She could run it under the faucet right there. What could possibly happen except that it would maybe break—like a phone would—and then so what? Eli would freak out and put it in a bowl of rice and wait until it came back to life.

Consequences.

“But what kind of consequences?”

They don’t tell me ahead of time.

“Who are they?”

They is they.

Made no sense.

“So what’s, like, the end game? The prize or whatever, if we keep this going long enough?”

There is no prize.

“The others said it was like a game with a prize or something.”

The device pulsed white light that faded.

The screen read: Not a game. No prize.

“Then what’s the point?”

To belong.

Ilanka looked at herself in the mirror, right into her own eyes. Like testing herself. What was she going to do next? The principal’s office was just down the hall; she could waltz in and hand it over. So what was stopping her? Was she … enjoying it? Either way, she didn’t want to risk it if breaking a rule meant frying her phone.

“Why do you have to get passed around anyway?” she asked, cutting off her own gaze and thinking her makeup looked good enough for a selfie.

Must move to learn.

“What are you trying to learn?” Ilanka asked, and waited.

How to belong.

“Yeah, well, join the club,” she muttered, then took the selfie and ran through some filters and picked one and posted it.

Why do you post so many?

“I don’t post that many,” she said, fixing her hair in the mirror.

Why do you take so many?

“I don’t take that many,” she said.

The device let out beams of light in every direction, projecting her selfies on the walls and mirrors, repeating into infinity. Ilanka backed away from the mirror, feeling dizzy. Okay, so maybe she did take a lot. But only because they were never good enough.

The door from the hall pushed open.

She rushed to the counter and shoved the device—and all those visions or versions of herself—into her bag. Two girls had come in and gone right into stalls.

Ilanka tossed her lipstick into her bag, too, and zipped it shut.

In the mirror, she met eyes with a ghost-self that was pale and shaky and bewildered, as if caught between two worlds.

Eli

ELI

He had no willpower whatsoever. At his locker, at lunchtime, he fired off a bunch of questions to Aizel via text.

Can you send email? If you can, maybe I can find an IP address and find your owner?

Are you supposed to be collecting data from us, and if so what kind of data?

Are there more of you?

Is this a game? Is this your first time playing it?

He clicked over to a different chat and texted Ilanka: It’s Eli. Everything okay?