The Boyfriend App (17 page)

Adrenaline pulsed through me as I checked the other coordinates. Every location where the BuyWare software was activated boasted a Public storefront, or a private residence. I set my phone to listen for data being transmitted on the correct frequency, allowing me to find the IP address at the tens of thousands of private residences where BuyWare was live and unleashed. I used my encryption key on Public’s server to connect from Public to each user’s buyPhone. From there, I installed a small application that would install a backdoor on the users’ computers the next time the phone was connected to it.

The first connections came in seconds later. Every private residence where BuyWare was activated found the users either downloading music from buyJams or browsing Public.com.

I ran my hands over my face. Public was unleashing the software on teenagers in the virtual and physical vicinity of their products.

Could this be real?

The key lay in the sound. If an inaudible sound frequency could truly stimulate some sort of falling-in-love/craving/wanting response, then there was one major reason for Public to unleash the sound while the teenagers were in their stores, or surfing Public.com, or purchasing from buyJams. And that reason was to make teens buy their products.

I entered the idea into Google. Articles dated as far back as the sixties blamed music for making people crazy, making them euphoric, making them angry. Newer posts linked music on buyJams with mood-altering properties. Everyone knew music could change their mood, but apparently, so could inaudible sound frequencies—they were used for all kinds of purposes from dog training to healing diseases. I scrolled hundreds of articles until one caught my eye. “Nikhil Gurung: The Brain in Love.”

Nigit’s father?

I clicked on a small blurb in the
South Bend Tribune
:
Local neurologist receives grant from private investor to study sound waves’ potential effect on oxytocin, dopamine, and other mood-alterting neurotransmitters in the human brain.

Huh. Not exactly something Nigit mentioned during lunch.

I Googled Nikhil Gurung and found articles he’d published, medical conferences he’d attended, committees he’d chaired, and a syllabus for the course he taught as a premed professor at Notre Dame. Seven pages of Google results later, I found a page on ClinicalTrials.gov:

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NC304921

The Effect of Sound Waves on release of Adrenaline, Oxytocin, and Dopamine

Status: Terminated.

There were no results reported.

That was weird.

But Nigit’s dad had to know something—anything.

I opened the search to Dr. Gurung’s home page at Notre Dame. His email address was listed next to his office hours. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he held office hours from six to nine p.m.

It was 8:44.

My dad and I used to run from our apartment to Notre Dame’s campus. Four minutes, if I sprinted.

I grabbed my coat from where it lay on an upended computer-security manual. “Just going for a run around the campus!” I called to my mom. “Be back before nine thirty.”

My mom looked up from a cookbook called
La Cuisine
. I caught her light eyes widen. I hadn’t been back to Notre Dame since my dad died.

“Be safe,” she said as I flew out the door.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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.....................................................................

chapter seventeen

I
kept my motorcycle-girl hoodie over my eyes until I could barely see the grass beneath my feet, until it halved the scenery that triggered my memories. Washington Hall: the old yellow-brick theater where my dad and I went to shows. LaFortune: the student center where we got watered-down hot chocolate. The Basilica: the mammoth, arching church where the three of us went for Sunday mass up until the day before he died (the church my mom tried to reserve for his funeral until she was told they didn’t allow non-alums).

I pushed forward, my breath on fire as I sprinted across South Quad. Lampposts cast golden light across the green-black grass. I skirted between two burly redheaded twins tossing a football, and passed a girl on a bench whistling a Rihanna song. A skinny boy in a navy sweater with a shamrock handed out flyers to the students who trickled in twos and threes along the sidewalk.

I cut across the courtyard. I pushed groaning wooden doors into O’Shaughnessy Hall, where dim yellow light illuminated a long oak table, and climbed the stairs. I opened my palm and read numbers scrawled in blue ink.
203.
I swung left and nearly trampled two students poring over a laptop, downloading music.
209. 207.
A girl stood in the doorway of room 205 and whispered into her cell phone about having nailed her
Romeo and Juliet
audition. I felt a pinch of envy. Something about seeing the students I saw in town in their real college life made me want it even more.

203. DR. NIKHIL GURUNG. OFFICE HOURS. 6–9.

Bingo.

My hand was sweaty on the knob. I pushed open the door and took in the small Indian man sitting at a white table with a green briefcase and an Infinitum laptop. I’d never met him before, but I would’ve recognized him anywhere. It was like the same makeup artist who Benjamin-Buttoned Brad Pitt had worked her magic on Nigit: The man in front of me was the fifty-year-old version of his son.

“Dr. Gurung?” I said, closing the door behind me. “I’m Audrey, one of Nigit’s friends.”

Dr. Gurung’s wrinkled face split into a smile. His deep-set, intelligent eyes matched Nigit’s, and his lips had the same light pink rose-petal color in the center. “What a pleasure,” he said, his words heavily accented. “How can I help you, Audrey?”

“Um, well,” I started, stepping closer. I pulled a pen and tiny pad of paper from my jacket pocket. “I was wondering if I could interview you for an extra-credit AP Chem project. I’m proposing a theory that the neurological changes in the brain when we fall in love are much like the brain experiencing drug addiction.”

Dr. Gurung raised an eyebrow. “Go on,” he said, looking impressed even though I came up with the theory after a few Wikipedia clicks.

“Take dopamine,” I said. It was one of the neurotransmitters he’d supposedly studied with his grant. I sat across the table from him. “Our brains secrete dopamine when a person is in love, but also when they’re using cocaine. Dopamine is responsible for creating the reward pathways in the brain seen in drug addiction. One could argue the brain’s secretion of dopamine leads to behavior modifications: wanting
more, more, more
of something.”

If my hunch was right, if it was BuyWare’s inaudible sound frequency that created the euphoric response, it stood to reason that Public was unleashing the software to create a dopamine reward pathway by stimulating the falling-in-love feeling in the teenager’s brain. This would make teens crave more buyPhones and Beasts. More high-tech gadgets, souped-up headphones, and accessories. More buyPlayers and downloadable music.

More apps.

“Brain research supports your theory,” Dr. Gurung said. His face was open and friendly, and his dark eyes actually twinkled, like an Indian Santa Claus. “Dopamine receptors are expressed by many neurons in the brain, including in the amygdala, the primitive ‘reptile brain.’ And teenagers like you are most susceptible, because teens use the amygdala to interpret emotional information, while adults use the prefrontal cortex.”

A shiver passed through me. Teens were more susceptible to dopamine, which meant they were more susceptible to Public’s software. I thought about the way I felt in the Public store: itching with desire for more and more of their stuff. Or how I got when I was downloading music, when I needed
just one more song
. Alec Pierce and his crew knew no one would notice if a teenager’s behavior changed with a hormonal response to Public software. Craving new Public gear, or more music, would be brushed off as normal teen behavior.

I tapped my pen on the metal table, and said, “So we know drugs can stimulate dopamine and make us feel like we’re falling in love. But I was wondering if anything else could. Like, say, sound waves, or maybe an inaudible sound frequency?”

I was still staring at my notepad, trying to look relaxed even though my heart was racing. It took me a second to realize Dr. Gurung wasn’t saying anything. I glanced up to see his features harden. When our eyes met, he looked down at the table at the white space between his dark hands.
“No.”
He cleared his throat. “I do not believe hormones can be triggered by sound.”

My heart slowed. It wasn’t what I expected. “I thought you would know, because of the study you did, the one I saw in the paper, on the internet.”

Dr. Gurung’s face was a stony mask. “My research showed that sound frequencies had zero effect on hormonal changes in the brain.”

“But the paper said you proposed a theory that—”

“I found nothing.”

O
kay
. “Well, I guess that answers my questions,” I said in a fake, cheery voice. “Can I just borrow your computer for a sec?” I took a breath. I had to do this. He’d left me no choice. “I’m meeting my friend at Lisa’s Café and I totally forget how to get there from here.”

I made up a fake place so he wouldn’t offer directions. Dr. Gurung frowned, but he turned his laptop around.

I angled it so he couldn’t see the screen. “Gotta love Google maps,” I said.

I entered a URL that linked me to a backdoor application.

(A backdoor is a separate program that listens for connections—it’s the back way into a computer. And I’d hosted it on a server I’d already compromised to make secure, so it couldn’t be traced back to me. At least, not by anyone unfamiliar with network security.)

Dr. Gurung leveled his gaze on me over the top of the computer.

I smiled back. Then I downloaded the backdoor application, extracted it, and installed it on Dr. Gurung’s laptop. I disabled his firewall and antivirus software to make sure nothing was detected. I disabled the security notifications on his laptop, too, so no one knew the firewall and antivirus software was disabled.

I did all of this in less than sixty seconds.

“Thanks again for all of your help,” I said, turning the computer back around.

Dr. Gurung forced a smile I wanted to believe was real. “I wish I could have been of more assistance,” he said.

I crammed my notepad into my jacket pocket and made my way to the door. “You’ve helped me more than you know.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

chapter eighteen

A
regular person has to earn trust to pull a secret from a reluctant source. A regular person has to cajole, beg, bribe, blackmail—or worse—to get coveted information from an unwilling party. A regular person faces conspiracies and cover-ups with doors shut in her face, impenetrable walls of silence, untruths to throw her off course.

A hacker does not.

The itch to get to Hector got worse the faster I ran. My lungs burned as I sprinted the final distance across the parking lot and into the courtyard. I was so consumed by my desire to hack that I didn’t process the rusted Toyota Camry beneath the carport.

“Audrey,” a low voice said.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up like it always did, and I knew it was him.

I turned. Aidan stood silhouetted beneath an iron lamp lighting the sidewalk to our apartment complex. The shadow that spilled into the light copied his pose—hands shoved into his pockets, his body arched slightly forward, shifting his weight between his long legs.

Had he been waiting for me?

“I just got here,” he said quickly, as if he could read my mind. “But I started worrying it was too late and I’d piss your mom off if I rang the buzzer.” He sounded unsure, like that wasn’t the whole truth, but I didn’t press him. I didn’t say anything—I was too freaked out. A part of me wanted to get to my computer so I could figure out what was hidden. The other part of me wanted to go to Aidan, to lean into the crook of his body and forget about what I knew. Both choices scared me.

Aidan stepped from the light until we were both shrouded in darkness. I could feel every step he took toward me. My body felt like a magnet; the closer he came, the more I wanted him. I tilted my chin to take in his mussed hair, his alluring features. He leaned closer and I could barely breathe. I tried to remind myself that he was with Carrie, but it was hopeless. I wanted him to kiss me more than ever.

His voice was quiet when he said, “I just . . . I wanted to say I think your app should’ve made the finals.” His hands left his pockets and went to my arms. My whole body lit up. “I wanted to tell you that in person.”

I felt his words, how much he meant them. I also felt something else, something he wanted to—

“Audrey?”

My mother’s voice. The window was open.

Aidan backed away as she stared at us.

“It’s late,” she finally said.

I wanted to tell her I’d be right up but the look on her face told me she meant
now
.

“Can we talk tomorrow?” I said to Aidan. He gave me a small nod, and then turned and made his way to his car. “Thank you for saying that,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if he heard me.

I didn’t want to stand there and watch him go. So I turned and tore up the steps to our apartment. There was one thing I knew would take away the sting.

I made small talk with my mom and avoided her questions about my impromptu voyage to Notre Dame. Then I turned the light off in my bedroom so she’d think I was sleeping.