Please Report Your Bug Here by Josh Riedel

Author:Josh Riedel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

* * *

On the way home, I slouched in my BART seat and tried to silence my thoughts, listening only to the whoosh of the train through the tunnel—but the whoosh was pierced by a familiar voice. Standing by the doors ahead of me were Soren and Noma, along with two other Yarbons. I slouched lower in my seat. They wouldn’t have seen me anyway: all of them, including Soren, were focused only on Soren. Though I couldn’t hear his story, I swear he said the word “ultimately” approximately thirty times. He held on to a strap above Noma, so that his sweaty armpit was in her face. To avoid a confrontation, at my stop I exited from the back of the train. But as I climbed the stairs out of the station, I heard the voice again. “Ultimately, we’ll disrupt the disruptors,” Soren said. I rushed up the stairs and sneaked around a corner to wait. What were they doing in the Mission? Noma never visited me here. Under cover of night, I followed them down Mission Street, close enough behind to hear snippets of conversation. Outside La Taqueria, Noma said, “This taqueria is my all-time fav.” She’d never come to eat here with me, no matter how many times I asked. I wasn’t even aware she’d been to La Taqueria before. As I tried to process what was happening, one of the Yarbons I didn’t know nodded at me. Soren and Noma turned around. “Evan, buddy!” Soren said.

Noma elbowed him. “Hey, Ethan.”

“Should’ve told me you’d be in the neighborhood.” I didn’t mean to sound passive-aggressive, but I guess San Francisco was wearing off on me, or Missouri was still with me.

“I’m on BART all the time now,” Noma said. “It’s not as out-of-the-way as it used to be.”

Soren put his arm around Noma. “I have a little studio off Potrero.”

Noma broke away from the group. “Give us a minute,” she told the Yarbons. We stepped back out to Mission Street. “Look, Soren doesn’t know we talk as much as we do. It’s nothing personal—we just do what we can to limit the number of outsiders.”

“I’m not an outsider.”

“I know that, but those guys don’t. I mean, look.” She tapped my ID badge, clipped to my pants. “Let’s meet up soon. Just me and you.”

As Noma turned to join her new crew, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Someone else went there, before the acquisition,” I blurted out.

“Noma, you want your usual?” Soren asked.

Noma stayed focused on me. “Yuna,” she said.

“I reached out to her, but she won’t talk to me.”

“I analyzed her activity,” Noma said. “It’s possible she crossed paths with Ting.”

“Noma!” Soren called. “What do you want?”

“We can’t talk about this here,” Noma said. “I’ll text.” She turned back to Soren.

I slid my badge into my pocket. It was impossible for me to stand outside La Taqueria this long without ordering a burrito, but I couldn’t go inside. I ordered an inferior burrito to go at a taqueria down the street.

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