by Carol Riggs
The car carries us down unfamiliar streets while the Kowalczyks make light conversation with the driver. I listen to the tires hiss against the soaked pavement.
We reach the enormous Seattle branch building, its bulk tucked behind gates and a stretch of Enforcer-guarded fencing. Once we’re escorted inside to the lobby, a hostbot glides up.
“Welcome, Dr. and Mrs. Kowalczyk,” the hostbot says. “If you will please come with me, I will lead you to a private lounge.”
“Good luck, Morgan.” Dr. K. steps over and shakes my hand, holding it a few seconds longer than necessary, as if he regrets seeing me go. Mrs. K., to my surprise, clutches me in a quick hug. Is she grateful for my services, or is she just relieved that I let her daughter live?
“It was great to stay with you both,” I say. “I enjoyed seeing the lab and painting the apple. Please tell Nettie good-bye again from me.” I doubt they’re happy I got myself terminated, but their farewell glances are amiable enough.
They stroll off behind the hostbot. As they disappear around a corner, another hostbot approaches. It leads me to a waiting room similar to Leo’s old one in the Los Angeles building. Leo emerges from his new office almost at once.
“Let’s get moving,” he says without preamble. “Time is one thing I don’t have a lot of lately.”
I trail after him, gripping my bag with renewed determination. If he’s trying to make me feel guilty, he’s failing. I need to do this. What I decide now will affect the rest of my life.
He strides down the hall and leads me through the Transfer area, passing the beds and three nurses there and heading for a rear door marked “Suspended Animation.” He signs in with his ID chip and handprint and ushers me into a dim room. All human sounds cut off as the door closes. Cool air clings to my skin like clammy hands. A whirring, sucking noise of machinery fills the room, which smells odd, a sort of musty grease scent mingled with antiseptic.
Glow sticks hang by the door. Leo grabs one, activates it with a crack, and aims it down an aisle. Rows and rows of coffin-shaped capsules occupy the room, stacked three high like drawers in a macabre-style dresser. They make up a maze of walls a little taller than my head. I glimpse bodies inside the capsules, visible through the clear sides. E-tags with names and dates of initial storage mark each capsule, glowing with a bright crimson readout.
“These are Reducers,” Leo says. “The Spares are in the back room.”
I follow him down a long aisle, shuddering at the stacked bodies around me. These Reducer bodies have no complex brain activity. They’re kept alive only by suspended animation fluids and machines. Back at the Los Angeles branch, my real body must’ve been in a room like this before it died. Lying so still, looking empty, sightless.
Soulless.
The thought makes my stomach churn. Why did I ever think switching bodies and belonging to the Reducer program were such fantastic things?
We pass shadowy bodies displayed lengthwise from head to toe. Male and female, African-American and Caucasian. Hispanic. Asian. Short, tall, pale, and tanned. They lie on their backs, fit and toned, wearing white hospital gowns.
My bag bumps against my thigh as I try to keep up. Leo directs me to an unmarked rear door that verifies his ID and demands an additional password, and we enter a room that resembles the first. Cold. Dimly lit. Lined with row upon row of tiered capsules.
Except in this section, there are no names. Just dates and simple numbers.
After a minute, Leo halts to consult his phone. “We’re looking for F12.”
I point. “There’s a big E on that side wall. F12 might be in the next row.”
He starts off in that direction, the illumination from his glow stick accompanying him. My gaze lingers on the murky forms beside me, my eyes adjusting to the shadows. There are a lot of these people, these inmates formerly on death row. I thought Dr. K. said the Institute had a small number of extra bodies available in case of Loaner deaths.
I halt. There, in a center drawer, lies a strangely familiar body. Male, middle-aged, and balding. Greenish stasis gel encloses him. His date reads the first of October.
I can’t see all the details of his face, but what I do see makes my heart lurch.
It’s the protester with the fringe of stringy gray hair.
Chapter 29
The world stops spinning, and my lungs lock up.
This is the WHA protester who stood at the gates when I finished my Shelby assignment, the one who held the sign about “goverment” control. He’s the same guy who was there when I arrived at the Institute to become Jodine. What’s he doing here, stripped of his brain activity? The first of October was the day following his arrest. He was put on death row and turned into a Spare one day after the attack?
My gaze drops to the body stored below the balding man. Wavy-haired, female. Also familiar. She’s the stout woman who warned me not to come back to the Institute. Next to her capsule lies the bearded man who poked me and then hit me with his sign. Both of them have the same initial date.
Major freaking haze.
“I’ve located your Spare,” Leo calls, his tone impatient.
I flinch and look down the aisle to see him leaning around the corner. When I bounce a glance at the capsules and can’t get my feet to move, his irritation morphs into something else. His mouth evens out into a careful line. The muscles on his face tighten as though reinforcing themselves.
“What’s your concern?” He strides toward me with slow steps, his dark suit eerie and side-lit from the glow stick in his hand.
“I was just looking at these Spares.” My voice comes out soft. The thump of my heartbeat sounds louder than my words.
“What about them?”
Oh, man—what am I doing? I can’t confront him about these people if what I think is true. Time to change gears, and fast. “They’re zombie-creepy looking. Gives me shivers, knowing they’re all from death row.”
He makes an abrupt noise. “Come on. Your Transfer is already scheduled to occur past normal procedure hours, and we need to keep moving.” Gripping his glow stick, he stalks back down the aisle.
I scurry to catch up, trying to compose my face to reflect something besides alarm and suspicion. I’m not sure what’s going on. None of this makes legitimate sense, but I’d sure as heck better drop the subject and ponder it all in more detail later.
Around the corner, Leo pushes a button on a tiered wall. A middle capsule slides out like a morgue drawer.
“Here’s your Spare,” he says as I step up. “She’s nineteen, a year older than you. It’ll have to be close enough.”
I stare at the girl, who wears the standard white hospital gown. Green-tinted gel encases her entire body, her head included. A transparent cup covers her mouth and nose, while an IV protrudes from her forearm, and monitoring sensors dot her body. She seems to have an average shape. Fairly toned-looking. Ordinary arms and legs. No extra fingers or toes. Quite normal, except the face looks more stark and bleached than the attachment image I saw.
“She looks dead,” I say, taking a step backward.
“That’s because the suspended animation solution is in her bloodstream. All her systems are suppressed, halted mid-breath. Are you satisfied enough so we can get the contract signed?”
“This body will be fine.” I watch him tap on his phone, likely accessing the database to authorize the suspended animation reversal. “She’s really young to be on death row.”
He gives me a not-very-patient look. “Crime has no age limit.”
“Sure, okay.” At this point, I just want to be inserted into her body and go back home. To live my life and never, ever be a part of the Institute or ERT again.
“We’re done here.” He spins and marches away.
I scuttle after him. We re-enter the room where the Reducer bodies lie and navigate the ghoulish maze of beds without speaking. The thuds of our footsteps merge with the droning whir-suck-whir sounds of the room. I note the stiff set of Leo’s neck and
shoulders. It’s hard to tell if he’s annoyed or just in a big hurry.
When we reach his new office, he brings up a lengthy display on his screen.
“Here’s the contract releasing you from Jodine’s body. On the next page is an acquisitions contract for you to be inserted into the Spare. Since you’re eighteen now, we don’t have to worry about obtaining parental signatures.”
“It’s strange my signature is valid when I’m using Jodine’s ID.”
Leo jabs a finger at the security cameras near the ceiling. “In the director’s office, we use audio along with visual vidfeed. It’s documented your brainmap is in Jodine’s body at this date and time. It’s not the best scenario, but it’s what we have to work with. Thankfully, it’s a unique circumstance that won’t be repeated.”
I take care of the bio-signatures, and my fate is sealed.
“I’d also like your phone, please.”
I retrieve the Institute phone from my bag, and he takes it without changing his businesslike expression.
I’m not about to tell him I have another one with me. I don’t trust him or anyone working here anymore. In fact, what if he or someone else snoops around on my phone after I go out of consciousness? They’ll see I know Vonn as more than a casual acquaintance, and more seriously, that I’ve been using a non-issued phone.
“I’ll book your flight home as soon as the system generates a chip and coordinates your ID with it,” Leo says. “There’s plenty of room on Pac-West’s oh-three-fifteen red-eye flight.”
I nod. It figures. A public jet this time. The Kowalczyks won’t be traveling with me.
He ushers me from his office, his smile a phantom of its usual intensity. He gestures to an arriving hostbot. “Follow this bot to the cafeteria. Eat dinner and then return here to be summoned for your Transfer.”
I let the noiseless hostbot guide me to the cafeteria, where I place a distracted order with a servbot. While I wait for my food, I duck into a restroom to avoid security cameras, and call Vonn on screen mode since it’s my own phone. I need to see his face. To my relief, he answers on the first ring.
“I’m set for removal at nineteen thirty,” I say when he comes into view. “My insertion will happen later than that, since my Spare didn’t get authorized to revive until a little while ago. My flight back is with Pac-West at oh-three-fifteen. I’ll text you sometime after that. Listen, this is important. I’m going to delete your contact info and emails before the Transfer.”
He frowns. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t trust anyone here. I’m afraid someone will check my phone while I’m not conscious.”
“Not sure why they’d mess with your phone, but I’ll humor you. Anything else?”
“Lay low. Don’t message or call until you hear from me.”
“It sounds like there’s more to this than you’re telling me.”
I glance toward the restroom autodoor and lower my voice. “I found out at least three of the Spares are WHA protesters who attacked me at the Institute. All the Spares are supposed to be on death row, but I don’t think they are. I can’t wait to do my Transfer and get out of here.”
Vonn’s eyebrows bunch together, hard. “I can’t believe the Institute would do something like that with the Spares. That’s really serious, Morgan.”
A clunk outside the restroom makes me jump. “Gotta go. I’ll miss you, Vonn.”
“And I’ll miss you. Long-distance hugs.”
With a heavy heart, I end the call and delete his info. I chew on a fingernail. Have I done enough? I’ve heard it’s possible to retrieve data from devices, even after something is deleted. It’s not worth taking the risk.
I toss my phone in the restroom incinerator. I’ll buy another one later.
When I’ve finished poking at my meal in the cafeteria, I return to Leo’s waiting room. My mind replays the frightening image of the balding man, a shell of a human being lying in cold green goo. The guy didn’t deserve death. Neither did the stout woman or the bearded man. A wave of guilt hits me. What did they deserve? Last month, I wished for them to rot forever in jail cubicles.
An hour drags by before the silvery bell of a hostbot arrives.
“This way if you please, Miss Dey,” it says, and rolls away.
It’s about time. I pursue the bot down the hall, where it deposits me at the Transfer room doors. “Changing into a gown is not necessary,” it says. “Proceed to your Transfer. Have a pleasant evening.”
The scanner at the door verifies my ID, and I step inside. Of course I don’t have to change into a gown. The new Reducer will continue Jodine’s assignment in these delightful green sweats.
In the room, I’m surprised to find Irene, the nurse who worked at the Los Angeles branch. A thin man in a white doctor’s jacket is the room’s only other occupant. He stands across the room, flicking his fingers across a distant wallscreen, and then he walks through an autodoor into a side room. Dr. Gaunt-as-Death is here, too.
Irene checks a chart reader. “Morgan Dey, in the body of Jodine Kowalczyk?”
“Yes.” I walk over and let her scan my hand. She’s soft, smiling, and kind. I’ll take all the calming vibes I can get right now.
“You’re becoming quite the regular. You may place your bag on the shelf underneath and get settled.” She pats a bed draped with white sheets. The curtains aren’t pulled around us for privacy, probably because it’s late and we’re the only ones in here.
I stretch out. The ceiling lights glare into my eyes. “Did you get transferred here?” I ask to divert my skittering nerves.
Irene gives a gentle smile as she inserts an IV into my forearm. “A core group of us got placed with Mr. Behr. The rest are assigned to other branches until the Los Angeles branch is rebuilt and operational again.”
My fingers twist the sheet edge into a wad. I want this to be over with. Soon. “Do you know how long I’ll be conked out before I’m placed into my new body?”
“I’ll take a look.” Faint screen tappings come from her direction.
I hear a sharp intake of breath. I lift my head and see her staring at the screen. “What, do I have to wait until tomorrow or something?”
“This can’t be right,” Irene murmurs. She sidles closer, her face pale, her dark eyelashes a jarring contrast against her skin. “Don’t react. We’re on visual camera. It seems your Spare’s awakening from suspended animation has been canceled. The order was ready for authorization, until it was revoked by Mr. Behr ninety minutes ago.”
Ninety minutes ago? When I was in the Spares room?
I gape at Irene and her chart reader.
“What?” I say, the word a dry croak. “If there isn’t a Spare ready for me, what body will my backup file get downloaded into?”
She checks her reader again. “Oh, my word. Right now, you aren’t assigned to a body at all. Your current brainmap will be discarded to comply with our usual privacy policy. And…it seems your backup file is also scheduled to be deleted. I—I’m not sure why.”
The bottom drops out of my entire world, slashed into black nothingness.
My backup brainmap file is going to be deleted.
What has Leo done?
Chapter 30
I try to keep breathing so I don’t pass out. If Leo has deleted my backup file, not only do I not have a body, I won’t have a mind to put anywhere. Not after they delete my current brainmap for Jodine’s privacy.
Surely this doesn’t have anything to do with the protesters I saw…or maybe it does, and he’s wiping me out to protect his ugly Institute secret. I don’t know if it’s smart to trust Irene, but at this point I have nothing to lose.
“I think I know why,” I whisper, my words wavering. “Leo took me into the Spares room, and I saw three people who weren’t really murderers. They were just WHA protesters.”
Irene places a tense hand on my shoulder. “Oh, no. How horrible. But it explains all the Transfers into Spares that we’ve been doing during the two weeks
I’ve been here. In and out of bodies like you can’t believe. The system has also been generating entirely new data for their ID chips. Alternate identities, which is illegal.”
“Help me—remove this IV,” I say. “I have to get out of here.”
“You can’t just leave.” Her gaze flicks around the room and rests on the door the doctor disappeared through. “This body belongs to the Kowalczyks’ daughter. You’ll be too easy to track when public readers scan your chip.”
I shift into a shaky sitting position. “Then maybe you can undo the backup file deletion and the suspended animation reversal.”
“No. Mr. Behr would be alerted if his orders are changed. Or even if the backup file is copied before it’s deleted, since that’s part of his order. But we could set the system to copy your current brainmap before it prepares a reverse-signal and discards the file.”
“Will you do that for me?”
“If things like this are going on, it’s much safer for me and my family not to be involved.” Irene speaks in a low rush. “I can ‘accidentally’ leave my reader here for you, set to the Spares acquisition screen. After you order a copy of your brainmap, select a body and press Pre-Authorize. That generates a matching profile and ID chip, and gets your file ready to Transfer to the body when it awakens. If anyone reviews the vidfeeds later, they’ll see it was you and not me who made the requests.”
“So I’ll wake up in the Spares room.”
“Yes. The capsule will auto-open and drain. Try to slip out an exit. After twenty-one hundred, only the night crew and a few security guards are in the building.”
“Won’t they know which body is missing by looking in the database?”
Irene shakes her head, a slight movement. “As I said, using Spares with new IDs is illegal. The images and data for each Spare vanish from the master file immediately after an ID is generated and paired with a body. That way they’re not traceable during audits.”