Beat by Jared Garrett Read Free Book Online

Melisa, who stood on the right of the group. I could tell her face was set in an expression of challenge. She had never believed that I was going to do this, had been “calling my bluff” for the entire week. She’d find out that I wasn’t bluffing soon enough.
    “Hey guys,” Bren said. “Everyone put the metal cup on, right?” He raised his wrist.
    Everyone else did the same. “Of course,” Melisa said.
    “You really doing this?” David needed to be slapped. I sometimes wondered if he was here basically to be a bug-eater. He almost never Pushed, but he knew Bren from Human Studies. David and Pol, his younger brother, had showed up at the last after-school meet-up and sometimes chatted with Bren and me when we got together during lunch between classes. David struck me as a coward, so I was surprised he had the guts to game the knockout tonight and come out here.
    Koner and his friends, Jak and Greg, had shown up to our after-school Pushing maybe two months ago with Melisa and two of her friends, Nataly and Dona. Thankfully, Jan had never come. Dona stood next to Melisa now. No Nataly. Fine.
    “What are you looking at?” I asked. Everybody was just staring at me.
    “You, Bugface.” Melisa scowled at me. “If you’re going to do it, let’s go.” She checked her Papa. “These cups might work, but somebody’s going to wonder where our signals went.”
    I shrugged. If my stomach got any tighter, I was going to puke. “Fine.”
    “Nik,” Pol said. “You sure about this? If you stop the knockout and push past 140—what if the Bug’s still here?”
    “It’s not. Everyone knows that,” Koner said.
    “But what if it is?” Greg said. “The Speekers report at least one death every month or so . . . “
    “Shut up,” Pol grunted, elbowing Greg. “It doesn’t matter. Chiphead here doesn’t have the guts to do it.”
    Irritation flared, loosening my stomach. “Spam! Just watch.” I traded a glance with Bren, nodded confidently to him, and pushed my cycle away from the group. The path that wound through the park was a slightly lighter strip of flat, tough rubber that disappeared off to the right and left. Reaching the path, I got on my cycle.
    “Hey Bugface,” Melisa said. She had followed me, and the others had followed her. “Forgetting something?” She held up her left wrist.
    “No,” I said. I had been, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. I reached in the pocket of my zip and pulled out the fresh wad of glue that I had made that day. This new wad was still somewhat malleable, so it was a little harder to slide between my skin and the Papa on my wrist, but after a few tries I got it. My breath caught in my throat, but I forced myself to stare everyone down. There went my safety net.
    I lifted my wrist, turning it and showing it off. “Approved?”
    Jak, always the guy who had to make sure rules were followed, despite the fact that he was at this very moment breaking curfew in a big way, stepped closer. He grabbed my hand and wrist and pulled them close to his face. He wiggled the pad of glue. “It’s good,” he said. His officious announcement bothered me, but I ignored that.
    I nodded and got on my cycle.
    “Wait,” Koner said. “How do we know you’re not going to take the glue out when we can’t see?”
    “Dok.” Greg slapped the back of the guy’s head. “The glue makes the Papa totally useless. It can’t even read his pulse when the glue’s in there. No beeping.”
    “No pulse, no knockout.” David said.
    “How do we know your heart rate’s high enough?” Koner asked.
    “Simple,” I said. “I’ll burn back here fast after getting it up high. You guys can take my pulse by hand.” We’d already talked about this; they were just stalling, which I kind of didn’t mind. Quit it. I’m right about this.
    The Bug was gone. The Papas weren’t keeping us safe anymore; they were controlling us.
    But it was fun to think that maybe these guys were worried