she replied. “I think we’ve figured out what really happened here. Just promise us, Ibrahim, if you get any other strange messages, you’ll contact us right away.”

Ibrahim nodded, meeting my eyes briefly and nodding. “Good-bye, George. Good-bye, Nancy.”

“Bye, Ibrahim,” I said softly. Turning toward the front of the store, my friend — who it now seemed wanted to forget I existed — shuffled off.

When I pulled my eyes away from Ibrahim, George was looking at me sympathetically. “Don’t worry about it, Nance. He just feels awkward.”

“I know,” I said. And I did. It just felt strange to upset someone I truly did like, all because he liked me more. I shook my head to clear it and turned to George. “You heard what he said, right?”

George smiled, getting my drift immediately. “About waiting for the shout?”

I nodded. “Seems a little coincidental, huh?”

Without another word, we picked up our things and headed out of the pharmacy, back toward the library. The security guard looked a little surprised to see us again — after we’d last run from the library screaming “thief!” — but seemed to decide to let bygones be bygones.

“Excuse me,” I greeted him, sidling up with George at my side. “But has anyone been down to the basement in — oh, say the last twenty minutes?” That was about how long we’d been gone, chasing Ibrahim and then questioning him.

The guard — whose nametag read BILL — shook his head. “The basement? No ma’am, I’ve been standing here at the only staircase for the last hour. Only people to go up and down are you two, that kid you were chasing earlier, and a young girl — left right before the two of you.”

George glanced at me. I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was: The girl must have been the girl we helped once she fell from the ladder. “Did she look hurt in any way?” George asked. “Was she limping?”

Bill shook his head. “No, actually she seemed to be in a hurry,” he replied with a shrug. “Ran right out the door like someone was chasing her. A few minutes later, the boy and the two of you came up.”

We nodded. “I see. Well, thanks a lot for your help,” I said.

I looked at George and nodded toward the stairway.

“She was running,” George marveled, “and our security consultant never showed up. Isn’t that interesting?”

We reached the basement level and made a bee-line for the computer section. Indeed, we seemed to be the only patrons down there now. The table was empty, the chairs still pulled out from where we’d left them. Whoever our “security consultant” was… she really had never showed.

“Let’s take a quick look at where the girl fell,” I suggested. Wasting no time — it felt creepy being in the basement alone — we headed over to the section where the ladder still stood. I climbed up a few steps, and took a look around at the books that surrounded me.

“These are encyclopedias,” I said wonderingly, “in German, I think.” I lifted one of the heavy books from its place on the shelf. Clouds of dust released into the air, tickling my nose and making me cough.

An old bookplate was pasted onto the endpapers:

THESE ENCYCLOPEDIAS DONATED BY HEIDI KRAUS A PROUD GERMAN CITIZEN AND RESIDENT OF RIVER HEIGHTS FOR THIRTY YEARS

Well, that explained it. “They were donated,” I told George.

George cocked an eyebrow. “It seems awfully unlikely,” she said, “that our falling girl — who looked, at most, sixteen years old — was hanging around to check out German encyclopedias.”

I nodded grimly. “Between that, and the security consultant never showing up… you know what I’m thinking?”

George nodded. “I do, but go ahead.”

I frowned, climbing down from the ladder. “This whole thing was a setup.”

“This isn’t right, Nance,” George muttered as we walked back to her car. Since we’d left the library, she seemed more and more agitated. “I’m going to try the PR woman again who called me this morning.”

So far, George had tried to reach the number that had called her this morning (it was stored in her phone’s call log) twice. Both times, the phone had rung and rung, with no answer.

Now, George sighed sharply, implying that she’d reached yet another dead end. “No answer,” she confirmed, hitting the End button. “That seems kind of odd for someone in public relations, right? To not answer the phone?”

I nodded. Everyone knew that a PR person’s job was to make the company they worked for look good. Avoiding people’s calls, and not even having a voicemail box set up, wasn’t exactly the best way to do that.

We had reached George’s car, and she sighed again, shoving her phone into her pocket in frustration. “This is huge, Nancy,” she said again. “We were just set up by the most successful online gaming programmers in the country.”

“Either that,” I added, “or someone’s hacked in to their e-mail system.”

George’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t think of that,” she admitted. “But if UrNewReality is able to hack into our computers with such ease, why wouldn’t he or she be able to hack into the company’s e-mail?”

I frowned. “One thing’s for sure,” I said. “Someone at the BetterLife Company should know about this.”

George nodded. “And it looks like e-mail’s not working,” she said grimly. “What are our other options? Is there any other way for us to get in touch directly with Robert Sung or Jack Crilley?”

I cringed, remembering my first meeting with the two programmers who would soon be millionaires. It had gotten pretty tense — tense enough to make their host, a professor from the computer science department named Professor Frank, uncomfortable. Suddenly it came to me.

“That’s it!” I cried.

George looked skeptical. “What’s it?” she asked. “Please Nance — don’t tell me you want to write them a letter.”

I rolled my eyes. “ No, George.” I shook my head. “I’m not a total technophobe. I just remembered, a computer science professor at the university hosted Sung and Crilley when they came to speak to the student body. He must have contact information for them!”

George’s skeptical look vanished. “That actually makes a lot of sense.” She gave me a goofy grin. “Nancy, I’ve underestimated you yet again. Shall we head to the university?” She asked.

“We shall,” I said with a queenly air as George climbed into the car and unlocked my door. “Let’s see if we can arrange a meeting with Professor Frank.”

We were lucky; we arrived at the university’s computer science center just as Professor Frank was finishing up his office hours. We waited on a bench outside his office while a couple students finished up, then walked in.

“Hello,” said the professor, looking at us curiously. “Are you students of mine?”

George shook her head. “We’re not,” she clarified. “But we live in River Heights, and we just became aware of an issue you —”

“ Wait a minute,” the professor interrupted her, adjusting his eyeglasses and staring at me. “I remember you! You’re the young rabble-rouser who attacked Jack and Robert after their lecture.”

George shot me a pointed glance. I knew she was reacting to the fact that he’d called them by their first names; clearly they were fairly close.

“I wouldn’t call it attacking,” I said to Professor Frank, defending myself.

He smiled; I could see he was kind of amused. “What would you call it, then?” he asked.

I shrugged, trying to look innocent. “Asking some important questions?” I asked. “Questions that, I might add, they never really answered?”

Professor Frank sat still for a moment, absorbing that, but then chuckled. I’d won him over. “All right, sit down,” he invited us, gesturing to the modern plastic chairs that faced his desk. “I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m curious to hear what you have to say.”

George didn’t mince words. “Professor Frank,” she began as soon as her bottom hit the chair, “we have reason to believe that an employee of BetterLife is hacking the game and using it to collect personal information on its users. Either that, or a very sophisticated hacker has targeted the site.”

Professor Frank looked a little surprised by our claims, but he nodded moderately. “What is your evidence?” he asked George. “What leads you to believe this?”

George glanced at me, and I sighed. Where to begin? “It’s a lot of things,” I replied, trying to collect all of our evidence in my head. “For the last couple weeks,” I continued, “I have been cyberharassed, and I believe it’s all coming from the game.”

Professor Frank nodded, still looking vaguely amused. He clearly wasn’t going to accept our story at face value. We would have to prove it to him.

“Define cyberharassed,” he instructed me. “Some negative comments in the game? A mean e-mail or two?”

I shook my head. “Hardly,” I replied. “Actually, someone hacked into my account and made it look like my avatar performed a hate crime against one of my good friends. Then they created an avatar that looked like my boyfriend, to fool me into thinking it was him. They killed me in the game. Meanwhile, they used e-mails and the Internet to set up babysitting jobs for me and not tell me about it, order pizzas I didn’t want, stuff like that.”

Professor Frank nodded warily. “That sounds very annoying,” he said.

“Not just annoying,” George put in, starting to look annoyed herself. “It’s cyberharassment. Nancy didn’t mention that the reason she’s on the game at all, and the reason she came to the lecture that night, is that young girls were using the game to bully each other — making each others’ lives pretty much unlivable!”

The professor looked sympathetic, but still he shrugged. “Young girls are often unkind to each other,” he said. “It’s a difficult age. You can’t blame the programmers for kids using the program to do the very same things they’re doing in real life. In fact, that’s really the point of the game.”

George caught my eye. I could see she was fuming. I decided to give it another try.

“The specific reason we’re here,” I explained, “is that in the last week or so, this cyberharasser — his avatar is UrNewReality — has been targeting people who know me. He—”

“Or she,” George inserted.

“Or she,” I agreed. “He or she uses BetterLife in some way to gain access to their personal e-mails and files. They then use something from those personal e-mails and files to try to blackmail the user into sabotaging me in some way.”

“Like stealing,” George added forcefully. “Or breaking the law. ”

“What was stolen?” Professor Frank asked, his tone still casual.

I glanced at George. “My father’s legal files,” I replied.

Professor Frank nodded. “And what was the outcome of that? Are the files still missing?”

I blushed. “Well… no,” I replied. “They were scanned and returned. But UrNewReality posted them — they were confidential — in the game, on a movie screen in the mall.”

The professor looked thoughtful. “And this cost your father money?” he asked. “Ruined his case?”

“Well — no,” I stammered, trying to figure out where this conversation had gone wrong. “I mean — he could have been. It was just lucky. It just —”

“Who stole the files?” Professor Frank asked. “Did they have reason to be upset with you, outside the game?”

I took a deep breath. “It was the girl who was cyberbullied,” I said slowly. “And yes, she was a little upset with me. But that’s —”

The professor cut me off. “What else was stolen?”

George’s eyes were blazing. “My laptop,” she said angrily. “Is that a big enough deal for you?”

The professor smiled, looking at George’s lap. “You seem to be holding your laptop,” he pointed out.

It was true. George had grabbed it on the way out of the car — she “didn’t trust anybody” now.

George was turning bright red. “That’s because we caught the thief,” she replied through gritted teeth.

“Who was?” Professor Frank asked breezily, sitting back in his chair. “Your BF? Your BFF?”

George looked furious. “Hey —” she began to protest.

“Listen.” Professor Frank leaned over his desk toward us, holding up his hand for silence. “I’m very sorry that you young ladies are having some problems with your friends. But really, what you’re describing are petty teenage squabbles.”

George gasped. “You —”

The professor held up his hand again. “If the game is causing such problems for you,” he instructed, “it’s really very simple. There is a magical button on your computer, called an Off button. Press it, and go outside, or read a book, or talk to your friends in person for once.” He looked us both in the eye and leaned back in his chair. “Don’t try to blame a piece of cutting-edge technology for your personal troubles.”

George sat stiff beside me, sputtering. “I — well, just — you —”

I felt as angry as she sounded, but I had no idea what to say. Petty squabbles? Personal troubles? This man had no idea who he was talking to. I felt certain that he’d seen our young faces and assumed we were just a couple of silly teenagers.

“What about the hacking?” I asked finally, not moving from my chair. “Regardless of what’s happened to us, doesn’t it concern you that someone’s hacked into the game, getting users’ personal information?”

Professor Frank looked thoughtful, then shrugged. “Based on what you’ve told me, ladies, I’m not entirely sure someone has hacked the game. I think it’s entirely possible that this UrNewReality person is an angry friend of yours, someone who already had your contact info and is just using the game to rattle you. But even so, experienced programmers aren’t afraid of a little hacking. Why, some of the most sophisticated technological advances of our time have been instigated by hackers. You don’t —”

George slapped the edge of Professor Frank’s desk, cutting him off. I could see that she’d had quite enough of this meeting. “Listen,” she said. “I don’t care how silly you think we are. We’re not leaving this office until you give us Sung and Crilley’s contact information.”

The professor still looked vaguely amused. “Why?” he asked. “So they can concern themselves with the trials and tribulations of some teenybopper feud?”

“No,” said George, her voice steely, “so they can be made aware that a hacker may be using their game to break the law.”

Professor Frank just stared at us for a moment. His expression implied that he still thought we both were ridiculous, but he also thought getting us out of his office might be worth a phone call. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll call them myself. I don’t see any need to give out their personal information to strangers.”

“Good enough,” George said with a shrug, tapping her index finger on the desk near the phone. “Let’s make that call.”

Professor Frank sighed. He looked from George to me, then pulled his chair over to the phone and picked up a PDA from the desk. Pressing a couple buttons and scrolling through, he seemed to find the information he needed and typed a number into the phone. I tried to memorize the numbers he was hitting, but the phone was at the wrong angle from both George and myself — I only caught a couple numbers.

After dialing, Professor Frank sat back in his chair and glanced at George. No one answered for a few seconds, and then the professor sat at attention as the call seemed to go to voicemail.

“Jack and Robert, hello,” he began. “I’m sorry to bother you. I have two teenage girls in my office who seem very convinced that their recent personal troubles are due to a hacker getting into the BetterLife system.” He chuckled. “Specifically, they think someone is using your program to steal personal information of other users. I know it sounds far-fetched…. Anyway, if you would like to reach this young lady, her name is —” He glanced up at George.

“George Fayne,” she replied.

“George Fayne,” the professor repeated. “And she can be reached at…”

George recited her cell phone number to the professor, and he repeated it into the phone. “Thank you!” he finished, and hung up the phone with a flourish.

“Well,” he said to us, slowly rising from his chair, “this meeting has been most entertaining, but I think we’re done here.”

I glanced at George, nodding quickly. It was time for us to go. Clearly, that was all the help we were going to get out of the professor.

“Thank you,” I said politely as I turned to the door.

“Yes — thank you,” George added. Her tone was cold, and I wondered what she was thinking.

We walked out of the office quickly, and kept walking down the hall without a word. When we reached the cool, modern lobby of the computer science building, George turned to me.

“Can you believe that guy?”

“I know,” I agreed, and just then my cell phone beeped that I had a text message. I pulled it out of my pocket and flipped it open. It was from Ned:

IS THAT GEORGE’S CAR I SEE IN PARKING LOT C?

I smiled, and quickly texted back:

WE’RE HERE TO MEET WITH PROFESSOR FRANK. COFFEE?

It took only seconds to get a reply.

STUDENT CENTER. BE THERE IN FIVE.

I looked up at George. “Let’s talk about it over a cup of coffee with Ned,” I suggested. “I don’t know about you, but I could use something warm after that encounter.”

“Tell me about it,” George agreed, following me toward the student center with a nod. “That guy was cold as ice. ”

Ned was waiting for us with a table and three steaming lattes when we came to meet him at the student center. “I got you some drinks,” he said, offering us two cups. “I thought you might need a caffeine fix.”

“Thanks,” George enthused, taking a long sip of her latte. “Ahhh. That’s better.”

I sat down and squeezed Ned’s hand. “Thanks. We’ve had kind of a crazy morning.”

Ned looked concerned. “What’s up?”

Alternating stories and comments, George and I filled Ned in on the morning’s wild events: the library meeting that wasn’t, the not-quite-thief Ibrahim, and the setup by someone at BetterLife — or someone who had hacked in to BetterLife.

“Wow,” Ned murmured, shaking his head. “Poor Ibrahim! I had no idea any of this was going on with him.”

George shot me an awkward look. In our recount to Ned, we’d downplayed Ibrahim’s crush on me a little.

“What was in the e-mail that was so embarrassing?” he asked me.

“Oh, you know.” I shrugged and sipped my latte again. “Typical teenager stuff.”

George touched Ned’s arm, jumping in to change the subject. “It gets worse,” she promised. “Just now, Nancy and I had a meeting with Professor Frank, asking him to put us in touch with Jack Crilley and Robert Sung — you know, the BetterLife creators?”

Ned nodded. “Sure! Nancy and I saw them speak a few weeks ago. What did you need to tell them?”

“George wanted to warn them that someone was hacking into their game to steal users’ personal information — like yours,” I explained.

“It’s a huge invasion of privacy for their users,” George said. “I was sure they’d be upset about it.”

Ned nodded, and I tried to look hopeful. “Maybe they will be, George, once they hear Professor Frank’s voicemail.”

George raised her eyebrows. “That’s the thing,” she said, leaning in confidentially and looking from Ned to me. “I didn’t want to say anything before, but I’m not even entirely sure he really called Sung and Crilley.”

I frowned. “You don’t? But we were sitting right there while he did it.”

“We were sitting right there,” George confirmed, twirling her latte cup on the table, “but we didn’t hear him actually reach anybody. We don’t know for sure he got their voicemail. Heck, we don’t even know for sure that he dialed a real phone number.”

I bit my lip, considering this. Would Professor Frank be that brazen — faking a phone call to get rid of us?

“What makes you think that?” I asked George.

She shrugged. “I’m not totally sure, but I could swear I heard the dial tone when he was supposedly leaving a message.” She sighed. “I couldn’t say for certain, so I didn’t say anything. But now I just have this terrible feeling he was playing with us.”

I looked at Ned, who was looking mildly confused. “Professor Frank wasn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat for us,” I explained.

“You can say that again,” George added with a snort. Turning to Ned, she filled him in on some of the unsavory details of our conversation.

“Whoa!” cried Ned. “I would think he’d be a lot more interested in hacking and stealing personal information! I know he’s a fan of the game, but wow….”

“And it seems that he may not even have connected us to Sung and Crilley,” I said with a sigh. “Up till now, I thought that awful conversation had at least been worth it. But now…”

I paused. And then, suddenly, it came to me.

“What if Professor Frank had a reason to dissuade us from pursuing our claims?” I asked.

George glanced up at me. I could see the light turning on in her eyes. “You mean…”

“He’s a huge fan of BetterLife,” I went on, “and obviously knows a lot about computer programming. If someone were to hack into the game — it would make sense for it to be an expert like him, no?”

George’s jaw dropped. “And that would explain why he was just so nasty to us,” she guessed. “If he was UrNewReality — why would he help us find him?”

“He saw me with Ned and Ibrahim at the lecture,” I went on, “and I told Jack and Robert about Shannon, right in front of him. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to look her up, especially if he knows his way around the game….”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Ned broke in, holding up a hand to stop us. “He had the ability, sure — and I have to admit, it would make his behavior here make a lot more sense. But what’s his motive?” he asked. “What could he have against you, Nancy?”

I swallowed. “I’m not sure,” I admitted, then unleashed a huge grin. “And that, my friends, is why we’re going to have to break into Professor Frank’s office tonight to find out.”

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14