Proxy (28 page)

“We need to eat something,” said Marie. “And feed the horses.”

Syd hadn’t even thought about feeding the horses. Or himself.

Marie found some EpiCure pills in the bandits’ supplies and handed each of the boys one of them, then took a handful over to the horses.

Syd studied his pill, a bright blue lozenge the size of a knuckle, shining in his palm. It was stamped with a logo from EpiCure Incorporated and a flavor below it. Syd had heard of these pills, but never actually swallowed one. They were too expensive for most Valve kids, who ate food that came from the local grower gardens and the runoff from the EpiCure factory, protein pastes and gristly bone fragments boiled into soup.

The pills were designed to create the mental sensation of taste, while delivering balanced nutrition at preset levels. They were why there was no such thing as a patron who was too fat or too skinny. Their food was the best that science had to offer. Their bodies were designed.

Syd had a pill for something called “Lasagna.” He tossed it back and took a slug of water, wincing at the strange sensation of a solid object going down this throat.

After a few seconds, he felt an astonishing warmth in his stomach, a fullness, as if he’d just eaten the New Year’s meal at Mr. Baram’s and then a flood of flavor in his mouth, hot and bubbly, with a taste of some kind of herb and meat and then a sweetness and a creaminess. He’d never had anything like it and it gave him the urge to burp, which he did, loudly.

“Mmm,” said Knox, swallowing his own pill. “Pepper steak. Love that stuff.” He laughed to himself. “You know, one time I hacked the EpiCure pill database and made an entire batch of pepper steak taste like armpit. It was a riot.”

“A week hauling their factory runoff to the river for dumping, and another selling recalled pills in the Valve,” said Syd. “I got punched in the face by a lot of unhappy customers who found the taste of armpit less than appetizing.”

Knox cringed. “I thought they had bots for that kind of work.”

“They have bots for everything,” Syd said. “But they use proxies. It keeps us busy. Keeps us from, you know, joining the Rebooter cause.”

The irony was lost on none of them.

When the sun started its descent to the west, they mounted up again and kept riding. They rode all day, twisting and turning and saying very little to one another. As the sun got lower and lower, the canyon floor got colder. Syd stopped under a high overhang in the rock, like a shelf, and tied up his horse on a jagged boulder. Marie did the same and Knox jumped off, his legs sore and bowed.

“I can’t tell which way to go at night,” Syd explained. “So we’ll camp here, get some sleep.”

“Can we make a fire?” Knox asked. The bandits had ChemiFlame packs in their supplies, so it’d be easy to light one. The desert cold had already set his teeth chattering and Syd looked even worse. His lips had a light bluish tint to them. He had less meat on his bones than either of the patron kids. Syd liked the idea of a fire, but Marie disagreed.

“The drones would catch that heat signature, even down here,” she said.

“We’ll freeze to death without it,” said Knox.

“There are heat blankets in the supplies we took,” Marie said. “The shiny things. We’ll wrap up in those and huddle together for the night.”

Knox raised an eyebrow at her. He wasn’t going to actually say anything.

She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t insult him.

Progress.

[40]

ONCE THEY’D LAID THE blankets out beneath the overhang, they stood side by side considering their bed. Marie turned to Knox.

“I am so not sleeping next to you,” she declared.

“Huddling together was your idea,” Knox objected. He couldn’t help a slight grin from lighting up his dusty face.

“You’re a dog,” she told him and Knox laughed. He didn’t deny it. Hadn’t she said she liked him better when he kept his mouth shut?

Syd stepped away from the two of them. He didn’t feel like arguing about sleeping arrangements. He stood and shivered near the red rocks of the canyon wall, looking up at a discolored patch high above. It was a painting of some kind, a splotch of black and red and brown sprayed on the wall by an artist who’d been dead for centuries. Anyone it meant anything to was dead.

He stepped back a little to get a better look, and a trick of sound bouncing off the walls made everything Knox and Marie were saying perfectly clear to him where he stood, as if they were whispering right into his ear. He listened, like he used to listen to the Changs arguing in the shack across the alley. The thought that he’d had a virus growing in his blood the whole time, something dangerous and powerful, discolored the memories. Mr. Baram had known it and kept it from him and he couldn’t think about his past without the present distorting the memory. Instead, he listened.

“That means Syd’s in the middle,” Knox whispered to Marie.

“You’re a genius,” Marie replied.

“But what if he—” Knox lowered his voice, but it didn’t change the clarity where Syd stood. “What if he gets . . . you know? Ideas?”

“Ideas?”

“You know . . .” Knox didn’t feel he needed to elaborate.

“Oh.” Marie nodded. “Like the ideas you’re having about me?”

Knox didn’t exactly deny it. Syd smirked and kept his back to them. It felt good to smile. He remembered there was more to life than his own misery and regret.

“Grow up, Knox,” Marie grunted. “Not everyone thinks about sex all the time.”

Clearly Marie didn’t know a lot about guys.

“Syd lost his best friend today,” she said. “He killed a woman and he’s running for his life with two people that he seems to hate. I don’t think he’s looking to jump you in your sleep. Hard as that must be for you to imagine.”

“He kissed me,” said Knox.

Syd remembered the feeling of Knox’s lips against his, the pulse beating in his neck where his hand gripped it to keep Knox from pulling away, to keep the Guardians from seeing. They say you never forget your first kiss.

“He did not.” Marie crossed her arms.

“In Arcadia, after Syd found me, he grabbed me and he kissed me, like, with feeling . . . I was too tweaked to resist.”

“You’re lying,” Marie said.

Nope, thought Syd. He’s not. Except the “feeling” Syd had at the time was not the one that Knox was thinking of.

“I am not lying,” said Knox. “There were these Guardians after him and he, like, used my face to hide.”

“So he didn’t really kiss you,” Marie said. “He used you.”

“He used me
by
kissing me,” said Knox. “He could have done something else, but he went right to kissing. What does that say?”

“That you’re full of yourself.”

Knox grumbled some kind of remark Syd couldn’t discern.

“Anyway, what are you afraid of?” Marie teased him. “That he’ll make a pass and you’ll enjoy it?”

“No . . . ,” Knox said. He was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

“Or is this an act?” Marie goaded him. “Do you secretly want my approval to snuggle with your proxy? They say that everyone gets feelings for their proxy sometime. It’s a phase.”

“Oh, just shut up,” Knox grunted. “Let him sleep in the middle. I’ll curl up with him. I don’t care.”

“Don’t worry, Knox.” Syd turned around and strolled up to them, grinning. “If anyone asks, I’ll say you put up more of a fight.”

Knox blushed rust red. He tried to change the subject. “What were you looking at up there on the rocks?” he asked.

“Some painting,” said Syd. He didn’t know a lot about art. It was not a subject they covered at Vocation High School IV. He wondered if the Upper City kids would think he was dumb. Did they learn about ancient art in their lux schools? If he had a projector, he could look it up in the datastream, but out here, the only data were what you could see with your own two eyes.

Knox and Marie squinted up where Syd pointed. The painting showed a collection of figures, a group of men with sticks around some kind of big animal with horns.

“What do you see?” Syd asked.

“People? Dancing around an animal?” Knox suggested. “Maybe they’re worshipping the animal? Like in one of the old religions?”

“I think they’re hunting it,” said Syd.

“It’s a sacrifice,” said Marie. “The ancient religions used to sacrifice animals. The blood of the animals was like payment to the gods.”

“Payment for what?” Knox wondered.

None of them knew.

“Who do you think painted it?” Syd asked. They didn’t know that either. He guessed patrons didn’t study this stuff in school either.

“Collectors in the Upper City judge art by price,” said Marie. “They have consultants who buy it for them.”

“I think my father owns art he’s never even seen,” said Knox.

They all looked back at the painting. The style looked so basic, so old, the colors organic, almost as if the painting itself were part of the desert, put there by the wind and the heat and time itself. Syd wondered how long it had been since anyone had laid eyes on it.

“We should get to sleep,” Marie said. “We’ll need to rest for the ride tomorrow.”

“Do you know how much farther it is to the, uh, Interstate?” asked Knox.

“No idea,” said Syd. “We just have to keep riding east and hope.”

A gust of wind tore through the canyon and Syd hugged himself from the cold.

Marie smiled and put her arm around his shoulders. He flinched, but then relaxed. He let himself be guided.

They huddled up where the walls blocked the wind, and wrapped themselves in their emergency blankets, Syd in between Knox and Marie, with the bundle of stolen supplies for pillows. They watched their breath frost in the air in front of them. It was hard to believe how hot the day had been, now that the night was so cold. No wonder humans abandoned the desert regions. Nature clearly did not want them there.

When he closed his eyes, Syd saw Egan’s face, looking back at him with unseeing eyes. Dead. He kept his eyes open. He wasn’t ready for sleep. The thought terrified him.

“Knox?” Syd asked, sensing that the others were just as awake as he was.

“Yeah?” Knox answered.

Syd dropped his voice to a whisper and rolled onto his side to look Knox in the eyes. He spoke loud enough for Marie to hear: “Will you kiss me good night?”

“I . . . I . . .” Knox stuttered.

Syd rolled onto his back and looked at Marie. A wide grin broke across his face. He burst out laughing, real full-on belly laughs.

“He was totally going to do it,” Marie cried.

“You two are glitched.” Knox shook his head.

Syd and Marie fell into convulsions of laughter. Syd hadn’t laughed like this in ages. He’d never laughed like this with anyone but Egan, in fact, but now, he couldn’t stop. It rolled over him in waves.

Knox sat up. “Seriously? Seriously?”

Marie gasped and Syd covered his eyes with one forearm, his whole body shaking. He could hardly breathe.

“Beyond glitched.” Knox dropped his head back onto the makeshift pillow.

Syd cackled. “The expression on your face . . .”

“Go on, make jokes,” Knox grumbled.

“Look, he’s pouting.” Marie made a sad face, but she could hardly hold it. Laughter broke it open again. She laughed carelessly, maniacally. Syd wondered if he’d gone too far. The pretty ones could be so fragile. In the sky, lightning flashed.

“Whatever,” said Knox. “I only kiss guys when Guardians are watching. I’m an exhibitionist.” He exhaled loudly and let a heavy moment pass before he exploded in laughter himself, which set off a new round of laughing in the other two.

“Marie, on the other hand . . . ,” Knox added.

“Not on your life!” she said, cackling.

“Well”—Knox pointed toward the horses—“I saw Justice eyeing me earlier, maybe . . .”

Thunder from a distant storm replied and that too seemed funny.

“Quiet down!” Knox yelled at the thunder. “I’m trying kiss a horse!”

The three of them rolled on the ground laughing. The horses whinnied and grunted. In time, the laughter faded. They went back to listening to the wind and the storm. Syd’s memories prowled at the edge of his mind like a panther. It was hard to remember what he’d just thought was so funny.

After a while, Knox broke the silence. “I’ve never slept outside before.”

“Me neither,” said Marie.

“You get used to it,” said Syd.

The silence settled again. Knox filled it with a worry that had been on his mind.

“If we find the Rebooters, do you think they’ll let us go?” Knox wondered aloud. “I mean Marie and me. We’re patrons. And my father’s . . . well . . . you know.”

“I’ll tell them you’re with me,” said Syd. He startled himself by saying it. He had to think for a second, to decide if he meant it.

He guessed he did.

“Do you know what you’ll do when we get there?” Knox wondered.

Syd shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“You will,” said Marie.

“I don’t get why you’re so sure of it,” Syd told her.

“Because I have to be,” she said.

Syd put his head back on his hands and looked up at the sky. It was a funny thing. Marie was running to something while Syd was just running away. He was afraid neither of them would ever really get where they were going.

Syd listened as Knox’s breathing changed, slower and deeper, letting out tiny snores. He felt the rise and fall of Knox’s chest next to him and soon after, Marie’s. He kept his eyes open. He didn’t want to see the holos his memory was conjuring, the dead he’d left in his trail.

He didn’t meant to sleep, but suddenly, he was on the steel table in the middle of the factory, strapped down, but watching himself on the table from above and there were the men in white suits and blue latex gloves. There were the screams and the explosions.

The nightmare unfolded like always, but this time, when the needles came, he knew. The blood. They were infecting his blood.

“One more,” the man said, as always, before he tossed the baby Syd over the railing and jabbed the grown Syd in the birthmark.

But this time, when the man said, “Yovel,” Syd knew he meant forgiveness, and this time, when the baby fell, someone else was there to catch it.