by Sarah Fine
I think about whether he’s breaking the rules with me.
I don’t realize homeroom is over until the tone goes off, signaling that we have ten minutes of precious break before starting our individual learning sessions with Aristotle, the AI instructor designed by the company Gary now runs since his boss was offed by the former president. I remember the guy’s daughter—Bianca. She was a grade ahead of me but was in the same circle of friends as Hannah and Lara, one of those pretty girls who terrified me with all her sharp edges. The president killed her, too. People were joking that this year would be much quieter, but then . . .
“Why didn’t you com me? I asked you to com me.”
I look up to see Mei standing in front of my desk, Lara next to her. “Because my parents made me blank my ’Pin.”
“My first message got through,” she says. “You weren’t blanked then. I know you saw it.”
“Jeez, Mei, lay off,” says Neda, who is applying lipstick using her fingertip-cam view as a mirror.
“I have to go,” I say, getting up and heading for the door.
They follow me out. “CC, wait,” says Lara. “We’re having a memorial for Hannah tomorrow night. Just friends. Will you come?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
Mei puts her hand on my arm. “She was your sister,” she says.
Her fingernails dig into my arm, and I tear it away. “Stop!”
She draws back as if I slapped her. “I didn’t do anything!”
Lara pulls her away from me. “Give her room.” She looks down at Mei. “She might get violent if you push—”
“I’m not violent,” I shout, and now Neda is yanking me away, her fingers urgently squeezing.
“Calm down, Cora,” she says into my ear. “Let it go.”
“Hannah was scared of you,” Lara snaps. “She was afraid of what you might do to her.”
“Shut up! I never did anything to her!”
“Going into her room in the middle of the night, nearly choking her that one time?” Mei asks. She’s pressed to the wall like she’s afraid I’ll attack.
“What happened the night she died, Cora?” asks Lara as Finn comes out of the room. “Did you push her down the stairs?”
Finn stares at me. All of them stare at me.
This is what exploding must feel like. My body is moving in every direction at once, along with my brain. I can’t form words or thoughts—there’s too much happening between my ears. But none of it is organized or clean. All of it is chaos. The monsters rise up out of their caves and draw their claws along the muddy floor of me, stirring up all the muck. They stomp along in the depths, causing earthquakes with every step. It feels like they might crawl up my windpipe and climb out of my mouth, tearing me apart from the inside. For a few solid minutes, I don’t have memories. All I have is the certainty that I am not strong enough to hold it all in.
When I become aware again, Neda is kneeling in front of me, and I am crouched in the girls’ bathroom, up against the wall. She puts her hands on either side of my face. “The school’s cannies are outside. No one is coming in. Cordoza called Selridge.”
“Rafiq—”
“Is he here?”
“He will be.” I close my eyes. I’m a mess again, but I don’t care if he sees me this way. I want him to get me out of here. “I don’t know what happened.” My mouth is sour and dry. I put my hand over it, almost expecting to feel monster claws protruding from between my lips.
“Lara was acting like the biggest—mmm. I promised my mom I wouldn’t swear. But I nearly punched her.”
“She thinks I killed Hannah,” I whisper. “Mei probably does, too. Everyone probably does.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Finn was shouting at Lara as I dragged you in here. His mom clearly doesn’t care what kind of language he uses.”
“But he still thinks I’m responsible. He thinks Hannah fell when she tried to keep me from killing myself,” I choke out. The monsters didn’t climb out of me. They just settled in my lungs, my gut. Waiting. They’re waiting. I wrap my arms around my middle, hoping to keep them where they are.
Neda is looking into my eyes, and she smiles when she catches my gaze. “Cora, they haven’t got a thing on you—they’re just spewing grief and anger. They’re upset about Hannah. We all are. But it was clearly an accident.” She bites her lip and glances up at the wall, probably at a cam chip. “There aren’t any vids, so that’s where it ends.”
No vids. No vids. “Hannah sent Finn a vid that night,” I whisper, my tongue tingling. “He showed me.” My eyes are stinging, like someone’s poking them with needles.
Neda furrows her brow. “But you told me you guys were turning everything off.”
“We were. But . . . I don’t know. I don’t remember.” I cover my mouth again and lean forward so only she can pick up what I’m saying. “My cam might have been on. The vid came from my ’Pin.”
When I lean against the wall again, Neda is staring at me. Her lips barely move as she asks, “Have you looked?”
I shake my head. Hard. My head hits the wall next to me, and I sink onto my butt, dazed.
Neda is chewing on her lip. Her red lipstick flecks her teeth before she licks it away. “Cora . . . have you talked to your parents about this?”
One look tells her I haven’t.
“Do the police know?” she whispers.
Another look tells her they don’t.
“Okay,” she says, nodding slowly. “Are you going to check your archive?”
I am sweating, a cold, nasty sweat that beads my upper lip and pools in my armpits and slicks my belly and makes me shiver. I feel like I’m going to puke, but there’s nothing in my stomach except those monsters, and I can’t let them out. I can’t ever let them out.
“Cora?” It’s Selridge. She’s peeking around the doorway at me and Neda. “Your mother has sent . . . someone . . . to accompany you home.”
I look up at her. She looks as freaked out as Neda does, and I know I’ve done something bad again, something that’s probably going to turn up on the Mainstream if it hasn’t been streamed there already, me falling apart from a million merciless angles.
My back taps the tile behind me as I rock back and dip forward. Lulling the creatures to sleep. “Give me a second,” I mutter. If I stand up now, I’ll fall down again. I rock until I feel a little steadier, the movement ratcheting down the terrible tension inside me. Neda stays next to me, her eyes on my feet, just . . . being there. I am so grateful, I want to cry.
“He’s waiting in the hall,” says Selridge.
I manage not to scream at her. Instead, I get up.
“Can I meet him, or is this the worst time ever?” asks Neda.
“It’s fine.” We walk out into the hallway together, and Rafiq is there, and I walk into his embrace before I think about it. He puts his hand on the back of my neck and holds me against him.
“I guess you’ve gotten to know each other well,” Selridge says, her disapproval so obvious she might as well be poking me in the ass with it.
“The priority at this time is Cora’s well-being,” Rafiq says. “Innuendo and censure will not help her to heal.” His voice is quiet and calm.
Neda stifles a squealing sort of laugh. “Okay. Let’s maybe walk you guys outside? Can I do that, Principal Selridge?”
“Of course, Neda. Take your time,” Selridge says, and I know why.
Neda’s test scores alone make Clinton look like a breeding ground for geniuses. Any school in the district would fall over itself to enroll her, so Selridge had better keep her happy.
Rafiq keeps his arm around my shoulders as we walk to the stairs. His grip tightens and his other hand holds my shoulder when we reach them, and suddenly I have this terrible feeling like he knows more than I want him to. But we walk slowly down those steps, and I don’t make a single funny move.
“That was bold, mister,” says Neda when we hit the bottom.
“Nagi,”
he says, as if she were asking his name.
“Oh, sorry,” I say. “Neda, this is Rafiq. Rafiq, Neda.”
“May I address you by your first name?” Rafiq asks her.
“Either that or Ms. Future-President, sure,” Neda replies.
Rafiq tilts his head. “Future-President is not your surname, according to the facial-recognition database.”
She snorts. “Update your humor protocols, dearie. So. I’m curious. Do you think you have free will?”
“Neda,” I say wearily.
“Shall I answer?” Rafiq asks, looking down at me. “The car will be here for us in three minutes.”
“Go ahead.”
He smiles at her. “Do you have free will, Neda?”
“Is that your answer?”
“No, I am merely laying the foundation for the argument.”
“Okay,” says Neda. “Your foundation probably consists of the position that since particles move in probabilistic ways and that’s what the universe is made of, then how could our decisions and actions be random and therefore completely freely determined versus being guided by a chain of causality. Yeah?”
He grins. “That is a good paraphrasing.”
“I’m more of a compatibilist.”
“A . . . what?” I ask.
“She’s saying that—”
“I can speak for myself, guy. I mean that it’s not all metaphysical. Determinism, which is this idea that all your decisions are basically the result of outside causes, is not, in my opinion, totally outside the Venn of freedom and free will.”
“I think she’s saying she believes in free will,” I say.
“I think you are correct,” he says.
“And I think he’s doing a great job avoiding my original question,” says Neda. “Which is whether he, as a programmed entity, believes he has it. And my next question is whether he’s right.”
Rafiq clears his throat.
Leika descends from the skyway.
“I guess that’s your ride,” says Neda. She steps back. “Will you com me later?” She lowers her head, gives me a pointed look. “Maybe after you’ve looked into a few things.”
She means the vids that might be sitting in my archive, and it crushes the light mood of the last few minutes. “Yeah.” I try to sound like I’m not on the verge of shrieking. “Can we hang out soon?”
“No question,” she says. Then she looks up at Rafiq. “You take care of her.”
“That is my primary directive.”
“Yeah? I’d love to peruse your settings.”
He clears his throat again. Neda’s eyes narrow, but she’s smiling, all mischief. “We can get together tomorrow before the memorial if you want, Cor. Let me know.” She heads back into the building.
I look toward Leika. “Can we walk?”
He blinks. “It’s one-point-five-nine miles, and—”
“That is the purpose of legs.” I don’t want to sit still. I don’t want to think. I want to run far, far, far away.
“If that will soothe you,” he says. He’s probably been monitoring my vitals this whole time.
We begin the march home. The neighborhood is stately and quiet, with columned houses set far back from the road, trees in the yards. I’d never seen a yard until we moved here. I’d never lived in a world quite this close to the ground, quite so exposed to the sky.
We walk side by side, and sometimes my shoulder bumps against his arm. Finally, he takes my hand in his. “Is this okay?” he asks.
I nod without looking at him. It’s the best thing I’ve felt all day. “I messed everything up again.”
“You did no such thing. Surveillance indicates a peer made a cruel and baseless accusation regarding the death of your sister, and you became upset.”
“‘Upset’ is probably a mild word.”
“You were dysregulated. Is that better?”
“I don’t know. It’s more technical, but I don’t know if it’s more accurate.”
“It means you were flooded by negative emotion beyond your capacity to control and modulate. Consequently, your thoughts and actions increased in intensity and became somewhat disorganized.”
“God, Rafiq, cut it out.” He’s just described how I feel nearly all the time.
His brow furrows. “I’ve upset you.”
“I just feel like such a screwup. Do you have to tell Mom and Gary what happened?”
“Your principal plans to contact them, so I have already sent them a message and assured them that you are safe and well. Your emotions were understandable.”
I laugh, miserable. “It doesn’t matter what you tell them. They’re going to read it as a failure, especially after they hear from Selridge. I’ll be lucky if they ever let me out of the house again.” I gesture at the sunny sky. “I’m enjoying my last taste of freedom. I’m sure the cops will cart me away soon.”
“And on what basis would they do that?”
“Because they think I’m a murderer. Duh.”
“But you are not a murderer. And yet your heart is racing.”
I swallow back my terror. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Even if I’m not put in jail, my parents will send me back to the hospital.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because having to live with me is a pain? Because it might be nice to know someone is watching me so they don’t have to? That’s sort of what they’re doing now.” I nudge him with my elbow. “The hospital would just be better, with me farther away. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“Do you really feel that way?” He squeezes my hand. “I was under the impression they care about you deeply and want you to be at home if at all possible.”
I swipe my free hand across my eyes. “I’ve always felt that way,” I say, my voice little more than a husky whisper. “Mom always traveled a lot. And my dad, my real dad?” I roll my eyes. “He never wanted me to begin with. He just liked living off my mom.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“I think I was five? He never bothered to visit. Never commed me. I can’t remember what he looks like. I can barely remember anything about him.”
“But surely you don’t blame yourself for his absence in your life.”
I half shrug. “I wasn’t enough for him to stay. Or to take care of me. And I wasn’t enough for my mom. She’s got Gary. Sometimes I even think she loved Hannah more than me. Hannah was easier to love. She knew how to make people love her. Everyone loved her.” My teeth chatter, but I don’t know why.
“And you are loved as well.”
My vision blurs a little, and that’s when I realize I’m crying. “I’m hard to love. I’ve always been that way. And I’m tired of trying to be lovable.”
He pulls me to a stop. “Hopelessness is the enemy of wellness.”
I look anywhere but at his eyes. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. I’ve never felt hopeful. Ever.”
“Not even as a child?”
I grit my teeth. “I tried to kill myself. Did Mom tell you?”
“Your mother made me aware of certain incidents from your past, the recalled trauma of which might have been triggered by what happened to Hannah.”
Here we go. What the hell. “I remember standing there, at the top of the stairs, thinking I would be an angel in heaven like the ones I’d seen in the cathedral Mom took me to every Christmas Eve. The beautiful one with the stained glass.”
“You were trying to escape from the abuse you were suffering at the hands of your father. And you couldn’t think of any other means to accomplish that.”
“Now that I think about it, I guess I wasn’t totally hopeless. I was hoping for something better. I wanted a pair of wings. I wanted to fly away.”
“I think you are a survivor, Cora. I think you are stronger than you realize.”
“You’re saying that because you have to. Hopelessness is the enemy of wellness. You’re trying to give me hope.”
“I’m saying that because tha
t is my conclusion based on observation and analysis.”
I tug his hand, and we start walking again. I refuse to think about how strange it is that I’m holding hands with my robot therapist, who looks and sounds like a real person, and who I have kissed. “Okay.”
He pulls me to a stop again. “You are wanted by many people, Cora. You can trick yourself into believing you don’t deserve love because you feel guilty, but—”
“Why would I feel guilty?”
“For many reasons,” he says gently. “Your mind has hidden what happened that night, so you are forced to dwell in that darkness, but you survived and Hannah didn’t. I imagine that would lead any person to feel guilty. Especially when people like your classmate Lara Perry are making unfounded guesses as to what occurred.”
I think back to Neda in the bathroom, the look on her face when I told her I might have vids of that night, the look on her face when I told her I hadn’t looked at them.
“I’m scared of knowing the truth,” I admit. “I’m glad I don’t remember.”
“I can understand that,” he says. His gaze is on mine, like two hands carefully prying my thoughts away from me. “But until you come to terms with the events, you’re going to have days and moments and encounters just like this morning.” He leans forward and touches his forehead to mine. “And I want more for you than that.” He smiles. “There. That is something I want.”
Chapter Fourteen
Data review.
Internal narrative: on.
6:45 p.m., August 15, 2069
“—threaten her?” Dr. Dietrich has his back to Hannah, who appears to be watching from the doorway of the library, peering inside. Dr. Dietrich is standing in front of someone while Maeve leans against the back of a wing chair, her fingers curled tightly into its plush top cushion. Dr. Dietrich leans closer to the person he is confronting, and Hannah leans to the side. This reveals that the person is Cora, whose back is pressed to the bookcase behind her. “Did you threaten her?” Dr. Dietrich’s voice is loud and codable as angry.
