by Sarah Fine
I can already hear my aunt in her office. She is anything but subtle. Sophia is issuing white noise, but my audio implant cuts through the static like a razor through silk. My aunt is speaking French, of course, as befits her position, but this is not a problem for me.
The implant in my middle ear is also equipped with full translation.
I’ve put everyone on alert, she is saying. We’re ready, if it comes to that.
Uh-oh.
No, the administration has not reached out, though I sent a message that the French are ready to support them. I don’t think they were ready for this . . . Yes, I’ll do that. The vice president might be the best contact. We’ve identified Audrey Savedra as the most moderate senior administration official so far. I’ll reach out tomorrow.
Suddenly I’m wishing I had upgraded audio tech, so I could hear what her conversational partner is saying. My chips haven’t been updated for over two years. What I have is what I have, until I figure out how to get more.
I’m trying to find out more about the damage assessment, Aunt Rosalie continues. No one’s saying anything. I’d wait to pull personnel until we know Sallese is blocking access.
Mm-hmm. Sounds like the French president is more than a little skittish about her new American counterpart. Then again, she was always savvy. I skip back several steps and start forward again as I hear Auntie offer a curt au revoir and sign off. She bursts out of her office a second later to find me strolling down the hall toward dinner.
“Ah, Percy,” she says, smiling, though she looks unusually frazzled. Short silver wisps, like antennae, wave around her hairline, begging for a touch-up. “How is my darling boy?” She’s speaking English now—she doesn’t know about all my augmentations.
The only people who did are dead. Well, except for one, and I’m meeting him tonight at eleven.
“Thank you for letting me have the car this afternoon,” I say, so loudly that it makes my aunt jump and then mutter “Volume level four” to her Cerepin. “I escaped the academy right before the blast walls lowered.”
She shakes her head at my turn of phrase. “Oui, oui. A very sad day indeed.”
I wait for her to tell me more, but she never does. This is why I’m forced to eavesdrop. I’d be honest about it, but I don’t think she’d take well to my extra extracurricular activities. She likes to believe I could be a normal boy if only I’d admit I am devastated and move on. Poor Auntie has no idea how not-normal I really am. Moving on isn’t really an option.
“Some of your classmates may have lost parents in this catastrophe,” she continues, giving me a cautious, probing look.
She wants me to spill my insides out for her to examine, rearrange, and stitch back together, so very cathartique. “They probably did. It’s so tragic,” I say, eyes wide, pupils authentically dilated with concern.
If I admit I already know there are bodies, like Kyla’s father, she’ll ask for details, and just like Auntie, there are secrets I must keep. I glance at the walls, silently daring Sophia to ask if I’m distressed. I exhale and loosen my muscles. It would be a shame to punch a hole through the wall’s intricate trompe l’oeil.
“Such a waste,” Auntie says, then clutches my arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Fine, as always.” There is no other answer that does not involve broken glass and splintered furniture and all the rage that’s in me. I offer her my airiest smile. We can’t slide over this edge. We can’t ever. Instead, I bring my hand up to frame my face. “I had my hair done this afternoon.”
“And you look so handsome.” She regards my new jacket, a simple cut adorned only by a thin silver piping that matches the miniskirt I’m wearing over my black pants. “Too handsome to stay home.”
“I think tonight it might be too dangerous to go out.”
She grins, looking relieved. “Oui. Staying in is a good plan.”
I stretch. “An early evening for me. Must have my beauty sleep. But first, our meal.” I wink at her. “I’m famished.”
“We can eat in the dining room,” she says. “We have gentlemen in the sitting room.”
Extra guards, she means. Because we are waiting for the whole city to explode. When Sallese won, my aunt said this country’s downfall would happen by a thousand cuts. Now she seems to be reconsidering.
I offer her my arm, glancing at the antique clock on the hallway mantel. Four hours. Plenty of time. “Dining room it is, Madam Ambassador.” I use my best terrible French accent.
She winces.
We head for the dining room, where Louis, the chef, will serve us fresh baguettes and cassoulet, his bare synthetic hands deftly managing the searing pot. I will babble about stockings and mineral powder, and she will ply me with stories of Paris in her youth, and after she has had two glasses of wine, she will sigh and tell me I look so much like my mother that it hurts her heart.
At that point I will excuse myself, because she lost a sister, yes.
But I lost my mother.
I register the stress response, and it takes me several seconds to slow my breathing. I focus on lowering my heartbeat from 172 beats per minute all the way to an even 100. I need to control my legacy.
My parents wanted me to live, and they equipped me to survive.
I smile and think of the sun, bright and blank and certain. Aunt Rosalie returns my smile.
We survive in very different ways. And both of us hold our secrets close. The only difference is that I need people to believe I don’t have any at all.
Chapter Six
Percy
At ten to eleven, I shimmy out the window undetected. I redirected the beams of Sophia’s sensors, and my Mainstream feed is set to a channel that mimics bio-sounds, including breathing and heartbeats. It even farts from time to time. It’s not perfect, but it’s easy enough to elude the embassy AI. It hasn’t been upgraded since I moved in two years ago, and I’ve spent all that time studying the system in order to win myself a little freedom to indulge my . . . hobby? No, my quest.
The canny guards and building-mounted surveillance scanners are a bit trickier, but I am still prepared. Truly, all one has to do is stay one step ahead, and all one needs for that is the Mainstream and an untraceable funding source. Check and check. The prisms on the top of my head and on my shoulders, thighs, and back project a visual and audio mirror of whatever I’m walking past. I am invisible to cannies until I reach the edge of embassy property, when I have to remove these rather gaudy patches.
Humans aren’t so easily fooled, see.
Well, good riddance, because the silver patches don’t match my current outfit at all. Horror show, to tell the truth. I don’t look like myself, but I suppose that’s the point. Myself is noticeable. I usually draw the eye, and this outfit is made for melting into the night: plain black slacks, a gray T-shirt, a black jacket. No makeup. A black cap on my head, smashing down my hair. I’ve removed the polish from my fingernails. I feel like an exposed nerve, shivery and thrumming with a current on the air.
And now to make me . . . really not myself. I reach up and slide my fingers under my cheekbones and along my brow, pressing firmly to trigger what lies beneath. I wince as I feel my face changing, stretching, just enough to evade facial recognition. I’m taking a risk tonight—after the bombing, security will be tighter. Police patrols will be more frequent.
I head east along Reservoir. There are more people out walking and on wheelboards. Word on the Mainstream is public transportation and the skyway will be suspended until tomorrow morning, and private vehicles are doubtless being monitored as they travel along the grid. Hence the need to be on foot. If I had a Cerepin, I could be tracked that way as well.
That’s a feature Fortin Tech has always spun in a positive way—instant emergency assistance! You’ll never be lost!—but lord, it has its pitfalls.
If anyone wants to monitor me, they have to lay eyes—real or synthetic—on my person. I jog along the embassy fence, knowing I’m cutting this close. R
icard, my aunt’s favorite aide and “secret” lover, always leaves a few minutes before eleven. I press myself against the ivy as I see his car roll along the private road. No flying tonight, lucky for me.
As they sense his approach, the gates to the embassy grounds slide open. I have to time this perfectly, or I’m caught. I lope along in the darkness and reach the gate just as Ricard’s vehicle glides toward it. I drop to the ground and crawl through on all fours just as the car silently rolls by. With my patches on, the gate doesn’t “see” me, nor does it detect my body heat, because of the vehicle. I fold myself against the wall as Ricard departs.
After I pull the silver patches from my clothes and place them back in their case, I head up the block, now fully visible but less suspicious looking. Better to be caught without patches than with, for reasons both fashion related and not. I don’t walk quickly or with too much purpose. I pretend that there are weights strapped to my wrists and ankles. It feels ungraceful and unnatural, but this is part of the game. I’ve practiced in front of a gait analyzer, and I know that if I walk this way, no one can match it to my usual stride. Every step takes intention, but that is something I possess in spades. Dad always used to say I had it in me to be a chameleon. He would know, because what I have in me? He put it there.
I blink to widen the aperture of my pupils and let in more light. I tell myself that’s why my eyes sting. It’s the only reason.
The streets are humming tonight. With no air travel allowed, each car skims the street, maintaining that perfect two feet of distance between it and every other moving object on the road. Each electronic brain flickers and calculates, controlling braking and acceleration. Each living organism inside churns with far less linear thoughts.
I am fond of linearity.
As I walk, I press the tiny bump beneath my left ear—one of my augmentations, an audio chip. Recording, says a voice only I can hear. The street noise is minimal, but my implant will capture the whisper of magnetic wheels, the occasional passing conversation, the hum of the city. Perfect.
When I reach the intersection of Reservoir and Thirty-Seventh, I stretch and yawn, and then turn left and stride up Thirty-Seventh, along a lovely residential Georgetown street lined with old trees and reeking of money.
“Lovely night,” says a man who’s pulled even with me. His strides are short and uneven, as is his breathing. He’s clad in a thick jacket with the oversized, ratty faux-fur hood pulled so tightly around his face that all anyone can see is his eyes.
A travesty, and how very subtle.
I want to tell him to get some self-control before his indelicate huffing and puffing gets us noticed, but that will just jangle his poor, frayed nerves even more. “I wonder why more people don’t stroll the boulevards like they used to,” I say.
“Probably because they know their every word is being monitored.” His gaze darts back and forth, and he pulls his hood even lower. “Did you bring me a snack?”
“You’re so clever.” I tap the chip beneath my ear twice. Playback, I hear, and smile. I tap it one more time. Projecting, it says. Now we have a bit of privacy. “I’ve got us covered, as always, Chen.”
“Good thing, because my auditory interface is gl-gli-glitching.”
“Are you sure it’s not your vocal—”
“It was a joke, kid.”
I glance over at him. I know what lies beneath that hood—he let me see it the first time he introduced himself to me in person after a few months of intriguing cat and mouse on the Mainstream.
How did he hook me? He said he knew my father, Valentine Blake. He said my father had told him about me, that he knew things about me that my father wanted me to know, and he’d tell me when the time was right.
That was a year ago. He’d fed me enough, bit by bit, for me to know Chen was the closest link I had to my parents—and to the real me. I have to wonder if the fiery little surprise at the Department of AIR this morning might have goosed Chen into giving up more information.
Tonight he is twitching more than usual. His thumb and forefinger tap together constantly, as if he’s aching to work a pair of tweezers. “New add-on?” I ask, perfectly casual.
He gives me an irritable glance. “Made a go at thought-controlled volume toggle and Mainstream navigation,” he says as his shoulder starts to jerk up and down. “Ukaiah said I was dumb to try.”
“Ukaiah is wise.” His partner is definitely the more prudent, based on my dealings with her. “Is this even legal?”
“If I want to install a computer in my head, how am I different from any Cerepin user?”
“The FDA approved Cerepins for installation by certified med-tech professionals only. This . . . well, is not that.”
“It’s all part of the racket, kid. Zao was in the tank for Fortin, and you know it. She wanted a monopoly, and he gave it to her genned with a bow. Oh, Perce, I thought of a name for these babies.” He gestures at his fur-covered noggin. “Incomps.”
“As in incompetent?”
He stops so suddenly that his hood falls off his head, temporarily revealing the misshapen helmetlike technical interface that covers his skull, sprigs of black hair sticking out here and there like weeds in an abandoned park. “Internal computers!” He looks genuinely hurt as he yanks the hood back over his head, twitching the whole time. “Ukaiah didn’t like the name, either.”
“Once again, Ukaiah outshines you.”
“And you of all people shouldn’t be judging me. I mean, look at you.” He jabs a finger at my newly configured face. “That stuff you have on board is not exactly government sanctioned.”
Touché. My heart rate spikes to 167. “I have twenty minutes before I have to be back at the embassy. What did you want to tell me?”
“Your parents’ case is gonna be officially closed. The detective uploaded the order this morning.”
One eighty-five. Breathe. “He was supposed to be tracking down the doctor. Weisskopf.”
“Apparently the good doctor has disappeared.”
I rub my hands over my altered face. “So first the murderer disappears from his cell—”
“Technically, the accused. He was awaiting trial. And he wasn’t charged with murder.”
“Yes, yes. Because a crazed addict who randomly decides to stab two people to death as he waits for his morning hit in the recovery clinic is guilty only of manslaughter.” My insides twist again. “And now the man who supplied him with the weapon is also in the wind.”
“Dr. Weisskopf always claimed Kasabian stole the scalpel from his exam room.”
“And you and I both know that’s too convenient to be true. How did he manage to get through the retina scan on Weisskopf’s office door? My parents were onto something, Chen. I know it.” Now I’m sweating, and my rate of respiration is up to twenty-five breaths per minute.
Chen notices me starting to lose my composure and clutches at my sleeve. I’m not in the mood to be comforted, but when I jerk away, a canny patroller swivels its head in our direction. I shut down my thoughts and slow my stride. We can’t afford to be noticed.
Chen doesn’t try to grab my arm again. “You’re right that the whole case is shady, Percy, but now it’s bigger than your parents. They were the vanguard, though.”
“You mean the cannon fodder.”
“They were killed because they were dangerous.”
“But to whom?” I say, strained and quiet. We’re past the canny and headed west on T, essentially walking in a loop back to the embassy. “I thought their research was on neurostim devices. They were trying to help people.”
Chen’s darting eyes go still as he looks into mine. “You’re right on both counts. Let’s say your father was asking some very probing questions around the use of neurostims. And the Cerepins, well . . . He had an agenda, and he and your mother were collecting data someone didn’t want them to have. So who might they have harmed with all that ‘help’? That’s always the question to ask. Always, always, always.”
&nb
sp; “Weisskopf ran the clinic. He had a stake in it.”
“Right. He was using neurostims to treat addiction, demonstrating they were more than simple mood enhancers. That was something companies like NeuroGo and Fortin Tech were very keen to prove.”
Ah, NeuroGo, the trillion-dollar start-up founded by none other than Marguerite’s hero, President Wynn Sallese. He sold his shares three years ago, though, as he prepared to run for office. Since then he’s hailed himself as a man of the people—and for some reason, those people ate it up.
“The police report said that Weisskopf had invited my parents there to show them the clinic and discuss collaboration. He asked them to be there that morning,” I say.
“And then one of his patients nabs a scalpel from his office and . . .” Chen bows his head and shakily crosses himself, of all things. Mon Dieu! A rebel hacker who prays the rosary. A day full of surprises. He continues. “Perce, why didn’t the police ask why he had a scalpel in his supplies? It was an addiction clinic, not a hospital!”
I look away, watching a bus silently glide by full of glassy-eyed drones tapping at their Cerepins. “And now Weisskopf is gone, along with anything he might have known about who guided Kasabian’s hand—or his own.”
“Now ask yourself, kid. Really ask yourself. It’s been two years since your parents were killed. Eight months since Derek Kasabian vanished from that cell. Now the one person left who could have explained what really happened that day has flown the coop—case closed. Just as the Sallese administration takes over.” Chen places his hand on his jerking shoulder to try to keep it still. He does not succeed. “Coincidence?”
“You think the president’s involved? Why?”
He puts up his hands. “I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that if you dismiss a possible connection simply because it’s not obvious, then you’re one of the sheep.” His eyes narrow. “And if you’re truly Valentine and Flore Blake’s son, a sheep is the last thing I’d expect you to be.”