Beneath the Shine

  “Okay,” says Chen slowly. “I guess we should use anything we have. Now we just need to find him. And that’s not gonna be easy.”

  “Yves, can you take me home?” I ask.

  “I can get you close. It would be best if I am not detained by the authorities.”

  “Then get me close. I appreciate it.” I look down at my naked forearm. It feels light without a comband attached, and I feel strangely vulnerable. But I’m not helpless. I know what I need to do.

  “Wanna let me in on your plan?” Chen asks. “I’ll help however I can.”

  “Good, because it takes more than one person to start a revolution.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Percy

  I put up a good chase before I let them catch me, because I don’t want them thinking I’m doing this on purpose.

  I discover something fun in the process: I can climb like a spider up a wall, because my fingers and toes and eyes all work together to find acceptable leverage points with perfect balance, efficiency, and coordination. It’s somewhat startling, but all my body’s systems are online, and the adrenaline fuels them with urgency. My oxygenation is remarkably efficient. The cannies come after me, but they expect me to function within the limitations of a typical human body, so it takes them a little while to adjust their settings.

  When I reach the top of an apartment building at the edge of the Potomac, I look out on the river’s glittering expanse and wait. I could jump. It’s tempting to hurl myself into space just to see if I could fly. I don’t know if my body would survive the fall, though, and I don’t have my parents here to put me back together. So I decide this is the place for my capture. It’s rather picturesque. I wish I could capture it on vid.

  I hold up my hands as the federal units descend. Patrol cannies that have climbed up after me ring me in, aiming their weapons. They are guns this time, not neural disruptors. I am officially an enemy of the state, I suppose. I smile at them as they approach. The bright lights from the fed cars sting my eyes until my pupils contract to pinpoints.

  A ladder slides down from one of the hovering cars. They’re probably afraid to land—there’s no guarantee this old roof would hold the weight of the vehicle.

  “You are under arrest,” says a voice from above. “Cooperate and you will not be harmed.”

  “I have no intention of fighting you,” I say, knowing the nearest patrol canny is broadcasting my answer to the car. “You’ve caught me fair and square.”

  “State your name for the record.”

  “I think I’ll let you chaps figure that one out,” I tell them, because I want this. I know that the puzzle will lure in my enemy.

  “Climb the ladder, or you will be stunned and lifted.”

  “Watch me go,” I say, striding to the ladder. I climb up easily but at a regular speed.

  When I peer through the open door of the vehicle, I see a human officer waiting for me, his Cerepin blinking. “Looking for a match?” I ask.

  He frowns. “Get in and hold your wrists out so I can cuff them. Your seat’s electrified, so it’ll shock you if you fight. So are the cuffs.”

  “How diabolical.” I take a moment to straighten my jacket and smooth my hair, and then I offer my wrists. “Now what?”

  “You tell us who you are.” He fastens the restraints, thick loops around my wrists with a stiff bar connecting them. I can feel the threatening hum of current within.

  “How about I tell you what I am? That’s much more interesting.”

  The officer goes still, and I can easily hear the tiny voice emanating from his ear implant. “Take him to Bethesda. No one climbs like that without illegal tech.”

  “Bethesda,” the officer says to the car. “Medical center.”

  “Oh no,” I say blandly. “What will you do to me?”

  “Figure out how the hell you climbed up a six-story building in ten seconds flat,” mutters another officer sitting in the front seat. “That was creepy as hell. What are you, some type of canny?”

  “Hardly.” Sort of. “I’m just in very good shape.”

  The officer sitting on the other side of the prisoner partition from me snorts. “Smart-ass. You can’t hide from a Bioscan.”

  “Obviously not,” I say as we soar over DC. My heart is racing at 169 beats per minute, a combination of exertion and nerves. I’m not scared of what’s coming—but I am worried about Marguerite. If everything has gone according to plan, Yves will have given her my paper at this point. And if I know her, she’s going to find a way to come and see me. I’m both excited and scared by the prospect. I don’t want her too close to me. I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

  But I’ve set this in motion, and it’s bigger than both of us, and the only thing to do now is see it through to the end. My parents did the same—they spoke out, they did their best to expose corruption and evil, and they died in that fight.

  Now it’s my turn.

  I sit quietly with these thoughts as the patrol car descends. When I focus on what’s just outside my window, I see the holographic sign for the Bethesda Medical Center. Where Kyla and her mother are imprisoned. Across the parking lot is a large black vehicle that bears the presidential seal. Part of the official White House fleet.

  It could not be more perfect. This is exactly where I needed to come. This is where it ends. Tonight.

  Assuming Marguerite gets here before it’s too late.

  Wearing cuffs and held at gunpoint by at least five patrol cannies, I am escorted into the medical center through an entrance marked “Staff Only.” I hold my head high and wish I had used a little more hydrostatic gel spray—there’s a stray lock that keeps falling across my forehead. No doubt devilishly rakish, but annoying given I can’t sweep it out of my eyes.

  They lead me past several closed doors and into a spacious white room containing a full-body scanner . . . and a reclining examination chair with a hole at the back of the headrest and dangling straps to secure uncooperative arms and legs and heads. Perfect for installing a neurostim, I would think. My stomach is tight with rage and, all right, yes, a bit of fear.

  “Wait here,” says one of the patrol cannies.

  Its human counterpart, a weary middle-aged officer, looks me up and down. Do I detect disgust? “Just answer his questions when he gets here, all right? He’s the kind who likes the ones that don’t, if you understand.”

  Our eyes meet, and suddenly I know. He was there when Bianca was murdered. “The price of defiance is higher than the latest tech, I gather.”

  “Don’t find out,” he says, a note of pleading in his voice. I suspect he was once a good man but not a strong one. Not strong enough to resist evil when it came to the door. And now he walks from the room, apparently willing to let whatever happens happen—or too scared to try to stop it.

  No matter. He doesn’t need to be here for the final act.

  With three motionless patrol cannies watching over me, I wait. I know he’s here already—he just wants to give me enough time to sweat.

  I tap my Adam’s apple and feel my body shifting to bring my voice back to its normal pitch. It doesn’t matter that they know who I am now. Everybody’s going to know who I am if I succeed. And if I fail, I’ll be disappeared like Bianca was, so it won’t matter. I put my face back in its normal configuration, too. It feels good.

  One of the cannies steps forward and uncuffs me. “You are to be scanned now,” he says, his voice low. “It won’t hurt you.”

  I eye the machine as all my parents’ admonitions run through my head, and then I step into the scanning booth. The clear door slides shut behind me. The beams slide over my body as the walls click softly. And then the door opens again and turns me loose.

  When I reenter the room, Elwood Seidel is waiting. He has a smile on his face. “Congratulations on turning the Hethermill family into fugitives,” he says to me. “You know, when they’re caught, it won’t be pretty.”

  “Which means you haven’t caught them
yet.”

  He chuckles. “I’ve got to say, I didn’t expect you.”

  “No? But I suppose that’s not surprising. You’re not that terribly clever.”

  His smile drops away. “I did suspect you for a while, actually, but then that little traitor talked me out of it.”

  “Or maybe you’re silly enough to underestimate a fellow simply because he looks ravishing in a dress.”

  “But now you’re the one in custody,” he continues, louder, “and I’m . . . well. I can do more or less whatever I want to you.”

  I yawn. “If what you want is as unimaginative as your wardrobe, then I expect to sleep right through it. Can you blind me first so that I don’t have to look at that shoddy hem?” I give his jacket a look of shock.

  He rolls his eyes. “Nice try. I want you to know that my office got a com from the French ambassador tonight. We couldn’t help her, but it did help us, Percy.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “It seems you’ve got quite a following online. They’ll miss you.”

  Poor Rosalie. “Doesn’t seem like good politics to cross the French president and the most powerful country in the European Union. Will that really help Wynn?”

  “But you’re American, Percy.”

  “I am also a French citizen, thanks to ma mère.”

  He shrugs. “You’re still subject to the laws of your home country. I hope you didn’t let all those diplomatic perks go to your head. I’ll admit—I didn’t think a teenager would be the one smuggling fugitives out of the District, but then it all made sense. Only someone so young would be so stupid.”

  I can feel a little smile playing at my lips. “Ah, yes. Teenagers. There’s no way we can change the world, so why should we try?”

  “You’ve caused me a lot of inconvenience,” he says. “You’re going to have to pay for that.”

  “What about the inconvenience you’ve caused me?” I ask, breathing slow and deep to deny the urge to leap on him and wrap my hands around his throat. “Shall we talk about the trouble you’ve caused, Elwood? You see, I don’t think the ledger is even. You did, after all, arrange for my parents to be murdered.”

  His eyebrows rise. “You figured that out? I’m impressed. Or did your little friend Chen help you? I’m going to catch him, you know. And when I do, I’m going to make an example of him.”

  “Ah. So you haven’t caught him yet, either.”

  “I have you, though.” He turns as a medical canny strides in. It holds out a screen. “The results of your scan. Now we can decide where to start.” His gaze dances over the readout. “My god, Percy. Your parents were geniuses. I almost regret having them killed.”

  My fists clench. His eyes flick to my hands, and he smiles as he returns to his reading. “Augmentation chips in your eyes, ears, throat, thyroid, bone marrow, heart, pancreas . . .” He starts to laugh. “Aw, buddy. It looks like the only place your parents didn’t augment you was your privates.”

  I smirk. “Well, obviously that’s because I didn’t need any help there.”

  His lip curls. He hates that I’m not afraid of him. “Most of the augmentation is in your brain, I see. So you did need help there?”

  I lean against the scanning booth. “Ah, that. I needed a bit of patching up after a youthful accident. It’s just glue holding me together, really.”

  “I wonder what would happen if we just plucked those chips out? It wouldn’t be hard. We have the equipment right here.”

  I really hope Marguerite gets here soon, before there’s not enough of me left to finish this. “Would that make you feel safer, do you think? Would it finally allow you to sleep with the lights out? I do think darkness is better.” I give him my best contemptuous look. “Because I’m sure your sleeping attire is even less stylish than your current ensemble. I am no fan of the president, but doesn’t even he deserve a chief of staff with a crisp pleat? A freshly genned shirt?”

  In spite of himself, Elwood’s hand slides defensively down his chest to his belly. “You’re trying to goad me into hurting you before we can extract useful information.”

  “Like who designed my jacket, perhaps? I’d tell you, but I don’t think your shoulders are broad enough to do it justice.”

  “Like how you’re smuggling people out of Arlington,” he snaps. “Gia Fortin is now speaking out from the safety of Canada, thinking she’s out of my reach.”

  “I’d be more cooperative if you give me what I want.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You have a classmate of mine here. I’d like to see how she fares.”

  He grunts. “Kyla Barton? If I let you see her, you’ll give me information?”

  “I’d be more amenable. I miss her. We had a certain bond, you know.”

  “You know what? Why not. I’m feeling generous. Just know that if you try to escape or get her to help you, I’ll have the cannies hurt her while you watch.”

  “Good lord.” I cluck my tongue. “You truly are a broken little man, aren’t you?”

  His face turns red. “I’m really going to enjoy taking you apart.” He stalks from the room.

  There’s the slightest release of tension in my chest, but it returns the moment Kyla walks in. Her eyes light on me, but they don’t spark with recognition.

  “Hello,” I say softly. “I missed you.”

  “You did?” She looks nervously at the examination table as I walk toward her. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you?”

  “What?” I lift her chin with my fingers, but as I do, I see the flash of something red under her hair. A neurostim. I bow my head until our foreheads are almost touching. “I’m so sorry they did this to you.”

  “Did what?” She seems more interested in the anime movie playing on her comband than she is in talking to me.

  I step away from her. “How is your mother?”

  “I guess she’s fine.” But her brow furrows for a moment, as if she’s trying to think her way out of a haze, to remember something important.

  Rage tingles up and down my spine. “You’re going to be all right, Kyla.”

  “I’m already all right,” she says in a dreamy voice. She reaches up and pushes the neurostim, delivering a low-voltage dose of relief to her amygdala or wherever they’ve implanted the leads.

  Elwood Seidel enters the room again, searching my face for my reaction. “What do you think of the neurostim? Your parents wondered what they could really do,” he says. “They were suspicious from the start, you know. Flore reviewed the design and was concerned it had the potential for abuse. Your father had the loudest voice, but really it was your mother who started them both down that road. Tragic, isn’t it? If she had been a bit more stupid or content to be at home with you instead of in the lab, she might still be alive.”

  “And perhaps if your mother had found you worthy of love, even a little, many people would be alive.”

  He holds up his comband. “Go ahead. I’m used to being mocked, especially by rich technocrites like you and your parents. It gave me great pleasure to look down on their lifeless, bloody bodies. And you know what? This gives me pleasure, too.” He looks down at the screen and appears to scroll through a list of options before his nasty smile returns. Then he taps one section of the screen.

  Kyla’s open palm comes at my face so quickly that I barely have time to catch her wrist. Her other hand claws at my neck, and she manages to scratch me before I restrain that one as well. Her beautiful face contorts with anger, pink lips drawn back from white teeth, eyes full of fury. She kicks and writhes, doing her best to hurt me, even trying to bite me before I wrap her up and hold her so tightly that she can’t get at me.

  “Stop this! You can do what you want to me, but she’s an innocent, and you’ve already hurt her enough.”

  “No such thing,” he replies, sinking into a rolling chair and watching me struggle with my friend, who is slamming her heels into my shins and throwing her head back in an attempt to smash my face. “She won’t st
op until her body gives out, by the way. Isn’t that fantastic?”

  I look down at the spot on her neck where the neurostim device is implanted.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you. Pulling it out will do irreversible damage. The human brain is such a delicate thing, as you know.”

  “Please stop,” I say, letting my voice drop, letting my fear shine through.

  “Your turn, then. I need information.”

  I’m sweating and shaking, trying to hold Kyla without hurting her. “What do you want?”

  “Where’s Chen hiding?” he asks. I don’t answer. Of course I don’t answer. “Hmm, we’ll start with an easier one. How are you getting technocrats across the border?”

  Kyla is struggling so hard that I’m afraid I’m going to break some of her bones, but I can’t trade her pain for other lives. “I’m sorry, Kyla,” I tell her, my mouth pressed to her ear.

  She screams, and it is eerie and quavering and full of agony.

  “I have to say I’m surprised,” Elwood says as a patrol canny appears at the door. “You’re really willing to let her die?” He lets us struggle as he turns to the manlike machine. “What is it?”

  “Someone to see you, sir.”

  “I’m a little busy here. Take care of it.”

  “She’ll only talk to you.”

  “She? Who is it?”

  “Marguerite Singer.”

  Elwood stands up abruptly. He looks down at his comband and taps it, and Kyla goes limp in my arms. As we sink to the ground, he strides from the room. I am not pleased to see that he is smiling.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Marguerite

  As I wait in an empty exam room, I say a little prayer that the vice president actually hates me less than she seems to. Before I got out of Yves, I asked Chen to get me through to the president. If he was the hacking god he was supposed to be, I figured it would be easy.

  But apparently Uncle Wynn wasn’t at the White House tonight, and guess who was?

  “My secretary said it was important,” said the veep, her voice low and thoroughly annoyed.