I grew angry thinking about how unlikely it was that Carol Amanda Harving would do the right thing—especially if I had to kidnap her. But if appealing to her sense of right and wrong didn’t work, she might be intimidated by the fact that I had found her.
I was wasting my time trying to work it out while dangling on the side of her building. I had to focus on getting inside—though I had no reason to think she would even be home.
When I finally reached the seventy-seventh floor, the dome was near enough that I could touch it. The porous surface of the Aeroluminum® looked as insubstantial as smoke. Three feet beyond was a night sky I had only seen recreated on screens.
I broke the magnetic seal around a hallway window and swung it gently open, relieved I didn’t have to smash any glass. The lights were off. I listened carefully, but all I could hear was my heart pounding and a gentle hiss of air cycling through the building’s vents. I dropped lightly inside, closed the window and listened again. I knew I was in one of four apartments on this floor; I remembered the layout. Everything was soft brown carpet and wide leather couches. I prayed no one was home.
The window locked behind me with a soft tick. I held my breath and moved into the room. In my pack I carried two leftover boxes of Downy® fabric softener, a small pedestal and a track light. I took one out. I placed it on a table in case an unseen camera had its eye on me. I didn’t know if this would truly work as a cover, but it was my only option.
Where’s your team? I could imagine someone asking if I was caught. A Product Placer should never be caught! The amusing thing was that, if this ever was to occur, a Product Placer is instructed not to speak. That, at least, I could easily do. It would be better to be a humiliated Product Placer than arrested for attempted kidnapping.
I made it into the hall quickly. Now I was at greatest risk. I could not be seen in the main area. A Product Placer would have no reason to be out here, fabric softener or no. My counter security gear knocked the cameras into a looped feed.
Going up on the elevators seemed risky. What if someone was coming home late? On the other hand, the stairs might be worse. No one who lived in this building would use them, so there was no chance of bumping into someone, but they could be rigged for motion, or heat, which my systems wouldn’t suppress. I didn’t have the benefit of Kel’s schematic; only the skills I had learned in my short time working with the team.
I stopped at the three elevators and watched. The central one was in motion. I waited. It didn’t stop. This building had 108 floors, so the odds that they would stop here, on floor 77, were low.
Unless I had been seen.
I panicked and pressed the call button, then quickly realized that was a mistake. I balled my fist in frustration and held my breath. I wasn’t a spy. I don’t know what I was. Maybe I was a spy, just not a very good one. No one should have been able to see me with the loop. I relaxed my breathing. Nothing would come from panicking. I had to keep my cool.
I crossed my fingers, praying one of the other two elevators would begin to move, called by me. Neither did. The system sent what was closest. The indicator crept up: 60, 61, 62... If it was traveling above me, it would stop here, and I would be seen by whoever was inside. 63, 64, 65... I quickly considered rushing back to the apartment I’d come from. I could hide inside and wait silently in the dark. 66, 67...
It paused on 67. I could imagine some drunken Affluents staggering off and stumbling down the hall to their posh apartment. It was nearly 4:00 a.m. I pictured them in my head, waited for their doors to close. Maybe they were even drunker than I imagined. Another second passed, two, and then, 68, 69, 70...
Hopefully the car was empty now. 71, 72, 73... I had no way of knowing. What if it was filled with people? I stepped back. 74, 75, 76... What if someone held a fabulous party down on the fiftieth floor, and now all the disgorged revelers were heading upward? I held my breath and pulled out my lock pick, keeping my eyes fixed on the elevator.
The doors opened with a ping: 77.
The elevator was empty. I rushed forward, pressed the button for 89, and up I went.
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There were only two apartments on the eighty-ninth floor. According to the schematic I’d seen, they both were huge. Carol Amanda Harving’s was apartment A. I didn’t need a map to identify it. Her side of the hall was lined with artwork and flowers and, on either side of the door, life-size pictures of her looking tall and lean, covered in diamonds and sparkly gowns. In one photograph, she stood in front of an Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph, a sleek, absurdly luxurious car with thin flame-orange highlights that cut through the matte darkness of its surface. It was like lava cracked through black stone.
I knew this exact car. Everyone knew it. It belonged to Silas Rog.
In the other photo, she stood on the red carpet, bare-armed in a slinky, luxurious, diamond-studded silk dress, her neck draped with strands and strands of pearls. She had so much, it seemed, that her prosperity had spilled out beyond her apartment walls.
Her pictures infuriated me. My clothes were damp and cold from sweat, but coal-like hatred warmed me. It should have been Saretha up here. Had their positions been reversed, Saretha would have treated Carol Amanda Harving with far more kindness. It seemed entirely unfair. Carol Amanda Harving’s eyes were cold and lifeless. Fruitlessly glaring at the hallway shrine she had made to herself, I realized Carol Amanda Harving’s advantage: she was empty, soulless and without compassion. It was easy for her to let Saretha be destroyed. I could see it in the chill of her icy blue eyes.
I shook myself. If I let my anger grow, I worried what I might do when I got inside. I forced myself to focus. I wasn’t here to hurt her. I was here to make her understand. It was pointless to meditate on how—I needed to act.
But I suddenly had a feeling she wasn’t there. Something about the hallway air seemed stale and unlived in. The carpet looked untouched. But maybe that was what I wanted to believe. I told myself she could be anywhere—filming, vacationing, living in one of a dozen homes in any dome she liked. How many, I wondered, had she seen?
If she was gone, that might be easier. It felt safer. I could look through her home for evidence that might prove her birthday was a lie, or that she used drugs, or for anything else I might use against her. And I wouldn’t need to speak—or hurt her.
I couldn’t let myself hope too much. I had to prepare to face her, right now, and whoever might be with her.
The door unlocked after an undue amount of fiddling with its magnetic innards. A heavy clunk released as a thick metal bolt retracted. The door slid open, and the room came into focus through the darkness. Something about it felt very, very wrong.
There was a couch in the center of an enormous room, and—that was all. I peered inside. Carol Amanda Harving’s apartment had one couch, facing out toward the apartment’s gargantuan window, and nothing more. How was this possible? Was she some Buddhist star who wanted to lead a perfect, uncluttered life? Did she even live here? Was this just a space for her to entertain? The whole apartment reminded me of an oversized Squelch, not a home.
I stepped inside, puzzled and somehow angrier than before. My body tensed. Who was this woman? The door slid closed behind me. The window, which in theory overlooked the dome, was black as night. I walked toward it, silent in the darkness. It was opaque. I touched it with my hand.
At once, it clicked to life with enormous, vivid, three-dimensional depictions of the natural world. It cycled through images of forests, seashores and deserts. From where I stood, everything looked oddly distorted. The view was calibrated specifically for the couch.
The apartment had no bedroom, or kitchen or bathroom. It was literally just one enormous, empty room, like a theater. I looked for hidden buttons or seams in the walls that might give some indication there was something else, yet I knew the dimensions well enough to know there w
as nothing more. Her walls were clean and smooth, with none of the ugly striations we had in our home from cheap printing.
The wall changed to a movie preview, flat and two-dimensional, like a classic film, but this was a new remake of a film I’d seen two years before about a clever female spy.
A man sipped at a glass of wine, a twinkle in his eye, his head hung low as he eyed the woman across from him. The lights in the distance behind him were reduced to beautiful gold circles by the camera’s blur. A soft, romantic rock guitar played beneath the scene.
“So, what is it you do?” The man smiled, head cocked charmingly to one side. I knew the actor, Martin Cross. He had been digitally de-aged to look younger.
The woman across from him flashed a smile—Saretha’s smile. It was Carol Amanda Harving. Her hair was dark now, like my sister’s, though she was blonde in some films, and often her skin was lighter. But her eyes were still the same—empty, ice-cold diamonds. She sipped some drink through a straw, coyly, and did not answer him. Instead, she reached out. In close-up, they held hands, fingers intertwined, probably hand models. Something did not match about it.
When the shot went wide, each actor’s name floated slowly above their heads as the music grew louder. Carol Amanda Harving looked a little less like Saretha, probably because Saretha had put on some weight in her exile. Meanwhile, the actress looked muscled, but achingly thin. Her arms were like pencils, and yet they looked sleek and long, without the knobbiness you would expect. I wondered if they had a surgery for that. I shuddered at the thought of shaved bone.
I stepped closer to the window, looking closely at her hands. Even they looked thin and tiny in Martin Cross’s grasp. How do you lose weight in your hands?
“Miss Dart.” A thick, dark-skinned man was standing over them suddenly. He wore an all-black suit and sunglasses, even though it was night. “It’s time.” Martin Cross’s character looked at the man with surprise. Carol Amanda Harving stood, and her small red dress flitted around her, tight across her tiny waist. Her boobs were bigger than the last time I’d seen her, but this wasn’t any great surprise. She was now in a starring role. If she hadn’t requested a little plastic surgery, the studio would have insisted on it.
“Sorry,” she said, blowing Martin a kiss. She ran to the balcony and did a flip over the edge. The stunt bothered me. It reminded me of the video footage of Bridgette Pell. It didn’t look entirely real, but that didn’t really lessen the sting. They often switched to CGI for stunts. The studio wouldn’t want to be sued for a broken leg or chipped nail.
Then again, none of it looked quite right. The music rocked harder, drums pounding like an engine as Carol Amanda Harving shot guns, launched grenades and generally unleashed chaos on a bunch of swarthy-looking villains the movie put in her path.
I had to laugh at how sweaty she wasn’t. Here I was, after a long, slow climb, drenched and chilled by my own perspiration, but characters like her, in movies, never pitted with sweat.
I looked for a way to turn off the screen, worried the sound might wake the neighbors. On the off chance the next unit was occupied, I had no idea who I might be dealing with.
I was a foot away from the screen when Carol Amanda Harving’s giant face filled it, her cold eyes the size of softballs, her irises wide and inviting. I tapped at the screen and let out a breath in relief when it shut off. It went black, with no hint of the view outside. Why have no view? Wasn’t that the point of being up so high? I felt a pang of disappointment that I wouldn’t get to see the ocean. I had always wanted to see it. They say the water touches the eastern edge of the dome.
I scanned the empty room and realized there was absolutely nothing to find. There was no Carol Amanda Harving to demand answers from. There was no evidence of any kind. She was probably in Hollywood. Maybe she just kept this apartment for fun, in case she wanted to visit or have a party. More likely still, this was just a tax thing that I didn’t understand. All I had to examine were the few garish mementos left outside, like territory she had marked.
My nerves calmed, replaced with gloom. This was a dead end. I couldn’t help Saretha. I couldn’t help myself. All the risk was for nothing.
At least I didn’t have to think about hurting the actress to convince her to help us. I returned to the door and had to pick the lock again to get out. It unsealed and slid open. Outside, like sentinels, were the two enormous framed photos, larger than life, in thick, welded metal frames built right into the wall. Her smile was so wide, I imagined it hurt to be that joyful.
Slowly my anger rose again. I wanted to destroy her. If she had been there, what would I have done? I bit my lip. I couldn’t hurt her, but I could ruin these pictures—these stupid, egotistical photographs. It was foolish, exactly the sort of thing Kel would insist I not waste time with. I could have smashed the frames and ripped them from the walls, but I wanted her to know she was hated.
I took out my knife, half-ready to carve a mustache under her nose, devil horns on her head, to scrape away her eyes. It was pointless and reckless—the glass was too thick. Plus I’d be charged twenty different ways. The best I could actually do was stab the glass, and what would be the point? Sam would have appreciated the thought, but he would never know.
I glared at her visage, contemplating my pitiful revenge, when something caught my eye. Her skin showed some small imperfections, a mottling of color like any other person. I don’t know what else I was expecting. It was a photograph, not a polished movie still. I saw moles and freckles. I saw skin with warmth, and it surprised me, because she never seemed quite real.
But it was the sight of her upper arm that stopped me cold. An inch or two above her right elbow was a faint, crescent-moon-shaped scar, exactly like the one Mrs. Nince had given Saretha.
My brain couldn’t process it at first. I stared. What did this mean?
I studied the photo carefully. The moles and freckles looked familiar. How could they look familiar? Were they the same as Saretha’s? That was impossible.
My skin began to crawl with a dawning realization.
I was never going to meet Carol Amanda Harving face-to-face. I could never confront her. She could never apologize. She could never help us, for one simple reason.
She didn’t exist.
Carol Amanda Harving was a computer-generated fiction, constructed of pixels and polygons from who-knows-how-many corporate scans of my sister. She was less substantial than the air in my lungs. It was the only explanation for that crescent-shaped scar above her elbow.
My God, this was the perfect Lawsuit, one even Arkansas Holt couldn’t lose. A frantic hope rose in me—a furious glee. If I could prove she didn’t exist, not only would Saretha be free, but we would be rich. Our parents could come home. Our family would be whole again.
My parents.
We hadn’t heard from them since our chat just after my Last Day. We hadn’t told them about Carol Amanda Harving. There was no point. What could they do? It would only cost the family more money to talk about it.
My heart pounded. Who had done this? Who had created Carol Amanda Harving from images of my sister and then sued us for what they had stolen? The gall of it was almost admirable.
Silas Rog came to mind. If it wasn’t him, then whoever had done it had Silas Rog for a Lawyer. Silas Rog, who had never been defeated.
There is a first time for everything, the voice inside my head said. The phantom sound of it soothed me. Silas Rog’s resources were near bottomless, but how could he possibly win this? He would lose his first case, and I would be the cause. Nothing would bring me more joy.
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Sam and Saretha were asleep when I got in. I slipped into bed and lay awake, thinking about how to share my news. In the darkness, I buzzed with excitement and a secret I wished I couldn’t keep. This was a problem. My silence may have been inspirational, but
it was painfully impractical. I could not speak what I knew. I needed to show them.
Was Saretha’s crescent scar visible in any of Carol Amanda Harving’s movies? Almost certainly not. They would dodge away anything that wasn’t absolutely flawless, even on an actual person. I might be able to find a candid picture, like the one in her hall, but I had no way to search. How could I find one with the exact texture, from the right angle and light, and with enough resolution to show the stolen skin?
The only place I could be sure to prove my point was eighty-nine floors up in a posh, high-security building. I could break in again and take my chances with not getting caught. I could make it, but I couldn’t imagine a way to get Sam and Saretha up there. Not alone.
Beside me, Saretha snored softly. Her face looked sad even as she slept. I wanted to shake her awake and tell her there was hope. We had a chance that could save us.
Who rented that apartment in Malvika Place on the eighty-ninth floor? Was it ever occupied? I wondered what the doormen thought, knowing this famous actress lived in their posh building but was never seen. Did the staff think she was a recluse? Did they imagine she was too busy filming to enjoy the luxury of their amenities?
Then it hit me. For all intents and purposes, Saretha was Carol Amanda Harving. Why couldn’t she just walk right into Malvika Place? They might even hold open the door! I could picture them falling all over themselves, delighted at a rare sighting of the starlet. It was her apartment. It was her home. What could they possibly say?
The idea of turning everything around on Rog or whoever was behind it made me feel giddy. I just needed to figure out what to do about her Cuff.
Cuffs and Ads ping wirelessly, back and forth, everywhere you go, verifying the identity, bank account, credit and history of the consumer wearing it. This all happens so fast that the system can pull up a tailored Ad before you can blink. If Saretha stepped outside, the first Ad that pinged her Cuff would flag Butchers & Rog’s DESIST notice and send an alert right to their legal team. Police would descend like flies. Saretha would be arrested within minutes.
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