Shattered (18 page)

“You could do that yourself,” he said.

So we were done with small talk and onto the main event. “I'm sorry,” I said.
I'm not sorry.
“For leaving like that.”
But not for leaving.

“Without saying good-bye?” he asked. “Or telling us where you were going? Telling us
anything
? Yes, I guess you would be sorry.”

Now I was the one staring at the ground. “It was easier that way.”

“For you,” my father snapped.

“Sorry,” I mumbled again.

“Your mother thought . . .” He shook his head. “You know how she gets.”

I tried to catch his eye, hoping for a smile. It was one of the things that brought us Kahns together—me, my father, and Zo, at least. We all knew how my mother got. But he wouldn't look at me.

“But you knew where I went,” I said. “Because you've been watching me.”

“Can you blame me?”

“I had to leave,” I said.

“I realize you think that.”

“This is better.”

“I realize you think that too.” He frowned. “Though I can't say I understand why.”

I wasn't about to tell him what I'd seen, that I knew he felt obligated to treat me like a daughter and pretend everything was the way it used to be, even if it was tearing him apart. My father didn't do weakness. Another reason my leaving was a gift to him. “How's Zo?” I asked instead.

“She misses you.”

No, she missed her sister. As far as she was concerned, I was just an imposter, come to steal her sister's identity and life. So Zo had stolen it first. Starting with Walker. But I wasn't about to ask my father if Zo was still sleeping with myex-boyfriend.

I didn't even care anymore. Walker felt irrelevant. I remembered wanting him, I just couldn't remember why. Zo was welcome to him, as she was welcome to all my old friends and old clothes, my old spot on the track team, my old spot as favorite daughter. Only daughter.

“She didn't want me there,” I said.

“She's a child. She doesn't know what she wants.”

“She's only two years younger than me,” I pointed out. Waiting for the inevitable: Y
ou're a child too.

You don't know what you want.

Come home.

But he didn't say it.

Your sister misses you. Your mother misses you.
Never I
miss you.

It started to rain. My father glanced up, looking annoyed that the weather would dare interrupt him, then down at his shoes, already spattered with grime from the fat, filthy raindrops.

“Whatever you were doing in that corp-town,” my father said, steering us back toward the car, “I know it's because you're mixed up with these . . .” His face twisted.
“People.”
He raised his arm, letting his hand fall lightly on my left shoulder for just a moment, like he was choosing arbitrarily from a list of “fatherly gestures,” seeking one that felt right. This wasn't it.

Did he think I had something to do with the attack?

Did he think I was capable of something like that? And if he did, why would he be here now?

Just ask me,
I thought.
Ask me what happened.

And I resolved that if he did ask, I would tell him everything.

“I don't want to know about it,” he said, hunching his shoulders against the rain. “Just be careful.”

I was still a minor; if he wanted to force me to come home, he could. Or at least he could try. I'd been wondering all these months why he hadn't—certainly he had enough credit and enough reach to find out where I was. To drag me home. But he hadn't.

And now it turned out he'd known where I was the whole time. Known, and just left me there.

I didn't miss you either,
I thought.

And
I missed you too.

I never understood it as an org, how a thing could be
true and not true in equal amounts. When we were kids, they always tried to drill it into our heads, the way the universe constructed itself through a simultaneity of opposition: Light is a particle. Light is a wave. Light is both, at the same time it's neither. Every reality contains its own opposite; every whole truth rests on two half lies.

These days, it made a lot more sense. That's what happens when your whole life is an oxymoron.

Now I existed solely thanks to the quantum paradox, my brain a collection of qubits in quantum superposition, encoding truths and memories, imagination and irrationality in opposing, contradictory states that existed and didn't exist, all at the same time.

I am the same; I am different
.

But when it came to my family, different won out.
Some things create danger just by existing.
I couldn't go home again, even if he'd asked.

Which he hadn't.

“I don't think the authorities will be bothering you anymore,” he said. “But if they do, voice me.”

“Thank you,” I said. Formal, proper, like a stranger. Like him. “And for today. Thanks.”

Like it was no big deal that he'd made it okay, the way I used to think he could make everything okay. I wasn't a child anymore; I knew better. Some things could be fixed with credit and power and properly applied pressure. Most things, the important things—things like bodies on the ground, bleeding from their eyes, things
like what happened when the secops arrived and the guns came out and the losers fell, things like me, stuck between being a person and a
thing
—no one could fix. Not even him.

My father patted me on the back, twice. Item number two on the list of awkward “fatherly gestures.”

“Ben's agreed to drive you back,” he said.

“Oh. Now?”

“Unless there's something else you need?”

As I watched him, trying to figure out what he was expecting me to say, he met my gaze for the first time. But if there was a message encrypted in his blue stare, I couldn't crack the code. “No,” I said. “Nothing.”

“It's for your own protection.”

I
would have expected someone like call-me-Ben to drive a late-model Trivi or maybe even a Petra, one of those neutered bubble cars with a rotating cabin and a collapsible gel body—bland as his wardrobe, suitable for middle-aged trend chasers who preferred safety to style. But the car was a Taiko, black and practically dripping with credit, its bullet shape so streamlined that it was hard to imagine how a human form could fit inside. The wheels were hidden beneath the frame, so there was nothing to break the smooth, sleek line. I'd never seen one up close before, much less ridden inside, but I heard that with the right patch, you could override the velocity restrictions and push it to almost two hundred. Walker had always wanted one, and the fact that I knew anything about
them at all was a testament to how crazy he'd been on the subject. You can't tune out three years' worth of obsession. (Trust me, I tried.)

The paint was supposedly some kind of special alloy that absorbed even infrared light—it looked like someone had carved a car-shaped hole in the universe and filled it with pure nothingness.

The door swung open. Ben was behind the wheel. I climbed into the backseat, hoping to endure the ride in silence. No such luck. He programmed the nav-unit for Quinn's estate, then climbed in beside me. I stared out the window, watching my father's figure recede into the distance.

“You're welcome,” Ben said once we'd pulled out onto open road.

“I didn't say thank you.”

“I noticed.”

I kept my eyes on the window. The land was flat here, sprawling green fields stretching toward the horizon. A herd of cows whizzed by in a spotted blur. The road wove through flower-dotted meadows; clumps of willow trees, their spindly, sagging branches kissing the road; acres of greening corn, bowing to the wind.
Nowhere to hide,
I thought, then wondered how long it would be before I stopped searching for safe harbors.

“No one gets something for nothing, Lia,” Ben said.

I faced him. Hard to believe I'd ever found this guy attractive. Not that his features were anything less than perfect—but there was a softness to them, a waxy, malleable quality, like
he'd been molded in a factory, the simulacrum of a real live person. Everything about him looked artificial, from his sparkling brown eyes to his artfully tousled hair to his soft, full lips curving up in a sardonic smile. But:
He can be as fake as he wants, and he'll still be more real than me
.

“You're angry,” Ben said.

“You noticed.”

“That's exactly why you weren't informed about the tracking.”

“You mean
spying
.”

“I understand it displeases you. But it's for your own protection.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He laughed softly. “Of course. All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.”

The car vibrated beneath us as we lurched off the highway onto a loose gravel road. “We're going the wrong way.”

“Scenic route,” Ben said. “You and I have a lot to discuss.”

I thought about opening the door and throwing myself out of the car. It would have been a bit melodramatic, but melodrama seemed appropriate. We couldn't have been going more than fifty or sixty miles an hour—it would be a bumpy landing, but I'd had those before. Thick skin, strong bones, titanium skull, just a few of the benefits of being a mech.

But if call-me-Ben wanted me, he would always know exactly where to find me.

Another of the benefits of being a mech, apparently.

“The doors are locked,” Ben said.

“No problem.” I gave him a placid smile. “I'm getting used to being a prisoner.”

“You're not a prisoner, Lia.” Ben sighed and leaned back in his seat. He laced his fingers together, inverted his hands, palms facing out, then stretched his arms with a satisfied groan. “You're just possibly the solution to a sticky little problem we've been having.”

“I doubt that. What do you want?”

“Your friend Jude,” Ben said.

I don't have friends,
I was about to say, then stopped myself. Friends were for orgs, just like family. I didn't know what Jude was to me—an ally, a protector, an antagonist—none of the old categories fit. He was simply
like me
.

I smirked at Ben. “Last I checked, he's not mine to give.”

“I want the name of his BioMax contact.” Ben's voice was steely.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Let me tell you what I know, Lia.” His features were still just as soft, but his voice, his eyes, were hard. “I know Jude has an inside source at BioMax. That he's stealing information and technology. I also know that Jude was supposed to meet his contact at Synapsis Corp-Town this week, but he sent you instead. For the first time. And just as you arrive . . .” Ben shook his head. “That's some seriously bad timing, don't you think?”

No more secrets
. That was all I could think. Not when they were watching.

“How do you know?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.

Ben made a sound like a buzzer. “Wrong question, Lia.”

I wanted him to stop saying my name. There was a little twist in his voice, a glint in his eye, each time he formed the syllables. Like the name was a secret between us. Like he was silently saying,
We both know you're not
really
Lia Kahn. But I'll play along if you will
.

I waited.

“Why didn't he go himself?” Ben asked. “Why did he need
you
to go? What did he really want?”

I saw where he was going. I'd already gotten there myself. Jude was the one who'd sent me to BioMax, it followed he was the one most likely to have set me up. But he wasn't the only one who'd known about the corp-town trip. Jude's BioMax contact knew too. And he'd known enough not to show. Call-me-Ben wanted me to believe Jude had set me up—and so, for the first time, I started to think maybe he hadn't.

“He must really scare you guys,” I said. “Afraid he'll turn us against you?”

Ben arched an eyebrow. “‘You'
orgs
?”

“‘You'
BioMax
.” I was spinning through the possibilities as quickly as I could. BioMax knew where we were at all times—they had all they needed to set us up. But why go to the trouble and then whisk me away from the secops? Why do it in the first place?

He burst into laughter. “Lia, as far as I'm concerned, if Jude were who he claimed to be, he'd be a hero. Our BioMax clients
need
someone like him, to ease the transition into life postdownload.” His eyes were gleaming, his movements loose and free, as if some part of him usually tamped down was breaking out. “All that stuff about mechs being superior, about this technology being the dawn of a new era for humanity . . . if I didn't believe that, why would I work for BioMax in the first place?”

“Great, so Jude's a hero,” I said sourly. Maybe they were all working together. “Where's the problem? You want me to arrange a meet-and-greet?”

“I said he
would
be a hero,” Ben reminded me. “If a tidy little confidence boost was all he was after. But it's not.”

“How would you know?”

“Wrong question again,” Ben said with another buzzing noise. “What does this boy
really
want? Have you even bothered to ask? Or is it easier to just smile and nod and accept whatever he says as gospel?”

“You know me,” I said with as much fake sweetness as I could muster. “Always going with the flow.”

“You really think you're all a bunch of rebels, don't you?” he asked, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. “And what, exactly, are you rebelling against?”

“I don't know,” I mused. “How about stalker corps that get off on spying on us?”