Trouvaille (n.) A lucky find.

Metas POV.

The next day at the end of school I was sitting near the Mexican cantina hatch again. I had got my phone back and while I waited I took a picture of the weird little pretend cantina in the middle of the atrium. I held the phone under the table. I could see ghosts of pictures. The last one was the cantina. I could see the way the upper-level walkways got to close to it. After school, I was tired. We hand remedial literacy. Faking not reading was almost as exhausting as not reading.

"What you doing?" Hannah asked me as she passed by. She smiled - she was such a wonderful person. Funny, sensitive, the light of the room when she was up.

"Magic trick," I said.

"oh I love tricks. Show me." Hannah said. 

"Take a photo of anything in this room. But don't show me."

I closed my eyes. I heard a click.

"OK. Put your phone back in your pocket." I said.

I looked at her. I felt I could reach out with my mind and see the photos on her phone. The phone felt worn. It had been thrown across the room some times in a fit of rage. It had been wet with tears. It had fragments of beautiful poetry she wrote on it.

I put my finger to my head. The photos scrolled through my mind.

"I see, I see" I pretended. "Was it of your bag?" I asked.

Hannah's eyes light up. She turned her phone on and opened the image to show me.

"Wow, that's good."

Mentally I looked at Hannah's other pictures. Along with the ghostly images. I could also sense information about the photograph. There was one which had been looked at more than the others. It was a selfie of Hannah's arms around Brooklyn.

"that's quite a neat trick." Hannah said. "you should be on TV."

I smiled I was greatful she didn't ask me how it was done.  "I don't think people like us get on TV these days. Not unless it's on CCTV. On a crime show. You hanging well?"

Hannah pulled a face "I can feel like on the way up."

"That's good isn't that?"

Hannah waved her Head casually. "No, I'm frightened. I'm on my way up which means, sooner or later I'm going to be on my way down. Things can get bad then. The highs are getting high. The lows well are starting to scare me. The drugs make me... I know its weird and ungrateful but like I'm kind of dead inside. All my ideas are stolen by them. I can't think  you know?"

I smiled "Yyour're going to be fine." I promised, "we are here for you."

Hannah tilted her head slightly. "we should swap numbers."

I looked at her number floated in white in mid air next to her hand "isn't yours 555 4534 34311?"

Just then her phone started to ring. She pulled it out of the bag.

"oh, it's you." She said.

I pulled my own phone out to discover it had magically dialled her number.

"I think my ass loves you even if I don't," I said. My sass covered my confusion. I was just thinking about her number and my phone coincidently dialled her? I wasn't even sure I how I knew it.

Just then Valerie turned up. Hannah was getting a lift home with Valerie's folks, so the two said goodbye and departed.

Later I saw warden Craven walking with Zoe. Zoe looked like she was some kind of zombie. I stared at Craven's chest again and felt my mind burrowing into his phone. I was slightly afraid of myself. On the one hand, I knew this was completely impossible. On the other hand, I knew I had just done it with Hannah's phone. Looking again I saw new pictures. Craven had taken new photos of Zoe. The pictures were fresh. She was showing her naked breasts. One had a picture of cravings hand reaching out. Reaching to the solemn-eyed girl in the picture. It was a portrait of a trapped bird sealed tightly in a cage. There was disgust, and it seemed mostly for her self. She tried not to look at the camera. Always looking off, like a child in a ship looking out to sea.

I couldn't look at the picture for long. I didn't know what to do. On the one hand, I felt I was just being completely insane. This was some bizarre psychotic episode. Believing you can look into closed phones seems so nutty I could hardly believe it. Flicking an index finger I noticed other pictures. This time of other girls, not Zoe. Zoe wasn't the first girl Craven had begun to groom. I felt how trapped Zoe was. Who can I tell? Who in their right mind would believe me? I wasn't even sure how to talk to Zoe about it.

What would she think if I told her about the photographs? She was clearly ashamed of them already. Having someone know about them would feel like posting the images on the Internet. Perhaps she would think that Craven had told me to do it. That would be worse.

If I tried to do something about him no one would believe me and who could do anything about a warden?

I suddenly had the idea that if I could figure out what room they were in I could possibly catch him at it next time. Then I could prevent things from going any further.

"What are you staring at?" Warden Sallalsa said.

I blinked and turned around. I had been concentrating so much I had lost sight of what was around me.

"Nothing," I said looking around.

"I know guilty eyes when I see them." Warden Sallalsa said looking around like a searchlight.

I had met this warden when I been moved down to the lowest reading group. There were a couple of book-blinds there but most of them were people with deep learning difficulties. One, Dan had Down's syndrome and needed a huge amount of help. Sallalsa treated him like he was nothing. He had come close to slapping Dan a couple of times. Dan was terrified of him.

Looking at Sallalsa's chest I could see another phone. This one, like most postwar phones, had a cracked screen. He had bought it second hand in a flea market downtown. It was almost as if I could see a tiny connection between his in the thin line of glowing golden honey linking to Craven. Sallalsa had a couple of pictures of Dan on all fours crawling on the floor with a makeshift dog lead about his neck. There was another of Sallalsa smiling looking like he was once riding Dan. 

Warden Sallalsa also had movies of his daughter at a school play. Photos of his wife. I his Facebook account had a huge amount of activity. He was a supporter of the Freedom party.

This kind of made sense. The Freedom party under the leadership of Mason Kane took the lead in blaming all the countries problems on the disabled. The ruling Permanence party thought the same but wouldn't say some of the things Mason Kane said. Most people believed that all the shortages, lack of jobs and high taxes were all due to the impaired. They believed that years of soft living had weakened the people of the country. While many believed things like autism were caused by vaccination they had active campaigns to stop people with autism for marrying. That was the current big argument in the news. A court had ordered that the marriage of two people with autism was technically illegal. A case had been brought where an autistic couple had their marriage annulled and license to have children revoked. I had been shocked to learn that the court was actively trying to decide if one or both partners should be sterilised to stop them from having children.

Manson Kane was on every TV channel he could get on to spread his message of hate. I would sit there as my parents simultaneously disapprove of what he said, but silent begin to agree with him. The Permanent's party was losing voters to Mason Kane's eugenics 'Freedom' party. From his Facebook account, It looked like Warden Sallalsa had made the jump to being a full Kane supporter.

"Hey," said Brooklyn as he arrived ahead of Collin.

I nodded back "Whads up?"

"He needs to take his bag when he leaves," Sallalsa said to me leaving.

This was something else I was finding annoying. The warders would treat Brooklyn like he was a huge toddler. They would speak to me like I was his or Colin's mother. They would tell me that ramp on the west side was broken with Brooklyn right in front of them. They did expect? I was just going to relay the information to him.

With everyone gone I sat down to talk. To Brooklyn

"I think Craven is taking pictures of Zoe."

Brooklyn looked at me with a face like a twisted question mark.

I glanced around. "Bad pictures... of Zoe. The wrong kinds of pictures."

"Fucker" Brooklyn said, "What did Zoe say?"

"I don't know. I haven't asked her. I think that's why she's been down over the last few days."

Brooklyn fixed me with those solid eyes of his.

"We have to stop him. This is sick."

I liked the way he just believed me, without reservation. He was totally with me.

"hell.....o" said Collin arriving and the hum of his electric motor dying down.

"We will figure this out later," Brooklyn said.

"wh..ar..t?" Collin stumbled out.

Brooklyn went back up on two wheels. "Homework. I'm helping her." He lied.

I wondered how to tell Brooklyn about how I knew about the photos. Would he believe me or think what I thought - which was I was having some weird psychotic episode. I was completely sure I could see into people's phones. Would I think I could hear alien's whispering next? I did hear voices some times.

Brooklyn and Collin got waved at from the entrance. Colin's parents had arrived. So with a see you tomorrow they drifted off. I sat quietly on my own again, my parents were stuck in traffic. Again I could feel them stalled on 12th Street. I didn't know how it was just a confident guess. I imagined the lights changing. A self-driving car was stuck in the junction turning right, confused by something holding the other traffic up.

Now on my own, I could hear the voices. They seemed to be coming from the side of the room. I got up and drifted towards the sound. Eventually, I ended up standing where the voices were loudest. Looking up I noticed I was standing under a wifi router. It was largely white and with the words 'GOV SYS do not tamper, Federal fines for those that do' writen on it. For me, I could see a glow around it.

I concentrated and heard a bunch of short messages with emoji. I knew I was going mad. I could hear wifi. Perhaps I was wrong about Craven and Zoe. The fact I could ask that question showed I wasn't completely mad right?. Just then I heard a voice.

'From Institute director. All leave for the visit of the scanner is cancelled'. It whispered. The voice came from the wifi router.

I wondered. Then a thought grabbed me like a rescue dog in deep snow. Both Zoe, Hannah and Valerie were given drugs. Perhaps they were feeding me something? Perhaps the voices were the side effect? I smiled to my self. Was my world so bad that being secretly drugged was a good thing? Yes, it was.

I felt my parents turn the corner and drive into the auto-entrance so I picked up my bag and left to look for them.