“What did they want him for?” I asked Darlene as I took in the run-down road ahead. The trailers were definitely “permanent;” they were about twelve feet by thirty feet, and almost all had built-out patios with vines snaking up the sides.
“Delivering messages, I think. Passwords, instructions, hits… whatever the government needed. Just a glorified mailman, kept in a cage the rest of the time with no human interaction so his language wouldn’t be ‘corrupted.’ Poor thing.”
Darlene turned at the fifth trailer and walked up the dirt path to the door. Now that I looked at it, this trailer stood out from the others. In fact, on closer inspection, it was all silver, with several bumps on the roof that turned out to be machines of some kind and a bunch of antennas poking up like caterpillar bristles.
“Tommy?” Darlene called as she knocked insistently on the door. “Tommy, are you in there?”
“I’m working!” a young voice yelled back.
“Well, stop working for a minute and let us in,” Darlene said. “I want you to meet someone.”
Though I didn’t hear footsteps, the door opened. Perhaps this hacking genius had engineered his door to open on command, or perhaps Darlene had just knocked hard enough to force the old thing open. Either way, we entered the trailer and let its darkness swallow us.
“Tommy, honey, can you get the lights?”
The windows opened on command, revealing a large office chair and desk covered in more monitors than I had ever seen. Each one showed a different string of code, a different problem genius Tommy was trying to solve, while other programs ran in the background. The place smelled like french fries mixed with burning wire, and the floor was covered with dirty T-shirts.
Tommy himself turned out to be a shrimpy kid in his early teens who wore large black glasses and a black shirt that said “They’re Watching” in glowing yellow letters. He sighed constantly, or at least every minute of his precious time we were wasting with our visit, and kept drumming his fingers on the chair’s armrests.
“Tommy, this is my new friend… what’s your name, honey?”
“Jesse.”
“Right. Jesse’s friend Maddy was taken by HORUS this morning, and he was wondering—”
“HORUS?” Tommy’s finger-drumming stopped. “They were here?”
“They took Maddy back to his house in LA,” I said quickly, now that I had his attention. “I don’t know what they’re going to do with him, but—”
“Quick, we need to start packing.” Tommy pressed a button on the other side of his chair, and the metal shelves the machinery rested on swung up into the side so the place looked like an empty horse trailer instead of a secret hacking lab. “Warn the others. We have ten minutes, tops, before—”
“You’re not in danger,” I tried to tell him, but Tommy walked right past me as though I was invisible and began typing on his phone. Within ten seconds, someone knocked on the door, and when it opened, an older hacker wearing an almost identical shirt started rapidly asking questions about when HORUS was raiding the camp. Three more hackers joined him, all speaking at the same time and rate, and though I kept trying to break into the conversation, I couldn’t get a word in.
Long John chose this minute to return. His wings fluttered as he braked in time to make the window ledge, and then he bobbed his head under the frame that was slightly too low for him to sit comfortably.
“Sad man! Sad man!” he cried again, even louder this time, only adding to the din in the trailer. “Maddy would know! Maddy would know!” Head bob, head bob, head bob. But then he added in something new, something no one—not even I—would have uttered in front of him.
“Repro! Repro!”
All of the hackers froze.
“What did you say, Long John?” Tommy asked.
“Repro! Repro! Sad man! Sad man!”
Everyone looked at me.
“Uh… yeah… that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I said, capitalizing on the silence. “HORUS didn’t come for you… they came for us.”
“Us?” one of the other men asked.
“Maddy would know!” Long John answered for me.
“Well, just Maddy.” I looked down at my feet. “I was the first repro, and he was the second. They changed things about him, though… they made him a different version of himself. And now they want that version back, probably to be the spokesperson for their very expensive new service branch. Lose a loved one? Don’t worry—we can bring them back to life for you, only better! Something along those lines. I guess I’m obsolete now.”
“I thought I recognized you,” a hacker with an unkempt gray beard said. “I think I’ve seen security camera footage from your repro process. Trust me… you don’t want to watch it. Haven’t been able to sleep a full night since.”
“Those scum,” Tommy growled. For a kid, he sure had a lot of adult anger. “They deserve to be in jail, every one of them. If the public knew what they were really doing… hey, that’s not a bad idea.”
“What isn’t, honey?” Darlene asked.
“Smear campaign.”
“You can’t be serious,” a middle-aged hacker wearing a red baseball cap said. “They’ll shut us down before we start.”
“Only if they can.” Tommy had an impish grin on his face, and his fingers had begun to drum again.
“Uh, they can,” the bearded hacker said. “Don’t you remember the Great Battle of 2142?” Everyone seemed to forget that Tommy was a kid who wasn’t even alive then.
“No, but I’ve heard stories,” Tommy said.
“What happened in 2142?” I asked.
“A group called Hackula got into the PTV systems and broadcasted their takes on current events.”
“And then?”
“Then the company they were smearing got wise, hacked the hackers, and shut them down. Only a few of our machines got out before the special team raided the camp.”
“So… the only casualties were machines?” I felt like I was missing something.
“Only the machines?” the man in the red cap gasped. “The machines are the only things that matter, repro man.” Apparently, Long John’s nickname had stuck. “Without them, we’re just slamming our heads against a very tall, very well-funded wall.”
“But this time, they won’t take or break our machines,” Tommy said, “at least not for a very long time.”
“And you’re going to stop them how?” asked the bearded hacker.
“By breaking their machines first.”
No one said anything for a while. I couldn’t really see how Tommy’s plan was any better than the plan of 2142, but everyone else in the room seemed to be able to, because they started nodding and smiling as though they had a secret.
“Repro man, repro man!” Long John cut in, breaking the silence. “Break their machines!”
“Oh right,” Tommy said, as though a human had spoken, “good point. I forgot to mention, Jesse… you have to do it. You’re the only one they won’t destroy if they catch you sneaking in, and if they don’t, you’ll leave the door open behind you. Technologically speaking, of course.”
I stared at him blankly.
“Maddy would know!” Long John said finally after the silence had grown awkward.
That damn parrot always knew exactly what to say.
Chapter Seventeen
Maddy
EVENTUALLY I fell asleep. When I woke up about an hour later, it was to the sound of someone coming through the door, and I forced my eyes open even though I felt groggy to the point of drugged.
“Who’s there?” I asked. “Mom? Dad?”
“Shh. It’s Georgia.”
I sat up and clicked the light on, illuminating the unfamiliar room. The neutral gray walls and cubbies were still there, accompanied by a gray chaise, gray lace curtains, and gray comforter on my new king-sized bed. I hated everything about it.
Georgia stood near the door, as though she was afraid to come in. She wore her usual white dress straig
ht out of the 1970s or the revival of similar style in the 2070s, with long, loose sleeves and a super-short hemline. The type of dress that only college students wore now that metallic fabric, white suits, and black leathers were back in style. A brown leather purse hung on her shoulder, and she wore matching leather sandals that laced halfway up her long legs to her knees. She reminded me of a heron, a now-extinct freshwater or coastal bird that had her long legs, model-like neck, and sharp nose. They also shared her model walk, which made her seem like a string was holding her up.
“They let you in?” I asked, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I felt both the urge to hug her and the urge to scream at her until I couldn’t scream anymore.
“One the guards is a friend of mine.”
“So he let you bribe him?”
“Yeah.” She looked down.
My God, she was so beautiful. She was like a whole different species that, even after my repro process, I still didn’t belong to. You just couldn’t create that kind of perfect imperfection—the nose that on anyone else would look mountainous, the legs that on anyone else would seem awkward and gangly, the hair that should have become ratty always retaining its perfect red sheen. Though maybe you could reproduce it.
“I’m sorry,” Georgia said.
“For…?”
“Everything. I thought telling you would make you feel lost and confused, so I just… didn’t.”
“You were right, I guess.” I pulled my legs to my chest and hugged them.
“And in case you were wondering, I didn’t tell my dad about your calls.”
I believed her. Georgia wasn’t Jesse; she wouldn’t have gotten jealous enough to do something like that even if she thought she’d lost me.
“In fact,” she continued, “I was going to meet you in Florida as soon as I could.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She opened her mouth to say more but then closed it again.
“What?”
“About your reproduction… I don’t want you to think… you know, that I only liked you afterward. I was already interested in you from the few times I’d seen you at the HORUS banquets and stuff, but you were always with Jesse, and I was… not your type.”
“Not my type?” I wanted to laugh. “Georgia, you’re everyone’s type.”
She laughed first. With the ice broken, she finally came over, dropped her bag by the side of the bed, and hugged me. All of the tension that had filled my body when I saw her had dissipated, and I just wanted her to stay there forever, hugging me and protecting me from all of the terrible things that I was about to do.
I let her get into bed with me. As soon as she put her head on the pillow, she raised it up again, exclaiming, “Oh, I forgot to tell you I called Jesse!”
“You did?” Just when I had finally relaxed back into being with Georgia, his name brought all my indecision flooding back. “Why?”
“To tell him what I just told you. And to ask him to fix it.”
“Fix it?” Now I was the one to sit up. “That kid couldn’t even start a fire with matches and dry logs.”
“So?”
“So he’s going to get himself killed.”
“I don’t know, he sounded pretty determined on the phone.”
“Of course he did.” My pulse raced. “He always gets these grand ideas, but he doesn’t ever follow them through. Take rescuing me, for example. He was supposed to find me in LA, but instead he ended up institutionalized. Sure, he found me accidentally, but that’s not the same!”
“Breathe, Madison!” Georgia said as she petted my arm like I was a wild animal she was trying to tame. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
I tried to calm down, but I couldn’t. All I could think of was Jesse getting captured and being reproduced again, of the Jesse I loved being wiped away like chalk on a board, leaving only dust. Even as she pulled me close, Georgia seemed to grow distant and disappear, until all I could see was Jesse being dragged away by the HORUS guards over and over again.
I had to fix this before he got here.
But how?
“I’d better go,” Georgia said eventually. “But I’ll try to convince my dad to let me see you again soon, I promise.”
“Okay.” I tried to muster the focus to kiss her back when she leaned down, but I didn’t do a very good job.
After she left I lay down and pulled the covers back over my head and stared up at the light filtering through the gray comforter like a sunset. Think, Madison, I told myself, but my mind was blank.
All I could think about was Jesse.
Chapter Eighteen
Jesse
ON THE walk back to my tent, something small and dark in the back of my brain began to spread. It was that little voice that told me You can’t succeed, that knew all my hopes and turned them into failures. It was the voice that had told me that the only way out was death, that finally I’d be free.
Of course that voice hadn’t counted on reproduction.
Still, despite its empty promises, it was persistent. It was rot, moving from root tendril to root tendril of my brain until the whole system was black and mushy, repeating over and over free, free, free.
Free from the pressure of trying to rescue Maddy.
Free from the acknowledgment that I was going to fail.
Around me the landscape seemed to dull like a faded painting. The trees were no longer spreads of vibrant green, but whitewashed and blurry, like a glass of water accidentally spilled on new ink.
I needed to get back to my tent.
I needed to be in bed.
As soon as I zipped up the flap behind me, I sank onto the silky, cool surface of the sleeping bag where just a few hours earlier Maddy had told me he would try. Even though the tent was empty, I felt his presence there, telling me to “Get up, get up, Jesse,” the way he had so many times before. On school days, he had gone so far as to dump water on my head, or physically haul me out of bed, or threaten to tell my mom that I needed stronger meds. He wouldn’t do that, I knew, but sometimes it worked anyway.
It worked because by that time I was living for him.
But he’d called Georgia. He’d wanted Georgia, not me, last night when he’d woken up feeling lonely and probably scared of what he’d said. He’d wanted his old life, one without me in it.
Sure, Georgia had said that thing about Maddy writing about me, and she’d instructed me to rescue Maddy, but maybe she wanted me to fail in front of him? Or maybe she wanted me to get captured and wiped clean so I couldn’t get between them ever again.
You’re being crazy, I told myself, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was better off in that tent than anywhere else.
Eventually I drifted into a light sleep, interrupted only by the occasional bird call or rustle of the tree leaves. I no longer worried about predators since what was the worst thing they could do?
Kill me?
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
Stop. You need to get this under control. Maddy needs you.
But did he, really? Given enough time, Maddy would solve this problem on his own. He would get back together with Georgia, and all would be right in the world.
That’s not the point. You left him once… you can’t do it again.
But whatever switch my parents had asked HORUS to install in my brain had read my chemistry and determined SUICIDE ATTEMPT IMMINENT. Even as I tried to roll over and get out of bed, my eyes fluttered and then closed like broken blinds.
Get up, I urged myself, even as my arms started to tingle and my legs settled into a comfortable position on the bed.
Don’t fall asleep.
Help.
WHEN I woke up, the sun’s shifted position made it seem like at least two hours had passed. I’d sweated through the sheets, which now weighed me down like a wet towel, and had somehow thrown my pillow across the tent.
When I turned over to my right, I was met with two red sandals with woven wedges that rose at lea
st five inches in the air. Then a pair of athletic legs stuffed into very tight jeans, a low blouse, and finally, the frowning face of my mother.
“Ah!” I yelled. “Mamá, ¿Qué haces aquí?”
“Don’t even try using Spanish on me, Jesse. I see right through your little act. Do you have any idea how worried I was? And you dragged your uncle into this too and asked him to lie to my face? Pensé que te habían matado….”
She realized she had slipped back into Spanish and clamped her mouth shut.
“I’m sorry you thought I was dead,” I said, and I meant it. My mom might have kept me as a prisoner in Idaho, but she was only trying to protect me. At least she’d just had me cloned instead of altering me—except for the suicide safeguard, which I couldn’t really fault her for.
I expected her to continue her tirade, but she surprised me by sitting down on the sleeping bag and putting her hand on me comfortingly. “You have to understand something. Dr. Stone said he would only help if we promised to keep you away from his son. I guess he was afraid of… well, you know what happened to Madison after you died the first time. I thought if you came back to find him, HORUS would wipe you completely or, worse, kill you. As a parent, the death of a child… I couldn’t go through that again.”
Of course he’d told her that. Dr. and Mrs. Stone had never liked me, especially Mrs. Stone, and they’d seen this as the perfect opportunity to “help” me, which alleviated their guilt, while also getting rid of me forever.
“I get it, Mom. But there are bigger things at stake now than Maddy and my relationship.”
“Bigger things?”
“They’re not just reproducing by copying… they’ve begun changing people too. Maddy died soon after me, and when they brought him back, they made him a totally different person. He looks different, but it’s not just that… he’s interested in different things and different people.”
“Different people?”
“He can’t love me anymore.”
“Oh, principito. I’m so sorry.” She seemed to mean it, even though she probably blamed Maddy for my depression nonetheless.
Jesse 2.0 Page 9
