Twinmaker (33 page)

“Do tell,” said Ray.

She told them about the crashlanders. Then she reminded them of the video feed Dylan Linwood had put out into the Air. Zep had joked about her being famous for a day, and there was some truth to that: Arcady had seen the video, and he couldn’t have been the only one.

“I thought that was a bad thing at first,” she said, “because of the way it made me look, but now I think we can use it to our advantage. Both the crashlanders and Abstainers are communities primed to latch onto something new or controversial. They’re completely different, and neither is huge, but they draw attention because people outside them disagree on whether they’re good or bad. People talk about them, and talk about what they’re talking about. If we can make the crashlanders
and
the Abstainers talk about
us
, I think we can really make something pop.”

“Something like what?” asked Jesse.

“We don’t hide the fact that we’re going to VIA HQ in New York. The exact opposite: we tell everyone—anyone who’s interested. We promise them something worth seeing. Like Ray says, we’ll be exposed when we leave the farm; there’ll be drones all over us as soon as we’re back in civilization. They’re the eyes of the world, and if they’re on us because we’re giving the world a show, the dupes won’t dare act, not up close when they can be seen as well. Home is where the harm is—that’s what my mom says: we think we’re safe when we’re hiding, but we’re not. Let’s come out of hiding and let the world protect us.”

“The drones in Manteca were compromised,” Gemma reminded her. “They couldn’t see anything.”

“Q can help with that,” she said, hoping that was true.

“What if they hit you from a distance or make it look like an accident,” said Arcady, “like they did with the Skylifter?”

“Enough people will know what really happened,” she said, hoping that would be true as well. “Who could ignore something like that? Especially if we spread the word widely enough. There’s no reason we can’t fight this on more than one front at once. Improvement started with a note that told people to keep it a secret. So maybe we should issue a note of our own that does the exact opposite.”

“Anti-Improvement?” said Jesse. “No, Counter-Improvement. That’s better.”

“But we only mention Improvement and the damage it does,” Clair said. “That’s important. Anything else will make us look crazy.
Really
crazy, I mean.”

“Even though it’s true?” said Arcady.

“Let’s not overcomplicate things. No one will believe us until they see it with their own eyes. If the dupes come out of the shadows to take us down—that’ll do it. If they don’t and we get to VIA with the body—that’ll do it too. Either way, it’ll all come out. When VIA says it’s happening, everyone will believe.”

“What if VIA’s involved?” asked Turner. “The dupes have to be directed by
someone
.”

“Do they? I really don’t think VIA would be so stupid as to attack their own system—”

“But if they
are
, what then?”

She thought for a second. “They’ll still let us come. Their best shot will be to discredit us, not destroy us. As long as we stay in the public eye and don’t use d-mat, they can’t engineer an accident or dupe us. They can’t do either without exposing the truth or breaking parity, so we’ll be safe.”

“What about peacekeepers?” asked Arcady.

“Technically, we haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. “They’ve got no grounds to bring us in, and we’ve seen no sign that they’re likely to. Maybe they’ll turn a blind eye if we’re in trouble, maybe we can’t entirely trust them, but they won’t act openly against us.”

“And what about you?” asked Jesse. “Your reputation is also at stake. What’s everyone going to think when you out yourself as . . . well . . . one of
us
?”

“It’s only temporarily, and I reckon my reputation is pretty shot already.” She offered him a smile but didn’t look any lower than his neck. He still hadn’t put a shirt on and she didn’t want to blush again, not when she was busy arguing her case. “Thanks, though. Maybe we can show the world that being controversial is not such a bad thing when you’re right.”

“I think . . . ,” Gemma started to say, then stopped when people looked at her. She raised her chin. “I think we should do it.”

Clair stared at her. She was the last person Clair had expected to come out in favor of the idea.

“Really?” asked Ray. He looked as startled as Clair felt.

“Yes. It’s better than sitting here waiting for the hammer to fall.”

“I agree,” said Turner, and Clair was doubly amazed.

“We need to go for one simple reason,” he explained. “If VIA won’t listen, WHOLE will be there to take direct action.”

“Uh . . . what does that mean?” asked Jesse.

“It means whatever it needs to mean.”

“I’m not a terrorist,” said Clair.

“No one’s asking you to be one,” Turner said.

There was a tense silence around the table, but Clair felt that was as close to a consensus as she was ever going to get.

“All right, then. Great. So how do we get there?” she asked. “We certainly can’t walk.”

“I know a way,” said Arcady. “You can hitch a ride with train hobbyists.”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Jesse.

“No. We use them all the time. There’s a line running right across our property, and engines go by once a day—east at dawn, back west at dusk. You catch the next one, you’ll be on the east coast in two days, maybe sooner.”

“What happens then?” asked Gemma. “We swim?”

“We won’t have to,” said Turner. “We’re going to take a submarine.”

“Now you’ve
got
to be kidding,” said Clair.

“I am not.” He folded his arms, his expression betraying no trace of humor. “You want a spectacle, that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”

THEY WERE READY to move within the hour. Clair showered and changed out of her soiled farmer’s shirt into a new one and put on her overalls and sneakers. The bodies were taken away, all except for Libby’s, which was hermetically sealed and zipped up in a makeshift plastic shroud. Evidence. Packs were distributed. Clair began to get a
camping
vibe from the exercise, reinforced when she saw how much gear she was expected to carry. Among the packets of freeze-dried food, canteens, a sleeping bag, and a bedroll were a pistol and two boxes of ammunition. She remembered exactly how heavy
they
were from lugging similar ones halfway across California.

Instead of complaining, she asked Arcady to show her how to load the pistol. It was smaller than the one Q had made for her, fitting neatly into the palm of her hand as though designed for it. He promised less of a kick and not greatly reduced accuracy at close range.

“You won’t need to clean it today,” he said. “But you might want to test fire it if there’s time before you leave.”

She did so, deriving a nervous satisfaction from the solid kick of the weapon into her palm. She hoped against hope her plan would hold, and she wouldn’t need to use it.

The sky was lightening when they piled their gear into a sturdy farm vehicle on four fat wheels, and the expedition prepared to set out. There was a tense farewell on the Farmhouse’s broad steps. Arcady hugged Clair, his beard tickling her check, and gravely shook Turner’s hand.

“You’ll remember everything I told you?” he said.

“Of course.” Turner nodded. “I’m grateful to you.”

“Give us a good show. We’ll be watching.”

Their four-wheeler had a flatbed on the back, which Clair shared with Jesse and Ray and two heavy bags that made metallic sounds with every bump. Watching the Farmhouse recede as they sped up the dirt track through the orchard, she tried to think of their departure less as abandoning somewhere safe, more as progressing boldly toward a solution to everyone’s problems.

“I grew up on a farm like this,” said Ray out of nowhere, and Clair could tell that he was wrestling with similar demons. “There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty.”

“I used to love working in our kitchen garden back home,” Jesse said. “Dad and I never managed to keep the bugs out of our asparagus, no matter what I tried.”

“You should have coplanted with coriander,” Ray suggested. “It attracts ladybugs, which eat the asparagus beetles.”

“We never thought of that.”

Clair zoned out while Ray and Jesse swapped gardening tips. She was even less interested in growing produce than she was in cooking it. Besides, her hands were shaking, and she was afraid her voice might start shaking too. This was the first chance she’d had to sit still since the dupes attacked. She could feel a rush of anxiety building behind the walls she’d built, pushing outward, threatening to overwhelm her. She couldn’t afford to break down now, she told herself. She had to be strong.

The feeling passed, but she knew it was only a temporary reprieve.

The journey to the edge of the farm took over an hour. There, they turned onto the old Route 94, now a green strip with one broad lane for farm traffic, and headed west across the prairie for the town of Mandan on the bank of the Missouri River, where the train was due to stop.

The landscape was wild and green, an endless tangle of low trees and undergrowth where it hadn’t been cultivated. Clair saw deer and something large and lumbering that might have been a bear. Birds were everywhere, startling out of trees and settling back down in their wake. She didn’t know their names or the names of the trees they inhabited. When the Air returned, she could find out if she wanted to.

Her connection was jammed as far as Route 94. As soon as Clair could, she contacted Q.

Or tried to.

“Q, can you hear me?”

There was no response. Clair was immediately worried that something might have gone wrong when Q had been d-matted out of the Farmhouse in Libby’s body. After all, taking control of a new body was obviously hard. Maybe going back was just as hard, particularly when Q had no body to return to.

That the damage might have been permanent was something Clair hadn’t considered. Not only was Q their greatest ally in the fight against the dupes, but she was a victim of Improvement as much as Libby or the others. She deserved a shot at getting her own body back.

“Q, are you there?”

“. . . Clair?”

The reply was weak and uncertain, as though Q had forgotten how to talk.

“That’s it. I’m here. Can you see me?”

“Clair, you’re back! Or
I’m
back. Or . . . both. How confusing! I don’t know what happened to me.”

“You’d better forget about duping for a while,” Clair said with some anxiety. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes, Clair. I think so, but it might take me a few minutes to get myself straight again. Should you be out in the open like this while I’m so distracted?”

Clair outlined the plan while the farmers drove them to Mandan. Q was reluctant to strip away the mask that had kept Clair hidden from direct observation through the Air. Clair insisted it had to be done, although she, too, felt nervous about it. If her plan didn’t work, she would doom not just herself but everyone with her as well.

“What’s the message of the meme you want to send?” Q asked.

Clair sent her the draft she and Jesse had written. It felt right that they should use the form of the original Improvement text in order to counteract it.

Q didn’t offer an opinion as to the message’s literary or tactical merits. Clair took that as a positive sign.

“I found that medical data you asked me to look for,” Q said. “I can attach the links to the message.”

“So the data is genuine?”

“Yes. And I found more matching the same criteria.”

“How many?”

“Seven boys, two more girls.”

That was chilling. Fifteen victims of Improvement, and perhaps more on the way.

“Do you want me to send the message now?” asked Q. “I can seed it to multiple places to guarantee exposure.”

“Might as well. Don’t make me the sender, but link my profile to it and remove my mask when it goes out so people can see me if they want to. Give me two minutes. I’ll post a caption that’ll say everything we need to say.”

She had mulled that over too, but on the point of no return, she hesitated. As far as everyone was concerned, she had disappeared the night of the explosion in Manteca. Zep and Jesse and disappeared with her. What could she possibly say in a word or two that could sum up everything that had happened to her and everything that needed to happen to make things right?

If Libby were here,
Clair thought,
she would know what to do.
Libby was the one obsessed with popularity and catchy captions. She saw the trends and cliques before they happened and knew exactly when to jump aboard. Clair wished she could just go along for the ride now and let Libby take all the credit.

But it was up to her this time. Libby needed her to do it because Libby couldn’t do it herself. There was no other option.

For a caption, Clair adapted an old VIA infomercial. It showed a woman hopping from place to place around the globe, cheerfully unaffected by the experience. The slogan had been “Everywhere for Everyone,” but Clair cut that part. Instead, she added the text “Destination: VIA!” with a link to her itinerary.

“How are you doing, Q?”

“I am making the final adjustments now, Clair,” said Q. “You are yourself again.”

There was no immediate change in her lenses’ format. Clair wondered what she should be feeling. This was her chance to reconnect with her world—her media, her family, her friends. Her
life
. But it felt oddly distant, as though it all belonged to a different version of her—Clair 1.0, who had never shot someone, never walked cross-country in the middle of the night, never peered behind the curtain of her perfectly sheltered life.