Cracked Open

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Juliette scowls. Jackers. Always keeping secrets. Why don’t you just tell Tessa how you feel?

  Why don’t you just tell Sammi you’re head over heels in love with her?

  Okay, fine. Jerk. She sticks her tongue out at me. It’s something Olivia would do, back when the world was normal. It makes me laugh and hurt inside at the same time. Juliette heaves a sigh. Come on. We don’t want to miss the shift change.

  She consults her phone again, quickly, then pockets it and leads the way out of her room. We walk normally—not sneaking at all—through a series of hallways, winding down a strangely ornate golden-railed staircase, and finally into an expansive kitchen that looks like it could cook for a hundred people. One entire wall is flashovens and another is lined with giant silver doors without handles—must be mindware-controlled refrigerators, judging by the thick seals around the edges. Juliette goes straight to one, mentally commands it open, and disappears inside. Cool air curls across the floor and brushes my legs. I sweep out mentally, searching for staff who might head our way in the corridors outside the kitchen, but Juliette’s right—they’re clustered in a small room on the other side of an expansive formal dining room. They’re all readers, so the mental cacophony is intense, with a dozen thought-wave conversations pinging around, overlapping and reinforcing each other as snippets get passed around at thought-speed. Reminds me of the rumor-mill at my old high school. But it’s clear that Juliette and I are not only undetected but unimportant in the dramas of their daily lives.

  Juliette re-emerges from the fridge with an armful of lunchmeats, cheeses, and some condiments. Grab some bread from the bread box, she thinks as she sets them down on a stainless work counter.

  Bread comes in a box? But I quickly find the wooden box built into the counter and lift the lid to reveal a half dozen small baguettes. They smell like fresh-baked heaven, and they’re just the right size for sandwiches. My mouth is actively watering even before I realize how hungry I am.

  Juliette expertly assembles sandwiches for us, and we chow them down. I’m only halfway through mine when she pulls out her phone for another consult of the map.

  Uh, oh. They’re breaking up. We gotta move.

  I am seriously taking this sandwich with me. What about the stuff? I gesture to the remains of the sandwich fixings.

  Better to leave it. Distract them while we’re hoofing it to the lab. She takes off toward another door—not the one we came through—and my mental reach behind us says we escaped the kitchen just in time. Juliette’s eyes are glued to her screen now, and she leads me through another maze of hallways. We’re deep in territory I’ve never visited before.

  From the front of the estate, all the wings appear to be connected, but I soon discover there’s actually a gap between the southeast and northeast wings, with an elevated glass tunnel between them. As we cross over, I get a glimpse of the rear of the estate. I’d assumed it was just forest back here, and there are trees down the north and south edges… but in between is the most spectacular backyard I’ve ever seen. I actually stop in my tracks to stare. The sun is going down, so half of it is in shadow, but there’s an enormous pool that seems to fall off a cliff and land in Lake Michigan. A giant screen rises out of the edge of the pool, obscuring some of the view. Elegant, white lounge chairs and tables scatter around the lawn/carpet that skirts the pool. Tiller could have a BBQ for two hundred of his closest friends and not even come close to capacity. And that’s if no one is swimming.

  Juliette stops, just now noticing I’m trailing behind. Come on, Zeph!

  I hustle after her.

  Whereas the southeast wing is all plush carpet and gilded-frame artwork, the northeast wing is more austere. We pass offices, a computer server room, and a full gym. The stairwell back down to the first floor is concrete and steel. By the time Juliette stops at a featureless white door, it feels like we’re in one of DARPA’s secret facilities, not a mansion on the North Shore of Chicago New Metro.

  Juliette focuses hard on her phone, and it’s scrolling all kinds of data, none of which I understand. I sweep the building around us, but it’s empty of people. The end of our corridor has a window—outside, the darkening skies are settling over that thick forest which surrounds the estate. All except the parts which are lake view, apparently. The exterior of the north wing is just visible, with its white-block granite walls and a loading dock with a couple unmarked vans. I try reaching in that direction, since Juliette said her father’s office was in that wing, but it’s shielded.

  I shove down the last of my sandwich.

  Got it! Juliette thinks. The door swings inward, and we scurry inside.

  Juliette’s lab is state-of-the-art everything, but I expect no less, at this point. Stainless benchtops, vapor hoods, an entire collection of glassware, a chemical cabinet marked hazardous, plus a small manufacturing shop at one end.

  Is there anything you don’t have? I admire the giant screen that takes up one whole side of the room.

  That’s a philosophical question we don’t have time for. She’s hustling to the far side of the room and bending down to a silver cube that looks old-school like it’s made out of six-inch-thick walls of lead.

  I frown and come up behind her. She’s tapping a long sequence into the keypad. I only meant you have a lot of stuff—

  Stuff is the least important thing I have. She’s still focused on the box.

  I stop broadcasting because she’s right. It’s hard to feel sorry for someone who lives in a palace, but I actually do feel sorry for Juliette. Her family is messed up, the girl she loves is having second thoughts, and all this wealth isn’t hers unless her father agrees. It’s not like my life is sunshine and rainbows, but there’s little good about any of that.

  The door of the cube she’s fussing with finally swings open. She retrieves what looks like a black ball, then stands and cradles it in her two palms. It’s the size of a small melon—shiny midnight black, metallic, and segmented in a way that looks like it comes apart.

  So this is your father’s latest anti-jacker tech? I ask. The air is chilled in Juliette’s lab, but that’s not the source of the shiver that runs down my back. This thing looks menacing, and there’s one kind of person Tiller likes to menace. Jackers.

  Juliette nods. I’ve done all the scans I can without activating it. Which, like I said, doesn’t seem like such a great idea.

  I agree, even though I have no idea what it does. Which is the point.

  You can handle it, she says, handing it to me. It won’t go off or anything. As far as I can tell, it’s triggered by an external signal.

  The thing is heavy but cold. Creepy cold. Like it’s sucking the heat right out of my hands.

  Juliette runs a finger along one of the many seams that crisscross the surface. It comes apart into modules. Each is a small drone, or at least, each has the capability of flight. There are a dozen tiny turbine blades folded inside, as well as four larger ones, and a really strong power source in the middle. But the modules don’t have as much capacity. Maybe just enough power for one discharge.

  Discharge? I frown.

  One attack. I figure the mama device releases the baby devices, then they all launch their attack. I’m not sure what kind. Although there’s some sophisticated circuitry in both parent and child devices. Standard mindware stuff plus some extras.

  So it’s mindware controlled? I hand it back to her and wipe my hands on my pants. The clammy sensation remains.

  Maybe. She shakes her head. I don’t know. It’s a mod like I’ve never seen. That’s what tipped me off, actually. Non-standard mindware circuits. I don’t know what my dad’s up to with that… but I’m betting nothing good.

  I nod. Okay, we’ve got to smuggle this out of the estate. I’ll take it into Kira and see what she makes of it.

  Good. Here, hold it for a minute. She hands it back, and the creepy feeling skitters along the skin of my palms wherever it touches.

  This thing really feels strange.<
br />
  Because it’s so heavy? she asks as she rummages through some low cabinets. She finds a silver bag with pads of insulation inside.

  No. Because it’s cold and clammy and sinister-looking. I keep thinking it will explode in my hands.

  Juliette comes back with the bag and a frown. Cold?

  You’re kidding, right? It’s almost slimy.

  She frowns harder, sets down the silver bag, and takes the black orb device from me. Zeph, this isn’t cold. It’s slightly warm to the touch. All that circuitry and the power source—

  I’m telling you, it feels cold.

  She blinks at me, and I suppose I could be lying about this—I am a jacker after all—but there’s no reason to. She walks it over to one of the benchtops, sets the orb down, and digs through a drawer. She produces a slender silver rod and touches the tip of it to the black surface. Then she beckons me over.

  The temperature reads slightly above room level.

  I swear… it felt like it was draining heat right out of my hand. I don’t know what’s going on with that thing, but no way am I touching it again.

  Juliette’s thinking the same thing. Something’s very not right about this. I’ll pack it up good, but when you give it to Kira, you need to warn her.

  Understood. I watch her place the orb in her silver satchel, then we sneak back to her room, scurrying past the night staff now working their way through the estate.

  I don’t argue when she insists on keeping it overnight in her room, rather than having me carry it out of the estate tonight. Whatever this tech is, I don’t want it anywhere near my sister.

  The next day, the handoff goes smoothly.

  Juliette smuggles out the creepy orb, I drop her at school, I make the switch to an autocab at Aaliyah’s, and I’m on my way to Jackertown before the sun is even halfway up the sky. It’s a beautiful kind of morning. The kind where the perpetual haze of the lake lifts off the city, revealing the cobalt blue skies waiting above. Everything shines, even if it’s just the broken bits of glass in the street, the skyscrapers in the distance, or the bleached-white roads that once used to be black.

  In the short drive to Jackertown, the barrenness is quickly pushed aside in favor of a bustling oasis in the abandoned part of the city. Shops and cafes and kids—a strange normalcy in the middle of a town where everyone can control the minds of their neighbors. It’s a domestication that spikes a sudden yearning through me. A memory of a thing I used to have and took for granted, the way a kid believes the world will never change, even as they fully expect to grow up and take a place in it. When I was young, I spent some brutal time trapped in Clans doing nightmarish things… but I also rode my bike to the park, and played Tentacle with Olivia, and ate birthday cake. Homemade birthday cake with candles and whipped frosting.

  These kids, the ones dodging my autocab, are the kind with homes and moms and birthday cakes. And the weapon in a silver bag on the seat next to me is meant to harm them. I don’t know exactly how, but I don’t question the intent. And it’s so fundamentally wrong, it seems incongruous and shameful for the sun to shine so brightly when that level of evil exists in the world.

  Yet, I’m just as much of a weapon. And I’m headed into Jackertown to get Kira’s help to better wield it. I tell myself I mean better in both senses of the word—better skilled, but also learning to use my ability in a morally-better way. Not just to lock and unlock, but to reshape people’s minds to some good purpose. Like when I saved those people from dying in the clinic. But other than taking minds already shorted out and reviving them, I’m not sure how changing someone’s fundamental being can be a good thing.

  I guess I’ll find out.

  I try to shake the funk before I get out of the autocab and stride into the Mediation Center. Kira said to meet her here—something about the old headquarters for the Jacker Freedom Alliance being renovated. The crowds are gone. Inside, the chairs are gone, too. The place is empty—not even the lectern from the wake, just Kira standing on the stage, watching the screen on the back wall. The adjudicated cases of the past have been replaced by a tru-cast that’s silently reporting on a crime scene.

  I cross the wooden floor, clutching the silver bag with my anti-jacker tech, trying to make noise, so she doesn’t freak when I get close. From what I remember of all the rumors and tru-casts, Kira Moore is a strong jacker and the face of the JFA when that was still a thing. As I climb the steps to the stage, I feel the whisper brush of her mindfield against mine. I don’t shove her away—she’s not getting inside my head anyway—but she quickly retreats.

  She says nothing, just keeps watching the tru-cast.

  I stand next to her and wait. The tru-cast shows a body covered with blue sheeting from the Chicago Jack Police Department. CJPD is stamped in yellow across it. Red lettering scrolls along the bottom of the screen. Jacker found dead in Chicago alley last night near Jackertown… I vaguely wonder how they know this person is a jacker, but then I remember the latest sport of posting jacker information online for all to see.

  “It’s another ‘purity’ killing,” Kira says, her voice rough.

  “A what?” I frown. I’ve spent a lot of time in Clans, and I’ve seen a lot of people killed—for snitching, stealing, mind-wipes, and other jackery—but I’ve never heard of jackers killing each other for not being ‘pure’ enough.

  She turns to me. “The Readers First Front encourages people to ‘keep the race pure’ by outing family members who are jackers online. Especially the newly turned or anyone of child-bearing age. They have a whole message board for it called the Purity list.”

  My mouth hangs open. “That’s crazy.”

  She looks back to the screen. “Yeah. It is.”

  “How can they get away with that?” I protest. “I mean, they’re basically painting a target on those people’s backs.”

  She just shakes her head. “This isn’t Julian’s world. Not the one he wanted, anyway.” The tru-cast screen goes black—she must have mentally turned it off.

  “Julian said jackers and readers weren’t really any different,” I say, cautiously. Partly because I’m not sure if she wants to talk about Julian with his death still so fresh, and partly because I don’t want to tell her about DARPA—but I really should tell her about Renell.

  A wistful smile edges up the corner of her lips. “In the beginning, Julian thought we would be the triumphant species. A new evolution of mankind. Everyone would eventually be jackers.” Her face is clouded. “Later, after the inhibitors, he changed his mind. He said we were more alike than he suspected.”

  “He might have been right about that,” I say. “On both counts.”

  She frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, there are some jackers who can change into readers. And back again.”

  Her frown deepens like she’s not sure my head isn’t cracked. “You mean they pretend to be readers.”

  “No, I mean they actually are readers.” I set the silver satchel down, for the moment. “Look, I’m the king of pretending to be a reader. I’ve spent the last two years passing for one with just about every person I met.”

  “You were hiding your ability.” It’s common enough.

  “I was running away.” Heat rises up in my cheeks as I admit this. “I thought I was protecting my family. I was wrong. Mostly, it was just easier to hide. I can create a sim of a reader’s mind. It fools everyone, even jackers. But I can tell the difference. What I do isn’t ordinary jacking.”

  Her eyebrows lift. “Julian’s ability was unique that way, too. He operated—”

  “On a different frequency,” I cut her off. “I know. I’m not on a different frequency, Kira. I’m the whole tuner.”

  She blinks. “I don’t understand what that means.” But she’s scowling at me now.

  “I can lock and unlock minds… because I have all the keys.” I gesture around her head, trying to paint a visual of her mindmap. “Your mindfield is an electrical field, but it has contours�
�� hills and valleys, sharp cliffs and jagged peaks. Every bump is like a mental fingerprint. It’s in flux all the time, too, just a little, which makes things complicated, but…” I hurry up at the confused look on her face. “Basically, I can read the map of your mind. And change it.”

  Her eyes go wide.

  “Yeah,” I say. “And these people I work for—the ones who turned my sister into a weapon—they brought me a guy yesterday who could flip between being a jacker and a reader. He changed his own mindmap.” I pause as I realize… is Renell like me? Can he do what I do? And if so, can I do what he does? I grimace at that and struggle to get back on track. “Anyway, to me, that proves it. That, plus the inhibitors changing people. Readers and jackers can’t be different species or anything of the sort. Not if we can flip modes.”

  Kira’s face has gone through four emotions—surprise, shock, concern, and now a tentative, almost smile. “Can you prove it?”

  “Prove it?” I ask. “I’m barely able to understand it. What I’m saying is, I think I might be able to do that. To force a change. And I need to learn how to control it before…”

  “Before someone else makes you do it.” She’s catching on.

  “I’ve already had to do it once. I need to know if I can do it again. To someone who doesn’t already have that ability himself.”

  She scrunches up her nose. “I’m not sure how that would work.”

  “Me either,” I admit. “But I think it’s important. I mean, not just to me, but…” I gesture to the darkened screen. “To all of this. These Fronters aren’t just a bunch of blowhards with a Purity list. They’re in deep with the government.”

  Her eyes fly open. “How do you know that?”

  I grimace. I know it because I helped lead them to Julian. But I can’t come close to saying that. I scramble for something that’s plausible. Then I remember… “The guy who shot Julian—Jackson Harper—he was one of the Fronters, right?”