The Fox Inheritance

by Mary E. Pearson

  "Dr. Ash then managed to retrieve tissue specimens so that our DNA was preserved."

  Then he hired some, shall we say, unsavory characters to retrieve specimens from your old rooms when your parents weren't home. I think they broke in during the funerals, actually. These people weren't exactly trained in proper specimen recovery. Their expertise was more in the collection of items of value for quick resale.

  "With painstaking attention to detail, Dr. Ash secured everything he needed."

  With you, Locke, it was a nail clipping found in the corner of the bathroom. With Kara, it was a strand of hair from a brush. No one could be sure that either of those things belonged to either one of you, but it was all that they could find. Tokens, we call them. Those were stored with the uploads, along with your medical records and several photo chips they stole as well.

  "Through tragic circumstances, however, this brilliant and selfless man died before his hopes and dreams for us could be realized, and our uploaded minds became part of his estate, the value and importance unknown to his heirs."

  It's possible that Dr. Ash's intentions were honorable, but the fact that he kept his actions a secret leads most to believe that money was his motivator--either blackmail or perhaps selling the technology to a competitor. He was in enormous debt. Unfortunately, shortly after the backups of the mind uploads were made and your DNA tokens were secured, he died under mysterious circumstances in a freak boating accident. Some think that his plan to eliminate the trail of unsavory characters he had hired backfired on him. Either way, he couldn't carry out his plans.

  "And as a result of his untimely death, the uploads changed hands many times through several generations, waiting for the right person and the right technology to come along."

  They were forgotten in a storage facility for decades. They were only labeled FOX, and came to be known as the Fox Inheritance. Finally, the battery docks that kept you suspended neared their expiration and gave a two-year warning signal. The small research facility that had acquired them didn't have the resources to decipher the outdated codes, and they didn't want to get mixed up in something they suspected might be illegal, so they gave them to Dr. Gatsbro, who was known to conduct research beyond established boundaries--for an agreed-upon price, of course.

  "Finally, after two and a half centuries, the right person came along--someone with the resources, expertise, and vision--to give us a second chance, our very own Dr. Gatsbro." Kara smiles sweetly at him and tilts her head like she is truly touched.

  Dr. Gatsbro is silent. He finally nods. "Excellent job, my dear." He turns to me. "And for you, Locke, your job will be to describe your new bodies and how they are every bit as good as your old ones. Better even. Can you do that?"

  I look at my hands. Their sense of touch is amplified. They can detect a grain of sand in my palm. I rest them on my thighs, which are stronger and more muscular than the ones I remember from so long ago. Better. But not exactly mine. It's taken me a full year to get used to that. Could he have made them the same, or did he just have to guess? I look up, his eyes still fixed on me. "Yes, of course, Dr. Gatsbro. Better even."

  I recite my well-rehearsed spiel, but I know my dramatics are subpar compared to Kara's. Still, he seems pleased.

  "Well done." He draws the words out like a gourmet meal. "Very well done," he repeats to himself and sends us to our rooms to await the arrival of our visitor. When we are almost out the door, and perhaps at what he judges to be a safe distance, he adds, "And if our visitor should bring up the subject of Jenna, leave that to me. Understand?"

  He couldn't leave it alone. My eyes lock on Kara, but she only nods and walks out of the room.

  Chapter 6

  Where were you, Locke? Where did you go when you didn't answer me? When you left me alone? Where did you go? Why didn't you answer me?

  She doesn't want to know.

  She shouldn't know.

  Because where I went is hurtful, and I don't want to hurt her. I went where I had to go. I went where I survived on gulps of memory and scraps of touch. I went where I remembered a good kind of quiet. A peace. I went to be with my memories of Jenna. Her voice may have been gone, but my memories of her were still alive.

  "I don't remember where I went. I died. I shut down. I was lost in a black hole. Just like you."

  Where were you, Locke? Tell me. Where were you?

  Chapter 7

  It was always Kara, Jenna, and me. Or at least it seemed that way. We were friends for only a year and a half before the accident, but for me it was a lifetime. We were instantly bonded. Maybe it was because it came at a turning point in our lives--just the right window where our worlds were all aligned, all needing something, maybe the same thing, maybe one another. We lifted one another up. Strengthened one another. We held hands. We crossed a line. We made one another braver.

  I was the youngest. Only two months younger than Jenna, but a whole year younger than Kara. A whole year. I shake my head, thinking of that now, but then a year meant more. When you're fourteen and you meet a girl who is fifteen and she smiles and is nice to you, nice, a new world opens up for you. And then when Jenna did the same, I couldn't get enough of either one of them. Jenna was the first girl I kissed, and then Kara. It was only in fun, and I laughed right along with them, but inside it felt like something more. Something important. I was somebody different.

  When Dr. Gatsbro told us that Jenna had survived the accident, I was relieved. More than relieved--I had to sit down, 260 years of guilt flooding out of me for what I had done. And for the first time, I thought I could see tears in Kara's eyes. But when Dr. Gatsbro told us Jenna was still alive, that was when Kara had to sit down too. "They saved her? All these years, alive? Free? While we were--"

  Dr. Gatsbro continued with his explanation, but Kara was only hearing a fraction of it, her voice rising as she tried to process it.

  "Just because she still had ten percent of her brain and we didn't? Ten percent?"

  I watched her change. Right then. Like veined marble was traveling up her legs, across her lap, up to her shoulders, stiffening her neck and finally covering her face, leaving a cracked version of who she once was.

  "They saved her, but didn't bother with us?"

  She stood up and began pacing. By this time Dr. Gatsbro had stopped explaining and was telling her she needed to let it go. Her voice only grew louder. She mimicked the words that Jenna had so often said to us when she was frustrated with her parents. "Precious Jenna. Their precious, adored Jenna. Anything for Jenna."

  She stopped pacing and her eyes fixed on a lampshade across the room, staring at it like she was looking right at Jenna. "All this time, going on and living your life and you never tried to help us?"

  That was when she grabbed the nearest thing to her hand, a decorative glass cube on Dr. Gatsbro's desk, and threw it. I don't think she was aiming for him. The Kara I knew would never raise a hand to anyone. But then again, she wasn't the Kara I knew. I had seen that from the first day, when she slapped me. She had changed. We both had. And by the next day, I was wondering right along with her, Why didn't Jenna save us? We would have saved her.

  Chapter 8

  "There, now. Hold still and let me straighten your collar."

  "Miesha, stop fussing!" I try to dodge her grip, but she already has me. "Next you're going to spit on your hand, I suppose?"

  "Now, why on God's green earth would I do something as nasty as that?"

  Because it's what my mother used to do to tame my cowlick. But I don't tell her that. I don't want her to think my mom was a savage. And I don't want her to think I'm implying she's my mother, either.

  "Because you're nasty," I tell her.

  She gently slaps me on the side of the head. "And you're a good boy," she says. "Even if you don't know it."

  "Miesha, I am not a boy. Look at me. Do I look like a boy?"

  "Height has nothing to do with what's in here." She pokes my forehead with her finger. "Now, turn around!" She
pushes at my shoulder to spin me, and I comply. I know she will win anyway--she always does. She swipes away wrinkles that aren't there and pulls the cloth in unnecessary directions to make sure the fit is perfect. I already know that when she's done she will give my back two pats. I don't think fussing was in her job description. She does that part for free.

  When I'm with Miesha, I can almost forget where I am. I could be in my old house on Francis Street. I almost feel normal. She asked me about my family once and I lapsed for two hours, so she doesn't go there anymore. She doesn't talk about the past or the future, only the moment, and that's where I try to stay when I'm with her, because my future is too uncertain, and my past is something she could never understand.

  Two pats squarely in the center of my back. Done.

  "Done," she declares, and I smile.

  I turn around and look in the mirror at the new clothes Dr. Gatsbro has requested I wear for today's visit. As usual, he knows exactly what fits me. The shirt is green, a color I don't usually wear. Miesha says it goes well with my eyes.

  "My eyes are brown, Miesha."

  "But with flecks of green."

  There weren't green flecks before. At least I don't think there were. I honestly never looked that closely. How can anyone look in the mirror every day of his life and not notice something like that? But I didn't. All I noticed were emerging blemishes or a nose that seemed too big or facial hair that I wished was thicker so I could actually grow a beard. Green flecks were not even on my radar. I turn sideways, taking in my image from all angles, thinking I need to pay closer attention to such things.

  There were, however, a few details I checked out right away. Any guy would. I have the equipment. Dr. Gatsbro made sure of that. And I've tested it, so I know it works. But was Gatsbro as careful with Kara's particulars as he was with mine? I can't ask. I don't want her to think it matters. It doesn't. It shouldn't. But it's almost more than I can bear. I am, without a doubt, the oldest virgin in the history of the world. It's not a record I want to keep.

  "So, Miesha," I say, looking in the mirror and pretending I'm adjusting the collar again, "who's the mysterious visitor today?"

  She grunts and looks sideways at me before she resumes tidying my room. "You know Dr. Gatsbro never tells me anything." She grabs the shirt I wore this morning off the floor and holds it up. "I'm just the nanny for two spoiled children."

  "A nanny? Hardly." I take the shirt from her and fold it. "But you see a lot around here. And hear a lot. Do you think I should be worried? We've never had a visitor."

  Miesha stops and folds her arms across her chest. She can't be more than five and a half feet tall, but she makes herself look like a ten-foot wall. That's something my mom could do too. I look at the scars on her forearms, long ragged lines that crawl across her skin like barbed wire. She's never told me how they got there, and I wonder, with everything they seem to be able to fix now, why she hasn't had them removed.

  "You worry too much," she says. She's right. I do. But I have to.

  She returns to her tidying, pulling at the blanket on my bed. I am silent. One thing I have learned about Miesha is that she doesn't like silence. I wait for her to fill it.

  "And I'm not a snoop, either, if that's what you were implying. I know better than that." She punches my pillow and then fluffs the pit she just created. "I need this job--and I'm grateful for it. No one else would hire me. And I am well aware that Dr. Gatsbro could have used a BioBot for you two instead." She turns around to look at me, one brow raised. "You kids aren't rocket science, you know?" She busies herself with my lunch dishes, returning the antique porcelain plates and silver utensils to the tray. "But that doesn't mean I always like what I see. I didn't check my brain at the door, either." She sets the tray on the end of the bed she has just made and steps closer. "This estate is old, and that makes a lot of it familiar to you, but out there..." She pauses and shakes her head. "There's a whole new world out there that you haven't seen on your Vgrams. He may say he's protecting you, but sometimes I think..."

  "Think what?"

  She pauses, her fingers absently tracing the raised lines along her arms. She sees me looking at her scars and abruptly grabs the tray from my bed. "Nothing. We're both thinking too much. Now, finish getting ready," she says, looking at my bare feet. "And comb your hair. I need to go put a fire under Queen Kara. God save me if Her Fickle Highness has gone for another stroll in the gardens." The door shuts behind her, my question still unanswered.

  Mostly.

  She may not know who the visitor is, but she's as uneasy as I am. I go to my dressing room and find the shoes I want to wear. Even the simplest things like shoes are so different now. I have spent the past year getting used to this new world, and Dr. Gatsbro has spent as much time teaching us about it. We have learned centuries' worth of new technology and history. Some of it has made me gasp, other parts, laugh, and still other parts, cry. But I allow myself to cry only when I'm in my room alone and no one can see me. Maybe Miesha is right. Maybe I am just a boy. But I saw my father cry three times, and he seemed like more of a man than anyone I ever knew. I wish I knew what happened to my family. I think about them every day and wonder if what I did destroyed their lives.

  I slide my feet into the shoes on the floor. "Shoes. Fit." I think brown goes with what I have on, so I add, "Dark brown." The shoes comply, molding to my feet, so it truly feels like I'm walking with nothing on them, then they change to the color I have requested. My mom would have loved shoes like these. She always complained about her feet after working long shifts at the market, and kicked off her shoes the minute she walked in the door. Some things have definitely improved. Other things not so much.

  When I was poisoned by rogue BeeBots in the garden, I realized how different the world was now. BeeBots don't have the ability to sting but have developed a defense system by concentrating plant toxins on their back legs. They leave nasty welts if you try to obstruct their purpose, and now their purpose, like any other animal, is to survive. About the only real honeybees that exist anymore are in Insectoriums. They've tried reintroducing them into the environment, but they can't compete with the BeeBots that pollinate crops now. Eradicating the rogue BeeBots has proven difficult too, since they developed a unique way to procreate--splitting their bodies in half and then repairing themselves as they were already programmed to do. In all our historical and environmental studies, there was no mention of rogue BeeBots, and until I showed him the welts on my hands and arms, Dr. Gatsbro never mentioned them, either.

  All the changes he has told us about or we have viewed on Vgrams are good. Like waste to energy. I secretly laughed when I thought how my visits to the bathroom were helping to energize the world. And I thought robots performing most dangerous tasks was a good idea. My uncle was a police officer who had his brains blown out when he was making a routine stop. I wish there had been Roboticers back then. And I love my iScroll--a tiny patch on my palm that allows me to do just about everything. There isn't a game I can't play. I'm even getting good at boxing with my Vgram instructor, Percel. He says I'm one of his best students. Of course, I know he isn't real, and I am probably not one of his best students, but his holographic punches still manage to hurt and land me on my ass. A lot.

  Ass. That's another change. They don't blink at some words anymore. In fact, I can use a lot of words right in front of Miesha and Cole that would have launched one of my mother's classic lectures. If you can't say it in God's house, Locke, then you can't say it in our house. It's like Miesha and Cole don't have a clue. But maybe I don't have a clue, either, about a lot of things. Maybe that's what Miesha was talking about. Maybe there's a lot that you can't learn from holographic lessons--like the kinds of things I used to pick up on the streets of Boston but we never talked about in the classroom. What am I missing? Is there more Dr. Gatsbro hasn't told us?

  I walk back to my mirror and comb my hair with my fingers. My hair looks exactly like it used to, the dark brown color and texture a
perfect match, but there's still a difference, a subtle one that I miss. The cowlick above my right eye that I used to hate is gone. My hair all lies in the same direction. I lick my fingers and pull a strand out of place. It bobs over my eye. Miesha wouldn't approve. Dr. Gatsbro, who is always so perfectly groomed, wouldn't approve, either. But I do.

  I turn away from the mirror, but then remember. The visitor. I look back at my reflection. A man. A boy. A something. I really don't know what I am anymore, but I slick the strand back into place. For Kara's sake--and mine--I need to follow the rules. I can't take a chance. The last time I took a chance it cost us 260 years.

  Chapter 9

  Kara walks into my room, letting the door bang into the wall. "The maestro has summoned us. You rehearsed for our song and dance?"

  "Is that what you call it?"

  "Don't be such a schmuck, Locke. He's obviously showing us off." She twirls, modeling her new dress, the fabric rippling out, red and brilliant like her lips. She stops, and her expression darkens. She crosses the room toward me and then, when her face is just inches from mine, she screws it into the silly Kara face of so long ago. In the next instant she presses her lips to mine and swipes her tongue along my teeth. Her lips are soft and cold. She pulls back and studies my face. I work hard to keep it blank. This is not the kind of kiss I want. It is a throwaway kiss. A pat on the head. An amusement. I want a kiss that means something.

  She laughs. "For God's sake, lighten up, Locke! What's the matter with you?"

  I wish I knew. I force a small smile. "Nervous about the visitor, I guess."

  "Come on," she says, slipping her arm through mine and pulling me toward the door. "Nothing to worry about. We jump through a few hoops, sit up, roll over, we get our treats."