Duplicity

by N. K. Traver

  My seatbelt doesn’t quite make it to its buckle.

  “You okay?” Obran asks.

  I didn’t even think of that. Suddenly I can’t breathe right, but I force my seatbelt to click. The car shifts left and I gag.

  “Motion sickness is pretty typical the first twenty-four hours,” Obran says, completely unconcerned, one finger tracing the inside of the window. “It’ll pass.”

  I steady myself on the seat and focus instead on the feel of the leather. On its smoothness under my fingers. The roughness of the stitching. On being here. Here and not there.

  “Does the guilt pass?” I ask.

  “Guilt?”

  “For taking over someone else’s life.”

  He looks at me. I’m not over how weird it is to see myself outside myself, moving without me moving him, a one-sided mirror.

  “I’ve improved my target’s life a hundred percent,” he says. “But for your trade?” He watches his finger trace the window. “He had to tarnish one last pure thing, I guess. I will never forgive myself for underestimating him.”

  “But you let them take her.”

  He closes his eyes. “There was no other way.”

  If I keep pushing, he’s going to know. So I don’t ask why he didn’t figure something else out or why he didn’t challenge them. Why he’s such a filthy coward.

  “You really think they can’t be saved?” I ask, and the car shifts again. I want to look at anything but him, but the windows only show changing variations of light, no shapes. “That this is the only way to fix them?”

  “I wish the Overseer had at least taken the time to show you the whole Project, to show you some of the success stories.” He drops his hand. “It is much easier, much better for the world as a whole, to replace a broken part rather than try to patch one that may keep breaking. Don’t worry about them.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem,” I say. “That everyone does what’s easiest.”

  “In this case, it’s necessary.” He sighs. “After tonight we don’t have to keep up this charade anymore. You go your way. I’ll go mine. I think that’ll be best for both of us.”

  I’m not exactly opposed to that considering the circumstances, but I say, “Like break up?”

  “Let’s be honest. The only reason he was with you was to see what you look like naked. And the only reason you were with him was to save him. He’s been saved. I have more important things to focus on now than relationships.”

  “That is not why I—” I breathe out. “That is not why he was with her. Might have started that way, but he changed. She changed him. He was listening to her, and he could’ve become you, you know, with some time. It’s not the easy way. But it would’ve been the right way.”

  “I forgot,” Obran says, chuckling. (Do I sound that evil when I laugh? Frack.) “You’re still in love with me. With him. That’ll pass, too. You’re thinking perfect situation—that he’d continue listening to her, that he wouldn’t try to drag her down with him. And that’s only half the equation. Even if she fixed that piece of him, it doesn’t mean he’d stop pulling bank accounts. We do our work for the greater good, Emma. Do you let a dog continue biting your kids until you can finally teach him not to? No. You get a new dog that doesn’t bite, and you don’t sacrifice your children for the sake of the dog.”

  “Dog,” I grumble.

  “What?”

  “They aren’t animals,” I say. “Your metaphor doesn’t work. It’s more like, do you let the big brother keep tricking his little brothers until you can finally teach him not to? You just get rid of him and get a new one?”

  “They are animals,” Obran says, grinning at me in a way I don’t think Vivien would approve of. “You can’t understand the same way I do, because your target doesn’t think the same way they do. The Overseer has had to make many, many adjustments to me since the swap. I’ve had many … impulses to do things I shouldn’t.” His eyes drop from my face, then quickly to the window. “JENA corrects me each time, and I get stronger. And I realize just how broken he was.”

  “Mistakes are part of being human. Some people make more than others. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get a chance to—”

  “This is why we can’t stay together,” Obran says, and his fist clenches at his side. “Your belief that everyone has the will, however buried, to be a good person. It’s just not true.” He exhales, and in the reflection of the window, I see his mouth quirk. “Not yet.”

  I pause a minute before asking, because he just said I’m thinking like Emma. “Not yet?”

  He turns to me, smirking. “You’ll like this. As JENA gains influence and investors, they’ll be able to spin up more servers in more countries. She’ll pluck the bad fruit out of society first. Then they can move on to others, to people in places of power, and soon everyone will do the right thing, all the time. There will be no more war, only negotiation. No more murder. Eventually everyone will be born into JENA, and the world will know, for the first time, pure peace.”

  “That’s insane,” I say before I can stop myself. “Who decides what the right thing is for everyone?”

  “The Overseer, of course.”

  The woman I saw hyperventilating into a paper bag?

  Are you kidding me?

  * * *

  I’m too shocked to say anything else the rest of the car ride. This is the first time I’ve thought of JENA affecting anyone outside Seb, Emma, and me. I wonder if I’m evil for wanting to tear the entire operation down when the end goal is peace.

  Fake peace, I tell myself.

  One crazy person’s idea of peace.

  The car rolls to a stop, and I know if I sit too long, Obran will come open my door. I click my seatbelt off and bolt out. We’re outside my house. Not Emma’s, mine. Emma’s Camry is still in the driveway.

  I feel a little sick about that, because of course it is.

  Obran opens the trunk of the black car and extracts plastic grocery bags filled with things from the list in his pocket. He taps the trunk twice after he’s closed it and heads to the house without looking at me. The black car drives off. Obran opens the front door and announces he’s home, and there’s no answer, not for twenty seconds, until I hear Mom actually say the words, “Can you hold on a second?” but it’s to her phone, her phone, because next she’s telling Obran how grateful she is that he picked up the stuff on her list. And I’m watching my life from the outside, how it could be when I’m not there to screw it up, and I don’t know yet how I feel about it.

  Obran returns to the front door and tells me I can come in. I flash him a fake smile and concentrate on keeping my balance up the cement stairs. Dad glances up from his laptop and waves to me past the glass office doors. I walk with Obran into the dining room where Mom titters around in the kitchen, putting things away and arranging a meeting with whoever’s on the other side of her phone, but she spares me a wave before attempting to balance a giant package of toilet paper on her hip.

  “I’ll get that, Mom,” Obran says, and he does. She smiles at him and goes yacking out into the living room.

  It’s not much different than what I’m used to, and somehow totally different. I can buy things and put toilet paper away. I don’t need a Boy Scout replacement to do that for me.

  “Oh, almost forgot,” Obran says, handing me a pink bar. “You can have this back now.”

  It’s Emma’s phone. I try not to spaz-grab it as I shrug and slide it into Emma’s pocket.

  “I’m starving,” Dad says, joining us in the kitchen. “Everyone ready to eat?”

  Obran yawns and shakes his head a little. “Yeah.”

  “Oh, the time!” Mom says, whirling back into the kitchen like something’s on fire. “We have reservations at six. We should have left ten minutes ago! Brandon, can you grab my jacket? Come along, Amy—”

  “Emma,” I say.

  “Emma, of course.” She opens the garage door for me. “We’ll take my car. The Mercedes, dear.”

&nb
sp; I remember the Exorcist I planted upstairs and think I’d be a lot more comfortable if it was in my pocket. “Sure. If it’s okay, I just need to grab something from my—er, Brandon’s room.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” Obran says from the front hall. “What did you need?”

  Crap. I’ll have to leave it. I grimace and shove my hands in the pockets of Emma’s sweatshirt, wondering how awkward it’ll be to call Jax from the girl’s bathroom at the restaurant, when my fingers hit Emma’s keys. I pull them out like they’re the cure to cancer.

  “Oh, found them,” I say, following Dad down the garage steps (I’m getting good with these boots). I look out at the Camry and think the smile on my face could rival the devil’s. “I just remembered I have to meet someone right after,” I say over my shoulder. “I’ll just drive mine.”

  “All right,” Mom says.

  “I’ll go with you,” Obran says, appearing on the stairs with Mom’s jacket.

  I give him Emma’s best grin. “I wouldn’t want to take away from family time,” I say, jerking open the Camry door. “I’ll see you there.”

  I fire the Camry’s motor before Obran can protest. He doesn’t look suspicious, but he’s wearing the face I make when I’m confused and thinking about things. I don’t like him thinking.

  I blow him a kiss and test the Camry’s acceleration down the street.

  * * *

  Of course I don’t go to dinner.

  When I’ve made it out of the neighborhood, I pull the Camry off to the side and smash all its mirrors, including a compact in the glove compartment. I weigh Emma’s phone in my hand, frowning. My prior excitement died with the realization that JENA is probably tracking everything I do with it, and I don’t want her catching the slightest sniff of what I’m planning. I power the phone off and flip the battery out after sending a text to dear Tanner to make sure he’s meeting me.

  I take side streets and obey more traffic laws than I ever have in my life to get to the deserted strip mall where we’re meeting. The place has been abandoned a year, so the lot’s empty. It’s right against the main highway. Lots of ways out. Lots of witnesses in case the suits pull in. Tanner’s black truck roars in off the main road and I get out to meet him.

  “I thought you were going to dinner?” he asks as he hands over Emma’s laptop.

  “Still the plan, but he wants to do some nerdy gaming thing after,” I say, trying to look appropriately disinterested while wrestling back a crazy smile. “Might be a late night.”

  “Mom will want you home by eleven.”

  “What, she doesn’t trust me?”

  “It’s not you she doesn’t trust,” he says, giving me a look.

  I stare back, trying to think of something Emma-ish to say to defend myself, but somehow that seems to be enough.

  “I know, I know,” Tanner says. “He’s different now. Just be careful, okay? People don’t usually change that fast.”

  “I know,” I say, because I do.

  He pulls out. I wait a couple minutes before nosing the Camry onto the main road. A red Camaro blows by me, then slows down to stay next to me, and when I look over it’s two guys waving. The driver yells, “What’s your name?” and I know Emma wouldn’t do this but I flip him off. He calls me something that would earn him knuckles to the jaw if he ever really said that to Emma. I snicker and turn onto one of the side streets.

  An hour back in the real world and I’m already spreading cheer. I would be exactly what he called me if I was a girl.

  I find a dirt road well off the highway and tuck the Camry under a cluster of pines. Flip Emma’s cell off the seat and reassemble it, power it up, and hack into the hotspot utility so it’ll feed wireless to the laptop without reporting that that’s what it’s doing. Then I break the GPS tracking so the phone thinks it’s permanently at Emma’s place. I’ll get Emma a new one when this is over. I’ll get her freaking whatever she wants when this is over.

  The laptop boots and I’m in business. Jax has a special chat room for emergencies that’s completely encrypted, but the Internet address and password changes every few hours. I’ll have to pull up my e-mail to remind myself how to calculate them. For a second I actually miss JENA, only to the extent that I could just think what I wanted to do and it would happen. The five seconds it takes to type my e-mail address and the three seconds it takes to load the mailbox take a month each.

  I dig through my saved messages and pull up one of Jax’s first e-mails to me, a Pizza Hut coupon. And so much more than a Pizza Hut coupon. I study the barcode and the delivery number, check today’s date and time, and do the math in my head. Once I’ve got the address and password worked out, I start a new, untraceable Internet session and put in the codes.

  PIZZA HUT, types the screen, looking so much like that first night when Obran hacked me that my chest squeezes in. DELIVERY OR TAKE OUT?

  TAKE OUT, I type. YOU WANT ACCESS TO ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST SOPHISTICATED SUPERCOMPUTERS? YOU BETTER LISTEN THIS TIME.

  22. THEN LET’S TRADE, PART II

  AT THE END OF THE CHAT, I’ve won. Jax even admitted to having looked up Vivien’s name since our last call and finding some controversial articles in the White House archives, articles about a company that tracked hackers online and put them behind bars without a trial. Supposedly the company dissolved after the government stepped in to say they had to follow the legal system.

  Except it didn’t dissolve, I told Jax.

  Except it didn’t, he agreed.

  Now he has server names and passwords and some technical details about JENA that should be more than enough for a guy with his connections. They’ll find them.

  They have to.

  Until I hear back from him, there’s nothing else I can do, so I may as well go to dinner.

  I spin dirt and mud in sixty directions backing up, cut off an angry SUV, and book it to Johnny Carino’s. I should have been there forty-five minutes ago. Maybe they missed their reservation and had to wait. Considering what Obran said to me in the car, maybe they don’t even care I’m missing.

  Ironic.

  When I push my way through the doors of the restaurant, there’s no one waiting. I ask about the Eriks party and the hostess leads me around to the back. My family sits quiet, looking like every other family except no one is smiling and Obran—Obran—is typing away on his phone. I scoot in next to him like I’ve been here all along.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Tanner needed me to check on the cat and give her medicine. Missy hasn’t been eating the last few days. Took me a while to find her.”

  “You have a cat?” Obran asks.

  I have no idea if that’s true. “She hides a lot. Didn’t you get my text?”

  Obran scrolls through his phone. “No.”

  “Huh. I sent one.” I fish Emma’s phone out and pretend to look through the messages. Of course I didn’t send him anything. I snicker, but in Emma’s voice it comes out as a giggle and it’s so … ridiculous sounding, that soon I’m laughing and I laugh a lot longer than I should. Mom and Dad exchange glances.

  “What’s so funny?” Obran asks.

  “I typed it out, but I forgot to send it,” I say, smiling at him. He doesn’t look amused. I bet that’s what I look like a hundred percent of the time around Ginger.

  “We just ordered,” Mom says, fidgeting with her napkin. “I’ll have them bring you a menu.”

  She snags the next unfortunate waiter who walks by, and I mean snags: she gets his sleeve and his drink tray tilts toward my lap and he saves it just in time. The menu has fresh cola sloshed along the top when he drops it in front of me.

  “So, Emma,” Dad says. “Brandon tells us your father’s a vet. Small animal or large?”

  I think my heart wedges itself between my ribs. It’s like they know. Like JENA told them to drill me out so Obran will know, too, because I have no idea where Emma’s dad works and I just learned he was a vet and—

  Obran takes my hand, probably to comfort
me but I can’t help it, it’s instinct—

  I backhand him.

  And immediately try to imitate that thing girls do when they freak out, which is cover my mouth with my hands.

  “Obra—Oh, Brandon,” I say, wincing at the slip. “I’m really sorry about that. The stuff I have to give Missy, it’s really noxious, it makes me jumpy.”

  “Wow, you really hit me hard,” Obran says, rubbing his jaw.

  “All those self-defense classes,” I say.

  “What do you give your cat?” Mom asks.

  I’m infinitely grateful to the young waiter who slides over at that minute, even if he does look down my shirt. I give him my order and change my mind three times before flashing Obran a nervous smile.

  Emma can never find out about this dinner.

  “How are things at work for you, Mr. Eriks?” I ask, before anyone can pick up the last topic of conversation.

  “Getting exciting,” Dad says, leaning across the table. “We’re about to release a new software program we’ve been working on for a year. It’ll revolutionize the accounting world. I won’t bore you with the details, but it’ll save accountants hours of otherwise meticulous data entry.”

  “I don’t think the details are boring,” I say.

  This is the longest I’ve ever been able to talk to Dad about what he does, and I want to know everything. I realize if we were at dinner with Emma’s parents instead, and I was in my own body, I’d have just as much trouble answering questions as I am now.

  I’m going to change that.

  “Oh, well, if you’re curious,” Dad says, looking pleased. “Audits are time consuming and can be complicated, but there are always steps in the process that must be repeated, menial steps that high-paid accountants shouldn’t have to waste their time on. Our software will do these steps automatically, based on minimal information, so the accountants can spend more time on the manual steps.”

  “That’s cool,” I say. “And you’re a manager?”

  Is it sad that I honestly don’t know the answer to that question?