Read The Vault of Dreamers for Free Online Page B

on my bagel.
    “Can I have your swizzle sticks, Henrik?” Janice asked.
    Henrik passed them over. “Why?”
    “I like them,” Janice said.
    “They’ve got a whole can of them over by the coffee,” Henrik said.
    “I like them used. That way they’re not wasted,” Janice said, drying them daintily
     on a napkin.
    “What do you do here?” Henrik asked her.
    “I’m an actor, obviously ,” Janice said, drawling out the word. “Speaking of the cuts,” she added, reverting
     to normal, “I heard people can hack into the Forge Show database and falsify the blip ranks.”
    “Like who?” I asked.
    “Backers and advertisers,” Janice said. “Gamblers.”
    “Everything’s encrypted,” Burnham said. “The computer security has a ton of layers,
     and they change the encryptions regularly so people can’t hack in.”
    “How do you know about it?” I asked.
    He shrugged.
    “Have you tried to hack in?” I asked.
    His gaze met mine. “I have cameras on me all the time,” he said. “When would I have
     the chance to try?”
    “You could have tried before you came here,” Paige pointed out.
    “That would be highly unethical, wouldn’t it?” he said.
    He wasn’t saying it was beyond his abilities, though.
    I sucked a dab of cream cheese off my thumb. “If a person wanted to influence the
     blip ranks legally, would there be a way to do it?” I asked.
    “Sure,” Burnham said. “One way would be a group effort. We have a lot of influence
     ourselves, actually. If the five of us made a direct appeal to our viewers and asked
     them, point blank, to start following one person, that person would gain a major chunk
     of our viewers all at the same time. They’d see a serious spike in their blip rank.”
    “Could we try it?” I asked.
    They all turned to me, and I felt a knot of apprehension. I was way too uncool.
    “Never mind,” I said quickly. “Forget it.”
    “No. It’s not a bad idea,” Burnham said slowly. He studied me a moment. “The effect
     would be even more conspicuous with a low-ranking student, and, no offense, Rosie’s
     rank is low.”
    Paige laughed, sitting back. “You want us to endorse little Miss Rosie here?”
    “Why not?” Burnham asked.
    “I don’t even know her,” Paige said. “Why should I use my influence for her?”
    Burnham smiled easily, but there was an edge to his voice. “You may be an elitist
     snob, but you’re also interested in a social experiment.”
    Paige considered me with her black-rimmed gaze as if I were some seven-legged bug.
    “You guys don’t have to,” I said. “Really.”
    “Why? Is it mortifying to be a guinea pig?” Paige asked. “Let’s all do it at once.”
    “It’s not mortifying, Rosie. It’s just an experiment. Let’s try it!” Janice said.
     “What do we do? Hold hands?”
    Henrik was shaking his head at Burnham. “Man, you are something.”
    “Keep it simple. Just look right at one of the cameras,” Burnham said. “Ask your viewers,
     straight up, to check out Rosie’s feed. Ready? On your mark, get set, go.”
    The four of them each turned to a different camera button and recited some version
     of “Follow Rosie.”
    Burnham slid his phone into the center of the tabletop and pulled up my Forge profile.
     Everyone hunched over it to see, and correspondingly, my profile showed us all hunching
     together. My blip rank put me in 82nd place. Then it jumped to 80, and then 78. It
     hovered there a moment. On the wall across the dining room, the big blip rank board
     began to flicker again with another update. I turned to watch it, holding my breath,
     as the numbers and letters spun, and when they settled, my blip rank was up to 69.
    I let out a laugh of disbelief.
    “My rank’s up, too,” Henrik said. “So is Paige’s. We all went up.”
    Paige was gaping at the big board. “Burnham’s at number nine.” She turned to him.
     “Unbelievable.”
    He shrugged.
    “Does this mean we all just got spikes for