Beneath the Shine

by Sarah Fine

  We’ve reached the corner where we must part ways. I have to get back before Sophia notices the slight drop in temperature in my room, the tiniest decrease in carbon dioxide levels, and realizes there is no actual breathing body in my bed.

  “You’ll contact me again when you have more information?” I ask.

  Chen looks up and down the street. “Yeah. But—we have something else to talk about.”

  “And that is?”

  “You turn eighteen in a few weeks. And your dad wanted me to give you something.”

  I catch my breath. I’ve been waiting a year for this. But I know I can’t force it out of him—I’ve made the mistake of losing my patience a time or two with his meager trail of breadcrumbs, and his response is always to threaten to disappear. And I’ve reviewed his ghost AI program—Chen could really do it. “I’m ready.”

  But he only shakes his Incomped head. “Not here and not now.” He lets out a loud sigh. “I’m not even sure I should be doing this at all.”

  No. No way is he backing down. “Chen, if it’s rightfully mine and it came from my father, you can’t keep it from me.”

  “That’s what Ukaiah said, too.”

  “Majority rules.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Things are getting serious now. Sallese and his buddies are no joke. Their response to this bombing . . .” He whistles, and spittle flies from his mouth.

  “I would have thought you had voted for Sallese, Chen. Technology for the masses and all of that?” This is the first I’ve heard from Chen since the election.

  “Ever ask yourself how deep the ties go between Fortin and Sallese? You think they’re really at each other’s throats?” He snorts. “That’s what they want you to believe.”

  It certainly seemed that way after watching Marguerite Singer’s vids. And the way she reacted when I told her who Anna really was—that seemed genuine . . . genuine disgust, that is. An emotion I happen to know a little something about. “Well then, the Oscar goes to Sallese. He has convinced the ‘real Americans’ that he has their best interests in mind . . . and made a lot of enemies in this town in the process.”

  “Has he?”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Gotta figure out what their game is, kid. Sallese and Fortin are at war, but what’s going on underneath?”

  I scan the night with my augmented vision and listen to the hum of the canny patroller one block behind us. I adjust my heart rate so it doesn’t catch his attention. I tap beneath my ear to increase the volume on my auditory shield. “Frankly, Chen, I don’t care about their game. All I want is to find my parents’ murderer. I want justice for them.”

  “Answers will come to you from the strangest of places. But first you might want to dig down and explore what’s right under your nose.” He smirks. “I’ll be in touch.”

  And that’s it. Another unsatisfying conversation that brings me no closer to understanding. I don’t know who or what is more elusive—Chen and Ukaiah or the answers I’m looking for. “Chen, thank you for helping me.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?” He stretches, even though his fingers are still twitching and his shoulder is still jerking. “I thought I was just out for an evening stroll.” He turns and walks away, his steps just a shade too quick.

  As soon as they fade, I’m aware of the canny watching me from across the street. I zoom in close. His eyes are scanning my face. No. I can’t run now—if I avoid him, he might decide to follow me. I can only hope I am hidden as well as I need to be. Just to be on the safe side, I tap my Adam’s apple and feel my vocal cords swell. Then I cross quickly, controlling my strides, my breathing. “Thank you for your service,” I say in my new deep and raspy—and completely untraceable—voice. “You guys don’t get nearly enough credit.”

  This canny looks less human than many of them; his face is flat, no nose, no eyebrows. He has broad shoulders and fingers that fold back to expose a neural disruptor or a gun, depending on what level of force he is authorized to use. Right now his arms are at his sides. “You are welcome, citizen.”

  I smile, but not too broadly, just a friendly, bland curve of the lips. He’s still watching me, probably still probing the Mainstream, looking for my face, but I’m not doing anything suspicious and he’s already scanned my body for weapons, no doubt, and therefore has no reason to detain me. I’m no threat.

  Not at all. I let him stare at my back until I turn the corner, and then I jog to the embassy. I arrive and press my silver reflective decals back into position just in time for the delivery canny bringing in fresh croissants and pains au chocolat from Auntie’s favorite bakery for the morning. As the gates swing open, I slide in, knowing all that will show up on the cameras is a slight warp in the air.

  I make it back into my room and dive into bed, letting out my breath slowly.

  “You are awake now,” says Sophia.

  Sophia, queen of the obvious. I quickly reach over and wave off the bio-sounds channel within the desk screen. “Bad dream.”

  “You have many bad dreams,” she says. “You often cry out in your sleep. If you were to enable the actigraphy sensor in your comband, I would be able to—”

  “No thank you, Sophia.”

  “Your volume indicates you believe I might have trouble hearing you. I assure you my settings are quite sensitive.”

  “Aren’t you saucy tonight?”

  “Your tone indicates that you are frustrated.”

  I sit up abruptly. “Sophia. Please stop talking to me.” Good lord. I’m going to have to speak to my aunt. I had no idea she planned to sic the house on me.

  It makes me wonder if she knew about my parents’ case being closed before I did.

  “Engage privacy settings,” I say. “Wouldn’t want you spying on me in my birthday suit.”

  “Privacy settings engaged.” That’s when I remember that I still have my patches on. I am still invisible. I slide my fingers along my cheekbones and brow, pressing until I feel the release of pressure that tells me my face is returning to its normal configuration. I push back the memory that keeps trying to surface. My father’s eyes, his hands on my face, his frown of concentration.

  I get up from my bed, go to my closet, and dig under the mound of discarded jackets, trousers, wigs, skirts, shirts, some imprinted with loving little digicards from the designers, mostly from Europe or Asia, thanking me for downloading their creations and letting me know what huge fans they are. All of them hope I’ll wear their designs in a vid. They’d probably scream if they knew I use their precious garments to hide my most treasured possession.

  I reach the bottom of the pile and feel its smooth edges, its warmth. I pull the box into my lap and press my thumb to the circle in its center. The lock releases as the box senses my DNA and fingerprint. I open it and stare down at the contents. It’s a time capsule in many ways.

  My fingers tremble slightly as I reach down and trace the fragile edge of the paper on top, then the petals of the flower embossed onto its surface with a handheld metal press. My mother’s handwriting is smooth and graceful on the page.

  Off to do some good in the world. We’ll see you for dinner!

  In a completely digital world, she and my father loved to leave notes for each other and for me, written with soy ink on a special paper they sourced from overseas. No one really used paper anymore, of course. It was so anachronistic they might as well have been writing with feathers dipped in inkwells. I used to find it both cute and tiresome, in the way so many parents are, but now I wonder if it was just one more way to avoid being tracked, recorded, monitored.

  If so, it didn’t help them much.

  I pick up the sheaf of paper and carefully remove the sheet at the very bottom. The fountain pen inside the box rattles. A gift from my grandfather to my father, it bears my father’s initials, VPB. Though it’s completely dark, I can read it easily. Thanks to him.

  I press my thumb to the flower at the top of the paper, retrofitted by my dad to contain a chip
coded to my DNA alone. My father’s words appear. It’s been ages since I read this.

  It is my intention never to leave you, Percy, but I’ve learned that one man’s strength means little in this world. And with that lesson hard earned, I feel the need to tell you things I so hoped to explain to you in person when you were older.

  Do not be afraid of what you are, and trust your body. But please treat all of it, both what you come by naturally and what I’ve given you, with respect and care—I haven’t yet tested it as thoroughly as I wanted to.

  I’ve never gone further than this before. It’s too painful. Too eerie. But like Chen said, I’m almost eighteen. Bombs are exploding. People are dying. I want answers and justice. And he told me to dig deep. He told me to explore what’s been under my nose this whole time.

  “Here we go,” I murmur. I press the raised flower again, and my father’s words are erased—and replaced with code. My eyes lock onto it and scan, and then I clutch at a nearby chair and hang on tight as I sway with dizziness. A menu is floating in front of my face, telling me to select an option.

  Sense Management:

  Ophthalmoception

  Audioception

  Olfactoception

  Tactioception

  Proprioception

  Thermoception

  Nociception

  Equilibrioception

  Mechanoreception

  “Oh my . . .” This is all inside my head. Literally inside my head. Carefully, I spend a few minutes navigating through the menus, which is as easy as the brush of a thought. I turn my sense of equilibrium up a notch—it’s always good to have a keen sense of balance—and dial my sense of smell down. This will make my school days easier, given that most of my classmates wield perfume and cologne like cudgels. I leave nociception, my detection of pain, alone. I think it’s necessary. Besides, even if I dialed it to nothing, I don’t think it could save me from the ache of missing my parents. My parents, who did this to me, even though I’m still figuring out exactly what this entails.

  So far, these notes, these menus inside my head, are all I have from my childhood. They stand in place of my memories, because I have nothing from before the accident. Just me looking up at them, me unable to move, me hearing their voices but never my own. Me listening to all their cautions—for secrecy, for protection—their promises that I would understand all of it when I got older, and their strict instructions for how to be and to live.

  And then me having to do all that without them.

  I go back to the main menu, planning to exit, when a menu item catches my eye:

  Health and Safety:

  Bioscan

  Site management

  System update (option disabled)

  Self-destruct (option disabled)

  I read the options again, and then again. An odd sense of frustration washes over me.

  (option disabled)

  It’s just the kind of thing a good parent would do, like DNA-locking the starter on the car and capping all the screens to enable monitoring of Mainstream activity.

  My face crumples as I bow my head. The menu disappears, burning white then black behind my closed eyelids. My fist clenches around the pen, which my mother used to write me that sweet little note only a few hours before she was killed.

  For two years, I’ve been trying to find out why she was. I waited for Derek Kasabian’s trial. My aunt wanted to ship me off to France, but I threatened to file for emancipation and never speak to her again if she tried, and I think the poor dear actually believed I would. And then Kasabian vanished into the ether, and no one would tell me why or how or where. So I waited for the detectives to question Dr. Weisskopf and follow that thread, hoping for answers. I have been told that was the only thing I could do. That was my only option.

  I stopped believing that months ago, even before this new development. When Chen and Ukaiah first contacted me, it felt a little more my style. Finally I had the power to find answers on my own. But then? More waiting! And now? I can’t for a moment believe this string of catastrophes—the murders, the disappearances—is coincidental.

  I close my box and slide it beneath a pile of silk stockings. I glance toward my desk screen. I need answers, but I know the Mainstream won’t offer them. Except . . . I walk over to my screen. “Anna Fortin,” I say.

  I stare down at her face, impeccable white brows stark against her brown skin. We’ve been almost-friends ever since I started at Clinton, moving through circles that touched but didn’t quite overlap. She’s a fiercely loyal cub to mommy tiger. But I need to know if Fortin and Sallese are working together, as Chen seemed to suggest. If they are—and I don’t know how or why they would—I need to find out whether either of them is linked to my parents’ deaths.

  It sounds crazy even to me when I string it together like that. But nothing is making sense anymore. And now that the sole remaining link to what happened—Dr. Weisskopf—has vanished, I really see only one option.

  “Marguerite Singer.”

  Her channel comes up immediately. I trigger her latest vid and watch her hover, life size and vibrant, before me. For the second time today, I listen to America’s young hero reassure all of us that President Sallese will find out who attacked the Department of AIR and will bring the terrorists to justice. It’s very moving. Her eyes, warm and brown, seem to be looking right at me. Oh, she’s good.

  I am itching to start another comment war with her. She takes the bait so readily. One thing holds me back, though: Could she help me find out what I need to know? Is she a puppet, or is she really part of the inner circle?

  I smile. It looks like I have some work to do. I need to get closer to Anna. And it is time I make Marguerite Singer my very good friend.

  Chapter Seven

  Marguerite

  My eyes pop open when I hear footsteps thumping down the hall past my door, and for a moment I’m not sure where I am. I take in the soft glow coming from the gray-blue walls, simulating dawn in the windowless room. The sheets are white and soft beneath my fingers, too soft for me to be in my bed in the apartment in Houston.

  Oh. I’m in a secret bunker with the president of the United States, and DC is in flames.

  The night comes back all at once. I was up past one interacting with my followers, talking about what I knew of the bombing, trying to stay somewhere in that perfect zone between authentic supporter of the president and actual spokesperson. I’ve learned the power of words in the last year. Right now, it would be disastrous to be anything but sad and angry on behalf of people like Kyla and her family, even though what I want to do is point the finger at the technocrats responsible. There were no terrorist attacks on the Department of AIR when they were in power, but the moment the American people take that power away? The whole thing literally explodes. But I have to constantly remind myself of how this plays for Uncle Wynn as he starts his presidency and tries to improve the economy. He wouldn’t want to look weak, like he can’t keep people safe.

  Because a crisis wouldn’t be complete without trolls, several waded in just after midnight to attack, accusing me of being the “sexy jailbait puppet” of “Sleazy Sallese’s” corrupt regime, describing what they thought had happened between me and the president on the campaign trail.

  In graphic, extensive detail.

  I looked over every handle—oddly, FragFlwr skipped the party. I guess our last argument satisfied his need to torment me. Maybe he asked his friends to stand in. And . . . I can’t help the next thought that enters my head: What if some of these new trolls are my classmates?

  Bile rises in my throat as I remember the look on Bianca’s face when she made the same kinds of accusations.

  My comband vibrates as I stretch, sensing I’m awake. I get up quickly and toss on the freshly genned clothes one of the attendants offered me last night. Plain black pants, black shirt, per my request. Then I flick to my channel and scroll through comments, just to see if I missed anything important. I skim until I see one t
agged with a very familiar face.

  ScarletP: People over politics. Bravo. Really.

  I reread it. Is Percy being sincere or sarcastic?

  The door slides open as I approach, and I look down the hall. El is in the mazelike work area, standing in one of the cubicles, probably watching the Mainstream chatter about the bombings. My mother stands next to him, her hands folded around her narrow frame, her hair pulled back from her face. As I approach, El takes a step away from Mom and gives me a quick nod. He hasn’t shaved; his beard is brown shot through with silver hairs. “They’ve got breakfast in the conference room,” he says to me. “More importantly, coffee.”

  “I need it,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “Any news? The good kind, preferably?”

  Mom puts her hand on my back, and I lean into her. “They’ve determined it was definitely an explosive device that caused the damage,” she says.

  “Have they pulled any survivors from the rubble?”

  She sighs and shakes her head. “Only bodies.”

  “Sixty-eight and counting,” El says. “It’s an outrage! We need to find out who did this and make an example of them.”

  “Any leads?”

  “Marguerite,” Mom starts to say, but El holds up his hand.

  “It’s okay, Colette.” He has a shrewd look on his face that I know so well. “Why don’t you tell her who you think is responsible, Mar?”

  “Well, a lot of my followers wonder if the bomber is sympathetic to the technocrats,” I say. “I do, too. I mean, here we are, poised to actually give that department some teeth. We’d stop handing out free-pass contracts to places like Fortin Tech and Parnassus unless they made changes to protect ordinary Americans—quotas maybe, actually address some of the monopolies . . .”

  El smiles. “I like the way you say ‘we.’”

  “So it makes sense that some deranged technocrat sympathizers might want to punish us or stop us from making those changes, I guess,” I finish, standing up a little straighter.

  “It’s way too early for us to know anything,” El says, “but your reasoning is definitely sound, as far as I’m concerned.”