by N. K. Traver
“But you came back,” Seb says, her face in so much pain that I want to look away, but there’s nothing else to look at. “You came back just to kill me?”
“I swear, I thought I’d convinced JENA to keep you. I thought—”
I thought I’d hacked her. It sounds so stupid, now. Me, hack a supercomputer? I should’ve known it was too easy. I should’ve known they’d never give a target that much control, and that Vivien was just playing a part before, getting frantic so I would believe I’d actually done it. I was thick enough to take the bait. And now Seb will pay for it.
Seb.
Sariah Elise Burnhart, a paraplegic genius from New York.
“But you promised,” Seb says.
I can’t say anything. Can’t do anything but look back at her, hollow and helpless and soulless, because I’ve done it again. Screwed over someone who cared about me, someone who trusted me, someone who saved me.
“Transferring,” JENA chimes overhead.
I make a rash attempt to get into the code layer, and JENA zaps me so bad my vision blurs. Seb’s eyes have gone dark. She’s hating herself for freeing me. She’s wondering why she gave me the Exorcist. She’s remembering the time she cracked, the time I held her together and lied to her.
Realizing I’m the monster.
All gears and wires.
“You promised,” Seb says again, the shock wearing off, her fingers curling to fists. “I waited for you. I waited—”
She disappears with JENA.
I’ll hear those words in my head the rest of my life.
* * *
JENA makes me watch. As I deserve.
All the hackers must watch, she explains, as a theater-sized video of the execution displays across all four walls of my workspace. Everywhere I look is Seb. The girl who trusted too much.
The girl who trusted me.
She looks very small in the execution space. Her hair’s down and she’s switched to her black skirt and a T-shirt, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the same outfit from the white room. She leans against one of the walls, watching the ceiling as Vivien lists her various offenses. Her real world crimes: viruses that kept track of chat sessions, credit card numbers, and Socials … from inside military firewalls. Her Duplicity crimes: hacking into game sessions and acting as forerunner to several attempted escapes.
“Let this serve as your only warning,” Vivien says overhead. “That no one leaves Duplicity without my permission, and that attempts to do so will be most seriously addressed.”
And that’s it. Seb doesn’t get to say anything. Doesn’t look like she wants to say anything. Her face is stone until her gaze shifts to the camera, where it’s like she’s seeing JENA over my shoulder all over again, thinking I betrayed her, thinking she meant nothing, but that’s not true—I swear it’s not true—but a load of good that does now—
I can’t lose anyone else, she’s saying.
Do you promise?
I have to close the screens. I can’t watch this. I won’t, and the picture wavers but JENA keeps it open, and I see Seb on the beach watching the sunset, in Emma’s room she made for me, in Emma’s dress handing me my escape plan—
In pieces, on-screen, as she bursts into a thousand squares of color.
* * *
JENA leaves me in the gray room. She adds a single screen to keep me entertained, one with neon green numbers and a new percentage for Emma’s duplicate completion: sixty-seven.
She assures me Target Thirty-Nine has been properly disposed of.
She says my assistance has bought me time and that the Overseer is considering reintegrating me into the Project, under very strict supervision.
At this point I wish she’d just kill me.
Except I’ve still screwed up someone else’s life, someone whose counter keeps inching up percent by percent, so I can’t die until I do something about that. Not that I’ll be able to do anything until it’s too late, because I’m pretty sure an actual virus has more access to the Project right now than I do.
I don’t trust myself to do anything.
I try to forget Seb existed, convince myself she was just a program like JENA, not a person, but that makes me think of Vivien and I get so pissed the walls around me shake loose cement onto the floor. I need a miracle but I don’t think one’s coming.
Sixty-eight percent, reads Emma’s counter.
Something vibrates in my pocket. I wonder if that’s JENA’s new way of communicating with me—drop a phone in my jeans with a text message that says I’ve got five minutes to live, that I’m not worth an actual appearance. The thought gives me a crazy sense of relief. I fish out whatever it is and feel my gut sink through the fake floor.
It’s the bedazzled Exorcist.
PRESS ME! says the white text on its screen, pointing to the first of four on-screen icons that look like old-fashioned locks.
I want to fling it across the room and watch it smash into a thousand pieces. I want to pull the trigger on its side, stick it to my temple and hope it fries me. I can’t use this. How can I, when I … I killed her, and now she’s my miracle, and even if I’m the one who made the promise … she’s the one who kept it.
I can’t understand why she would do that. She had her shadow room ready when I found her; she could easily have swapped back before I got there.
I waited for you.
I can’t keep thinking about it or I really will put this thing to my temple.
Emma’s counter creeps up another percent. Right now it doesn’t matter what I did or what I deserve, it matters what promises I can still keep. I tap the first icon on the Exorcist. The cement walls flash open to darkness, and I’m in a glass square suspended in black, black ocean, where lines of numbers in every color zip around outside—up, down, left, right, like hundreds of falling stars. Some come straight at me, then deflect off when they get within ten feet.
Seb’s girl voice fills the room. I would have a heart attack if I had a real heart.
“I thought you might do something silly and get caughts,” she says. “Which means I’m probably doing wheelies in the real world right now and you probably didn’t listen to something I said. That’s okay. You’re now on the mirror server with admin privileges. It’ll take them hours to crack in to get you. That should be enough. Follow the instructions this time, ’kay? Love you, Bran Bran.”
It’s prerecorded. Of course. Seb assuming she’s made it out and that I got caught trying to do the same, which must be why the Exorcist didn’t vibrate until I was alone in my cell without JENA. A backup backup plan.
I think a cockroach has more dignity than I do right now.
A new instruction flashes on the Exorcist’s screen, telling me to push the second icon. I don’t even hesitate this time. I push it.
Because this battle with Vivien is far from over.
And I’ll be damned if I’m the reason someone else dies.
21. REASONS WHY I’M GOING TO HELL
THE REAL WORLD is all the hues of bright afternoon.
I’m looking through a decorative mirror, one split into three uneven rectangles. It shows me slices of the room behind, one with a small bed and a big window and a closet built into the wall, like a dorm room. It’s empty. Looks peaceful, except I know, because the Exorcist told me after it loaded this place, that the door locks from the other side.
The Exorcist says, in a few minutes, Obran will lock Emma in this room. The first thing he’ll do is break the mirrors.
I’ll have ten seconds so I need to prepare.
To my side, numbers slide around the edges of the shadow bed and the tiles in the floor, flashing red and yellow. JENA is well aware I’m here, but whatever Seb did that kept me out the first time is working to keep her out, too. If I don’t make this swap, I won’t have another chance.
I have a feeling Vivien is no longer considering reintegrating me.
A train of yellow eights scampers around the edge of the mirror screen
s. The door will open soon. I don’t know if I have enough time. The second icon flashes on the Exorcist.
I feel like spit on the bottom of a shoe, but I push it.
“Found this when I was poking arounds,” Seb says from the Exorcist’s speakers. “Might be useful.”
A window of text floats midair to the left of the mirrors.
NANOTECHNOLOGY AND THE JUSTICE AND EFFICACY NEW-LIFE ALTERATION PROGRAM (JENA)
At the genius suggestion of Dr. Erin, the Project will utilize nanites—microscopic robots tiny enough to fit in the bloodstream—to link targets outside the Project to JENA. Nanites can not only heal wounds and purify the body of many physical ailments, but also assist in making minor cosmetic changes. Dr. Erin’s research gives us the ability to infect the brain and take charge of critical electrical points to gain control of it. We can then download the primary personality and put it to work in another system.
Nanites. I remember the feel of the ink skinning off my arms and wonder what else the bots can do if JENA deems it necessary. It doesn’t say how I’m infected, but I’m never getting another freaking flu shot, that’s for sure.
Which means, technically, I’m still in my body and I’m here, which is why when JENA worked me into the ground, Obran had to go to bed early. The swap disabled the nanites in my brain when I transferred over. Turned them on when Obran traded back. That must be how the Exorcist works. Once it kills the nanites, JENA has no way to connect to that person’s brain anymore. He wakes up. Like unhooking the satellite cable from a TV.
And I realize—
The door opens.
Except it’s not Obran with his filthy hands on Emma’s arm, but one of the suits from the park. He takes a police bat to the mirrors, and they crack and shatter—one, two, three—until the real world flickers out like a broken bulb and the shadow room hums uselessly around me.
I start laughing. There’s too much churned up inside me and too much pressure and too much pain and it comes rolling out, because of course they wouldn’t let Obran anywhere near a mirror. That would be too easy. But thanks to Seb, I know something I’m not supposed to know. Because if what I just read is true—
If I can be transferred to “any other system”—
Then it’s not just my body I can swap into.
I check Emma’s duplicate percentage, now at eighty-nine.
And I get cocky again.
* * *
The Exorcist’s third icon holds the instructions Seb referred to in her prerecording: server passwords, how to cloak what I’m doing from JENA while I’m in my shadow room, and how to transfer items between the Project and the real world. I want to plant the Exorcist in the room they’ve locked Emma in, but that’s no longer an option since they broke the mirrors.
I call up my room instead and focus on the desk drawer. Just like Obran did when he jacked my shine. Just like he did—too quickly—when he threw the letter opener and the bots overloaded trying to create it so fast that the effort shattered the glass. I take my time. When I let go of the Exorcist, it vanishes from my hand. A clunk sounds from my real world drawer.
Step 1 of the plan is in place.
Which is when I realize I never checked the fourth icon.
“Ninety-nine percent complete,” JENA says overhead.
No time to worry about that. I call up Emma’s room as quickly as I dare—not the shadow version of it, but the lavender comforter on her bed and the trinkets along her dresser, somewhere she’ll feel safe. I run my hand on the wallpaper to check its texture. It’s solid. The room should have another few hours in it before JENA gets through. Emma might never forgive me for this, but I’m out of ideas and it’s the only chance I can give us.
I’ve figured out this much: alone, there’s no way I can take down the Project. I need a lot more firepower. But I know someone who has that firepower—who has connections to dozens, maybe hundreds of hackers—and Jax is damn well going to listen to me this time. I just need a few minutes to call him. Then JENA can swap me to the moon if she wants.
It’s not a great plan but it could work.
God I hope it works.
“Transfer commencing,” JENA says.
Crap. It’s too soon. I’d banked on having at least another minute, but whatever. If I’ve learned nothing else in here, it’s how to work under pressure.
“Administrative override,” I say. A transparent screen appears between me and Emma’s closet mirrors. From my first swap to the real world, I know JENA matches a target to a duplicate by ID. Mine is Fifty. Emma’s is Fifty-Three. So if I trick the computer into thinking I’m Fifty-Three, then it’ll swap Emma into this safe room instead.
AUTHORIZATION CODE? flashes onto the screen.
I trace in Seb’s admin password like it’s a contest.
WELCOME, ADMINISTRATOR, it types. PLEASE ENTER A COMMAND.
“Reassign current transfer,” I say. “I am Fifty-Three’s duplicate.”
Nothing happens. Every second is a year. I’m thinking JENA’s caught me, that I’ve finally pushed too far, when the screen flashes again.
!!WARNING!! REASSIGNING THE CURRENT TRANSFER WILL DELETE THE ORIGINAL DUPLICATE. OKAY TO PROCEED?
“Yes!” I yell, half-hysterical that this is actually working, half-panicked that I’m already too late. “Transfer now!”
My head screams murder. It’s just as bad as last time, and I get whiplashed into space that isn’t space and lights pop all over my vision and then it’s dark—dark as the bathroom when Obran first swapped me—and my hands grip what feels like cold porcelain. I heave into what I hope is a sink. Wipe my mouth with my arm and take a minute to get my bearings, but I can’t make sense of anything except the slit of sun (real sun) filtering under the door behind me.
It worked.
It worked?
I trip over something as I turn to open the door. The knob won’t move at first, then a man’s voice in the ceiling says “Transfer complete” and a green light flashes. The door unlocks. The first thing I see is the closet in the dorm room with the broken mirrors.
I close my eyes and pray for forgiveness.
I open them and push Emma’s hair out of my face.
The world doesn’t look much different from her eyes. I’m shorter, and I almost biff it turning around because the floor’s slanted—except it’s just her freaking wedged boots—and I have no idea how to walk in the things. I wrestle them off my feet and toss them against the closet. Flip the light on in the tiny bathroom and wash my hands, and when I bring the water to my lips it’s like being reborn. I know it’s just water, but trust me. If heaven had a taste, this would be it.
When I can’t drink anymore, I brace myself on the sink and feel for Emma’s phone in her jeans. Nothing. Obran must’ve taken it. I pat down the front pockets, the back pockets … the back pockets … the back pockets feel good. I bite my cheek and clench my hands so they’ll stop wandering.
And then I have a really weird moment where I consider my most obvious new assets, except I know somewhere, somehow, she’ll know if I do anything, and I have a five-minute battle with myself saying “Just get it out of your system” on one side and “Don’t be a perv” on the other and dammit, I don’t do anything, I just scratch the damn bra’s itchy band and try to focus on what I need to do.
Someone knocks at the door that locks from the other side.
“Yes?” I say, and it’s so much higher-pitched than I’m used to that I jump.
Obran opens the door. I have to clench the sink again because seeing him through the mirror is nothing like seeing him—me—whatever, from this side. How Emma sees me. Everything’s off just a bit, like he’s some version of me returned by aliens. My hairline angles the wrong way. My nose slants a little right instead of left.
I might need one of Vivien’s paper bags soon.
“Ready to go?” he asks.
I have to be confident. As Emma’s duplicate, I should know what’s going on. I hope the face I’m ma
king is a smile as I nod and step forward.
“Um … you need shoes,” he says.
I glare at the boots next to the closet. I hope it’s normal for duplicates to need time to get used to their bodies because that’s what I’m going to claim. I grab each boot and sit down to put them on, and when they’re latched in place I reach for the wall for balance. Obran steadies my elbow. It’s everything I have not to deck him across the face.
“I just threw up on that arm,” I say, giving him an innocent smile.
He makes a face and lets go. “It takes a little getting used to,” he says, turning to the door. “And it takes forever to get from one place to the next. But we need to go. I have some things to pick up and then we have dinner plans.”
Dinner. I make one last frantic visual search for Emma’s phone, hoping she left it on the nightstand, but the room’s sterile clean. Soon it doesn’t matter. Soon Obran’s ushering me out and the phone’s farthest from my mind as I try to figure out how the heck hips move. I stagger for the wall like a toddler and grab the handicap rail support. By the time we reach the end of the hall I’m not drawing weird looks anymore from the people passing by, but I get a little too confident on the stairs and Obran has to grab my arm so my head doesn’t go into a railing. For Emma’s sake, I’m grateful. For my sake, I might be sick again.
Obran leads me into an underground garage that could be the mall parking lot if it wasn’t filled with black Mercedes with equally black tinted windows. One idles for us in the aisle, and I really don’t want to get in but Obran pulls open the back door for me and I can’t risk his suspicion. I flop onto the seat. He slams the door behind me, walks around the back, and gets in on the other side. Dark tint blocks my view out of every window. A partition walls us off from the driver and the front seats. The car moves and I grab my seatbelt because I know Emma would never go without.
I wonder how long it’ll take them to figure this out. That Emma’s duplicate doesn’t actually exist, and that Emma’s in Seb’s safe room, and that I’m—
I wonder what will happen if they do figure it out and I’m stuck in Emma’s body the rest of my life.