Beneath the Shine

by Sarah Fine

  “Did you hear that, Anna?” Bianca says as both of their heads come up at the same time. “You still want to defend her?” She gestures at me.

  “What happened?”

  “The FBI is going to start questioning ‘technocrats of interest,’” Anna says, giving me a wary look. “They’ve generated a list, along with a registry of unique Cerepin IDs based on who’s connected to the DC network, and they’re matching them to individual users and their locations. Did you know about this?”

  “Is that official news?”

  “I suppose you could call it that,” says Percy, holding up his comband. I squint and move closer. On it, a pale, dark-haired woman is standing next to the president. “That’s Kyla’s mother.”

  “Wait, what is she saying?”

  “As a federal employee, she’s begging the culprits to turn themselves in, and she’s asking that the technocrats wanted for questioning do the same,” Anna says, her voice hollow. “Excuse me.” She turns abruptly and heads out the front doors, her strides stiff.

  “Classy, twisting the arm of a widow,” Bianca says, glaring at me.

  “You’re going to talk to me about being classy?” I snap.

  She takes a big step closer to me, and Percy lunges between us. “I think it’s time for a little fresh air!” he announces, then slides his arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the cafeteria. “There’s a lovely courtyard right this way.”

  I’m so rattled by the developments that I allow Percy to shunt me away. He moves so smoothly, like he’s gliding, and I feel clumsy as I stumble along next to him. He smells good. Rich. Like money and flowers. He ushers me down the hall until we reach a security canny at the door to the courtyard. It lets us pass but follows us out, positioning itself right by the entrance as we walk into a wide area with a tree at the center.

  “What a day, yes?” says Percy, tapping absently at a spot just beneath his left ear.

  “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “Aren’t you worthy of kindness?”

  “Not according to your ex-girlfriend in there.”

  He smirks. “Bianca is a wounded soul.”

  “More like she had it surgically removed. And she seems more likely to do the wounding. God, she’s toxic. I’d like to rip that Cerepin right out of her head—all she seems to want to do with it is hurt people.”

  “She hasn’t been at her best today, poor dear.”

  “Jeez. You do flippant better than anyone I’ve ever met. Have you seen the vid she’s spreading?”

  He purses his lips. “Would it help if I told you it doesn’t do your beauty justice?”

  “God, no! That just grosses me out more!” Tears form in my eyes, and I turn away.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m an ass.”

  “It’s not true,” I say in a choked voice. “The rumors. Uncle Wynn would never do anything like that. I would never—”

  “Darling, you don’t have to say another word. It’s obvious how you got here and that it has nothing to do with your body and everything to do with your spirit. You have such presence.”

  I stare across the courtyard, watching a gust of wind blow dry leaves into a spiral. “And luck. I know that.”

  “Bad, you mean.”

  I look over my shoulder at him, and he gives me a sad smile.

  “You parlayed a tragedy that would devastate most people into something powerful, something bigger than yourself. I’d say that has less to do with luck and more to do with strength. Conviction.”

  “What about you?” I turn all the way around again so we’re standing face-to-face. For a moment, that’s all we do, and yet it feels like a collision.

  “Me? I’m a fool. And I’m very, very good at it.” He breaks our locked gazes and chuckles.

  The canny walks over to us. “Marguerite Singer, I will escort you to the front of the building. There is a car there for you.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Classes have been canceled for today.”

  “Huzzah,” Percy says quietly. “I think I’ll go have my nails done.” He holds them out for me to see. “They’re monstrously ragged, don’t you think?”

  “What is it with you? Why won’t you drop the act?”

  He has the bluest eyes. “If you get to know me better, you might find out.” Then he whirls around and strides toward the entrance to the school, leaving me standing with the canny, which hums in quiet monotone as it waits to walk me to my car.

  Chapter Nine

  Percy

  I walk back into the school and find students milling anxiously, waiting for their rides home. I heard the canny get its marching orders and knew what was happening when I was with Marguerite, of course, but I’m used to pretending I can’t hear anything and everything.

  Today, that has come in handy.

  Bianca stomps down the steps and narrows her eyes when she sees me. My efforts on Marguerite’s behalf appear to have caused a rift. “Another free afternoon,” I say to her. “We have all the luck.”

  “You’re a jerk,” she says, glancing around. But she moves in closer, rift apparently healed. She continues talking but more quietly, her lips barely moving. “Everyone’s freaking out. Dad totally called it—he said that they’d find a way to hunt us down and lock us up. We’ve got a chalet in Switzerland. We’re out of here.”

  “How patriotic.”

  I said it to provoke her, but she looks genuinely hurt. “You have no idea what this feels like.”

  Oh, how many times I’ve wanted to say that to her. Instead, I bow. Rising back up, I say, “And how could I? Not everyone has the thrill of being a victim.”

  “When my family gets disappeared, I hope you remember you said that.” She stalks past me and out the door as a Parnassus corporate vehicle lands in front of the school.

  I poke my comband and see that my own ride is just forty-three seconds away. My nose picks up the warm scent of Marguerite behind me—there’s something sweet and deep about that smell, like honey but with a tang of iron, and it makes me want to turn my olfaction settings back up to the max. I turn to see her looking frazzled, her eyes darting from face to face as she follows the canny’s stiff march to the exit.

  I don’t blame her, poor lamb. I did see the vid—Bianca was kind enough to send it to my private channel. It was completely disgusting, Marguerite in the back of a limo, in flagrante delicto with a person who could have been the president and two others who clearly were not. The most enraging thing about it was that I could tell instantly that it wasn’t her and it probably wasn’t the president. My augmented vision picked up the enhanced definition, but normal eyes won’t. If Marguerite sees the video, to her it will look like herself, doing things she can’t possibly have done. Things perhaps most normal people could not do if bound by the laws of physics.

  I would say I can’t believe that Bianca did this, but . . .

  Marguerite walks by. She gives me an uncertain, vulnerable look. It’s tempting to overplay my hand here, damsel in distress and all that, but she’s suspicious enough of me that I simply give her a reassuring smile to see her on her way. I need her to trust me, and she won’t if I try too hard. She’s too savvy for that. She’s already called me out—both in person and online. She’ll see right through insincerity.

  I am surprised to find, though, that I’m not quite as insincere as I’d like to be when I’m around her.

  I trail behind her to catch my ride. Aunt Rosalie clearly was in the loop, because I got the alert that I was being picked up less than a minute after the canny in the courtyard got its orders. She must be worried, even though I have an ace up my perfectly tailored sleeve that my classmates do not: as Aunt Rosalie’s ward, I possess full diplomatic immunity.

  Despite that lovely bit, she’s still going to suggest packing me off to Paris. I always enjoy that conversation.

  It’s impossible to miss the motorcade that arrives to pick up Marguerite, presidential seal and all. As she moves
toward the open door, I catch the flush on her cheeks and the defeated slump of her shoulders. There is something so genuine and open in her manner. As though she knows she caught lightning in a bottle, knows she has the world on her shoulders, and worries she might not be worthy to carry it. I like that. It means she’s smart.

  It’s also why I don’t trust her.

  My own ride, Yves, lands not fifteen seconds after hers takes off. I hop aboard, wondering if Bianca is already landing at her parents’ estate, where another, larger car is waiting to fly them to the airport, where they can catch a hypersonic and be in Geneva in two hours. It was a story played out by several of our classmates’ more connected families over winter break, just before the inauguration. Easy to do and explain away for these types—taking a year abroad, extending the ski season and all that. I will admit that at the time it seemed like paranoid whispers or perhaps even sour grapes, this theory that Sallese would actively persecute technocrats who had worked alongside President Zao. Would Zao’s cronies be on the political outs? Of course. That’s how the game is played, darling. Winner takes all. But surely that doesn’t mean the winners must behave like utter brutes. They did seem too sophisticated for that—and besides, they had some genuine points.

  My parents, strangely enough, were not fans of Zao. If we were meant to be this connected, we’d be dolphins, my mother used to say. Or maybe bees.

  My father would merely smile, then tell me I couldn’t ever have a Cerepin, because it was a trap, because I wasn’t a sheep, because men and women should be alone in their own heads, the monarchs of their own kingdoms. I only ever understood half of what he was telling me. Now I’ll never get to ask him what he meant.

  Chen’s words ring in my augmented ears. Just because there isn’t an obvious connection doesn’t mean there isn’t one. What if Fortin and Sallese are actually frenemies? What does that explain? What I do know is that suddenly the pre-inauguration paranoia doesn’t seem that far off the mark. There is definitely a chill in the air.

  “Welcome, Percy,” says Yves. “The ambassador requested confirmation of your pickup.”

  “Confirm.”

  “Very good.” Yves rolls forward, pauses, then receives the signal to fly from the central grid, rising smoothly to the cruising altitude before banking toward the embassy. I like this car; he isn’t programmed to ask pointless or vapid questions, like how my day was or whether I have homework.

  Yves lands outside the embassy gates, which slide open in welcome, and tools up to the carport. I walk in and greet Sophia so that she’ll let Auntie know I’m home safe. “But I want quiet and privacy settings in my room, Sophia. It’s vid time.”

  “I understand, Percy.”

  I get ready in the same methodical way I always do. Each article of clothing is chosen carefully for fit and style, color and pattern. Today I choose a more austere look to match the mood of the District. I skip the blush and wear only a streak of white on my eyelids. I use my manicure box to paint my nails black. I don a jacket of bottle-green velvet over an ebony shirt, and even though they don’t complement the ensemble, I put on the floral cuff links, the ones that signal a meeting with Chen. Each is a ruby primrose, a “pimpernel,” my mother said they were called. She and my father gave them to me for my sixteenth birthday. That was just a week before they were killed.

  I create the vid. Not sure if my heart is in this one, but it’s beating at over 120 throughout. I have to work the signals to Chen in while flirting with my followers. I do adore them, and I adore this. I started my channel just before my parents died, and in the aftermath, it was everything to me. My vids, those moments, were a way to wear a mask or maybe shed my skin. Either way, I could be what I wanted to be instead of the destroyed wreck of a boy I always had been.

  Yes, the augmentations weren’t an enhancement. I was rebuilt. In fact, my father made it his life’s work to fix me.

  He might have succeeded, had he lived. As it stands, all I have to understand his efforts are my scattered memories and the letter he wrote me. And Chen. None of it is enough.

  My rage twists so hard inside me that I clench my fist and press it to my lips. I catch myself and pretend it’s an elegant gesture rather than an expression of pain so intense I want to throw my desk across the room. My ruby cuff links glitter in the sunlight, filtering through Sophia’s “half-drawn shades” setting as I talk about spring fashion, as I joke about searching for inspiration, about craving something entirely new, about wanting to be impressed—and how all the tired old florals won’t cut it for me this year. I’m guessing next week there will be twenty hand-tailored and custom-genned shirts on my doorstep, courtesy of my favorite designers, all of whom keep my measurements on hand. Most people in this country might not be able to afford what they make, but there are plenty overseas who are dripping cash.

  I lay down each cue, needing to make sure they match the specific signals I scrawled onto one of my precious pieces of paper and left at the dead-drop site this morning. The time of the meeting. The place. I had no idea I’d be using them this soon, but these are the times I live in, I suppose.

  I launch the vid and wait.

  Chen is always online, or else one of his wired-in friends is. They live in the ether. So the seventeenth comment on the vid is from one of them, confirming. Except I had proposed we meet at eleven tonight, and the comment says, I think you need a shirt for each weekday at least—yesterday! Send those designers a note and tell them that.

  Five shirts minus one day. They want to meet at four. They’ve never moved up the meeting before, but it’s all right with me. I’m relieved I don’t have to wait.

  My face is untraceable when I reach the corner and sit on a bench in the shade. This early, with so many people on the streets, I don’t bother with the reflective patches. I have every right to sit here and sip my fresh orange juice. It was devilishly expensive, seeing as there are only four remaining orange groves in the country. But I do have my auditory shield on, projecting the ambient street noise I recorded on my walk over here.

  The people who walk by are nervous. Visibly so. They frown as they stare at the ground. Their steps are a little faster than usual. Instacars, summoned through their Cerepins, swoop down to pick up people, who run to the curbs as if it’s raining. My comband whispers to me that the FBI is now tracing anyone who was within a mile of the Department of AIR yesterday and tracking them down for questioning. A mile radius includes most of the Anacostia Technology Zone, home to Fortin Tech, Parnassus, and at least a dozen other companies that produce canny and AI tech. The focus of their investigation seems clear enough.

  At five after four, a woman sits down at the other end of the bench. Like her partner, she wears a hood wrapped around her head. Unlike Chen, she’s also wearing a surgical mask. I catch a glimpse of brown skin and glittering dark eyes as Ukaiah looks me over.

  “Where’d you get the juice?” she asks.

  “Plenny’s. And I nearly had to hock one of my kidneys to afford it.”

  “That’s why god gave you two, I suppose.”

  I offer the cup. “Want some?”

  She grunts. “Chen sends his regards. We adjusted one of his sensors last night, and he can’t move the left side of his face at the moment. Lots of drool. But he’s pretty worked up. Wanted to make sure you’re crystal on what’s really going on.”

  “I’m all ears,” I say, making sure I reflect back the street noise I recorded on my walk over.

  “He says anyone who voted technocrat in the District might want to contemplate a little European vacation starting yesterday, especially if they’ve got Cerepins . . . but we’re talking a Venn diagram that looks like a single circle.”

  “What do the Cerepins have to do with it?”

  “What better way to wipe out your enemies than a bloodless blow to the head?”

  “You think this registry of Cerepin users is the start of some kind of political revenge, not an investigation into the bombing.” A chill start
s in my chest and radiates out. “Do you have proof?”

  “We’re digging. We have some strategically placed friends. But it’ll take time to get the evidence we need.”

  “Why did Chen want me to know about this? I don’t even have a Cerepin.” Rosalie does, but she also has diplomatic immunity. They can’t touch her.

  “He thought you might want to warn your friends—carefully, on the DL. Also, you’re one of the only people we know who could actually help people get out of Dodge.”

  I squint at her. “How?”

  “Because of your embassy connection. Embassy staff have immunity chips. Immunity chips mean unrestricted travel out of DC.”

  “No one’s restricting travel.”

  Those darting eyes. “Matter of time.”

  “This is insane.”

  “A major terror attack offers the perfect cover for instituting martial law, Percy. It’s worked before—2022 in Italy after that virus bomb in Rome, 2047 after the dirty nuke in Johannesburg . . . Not original, but effective.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “We’re not paranoid. These people will stop at nothing to get what they want, and rest assured it’s not sharing power. If we don’t do our part, we’re part of the problem—and so are you. So. You know innocent people whose biggest crime is their zip code or their profession, am I right? We can help you get them out. We know how to erase and disconnect people when they need that—but the security network in the city is airtight. Immunity chips would get them to the other side, and from there we can activate our web. We’ve been working on this for a while. This was only a matter of time.”

  I set my elbows on my knees and stare down the straw of my cup at the orange center. For so long I’ve been fighting my own private battle, looking for justice for my parents. It’s a small arena, and the prize for victory is answers, not lives—it’s too late for that. This whole hero thing isn’t really me . . . is it? “You need a knight in shining armor? Well, Chen said he has something for me—something my father wanted me to have. I want it. Now. No more waiting, no more games. That’s the price of my help.”