Redux

by A. L. Davroe

  More, more, more.

  Until they are less and less like anything resembling human.

  Until they look like Gus and Delia.

  Quentin leads us to Sid, who is standing at a small command module fussing with wires. He seems annoyed.

  “Is this it?” Quentin asks, voice tired and hollow as he tips his chin toward the people behind us.

  Not looking up, Sid nods. “Yeah. Just a few more of us Dolls and whoever they could grab on the way out. We’re lucky we got this many people, considering.”

  Quentin rubs his face. Carsai comes running up to us. I’ve never liked Carsai and I try not to let it show. She was my bully when I went to school. And she’s the epitome of an Elite. Spoiled and self-centered beyond reason because she was born at the top of an already privileged Aristocratic pecking order. Dad used to say all Aristocrats were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but the Elite were born with diamond-encrusted ones. I didn’t understand the significance of what that meant until I played Nexis, learned the value of silver and diamonds—they don’t exist in Real World anymore.

  Plus, she’s Delia’s best friend now that Delia thinks I’m dead, so I’m a little jealous of her, too.

  She steps up to Quentin, grasps at his arm, pets him. “Quent, darling, what’s going on? Are we safe?”

  I roll my eyes at her false endearment. It reminds me of how Delia and I once talked to each other, so maybe my eye rolling is a little out of jealousy, too.

  Emboldened by her move, other Aristocrat girls from school follow until there are six of them crowded around us and chattering over each other like tropical parrots.

  “Where’s my mom? Has someone alerted her to my whereabouts? I demand to vis-call her immediately.” Farouza doesn’t understand that she’s not the only important person here. The Aristocrats are raised to think they and they alone are the center of the universe.

  “Are we shutting the androids down? Will they be down long? Who is going to prepare my clothes for tomorrow?” Veronica doesn’t know how to live without the technology that has handicapped the Aristocrats.

  “I have a report due in the morning and my flex-bracelet isn’t connecting to my G-Chip. What’s being done?” Angelique has clearly been given her job placement and it is now the biggest source of stress in her life. I wonder if she’s like me and got forced to follow a career path she never wanted. I didn’t want to be a Programmer. I wanted to be a Designer, making beautiful clothing.

  “When can we go home? I’m missing tonight’s Broadcast. What am I going to talk to my intended about if I don’t see it?” How sad that Kleary is being forced to marry a man she can’t even talk to. Thank fate that I know real love and all my guardians are dead, so now I can choose who I want to marry.

  “Ugh, look how filthy I am. I need a bath and a change of clothes.” Like all Custom Aristocrats, Jewel probably doesn’t even sweat, so the idea of blood and dirt are anathema to someone who grew up in a bacteria-free environment where clothes were incinerated after a single wearing and one could get Alts that made them smell like perfume and soap.

  Quentin’s shoulders droop like he can’t handle any of them, and I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, having to step into the new role as Leader now that his parents are dead. Having to convince these sheltered, self-absorbed people to traverse the Undertunnel while hungry, isolated, grieving, dirty, and harried by who knows what for who knows how long.

  All in the hopes that once we get to Cadence, they don’t do to us what our own city did to the refugees of Adagio—lock them out, leave them below in the darkness of the Undertunnel for months.

  No one would have gotten in, either, except the old President Cyr died and the new one decided he’d be more merciful. We may not be that lucky.

  “Not now, Carsai.” Quentin pulls his arm out of her grasp and straightens his jacket with his uninjured hand. “I’ll answer everyone’s questions once I know we’re 100 percent safe and we have time to discuss this, but right now I need all of you to just cooperate.”

  Carsai blinks at him. “But—”

  “Later,” he growls, turning on his heel. “Sid, let’s get this gate closed.”

  Sid rolls his eyes. “Oh yes, because my G-Chip is fully functional, just like yours, and I can just wish it closed, can’t I?”

  “Sassiness is not warranted,” Quentin mutters. “Just close the door.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, but getting a door to open by crossing wires is a lot easier than closing it.” He holds out some wires. “You’re welcome to try. My fingers are quite burned at this point, and I’d like to remind you that, now that our G-Chips are currently useless and our currency system locked away on a Main Frame we can’t access, I’m no longer getting paid to be your Doll. So, do be nice.”

  Quentin chews his lip for a second. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

  “We could manually shove it shut,” Gus suggests.

  Looking back, I stare at the two-story-high doors. They must each weigh a ton. I sense a few of the other Dolls materializing at the side of my vision. One of them with golden hair and delicate features pushes up his sleeves and says, “I hope you all ate your nutra-packs for breakfast today.”

  chapter two

  Post-American Date: 7/4/232

  Longitudinal Timestamp: 9:07 a.m.

  Location: Sub-Tunnel 6

  Click, click, click.

  I reach into my pocket and squeeze the two plastic chips against the palm of my hand. One is my father’s G-Chip. This little chip, like mine and everyone else’s, was once implanted in my father’s frontal lobe as both his key to the city and his psychological lock. It was the thing that made him part of Evanescence and also the thing that made him want to be something apart from it. The other is Meems’s personality chip. Even though it’s burned and I could never restore her, even though she’d hate me if I did, I couldn’t bear to leave her behind. She might have only been an android, but she was so much more to me.

  Persevere.

  Meems had wanted me to do that—to overcome my trials, no matter how insurmountable. And now, most certainly, the stakes are at their highest. The game has become real, and I find myself grossly ill-equipped to play.

  Click, click, click.

  Someone wails. The Aristocrats are mourning the loss of their city, their kin, their lifestyles.

  I close my eyes, trying not to listen or think. The door between the world I know and the unknown is closing. In front of me, there are six boys, shadows of each other, shoving the heavy steel door closed.

  Click, click, click.

  Quentin groans. He’s putting too much stress on his already injured shoulder and hand. Stupid, shouldn’t have gotten himself shot. Or punched an aerovator door. I turn away, dismissing the thoughts. I don’t care. He’s evil. He’s from Cyr stock. The Cyrs killed my parents. Quentin killed my uncle Simon. Shot him in the head. Point-blank. Right in front of me.

  In my mind, the memory of the sound of Quentin’s gun going off ricochets about, making me suddenly jump. And behind my eyes, the image of blood and brain spattering and oozing against Lady’s Cyr’s white dress forces me to open my eyes and blink it away.

  I try not to feel the loss of my uncle. He was a bad man. He caused the death of so many people. Made us lose our home. Used me as a pawn. Whatever his motives were, the stakes were too high and he deserved the death that Quentin dealt him.

  I’ve seen lots of death. I’ve even killed. But that was death and killing in a virtual world, in Nexis. When you die in Nexis, you simply wake back up in Real World. Your game is over, your character dead forever, so it feels like a loss. But it’s not like real dying. When I killed in the game, I wasn’t killing for real, wasn’t taking people away from friends and family for real. Not like what my actions have done to these people standing around me. My actions inside Nexis have killed. Real World killed. And that’s not a game.

  I close my eyes again as hot tear
s gather on my lashes. What have you done, Ellani Drexel?

  Desperately trying to grasp at some shred of hope, I try and find the good in me and this situation. Something to appreciate.

  I come up with only one thing—the knowledge that what I’ve accidentally done is wrong and all I can do is try to undo at least some of it. Get these people someplace safe, for starters. And then maybe see what I can do to regain the city.

  The city is alive.

  If I can just somehow access the Main Frame without my G-Chip, perhaps I can figure out what’s wrong—figure out a way to get it to read the G-Chips again.

  I open my eyes, look around, and nod to myself as I wipe away my tears.

  Faced with this chaos, everything I have learned about myself and the world via Nexis is even more important. It’s imperative to persevere, to believe in myself, my abilities, and the people I choose as my allies. I hope I still can.

  But the idea of it is daunting, makes my breath come heavy and my heart beat faster. I’m scared. I’m no longer in a game. This is real life, a real-life adventure. One that I may not come back from. One that so many others have already lost. But I can’t afford to lose. The weight of knowing that this adventure can’t just be logged off or restarted makes me fear my ability. In Nexis, I was a good player. I had a team, the Tricksters, that trusted me. I usually made the right decisions. I was a great fighter. Can I be all those things here?

  I have to be.

  Echoes of gunshots and screams from above intermingle with the steady click, click, click.

  I focus on the real noise, not the remembered ones, or the ones I hear over my head.

  The door is almost closed.

  My hands reach out, possessed, and grasp at my legs. They do that. Ever since the accident that took both my father and my legs, my hands have secretly been checking when I’m not looking. Searching for something that is no longer there.

  But today, they are pleasantly surprised and satisfied. There are knees to hold. There are legs where there haven’t been for the last year. Prosthetics, a gift from my uncle for planting his sinister virus—a promise for a more permanent fix. One he never intended to keep.

  I glance across the room at my cousin Bastian. He’s one of the ones staring blank-faced into nothingness. Does he hear the screams, too? I cock my head. It’s bad enough knowing what Uncle Simon did to me and all of the citizens of Evanescence, it’s another thing entirely to think about what he did to his own son.

  But then again, my parents did the same thing to me. Made me a tool. Sacrificed me to something greater. My mother and father programmed Nexis, made it so that my game and the people I played with would lead me to exactly where I was supposed to be. Gus, Morden, Nadine, Opus—each one, including myself, represented one of the Trickster archetypes. Fox, coyote, rabbit, crow, spider. And each one of them carried a code I’d pre-cracked which, upon the death of their avatars, broke through another layer of Main Frame security.

  When my avatar finally arrived in the very heart of the Main Frame, I delivered the Anansi Virus that created all this chaos. But between my father’s untimely death and my inability to trust my uncle, I can’t possibly know what my parents truly intended.

  My mother, father, Uncle Simon, Lady Cyr, and Quentin and his Dolls were all part of that plot. My parents considered themselves spiders. The wise web weavers. I’m clearly expected to carry the mantle. From what I can tell, Gus is the fox here in Real World, too. I don’t know if the other three archetypes are out here in Real World, nor do I understand what the real goal of this group actually is or was.

  I look away, unable to keep looking at Bastian lest I start crying. For him and for me.

  I refuse to shed a tear. Too many people around me are weeping and I have no right to join them. Not when it’s my fault. So I stare at my new legs—the price paid for all of these people’s tears.

  I close my eyes, knowing I have to be more honest with myself. I planted that virus for one reason and one reason only. Because I wanted to be with Gus in the Real World and I didn’t think I could do that without legs. I wanted to be whole again so I could escape from the prison of social ostracism and the isolation my guardian and my uncle forced upon me. So I could be who Gus expected me to be.

  I turn and squint at him, pushing with his might against the door, and warmth blossoms in my stomach and chest. He’s worth it.

  And yet, one person’s life is never worth anyone else’s. Dad would have told me that.

  Evanescence once had hundreds of thousands of citizens, and now the only people alive are these few dozen. Already, their Alterations are fading. Without the G-Chip to control the nanites and convert their kinetic energy, the argent skin and fiber-optic inlays of the Aristocrats behind me are winking out, taking their rainbow light and leaving only the faint emergency LED light over the door. In the growing shadows, these people sound like moaning ghosts. Reminders of a world that is quickly dying and will soon be a thing of the past. Haunters… Like the screams of the dying in my head, like the spilled Aristocratic blood I see behind my eyelids when I close them.

  They’re so broken, these Aristocrats. So tragically human. And that’s beautiful.

  I know we’re not perfect, but what made those androids above want to kill us so very much? Perhaps they didn’t have a choice. Perhaps the lack of G-Chips made them believe we were all intruders and enemies. Perhaps their uprising was part of the virus itself. Was it a fluke, or something programmed? And, if that’s the case, what made Uncle Simon want to kill us so much?

  Click, click, click.

  Chilled, I turn away from the mournful howls of the people around me and look in front of me, hoping I can escape reminders of the last day for a moment. But looking at the door makes me realize just how intense a moment this is. The domed city of Evanescence—one of the cities that was the salvation for mankind after the Bio-Nuclear War, a city my mother almost died to get into—is being closed off. Soon it will be empty and abandoned, like my mother’s city, Adagio.

  Part of me wants to jump up and tell the boys to stop, to leave the door open. But beyond that door, there is no salvation. There is only death and destruction. Thousands dead at the hands of crazed robots and angry Disfavored rebels roaming the streets.

  Click, click.

  Trapped by both my thoughts and my setting, I glance over my shoulder again, beyond the Aristocratic refugees. The Undertunnel awaits. Dark, empty, long forgotten. I do not know what lies within it. I only hope that it brings us to Cadence, our sister city. Once there, I hope that I can do something to right the wrong that I’ve done. I hope I can one day return, regain, and rebuild Evanescence. Make it better. Offer these people a future.

  Click.

  Door closing between death and uncertainty.

  Click.

  Door closing off the only home that I have ever known.

  Click.

  Door closing on me, Ellani Drexel, leaving another one—a stranger to herself—living in my body.

  Click.

  My heart is hammering faster. Faster. Faster. There’s a lump in my throat. I want to scream. I cover my eyes as the massive steel door slides the last few inches, sealing my fate.

  Boom. It slams shut. I take a breath, force myself to watch between my fingers as Sid begins to cross wires, creating sparks and acrid-smelling smoke, locking the door as best as he can against the killer androids and the Disfavored beyond. When he’s done, he steps back and nods.

  “It’s okay everybody,” Quentin says. “We’re safe now.”

  A collective sigh tickles the back of my neck. Someone even chances a nervous laugh, but the bubbly, tinkling of it sounds off. The vocal Modification is an unwelcome reminder of better moments and things lost, like glitter on a battlefield. Just like that the tension returns.

  I force my hands down. Gus and Quentin are both leaning against the door, panting and looking proud. Their smiles show that they didn’t catch the laugh and what it means.

>   I let myself forget the sad reminder of the laugh and instead smile with the boys, because Gus’s pleasure is my pleasure. His smile warms my heart, even if he doesn’t look like the boy I fell in love with in Nexis. He’s been too badly Modified and Altered because he’s Quentin’s Doll and even with fading Alts, his Mods will never go away.

  Gone is his tussled, dark brown hair; gone are his laughing, nearly black eyes; gone are his impish smile and bold, handsome face. I can’t hold that against him. My body in Nexis was also a lie. I had legs in Nexis. And I almost let that truth, that shame in who I’d become, destroy our love.

  I reach up and finally take off my holo-mask, dismissing the false face I’ve been wearing for the past few hours. No need to continue that lie anymore, either. Gus already knows and accepts who I am and what I look like because I wore my real face in Nexis, and now that the G-Chips are fried, my mask will soon lose power. When that happens, the others will learn what I look like—that I’m nothing but a Natural parading as a Custom, a dead girl come back to life.

  Let them see my dark skin and unsymmetrical face. Let them see the scar on my forehead from the accident that killed my father. Let them see the gray eyes and arched brows my mother gave me. Let them see the thick, unruly brown curls and my oddly judgmental mouth.

  As I lower my mask, Quentin is watching me, smiling.

  Bristling, I glare at him in challenge. As the late President’s son and the very top of the Elite, he represents the Aristocracy of Evanescence that I want to move beyond—secrets, lies, and confusion. Because he’s a Cyr, because he knows things I don’t, because he’s half behind the chaos unfolding in the city above, because Quentin knew who I was, even with my holo-mask on, because he kissed me and I liked it and that confuses me.