“What happened to him?” I asked.
“They say he fell. Down the stairs in your house.” I could tell she didn’t buy the story.
“Can I see him?”
She held up the black box. “They just finished cleaning him up a little while ago. I haven’t started his makeup yet. I don’t think . . .”
“Please.”
She sighed for my sake and unlocked the door.
• • •
Jude was lying on an embalming table. I could see his freshly washed hair sticking out from beneath the sheet that covered the rest of his body. It was the only time I’d seen my brother so perfectly still. I stood at his side and slid the cloth down to his shoulders. The face I saw wasn’t the one I remembered.
I thought I recognized my father’s handiwork in Jude’s broken nose and shattered bones. But if my dad’s fists could inflict that kind of damage, he must have been holding back all those times he beat me. I couldn’t figure out why he’d let loose on Jude. And I knew I’d never be able to prove that he had. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Jude’s email, I might have bought into the story that his death was an accident. But I knew. I only had a single small clue, but I knew my brother must have died trying to help me.
“He used to be handsome,” I said.
“He looked like you. They gave me a picture,” the woman whispered behind me. I thought she might have been crying. I couldn’t turn around.
“Would it be okay if I stay here until you’re finished?”
I heard her take a deep breath. “Sure,” she said on the exhale.
“My father will have you fired if he finds out.” It was only fair to warn her.
“That’s okay, honey. Some things are more important than a job.”
I found a chair and sat with my forehead resting on the edge of the embalming table and one hand on my brother’s cold arm. I honestly thought I might die on that spot. The only thing I’d ever really believed in was Jude. He was my evidence that our father was full of shit. That you could choose to be something other than weak or strong. But it turned out that my father had been right from the start. You’re either one or the other. There are no alternatives—and no space in between. Jude died because he had one fatal flaw. A chink in his armor. A soft spot that he couldn’t keep hidden. Jude was killed because his weakness was me.
That night was the first time he appeared to me in a dream. He wasn’t the dead sixteen-year-old with the broken face. He was the ten-year-old Peter Pan. Impish. Immortal.
“Jude, please don’t leave me here,” I begged him.
“This isn’t goodbye,” he insisted. “You know that place between sleep and awake? The place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll be waiting.”
“That’s not f—ing good enough!” I shouted, almost choking on snot and tears.
“It’s not good, but it’s enough,” he said. “You’ll see. Did you get my gift?”
“Gift?”
He wiggled his fingers at me. “Use them wisely, and you’ll have everything that you need.”
The makeup lady shook me. “It’s morning,” she said. “You need to leave before my boss gets in.”
“Did you fix him?” I asked. “Jude has to look like himself when he gets there.”
She must have thought I meant heaven—not Never Never Land. She didn’t realize I’d lost my mind. “I worked on him all night. Would you like me to show you?”
“No,” I told her. “I have to keep him alive.”
It was as simple as that. I began to believe. That Jude wasn’t gone—just far, far away. And that as soon as I’d punished the man who had murdered my brother, I’d finally be able to join him.
• • •
There’s a bear standing over me. I’m a goner for sure. That’s okay. A bear attack is a perfectly dignified way to die. There are probably bears in Never Land too.
“Can you carry him?” I can’t see Joi. She must be standing in the bear’s shadow.
“Yeah,” says the bear.
“Be careful, he likes to fight,” some kid offers in the background.
“He’s not going to be doing any fighting tonight,” says the bear with a chortle.
When he bends down to pick me up, I recognize the man in the North Face coat who’d been watching me. He’s even bigger close up. I almost throw up when he tosses me over his shoulder.
“Thanks, Jimmy,” Joi says.
“Anything for you, baby,” the bear replies.
“Don’t call her baby.” I try to sound tough. Everyone laughs.
When I come to, I’m under Joi’s sheets. She’s taken off my clothes and put a bucket next to the bed. I have a pounding headache, and my mouth is parched. But I’m sober enough to see that there’s someone sitting in a chair across the room.
“Jude?” I whisper.
“Who’s Jude?” It’s Joi in the chair.
“My brother.” I know I’m still drunk when I hear myself say it.
“You have a brother?”
“I had a brother.”
“Oh,” Joi says, as if that explains it all. She’s smart, so I guess maybe it does.
“I’m sorry about what I said to you yesterday.”
“Good,” says Joi. “So can I ask you something, Flick?”
“What happened to ‘Always listen, never ask’? Are you breaking your own rules?”
“Just tonight,” Joi says. “Just for you.”
“Okay, then.”
“Are you in trouble? I mean, some guy in a sports car drops you off yesterday, and you get out looking like hell. Tonight you were roaming the projects dressed in head-to-toe Prada. Jimmy said your bottle of Scotch must have cost two hundred bucks.”
“That Jimmy really knows his Scotch,” I say.
“Don’t f—ing joke about this! You could have frozen to death out there!” She probably just woke up everyone in the colony.
“Why are you shouting at me?”
“Because . . .” She shakes her head. We both know why she’s so angry. It doesn’t need to be said.
“I came to the city to find something, Joi. I didn’t even know what it was at first, but I think I just found it. So I won’t be getting drunk anymore.”
“I’m glad to hear that ’cause the next time I have to go save your ass . . .”
“There won’t be a next time. I promise.” There won’t be. That’s one promise I’ll keep. “Come here. Please.”
She crawls into the bed beside me. Paradise must smell like cocoa butter and jasmine. It feels and tastes like Joi’s kiss.
“Can I ask you a question? I swear it’s not about heaven.”
Joi laughs. “Shoot.”
“Why do you love me?” I ask her.
“Because you love me back,” she says without hesitation.
“You have no idea how much,” I tell her.
“Yes, I do,” she says.
• • •
It’s the first time I’ve seen Peter Pan so pissed off. He’s pacing the room and muttering to himself.
“What?!” I demand.
He attacks, holding the blade of his wooden sword to my throat. “I won’t let you do it. You can’t take it away from her.”
“She’ll find another good thing,” I say, pushing the sword back. “And I can’t let her get in the way. Girls like Joi make you soft and vulnerable. Remember Lois Lane? Why do you think the comic guys invented her in the first place? ’Cause they needed Superman to have a weakness other than kryptonite.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Peter Pan. And then let me finish what you sent me to do.”
He’s stunned. “You think I brought you to New York for my sake? I brought you here to find Joi, you idiot. Who else is going to sew your shadow back on?”
“I haven’t lost my shadow, Jude. It’s the rest of me that’s missing.”
“She’ll help you find it! I bet she knows just where to
look!”
“I don’t want to look. I want to deal with Dad, and then when I’m done, I’ll come be with you.”
“What if I don’t want you in Never Land?”
“You can’t keep me out.”
Peter Pan stamps his feet. “I don’t want your company! I want you to stay here and be happy!”
“I don’t deserve any of this, Jude. I was the reason you died.”
“No, Dad was the reason I died.”
“And Mandel has the proof! He said he’d give it to me!”
“If you let him turn you into our father.”
“How else can I be strong enough to beat Dad? You have to let me do it, Jude. Please don’t try to stop me.”
Jude doesn’t look pissed anymore. He looks like a terrified ten-year-old boy. “If you go, I won’t be able to go with you. You saw for yourself—all of the building’s windows are sealed shut. There’s no way for me to slip inside.”
“There must be . . .” I start to argue.
“No,” Jude insists. “I can’t go with you. You’ll have to leave me behind.”
“Just for a little while, then. It won’t be forever,” I promise. “I’ll see you as soon as I’m done.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asks.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
THE INCUBATION SUITES
The chip comes first. There are six new students—five others and me. I don’t have a chance to learn their names or commit their faces to memory. We’re met at the academy’s entrance and immediately ushered downstairs. I’ll admit it’s a bit of a shock. I wasn’t aware that there was a downstairs. It wasn’t on the tour I was given. I start to wonder what else Mandel didn’t tell me. But then I remind myself that it doesn’t make any difference. The only thing that matters is that he has proof that Jude’s death was no accident. I’ll go wherever Mandel wants me to go, as long as I get it.
Three stories underground, we enter a long hallway. A sign reads infirmary. To our right is a white wall with six doors. The left wall is raw Manhattan bedrock. The hall ends at a pair of steel doors that are secured by a biometric lock. There’s an unlabeled buzzer beside it. I’d love to find out if anyone’s home.
One by one, the five kids ahead of me disappear to the right. The white doors close before I can figure out what lies beyond them. Finally it’s my turn. The room I enter looks like a doctor’s office.
A man in a lab coat and surgical mask is scrolling through a file on the computer screen that’s anchored to the wall. “Take off everything from the waist up and sit here,” he orders, pointing to an examination table. Then he disappears and a woman enters carrying a metal tray. It holds a scalpel, a computer chip, a needle and thread, and a few other instruments I don’t recognize. She straps on a pair of plastic goggles and begins to swab my forearm with iodine. The operation can’t be as simple as Mandel made it sound if the lady’s worried she’ll get blood in her eyes.
“Are you allergic to lidocaine?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“We’ll find out soon,” she responds.
The anesthesia numbs my left arm from the elbow down. I watch as she chooses a scalpel from the tray. I plan to observe the entire operation.
“You’re not squeamish?” the woman asks before she makes the first incision.
“No,” I tell her, and she pauses to make a note on the office computer.
It takes about ten minutes to insert the chip. When she’s finished, I examine the three stitches in my forearm and the small, square bump beneath them.
“Keep it clean. Don’t try to remove the chip. You could rupture an artery and bleed to death.”
“Okay.”
She leaves the tray and instruments in the sink. As soon as she washes her hands, she passes me a paper gown. “Take off your pants, shoes, and underwear. Dr. Giles will be back shortly.”
I’m pretty sure that the strip searches in Singapore prisons are less thorough than the examinations here at the Mandel Academy. After the probing I receive, I half expect the doctor to climb onto the table and cuddle up beside me. But he’s not done yet. The first thing I thought he’d check, he seems to have left for last. He peels the filthy bandage off my cheekbone and begins to clean the gunk from my wound.
“Didn’t the doctor at the hospital warn you about infection?” he asks.
“I hate doctors. I always stitch myself up,” I lie.
“How long ago did you graduate from medical school?” There’s a subtle sneer in his voice. I pretend not to hear it.
“Are you trying to say that I did a great job?”
“I’m saying you’re rather young to have been trained as a surgeon.”
“Yes, well, I’m full of surprises. I’m shocked you didn’t find more during the rectal exam.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t,” the doctor replies humorlessly. “We don’t like surprises.”
I don’t get a new bandage. My stitches are left exposed. The doctor pulls a white box from a drawer. The typed label on top bears a six-digit number. Inside are four empty vials, some plastic tubing, and a blood-drawing needle. But he chooses a long swab with a ball of cotton on its end. “Open your mouth,” he orders.
“Do most schools require a DNA test?” I ask.
“This will go much faster if you remain silent,” he says, jamming the swab into the lining of my cheek.
Anything for the proof, I remind myself. You have to do anything.
After I’ve dressed, I’m loaded back onto the elevator. It travels one floor up. According to the sign that greets us as the gates open, we’re now entering the Incubation Suites. I wonder what they’re incubating as I follow my guide down an unusually wide corridor. It’s at least fifteen feet from side to side, and the ceiling must be twenty feet high. I’m left in a room with six desks arranged to face an enormous movie screen. Four of the desks are already filled with my fellow newbies. There’s no other furniture. The floor is concrete and the walls bare Sheetrock. It’s like a Hollywood soundstage before a movie set has been built. And it has one rather unsettling feature. There’s a glass-encased catwalk suspended from the ceiling. It runs the entire length of the room and appears to continue into the room next door. I’m pretty sure we’re being observed. But the glass is frosted, and I can’t see through. There’s no way to tell who might be watching us from above.
“Take a seat.”
I see a woman standing next to the movie screen, a stack of papers in one hand and a half-dozen No. 2 pencils clutched in the other. Everyone glances at me as I sit. The sixth desk remains empty. While we wait for its future occupant, I get my first real look at the other students. There’s a black girl with platinum hair and diamond-covered fingers. Her impressive cleavage is on full display. She sees me staring and blows me a menacing kiss. The girl beside her is from a far less fabulous planet. Stringy brown hair and watery blue eyes that stare off into space. She looks like an extra from Deliverance. The kid to her left smiles and waves at me. He seems a little hurt when I don’t wave back. He’s handsome, Latino. His clothes are expensive. The sugar daddy pedophile who bought them clearly had good taste. The guy to my immediate right could pass for twenty-five. He’s blond, burly, and wearing the kind of leather jacket that you only see in Eastern Europe. He turns slowly to face me. His eyes are dark and cold. He takes me in, then rotates his head just as slowly back toward the movie screen.
A man in a lab coat enters and has a quick word with the woman in charge. She nods, then strides to center stage.
“It seems we’re beginning this semester with a smaller class than usual. The sixth student has a medical condition that renders her ineligible for the academy’s program. So only the five of you will be moving forward. The next stage of your assessment focuses on personality.” As the woman passes a booklet and pencil to each of us, I try to recall the sixth student’s face. All I can remember is the back of her head.
“The booklet you’ve been given c
ontains the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment. It is not a test,” the woman continues, interrupting my thoughts. “There are no right or wrong answers. Please feel free to begin as soon as you’re ready.”
Whenever someone insists that there are no right or wrong answers, I immediately assume that there are. It doesn’t hurt that I know all about the MBTI. You answer a bunch of questions that seem like total bullshit, and then it assigns you a personality “type” with a four-letter label. My father’s bank administers the test to every single person who applies for a job. The company claims the MBTI helps identify people who will “fit” with its culture. What it really wants to do is weed out the weaklings. I’m guessing that the Mandel Academy isn’t looking for warm, fuzzy, “feeling” types either. They must want leaders, and I’m eager to please, so I decide to be an ENTJ type (Extraversion, Intuition, Thinking, Judging). Just like dear old dad. I have no idea what I “really” am. I taught myself how to game the test back in grade school. I managed to take it twenty-five times online before my mother found out I’d been using her credit card.
So I tick all the right answers and wait for the other newbies to finish. There’s no clock in the room, but I’m pretty sure that big, blond Igor to my right has taken an hour longer than everyone else. It’s hard to believe that he’ll ever be Ivy League material.
He hands the woman his test, and I begin to slip out of my chair. My ass is numb.
“Please stay in your seats. There are a few videos we would like to show you,” says the woman. “You don’t need to memorize what you see. You won’t be tested on the content. We only want you to watch.”
I sigh and slump back down. The first video is a short clip of two men dancing a waltz together. The room stays perfectly silent. As soon as it ends, I raise my hand. The woman stares at me. I guess no one has ever had a question before.
“Yes?”
“Are you trying to test if I’m a Replicant or a homosexual?” I ask.
The black girl howls with laughter, which makes me like her. Any fan of Blade Runner is a friend of mine. I see big Igor beside me observing the girl with great interest.