Read Online Middle Ground by Katie Kacvinsky - Free Book Online Page A

blocked the wind. I could smell the dusty rocks and the salt water and I could hear the water lapping the sides of the bank hundreds of feet below.
    We ordered, and then after the waitress brought our drinks, Justin asked Jeremy how he escaped from the cops. “What did you mean when you said you were paranoid enough to get away?” he asked him.
    Jeremy took a sip from his drink. “I’ll die before I go into a detention center,” he stated, and his hard eyes said he meant it. “My best friend was sent to one last year. He lived next door and we hung out all the time with a couple of kids in my neighborhood. We all hated DS. He was in the detention center for only three months.”
    “What happened to him?” Justin asked.
    “I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “He’s home, and we’ve talked, but I haven’t seen him. He says he’s fine and he’s happy but he won’t meet me face-to-face. I stopped by his house once, and he wouldn’t even leave his room to talk to me. We talked through a wall screen. And his parents say he’s cured. But if being cured means dying like that, I don’t want it,” he said. “So I keep a tranquilizer gun in my room. I sleep with it. I carry it everywhere, just in case. I had it with me when the cops showed up.”
    Matt nodded. “We’ve done virtual interviews with former DC students. That’s all they agree to—they refuse to meet in person, even though some of them used to lead face-to-face groups.”
    “And they all claim they’re fine,” Justin added. “But most of them are on antianxiety meds. It doesn’t translate. No one who works at a DC is willing to talk either. It’s the one system we haven’t been able to hack into.”
    Jeremy looked around the table nervously, as if he thought we all expected something out of him.
    “Listen, I really appreciate you all helping me out, but don’t think I’m going to join your side or anything.”
    “It’s not a side,” Justin said. “It’s a state of mind.”
    “Okay, whatever you want to call it, it’s pointless. You know that, right?”
    “Pointless?” I asked.
    “Yeah. It’s like having a local food drive to end world hunger. Your heart might be in the right place, but really, you’re not even making a dent in the problem.”
    “I don’t want to make a dent. I want to inspire a revolution,” Justin clarified.
    Jeremy smirked. “You can’t fight digital school,” he argued. “It’s the law. You might as well overthrow the government while you’re at it.”
    I narrowed my eyes at this but Justin only looked amused.
    “You’re right,” I said. “We might as well quit. We’ll just drop you off at the detention center on our way home.”
    Jeremy’s smirk faded. “All I’m saying is remember who you’re up against. It’s not just the digital school; it’s our society in general. And the government doesn’t budge. It takes politicians twenty years to pass a new speed-limit law. You think you’re going to change DS anytime soon? Good luck.”
    I watched Justin but he didn’t look discouraged. When people argued about his mission, it only fueled him. He seemed to thrive on proving people wrong.
    “So how come no one intercepted
me?
” Jeremy asked.
    “We have to be selective these days,” Justin said. “So many people are getting arrested we can’t keep up. We intercept only people we think will join us. No offense,” he added, “but someone who repeatedly gets busted for cheating isn’t high on our list of people we want to recruit.”
    The waitress delivered a pizza, which she set on a metal stand in the center of our table. We passed plates around and scooped up slices, and the yellow cheese pulled apart like string.
    “So what are you going to do if you actually win?” Jeremy asked.
    “I’ll have my freedom back,” Justin said simply. “You think you’re free? You’re not. You live in a computer system. And you’re conditioned to think it’s the best thing for you. When it comes