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  I moved in closer to Megan. I hugged her, and I put my face down into her neck and kissed her.

  “You’re right, of course,” I said. “And you’re married to a wuss, and you don’t deserve what I—”

  “Oh, stop it. We’re going to do this. We’re going to look into this until we either break the Store wide open or they…”

  She hesitated, just for a moment.

  “Or they what?” I said.

  “Or they kill us.”

  Chapter 22

  OUR JOBS at the fulfillment center were backbreakingly painful and mind-numbingly dull—load the Stormer with merchandise, and when the vehicle could hold no more stuff, unload it at the packing center. Then do it again and again and again and…

  Quite quickly, however, Megan’s job became much easier than mine. You see, Sam Reed, the group manager who handed out the loading assignments, had taken a very smarmy liking to Megan. So while I was usually assigned to lifting and packing cow manure, industrial-size sacks of cake flour, even barbells, Megan was mostly assigned to books, cosmetics, and greeting cards.

  Sam called Megan “my sweet Irish colleen” and “my copper-haired beauty.” He usually rested his skinny hairy hands on her shoulders when he spoke to her, and once he even suggested that it was unnecessary for her to keep the top button on her Store uniform closed. This suggestion was followed by a creepy “Guys love playing peek-a-breast.” Yeah, Sam was a class act.

  If this were another company, Megan would have been lodging a complaint with human resources, but we kept reminding each other that the long-term purpose of our jobs was to gather not just Bose headphones and Huggies and folding chairs but also information that would tell America the truth about the Store.

  Megan and I were driving home from work the day after we had barbecue with Bette and Bud.

  “Am I losing all sense of time in this crazy place?” Megan asked. “Or did we not just have dinner with Bette and Bud?”

  She was reading the evening schedule on her tablet.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Barbecue plus half a bottle of Jackie D.”

  “Well, guess what? There’s a message here. They have a seven o’clock reservation at the Minka Japanese Restaurant in town, and they’re expecting us to meet them there for dinner,” Megan said.

  “How’d they know we were free?” I asked.

  “How? You know how. Everyone’s schedule is published, and I guess we failed to put something down for seven o’clock. So they rightly assume we’re free.”

  An hour later we were sitting at the Minka with Bette and Bud as well as a huge platter of sushi, a plateful of chicken teriyaki, and some deep-fried pork cutlets. A person might lose his mind living in New Burg, but he’d never lose weight.

  “Is Minka the name of the people who own the store, do you think?” I asked.

  “No,” said Bette. “Minka is a basic farmhouse-type building style that the Japanese use. When I designed the restaurant I thought the rustic look would be very soothing.”

  “When you designed it?” Megan said. She did not do a very good job of hiding her surprise that this simple-sounding woman in her simple yellow sundress was…an architect?

  “Yep. I know I don’t seem the type. But I am an architect.”

  It turned out that Bette had planned and designed almost half the stores and restaurants in New Burg. She had a degree from Carnegie Mellon. She had done an internship at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

  “And I suppose you’re chairman of neurosurgery, Bud?” I said with a laugh.

  “Afraid not. Bette’s the brains of this duo. I’m a security guard at the chemical warehouse at the fulfillment center,” he said.

  “We drive past that warehouse on our way to work every day,” I said.

  Bud said, “Because of my security pass, me and Bette were able to get in and see you both on your first day at the job.”

  “Now, listen,” Bette said very gently. “I have a favor to ask of you two.”

  “Sure,” Megan said. “Anything.”

  “Oh, this’ll be easy,” Bette said. “Just don’t go telling other people you know that I’m the architect—”

  “Or that I’m a security guard.”

  “But other people must already know,” Megan said.

  “Some do. Some don’t,” said Bette. “We believe the less said the better. That should be the eleventh commandment in New Burg.”

  Shit! They were nervous. They were about as paranoid as anyone could be, even in New Burg. So whether they were friends or not, whether they were spies or not…I had to ask.

  “What are you two so afraid of?”

  There was a pause.

  “Everything. Absolutely everything,” Bud said.

  After that answer, there really wasn’t anything more to say.

  Near the window a drone hovered in the air. Had the window been open, the drone could have snatched a piece of sushi.

  Bette and Bud looked at each other. They smiled at each other. Then they waved hello to the drone.

  Chapter 23

  IT WAS the first week of school. And we were dreading it.

  We knew how Lindsay and Alex felt about leaving their teachers and their friends back in New York—that we’d been selfish in uprooting them. We knew because they never let us forget it.

  We also knew that as two savvy, jaded New York kids, they were bound to be negative and sarcastic about a high school in Nebraska. So we were prepared for the worst when they came home from their first day at New Burg High.

  “How was school?” Megan asked—steeling herself for the complaints, the accusations, the guilt.

  “Kind of cool,” said Alex.

  “Way cool,” Lindsay added. “Do you know that they give every kid a brand-new cell phone? Look!” She took one out of her backpack. “And we can load it up with all the apps we want—free. Anything that isn’t X-rated.”

  “Plus look—we each got our own new laptop,” Alex added. “So you can junk the one I brought with me.”

  That laptop, state of the art a year ago, didn’t hold a candle to the new one Alex had in his hands, outfitted with all the best bells and whistles Silicon Valley could create. Alex showed me that the laptop had a flexible screen that could be creased and rolled into a cylinder. When he showed me that it had “retinal access,” so you didn’t need a password, I thought I had landed in the year 2040…or maybe the year 2040 had already landed in New Burg.

  Okay. So it stood to reason that any school connected to the Store would be a mecca of high-end electronics. So much for the first day, as both kids disappeared into their rooms to explore their new gadgets.

  But day 2 surprised us even more.

  They still loved it.

  I mean…they really loved it.

  They loved it like nothing they’d ever loved before. Even the ridiculously expensive private schools they had attended back in New York.

  They loved the teachers. They loved the students. They loved the classes. They loved the school sports teams, the school colors, even the food in the cafeteria. (“Dad, they’ve even got an authentic sushi chef.”)

  As the days went on, we kept hearing about “this cool computer science teacher” and “this cool soccer coach” and “this cool girl with this really cool ladybug tattoo on the back of her neck.”

  Megan and I were silent for the first week or so. But something was clearly wrong.

  “Okay. Here goes,” Megan nervously said to me one night. “I never thought I’d say this in a million years. But I think the kids are liking school way, way too much.”

  Ordinarily we would have laughed at such a wacky observation. But she was right. And it scared us.

  “Could they be lying to make us feel good?” I asked.

  “They rarely lie. And they rarely care how we feel,” she said.

  “The other thing is that they seem to have so many more friends than they did back in New York.”

  And that was true. Alex and Lindsay were b
ringing home new friends every day. Kids with big wide smiles on big, good-looking faces. I had taken to calling them the Smileys. Smiley Jason, Smiley Andrew, Smiley Emma…

  “I know I’m going to sound like a crazy lady,” Megan said. “But teenagers shouldn’t be so happy.”

  Our kids were changed, all right. But it was starting to feel like a change for the worse.

  Our conversation came to a quick halt when Alex walked into the room.

  “Hey,” he said. “When’s dinner? I’ve got to be at my friend Nathan’s in half an hour. By the way, did Lindsay tell you about the Life Program e-mails we both got?”

  “Life Program?” Megan said as she put the vegetables in the microwave. “Sounds like a plan for healthy eating.”

  “No. It’s awesome—really,” said Alex. “We took a bunch of tests on the second day of school, and they have some people who figure out from the tests, like, what a kid would be good at. And they arrange your whole school experience—that’s what they call it. Like, for me, they said I tested really well to be a doctor. So they want me to join Chem Club and get training for the New Burg Emergency Rescue Unit and take a bunch of special bio courses. And—if you can believe it—they said that Lindsay would be, like, a marketing genius when she grows up. So she should take all these extra courses they give in—I don’t know, like, why people buy stuff and want stuff and dimbographics—”

  “Demographics,” Megan said.

  “It sounds way too early in life to start planning that sort of stuff,” I said. There was no anger in my voice, but there was certainly some anxiety in my heart.

  “It sounds great to me,” Alex said. “I mean, Dad, come on. You can’t ever get started early enough. And these people at school know what they’re doing.”

  Who was this kid talking? What happened to Alex?

  “But Alex,” Megan said. “You’re just beginning to live your life. You can’t know what you want to be or do or…”

  “Yeah? Why not, Mom? Even Lindsay agrees. It makes a lot of sense.”

  He was smiling. He was wearing the same smile I saw on his friends. It was the charming but vacant smile, the “all’s right with the world” smile. The New Burg smile.

  “Call me when the food’s on the table,” he yelled as he left.

  Alex was gone. Megan and I looked at each other. We didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

  Then I said, “Okay. Okay. I know it sounds a little crazy. But maybe we’re overreacting. This could be a very good thing. It makes some sense.”

  “I kinda disagree. Jacob, the thing is called Life Program. Lindsay and Alex are kids. They’re barely adolescents. And they’re being programmed. For life!”

  “Let’s stay calm. Like I said, it could be a good thing.”

  “Do you really think so?” Megan asked.

  I shook my head. Confused. Concerned.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Megan spoke again.

  “Are they trying to take our kids away from us?”

  I shook my head again.

  “That’s crazy, right? I mean…they couldn’t really do that. Could they?”

  Could they?

  The microwave beeped. Megan called to Alex and Lindsay. They came running in quickly.

  Both of them were smiling.

  Chapter 24

  THERE WAS a good reason why Megan and I had been selected to “help out” at the Special Arts Gathering. But we didn’t know it at the time.

  The shindig was to be held in the Executive Reception Hall. The guests: big-deal artists, designers, writers, and philosophers as well as some of the seldom-seen movers and shakers from the world of the Store.

  The Executive Reception Hall was a dead ringer for Versailles: Fragonard-style murals, ornate (and probably authentic) Louis XIV furniture, gold-and-crystal chandeliers. At one end of the huge room was a stage with a lectern.

  Mingling among the celebrities were around a hundred people who worked at the Store. I recognized nobody, but they were easy to spot. They all wore electronic ID badges that read: I’M WITH THE STORE. WELCOME.

  After the guests had their fill of Champagne and hors d’oeuvres, the chandeliers flickered and the guests took their seats. Megan and I and the other six “helpers” scurried around like rats, collecting dirty plates, glasses, and napkins. Then we stood behind the seated assembly and watched.

  A very attractive young woman wearing a very attractive navy-blue suit approached the lectern.

  “Isabel Toledo,” Megan whispered to me.

  “That’s her name?” I whispered back.

  Megan rolled her eyes.

  “No, idiot. That’s who designed her suit.”

  “Oh.”

  “The Store Talks to the Arts lectures have been a huge success so far,” she said. “Today, for the fifth in the series, we’re delighted to have with us Dr. David Werner, the world-renowned economist and Kinkaid professor of economics at Harvard University.”

  The woman recited a few more of Dr. Werner’s credentials and ended with this: “Dr. Werner’s talk is entitled ‘The Hidden and Surprising Influence of Art and Music on the Economic Recovery.’”

  Then Dr. Werner took the stage: a frail-looking man of around seventy-five in a dark gray suit and bright blue bow tie.

  We would quickly discover that there was nothing frail about him.

  At first he said nothing. He took his time surveying the audience, his face stern, his head moving slowly from left to right. Then he spoke.

  “I have been called upon to speak about art and music. And I am sure we would all enjoy a discussion on such noble pleasures. But that’s not what I’m going to talk about. And if you don’t like what I have to say, well, that’s just too damn bad.”

  A few in the crowd looked at one another, some with concern, some with confusion. The woman who had introduced Dr. Werner abruptly stood from her front-row seat and left the auditorium. Dr. Werner continued.

  “Let me make my point very clear at the outset.” There was a pause. Then his voice boomed out over the crowd.

  “I don’t like you! At all! Any of you!”

  There were a few scattered laughs in the audience. But Werner quickly silenced them with a swat of his hand.

  “No—don’t laugh,” he continued. “In fact…” Another pause, and then even louder than before, “You all sicken me. This place sickens me. The Store makes me puke.”

  People in the audience looked at one another. Eyebrows shot up. Mouths shot open. A murmur. A few whispers.

  I heard someone say, “It must be a joke.”

  But something inside me knew this was not a joke. This fire-and-brimstone preacher was there to preach.

  The question was, would anyone other than Megan and I agree with him?

  “Just look at the evil that you and the Store have unleashed,” he shouted. “Not content to manipulate the general public by underselling and eliminating all competition in a free capitalist system, you and the Store have also become the world’s primary gatherer of personal and private customer information.”

  The murmurs were growing louder. An occasional hiss shot out of the audience. I heard some hearty angry boos.

  “The Store has captured the minds and wallets of America because it follows and records everything Americans do. They know what people search for, long for. They know and analyze everything people do online—whether tawdry or respectable. They know what Americans eat and when they eat it. They know what people watch and when they watch it. They even know when people screw and whom they screw…”

  Megan and I looked at each other in amazement. This Werner guy was hurling bombs of truth at the audience—things we truly believed.

  But the audience was having none of it. Two hulking thugs in cheap black suits appeared at either side of the stage.

  But Dr. Werner wouldn’t let up. With every sentence, he left Megan and me with faster heartbeats and happier hearts.

  “The Store has lobbyists in Washing
ton, DC, that number in the thousands,” he said. “And a network of spies and counterspies who have infiltrated every state in the union, perhaps every country in the world,” he added.

  “I can only assume that the most basic protective agencies of government—organizations such as the FBI and the CIA—are complicit.”

  Megan and I looked around. Many in the audience were standing, shouting at Werner, “Get the hell out of here.” Those who stayed seated were stamping their feet.

  “And worst of all,” he began—but he never got to finish.

  The two black-suited thugs rushed toward him and lifted him up by his armpits, hauling him offstage. As he tried to wriggle out of their grasp, the audience cheered.

  “Don’t say anything, Jacob,” Megan said. “Don’t look at him. Don’t look at me. Don’t smile. Let’s just clear these dishes as if nothing had happened.”

  Of course she was right. Even the slightest reaction on our part could betray us as the rebels we knew we were.

  “But I’ve got to meet this guy.”

  I worked my way to the front of the huge room, to the door that led to an offstage area. The pretty woman in the blue suit was in serious conversation with the two beefy-looking guys who had carried Werner off.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I was wondering if you could direct me to Dr. Werner.”

  The three of them looked at one another for a moment.

  “He’s gone,” the first man said.

  “I know. I saw him…uh…leave the stage. I was hoping I could—”

  “Gone,” said the second man.

  “Well, do you happen to know which way he went? Maybe there’s a chance I could—”

  “No,” the woman said, cutting me off. She made a gesture with her hand.

  “Dr. Werner…is not with us anymore.”

  Chapter 25

  It’s 1984 All Over Again!

  Barbecue at Bette and Bud’s

  Sunday, 5:00 p.m.

  That was Bette and Bud’s e-vite.

  Megan’s reaction was the same as mine.

  “Did it ever stop being 1984 in New Burg?” she asked.