by John Barnes
“Well then,” she said. “It sounds like you’re very certain about what you want. Let’s get started.”
SHE DIDN’T NOTICE him, right away. Her commute was long but straight; a fifty-minute tram ride from the re-versioning district (it used to be the fashion district, once upon a time) to the eastern bluffs overlooking the lake. The crowds usually thinned out by the time she reached home. The other residents of her neighborhood still tended to use cars. It was that kind of neighborhood. Old people. Older money. Anika had considered a car, once. It seemed like too much commitment.
Her husband’s boyfriend stood waiting for her at the stop. He opened an umbrella for her. “You have an admirer.” His voice rose over the patter of water on fabric. He nodded at the tram, and as Anika turned to look, she saw a man’s shape sit down with his back facing the window.
“I didn’t see him.”
“Too bad,” Jesse said. “He was cute.”
“You say that about all the boys.”
“I’m catholic in my tastes.” He kissed the tip of her nose. That was his spot. His favorite part of this body. Although they made love only when her husband requested it, he had told her husband that the tip of her nose was his and his alone to kiss. He took her bag from her and slung it over one shoulder. “But really, he had that whole passionate stalker thing going on.”
Anika rested the back of one hand against her brow. “Be still, my heart.”
“I bet he’s making a doll out of your hair.”
“Stop trying to scare me,” she said. “He probably wasn’t even looking at me. I was sitting in the quiet car. He was probably just reading his contacts, like everyone else.”
“No,” Jesse said. “He was watching you like you were the only person there.”
Anika pulled up short. It took Jesse a half-step before he realized, and turned around to face her. The rain seemed louder, suddenly, the route up the hill toward home that much darker and more daunting. “Should we say something?” she asked.
Jesse nodded up the hill. “To him? About this?”
Anika nodded.
Jesse shook his head emphatically. “No. Don’t.” He smiled a bit too brightly. “There’s nothing to tell, after all. Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Anika repeated. Nothing happened, she told Horst when he came home and asked about her day. And nothing had. It was a day like any other. Swimming, breakfast with Horst, listening to Jesse prattle as she put on makeup, work, lunch, work, tea, work, tea, work, ride home. Up the hill. In the house. Dinner. Dramas. Makeup off. Clothes off. Horst tucking her into bed. Horst joining Jesse on the other floor. He would be there in the morning. He was always there by morning.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to worry about. Ever. Which was exactly why she’d married him.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, she saw him at her tea shop. The previous wearer had warned her about this body’s preference for tea over coffee. Too much of the black stuff and you’ll get the shakes, the note read. Sorry!
His gaze was so familiar she almost said hello. His halo read ‘John Smith.’ An alias, then, adopted for public environments. He wore a standard-sized white male body, clothed in a sweater that looked like it had come from a marine surplus store. He had the kind of hair that Jesse called “floppy.” It was his only distinguishing feature. Aside from the fact that his face opened up the moment he saw her walk in. As though they had known one another for years.
Maybe he recognized the body, she thought, turning her back to him and saying something about lavender Earl Grey. The consignment shops tried to shift bodies around, geographically, to avoid that kind of confusion. But of course the bodies went where the money was. And the money was in the cities. If the previous wearer had lived in the area, there wasn’t much Anika could do about it, now. Was this man an old acquaintance of her previous wearer’s? That had to be it. He was curious – it was normal, it was natural, to be curious – but too polite to say anything directly. Especially when Anika’s halo read her own legal name – Horst’s name, connected to Horst’s profile. Besides, it was against the law to give out personal information about your previous wearer. Even if he was gauche enough to ask, she couldn’t share anything. Couldn’t tell him where she was, or what she was doing, or who she was with.
A former lover. Of course. That would explain it. It was known to happen. There were even dramas about it. And there were ways of handling it.
The server handed her the tea, and she made sure her left hand was on the mug when she turned around. She made eye contact with him as she passed and pulled back her sleeve a little. The diamonds in her skin started on the ring finger of her left hand. A few had sprouted up along her hand and wrist since her wedding; he would see it wasn’t an entirely new marriage. She watched his gaze settle on the glittering stones. His eyes widened fractionally. Perhaps he had missed them, before. They were subtle, after all. Tasteful. That was how Horst had described them, as he cleaned the blood away. Elegant. Ladylike.
“AND HE DIDN’T say anything?” Jesse asked, on the way home.
“No, nothing. I think he was embarrassed.”
“Well, he should be. Creeper.” Jesse exaggerated a shudder. He looked like a duck shaking itself free of water. “Who fixates on the shell, anyway? Creepers, that’s who.”
Anika rolled her eyes. “You’d still love Horst if he had a different body? Really?”
“Of course I would. Horst always trades up.”
They laughed. At times she suspected that she’d never have married Horst if it weren’t for Jesse. She’d wanted the whole package, and Horst had wanted a wife. It seemed like the perfect arrangement, at the time. And it was still a very good arrangement, now.
“I picked up a ticket to St. Martin, today,” Jesse said. “It was a steal. I leave tomorrow.”
Anika’s hand paused above the reader bezelled in their front doors. Here under the ivy that squeezed their home in its whispering green grasp, Jesse looked somehow younger and older all at once. How long had he worn this body? As long as she’d known him. But that wasn’t very long, at all. Not compared to how long he’d lived.
“You’re taking a vacation?” she asked.
He shrugged elaborately. “I just felt like getting away.”
And then he stared at their front doors. They seemed so big, suddenly, like two muscle-bound sentries carrying the stony weight of their home on their shoulders. It was an old-fashioned house. Horst liked old-fashioned things. It was why he maintained a home here, why he’d never taken the big sleep, never splintered himself, never installed himself in any one of the bodies he’d need for long-haul travel and not just life extension.
“Jesse –”
The door opened. Horst twitched his thick white brows at them. “What’s wrong with you two?” He was smiling. He had a way of smiling that let you know he thought you were being stupid. “Come inside. It’s cold. Jesse, don’t forget your shoes.”
Beside her, Jesse sighed. Together, they watched Horst pad down the hall and into the kitchen. Anika heard that rattle of the martini shaker a moment later. “I’m almost eighty, you know,” Jesse said, under his breath. “And he still thinks I’m going to forget to take off my fucking shoes.”
Anika said nothing. Horst was just being Horst. He had not risen to his position in their city by neglecting the details. And sometimes the body did glitch up and forget things. Sometimes.
“He must have come home early, today,” Anika said. “How long has he been here?”
Jesse didn’t answer. He went upstairs. He held his spine perfectly straight as he ascended each step, and didn’t meet her eye as he turned on the landing.
“Anika,” Horst said, from the kitchen door. He held out a slightly clouded martini. “Come here. We have to talk.”
It wasn’t until she had entered the kitchen that she saw Jesse’s profile shimmering over the stove. Steam from an open pot billowed in and out of it, rippling across all the faces he’d worn, a
ll the addresses he’d held. She had worked at the re-versioning studio long enough to recognize a high-risk profile. The red highlights across the text indicated inconsistencies in tax or social security records, places an investigator would need to do more digging.
“I already have someone on it,” Horst said. Of course he did. He smiled at her. White teeth gleaming out from golden skin. She had noticed his tan, first, all those years ago. It was so perfect. So even. So healthy. All of the tint and none of the spots. Later she’d watched him undress and imagined the designers dipping his chassis in bronze. She had been so young, then. You really don’t remember, he had asked. You’re really just like new?
“Obviously I can’t have this,” he was saying. “I’m announcing my campaign, soon. I can’t have any cracks in my armor. Christ, what will I tell Suzette?”
His campaign manager. Anika shuddered to think of her. Maybe the creeper was Suzette’s. A private investigator. After all, she did not remember any of her past versions. Perhaps there was something in her past. Something her husband’s campaign manager could not abide.
“So you’re sending him away? That’s why he’s going to St. Martin?”
“St. Martin was his idea. He’s been before. It doesn’t look at all unusual. It’s cold and miserable here, and he’s taken holidays alone. I have council meetings coming up; I can’t go with him. And you’re staying to attend that fundraiser with me, on Friday.” Horst drummed the fingers of his left hand on the stove. The onyx cabochons where his knuckles used to be clinked heavily against their ceramic cladding. “I just can’t believe he kept all this from me, for so long.”
Anika heard the question in his voice before being properly aware of what it might be about. Her head came up. Her husband’s eyes shone silver. They were so bright they were almost colorless.
“He’s never told me anything about any of this,” Anika said.
“Not even in passing? The two of you are close.”
“He was with you, first, remember? That was all the endorsement I needed.” She sipped her martini. “Horst?”
It took him a moment to respond. He was staring at the profile. Under the anger flickered just the smallest hint of hurt. “Mmm?”
“This won’t change anything, will it?”
“I don’t know, darling. I really just don’t know.”
THE FUNDRAISER MADE Anika miss Jesse more than she had all week. More than she did when she arrived at the Kiss n’ Ride after work and no one was there to greet her; more than she did when she expertly applied contouring highlighter to her brow-bone and no one was there to notice. The fundraiser – for children whose parents had splinter malfunctions and faulty installations – was the same old group in the same old club. Bad Chardonnay that tasted like the candles that smelled like buttered popcorn. Bad Cab Sauv blends that tasted like cigar kisses. Bad music, jazzy but inane, responding algorithmically to the ambient crowd noise on an unfortunate time lag and interrupting gentle lulls with shrieking brass. Older women wearing increasingly outlandish bodies: ten-inch waists, opal eyes, mouths sewn shut. Statement pieces.
How had she ever done this without him? Had she ever done this without him?
“You look lost,” someone said, and without turning she knew who it would be.
“John Smith.” She checked around the crowd for Horst. Her eyes alerted her to his presence downstairs, surrounded by the other councilors on the executive committee. His campaign manager Suzette stood closest to him. Anika blinked him a silent ping for help. Jesse wouldn’t have needed that much. He always rescued her, at these things.
“Do you work for my husband?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
John Smith had the grace to look a little surprised. “Why would you think that?”
She sighed. “Fine. Be that way.” She reminded herself to look at their pre-nup before bed. Maybe Horst was violating it by investigating her. She remembered a marital privacy section in the contract; she simply didn’t remember exactly what it said. Perhaps that was why Horst had never married Jesse. Perhaps Jesse had never agreed to the stipulations that Anika could no longer recall.
“You seem unhappy,” John Smith said.
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Did I seem unhappy at the tea shop? Or on the train?” She turned to him. He had a very basic face. Forgettable. Ideal for this line of work. “You can tell him I’m fine. Tell him I still enjoy...” Her arm moved to encircle the width of the terrible party. “All this.”
“All this.”
“This party. Our life. Everything.” The wine was stronger than she’d thought. Or maybe she’d just had too much of it. “I’m not like Jesse. I haven’t lied to him. I can’t lie to him, because I don’t know anything.”
“Why are you whispering?”
Why was she whispering? “This is a party,” she said. “This is a public place.”
He smiled. “Yes.”
“And you. You’re terrible at this job. Coming up to me in a public place and asking me questions. Honestly.”
“I haven’t asked you anything.”
Anika frowned into her wine. He hadn’t. Or at least, he hadn’t started it. For the first time, it occurred to her that he might be some sort of journalist. Or that he might be piloted by a journalist – his eyes and ears streaming their conversation to places and persons unknown. If so, she’d just revealed intensely private information to him. “Who are you?” she asked. “Who do you work for?”
“Well, it’s sort of a funny story,” he said. “Actually, I work for you. You’re the one who hired me. About three versions ago.”
HE LED HER to the roof to continue their conversation. It was cold out, and no one was there except a clutch of stargazers, their eyes wide and white with infra-red, their necks craned completely back as they stared up into the heavens.
“Have you ever thought about going up?” John Smith asked, nodding casually at the blackness above.
“Not really.” Anika leaned her back against the railing of the rooftop patio to look up. She felt it warm gently in response; Horst always chose the most responsive buildings for his parties. “I mean, not that I remember. Have I?”
“You did. Once. You almost went. Then you changed your mind.”
“Why did I change my mind?”
He shrugged. “It’s not important. If it were important, you would have decided to remember.”
John Smith had a point. Anika had never elected to save any of the activities of her previous versions in her port. Every body was a fresh start. For all she knew, she was making the same choices over and over. Which wouldn’t really make her any different from most other people, as far as she could tell.
“How do I know that you’re for real?” she asked. “Obviously I don’t remember having hired you. Am I to take all this on faith, or do you have a shibboleth?”
She had chosen her shibboleth on a whim. It was probably a very silly, insecure, easily-discovered thing as far as shibboleths went; probably plenty of others had chosen the exact same thing for the exact same reason. As such, there was a certain statistical probability that what John Smith was fishing for in the pocket of his out-of-fashion evening jacket would be nothing more than a good guess. A cold read. A con-man’s trick. They warned you about that, at the re-versioning studios. Anika had issued that very warning, herself, to her clients. Pick something personal. Not pop culture, not something you’ve already shared before, but something private. Something only you would recognize.
In John Smith’s hand was a tiny glass slipper.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Then his other hand clamped around her arm. He hove close in her vision; for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. He looked sad enough to. Sort of desperate. He was lifting her up to him.
He was lifting her over the railing.
He was throwing her off the roof.
“I’m sorry,” he kept saying. “You asked for something quicker.”
HER WILL STIPULATED that catastrophic injuries be remedied by an immediate re-versioning. But the police told Horst that her body was a piece of evidence in an ongoing investigation. And Horst had power of attorney.
So they put her in a loaner.
It was a clumsy, stupid body at least ten years past its prime. It was almost offensively bland – her blunt pageboy hair was the same insipid beige as her skin. She now stood exactly 5’6”. Boring little B-cups. No ass. She’d seen crash-test dummies with more personality. Wearing the thing felt like jamming her entire consciousness into a pair of one-size-fits-all slippers at a discount hotel.
“You know, the long-haul loaners have all kinds of features,” she told Horst. “Geiger counters and gyroscopes. Even wings, for coasting in low gravity.”
“Is that what you want?” Horst asked, a moment later. He was on a lag. Most of him was in a council meeting. His eyes had not focused on her in hours. “You want wings, like those freaks up there?”
She doubted her new face had the actuators to accurately betray her internal flinch. “No,” she said. “I just know about it because I keep up on the industry. You know? For my job?”
He made a sound in his throat that might have been understanding, and might also have been a small seed stuck somewhere. He remained quiet for a whole five minutes. “Right,” he said, finally. His snort was unmistakable. “Your job.”
“I thought you liked that I had work,” she said.
“You’re a receptionist, Anika.” He sounded so bored. Like they’d already had this discussion a hundred times before. Which meant he’d played it out in his own mind that same number of times.