Once I’d joined him, he gestured at a pantsuit lying over the back of a couch. “The clothes, they’re my sisters. If you’re going to pass for the synthetic Clara White, you’ll need to look the part.”
James left the room and I immediately began layering myself in yet another persona: Clara White, the wife of a government lynchpin. She was influential in her own right and typical of the type of person who lived on in synthetic bodies—or didn’t.
James returned a few minutes later, dressed in fresh clothes that smartened his appearance. With the ops-lenses in, his eye color had darkened, but the difference would be indecipherable to anyone but me. He saw me partially dressed and tripped over his own stride. It wasn’t as if I had anything he hadn’t run his clinical eye over before. He leaned against the back of the couch and kept his head bowed. Something had changed his perception of me, something that quickened his heart and made him struggle to meet my eyes.
I finished dressing and shrugged the pantsuit jacket on. “Do I look like Miss White?”
James lifted his head. He rapid-blinked and swallowed. Perhaps it was guilt or fear that I read in his diagnostics. I’d yet to fully decipher his body’s responses to emotional stress and couldn’t quite separate the two. The events of the past few hours were clearly catching up with him and wearing him down.
“You’re missing something,” he said. “It’s the hair, I think. When she appears in public, she wears it up.” He stepped forward. “May I?”
I let him move around behind me and gather my hair in his hands. His gentle fingers brushed through the silvery strands, immediately sending a wash of sensory information through me. I liked it, but this time I stayed quiet and glared across the living room while he tied my hair up.
“Is your sister here?”
“She’s sleeping. I won’t disturb her,” he replied. “I’ve left a note and instructions on how to access my credit account. I …” His fingers stilled in my hair. “I’ll find a way to get back, to help her, after we’re away from Chitec. There will be a way.”
He settled his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry. What I was going to do? It wouldn’t have been right.”
Sorry. Caleb had said sorry when he’d saved me from shutting down on Mimir. Such a strange little word. It didn’t erase the wrong or change the past, but it appeared to ease some of James’s anxiety.
“I understand.” I turned and met his eyes.
He smiled and stepped back. “There. You look entirely like Miss White. Chitec considered making each synthetic different in appearance, more human-like, by adding visual quirks and that sort of thing. They have the technology, but besides the uproar from people worried about them blending, unknown, into society, it would have added unnecessary costs, so they made them all look the same, all too perfect. And we’re about to exploit that mistake. Are you ready, Miss Clara White?”
I’d already downloaded Miss White’s dataprint and added an airy lilt to my voice to mimic hers. “Indeed, Doctor Lloyd.”
“That’s … creepy.”
He pulled a wrist comms from his pocket and handed it over. “It’s unregistered, fresh out of the box.” He showed me his own. “Mine too. If we get separated, just tap the locator.”
While I attached the wrist comms, he added, “Now would be a good time to see if your fleet friend is in the neighborhood. I’m going to gather some things, then we’d better go.”
I’d already pulled Commander Brendan Shepperd’s service logs from the datacloud. He was commanding an albatross class freighter. A far cry from commanding a raptor warbird, but at least he was alive. The logs told me his ship would be making a pass through the original system in the next few days. He should be within range of a comms call. I dialed him up, scanning the street outside, only to have my gaze lift to the glass towers.
“Commander Shepperd.”
My internal systems spiked at the sound of his familiar, but tense voice. He was my only link left to Caleb. I’d killed his brother. A sudden, ice-sharp jolt of fear pierced through me. Did he know?
“It’s One Thousand And One. I need your help.” I reached for the earpiece tucked neatly into the comms, but the connection failed. When I tried to ping him back, he didn’t pick up. He knew. He knew and he wouldn’t help us.
Outside James’s house, a security patrol car cruised by and then halted beside the stolen bike. “Do you have a back door?”
“Yes, c’mon.”
James threw a bag over his shoulder and ushered me out the back. We slipped away through his backyard and onto a side street. The air smelled dry, like hot electrical cables.
I miss the smell of rain. The voice—the memory—jolted through me. I didn’t know what rain smelled like, but Haley did. Shepperd had taken her to Vancouver on old Earth, his home. He’d taught her to pilot a shuttle over the cornfields outside the city, where nobody would see them, where no one cared enough about fleet or Chitec to recognize the two high-profile, social celebrities.
“It will be okay. Everything will be okay.” James’s voice snapped me back into the right place and the right time. He gave his house a single glance back and hitched his bag higher.
The three glass towers drew my eye. “I’ll meet you at the port at sixteen hundred hours.”
“What? Why?” He pulled up short and gripped my arm, then noticed where I’d been looking. “Oh no. You can’t go up there.”
“I’m Miss White. I just want to see if it’s possible to get inside.”
His grip tightened. “You can’t get to him. It’s Chen Hung. He won’t invite you up for tea just because you knocked on his door. He has people, y’know, who organize his schedule. You won’t get past the front desk.”
I tugged my arm free. “Will you try and stop me?”
“This is absurd.”
He threw his hands up and moved to grip me again, but stopped himself and pulled his hands back.
“We’re nearly free.” His tone was pleading. “We need to leave now, not walk right into Chitec towers.”
“You don’t understand. I have to do this. I can’t leave Janus without knowing.”
James shook his head. “And if you see him, what are you going to do?”
“I have questions.” Before I kill him, I’ll get my answers. “I will meet you at the port. If I’m not there, leave. Get away from Janus and Chitec. You’re intelligent and talented; you’ll figure out a way to survive and get credit back to your sister.”
He searched my face. “Why are you doing this? Why must you go there? For you—One Thousand And One—or for Haley?”
I couldn’t answer with any certainty. “Find Commander Brendan Shepperd. He may not want to help me, but he will help you.”
I turned away. James touched my shoulder. The touch was light, but it was enough to steal my thoughts and pull me back toward him.
His eyes, softened by sadness, searched mine. “Haley, or One Thousand And One, whatever—whoever you are, I don’t know if you’re a machine or if you’re human, but after working on you for over a cycle and getting to know you as I do, I do know you’re unique. Please … leave Chen Hung in his towers. He killed you once, don’t give him a reason to do it again.”
When he touched my cheek—his face filled with reverence—I smiled one of the smaller, careful smiles I’d been practicing. The one designed to placate and soothe. “Everything will be okay.”
His sad smile lifted at one corner. “You don’t know that.”
“I’ve calculated the odds and they’re in my favor.”
He frowned. “That’s a lie.”
“I sometimes skew the odds and available data in my favor.”
He pressed his palm to my cheek and brushed his thumb gently against my skin. “I didn’t lose everything so Chitec could destroy you all over again. You have a second chance. Don’t let your programming stifle what you feel. Listen to your soul.”
“I don’t have one.”
“I think we both know that’s not t
rue.” He seemed to realize how close we were standing and pulled his hand back. “Promise me you’ll be at the dock.”
“It would be another lie. I do not know for certain.”
“Then lie to me.”
“I’ll be at the dock, James.”
* * *
Like the rest of Janus, Chitec’s headquarters sparkled under artificial daylight. After spending time in-the-black aboard Captain Shepperd’s tugboat, this world lacked depth. Colors were saturated, lights dazzled, and Chitec’s advertising billboards loomed huge, garish, and surreal. This wasn’t real life. I’d seen only a fraction of the nine systems, but it was enough to know that the wealth on Janus was an illusion of perfection. Real diamonds were flawed. Perfection wasn’t everything. And as I climbed the steps and entered the HQ foyer, I wondered whether I had been designed to be as perfectly fake as Chitec’s fantasy world. Considering I was impersonating Miss White, I had to deduce that I was the walking, talking personification of Chitec.
Unease squirmed somewhere inside. I didn’t bother exploring the feeling; I already knew my hard processes wouldn’t find the source. When I walked through the yawning glass foyer, light fractured through crystals, bathing me in sprite-like prisms. The building exhibited a sharp, cutting beauty, and I had the inexplicable urge to break the perfection apart and shatter the illusion. I curled my fingers into fists to stop from lashing out.
People milled back and forth, and while I was clearly a synthetic, few looked my way. I stopped in the center of the foyer, over the yin-yang Chitec logo etched into the glass floor beneath my feet. I reached behind my neck and touched the same logo that had been branded into my skin.
I should have felt as though I belonged here, but this place was alien and wrong.
“Ah, Miss White.”
I turned my head and looked through the female assistant, seeing her inside the string of data that made up her life. “Yes?”
“We don’t appear to have a scheduled visit today. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I would like to see Mister Hung.”
She smiled a cutting smile that was as sharp as the sparkling surfaces surrounding us. “I’m sorry. He’s a very busy man. Perhaps we can schedule you an appointment?”
“Is he here?”
Her sharp smile ticked. “Of course. He’s always here.”
Nerves trilled through me. Good sensations. Bad ones. Uncertainty. Excitement. Fear.
Chen Hung—my father, my killer—was so close. How many floors above? I swallowed and, with a slow blink, blocked all the sensory input, leaving cold, hard control.
“It’s rather urgent,” I paused and lowered my voice, “and of a private matter.”
She reached up and touched her hair, making sure every strand was in place. “Well, perhaps if you’d like to take a seat, I will see if he has a few moments to spare, but I do have to clarify that it’s unlikely.”
“I’ll wait.”
She teetered off on high heels to the reception desk and spoke with one of several receptionists. People flowed around me, oddly quiet as they focused on their destinations, as though this space deserved their reverence. When they spoke, they did so in whispers, not for fear of being heard, but out of respect.
I lifted my gaze to the crystal chandelier high above the foyer. Indeed, this space, this building, was a place of worship, where technology was the deity. Did that make Chen Hung their god?
Daddy, the people seem so small. Look at them. Where are they all going?
Everyone has his or her part to play in the nine, nü ér. Each life has significance. Without them, this station would not exist. Everyone is an asset.
An asset? To whom?
To Chitec.
“Miss White?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“I-I … Mister Hung is otherwise engaged. I’m sorry. Would you like me to schedule you a—Miss White?”
I crossed the foyer to the cantilevered glass steps and climbed to the mezzanine floor above.
“Miss White?” Her perfect voice in this perfect place cut through my perfect reserve.
I gritted my teeth and jogged up the steps. Let her call security.
Chen Hung was close, and I wasn’t leaving until I’d fulfilled my own orders by killing him.
I hit the call buttons for all three elevators and stepped inside the second car to arrive, hoping security would waste time and resources chasing the others. As the doors slid closed, I ignored my single car companion, closed my eyes, and dove inside my memories. I’d once lived in these towers before. I’d once called them home. I’d peered at the outside world through barriers of glass and dreamed of stars I couldn’t see.
Stars are wishes and wishes are dreams. You can’t capture them…. But I’d tried. With Caleb, I’d tried. He’d shown me the stars and taught me how to fly among them. He’d watched me die, and I’d killed him in turn.
I filed through the memory data, skipping past scenes before they could hook into my thoughts and drag me under, and went back years, to when I’d run barefoot through the carpeted hallways, imagining that I lived among the stars. I remembered a time, long ago, when I’d known love. Floor Seven-Zero-Three. That was my home.
“Are you well, Miss?”
A touch, that was all it took. The woman in the elevator touched my arm, just like James had. I knew the why—to offer comfort—but I still captured her hand and twisted it back, shoving her to her knees in a blink. She didn’t cry out. She couldn’t.
I peered down into her wide eyes, now swimming with tears. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“Pl-please …”
I released her and faced the closed doors. James hadn’t fixed me; I was still broken inside.
“Maybe you’re the only one who isn’t broken?” Caleb had said.
As the woman sniffled and blubbered on her knees, I gritted my teeth and breathed precisely, regaining control of the myriad of warnings and faults dancing through my thoughts.
I am One Thousand And One, and I am not meant to exist.
I hit the elevator button for the next floor. When the doors opened to the garden level, I watched the woman scramble to her feet and disembark. When the doors closed, I selected level 703—the Hung residence, and plucked the security code from my memories.
The elevator pinged. The doors opened, and I stepped into my past. Little had changed. I moved silently, the plush carpet absorbing my footsteps. A single pair of shoes sat neatly to one side. Once there had been two pairs: mine and my father’s. The décor, rich in reds and golds, wrapped me in familiarity.
I hadn’t expected it to feel quite like this, like home. This had been Haley’s home, not mine, and yet it felt real, and as I left the entrance hall for the vast, open receiving space, I could pretend, just for a little while, that I still belonged on Floor 703.
A peaceful calm welcomed me back, and an artificial quiet fell thickly around me, muffling the sounds of Janus so that the orbit station didn’t exist, and neither did the wider world. This timeless place had been my life, and my prison.
Without realizing it, my feet had carried me past the fountain centerpiece and to the concave wall of windows. Outside, Janus in all its glistening beauty sparkled, and far below, people and traffic—the veins of life—streamed back and forth.
Everyone is an asset.
In the dark glass, my reflection peered back at me. I pressed my fingertips over the cool glass, on my ghost’s cheek. She wasn’t alone. In the reflection, a man in a suit stood beside the fountain, hands clasped in front of him.
Chen Hung.
Vengeful hunger boiled inside. I twisted, and—
I can’t move.
Why can’t I move?
I can’t kill him.
I can’t.
—t>
C
hen Hung’s sleek eyes narrowed and darkened. “What is your number?”
I glared at Hung, peering into the soulless eyes of the man who’d pressed a hand over my mouth and nose, suffocating me/her/his daughter. Faults flickered and throbbed in my vision. Warnings bleated inside my mind. But I couldn’t act on any of it. I stood immobile while Haley’s killer smiled back at me. Haley had been weak. I thought I’d be stronger, faster, and quicker. I thought I’d be better than her, better than him. I’d been wrong.
He’d created me. He controlled me.
“You are number one thousand and one.” He smiled the same smile that adorned every Chitec advertising billboard. A smile designed to seduce the hearts and minds of the people in the nine systems, but it wasn’t real. The empty darkness in his eyes, however, was. I should have seen it before. I should have realized.
I’d made a terrible mistake.
I shouldn’t have come here.
“The last I’d heard, you were due to be decommissioned. The board voted against me. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.” He spoke beautifully, his words resonating with gravitas. “You are quite the resourceful synthetic unit.”
He lifted his gaze and looked about the receiving room. “Do you remember this residence?”
He stood between me and the way out. He was just a man. Dark hair neatly swept back from his proud face, he’d hardly aged since I’d last seen him, when he had been holding me down, his gaze flooding mine. He looked exactly like the father in my memories, exactly like the face of Chitec.
“Why did you create me?”
“Ah, yes. The questions. Of course you would come back with questions.” He moved toward the windows and looked down on the people, on their insignificant lives, far below him. “The other synthetics do not ask questions, but you already knew that.”
I glanced at the hallway, at my way out. “Why did you send me to kill Captain Shepperd?”
“I didn’t. The woman you killed took it upon herself to solve that problem. I cannot be seen to be involved in such dealings,” he said without looking up. “Caleb Shepperd has connections with people whom I’d rather didn’t turn their attentions onto me. He is among the few who know the truth about the life-ever-after program. I had hoped Doctor Grossman would succeed, but she made a mistake in utilizing you.”
Girl From Above Escape (The 1000 Revolution Book 2) Page 8
