Beneath the Shine

  I frown. I still believe in Uncle Wynn, but I don’t understand how he’d let someone like El become so powerful. Especially because I know he has concerns about El. He told me himself. Has he always doubted him, or is El only now getting careless and letting his true self show through? My head hurts with these questions. Because if El was evil all along, he had us all fooled.

  My eyes flick to the message area again. FragFlwr’s icon is dark, off-line. And apparently untraceable as a result. I’m supposed to signal the tech team on my comband the moment FragFlwr appears in this space, because El said that a troll this sophisticated might be able to detect if they had tracers in place and waiting beforehand. I don’t understand how any of this is done, only that El has the team on call and working directly for him.

  I wonder if Uncle Wynn knows about any of this. Including about Kyla and her mom.

  There’s still a sick, uneasy feeling in my stomach, left over from my visit with Kyla, if I can really call it that. I’m not even sure she was really there, and I’m not sure how to help her. Was it the removal of her Cerepin that caused her to be so spaced out? Or . . .

  On impulse, I wake my comband and com Orianna. There’s a long pause, and just before I’m about to give up, her face appears.

  “Hey, girl!” Her voice is mellow, bemused. “Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

  “Hey,” I say, peering at her face. She looks sleepy, but it’s kind of late. “How are things?”

  She shrugs. “Same, I guess.”

  “How’s your family?”

  “Living. Surviving.”

  I frown. “School?”

  “Oh—I didn’t tell you? Dropped out.”

  “What?” My voice is so loud that she jerks and blinks, then reaches up to press her neurostim device. It forcibly reminds me of Kyla this afternoon, doing the same. “You seriously quit school?”

  “It was a mutual breakup, I think.”

  “You were doing so well, though!” My dad used to rave about her essays. I can’t believe this.

  “You don’t know what it’s like, Mar. It’s just going in, sitting in this little cubicle . . .”

  “I’ve met Aristotle. I get it. But—”

  “Just doesn’t seem worth getting out of bed for, you know?”

  “No, I don’t,” I snap. “I’m here fighting for a future for everybody, and you’re just giving up?” I brace myself—when Orianna gets pissed off, it’s epic.

  She just chuckles, low and heavy. “Oh, god, Mar, dramatic much? You’re fighting? Come on. You’re making a few vids and riding around with the prez in his limo.”

  “It’s more than that!”

  “Mm-hmm. Sounds real rough.” She yawns.

  I lean close to the screen, ready to tell her all my fears, but then I remember that El has capped my device—he could be listening right now. So I force a smile. “I just meant that you’re too smart to drop out.”

  She leans back, her hair spreading across her pillow. “Nah. I’m too tired not to. Honestly, we’ve got the subsidy since Mom and Dad were laid off. We have food, and sure, it’s all genned, but I forget what anything else tastes like.” Her eyelids flutter, like she’s about to drift off.

  It’s so unlike her. I mean, yes, it’s sort of late, but I’ve commed her at one in the morning before, and she’s like a live wire. “Have you had a Bioscan lately?”

  She grunts. “Just when I had my neurostim attached.”

  “And?”

  Orianna starts like she’d begun to drift off. “Oh. I’m fine. Just stressed out and depressed like everyone else. But now we all have these babies . . .” She reaches up and pokes at her device again, then lets her head fall onto the pillow. Her screen is half-covered because her arm is propped against her body. “You’d think we’d be down each other’s throats, since we’re all here all day. But we get along great.”

  “Orianna, do you feel . . . normal? You seem kind of wacked out.”

  “I feel fine. So much better. I was a total ball of stress before. Now I don’t worry about anything.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not doing anything, either.”

  For the second time, just out of habit, I get ready for a sassy comeback or a snarky insult, but all I get is a soft snore.

  “Orianna?”

  She doesn’t answer. Her breaths come slow and heavy. Her arm flops to the mattress, and her screen goes dark.

  Something’s gone wrong with my best friend, and I can’t help but think that if I had been there, she’d still be in school, determined to make it. I had no idea things had gotten so hard for her. And now I’m not sure I’ll be able to help, because I might not even be able to save myself.

  A neurostim could probably take all this fear away. But the more I see the effects of these devices close-up, the more I wonder what else it would steal from me in the process.

  I glance down at my comband and then at my desk. El may have capped my band, but he intentionally didn’t cap my desk for fear that the surveillance would be detected by FragFlwr. I send my comband into hibernation, then unstrap it and carry it into the living room, where I lay it on the couch. Then I return to my room, rubbing at the warm imprint of the screen on my arm. “Look up neurostim devices,” I tell the desk screen.

  I flip through the results, most of which are related to Uncle Wynn’s old company, NeuroGo. “The neurostimulant device has now been approved as a treatment for depression, anxiety, panic attacks, pain, muscle spasms, and vocal and behavioral tics,” an article from about three years ago claims. “New findings on the use of these devices in the treatment of chemical addiction, including alcohol and opioid abuse, are forthcoming.” I tap on a channel link that carries me to a few vid articles, one about how Uncle Wynn was selling NeuroGo, fueling speculation that he was going to run for president, and another about how some scientists who specialized in the interface between humans and machines were advocating for more controlled studies of the effects of these devices on certain parts of the brain before they were sold to the general public. Apparently, a few were concerned about some of the claims that these things were healthy.

  Most of the scientific blah-blah is over my head, and I start to skim, but then my gaze jerks to a stop, frozen on one name.

  Blake.

  It’s not a totally uncommon name, I guess, but when I drill down by swiping at that name, a picture appears. A man in his thirties or forties, maybe. Blond hair. Light eyes.

  He and his son have the same nose, long and thin. His name is Valentine Blake. He was a technocrat. Educated at Caltech, he was the founder of the Blake Consortium, which is focused on development of these things called “self-organizing nanocytes” that would treat various diseases that can’t be cured by the standard gene therapies, as well as catastrophic injuries.

  Or rather, it was focused on those things. I hit the post that tells me the consortium’s government funding was pulled just over two years ago, along with a quote from Dr. Blake saying that his company was being targeted by larger businesses with political connections. He says he can’t be intimidated into silence, though. That he won’t stop raising questions about neurostim devices in particular, because they’re being marketed to vulnerable people—and being advertised as healthy and harmless when they could be used in all sorts of dangerous ways. He sounds paranoid and angry.

  And then I come to a vid about his murder.

  A Mainstreamer stands just inside a set of glass doors as rain pours outside. The location beacon on the vid indicates it’s being taken at the New Hope Addiction Clinic. The Mainstreamer turns the lens toward the inside of the clinic, and I gasp. Two people lie on the floor, side by side, their bodies covered in bloody sheets. A thin, tall man in a white coat leans over them while several others mill behind him, and then turns and sees the Mainstreamer. She sounds out of breath as she bursts into the rainy street and says, “Two people were just freaking murdered in there! I saw the guy run out of that clinic and had to go check it out,
and then I picked up the com for police on my wireless scan!” Sirens are audible in the background, and the Mainstreamer runs to a car and jumps in. The vid ends.

  It’s been viewed only a few thousand times, and there are only a few comments below it, one chastising the Mainstreamer for posting something so vulgar and graphic, which is common for any vid like this but sort of silly considering what else is out there. The commenter is probably a senior citizen longing for the “good old days” when government was still trying to control what could be posted on the stream. One of the comments on this bloody vid is what brought this up in my search—a user named Triplechen identifies the victims as Valentine and Flore Blake and says there is no way this was a random attack. Heart skipping, I tap on that username to find out who Triplechen is . . . and discover that the account has been terminated. Another dead end.

  More searching consumes the next hour or so. Valentine and Flore Blake were both widely recognized and respected scientists, which makes me wonder what Percy’s IQ must be even though he enjoys pretending his head is full of fluff. I find a post mentioning their wedding twenty years ago, and then a few posts and vids featuring an adorable blond boy with flashing blue eyes and a mischievous smile. In one, he’s climbing in a play park, and his mother is filming while she calls for him to get down before he falls. Instead of listening to her, he hangs by one hand and laughs. I watch another of him blowing out candles on his seventh birthday, just a skinny, smiling boy with two parents who obviously doted on him. Already he’s showing his love for fashion, opening a present with sparkly fingernails. The gift is a canny bird that talks and flies, and he seems delighted. I look for other vids to see an older version of him, but that one was the last that was posted. Almost eleven years ago. After that—until he was about fifteen and started posting his fashion vids, there are no pictures, no mentions by name, no posts. It’s like he didn’t exist during the years in between.

  “He’s not your focus right now,” I mutter to myself. I was trying to understand more about neurostims, and his dad came up as suspicious of them, demanding more research be done to make sure they didn’t have long-term negative effects. Until he was murdered in a clinic that treated addiction. Silenced, according to at least one person.

  I trace my search flow back until I find the picture of Dr. Blake. He’s looking right at the camera and has his curled fingers under his chin like he’s pondering something deep. A bit of red near the cuff of his sleeve catches my eye. “Zoom,” I murmur, and the screen obediently closes in on what I’m staring at.

  A flower with ruby petals. An English primrose.

  A flower.

  Oh, god. The final link is forged in my mind so suddenly that it’s like plugging into a power source. The current jolts my body. The Fortins escaped in a car with a diplomatic chip. Percy lives with his aunt at the French embassy. And now: Fragflwr. Fragile flower?

  Catch me if you can.

  I knew he was hiding something, but until now I didn’t quite believe he was capable of this. But now there is no doubt. He’s definitely the one El is looking for.

  The screen throbs red, indicating that I’ve got a message waiting. “Accept,” I say breathlessly, and my message space appears.

  FragFlwr: Love that you brought me into private space, Marguerite. This is so intimate.

  I stare at the words, wondering what tone to adopt. Percy is risking his life to get technocrats out of El’s reach. I don’t want to signal that I know who he is. I don’t want to do anything to tip El off. Before I get a chance to come up with my reply, he continues.

  FragFlwr: It’s just you . . . me . . . and whatever government hacker you com to trace my account.

  “I haven’t,” I say, watching my words appear in the boxed-in space.

  FragFlwr: But you will. Fair warning: I’ll know when you alert them.

  “Why did you challenge me to catch you? What was that for?” I ask.

  FragFlwr: Aren’t you eager for revenge? It must have galled you when the Fortins escaped. You’ve been after Gia for some time.

  “That doesn’t mean I want her and her family killed!”

  FragFlwr: Like what happened to the Aebersolds? Your father committed suicide after Aristotle, produced by Parnassus, resulted in him being laid off. You must have savored what happened to them.

  “You’re wrong,” I say thickly. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  FragFlwr: Did you give the order for his daughter Bianca to be tortured, or did you simply enjoy hearing about it afterward?

  I close my eyes as tears start to form. I suspected he hated me, but this is proof. “You don’t know me. At all. If you did, you’d know I would never have wanted her to die.”

  FragFlwr: Didn’t you say more than once that you wanted to take her down?

  “She did something terrible to me, okay? And yeah, I was mad about it! Really mad. But in the same way anyone would be! When I found out that’s what happened, I . . .” My voice fades away. I am on dangerous ground. The minute I call in El’s hackers, they’ll read every word of this, and so will he. Nothing is secret.

  FragFlwr: Why should I believe you?

  “It doesn’t matter if you do or if you don’t.”

  FragFlwr: What if it does?

  “You already think the worst of me. You always have.”

  For a whole minute at least, the message space following his username is blank, waiting for him to reply. Is it really you? I want to ask. And if it is . . .

  FragFlwr: We all have our reasons for embracing a cause. You embraced yours, and I have mine.

  “We both want justice,” I say. “Not bloodshed. You have to believe me.” I bite my lip, then recklessly blurt out, “I warned Anna to get out of DC. She was my friend. I wanted her to escape. You can ask her.”

  El already knows, and if Uncle Wynn ever reads this transcript, even if I’m dead and gone, at least he’ll know I followed his advice. And if he asks me about it, I’ll play it off—I’m just trying to draw FragFlwr in, right?

  Yes, I am. Except I’m not.

  FragFlwr: Maybe I will.

  “Can you get in touch with the Fortins?”

  FragFlwr: Why? Do you have a message for your vanquished enemy?

  “Tell Anna that I enjoyed our coffee, and I wish we’d had more time to get to know each other.”

  FragFlwr: How sweet. Is your finger hovering over the button, darling?

  I stare at the endearment, every cell in my body vibrating. Because if I wasn’t sure before, I am now. He’s being cocky, and if he’s not careful, he’s going to give himself away.

  “It’s not a button.”

  I hold my finger over the icon, knowing what I just said was either obvious in its stupidity or stupid in its obviousness. But in the time it takes me to decide, FragFlwr’s name goes dark. He’s gone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Percy

  It’s not a button.

  I log out instantaneously, after which I get the notification from the AI ghost that any trace of FragFlwr has been scattered randomly across the Mainstream in pieces of data so small that even if they’re detected, they’ll be indecipherable. More importantly, my link into the Mainstream can’t be traced back here to the embassy, both because of the security and because of how I get around it. I learned this particular trick a year ago from Chen, and so far, it’s been quite useful.

  Never more so than now, as I lean over my desk and let her words brand my brain. It’s not a button.

  She was telling me she’s being watched, that she had to call the hackers in to find me. I run my hand over my mouth, my perfect teeth and perfect lips. I’ve learned a few things in the last several minutes. First, the new guard in the White House is just as oppressive as I thought, just as desperate to find and crush any person who defies their vision of order. So desperate that they’ll use a teenager as a puppet. But then again, I already knew that.

  The question is whether the teenager in question is a willing
creature—or just a victim waiting in the wings.

  From the moment Marguerite burst onto the scene a year ago, I watched her. I was already tracking the campaign, because I had suspected for months that Wynn Sallese or one of his minions had something to do with my parents’ deaths. If neurostim devices had ever been proven harmful after Sallese had pushed them so hard for so long, his political aspirations would have died on the vine—he’d have been just another corrupt businessman who made money on the backs of the masses, who were already suffering with the economic downturn and the rise of the tech market overseas. Sallese capitalized on Americans’ fear of foreign goods and especially foreign tech, and made his company synonymous with patriotism and freedom from all that ails you.

  Watching him, it’s hard to believe he’s evil. He truly seems to care. He’s a man I could like if not for my past, my parents. I’ve always understood why Marguerite, so raw, so real, believed in him. But something there is not right, and it killed me to watch this girl capture heart after heart and lay them at the feet of the man who might have benefited most from the death of the two people who created me and then re-created me.

  It’s true that I’ve taunted her. I wanted her to question why she was doing all this—for attention? To distract herself from her grief? As a ticket out of Houston, well known as one of the most dangerous and depressed urban centers left in America? But she is a true believer.

  Or she was. Now I’m not sure. Her last vid reeked of manipulation, but it wasn’t clear whether she was pulling the strings or being yanked around.

  I can’t trust her.

  I want to trust her.

  Anna wanted to trust her, too. Or so Marguerite claims.

  If Marguerite is on my side . . . she is in more danger than anyone else but me. And she is also more dangerous than anyone else but me.

  Still, could she get me in to see Kyla? Well, not me, FragFlwr. Me, Percy Blake. Fashionista. Fool. “Definitely fool,” I mutter.