So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld Read Free Book Online Page B

using the space shuttle to get to the end
of the street. But the results were equally earthshaking.
    On Lexa's giant flat screen Mandy's last picture
looked a hundred times more ominous. The gash of white that cut across one
corner made sense now. It was the gap between the boards of the abandoned
building, sunlight pouring through. The photo had evidently been taken from
inside, only a few steps from where we'd found the phone.
    "It looks like it's been unlocked," Jen
said, standing. Her fingers traced a dark snake in the bright patch, a chain
swinging free between the boards, the blurred shape of an open padlock hanging
at one end. The gap seemed wide enough for a person to squeeze through.
    "So Mandy had a key," I said. "She said
she was going to show us something."
    Jen pointed. "But when she opened it, somebody
else was in there."
    I squinted at the blotchy
shape in the darkest corner of the picture.   Blown up this big, it seemed less like a face, the gradients of gray
more jagged, like a mob informer
with his identity concealed by computer.
      "What do you think, Lexa?
Is that a face?"
    She was also squinting.
"Yeah, maybe."
    "Can you do anything to clear it up?" Jen
asked.
    Lexa crossed her arras.
"Clear it up? Define."   
    "Well, make it look more like a face. Like on cop
shows when the FBI guys do that computer stuff to pictures?"
    Lexa sighed. "Let me explain something, guys:
Those scenes are rigged. You can't really make a blurry picture clearer; the
information's already gone. Besides, when it comes to faces, your brains are
better than any computer."
    "Couldn't you give our brains a hand?" I
asked.
    "Look, I've created ocean waves, crashing cars,
whirling asteroids. I've erased boils from movie stars' hands, made it snow and
rain, even added smoke to an actress's breath after she refused to put a lit
cigarette in her mouth. But you know what the hardest thing to animate
is?"
    Jen dared a guess. "A human face?"
    "Exactly."
    "Because it's so mobile?"
    Lexa shook her head. "Humans aren't especially
expressive. Monkeys' faces are more muscular, dogs have much bigger eyes, and
cats have very emotive whiskers. Our crappy ears don't even move. What makes
humans ; so tough to do is the audience. We're human, and we spend our whole
lives learning to read each other's faces. We can detect a glimmer of ! anger
on another person's face from a hundred yards through a fog bank. Our brains
are machines for turning coffee into facial analysis. Take a drink and look for
yourself.''
    I swallowed the cold dregs
from my paper cup and stared at the picture. It was a face, I decided, and it was
starting to look familiar.    
    "Although frankly, this might help." Lexa
stood but didn't reach for ^ the mouse. She went to the kitchen drawer and
pulled out a long, thin box. With a swish and a tearing sound, she extracted a
large sheet of wax paper, the kind you wrap sandwiches in. She held the translucent
paper over the screen.
    "Don't ever tell anyone I said this, but
sometimes blurry is better than clear."
    Jen and I gasped. Through the haze of the paper
something recognizable had resolved.
    It was the face of the man who'd come after us in the
darkness. The bald head was obvious now, the heavy brow and childish lips all
somehow cohering in the blur. And Lexa was right: we could read the expression
perfectly, right through the wax paper and pixelization and darkness. The guy
was eager, determined, totally in control.
    He was coming to get Mandy, like he'd tried to get us.
    We sat there for a moment in silence, paralyzed, as if
he'd stepped through the screen into the room. Then a bouncy Swedish tune
started to play.
    Take a chance on me....
    Mandy's phone had come to
life, its lights blinking away. Lexa took a step, lifted it to look at its
little screen.
    "That's funny."
    "Who's calling?" I
asked.
    Lexa lifted an eyebrow.
    "You are, Hunter."

 
    Chapter
9
    LEXA HANDED
ME THE PHONE. THE SWEDISH TUNE KEPT PLAYING, insistent and