“The truth is, I’m a little worried about Timothy. I’d like you to keep an eye on him while you’re at the symposium. You’re the same age as Timothy, eighteen. I want you to befriend him. Cheer him up if he gets depressed.”
My enthusiasm for the trip dimmed. It sounded like Eddy wanted me to be a baby-sitter. “Does he get depressed often?” I asked. “I mean, did his dog die or something?”
Eddy ignored my questions. “Now, the thing is, I don’t want Timothy to know that you work for me—he’ll think I’m checking up on him.”
And aren’t you? I wondered.
“Just pretend to be another Martian,” Eddy advised.
“Mars is cool,” I said.
“Great.” Eddy clapped me on the shoulder.“Anaximander will brief you on the details. See you at the symposium.”
As I watched him breeze out, I was bewildered to discover that my fists were clenched so hard it took actual effort to open them.
I gave Eddy thirty seconds’ head start, then made for the door. I had to find out how Mike was. But when I opened the door, Anaximander was on the other side.
“You’re not ready for a solo flight yet,” he said, “so I’m having one of my men fly you out to Arizona in forty minutes.”
Forty minutes didn’t give me much time. I fought down my agitation. “So what is it that Eddy’s not telling me? Why does Eddy’s nephew rate his own symposium? What’s my future assignment on Mars?”
“Timothy isn’t just Mr. Castellan’s nephew. He’s also the son of SilverDollar’s president,” Anaximander said softly.
So Timothy was rich. I hoped he wasn’t spoiled, too. “And Eddy is . . . ?” I asked.
“Madam President’s half brother.”
Well, that explained the creep’s high office. “And the Mars assignment?” I asked.
“Mr. Castellan hasn’t informed me what your assignment will be.”
I narrowed my eyes. Not being told wasn’t the same thing as not knowing. “Is there trouble with the Martian mines?”
“Who told you that?” Anaximander snapped.
“No one.” I was taken aback by his reaction. “I was just guessing.”
“It’s a vicious rumor that just because the costof operating in space is getting higher, SilverDollar will close the mines and put thousands of Spacers out of work. Let me tell you something about the Spacers before you start spreading rumors about closing down their livelihood.” Anaximander actually looked angry. My careless words had obviously hit a nerve; Anaximander must have had some Spacer friends.
“The Spacers are a displaced people. The Blight in 2049 left hundreds of thousands of people crowded into refugee camps. In a desperate attempt to stimulate the faltering world economy, the UN began the monumental task of building a beanstalk from Earth into space. The refugees could have sat in the camps and moldered, waiting for a cure for the Blight to be found, but some of them petitioned the UN to be allowed to do something useful, to work on the beanstalk. They started off as unskilled labor and got the worst jobs and the lowest pay.
“Most went back to their homelands afterward, but about twelve thousand decided to stay on and adopt space as their new homeland. They and their children became the Spacers. Three-quarters of them work for SilverDollar’s Mars operation. If the mines on Mars shut down, they lose their homeland again and a whole culture dies.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
“The cost of operating in space might be getting higher,” Anaximander said, “but it’s the Spacers who’ve had to pay the steepest price.”
“Paid how?” I asked.
“In birth defects. Most Spacers are born needing some sort of Augment.”
I nodded, enlightened. The research I’d done on terraforming Mars had mentioned it in passing. The human body had been designed to live under Earth’s gravity and did not take to the lighter gravities and zero-Gs of space. Coupled with a radiation problem from the lack of a Martian ozone layer and proper shielding of early Spacer domes, and it was no wonder the Spacers were prone to birth defects.
“SilverDollar has to pay for the high cost of Augmentation,” Anaximander said. “But it’s the Spacers who have to live with the Augments.”
For the first time I wondered if Anaximander minded being Augmented. I’d somehow presumed that his titanium legs, Memory Recorder, Earradio, and silver eyes were all upgrades he’d had done to himself in a quest for perfection. It had never occurred to me that the Augments had been forced on him by a disability.
I tried to think of a way to express my sympathy, but the moment was lost when Anaximander handed me a palmtop computer, all business once more. “Here, this is yours. I’ve downloaded the itinerary for the symposium onto it.”
The palmtop was bigger than my palm, but not by much, about six inches square. It was pretty small for something that was a TV, a vidphone, and a computer rolled into one. Its black leather carrying case had a strap that could be used to sling the palmtop diagonally across one’s body.
“I don’t know if Eddy plans to bring you back here after the symposium or send you straight on to your first assignment, so I might as well give you your supplies now.” Anaximander led the waydown the hall to a supply room and kitted me out with Knockout medi-patches, TrueFalse medi-patches, handcuffs, and a sticky-gag.
And another item I didn’t recognize, a tiny atomizer. “What’s this? Perfume?” I pretended to spray my neck.
Anaximander plucked it out of my hand and packed it in its case. “It’s your insurance. If you get hit with a Knockout patch, you have ten seconds to inhale this spray. It will hyperoxygenate your blood to prevent you from passing out.”
“Cool. Body armor for Knockout patches.”
“Except that regular body armor doesn’t dissolve fifteen minutes later, leaving you unprotected,” Anaximander said dryly. “Hyperoxygenation wears off quickly. That’s everything. You’re set.” Anaximander paused awkwardly. “Angel—”
“You don’t have to say it,” I told him. “I’m well aware that you don’t think I’m ready to go on a solo assignment.”
“No, I don’t,” Anaximander said bluntly.
I winced inside. I’d been hoping he would correct me.
“If I were in charge I would never have hired you. I think you’re too young for what the job requires.” Anaximander paused. “Which is why I’ve been so hard on you. I kept hoping you’d back down and realize you were in over your head. But you never did.”
I perked up a little. That had sounded suspiciously like a compliment.
“It’s not your skills that I doubt, Angel. You’re fast, and you think on your feet better than anyone I’ve ever known. It’s your toughness that I worryabout. Some of the tasks I’ve done for Mr. Castellan have been . . . unpleasant.”
I stopped on the verge of assuring Anaximander that I was tough. What exactly did he mean by “unpleasant”? Unwillingly, I remembered Mike’s speculation that SilverDollar had hired us to do industrial espionage.
But Anaximander was through being forthcoming. “Your aircar leaves in twenty minutes. You’d better get going.”
I left the room at a sedate walk but was running when I turned the first corner. I headed for the subbasement in Gray Section, the Knockout patches Anaximander had just given me in hand. Ihadto see Mike before I left.
Someone was coming down the hall, so I twisted the doorknob to the Loyalty Induction room as if I had every right to go in. I planned to put on a show of searching my pockets for a nonexistent cardkey, but the door wasn’t locked. I slipped inside.
The Observation Room was empty. So was the Loyalty Induction chamber on the other side of the window.
I listened at the door to the surgery, then opened it, too.
A heavy antiseptic smell hung in the air, but Mike was gone. And I was out of time. I left Taber not knowing if he was okay. Or insane. Or dead.
IN THE PASSENGER SEAT of the aircar I stared at my new identicard with deep unease.
The pict
ure was of me. The birth date was mine. My name was even spelled correctly, Angel Eastland.
So why was I upset?
I heard Mike’s voice in my mind: “In 2099 you need ID to do everything. . . . Finally, we decided to let Anaximander capture one of us. That person would try to obtain identicards and money from the inside.”
I now had half of what Mike and the Angel he’d known had risked so much to get.
So what?I asked myself sternly.That was the old Angel. The new Angel isn’t on the run, and she’s the one with the card.
Sometimes I felt as if there were two Angels, Shadow Angel and New Angel. Shadow Angel was hiding somewhere inside me. Sometimes I caught echoes of her voice, but that was all.
I hated the way Shadow Angel kept manipulating me, but if I lost her I was deathly afraid I would lose myself.
Shadow Angel. New Angel. For a moment I felt as if I were fracturing inside. Frightened, I fought down the feeling and looked out the windows of the aircar instead.
The pilot landed me at the SilverDollar Tucson facility, and I registered for the symposium.
To give me a leg up in making friends with his nephew, Eddy had arranged for me to be billeted with the Castellan family. I sent my luggage ahead, but chose to walk myself to get a feel for the place. The warm desert sun felt good on my back.
Unlike the Taber building, SilverDollar Tucson had scorned the glossy, high-tech look in favor of charming haciendas with red-tiled roofs. The motorized walkways that connected the complex were below ground, their presence advertised only by discreet gold-plate markers. The lawns that I walked through had been irrigated green, and the trees were old and mighty (if they were force-grown I couldn’t tell.)
Two orange trees marked the Castellan house. It was large but not the mansion I’d expected.
A middle-aged woman in a vivid pink dress answered the door. Her walnut brown hair was coiled neatly at the nape of her neck. “You are Miss Angel?” She had a Spanish accent.
I nodded.
“I am Graciana Pasos, the housekeeper. Congratulations.”
“On what?” I asked, startled.
“Were you not told? You are a finalist in Mr. Timothy’s contest.”
“That’s good news,” I lied. How could I be a finalist? I’d only just written the essay, and I’d written it in frantic haste.
The answer was simple. I couldn’t be a finalist in a legitimate contest. Eddy must have cheated to have my name added to the list. But why? “Are all the finalists staying here in this house?” I asked.
“Yes.” She motioned me inside and I followed. “Mr. Timothy apologizes for not being here to meet you. There is a message for you in the living room.” She showed me the vidphone, then withdrew.
From Graciana’s wording, I had expected the recording to be from Timothy, so I was jolted when a video image of a silver-haired woman in a cherry red suit came up.
I didn’t recognize her; I hoped she wasn’t someone I’d forgotten. My heart rate doubled. Could the message be from my mother? There were a dozen reasons why that was unlikely, but I was still bitterly disappointed when the woman’s first words proved it.
“Ms. Eastland, I recognized your name when Timothy told me who the finalists were. I know you work for SilverDollar, which means you work for me.”
This wasTimothy’smother, I realized, president of SilverDollar. Which explained the large desk she was sitting behind.
She leaned forward so that her face filled the screen, and I could see the power radiating from her as well as the crow’s feet in the corners of hereyes. “I assume Edward has planted you in the house to prevent a second kidnapping.”
Kidnapping? Asecondkidnapping? There’d already been a first? Of whom?
“I thought about having you kicked out,” President Castellan continued, “but Timothy would have to be told, and I don’t want him upset right now. I’m going to let you stay, but understand this: you work for me, not Edward. If you do something I don’t like, you will develop a terrible case of the flu and have to be flown home.” Threat over, she sat back again. “Ms. Eastland, my son doesn’t need a bodyguard. He needs a friend.”
Click.The recording ended, leaving me with plenty of food for thought. And anger at Eddy. Why hadn’t he, or Anaximander, mentioned that Timothy had once been kidnapped?
President Castellan didn’t seem to like Eddy very much—had calling him by his full name been some sort of insult?—but reading between the lines, I could tell she was also worried about her son. Interesting.
Graciana erased the message, then gave me a quick tour of the house—kitchen, dining room, living room, a bathroom, and three bedrooms on the main floor; two more bedrooms, a second bathroom, and an office on the second floor. “Let me know if you need anything. Breakfast is at eight, supper is at six.” Having delivered me to one of the main-floor bedrooms, she backed away.
The room I’d been given was much nicer than my SilverDollar one, with teal green wallpaper and two obviously brand-new twin beds with chintzcomforters, but I barely glanced at it. My roommate had arrived ahead of me.
She was black-skinned and tiny, so petite she looked as if she ought to have fairy wings and be able to fly. Except that this fairy princess couldn’t walk. Her legs were withered, and she sat in a wheelchair.
In this day of Augments, wheelchairs were so rare as to be almost nonexistent. Only the poor still used wheelchairs.
Her clothes were strictly mall fare, a simple orange T-shirt and blue jeans. Her hair was black and kinky-curly, even within the tight confines of several million braids. The braids were drawn up into a short ponytail.
Her eyes were angry. They spat fire, looking me up and down disdainfully.
I confused her by smiling. I was so happy to have a roommate my age to talk to that I would have smiled at Lizzie Borden. I tossed my bag on the unoccupied bed. “Sorry. I was trying to decide if it was more rude to ask what happened to your legs or to pretend that I hadn’t noticed you couldn’t walk.”
She wasn’t charmed. “Let me know when you decide.”
I walked over to her and held out my hand. “I’m Angel Eastland. I don’t snore.”
“I’m Rianne Beaulieu. I do.”
I laughed, and after a few seconds, Rianne permitted herself a quick smile.
“So,” I said, “should we be good and unpack or goof off?”
Her reserve slammed right back into place.“You can do whatever you want. I’m going to finish unpacking.”
“Unpack it is,” I said good-naturedly. “First one done gets to pick which bed she wants.” Since Rianne was already halfway finished, I didn’t feel guilty about opening up my suitcase and dumping its contents into a set of drawers.
As soon as Rianne saw what I was doing, she stopped neatly transferring items from her suitcase and started tossing them in with wild abandon.
I finished first, stuffing a dangling sleeve into the bulging drawer and shoving it closed. “There,” I said brightly. “All done.”
“So which bed do you want?” Rianne eyed me as if she couldn’t decide whether I was crazy or fun.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to test them.” I sat down on the left-hand one. “Hmmm. This mattress has nice firm edges. Good bounce.” I tested each bed out thoroughly, going so far as to measure them for length even though it was obvious the beds were identical. I succeeded in making Rianne laugh and eventually settled for the bed closer to the door.
It felt good to make friends. I’d missed—
Who? Somebody.
Rianne had said something, but I didn’t know what. “Let’s go see what’s on the menu for supper.” I bounced to my feet.
In the living room we found two new arrivals. Graciana introduced them as Zinnia and Dahlia Cartwright.
Zinnia had chin-length white-blond hair. Istarted when I saw that Zinnia’s eyes were purple—was she one of the Renaissance children?— but then I saw that her eyes matched her purple silk blouse and that her lipstick
and nails were also the same shade.
She had to be wearing colored contacts, because Dahlia had turquoise eyes and she was Zinnia’s identical twin. It took me a moment to realize their features were the same since they were dressed so differently. Zinnia had a cool classic style, while Dahlia looked outrageous and funky in a peacockprint jumpsuit and short blue hair.
The two of them made me feel quite drab in my black shirt and pants. The clothing SilverDollar had bought for me was so basic as to be fashionless, but they were supposed to have my body form on record somewhere. I resolved to order some new clothes soon.
“I want to trade rooms with one of you,” the outrageous one, Dahlia, said. She glared at her sister. “I don’t want to stay withher.”
“It’s not like I asked to share a room with you,” Zinnia shot back. “The trustees should have made it clear that we needed separate rooms when they registered us,” she told Graciana, who looked upset.
“Trustees?” I asked.
They ignored me. “Will you trade?” Zinnia asked.
“I’m quite happy where I am,” I stalled.
They both turned their attention on Rianne, two heads swiveling in unison. The movement was eerie. An Augment? I wondered, or just a twin thing?
“Forget it,” Rianne said. “I was here first.”
Not to mention that her wheelchair couldn’t go up stairs easily.
“Isn’t there another room?” Zinnia asked.
Graciana shook her head. “The upstairs suite is Madam President’s. The other two downstairs rooms are for boys—Mr. Timothy and another finalist.”
“So?” Dahlia demanded. She seemed pushier than her twin was as well as more outrageous. “I’d rather bunk with a boy thanher.”
Graciana put her foot down. “No. No boys and girls sleeping together in this house.”
Dahlia rolled her eyes. “As if I’d want to make out with some boy I’ve never met.”
“Nevertheless,” Graciana said serenely. “That is the rule. Supper will be ready in five minutes.” She returned to the kitchen.
“You’vegotto trade with me,” Dahlia said dramatically.
“Do either of you snore?” I asked.
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