Torn

6. WHAT LIES BENEATH

The coordinates Jude sent took me deeper into Anarchy than I’d ever been before. I texted Zo that I’d meet her back at Riley’s, then wove my way through the manicured gardens into a deserted area of densely overgrown brush. Cloudy water from a sewage pipe trickled into a runoff creek, and after staring blankly at it for a moment, I realized it was probably the closest thing the park had to a waterfall. Coincidence, or Jude’s twisted sense of humor?

It took him two hours to arrive, which gave me plenty of time to do all that thinking Riley had urged me to do. I finished even more certain than when I’d started. This was the right thing to do. For me, and for all the mechs. Not to mention for my father.

I couldn’t go to the authorities, not with what I had. There were no authorities anymore, not objective ones, at least. The secops were all owned by one corp or another—and my father was on half of their boards. The rest of the BioMax execs probably had the other half covered. I needed something splashier than what I had, something that could tear the whole corp apart and take my father down with it. I needed to dredge up the corp’s deepest, darkest secrets—and then sell them to the highest bidder. No “authorities” were going to give me justice. That was something I’d get for myself.

“I’m in,” I said, as soon as Jude appeared from behind the trees. “But I have some conditions.”

Jude laced his hands together behind his head and leaned against a tree. “Let me guess—you’ll help me find the download specs if I help you find the dirt on dear old Dad.”

“Where did you get the flash drive?”

“Aikida,” Jude said. It was rare for him to give up information so lightly, without demanding something—even if it was just abject supplication—in return. “They’ve been keeping tabs on the BioMax crew for quite a while.”

“Is there more?”

He shook his head. “You’ve got everything I’ve got.”

“Then how did you know about my father?”

“I’m a good guesser. I take it I was right?”

I didn’t answer.

“Sure you don’t want to take some time and think about it?” he asked. “Wait until you calm down?”

His emphasis tipped me off. “You talked to Riley.”

“He wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t drag you into my—how did he phrase it?—‘insane delusions.’ Which is a little redundant, if you ask me, but I assume you’ll agree that language has never really been his strong suit.”

He’s only trying to help, I told myself. He loves me. But this wasn’t the way to do it.

“What did you tell him?”

Jude shrugged. “What he wanted to hear. That I understood. That I would never pressure you into anything. That I’ll stay away until you’re feeling more like yourself—and if you come to me, I’ll walk away.”

“You lied?”

“I lied.”

My surprise must have shown on my face. Jude had always made one thing clear: His bond with Riley was inviolate.

“I don’t see why he should get to make decisions for you when he’s doing such a crap job of running his own life,” he added.

“He is not.”

“Oh, so you approve of his sweet little houseguest?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Right, because you’re not brain-dead.”

It was a relief to know I wasn’t the only one who saw Sari as a threat, but I wasn’t about to let him think this meant we’d forged some kind of alliance, the two of us against Riley. There was no line between us; there was no triangle. There was me-and-Riley, and then, outside of that, irrelevant to that, there was Jude. “Riley trusts her.”

“Riley has a blind spot when it comes to pretty girls,” Jude said. “Maybe you’ve noticed.”

That fell under the category of Not Going to Dignify with a Response.

“What?” he said.

I smiled sweetly. “Trying to remember how I ever found you tolerable.”

He shrugged. “Crisis makes for strange bedfellows.”

“Never. In a million years—”

“It’s an expression!” He held up his arms in surrender. “So much for the education of society’s future elite.”

“I know it’s an expression,” I snapped. “I’m just beginning to reevaluate whether I even want to be your metaphorical bedfellow.”

“Your choice,” Jude said. “Unlike some people, I get that.”

“So do I.” Zo’s voice floated from beyond the bushes. She stepped into the clearing. “Or don’t I get a vote?”

“What are you doing here?” As if I even had to ask. It was a shame that all spying these days was done by machines, because back in the dark old days of international intelligence agencies and invisible agents slipping through the shadows, Zo would have been a world champion.

“I heard you talking to Riley,” Zo admitted.

“That tends to happen when you’re hiding under a bench.”

“Behind a tree,” she corrected me. “The point is, I heard you.”

“And then you followed me.”

“It’s a good plan,” she said. “I knew you were lying about not going through with it.”

“I guess little sister knows you better than Prince Charming,” Jude said. He held out a hand to Zo, then raised hers to his lips with elaborate chivalry. “So this is the famous Kahn Junior. Enchanté.”

“And this is the famous Jude. Huh. I thought you’d be taller.” She extricated her hand, which flew immediately to her tangle of hair and tucked the unruly strands behind her left ear. I groaned. This was Zo’s version of blushing. She probably didn’t even notice she was doing it. But—I could see it in his eyes—Jude did.

“And I thought you were a Brotherhood head case,” he said. “So I guess our reputations precede us.”

She ignored him. “You’re taking me with you,” she told me.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“When you take him down,” she said. “Him and the whole corp. I’m going with you.”

“She’s spunky,” Jude said. “You sure she’s related to you?”

“Is he always this big an asshole?” Zo asked.

“Definitely related,” Jude said.

This time we both ignored him.

“So?” she prompted me. “Do we have to fight, or do you want to save the energy and give in now?”

“Why would we let you in on anything?” Jude asked, replacing his charm offensive with a real one.

“Oh, you two are a we now?”

When he didn’t crack a smile, much less fire back, Zo realized he wasn’t joking. “What’s his problem?”

“You,” Jude said.

“Yeah, I’m an ‘org.’” She made finger quotes around the word. “Deal.”

“You’re an org who went along with Savona’s crap,” Jude said. “Who decided we were subhuman, and treated your sister like dogshit you scraped off the bottom of your shoe.”

Zo squared her shoulders. “I did what I did. I didn’t know—”

“That it could have been you?” Jude finished for her. “Changes things, doesn’t it?”

“I didn’t know what it would mean to join the Brotherhood,” Zo said firmly. “And I didn’t know… Lia. My father’s mistakes have nothing to do with that. Neither do you.”

“She’s right,” I said. They looked equally surprised. “We could use her help.”

Jude rolled his eyes. “She’s twelve.” “She’s seventeen,” Zo said. “And she’s in.”

Jude sighed. “Fine. She’s in.” He smirked at her. “But you owe me one.”

She scowled back—Zo’s version of batting her eyelashes. “So collect. I dare you.” The scowl morphed into a brilliant, triumphant smile when it was clear he was out of ammunition. “In that case, can we get out of here and go plan this thing somewhere civilized?” she added. “I realize you two don’t care, but it’s about zero degrees out here and I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

I let her tromp through the mud ahead of us, which gave me a chance to dig my nails into Jude’s arm and, quietly but firmly, make one thing clear. “My sister is off-limits.”

“She’s an org,” he said, as if that settled the issue.

“Like that would stop you.”

“Jealous?”

“Screw you.”

“Then we don’t have a problem.”

“Jude…” I let it hang there, my tone the best threat I could muster.

“She’s a big girl,” he said. “Seems like she can protect herself. In fact she seems a lot like you.”

“She’s nothing like me.”

“Really? Huh.” Jude put on his thoughtful look. “Funny, because she definitely reminds me of someone.”

I knew what he was thinking, because I’d been thinking it too, ever since the day I met him.

You, I thought, but I would never say it out loud, especially not to him. She reminds you of you.

Waiting was interminable. As was playing along, playing the roles that had been written for me: Riley’s dutiful girlfriend, keeping her simmering rage under control; BioMax’s willing stooge, putting aside her personal feelings for the sake of a greater cause. This was key, Jude assured me, when I balked at showing my face the next morning for a weekly meeting with Kiri, Ben, and my father. I had to find out what he’d told them, and if they knew that I knew; I had to pretend I was past it, over it, somehow beyond it, or risk losing all access. It seemed like a wasted effort—if they knew, then it was over. Ben might be dense, but surely even he wouldn’t believe that I’d forgive the corp for what they’d done, no matter how many “proud to be a mech” soliloquies I may have delivered at their beck and call. But when I arrived for the meeting, Kiri hadn’t yet arrived, and Ben seemed neither surprised to see me nor overly solicitous. There was only one small, irrelevant matter to be dispensed with—“Your father says an important matter’s come up that he has to deal with, and he’ll have to step away from our project for a bit; he said you’d understand”—before we got down to business. I did understand. As far as my father was concerned, this was a family issue, and we would deal with it—or hide it—as a family. My father loved his boundaries, his neat little compartments. This time he’d left all of them vulnerable.

Good.

Ben and I sat there, on our own, waiting for Kiri and doing our best to ignore each other’s presence. He buried himself in his ViM screen while I pretended to focus on mine, trying not to leap across the table, wrap my hands around his throat, and force him to tell me what he knew.

But I had to do something.

I started pacing, which seemed like the kind of thing you were supposed to do when you were nervous and frustrated and killing time. But I realized, as soon as I started wearing a track in the rug—seventeen steps to the end of the room, turning on my heel, then back again—that there was a reason people were always talking about pacing but never actually did it. It was boring. And more than a little odd-looking.

“What are you doing?” Ben asked, finally looking up from his screen.

“Nothing.” I returned to my seat, taking the long way around so I could catch a glimpse of what he was staring at so intently, just in case it was something I wasn’t supposed to see. Which it was, but not in the way I’d expected. “She’s a little young for you, isn’t she?” I teased.

The girl in the pic couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She was pretty, if not in a particularly flashy way. Except for the brown hair, she looked a lot like Zo, though it may have just been her scowl.

“I wouldn’t have thought that was really your style,” I added. Ben’s tastes ran to conspicuously expensive suits that were always fashion-forward, if in the blandest of ways, and I’d never seen him less than impeccably attired. The girl on the screen was wearing some kind of faded flash dress two sizes too small, and not in the “oops, my button popped!” kind of way.

Ben slammed the ViM on the table, screen down, and glared at me. “She’s my daughter,” he said quietly.

“Oh.”

That made significantly more sense.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“That’s right. You didn’t.”

He didn’t lift the screen, nor did he look at me. Not for several long minutes, until Kiri walked in and the meeting began. Then he was all business again, same old Ben, smooth and insincere. Except that he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I wondered if the subject of fathers and daughters cut a little too close to home when it came to me—if that meant he knew what BioMax had made my father do.

Or if it was something else. More secrets.

“We have a proposition for you,” Ben said, toward the end of the meeting. “And I think once you consider it, you’ll see the wisdom in—”

“You’re going to hate it,” Kiri cut in. No-bullshit Kiri, that’s how I thought of her, and now I couldn’t look at her without thinking, Did you know? Who was in the room, when they decided? Who was left that I could trust? Another reason I needed those files—but these offices were just for show; there was no access to anything. Even if I managed to get hold of Kiri’s or Ben’s ViM and get in remotely, Jude and I were reasonably sure they wouldn’t show us much. BioMax, like most corps, kept their dirty little secrets on secure, firewalled servers—likely nothing that could stand up against the full weight of a network invasion, but nothing we’d be able to topple remotely on our own. We had to get in at the source.

“Try me.” I offered up a perfect smile. Nothing to hide. What you see is what you get.

“As you know, the Brotherhood of Man has been making overtures in our direction,” Ben said. “They claim they’d like to publicly bury the hatchet.”

“In our backs?”

Ben cleared his throat. “They have a powerful voice and numerous followers—”

“Hate sells.”

“—and if we can tap into that, it could be very helpful to our cause.”

“Where is this going?” I asked. Circumlocution was call-me-Ben’s specialty; he could talk for hours without saying a thing.

As usual it was Kiri who cut through the crap. “We’re staging an event,” she said. “A public peacemaking. The Brotherhood will announce their willingness to help incorporate the mechs into society, and BioMax will graciously accept their offer.”

Kiri was one of the only BioMax people who actually used the word “mech.” It was one of the things I liked best about her. The rest of them all said “download recipient” or “client” or, if they didn’t realize I was listening, “skinner.” But Kiri used the name we’d given ourselves. She was smart—too smart to buy into the Brotherhood’s line. Maybe Auden was sincere. But that was irrelevant, now that the Honored Rai Savona was back in the picture. “You do realize they’ve got an agenda?” I said.

“Quite honestly, their agenda doesn’t matter to us,” Ben said. “Right now they’re doing exactly what we need them to be doing. If they take an ill-considered path in the future, we’ll take whatever measures we see as necessary.”

Translation: Squash them like a bug.

“So what do you want from me?” I was sickened enough being in these offices, facing them, pretending nothing had changed. Throw Savona into the mix—and Auden, who I tried not to think about, couldn’t think about—and almost bearable turned into not. “Since it’s obviously not my opinion.”

Is it ever?

Jude’s voice, Jude’s disgust. They want you to dance for them, I could imagine him sneering, not talk. Certainly not think.

“The Brotherhood is extending an olive branch, Lia,” Ben said. I hated when he said my name in his oily voice, like he was granting me a gift by acknowledging my identity. I know what’s inside your head, his expression always seemed to say. I’ve seen your flesh peeled away, your brain exposed. I know what you really are. “We don’t want to turn our backs on that.”

“Fine. I still don’t see—”

“We want you to represent BioMax,” Kiri said. “Stand up at a podium with Savona and Auden, make a little speech, shake their hands, sit down again. Simple as that.”

“Simple?” I laughed. “You’re a bad liar, Kiri.”

“You don’t have to marry them,” Ben snapped. “You’ll speak, you’ll shake hands, and then we’ll start the music and serve the food and you can go skulk in a corner or visit your friends upstairs or whatever antisocial course suits your fancy.”

“What friends upstairs?”

“On the thirteenth floor,” Kiri said. “The event’s down at our research facility—there’s a nice banquet space there, and we think it’ll send a good message, get the word out about the limitless technological horizon, all that. We’ll be packaging a whole vid segment on the rehabilitating mechs, give the public more insight into the process. Better our turf than theirs, right?”

I nodded, distracted by the possibilities. With all those people it would be easy to slip away from the crowd, into the corners of the building that I’d never been allowed to enter. With an event like this going on downstairs, it seemed likely that the place would be understaffed, maybe even cleared out, which would give us a clear path.

It wouldn’t do to give in too quickly. Not when they both knew exactly how I felt about Savona and, I could tell, had come in girding themselves for a fight. So I let them argue and spin and cajole; I let them explain all the ways that this could be a new start for us, that many of the most vicious antiskinners were followers of the Brotherhood and their watching the leaders recant could change everything, that I was the key to forgiveness. Especially given my history with Auden—

That’s where I stopped them. “I’ll do it.”

Kiri beamed. “I promise, if it’s a disaster, you’re welcome to say I told you so.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I will.”

I twirled for the mirror, and the nearly weightless silk skirt billowed around me. Under any other circumstances it would have been an optimal opportunity for preening. The sleek ball gown hugged every curve of my perfectly sculpted mech body, and the shimmering blue—which shifted across the spectrum from sky to indigo and back again as I moved—glowed against my smooth, pale skin. Riley brushed his lips against my neck, then traced a finger down my bare back until it reached the sash of silk slung low over my hips. “You sure you have to go out tonight?” he said softly. “You could stay here, and—”

“I’m sure,” I said. The ball gown wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of delinquent style, and I suspected the idea of breaking into BioMax might have seemed slightly less surreal if I’d been decked out in something more appropriate. But camo gear, even the kind programmed to blend into any background, wouldn’t offer much invisibility at the BioMax ceremony. The idea was to blend, and—I shot a final confirming glance at the mirror, taking in the elaborately twisted blond braids, the jeweled designs sparkling along my arms and breastbone, the oceans of silk—I blended.

“Whoa,” Riley breathed, eyes widening as Zo stepped out of the bathroom, her shoulders hunched and arms crossed her chest as if she were preparing for attack.

Her hair was clean and shining for the first time in years, pulled up in a loose chignon that highlighted the long arc of her neck. She’d traded in her standard uniform of baggy shirts and sagging retro jeans for an asymmetrical black gown. Satin coated one arm, leaving the other bare, and a latticework of temp tattoos crawled from her wrist to her neck. It looked like her skin was knit from silver lace, and somehow it worked. She looked beautiful, but not in a shocking ugly-duckling-turns-swan kind of way. Zo was still Zo, and crap clothes and greasy hair couldn’t hide a genetic bounty for which our parents had paid a fortune. She looked better, but no matter how much she tried to hide it, she’d always looked good. I’d always known Zo was beautiful.

I’d never known how much she looked like me.

Or at least, the me that used to exist, in a different body with a different face. Zo was now almost exactly the age I’d been when the accident happened. And it occurred to me that watching her get older would be like getting a glimpse into the future I didn’t get to have.

“You look great,” I told her.

She scowled. “Whatever.”

“You look like some old lady,” Sari commented, from her habitual sulking spot in the corner.

“You look amazing,” Riley said. “Both of you.”

Zo stopped hunching after that. She kept sneaking glances at herself in the mirror, and I wondered what she saw. If she saw me.

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Riley asked. He pressed his hand to the small of my back. As an org I’d found that gesture irresistible—something about a warm hand on cold skin, at exactly the spot where I felt strongest and most vulnerable all at the same time. But I was a mech, and it was just a hand. I smiled at Riley.

“You hate parties,” I reminded him. “I realize I look hot enough to make you forget that. But you’d remember as soon as we walked in, and you’d be miserable.”

“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” he said.

Zo cleared her throat, loudly.

“Both of you, alone,” he clarified. “Aren’t you afraid your father will be there?”

Zo flinched, but fortunately, his eyes were on me.

“I hope he’s there,” I said. It was only a half lie. We needed him there, if this was going to work. But it didn’t mean I was looking forward to the encounter.

“Me too,” Zo said, and if you weren’t her sister, you wouldn’t notice that it was the voice she used when she was lying, and when she was afraid. But there was fury in it, along with the fear. It leaked out exactly the way our father’s did, like radiation—stealthy but lethal. “He’s the one that should be afraid to see us.”

I almost believed her. The more time we spent together, the more we fell into our old patterns: me the rule-abiding, cautious good girl, her the wild child who threw herself headfirst into anything, her life a constant dare to the universe to do its worst. While I was playing nice with BioMax, doing my job and pretending nothing had changed, lying to Riley and hating myself for how easy it had become, Zo had spent the last few days with Jude, putting her hacking skills to good use by helping him ferret out blueprints, plot strategies, conspire, spew out one convoluted plan after another until hitting on one that at least had a prayer of working. It all seemed so easy for her, and I’d assumed that was because it was easy, because she was fearless. But it suddenly occurred to me that she was fearless because she couldn’t conceive of having anything to fear—maybe all this still seemed like something out of a vidlife, a melodrama with an inevitably happy ending. I knew it was possible to delude yourself that way; after the accident, I’d done it myself.

“Zo. You sure you’re up for this?”

“I’m sure.” She glared at me, daring me to try to talk her out of it or, worse, forbid her.

“Then let’s go,” I said. That won me a grateful look.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Riley said, as we were leaving. “They can’t make you.”

I kissed him and wondered when he’d gotten so naive.

There were only a hundred people crammed into the BioMax banquet room, but the walls were net-linked, and thousands of faces stared at us from all over the country. It was easy enough to ignore them; I was used to being watched.

While Zo haunted the room, hovering by the buffet table and avoiding our father, I sat up on the dais with the assembled dignitaries, waiting for my cue. It was usually frustrating the way the mech body created a distance between me and the world, every touch and sound a painful reminder that nothing seemed quite real only because I wasn’t. But times like this it was an advantage. I could stay locked in my head, watching my body move as if it belonged to someone else, shaking repugnant hands, smiling at the enemy, forming words I would never mean. Standing at a microphone, looking out over an audience of corp directors, BioMax suits, Brotherhood sympathizers, following the script: “I’m so gratified that we can come together in dialogue.” “I’m looking forward to our shared future.” “Tolerance.” “Forgiveness.” “Common ground.” “This is a new beginning.” And other such bullshit.

I was able to tune out as Savona himself took the stage to blather on about his regrets and his reformation. I didn’t allow myself to wonder how anyone could overlook the obvious insanity dancing in his eyes, and I didn’t allow myself to watch Auden, who was listening from the other side of the central podium. I hadn’t seen him since the explosion at the temple, when I’d pulled him out of the burning wreckage. The security-operations guys had dragged him away for questioning while the building still burned, while I was still flailing in a secop’s arms and screaming Riley’s name.

I’d spent a long time begging Auden’s forgiveness and hating myself for what I’d done to him—blaming myself for what he’d become. That was over now. It was his choice to stand by Savona’s side, embracing his former mentor with open arms, just as it was his choice to dive into the frigid water and try to rescue me. I didn’t ask to be saved.

Auden, who knew better than anyone what Savona had been up to at that temple, and had to know exactly how sincere these pledges of tolerance and shared destiny could be, chose to let Savona speak, and let the world believe him. He pretended that he could stay in charge of the Brotherhood, keep Savona in the wings, even though Savona was the pro, the one with the words and the voice, the adult with the gravitas and the credit and the power. All Auden had was the pity vote, and if he thought that would be enough, that was his choice, his mistake. He’d picked his side of the stage. I was done apologizing—to him and for him.

When the speechifying finally wound down, I shook Auden’s hand, and I did it without looking away. Then I shook Savona’s, pleased again that the sensations received through my artificial nerves were so thin and colorless. I didn’t want the pressure of his palm to feel real; I didn’t want to know if it was clammy and sweaty or warm and dry. But I squeezed tight, knowing he was just as repulsed by my touch, and wanting his hell to last as long as it could.

Zo grabbed me as I stepped off the dais, pulling me off to the side. “I can do this part,” she said. “If you don’t want to.”

It was tempting. “You can’t. He’d never believe it, coming from you.”

“And he’ll believe it from you?” she asked. “After what he did to you?”

I didn’t want to say it. And even more, I didn’t want to watch her face as I did. “But he didn’t mean to do it to me. He meant to do it to you.”

Zo didn’t flinch.

“When I tell him that makes all the difference, he’ll believe me,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Because he wants to believe me. That’s how it works.”

He was avoiding me. I threaded my way through the crowd, catching glimpses of him over shoulders, through a knot of people, but he was always one step ahead. Maybe I wasn’t trying very hard to catch him. The crowd was a bizarre mixture of BioMax execs and the occasional Brother still draped in one of those iridescent robes that had surely been designed for maximal creep factor. There were also a few mechs scattered through the crowd, though none I recognized, probably because no one who’d ever crossed paths with Jude would be naive enough to come within ten miles of this minefield. Even Ani—an obvious invitee—had apparently stayed away, though I suspected that had as much to do with my presence as Savona’s. But as I neared the bar, I spotted a vaguely familiar face: Elton Kravis, a mech who’d always been a bit of a moron, so his presence made sense. He was deep in conversation with some blank-faced corp exec, but, fulfilling his moron destiny, abruptly cut it off and veered to his right in pursuit of a gorgeous girl with long black hair and a Brotherhood robe who would have been out of his league even if she didn’t believe he had about as much sex appeal as a vacuum cleaner. In his wake he left an empty space in the crowd, affording me a perfect view of my father.

He stood alone in a corner, his face buried in his glass—probably downers mixed with tea, his blend of choice.

I’d thought this part would be easy.

Because what could be easier for me than pretending to be a person I despised? I’d been rehearsing for this moment all year. But once I was standing before him, forcing myself to look up into his unlined face, the eyes that had once been exactly the same shade as mine, I couldn’t do it. He would see through it, I was certain. He would know I was more likely to attack than swap small talk. I let myself indulge the fantasy for a moment, imagining a jagged edge of glass raking his skin.

Zo was watching from across the room. She caught my eye and flashed me her cheesiest thumbs-up.

“Hi, Dad.” I smiled.

There was a flicker of surprise, then it was gone. He nodded, casually, like he’d expected nothing less than an affable greeting from his beloved daughter. “Lia. Good to see you.”

“And you.” He couldn’t see into my head, I reminded myself. He couldn’t see anything unless I let him. “How have you been?”

“Well. Very well. And you?”

We went back and forth, saying nothing, for endless minutes. He was putting on a show for whoever was watching, although almost surely no one was. I waited it out, letting him squirm, because my next move would be less suspicious if he made it for me, thinking it was his own idea. Finally, success: “Would you like to go somewhere more private?” he asked. “Perhaps somewhere we could talk?”

“That would be nice.” Formal and proper. I smiled again, letting a dash of pain filter into it, so he would understand I was struggling with the decision, overcoming my own natural inclinations to run. He led me into a private office—our father never attended events like this without lining up a private sanctum to which he could retreat in time of need—and settled at one end of a small couch.

The thought of joining him made my skin crawl. I did it anyway.

“Lia.” He stopped, swallowed hard, looked down, then, thinking better of it, forced himself to face me. I stared at the door, watching him out of the corner of my eye. “I didn’t expect you’d want to talk to me.”

“I don’t.” It couldn’t be too easy, or he’d never believe it, no matter how much he wanted to.

“But…”

“But I’m here,” I said. “You’re my father, whatever happened. So… I’m here.” I sat flagpole straight, facing forward, hands gripping the edge of the cushion like I was priming myself to run.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what else to say. I never meant to hurt you.”

After all this time, he hadn’t managed to come up with anything better than the world’s oldest, lamest excuse? Sorry I had you murdered. Who knew it would hurt?

“I know,” I said.

“You do?”

I closed my eyes for a long moment, let him think I was grappling with a decision, opening a door. I turned and met his gaze. “I know,” I said again. “It must have been an impossible situation for you. I can’t even imagine, having to pick between two children, but…” I reminded myself that Zo would never have to hear what I said next. That they were just words. “You picked me. You wanted me to live. And in a twisted way, I guess… that proves how much you love me.”

This was the tricky part. My father wasn’t the touchy-feely type. I let my shoulders slump and tried to make myself look smaller. Weak. “I thought it would be easy to run away. From everything. From you. But now I’m… I’m so alone. I don’t know who I am, if I’m not your daughter.” I lowered my head. Let my voice shake. “I don’t know how to forgive you. But I don’t know how not to forgive you.”

I hugged my arms over my chest and waited, closing my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to look at him. A moment later I felt his weight shift on the couch, and then his arms were around me. “I’m here,” he said. His hug was as stiff and awkward as ever. “I’m your father, nothing will ever change that. You are my daughter. And I’ve never been so proud of you.”

If only he knew.

“I love you,” he said.

That’s when I stuck him. It was quick and nearly painless, a sharp pinprick on the back of his neck, where it wouldn’t leave a mark, and even as he reached to feel for a bump or a bite, his arm dropped to his side, and then, as the toxin worked its way through his system, he slumped back on the couch, unconscious.

I didn’t ask Jude where he’d gotten the sleep serum, or the microjector. That was the whole point of Jude: He got things. He’d assured me that it was harmless, with no lasting effects. I hadn’t asked about that, either.

I stood, staring down at my father, his suit rumpled, spittle dripping from the corner of his mouth. Messy and vulnerable, the two things he’d sworn never to be.

“I could kill you right now,” I said.

His eyes fluttered. Could he hear me? “It’s better this way,” I told him, hoping he could, even if he wouldn’t remember. “I’d rather be a machine than have to walk around carrying your disgusting genes.” I had looked like him, that’s what everyone had always said. “I’d rather be a machine than be any part of you. I’d rather be dead.”

It was self-indulgent, wasting time like this.

Not to mention pathetic, giving voice to all the things I was too cowardly to tell him when he was awake. Someday, I promised myself. Then I slipped the ViM from his front pocket and pressed his index finger against the nanotape Zo had given me, recording a fresh, clean print. As a final touch, I propped his head on a pillow, leaving the downer glass overturned by his fingertips. He’d think he slipped into the office to get away from it all, dosed more than he’d planned, and zoned out. If all went well, he’d still be out when we returned, and I could slide the ViM back into his pocket. It would be like nothing had happened.

Jude said he wouldn’t remember any of this, not the dosing, not the conversation that came before it. He would wake up with a headache, wondering how he’d ended up in the office, wondering why he’d fallen so soundly asleep, never remembering the way I’d humiliated myself before him, accepting his pathetic apology. Or the way he’d humiliated himself by believing me.

I texted Zo to let her know we were ready for the next step. Then it was time for Jude’s cue: Ten minutes, I texted him. Then go.

I slipped back into the thick of the party, swapping facetious small talk with some BioMax functionary whose name I could never remember, trying to follow his boring story of vacationing at some domed golf resort and scoring a hole in one while a lightning storm raged overhead, but all I could think was, Any second now, come on, now, now.

Now.

The doors blew open. Jude and his crew of mechs stormed the banquet hall, megaphones blaring the same message as the giant LED boards they carried: SAVONA LIES! The ten mechs elbowed their way into the crowd, hooting and shouting, leaping on tables and chairs and, in one memorable case, the shoulders of a particularly tall and broad corp exec. As they scattered, they released periodic bursts of neon smoke that curled itself into accusatory slogans before puffing into thin air.

The crowd exploded into a mixture of cheers and boos. There were a few high-pitched screams, some laughter, several panicked calls for security—and a hundred slack-jawed, wide-eyed, mind-blown orgs gaping at the wild mechs, backing away whenever one threatened to come near. BioMax reps scuttled back and forth trying to catch the interlopers, but Jude and his cronies zigzagged through the crowd, using orgs as shields and buffers, leaping over furniture and, when necessary, throwing handfuls of cocktail wieners and popcorn shrimp at their pursuers. It was, in the purest sense of the word, anarchy.

And two weeks ago it would have killed me. I stood at the center of the storm, watching Jude tear down everything I’d worked for, knowing it would play on the network for weeks, in constant loops and mashups, the demented mechs bent on sowing destruction through org society.

Exactly as we’d planned.

The crowd was too dense for any kind of effective security protocol—and there were too many witnesses for any kind of violence, especially against the very mechs that BioMax claimed to be so desperate to protect. Which was how Jude managed to weave his way through the orgs all the way to the dais at the front of the room. He clambered up on stage and, as the BioMax reps pushed their way through an increasingly uncooperative crowd, unleashed his j’accuse on Savona: a litany of his crimes, a list of every mech who’d been attacked, lynched, battered, bruised by the hatred stoked by Savona and his Brothers. Name after name after name. It was transfixing.

But I tore myself away. Zo was waiting by the locked door that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, ready to use the security code on my father’s ViM to get us through. Jude had provided as much distraction as we could have hoped for. The room was absorbed by his spectacle; no one would notice two girls disappear behind a wall. But something made me pause in the doorway and turn back. From across the room, an island of calm in the pandemonium, Auden was watching. Savona stood by his side, eyes on the stage. The security team had formed a human barrier between them and the rampaging mechs, and I wondered why they hadn’t been dragged off to safety. It occurred to me Savona wouldn’t have allowed it. What better way to solidify his martyrdom than to stay publicly calm, stoic even, while the mechs did everything they could to tear him apart?

But I couldn’t worry about that now. Any more than I could worry about the fact that Auden was watching us.

“What?” Zo hissed, when she noticed I wasn’t moving. “Come on.”

“Shh!”

She followed my gaze, and saw him seeing us. Her face went white.

Auden tilted his head, a nearly imperceptible nod. Then turned away.

“Shit.” Zo’s eyes bugged. “We have to call this off. He’s going to—”

“He won’t do anything.” I yanked her through the door and let it close behind us.

“He saw us.”

“He won’t tell anyone.”

“So now you’re a mind reader?”

“Trust me,” I said, and hoped I was right. “It’s fine. He’ll keep his mouth shut.” Zo didn’t ask why I was so sure. A good thing, since I had no answer for her. The truth was, I wasn’t sure about anything except that it was probably wishful thinking to imagine Auden would protect us. But I couldn’t stop. Not when we were so close. If he sounded the alarm, we would deal. Until then we would keep going.

It was almost too easy. We were well beyond business hours, the halls were nearly deserted, and I could only trust that Jude was keeping the building’s secops plenty busy. On the rare occasions that footsteps seemed to pass too close, the maze of corridors left plenty of options for ducking out of sight. We swept past each automated security checkpoint with perfectly legitimate credentials. Our father’s security codes flashed from the stolen ViM and, as we ventured into more protected zones, his fingerprint opened one door after another. The blueprints indicated a server room in the basement where classified information—like technical specifications for the download process—would likely be held. These days nearly everything was stored in a data cloud on the network, powered by thousands upon thousands of servers whirring away in top-secret locations. It was why you could make a ViM in any shape and size—the Virtual Machine didn’t need to hold any information of its own; it just linked you up to the network and you were off. But nearly every corp had its own small server system tucked away somewhere, a skeleton closet for data it didn’t trust to the public storehouse. Walled off from the network, forbidden ViM access, safe from prying eyes. Zo had admitted she’d been studying up on hacking this kind of stuff for years, she and her loser friends whom I’d thought spent all their time loitering in the parking lot burning out on dozers—and she was convinced she could find the data and download it.

But there were no servers in the basement.

“You sure you’re reading those right?” Zo asked, snatching the ViM out of my hand so she could see the blueprints for herself. But I hadn’t made a mistake: According to the map, we should have been standing in BioMax’s main computing center. There were no computers in sight. Instead there was a long stretch of white padded rooms, each with a large window facing the corridor. I felt like I’d stumbled into a mental hospital, except that instead of straitjacketed lunatics, the large cells held machines of various shapes and sizes. Tanks, fighter jets, drones, armored crawlers, none of them much larger than I was—war in miniature. Some were motionless; others wheeled around seemingly at random, bashing into walls and firing blanks at the thick glass. At the end of the corridor we finally found some computers, but instead of massive servers, these were just standard keyboards and screens, some smeared with data, others showing the antics of the imprisoned machines.

“What the hell is this?” I said, gaping at the strange mechanical lab rats.

Zo had already pulled herself up to one of the lab stations. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. I couldn’t stop watching the machines. One in particular caught my attention: some kind of armored walker about three feet tall, stumbling around its cell like a toddler learning to walk.

“Lia,” Zo said. “You need to see this. Now.”

“What is it?”

“It’s you,” she said in a hushed voice. “Well, not you, but… all of you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Will you just look!”

I peered over her shoulder. I read what she’d read. It was a status report, and at first the phrases didn’t make much sense. “Rerouted neural pathways.” “Reoriented command functions.” “Effect of cognitive deficiencies on consciousness.” “Subject shows improved learning capabilities with thirty percent of memories intact.” But gradually, the meaning became clear, and as I took in the words, the laboratory transformed itself in my imagination. I saw vats of clear fluid lining the walls, and suspended inside of them, gray, pulpy masses with wires snaking in and out. Brains, isolated and nurtured, synapses firing, alive and dead all at once. Imprisoned. I saw a mad scientist’s laboratory, death defied, life abominated, nature possessed. I saw myself, and I saw the men who owned me.

I saw the machines. And they were real.

The “effect of cognitive deficiencies on consciousness” was, apparently, severe. Strip away a brain’s memory, speech, and emotion functions, everything that made a person a person, and you were left with a machine. A machine that, if you programmed it right, would do anything you told it to.

“Tell me I’m understanding this wrong,” I said.

She didn’t.

“Our uploaded neural patterns can’t be accessed by them—by anyone—not while we’re still functioning,” I said, because that’s what I had been told. It was the foundation of the download technology. As long as our brains were active, our functioning neural networks released a signal that prevented the resurrection of any other brain with the same neural pattern. Only one Lia Kahn at a time, that was the hard-and-fast rule. But the neural patterns they were playing with down here were altered, weren’t they? Deficient. Which made the signal—and their promises—useless.

Zo still didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t stop watching the machine, the one stumbling on its iron feet.

I couldn’t stop wondering whether it remembered its name.

“You can’t search for yourself,” Zo said quietly. “I tried. Everything’s indexed by some kind of ID number, not name. If I had more time, probably… but maybe it’s better?”

Maybe it was better I didn’t know whether they’d taken a computer program that, under the right circumstances, called itself Lia Kahn, and crammed it into a steel tank? Maybe it was better I not think about what it would mean, what I would be, if my “significant personality markers” were stripped away, along with “superior cognitive function” and “emotive control.” If I was lobotomized, with only an animal intelligence left behind.

I’d flown in an AI plane. I’d looked out the window, wondering at the technology that allowed it to decide for itself how fast to fly, where to land. I’d seen the headlines on the news zones: the lives that had been saved by the new AI surrogates, compliant mechanical fighters that shot and crushed and bombed and burned on command, that were smart enough to strategize, pliant enough to follow every command. I’d never given much thought to it, how they’d suddenly, magically, breached the artificial intelligence barrier. Because it had nothing to do with me. I was artificial, I was intelligent, I was a machine, yes. But I was different. I was a remnant of something human; I had started life as something else. They were things; they had always been machines.

That’s what I’d thought.

Because, again, that’s what I’d been told.

“Why do they need so many?” I asked dully. According to the records, they’d downloaded more than a hundred of us into various prototypes. Why not lobotomize one brain and download it into everything? More efficient—still evil.

“I think…” Zo hesitated, as if understanding it somehow made her complicit. “I think it increases the chances of success. Different neural patterns adjust better to different machines. Some don’t work at all.”

“So this is their testing ground.” I turned back to the video feeds of the padded cells, watching the stumbling machine and remembering what it had been like for me at the beginning, learning to walk. Training my brain to control the artificial body. They’d scared us into cooperating with the tedious rehabilitation process, making it all too clear what would happen if our neural patterns failed to adapt. We’d be frozen, unable to move or speak or see, trapped inside a head with no window to the world, no control. Buried alive inside a mechanical corpse.

“They let them learn,” Zo said, “give them commands, see what happens, and when they find a neural pattern that works—”

“Payday.” I backed away. “Can you deal with this?” I asked. “Download whatever you can to your zone, get some pics, evidence, whatever—”

“I got it,” Zo said. She didn’t ask what I’d be doing while she got stuck with all the work.

I returned to the corridor. To the cells. I stood at one of the windows, watching a miniature tank ram itself into a wall, over and over again. I tapped at the glass, but nothing happened. I don’t know what I was expecting—it wasn’t an animal.

It. I was thinking like them.

But it wasn’t an it.

It was, had been, a he. Or a she.

Maybe it had been someone I knew, maybe even—

Maybe it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a person inside that tank. It was electronic data, some of which happened to resemble the data inside our heads. It was bytes of information, flickers of light. Nothing more. It didn’t have any effect on us. Its existence was irrelevant.

But if it was nothing, just an imperfect copy, just data, then so was I. And if I was a person, a someone, then maybe so was it. Thinking and feeling at some primal level, dumb and mute and trapped, a slave to a stranger’s commands.

Zo came up beside me. She didn’t speak, and knew better than to touch me. We stood side by side. “I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“You will.”