by Joan He
I smile. “Joules, are we a mess.”
Hero shakes his head. “I’m a mess. I’m not even programmed with the right language.”
“Right language?”
“Yeah. You say words I don’t understand, like ‘Joules.’”
“How do you know Joules isn’t my secret lover?” I tease as we walk around a shelf of shale.
Hero doesn’t say anything for a second. “Do you? Have a secret lover.”
“Did,” I correct. “And I—” I correct myself. “Celia . . . well, she knew a lot of boys.”
“And here I thought I had no competition.”
“Consider yourself lucky we met on this island,” I say, and Hero laughs, but silence descends as we come to the ridge.
On a day like this, I can’t see the top. It’s just an ombre of gray fog and stone, the neon-orange rope the only thing breaking up the monochrome. I catch myself wondering if the ridge was always a ridge, or if it once served some practical purpose. It couldn’t have been a mountain—it’s too narrow in width—but maybe it was a—
Levee. The thought comes abruptly. And the shrines on the other side used to be houses. People lived in them, 989 years ago.
Eerie. I run my tongue over the backs of my teeth, noticing the build-up of plaque. “Want to turn back?”
“If you want to,” says Hero.
Something in his voice makes me hesitate. “What do you want?”
Don’t ask me that, he said last night, when I posed the same question.
But today, he says, “To climb.”
“For fun?”
“Why not? If beach yoga is your thing, rock-climbing can be mine.”
Add extreme sports to our list of common hobbies, then. “Okay,” I say, grabbing the rope. “But I want a shoulder massage afterward.”
“Can do,” says Hero, taking a hold of the leftover rope behind me.
I’ve been away from the ridge long enough that my muscles are stiff. Maybe a normal human can’t even make this climb without dying, and as I near the top, I recall Kay’s words.
We designed you to be mechanically hardier than a real human.
How many times did I fall in the beginning? More than I care to remember, that’s for sure. I’ve had more than my fair share of broken bones. But I always heal. And then there’ve been the handful of really bad falls—too high up, the ground too far—where I’ve blacked out. Did I die? Have I been revived, like Hero? Would death leave a physical mark on my body, at least?
I realize I don’t know the answer to that, and when Hero reaches the top behind me, I turn to him and clasp his face between my hands. I’ve checked his forehead before, but now I check again, searching for a scar and finding none. His wound has healed over completely. I should be troubled, because that means I might have lost scars myself, but I’m just relieved I don’t see a single trace of my killing blow. I start to quiver, my breathing becoming rapid.
“Hey.” Hero holds my wrists. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“No. No, you’re not.” Am I hyperventilating? Definitely. Why now, though? I’ve faced scarier things. But nothing beats realizing our bodies are not ours, and even if Kay ceases to exist, her control over us remains indestructible as long as we do too.
“Cee, really, I’m oka—”
“I cracked your head open with an oar.”
Hero blinks. “The oar I made?”
I nod, bottom lip trembling.
“So I died, and came back . . .” to life “. . . hours later,” he finishes, skipping the words we both know.
Again, I nod.
I didn’t cry, not then.
I cry now, hands still cupped around his face.
Hero thumbs away my tears, brushing them from my lips. Then, slowly, so different from the rush of before, he angles his head. His mouth replaces his fingertips.
He kisses me, featherlight, and I’m the one who presses in. He lets me, before backing toward the edge. Rocks tumble down the ridge.
I start to tell him to be careful, before I realize he has been this entire time. This walk was carefully planned. This climb. This kiss, as carefully planted as a first.
Or a last.
“I wanted to give you the space to decide,” Hero says, and my mind pinwheels. What did he just ask me to confirm? So I died. Came back hours later. “The time. Without my interference, mental or physical. And this”—he glances over the edge—“is the only way I know how.”
No—
I scramble for him, and almost reach him, but falter when he says, “Don’t, Cee.” His voice is soft. Fearless. His eyes, though—I think I see fear there, but the wind covers them with his hair, and his lips smile. “Don’t choose me, or her. Choose yourself.”
Then he jumps.
THE DEATH OF OPERATION RESET came quietly on deadline day. Only 29% of delegates had pledged. The world had failed to come together. Behind the scenes, the solution’s two masterminds had suffered their own bitter break. But unlike a megaquake, there were no reverberations to be felt. Not in the eco-cities, at least; business as usual on this Sunday afternoon. In eco-city 3, residents milled through stratum-25’s emporium, going from vendor to vendor as they did their shopping for the odd essential. Few noticed the P2C symbol materialize in midair, at the center of the piazza.
But they did notice the girl that appeared moments later.
Her holograph spawned like a game avatar in the middle of not just stratum-25, but of every stratum, in every eco-city. She wore a black school blazer. Her hair was bobbed, her bangs combed straight. Her face had last been seen blurred and bloodied in a viral clip. Now it was clean and fresh, as far as the crowds could tell.
Only her mind was obscured from them.
It was better that way, for a tempest still raged in Kasey’s brain. Everyone lived at the expense of someone else. Those who refused to admit that, who’d rejected the solution because they could afford to, because it inconvenienced them . . . well, maybe Actinium was right and they didn’t deserve saving in this finite, material world, where more for someone meant less for someone else.
But science was infinite. Science knew no revenge. No emotion. It was above the gnarly questions of who ought to live and who ought to die for infringing on another’s right to life. Science was what made Kasey feel alive.
And after a five-year ban, it was hers again.
Kasey breathed in. In another timeline, she read the lines scripted for her by P2C. It’d be wise to; they almost hadn’t permitted her this postmortem speech after the Territory 4 debacle.
In yet another timeline, she condemned the territories that’d rejected Operation Reset, and revealed the name of the company that’d killed Celia while she was at it. She stoked the fire.
In this timeline, Kasey chose neither. “This is for my sister.”
In a house on Landmass-660, her face was a projection in Leona’s living room.
“Four months ago, you died.”
In a Territory 4 relief shelter, she glowed from an old-school monitor.
“Everyone has their own theory about what happened.”
In units all around the eight eco-cities, her words echoed directly in people’s heads, brought to them by their Intrafaces.
In a body shop on stratum-22, a dark-eyed, dark-haired boy paused his work to listen.
“The truth is you died to this world. You were poisoned by it. Like so many are being poisoned now.”
Kasey didn’t reveal their visits to the boat rental, or to the island. Some secrets were best left at sea, between sisters.
She brought a hand to her chest and felt her simulated heartbeat. Would the people behind the pipe leak have been evicted if David Mizuhara hadn’t covered up their tracks? Did they deserve that, and what ripple effects might their eviction have had on others relying on HOME as their one means of admission to the eco-cities, such as Meridian’s extended family? Again, Kasey didn’t know. She wasn’t Genevie or the Coles, wasn’t well-versed enough in hum
an to forecast people’s irrational prejudices or discriminations. But she did know this:
“None of us live without consequence. Our personal preferences are not truly personal. One person’s needs will deny another’s. Our privileges can harm ourselves and others.”
When she looked to the faces staring at her from stratum-25’s emporium, she saw Celia’s among them. This wasn’t the side effect of secondhand, virtually rendered hallucinogenic smoke, or a hacker messing with her visual overlays, but a mirage of the mind, as real as Kasey wanted it to be real.
And in this moment, she wanted it with her whole heart. “You were a victim of someone else’s livelihood,” she said to her sister. “Your life paid for their living. Yet you shared their belief, and the belief of so many others in this world, that the freedom to live as we choose is a right.”
Kasey’s hand fisted over her heart, until she could no longer feel its beat. “I disagree,” she said directly to Celia’s face, and despite the fear that her sister would react with horror, she went on. “In our time, freedom is a privilege. Life is a right. We must protect life, first and foremost. Together, we pay this price.
“But down the line, we may be able to create the world you dreamed of. Where neither life nor freedom has to be rationed. You always believed it was possible.” At that, Celia smiled, and Kasey’s throat fogged. “I will, too.”
Then she logged out, returning to her stasis pod in the Mizuhara unit. Her eyes opened to the readings of her vitals, all in the normal range.
Now to begin again.
I THOUGHT I’D FACE MY end at sea.
But it’s here, on the ridge, staring at the spot Hero stood heartbeats ago, that I realize no matter what I choose, I will lose a part of me. There is no winning.
Fuck everything, then. Fuck my tears, which blind me, and my lungs, spasming as I try to make the climb down. The rocks hurt my knees even though the pain is just part of my programming, and I curse, curse Hero, who, considerate to the end, even thought to jump off on the meadow side, as if to give me the option of bypassing his body completely on my way home.
Well, too bad. Whatever I decide, I’m not leaving him. I grit my teeth and continue my descent. The fog thins, and I start to make out the rubble meters below me, and—
Blood.
Blood on skin. Blood on bone.
Blood on something white but decidedly not bone.
Spindly tubules tear out from his torso, where his rib cage should be. They flex and dance like spider legs across his body, a body already on the mend.
I fling my gaze skyward, suddenly weak in the limbs. The denial surges again, and I think, That can’t be him. We ache and cry and gasp with so much life. But when I try to continue my descent, I find that I can’t. Death should be silent, but Hero’s body clicks and clacks as it puts itself back together. The uncanny sounds nauseate me. Bile sears my throat.
I wanted to give you the space to decide. The time.
“Stupid stupid stupid.” And yet, so well-thought-out. He can’t come after me while he’s dead. He can’t hold me and tell me that he wants me to stay, either. From now until he’s revived, it’s truly just me and my decision.
The rope bites into my hands as I hang, unmoving. Minutes pass. Or hours. Time always seemed distorted on this island. Now it vanishes all together as a dimension.
Numbly, I begin the climb back up.
I reach the top. I’m sorry. Without giving my muscles the chance to recover, I descend down the other side, hardly able to see through my tears.
I’m sorry.
I hope my arms will give out. I hope to fall, break, and wake with Hero.
I decided, I’d lie to him. I decided to stay.
But I don’t fall. Don’t break down. My legs bring me all the way back to the house before they give. I clutch to the kitchen countertop for support, sobs spuming from my chest.
I can’t do this alone.
“What do I do, U-me?” I gasp as U-me rolls into the kitchen, drawn by the sounds. “What do I do?”
U-me doesn’t answer. She’s not programmed to process questions, or make life-and-death decisions.
But I am.
I’m not alone. A team of people built my brain—built the memories in it, and even built the ability for me to generate my own. So go on, then, I think, stumbling into the bathroom. Give me your best shot. Convince me. I climb into the tub, fully clothed, and run the tap. Water bulges against the rim, then spills over onto the tiled floor. I let it submerge me.
I choose to drown.
• • •
“I’ll take this one.”
The boy stands in the doorway of the operating room. An employee, by the looks of his apron. His voice, more precise than any of the scalpels laid out, sends a shiver down my spine.
For a second, the bodyworker with the puffer fish tattoo doesn’t speak. Then she shrugs. “Less work for me. Though I have to say, I didn’t take you for the type.”
The type of boy, I know she means, who’d be drawn to a pretty girl. But he should know I won’t be much for conversation. I can already feel the effects of whatever was in the flask, making everything hazy.
The bodyworker leaves, and the boy sits down before me, and through the haze I see that he’s not really someone I’d be attracted to. His hair is dark, yes, as are his eyes, which I like, but there’s a laser-sharp focus to them and an energy radiating off him that feels . . . intense.
“An Intraface extraction,” he says, and I nod, mouth dry, and that’s all I remember before the drug takes over, the world fades to dark, and when the lights come back on, I’m still sitting in the chair but the clip-on sheet around my neck is gone, and on a tray table before me is my Intraface. Extracted.
“You don’t have to die.”
I crane my neck to see the boy standing behind my chair. “There may not be a treatment in this lifetime,” he continues, “but they can pod you and save you in another.”
It’s obvious once I process it. “You looked.”
“I did.” He doesn’t even sound the least bit contrite. If he looked, then he knows—“Celia Mizuhara.”
My teeth click. So much for anonymity. “What do you want?” I demand.
“To protect your sister.”
That throws me for a loop and for a second, I forget to be angry. I blink twice at him, and receive an error message when his rank refuses to display. Of course—anonymity is GRAPHYC’s very selling point. But then he must do something on his end because his ID appears over his head.
ACTINIUM
Rank: 0
Yeah, right. Kay, incident with the bots aside, is the most law-abiding person I know. She’d see a hacked ID and stay six feet away from the boy.
But then he says, “I know we weren’t close, despite the machinations of our moms.”
Moms? He doesn’t offer any other words, just his gaze. His unsmiling, dark gaze, something familiar about the shape of his eyes. Then I see it—and can’t stop seeing it even though it doesn’t make any sense. The resemblance to Ester Cole has to be a coincidence. Even when the boy introduces himself as Andre Cole, I’m thinking, Impossible. I must still be recovering from the neuron-damper.
“You died,” I say.
“I should have,” says the boy calmly. “But I sent a bot in my place. A prank, you could call it.” He comes around to the front of my chair. “So now you understand.” Pulls up a stool. “How I know what your sister’s been through.” He sits down, and faces me. “For her, live.”
The info is rapid-fire. Bots. Kay. A dead boy—Andre Cole—who understands her. My brain struggles to piece it all together, then gives up. It focuses on what really matters.
For her, live.
He makes it sound simple. It’s not. To start, it’s not exactly “living” if you’re unconscious in a pod, frozen for who knows how long, basically dead in any era previous to ours. Plus, Kay doesn’t even know. Doesn’t know I was sneaking out to swim in the sea because I didn’
t want to worry her. Clearly that’s backfired. It’s my fault, and my fault only. Kay was always reminding me of the risks, and I didn’t listen to her. I chose to live the way I wanted to live. And now I alone should bear the consequences.
“Is there something so wrong about choosing a natural death?” I ask the boy. His eyes say yes. The option to freeze myself is there, so why not take it? It’s the rational choice, and it’s what Kay would tell me to do. “She’d convince me to change my mind,” I now say to the boy. “She’d even offer to pod herself with me.” And be twice as hurt if I stood by my choice, without knowing the truth: that I would pod myself in a heartbeat if I could wake up with Kay still beside me. But, as I explain to the boy, “She belongs here, in the now. If you care for her, you’d agree with me. So let me go out the way I want. It’s one of the few freedoms I have left.”
The boy—Andre—doesn’t reply. In silence, he stares at me, until I’m convinced he’s seen everything. How I shake at night. How I almost lost the courage, before coming here, to go through with this on my own. I want to tell Kay. Want her to tell me it’s okay, that the world will be still waiting for us—me and her—when we return eighty, a hundred, or a million years later.
I want to, but more than anything, I want her to make her choices independently of mine.
“Destroy it,” I say, nodding at the Intraface. “I’m not leaving until you do.”
Slowly, the boy stands. He retrieves a glass boxlike machine, and drops the Intraface into it. I’ve never used mine much, compared to other people, but there’s still something about seeing the kernel turn into a white powder that feels painful. All those memories, gone.
But Kay will always be with me, in my mind.
“Thank you,” I say to the boy when it’s done.
He nods once. Then, quietly: “I’m sorry.”
He says it so sincerely, like he’s personally sorry the ocean poisoned me, that I can’t help but laugh. And once I laugh, I suddenly feel lighter. “If you run into her,” I tell him, “remind her for me, will you? Tell her if there’s anyone who can move the world, it’s her.”