Beneath the Shine

by Sarah Fine

  “No fooling you, I guess.” He sighs. “But look—we’ve talked about this—if it’s classified, I have to follow protocol. What I can tell you is that I’m very happy with our progress tonight. And when the dust settles, I think you’ll be happy, too. Now—go home, check on your mom, get some sleep, and maybe tomorrow, post a vid about the speech?”

  “Sure.” I’ll have to do that before I go meet Anna. But I don’t say that to El. I think Uncle Wynn had it right, what he said about just being a friend. I glance at the time. “Shoot. Yeah. I should get home. I wonder if Mom saw the speech.”

  “She did! She thought it went really well.”

  I shrug off the weirdness of knowing he talked to her before I got to. They’re coworkers, after all. And if she’s going to keep her job as his primary aide, she needs to be kept up to speed. “Thanks for filling her in, El. That’s really cool of you.”

  “Anytime. You know I look out for you guys. Let me know if you need anything tonight, okay?” He herds me toward the lobby.

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “Mar? One more thing.”

  I stop and turn. “What?”

  El smiles. Rocks on his heels. “You’re welcome.”

  I am up half the night, wrestling with unease that seems to have a black belt in jujitsu. It all centers around El, and part of it is what Uncle Wynn said—Sometimes I think that boy shoots before pulling the gun from the holster. Who was El talking to, and where was he going? Did it have to do with the Fortins, or with Kyla and her family, or maybe Bianca and hers? At three, I check on Mom, but she’s fast asleep, so I catch a few hours before getting back up at eight. I post a vid, not even trying to conceal my pride at how well the president is handling this crisis. I tell people I spoke to him personally and how reassured I felt when he told me kindness is what’s going to bring us victory. I can’t bring myself to say anything about the investigation, though. Knowing what Kyla’s mom did is bad enough, especially because they’re keeping it secret, but what I overheard El saying last night just makes me feel icky. So it’s a short vid, focused on having confidence in President Sallese. Vague but sincerely emotional, and honestly, sometimes that works best.

  When I send the vid into the stream, the comments add up quickly. Most have no sympathy for technocrat Cerepin users and are angry that these hypocrites won’t help the FBI investigate a terrorist attack—on the government’s Department of AIR, no less. I wait for FragFlwr to visit and post his usual deflating gibes, but he’s conspicuously absent again today. If he’s a Cerepin user, then maybe he decided to lie low with the rest of them? But when I brought it up, he said I was making assumptions, which made it sound like he didn’t have a Cerepin. Unusual for a technocrat, but . . . Wait. Wait. Percy doesn’t have a Cerepin, either.

  I click back and reread a few of my arguments with FragFlwr, who started needling me as soon as I formally joined the campaign. His tone is always the same—superior, condescending, and dismissive. He never engages in name-calling. He never gets mad when other commenters insult him. He’s always detached, untouchable, amused.

  My god. He’s like Percy in troll form.

  That jerkhole. It has to be him . . . doesn’t it? He was all friendly to me yesterday, and all this time, he might have been trolling me. Or I’m just grasping. I need to figure this out.

  While I’m churning, I get a text from Anna inviting me to meet her at a Leaf & Beam shop, and I decide to walk over instead of ride. It’s only a mile or so, and the flying cars still scare me a little. They’ve been in use in a few cities on either coast since I was a kid—LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York, and of course, our nation’s capital—but in Houston, there was no money to set up the sky-system. We would have had to build up too much infrastructure. The closest we got was a cross-country skyport in the Woodlands, for people using the cruising versions of the cars as personal planes. But only rich people could do that instead of using mass transport, so I never thought I’d ride in one of them—until I got here.

  The streets in this part of DC are clean, barely used, just a touchdown point for the cars before they rise with a soft whir into the air again. So different from the potholed streets of my hometown. Instead of looming high-rises, the houses here are narrow, old. They must have been built before the turn of the century, but they’re cute and colorful, some of them painted bright yellow, pink, blue, purple. Never seen a purple house before. It has real flowers in a pot on the porch.

  Not many people are out on the street, but maybe it’s the hour. The ones I do pass hold their coats tight around their bodies. Some of them are muttering, the black nodules on their temples occasionally pulsing with blue or red light. I wonder, does it maybe signal an incoming com? Or maybe it’s telling others that the user is connected to some other reality, a virtual one. I have no idea.

  Anna is waiting outside the coffee shop. She’s shivering in a metal chair at a metal table, her slender fingers curled around a genned recyclable cup. Another sits across from her on the table. She smiles when she sees me. “For you. I hope you like it with cream. They’ve switched to synthetic since I came here last. There’s better coffee over in Georgetown, but this was halfway between our places.”

  “I don’t mind synthetic anything. I didn’t even taste real coffee until we moved here.”

  She gives me a quick smile and looks away. “Sorry. We’re so spoiled.”

  Yes, they are. “How are things?”

  “Want me to be honest?”

  “Otherwise, what’s the point of talking?”

  She tilts her head as her eyes meet mine. Her stare is so eerie, like she’s looking right at my brain. “We want to know what’s going on. We can’t reach the Bartons. They’ve effectively disappeared since Kyla’s mom gave that press conference.”

  “They’re grieving.”

  “Marguerite, let’s get real. They’d respond to concerned coms from friends. No one’s even seen them, and they don’t seem to be home.”

  El and Uncle Wynn know where they are. They just won’t tell me. But I wonder if my mom might, if I ask the right questions. “I’m not being stupid on purpose, Anna. Are you guys considering meeting with the FBI, cooperating with the investigation like Kyla’s mom asked for?”

  A line forms between Anna’s eyebrows. “Look where cooperation got the Bartons—I’m really starting to think something’s happened to them. My mom is doing her best to cooperate without surrendering her freedom.”

  “Okay, but that’s not how it’s playing, Anna. She looks like she’s obstructing.”

  “She’s reeling, Marguerite! She’s trying to figure out how this could have happened, and she’s trying to keep control of the situation.”

  “By hiding information?”

  “Do you believe in the right to privacy? Because now that the government has created this supposed registry of Cerepin users, they can track our movements.”

  “But isn’t that because Cerepins are built that way—so users can always be found and get help? Isn’t that just a feature of the devices?”

  “Do you think the government should have that information, though? And use it to track private citizens without any kind of warrant?”

  “I-I—” I stammer. I don’t actually know if they got warrants or not. “No, but I do want to know who’s responsible for killing over eighty people.”

  “Would it surprise you to know that my mom wants that, too?”

  “I’m starting to wonder.”

  “Would it further surprise you that she’d like to find a way to increase access to Cerepins while also respecting the rights of our shareholders and preserving her ability to innovate?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, it would. It totally would.” Because if she hasn’t done it by now . . . when?

  Anna shakes her head. “You make so many assumptions about us. You believe everything you’re told.”

  “No, Anna, I believe what I saw with my own eyes, including my dad’s dead body, and including t
he note he left explaining why he’d done it. Because he had no purpose. Because there was no reason for him to go on! He couldn’t afford a Cerepin. He couldn’t compete with AI!” My voice breaks and I bow my head.

  She places her warm hand over mine, and I freeze. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I don’t want to fight with you. I think we have more in common than you think, but I know I don’t understand what it’s been like for you.”

  I raise my eyes and see that hers are filled with tears. “Wait, are you okay?”

  Her face crumples and she sniffles. “I just never thought it would get this bad. My mom said it would, when Sallese won, but I—”

  “He’s a good man, Anna.”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know him.”

  “And do you believe everything you’re told by your mom?”

  “That’s fair, I guess. But I’ve seen things, too. I’m worried about my friends.” She looks away, quickly wiping a tear from her cheek. “And my family.”

  I sit back, looking down at her hand, which is still squeezing mine. “What are you afraid of?”

  She chuckles hoarsely. “Oh, that they’ll swoop down on us in the night?”

  A chill runs down my back as I remember the things I overheard El say. I bite my lip, and in that moment of indecision, I know what a true friend would do. “Are you guys thinking of getting out of here?”

  “Define here.”

  Her tone tells me I just crossed a line. “I wasn’t prying—I swear. You don’t have to be in DC to answer the FBI’s questions.”

  “Yesterday you told me there was no reason to pack up. Has something changed, Marguerite?”

  We need them to stay put until we get to them. Especially the big fish.

  “I don’t know. I just . . . Maybe you guys should take a vacation?”

  It is crazy to be thinking this way. But I can’t rid myself of the thought, now that I’ve had it.

  Anna holds her coffee just under her chin, inhaling the warmth. “Imagine how that would play.”

  I hold her gaze. “But you don’t seem to feel safe. I wouldn’t blame you if you and your family wanted to get out of the District for a while.”

  She scoffs. “Even if we wanted to, we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mom thinks we’re being monitored and that they’d stop us if we tried. Especially after last night.”

  Let me know if they even twitch, El said. “What happened last night?”

  “The raids . . .”

  My heart is hammering. “I was at the White House. I don’t—”

  “FBI and police raided an airport, a boathouse, a rental carport. Terrorist threat, you get the picture?” All of a sudden, her face breaks into a surprised smile, and she waves at someone behind me. “Hey! What are you up to?”

  I turn to see Percy Blake crossing the street, his long legs encased in stockings and knee breeches. His hair is all black now, not even a blond streak, slicked back on the sides and swooping back on the top.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he says with a lethal grin.

  “This isn’t your neck of the woods, is it?” Anna asks. “I was just telling Marguerite that the best coffee is in your neighborhood.”

  He holds out his hands, nails freshly polished. “I was getting them done at this quaint little salon just up the block. Actual manicurists.” He arches an eyebrow as he looks at me. “The breathing kind.”

  Looking for a distraction from the intensity of my and Anna’s conversation, I pull out a chair at our table. “Do you want to join us?”

  He looks at Anna, who has risen from her seat and is now standing between me and Percy. He reaches out and shakes her hand with both of his, then bows his head and brushes a kiss across her knuckles. As he straightens he murmurs something to her, very quietly.

  Her shoulders go tense, and she looks down at the palm of her hand. “Oh my god, Marguerite. I totally forgot that I have to meet my brother and parents for lunch, and it’s all the way across town. I just got the reminder.” As she turns back to me, she taps her Cerepin nodule.

  “That’s okay,” I say, looking between her and Percy and wondering what the heck just happened.

  “I don’t have a thing planned,” says Percy. “Is your invitation to sit still open?” He eyes the chair I pulled out.

  “Sure.” My heart beats just a tad faster as I watch Anna fidgeting, putting her hand in her pocket before drawing it back out. “I guess I’ll see you when classes start again?”

  “Definitely,” Anna says. “I’m sorry I have to fly.”

  Not ten seconds later, a car lands up the street and cruises over to her. She jumps inside and is gone.

  “What just happened?” I ask.

  “I’m sure her family needs her right now,” Percy says breezily. “This week has been the devil for them.”

  “You have this way of saying things that makes everything sound so . . .”

  “Glib? Trivial? Of no particular moment?”

  “Yeah.”

  “By intention, I assure you. The insouciance of my speech is selected with utmost care.”

  “Don’t some things need to be taken more seriously?”

  The corner of his mouth curls and he looks up at the sky, watching the silent cars gliding above us, like birds reduced to squares, angles, trajectory. “Very few things, I have found. I’ll save my energy for those.”

  “How about trolling Mainstreamers?”

  His blue eyes slide over to me. “Trolling? That sounds vulgar. I’ve never trolled anyone in my life.”

  There isn’t even the slightest trace of guilt in his eyes. “Okay, then. I’d like to know what the great Percy Blake finds worthy of his energy.”

  “But then you’d know me.”

  “Didn’t you invite me to get to know you just yesterday?”

  “Well. It was more of a challenge than an invitation.”

  “Would being known be all that bad?”

  For a long moment, Percy is silent, simply staring at my face, maybe looking for a hint of disdain or sarcasm or who knows what. He wears a ghost of a smile. “Quite the contrary, Marguerite. I’m afraid I might like it much too much.”

  “You could try it,” I say as my stomach swoops. “Thirty days or a full refund. Risk-free.”

  His laugh is sudden and surprised and alive. “I very much doubt that.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Percy

  I replay my conversation with Marguerite as Yves slides his way through the sky over Anacostia. My heart rate is still over a hundred beats per minute when I think of the way she looked at me . . .

  I force myself to halt the replay. They’ve just reopened air traffic in this zone, and I can see the deep hole in the earth where the Department of AIR once stood. It feels blasphemous to be fantasizing about kissing a girl while flying over a mass grave.

  Chen coms me via Yves’s secure connection, his words slightly slurred. “I feel compelled to warn you of the risk you’re taking.”

  “Ukaiah reminded me that my parents were more than willing to take such risks.”

  “Yeah. Okay. She was right. But—”

  Now I am fully in this moment, which only sends my heart rate higher. “I thought about this all last night. I think you and Ukaiah are right—the noose is tightening. I can’t sit and watch it happen. I haven’t been able to reach my friend Bianca since yesterday. She and her family were on that Air Suisse flight.” Calling her a friend is a stretch, but she is one of the few people on this planet who I’ve allowed to get even remotely close to me.

  “You’re right on that count. After we spoke last night, I looked into what happened.”

  His regretful tone makes my stomach turn. “You have information?”

  “Sorry, kid, but I think they’re dead.”

  “Pardon me,” I say, at my most polite. “But who exactly do you mean?”

  “We’ve got a guy at the morgue. You know how they made a rule that a real person has
to supervise cannies working with dead bodies?”

  I swallow bitter saliva. “Chen . . .”

  “There were twenty-three casualties from the raids last night. Twenty-three! Bodies still being identified. But my guy said that there was a middle-aged man and woman, genetic match to the Aebersolds.”

  “And?”

  “Each of ’em had a hole in the temple.”

  “What kind of hole?”

  Chen chuckles, raspy and low. “Right where their Cerepins woulda been.”

  “Someone pulled them?”

  “Bullet hole, I meant. But in their autopsies, the cannies didn’t report any debris in the brains like you’d expect if someone shot them in the head knob.”

  “So someone removed the ’Pins first. Then shot them.”

  “Looks like. Now, does that sound like the work of credible law enforcement to you?”

  “What are the police saying?”

  “Publicly? Nothing. Privately, they’re even more tight-lipped.”

  “But we know it was the Aebersolds?”

  “DNA don’t lie, kid.”

  “What about Bianca? Her little sister, Reina? They were with her parents.”

  “Unknown. The government took a lot of ’em into custody, though. It was a big sweep. They were ready for them.”

  But maybe the kids were spared—except, Anna told me that she, Bianca, and Kyla were all on the list to be questioned, ostensibly because they were vocal members of the Young Technocrats during the campaign. I stare out the window at the smoking black crater. “Who knows about this?”

  “My group. And now you, of course.”

  “There has to be evidence—vid on the Mainstream? You know some of these people had Cerepins. It couldn’t have happened so quickly that they couldn’t have let others know what was happening!”

  “True. We’ve found traces of uploads on the Mainstream, but the vids have been scrubbed or overwritten.”

  “Government?”

  “Who else, kid? You ain’t the only one with ghosts.”

  “Good god,” I whisper. Is this really possible? When Sallese was elected, the biggest fear was financial persecution of the technocrats—a socialized system for tech, the redistribution of wealth. No one thought they would pay in blood. In lives. Now Bianca’s parents are dead, along with twenty-one other people. Cerepins pulled from their heads before someone used a bullet to fill the space. “That’s probably what will happen to the Fortins if we fail. The only reason it hasn’t is that they haven’t tried to run.”