by Dan Wells
“Ugh,” said Marisa, opening the door again. “Get out!”
“Thanks,” said Sandro, smiling as he left.
“Thanks!” said Pati, and rushed in as Sandro walked out. Pati closed the door behind herself and started stripping down. “Morning, Mari, what’s up?”
“For the love of . . .” Marisa shook her head, closing her eyes, then stepped into the shower and closed the curtain behind her. “Can’t I get a second of privacy?”
“You’re wearing your clothes in the shower,” Pati called out.
“I know,” Marisa growled. “Just . . . don’t follow me in here, or I’ll upload every virus on the internet into your skull.”
“I found a virus yesterday,” said Pati cheerfully. “I tried to catch it, like you do, but I think I had my program set up wrong because the virus got into my active memory and I had to spend all afternoon cleaning out my djinni. And I need your help with my homework, because we’re trying to learn binary and it doesn’t make any sense—teacher said that two equals ten, and that two doesn’t even exist, and it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard and I need you to explain it all to me—”
Marisa tuned her out, undressing and showering while the girl babbled on without hardly pausing for breath. When she turned off the water Pati was still going strong, extolling the virtues of some new antivirus package she’d just found online, and Marisa wrapped her towel around herself while they switched places. Pati’s excited monologue continued from the shower stall, and Marisa stared at herself in the mirror—her hair was a twisted black bird’s nest with fading red tips. Time to dye it again, or maybe try another color. Except that dye cost money, and she still had half a bottle of red. Red it was, then, but not this morning. She’d stay faded for another day. She dried herself and put her clothes on, sneering at the stupid blue dress, then retreated toward her bedroom to try to untangle her hair.
“Hey, Mari,” said Gabi, her other little sister. Whereas Pati was a roiling singularity of energy, fourteen-year-old Gabi was practically a ghost—not because people ignored her, but because she tended to ignore everyone else. She drifted down the hallway with barely a wave, wearing a cream top and a black skirt with just enough bounce to look like a ballerina’s. Gabi’s ballet classes had been one of the more recent luxuries to face the budget chopping block, and ever since then she’d started looking for every opportunity to passive-aggressively remind the entire family what a tyrannical, life-destroying decision that had been. Now that Marisa looked a little more closely, she could swear that Gabi’s entire outfit was a dance costume from one of last year’s performances. Gabi went out of sight down the stairs, and Marisa went back to her room to find her makeup.
She didn’t even think about the KT Sigan login information until her mother made another sweep of the house, dragging everyone downstairs to leave.
“Vámonos!” called Guadalupe, pushing everyone outside. Marisa ran the brush through her hair one last time before grabbing her shoes, hopping from one foot to the other as she tried to put them on in the middle of her mother’s relentless drive toward the front door. She blinked open the notepad where she’d saved the security info, cursing herself for falling asleep so early last night, but before she could do anything with the data she was outside, blinking in the hot California sunlight, and her father was gathering them all with his loud, bombastic voice.
“Line up, Carnesecas!” he bellowed cheerfully. “Miran, qué lindos!”
Good morning, sent Sahara.
No time, Marisa sent back, sweeping the message away with a blink. Church.
“Late night?” asked Sandro, falling into step beside Marisa. The church was at least a mile away, and they couldn’t afford an autocab, so they walked.
Ooh, sent Sahara. Have fun.
“No,” said Marisa, trying to keep track of all her conversations at once. “I fell asleep as soon as we got home.”
“Maybe there was a sedative in that pricey salad,” said Sandro.
“Cállate,” said Marisa. She focused on her Sigan security notes, hoping to use the walk for something productive, and almost immediately tripped on a broken slab of sidewalk. “Madre de—”
“Ay, qué fea,” said her abuela, catching her right arm and steadying her before she fell. “That’s a mouth, not a gutter.” Guadalupe’s mother had lived with them ever since the move to the larger house, and church was one of the only times she left it.
“I’m amazed she heard you,” Sandro whispered.
Marisa waited for her abue to snap at Sandro for disrespect—they didn’t call her la Bruja for nothing—but of course she only heard Marisa’s breach of courtesy, not Sandro’s. Of course. Marisa shook her head, considered trying to parse the data, but closed the notepad and blinked it away. She’d already scratched the toe of her shoe, and her abue was gripping her arm like a nuli with a broken claw. She’d have to resign herself to a morning with the family before she had a chance to break into Sigan’s network. She leaned against her abuela’s arm and sighed.
“Ay, abuelita,” she said. “It’s been one of those days.”
“You’ve only been awake for an hour,” said her abuela.
“One of those weeks, then,” said Marisa. She looked at the scratch on her shoe. “One of those lives, maybe.”
“Why do you always wear the blue dress?” asked her abuela. “If I had your butt, I’d wear the green one.”
Marisa smiled for the first time all morning. “I love you, Abue.”
The seven of them made their way to church, already sweating in their stiff, uncomfortable clothes: Marisa, her siblings, her mother, her abuela, and at the head of them all her father, Carlo Magno Carneseca. The only one missing was her older brother, Chuy, but he was estranged from everyone in the family but Marisa herself, and even their relationship was strained. He’d left their home years ago, and now lived with his girlfriend and their year-old son. At times like this Marisa missed him even more than usual, but as long as Chuy insisted on running with a gang—La Sesenta, the most dangerous in Mirador—their father would never allow him back again. Chuy was probably too proud to come back anyway.
Men were idiots.
Is Omar going to be there? sent Sahara.
At church? asked Marisa. Probably.
If you slip the priest a few extra yuan will he damn him to hell?
Marisa smirked. You think Omar needs help getting into hell?
I just want to cover all my bases, sent Sahara.
Stop talking about Omar, Marisa sent back. I’m going to church, I need to think reverent thoughts.
What’s up, my sexy bitches? sent Anja. Her message popped up in the corner of Marisa’s vision, automatically merging with Sahara’s to create a single conversation.
Shh, Sahara chastised. Marisa’s trying to be reverent.
Sorry, sent Anja. What’s up, my reverent bitches?
I’m seriously going to just close this conversation and block you both, sent Marisa.
But then you’ll miss my news, sent Anja. It is both great and momentous.
Aren’t those the same thing? sent Marisa.
Marisa has news too, sent Sahara.
Yeah? sent Anja.
I found a Sigan security code, sent Marisa.
Toll, sent Anja. She and her father had moved here from Germany a year ago, and she used almost as much German as Marisa used Spanish. That word, Marisa knew, meant “cool,” but that was pretty much the limit of Marisa’s German. What’d you find when you went in?
I haven’t yet, sent Marisa.
Then stop wasting time in church, sent Sahara. Let’s find Grendel!
That’s big news, sent Anja. My news is bigger.
Marisa laughed. How am I possibly supposed to think about Jesus with you two chatbots babbling at me like this?
Fine, then, sent Anja. I’m calling a meeting. As soon as Fang and Jaya wake up, we shall convene our most sacred order of the Cherry Dogs.
You want the team to meet in
Overworld? asked Marisa.
So let it be coded, said Anja, in the great central processor in the sky.
She’s either making fun of you, sent Sahara, or this is really big news. She only talks churchy when it’s serious.
The seriousest, said Anja. That’s a stupid word, by the way.
It’s not a word, sent Sahara.
English is just stupid in general, sent Anja.
Blame Sahara, sent Marisa. Yo soy Mexicana.
“We’re here,” said Sandro, nudging Marisa subtly with his elbow. She refocused her eyes on the real world, and saw the big yellow church looming in front of them. Most of Mirador was right on the poverty line, if not well below it, but the Maldonados knew when to throw money at community projects, and the church they’d built was a massive tribute to both God and themselves, in relatively equal parts. Her eye caught a row of black autocars rolling up to the curb—two Dynasty Falcons, by the look of them, flanking a long, sleek Futura Sovereign. That could mean only one thing.
Gotta go, sent Marisa. Don Francisco’s here. She blinked the conversation closed and glanced at her father—he liked to arrive early at church to avoid this exact situation, caught on the sidewalk at the same time as his nemesis. As much as Francisco Maldonado hated her father, Carlo Magno hated him back even more.
Marisa was dying to know why. She considered opening the Sigan information again, but held off.
“They look like they’re here for a movie premiere,” said Gabi. Guadalupe bumped her firmly, universal sign language for “shut your mouth or I will shut it for you.”
Sergio was the first one out of the cars, not the Sovereign but the Falcon in front of it. It was a nice car, but one built more for power than luxury, and in Mirador it served as the go-to vehicle for Maldonado’s enforcers. Sergio was Don Francisco’s eldest son, and he always wore his police officer dress uniform to church, either because it was the nicest thing he had or, Marisa assumed, because he just liked to underline his family’s authority. You know how you have to pay us protection money every month? Well, we’re also the cops, so no one’s going to stop us. He helped his wife and kids out of the car, and led them in while the Sovereign’s side door opened and Omar got out with a bounce in his step and a devilish grin. He was, in contrast, the youngest of the Maldonado children, just a year older than Marisa, and he couldn’t have been more different from his brother. While Sergio acted like he owned the church, Omar looked like he owned it, while simultaneously looking like he didn’t even care. He glanced quickly around the street, winked at Marisa, and then reached back into the door to help his sister, Franca. “La Princesa.” Marisa stifled a sneer at the tall, gorgeous young woman, dressed in what Marisa assumed was the most ostentatious thing in her closet—a slim indigo dress, with a corset and shoulder pads of black leather. The pads were decorated with curls of polished sandstone, like little bits of barbed wire, as the final piece of pretension. In a fashion market where you could literally print any dress you wanted out of adaptable plastic, in any style and complexity, natural materials like leather and sandstone were the new way of conveying wealth.
“I want to punch her in the face,” whispered Pati.
“I used to as well,” whispered Marisa.
“What changed?” asked Pati.
Marisa couldn’t tell her the truth—that Grendel, in his final act of horror before disappearing back into the darknet, had infected La Princesa’s djinni with a virus that had controlled her mind. Marisa was pretty sure it was gone now. Pretty sure. Marisa had made it her quest to update Franca’s antivirus software with everything it needed to close the gate that Grendel had opened—which was hard to do, considering how much La Princesa hated her. But enemies or not, no one deserved to be a living puppet.
“I’m the one who changed,” Marisa whispered at last. “No one ever found happiness holding on to a grudge.”
“Quiet,” said Carlo Magno.
Marisa looked back at the car just in time to see Don Francisco himself step out, strong and solid, with a graying beard and fistful of bright metal rings on each hand. Omar and Franca were dressed to impress, but Don Francisco was in a simple black suit. He didn’t have to work to impress anybody; the whole street knew who he was, and stopped to watch him. He offered La Princesa his arm, and they walked into church with Omar close behind.
“Let’s go,” said Guadalupe, once the Maldonados were out of sight. “Those hymns aren’t going to sing themselves.” She urged them forward, but none of them started walking until Marisa’s father did. Marisa and Sandro helped their abuela, and Pati fiddled with her dress, as if suddenly aware of how shabby it was—it had been one of Gabi’s, and before that one of Marisa’s.
Marisa shot a final glance at the jet-black autocars, which silently closed their own doors and drove themselves away. There was one more child in the Maldonado family, but he never came to church. Jacinto had been so badly injured in that mysterious car accident that he hadn’t left the family compound in years.
Marisa touched her metal arm, and went inside.
THREE
Having to watch the Maldonados arrive in their pompous cars and ridiculous clothes destroyed any chance Marisa had of enjoying church; instead she spent the morning watching her parents’ faces, and the back of Don Francisco’s head. She rose and sat when her abuela did, and sang the hymns even more atonally than usual. It certainly didn’t help that the church building was sweltering inside. The final prayer was like a call to freedom, and she rushed out into the fresh air—scalding, but fresh—as fast as she could. The walk home felt like a blessed escape; changing into a T-shirt and shorts was a profound liberation; and when she plugged herself into Overworld, every other physical sensation melted away, replaced by the crisp perfection of virtual reality. Nothing saved you from the horrors of the real world like escaping into a fake one.
The Cherry Dogs had their own private lobby, a constantly shifting collage of all five girls’ different decorating styles. A week ago Anja had replaced the entire floor with what looked like a window into a non-Euclidean abyss, but it gave the rest of them such vertigo that Sahara had sworn to change it; Marisa saw now that she already had, and the new floor was some kind of polished marble tile, like the lobby of a nice hotel. One wall was covered with floating monitors of various size and specialty, so the team could review the latest game developments together. Marisa’s current game avatar was simple and utilitarian—a set of dark green army fatigues, with the flag on the shoulders replaced with the Cherry Dogs logo.
“Hey, Mari,” said Fang, who was already waiting in the lobby. She was Chinese, and lived in Beijing, but the two of them had been playing together for years, and her English was perfect. Marisa felt a pang of embarrassment that her own Chinese hadn’t improved nearly as much in the same amount of time, and greeted Fang in Mandarin to help make up for it.
“Nĭ hăo.”
Fang was wearing one of her typical avatars: a small figure in a tattered black cloak, her belt heavy with wickedly sharp knives and her face mostly obscured by a hood. Marisa had never met her in person, and had no idea what she looked like in real life. Fang smiled, a bit deviously, her mouth only barely visible in the shadow of her hood, and spoke again: “Nĭ juédé Anja zhèngzài chóuhuà zhège shíhòu?”
Marisa struggled the parse the sentence: something about Anja, obviously, and she was pretty sure she heard the word plan. She guessed at the possibilities: Am I ready for Anja’s plan? Do I know Anja’s plan? After a second she simply laughed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I really suck at your language. This is why I’m failing all my classes.”
“All your classes are in Chinese?”
“Fine,” said Marisa. “This is why I’m failing two of my classes: Chinese and Business. I’m failing all the rest of them for completely unrelated reasons.”
Fang smiled again, warmly this time. “Don’t feel bad. I don’t speak Spanish at all.”
“But you could probably learn it in a
n afternoon,” said Marisa. “It’s stupidly easy.”
“I could say the same about Chinese,” said Fang. “Why else would it be the most commonly spoken language in the world?”
“Because there’s more of you?”
“That’s our secret plan for world domination,” said Fang, looking back at the wall of viewscreens. “Unbridled procreation.”
“Ooh,” said Jaya, appearing in the lobby just in time to hear Fang’s last two words. “Sounds fun—I’m in.”
“Nĭ yŏu méiyŏu kàn dào láizì rìběn de jiéguŏ?” asked Fang.
“Hái méi,” said Jaya. Jaya was from India, and spoke so many languages Marisa didn’t even know them all. Worst of all, her English was even better than Mari’s. “Hey, Mari, what’s up?”
“Todo bien,” said Marisa. “Y tú?”
“Todo bien,” said Jaya with a smile. She was wearing an avatar that made her look like a hybrid human/plant, with soft green flesh under a flowing robe of flower petals. “I’ve got a date tonight with that hot guy from my office. Did I send you a pic?”
“Which one?” asked Marisa. “White shirt or maroon shirt?”
“Maroon shirt,” said Jaya.
“Nice,” said Marisa, remembering with a touch of envy the photo Jaya had sent a few days ago. The guy in the maroon shirt had been unfairly good-looking. “Touch his chest for me. Just, like, once, and then tell me about it.”
Jaya laughed, and Fang rolled her eyes. “Is Anja going to get here soon?” asked Fang. “Or do I have to figure out how I can kill myself while sitting in the lobby?”
“Oh, come on,” said Jaya, her voice practically rippling with laughter. “You don’t have some boy somewhere?”
“Maybe she has a girl,” said Sahara, appearing in the lobby with a flourish. She wore her standard avatar—an almost exact replica of herself, in a fancy, form-fitting dress. “Show a little imagination.”
