by Sean Platt
“Spa Plus.”
“Right. And that’s pretty high-level stuff, by the time you get to the top. High five-figures for sure. Above that are the Alpha packages. A lot of those you have to book first, then sign a second NDA, and only then will they spill the details.”
“And that’s the Tomorrow Gene level?” Ephraim asked.
“Yeah. But not just that. Tomorrow Gene is top of the top. From what I hear, a lot of times they don’t even try to sell you the Tomorrow Gene before you get here. Then you get the pitch we got yesterday. I came in already knowing I wanted it. Sophie too, I think. But hell, it’s like a timeshare pitch. And a good one. Want to be young again? Cool. Just give us a half-million credits now and another two hundred K per year forever.”
“How does it work?”
“I don’t know yet. Guess I’ll get to know on the Pearl. I sign, they tell.”
“It doesn’t scare you? The idea of them messing with your genes? There’s no FDA out here. No medical oversight. They could accidentally turn you into a mutant or something.” And with that, Ephraim’s mind showed him the ghost’s exposed face. Mutants. Monsters. Untold secrets. Who had any idea?
“If they can make my body twenty again, they can do what they want.”
“Even now?”
Altruance shrugged. “Even now. This is my life we’re talking about.”
“Exactly. It’s your life.”
“Come on, E. Don’t you want to have ‘the one thing that could change everything,’ too?”
Ephraim didn’t reply.
They knocked to find Sophie at home. Only after arriving did Ephraim wonder why Altruance hadn’t sent her a MyLife page first, but then he decided it was because the network might be watched.
Sophie invited them in, pleasantly surprised, and greeted them both with a hug.
“So,” Ephraim said after Sophie had given them a brief tour. “You got a boat, right?”
Sophie blinked at the out-of-the-blue question, then glanced at Altruance. “Sure. It’s down at the dock.”
“Have you taken it out yet?”
“No. We just got here yesterday. And besides, boats aren’t my thing.” Again, she glanced at Altruance.
“Want to?” Ephraim asked.
“Why?”
Ephraim shrugged, trying to sound casual, failing. “Just for kicks.”
“But Altruance hates the water.”
“I’m trying to get past it,” Altruance said, sounding like a liar.
Sophie seemed to take the question as an option more than a mandate. Her eyes had dismissed it already. “Or we could just stay here. Did you know you can order a pig roast? I’m serious.” She held up a tablet. “A full luau from room service. Including a whole damn pig.”
“I don’t want to eat a pig,” Altruance said.
Sophie waved a hand. “Oh, you’re no fun.”
“What is it with you and pork?”
Ephraim raised a hand to halt the banter. “Let’s take the boat. It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t even know how to use it,” Sophie said.
Ephraim picked up a glossy pamphlet from Sophie’s dining room table beside a host of others detailing the island’s perks. “Says here they’re self-driving. Just like a car.”
“You’re serious. You want to go on my boat.” She looked at Altruance. “And you’re on board for this?”
“Yes. I’m very excited.” He looked terrified.
“Where would we go?”
“Just take a ride,” Ephraim said. “See the other islands.”
“We can just take the tram to the other islands.”
“I want to scope the stuff we’re not supposed to see.” He said it light, full of mischief, as if it weren’t true.
“We could just stay here and snoop into other people’s backyards.”
“You don’t have to snoop,” Altruance said. “Pierra’s out there trying to get an all-over tan. Right in the open.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “She’s trying to outdo me. Bitch. Wait until I’ve got the body of a twenty-something again.”
“You don’t think it’ll be that easy, do you?” Ephraim asked, looking between Sophie and Altruance. “Either of you? It’s marketing. It’s hype. Please tell me nobody here actually believes Wallace Connolly has discovered the Fountain of Youth.”
“Why would I sign up for it if I didn’t believe it’d work?”
“Hollywood fad?”
“What unsubstantiated Hollywood fad would make me fly halfway around the world and shell out this much money?”
“Scientology,” Altruance said.
Sophie turned to Altruance. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”
“Rejuvenation treatments, I’d believe,” Ephraim said. “But knocking thirty years off of someone’s age? I know you both signed up. But I mean, come on. Maybe they make your skin tighter. Make your hair glossier. A full-body face-lift, taken to extremes.”
“Pfft,” said Sophie. “Did you see Carrie Whitney the other day? Did you see Alma Couch?”
“That wasn’t Alma Couch,” Altruance said.
“Look, if you want to stick around and look at Pierra flaunting herself, have at it. I’ll be flaunting myself soon, too.” Sophie looked directly at Ephraim.
“Hell,” Altruance said. “Don’t mean nothing. I’ve seen Gus running around naked, too. And that woman who owns the bank. What’s her name? She shouldn’t be flaunting shit.”
“I just want to take a boat ride, Sophie. I’ve got a bug to hit the water.” Ephraim said. “You don’t need to come if you don’t want to. Do you mind if I take it for a spin, at least?”
Sophie sighed. “It’s keyed to my fingerprint. You can’t start it without me.”
“Oh. Then start it for me at the dock. I’ll take it out alone.”
“No, no, it might stall, and then you’d be screwed.” She began moving around the house, picking up incidentals; her sunglasses, a bottle of spray sunscreen, a bag stuffed with towels that was propped in a corner. “I’ll go. It’s all right. It’ll be fun.” She opened the enormous stainless steel fridge. “You want to take anything to drink while we’re out there?”
“Just water,” Ephraim said. “Thanks.”
Sophie squeezed a cold water bottle in with the towels, then looked at Altruance. “And you?”
“Whiskey,” Altruance said, already looking ill. “Much as you got.”
CHAPTER 33
CIRCLING THE EDGE
“That’s the resident island,” Sophie said. “The … what is it?”
“The Denizen,” Ephraim said.
Altruance had looked for a moment like he might answer, but Ephraim’s first impression was right. Altruance wasn’t going to speak because he was too preoccupied with trying not to die.
He sat in the exact center of the boat, wearing an orange life preserver, wrapped in a towel, holding an unopened beer. Ephraim felt sorry for him. He kept wanting to stop the boat so he could open the beer and give Altruance a chance to drink. But it was probably futile; even if he had an opened beverage, Altruance probably wouldn’t be able to summon the will to lift it to his lips.
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “Exactly. That’s the Denizen, Sweetie.”
A few quiet seconds passed. Ephraim wasn’t exactly a boat person either, but he’d at least seen enough to know how odd it was to be speeding along with only the sounds of splashing water to mark their progress. Boats were noisy things, like cars used to be. Everywhere but Eden, speeding boats shattered the air’s cathedral still with their buzzing. But despite the engine’s oddity, the controls were dead simple. Sophie’s fingerprint started it. There was a touchscreen for autodrive and a toggle that let an accomplished boater pilot on manual. Ephraim had tried touching the Denizen on autodrive, and the system had predictably told him that access was restricted. Ephraim went into manual. The rest was a wheel, throttle, forward and reverse. A monkey could do it.
“Ephraim?”
&nbs
p; “Yeah.”
“I said, that’s the Denizen ahead.”
“I know.”
“We’re not supposed to go there.”
Ephraim kept driving.
“Ephraim?” Sophie repeated.
“I know we’re not supposed to go there. That’s what makes it so fun.” Ephraim managed to give Sophie a half-smile. Altruance’s total panic was good for his mood. Compared to Altruance, he wasn’t scared at all. But Ephraim kept remembering why they were doing this. He kept remembering the things he’d seen, the things he’d maybe done, and the people in charge who wanted to “have a talk.” In the blowing ocean air and bright sun, those things should have been easy enough to forget, but they kept returning like demons.
“They were pretty clear about it. About how only authorized people can—”
“What are they going to do, Sophie? Make us leave Eden? There are two VIP guests on this boat. They’re not going to kick us out. At worst, we’ll get a warning. But that’s fine. We’ll say we lost our bearings. That we thought it was the Strand or something.”
Sophie looked unconvinced.
“You act like you think they’re going to come out with guns blazing. This place is a spa. Come on, live a little.” He flashed another smile, trying to convince himself more than Sophie.
Still, there were no boats approaching. No authorities rushing forward to shoo them away. No helicopters flying overhead. Nothing to indicate that boaters from one island couldn’t at least circle the shores of another.
“Maybe we should head back to Reception,” Sophie suggested. “I’d like to see the flame sculpture from the water.”
Ephraim looked at Altruance, who met his eyes but moved no other muscles.
“I want to check out the—” He shot a hand out, gripping the chrome post of Ephraim’s driver’s seat as Ephraim slid the wheel sideways and the boat turned in a gentle arc. Then he finished, with obvious effort. “—the Denizen.”
“We can’t just go up there. They want their privacy. They bought their privacy. If I were a resident on that island, I’d be mad if—”
“We’re not going ashore. I just want to look. Get the lay of the land. We’ll take a loop.” Ephraim turned the wheel farther, putting the shore alongside the boat. Altruance closed his eyes, probably hoping to ignore the endless blue ahead. Beyond the Denizen, they saw only naked ocean.
“‘A loop,’” Altruance said from the floor. “How long will that take?”
“Not long.” Ephraim glanced at Sophie. “Fun fact: The Denizen is on the edge of the Saya de Malha Bank, as close to the shelf as was practical to backfill.”
Altruance stared straight forward, unmoving. Sophie smiled as Ephraim went on.
“We’re coming up to a big drop off into an abyss. The Mascarene Plateau ends at the bank. That means that just past the Denizen — right where we’re heading now—”
“Shut up,” Altruance said.
“—there’s a massive undersea cliff, diving from the shallow water at Eden’s center all the way down to a depth of something like—”
The boat hitched. Altruance gave a little shout and grabbed the chrome post again.
Ephraim slapped the dashboard.
“What’s going on?” Altruance asked.
“Hang on. It’s fine.”
But the boat wasn’t fine. It was stalling out.
As their forward motion slowed and finally ceased, momentum shoved the occupants forward. The bow jammed in the water just enough to send the boat, with its distracted driver, listing sideways.
The wake caught up with the boat’s stern and pushed it over a swell. The ends of the craft rose a foot, one after the other.
Altruance screamed.
“What is it?” Sophie asked.
“What’s wrong, E? Talk to me!” Altruance blubbered.
Ephraim tapped the touchscreen. He pulled the throttle forward and back.
“Put your finger on the starter, Sophie.”
Sophie did, but nothing happened. The touchscreen flashed.
Ephraim pulled the travel lever to neutral and throttled all the way down.
“Maybe you can’t start it unless it’s in neutral. Try it now.”
Sophie touched it again, but nothing happened.
Their boat was dead in the water.
CHAPTER 34
PUNISHABLE UNDER EDEN LAW
“Wait. Got it.”
The engine fired. It had taken several long minutes during which Altruance never shut up. Without the engine’s stabilizing forward momentum, the boat was like a cork in the waves, swaying with the rise and fall of the tide. They listed around at the sea’s whim. Ephraim had to grab supports as he walked end to end, checking what he could of the engine through the rear hatch.
But now with the engine restored, the boat sped forward. The bow rose to crest the waves and the deck stabilized. Altruance looked relieved — a big improvement over how he’d appeared last time the boat was moving.
Ephraim glanced toward the Denizen, realized how far they’d drifted in the few minutes of engine failure, and turned back toward it. The drift was surprising. Shouldn’t the top of the water roll toward shore while an undercurrent dragged away from below? But maybe that’s not how it worked here.
Ephraim steered them around to narrow the distance, but as they reached the approximate spot they’d stalled out before, the engine died again.
“Seriously,” Altruance said. “We need to get back to shore and off of this death trap.”
Ephraim tried to re-fire the engine, but now he was getting a funny feeling. The boat’s preferred mode was auto-drive, and like any auto-drive, it navigated by GPS. He couldn’t get the auto-drive to make the Denizen, but the touchscreen had plotted their progress the entire time he’d been on manual.
The screen flashed when the boat was starting to stall, and now that he looked closer, there was a lighter span of water on the GPS map surrounding the Denizen, the three unnamed islets, and the Pearl where the Tomorrow Gene was administered. Both times they’d stalled, they’d been at that border — at the line, on the GPS touchscreen, where dark water met light.
“Of course,” he said.
“Of course what?”
Ephraim grabbed one of the long poles stowed between the seats and handed it to Sophie.
“What’s this?”
“It’s an oar.”
“I knew it,” Altruance said, looking at the oars as if they were spears dipped in poison. “I knew this boat would maroon us somewhere.”
“I just want to try something. Help me row us back away from the Denizen a bit.”
She looked puzzled but said nothing. A moment later both oars were in the water.
Once in rhythm, they built momentum and pushed the small boat away from the demarcation line.
He looked at the GPS. They were back in the darker water. “Okay. That’s far enough. Try starting the engine.”
Sophie touched the pad. It started on the first try.
Ephraim took the wheel, turned it around, and steered the boat toward the Denizen. But at the demarcation, the engine stalled again, right on cue.
“Goddammit.”
“What?” Sophie asked, still holding her oar.
“There’s some sort of perimeter around the Denizen. The boat’s autodrive looks like it’s programmed to turn the engine off if we get any closer.”
“Oh.” Sophie didn’t look remotely disappointed. She shrugged, clearly okay with this turn of events. “Well, it was worth a try.”
“Fine.” Ephraim sighed and gestured at her oar. “You’ll need to paddle again.”
Sophie dipped the oar and began to stroke.
But Ephraim said, “Other way.”
It took Sophie a few seconds to grasp what he was saying. “You want to row toward the island?”
“They can’t stop us by turning the engine off that way, can they?”
“E,” Altruance said. “Maybe we should go back.”
<
br /> “Yeah,” Sophie agreed. “If they don’t want us there …”
Ephraim said nothing. He was grimly rowing, eyes down. If Sophie didn’t start on her side, they’d end up spinning in circles.
“Ephraim?”
“Come on, Sophie. The shore isn’t that far.”
“But we’re not allowed to go there.”
“We’ll tell them our boat stalled and we didn’t know what else to do. We didn’t have a choice. This was the closest shore. What are they going to do, shoot us for running out of gas and needing help?”
“We didn’t run out of gas. We—”
Ephraim snapped. He’d had a very long, very hard day. That day had included a hangover, a monstrous revelation, lots of blood, a murder, break-ins, pursuit, and a ton of other weird shit he’d rather not think about. He’d held himself together reasonably well, considering. But this was the final straw.
“We’re going, okay! We’re rowing ashore, and that’s all there is to it!”
He wanted to go on — to make his case, so she’d understand — but he held his tongue. Ephraim hadn’t told Sophie about Jonathan or anything else. This was supposed to be a pleasure ride, and she couldn’t understand his need to reach the island and any final traces of his brother. For now, he could blindly insist. And row.
Sophie began to paddle, mute. Altruance said nothing. They continued in tense silence, all eyes quietly on Ephraim.
They think I’m losing it. They think I’ve gone crazy.
Well, said a second voice inside Ephraim, if that’s what they think, fuck it.
Something beeped. The noise came from the touchscreen, beside the wheel and travel lever. It had been flashing, but now it was pinging — not unlike sonar blips from a submarine movie.
The screen read WARNING across the middle. There was a short paragraph of smaller text beneath it, but before Ephraim could look more closely, a pleasant computerized female voice read it aloud.
“Warning. Your craft has entered restricted water. Unauthorized watercraft are strictly prohibited within one-quarter mile of the islands designated as Denizen, Pearl, or the backlot islets. Our positioning system indicates that repeated attempts have been made to arrest your forward momentum and that manual efforts are underway to reach the shore. Please turn around. Approaching restricted areas in an unauthorized craft is punishable under Eden Law.”
