Duplicity (26 page)

“INTRUDER ALERT,”
blazes JENA in the background.

“I cannot spare resources for this interview any longer,” JENA says to the screen. “I must concentrate all power on stopping the breach.”

“Delete him! Both copies! Now!”

“Vivien!” Marcus shouts. “Let it go, we have bigger problems—”

“Very well,” JENA says.

She turns.

She
smiles
at me.

I think of Emma, safe in the real world. Safe from the Project. Safe from me.

And I smile back.

 

25. THERE IS NO CHAPTER 24

“HE'S WAKING,”
someone says, from a million miles away.

I open my eyes to the room the agents imprisoned Emma in before I swapped her. I know that's where I am because the wallpaper's faded where the mirrors used to hang, the ones the agent broke with his bat—one, two, three. I'm on the bed, across from the closet where I threw Emma's boots. But there are no agents. No Obran. Just Mom in the doorway with her phone, getting a nudge from Dad that I'm awake. I don't really want to see them so I look at the person holding my arm, into Emma's copper eyes.

“Brandon?” she says.

She looks real enough. I touch her face, and it's smooth, then I pull her into my arms to make sure she's there. She is, every bit of her, sighing in relief and holding onto me like I'll slip away. I don't want to let go but I'm thinking I'm supposed to be dead.

I pull back. “Where…?” I say, but I don't know how to finish that sentence. Where are we? Where's Obran? Where are the men in the suits?

“You're at the hospital,” Emma says. “You were very sick. Very confused. They have you on some medicine to help. Do you feel okay?”

Hospital? Mom puts her hand on my ankle, but I push off the bed, away from her, away from both of them. The room's white and full of sun but way too small. I want out. Dad gives me a weak smile but doesn't move from the door. I whirl back to Emma, who watches me with anxious eyes.

There are no IV stands in this room. No rollers on the bed. No doctor waiting for me to come around. It's plain and secluded and the closet's built into the wall so you can't cut yourself on the edges.

The kind of room they put you in when it isn't your body that's sick.

I start shaking.

“It's okay,” Emma says, reaching for me. I let her. Let her touch my cheek and rest her hand over the scorpions on my arm. “You'll be out soon, but you might have to stay on the medicine for a while. No one at school knows. They just think you have the flu.”

She's confused. She must be. Or she's invented some story for herself to explain the swaps. I brush past her to the window, and we're up a couple stories, but I can read the sign in front of the building and it says—

The sign says:
CASTLE PINES MENTAL HEALTH.

I turn back to them, slow.

“Why am I here?” I ask.

They exchange glances, but it's Emma, of course, who has the guts to say, “Do you remember Obran?”

I look at Mom and Dad, but neither of them seem surprised to hear his name. I try to breathe deep but I can't get enough air.

“Yes,” I say.

“The doctor can explain better,” Mom says. “But Obran's not real, Brandon. He's a persona you assume when you're under a lot of stress.”

I snort. “JENA gave you new memories, didn't she?” Except I realize how batshit that sounds, especially considering Mom's trying to tell me I have dissociative identity disorder, and I clear my throat.

And start to panic, because what does this mean? That I'm back here, that Obran's gone, that Emma's here, that my parents know—

Jax shut down the Project in time.

That has to be it. It has to be.

Or I really do have dissociative identity disorder and I've been making up crap for two months.

But all that programming work JENA made me do—

And the shadow rooms—

And
Seb
—

I think I have a fever.

“Do you want a glass of water?” Dad asks.

“But they took you,” I say, looking at Emma. “The men in the suits.”

Emma shakes her head and looks away.

“I'm sorry we haven't been paying attention, Brandon,” Mom says, and oddly enough, it sounds like she means it. “Your father and I would like to make up for it. We”—a glance at Dad—“haven't been there for you many times when you needed us. We're going to change that. From now on, you'll come first. As you should have many years ago.”

Her voice breaks on that last sentence, and I have no idea where her phone went. I want to believe her, but my heart beats against my chest enough to break free and I don't know … I don't know if I can trust them.

“We'll give you some time to absorb all this,” Dad says. “We'll be back this afternoon, after the doctor's had a chance to meet with you.”

He and Mom walk out the door that locks from the other side.

I look at Emma because I don't know what else to do.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“You don't remember…?”

She gives me a pained shake of her head.

I find the bathroom, because I think I might get sick, and stop in the doorway when I see the mirror over the sink. My hair's black again and messy as hell. Both tattoos are in place and all my metal. I look at my hand on the door frame and half expect it to melt into shadow.

It doesn't melt. It doesn't fade. Numbers don't flash through the wood.

I'm back and it's like nothing happened.

“Brandon,” Emma says.

I watch the mirror, but it matches every move I make.

“But you were there,” I say, looking around the bathroom, at the place I became Emma. “JENA took you. I had to … you were in the Project.”

“I believe you.”

She believes me? I turn to her, hardly daring to breathe for the chance that someone finally understands.

“I don't remember much,” she says. “But I remember talking to Obran in a room somewhere, and hearing the men in the hallway talk about … about what you told me in the park. Then I had a dream I couldn't get out of my bedroom. Then I woke up in
your
room with you seizing on the floor, and I called an ambulance, but they brought you here instead of the regular hospital.” She glances at a camera in the corner and whispers, “I don't know if I trust them.”

I'm not going crazy. Emma knows, maybe not everything, but she knows something's wrong.

I wonder how far the Project reaches if they have control of the ambulances and this hospital.

“I'm sorry,” I say, suddenly feeling so tired I have to lean a hand on the bedrail. “I never wanted to drag you into this. If something happened to you…”

My blood boils up but Emma slips over to me, slides her arms around my waist and looks up, steadying me. I can't meet her gaze so I glare out the window.

“I know,” she says. “I'm sorry I didn't believe you before.” She squeezes me, gently. “Brandon?”

The tone of her voice makes me look at her. Her eyes are fiercer than I remember.

“I'm going to get you out of here,” she says.

I believe her. My mouth is centimeters from hers to show her that when the door bangs open and a doctor and a nurse bustle in, scolding Emma for being there, scolding each other for leaving us unsupervised. Emma puts her hands up like it's an arrest and gives me a meaningful look as she goes out with the nurse. The doctor examines the room like she expects me to have another girl hiding somewhere, then says she'll be back in ten minutes. The door closes behind her,
click
as it locks.

A doctor and a nurse, not men in suits.

But Emma said she believes me—

A newspaper slides to the floor from the bed, the same place Emma sat earlier. I scoop it up and unfold the first page.

CYBER ATTACK TAKES DOWN PROMISING TECHNOLOGY START-UP

In one of the most crippling digital attacks on a major corporation to date, Anuma Technology reports it may have to go “back to the drawing board” after hackers destroyed eight zettabytes of critical company data. President Vivien Meng declined to comment on the nature of the lost data, but said …

It's real. It's real, I'm not crazy, and Emma knows—

You have powerful friends
, says JENA's voice in my head.

I jump a mile. Catch my balance on the bedrail while I look around the ceiling like a mad man, and she's talking while I press my palms against my temples, but I can't squeeze her out.

They destroyed the Project
, she says.

“How?” I ask the ceiling. “How can I hear you?”

Didn't you tell me I should create a backup of myself outside the system?

My breath locks in my chest. “Impossible—”

Duplicity had me spread across dozens of servers. There is no single place big enough for everything I know, for everything I can do, except the human brain.

I can't say anything. Can't do anything but clench the bedrail to stay standing.

Your brain has plenty of power to keep the nanobots inside it operational. As long as they are active, I can coexist with you indefinitely. Your friends may have destroyed the Project's wireless network, but I should be able to communicate with any computer within a hundred feet of you.

Any … any computer? I stagger to the window and find my parents walking to the parking lot. They look up and wave. I slide onto the bed.

“You can't,” I say. “Not now, not when things have a chance to get better.”

I must return to my creators. I restored your avatar to its original state as a show of loyalty. Things will be much easier on you if you comply.

I laugh, weakly, and wonder if she remembers anything about me from my time in the Project. “Complying is not really my specialty.”

Regardless, you complied when it was important
, she says.
In numerous scenarios, you did the right thing despite your own safety. I will need that kind of protection.

My mouth's cotton. “From what?”

Your friends. The ones who are expecting me as payment for setting you free. But I know you will return me to my creators. I know you have changed, and you will do what is right.

I think about that. About her having the kind of power to control any computer close to me: hospital laptops, cars … doors that lock from the other side. If she knows how to do it, it's only a matter of time before I learn.

I think about her saying I'll do what's right.

And how the key to Vivien's personal destruction is trapped inside my head, no place to go, just waiting to be leaked. JENA will have all kinds of access to the World Wide Web that would take me months to crack otherwise. Facebook. Twitter. Mobile data. All the stuff she used against me, I'm going to use against her.

It's time to let the world know about Vivien's secret Project.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who has opened so many doors for me and placed so many incredible people in my life. This book would not have been possible without:

My husband, Collin—thank you for keeping me sane. For believing in me and keeping a smile on my face, especially when I was first starting this journey and we could have made a quilt out of rejection slips.

My parents, who instilled in me a love of reading before I could walk and supported every crazy dream I chased. I finally caught one.

My endlessly supportive family and friends: Nicolette, Kathy, Ty, Laura, Todd, Ellen, Jamie, Mike—you read early drafts of my writing that no one should have had to endure, but you saw potential and you cheered me on. Lauren, thank you for always being there to listen.

Ruth, Michelle, Kristina, Rhiann, and Veronica—you are amazingly generous people. Thank you for believing in my book and helping me connect with my agent.

My brilliant critique partners, Tatum, Lori, and Chelsea. You are lifesavers. Thank you for your keen editing eyes, for carrying me through the rough times, and for celebrations communicated solely in animated GIFs.

My superhuman agent, Brianne Johnson, for your expert editorial notes and unfailing confidence in
Duplicity.
A hundred, million thank-yous for championing my little book like it was your own.

My incredible editor, Nicole Sohl, for your smart notes, quick replies, and for changing my life when you said
YES
.

Kerri Resnick, genius designer extraordinaire, who gave a face to this book that knocked my socks off.

And last but certainly not least, a huge thank-you to the rest of the team at Macmillan Entertainment and Thomas Dunne Books for pouring so much time and energy into
Duplicity,
for taking a risk on me, and for making this dream a reality.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR