by Joan He
“Hero—”
He jerks out of my reach, pinning down his twitching right arm with his left one. It’s like there are two people warring in his body, and it’s terrifying to watch. When he finally gets his limbs under control, mine are petrified with dread.
“What was that?” he gasps, a sheen of sweat on his brow.
The lie springs to the tip of my tongue. I’ll tell him I’ve never seen this happen before, then gather him close and hold him until the incident fades from his mind and mine.
But his expression is so haunted, and I no longer have the heart to keep on lying to him.
So I tell him the truth.
“YOU.”
An accusation. A question. He hadn’t expected to see her. Why would he have? Since returning to the eco-city four days ago, their stay in Territory 4 truncated as delegates withdrew and the failure of Operation Reset seemed all but imminent, they hadn’t spoken or come face-to-face. The hand mark on Actinium’s cheek had faded, but the pain Kasey had inflicted was real.
He’d hurt her, too. First with lies, then with the truth. They were even.
Too bad for Actinium, Kasey played to win.
“I’m here for a tattoo,” she said. In the background, GRAPHYC was abuzz. The world might have been ending, but body modifications still needed to be done. Jinx yelled at one of the employees to quit spying, and Kasey heard the curtain behind her fall. It divided the front of the shop from the back, the back being where Actinium’s office was. He stood in the doorway now, making no move to let her through. Is this a joke? his expression asked.
Kasey wished. To an onlooker, it would appear that they’d left things unresolved. But she knew exactly how Actinium had taken their last interaction. He’d poured his heart out to her and she’d balked. She’d asked him if this was what he wanted when really, she was asking herself, and he’d sniffed that out. He’d pushed her to the edge to test her; she’d hesitated, unable to jump. Her true choice, whatever it was, was not his.
As a team, they were finished.
But Kasey still had unfinished business with Actinium. “I found your hours,” she said. “I know you’re working.” She took a step forward. He stood his ground. No matter; there was enough space for her to squeeze in and he stiffened as their shoulders brushed, before turning to face her.
“I design them.” His voice was pure ice.
“My design is simple.”
“I don’t ink.”
“Don’t, or don’t know how?” Kasey challenged.
Actinium answered as she thought he might: by closing the door. A click, and suddenly the tiny space grew even tinier. It contained a green recliner, a stool, filing cabinets, and two large monitors atop a desk. Undecorated and utilitarian, like his unit, with the exception of the rabbit. A gray one, stretched out and dozing on the keyboard.
Not a cat, Kasey noted.
Just one of the many things she’d misled herself on.
A holograph floated before her nose, interrupting her study of the mammal. “Sign the waiver,” said Actinium, and Kasey did, waiving her ability to hold GRAPHYC accountable for any post-procedure complications. “Payment upfront.”
She transferred the amount. That gave Actinium pause. She’d said this wasn’t a joke, but he didn’t believe her. How far was she willing to go? “So what will it be?” he asked, sardonic.
What will you choose?
She told him. His lips thinned, but he kept his opinion to himself. He had her sit down, then snapped on a pair of black gloves before taking the stool. He positioned an armrest between them. The rabbit on the desk continued to sleep.
“Your wrist.”
Kasey held out her right. Actinium placed it, vein-side up, on the rest.
The next few minutes passed procedurally. The swabbing of disinfectant, then some sort of numbing cream, a reminder that this would hurt. The handheld machine buzzed as Actinium switched it on; the hairs on Kasey’s arm rose, followed by goose bumps at the light pressure of his hand on her wrist. He lowered his head and waited, allowing her one final chance to back out.
“Start,” Kasey ordered, and so came the sting that quickly heated to a burn.
You know all of my secrets, untold and told.
Kasey watched as the ink appeared in her skin, becoming one with her cells. Why, she’d wondered before, would anyone ever want to alter their flesh bodies when less permanent options existed in holo? In her case, she’d needed a valid excuse to be here in person. A guaranteed amount of Actinium’s time, just paid for. A reason to sit in this chair, as Celia had, to confirm his final secret, untold.
“You knew she was going to die.”
With his head bent so close, she could almost see straight through his skull. He would have recognized Celia—if not on sight, then by transaction tracking when she paid. He would have extracted her Intraface as requested, and destroyed it under Celia’s eye. But between those steps, he would’ve also figured out why she’d come. It’d be easy enough; a quick hack into her biomonitor. Kasey would have done the same. Top-stratum girl, asking for Intraface removal? The mystery would have been too enticing to resist.
“You knew she was sick, and still you let her walk out those doors.”
I hoped we would meet again, Actinium had said, if the circumstances allowed. As if circumstances couldn’t be engineered. What better way to reenter Kasey’s life than with the pretext of a shared loss? Sister. Lover. Celia dying to a man-made error in a perfect mirror of his own parents’ death would have been the cherry on top.
“You wanted us to have this bond,” Kasey went on, voice remarkably steady, just like Actinium’s hand as he continued to ink. The dark line grew around Kasey’s wrist.
He stopped. “She chose this.”
That’s what Kasey had said when she’d learned of Celia’s disease. The second heart in her chest was but a seed then, and her anger—at Celia for giving up on Kasey—was inaccessible. Actinium had unlocked it. Now, she’d seen what could be done in the name of anger and love, and understood why most people couldn’t control how they responded. It was biological. Lose a limb, and you bleed. Pain was directly proportional to the value of what was lost.
To Kasey, Celia wasn’t an organ or limb. She was light that Kasey, as a human and not a plant, didn’t need to survive. Still, her warmth was missed. Her death had left Kasey’s sky without a sun.
“I don’t care what she chose,” she said to Actinium. Her voice rasped. “You knew what she meant to me.”
The needle stopped.
“And you?” Actinium’s head finally lifted; his gaze burned into hers. Close, but when Kasey measured the distance between their eyes with her Intraface, still too far. “Do you know how much you meant to her? When I say she chose this, I mean she chose you. She chose to leave and accept her fate because she knew you’d try to convince her out of it. She didn’t want you to pod yourself.” Kasey couldn’t follow. What do you mean?—but Actinium had already tsked in exasperation. “You refuse to see it. I debated on how to explain my stake in finding Celia’s truth to you, but then you showed up, so ready to believe I loved her without evidence or proof. For someone so analytical, you assumed.”
So? Everyone had an exception to their rules. Celia was Kasey’s. “You led me on.”
A muscle tensed in Actinium’s jaw. Was it regret Kasey saw in his eyes, or a trick of light? The needle returned to her skin before she could decide, and she winced at the increased pressure.
“I planned on telling you when the time was right.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “Clearly, I was justified. You learned too much too soon, and look where we’ve ended up.”
The buzz filled the silence. The sleeping rabbit twitched its nose.
“No,” Kasey said quietly. She tracked the movements of Actinium’s hand. Stroke, lift, blot. “This was always to be our end.” Stroke, lift, blot. “Your truth showed me I must live mine.”
“And what is that? This?” Stroke. “Even now you ch
ain yourself to her.” Lift. No blot. The excess ink feathered on Kasey’s skin. “You think you’re inferior to her, but you’re not. Look at me,” he said, and Kasey did—with an imperceptible forward lean this time.
One. Two. Three seconds, at the requisite distance.
“You’re brilliant,” Actinium said, in perfect harmony with the completion jingle that rang in Kasey’s head. A pop-up appeared in her mind’s eye.
SCAN COMPLETE
She had what she needed. She’d chosen, as had he. His vengeance wasn’t hers.
It was time to let him go.
But that would mean giving up on the boy who’d, in his own twisted way, been there for her as she came to terms with Celia’s death. The boy who’d built a shield around the island to protect his loved ones, and given his antiskin without second thought to a frontline medic. His beliefs may have outgrown his parents’, but Kasey still saw a glimmer of the child in the photograph, standing between Ester and Frain, raised by the ethics of medicine, named after the scientist who’d discovered elemental actinium, the key to curing cancers of old. He was the dark-eyed boy, always hiding, whom Kasey had hidden from too. They’d been similar from the start, determined to be strangers if only to resist the socialization attempts of their moms.
If she was going to leave, she had to offer him the same way out.
“We could be free from them,” she said. From the dead.
“Freedom is running away.”
“Choose science with me.”
“Science.” Actinium scoffed. “Every cure enables the creation of another disease.”
“So we cure them.”
“People are the disease, Mizuhara.”
Kasey fell silent. She would miss debating with him, no topic too sensitive to broach. Miss . . . this. This common language they had, even if it was based on lies.
Actinium must’ve felt it too. When he returned to inking, his hand shook against her skin. “I thought you’d understand.” His voice sounded younger. “You, of all people.”
Yes, Kasey the anomaly. The one with the mechanical mind, who’d built bots just like him. The only person who knew all of him.
And consequently, the only person who could stop him.
“I know, you know,” said Actinium, gaze still down, and Kasey’s breath momentarily froze. “You won’t forgive me. Your logic ends with her.”
And yours, with your parents. Logic ended where love began.
If Kasey loved Actinium, she’d excise his parents from his memory. Others would see it as cruel; she saw it as kind. He’d be able to live his life free of theirs. But Actinium was right. She would never forgive him, and therefore never love him. Following her heart meant following logic, leaving no room for random acts of kindness. Logic told her this:
Eventually, humanity would need Operation Reset, and as long as Actinium was out there, privy to its inner workings, he would hijack it, make it serve his own motives. Kasey wouldn’t excise his motivation, but she could remove the fuel she’d added to it.
She checked the tattoo. It wasn’t finished yet.
Incomplete it’d have to be, then.
“I’m sorry,” said Kasey, before hacking into Actinium’s biomonitor with the retina info she’d scanned, just like she’d once hacked Celia’s. Given the number of times they’d discussed their plan, in a variety of settings, it would have taken her too long to set the parameters. So Kasey did the more foolproof thing.
As the rabbit on the desk woke, she cognicized Actinium’s every memory of her.
I TELL HIM EVERYTHING. ABOUT Kay. About me. About the facility in the sea. Time does not stop for my confession, and the orange of the sky rots to russet. The clouds become bruises. The sea bleeds around the horizon, the sun puncturing its navy skin. Our shadows grow long over the pier planks, and Hero’s touches my toes by the time I finish.
Finally, he speaks. “How many times have I tried to kill you?”
One time on the beach. Possibly one time on the ridge. One time on Genevie, and one time just now.
“Two?” Hero asks as I say, “Three.”
Silence.
“Maybe four,” I add, my voice quiet.
The last of the sun sinks. The air cools. The tide rises, blue-black, washing over the planks and sloshing at our feet as Hero begins to pace back and forth.
He comes to a sudden stop. He covers his face with both hands before pushing them through his hair, then turns to face me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because I wanted to protect you, and because it doesn’t matter. We’re real. But every reason sounds like an excuse. By lying to him, I chose for him, just like Kay chose for me. I took away his autonomy.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words paltry.
His breathing accelerates. I had a whole dive to the bottom of the sea to show me that I wasn’t human. He’s getting this all at once.
“Hero . . .” I start, but he’s already shouldering past me. He strides down the pier. “Hero!” I turn after him, but don’t chase him. I don’t deserve to; he needs space and time.
He doesn’t come back to the house that night.
Around midnight, I search for him along the shore and at the cove. No luck. The wind picks up. U-me greets me on the porch as I return, but I don’t have the energy to entertain her. I sit on the couch, legs to my chest, arms crossed atop my kneecaps, and bury my face in the nest of limbs. Eventually, my mind goes dark like my vision. This time, I dream my old dreams. The touchstone images—of cherry ice pops that melt too quickly, a sequined dress that fits my body like a second skin, and Kay’s hand, reaching for mine as I climb down a white ladder to join her in the sea—are almost comforting, even if I still wake up with tears on my face. I wipe them off before heading to the kitchen, brew tea like it’s a part of some normal routine. My hands shake.
Final day.
The kitchen door opens as I’m filling a mug—or trying to. I can’t seem to aim and most of the tea has spilled onto the countertop. I glance up from my mess to find Hero in the doorway, in the same clothes as yesterday, hair windswept.
“Where did you—”
His mouth’s on mine before I can finish. I start to kiss him back; he breaks away to lift me.
We end up at the counter—on it, against it, clothes half on, half off. Our rhythm is serrated, like the shards of sound we don’t manage to swallow. The countertop drives into my tailbone, and my nails dig into his shoulders as we come apart.
“Are you okay?” It’s the first thing Hero asks after he finds the air for words. His breath is ragged, and he rests his forehead against my shoulder to catch the rest of it.
“Better than okay,” I gasp back.
We clutch each other like we’re breakable. But we’re not. We may be breathless right now, but we’ll never be permanently without breath.
“How can it be?” Hero whispers into my shoulder. He lifts his head to look at me, and the confusion in his gaze blisters me like a flame. “You and I . . . we both feel so real.”
“We are real, Hero.”
“But so are the people—”
I press a finger to his lips. “Don’t think about them.”
“But I have to.” He pulls my hand away. “Because if you decide to wake them, I might stop you. I might kill you. The worst is that I don’t know what I might do, Cee.” He begins to tremble. “I just don’t know.”
“Shhh.” I take his head into my hands and draw him to my chest. His tears run warm over my breast and down my ribs. “It’s okay,” I say, even as my own heart clenches around my false memories of Kay. We are the same, Hero and me. All we can do is live and feel as much as we can, to rebel against the life and feelings we can’t control. “It’s okay, love.”
“Strongly agree,” comes U-me’s voice from the doorway leading to the living room, and I glare at her. But then Hero coughs out a wet laugh. A real one. This is our normal. Voyeuristic androids and tears shed over our overlords.
Slowly, we
separate ourselves. Even more slowly, we get dressed, prolonging the present. As I tighten the drawstring to my cargos, Hero pauses, sweater caught around his elbows. His gaze drifts.
“Hero?”
Eyes refocusing, he shrugs his head through the neck opening. It leaves his hair going every which way. “Will you come with me somewhere?”
Honestly, I was looking to stay in. In this house, I feel protected. Kept at a distance—however slight—from the sea. Justified in defending my home and life.
But Hero looks like he needs air, so I open the kitchen door and say, “Lead the way.”
Hero does, pausing only when U-me follows us down the porch. “U-me, mind if it’s just us?”
U-me whirs.
“She doesn’t do questions,” I explain to Hero, then to U-me: “Stay, U-me.”
U-me blinks, unhappy with the order, but honoring it and letting me and Hero go.
We trek past the rocks behind the house, over the squidgy mud and then the shale scape. The fog is thick today, reducing visibility to mere meters, but Hero moves as if he took this path not too long ago.
“Why do you think I was made?” he asks casually, some minutes into our walk.
I try to give an equally casual answer. “I don’t know.”
“You were made to wake your sister.”
“Sure.”
“Who’s supposed to wake the entire population. And I’m supposed to end you.” You don’t know that—but I guess there’s no one else on this island for him to kill. “Why?” asks Hero.
The topic feels morbid, but I should be glad Hero is comfortable enough to talk about it. “Dunno. Maybe the person who made you didn’t want the entire population waking up.”
“Sounds like an asshole.”
“We don’t know what the world . . .” I trail off, searching for the right verb tense. “Was like. Maybe everyone turned evil, and whoever made you was trying to do good.”
“You don’t have to make me feel better, Cee.”
His voice, while quiet, holds a rare edge. My mouth opens and closes, fishing for words.
“Sorry.” We speak at the same time, break off, and try again. “I just—”
