"I'm so sorry, Customer Locke. I couldn't help myself. It is my Star Cab training. I have to be especially solicitous to those in uniform. Company policy."
Training? Or is it programming? What's inside of Dot that is beyond her control? Everything? She's a Bot. I have to remember that. But there is still something different about her. Is that possible? Can a Bot be more than just circuits and programming? I think back to the hissing cashier at the diner--a Bot too, but as different from Dot as I was from my brother. Where did their Bot paths diverge on the assembly line? Or was it somewhere after that? "Never mind, Dot. Just look for Kara. We have to find her. But if you do see her, don't yell out. Just tell me. And don't call me Customer Locke. It's just Locke. We're both Escapees now, right?"
She nods in a curious rapid way like she is unable to speak, or maybe she is just trying to be silent like I asked. Miesha turns to me, and I motion for her to watch the crowds on the right side while I scan the faces on the left. Kara is tall, but so many people here seem to be tall too--and so many with black hair. But her hair is unique--thick and straight and shiny, bluntly cut just above her shoulders, always shimmering in waves as she walks. I search for those familiar waves.
If there was ever a time I wanted to reach back into her mind, it is now, and I would freely let her walk the dark corridors of my mind again. She knows what is there. She knows every hidden corner. Maybe that's what makes me fear her as much as I love her.
"There! Is that her? Two walkways over."
I follow the direction of Miesha's eyes. Two moving walkways over, about thirty feet in front of us, the back of a head with shiny black hair comes in and out of view among the crowd of other travelers. Yes. I would know that hair anywhere. I can't see her shoulders or what she is wearing, but that's her. She is weaving through the crowd, pushing in front of others just the way Kara would do if she was in a hurry. And she is.
"Take Dot," I say, and I jump up on the first divider between the walkways and down again, trying to catch up. I hear disgruntled rumblings from surprised passengers. One lady shrieks. Miesha calls after me, but I can't take a chance on losing Kara. I push past several people, and some push back. One man grabs me by my shirt, but I pull away. I jump up on the next divider and then down again. Now I'm on her walkway.
"Kara!" I call. Heads turn, but not hers. I squeeze past more people, apologizing, hoping I won't be reported, but I am so close, I can't slow down and risk losing her now. The walkway ends just ahead, and I watch her get off and hurry away, the back of her head disappearing in the crowds. I push harder, stepping on feet, jarring one passenger who falls. "I'm sorry! Sorry!" I yell over my shoulder, hoping they hear me.
I step off the walkway and spin. Where is she? I run in one direction and then stop, scanning the crowds. I spot three Security Officers walking toward me. I tuck my chin down and head for a thick tangle of crowd in the opposite direction, blending into their mass. At the first corner, I turn and scoot behind a kiosk, surveying the souvenirs. My back is wet. My breath comes in gulps, but I try to smile at the Bot eager to sell her wares. As soon as the officers walk past, I leave her mid-sentence and go back into the main hallway, walking in the opposite direction--back toward the train platforms that head to San Diego. Miesha and Dot will look for me there. Kara will head that way too. She may be waiting for me already. She wanted her freedom so badly, and Gatsbro is still a threat. His goons hit her face, for God's sake. Why shouldn't she be afraid? She didn't want to identify herself in an unknown crowd where capture could be imminent. That must be why she didn't turn.
I look down and walk faster, careful not to bump into anyone this time and draw attention.
Chapter 36
We sit at the front of the car on the train to San Diego. Miesha and I are seated next to each other, and Dot faces us in a spot that accommodates assistance chairs. Her face is pressed to the window as she views the world through a passenger's eyes instead of a driver's. She has stern orders from Miesha not to call out and draw attention to us, just to enjoy the view. And she is. The sun is setting, striping the window with pink and orange, and I listen to her hum now and then, almost like a purr, like the world passing by is filling her up with sweet, warm milk. I wonder who programmed her. Someone with a cat? Who filled her head so she would be the way she is?
We are minus Kara. She wasn't waiting at the platform, so we had to board the train just before it departed, hoping she was already on it. I've walked down the whole train from one end to the other. There's no sign of her. Where is she? Did she get lost? Dot and Miesha both assured me there were other trains she could have taken, routes that would take longer to get to San Diego but perhaps provided a faster escape from Gatsbro.
He was there. Miesha saw him. He and his goons were searching the station. She and Dot both wear floppy hats now, quick disguises that helped them slip past Gatsbro's animals. How did he know to go to Topeka? We didn't know that we were coming here ourselves until long after we had escaped them in the alley. Who could have tipped him off?
I open my hand and look at the remnants of the iScroll, wondering, but only a few specks of the blue and green tattoo remain. It couldn't transmit anything. In just a few short hours, my hand has already begun to heal. Is that what Miesha meant? That I could make things change within my own body? Do I have that much control? I cup my cheek. The bruise is still tender, but the swelling is gone. I touch my ribs and press. They hurt, but not like this morning when I could barely move. Have I adjusted my sensitivity levels without knowing it? How? When did it happen? What kind of freakish body do I have that it can be adjusted like I am pushing buttons on a machine?
I stare at the spot where the stump of Dot's torso is hidden beneath the blanket. I was repulsed when I first saw her hooked into the console. I had thought she was one of us, but she wasn't. She is something else.
I tell you, Greta, I sleep with one eye open. Monsters, both of them, if you ask me. But Gatsbro pays me a bloody fortune so I take my chances....
Can't say I blame you, Cole. I'm just glad I work in the kitchen and don't have to sleep here. They both make my skin crawl.
Is that how everyone at the estate felt when they looked at me and Kara? Repulsed? I had tried to slough off Greta's and Cole's comments. I told myself they were just blowing off steam, and I didn't tell Kara what I overheard. But she had to know--she had to see it in their eyes the same way I did. We made their skin crawl.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Locke. Don't look ...
My parents sobbed in the hospital room when they thought I was dying. Their voices were watery echoes trying to reach me. I couldn't put all their words together, but I didn't have to. I knew what they were saying. Don't leave. Don't leave. What would they have thought if they'd found out I never did? I got a second chance. A gift horse, Dad. I got a gift horse. Are they listening? Do they know? Is there any kind of afterworld like my mom believed? A place where minds and thoughts never cease to exist? How could that be their heaven but my hell?
I close my eyes, leaning my seat back as far as it will go. I wonder if I can adjust the pain inside my head so it disappears too. Push a few buttons? Can I make every painful memory cease to matter? I rub my temples. I already know the answer. Gatsbro may have given me a new body with a few surprises, but I still have my old mind.
"Why us, Miesha?"
"What?"
I open my eyes and stare at the dimpled plastic ceiling of our train car. "Why didn't Gatsbro just scan his own brain and make a body for it? Or one of his willing goons? If all he wanted was floor samples, wouldn't that have been easier?"
"Most definitely easier, but not nearly as valuable. You and Kara have something to offer that no one else on the entire planet has."
Us? I almost want to laugh. I roll my head to the side to look at her. "What's that?"
"Two hundred sixty years. No one else has had a test run like that. The biggest concern of potential clients is what will happen to their minds after y
ears of storage. These people don't plan on utilizing Gatsbro's services right away. Unless there's a sudden accident, it might be years before they need a new body. With you, Gatsbro had time-tested proof that their minds would be intact decades later."
"Sounds like you knew way more about what was going on than you admitted."
There's a long pause as she assesses the bitterness in my voice. She pulls the floppy hat from her head and stuffs it between our seats. "Okay. I knew more. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
I look away, but she grabs my arm, forcing me to look back at her.
"Locke, it's not what you think."
"I don't know what I think, Miesha. How could I? I'm not sure I've gotten a straight answer from anyone since Gatsbro flipped the switch on his little Frankensteins."
Her shoulders sag, and she lets go of my arm. She leans back in her seat, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. "I didn't know his plans. Not at first. And that's a straight answer. When Gatsbro hired me, he just told me he had made a scientific breakthrough that required complete confidentiality. You see, I had ... a past. He knew that. I think he thought it gave him something over me, and maybe it did. I knew about the mind uploads and your new bodies, but I didn't know what his real intentions were until just a few months ago. By then I--" She stops and squints. "Let's just say, I was invested. But I had no resources. So I've been saving, and planning, and waiting for just the right timing to get you out of there. But you and Kara had different timing, and I had to go to plan B--also known as Plan Half-Assed-Backward."
She was planning to get us out? "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"So you could do what? Something impulsive? You have no resources, either. And I knew you would go straight to Kara and tell her, and that would lead to disaster--and in that regard, I was dead right."
"I didn't figure it out. She's the one who told me. Jafari was looking at us like we were diamonds he was going to wear on his fingers."
"Well, he won't be wearing them now. He's probably halfway back to Tunisar already." She hesitates, then leans closer to me and whispers, "That's what we should be doing, Locke. Going somewhere far and remote. It's not a smart idea to go see your friend Jenna. What good will it do? Sometimes the past needs to stay in the past."
I look into her eyes without blinking. "It's where Kara is going, so that means it's where I'm going. No matter what. I'm not changing my mind on that. And Jenna's not just my past, Miesha. She's my present too. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her and wonder. She and Kara are the only two people on the face of this planet who remember the old Locke. Without my past, all I am is a clever creation cooked up in Gatsbro's lab. I have to hold on to the past--even if you choose not to."
I watch her pupils contract, knowing her heart is beating faster, knowing she is considering her own past and weighing the risk of sharing it. It's still a barrier between us. I see the faint twitches around her lips, the strain in her eyes. In just a split second, I see the slow-motion unveiling of something I didn't expect to see--pain as raw as my own. I look away, feeling like a peeping Tom, like my BioPerfect has revealed something to me that I had no right to see.
She clears her throat. I hear her breaths, deep and heavy, like she is pushing at a barrier that's heavier than she can bear, and finally her voice, slow and deliberate.
"Karden Sanders was a leader in the underground Non-pact Resistance. Not just a leader. The leader. He became a symbol of hope for those who were forced to live on the fringes with no rights and no future. He gave them hope for a future. His methods were forceful and clever and all illegal. Money would disappear from corporate accounts and appear on money cards that were distributed to Non-pacts. Strategic bridges were exploded as messages that the Fancy Pants could be isolated too. They could be forced to live on the margins of society, scrabbling for every morsel that came to them." Her voice is flat, rehearsed, like she is repeating a long-forgotten mission statement. "The human race has always found a group to marginalize--every culture, every time, every race. Karden Sanders took up the cause of the disenfranchised who were shunted off to the side like garbage and labeled as Non-pacts."
"And he was your husband. So you're Miesha Sanders?"
"No. Miesha Derring. I kept my surname. Most women do, not to mention that citizens aren't allowed to take the names of Non-pacts. But I wanted to take his name. I wanted to take in everything about him."
Her eyes narrow like she is focusing on an image of him. "I was only eighteen when I met him. He was dark and dangerous and committed. My parents were people of position, and when I ran off with him, they disowned me. Marrying a Non-pact was unthinkable, especially one with a price on his head. I learned about the Resistance and helped with organizing efforts, but it wasn't long before I was pregnant. Our little girl was born just a year after we married. We had to move often, assuming new identities and always trying to stay ahead of authorities."
"But they caught up with you."
"It was summer. We had been in Cambridge for two months, almost living a normal life. Karden was busy planning his next maneuver but staying close to home. Our little girl had just turned one. It was so hot." She looks at me and explains like it just happened, "It was summer, you know? August. The baby was sleeping, and Karden was working on plans, and I said, 'Wouldn't a dish of ice cream be nice?' He nodded and said he'd keep an eye on Rebecca if I wanted to go get some. I was walking back from the market when I heard the shots and explosions. The front door was open and bursting with flames. The windows were glowing with orange light and smoke. I ran, screaming, breaking a window with my bare arms, reaching, trying to get in to save them, but something pulled me back."
She looks down at her arms and lightly traces one scar. "I thrashed, desperate to get to them, and then I felt a tazegun at my neck, and I knew they had found us. When I woke, I was in prison, and they told me my husband and daughter were both dead--all for a cause that in an instant didn't matter to me anymore. They wouldn't even let me make any kind of arrangements for their funerals. I never saw them again. As far as I know, their remains were shoveled up along with the burned rubble of the house. I spent the next eleven years in prison. They let me out early when my father died and my mother was breathing her last breaths--it was called an act of clemency. For the next few years, I tried to figure out if there was any life left for me, if there was anyone or anything worth living for."
She pauses, her fingers nervously weaving together. "I did some searching, looking for leads to family--anyone I might be connected to--but my parents were only children, and so was I. It appeared we came from a long line of dead-ends. The searching became an obsession, and I kept going back farther and farther, learning a lot about my ancestors. I stumbled on a few things that surprised me, especially one ancestor who left an educational trust for our family. He appeared to be a dead-end too, but there was one unusual entry of his name in the search records that--" She looks sideways at me. "I'm rambling. The long and short of it is, in the meantime, I had to get a job, which wasn't easy for someone with my past. I finally got a tip from a small research facility in Boston about the position with Gatsbro. I thought that maybe..." Her brows pull together and she momentarily shuts her eyes.
She turns abruptly and looks at me. "Those are plenty of straight answers. Now, will you give me one?"
She's earned it. I nod.
"You've never talked about your family."
My family. She's going for the jugular. But then, so did I.
"Your brother, for instance, tell me about him."
My brother?
It's as if she can read my thoughts, and she adds, "I was just wondering if he was anything like you."
I shake my head. "No, nothing like me. He was wild. He had a mind of his own and hated anyone telling him what to do with it. He moved out when I was just twelve, so we never got to be close."
"You didn't like him?"
I think about it. I resented him in so many ways. The way he ignored
me. The way pressure was put on me because of him. The way he just left us and only came back when he needed something. But I never stopped hoping he would care. I heard him when I was in the hospital. I couldn't talk or see, but I could hear him. I heard him hovering near my bed, shoes scuffling, feet kicking the wall in his trademark angry way. He called me stupid, but he said it through tears and in the way I had always hoped he would, like a brother who cared. And even though it was what I had always wanted to hear, I thought, Too little, too late. You're too late, brother--
Miesha touches my arm. "Locke?"
I startle and try to cover my lapse with a quick response. "No, I didn't like him. I didn't want anything to do with him. He was a lowlife." Her face is dark, disturbed. How long had I been staring into the past? When I lose track of time, I don't know if it's seconds, minutes, or even longer. I am just gone. Kara warned me not to wander off into la-la land, but for the first time, I'm wondering if it is more than that. Maybe my BioPerfect isn't so perfect after all. What if some memories that were scraped, pulled, and wrung from my brain, then stuffed back into froggy blue gel, don't know they're obsolete. Maybe--
"Locke."
I focus again. "I'm sorry."
"You've been doing so well, but you have to try harder. You have to watch your lapses. In just a few seconds of checking out, something serious could happen."
I nod. She doesn't have to elaborate on what the something might be. We both know that this world is not like Gatsbro's secluded estate, where I was a baby in a well-padded pram. Out here I'm an underage illegal creation, running with a fake ID, with a desperate and angry scientist after me.
"I'll be careful, Miesha. As careful as I can. I don't know why--"
"Refreshments?"
Miesha and I are both surprised by the hanging Bot that has come up behind us. She swivels to face us. As with Dot, the Council on National Aesthetics has decided she has no need for legs, or maybe legs would just get in the way of her servicing the human population. I try not to stare, not knowing if it is even impolite to stare at a Bot, but her face is so human that I still avert my eyes from the thick bar protruding from the top of her head and attached to an overhead rail. A passenger coming down the aisle grumbles at her, and she folds her body up flat against the ceiling until he passes.