Child of Lies

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  “Is something wrong, Doctor?” Captain Wilcox asked.

  “No, no,” Humphrey said, covering his long hesitation. “I was just thinking that I have to replace Sensei Rosa and Nurse Smith soon.”

  “I was going to ask you about that. Perhaps I should send a few men to maintain order on campus until you recruit replacements.”

  “Totally unnecessary. Now that the storm is over, things will return to normal. Classes will resume. The Scions are well trained, I assure you.”

  “I wasn’t referring to the storm. And with all due respect, when I was there, things did not appear orderly. I witnessed a deranged Scion throw another Scion from the bell tower. Not to mention other Scions running about and interfering with my men’s duties.”

  Jacey shivered. Just hearing Captain Wilcox talk about that stormy night brought back visions—of Sarah at the top of the bell tower wearing Jacey’s dinner gown. And of Dr. Carlhagen, freshly transferred into Vaughan’s body, throwing Sarah over the railing. That had been enough for Captain Wilcox to arrest Vaughan and, at Jacey’s urging, sedate him in the medical ward.

  Only quick thinking by Mr. Justin had kept Captain Wilcox from posting men there at that time. Mr. Justin had taken Humphrey into the transfer room and positioned him so that it appeared Dr. Carlhagen had just completed transferring to his body.

  “I know what you saw, Captain,” Humphrey said. “And believe me, I was as concerned as you. But I assure you the problem was specific to a few individuals. With AI assistance, I’ve already developed an error-checking and correction process for all future transfers.”

  “And what about the crazy one?” Captain Wilcox asked. “What will you tell his Progenitor? Whoever he is, he won’t want to transfer into a mind so obviously unstable.”

  “That particular Progenitor is dead.”

  Humphrey chuckled at Captain Wilcox’s startled look.

  The man recovered quickly. “Still, you have an unneeded Scion. Should I send some men to dispose of him?”

  Humphrey’s lips moved as he searched for some reason why a deranged Scion shouldn’t be disposed of. “He’s a valuable subject for study. And I . . . I could prepare him to receive a different transfer, perhaps a client too old to wait for a clone to come of age, someone who wouldn’t mind waking up in a different body—a superior body.”

  Jacey glanced at Mr. Justin, who nodded appreciatively at Humphrey’s quick thinking. The butler had been so helpful. But he’d also said it was inevitable that all the Scions would eventually be overwritten. Said it was futile to fight it.

  Jacey tried to relax her jaw, which she was clenching so hard it made her head hurt.

  Humphrey was on a roll, having caught the flow of his own lies. “Please rest easy, Captain. Everything is under control here. Your Scion is doing superbly well, by the way. And remember, of the last four transfers, three worked flawlessly. I found the source of the problem with the other one, and it will not happen again.”

  Jacey couldn’t read Captain Wilcox’s face, but the tension in his shoulders and the way he clenched his fists conveyed a whole lot of doubt.

  After a long pause, he submitted to Humphrey’s decision. “Very well. Let me know if you need anything else. Captain Wilcox out.”

  The holovid disappeared, and Humphrey sagged into his chair, inflating his cheeks on a big sigh. “I don’t even know what I just said.”

  “All that matters is that he believed you and accepted your decision,” Mr. Justin said. “You did very well. And you ended the call just in time, because I’ve just received notice that a VIP Progenitor wants to speak to you immediately.”

  “VIP?” Jacey mused. “You mean some Progenitors are more important than others?”

  Mr. Justin clasped his hands in front of him. “Even the elite have their pecking order.”

  Humphrey rubbed the corners of his eyes. “I’m not ready to have a conversation with a Progenitor.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Mr. Justin said. “You did wonderfully with Captain Wilcox. This Progenitor probably just wants an update since she knows that St. Vitus was in the path of the hurricane. You must take this call.”

  Humphrey put his hands over his face. “I hate this.”

  Mr. Justin handed a slip of paper to Humphrey. “Just stay positive. Answer in generalities.”

  “Who is this VIP, anyway?” Jacey asked. “Why can’t she wait?”

  “It’s Senator Maxine Bentilius. Very important in North American governance. When she calls, Dr. Carlhagen always answers.”

  “Let’s get it over with,” Humphrey said. He moved his chair forward and cleared his face of dread. At least, he made an attempt. Jacey thought he looked ill.

  “I’m patching her through now.” Mr. Justin tapped his finger on a tablet, and another holovid appeared over Dr. Carlhagen’s desk, this one a starkly redheaded elderly woman. She wore a black skirt and charcoal jacket cut to accentuate her feminine curves. A profusion of salmon-colored ruffles blossomed from the throat of the jacket so that her head appeared to sprout from a bouquet of peonies.

  “It’s about time you answered, Doctor.” Her voice was deep, throaty. “I’ve been on hold for fifteen minutes.”

  “I’m sorry, Madam Senator,” Humphrey said. “I was on another call. We just got through the worst of a hurricane, and there is an endless list of tasks I must attend to.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, though her voice conveyed utter disinterest in the small details of hurricane recovery.

  “How may I help you?” Humphrey asked.

  “I wish to transfer to my Scion immediately.”

  Humphrey and Jacey both glanced at Mr. Justin, who seemed just as shocked as they were. He pointed at the slip of paper he’d given Humphrey.

  Humphrey cleared his throat and glanced at it. He paled further, then rallied and looked back at the holovid. “But your Scion is not of age. The contract clearly stipulates that transfer can happen no sooner than when the Scion attains the age of eighteen.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? My Scion won’t be of age for four years, but I have, at best, four weeks to live.”

  Humphrey hid his confusion by rubbing his temples. “But the Scion’s brain at age fourteen is still developing. Transfer would be extremely risky.”

  Fourteen? That could be only one of two girls on campus. Jacey glanced at Mr. Justin, but his face revealed nothing.

  “I know we haven’t spoken for a while,” Senator Bentilius said. “But don’t you follow the news? I have stage-four brain cancer. It’s inoperable. So you’ll appreciate that I care very little about the risk. What’s the worst that could happen? I might die? Same thing that’s going to happen to me anyway.”

  “You might end up a vegetable, or insane,” Humphrey said. “We had some difficulty with a recent transfer.”

  The senator dismissed Humphrey’s objection with a slight twist of her lips. “But if it works, the only downside is that I have to endure the hormonal whirlwinds of my teenage years again.”

  Jacey waved her hands to get Humphrey’s attention. He glared at her.

  “Stall for time,” she mouthed.

  “When were you thinking of coming down?” Humphrey asked Senator Bentilius.

  “Immediately,” the senator replied. “I have a jet standing by to take me to San Juan, and a helicopter from there to St. Vitus.”

  “Well, as I mentioned before, we are recovering from a hurricane, and our power systems are not yet fully functional. You said you have four weeks. Give us at least three weeks to put things back in order. If we perform a transfer and lose power again, it would mean automatic death for you.”

  “I’ll be there in twelve hours. I will have my security detail with me to offer assistance with the clean up.” She turned as if listening to someone off-camera on her side of the transmission. She clapped her hands together and nodded, then turned to address Humphrey. “I’ll need the current clothing size for my Scion so I can bring proper attire.”
/>   “But—”

  “Don’t fight me on this, Christof. I can make things very difficult for you. You’ve escaped public scrutiny thus far. Your clients understand the importance of secrecy. But if I’m going to die, what the hell do I care about secrecy?”

  Humphrey sighed. “Very well, Madam Senator. I will have Mr. Justin send that information to your people. I’ll see you soon.”

  The senator disappeared.

  Humphrey glanced at the slip of paper Mr. Justin had given him. He swore and closed his eyes.

  Jacey went to him, put her hand on his back. “You did the best you could. Now we need to plan—”

  She stopped, realizing where her sentence was leading. They either needed to fight, or they needed to escape. And if the senator’s security people were anything like the gunmen who worked for Captain Wilcox, they’d be armed to the teeth.

  Humphrey said nothing, merely handed her the slip. She took it. In Mr. Justin’s cramped handwriting was the name of the senator’s Scion. A fourteen-year-old girl who just days ago had received her Spider pin. A member of Jacey’s Nine.

  Summer.

  4

  Sense Data

  Belle crept out of Girls’ Hall and onto the quad. The light mounted above the dojo was off, and only the slightest hint of the approaching dawn stained the sky beyond the eastern hills. She couldn’t see what state the hurricane had left the campus in, but she’d seen the aftermath of enough storms to know to proceed with caution.

  Even so, her next step came up short, toe smashing into something hard. She pitched forward and fell with a grunt onto the saturated grass of the quad.

  Belle cursed under her breath as she climbed to her feet. She brushed at the filth covering her uniform. Her entire left side was soaked, and her big toe throbbed.

  Gritting her teeth against the pain, she squatted and felt around for the object she’d tripped over. She found it. A hunk of Spanish tile blown from one of the buildings.

  She considered going back to change her clothes but decided against it. She wanted to get on with her plan.

  Going even slower, she probed with her feet before committing her steps. As her eyes adjusted, she made out more of the debris littering the quad. Most of it was foliage, leaves shorn from trees. The biggest were twisted tree limbs, which hunched here and there, shadowy and skeletal.

  Three days of hurricane rain had saturated the ground, and the grass squished beneath her canvas shoes. Despite the evidence of recent chaos, a quiet lay over the campus. Even the bugs and frogs seemed satisfied to keep the silence for a while.

  Belle paused to breathe deeply the island’s heady scent, a mélange of bitter greenery, bougainvillea blossoms, and the sea. The smell evoked a feeling of relief. She supposed that was because this particular aroma arose only after big storms.

  It’s all just sense data, she thought.

  An excellent term. Sense data.

  She remembered a lecture Socrates had given about a brain’s perception of its environment. Sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch were all merely data her senses sent to the brain. Preferences for—or aversions to—any particular sensory input were developed by conditioning.

  If a smell came along with something pleasant, she would grow to like the smell. If a smell came along with something painful, she would dislike it.

  Simple.

  And yet . . .

  Belle could not figure out what sense data or conditioning compelled her to go to the medical ward at this early hour. She had puzzled over it, theorized about it, and berated herself for not seeing it. All she knew was that Vaughan was there, and that when she was near him, she felt . . . something.

  That she didn’t understand the feeling irritated her more.

  And that she was knowingly giving into the feeling worried her.

  Why couldn’t she turn away and forget him? And after what he’d said to her . . .

  “Unhand me, girl. You have the allure of an eel!”

  No, she reminded herself. That had been Dr. Carlhagen talking.

  Belle picked her way through more fallen branches and chunks of tile. The noxious, rotten odor of stagnant water hovered over the pit in the center of the quad. She gave its grated maw a wide berth. Another aversion response, she realized. Having spent the better part of a day in the pit, she never wanted to go near it again, let alone smell its smells.

  She continued on her way until she came to the medical ward. A chill rose on Belle’s skin as she stepped up to the door. The last time she’d been there, something very bad had happened. Another classic aversion response, she decided. Nothing more. Just the brain doing what the brain did.

  She slipped into the entry foyer of the ward and felt along the wall for the light switch. She flipped it, not expecting much. Hurricanes usually cut the power.

  The light fixture hanging from the ceiling flickered on. The space was small and unadorned. Nurse Smith’s desk stood before a steel door that led to the main ward.

  Bell pushed on the steel door. It didn’t budge. She tapped on the security screen next to it. “Unlock the door.”

  The avatar of a beefy man wearing a uniform and holstered sidearm appeared on the screen. Chax, the security AI. He was one of the alter egos of Madam LaFontaine’s, the school’s master AI.

  “Password,” he prompted.

  “It’s an emergency.”

  “Explain.”

  Belle put a hand to her head. “I have a terrible migraine. I need to find some medicine.”

  Chax pursed his lips and crossed his arms. “I’ll check with Jacey.”

  Belle gritted her teeth. It didn’t surprise her that Jacey had connived to take over the school, but it made her want to vomit. “Why is it up to Jacey? Why not Mr. Justin?”

  Mr. Justin was only a butler, but since Sensei, Nurse Smith, and Dr. Carlhagen were all gone, Mr. Justin was the oldest person on campus. It made far more sense that he take over than Jacey, at least until Sensei’s replacement arrived.

  “Madam LaFontaine decided Jacey was in charge,” Chax said.

  Belle cocked her head and considered this. Of course Jacey had wriggled her way into Madam LaFontaine’s good graces. It was typical of her. But had she become so favored that she could decide who got into the medical ward? It made no sense.

  “Let me speak to Madam LaFontaine.”

  “She’s busy.”

  A ridiculous statement. Chax was Madam LaFontaine or, at least, a version of her. “I guess I’ll just have to spend the day in my bed. My head hurts far too much to show up for dance rehearsal.”

  She turned to go.

  “Wait a minute, young lady.”

  Belle turned to find Madam LaFontaine’s avatar had replaced Chax’s. The ageless woman wore her black leotard with a gauzy skirt, her hair pulled into a severe bun. One of her pencil-thin eyebrows rose in disapproval. “We’ve already missed three days with this nuisance storm. And though I no longer have to teach you, I’ve agreed to Jacey’s request to continue lessons for a while longer.”

  “All I need is a couple of ibuprofen,” Belle said. “It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Very well.”

  The door lock clicked and Belle pushed through.

  5

  Crazy Ideas About Fighting

  Jacey stood at the window behind Dr. Carlhagen’s mahogany desk. Humphrey and Mr. Justin had gone to prepare for Senator Bentilius’s arrival, mostly to give Humphrey background on the senator so he could converse intelligently with her without blowing everything.

  Except, they were going to have to blow everything.

  Jacey would never allow the bossy old hag to overwrite Summer.

  The only question that mattered was how to prevent it.

  Jacey yanked the desk chair back and plopped into it. Scooching forward, she placed her hands on the desk and summoned Vaughan.

  His holo appeared above the desk, just as Senator Bentilius’s had. The difference was that Jacey wasn’t in remote commun
ication with Vaughan. Instead, he appeared as a computer-generated avatar, the only form he could take since he’d been installed on Socrates’s server. When Dr. Carlhagen had overwritten Vaughan, the AI had made a backup image of Vaughan’s brain. A stroke of luck, since it kept Vaughan alive . . . in a way.

  He gazed at her, face as serene and beautiful as a sunset. He wore his uniform, Shark pin on the collar. But instead of the close-cropped hair all Scion boys wore, Vaughan’s hair fell over his shoulders in a tumble of brown waves.

  “I need you to zap back into your body,” Jacey said. “Things are spinning out of control, and I need your help.” She explained Humphrey’s conversation with Senator Bentilius.

  Vaughan blinked as if he hadn’t really been paying attention. “I think we’d be best served if I stay where I am for a while.”

  “You could do both,” Jacey said. “I spoke to Greta about it already. She doesn’t need to delete your AI instance to overwrite Dr. Carlhagen with the backup she made.”

  “I don’t like it. If she restores me from the backup, that version of me won’t know anything I’ve learned here. Besides, I don’t want to propagate the evil of transfers, even if Dr. Carlhagen deserves it.”

  “Propagate? When did you start using big words like that?”

  Like all Scions, Vaughan was extremely intelligent, but his training had been focused on mathematics and economics, not literature. In the flesh, he’d always been plain-spoken, seeking to connect with others rather than to hit them over the head with his genius. Jacey, on the other hand, had received that accusation from her peers more than once.

  “Please, Vaughan,” she said. “We can’t keep Dr. Carlhagen sedated forever, and there are some dangerous people coming. I have no place to hide him.”

  Vaughan’s image began to pace. “I need to stay in this form. There’s too much to be learned here. When Socrates was deleted, he left behind a huge amount of knowledge. I’ve been processing it, trying to defragment the data and put it into some kind of order. Already I’ve learned how to do this . . .” He snapped his fingers and transformed into Socrates, long white beard and all.