The massive room is dominated by a thirty-foot-tall waterfall. The water runs down a series of stone planes set at angles. Very slowly, so slowly you don’t notice it at first, the angles of the planes shift so that the water is always in a new configuration.
Her desk—if you can call it by so mundane a name—is a wedge of brushed stainless steel, flat where it needs to be flat, but then swooping up on the left in a way that suggests an airplane soaring into the sky, combined with a scalpel blade.
Hanging from the ceiling are sculptures my father made right before his death. He worked mostly in metal—some wood, some glass, too. These aren’t mobiles, exactly. They’re static sculptures suspended from cables. My father called them “airborne artifacts,” sculptures meant to echo natural forms: clouds, trees, birds. My favorite, done in steel and Plexiglas, is the rough shape of a thunderbolt. There’s a standing sculpture, too, one I’ve always loved. It’s sort of a free-form redwood tree that extends from floor to ceiling.
I don’t know why my mother, who hates art, and particularly hated my father’s art, has hung on to these pieces, let alone why she has them displayed. I asked her once, and she told me her interior designer needed something pretentiously ugly to fill the space.
It’s a completely intimidating room. A place that says you are nothing, and I am everything. Somehow in the midst of all this extraordinary largeness and grandiosity, my mother still dominates.
This is not an office where you’d expect to see a cluster of corny family photos, but there they are, completely out of place, a silver-framed gallery on the wall to the right of her desk. Most are of me, a few are of my dad. One is of the three of us, the classic happy-family-on-the-beach pose.
I remember that day, a good day. Windy, too cold to venture near the water. We flew a kite until it nose-dived into the surf.
I was four, maybe five, by then. I’d already been modified. The change had long since been made.
“Hello, Evening,” my mother says coolly.
“Hello.”
Her eyes go to my leg. There’s a flicker, but barely. “I see your leg is better.”
“It’s more than better. It’s perfect.”
She holds my gaze. I’m determined not to be the first to look away.
I look away.
“When were you going to tell me?” I ask.
“Tell you what?”
“That I’m one of your genetic experiments.”
There’s a long silence, during which I can hear the soft rushing of the water and the steel gears in my mother’s head. Well, the water, anyway.
“I’m curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion,” she says. She stands, arranging her suit, which is already perfectly arranged, and steps out from behind the Desk of Doom.
As has often been the case with my mother, I feel the urge to take a step back. But I resist.
“It’s obvious,” I say. “My mother runs a biotech company with a reputation for cutting corners.”
She steps closer. “Would you rather have the pain? Would you rather have the scars? The lifelong limp?”
“What else have you done to me?”
She’s close now. “Done to you? You mean, what other great gifts have I given you?”
“I—”
“How else have I made your life better than other people’s lives? How else have I protected you?”
I’m breathing hard. Her certainty and confidence is stifling. I start to answer but my throat is dry.
Do I really want the answer?
“What is it you came for? Sweetheart?”
“I need nine thousand dollars.”
“For your loser friend? I gather she found you last night? Do I have Solo to thank for that?”
I nearly panic. I can’t put it on Solo. He trusted me. “She found her way to me,” I say. “And she’s staying. As long as she wants to.”
I’m proud of the steadiness in my voice.
“Those are your demands.” It’s not a question. “Nine thousand dollars and a suite for your idiot BFF.”
I don’t see much point in quibbling about her description of Aislin. Not the time. “Yes.”
“You have to stay here another week, at least,” she says after a moment. “For appearances.”
“Fine.”
She takes a deep breath. She cocks her head, looking at me curiously, as if it’s the first time she’s met me. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
Oh, she’s clever. Oh, she is so very clever.
“Anything else?” she asks. Smug. She knows she’s outplayed me. She knows she just bought my silence and my acceptance. For pocket change.
So that’s how she got to be a billionaire.
– 22 –
SOLO
I’ve got to get this right.
I pause in a hallway, clenching my fists. My heart’s slamming against my chest.
I’ve got Tattooed Tommy’s poppy-seed bagel ready. What happens next will be vital. If I screw it up…
“Hey, Solo.”
I practically leap out of my skin. It’s Ben, one of the research assistants.
“Where’s what’s-his-name?” Ben asks. “The coffee dude.”
“Jackson. He got food poisoning at the wedding. At least that’s his story.” I try to smile. “I’m filling in.”
“Beats school, I guess.”
“Barely.”
Ben grabs a doughnut. He starts to leave, then, with a guilty grin, grabs another. “Big project. Carb loading.”
I’m so buzzed, so exhausted, I’m wondering if I can pull this off. For the past hour I’ve been pushing the stupid cart around like a zombie, handing out muffins and chai tea while I answer questions in monosyllables. Grunts, practically.
I’ve had too little sleep, too much adrenaline.
But it’s time.
I was going to wait till Eve was gone.
But something about last night, seeing her face when I told her the truth about why she’d healed so fast… I don’t know. She won’t be here much longer, and I feel like she deserves to know it all.
Maybe I just want someone else to be doing this with me. I brush the thought away.
No. That’s not my style.
I wheel toward Tommy.
“Bagel boy,” he says, not looking up from his screen.
His computer’s in use. There’s no way for me to get into it. He’s added an alphanumeric password, almost as long as the one I use, backed up with retinal scan. Hack-proof, unless I can get hold of a supercomputer, ten years, and Tommy’s right eyeball.
“Here’s your bagel,” I say.
I can see his screen. He’s playing fantasy football.
Better than solitaire, I suppose.
“Any feelings on that new Jets quarterback?” he asks. His version of egalitarianism, talking to me about sports. I know nothing about sports and couldn’t care less.
“Not really. Bagel?”
“No, his name’s not bagel, it’s Jibril.” This is a huge joke. So I laugh. My laugh sounds strained and hysterical to me.
“Just put it down,” he says, already bored by me.
I place the bagel beside his keyboard. “Capp?”
“Yeah, put it—”
I don’t even have to pretend to spill the coffee. It happens. Yes, I planned it, but now it just happens.
“Aaahh aahhh!”
Coffee on his lap, his leg, his arm. Tommy pushes back violently, which dumps the last two inches of coffee on top of the rest.
“Idiot!” he shrieks.
He’s up, backpedaling, patting at his clothes, and I’m saying “sorry, sorry, sorry,” and snatching at napkins. He pushes me back, furious, and curses impressively.
Will he?
“Dammit, I have to go change.”
Will he?
Yes. He runs off, muttering, and leaves his workstation on. As soon as
he’s out of view, I’m in. I’m shaking. I’ve hacked the systems at Spiker for years, but this is an individual workstation. This is the stuff too personal or too secret to put on the main servers.
I punch in the Adam code.
And just like that, I’m in.
The hard part is transferring the data. There’s no USB drive. Is there Wi-Fi? There isn’t supposed to be; there’s no Wi-Fi at Spiker for security reasons. But ah, yes, the capability is still there.
I open Tommy’s Wi-Fi, scan for the only active beacon. It’s titled snakep. As in Snake Plissken, my more-or-less namesake from that movie Escape from New York. The only other Plissken I relate to.
File after file is now streaming to my phone. How much time do I have? I glance guiltily over my shoulder. With one hand I mop at the spilled coffee on the chair, just in case anyone is looking.
But my other hand pounds keys—I have a heavy touch—searching for whatever it is that Tommy is hiding. He’s arrogant, fortunately, sure that no one can hack his computer, so the individual files are not password-protected.
There’s a large file of photos. Probably porn or something. I open it, anyway—it might be useful to know Tommy’s kinks.
But if these are someone’s idea of porn, they have very, very strange tastes indeed.
I open more pictures.
I’ve stopped breathing.
I’m seeing long rows of Plexiglas tanks. Some are vertical cylinders. Some are horizontal rectangles.
Each contains a horror.
A full-grown pig with faintly green skin.
A hairless puppy with what looks like two human ears growing just behind its own ears.
A girl, a human girl, at least something like a human girl, but with two faces—one where it ought to be, and one stretched flat across her back.
“Oh God,” I say out loud. I can’t help it.
I shut the file. I swallow back the sour taste in my mouth.
Oh my God.
I hear a sound. Tap, tap, and I’m back in the fantasy football app as Tattooed Tommy returns, wearing the gym clothes he must keep for trips to the Spiker fitness center.
“Get the hell off my computer!” he snarls.
“I was just cleaning up the coffee that—”
“And spying on my picks!” His eyes narrow dangerously. “Did Wilma Petrov put you up to it? That bitch has been trying to figure out my lineup so she can… I’ll kill her!”
“No,” I say, doing my best to seem as if I’m lying poorly.
“Wilma!” he yells across the room. “Dirty pool, Wilma!”
I’m backing away, and I realize suddenly that I’ve left his Wi-Fi turned on. If he notices—
Tommy grabs me, not too gently, either. “Listen, kid: Next time Wilma bribes you, come see me. I’ll double whatever she paid if you get her picks before Friday. Hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
I’m out of there. And now I just have to decide what to do with a secret that is so very much bigger than I had ever imagined.
I need to clean up the video record of me at Tommy’s computer. I need to get all this stolen data safely stored on something other than my phone, which might be searched at any moment.
Then, after I put together the presentation that will, I hope, bring Terra Spiker down, I need to get it to Eve.
I need her to understand why I have to do this.
– 23 –
The next morning, Maddox has his money. I have extracted my own concession from Aislin: She’s staying with me until her parents get home. They e-mailed her to say they’re extending their trip for a week (Aruba) and I want her in a safe place. Just to make sure Maddox isn’t still being hunted.
She accepted with surprising ease. Is it possible the girl is learning from experience, finally? Is it possible she’s realized how toxic her relationship with Maddox is?
Or is she feeling sorry for her pal, the mutant?
Either way. I’m good with either.
I don’t know how my mother got the money to Maddox. I told her his name and she said that’s all she would need. She has toadies who do nothing but run her errands and cater to her whims. Blue M&M’s? No problem. Bikini wax? Time and place. Run 9K to an inept drug dealer? Gotcha covered.
At 6:30 A.M., Maddox texted Aislin with: Got it. Yur the best.
I contacted the assistant principal at school to let him know Aislin had been in a minor accident. Some stitches, no big deal. I’m not sure he believed me, but this close to the end of school, the staff gets pretty laissez-faire unless there’s a felony involved.
Also, they just rebuilt the gym with a giant check from my mother.
Dr. Anderson and his staff have chosen not to comment on my bandage-free leg and arm. Yesterday evening, when my mother arranged to have Aislin and me moved to one of the guest suites, Dr. Anderson even helped carry over my vases full of drooping flowers.
He looked a little bereft. I think he kind of liked having an actual patient. Especially one he knew he could cure.
“Where’s Scruffy McMuscles?” Aislin asks, as we settle into my workstation. “You said he’s working the coffee cart, right? I could use some caffeine. Or some other kind of stimulation.” She attempts a leer, but it clearly hurts too much to pull off.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to make do with Adam.” Aislin scratches her nose. “These stitches are driving me nuts.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes.”
“How would you know, Bionic Woman?” Aislin asks.
She’s teasing, but I give her a sharp look.
“Too soon? Sorry.” She pats my shoulder. “Back to work. Let’s finish my fantasy man.”
Adam is now a handsome head full of dark hair that floats in the simulated liquid of his environment.
It turns out the software has an interesting feature I hadn’t noticed before. Not only can you age your creation up or down, you can adjust for lifestyle.
For the next hour, Aislin and I play with shoulders, chest, belly. We use slide bars to show the effects of our random choices. More or less appetite? More or less exercise? It’s a useful lesson in the limits of genetics.
Adam has the genes for a ripped chest and six-pack abs. But if we give him too much of a sweet tooth and too little restless energy, his stomach balloons.
“Let’s see what happens if he totally lets himself go,” I suggest.
I slide a bar, and suddenly Adam has man boobs.
“His are bigger than yours!” Aislin squeals.
I slide the bar back. Quickly.
I make a mental note: When I’m putting finishing tweaks on his brain, I need to remember that a little hyperactivity might not be a bad thing. Maybe some bundle of genes that will make him crave the outdoors.
He needs to mountain bike. Play tennis. Something aerobic.
Maybe he could be a runner, like I am.
Aislin ogles Adam as he floats in midair like a ghostly Adonis. In the corner of the room, two secretaries whisper and giggle. Someone provides a wolf whistle.
“I think it’s time to face facts,” Aislin says. “Boy parts are on the menu.”
“We haven’t done the legs yet.”
“Oh, I get it. We’re going to kind of close in. Come at it from all other directions first. Leave the best for last.” She elbows me. “Sort of the story of your love life, isn’t it? Leaving the best for last. Or at least for much later.”
“There’s no rush to—”
“Or even much, much later, poor baby.”
“Legs!” I yell the word. I don’t mean to yell the word. I just do.
“Fine, legs,” Aislin concedes. “Short and stumpy?”
“No,” I say. “Although we can try them out. I mean, what am I doing here? Eliminating every imperfection?”
“Well, duh.”
“But who’s to say what’s perfect?”
Aislin shrugs like it’s a stupid question. Maybe it is. But I’d rather de
bate philosophical questions than sit here with my best friend and design things I’ve never actually, you know… seen. Except in diagrams in health class. And the occasional Google image by accident.
“Really, Aislin. Everybody’s messed up in their own unique way, right? Nobody’s perfect.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” I insist.
“Right. This from the girl who wouldn’t let Finnian Lenzer ask her out because his hair was too blond?”
“He’s practically an albino,” I say. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“’Toine Talbert was too short. And John Hanover was too thin. And Lorenzo whose last name I forget had a funny face. And you blew off Carol because you’re not a lesbian.”
“That’s not exactly my fault,” I say.
“What did you expect Carol to think? You kept saying no to boys. Naturally she was going to think you played for her team.”
“I’m not attracted to girls.”
“But you are attracted to boys?”
“You know I am!”
“In theory. Not so much in reality.”
“I’m selective.”
“You said you couldn’t go out with Tad. Why?”
I mumble something.
Aislin cups a hand to her ear. “What was that, now? You couldn’t go out with Tad because…?”
“Because his name is Tad!” I yell in frustration. “How can I date a guy named Tad? It’s a ridiculous name.”
“Also Chet.”
“Chet? I’m going to date a guy named Chet? What is this, 1952? No one’s named Chet.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I have legs to make,” I say frostily.
“Make them short and bowed,” Aislin says.
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“Oh, I know that,” she says, triumphant. “You’re going to make them long and muscular. You’re going to slide the lifestyle bar all the way over to track star.”
“Am not.”
But of course in the end that’s exactly what I do. Adam gets long legs. And muscular thighs. And well-developed calves.
He is now three disconnected bits. Leg. Leg. Torso and head.
There is, shall we say, a certain empty space in between those three pieces.
Eve and Adam Page 10