Twinmaker

56

THEY WERE READY to move within the hour. Clair showered and changed out of her soiled farmer’s shirt into a new one and put on her overalls and sneakers. The bodies were taken away, all except for Libby’s, which was hermetically sealed and zipped up in a makeshift plastic shroud. Evidence. Packs were distributed. Clair began to get a camping vibe from the exercise, reinforced when she saw how much gear she was expected to carry. Among the packets of freeze-dried food, canteens, a sleeping bag, and a bedroll were a pistol and two boxes of ammunition. She remembered exactly how heavy they were from lugging similar ones halfway across California.

Instead of complaining, she asked Arcady to show her how to load the pistol. It was smaller than the one Q had made for her, fitting neatly into the palm of her hand as though designed for it. He promised less of a kick and not greatly reduced accuracy at close range.

“You won’t need to clean it today,” he said. “But you might want to test fire it if there’s time before you leave.”

She did so, deriving a nervous satisfaction from the solid kick of the weapon into her palm. She hoped against hope her plan would hold, and she wouldn’t need to use it.

The sky was lightening when they piled their gear into a sturdy farm vehicle on four fat wheels, and the expedition prepared to set out. There was a tense farewell on the Farmhouse’s broad steps. Arcady hugged Clair, his beard tickling her check, and gravely shook Turner’s hand.

“You’ll remember everything I told you?” he said.

“Of course.” Turner nodded. “I’m grateful to you.”

“Give us a good show. We’ll be watching.”

Their four-wheeler had a flatbed on the back, which Clair shared with Jesse and Ray and two heavy bags that made metallic sounds with every bump. Watching the Farmhouse recede as they sped up the dirt track through the orchard, she tried to think of their departure less as abandoning somewhere safe, more as progressing boldly toward a solution to everyone’s problems.

“I grew up on a farm like this,” said Ray out of nowhere, and Clair could tell that he was wrestling with similar demons. “There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty.”

“I used to love working in our kitchen garden back home,” Jesse said. “Dad and I never managed to keep the bugs out of our asparagus, no matter what I tried.”

“You should have coplanted with coriander,” Ray suggested. “It attracts ladybugs, which eat the asparagus beetles.”

“We never thought of that.”

Clair zoned out while Ray and Jesse swapped gardening tips. She was even less interested in growing produce than she was in cooking it. Besides, her hands were shaking, and she was afraid her voice might start shaking too. This was the first chance she’d had to sit still since the dupes attacked. She could feel a rush of anxiety building behind the walls she’d built, pushing outward, threatening to overwhelm her. She couldn’t afford to break down now, she told herself. She had to be strong.

The feeling passed, but she knew it was only a temporary reprieve.

The journey to the edge of the farm took over an hour. There, they turned onto the old Route 94, now a green strip with one broad lane for farm traffic, and headed west across the prairie for the town of Mandan on the bank of the Missouri River, where the train was due to stop.

The landscape was wild and green, an endless tangle of low trees and undergrowth where it hadn’t been cultivated. Clair saw deer and something large and lumbering that might have been a bear. Birds were everywhere, startling out of trees and settling back down in their wake. She didn’t know their names or the names of the trees they inhabited. When the Air returned, she could find out if she wanted to.

Her connection was jammed as far as Route 94. As soon as Clair could, she contacted Q.

Or tried to.

“Q, can you hear me?”

There was no response. Clair was immediately worried that something might have gone wrong when Q had been d-matted out of the Farmhouse in Libby’s body. After all, taking control of a new body was obviously hard. Maybe going back was just as hard, particularly when Q had no body to return to.

That the damage might have been permanent was something Clair hadn’t considered. Not only was Q their greatest ally in the fight against the dupes, but she was a victim of Improvement as much as Libby or the others. She deserved a shot at getting her own body back.

“Q, are you there?”

“. . . Clair?”

The reply was weak and uncertain, as though Q had forgotten how to talk.

“That’s it. I’m here. Can you see me?”

“Clair, you’re back! Or I’m back. Or . . . both. How confusing! I don’t know what happened to me.”

“You’d better forget about duping for a while,” Clair said with some anxiety. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes, Clair. I think so, but it might take me a few minutes to get myself straight again. Should you be out in the open like this while I’m so distracted?”

Clair outlined the plan while the farmers drove them to Mandan. Q was reluctant to strip away the mask that had kept Clair hidden from direct observation through the Air. Clair insisted it had to be done, although she, too, felt nervous about it. If her plan didn’t work, she would doom not just herself but everyone with her as well.

“What’s the message of the meme you want to send?” Q asked.

Clair sent her the draft she and Jesse had written. It felt right that they should use the form of the original Improvement text in order to counteract it.

You are special.

You are unique.

You don’t need—or want—to be selected.

Improvement is dangerous.

It kills children,

it kills brothers and sisters,

it kills best friends.

You can stop it

if you want to.

The method is simple.

Spread the word:

Improvement is a lie.

Keeping the secret robs people

of the life they deserve.

Q didn’t offer an opinion as to the message’s literary or tactical merits. Clair took that as a positive sign.

“I found that medical data you asked me to look for,” Q said. “I can attach the links to the message.”

“So the data is genuine?”

“Yes. And I found more matching the same criteria.”

“How many?”

“Seven boys, two more girls.”

That was chilling. Fifteen victims of Improvement, and perhaps more on the way.

“Do you want me to send the message now?” asked Q. “I can seed it to multiple places to guarantee exposure.”

“Might as well. Don’t make me the sender, but link my profile to it and remove my mask when it goes out so people can see me if they want to. Give me two minutes. I’ll post a caption that’ll say everything we need to say.”

She had mulled that over too, but on the point of no return, she hesitated. As far as everyone was concerned, she had disappeared the night of the explosion in Manteca. Zep and Jesse and disappeared with her. What could she possibly say in a word or two that could sum up everything that had happened to her and everything that needed to happen to make things right?

If Libby were here, Clair thought, she would know what to do. Libby was the one obsessed with popularity and catchy captions. She saw the trends and cliques before they happened and knew exactly when to jump aboard. Clair wished she could just go along for the ride now and let Libby take all the credit.

But it was up to her this time. Libby needed her to do it because Libby couldn’t do it herself. There was no other option.

For a caption, Clair adapted an old VIA infomercial. It showed a woman hopping from place to place around the globe, cheerfully unaffected by the experience. The slogan had been “Everywhere for Everyone,” but Clair cut that part. Instead, she added the text “Destination: VIA!” with a link to her itinerary.

“How are you doing, Q?”

“I am making the final adjustments now, Clair,” said Q. “You are yourself again.”

There was no immediate change in her lenses’ format. Clair wondered what she should be feeling. This was her chance to reconnect with her world—her media, her family, her friends. Her life. But it felt oddly distant, as though it all belonged to a different version of her—Clair 1.0, who had never shot someone, never walked cross-country in the middle of the night, never peered behind the curtain of her perfectly sheltered life.

Clair 2.0 had done all those things and more. What if the two versions weren’t compatible?

She uploaded the caption and waited to see what would happen.