Crashed (13 page)

"She misses you."

No, she missed her sister. As far as she was concerned, I was just an imposter, come to steal her sister's identity and life. So Zo had stolen it first. Starting with Walker. But I wasn't about to ask my father if Zo was still sleeping with my ex-boyfriend.

I didn't even care anymore. Walker felt irrelevant. I remembered wanting him, I just couldn't remember why. Zo was welcome to him, as she was welcome to all my old friends and old clothes, my old spot on the track team, my old spot as favorite daughter. Only daughter.

"She didn't want me there," I said.

"She's a child. She doesn't know what she wants."

"She's only two years younger than me," I pointed out. Waiting for the inevitable: Y
ou're a child too.

You don't know what you want.

Come home.

But he didn't say it.

Your sister misses you. Your mother misses you.
Never I
miss you.

It started to rain. My father glanced up, looking annoyed that the weather would dare interrupt him, then down at his shoes, already spattered with grime from the fat, filthy raindrops.

"Whatever you were doing in that corp-town," my father said, steering us back toward the car, "I know it's because you're mixed up with these . . ." His face twisted.
"People."
He raised his arm, letting his hand fall lightly on my left shoulder for just a moment, like he was choosing arbitrarily from a list of "fatherly gestures," seeking one that felt right. This wasn't it.

Did he think I had something to do with the attack?

Did he think I was capable of something like that? And if he did, why would he be here now?

Just ask me,
I thought.
Ask me what happened.

And I resolved that if he did ask, I would tell him everything.

"I don't want to know about it," he said, hunching his shoulders against the rain. "Just be careful."

I was still a minor; if he wanted to force me to come home, he could. Or at least he could try. I'd been wondering all these months why he hadn't--certainly he had enough credit and enough reach to find out where I was. To drag me home. But he hadn't.

And now it turned out he'd known where I was the whole time. Known, and just left me there.

I didn't miss you either,
I thought.

And
I missed you too.

I never understood it as an org, how a thing could be true and not true in equal amounts. When we were kids, they always tried to drill it into our heads, the way the universe constructed itself through a simultaneity of opposition: Light is a particle. Light is a wave. Light is both, at the same time it's neither. Every reality contains its own opposite; every whole truth rests on two half lies.

These days, it made a lot more sense. That's what happens when your whole life is an oxymoron.

Now I existed solely thanks to the quantum paradox, my brain a collection of qubits in quantum superposition, encoding truths and memories, imagination and irrationality in opposing, contradictory states that existed and didn't exist, all at the same time.

I am the same; I am different
.

But when it came to my family, different won out.
Some things create danger just by existing.
I couldn't go home again, even if he'd asked.

Which he hadn't.

"I don't think the authorities will be bothering you anymore," he said. "But if they do, voice me."

"Thank you," I said. Formal, proper, like a stranger. Like him. "And for today. Thanks."

Like it was no big deal that he'd made it okay, the way I used to think he could make everything okay. I wasn't a child anymore; I knew better. Some things could be fixed with credit and power and properly applied pressure. Most things, the important things--things like bodies on the ground, bleeding from their eyes, things like what happened when the secops arrived and the guns came out and the losers fell, things like me, stuck between being a person and a
thing
--no one could fix. Not even him.

My father patted me on the back, twice. Item number two on the list of awkward "fatherly gestures."

"Ben's agreed to drive you back," he said.

"Oh. Now?"

"Unless there's something else you need?"

As I watched him, trying to figure out what he was expecting me to say, he met my gaze for the first time. But if there was a message encrypted in his blue stare, I couldn't crack the code. "No," I said. "Nothing."

WATCHERS

"It's for your own protection."

I would have expected someone like call-me-Ben to drive a late-model Trivi or maybe even a Petra, one of those neutered bubble cars with a rotating cabin and a collapsible gel body--bland as his wardrobe, suitable for middle-aged trend chasers who preferred safety to style. But the car was a Taiko, black and practically dripping with credit, its bullet shape so streamlined that it was hard to imagine how a human form could fit inside. The wheels were hidden beneath the frame, so there was nothing to break the smooth, sleek line. I'd never seen one up close before, much less ridden inside, but I heard that with the right patch, you could override the velocity restrictions and push it to almost two hundred. Walker had always wanted one, and the fact that I knew anything about them at all was a testament to how crazy he'd been on the subject. You can't tune out three years' worth of obsession. (Trust me, I tried.)

The paint was supposedly some kind of special alloy that absorbed even infrared light--it looked like someone had carved a car-shaped hole in the universe and filled it with pure nothingness.

The door swung open. Ben was behind the wheel. I climbed into the backseat, hoping to endure the ride in silence. No such luck. He programmed the nav-unit for Quinn's estate, then climbed in beside me. I stared out the window, watching my father's figure recede into the distance.

"You're welcome," Ben said once we'd pulled out onto open road.

"I didn't say thank you."

"I noticed."

I kept my eyes on the window. The land was flat here, sprawling green fields stretching toward the horizon. A herd of cows whizzed by in a spotted blur. The road wove through flower-dotted meadows; clumps of willow trees, their spindly, sagging branches kissing the road; acres of greening corn, bowing to the wind.
Nowhere to hide,
I thought, then wondered how long it would be before I stopped searching for safe harbors.

"No one gets something for nothing, Lia," Ben said.

I faced him. Hard to believe I'd ever found this guy attractive. Not that his features were anything less than perfect-- but there was a softness to them, a waxy, malleable quality, like he'd been molded in a factory, the simulacrum of a real live person. Everything about him looked artificial, from his sparkling brown eyes to his artfully tousled hair to his soft, full lips curving up in a sardonic smile. But:
He can be as fake as he wants, and he'll still be more real than me
.

"You're angry," Ben said.

"You noticed."

"That's exactly why you weren't informed about the tracking."

"You mean
spying
."

"I understand it displeases you. But it's for your own protection."

"I can take care of myself."

He laughed softly. "Of course. All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding."

The car vibrated beneath us as we lurched off the highway onto a loose gravel road. "We're going the wrong way."

"Scenic route," Ben said. "You and I have a lot to discuss."

I thought about opening the door and throwing myself out of the car. It would have been a bit melodramatic, but melodrama seemed appropriate. We couldn't have been going more than fifty or sixty miles an hour--it would be a bumpy landing, but I'd had those before. Thick skin, strong bones, titanium skull, just a few of the benefits of being a mech.

But if call-me-Ben wanted me, he would always know exactly where to find me.

Another of the benefits of being a mech, apparently.

"The doors are locked," Ben said

No problem." I gave him a placid smile. "I'm getting used to being a prisoner."

"You're not a prisoner, Lia." Ben sighed and leaned back in his seat. He laced his fingers together, inverted his hands, palms facing out, then stretched his arms with a satisfied groan. "You're just possibly the solution to a sticky little problem we've been having."

"I doubt that. What do you want?"

"Your friend Jude," Ben said.

I don't have friends,
I was about to say, then stopped myself. Friends were for orgs, just like family. I didn't know what Jude was to me--an ally, a protector, an antagonist--none of the old categories fit. He was simply
like me
.

I smirked at Ben. "Last I checked, he's not mine to give."

"I want the name of his BioMax contact." Ben's voice was steely.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Let me tell you what I know, Lia." His features were still just as soft, but his voice, his eyes, were hard. "I know Jude has an inside source at BioMax. That he's stealing information and technology. I also know that Jude was supposed to meet his contact at Synapsis Corp-Town this week, but he sent you instead. For the first time. And just as you arrive . . ." Ben shook his head. "That's some seriously bad timing, don't you think?"

No more secrets
. That was all I could think. Not when they were watching.

"How do you know?" I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.

Ben made a sound like a buzzer. "Wrong question, Lia."

I wanted him to stop saying my name. There was a little twist in his voice, a glint in his eye, each time he formed the syllables. Like the name was a secret between us. Like he was silently saying,
We both know you're not
really
Lia Kahn. But I'll play along if you will
.

I waited.

"Why didn't he go himself?" Ben asked. "Why did he need
you
to go? What did he really want?"

I saw where he was going. I'd already gotten there myself. Jude was the one who'd sent me to BioMax, it followed he was the one most likely to have set me up. But he wasn't the only one who'd known about the corp-town trip. Jude's BioMax contact knew too. And he'd known enough not to show. Call-me-Ben wanted me to believe Jude had set me up--and so, for the first time, I started to think maybe he hadn't.

"He must really scare you guys," I said. "Afraid he'll turn us against you?"

Ben arched an eyebrow. "'You'
orgs
?"

"'You'
BioMax
." I was spinning through the possibilities as quickly as I could. BioMax knew where we were at all times-- they had all they needed to set us up. But why go to the trouble and then whisk me away from the secops? Why do it in the first place?

He burst into laughter. "Lia, as far as I'm concerned, if Jude were who he claimed to be, he'd be a hero. Our BioMax clients
need
someone like him, to ease the transition into life postdown-load." His eyes were gleaming, his movements loose and free, as if some part of him usually tamped down was breaking out. "All that stuff about mechs being superior, about this technology being the dawn of a new era for humanity . . . if I didn't believe that, why would I work for BioMax in the first place?"

"Great, so Jude's a hero," I said sourly. Maybe they were all working together. "Where's the problem? You want me to arrange a meet-and-greet?"

"I said he
would
be a hero," Ben reminded me. "If a tidy little confidence boost was all he was after. But it's not."

"How would you know?"

"Wrong question again," Ben said with another buzzing noise. "What does this boy
really
want? Have you even bothered to ask? Or is it easier to just smile and nod and accept whatever he says as gospel?"

"You know me," I said with as much fake sweetness as I could muster. "Always going with the flow."

"You really think you're all a bunch of rebels, don't you?" he asked, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. "And what, exactly, are you rebelling against?"

"I don't know," I mused. "How about stalker corps that get off on spying on us?"

Nothing ruffled him. He just drummed his hands on the smoky glass of the window, adopting a philosopher's tone. " 'Us.' Interesting word, that. And who would 'us
'
be, in this scenario?" He ticked the options off on his fingers. "We've got Jude, who appears out of nowhere and charms himself into the heart of, among others, Quinn Sharpe, heir to one of the country's largest fortunes. Not to mention Ty Marian, Anders Prix, Lara Pirendez--none of them in Sharpe territory, certainly, but not too shabby. Sloane Beignet--I'm told
you
were responsible for bringing her in. And then there's Lia Kahn. Whose parents have yet to part with any of their credit--but, if and when they do, will, I'm sure, be donating to the cause."

"What are you getting at?" I knew what he was getting at.

"I'm just wondering whether it's a coincidence that so many of your friend Jude's nearest and dearest acolytes are swimming in credit."

"It's no coincidence," I snapped. "So we're rich--so what?" Not wanting to admit that I'd had the same thought myself. But Quinn had donated her credit freely--they all had--so we could live as we wanted to live.
Jude pays me back in other ways,
she'd told me once.
And not just me, all of us.
It's not like Jude reveled in the luxury--there seemed to be little that he actually wanted for himself. "The download costs. We're
all
rich."

"Not all of them," Ben said pointedly. "At least, they didn't used to be."

"That's really what you want to talk about?" I said. Daring him. "The 'volunteers'?" He could hear it in my voice, that I knew better.

"You're so quick to distrust BioMax," he said smoothly, shifting gears. "And yet so quick to put your faith in someone like Jude. Do you know
anything
about this boy? Where he came from, who he was before the download?"

"It's irrelevant," I shot back. "None of us are the people we were before the download. Those people are dead."

"Excuse my language, but: bullshit," Ben said. "That's a lie
he
needs you to believe, so you'll walk away from the people who actually care about you. Like your family, Lia. Like your father."

"Not that it's any of your business, but my father cares about Lia Kahn, his dead daughter. I'm just an electronic copy. You know it, I know it."

"Does he." Ben shut his eyes and tipped his head back against the seat. As if we were done and it was naptime.

Not that I wanted to hear more of his crap.

Still. "You don't know anything about my father."

"I'm sure you're right." He didn't bother to open his eyes. Instead, he pulled out a tablet-size ViM, passed it to me. It was as black and sleek as the car, featureless but for the slim gray thumbprint in the left corner. No one needed that kind of security on their ViMs--that was the whole point of a ViM, that the data was stored on the network, not on the machine. Nonetheless, the screen stayed blank until Ben reached across me and pressed his thumb to the print. "A greatest-hits selection for you."

The vids were cued up on the BioMax zone, the picture blurry and amateurish, the cameras shaking. All featured my father facing down clusters of suited men and women, various corp logos hanging over their heads or stenciled onto the surface of the tables. My father, seemingly oblivious to the camera and the hostility of his audiences. "These are human beings," he said in vid after vid. "Can't you see that? People we know. People we care about."

My father, for once asking rather than ordering, asking for understanding. For the download technology. For the mechs. For his daughter.

"These aren't machines," he said, "no matter what they look like. These are our children--my child."

One-on-one in an ornate living room, pounding a delicate glass table so hard I expected it to shatter. "Would this be any less a table if it was made of wood? Of steel? We don't define a thing by what it's made of--we define a thing by what it
does
. A brain isn't a brain because it's a mess of cells and neurotransmitters and organic gunk. It's a brain because it
thinks
. We're all made out of nothing but
stuff
. Our stuff may bleed, but fundamentally? It's still just matter in motion: an organic machine. And fundamentally, if you judge them by how they think, how they feel, how they
act
, they're still human."

Ben, his eyes still closed, permitted himself a small half smile. "He borrowed that one from me. Nice, isn't it?"

"What is this?" I paused the final vid on a grainy shot of my father's face. At the secops station he'd looked older than I remembered, but here he seemed young again, as if fresh off a lift-tuck, the fuzziness erasing the cracks carved into his face and the dark half moons under his eyes. The camera had somehow captured something that never escaped in real life--the anger hidden beneath the tight lips and the carefully modulated voice. In the frozen vid, his face was still perfectly composed. But his eyes looked wild. "Where'd you get this?"

"You think you're the only one we keep an eye on?" Ben finally opened his eyes and looked at me. "What?" he said with palpably false surprise. "You didn't know?"

I didn't say anything.

Was it guilt? As far as I could tell, my father didn't know the meaning of the word. Guilt required acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and in the world according to my father, everything he did was right, by definition.

Except for the choice to make me,
I thought, not wanting to remember.

Remembering.

Forgive me,
he'd begged.
If I could do it again . . .

I would make the right choice this time.

He felt guilty that he'd unleashed me on the world and on his family--Lia Kahn's family, forced to pretend that the dead had come back to life, that an electronic copy could ever replace the real thing.

And yet: "These are our children. My child."

And yet my father didn't lie.

Maybe he was lying to himself.

But what if he just believed it?

"Your father's been running all over the country, trying to persuade his estimable peers to ease the path for download recipients," Ben said. "He's become quite the crusader for mech rights. All behind closed doors, of course."