The Veritas Project

by C. F. E. Black

  We know we’ve been replaced. But something about seeing the person with my memories, my name, my place stirs my insides with a swirling discomfort.

  The elevators lift us to the commercial levels, but we rise higher than the level of our tram platform, hoping to watch them from above, unnoticed. None of us speaks in the elevator. Pru finishes her coffee, keeping the cup close to her mouth as if it is an excuse to remain silent.

  We are supposed to be curious. We were, after all, scientists who lived and breathed discovery until a month ago.

  “Should we have worn disguises?” I ask, aware of my exposed head in the cool mall air.

  Julius shrugs again. Pru, tossing her cup in a chute, looks at me with hard eyes. “No disguises. They are the disguise. The ones wearing the masks, the masks of our memories.”

  We walk up to the balcony that overlooks the deep chasm of the mall. People mill like bacteria in all directions. But the Order members are easy to spot. On the floor below, across the chasm, a cluster of shaved heads disperses among the t-screened shoppers. We—they—really do stand out, I think, watching them with a heartbeat fast as photons.

  My hands clutch the railing, knuckles white. I see him.

  Below me, Marcus emerges from the platform, tall frame lifting his perfect face above the rest. He, too, replaced someone in our Order. He is nothing more than a shadow of the first Marcus V, the one I still remember. I squeeze the railing and cram my eyes shut in anger. The boy I miss like oxygen is just a phantom, a shell of someone else. Like the new Valeria. Like the new Prudentia. Like the new Julius.

  I open my eyes. I want to see these ghosts. These incarnations. I scan the faces of the Order members, small as they are from here. My breath catches when I spot a new face. But how do I know if it is me or Pru? Then I spot another girl, in black scrubs with a shaved head, that I’ve never seen before. One of them is me. One of them is Pru.

  I glance at Pru. She sees them too. We cannot even tell which one is which.

  With a sickening wave of nausea, the tingles of a brain flash begin.

  Seconds later, it is over, but the nausea remains. Julius’s face wears concern as I come back to the moment. Then he points to a face below. “That’s him.”

  I look. The new boy is easier to find. There’s only one. He is broad in the chest and narrow in the hips, and a dark shadow of hair crowns his buzzed head. His skin looks more like Ty’s than Julius’. No freckles at all.

  “How can they give him your memories when he looks nothing like you?” I ask, wondering how on earth he’ll ever get used to the reflection in the mirror if his head is full of sixteen years of freckle-faced memories. Same way Marcus got used to his reflection, though the boy he replaced was blond and small. That’s how much they mess with our brains.

  Julius remains silent, staring at his replacement.

  “That one is you,” Pru says with confidence, pointing at the girl Marcus now approaches.

  I nearly vomit over the balcony’s railing.

  A thin, blond girl smiles at Marcus, and he smiles back. They start walking down the bustling balcony. Words cannot express the heaving inside me. Rage, confusion, fear, and sadness mingle into hysteria in my stomach, my throat. I smack the railing with one hand, gripping hard with the other.

  Julius’ hand lands on my shoulder, heavy and cautionary. “V,” he whispers, voice trembling in his own dismay. “We knew this would happen. We aren’t them. We can’t be them anymore. You don’t want to be that person anymore, remember? Brain chained up?”

  Snapping my face in his direction, I spit, “Then who are we?” I’m so hot I’m sweating. “Who are they?” I fling a hand out over the empty space. “That girl has my memories! That girl thinks she’s me! That girl is me.” My hands shake, and my eyes burn with unwanted hot tears.

  Julius stares back at me, blinking.

  Pru delivers the answer: “She has all but one minute of your memories. She is not all you.”

  A gulp of air suctions into my lungs as I turn back to the girl below. Pru is right. One minute—the minute Julius gave me—will never be hers. What I thought about during that minute will only ever be mine. Is it enough?

  “Julius,” I say, remembering something he said before we left the Center. “You said our abilities aren’t what make us unique, but our interests.” I look back at the girl walking beside Marcus. “Do you think—?” I can’t even finish the question.

  Julius swallows. “Nah.” His head shakes slowly side to side. “No, I don’t think that’s possible.”

  Because if it is, then his new replacement loves the new Prudentia. And my replacement loves—I can’t finish the thought.

  Pru shoots me a condescending look. “They would have weeded out those feelings. You know that.” Her tone is accusatory, but she is attempting to comfort me, which I find odd. “No way they would have left those memories in. That’s why you’re out here and she’s in there, remember?”

  That’s true. But Marcus? Does he remember? Does it even matter if he does?

  “Let’s go,” Pru says, turning away. “We’ve seen them. Now, let’s not talk about this again.” At my reluctance, she steps in front of me, forcing me to back away. “V, that girl is not you. You’ve got a whole brain full of you now that she doesn’t have. She’s the old you, maybe, but not the person you are now. Not the person who stole wound serum for me, not the person who held that tram open for me.” Her eyes are fierce, bright. “Not the girl who wanted freedom more than safety, more than routine, more than all the luxuries of a science-pampered life.” Her eyes darken a little as her words fade, her old resentment at getting kicked out of her precious Center returning. She looks angry, but she is right. And because she is right, these are the kindest words she could have said to me.

  She walks away from the balcony’s edge, away from our view of our old Order. She, the one who didn’t want to leave the Center, is the first to walk away now. The first to walk back toward our new lives, the lives I forced on all of us. Shaking my head, I realize I may never understand her, and that is the reality I’ve craved. The reality where people get to keep their enigmatic minds to themselves.

  Back in Streamline, we follow Julius to his desk to receive the day’s orders.

  “Okay, Julius, what’ve you got?” I pull up a rolling chair in his workstation.

  A few weeks ago, M put out images of us on the news, accidentally shot in the crossfire of a gang fight. I have no idea why, but the Center seems to have bought it. For a month, we haven’t seen any of the Director’s men lurking after us in the shadows. For a month, we’ve been M’s personal, untraceable video cameras about town.

  For the past few weeks, I’ve searched for a doctor who can remove my sensors. The best neurosurgeon in town, from what I’ve found, is booked for ages. But I’ll find a way. I’ve got to. Even if I have to search for a year, I’ll find someone to get these things off me. For now, I work for M and he keeps me safe. A fair exchange, I force myself to believe.

  “Looks like today you two will be listening in on this man”—he points at a photo of a suited man—“when he makes a call as he leaves his office,” Julius says, his usual lilt back in his voice.

  “The mayoral candidate?” Pru asks.

  Within twenty-four hours, the news broadcasts a terrible picture of the CEO on all news screens in town above the words, “Mayoral Candidate’s Backdoor Deals Exposed.”

  “I need you to go to high school today,” M says a day later, wry smile curling his lips. “Ty will drop you off just as the morning wave lets out. All you have to do”—he pauses here to emphasize the ease of this assignment—“is observe two boys as they leave the school.”

  Curiosity buzzes inside me. Ty and Oscar are the only two young people I’ve met out here. They are both finished with school. I know next to nothing about the lives of people my age in this city. I know they go to school—one shift goes in the morning, gets breakfast and lunch, the other shift goes in the afternoon a
nd gets lunch and dinner. I see the buses running. I see the kids floating around the city like vacuoles when they aren’t in school.

  In the Center, we were told that we had the advantage over every other young person in the world because we did not have to learn the slow way, the way of question and answer and trial. Our learning process, more than anything else, was the substance behind the phrase much is given.

  “Will we see inside the school?” I ask, itching to see how the rest of the world learns. Do they have laboratories in their schools? Libraries?

  Pru huffs. “I hope not.”

  “What’s the matter? What’s so bad about a high school?” I wonder what makes it high instead of low, but I do not ask. Maybe it is a better school than some, like the one Ty said he went to.

  Pru opens her mouth, but the words take a moment to emerge. “Because they are vermin, these people.” The fold of her arms and the hurt in her eyes suggest to me that perhaps she is remembering the group of young men who cornered her that night she tried to run back to the Center.

  Just a few weeks ago, I agreed with her about our superiority, our elevated status above the average human. But out here, we are no longer known as geniuses, lauded for our intelligence and ingenuity. We are chain brain freaks, gen-eng monsters, helpless victims of hungry-eyed men with guns or gang colors. Not much to boast about. And not that different, it turns out, from the people I’ve met out here.

  M shakes his head, nearly laughing. “These vermin you speak of are your next assignment, like it or not, Princess,” he says to Pru. I don’t know why he calls her a princess, but I say nothing. She sighs pointedly. “Here.” He turns around, taps one of his screens, and two faces appear. Two boys. One with a tattoo on his face, the other with a neat haircut and a clean shave.

  “What did they—Never mind.” I lift my hands as I drop the rest of the question. We aren’t supposed to ask M any questions about the assignments. Just go, watch, listen. He gathers the information he needs, does with it what he will. I’m just curious what two teenagers are doing on M’s watch list.

  M lifts his gaze over his shoulder at me. “I think it’s okay for you to know. These two vermin are suspected to be involved in a drug ring. Daddy of this one,” he points to the clean-cut boy, “wants to know for sure. His status as deacon might come into question if his son turns out to be a drug dealer.”

  I think about asking what a deacon is, but I don’t really care. I look at Pru, who stands with her arms crossed, scowl hardening her face. I rise, assuming further instructions will come from Ty, as they normally do.

  “Oh, and, ladies?” M says, fingers pressed together. “Get the boys’ attention.” He winks at us. Pru and I exchange a glance. “Ty will drive you.”

  Twenty-Two

  The school empties out onto a street across from a small park. The wide steps cascade with pattering feet after the midday bell rings. The first wave exits, the second wave enters not five minutes behind them. The students say little to one another, their heads cupped in the airbrushed version of their t-screen realities. I wonder if they keep those helmet screens on all day.

  To look the part, Pru and I activate the t-screens we wear in our ears and slide into the dispersing crowd. A virtual world balloons around my head, translucent enough to see the sidewalk, but distracting enough that I do not notice the cars passing, the city sounds, or the blooming trees in the park across the street. When I turn to Pru, her cheeks are pinker, her eyes bigger, her chin thinner. I let out a small yelp at this new Prudentia.

  “Hush,” she hisses. But her eyes stare at me a moment as she observes the filtered version of my face. Then, looking around, she jerks her chin at two figures ahead of us. “There.”

  When I turn to them, my t-screen recognizes their faces and a small, clean chime echoes in my ear. They are walking toward the greenspace, t-screens activated, but I can hear them talking.

  I recall Ty’s instructions: “Turn on the ‘available and looking’ feature on your t-screens. Then, just make sure they see you.” Ty’s frown and robotic gestures while showing us how to do this on the t-screens hinted that he was not a fan of this assignment.

  “Pru,” I whisper, as we angle toward the boys, “Ty never said what ‘looking’ meant. What do you think it means? What are we looking for? And what are we available for?”

  She flexes her jaw. “I don’t know, V. Just do what M says. He’ll do all the listening. All we have to do is talk to them for ten minutes. Then Ty is going to pull us.”

  We stare at the boys as we march directly toward them, hoping they look up from the ground and see our faces. Something dings in my ear, and for just a moment, a pale-green filter glows over the clean-cut boy on my t-screen. The word available blinks over his head. As we near, he must get a similar message in his ear, because his head snaps up in our direction, his eyes landing on first Pru, then me. The second boy stops talking and looks over at us.

  Wow, that really was easy. I haven’t seen strangers look at each other much out here. T-screens I thought prevented people from having to talk to those around them.

  The tattooed boy drops his arms, watches his friend step up to us.

  The boy wears a buttoned shirt tucked in to jeans. “Hello, ladies,” he says, smile filtered to be blindingly white. I want to rub the slight blur off the lens of this t-screen, but I know it is meant to be there, to fuzz the imperfections out of life.

  “Want to come with us?” he asks.

  Very forward of him, I think, wondering why on earth we’d want to go with him or why he would think we want to. But we need to get at least ten minutes out of them. So, I nod. We start walking with them down the sidewalk, then peel off into the grass. Other students from the school congregate in the grassy area, but most dissolve into the city. We head toward a pavilion with picnic tables.

  “What are your names?” The boy asks.

  “Val and Pru,” Pru says, pointing. Her voice is hard as steel, though we’re supposed to look interested in these boys.

  “We’re Axe and Gage.” He points to the tattooed boy first. I want to laugh at the name Axe, but I manage to keep it to just a smile.

  Axe sits on the picnic table, leans his elbows onto his knees, staring at Pru with a hunger in his eyes that makes my skin crawl. He taps something on his palm and the word available appears above his head and another small ding sounds in my ear. I still don’t understand what we are all available for, but I suppose it’s why we’re all here. How M can tell if these two are into drugs, I have no idea. I hope he gets what he needs.

  The boy named Gage leans against a pole in the pavilion, sticks one hand into his pocket. “Want to lose your mind for a while?”

  I gape at the boy. “Lose my mind? I’ve spent my whole life losing my mind! All I want now is to have my mind to myself!”

  The boys stare at me like I’ve grown antenna.

  “Sure you do, come on.” He stands up straight, digs something out of his pocket, and withdraws his fist. When he opens his hand, two pills stick to his palm.

  That was too easy, I tell myself, looking at his open hand and now understanding what he meant about losing my mind. Five minutes. That’s all it took. I shake my head.

  “You sure?” He asks, holding out his offering to me, then to Pru. He steps closer.

  I step backward.

  Now, the tattooed boy stands up so fast I blink several times. “You buzzed us,” he says, voice accusatory. Pru shifts her weight back and forth, clearly nervous. “Don’t be backing out now.”

  Before I can think of anything to say to this, Pru grabs my hand, clutching with a grip so tight her fingernails break my skin. She yanks me around and starts marching away, out into the sunlight and toward the street, where Ty waits in an idling car.

  “Hey!” one of them calls. They start walking after us.

  Pru does not let go. She pants like a bull with each step, jerking my arm in her violent stride.

  “What on earth?” I spit at h
er, trying to keep my pace in tempo with hers. I can hear them cursing us and stomping through the grass.

  As we near the waiting car, Ty emerges, brow rigid. He steps up onto the curb, his chest puffed up, his eyes narrowed into daggers. He is looking past us at the boys still pursuing us. “Get in the car,” he growls.

  “Tyson!” One boy shouts. “What are you doing? They buzzed us. Now they acting like they don’t want nothing to do with us.”

  “Leave them alone,” he snarls. “They aren’t interested, Axe.”

  “Oh, yes, they are,” Axe responds.

  “Leave,” Ty repeats.

  “Oh, and what are you going to do about it?”

  At the car, I jerk my hand from Pru’s grip, feeling her nails pry out of my skin. The tattooed boy is doing most of the talking now. The boy knows Ty.

  Just then, another car screeches to a halt at the curb and Oscar hops out. He is the shortest of the four boys, but the broadest. He sticks his chest out, angling his arms in a silly way that seems to invite an attack. Then, Julius climbs out of the car too, his usual smile gone. He is strong, like all of us Order members, but I’d never thought the word threatening could describe him. Until now.

  Axe and the other boy eye Oscar and Julius, then Ty, then us.

  “All right, fine,” Gage says, lifting his hands. “You win. We don’t want none of this.” He drops his hands. “Come on, Axe. They played us.” He curses us.

  Axe spits at Ty’s feet. “Just this once.” He turns and saunters away with his friend.

  When they are out of sight, Ty turns to Pru and grips her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he says, peering into her eyes.

  Julius watches them, breaths lifting his shoulders high.

  “We got what we needed,” I say, hoping to relieve the tension.

  Oscar nods. “Got those fools.”