“Four days, now.”
“There might still be time. If she’s lucky.”
“What about Q?” asked Jesse. “Could she break in and get Libby out?”
“Break into VIA?” said Clair. “That’d probably take an army of hackers. Or an actual army.”
It was an interesting question, though. She thought of Q, kicked out of her body and accidentally booting up in deep storage somewhere, now struggling to put her mind back together. If the effects of Improvement could easily be reversed, Q would have simply d-matted herself in Copperopolis or earlier. But creating a new body out of nothing would have entailed causing a parity alarm and breaking one of the AIs, while permanently stealing someone else’s body would make her as bad as the dupes.
Surviving in the Air was a long way from being actually alive. Clair didn’t want to consign Libby to the same fate.
But she could guess now why Q had chosen Libby’s pattern in Copperopolis. They were the same, connected by Improvement and the secrets that had destroyed both their lives. . . .
Several places down the table, Turner was also paying close attention.
“Winning the battle isn’t enough,” he said. “The war’s the thing.”
“Exactly,” said Clair. “This isn’t just about rescuing Libby and Q. We have to stop it happening to anyone else. I know we don’t see eye to eye on everything, but surely we all accept this. Right?”
Gemma conceded a nod. Turner didn’t budge.
“We don’t know how many hundreds or thousands of people have used Improvement,” he said. “Are you going to save them all?”
“I think we have to.” Clair hadn’t told anyone about using Improvement herself; that knowledge had died with Zep, and she didn’t think just then was the right time to bring it up. Not if it’d make them think she was no longer herself. “It’s a huge job, which is why we need each other—and we need VIA, too. It’s too big. We can’t do it without their help.”
“She’s right,” said Jesse.
Gemma pulled a sour face. “Even if VIA would listen to us, which they won’t, the body we captured went down with the Skylifter.”
“There’ll be others,” Turner said. “You can be sure of that.”
Clair drained her glass and reached for another, trying to quash the thought that the task she was setting herself might be too big. How was she going to save Libby, let alone anyone else, when Libby herself had told her to butt out?
“Go easy,” said Arcady. “This is a special brew, remember?”
The way he said special made her wonder what else was in it apart from alcohol. That led her back to the peacekeepers, and she asked what would happen if they came to investigate the crash.
“You mean with our operation here?” said Arcady. “This is all legit, up to a point. Selling untested drugs is illegal, but that happens off the land. Sometimes the PKs bug us anyway, and we’ve installed things like a geothermal sink for when they cap our power or whatever. Really, the only problem we have is from cowboys trying to steal our seeds.”
“So we’re completely safe here?”
“Our booths are private,” said Arcady, “there are no comms in or out, and we have deadly serious automated security systems all around our borders. You’re lucky you didn’t come in that way, let me tell you.”
With a broad grin and grease in his beard, he sang another folk song:
Oh, I ran to the rock to hide my face,
The rock cried out, “No hiding place,
No hiding place down here. . . .”
Then someone started playing a tune Clair knew, the first music she had recognized since unplugging from her libraries in the Air. It wasn’t one of her favorites, and the pianist was no Tilly Kozlova, but despite her misgivings, Clair was caught up in it like a spark in an updraft. Not everything was gloom and doom and threats and danger. She drank another glass of cider as a toast to that sentiment.
Someone else gave Jesse a hat and he tucked his hair up out of sight. He had a forehead! She could see his eyes! He was good-looking when his hair wasn’t in the way. His eyes were green, which Clair hadn’t noticed before.
Instead of laughing along with him, Clair felt a sudden, irrational urge to weep, and she knew then that it was time to call it a night. So much had happened. She could barely contain her emotions, let alone control them.
She eased away from the others and explained to Arcady what she wanted—a bed, a cushion, a quiet corner, anything.
“Of course. This way.”
He took her to a separate wing of the Farmhouse, where rows of bunks filled a long, segregated dormitory. Several of them were occupied. Under the distant tinkling of the piano, she could hear the light snores of women.
Beds had been set aside for her and Gemma. Clair slipped out of her sneakers and overalls and fell onto the nearest, retaining barely enough energy to wish Arcady good night and to roll herself into the blanket. He brushed the hair back from her forehead like her mother used to and left her to sleep. She didn’t hear the door close behind him.
[52]
* * *
CLAIR DREAMED STRANGELY, intensely, but only in fits and starts, as though she was neither properly asleep nor properly awake. Everything was in fragments, like a jigsaw puzzle or a broken vase. The pieces were jostling for connection but something was getting in the way.
She woke with a dry mouth, a blocked nose, and a raging headache. It was very dark, and she could barely see a thing. All she could hear was the breathing of the sleepers around her and a faint whine of wind through the thick timber walls. Her bladder was full. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until she did something about that last detail.
She sat up, stayed still for a moment with both hands holding her skull, then eased out of the narrow cot, dressed in her shirt and underwear. Orienting herself was difficult; she hadn’t really been paying attention when Arcady had brought her to bed. She made out Gemma sleeping in the bed opposite. Her eyes possessed a crooked cast even in repose.
Sufficient light spilled in from the corridor to guide her to the door. Clair tiptoed on bare feet outside, looking for familiar landmarks. If she could find the main hall, she was sure she could locate the toilets from there.
The corridor ended in a T junction. She stopped for a moment, dancing from foot to foot, trying to decide which way to go.
A floorboard creaked to her right. Footsteps. Remembering Arcady’s veiled warning, she feared interrupting sentries on their rounds and being mistaken for a spy. She was the outsider, after all.
Clair shrank back into the shadows and waited for whoever it was to go by. Her legs were cold. She tried not to shiver.
A woman stepped into the T junction, slight and dressed in black. Clair didn’t recognize her until she glanced over her shoulder and her face came into the pale moonlight. It was the woman with the mismatched eyes, Clair thought, then remembered her name. Jamila.
She saw Clair in the shadows and started.
“Sorry,” said Clair. “It’s just me.”
“Clair?” Jamila said as though struggling to remember her name in turn.
“Yes, it’s me.” Clair was relieved to learn that at least one other person had survived the crash of the airship. “I thought the search had stopped. You must have come down right on the edge of the farm.”
She nodded. “I’m looking for Turner.”
“Well, I’m looking for the toilet, so let’s help each other out.”
“All right.”
Clair came out to join her. She pointed ahead of them.
“The hall’s this way, I’m sure.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
They were out of luck. The corridor ended in the kitchens. But they had to be close, Clair figured. Toilets, kitchens, dining hall—they were all part of the same complex.
She remembered her companion’s shy adoration of the enigmatic leader of WHOLE.
“You’ve got it bad for Turner
, haven’t you?” Clair said as they struck out in another direction. “I guess that’s one way to keep your disciples.”
“Are you nuts? Turner’s over eighty.”
Clair remembered that Q had said something similar. “You’d never guess to look at him. What’s his secret?”
Jamila didn’t answer. She seemed tense and watchful, taking in everything around her.
“Did you have any trouble with the farmers?” Clair asked. “I think they’re mostly okay, just naturally suspicious.”
The woman glanced at her and shook her head. Her right hand was behind her back, like she was favoring it. Perhaps it was injured.
“No trouble.”
They reached the hall. There was someone else already inside. Clair took in a string of familiar faces.
“Any luck?” asked Theo.
“Found this one,” said Jamila, pulling her hand into view. “She might be able to help us with the rest.”
“Good work.”
“Grab her,” said the man with big ears who had been shot outside the safe house in Manteca. “She’s going to run.”
Clair was backing away from the gun in Jamila’s hand, reeling from the truth and her own stupidity. Jamila hadn’t been among those rescued by the farmers, and neither were the others. They were dupes.
Before she could reach the door, Big-Ears darted over and caught her in his long arms. One strong hand went over her mouth. He held her tight and close. She struggled but could barely move. Her bare feet had no effect against his shins.
“No alarm?” Theo asked.
“None,” said Jamila.
Arabelle and another member of WHOLE came out of a corridor on the far side. Arabelle was walking. Theo was talking.
“Sentries are down,” Theo said. “Let’s get a move on.”
Big-Ears whispered in Clair’s ear. “I’m going to take my hand away, and you’re going to tell me where Turner is. Scream, and I’ll break your neck. Understood?”
She didn’t nod, but the pressure across her mouth eased anyway. She didn’t say anything. The moment they learned how little she knew, they’d kill her for sure. The dupes, the wolves in sheepskins.
But how had they gotten in? How had they bypassed the security Arcady had been so proud of? And how could she possibly stop them now? There were five of them and only one of her.
Big-Ears twisted her head back. Her spine screamed, but she didn’t. She didn’t wet her pants either, against all odds.
That gave her an idea. Not a pleasant one, but it wasn’t as if she had many options.
Big-Ears tightened his grip. She willed herself to relax. It was hard under the circumstance, with the dupe’s arm around her throat and a grisly fate awaiting her. . . .
Warmth flooded down her unclad thighs. The hot, pungent smell of urine hit her nostrils a second later.
Big-Ears smelled it—and he obviously felt it too, since he was holding her so close. His reaction was primal and involuntary, a reflex that kicked in long before his borrowed brain could control it.
Clair exploited his reflex to jackknife forward, breaking his grip. He lunged after her, but she wriggled out of his grasp and ran for the nearest door. Her right foot slipped in the puddle. Somehow she stayed upright.
Five sets of feet rushed after her. The doorway loomed ahead.
Someone stepped out of it, holding a pistol and wearing a familiar face. Libby—but the mind behind those familiar eyes could have been anyone’s.
Clair skidded to a halt, raised her hands.
“There you are,” said the dupe. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Be cool, Mallory,” said Theo. “We have everything under control.”
Dupe-Libby took her eyes off Clair. She didn’t say anything. She just stared at the rest of them, eyes frosty and distant, as though assessing them.
Then she raised the gun and shot Big-Ears square in the chest. The sound was deafening, the action devastating. He went down in a shower of blood, and for a second the others just gaped at him, shocked by the suddenness of it all. Arabelle was still staring at his fallen body when Libby shot her as well.
Then the others were reacting. Libby pushed Clair behind her and backed into the doorway, firing as she went. Bullets ricocheted around them, kicking up splinters and whining like angry bees. One caught Libby high on the left shoulder, and she screamed.
Clair took her by the other arm and pulled her backward, out of the firing line.
“Clair, it hurts!”
Clair knew that voice.
“Give me the gun, Q. Give it.”
There wasn’t time to hesitate. Q needed her to be strong, or they would both die. Clair took the gun from her and hefted it in her right hand. A red crosshair appeared in her vision, just as it had in Manteca. She swung the pistol behind her as they rounded a corner, blasted a couple of times at Jamila, but didn’t stop to see if she hit her target. Already she could hear raised voices and alarms in response to the gunfire.
“Through here,” she said, pushing Q ahead of her, back into the kitchen. Lights were coming on all around her, which would make it harder to hide. Someone was still following them. Definitely female, judging by the glimpses Clair got over her shoulder.
“Come on, Q.”
“It hurts.”
“I know, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“Why does it go on hurting? How do I make it stop?”
“Be quiet, Q, or they’ll find us.”
Too late. A bullet missed Clair by millimeters, and she dragged Q down behind a heavy stainless steel bench. Slugs slammed into it in quick succession. Clair put her hands over her ears. The sound alone was painful.
Then a deeper note joined in, boom-boom, and suddenly everything was quiet apart from the ringing in her ears.
Clair lowered her hands and raised her head slowly over the edge of the bench. Arcady was standing in the doorway, as hairy as a bear, wearing nothing but a shotgun and a worried expression. She left the pistol on the floor and stood up. He pointed the rifle at her, then lowered it. There was gunfire coming from elsewhere in the Farmhouse.
“Back to the hall,” he said, unashamed of his nakedness. “Safety in numbers.”
Clair reached down and pulled Q to her feet. She was whimpering and limp. Arcady’s rifle came to bear again.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “She’s a friend.”
“She’s dressed like one of them.”
That was true. The uniform of the dupes was a thick black bodysuit with hood pulled back. Maybe that was how they had gotten past the security systems: some kind of infrared camouflage.
“Q duped the dupes,” Clair said in a steady voice that barely sounded like her own. “She can explain for herself.”
[53]
* * *
BY THE TIME they were in the hall, Q’s hands were shaking, and her teeth were chattering. Arcady put her on a table at the center of a growing audience. Clair tore a sleeve off her farm shirt and tied it around Q’s bullet wound. The cloth immediately turned a bright, sodden red.
“Shock,” said Ray, examining her.
“Are you a doctor?” Arcady wasn’t watching anyone living. He was staring at a double line of bodies: dupes on one side, sentries on another. The body count was about equal, eleven in total. No Dylan Linwood among the dupes this time: his cover was blown. “That’s a flesh wound, nothing serious.”
“This has nothing to do with the bullet,” said Clair, finding it easier to argue with him now that he’d put on some pants. “I’ve seen it before. Her mind doesn’t fit Libby’s body. She needs to go back into a booth and d-mat out of here.”
“Sorry,” said Arcady, “but that’s not going to happen.”
“If she doesn’t, she might be permanently injured,” said Jesse, pressing through the crowd to stand on the other side of Libby’s body, opposite Clair. Her face grew warm. He was wearing pajama pants and no top, and his chest hair looked very dark against th
e paleness of his skin. “Just look at her. You can tell she hasn’t done it right.”
Arcady said, “What I mean is she can’t leave. We have no way of connecting to the outside world, even if we wanted to. No way at all.”
“Not true.” Q tried to sit up, but the pain was too great. Jesse helped her onto her elbows. “That’s how we got in here. By d-mat.”
“Aren’t you listening to me?” said Arcady again. “Our system is closed.”
“All systems are leaky. You receive weather reports and software updates, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“The thin end of a wedge. One crack is all it takes. One line of code to widen the crack . . . one executable in your private net, one custom chip built from scratch in a booth, one transmitter to widen the bandwidth. . . . Step by step, they get in deep. It took them fewer than eight hours to slave your booths to their data. If I hadn’t been watching, I would never have been able to piggyback on their signal.”
“You led them to us,” said Arcady, rounding on Turner. His voice quivered with fury. “You brought them right to our doorstep.”
Turner was standing to one side with a blanket over his shoulders. He had been quiet ever since the principal purpose of the breach had been revealed to him. I’m looking for Turner. “I’m sorry. We had no idea they would respond so quickly.”
“And you could have stopped this,” Arcady accused Q. “You did nothing to warn us.”
“She’s here, isn’t she?” said Clair, taking Q’s hand in turn and holding it tightly, trying in vain to still the dancing muscles.
“Clair is right,” said Turner. “Q put herself at risk. Without her, we might all be dead now.” He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around him.
“Or worse,” said Arcady. Then he shook his head. “Whatever. We’re pulling the plug on the damned machines. I’ll take an ax to them myself.”
“Not yet,” Jesse insisted. “First, she needs to go back into the booth. Otherwise, she might . . . I don’t know . . . die or something.”
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