The Rendering (12 page)

“Not entirely,” the voice said. “I’m neither alive nor dead.”

“She’s alive!” I told Jamie.

“Doug, I—”

“Thank God,” I breathed. “You’re alive.”

“Doug, shush! I’m neither alive nor dead. I’m in a liminal state. Let me tell the story.”

“Fine,” I said, grinning hugely. “As long as you explain words like
liminal.”

“Liminal
means on the threshold between life and death.” The laptop fell silent for a moment. “Now, Jamie, listen closely.”

Jamie stared at her laptop in disbelief as my aunt told the story. The basics, at least: the mercenary attack, Roach and Hund stealing the Protocol, Roach scanning her into the Net, and me escaping in the blue shuttle.

To be honest, I didn’t listen all that closely, because I was too busy doing cartwheels and setting off fireworks in my mind. I couldn’t believe it. My aunt was still there, still with me. She hadn’t died; she hadn’t left me behind.

“What about the dragonfly?” Jamie asked when my aunt finished talking through the laptop speaker.

“Are you crazy?” I said, still smiling. “You’re worried about our
homework
?”

“Not the homework! I mean on
CircuitBoard
. When you were in trouble, I saw the Holographic Hub on my computer screen. The cursor looked like a dragonfly.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. How’d you manage to unlock the hub for me?”

“No idea.” Jamie bit her lip. “I mean, I just solved the puzzles on the screen.”

“Sure, you reprogrammed a military installation with a video game. And, um, what about the cable that snapped?”

“And what happened to
you
, Dr. S?” Jamie asked the laptop. “Where are you?”

“And how did I get here?” I asked. “The last thing I remember, the shuttle door opened and I saw—”

“One at a time,” my aunt said through the computer. And even though it wasn’t her voice, she sounded like her old self. “Jamie first. My scans reveal that the dragonfly data Doug was sending when he fell into the Holographic Hub merged with the
CircuitBoard
code on your laptop.”

“Um, what?” Jamie asked.

“The Holographic Hub automatically combines, refines, and optimizes all available code,” my aunt explained. “It turned your laptop into a supercomputer. The Center is gone, but your laptop is now a miniature version of the Holographic Hub. You’ve got more computing power than NASA.”

“But …,” Jamie said. “How did I unlock those doors?”

“The hub also upgraded your computer game to a Net-based utility,” my aunt said. “A semiautonomous codelink webform, passlocked to you alone.”

“Vocabulary,” I reminded her.

“Ah. Well, apparently the dragonfly probe can travel through cyberspace just like Jamie’s cursor travels in the
CircuitBoard
game. Not only travel, but manipulate.”

“Like a hacking tool?” I asked.

“Like an incredibly powerful hacking tool,” my aunt said.

Jamie shook her head. “But what happened to
you
, Dr. Solomon? That’s the most important thing. Are you … Where
are
you?”

“I thought you were dead,” I said, my throat suddenly tight. “You were lying there … I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry, Doug. I—”

“I left her there,” I told Jamie. “I left her behind.”

“Douglas!” my aunt said through the speaker. “I
was
dead. There was nothing you could do.”

I swallowed. “I should have—”

“You were
dead
?” Jamie interrupted.

“When Roach scanned me into the Net, my body died, and he thought my mind did, too. But the Center’s AI routed the data through my personal directories. Every synapse, every quark and neuron. I imprinted on the Center’s intranet.”

“Wait,” Jamie said. “He scanned you into a machine? That’s just … not possible.”

“The technology of the Center is light-years beyond anything you can imagine.”

“Okay,” Jamie said, biting her lower lip. “So he scanned your brain into the Center’s computers?”

“That’s right. I used several sectors to protect my data, and transferred everything off-site before the final explosion.”

“You mean you uploaded yourself to the Net before the bomb went off?”

“Exactly.”

“So … where are you now?” I asked.

“Distributed through the Internet, on corporate data banks and military hardware, on home computers and telecommunications networks.”

“Um. That’s good, I guess.”

“It is, except one of my sectors was corrupted during the transfer.” There was a pause. “And the data seems to have developed a rudimentary self-consciousness.”

I shook my head. “That’s crazy. How do we even know you’re—” I turned to Jamie. “What if this isn’t my aunt?”

“I know about the root canal, Doug,” the laptop said. “I know about your Spider-Man pajamas—”

“That was years ago,” I said.

“And the time your Chuckle Me Aldo went on the fritz.”

“Which totally wasn’t my fault!”

“You flushed a stuffed animal down the toilet.”

“That thing was freaky.”

“The plumber cost me four hundred dollars!”

“Okay,” I said to Jamie. “This is definitely Auntie M.”

Jamie snorted. “Yeah, I figured.” She looked at the laptop in the dim light of the dirt cellar. “What do you mean it’s developing self-consciousness?”

“I don’t know exactly,” my aunt said. “But the corrupted sector seems to be self-aware. This new Awareness isn’t just code, it’s a—a person.”

“Corrupted” was not precisely correct
.

I’ll get to that later.

Jamie asked, “So after Roach scanned your mind, some of that data started … changing?”

“Yes. Usually before scanning in a mind, we format the computer to preserve the data exactly. But Roach wasn’t trying to scan my mind; he was trying to kill me. To
erase
my mind. And it would’ve worked, but the Center’s AI recognized me and sent the information into my personal sectors. Except nothing was formatted, so the data is behaving … oddly.”

Jamie took a breath. “Okay. So what do we do? How long do you have?”

“I can maintain the integrity of my data for another three hours—”

“Three hours?” I interrupted, hope sparking in my chest. “You mean you can come back?”

“You can reconstruct your body?” Jamie asked.

“If you locate a Bio-Gen Uplink within three hours, I can rebuild my body. Otherwise, I’ll remain in digital format.”

“Like, forever?” Jamie asked.

“No,” the laptop said. “Eventually, my data—my mind and personality—will lose coherence.”

“Lose coherence?” I asked, even though I was afraid of the answer. “Vocabulary, Auntie M.”

“Without access to an uplink within three hours,” she said, “I won’t be able to rebuild my body. I’ll become pure data. And after that, my mind will die, too.”

Jamie bit her lip again. “What’s an uplink?”

“You mean like that HostLink thing?” I asked.

“Yes, the HostLink was effectively a superpowerful uplink. A prototype, one of a kind. Gone forever, thank God.”

“Why is that a good thing?”

“Because Roach could’ve used it to scan in millions of people almost immediately. That’s why destroying the HostLink was so important. Regular uplinks, on the other hand, just transfer digital format into biological form, and vice versa.”

“Like those T-bone steaks?” I asked.

“Exactly. Except the uplinks work both ways—from digital file to physical body, and from physical body to digital file.”

“The Center’s a heap of charcoal,” I said. “Are there any uplinks left?”

“Only three.”

“Then we’ll get one,” I said. “Where are they?”

“Roach stole two of them last night, and the third’s in a heavily guarded military installation in San Diego.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I left you for dead once. I’ll never do that again.”

And you know what?

Sure, I’m an ordinary kid, but after seeing what I’d seen the day before—after surviving what I’d survived—I didn’t care. I’d get my aunt one of those uplinks if I had to crawl over broken glass.

Three hours.

I had three hours to save my aunt, to bring her back to life.

Maybe I’d never done anything with three hours before, except waste them playing video games. But this time, I would not fail.

For the first time in my life, I couldn’t.

“After I pinpoint the location of an uplink …” The laptop’s hard drive whirred. “Your battery is damaged, Jamie. I have only thirty-eight seconds before power-down.”

Jamie gave me a dirty look. “Bug knocked me over.”

“Oops.”

“You need to recharge the battery,” Auntie M said. “And stay out of sight. They’re watching for you, Doug.”

“Me?” I yelped. “Who?”

“Roach and Hund. And the army. And police.”

“What
?”

“Roach hacked the military net—and the government, the schools, the police. He controls satellite feeds and security cameras. He edited the report from last night to show that you vandalized the Center, causing the explosion and my death.”

I swore.

“On the bright side,” Jamie told me, “you’re famous.”

“I always thought I’d be famous for my music.”

“What music? You don’t even play an instrument.”

“Yeah, but I’m awesome at
Rock Hero Four.”

“This isn’t a time for jokes,” my aunt said. “They assume that you’re dead, but Roach noticed the shuttle leaving. Expect him to double-check.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.

“Doug, run to Jamie’s house and get online. I’ll talk to you there. Keep a low profile, in case Roach is watching. Jamie, go to school and pretend none of this happened. If they realize you’re absent, they’ll know you’re involved. And hurry.”

“But—the uplinks?” Jamie said. “Three hours? We need to start—”

“Just go,” my aunt said. “And be careful.”

Then the laptop powered down, and we were alone.

When I was a little kid, they bulldozed some fields and pastures across town and built big-box stores. Huge warehouses with acres of aisles selling everything from underwear to lawn mowers to jelly beans.

To Jamie’s disgust, I liked them. I liked getting lost in there for hours, just messing around and looking at all the
stuff
. Jamie, on the other hand, headed into the city with her mom every six weeks for a whole new wardrobe.

Anyway, if you start wondering how I know what I’m about to tell you, remember what I said about digital reconstruction.

After Roach was fired from the Center, my aunt developed a technology that could eavesdrop through electronic equipment—not just security cameras and cell phones, but wireless devices and even fiber-optic outlets. And since merging with the Net, she’s learned to reconstruct almost anything that happens.

And of course, breaking into personnel records is far easier.

Which is how I know that Letitia Harrod worked at Tar-Mart for eight years. She was a model employee, without a single hiccup, until early that morning, when she opened the doors
and found a huge mess: security cameras ripped from the walls, packaging strewn everywhere.

They’d been robbed. So Letitia called the cops and checked the store, to figure out what had been taken. Some clothes and a bunch of equipment from the hunting and fishing section. Tools, definitely. Sporting goods. Even some toys from the children’s department.

She grabbed her inventory sheet … then heard a noise.

The robbers were still in the store. She pressed herself against a display of nonfat cookies and trembled as she listened to them.

“Check this,” one of them said. “A slingshot. You see any ball bearings?”

“Try aisle nine,” came another voice, deep and slow.

“A slingshot,” a female voice said disgustedly. “Grow up.”

“Don’t blame me,” the first man said. “I’m born to not kill.”

“Fine, you’re stuck with nonlethal weapons … you don’t have to
like
them so much,” she said. “Is that a Ping-Pong gun?”

“You fill these balls with the right chemicals …”

The female snorted. “A Harley, that’s what I need.”

“At least you found the motorcycle chain,” Deep Voice said.

“Yeah, this isn’t bad,” the female voice replied. “Tensile strength to eight thousand pounds. Still, I’m gonna need to special order.”

“You don’t have enough gear?” Deep Voice asked.

“Easy for you to say,” the female said. “You
are
gear. Toss me that crowbar.”

Something clanked, and Deep Voice said, “We should check on the boy, now that you’re equipped.”

“Our scrawny sleeping beauty,” the first voice said.

“What about
her
?” the female voice asked.

Letitia shivered, like she knew they were talking about her.

“I’ll fix her,” the first voice said.

The owner of the first voice vaulted over four aisles of breakfast cereals and home-repair tools and landed two feet in front of Letitia.

His furry ears pricked and his muzzle rose in a smile. “Boo,” he said softly.

Letitia fainted.

We climbed the root canal stairs—a rotting wooden stair-case—into the corner of the abandoned weed-ridden lot. I took a few deep breaths and blinked against the morning sun.

“I don’t mind the lack of indoor plumbing,” I said. “But I’d kill for a convenient tree.”

“Uh,” Jamie said. “Gross?”

“Well, at least I slept like a baby.”

“Yeah, on soggy cardboard.” She glanced at me. “You still don’t remember how you got there?”

“No. I mean, I guess not.”

“Which means you kinda
do
know?”

“I have a theory,” I said. “The only problem is, it’s insane.”

“That never stopped you before.”

I tried to laugh but couldn’t. Why? Well, take a peek at my little Checklist of Weird: