Hollowgirl (20 page)

“SHE'S NO ONE,”
said Mallory. “We're just here for a face job.”

“Do I
look
stupid?” Billie glanced at Mallory, then turned back to Clair. “You're Clair Hill, the girl everyone's looking for. What rock have you been hiding under?”

“If only ‘everyone' knew,” Mallory said. As she said the words, her hand slid into a pocket of her jumpsuit and Clair understood—understood beyond all shadow of a doubt—that there was a weapon in there, something small and deadly, and if she didn't speak soon Sargent was going to lose her girlfriend a second time.

“I've been a bit out of it,” Clair said, stepping forward to put herself between Mallory and Billie. Her own pistol slipped harmlessly out of sight. “Kari can tell you later. You're probably wondering what's happened to her, and I can tell you that, too. But first, what are they saying about me? Who do they say I've murdered or betrayed now?”

“No one, as it happens. They just want to give you some kind of medal for saving the world.” At Clair's look of astonishment she added, “Yeah, totally not fooling anyone. Come on through. I have a Faraday shield. Half my clients are even more skittish than you.”

Billie turned and passed through the bead curtain. Clair went to follow, but Zep caught her by the elbow.

“Tell me now!”

“Zep, calm down.”

“No, not until you explain why we're here, with
her
.”

Clair didn't look to see if Mallory was offended by the poison in his voice. She had eyes only for him. He looked so frightened and confused, so completely out of his depth, that her heart broke a little.

She reached her left hand up around his neck and pulled him down, kissed him briefly but firmly on the lips.
Take that, Clair Two,
she thought, with only a twinge of guilt for Libby's feelings. She needed Zep to be calm, and part of her still needed
him
, period. Surprising him out of his shock was worth the risk.

“I'm still me,” she said, letting him go. “And I know what I'm doing.”

He nodded quickly. Two bright spots burned in his cheeks. She took him by the hand and led him through the curtain.

On the other side was a space barely large enough for the four of them, containing a fabber and the memory of fresh tea on the air. An actual door took them into a state-of-the-art operating room, the only human touch a picture of Sargent with a small, expressionless man who had to be PK Forest, Clair guessed. There were three chairs and one surgical table, currently standing in an almost-upright position. Clair looked nervously for gleaming knives and
laser saws but thankfully saw nothing of the sort.

Billie leaned against a narrow bench and indicated that they should sit. Clair and Zep did, but Mallory stayed by the door as it shut tight, sealing them in. The Air disappeared—Clair disliked being so disconnected, even from a copy of the real Air. Yet she also felt profound relief. There was no chance that anyone in either camp would find them now.

“Okay,” said Billie, folding her arms. “You know Kari, so that's working in your favor, but you'd better tell me
how
you know her before moving on to specifics. I'm clumsy when I'm nervous.”

Clair glanced at Mallory, who indicated that she was to do the talking. Not knowing quite where to start, Clair decided to leave out all the backstory about Improvement and the dupes and the hollowmen and the Yard, and focus solely on how Sargent was protecting them from corrupt PKs and lawmakers, and how Clair needed to get close to them in order to bring them down.

“Hence the face job,” Billie said, nodding. “Well, I'm available. None of my bookings have turned up today. Did you have something to do with that?”

Clair shook her head. “It's hard to explain—”

“They're dead,” said Mallory. “That's why we're here: to stop anyone else from dying. Are you going to help us or not?”

Billie looked at her and smiled, not at all intimidated by
Mallory's aggressive tone.

“I would like to talk to Kari first,” she said.

“You can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because she would try to stop you.”

“Why would she do that, pray tell?”

“Because she would rather kill me on sight than entrust me with Clair.”

“And you?” Billie asked Zep, who looked up from his hands in surprise. “What do you think, handsome?”

“I don't know,” he said, looking from Billie to Clair and back again. “I'm not even supposed to be here.”

“I guessed. That's why I'm asking you.”

He sat straighter, out of the slump he had fallen into. “Clair thinks it could work. That's enough for me.”

“What about this one?” Billie nodded at Mallory. “How do you know she's not luring Clair into a trap?”

“I don't know that.” Zep's voice rose in challenge. “That's why I'm going to go with them.”

“You're not,” said Mallory.

“You can't stop me. If you try, I'll tell the others and they'll stop
you
.”

Clair felt a moment of panic. She didn't want Zep coming with her into danger, but she remembered the threat of violence in Mallory when it seemed that Billie was about to give them away. He was in trouble whichever way he went.

And it was all Clair's fault. If she could send him back in time and have him choose another corridor to walk down, she would.

But she couldn't. She had to find a way to make it work.

“He has to come with us,” she said, suddenly seeing a solution to the standoff. “Wallace will want someone on the inside of the prison to get past the Yetis. If we bring Zep, Wallace will let us right into the center. He won't be able to resist. And it'll distract him, stop him from noticing me if I'm doing anything wrong.”

Mallory looked trapped for a second, but then she nodded. “All right. But if he tries anything—”

“I'll only try anything if
you
try anything,” Zep said.

They glared at each other, and Clair felt another momentary qualm. Zep was loyal but impulsive. What if he said the wrong thing at the wrong time and gave them away? What if instead of being an asset, he became a liability?

They would have to cross that hurdle when they came to it. There was a lot to do before then.

“Will you help us?” Clair asked Billie.

The face sculptor looked down at the floor. Her shoulders rose as she breathed in deeply, then fell as she exhaled.

“If I don't, you'll just find some corner hack who'll make you look like Frankenstein's leftovers,” she said. “So, yes, to spare you that. Who do you want to look like?”

Mallory sent her an image of Nobody. Clair expected
Billie to react with surprise, perhaps even alarm. The height difference was small, but that was the least of their worries. Blond hair, pale skin, male . . . Could the differences between them have been any greater?

Instead Billie just nodded and spoke in a businesslike tone. “Armor, gloves, and lifts will cover the difference in build. We'll treat the visible skin of the face and neck, and the hair, of course. Your features will require some tissue prosthetics to bring them into line. As for the rest . . . how much time do we have?”

“The longer it takes, the more likely our absence will be noticed,” said Mallory.

“Not long, then.” Unexpectedly, Billie grinned. “It's a good thing we're not involving Kari. There are aspects of my work that not even she knows about.”

Yet another qualm, but it was too late for second thoughts.

“What do I do?” Clair asked, standing.

“Come stand here next to the table, pretty girl, and we'll get started.”

SCANNING CAME FIRST.
Clair was afraid that she would have to take off all her clothes, but Billie asked her to peel
her undersuit only down to her waist.

“Turn around,” she told Zep, and he did so with only a token protest.

“Now I know you're really you,” he bumped her, lens to lens.

“And I know you'll never change,” she bumped back, remembering the feel of his lips against hers. She had really earned Libby's ire now—even though she was sure she wasn't going to take this further . . . wasn't she?

Once Billie had created a detailed map of Clair's body, from her skin right down to her bones, the table tilted back and the work truly began. To keep her still, Billie gave her a tranquilizing patch that she promised wouldn't knock her out for hours. Clair drifted in a hazy, not-quite-asleep state into which occasional words and phrases intruded. Her body felt pleasantly distant.

“I can't believe you're doing this,” Zep bumped her.

She found it hard to make her lenses work. “No choice.”

“Much better than biology class, though,” he said. “Maybe you'll get credit when school starts again.”

She was buoyed by his confidence, but also somewhat saddened by it. He really thought they would get out of the Yard and everything would go back to normal. But how would that work with so many people dead? They could re-create all the buildings and cities they wanted, but without people to occupy them, without the majority of teachers and students and parents and children, the
world would feel very empty.

“If,” she corrected him, feeling like a killjoy but knowing someone had to say it.

“I dissected a frog once who was as cynical as you,” Zep said. “It didn't end well for him.”

“Never expected,” Clair replied, pretty sure she wasn't talking about the two of them, but her thoughts were sliding around the inside of her skull like eels on ice, “a happy ending.”

“That's what your mom—”

“Don't!”

“Yes, definitely still you.”

“Have you got video of the subject?” Billie asked Mallory at one point. “You'll need to coach her on vocal and behavioral tics.”

“He's got plenty of those.”

“You can definitely put her back afterward?” said Zep.

“The only thing I won't restore is her hair,” said Billie. “Best if that grows out naturally.”

Clair went to touch her scalp, anxious at what was being done up there, but she couldn't even lift a finger. The anxiety immediately faded, becoming a numb kind of curiosity. She wished there were a mirror above her so she could see. What would it look like as her face was flayed off and then laid back on a different way?

That was how she imagined it—like Zep's dissected frog. But the reality, she was sure, was much less invasive. There
would be hair-thin needles and implants for stimulating muscles and fat emplacements to make her look more masculine around the jaw and throat. Her skin would be repigmented by chemicals, or perhaps by adding some sort of overcoat? If the latter, she hoped it wouldn't peel away in the middle of her mission and reveal her true identity. . . .

That triggered a half dream in which she imagined herself standing in front of Ant Wallace, a man she had never met, and her face fell off, only to reveal exactly the same face underneath—and then
that
face falling off to reveal exactly the same face again, and so on and so on.

That amused her, for reasons she couldn't fathom.

“Well, Chuckles,” said Zep, leaning momentarily into view, “I'm glad
someone's
having fun.”

“Perhaps I should dial back the patch a little,” said Billie.

No,
Clair wanted to say through lips as immobile as two toothbrushes taped together.
If I don't laugh, I'll cry.

After first being copied, and now losing her face, the question of who she was was getting increasingly hard to answer.

Whatever Billie did to the patch, it made time jump forward in hard-to-fathom increments. When Zep talked to her, his words faded from memory as quickly as he said them. If she replied, she later had no memory of what she said.

Clair had another strange dream in which a metallic cylinder descended over her, surrounding her with distorted reflections that couldn't possibly be of her. There were flashes of light, but she couldn't blink. Her eyes watered, then dried out, then the cylinder was gone and she was able to close her eyelids again.

Mere moments seemed to pass when the table was moving underneath her, bringing her to a position that wasn't quite vertical, but was a long way from the horizontal she'd been enjoying. Her head spun. She raised a hand to steady herself, and was numbly surprised when her hand did actually move.

It felt different, and so did her face. Her armor didn't feel the same. Zep, Billie, and Mallory swung into view. They were watching her closely.

“What?” she said. “Oh!”

Her voice was so much deeper than it had been, which shouldn't have surprised her, but did, so much so that her knees gave way beneath her and she would have fallen if Zep hadn't lunged forward and caught her under the armpits.

“Easy,” said Mallory, reaching past him and gripping her chin so tightly it hurt. “Don't wimp out on me now, Cameron.”

Who? Right.
She had better get used to being called that, even if it was only going to be for a short time.

“I feel . . . not right,” she said. She was never going to get used to that voice.

“Try standing again,” Billie said. “You'll get your balance when the patch clears.”

Zep took one hand away, and Clair got her legs working properly. She could feel the lifts in the soles of her shoes making her taller, and indeed Zep didn't seem quite as enormous as he usually did. When she straightened, her eyes could see clear over Mallory's and Billie's heads. The view from her peripheral vision was different too. Her shoulders were broader, and her breasts—

Involuntarily, she raised both hands to touch her chest.

“I've only bound them,” Billie said with a reassuring twinkle in her eye. “Don't worry. Everything below the neck is au naturel.”

But above the neck . . . ?

“Mirror,” Clair said.

“You know what you're going to see,” said Mallory.

She did, but she needed to see it to believe it.

“Mirror,” she repeated, snapping her fingers.

Billie already had one in her hand. She had probably been through this thousands of times. Raising it, she placed it between Clair and Zep and showed her the reflection.

Only it wasn't her reflection. It was Nobody looking back at her. Until she blinked.

The blond, blue-eyed, white-skinned boy in the mirror blinked too.

She recoiled automatically as every muscle in her body went into spasm, denying the reality. Her knees buckled again on the table behind her, and she almost sat back down. Her eyes didn't leave the mirror, though. She wasn't trying to run. It was just a reflex, a deep, fundamental part of her crying out,
That's not me!

But it
was
her, for a while. She was Cameron Lee.

Some Improvement,
she thought. And then she laughed.

“What now?” asked Zep, pushing the mirror aside.

“Still want to kiss me?” she said, and wasn't surprised by the fleeting look of disgust he gave her in return.

But then he did kiss her, and that surprised her more than anything. Surprised her so much that she kissed him back. And for a brief moment, it was everything she wanted it to be. He kissed her not because she was Libby's best friend. Hell, she didn't even look like a girl anymore. He kissed her because she was
her
.

Then he ruined it by pulling away and saying, “That's for the safe house. You're still my hero, Clair-bear.”

He was referring to experiences she hadn't shared.
He's thinking of Clair Two.

“This isn't the prom,” Mallory said. “Show me that you can stand on your own. Talk to me the way he talks. Stop wasting time we might not have.”

Clair felt her face go warm. There would be no hiding that behind her new pale skin.