by Joan He
Ding. Delegates were rescinding their support from Operation Reset.
Ding. The plane was about to leave.
Ding. Where was Kasey?
Currently? Sitting on the ground outside the hospel, her back to the PVC wall. Didn’t particularly want to be here, didn’t belong elsewhere, so she stayed, watching from the sidelines as shouted orders went unheeded, victims arrived on gurneys and departed in body bags. Supplies rolled into the makeshift wards and came out in metal drums of biohazardous waste. Medics ran back and forth, carrying things, dropping things.
Thunk. Kasey flinched as a container landed and tipped over, centimeters from her toes.
“Argh!” The medic crouched down, gathering the spilled toximeters. Kasey crawled over to help. As they refilled the container, the numbers on the toximeters caught Kasey’s eye. The levels for both radioaxons and microcinogens did not match the readings in her biomonitor.
She turned to the medic. “They’re broken.”
“I know,” said the medic. She shoveled the last of the toximeters into the container, hoisted it into her arms, and stood.
Kasey stood too, concern growing at the medic’s lack thereof. “They’re not safe to use.”
The medic gave her a look. “I know.”
In front of the hospel, a ring of Worldwide Union trucks had been parked, each designated for a different job. Kasey followed the medic to the trash truck, and stared as all of the toximeters were dumped in. Stared some more as the medic, after dusting off her hands, withdrew a small rectangular box from the breast pocket of her hazard suit and shook out a cylindrical filament. She struck the filament to flame and inserted it between her lips, sucking in deep, exhaling a plume of gray. It wasn’t odorless, like the hallucinogenics popular in the eco-cities, and it irritated Kasey’s lungs.
“Not a local, are you?” asked the medic as Kasey coughed.
“No.”
“Let me guess. VR-city?”
E-city, Celia had called their home. Same thing, Kasey supposed, and nodded.
“Figures,” said the medic, inhaling more air pollution. “Live here long enough, and you’d know better than to trust everything.” She nodded at the toximeters that’d joined the pile of used surgical gowns and shriveled IV bags. “Half the gov-issued ones are tampered with. The levels only go so high. ‘Anti-panic measure,’ they say.” One last inhale, and she dropped the filament onto the ground, where it glowed, a spark in the dark, before disappearing under the medic’s shoe.
“You should put on an antiskin,” she said to Kasey, grinding her heel. “Your organs rotting? Now that shit’s real.”
Then she made for the hospel, leaving Kasey by the truck with her smoke and her words.
She reopened the P2C file Actinium had sent her. Reread it, properly, as she would have done sooner or later. It just happened to be sooner, thanks to this one exchange, that she found the data she was looking for. The date of the leak.
It fell before, not after, the day she and Celia had gone to the sea.
A full two weeks prior.
The ocean had already been poisoned.
Despite Kasey checking the water with a P2C issued toximeter.
Despite the reading: SAFE FOR SKIN CONTACT.
120 bpm. 130 bpm. 140 bpm. ALERT! From her biomonitor. Her heart rate reached the anaerobic zone. Someone was talking to Kasey. Shouting her name again and again. Go away, Kasey thought. Said. Out loud. The sound of her voice brought her back into the world and she saw that it was a P2C copterbot. Not here one second ago (or had it been minutes, or hours?), but here now, hovering in front of Kasey and making a scene.
MIZUHARA, KASEY, please board. MIZUHARA, KASEY, please board.
Kasey boarded.
And smashed her fist into the window.
Pain splintered down her arm.
140 bpm. 150 bpm. 160 bpm.
Was this how Actinium felt? Learning that his family had died without him, because he’d boarded as a bot? Because all Kasey could think was Celia had died because Kasey had been sheltered. Protected. From head to toe, wrapped so neatly in her antiskin and goggles that her biomonitor hadn’t gone off in the water. The poisoned water. She’d used the toximeter. Relied on its numbers. Her mistake wasn’t trusting the tech.
It was trusting the humans the tech served.
As the copterbot flew, taking her back to the embassy like it’d been ordered to do, Kasey geolocated David Mizuhara.
For once, he was at home.
She opened the holo app in her Intraface and pressed LOG IN.
No stasis pod detected. Continue?
YES
Warning! Free-holoing, without stasis support, increases risk of cardiac arrest.
CANCEL
I am aware of the risks and accept.
I ACCEPT
HE CRUMPLES LIKE A BODY without a spirit, head dropping into his hands. The fork is still ringing on the floor when I rush to his side and kneel. “What’s wrong?” I reach for his arm.
“Get back.”
“But—”
“Get back.”
My hand retracts. I watch, helpless, as he lifts his head spinal disc by spinal disc, eyes glazed over with pain. The veins in his hands stiffen, followed by the veins in his neck.
The spell passes the way it came: without warning. He sags in the chair, panting. Shakes his head as if to clear it.
“What hurts?” I demand.
“It’s nothing,” says Hero. I glare, and he amends, “Just a headache.”
Something tells me it’s not the first time this has happened. He doesn’t seem surprised enough, and was able to speak to me through the pain. “When did you start getting them?” I ask.
Hero doesn’t say anything.
“Since I came back?”
After a moment, he nods.
Since I smashed an oar into your head. I slide my hand over his forehead and push up his bangs. Everything looks healed from the surface, but it’s what’s underneath that worries me. He could have a concussion—if we have the equivalent of brains. If we don’t, and it’s just wires and hardware inside our skulls, then I could have broken something that will never heal on its own.
How do I ask without giving our true natures away? “Besides the pain . . . do you feel any different, mentally?”
“As in, do I have memories?”
I nod.
Hero’s gaze drops to the fork on the ground. He shakes his head, and picks the fork up.
“Hero . . .” He’s keeping secrets from me. I know it. And I’m in no position to judge him for that, but I could help, if I knew his truth. If he knew mine, he’d never be able to return to the life he has now. Kay stole my world from me. I won’t do the same to him.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I say quietly.
His honest nature wins out in the end. “I’ve been hearing voices.”
My blood slows as I recall Kay’s. Find me. “What do they say?” I venture.
“Stop her.” He swallows. “And in my dreams, I . . . now see a face.” His fingers twitch, as if itching to mold the face out of clay. We have no clay, so I hand him the next best thing: the butter knife.
Hero hesitates. “It’ll ruin the table.”
“Screw the table,” I say, and at last he digs the knife tip into the wood.
A man’s face emerges. Now, I like an angular face, but this one is too angular, skeletal almost, and I find the austerity to the man’s expression disturbing. The other disturbing thing? How good Hero’s crude line drawing is. Is his programming the source of his many talents? What was he made for? Stop her. Is it too self-centered of me to think I’m the her? Why would anyone want to stop me? I look back to the table. Maybe Hero is also disconcerted by his own drawing skills, because he doesn’t say a thing. We stare at the face in silence.
I break it. “Who is it?”
Hero sets the knife down. “I don’t know.”
“But then how can you draw it?”
�
�I don’t know.”
“So you don’t remember them? Or someone like them? Someone from your past?” False past, but maybe there are answers there.
“No. Cee . . .” Hero looks pale. He rocks onto the hind legs of his chair. “What if I don’t have a past? What if?” he repeats, already sensing my resistance. “Just consider this: What if I never had a name?”
That’s impossible, I would have said before. Everyone has a name. Now I realize I took so much for granted. Things I thought everyone deserved—a name, a past—are not guaranteed to us. And when they are given, it’s for a reason. Memories are how Kay controlled me. They bolstered me when I considered giving up. They reminded me of who I was and who I am and who I could be. I am the vehicle; they are the gasoline. They drive me to “find Kay” on top of my explicit programming, because even if my happiness levels failed to trigger the command, my memories would have held me hostage to the idea of a lost sister.
Meanwhile, maybe what Hero’s meant to do doesn’t require memories. Or his creator simply couldn’t be bothered to build in a fail-safe. Anger boils up my throat at the thought—that who we are is determined by how others intend to use us. It’s not fair, I think, especially when Hero says, horror hushing his voice, “I’ve wondered it this whole time. If you didn’t ask me for my name, I wouldn’t have realized I was missing one. Some days . . . I can’t even remember how I used to act or talk.”
No memories . . . and no personality. I recall how Hero shifted from jumpy to skeptical to glum when I first met him. His considerate nature has always been a constant, but the rest, I now see, was never quite stable.
He rocks the chair back to a steeper angle. “I’m sorry,” he says out of the blue.
“Why?” His apology only enrages me more. We’re at no fault.
Even our faults are built into us.
“Sometimes . . .” Hero starts. “I think about all of this from your point of view. Three years on an island, alone. You must have been so happy the day when I washed ashore.” He smiles, rueful. “Then it turns out I have nothing to offer. No goals of my own, no past to share.”
“Hero . . .”
“It’s hard to live for myself if I don’t even know myself. But I do know you. You were there the moment I woke up, driven and strong. You made me want to live for you. And for you, I wish . . .” He looks away, as if holding my gaze pains him. “I wish I were everything you had hoped for and more.”
My anger grows icy. I’m not strong. And you think I have goals of my own? A past of my own? Well, sorry to break it to you, but it’s all a lie. And I’ve been lying to you. I’m sorry about that, too.
Then the ice melts. And I just feel . . . sad. For me. For us. We deserve joy. We deserve to live without the guilt of letting anyone down.
To live without guilt, period.
I move, sliding myself between the table’s end and his knees—then onto his knees. The chair comes down on all four legs with a jolt.
I straddle him, looping my arms over his neck so he has nowhere to look but me. “I was never hoping for anyone or anything,” I say. “Not once in these three years. Joules, I didn’t even realize how lonely I was until you showed up.” I rest my forehead against his. There may be lies between us, but right now it’s only the searing truth. “I want you, not everything and more.”
Thunder rumbles outside.
As I wait for a reaction, a lock of hair slips free from my ear. Slowly, Hero reaches up and tucks it back. The brush of his knuckles against my cheek causes memories to resurface, of other boys doing the same thing.
But I’m not Celia. And Hero’s not just some other boy. His fingers are careful but certain. They skim down my sides and stop at my hips.
He pulls me in closer as our lips lock, his grip hardening. I shift—wickedly deliberate—and the nape of his neck heats up under my palm, but he doesn’t break the kiss.
Hooking a leg around the back of the chair for leverage, I move in until we’re practically flush, the negative space between us slimming as we rid ourselves of our sweaters and reveal our true shapes.
“Wait.” He breaks us apart.
“What’s there to wait for?” My fingers are already working on the knotted drawstring to his cargos.
He tries to stop me. “A dance under the stars.”
I bat his hand away. “Cliché.”
“A midnight row on the sea.”
“Cheesy.”
He catches my wrist. “My name is cheesy.”
“You sure?” I don’t think cheesy is the word that comes to mind when I lean in and whisper it—along with all the other things I want—into his ear.
I pull back, satisfied to see the pink in his cheeks and the fluster in his gaze. Then his eyes narrow. In one smooth motion he stands, sweeping me up, his footing sure against the hardwood floor.
We’re nearly at the bedroom before we both remember the mattress is gone. At least we still have the blanket, back to being a carpet, and a door for privacy. Hero presses it shut and sets me down on the ground as it begins to rain. Droplets run down the windowpane as we fumble, hands on fabric, hands on skin. Memories rise with goose bumps in the wake of Hero’s palms—of other palms, other boys. But they belong to Celia.
This is my first.
Our first.
And even if Hero doesn’t have any memories of his own, he’s still asking if this is okay, if I’m okay, if we need protection—all the responsible things normal humans would ask. His innocence makes me ache, and before that ache turns into guilt, I hush him with my mouth and roll over on top.
We sink. Onto, into, subsumed like waves, muscle tendon sinew pulled taut, slickening with each clutch of breath.
Afterward, we lie on the carpeted floor, the rain outside slowing down with the beat of our hearts. The sweat on my shoulders cools. I shiver, and Hero pulls me in. I tuck my head under his chin. The ends of his hair tickle my right cheek, then my own tears. They eek out silently, sliding over the bridge of my nose and pooling in the shell of my left ear. They’re not sad tears. Not happy tears. Just . . . tears. Warm as the ache between my legs. Real as the ribs beneath my skin. And for a breath, I forget. Everything. I’m just a body nestled against another’s. We’re nothing as timeless as stars in orbit. More like two grains of sand before the tide rushes in. Here, then not. Human.
THEY SHARED 50% OF THE same DNA. The same phenotypic expressions—attached earlobes, flat feet, fingernails that ended barely after they began. They had the same personality traits, too, such as an inability to connect with other people and below-average tact.
But when Kasey saw her dad, she wished she shared nothing with him at all.
It was morning in the eco-city. Tuesday, with scheduled rain. David Mizuhara was in his room, sitting at the foot of his and Genevie’s bed. It took up far more functional space than it needed to. All the furniture did; her dad, Kasey knew, could have lived off much less.
She strode in front of him, thinking she might cast him in her shadow, forgetting that as a holograph, she had no consequence in this world. Even if she did, she doubted he would have noticed her.
“You knew.”
As if coming out of a dream, David glanced up. “Kasey?”
She projected the classified P2C file and swiped it to him. “You knew their pipes were leaking.”
“Where did you get this?”
She was the one asking the questions, not him. “Why go through such pains to cover it up for them?”
David frowned. For a second, she thought he might push back. Then he sighed with the weariness of someone who’d defended his position many times. “They were among the inaugural admittees under the update to HOME. The leak was brought to our attention after the fact. Given the stakeholder scrutiny, we thought it best—”
“You thought it best.”
“. . . to contain it,” David finished, seemingly unbothered by Kasey’s outburst.
HOME. HOME. Kasey could have punched something again. Again,
all for Genevie’s HOME.
Did you know? She’d rehearsed the words in her head. We went down to stratum-0. We swam in the sea. The toximeters said it was clean.
Did you know?
You didn’t. How could you have?
I killed her, because I was safe.
You killed her so that everyone else would be safe.
Yet when she reached for anger to fuel her delivery, she found a vacancy instead, similar to what was reflected back at her in David’s eyes.
“What if their leak led to someone’s death?” she asked.
“What?”
“What if?” Kasey insisted, and David pushed up his glasses.
“More people are dying because of rank exclusion to sanctuary.”
The skies let loose on schedule, according to Kasey’s Intraface. She couldn’t tell in this room, boxed in by four windowless walls, trapped with her dad. Except it wasn’t her dad. Not the one she’d known as a child. An architect concerned only with his blueprints. Apathetic toward policy and people, working from home while their mom jettisoned around, from galas to talks in every eco-city and territory, promoting HOME, following her calling as David followed his.
What had changed?
One day. That’s all they’d needed, whether they knew it or not, for David Mizuhara to find them sneaking to the sea, to stop them, do more than send a simple message warning them away from stratum-0. To be present.
To care.
What had changed, Kasey realized, was that after their mom had died, their dad had committed himself to her work. He kept her dreams alive while he wasted away as a person, a proxy for their mom. Kasey couldn’t hate him if she tried—and she tried. Tried to think of one last cutting remark. Gave up.
Logged out.
Her consciousness returned to her body in the copterbot. Her breath came fast. Her mind’s eye was cluttered with biomonitor alerts. Her heart rate had peaked to a critical level. Two more minutes, and that level might have flattened to zero.
The foolishness of her actions sank in. She could have died.
Died.
Like her dad had died. And Actinium. The boy he’d been, killed in the crash. His entire existence devoted to rejecting the ideals that’d led to his parents’ deaths. His rage was a fire, yes, but it only burned bright in the darkness of his self-made coffin.
