Skin Deep

by Brandon Sanderson

  On occasion, a job comes along that requires extra effort, and I need the attention of a large number of aspects. That’s why I made the White Room. Blank walls, floor, and ceiling painted the same uniform matte white; smooth, cool surfaces, unbroken save for lights in the ceiling. Soundproofed and calm, here there were no distractions—nothing to focus on but the dozens of imaginary people who flooded in through the double doors.

  I don’t consciously choose how my aspects look, but something about me seems to appreciate variety. Lua, a Samoan, was a beefy fellow with a vast smile. He wore sturdy cargo pants and a jacket covered in pockets—appropriate for a survivalist. Mi Won, Korean, was our surgeon and field medic. Ngozi—forensic investigation—was a six-foot-four black woman, while Flip was squat, fat, and often tired.

  It went on, and on, and on. They’d joined me slowly, one case at a time, as I’d needed to learn some new skill—packing my overcrowded brain with an increasingly diverse array of proficiencies. They acted just like real people would, chatting in a variety of languages. Audrey looked disheveled; she’d obviously been napping. Clive and Owen wore golfing outfits, and Clive carried a driver over his shoulder. I hadn’t realized that Owen had finally gotten him to pick up the sport. Kalyani, decked out in a bright red and gold silk sari, rolled her eyes as J.C. called her “Achmed” again, but I could tell he was growing fond of her. It was tough not to be fond of Kalyani.

  “Mister Steve!” Kalyani said. “How was your date? Fun, I hope?”

  “It was a step forward,” I said, looking around the room. “Have you seen Armando?”

  “Oh! Mister Steve.” The diminutive Indian woman took me by the arm. “Some of us tried to get him to come down. He refused. He says he is on a hunger strike until his throne is returned to him.”

  I winced. Armando was getting worse. Nearby, Ivy gave me a pointed look.

  “Mister Steve,” Kalyani said, “you should have my husband Rahul join us.”

  “I’ve explained this before, Kalyani. Your husband is not one of my aspects.”

  “But Rahul is very helpful,” Kalyani said. “He’s a photographer, and since Armando is so unhelpful lately . . .”

  “I’ll consider it,” I said, which seemed to placate her. Kalyani was new, and didn’t yet know how all this worked. I couldn’t create new aspects at will, and though many of my aspects spoke of their lives—their families, friends, and hobbies—I never actually saw any of this. Good thing too. Keeping track of forty-seven hallucinations is tough enough. If I had to imagine their in-laws too, I just might end up going crazy.

  Tobias cleared his throat, trying to draw everyone’s attention. That proved to be futile before the jabbering hoard of aspects; getting together at once was too novel, and they were enjoying it. So J.C. pulled out his sidearm and shot once into the air.

  The room immediately silenced, then was filled with the sounds of aspects grousing and complaining as they rubbed their ears. Tobias stepped out of the way of a small trail of dust that floated down from above.

  I glared at J.C. “You realize, genius, that now I’m going to have to imagine a hole in the ceiling every time we come in here?”

  J.C. gave a little shrug, holstering his weapon. He at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

  Tobias patted me on the arm. “I’ll patch the hole,” he told me, then turned to the now-silenced crowd. “A corpse has been stolen. We have been employed to recover it.”

  Ivy walked among the aspects, delivering sheets of paper.

  “You’ll find the details explained here,” Tobias continued. Though they all knew what I did, sometimes going through the motions of delivering information was better for us all. “It is important you understand that lives are at stake. Perhaps many lives. We need a plan, and quickly. Get to work.”

  Ivy finished distributing the sheets, ending next to me. She handed me the last group of papers.

  “I already know the details,” I said.

  “Your sheet is different,” Ivy said. “It’s everything you know about I3’s rival companies.”

  I glanced it over, and was surprised at how much information it contained. I’d spent the ride here pondering the things Yol had told me, and hadn’t read his briefings beyond glancing at the names of the three companies he thought most likely to have stolen the corpse. Well, information about each company was apparently tucked in the back of my brain. I flipped through the pages, thoughtful. I hadn’t done any research on biotech companies since Ignacio had . . . left us. I’d assumed that knowledge like this would have gone with him.

  “Thanks,” I said to Ivy.

  “No problem.”

  My aspects spread through the White Room, each starting to work in his or her own way. Kalyani sat on the floor beside a wall and took out a bright red marker. Dylan paced. Lua sidled up to whomever was closest and started a conversation. Most wrote their ideas, using the walls like whiteboards. Some sketched as they wrote, others had a linear progression of ideas, others kept writing things and crossing them out.

  I read through Ivy’s pages to refresh my memory, then dug into the material Yol had given me. This included the coroner’s report, with pictures of the dead man who did indeed look very dead. Liza herself had filled out the report. Might need to visit her, unfortunately.

  Once done reading, I strolled through the room looking over each aspect’s work, Tobias at my side. Some aspects focused on whether or not Yol was playing us. Others—like Ivy—extrapolated from what we knew about Panos, trying to decide where they thought he’d be most likely to hide the data key. Still others worked on the problem of the virus.

  After one circuit through the room, I leaned back against the wall and picked up the larger stack of papers Yol had given me—the one that contained the record of Panos’s web and email interactions over the last few months. It was thick, but this time I didn’t worry about paying conscious attention to what I was reading. I just wanted to do a quick speed read to dump it into my brain so the aspects could play with it.

  That still took over an hour. By the time I stood up, stretching, much of the white space in the room was filled with theories, ideas, and—in Marinda’s case—large floral patterns and an impressively detailed sketch of a dragon. I clasped my hands behind my back and did another circuit of the room, encouraging those who had gotten bored, asking questions about what they’d written, breaking up a few arguments.

  In the midst of it I passed Audrey, who was writing her comments in the middle of the air before her, using her finger instead of a pen.

  I stopped and raised an eyebrow at her. “Taking liberties, I see.”

  Audrey shrugged. Self-described as “curvaceous,” she had long dark hair and a pretty face. For an expert in handwriting analysis, her penmanship was awful.

  “There wasn’t space left on the wall,” Audrey said.

  “I’m sure,” I said, looking at her hovering text. A second later a pane of glass appeared in the room where she had been writing, making it seem like she’d been writing on glass all along. I felt a headache coming on.

  “Oh, that’s no fun,” she said, folding her arms.

  “It is what must be, Audrey,” I said. “There are rules.”

  “Rules you made up.”

  “Rules we all live by,” I said, “for our own good.” I frowned, reading what she’d written. “Biochemistry equations? Since when have you been interested in that?”

  She shrugged. “I figured that somebody ought to do a little studying on the topic, and I had the time, since you pointedly refuse to imagine me a pet.”

  I rested my fingers on the pane of glass, looking over her cramped notes. She was trying to figure out the method Panos had used to create the virus. There were large gaps in her diagrams, however—breaks that looked as if they’d been ripped free of the writing. What was left went barely beyond basic chemistry.

  “It’s not going to work, Audrey,” I said. “This just isn’t something we can do anymore.”
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br />   “Shouldn’t it still be in there, somewhere?”

  “No. It’s gone.”

  “But—”

  “Gone,” I said firmly.

  “You are one messed-up person.”

  “I’m the sanest one in this room.”

  “Technically,” she said, “you’re also the most insane.”

  I ignored the comment, squatting down beside the pane of glass, inspecting some other notations she’d made on other topics. “Searching for patterns in the things Panos wrote online?”

  “I thought there might be hidden messages in his forum posts,” Audrey explained.

  I nodded. When I’d studied handwriting analysis—and, in doing so, created Audrey—I’d done a little tangential research into cryptography. The two disciplines moved in the same circles, and some of the books I’d read had described decoding messages by noticing intentional changes in handwriting, such as a writer crossing some of their Ts at a different slant to convey hidden information.

  That meant Audrey had some small cryptography expertise. More than any of the rest of us did. “This could be useful,” I said, tapping the pane of glass.

  “Might be more useful,” she noted, “if I—you—had any real understanding of cryptography. Do you have time to download some more books, perhaps?”

  “You just want to go on more missions,” I said, standing.

  “Are you kidding? You get shot at on those missions.”

  “Only once in a while.”

  “Often enough. I’m not so comfortable with being imaginary that I want to see you dead on the ground. You’re literally my whole world, Steve-O.” She paused. “Though, to be honest, I’ve always been curious what would happen if you took LSD . . .”

  “I’ll see what I can do about the cryptography,” I said. “Continue with the analysis of his forum posts. Stop with the chemistry sham.”

  She sighed, but reached out and started to erase the equations with her sleeve. I walked away, pulling out my phone and bringing up some books on cryptography. If I studied further, would I create another aspect? Or would Audrey really acquire the ability, as she implied? I wanted to say the first was more likely, but Audrey—as the most self-aware of all my aspects—got away with things I wouldn’t have expected.

  Tobias joined me as I sorted through the volumes available electronically.

  “Report?” I asked him.

  “General consensus is that this technology is viable,” Tobias said, “and the threat is real, though Mi Won wants to think more about the effects of dumping rampant DNA strains into the body’s muscles. J.C. says we’ll want to confirm independently that I3 is in lockdown and that the feds are really involved. That will tell us a great deal about how honest Mister Chay is being with us.”

  “Good idea. What’s that contact we have at Homeland Security?”

  “Elsie,” Tobias said. “You found her cat.”

  Yes, her cat. Not all of my missions involve terrorists or the fate of the world. Some are far more simple and mundane. Like locating a teleporting cat.

  “Give her a call,” I said absently. “See if she’ll confirm for us what Yol said about contacting the authorities.”

  Tobias stopped beside me. “Call her?”

  I looked up from my screen, then blushed. “Right. Sorry. I’ve been talking to Audrey.” She tended to throw me off-balance.

  “Ah, dearest Audrey,” Tobias said. “I sincerely think she must be some kind of compensating factor in your psychology, a way to blow off a little steam, so to speak. Genius is often accompanied by quirks of the mind. Why, Nikola Tesla had an arbitrary, and baffling, aversion to pearls of all things. He’d send people away who came to him wearing them, and it is said . . .”

  He continued on. I relaxed to the sound of his voice, choosing a book on advanced cryptography. Tobias eventually wound back around to his report on what the aspects had determined. “This brings us to our next course of action,” he said. “Owen’s suggestion is perhaps the most relevant, and Ivy won’t be able to complete her psychological analysis unless we know more about the subject. Beginning by visiting Panos’s family is advised. From there, Ngozi needs more information from the coroner. We may want to go there next.”

  “Reverse those,” I said. “It’s . . . what, three in the morning?”

  “Six.”

  “Already?” I said, surprised. I didn’t feel that tired. The engagement of a new mission, a puzzle to solve, kept me alert. “Well, still. I feel more comfortable about visiting a coroner office this early than I do about waking Panos’s family. Liza gets to work at . . . what, seven?”

  “Eight.”

  So I had time to kill. “What leads do we have on the corporations who might be behind this?”

  “J.C. has some thoughts. He wants to talk to you.”

  I found him leaning against the wall near where Ivy was working; he was chattering away and generally distracting her. I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. “Tobias said you have something for me.”

  “Our assassin,” he said. “Zen Rigby.”

  “Yes, and?” J.C. couldn’t have any new information on her—he only knew what I knew, and we’d dredged that well already.

  “I’ve been thinking, Skinny,” J.C. said. “Why did she show up when you were on your date?”

  “Because her employers knew Yol was likely to go to me.”

  “Yeah, but why start surveillance on you that early? Look, they have the body, right?”

  “So we assume.”

  “Therefore, the reason to watch you is to tail you and see if you find the data key. There was no reason to watch you before Yol arrived. It tipped their hand, you see? They should have waited until you were called in to I3.”

  I chewed on that for a minute. We liked to make fun of J.C., but the truth was, he was one of my most practical aspects. A lot of them spent their days dreaming and thinking. J.C. kept me alive.

  “It does seem odd,” I agreed. “But what does it mean?”

  “It means we don’t have all the facts,” J.C. said. “Zen might have been trying to bug us, for instance, hoping we’d go to I3 and reveal information.”

  I looked at him sharply. “Wardrobe change?”

  “Good place to start,” he said. “But there are a host of other reasons she could have been there so early. Perhaps she’s employed by a third company that knows something is up with I3, but doesn’t quite know what. Or maybe she’s not involved in this case at all.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t,” he agreed. “But let’s tread lightly, eh? Zen is dangerous. I ran across her a couple of times in black ops missions. She left corpses, sometimes operatives—sometimes just innocent bystanders.”

  I nodded.

  “You’ll want to carry a sidearm,” J.C. said. “You realize that if it comes to a confrontation, I won’t be able to shoot her.”

  “Because of past familiarity?” I said, giving him an out. I didn’t like to push him to confront what he was—instead offering reasons why, despite being my bodyguard, he could never actually interact with anyone we met.

  Except that one time when he had done just that.

  “Nah,” J.C. said. “I can’t shoot her because I’m not really here.”

  I started. Had he just . . . ? “J.C.,” I said. “This is a big step for you.”

  “Nah, I’ve got this figured out. That Arnaud guy, he’s pretty smart.”

  “Arnaud?” I looked across the room toward the slender, balding Frenchman who was our newest addition.

  “Yeah,” J.C. said, hand on my shoulder. “He has this theory, see. That we’re not figments, or whosits, or whatever crazy term you feel like using at the moment. He said . . . well, it’s a lot of nerd talk, but it means I’m a real boy for sure. I’m just not here.”

  “Is that so?” I wasn’t certain what to think of this.

  “Yup,” J.C. said. “You should hear what he has to say. Hey, chrome-dome!”


  Arnaud pointed at himself, then hustled over as J.C. waved. J.C. put his hand around the diminutive Frenchman, as if they were best friends—the gesture seemed to make Arnaud distinctly uncomfortable. It was a little like the cat buddying up to the mouse.

  “Let him have it,” J.C. said.

  “It? What it are you speaking of?” Arnaud spoke with a smooth French accent, like butter melting over a browned game hen.

  “You know,” J.C said. “The things you said about us?”

  Arnaud adjusted his spectacles. “Well, um, you see, in quantum physics we talk about possibilities. One interpretation says that dimensions are infinite, and everything that can happen, has happened. It seems to follow if this is true, then each of us aspects somewhere has existed in some dimension or realm of possibility as a real person. A curious thought, would you not agree, Étienne?”

  “Curious indeed,” I said. “It—”

  “So I’m real,” J.C. interjected. “The smart guy just said it.”

  “No, no,” Arnaud said. “I merely indicated that it is likely that somewhere, in another place and time, there really is a person who matches—”

  J.C. shoved him aside and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, turning me away from Arnaud. “I’ve got it figured out, Skinny. We’re all from this other place, see. And when you need some help, you reach out and snatch us. You’re some kind of physics wizard.”

  “A . . . physics wizard?”

  “Yup. And I’m no Navy SEAL. I’ve just got to accept that.” He paused. “I’m an Interdimensional Time Ranger.”

  I looked at him, grinning.

  But he was dead serious.

  “J.C.,” I said. “That’s as ridiculous as Owen’s ghost theory.”

  “No it’s not,” J.C. said, stubborn. “Look, back in that Jerusalem mission. What happened there at the end?”

  I hesitated. I had been surrounded, hands shaking, holding a gun I barely knew how to use. In that moment, J.C. had taken hold of my arm and directed it, causing me to fire my gun in the precise pattern needed to bring down every enemy.