The Body Electric - Special Edition

by Beth Revis

  I nod, agreeing. “You’ll make it so I don’t know you’re examining me?”

  Ms. White’s emotions bleed through her stony face for just a moment. “Yes,” she says. “I can do that. I can run tests at night, when you’re asleep, or when you’re in reveries.”

  I look down at my hands. “Thank you.”

  “But if you try to leave me,” Ms. White adds in a terrible cold voice, “I will assume you simply cannot be hacked, and I will perform a vivisection. You know what that means?”

  I swallow hard. “I won’t run,” I say.

  “If you don’t do this, I know I won’t be able to trust you, that that boy, Jack, is a distraction I must eliminate.” She stares into my eyes. “It will be easy. I want you to know that. He signed up for the military after you broke his heart. Did you know that? I want you to understand how simple it would be to arrange his death. A little friendly fire, a little accident…”

  “I can do this,” I repeat.

  I open my eyes.

  “Hello dear,” Ms. White says, smiling down at me.

  “Hi!” I grin and start to take off the electrodes.

  “Did you have a nice reverie?”

  A small frown mars my blank face. “I don’t… I don’t remember.”

  “Are you going to see Jack later?” Ms. White asks.

  “Who?” I say.

  I did it.

  Only one person can alter memories.

  Me.

  Only one person could have planted the tracker on Jack, left the tracker program in my private files for me to find him. Only one person could have laid down the groundwork for me to rediscover my own past, the past I erased.

  Me.

  I destroyed my own memories of Jack.

  I did it to save him, to save me. But I’m the one who wiped him from my mind.

  And it didn’t save him, or me.

  seventy-two

  I wake up in the reverie chair with Ms. White of today hanging over me, the restraints on my arms. Behind Ms. White, I see my father, smiling, reminding me that this isn’t real, this is all a hallucination, all one more way to try to manipulate my father’s secrets out of me and into her hands.

  “This isn’t real, either,” I say, and the restraints melt away. I stand.

  “Ella,” Ms. White says, “Don’t you see how much better we can make the world? Give me your father’s formula. If we know how he made you, we can recreate the process, make better cy-clones.”

  And I do see—or rather, I hear. I hear the tiniest quiver in her voice.

  She’s scared of me.

  Despite the bravado, despite her plans, there is one flaw.

  Me.

  She cannot have her perfect cy-clones without me. No one will sign up to become one if all they see is soulless, empty Akilah as an example of what they would become.

  Behind Ms. White, I see my father, smiling, reminding me that this isn’t real, this is all a hallucination, all one more way to try to manipulate my father’s secrets out of me and into her hands.

  We are in a reverie, and I am in control of the dreamscape.

  “My father knew what you were, and he hid his research in the only place he knew you couldn’t get to. Inside of me.”

  “Give it to me!” Ms. White screams, rushing at me.

  But I just shut my eyes.

  Ms. White tricked me into believing a reverie was real. And it was smart of her to make me think that. Because if there’s one thing I can control, it’s reveries.

  I open my eyes. Ms. White stands before me, her face pale. I reach out and touch her forehead. “Time for you to open up to me,” I whisper.

  Her mind fights, but it is no match for me. Her memories spill out around us. Ms. White’s mind swirls with thoughts—some of them no more than nebulous feelings, like guilt or love—some more distinct. Memories of me—as a baby, growing up—flicker in and out, like lightning behind a storm cloud.

  “Did you ever really love me?” I wonder. Images rain down. All those times Ms. White urged me to go to college—part of it was manipulation. But part of it was a wish for me to escape. And when she saw me with Jack, there was, hidden beneath waves of grief and sorrow, a very small part of her that wished she could let me go, that didn’t want to use me in her plot.

  But there is a hollowness inside of her, and when she saw the chance to bridge it with money and power and control, she took it.

  Jack. I can’t save Ms. White—I can’t save Mom or Dad. But I can still save Jack.

  “Time to wake up,” I say, and I slam the heel of my palm against her forehead.

  This is real. I am in the reverie chair from before, and it feels like the dream, but this real. I try to stand, but there are straps here, too, holding me down. I feel my jaw clench. As if mere straps could restrain me.

  I’m not human.

  I’m better.

  I lift my arms, and the straps snap away. Androids, followed by PA Young, pour into the room. They move as one, arms outstretched to hold me down, but my body is programmed with knowledge I’m not aware of. I let it take control. I strike and kick, punch and hurl, and the androids lie around me like more debris.

  PA Young shifts her position, ready to strike me. “What are you doing?” I scream at her. “How can you be on Ms. White’s side with this? You ended the Secessionary War—surely you can’t—”

  She doesn’t speak; she just attacks. I race across the room, yanking out a piece of metal from the debris made when PA Young first broke into the room, and I slam it against her back, making her fall to one knee. I use the momentum to swing up, aiming for her head, but she dodges away, and I just clip her shoulder.

  The sharp metal rips her silk blouse to shreds, slicing through the exposed skin underneath—the skin, and the glint of wire and bone mingled with blood and flesh. Sparks of electricity shoot through the pool of red blood dripping down her arm.

  PA Young curses low under her breath.

  I move instinctively, twisting the metal around her arm, winding it back, and bending it as if it were twine. Before she can move, I rip off a piece of the reverie chair and wrap the steel around her ankles. I may not be able to defeat a cy-clone, but I can at least capture it.

  As I stand panting over the struggling form of the Prime Administrator of the entire Unified Countries global government, Ms. White calmly walks into the room.

  “Even her?” I gasp, pointing.

  “Don’t you remember our talk with her, when you first met her at Triumph Towers? She said everyone has to pay a price for war. That was her price: becoming a cy-clone.”

  I wonder how it happened. Did PA Young volunteer herself for this? Did she allow herself to die, for the chance to be immortal, in its own limited way? Did she know Ms. White would be able to control her like a puppet? Or did Ms. White force her to change?

  “You’re getting better,” Ms. White says, surveying the damage I’ve done. “I did not expect you to wake from that reverie, or do all this. Your father would be proud.”

  I narrow my eyes. She is not allowed to speak of my father, never again.

  She knows I’m a cyborg-clone. She knows that my bones are made of metal, my flesh enhanced with nanobots. She knows I could snap her like a twig.

  But she strolls into the room as if I was as harmless as I once thought myself to be.

  My hands clench around a part of the reverie chair I just awoke from, and the metal gives way, crumpling like tinfoil.

  I will crush her.

  I will watch the life flicker out of her like it faded from the shadow of my mother.

  “It was so much easier when your mother was here,” Ms. White says. “You really did have a blind spot for her. You were willing to stay without question, and you slept so soundly while I did my tests on you every night. We’ll just have to find another way. Eventually, I will discover your secrets. Perhaps a vivisection, as I promised. Perhaps first with that boy you like, just for fun.”

  My fists clench
. “You can go fu—”

  Ms. White cuts me off. “Ella, dear, you know the great thing a computer can do, besides being hacked? It can be controlled.”

  She raises her arm and slides her fingers over her cuffLINK.

  My muscles goes rigid, but my body thrums with some sort of energy I’ve never felt before.

  “I control you, Ella,” Ms. White says. “It will be easier for both of us if you accept this now.”

  I try to shake my head no! But I can’t. I try to run away. But nothing inside me moves without her permission.

  Ms. White sighs, sorrow in her eyes. “I don’t want to do this, darling. You’re like a daughter to me—or, at least, you were, before you became something not quite human. It—it hurts me when you have to be reprogrammed, when we have to modify you into something more compliant.”

  Ms. White stands up. Despite the fact that I am entirely immobile, she draws closer, so that our faces are mere centimeters apart. She stares into my eyes, as if she can see an answer within them. And then she leans back, resignation smeared across her face. When she speaks again, she has the slow drawl of someone who’s hiding her pain behind mockery.

  “It will be tedious if, from now on, I am forced to control you in this way. It hurts you, I know, and it’s extra work for me. And I do care about you, darling, of course I do. Your cooperation will make our future much better. Cyborg-clones that acquiesce have a much better life. Just the same as people that do.”

  I struggle to just open my mouth and shout at her, but I cannot even twitch. My automatic functions—my heartbeat, blinking, breathing—that all happens. But even though I feel as if my heart should be racing, I can feel that it’s not. I wonder if that’s a part of her control too. If she could force it to stop, just with a command from her cuff.

  seventy-three

  “Now, Ella, here’s what’s going to happen,” Ms. White says. “You give me your father’s secrets. And we’ll make sure that the formula works. Representative Belles still has a son—let’s try it on him. And when the formula works and you’ve given me what I need, I will let you go. And your little boyfriend. And I’ll even give you enough money to leave this godforsaken island and do whatever it is you want with your life.”

  Before I can say anything, she adds, “Or, I can kill your little boyfriend in front of you, and you can do all this for me anyway.”

  No, I won’t tell you anything, I won’t, and you can’t make me.

  But, of course, she can.

  “Remember, dear,” Ms. White says. “I control you.”

  Something clicks in my mind. If she can control me, she wouldn’t have needed all the subterfuge and lies. She wouldn’t have already tried to trick this information out of me. She wouldn’t be afraid right now.

  All Ms. White is, is lies and manipulation.

  She is trying to control me with fear, because she cannot control me any other way.

  My eyes open wide. They burn as if they are on fire—no, as if they are made of fire. Eyes are the window to the soul. Something of the flames inside me must show, because Ms. White scrambles up and takes several steps away from me.

  I turn my head to face her.

  Ms. White’s fingers tap frantically on her cuffLINK, but to no avail.

  She no longer has control.

  “I know they’re going to try to use you,” Dad whispers. “I’ve done what I can to make sure that I can save you. All the technology they forced me to make… I gave it a fail-safe.” He looks into my eyes. “You.”

  I blink at him. I’m so confused. There’s me, dead, and there’s me here, and there’s him telling me things I don’t understand.

  “Computers are faster than humans,” Dad continues. “Steel is stronger than bone. And I made sure your brain cannot be controlled. You bypass their tech. They don’t know it, but you do.” He laughs softly. “There’s so much they don’t know. They didn’t know I knew they were making a cloned version of you, that they wanted to use you as leverage to get my formula. Well, so they have it now. But I have something better.”

  He leans down, his mouth inches from my ear. I feel warmth encircle me—he’s hugging me.

  “I have you. For this moment, at least, I have you.”

  When he pulls away, there are tears his eyes. “You’re the key to it all. You are stronger than them. You cannot be used by them. You can break the system. If they ever try to make you do something, I’ll make sure you find a way to access your advanced tech, so you can—”

  “Dr. Shepherd?” Ms. White’s voice calls from the far side of the room. Footsteps echo throughout the room as she comes closer.

  “You are the queen bee,” Dad whispers just before Ms. White pushes him gently away from me, and her smiling face fills my vision.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake and not dead, Ella. I suppose that means the formula and procedures Dr. Shepherd showed us were legitimate?” She glances at Dad. “I must say, I’m glad you didn’t let her die. It was such an inconvenience to make her cyborg-clone without you finding out.”

  “Now you know how I did it,” Dad says, straightening his shoulders and staring Ms. White down. “Let my daughter go. She and my wife have nothing to do with this. You have me.”

  Ms. White runs her finger along the barrel of the gun. “Yes, but now I don’t need you,” she says. She glares back at her colleague. “Gather up any of his little seditious friends and bring them here. We’ll want to make this look like an accident.” She turns her attention and the gun back to Dad’s face.

  “This is because you took Rose from me,” she says, no emotion in her voice.

  The gun blast is too loud and too long and I’m screaming, the sound piercing through my eardrums—

  The silence in the vacuum of the absent scream reverberates in my mind as I stare at Ms. White. She looks panicked and flustered, her fingers skimming across the surface of her cuff.

  That was the last gift of my father. Because of him, my life was taken away. Because of him, control over myself is solely mine. Ms. White cannot control me.

  I take a step forward.

  “Stay back!” Ms. White shouts, her voice trembling with fear.

  It’s so unusual for me to see her afraid.

  And empowering to know I caused that terror.

  “You killed me,” I say. “You killed my father.”

  “Ella, dear…”

  Dad was right. His technology is far more destructive than any bomb. Not because of who it can kill, but because of what it can destroy without killing.

  “Stay back!” Ms. White screams again as I take two more steps closer. She’s still trying to use the controls on her cuff; she cannot believe the truth that I’m unaffected by them. But as I grow closer, her eyes narrow. Ms. White turns on me, her right arm raised, and she seizes my throat.

  And then I remember. Ms. White isn’t a cy-clone, but she does have one cyborg part: an arm. An arm she lost in the Secessionary War, saving my mother.

  My eyes bulge, and my mouth opens in a pitiful mewling sound. I gasp for breath. I don’t need breath—I proved that when I hid under the boats in the Foqra District—but it’s uncomfortable now, and it hurts, and I wonder if Ms. White’s cyborg arm is enough to crush my cy-clone throat.

  I feel the light flickering in my eyes.

  I cannot let her win.

  I channel all my strength into my arm, all my hope, all my power. And I slam my hand against Ms. White’s arm, using all the force I have within me.

  It snaps like a twig, breaking off in one swift motion.

  Wires sparking electricity dangle from her elbow as bio-gel leaks from the place where her arm was. Ms. White backs away, screaming in agony. I use my hands to untangle her fingers from my throat and throw the piece of arm on the ground.

  Ms. White has disengaged her cyborg arm from the shoulder, which also disengages it from her nervous system. But she is pale and shaken, still feeling the phantom pains of the severed arm. She leans against the door
frame, panting, her hair sweaty against her skin, her eyes glassy.

  I use her pain to my advantage, shoving past her and racing toward the steps. I have to find Jack, I have to escape—somehow.

  seventy-four

  “No!” Ms. White screams, as I lunge away. I have little doubt as to what she’ll do with me. Transfer me into another version of myself, wipe my memory again, so I’ll be complacent. I’ll spend the rest of my life just like I spent the last year without Jack. Blindly doing what Ms. White says while she secretly pumps me full of tracker bots and does tests on me while I’m in reveries or asleep, trying to break into my mind as if it were nothing but a locked box.

  My desperation to avoid this fate makes me stronger. I rip around the steps, taking them four at a time. Ms. White grabs at me, but I leverage my body weight against my attacker, throwing her off me and down a flight of stairs.

  I am deeply aware of the thuds of her footsteps on the stairs behind me, just out of reach.

  I wrench open the door and race down the lobby. I can make it. I can escape.

  But androids fill the lobby. Their dead and empty faces turn to me as one, and they start to march toward the stairs, toward me, their footsteps heavy, making the walls vibrate with their even rhythm. I turn on my heel, but Ms. White’s right there, so close that her fingernails leave long, jagged scratches on my arm. I lunge for the stairs again, going to the only place I have left—my home. I race up the stairs, slamming my hand against the lock—it doesn’t work; I have a different cuff now, a different ID—but I kick the door down, something I wouldn’t have been able to do with simple human strength.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. I was blindly running. But as I turn and see Ms. White and an army of androids standing in the doorway, I realize: I’ve trapped myself.