Perception (20 page)

I still couldn’t
believe how much my life had changed in just a few weeks. Normally, on a day
like today, I’d be lounging around my pool, not trying to break into a Sleiman
Tower office.

After what seemed
like an eternity, the elevator opened on the thirty second floor. I caught a
glimpse out the floor to ceiling glass window that was currently facing east
and felt woozy.

“It’s incredible,”
Noah said. The view extended beyond the south gates of Sol City to the horizon
of the Pacific Ocean.

“I don’t like
heights.” I turned my back to the window. “So we know Liam had access to
Sleiman Tower offices.”

The lights were
dimmed, as most people who worked on this floor had the weekends off, but they
shed enough illumination that we could find our way along the hall. About half
way down we found an unassuming door painted the same white as the walls. A
small glass plaque had M.I. Inc. engraved in it.

Before Noah could
test the chip in the door scanner, we heard a noise from down the hall. I
pulled him into an indentation in the wall that barely concealed us. I risked a
peek. A humanoid robot had turned the corner, pushing a floor cleaner. This
unit was a more advanced model than the one I’d seen at the Pike residence. Its
movements were more fluid and the silicon skin was eerily life like. So much
so, someone had even decided to dress it in a house cleaner’s costume.

I put my finger to my
lips. The humanoid drew closer. The hum of the floor cleaner barely covered the
loud thumping of my heart. I pressed into Noah more firmly.

The humanoid reached
the nook we stood in. Its eyes scanned us as we huddled together, standing
statue still.

Would it recognize us
as intruders? Would it trigger an alarm? The hum of the floor cleaner continued
as the humanoid caught my eyes.

They were slightly
larger than human eyes, though the pupils and irises were very convincing. I
knew they weren’t really eyes, but cameras.

We were caught.

Then the humanoid
pushed the floor cleaner towards my feet, bumping them slightly. It must’ve
thought we were a new piece of decor. It continued down the hall fulfilling the
purpose it was programmed to do.

I felt Noah’s chest
move as he exhaled.

I wanted to cry, but we
didn’t have time to give in to fear.

After double-checking
that the hall was clear, Noah waved Liam’s chip under the door scanner.

It clicked. I glanced
up at Noah, wondering what we’d find when I pushed open the door.

Chapter 25

Not much, it turned
out. The room was small, like an over-sized janitor closet. White walls, a
small window, a single desk with nothing but a lamp on it. Not even a computer.

I swung my arms wide.
“What is this?”

“It doesn’t look like
a real company to me,” Noah answered.

“Maverick is a fake
company?”

“Looks like it’s a
front to move money without looking suspicious.”

I slumped against the
wall. “This is bad.”

“I’m sorry, Zoe.”
Noah took my hand and just then his ComRing buzzed. He pulled his hand away and
stared at his palm.

My heart jumped at
the stricken look on his face. “What is it?”

“It’s my mother.
She’s in the hospital.”

I could barely keep
up with him as he dashed out of the Sleiman Tower. I heard him cursing himself
that he’d left her for too long, that he wasn’t nearby when she needed him.

“Do you want me to
come with you?” I offered as we rode the elevator down to the lobby.

“No.” Noah’s firm
refusal was like a knife blade in my chest.

I jumped on the next
pod with him anyway; someone had to pay the fare. He tucked his hands around
his chest. Once we arrived at the northern gates, he disembarked with a quick
goodbye.

I swallowed the hard
lump that formed in my throat, staying on the pod with no destination in mind. I
didn’t want to go home. Maybe the beach. Let the roar of the waves drown out
the accusations blaring in my head.

If Noah’s mother died
before he got there, he’d hate me for it. And I wouldn’t blame him. How selfish
could I get, dragging Noah around on a wild sleuthing stunt when he was needed
at home? From now on, I was doing this myself.

I found myself
getting off near Jackson’s house. We had unfinished business. I’d deal with
that first. His mother answered the front door. She wore a pantsuit with long,
gold chains draped over her large, enhanced chest. Golden tresses towered high
on the top of her head. I was surprised to see her. She was usually busy with
social clubs, charities and golf games.

“Zoe! Come on in.” She
gave me a tentative hug. “It’s so good to see you. I haven’t had a chance to
talk to you since...your brother. I just wanted you to know how awful we all
feel.”

“Thanks, I appreciate
it. Is Jackson around?”

“He is, which is
rare, I’ll tell you.”

I already knew that.
When Jackson wasn’t at my house, he was holed up at the university, and lately
that meant the warehouse in the eastern sector. It was no fun hanging out in
his big house alone.

“He hasn’t been
himself since the two of you, you know, argued.” Her eyes were wide and
pleading. “He’s in a bad way. I hope you guys can work out your little
misunderstanding.”

Not likely. “Where is
he?”

“In his room.” She
motioned to the sweeping stair case. “Go on up.”

I remembered how
Jackson and I used to ride down the banister when Mrs. Pike wasn’t around.
Looking down from the top, I could see how stupid that was. Even a GAP head
wouldn’t survive a crack on those tiles from this height.

I couldn’t help but
compare this mansion to Noah’s bungalow. Though Noah’s home was about the size
of this foyer, and not nearly as richly decorated, it had a warmth and appeal
Jackson’s house lacked. You could
hear
life happening at the Brody
house. This place was a museum.

Still, it was a step
up from my house, which these days felt like a tomb.

I knocked on the
familiar door and opened it slowly when Jackson called for me to come in. His
eyes widened in surprise but he recovered quickly. “Zoe. Didn’t expect you.”

Jackson basically had
his own suite. A king-sized bed took up a part of the room, and beside it was a
sofa sectional that faced a large screen TV where Jackson had been playing
games; 3D images of robotic soldiers were paused in midair. A mini-bar at the
end was stocked with food and beverages.

“You haven’t been
answering my calls,” he said.

“I know.”

I noticed a bruise
had formed on his left jaw. He saw me looking at it.

“A gift from your
natural
.”

I didn’t want to
antagonize Jackson, so I let that one pass.

He shook his loose
hair from his eyes. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

I ignored his
platitudes and leaned against the back of the sofa. “You must be curious about
the chip.”

Jackson shrugged, turning
his attention to his game. “Did it do you any good? It was de-activated.”

“You underestimate
me. I know about the experiment.”

He stood suddenly,
his shirt falling open to reveal his tanned, surfer’s chest. He reached out his
hand, passing it through a soldier’s holographic face. “You should give the
chip back to me.”

I ignored his hand
and kept my eyes on his face. “Tell me what happened first.”

“Why should I?”

I judged the distance
to the door. Could I make it there before him if he came after me again? “Because,
if you don’t I’m going to assume you killed Liam.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Then what happened?”

Jackson closed his
eyes, let out a defeated breath and dropped back to the sofa. He patted the
seat beside him, wanting me to join him. I compromised by sitting on the arm.

“Liam came to me in
February, super-excited. He said he was on the verge of a breakthrough. That it
was possible to augment human intelligence, speed up the process that
researchers were working on now. Unimaginable powers of thought could be
possible, far beyond the normal brain.

“I was aware of the
research, and I told him it was too young. Sure the theory has been around for
a long time, but the technology wasn’t quite here. That’s when he went off
about how the technology
was
here, and the government was holding back
funding and restricting progress with ethics. But he knew of someone who would
finance unauthorized research and exploration. We just had to take it off-campus.
Out of Sol City.”

“Who financed it?”

“Liam wouldn’t tell
me.”

I wasn’t sure if I
believed him or not, but I let it drop for now. “How’d you find the warehouse?”

“Liam contacted a guy
on the outside. Some doper who’d do anything for money and keep it quiet as
long as we kept paying him regularly. We had no way of knowing where we could
take our operations on our own. The kid located the abandoned warehouse and arranged
for us to get in un-noticed.”

“Zack Dexter?”

Jackson’s eyes popped
open. “How...?”

“Doesn’t matter. What
happened next?”

“We set up a lab and
started going there practically every day. Liam was super enthused about the
brain science and did a couple tests. He couldn’t wait to try downloading his
mind onto a hard drive.

“This led to
advancing the cyborg-technology the government had worked on a couple decades
ago, before the global peace policy basically made the need for robotic
soldiers obsolete.

“Liam worked day and
night. So much that he insisted that we remove his chip because he was afraid
the authorities might be tipped off with him leaving Sol City so often.

“I didn’t want to do
it, but I knew if I didn’t, he’d cut it out himself. The whole experiment was
like a drug to him. He saw it as a way to preserve his mind indefinitely. He
was consumed with the idea of creating a body for himself where each part would
eventually be replaced with a mechanical part, ultimately creating a form of
him that didn’t have to die.”

“Liam already had a
life expectancy of more than two hundred years,” I said. “I don’t understand.
Why would he do this?”

“Liam wanted to live
forever. And he wanted to be the first to make it possible. He dreamed about a
spot in the record books, and he wanted bragging rights. He wanted to eclipse
the fame of his grandfather.”

Liam’s own ego had
killed him. He wanted to live forever, and he died young trying.

“So what went wrong?”

Jackson pinched his
eyes together, and I could see his agony.

“I don’t know,” he
said. “The power went out. I don’t know how. We had emergency back-up. We
checked and double checked everything. Part way through the full download...he had
a seizure. Then he stopped breathing. We couldn’t bring him back.”

I closed my eyes,
imagining the stress and trauma of that night. Sorry for my brother, but also
feeling a little sympathy for Jackson and Mitchell.

Still, they had
covered it up. Who were they covering it up for?

“Do you think someone
sabotaged it?”

He didn’t answer the
question. “I’ve missed you, Zoe. We need each other to get through this. I need
you.”

I felt sorry for him.
I believed him when he said he needed me. But it wasn’t the same as saying he
loved me, and I was certain now that I didn’t love him.

“Did someone sabotage
the experiment, Jackson?”

He stared at me, then
slowly nodded.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Jackson, please.”

“I can’t tell you.”
His eyes had softened, almost apologetic. “They’d kill me. And they might kill
you. I couldn’t live with that.

Chapter 26

When I hadn’t heard
anything from Noah by the next morning, I tapped my ComRing and called him.

“Is she okay?”I asked
when he picked up.

“Yeah. She stayed the
night in the hospital, but we’re bringing her home now. Skye’s going to tend to
her there.” It went quiet and I thought the line had been dropped, then Noah’s
voice went hoarse. “We almost lost her.”

I closed my eyes. “But
she’s okay, now, right?”

“They gave her a new
med cocktail.”

“I’m so sorry this is
happening, Noah.”

“I know.” Another
long pause. “Hey, I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

I stared blankly at my
DigiWall—gliders jumping off a mountain side, floating like birds to the valley
below—and wondered if Noah actually intended to call me back. Maybe this whole
thing with his mother was a wakeup call to him. Maybe he was wondering why he was
wasting his time helping out a GAP.