Twinmaker

25

IT WAS SUNNY in the Pacific. There was nothing but ocean in all directions. A full circle of booths opened up on a broad viewing platform with unobtrusive holographic displays showing where the islands had once been. The tiny former nation had a special place in the history of the twenty-first century as the first country destroyed in the Water Wars. Where some had fallen in armed conflicts and others had crumbled from within, Tuvalu had simply vanished beneath rising seas. Clair had learned about it in high school but couldn’t care less now.

For the first time in her life, she was truly alone.

There were people around her, presumably tourists and perhaps some grandchildren of the now-stateless Tuvaluans as well, but she couldn’t discover anything about them by reading their public profiles, just as she couldn’t access the platform’s multimedia options, metadata tags, or even Muzak. She couldn’t talk to her parents, her friends, anyone. She couldn’t caption the experience (a snapshot of the endless ocean: Not a drop to drink!). The world was entirely cut off from her, and she from it.

It was unendurable.

Don’t do it, she told herself. Don’t give in and reconnect. You can stay offline for a few minutes, if that’s what it takes to shake him. Give it ten, and then move on, reconnect somewhere else. Maybe fifteen. See what happens. It won’t kill you, whereas Dylan Linwood very well might.

Her stomach felt sick and watery. She picked a spot at random and tried to look inconspicuous. It wasn’t hard, and that was a relief. She wished she could roll back the days to the crashlander ball and leave when Libby had. That way she wouldn’t have kissed Zep, and the wedge of Improvement wouldn’t have been driven between her and her best friend.

Except Libby had been using Improvement already, and Clair had already had feelings for Zep. A crisis had been coming all along.

You want to swoop in and solve all my problems.

You just can’t help yourself, can you? You just won’t leave well enough alone.

Libby’s accusations stung because there was some truth to them. Clair wasn’t naturally gregarious and might have languished in bookish obscurity had it not been for Libby’s efforts to bring her out of her shell. To Libby, it came easily. Noticed everywhere she went, she was spontaneous, provocative, and charming. In that sense she made a perfect match for Zep—and Clair had wondered if that lay at the heart of Clair’s attraction to both of them. They opened up her world while at the same time allowing her to be herself. She had never once felt that she had to change who she was in order to fit in, and for that, Clair knew, she would always be grateful.

But social life wasn’t everything, and it had always been clear that Clair had had an advantage over Libby in other areas. A teacher had once supported her mother’s belief by telling Clair that she was more stubborn than smart. It was probably the most honest thing any teacher had ever told her. Not everyone was born a genius, like Tilly Kozlova had been. The concert pianist was barely five years older than Clair, and for a while Clair had had an obsession with the rising star that had only passed when Clair’s mom had started using her as a goad for working harder at piano lessons. For all Clair’s fantasies of growing up to be like her—or even just Libby, funny and outgoing and loved by everyone—Clair knew she wasn’t the same as either of them. She was good at most things but not a genius at anything, and so she had to be determined most of all. When Clair wanted to understand something, she worried at it until the veils fell away, like the literary puzzles of James Joyce or the art mazes of Esther Azikiwe.

Hours ago Dylan Linwood had been foaming at the mouth about d-mat in the principal’s office. Now he had not only apparently faked his own death but was threatening her parents and following her all over the world. How did that work? Whose side was he really on? What did that side want?

There were few things she had resigned herself to never understanding, and she swore this whole thing—this WHOLE thing—wasn’t going to be one of them.

“Is there a Clair here?”

Clair jerked out of her thoughts at the unfamiliar voice. It came from a large woman in a floral dress and matching lenses. A complete stranger.

“Maybe. Why do you want to know?”

“Your friend asked me to tell you that he is still coming,” the woman said.

“What?”

“That’s what your friend says: ‘He is still coming.’ Do you know what she means?”

Clair cupped the base of her skull with one hand and bunched up her greasy hair. She nodded.

“Does she . . . my friend . . . say where to go?”

The woman shook her head. Her florid eyes tracked up and then to the left, checking a menu. “She’s gone. I’m sorry, dear. Are you all right?”

“I . . . thanks.”

She had to move on or Dylan Linwood would find her. Whatever he wanted, she wasn’t going to stand here and let him get it.

Picking a booth at random, she stepped inside and asked for Melbourne, where Jesse had dreamed of going to see his grandfather. She had never been there and figured she might as well go now, even if she would see no more of it than a d-mat station.

sssssss-pop

Clair blinked. Her eyes felt weird. Her hand flew to her right ear. There was something clinging to it that hadn’t been there before. In her reflection, she saw a wiry clasp that pressed against the skin of her skull. An old-fashioned headset.

The ear-rings in her auditory canals were gone. She wasn’t wearing her contact lenses.

The door opened, revealing an empty plain in the middle of nowhere.

Not Melbourne. And her pattern had been changed.

“No,” she said, backing as far as she could into the booth. “This can’t be happening. . . .”

“Don’t say or do anything,” said a now-familiar childish voice through the tinny headset.

“What’s going on?” she cried. “What have you done to me?”

“I am changing your public identity so someone searching for ‘Clair Hill’ won’t find her here. According to the Air, your name is Pallas Diana Hughes.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, touching her nose. It was the same as ever. Her face looked frightened in the mirrors surrounding her but hadn’t changed an iota.

“I am saving you.”

The door to the d-mat booth closed before she could slip through it. She hammered at it, but it wouldn’t open.

sssssss-pop

This time the door stayed shut.

“Saving me from what? From Improvement?”

“Your name is Rebecca Watts-Veldhoen,” was all the voice said.

sssssss-pop

“Your name is Shun Fay Anderson Wong.”

Clair’s reflection looked bloodless and desperate—the same hair, the same nose, but the fright in her eyes was new.

sssssss-pop

Claire could be anywhere. Would she step out of the booth twenty-five years later with two left feet and her heart on the wrong side of her chest? Would she lose her name and be stuck, unable to convince anyone of who she really was? Would she end up like Libby, beautiful, with a new nose and proud of it . . . or brain damaged and delusional?

Clair wished she could sit down with her best friend and find out was really going on. One proper conversation would be enough. At the very least, one good look at her cheek. . . .

sssssss-pop

The earpiece was gone. Her lenses and ear-rings were back. She winked on the call patch blinking in her infield.

“Your name is Clair Hill, and you are safe.”