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cyberworld?” I didn’t answer her because this wasn’t a question. It was more like an opinion she felt obligated to voice on a daily basis. Sometimes I wondered how she and my dad could stand being in the same room together, let alone be married. While my dad was trying to digitalize all of civilization, my mom was equally determined to humanize it.
    “Your father had to go out of town this morning,” she said.
    My head automatically perked up at this news. When Dad left town it was as if a strangling collar was unfastened from my neck.
    She noticed my reaction and frowned. “He’s your father, Madeline, not your prison guard.” She shook her head and told me she couldn’t help overhearing our conversation last night.
    “It wasn’t a conversation,” I said with a scowl. “Conversations are two-sided, which Dad doesn’t seem to understand.”
    The only person who had ever been on my side was my mom. She believed digital school had gone too far. That it was an institution. But she also loved my dad and respected his vision to make the world a safer place.
    “I wish he could let it go,” I said. “I’m never going to steal from him again. I promise.”
    She nodded. “I know.”
    My mom and I had gone over my Rebellion a thousand times. When I was fifteen years old, I met of group of people online who were planning a protest against digital school. They wanted the confidential coordinates for all the radio towers in the country used to distribute the digital school signal. These files were only accessible to a handful of people, my father, obviously, being one of them.
    I used the computer in his office to hack into his government folders. I still don’t know what motivated me to go behind his back. Maybe I was just being rebellious; maybe it was a challenge to see if I could actually access his confidential files. Or maybe, in my gut, I felt like I was missing out on something. I knew there was more to life than a pixelated curtain. There was a wide, expansive world all around me and I was confined to live inside such a narrow one. And I wanted to break free.
    I sent the protesters the information, thinking they would use it to contact students and parents to spread a message about fighting digital school. Instead, they used it in an attempt to destroy the radio towers and sabotage the entire digital system. They were caught after blowing up a tower outside of Portland, which provided DS to the entire state of Oregon. Before the protesters could be stopped, coordinates were leaked out and two more towers were bombed in California.
    Shortly after the bombings, police tracked the leak to my father’s computer. He was investigated for treason and could have gone to jail for what I did. It just so happened that the man in charge of the jurisdiction for the case was Damon Thompson, who is conveniently my dad’s best friend. I immediately confessed and they agreed privately on my sentence – three years of probation – lasting until I was eighteen. If I stayed clean until then, my record would be cleared and my father and I would both be free from the repercussions of my Rebellion.
    In the meantime, everything I do is censored. Every person I talk to online is tapped, all my websites are monitored. Even my cell phone lines are screened. My dad receives daily reports of every website I use, every person I talk to. It’s understood by me, Damon, and my parents that if I ever violate probation, I’ll go straight to a detention center for crimes committed against digital school.
    My mom’s more lenient with me, because she thinks my rebellious side is partly her fault. She’s always encouraged me to see the world beyond a screen, the world unplugged, as she likes to call it.
    She pressed her hand over mine. “Your father just wants you to realize that no amount of power is worth having when it means hurting the people you love.”
    I looked at her and raised my eyebrows. “Maybe you should tell him to take