by Carol Riggs
I fall onto my side on my bed. To my annoyance, my eyes feel dangerously leaky. I squeeze them shut.
Amazing. Except for one big problem.
As good as all that sounds, I’d much, much rather spend time with Granddad and my own parents. Where I can be appreciated for myself, not the memory of Jodine.
That evening after dinner I pack a small bag for my stay at the Clinic. Along with my Institute-issued phone, I bring the new phone I bought on Wednesday, since I’ll probably have to turn in the Institute one. I leave my room and walk by Granddad’s at the same time he exits.
“Pardon me,” he says, his words stiff.
I glimpse his room behind him, with its stacks of packed boxes waiting to be carted to the retirement home. His books have been taken off the shelves, his abandoned socks and shirts shoved into bins. It’s the cleanest I’ve ever seen his room. It looks eerie, and it doesn’t seem right. I won’t get to help him move tomorrow, but I doubt he wants me around anyway.
“Bye, Granddad, I’m heading out. I’ll miss you.”
“I’m missing the real Morgan,” he says. “Not you.”
His reaction isn’t surprising, but it stabs me hard. As I try to swallow it down, he ducks into the bathroom and begins sorting through razors and shampoo bottles. I lean against the doorframe as if my bones have dissolved.
Blinking, I try to control my quivering mouth. “Granddad. This is all the me that’s left. I made a mistake joining up as a Reducer—or at least continuing the program when it got dangerous—but I can’t change that now. Please don’t reject me.”
He fumbles a razor, and it rattles across the sink cabinet and onto the floor. We both stare at it, not moving.
I take a deep breath and look up at his stricken face. His scruffy beard. The bushy white-gray hair that pokes out over his ears. The beloved bumpy profile of his nose. “I can’t handle it if you don’t talk to me anymore,” I say in a near-whisper. “I can’t lose you along with everything else. That would be a kind of Chateau d’If I couldn’t handle.”
He snaps his head up. Emotions detonate across his face. “You’re wrong about whose mistake this is,” he says, his voice clogged and raspy. “This is my fault, sweetie—if it really is you under there, in that body. I should’ve signed up for health care and not created this doggone debt. Admit it…you wouldn’t have become a Reducer if it wasn’t for me.”
No way. I’m not letting him take the blame for my choices or my stubbornness. “That’s not true. I could’ve prevented this. I knew the risks, and I kept on going. But you know what? Even now, knowing what I know, I’d do it all over again. For you.” I barely get the last words out, they’re so mangled.
He makes a gruff moan.
I can’t tell if I fall into his arms, or he falls into mine. I hug his bony shoulders, and he gives me a scrunch that almost makes me feel like I’m Morgan again, my old self.
When he finally releases me, he wipes his hand under his nose and sniffs long and hard. “I gotta get back to packing. Don’t forget to call and let me know how you’re doing. I guess a brain clone of you is better than no you at all.”
“I’ll call, don’t worry.”
I take a wobbly breath and leave him to his sorting.
At the end of the hall, I find Mom and Dad navigating around the kitchen without much speed or energy. Dad grabs a knife to cut a slice of superstore-baked pumpkin pie.
I give him a sideways hug. “I’m going to the Clinic now. I’ll call to tell you what’s up after I have that mysterious meeting. I can keep using text instead of screen mode, since my face is unfamiliar.”
“Whichever you’re more comfortable with.” Dad looks far from comfortable himself. “We need to get used to your new face anyway. Want me to cut you a slice of pie before you leave?”
“No thanks, I’m trying to lose weight.” He’s so not used to having me be this careful about what I eat.
Mom leans around Dad. “Good luck with the weight loss. Come back as soon as you can.”
A formidable lump rises in my throat. “Yeah. Maybe we can do another song together.”
Nodding, Mom studies the kitchen counter, then her fingernails. I know she’s thinking of earlier today, when I sang a few verses of a song, and she complimented me on my voice. She acted surprised and a little spooked. No wonder. It’s not the tone-deaf voice she good-naturedly used to tease me about.
“I’m outta here,” I say quickly. “I love you both.”
They echo my partings, although there’s a pained look in their eyes.
I catch the Express to the Red Zone. My future looms before me, bleak. Now that I’ll be staying at the Clinic, my days will be filled with weight loss, and there will be no credits for an extra incentive to keep going. That’ll be miserable as well as dull, especially if Vonn isn’t there to keep me company. I’ve only heard from him once on my new phone since we last saw each other.
His text was short and simple.
Going to my mom’s for Thanksgiving. Thanks for your number. I’ll call you.
He hasn’t called yet. Maybe I should ask him to come to the Clinic and lose weight with me—we could pretend we’re just meeting each other, for appearances’ sake. If I could see him again, it would help my mood. I need to stop thinking about depressing stuff, because I’m sick of crying and wiping my eyes. I’ve had it with all this emotion.
I need to think instead, be practical.
For a start, I check my financial statement on my phone. It doesn’t look like my settlement has been deposited yet, but Leo sent a message yesterday saying it’ll be ten thousand credits. Once I get that, plus what I earned as a Reducer for two months, I’ll apply the total to Granddad’s debt. He can’t stop me. Although even counting Mom and Dad’s share, we’ll be three thousand credits short of meeting our end-of-December deadline. And there’ll be nothing left over for my tech school tuition.
By the time I get off the MT in the Red Zone, a mass of clouds has gathered in the sky. I hurry down the sidewalk. Rain begins to hit my sweats, and I wrap my arms around myself, wishing I had a coat. At the Institute grounds, most of the rubble from the administration building has been cleared away or bulldozed back. That’s good, and a little less scary.
I concentrate on my feet thumping along the lit-up sidewalks. Enforcers stand guard everywhere. They scan my ID at both the gates and the Clinic entrance.
After I check in, I complete a strenuous workout in the gym, take a stinging hot shower, and fall into bed. The exercise helps me drift off to sleep despite the forlorn, stark efficiency of the dorm room. I dream of running a five-mile race without gasping or panting.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, I trudge down the hall to Meeting Room 3. Outside, more rain falls, plinking like needles against the windows. I inhale through my nose and out through my mouth. Okay. Time to see what this mystery meeting is all about.
Dr. K. is standing by the door as it opens to my handprint.
“How was your Thanksgiving, Morgan?”
“Great,” I lie. “I’m sure I missed some of Nettie’s super fantastic food.”
Dr. K. nods. “We had a wonderful meal. Nettie’s brother joined us, as well as a few of my colleagues.”
I pull my sweatshirt away from my neck, which has begun to sweat and itch. Dr. K. sounds off for some reason. I look around the room to find Mrs. K. sitting android-straight with a polite smile on her face. A man in a suit, presumably the Institute’s rep, sits a few feet from her. He introduces himself. As I sit down, he turns on a recording device.
Dr. K. throws a glance at his wife. “Thanks for meeting us here, Morgan. We regret we weren’t there to say good-bye when you left.”
“I didn’t like leaving without seeing you two or Nettie, either.”
Mrs. K. rouses herself. “We were impressed with your work on Jodine’s weight loss, and we thank you for it.”
They need to stop the chitchat and get on with it. Why am I here?
&nbs
p; “I should’ve spent more time with Jodine,” Dr. K. says. “Our connection didn’t have to be about technology or physics. Nettie tells me she plays chess with Jodine. I loved playing chess when I was younger.”
The rep’s gaze, ping-ponging from speaker to speaker, pauses for a second. My stomach churns like a laundromachine. I have no idea where this conversation is heading.
“Don’t beat yourself up too much,” I say. “No parents are perfect. Mine aren’t. But I love them anyway.” I halt before my control disintegrates.
Dr. K. takes a deep breath and presses his hands together. “At this point, it does make a difference. Because in our case we have an opportunity to make things right. To have a second chance.”
That makes no sense whatsoever. “How will you do that?”
“Well, you see, before Jodine became a Loaner, I saved another backup of her brainmap file. We’d like to have that reinstalled into her body.”
Chapter 23
I gape at Dr. K. while my heart whomps inside my chest. “You have a what?” I wheeze.
“We have another copy of Jodine’s brainmap,” Dr. K. says. “I didn’t trust the Institute with the data storage. I insisted on being given my own copy before I agreed to let Jodine do the ERT procedure. For me, they made an exception. A good thing, as it turns out.”
Mrs. K. sends Dr. K. a withering look, and me an apologetic one. “Charles made that copy without my knowledge, and I’ve just learned of it myself. We’ve been discussing this scenario for the past few days. We knew how this would affect you.”
I fight a dizzying wave of lightheadedness. “But—but if Jodine gets put back into her body, where will I go? I don’t have a body anymore.”
Uneasy looks ricochet around the room. The rep’s face settles into an expectant expression.
“As a precaution for the past year,” Dr. K. says, “the Institute has been keeping a small number of extra bodies in suspended animation. They’re called Spares. Reducers and the general public don’t know about them, although Loaners are informed if they’re persistent and ask the right questions. These Spare bodies are an insurance of sorts, in case a Reducer overexerts a Loaner body and it dies. Or in case of a fatal accident or illness.”
“Where does the Institute get those bodies?” I ask, pretty sure I don’t want to know. “What’s happened to those people’s brain activity?”
Dr. K. rubs the side of his neck. “This isn’t something I’m fond of, but the bodies come from criminals on death row. Their brain waves are nullified and their brainmap file discarded. If you think about it, it’s a more humane way to deal with them than electrocution or lethal injection.”
“I’m going to be put in the body of a criminal?” I say, my voice rising.
“They’re not criminals any longer,” Mrs. K. hastens to say. “Their memories and personalities are gone. And the publicly recognizable inmates are never used for Spares. With a fresh ID chip containing your personal data, it’ll be like starting over.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, struggling to keep my breakfast down. I don’t want to start over. I want my old life back. To think I’d daydreamed the Kowalczyks would invite me to live with them, and here they want to shove me into the body of a death-row inmate. A murderer, most likely. A body that might have residual memories of violent crimes. No way. Jodine’s stray memories of cheesy songs, amateur paintings, and liegerdeens are bad enough.
This is worse than recycling a brain-dead body from a bad accident like Chad experienced with Vonn’s friend, Steven—it’s creating bodies with no brain activity.
“What if I don’t want to do this?” I open my eyes and squint. “I assume I have a choice.”
On the verge of obvious tears, Mrs. K. clasps her hands in her lap. “Yes and no. We can turn this into an enormous legal battle. Loaners agree to the risks of joining the program, true, yet Jodine’s body belongs to her. To us. But we don’t want to go down that road. We’d rather you be comfortable with this decision. We’re asking you—begging you—to agree to this. If you choose to be in another body instead of hers, Jodine can live.”
The rep finally speaks up. “You wouldn’t have to go into a Spare body immediately, Miss Dey. You can finish your assignment for Jodine, since her weight loss must continue in order to comply with Health Care regulations. Mr. Behr has told me you need the credits for tech school and paying off some family bills.”
I can’t process what he’s saying. It makes no sense. I’ve lost my identity once. The thought of losing it again is just too much. At least Jodine’s body is somewhat familiar to me.
I spring to my feet and back away. “This is all kinda sudden. I’ll think about it. I promise I will, and I’ll let Leo know soon.”
The rep gives a reluctant nod. “We’d like to know within a few days, if possible.”
“I’m sorry, Morgan,” Dr. K. adds. “If it weren’t for the WHA’s irresponsible violence, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If it makes any difference, Janeth and I would be more than willing to add extra credits as an incentive, if you switch to a Spare.”
I stumble to the door, ignoring the rep and leaving the Kowalczyks and their anxious faces behind. With my legs wobbling, I escape down the hall.
At the entrance, I snatch a plus-size raincoat from the closetbot and dash out the doors. I have to get away from this place. I slosh past the Enforcers at the gate. The rain comes down in torrents, beating at my coat, drenching the streets, and pouring across the sidewalk in sheets.
My mind reels and my thoughts sting. Breathe, I remind myself. Inhale, exhale, repeat. I know the answer has to be yes. I have to allow them to take back Jodine’s body—letting Jodine live is the only fair and right thing to do. But it doesn’t feel that easy. Another part of me doesn’t want to do this favor for the Kowalczyks. I’d rather say no and stick with what I have, chancing they won’t win a legal case. Like Mrs. K. said, it was their gamble to take when they signed Jodine up for the program. Just as it was mine when I became a Reducer and got stranded in this body.
The idea of switching to a new, completely unknown body is apocalyptic-level disturbing. Especially when it belonged to a criminal on death row.
How can Leo and the Institute do this to me? And with a revelation this serious, why didn’t he arrange for Mom and Dad to be there at the meeting? I wonder if it’s because I’m underage for only another two weeks. Even if I tell my parents and they object, Leo can simply hold off until I’m able to sign a contract myself. I wouldn’t put it past him to have that plan in mind.
I whip under a building overhang and pull out my Institute phone. Leo answers in a matter of microseconds.
Leo Behr. I snap his name, saying it like a swear word. Too bad the effect is lost on text. I assume you’ve finished your meeting with the Kowalczyks.
Yes, and this whole situation puts me in a really tough spot.
Leo’s words scroll fast.
Look at it this way. You’re not in your own body, so you might as well be in one that has no existing owner. That way Jodine can be returned to her rightful body.
You knew about the extra data file all along, didn’t you?
It’s pretty much a rhetorical question, but I ask anyway.
Of course, but the Kowalczyks had to make their decision first. Did you agree to do the Transfer?
I told them I’d think about it. I don’t like the idea of being shuffled off into the body of a MURDERER.
Spares aren’t murderers anymore. Their minds were the criminal parts of them. Their bodies have been thoroughly examined and verified as healthy. Gene checks, blood tests, the works. No obesity or defects.
That doesn’t mean they won’t have residual memories. I don’t want to have memory flashes of torturing or killing someone.
That’s extremely unlikely.
I frown.
Can you promise me that?
There’s a long stillness before Leo answers.
You worry far too much. Don’t for
get, you have the option to be placed into a Spare body right away. You don’t have to finish your assignment. If you prefer, you can be switched to a new body and skip the weight loss.
My grip on my phone loosens. That would be nice.
Yeah, that’s what the rep said.
And he’s right. We can sign a new contract with another Reducer and let her finish Jodine’s assignment instead of you. I know of a girl who could use the work. She’s a few years older, but we can make an exception in this case. Jodine won’t even know there was a switch.
My mouth opens, then closes. No more torturous dieting and exercising. No more dealing with Leo and his twisted Institute. I’m tired of his manipulations and his lies, his ugly secrets—flawed ERT procedures and residuals, surprise back-up files he’s known about for weeks, and now a bunch of murderers being mind-wiped and turned into Spares.
What next?
On the other hand, I still need those credits. If I stick it out for four more months, we’ll be debt free. I’m not going to let the Kowalczyks pay me extra to let Jodine live, though. That doesn’t seem right.
I don’t know. I’d like to finish up, but what if something else goes wrong? I’m surprised anyone even wants to be a Reducer anymore.
Leo’s words scroll fast and vigorous again.
Nothing else should go wrong. Walter Herry, the head of the WHA, has recently been arrested, which means the threat from that group is defused. We’re also combing our employees for WHA sympathizers, as well as making plans to implant tracking chips in Loaner bodies to prevent sabotage from the inside. More importantly, you won’t have to go to the Clinic or the Institute grounds. The Kowalczyks have insisted on a tech dropping by twice a week to record Jodine’s weight and perform a health check.
Finally. Good for the Kowalczyks.
That’s a great plan. Going to the Clinic makes me nervous.
I pause.
When I’m ready to be put into the Spare, will I get a choice about which body I get?