by Julia Keller
“A vacation spot.” Once again, Kendall made the half-snicker sound.
“Okay, whatever.” Violet knew she was coming across as defensive. She didn’t care. She was tired of having Kendall repeat Rez’s words back to her, vaguely mocking. “You don’t have to believe in what Rez is doing. Just help him get the tools he needs to do it.” If she’d had the nerve, she would have added a few extra sentences: You’re not the only one who gets to have cool ideas, Kendall Mayhew. Other people like to invent things, too.
“Okay,” he said.
“Really?”
“Sure. Why not? I’ll send a note to Chief Singleton’s console. Tell her it’s fine by me if she wants to sign off on it.” Two years ago, Laura Singleton had replaced Michelle Callahan as chief of police. “And I’ll double-check with President Shomo’s office, too. Keep everybody in the loop.”
Violet waited for more explanation. When it didn’t come, she had to ask.
“So why are you suddenly so cooperative? I thought I’d have to argue with you for at least ten minutes to get you to vouch for him.”
“Maybe I’m mellowing.” He shrugged.
“Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen.” Kendall was the most intense person she had ever known. When he was pretending to be Danny he had ratcheted down that intensity, presenting himself as more easygoing and low-key; now that he was Kendall again, he could be his real self—which meant passionate and focused and driven.
“The truth is,” Kendall continued after a thoughtful pause, “Rez is brilliant. New Earth needs him. As soon as his parole is up, I’d like to hire him to work in my lab. Until that day comes, I want him to be as happy as possible, given his situation. I want him to be fulfilled, you know? Not bored. And not frustrated.”
“Makes sense.”
Now was her chance. They were ending the conversation. The moment was here.
This was yet another perfect opportunity to tell him about Rez and the Intercept. And he was the only person she could tell, because Violet and Kendall shared a secret: They had not destroyed it. On the day of the Intercept’s death two years ago, they had made a swift, mutual, momentous decision. They rescued the loose pages of Kendall’s notes from his original blueprint. With those notes, the Intercept could be remade.
Once again, she said nothing.
7
Countdown
Two more days.
That was it. Only two.
The girls had been counting down for a month now. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven …
Finally, they’d crossed the threshold into single digits. Ten, nine, eight, seven.
This morning, it was two.
Two! Yes!
Thinking about it, letting the beautiful number bounce around in her head, Rita Wilton pumped her fist. She was lying on the bottom bunk, and so the pump sent her fist crashing into the underside of the top bunk. Hard enough, in fact, to make her twin sister, Rosalinda—who was sleeping on that top bunk, or trying to—yelp.
“Hey,” Rosalinda said, following up on the yelp. “Cut it out.” Her tone was cranky.
“Two days!” Rita said.
“Got it.” Rosalinda groaned. “Let me sleep. It’s not even light outside yet.”
The window in the twins’ bedroom was still a black rectangle. Technically, they didn’t have to start getting ready for school for another half an hour. But Rita didn’t care. In a mere two days, she’d be thirteen years old—which meant, of course, that Rosalinda would also turn thirteen—and being thirteen meant that they could load a bunch of new jewels onto their consoles.
Console regulations were very clear. Up through age twelve, you were only allowed a single jewel; a single jewel limited you to simple data searches or brief text exchanges with your parents. But the moment you turned thirteen—jackpot. You could add two more jewels. With three jewels—jewels being the shorthand designation for the shimmering holograms generated by wrist consoles, embedded in iridescent dots that drifted up from the console face like reverse snowflakes—you could start corresponding with friends. You could access music and social media. The whole world of New Earth would open up for you like a blossoming flower.
It was a totally cool milestone. Rita couldn’t wait. And so she jumped hungrily into each new day, hoping that if she moved fast enough the days, too, would go faster and her thirteenth birthday would arrive that much more quickly.
“Come on,” she declared. “Let’s go!”
Rita popped out of bed. She ran to the window and gazed out. Despite the darkness, she was able to make out a shadowy shape moving quickly along the sidewalk in front of their house. Probably a jogger, she guessed.
Even before the sun rose, Rita could tell it was going to be a glorious day. She could just feel it.
Rosalinda didn’t heed her sister’s command to get up. Instead she groaned again. This time, it was a longer, slower, leave-me-alone kind of groan.
Rita headed toward the closet. Time to get dressed for school. She almost tripped several times as her bare toes bumped into shoes and socks and T-shirts and tennis rackets and toy sailboats and other junk they discarded in a wild rush every night, when they raced in from whatever they were doing and flung themselves into bed—Rosalinda always in the top bunk, Rita in the bottom one—just ahead of the moment when their mom would come in to check on them.
She was always lecturing them about keeping their room picked up. And they tried. They really did. They loved this room; their dad had been a sailor on Old Earth, and he’d added wooden rafters across the ceiling to make it look like the galley of a schooner. If it were humanly possible, they would’ve kept the space tidy.
But there were so many more interesting things to do than clean up their room.
Rita promised herself that she’d do better. She wanted to help her mom. She knew that her parents struggled to pay the bills and to make sure she and Rosalinda had everything they needed; she had heard the murmurs from the living room late at night, when her mom and dad went over their expenses. Rita couldn’t hear the details—and in fact she didn’t want to hear the details—but she knew from the worried sound of her parents’ voices that the conversation was about money. It was always about money. The lack of it, that is.
A burden. I’m a burden.
Rita had been reaching for a shirt in the closet when an odd thought showed up in her head.
If they didn’t have me, they’d be okay. But all I do is cost them money.
She blinked several times. Was she dreaming? She felt a small flicker in the crook of her left elbow. But when she looked down at her arm, she didn’t see anything.
I’m just a stupid nuisance.
The world would be a lot better off without me.
The room was lighter now. Sunrise was here. Rita turned around slowly. To her surprise, Rosalinda hadn’t gone back to sleep. Her sister was sitting up in bed. Rosalinda’s face wore a shocked look. Her eyes were wide. Her lip was quivering.
If we weren’t around, Mom and Dad would have a lot more money. They wouldn’t worry so much. They’d be happy. They’d be free.
The thoughts came like jittery little twitches.
“Rita,” Rosalinda said. Her voice was hushed. She sounded scared. “Are you thinking—?”
“Yeah,” Rita said. “I am. I’m thinking it, too.”
“What is it? Why is this happening?”
Rita shook her head. “I … I don’t know.”
Our parents don’t really love us. How could they? I’m a loser. Both of us are losers. We don’t matter. If we were gone, nobody would miss us. Least of all Mom and Dad.
“It’s got to stop,” Rosalinda said. Her voice had dropped even lower and sounded even more strained. It sounded like a plea that came from the deepest part of her soul. “I can’t stand it, Rita. I can’t stand being a burden.” She clutched the bedsheet in her balled-up fists. She felt her body starting to shake, as if overtaken by a sudden intense chill. But when she looked at her fists, she sa
w they were still. “Please, Rita.”
Nobody cares about us. Nobody. Why should they?
Rita tried to move back toward the bed so that she could take her sister’s hand. So that they could ward off the thoughts together. Fight them as a team. But she couldn’t move. The thoughts blocked her. Those thoughts came in waves now, great dark waves of hatefulness.
Mom and Dad would be so much better off without us. I can see that now.
Rita started to shake. Her shoulders shuddered as if an invisible bully was roughing her up, pushing her around. She was losing control.
But when she looked at her feet, her hands, she saw that her body wasn’t moving at all.
I’m stupid. Stupid and selfish. All I care about is my dumb little birthday.
“Rita?” her sister said. Her voice was little more than a gasp now. “Rita, I can’t get it out of my head. It won’t stop. Why is it screaming at me? Help me, Rita. Please.”
I know what to do.
Rita opened her mouth. She wanted to say something reassuring to Rosalinda, to tell her not to listen to the screaming in her mind. But when she tried to speak, the screaming voice got louder, drowning her out.
I’m ugly. I don’t matter. Nobody likes me. Mom and Dad wish that we would just die. Both of us. So why don’t I do it? I know what to do. Don’t I?
Rita’s brain was made of snakes now. Black, twisting, writhing snakes, with tongues darting and striking, darting and striking. And she knew that Rosalinda’s brain felt the same way, because they’d always pretty much known what the other twin was thinking.
I know what to do. And if I care about Mom and Dad, I’ll do it. I’ll put them out of their misery.
Both girls climbed onto the top bunk.
I know what to do.
“Rosalinda,” Rita said. “It’s time.”
I know what to do.
Rosalinda nodded. “It’s time,” she repeated back to her sister.
Rita tied the bedsheet around her neck. She reached up toward the rafter that ran the length of the ceiling. She tied the other end of the sheet around the rafter. Her dad had taught them how to tie a good, sturdy knot; he knew all about knots.
While Rita was doing that, Rosalinda tied one end of her own bedsheet around her neck. She, too, tied the other end around a rafter.
They shivered. The screams, vivid and high-pitched, clawed at the insides of their skulls. Because they were both hearing them, and because each knew the other one was hearing them too, their agony was doubled.
I KNOW WHAT TO DO.
I KNOW WHAT TO DO.
They stood up, side by side. Sisters.
“Rita?” Rosalinda said. “Do we have to?”
“You know we do,” Rita said.
“Yes,” Rosalinda said.
Rita took her sister’s hand. She hesitated for a second, but then the screaming came barreling at her again, slamming and banging against her brain, destroying everything in its path—all of their hopes, all of their dreams, all of their joy. There would be no thirteenth birthday. There would be no new jewels. There would only be a whirling and terrible voice, echoing forever, shrieking at them, unless they made it stop.
Mom and Dad hate us. They want us dead. We know what to do.
Yes.
* * *
Hand in hand, Rita and Rosalinda jumped off the edge of the bed, hurling themselves into the air. They went up, up, up—they jumped so high, in such perfectly synchronized rhythm, that when their bodies plummeted back down and the sheets stretched taut, anyone listening would have sworn that there’d been only one crisp snap, not two.
8
Ambush
Sometimes, in the privacy of her own mind, she missed the Intercept.
Violet couldn’t admit that to anybody, not even Shura or Kendall. But sometimes she missed it.
She had awakened the morning after her visit to TAP with a deep, insistent feeling that she needed to run. So she pulled on sweats and a hoodie, laced her sneakers, turned off her console, and ran.
And as she ran, she was reminded, with every step, of what wasn’t there anymore: the feeling of the Intercept beneath her feet, like a living, breathing, watchful presence, and she missed it.
She didn’t miss what the Intercept did—spying on people’s feelings, grabbing them, storing them, and redeploying them to control behavior—but she missed the vibration produced by its constant operation. And the way that subtle motion made her feel: protected, somehow. Surrounded and supported by something bigger and more powerful than herself.
From its underground lair at Protocol Hall, the network of computers had branched out beneath the straight silver streets, spreading for mile after mile after mile after mile. As the Intercept went about its frenzied work of collection and deployment, collection and deployment, it had created a small but perceptible ripple. The movement was tiny—it barely riffled the tea in a teacup—but if you paid attention, you always knew it was there.
Now the feeling was gone. The streets of New Earth didn’t move anymore.
They were absolutely still.
And she was alone.
She’d been running more and more often lately, as her detective agency teetered on the brink and the bills kept piling up. She liked to flash past the coolly elegant spires and darkly gleaming towers. Running took her mind off her troubles even more effectively than a crazy night at Redshift did.
Last night was the first time in a long while that she’d stayed home from the club. She needed to review the files on the Bainbridge case that Kendall had sent to her console. And she’d studied some notes sent over by her lawyer. Because she had to show up in court to account for the stupid—no, the very, very, very stupid, not to mention thoughtless and reckless, even if indisputably minor—thing she had done. Even a small fine, given her present financial predicament, could be disastrous.
Dawn had brought a striking mix of shades to the New Earth sky. Looking up as she raced along, Violet picked out ballerina pink and buttercup yellow and the scuffed-up orange of an old basketball, along with skittery dots of gray that looked like the speckles on the underside of a dove’s wing, all swirled together like cotton candy on an invisible stick. The Color Corps engineers over in Farraday who were responsible for creating the daily blend must be in a good mood today. Usually they just switched on the randomness algorithm and one or two colors popped up, but sometimes they got inspired—a little whimsical, even—and did it by hand. You could tell.
The streets were too ordinary to go along with a sky like this one, Violet thought. Too bland. Too firm. They didn’t murmur with magical secrets, which was how she had thought of them as a kid, when the Intercept was in control.
The Intercept wasn’t the only thing she missed, of course. She missed her mother, too, with a whole different universe of intensity. Lucretia Crowley had given her daughter this strong, vigorous body, these powerful legs. She had also passed along her fierce and abiding sense of justice.
Violet was ten years old when her mother died of a fever caught while she was treating patients on Old Earth. Violet remembered her well, and never more so than when she hit the streets of New Earth first thing in the morning, when the sky was coming to life and the air was crisp and the great promise of a new civilization was gloriously evident.
She pictured her mother’s long, wavy hair, the snap and fire in her eyes, the tilt of her chin when she laughed, and the gentle, loving way she would—
What’s that?
Something jerked at the corner of Violet’s eye.
She didn’t slow her pace, but she was on alert now. Her mother’s face slipped out of her thoughts. Whatever she’d spotted had been somewhere off to her right side, just at the edge of her range of vision. It was a … well, a flash. A flash of … well, of something.
Violet’s gaze whipped around as she rapidly took in her surroundings. Before, those surroundings had been a blur. Now she concentrated.
She was still in the business distr
ict of Hawking. The city was an intricate silver forest of immensely slender, terrifically tall, sumptuously sleek-sided structures. The offices were generally empty at this time of day. Most people hadn’t gone to work yet.
Wait.
There it was again. A flash of reflective light between the buildings. Keeping pace with her. Speeding up, slowing down when she did. Turning when she turned.
Violet kept moving, because the worst thing she could do right now would be to tip off her shadow that she’d seen her or him. The best strategy was to fake nonchalance and head for the police station. Pretend to be oblivious. And vulnerable.
But who was it? Who in the world wished her harm? Why would anybody go to the trouble to—
The idea came to her all at once, in a twitch of sudden insight.
Maybe Charlotte Bainbridge is right. Maybe somebody did kill Amelia.
And maybe I’m next.
And maybe I deserve to have something bad happen to me. I’m a loser, right? I’m embarrassing my father. My friends probably don’t really like me and—
Whoa. Where did that come from?
She shook off the negative thoughts and made a sharp right turn, darting across a small brick courtyard that linked the parking lots of two massive office buildings, then scooting through a narrow alley before emerging two streets over from where she’d been. Nobody knew these streets as well as she did.
That’ll show ’em.
* * *
Didn’t work.
Because she was still being followed.
If Violet had doubted that even for an instant, the doubt vanished now. She could sense her pursuer moving as she moved, just to the right of her, hidden by the buildings except for the brief spaces between them. Zigging and zagging, darting in and out.
The street was just deserted enough to make her nervous, even though she was fully capable of taking care of herself. She was in good shape, and she knew how to throw a punch. Kendall had taught her how to defend herself, because she’d been attacked by a gang two years ago during her first trip down to Old Earth. In the aftermath, she had promised herself that she’d never be so silly and weak and ridiculously helpless ever again. That attack had left her bloody and breathless, but she considered it a gift. It showed her how tough she needed to be.
