Who is Chloe Shaw?

by Aubrey Parker

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Alexa met Caspian’s eyes. “Sometimes it bothers me that Noah holds so much power simply by controlling Crossbrace. And that will only get worse once The Beam rolls out, and he controls that, too.”

  “It’s my understanding that nobody controls The Beam. It’s intelligent. The Beam controls itself.”

  “It’s not impossible to control intelligent beings. You of all people know that.”

  That surprised a smile from Caspian. It jumped onto his square jaw, then faded. “Is that what this is about? Is Quark keeping secrets from O?”

  “Not quite.”

  “The Beam, then.”

  Alexa nodded.

  Caspian ticked his chin toward Alexa’s pocket. “So, what are you planning to do? Run that data past an isolated AI, keeping it from Crossbrace and The Beam?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s twenty-year-old data at its youngest. You won’t be able to learn what Noah West and Quark are up to now. You’ll only be able to find out what happened decades ago. Any extrapolations will be wildly inaccurate, especially given the changes The Beam has already triggered in beta implementations like yours and mine. If Noah was worried about pollination? Well. Twenty-five years of pollination will skew every projection. The data will be useless.”

  Alexa was still watching him. Subtleties in what he’d said belied more knowledge than he should have, as she’d expect of Caspian.

  Only Panel should know about the pollination effect.

  Maybe he was the ally she needed. Not because he was a friend; because Caspian was too dangerous to have as a foe. “What I want to know happened decades ago.”

  “And what is it that you want to know?”

  Alexa bit her lip.

  She met Caspian’s blue eyes and weighed the cost of selling her soul.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Brad’s hologram appeared while Chloe was folding clothes into the rather ordinary duffel she’d carried to DZ for her first interview. At that time, it had contained everything that truly mattered. Chloe’s life could fit into a few square feet and be neatly tucked into the overhead bin of any mag train.

  “O has formally approved your transfer to Voyos,” Brad said.

  “Good thing, since I’m almost packed. Was it just a rubber stamp?”

  “I don’t have the details, but as I said when Alexa sent her approval through Sarah, it is unlikely that the rest of them would move against her.”

  Chloe remembered that. The whole thing had been a bit strange — the kind of strange that Intuitive Chloe might have read into if she’d received approval in person. But Brad had talked to Sarah, who in turn talked to Alexa. Approval had taken the same chain backward. There had been two filters between Chloe’s request and Alexa’s approval, and yet the ease of the transfer still clanged inside Chloe.

  Wasn’t she a District Zero featured attraction?

  Wasn’t she in all the advertisements?

  Hadn’t she been getting the impression that O was setting an increasing amount of its company weight atop her shoulders?

  Voyos was the finest spa in existence, but compared to District Zero it was practically backwoods. Chloe expected resistance, qualifications, all sorts of caveats and restrictions. Surely, she’d have to explain herself.

  It was almost as if Alexa wanted her to go.

  As if it were a test, like everything at O seemed to be.

  “I suppose I’m being paranoid if I say, That was too easy?”

  “You wanted to go. And now you can. I wouldn’t take more from this than that. I’ve set up a coffee date with Slava as you requested.”

  “When?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “But I’ll be gone by then,” Chloe said.

  “Slava is transferring to Voyos as well.”

  “Pretty coincidental, isn’t it?”

  “Actually,” Brad said, “it’s not coincidental at all. I got a ping from Parker’s porter, Trevor. He told me that Barnes wanted Slava to accompany you once your transfer request crossed the board’s desk.”

  “Really?”

  The emotion inside Chloe was unmistakable — a percolating brew of pleasure and comfort. She didn’t know Slava well, but liked what she knew a lot. They had similar backgrounds, temperaments, and senses of humor. Second only to the way she was around Andrew, Chloe could most be herself around Slava. “Why?”

  “I wasn’t given an explanation. It was a notification.”

  “Will she be on my flight?”

  “She has engagements until Sunday. She’s flying out then.”

  A smile found Chloe’s worry-worn lips.

  Brad’s hologram began to dissolve, assuming they were finished, but Chloe called him back.

  “Yes, Chloe?”

  “Thanks again. For everything.”

  Usually Brad didn’t reply to her gratitude, but for once she said it while meeting his eyes. That was how you treated friends, after all.

  And this time, he said, “You’re welcome, Chloe.”

  Then he was gone.

  Chloe resumed packing, her thoughts restless. She’d laid the large duffel on the bed, its mouth now open with a few things scattered at its bottom. She had a shirt in her hand and put it on the right side without thinking. But before she went for the next item, the bag’s arrangement caught her eye.

  She’d put all her personal clothes on the right — the kind that anyone might pack for a trip to see her mother. But because it was a transfer instead of a vacation, she’d be working on Voyos as well — and for that reason, she’d also brought garments that she only wore when trying to elicit sexual reactions. Those items, she’d put on the left. In the middle, she’d stuffed everything that wasn’t clothes: toiletries, her Crossbrace terminal and its inductive charger; a Georgia Bernard paperback that was half research and half reminder of Andrew.

  Who still read paper books?

  This girl right here, with her anachronistic man.

  The bag was a perfect replication of her psyche and life: Personal Chloe on one side clearly separated from Work Chloe. What did it say about her that she separated them even in her travel bag, without consciously meaning to? Was it a good thing like she’d always believed … or a sign of some covert illness?

  Who is Chloe Shaw?

  A whisper in the back of her mind, a question in need of an answer.

  Her terminal rang. In 24 hours, she’d need to open her laptop to answer a call, but for now, she was still in her apartment with many available Crossbrace surfaces. She tossed it to her wall panel and was soon looking at Andrew’s geeky but charming face.

  “Hey,” he said. His grin shifted to something unknown: doubt, worry, secretiveness, guilt. Then he looked down at what Chloe was doing, saw her packed bag, and his face fell into confusion.

  “Are you going somewhere?”

  Chloe wondered how much to tell him, and whether to couch her answer as a simple imperative or to start with an explanation or justification. Her ambivalent feelings about Brad were clouding her judgment. She wanted to be sorry for leaving. She wanted to say that she’d miss him, and she definitely would. But that something-is-wrong kept scratching at Chloe, and she found herself holding back.

  She suddenly didn’t feel comfortable showing him her whole hand.

  “Yes. I’m going to see my mom on Voyos. I was going to call you after I was done packing.”

  “Did this just happen?”

  “Earlier today.”

  “But if you’re already packing …”

  “I leave tomorrow morning.”

  Andrew processed this information. “Is something wrong? Is she sick or something?”

  Don’t tell him everything.

  Hold some of it back.

  Andrew is hiding something, you’d better hide something, too.

  “I'm overdue for a visit. There’s a gap in my schedule this weekend, so it seemed like the right time to tr
ansfer.”

  “Transfer?”

  “Temporary transfer,” Chloe said, hurting a bit at his clear disappointment. “I’ll be back. Making it a transfer just means I can keep working while I’m there, at the Voyos spa, instead of taking time off.”

  Andrew nodded a little, looking away before forcing his eyes back to the screen. His expression was obvious to Chloe, he might as well have stamped it on his forehead: Work, huh? So you’ll be fucking other guys while you’re there … just business, of course.

  But the way Andrew’s eyes returned to center and the way he tried to erase his telling reaction told Chloe that as quickly as he’d thought it, he wanted it gone. She considered being offended but found herself touched. Coming from Andrew, sexual prejudice and disapproval of her job was more sweet than bigoted. Against her better judgment, she loved his lack of enlightenment.

  Then, looking down and seeing her lacy unmentionables, a different emotion washed over Chloe, stifled in seconds but nowhere near in time. And with that emotion, seeing Andrew’s jealousy, she realized that she was a bigot, too.

  What kind of girl left her boyfriend so that other men could do nasty things to her?

  It was a sexist’s thought from an ancient age of paper books and projected movies. She held it like a talisman, even knowing that the alien idea would eventually bite her.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m not sure. A few weeks, maybe a month?”

  “A month?” He pouted the word.

  Chloe considered a simple yes, but inside her chest, affection for Andrew finally trumped her ambivalence at his recent strange behavior.

  “I need to talk to my mom about some stuff.”

  “Talk, huh?” Said lightly, so she wouldn’t take what came next as the rebuttal it was: “Couldn’t you just do that on a call?”

  “It’s in-person stuff.”

  “What kind of in-person stuff?”

  Was he asking? Or prying? Chloe couldn’t decide. There were a dozen emotions on his face, and her own radar was clouded.

  “It’s personal. Mom and daughter stuff.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  “It’s not ominous. I just … want to understand some things about my past.”

  “Don’t you already know about your past?”

  Don’t tell him. There’s a reason he wants to know, and it’s not just curiosity.

  Or was there?

  She sighed. “I don’t really want to get into this right now, but let’s just say I’m having a bit of a personal crisis. Nothing I want you worrying about, but it matters to me. Mom can help me figure it out, but she’s always dismissive when I call. I need to be with her. I need to look her in the eye, so she can’t dodge questions or lie to me.”

  Andrew licked his lower lip, clearly bothered. “When you say, ‘it’s nothing I want you worrying about,’ that sort of makes me worry.”

  “Don’t.” Then, knowing it would sound like she was shutting him out, she added: “Please don’t, Andrew. This is my stuff. Not yours.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “I’ll call you. Maybe we can cyber.” She tried to turn the bleak moment light, adding false flirtatiousness to her voice. “Wouldn’t that be fun? Ever had sex in virtual reality? It’s all angular and creepy.”

  “‘Angular and creepy,’ huh? That was my nickname in school.” He ticked up one corner of his mouth, but his mirth was a sham just like hers.

  “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Maybe I can come visit.”

  “I don’t really think that would be a good idea.”

  “Sure. No big deal.”

  Pause.

  “You okay? I didn’t mean to spring this on you but it happened fast and you called me before I could call you. You seem really bummed.”

  “Just a little.”

  “It’ll go by quickly. I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t have to.”

  “I understand.” He was mouthing the words.

  Yesterday they’d been good if just a little “off.” Today she was starting another life without him, informing at the last minute with barely any discussion — let alone consent.

  “You know I love you, right?” she said.

  Andrew’s gaze had dropped. He looked up. His eyes surprised her. She’d expected him to appear slightly shocked, definitely pleased, maybe more bittersweet now that she was going away. Instead, Chloe saw an edge of regret.

  That’s not regret you see in him. That’s guilt, and you know it.

  “Sure.”

  Another awkward moment passed. Chloe found herself waiting for his reply. Needing it.

  There was a buzz from his end.

  Andrew looked back over his shoulder. “That’s the door.”

  “Oh … okay.”

  “I have to get it.” He gestured as if perhaps this was a foreign concept.

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll talk soon. Okay?”

  Chloe said, “Yeah.”

  Another buzz.

  “I really have to go.”

  “Go,” she said, trying for a smile.

  Andrew turned. His hand reached up to disconnect the call.

  “Andrew?” she called, too late.

  The call ended.

  The apartment was quiet, save the ticking of the counterfeit clock.

  WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

  The Future of Sex continues in The Voyos Reunion