Gifted (11 page)

“No, I've got a problem.” I spill the whole story. My dad. My mom. Arabella.

“Orpheus, come on, man,” Rajesh says, as if he's bored. He stands up from his salon chair and tries on different bowties as we talk. “Get in the game, would you? Just get the dumb surgery and start your life already. You're getting left in the dust. Another year as a PONI and the Buzz will abandon you altogether as the dilettante son of a patron.”

“But what if I don't want a life in the limelight?”

Rajesh screws up his face and shakes his head. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't know!” I throw my hands into the air and look up into the sky. Somewhere far away the stars shine, but you can never see them this close to the Distract. “Sometimes I just think I want something quieter, behind the scenes, you know?”

“No,” says Rajesh with a snort. “If that's the way you feel, then I don't know what to tell you.” He disconnects. I stand there speechless. My best friend hung up on me.

Overhead, a large platoon of tricked-out flying cars circles the center of the Dome as it opens like a flower for them to land. Must be the superstar gamers come to play. Trailing them is a comet tail of 'razzi drones, swooping down upon the parking lot, making a beeline for the entrance along with all the fans.

I pace around my car muttering to myself, “My father is a tyrant. My mother has moved in with a jerk. And my two best friends don't care.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the 'razzi leave its swarm and swoop around toward me, then it hovers just behind my Cicada, green eyes blinking. No doubt it has built-in recognition software and now I've been found. Sure enough, within seconds, more drones peel off from the swarm and head in my direction. I need to get away. Away from the Distract, from the City, far away from my father and nowhere near my mom and Chester.

I climb back in the Cicada and take off, uncertain where I'm going, but sure that I can outrun the 'razzi that are trailing me. Inside, I turn off the WindScreen, rip off my glove so I don't have to talk to anyone. Then I grab my flask of Juse and chug as I turn on my receiver, scanning the waves for a friendly voice to carry me away as my car lifts up to the SkyPath leading away from the chaos of the City.

 

ZIMRI

“Sorry,” I tell
Dorian when he meets me outside the security office. “I didn't know who else to call with Brie working nights and Tati all the way in Old Town and…”

“Don't apologize!” Dorian says. He opens his arms and pulls me into a huge hug. I feel so safe that I don't want to let go.

“Maybe we should look for Nonda first.” I eye the security office warily. I have no interest in tangling with Medgers again today.

“If she doesn't have her HandHeld…” Dorian says, and I know he's right. She could be wandering around anywhere and we'll never find her. “The best thing to do is file a report and let security do its job.” Dorian takes my hand. “Come on,” he says and pulls me toward the entrance.

I hate the Complex security office. Ever since my mother's cyber hearing, it's given me the heebie-jeebies. I remember holding my father's hand as we walked into the room where Mom sat at a table with some schlubby guy who'd been sent by the Justice Consortium that repped all the Corp X warehouse workers whenever they got into trouble. A screen, divided into two panels, took up half the wall, dwarfing the rest of us. In the first panel was the Arbiter, an older woman with dark skin and hair set off against the bright red of her robe. She was stern and imposing, like the giant head of God sitting in judgment. And in the other panel was a young woman with bright blue eyes, shiny blond hair, and skin so light it was nearly iridescent. She looked like a picture from an old book. I'd never seen someone so white.

My mother glanced over and motioned for me to join her at the table. I was no slouch. I got the picture right away and sidled up alongside her, leaning against her as cute as I could be.

Her justice broker glanced at me and frowned, but the Arbiter asked, “Is this your daughter?”

My mother nodded then put her arm around my waist to hug me tight against her body. The Arbiter twisted her face, like she was seeing my mother in a different light. I smiled sweetly and laid my head on Mom's shoulder. The blue-eyed woman on the other screen said, “Hi, honey,” to me and I waved, thinking she might be on our side, too.

“Do you have a song for them?” my mother whispered.

I lifted my head and broke into “You Are My Sunshine” and the Arbiter's face relaxed into a smile. But the blue-eyed woman said, “As we own the copyright to that song, I'd like to request that she cease and desist with her performance.”

“The child?” the Arbiter asked.

“Yes,” the woman said. That's when I realized she was the justice broker for the other side—the people charging Mom with stealing music.

The Arbiter sighed and straightened her red robe. “Request granted,” she said and the trial began.

Inside the security office I groan out loud and turn around to leave when I see Medgers at the desk, but she catches sight of me before I can get out the door. “Well, well, well,” she says. “If it isn't Little Miss Above-the-Law.”

I steel myself against her snide remark. “I'm here about Nonda, my grandmother.”

Medgers stands up and pushes her Taser belt down around her hips. “And here I thought you had come to turn yourself in.”

Dorian glances at me. “For what?”

Medgers leans over the counter and looks hard at me. “Maybe you could fool those two idiot investigators, Zimri Robinson, but I'm on to you.”

Dorian takes a step back.

“Look, Medgers, my grandmother is missing…” I tell her.

She looks down her nose at me. “She been gone longer than twenty-four hours?”

“No, but—”

“Then we can't do anything.”

“This isn't the first time she's been missing.”

Dorian jerks his head toward me. “Really?”

I look at my shoes. “Yes, it's true. This has been happening more and more but she's never been gone this long or this late.”

“Maybe she went looking for your concert and got lost,” Medgers says with a snort.

Dorian's eyes go wide.

“Medgers!” barks someone from behind us. “Are you helping these young people?” I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn to see another officer at my side. She looks about Marley's age. Her hair is pulled back in a thousand tiny braids tucked neatly in a bun at the base of her neck.

“My grandmother's missing,” I tell her and my eyes well up. Embarrassed, I brush away the tears.

“And the officer on duty refuses to help us,” Dorian says.

The other officer narrows her eyes at Medgers. “Is this true?”

“Just following protocol,” Medgers mumbles.

The officer shakes her head, disgusted. “I'll deal with you later,” she says to Medgers, then motions for Dorian and me to follow her. “Come on. I'll help you.”

When we get settled inside her cubicle, the officer smiles at me. “You're Zimri, right?”

I nod, not sure if it's good or bad that she knows my name.

“I'm Billingsley,” she tells me. “I grew up with your parents. I knew your family well.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised. “I don't remember you.”

“My family left when I was a teenager. I just got a promotion and transferred here.” She shows me the stripes on the shoulder of her uniform. “Now, then…” She leans forward on her elbows. “Tell me what happened.”

Once I start talking, everything spills out. I tell Billingsley more than I've even admitted to myself about how confused Nonda has seemed lately, how many times she's wandered off, how truly bad things have gotten with her. When I'm finished, I'm exhausted and embarrassed. “I should have taken better care of her,” I say, fighting back tears.

Dorian lays his hand on my arm. “You can't blame yourself.”

“He's right,” Billingsley says. “You're sixteen and working full-time. You've got a lot on your plate.”

I don't say it aloud but I know they're wrong. If I'd been home, not out making music, none of this would have happened.

“Since there are extenuating circumstances,” Billingsley says, “her age, her mental state, et cetera, I can file a special missing persons report. And I'll make sure it goes out to the officers on rounds inside the Complex and to the MediPlex so they'll be on the lookout for her.”

“And we'll make signs to post in Old Town,” Dorian says.

“Good idea,” Billingsley says. “Other than that…” She trails off, looking sad.

I nod and thank both of them effusively so none of us has to say aloud that there isn't much else we can do now but wait.

 

ORPHEUS

“Prepare for self-navigation.”
I awaken to the dinging AutoNav. I must have passed out from the Juse flooding my system. I have no idea how long I've been in the air or how far I've gone, but we must be far beyond the bounds of the City SkyPath. I had no plan, no destination in mind when I took off. I thought about flying to my father's ranch, or going to the chalet up in the mountains. I could have headed south to his place on the beach. Or gone to the airport and left the country. But the truth is, if he wants to, he can track me down and bring me back for the ASA at any moment.

The Cicada shudders as the wheels come down and the wings retract. I take the steering wheel and hold on tight with sweaty hands as we touch down on a bumpy, ill-kept road, nothing like the smooth streets in the City, which are long gone. My headlights shine on trees and a road and a river that winds its way across the land like a stumbling drunk. My father once told me Corporation Xian Jai, some outfit out of China, had wanted to straighten the river to make construction of the warehouse and factory complexes out here easier.

“Why didn't they?” I asked.

“They gave up,” he said. “If you want something big, you have to dream big to get it.”

Lights from warehouses peek through the giant willows growing along the riverbank. Up above, I think I see twinkling stars, then realize those are the tiny flashing lights of delivery drones taking off from warehouse roofs. I've heard each Complex has its own high-rise PODPlexes where all the workers live like ants, filing back and forth twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week, every week of the year, plucking and packing up crap from shelves for Plutes like me.

On the receiver, I hear the low rumble of a deejay's altered voice. “Hello, my minions, how you doing on this misty moon-filled night? It's DJ HiJax here with you along for the ride.” I've heard this guy before, but every time I come across him, his voice has been disguised at a different frequency. Sometimes he sounds slow and low like tonight, other times high and fast as if he's a young girl, but always with the same name.

“We're going way back when tonight,” he says. “To a time when music was a rallying cry. When Mr. Bob Marley and the Wailers told the people to ‘Get Up, Stand Up.' Stand up for your rights, Bob Marley said, just like our friends at Project Calliope who are taking a stand against Chanson Industries. This is for Calliope Bontempi, taking back music for the people!”

“Oh jeez,” I say. Will I ever escape my father? Even out here, his lawsuits are all anyone can talk about.

I hit the scan button on the receiver to find another pirate station as I drive slowly with my windows down to let in the night air. It's cooler than in the City and I can smell the muck and mud from the river. I haven't been in nature, real nature, in months. I inhale deeply. The waves on my receiver crackle. I reach down to fine-tune it, hoping to locate another voice to keep me company on this lonely road.

The waves go fuzzy for a moment, then I catch the hint of another song. At first it's faint, but then it comes in clearer. I don't recognize the singer. I turn it up and listen carefully to the strange instrumentation. Sounds like an old-school electric guitar and bass and maybe even real drums, but it's the singer's voice that punches me in the gut. Except for the mixing, which makes her voice go muddy around the edges on the high notes, the sound is beautiful and raw. The kind of song that could steal my heart. I try to imagine what the singer must look like, how beautiful she must be to sound like this, but I can't get a clear vision in my head because what I hear doesn't match up with the pictures my mind supplies. She wouldn't be painted and polished or surgically altered. Her voice and music are wholly unique and I can only imagine she must be, too.

“I am Nobody from Nowhere,”
she sings.

I inhale sharply, trying to remember where I've seen that phrase before. On a package, I think, but I can't remember exactly what or why it would have been there.

A speck upon your screen

A non-automated worker that you've never seen

I've packed your purchased footholds

I'll tie them with a bow

But I live a life that you'll never know

By the end of the song, I'm singing along, “Nobody from Nowhere, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here! Nobody from Nowhere, I'll scream until you hear.”

I don't want the song to end. I want to hear it again. I want to delve back into the melody, listen to the lyrics again. I want to know the world she's singing about. Become a part of it. That busy hive she describes and somehow makes it sound enticing. A place I'd rather be. Go to work, do your job, go home, repeat. No fighting, clawing, scratching your way to the top because there is no top. It's flat. One level with everybody on it. No omnipresent drones tracking your every move. No constant pressure to do better, be better, beat your best friend who becomes your biggest competition overnight.