The Body Electric - Special Edition (37 page)

“Let her try,” she tells the boys after I explain my plan.

“It’s too dangerous,” Jack says immediately.

Xavier watches silently.

I don’t know if they believe me or not—they did not see the light of life come back to Akilah’s eyes; they have no reason to trust me anyway—but at least Julie says that I should try.

“It’s too late, anyway,” I say, speaking for the first time since I explained my plan. “I’ve already contacted Representative Belles.”

“What?” Jack says, glaring at me.

I put my hands up. “I only asked him to read up as much as he can. He has access to documents that we don’t, all the stored research, possibly the plans from the government.”

“But even if he reads it all, how can he get that information to us?” Xavier asks, his voice low and calm.

“If it’s in his head, I can get it out.”

There’s a hard set to Jack’s jaw. “It’s dangerous. We can’t go back to the labs and that reverie chair.”

“We can go back home,” I say.

The Reverie Mental Spa is the only other place in the world with two reverie chairs connected. If Representative Belles is in one, I can link to him in the other and see everything the government is planning. Even if he hasn’t consciously memorized the bulk of what he read, his subconscious has absorbed more than he can tell.

It’s too late to save Mom. But maybe I can still save Akilah.

Maybe I can save myself.

“But how can we get in?” Julie says.

“My biometric scan is programmed into the security,” I say. “It’s my home—I can get in.”

“There will be guards,” Jack growls.

“I can take care of those.” Julie grins, as if she’s looking forward to the fight.

“I will stay with Akilah,” Xavier says. “She should not be alone.”

“I’m staying with you.” Jack glares at me. “I don’t trust that representative.”

“He’s on our side,” I try to protest.

“He’s not fighting for us,” Jack says. His voice is low, even, and he doesn’t break eye contact with me. “He’s fighting for his family. What’s left of it. He may agree with us, he may hate the government, but in the end, all he will ever want to do is protect his family.”

“The freedom of our people is more important!” Julie says fiercely. “We will never stop fighting, never stop working for what is right!”

Jack just smiles at her. “That’s a nice lie to believe,” he says.

My cuff buzzes. I read the message, then meet the others’ eyes. “Tonight,” I say. “He’s ready tonight.”

It feels so strange to be heading home. It’s only been a few days since I left, but it feels like a lifetime. I clutch my fortune cookie necklace, the only thing I really have left of the person I used to be. It feels weird that I could just walk away from my home. I briefly consider going back to my room, but what would I take? There’s so much I don’t want any more. The photos of my family are tainted with doubt and questions. The small gifts my mother made, the mementos of my father. None of it feels real.

Jack, Julie, and I stop short when we reach the gate to Central Gardens, directly across the Reverie storefront. The neon sheep bounces cheerily over the slogan, illuminating the dimming twilight with garish colors and a glossy glass surface. But when I look past all that, through the glass to the waiting lobby, the building is dark and empty.

“Wait for my word,” Julie says, slipping into the shadows. Jack and I wait, nervously, and in a few moments, Jack’s cuff buzzes.

“All clear,” he says.

Representative Belles waits for us at the street corner.

“Ready?” I ask him.

He nods. His body is tense, and his mouth is drawn tight.

“Here’s hoping this works,” I mutter as we reach the door. I press my finger against the touchpad, and the doors slide open.

sixty-six

Representative Belles looks nervous
as Jack plugs him into the reverie chair. I guess if you know someone’s going to break into your mind, you’re not quite so eager to go under.

“Just think about the research you did,” I say. “I can access your memories. You won’t feel a thing.”

The representative nods tightly and shuts his eyes as Jack administers the reverie drug to him. We both leave the representative, but Jack touches my arm to hold me back before I can go to the next chair.

“Be careful,” he says. There’s real concern etched on his face, and perhaps fear.

I slip into Representative Belles’s mind as if it were a comfortable T-shirt.

There are no oranges, and it feels odd to be here without the scent of the grove filling the air.

In the background, I can hear the soft sound of a boy’s voice, barely audible, singing to the tune of a guitar.

Representative Belles stands before me, looking sheepish. “My son,” he says. The music fades to nothing.

His dreamscape is of his office. Through the window, the sky is blue and cloudless, overlooking the upper city of New Venice. In the center is a giant desk, the glass surface already filled with digi files and documents, and two raised screens displaying data.

I sit down in the representative’s chair and start reading.

Nanorobotics and Cyborg Control in Android Theory: Building a Brain Through Biology and Technology

By: Dr. Philip K. Shepherd

My scientific studies to date have always had the goal of a being with individual thought but also physical strength. I have failed to create an android with a human brain to achieve that end.

However, my current research indicates that I can approach the solution differently by reversing the starting point. Namely, a human being with an android body, rather than an android with a human brain.

Obviously, a human cannot be fully robotic. Cyborg technology in the past three decades has advanced by leaps and bounds, providing paraplegics with fully functioning limbs, but that is not the same as a full android body.

Full replication of android biomechanics is not feasible. But the advantages of an android’s body can be replicated by other means through the use of nanorobotics.

Dad’s research is dense. He used to speak that way, too, circling the issue, and providing the information, waiting for me to discover the meaning behind his words.

Across from me, Representative Belles stares out the window of his office.

This isn’t really the representative—he’s dreaming of himself here with me now.

I hear soft singing and a guitar playing again.

He turns around me, his smile apologizing for their distracting noise. “My son,” he says again.

I turn back to the desk.

Internal Report: Update on Dr. Philip Shepherd

Please note: The doctor’s wife, inventor and scientist Rose Shepherd, has been diagnosed with Hebb’s Disease. Dr. Shepherd has not asked for leave from his scientific research, but instead requests further funding for nanorobotic research in conjunction with his current theory and development.

Representative Belles touches the window, and I see that, despite the fact we’re nearly at the top of the tallest Triumph Tower, there’s a bumblebee beating against the glass, trying to get in. “I really do support what you’re doing,” the representative says. “As soon as I read your father’s research and realized what the UC was doing to people, I knew I couldn’t do nothing.”

Another file slides across the representative’s desk.

Memo

To: Jack Tyler, Research Assistant

From: Dr. Philip Shepherd

Effective immediately, you are dismissed from my employment. Should you need further information or answers pertaining to our past research together, you may consult my daughter, Ella Shepherd.

Ha! I don’t have any answers at all.

I look up, and realize that Representative Belles has moved away from the window. His eyes are zeroed in on me, and he stands uncomfortably close.

“Yes?” I ask.

“My son,” Representative Belles’s says for the third time. “He’s all I have left.”

I turn my full focus on him.

Everything goes blindingly white, then solid black.

Sparks flash in the darkness.

“My son,” Representative Belles says. “My son. My son. He’s all I have left. My son.”

“What did you do?” I whisper.

The sparks flash and die, flash and die.

“My son. My son. My son. My son. My son.”

“What did you do?” I shout.

The sparks. Just like the last one I saw in my mother’s replicated body.

It’s thought.

And the darkness means his thought is dying. Representative Belles is dying.

I look up at him, his face illuminated by the flashes. Blood leaks from a hole in his skull, dripping down his nose, spilling on either side between his eyes, falling like tears over his face.

“I think I’ve been shot,” he says. His eyes focus on me. “If I die, do you die, too? I’m sorry. My son. He’s all I have left.”

Oh, God. If he dies, do I die, too? Can he trap me in his dying body; will mine rot away, empty?

“Maybe I can live if I go back the way you came. Maybe I get to have your body, and you can stay in mine until it’s dead and gone.”

Representative Belles struggles toward me, lurching like a zombie. The bright, shimmering sparks fire rapidly, like a strobe, and he gets closer with every flash. I turn on my heel. I have to escape. I have to leave his mind, find mine.

You’re not in your right mind, Ella.

Dad’s voice cuts across my thought. Shit! I can’t have a breakdown now, no hallucinations, no bees buzzing through my brain.

Representative Belles grabs my wrist, leaving a hot, red smear of blood on my skin. I slip away, running. I can hear his footsteps coming closer, his breath on the back of my neck. The sparks of his thoughts sizzle now, burning out like a snuffed candle rather than a flash of lightning. I hear sounds behind me: children’s laughter, sobbing, inscrutable words, muffled moans, joyous shouts.

And then I hear nothing.

That’s the first to go, then, sound.

I slow to a stop. Representative Belles is still chasing me, but it’s like he’s running on a treadmill and I’m standing still. No matter how much he runs, he can’t reach me.

I smell oranges.

Representative Belles stops.

“I don’t want to die,” he says.

“Neither do I,” I whisper.

Darkness washes over us.

sixty-seven

I don’t know where I am.

“Ella!” a voice shouts. I don’t recognize the voice, but it fills me with warmth and comfort. I shiver in its absence.

“Hello?” I call. “Where am I?”

“Ella!” the voice yells, but I cannot tell where it is coming from. The sound wraps around me, spreading like spilt water and then evaporating into silence.

“Where am I?” I whisper again.

The darkness stretches out for eternity.

I take a few steps forward, but the feeling is surreal—I cannot tell if I’ve actually moved or not, because everything is nothing. I feel something wet and warm slide down my cheek, and I touch the tear with my fingertips, swiping it away.

Representative Belles is dead. I’m certain of that now. He’s gone. I’m… I’m in the place where he was, and now he’s gone, and now I’m stuck. I’m stuck in the nothingness of a dead body, and I don’t know how to get out.

My heart thuds against my chest, and I gasp for air. What if I can never get out? What if eternity is nothing more than me, alone, in the darkness? Trapped in someone else’s death.

I collapse, but it’s not like I fall on the floor. There is no floor. There was the illusion of one, but as my body gives way, I realize that I’m floating. I stretch out, my fingers and toes aching to feel, but there’s nothing, nothing at all, and I draw myself into myself, hugging my legs, my knees tucked under my chin.

I’m alone.

Maybe when Representative Belles died, I died too.

Maybe this is it.

“ELLA!”
the voice roars again, and finally, I recognize it.

“Jack?” I say, lifting my head and looking futilely into the darkness.