Duplicity (22 page)

“Seb—”

“I knew you'd come for me. I knew you'd keep your promise.” He grins. “I'ma let you in. I think I know how to get us both backs. Be quick, 'kay?”

“Seb, don't—”

“No worries, JENA isn't with you, I checked.”

“Seb!”

Something clicks, and I get pulled through a space that feels as big as a keyhole, and then there's nothing again, not cold or warmth or squeezing, not even Seb, just a shadow room I don't recognize. The door-wide mirror to the real world shows a clean, moonlit apartment with a window that looks out to more apartments. At the desk below the window is a computer glowing white. At the computer is a chair—

A wheelchair—

And a familiar red ponytail above it—

“Seb?” I whisper.

“Hi,” Seb says, in the girl's voice. In
her
voice. She appears next to the mirror screen with her ponytail and a short blue dress that looks like the one Emma wore to homecoming, and heels to match. A perfect replica of the girl at the desk, sans wheelchair. She strolls over to me, each step twisting my heart a little more.

“We have to get you out of here,” I say. “Now.”

“Presents first,” she says.

“What?”

She hands me something that looks like an iPhone with two electric prongs sticking out of the top. Gaudy jewels cover every inch of it that isn't the screen. Seb giggles.

“A naughty present,” she says. “I found the blueprints for it in JENA's restricted files. They call it the Exorcist. Transfer it through the mirror to the real world before you swap, then use it on yourself. It will disable the nanites in your body. Forever. JENA will never be able to swap you agains.” She looks toward the moonlit apartment. “Mine's waiting in my desk.”

She made me a permanent escape plan. While I hunted her, she built me something to make sure Vivien couldn't ever drag me back into the Project.

I can't look at her. I can't take the Exorcist.

“There's a trigger on the side, see?” Seb says, turning it to a place where there are no jewels, just a black indent. She pulls it and blue sparks arc between the prongs like a Taser. I still don't move.

“Bran Bran,” she says. She lifts my hand and puts the phone in my palm. It disappears, though I don't know to where. “We're going to get out.”

Her hand on mine. Her real eyes, trusting me way more than she should.

“You need to get out
now
,” I say again.

“Aww, no good-bye present from you?”

“I'm not kidding. JENA's coming—”

Seb's gaze darts over my shoulder.

At my good-bye present.

“Very good, Fifty,” JENA says behind me. “I knew with the right motivators you would be able to get in. The Overseer was skeptical of my plan, but she will be pleased. She may even allow me to preserve you.”

With a sound like tearing paper, the shadow room flashes to gray walls. Seb looks at her new prison with wide eyes, then back at me, moving her head back and forth, back and forth,
no no no no
.

“Kathy?” she says. “You sold me out?”

She's looking at me like—

“No!” I say, and it doesn't feel any better that I didn't mean to. “I swear!”

“You haven't changed at all, have you?” Seb says. “You've always looked out for yourself. That's the smart thing to do. I just thought—”

“Target Thirty-Nine,” JENA says. “You have been scheduled for deletion. You will be moved to the export server and recycled into the system. Please stand by.”

“We had a deal, JENA!” I yell. “You said you'd keep both of us, we could work together to fix the code!”

“But you came back,” Seb says, her face in so much pain that I want to look away, but there's nothing else to look at. “You came back just to kill me?”

“I swear, I thought I'd convinced JENA to keep you. I thought—”

I thought I'd hacked her. It sounds so stupid, now. Me, hack a supercomputer? I should've known it was too easy. I should've known they'd never give a target that much control, and that Vivien was just playing a part before, getting frantic so I would believe I'd actually done it. I was thick enough to take the bait. And now Seb will pay for it.

Seb.

Sariah Elise Burnhart, a paraplegic genius from New York.

“But you promised,” Seb says.

I can't say anything. Can't do anything but look back at her, hollow and helpless and soulless, because I've done it again. Screwed over someone who cared about me, someone who trusted me, someone who saved me.

“Transferring,” JENA chimes overhead.

I make a rash attempt to get into the code layer, and JENA zaps me so bad my vision blurs. Seb's eyes have gone dark. She's hating herself for freeing me. She's wondering why she gave me the Exorcist. She's remembering the time she cracked, the time I held her together and lied to her.

Realizing
I'm
the monster.

All gears and wires.

“You promised,” Seb says again, the shock wearing off, her fingers curling to fists. “I waited for you. I
waited
—”

She disappears with JENA.

I'll hear those words in my head the rest of my life.

*   *   *

JENA makes me watch. As I deserve.

All the hackers must watch, she explains, as a theater-sized video of the execution displays across all four walls of my workspace. Everywhere I look is Seb. The girl who trusted too much.

The girl who trusted me.

She looks very small in the execution space. Her hair's down and she's switched to her black skirt and a T-shirt, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's the same outfit from the white room. She leans against one of the walls, watching the ceiling as Vivien lists her various offenses. Her real world crimes: viruses that kept track of chat sessions, credit card numbers, and Socials … from inside military firewalls. Her Duplicity crimes: hacking into game sessions and acting as forerunner to several attempted escapes.

“Let this serve as your only warning,” Vivien says overhead. “That no one leaves Duplicity without my permission, and that attempts to do so will be most seriously addressed.”

And that's it. Seb doesn't get to say anything. Doesn't look like she wants to say anything. Her face is stone until her gaze shifts to the camera, where it's like she's seeing JENA over my shoulder all over again, thinking I betrayed her, thinking she meant nothing, but that's not true—I swear it's not true—but a load of good that does now—

I can't lose anyone else
, she's saying.

Do you promise?

I have to close the screens. I can't watch this. I
won't
, and the picture wavers but JENA keeps it open, and I see Seb on the beach watching the sunset, in Emma's room she made for me, in Emma's dress handing me my escape plan—

In pieces, on-screen, as she bursts into a thousand squares of color.

*   *   *

JENA leaves me in the gray room. She adds a single screen to keep me entertained, one with neon green numbers and a new percentage for Emma's duplicate completion: sixty-seven.

She assures me Target Thirty-Nine has been properly disposed of.

She says my assistance has bought me time and that the Overseer is considering reintegrating me into the Project, under very strict supervision.

At this point I wish she'd just kill me.

Except I've still screwed up someone else's life, someone whose counter keeps inching up percent by percent, so I can't die until I do something about that. Not that I'll be able to do anything until it's too late, because I'm pretty sure an actual virus has more access to the Project right now than I do.

I don't trust myself to do anything.

I try to forget Seb existed, convince myself she was just a program like JENA, not a person, but that makes me think of Vivien and I get so pissed the walls around me shake loose cement onto the floor. I need a miracle but I don't think one's coming.

Sixty-eight percent, reads Emma's counter.

Something vibrates in my pocket. I wonder if that's JENA's new way of communicating with me—drop a phone in my jeans with a text message that says I've got five minutes to live, that I'm not worth an actual appearance. The thought gives me a crazy sense of relief. I fish out whatever it is and feel my gut sink through the fake floor.

It's the bedazzled Exorcist.

PRESS ME!
says the white text on its screen, pointing to the first of four on-screen icons that look like old-fashioned locks.

I want to fling it across the room and watch it smash into a thousand pieces. I want to pull the trigger on its side, stick it to my temple and hope it fries me. I can't use this. How can I, when I … I
killed
her, and now
she's
my miracle, and even if I'm the one who made the promise … she's the one who kept it.

I can't understand why she would do that. She had her shadow room ready when I found her; she could easily have swapped back before I got there.

I waited for you
.

I can't keep thinking about it or I really will put this thing to my temple.

Emma's counter creeps up another percent. Right now it doesn't matter what I did or what I deserve, it matters what promises I can still keep. I tap the first icon on the Exorcist. The cement walls flash open to darkness, and I'm in a glass square suspended in black, black ocean, where lines of numbers in every color zip around outside—up, down, left, right, like hundreds of falling stars. Some come straight at me, then deflect off when they get within ten feet.

Seb's girl voice fills the room. I would have a heart attack if I had a real heart.

“I thought you might do something silly and get caughts,” she says. “Which means I'm probably doing wheelies in the real world right now and you probably didn't listen to something I said. That's okay. You're now on the mirror server with admin privileges. It'll take them hours to crack in to get you. That should be enough. Follow the instructions this time, 'kay? Love you, Bran Bran.”

It's prerecorded. Of course. Seb assuming she's made it out and that I got caught trying to do the same, which must be why the Exorcist didn't vibrate until I was alone in my cell without JENA. A backup backup plan.

I think a cockroach has more dignity than I do right now.

A new instruction flashes on the Exorcist's screen, telling me to push the second icon. I don't even hesitate this time. I push it.

Because this battle with Vivien is far from over.

And I'll be damned if I'm the reason someone else dies.

 

21. REASONS WHY I'M GOING TO HELL

THE REAL WORLD
is all the hues of bright afternoon.

I'm looking through a decorative mirror, one split into three uneven rectangles. It shows me slices of the room behind, one with a small bed and a big window and a closet built into the wall, like a dorm room. It's empty. Looks peaceful, except I know, because the Exorcist told me after it loaded this place, that the door locks from the other side.

The Exorcist says, in a few minutes, Obran will lock Emma in this room. The first thing he'll do is break the mirrors.

I'll have ten seconds so I need to prepare.

To my side, numbers slide around the edges of the shadow bed and the tiles in the floor, flashing red and yellow. JENA is well aware I'm here, but whatever Seb did that kept me out the first time is working to keep her out, too. If I don't make this swap, I won't have another chance.

I have a feeling Vivien is no longer considering reintegrating me.

A train of yellow eights scampers around the edge of the mirror screens. The door will open soon. I don't know if I have enough time. The second icon flashes on the Exorcist.

I feel like spit on the bottom of a shoe, but I push it.

“Found this when I was poking arounds,” Seb says from the Exorcist's speakers. “Might be useful.”

A window of text floats midair to the left of the mirrors.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND THE JUSTICE AND EFFICACY NEW-LIFE ALTERATION PROGRAM (JENA)

At the genius suggestion of Dr. Erin, the Project will utilize nanites—microscopic robots tiny enough to fit in the bloodstream—to link targets outside the Project to JENA. Nanites can not only heal wounds and purify the body of many physical ailments, but also assist in making minor cosmetic changes. Dr. Erin's research gives us the ability to infect the brain and take charge of critical electrical points to gain control of it. We can then download the primary personality and put it to work in another system.

Nanites. I remember the feel of the ink skinning off my arms and wonder what else the bots can do if JENA deems it necessary. It doesn't say how I'm infected, but I'm never getting another freaking flu shot, that's for sure.

Which means, technically, I'm still in my body
and
I'm here, which is why when JENA worked me into the ground, Obran had to go to bed early. The swap disabled the nanites in my brain when I transferred over. Turned them on when Obran traded back. That must be how the Exorcist works. Once it kills the nanites, JENA has no way to connect to that person's brain anymore. He wakes up. Like unhooking the satellite cable from a TV.

And I realize—

The door opens.

Except it's not Obran with his filthy hands on Emma's arm, but one of the suits from the park. He takes a police bat to the mirrors, and they crack and shatter—one, two, three—until the real world flickers out like a broken bulb and the shadow room hums uselessly around me.

I start laughing. There's too much churned up inside me and too much pressure and too much pain and it comes rolling out, because of course they wouldn't let Obran anywhere near a mirror. That would be too easy. But thanks to Seb, I know something I'm not supposed to know. Because if what I just read is true—