by Joan He
“You know, I can almost see the resemblance.” Then she raised a hand—“See you around”—walked past, and Kasey relaxed, grateful Yvone had left it at that.
Meridian was understandably more baffled. “Uh, racist much?”
To be fair, Meridian and Kasey’s geo-genetic profiles differed by a mere 7%. While cultural identities were preserved within families, the arctic melt had irrevocably reshaped society. Rising sea levels had caused continents to contract into territories, and people from different countries aggregated in whichever eco-city levitated above their general region.
But Kasey couldn’t defend Yvone. She could only play along. “Look at her,” Meridian muttered, and Kasey did, turning as they left the locker room to glance at Yvone’s projected ID, having missed it before. “Strutting around when she just moved here.”
YORKWELL, YVONE
Rank: 67,007
The rank, while low, wasn’t what Kasey focused on. Rather it was the last name, familiar.
Where had she seen it before?
“I heard they applied to eco-city seven but got rejected,” Meridian said as the fourth period bell rang, classroom doors opening and discharging students into the halls. They joined the tide of flesh students coursing to the cafeteria. “Makes you wonder how they got admitted to ours,” Meridian muttered as they picked up their protein cubes. Then, while getting their nutritional IV poles: “Bet they’re plants. What?” she asked as Kasey motioned for her to lower her voice.
“Synths.” It was the proper term for people who’d undergone genetic modification to synthesize their own glucose from carbon and water, a process twice as efficient as intravenous nutrient delivery.
“You’re missing my point,” Meridian grumbled as nursebots inserted the IVs into their arms. “It’s just not fair. My moms were up all last night trying to calm Auntie Ling down. Before you ask: application deferred again. Can you believe it?”
Kasey could. Meridian’s relatives in Territory 4 had been trying to immigrate to the eco-cities for the better part of a year now, but they couldn’t outrun one great-great-grandfather’s legacy in the pesticide industry. No matter how cleanly they lived in the present, the damage to their rank was irreversible. Well, almost. Becoming photosynthetic was one way to boost rank by a factor of ten within a single generation. Kasey would have advised it—would have GMOed herself, in Meridian’s position—except like most of Kasey’s thoughts, it’d probably be taken as insensitive and offensive, so she kept it to herself.
“I’m sorry,” she offered instead, the words useless.
“I mean, not like you can help, right?” said Meridian as they rolled their IV poles to the cafeteria courtyard, open-air—to the extent that it offered a view of the stratum directly overhead. Its underside, or undersky, drifted with clouds today, casting simulated gray light over the tables. As Kasey scanned for open seats, a shout rose.
“Lan! Over here!” A boy waved at them from a table of five.
“Seriously?” said Meridian, rolling over to the group. “Don’t tell me you’re skipping.”
“Dr. Mirasol let us go if we finished early,” said Sid, the one who’d shouted.
“Uh-uh,” said Meridian, skeptical. “A whole lunch block early? Did you even check your work?”
One of the girls snorted. “What do you think?”
“Not my fault I’m a genius,” said Sid.
Meridian rolled her eyes, then turned to Kasey. “Do you mind?”
Kasey quickly shook her head (the only socially acceptable response) and tried to come up with an excuse to remove herself, but Sid was already patting the space next to him, also leaving her no choice in that regard.
“Yo, Mizuhara,” he said as she sat. “How are you these days? Up to anything shady? Kidding, kidding!” he said as Meridian glared at him.
“Fine, thanks,” said Kasey, then nodded at the other faces around the table. Two familiar, two new, all from the science team Kasey was an ex-member of. Outside of the lab, they’d lost touch. Only Meridian had continued to sit at Kasey’s lunch table after the science ban, placing down her tray loudly every day as if she were taking a stand on something controversial. She really didn’t need to do that. Kasey was happy by herself. But word somehow reached Celia—tell me about your new friend—and Kasey reminded herself that having a lunch buddy was a pro, not a con. Social circle size was correlated with life span. She was the outlier, for being happier when the conversation at the table proceeded as if she wasn’t there, topics bouncing from complaints about teachers to competition prep. Meridian shared news of her extended family’s deferral and everyone booed. “Who do I have to kill?” asked Sid, earning himself a smack from Meridian, then a grudging smile. People, Kasey noted, overreacted to signal their care. They cried and laughed and vowed revenge on the ones who hurt them. Finding completion in self-destruction, searching for the nonexistent, hoping and dreading in equal measure—
Ding.
Inbox: (1) new message
—comprised the miserable, helpless human experience Kasey didn’t particularly want to take part in, but was sucked into anyway when she opened the message.
From Actinium. One word, no punctuation.
ready
No, Kasey wanted to say. Not ready. Except it wasn’t a question.
Ready. Celia’s Intraface was ready.
“—demonstration later. Oh shit,” Sid said as Kasey looked up, bleary-eyed as if she’d just resurfaced from a 200 meter breaststroke. “I forgot we have a P2C officer here.”
“Behave yourself,” Meridian said to Sid, then to Kasey: “Linscott Horn is speaking on stratum-25 today.”
“After school,” added one of the girls. “We’re picketing.”
“What century are you from?” asked Sid, chomping into his protein cube. “Hacking,” he mumbled through the mouthful. “Gonna disable everyone’s rank. That will show Horn his bigotry isn’t welcome here.” He winked at Kasey. “Could use some help from a pro.”
“Sid,” said Meridian, a warning in her voice. “Cut it out.”
“Just messing around.”
“Well, it’s not funny,” Meridian snapped before Kasey could say it was fine.
An uncomfortable silence fell. No one spoke of it, but everyone had to be thinking about Kasey’s science sanctions. Hacking was strictly forbidden. It was for everyone, but especially for Kasey. The presets on her Intraface monitored her compliance just like the presets on her biomonitor. One toe over the line, and P2C would know.
“Sorry, I can’t,” Kasey said, breaking the silence. She removed the IV from her arm and rolled her blazer sleeve back down. “I have plans.”
“See?” said Sid, nudging Meridian. “She’s in high demand.”
The tension dissipated. The conversation resumed. Meridian caught Kasey’s eye and mouthed, Thank you. As far as she knew, Kasey had lied to clear the air.
If only that were so.
• • •
This was Kasey’s lie: She had no plans of going after school.
She left during study hall. Took the nearest duct down. Her classmates wouldn’t notice her absence. Her teachers might, but it’d be her first strike. She’d survive detention, she thought as she pushed through the stratum-22 crowds, if she could survive this.
“Not again!” cried the tattooist when Kasey burst into GRAPHYC and cut straight to the back stairwell. The door at the top was cracked open. She entered without knocking.
Unit, empty. She looked up and found Actinium overhead, on the ceiling, sitting before a low tabletop laid with two objects. One holograph projector, and a smaller device emitting a web of laser beams at the center of which, suspended like a gnat, was the white kernel.
Celia’s Intraface, exposed to the world. Kasey’s scalp tingled. She became cognizant of her physical state: sweaty and out of sorts, composure sorely lacking.
Unlike him. “You’re early.” His voice pervaded space like a radioactive element. He rose; the table retr
acted. He strode to the top of the stasis pod—or bottom, from his perspective, and started to climb the makeshift rungs. The gravitational force reversed halfway between the ceiling and the ground, and by one arm he swung, released, and landed on his feet.
The move had clearly been perfected through practice. The touch down, soundless. Still, the impact traveled through the soles of Kasey’s shoes. She took a step back. “You messaged.”
“You have class,” said Actinium, his tone flat.
Kasey crossed her arms. She may have seemed like the studious type, but she wasn’t any more inclined to school than she was to people, nor did she see how her school life was any of his business. “How long?” she asked, piqued.
“Ten more minutes.”
Ten minutes too long, then. The unit suddenly didn’t feel big enough for both of them. “I’ll wait . . .” Kasey started, and trailed off as Actinium went to the fuel-bar, opened a cupboard, and took out a cannister labeled TEA and two glass mugs.
. . . outside.
As he tapped boiling water into the mugs, Kasey analyzed him, looking for the traits Celia favored. Tall? Check. Dark haired and dark eyed? Check. Shoulder to waist ratio? There, Kasey paused. He’d seemed better built yesterday, at the end of her REM, but now she saw it was due to his posture. He was actually on the slighter side in terms of stature, Kasey concluded as Actinium turned around, handed her a mug, and leaned back against the fuel-bar with his own.
The silence grew into an unfinished breath. An unspoken name. Contradictory as it may have been, Kasey became convinced that the space, too small for the two of them, was made for three. It needed Celia. She needed Celia. Needed advice on what to say to the boy across from her, the common ground between them strong enough, in theory, to withstand any faux pas Kasey made and yet . . . she was scared. Scared of revealing that she grieved less. Understood less. Cared less, compared to Actinium.
She blew on her tea. It did not cool any faster. The law of thermodynamics didn’t bend for her. The world, as usual, turned fine without her. Remembering that gave her the courage to finally speak.
“How long did you know her?” she asked at the same time Actinium asked, “Do you have any questions?”
Awkward. “That is my question.”
Actinium didn’t reply. Kasey was normally the one who discomfited people with her silences, but now she found herself in uncharted territory. “I looked you up,” she said, and could have smacked herself.
“And?”
And she’d found nothing. Without hacking, she was as limited as anyone else. “You’re a private person.” She had to stop stating the obvious around him. “So I won’t pry.” Even though she already had. “I just wanted to know . . .”
How long I didn’t know.
Actinium glanced down at his mug, concealing his gaze. “Years.”
She’d had no idea. Kasey brought the mug’s rim to her lips. The tea scalded like her shame. It was too nosy to ask how they’d met. Too nosy to ask anything about their relationship. What else, what else? She tugged at the collar of her school blazer—and it came to her.
“You’re not in school.” SILVERTONGUE chimed. “Either,” Kasey added to appease it.
“Not anymore,” said Actinium.
“When did you graduate?”
“I didn’t.” Wasn’t this going well. “I dropped out seven years ago,” Actinium added, saving Kasey from herself, “right before junior high.”
Info: acquired. He was somewhere between her age, sixteen, and Celia’s, eighteen. Kasey took a great gulp of tea—and choked when Actinium said, “You don’t need to force yourself.”
Then he nodded at her mug. “I was presumptuous,” he said, and for a moment, Kasey thought she heard a note of hesitancy.
“It’s fine. Drinkable.” She meant it as a compliment; it came out wrong, like everything else. She checked the time in the corner of her mind’s eye. Two more minutes. Glanced to the ceiling, where the Intraface was still suspended among the projected laser web. “Can you bring it down?”
“Last time you didn’t need my help,” said Actinium rather pointedly.
“I didn’t know who you were,” Kasey retorted. Still didn’t, apart from what she’d wrangled out. He worked at GRAPHYC, had a cat, and loved her sister, which frankly told her enough. At his core, he was someone she could trust. Someone a little reckless.
Someone ruled by his heart.
Actinium set his mug on the fuel-bar countertop. He walked to the stasis pod and climbed up the way he’d descended, flipping across the halfway point, landing on the ceiling, before looking down at her, gaze expectant.
Yup, definitely one of Celia’s boys. Sighing, Kasey placed her mug beside Actinium’s and wiped her hands on her blazer as she approached the stasis pod. The “rungs” were barely deep enough for her toes. She was so intent on not slipping that she didn’t prepare for the reversal of force. Her stomach seemed to flip upside down, because she was upside down, hanging on to the side of the pod for a split second before she fell—
—and landed. Upright. Miraculously.
Less miraculously, when Kasey grew aware of Actinium standing before her, steadying her by the upper arms. Their gazes met; she was surprised to see his as guarded as hers felt. Then he let go, stepped back, and Kasey focused on the most important thing: She was on the ceiling. Feet planted firm, blood still flowing to her soles, the same 9.8 m/s2 force that grounded all life on earth still grounding her . . . just elsewhere.
Awed, she sat on what was now the floor. Actinium joined her. The table automatically rose. The Intraface on it continued to reboot, its progress displayed on the screen. The space had felt too small before, but here, right now, Kasey was glad to have Actinium beside her so that she didn’t have to watch the completion percent go up alone.
98%
99%
100%
The beams of light retracted. The Intraface floated down. Kasey didn’t touch it. She waited for Actinium to insert it into the holograph projector.
Instead Actinium got to his feet. “I’ll go.”
Two words, quiet, but Kasey heard more.
I’ll go to give you space.
“No,” she blurted. Cleared her throat. “That won’t be necessary.” Looked away. “She would’ve wanted you here.”
Actinium remained standing.
“Sit down,” she ordered. He sat; she inserted the Intraface into the projector before she could second-guess herself. A vertical beam rose from the top of the machine, fanning open to form a gray screen.
WELCOME, CELIA
The wrongness of being inside Celia’s brain coiled like a snake around Kasey’s own. Then Actinium opened a report of Celia’s Intraface activity, and Kasey freed her mind.
Data. Facts. These were things she deserved to look at.
The data: Celia holo-ed 20.5 fewer hours per week than the average person. Her only apps were the standard downloads. The bulk of her Intraface storage was devoted to captured memories, tens of thousands of them, sorted by topic and date. A hundred thousand hours’ worth of footage. They’d be here for years if they reviewed them all, so when Actinium suggested six months, Kasey nodded. Six months before Celia’s disappearance it was.
She opened the appropriate folder, took a deep breath, and hit play.
It all came crashing in. Memory after memory after memory, the good the bad the damning. The first time they visited the sea together in person, and then—as Kasey learned reviewing the rest of the footage labeled SEA—all the other times Celia had returned by herself, at night, without Kasey knowing. Other secret nights spent at clubs. Sleepovers. Yoga and brunches with friends—so many friends; laughter and faces endless, people and places coming alive under the rays of Celia’s attention.
Two weeks of memories reviewed, five and a half months more to go.
At four months to go, Actinium got up, went down, came back up. Kasey found a protein cube pressed into her hand. Later, she descended hersel
f to use the ground floor restroom, and was startled to see that GRAPHYC had closed for the day. Time did not pass in Actinium’s windowless unit—only Celia’s life did—but outside day became night then day again. The morning news alert popped up on Kasey’s Intraface. Tremors, detected off the coast of Territory 4. Pundit Linscott Horn’s speech postponed. Meridian, messaging to ask Kasey where she was. No messages from David; safe to assume he’d spent the night at P2C headquarters.
Two months to go. Kasey looked up and met Actinium’s gaze. His eyes were bloodshot; she imagined hers were too. But neither offered to take over for the other. An agreement existed between them, made at some point during the wordless night.
They were both in this to the end.
One month. One week. One day.
Then blackness. The final memory played. The tsunami of Celia’s life pulled back, taking Kasey’s with it. She felt like a corpse, deposited on the sand. Ears flooded, eyes brined. If senses were a nonrenewable resource, she’d just spent her entire allocation on a fraction of her sister’s life. It was so much more saturated than hers. So much more. The world would have lost a lot less without Kasey, whose brain was already rebooting, compiling conclusions. They’d found no red flags. Nothing of surprise, secret nighttime sojourns aside (their absence would have been more surprising). Nothing, as Actinium had said before, that would have left Celia feeling cornered. The only victims were the ones she’d left behind.
Like Tristan/Dmitri.
I need to know if it was my fault.
Wait.
Where were the boy-specific memories?
Stored in a separate place, Kasey discovered. A folder labeled XXX. She opened a preview of it. A mistake. She closed it; this was where she drew the line. “You do it,” she said to Actinium.
“There’s another way.” Actinium opened Celia’s biomonitor data, and Kasey berated herself. Right. Emotions could be elucidated through numbers. She pulled up a monthly health report round-up. She knew what she was looking for: empirical evidence of heartbreak or trauma. Irregularities in neurotransmitter levels. Imbalances in mood. Data and charts, all of which she found.
None of which illustrated the picture she thought she was searching for.