Proxy (33 page)

“No,” said Syd. “I mean, what are you doing here? Are we—?”

“We’re with the Rebooters,” Marie confirmed. “And they’ve done blood tests. They know it’s you. They know you’ve got this biodata in your blood. You’re the—”

“Don’t say it.” Mr. Baram held his finger in the air. “Please. We don’t throw that word around lightly and I would just as rather not. But it is true, Sydney. If you’re feeling up to getting dressed, I can show you.”

Marie practically bounced on her feet. She looked almost giddy. Knox studied Syd carefully, looking for a change in the boy he’d known as his proxy that would suggest the historic role he was about to play, but he saw the same boy as ever, if a little cleaner and more rested.

Syd dressed and Mr. Baram led him out into the hall, with Marie and Knox at his side. Soldiers flanked the door to his room. They looked no older than he was. As he passed them, he noticed their eyes searching the spot just behind his ear.

Gordis rushed forward to escort them. He saluted when he saw Syd, which seemed a bit over the top.

As they strode down the empty corridors, Syd felt the discomfiting gaze of everyone they passed in the halls. Soldiers and nurses, doctors and even little children. Their looks were eager, expectant, loaded with want. Syd didn’t like the attention. He felt oddly nostalgic for living in Knox’s shadow, even though he’d hated every moment of it.

“How long have we been here?” Syd wondered.

“Two days,” Knox said. “You were pretty banged up. We’ve been sleeping down the hall in another office. The whole place used to make cars. It’s crazy. They’ve turned it into, like, a fortress. They’ve got some of their own networks and datastreams, weapons systems, transports, bots. They make their own biopatches and their hackers seem pretty slick.”

“You joining the cause now, Knox?” Syd asked him.

Knox shrugged. “It’s just some lux stuff is all.”

“I guess it’s time you see the most ‘lux’ part of all,” Mr. Baram said when they reached a large double door, flanked again by two guards. Gordis pushed the door open and the guards looked at Syd wide-eyed as he passed through. One of them, a ferocious-looking teen with a shaved head and one metal hand, even let out a sigh.

Knox and Syd made eye contact over that one. Knox raised his eyebrows and Syd shook his head.

They stepped onto a metal walkway above a factory floor and Syd gasped. Below him, the space bustled with activity. Men in white suits with white hoods and goggles moved tubes and adjusted dials attached to a wheeled metal table. They all wore blue latex gloves and, when he entered, they all looked up. In his head, Syd heard the distinct whine of a baby crying. He’d been here before, and not just in his dream.

[47]

“ARE YOU OKAY?” MARIE saw Syd’s face turn ashen and he gripped the metal railing as if he were about to fall.

“Yeah . . . I’m fine.” Syd looked to Mr. Baram. “I know this place.”

“Infants do store memories,” Mr. Baram said. “This is where your father installed the program.”

Syd winced. His hand went to his birthmark. The needles from his dream were real too.

“This is also where your father was killed.” Mr. Baram sighed and put his arm around Syd. He led him down to the factory floor.

“So,” said Syd. “What happens now? How do we, uh, upload this thing in my blood?”

The medical staff made way for Syd as Mr. Baram led him past the steel table to a large machine in the center of the room. It had a door leading into a small chamber where wires hung from the walls. On the end of each wire was a patch, just like the ones Knox used to hack Syd a new ID. On top of the machine was a large antenna coiled with wires, an old transmitter.

“This machine will capture the code entwined in your DNA structure,” explained Mr. Baram. “It works just like any other data transmitter. The code in the cells of this virus will be extracted and relayed through the network’s own transmitters throughout the Mountain City, Upper and Lower. It will infect every datastream and every bit of biotech between here and there. It will then erase the data, destroy the records, and sever the connections. It will fry the servers themselves.”

Knox exhaled. That was some impressive hacking. He had to admire it.

“Without the data, the system collapses,” Marie observed.

Mr. Baram nodded. “No records of wealth or credit and debt. No personal marketing profiles, no security information. No patrons. No proxies. A total reboot of the system. It starts over.”

“Jubilee,” said Syd.

“Jubilee,” said Mr. Baram. “When all is forgiven.”

“What about medical programs?” Knox asked. “People use the networked biotech to manage cancers and birth defects. If that goes offline, you’d condemn a lot of sick people. Can’t you just target the debt records?”

Mr. Baram shook his head. “Nature cannot be reprogrammed forever. Humans are not meant to run like software. You cannot hack the human condition.”

Knox looked to Syd. “Is this what you want? The system’s not perfect, but this . . . a lot of innocent people will die.”

“Be quiet, Knox,” said Marie. “This is the only way. It’s Syd’s only chance to stop your father.”

“Your father’s a part of this too,” Knox objected.

“And until we destroy this system, he is just as trapped in it as you or me or Syd,” she said.

“There is another thing you should know, Sydney,” Mr. Baram interrupted their argument. “As I explained, the virus works through the city’s existing networks. In order to achieve the necessary signal strength to overwrite the biofeeds of several million networked people, we have to overpower the background radiation it uses. Only that way can the virus be fully effective.”

“What’s that mean?” Syd asked.

“Our radiation levels have to be . . . substantial.” Mr. Baram cleared his throat. “You would not survive the process.”

“What?” said Syd.

“What?” said Knox.

“To create a system meltdown of this magnitude . . . ,” Mr. Baram said. It appeared that speaking was painful to him. He couldn’t finish his sentences.

Syd remembered the Arak9 he’d detonated to escape the Guardians. For a big enough reaction, the robot had to self-destruct.

“To do this, to make this change, demands a sacrifice—” Mr. Baram’s voice cracked.

Everything costs, thought Syd.

“You dirty liar!” Knox yelled. He stepped up to Mr. Baram’s face, but Gordis shoved him back. “You knew! All this time, you knew that Syd was marked for death if he got here, but you let him go! You knew he wouldn’t come here, so you lied to us!”

“I did not lie,” said Mr. Baram. “I said that Sydney would have to die.”

Knox moved to hit the old man, but Gordis pushed him back.

“Knox, calm down,” Marie said, reaching out to comfort him, her own voice cracking with emotion. He slapped her hand away.

“No!” Knox threw his hands in the air. “Do you know what we went through to get here? Do you know what I gave up to save his life? I did not do all this so he could die!”

“This isn’t about you, Knox!” Marie yelled. “This is bigger than any of us!”

“It’s not!” Knox grabbed Syd’s hand, turned to him. “It’s not,” he repeated quietly, just for Syd. “Your life doesn’t belong to me and it doesn’t belong to them either. It’s yours.” He held Syd’s gaze. “What do you want?”

Syd looked back i
nto Knox’s emerald-green eyes. His sharp jaw tensed. He bit his lower lip.

For the first time, Syd didn’t know what Knox was thinking, didn’t understand what he wanted. For the first time, Knox looked at Syd without expectation. He was the only one in the room looking at Syd that way.

Knox’s eyes flashed quickly once to the side, just over Syd’s shoulder. Then they met his again and Syd read something else in them.

Mischief.

He saw in the reflection of Knox’s eyes, a doorway open as a doctor came into the room, a flash of daylight behind him. A way out. The choice was Syd’s. He could give himself up for the cause, set all the proxies free, and extract the most destructive revenge imaginable on the wealthy of the Upper City.

Or he could run and change nothing and live.

Knox squeezed his hand. There was no expectation in it. Just a question. Just a choice for Syd to make.

He ran.

[48]

BEFORE ANYONE KNEW WHAT had happened, Knox and Syd were out the door. The soldiers didn’t dare shoot, lest they harm Syd. He was only allowed one way to die today.

“Stop!” Mr. Baram pleaded. “Please!”

Syd and Knox came out onto a loading dock and jumped down into an alley beside the factory in what had once been an industrial part of town. It looked remarkably like the alley outside Arcadia, where they’d had their fistfight after they’d first met. The patrons had a done a lux job duplicating Old Detroit in the Upper City, except here, the buildings were overgrown with vines and moss, the air cloying and damp. The city had a greenish tint, and even though the sun blazed in the midday sky, the streets had the dimness of twilight. Insects buzzed through the air, and the shed skin of giant snakes, thin as rice paper, crunched underfoot as the boys ran.

They could hear footsteps behind them, the Rebooters giving chase, but they turned down side streets, dodged hanging vines, and crawled through thick mangrove roots. The overgrown city provided countless opportunities to hide, which was certainly why the Rebooters chose it for their headquarters.

They ran without purpose or direction. They ran only to escape, but they didn’t know what escape could mean. There was a world of difference between running to and running from. Even as they sprinted and ducked and turned, they had not let go of each other’s hands.

They ducked around a corner and hid behind a curtain of vines that hung over a shattered storefront, crouching to catch their breath. They saw the shadows of a dozen Rebooters run by, the unmistakable silhouette of Gordis’s serpentine dreadlocks bouncing as he led the charge.

Knox looked at Syd. Syd looked back at him. Neither knew what to say. Syd was marked for death. Long before he’d ever been Knox’s proxy, his life had been on loan, a debt to be called in before he ever had a chance to live it. A fatal inheritance. What words could offer solace for that?

They sat listening to the city on the other side of the curtain of vines. Buildings creaked in the wind. Men shouted. Birds whistled.

Knox shook his head. “I’m sorry. If I’d known, we could have gone . . . somewhere else.”

“We never would have made it,” Syd said. “Your father’s bounty or the Rebooter fanatics would have tracked me anywhere.”

“Now I get why my dad was so afraid of you,” said Knox. “Not that it makes what he did right . . . but I get it.”

Syd nodded. He got it too. Knox’s father made a calculation. One poor proxy’s life to save countless others, to save all of civilization as he knew it. It was the same calculation Mr. Baram had made, just for a different result. Syd’s life was a means to an end.

“It’s a funny thing,” said Syd. “I could have been anyone. All that matters about me is that I was given this virus. Otherwise, I’m nothing special. If it weren’t for my father, no one would care if I lived or died.”

“I would,” said Knox. “I would now.”

Syd nodded. He knew Knox meant it and he knew it hurt Knox to say it. Caring costs.

“Thank you.” Syd smiled. He leaned his back against the wall of the store and stared at the opposite wall. A broken display case ran along the back and led to what was probably a storeroom. There’d be a doorway to another alley behind it. Another way out. The chase could go on forever. Syd could just keep running. Maybe Knox would even come with him.

For some reason, a lone shoe sat moldering in the far corner. The store had been looted centuries ago. Whoever had left the shoe was long dead and so was everyone they’d ever known. History erased itself all the time. It didn’t need a computer virus. Whatever happened to Syd, he’d eventually be forgotten too. So would Knox and Marie. So would Mr. Baram. The whole Mountain City. On a long enough timeline, all debts are settled, all lives are balanced back to zero.

But if Syd had to die, he didn’t want to do it the way he’d lived, with his head down, avoiding connection. He wanted the blaze of glory that Egan didn’t get. He wanted it to matter to someone besides himself. He stood.

“I’m going back,” he said.

Knox looked up at him. He chewed his lip. “You don’t have to. We can run. I can protect you from my father and we can just . . . run.”

Syd shook his head.

Knox rose and looked at him for a long time. He put his hand on Syd’s shoulder. They turned and stepped together back through the vines and onto the street side by side.

“Get down!” someone shouted.

They looked in his direction and saw a group of Rebooters pointing their weapons. Gordis had his EMD stick raised. The boys raised their hands.

“Get down! Now!” Gordis yelled again, charging at them and firing. The boys dove to the cracked pavement and the pulse Gordis had fired caused a commotion behind them. Syd looked over his shoulder and saw a platoon of Guardians rushing up the street. Three of them had collapsed on the ground in a quivering lump and the others streamed over the bodies.

Gordis sprinted forward while the other Rebooters put down a wall of covering blasts. He grabbed Syd and pulled him off the ground, dragging him away from the fight. Knox sprinted behind as they ran at full speed back toward the factory.

Turning a corner, they found Marie, running in the opposite direction with three more Rebooters.

“Can’t go this way,” she said. “Guardians.”

“There’s too many,” said one of the soldiers with her. “They’ve got the city completely surrounded and they’re closing in. We don’t have the firepower to hold them off.”

They heard a drone circling above and though they couldn’t see it through the jungle canopy, it was equipped to see them. A tall building down the block exploded into flame and rubble.

“We have to get off the streets,” Gordis commanded.

“Let me go.” Syd yanked his arm away. “I’ve decided to cooperate. I won’t run.”

Gordis hesitated.