by Julia Keller
Genius might have a little something to do with it, too, Violet thought. Shura Lu and Kendall Mayhew are the two smartest people on New Earth, and they both happen to be my friends.
Sometimes Violet had the distinct impression that she was a total slacker.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “But I need to ask you about a case I’m working on.”
“A case.” Shura’s words were superficially neutral. Violet knew better. They weren’t neutral at all; they were negative.
“Yeah,” Violet said. She didn’t want to argue again about her choice of profession, so she ignored her friend’s tone. “A suicide. Well, three of them. Everybody else on New Earth knows about it, apparently, except for you. The first victim was named Amelia Bainbridge. Her mother hired me to find out what really happened.”
“She hired you?”
Violet started to send forth a snappy retort but stopped herself. She deserved that. She wasn’t exactly a superstar in the detective world.
“Yeah,” Violet said. “Me. And now there’s been a second incident. Two little girls. They hung themselves in their bedroom. So I was hoping you could tell me what to look for. Any similarities that might show up in the autopsies.”
“Why?”
“Well, Amelia’s mother doesn’t think it was suicide. She says her daughter would never have killed herself. So maybe the other two weren’t, either.”
“What would you expect a mother to say?”
A beat. “So you don’t think I should’ve taken the case?”
“I’m just saying that she’s a mom. She might not have known everything that was going on in her daughter’s life.” Shura looked directly at Violet, so directly that it made Violet uncomfortable. “Sometimes,” Shura added, “you think you know somebody really, really well—and then their behavior can surprise you.”
Violet understood what Shura was trying to say to her, but she couldn’t get into any of that now. They both had too much to do.
“So there’s nothing I should look for in the autopsies? Nothing that might be suspicious?”
Shura hesitated. She was a very good doctor. Violet knew that. Her friend lived in the world of facts, and that was what Violet needed.
“Well, there are a couple of possibilities,” Shura said.
“Like?”
“Like puncture marks in the skin. Those would indicate that they might have been injected with something. And maybe that something induced them to harm themselves.”
“Right. Anything else?”
“I’d have the lab check the hair.”
“The hair? Why would that matter? Would having a bad hair day cause somebody to end it all?”
“No,” Shura replied patiently. “But if you’re poisoned, traces of it can wind up in your hair follicles. Certain kinds of poison might make somebody behave irrationally.”
“Wouldn’t the police lab check for that, anyway?”
“Not if they think it’s suicide. They’re busy. Why bother?”
“Got it,” Violet said. “Anything else?”
“I’d try to find some links between the victims. If you really don’t think it was suicide and somebody killed them and then made it look like suicide, the question is, why pick these particular people? Was it random? Who stood to gain from their deaths?”
“Right.”
“And maybe it all ends now. With three deaths.”
“Maybe.”
They were silent for a moment. The only sound in the lab was the slow idle of the TechRobs’ power cells, and the occasional pop! when a bubble of liquid inside a beaker on the lab bench rose to the rim and disintegrated.
“I hope you solve your case,” Shura said. “I hope you can help the girl’s mom—and the other parents, too—find some peace.”
“So you’re wishing me luck? Even though you think it’s a wild-goose chase?”
“I’m wishing you luck because I think it’s a wild-goose chase.” Shura smiled. For just a brief flicker of an instant, the old Shura was there again: funny, sincere, good-hearted Shura. The Shura whom Violet had known since they met on the very first day of their very first New Earth kindergarten class. The Shura whose paintings could make Violet cry—and make her think, too.
And then the distance between them returned. The warm moment winked away as quickly as that air bubble on the rim of the beaker.
They weren’t the people they used to be. They were growing apart, and nothing could stop it.
“Take care of yourself,” Shura said.
“I will.” Those were the words Violet used, but it’s not what she was thinking.
What she was thinking was this:
Change can be a real bitch sometimes.
She also realized something else. With all the excitement in her life since yesterday, she’d forgotten about Rez’s suspicion that someone was trying to resurrect the Intercept.
No word back from him. So it was a false alarm. Right?
10
Wendell’s End
Twitch.
Wendell Prokop squinted. He coughed. His head felt funny inside. Actually, it felt like five different kinds of funny.
He thought that maybe an ant had crawled in his ear and was dancing. Or maybe the ant was just rooting around, looking for whatever it was that ants generally spent their time looking for. Other ants, probably. Sexy ones.
Twitch.
This was really messing with his lunch break. He sat at his office desk, with wrappers and an empty soda can littering the top in a ragged little half circle. He was all alone, but that was a good thing, because based on what he was going to do next, he figured he’d look kind of weird, and he would’ve been embarrassed if anybody had been there to witness it.
Wendell took the heel of his hand and smacked it twice against the side of his head. That, he hoped, would show the ant who was boss. Or at least scramble his brain cells enough to make the funny twitching feeling go away.
He didn’t really believe the ant theory. It was pretty far-fetched to think that an ant could end up in his brain while he was finishing his shift at transport logistics.
He had three hours to go before he clocked out. Then maybe he could meet a few friends at Redshift tonight for a beer. That ought to make his head feel right. Wendell had just turned eighteen, the legal drinking age on New Earth, and he intended to make the most of his newfound freedom.
Twitch.
He used the heel of his other hand to pound on the opposite side of his head. He thought maybe he could balance things out.
Twitch.
Wendell put his head down on the desk; his forehead hit the metal with a dull thwunk. He closed his eyes. He rolled his forehead back and forth. Then he quickly jerked his head back up again. Dizziness swept over him. He felt like he might slide right out of his chair. Just ooze on down to the checkerboard tile floor.
Twitch.
Before this stupid twitching started, Wendell had been bored. There wasn’t much to do around here anymore, so he’d ordered a pizza. The Delivery Robot had come and gone without a word a few minutes ago, which was fine with Wendell. Like he wanted to hear preprogrammed pleasantries from some DevRob.
Being bored was a new thing in this job. It marked a huge change from two years ago, when—for a brief time—the main launching station for the transport pods was just about the busiest place on New Earth.
Shortly after he’d ordered the demise of the Intercept, President Crowley had opened the borders. Great throngs of Old Earth people who had been denied entry for years were invited in. Immigrants arrived from Old Earth in a constant stream, and each newcomer had to be thoroughly vetted, processed, issued an ID, matched up with an occupation, and then assigned to one of the six cities of New Earth.
During that period, a thousand metal desks spread out across that checkerboard floor here in the processing division. Each new arrival would step up to one of those desks, take a seat, and begin the journey to becoming a citizen of New Earth. Thus it was
a happy place, as well as a fantastically jam-packed and rackety one.
Not anymore.
Wendell’s desk was the only desk left. And he hadn’t processed a single immigrant from Old Earth in a month and a half. All of his colleagues had been assigned to other jobs or let go. Staffing levels had been slashed again and again, because by now, everyone on Old Earth who wanted to relocate to New Earth had done so. The only people left on Old Earth were prisoners serving out their paroles or scientists who were conducting experiments on the decaying planet. Or a few rogue souls who liked solitude and a rugged life. A life of deprivation and hardship.
But Wendell still had a job. Not because he was smart or hardworking. He wasn’t either one of those things. What he was, though, was lucky. He kept his job because his mother, Arianna Prokop, was a big shot in the government. She used her influence to keep him employed, because she didn’t want him hanging out in their apartment all day, doing nothing—which is what he’d be most likely doing, if he didn’t have this job.
Here, at least he was getting paid for hanging out all day and doing nothing. The thought made him grin.
Twitch.
The grin faded. By this point, the funny-feeling twitch was more than just annoying. It was starting to hurt. He looked down at the inside of his left arm. Had he seen something there? Probably not. Probably it was just his imagination.
Anyway, he needed to focus on his head, not his arm.
Twitch.
Twitch.
It felt like it was coming from the inside of his head. Weird. He blinked rapidly.
Twitch.
Now the thing, whatever it was, had burrowed even deeper into his brain. He felt a hot, curved finger of intensity prying at the base of his skull, digging and twisting, like somebody trying to peel an orange.
He thought about calling his mother. Should he do that? If he did do that, what would he say? Um, Mom? I’ve got this, um, funny twitch in my head, and I think I’m going nuts. Naturally, she would assume he’d been drinking in the middle of the workday. He’d be in big trouble. Grounded for a month. He wouldn’t be allowed to go to Redshift. He wouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere except here, to his stupid job in the stupid transport sector. Boring as hell.
Eighteen years old and my mom still treats me like a little boy.
The thought had just jumped into his brain. He had no idea where it had come from. It didn’t come from him, because even though it was true, he never let himself think that way. It was too depressing. And way too embarrassing.
Eighteen years old. And she’d probably tuck me in at night, too, if I asked her to. Like a little boy begging his mommy.
Where the hell did that come from?
People think you suck your thumb. They think you’ve got a special blanket that you sleep with.
This was ridiculous. Why was he thinking like this? These thoughts were humiliating. He was blushing. The heat rose in his cheeks. At the same time, he felt a quick jab in the crook of his left elbow. When he looked at the spot, he could swear he’d seen a small blue flash.
And then he forgot all about cheeks and elbows and flashes, because the voice in his head was screaming even louder now.
Baby boy. Baby boy. Look at the baby boy.
He couldn’t breathe. His throat was tight, so tight. With two frantic fingers, he dug at the collar of his shirt, digging and pulling, wondering why the collar was—all at once—cutting off his breathing.
Eighteen years old, and I do what my mommy tells me to. Where’s your widdle stuffed bear, Wendell? Widdle Wendell.
He had to tell somebody what it felt like. He had to leave a message, like a trail of bread crumbs … or even one bread crumb. Just one.
He grabbed a slip of paper and a fat yellow pencil, and he scrawled a word:
SCREAMING
It was the only word he could think of because his head was filling up with the screaming, like a pool filling up with water. There wasn’t room for anything else in there. He tore himself away from his desk. He lurched and he staggered across the checkerboard floor. He dug so fiercely at his shirt collar with frantic scrabbling fingers that he scratched his neck, drawing blood. He tripped, falling face-first onto the tile. He picked himself up and hurled himself forward.
Widdle Wendell.
I’m Widdle Wendell. Baby boy.
The supply cabinets along the far wall had once overflowed importantly with massive stacks of equipment required to process thousands of immigrants as they entered New Earth. All of that hardware had been moved to other offices in other administrative portals. Now the “supplies” consisted of a few scruffy cubbyholes crammed with orphaned cords and useless lengths of wire and stubby pencils and rusty scissors—old-fashioned gear shed by newly arrived Old Earth citizens who didn’t want to take it with them into their new lives.
Poor Widdle Wendell.
He had to make the screaming stop. He had to claw it out of his head, stab it, kill it, rip it apart. In a desperate frenzy, he grabbed at the biggest pair of rusty scissors. His hands were too slick with sweat, though, and he ended up knocking them onto the floor. Panting and sobbing, he leaped at the scissors, going down on all fours like a dog ravenous for a scrap of food, his knees skidding across the slick tile until he could lurch forward and—finally!—he had the scissors firmly in his grip.
Baby boy.
Die, baby boy. Widdle Wendell wants to die.
With the scissors in hand, he found himself overwhelmed by an immense feeling of relief. Pure, dazzling, anticipatory relief. Because now he had the means to end his torment. He held the answer. He could get rid of the screaming voice in his head. He could make it shut up. He didn’t have to feel this way anymore—the shame, the certainty that he was a loser, a pathetic moron, a miserable and hopeless failure. People laughed at him. They had always laughed at him and they always would laugh at him. They would never not be laughing at him. He could hear it right now, that horrible laughter; his head echoed with the hoots, the jeers, the snickers, the cackles.
And the screaming.
But he could stop it. He had the power to stop it. He could make the screaming go away, and once the screaming went away, the laughter would go, too, the horrible laughter. He would be free of the shame and the grief and the guilt and the chaos roaring in his head.
Baby boy wants to die.
Die, Widdle Wendell.
Bye-bye, baby boy.
One vicious blow, driving the points deep into his heart, and he could end the torture and the screaming. Forever.
So that is exactly what he did.
11
Statute No. 293874-A-392876
I’m guilty.
She actually was guilty, but that’s not why Violet’s mind rang like a thumped tambourine with the mantra I’m guilty I’m guilty I’m guilty the moment she crossed the magnificent, ostentatiously ornate threshold of the NEJC—the New Earth Judicial Center.
The place would make anybody confess to anything, up to and including ritual torture and mass murder. It was that intimidating. And grand. And spectacular. Violet always had the same thought each time she glimpsed it after any interval, long or short: The NEJC seemed specifically designed to make human beings feel as puny and powerless and pitiable as possible.
She’d seen pictures of the courthouses on Old Earth, from centuries ago, and the planners of New Earth apparently wanted to channel all that stately spaciousness, all that lofty, chilly magnificence, the kind that could leave people humbled and afraid.
And that could, quite frankly, make you want to pee your pants.
The columns ranging across the front were massive and cream-colored, held in place by elegant square plinths at top and bottom. The double doors were a dull, cold steel; decorative buttons of a darker hue had been hammered in symmetrical rows across the wide surface, like medals spreading across the chest of a decorated general. Once you opened those doors, the lobby flooring—ginormous squares of gray, separated by thin ribbons of bl
ack grout—looked terrifyingly vast and also menacingly insubstantial, as if it might drop away beneath your feet at any second, plunging you toward a fiery doom.
Prison floors are cuddlier than this, Violet told herself with a shudder as she hurried to keep up with her lawyer, Rachel Reznik.
Her trial was scheduled for one P.M. and it was not yet noon. But Rachel believed in getting everywhere early, and she had made Violet promise to show up when she told her to. The lawyer—black suit, black boots, spiky black hair—had greeted Violet out front in the long shadows of those colossal columns and delivered a rapid-fire series of instructions, her voice the aural embodiment of bullet points.
“First, turn off your console,” Rachel said. “This judge hates interruptions. If she hears so much as a whisper from a single rising jewel, she’ll put you in jail. For the rest of your life.”
Rachel was probably exaggerating—the trial, after all, was for a minor infraction—but who knew? Violet switched off her console.
“And once the trial starts,” Rachel went on, “don’t say a word unless I tell you to. Not a word.”
With Rachel marching in the lead, they entered the maze of bright, high-ceilinged corridors. Violet struggled to keep up. That was more than a little bit amusing, because her lawyer—in addition to being fiercely smart and ferociously well-educated—had an attribute that tended to eclipse the first two:
Rachel Reznik was eleven years old.
Like her brother, Steve, Rachel was a dazzling prodigy. She’d breezed through the first several years of New Earth schooling until her teachers finally realized that she knew a lot more than they did—a lot more, in fact, than they ever would know—and gave up, assigning her to tutors at New Earth University. She’d graduated at ten. Law school took her another six months. And now here she was, still too young to vote in New Earth elections or drive a car on New Earth streets but very capable of rescuing screwups like Violet from the clutches of the New Earth judicial system.
