The Dazzling Heights
The Dazzling Heights
Katharine McGee
New York City, 2118. A glittering vision of the future, where anything is possible – if you want it enough.The dazzling sequel to The Thousandth Floor.Manhattan is home to a thousand-story supertower, a beacon of futuristic glamour and high-tech luxury… and to millions of people living scandalous, secretive lives.LEDA is haunted by nightmares of what happened on the worst night of her life. She’s afraid the truth will get out – which is why she hires WATT, her very own hacker, to keep an eye on all of the witnesses for her. But what happens when their business relationship turns personal?When RYLIN receives a scholarship to an elite upper-floor school, her life transforms overnight. But being here also means seeing the boy she loves: the one whose heart she broke, and who broke hers in return.AVERY is grappling with the reality of her forbidden romance – is there anywhere in the world that’s safe for them to be together?And then there’s CALLIOPE, the mysterious, bohemian beauty who’s arrived in New York with a devious goal in mind – and too many secrets to count.Here in the Tower, no one is safe – because someone is watching their every move, someone with revenge in mind. After all, in a world of such dazzling heights, you’re always only one step away from a devastating fall….
First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers Inc in 2017
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins website address is:
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © 2017 by Alloy Entertainment and Katharine McGee
All rights reserved.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Cover photographs © Ilina Simeonova / Trevillion Images;
Westend61 / Getty; Hongqi Zhang Alamy; Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com).
Katharine McGee asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008179946
Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008179939
Version: 2017-07-26
For my parents
Contents
Cover (#ub3aa5086-f575-52c7-8d00-77e7b60e339f)
Title Page (#u1865f683-0fa5-5913-9082-79471248ba4c)
Copyright (#uba5d2a1c-d1e3-5de1-8709-e30453cf7639)
Dedication (#ua78feda4-dd80-5720-bb40-dcd75be60d07)
Prologue (#ub14ac259-287e-5425-b78a-6677e700b06c)
Mariel (#u1eb5cf49-f966-54dd-a031-8e24387d2161)
Leda (#u8c212d07-ff00-54f0-9f98-6879037ba76a)
Calliope (#u28af4eff-1efd-5001-8221-0bc0211aed11)
Avery (#ub1569831-d8c3-5e38-8ff8-3550459554f2)
Watt (#ucf2cde10-b94f-5935-9898-93e4f3832737)
Rylin (#ue5d9c650-3d38-58f7-ab71-e34d82b066b6)
Calliope (#u8d16a870-5194-5c1f-bbfa-09e715bfad48)
Rylin (#u49978d6b-86e2-5f01-9d5a-938356c07a46)
Leda (#u15fbe85b-aedc-52c3-b5e5-ea253a794745)
Watt (#u9d9d49ba-42da-5410-874e-cf7032f4175e)
Rylin (#u2dca375b-c66b-5aca-8ca7-54e4a7e462cc)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Mariel (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_5de7f614-462b-58f7-a1cd-566cef3356d4)
IT WOULD BE several hours before the girl’s body was found.
It was late now; so late that it could once again be called early—that surreal, enchanted, twilight hour between the end of a party and the unfurling of a new day. The hour when reality grows dim and hazy at the edges, when nearly anything seems possible.
The girl floated facedown in the water. Above her stretched a towering city, dotted with light like fireflies, each pinprick an individual person, a fragile speck of life. The moon gazed over it all impassively, like the eye of an ancient god.
There was something deceptively peaceful about the scene. Water flowed around the girl in a serene dark sheet, making it seem that she was merely resting. The tendrils of her hair framed her face in a soft cloud. The folds of her dress clung determinedly to her legs, as if to protect her from the predawn chill. But the girl would never feel cold again.
Her arm was outstretched, as though she were reaching for someone she loved, or maybe to ward off some unspoken danger, or maybe even in regret over something she had done. The girl had certainly made enough mistakes in her too-short lifetime. But she couldn’t have known that they would all come crashing down around her tonight.
After all, no one goes to a party expecting to die.
MARIEL (#ulink_26ba8dd8-1462-5d07-80de-f6edae1bcb80)
Two months earlier
MARIEL VALCONSUELO SAT cross-legged on her quilted bedspread in her cramped bedroom on the Tower’s 103rd floor. There were countless people in every direction, separated from her by nothing but a few meters and a steel wall or two: her mother in the kitchen, the group of children running down the hallway, her neighbors next door, their voices low and heated as they fought yet again. But Mariel might as well have been alone on Manhattan right now, for all the attention she gave them.
She leaned forward, clutching her old stuffed bunny tight to her chest. The watery light of a poorly transmitted holo played across her face, illuminating her sloping nose and prominent jaw, and her dark eyes, now brimming with tears.
Before her flickered the image of a girl with red-gold hair and a piercing, gold-flecked gaze. A smile played around her lips, as if she knew a million secrets that no one could ever guess, which she probably did. In the corner of the image, a tiny white logo spelled out INTERNATIONAL TIMES OBITUARIES.
“Today we mourn the loss of Eris Dodd-Radson,” began the obituary’s voice-over—narrated by Eris’s favorite young actress. Mariel wondered what absurd sum Mr. Radson had paid for that. The actress’s tone was far too perky for the subject matter; she could just as easily have been discussing her favorite workout routine. “Eris was taken from us in a tragic accident. She was only seventeen.”
Tragic accident. That’s all you have to say when a young woman falls from the roof under suspicious circumstances? Eris’s parents probably just wanted people to know that Eris hadn’t jumped. As if anyone who’d met her could possibly think that.
Mariel had watched this obit video countless times since it came out last month. By now she knew the words by heart. Oh, she still hated it—the video was too slick, too carefully produced, and she knew most of it was a lie—but she had little else by which to remember Eris. So Mariel hugged her ratty old toy to her chest and kept on torturing herself, watching the video of her girlfriend who had died too young.
The holo shifted to video clips of Eris at different ages: a toddler, dancing in a magnalectric tutu that lit up a bright neon; a little girl on bright yellow skis, cutting down a mountain; a teenager, on vacation with her parents at a fabulous sun-drenched beach.
No one had ever given Mariel a tutu. The only times she’d been in snow were when she ventured out to the boroughs, or the public terraces down here on the lower floors. Her life was so drastically different from Eris’s, yet when they’d been together, none of that had seemed to matter at all.
“Eris is survived by her two beloved parents, Caroline Dodd and Everett Radson; as well as her aunt, Layne Arnold; uncle, Ted Arnold; cousins Matt and Sasha Arnold; and her paternal grandmother, Peggy Radson.” No mention of her girlfriend, Mariel Valconsuelo. And Mariel was the only one of that whole sorry lot—aside from Eris’s mom—who had truly loved her.
“The memorial service will be held this Tuesday, November first, at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, on floor 947,” the holo actress went on, finally managing a slightly more somber tone.
Mariel had attended that service. She’d stood in the back of the church, holding a rosary, trying not to break out into a scream at the sight of the coffin near the altar. It was so unforgivingly final.
The vid swept to a candid shot of Eris on a bench at school, her legs crossed neatly under her plaid uniform skirt, her head tipped back in laughter. “Contributions in memory of Eris can be made to the Berkeley School’s new scholarship fund, the Eris Dodd-Radson Memorial Award, for underprivileged students with special qualifying circumstances.”
Qualifying circumstances. Mariel wondered if being in love with the dead scholarship honoree counted as a qualifying circumstance. God, she had half a mind to apply for the scholarship herself, just to prove how screwed up these people were beneath the gloss of their money and privilege. Eris would have found the scholarship laughable, given that she’d never shown even a slight interest in school. A prom drive would have been much more her style. There was nothing Eris loved more than a fun, sparkly dress, except maybe the shoes to match.
Mariel leaned forward and reached out a hand as if to touch the holo. The final few seconds of the obit were more footage of Eris laughing with her friends, that blonde named Avery and a few other girls whose names Mariel couldn’t remember. She loved this part of the vid, because Eris seemed so happy, yet she resented it because she wasn’t part of it.
The production company’s logo scrolled quickly across the final image, and then the holo dimmed.
There it was, the official story of Eris’s life, stamped with a damned International Times seal of approval, and Mariel was nowhere to be seen. She’d been quietly erased from the narrative, as if Eris had never even met her at all. A silent tear slid down her cheek at the thought.
Mariel was terrified of forgetting the only girl she’d ever loved. Already she’d woken up in the middle of the night, panicked that she could no longer visualize the exact way Eris’s mouth used to lift in a smile, or the eager snap of her fingers when she’d just thought of some new idea. It was why Mariel kept watching this vid. She couldn’t let go of her last link to Eris, forever.
She sank back into her pillows and began to recite a prayer.
Normally praying calmed Mariel, soothed the frayed edges of her mind. But today she felt scattered. Her thoughts kept jumping every which way, slippery and quick like hovers moving down an expressway, and she couldn’t pin down a single one of them.
Maybe she would read the Bible instead. She reached for her tablet and opened the text, clicking the blue wheel that would open a randomized verse—and blinked in shock at the location it spun her to. The book of Deuteronomy.
You shall not show pity: but rather demand an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, burn for burn, wound for wound … for this is the vengeance of the Lord …
Mariel leaned forward, her hands closing tight around the edges of the tablet.
Eris’s death wasn’t a drunken accident. She knew it with a primal, visceral certainty. Eris hadn’t even been drinking that night—she’d told Mariel that she needed to do something “to help out a friend,” as she’d put it—and then, for some inexplicable reason, she’d gone up to the roof above Avery Fuller’s apartment.
And Mariel never saw her again.
What had really happened in that cold, thin air, so impossibly high? Mariel knew there were ostensibly eyewitnesses, corroborating the official story that Eris was drunk and slipped off the edge to her death. But who were these eyewitnesses, anyway? One was surely Avery, but how many others were there?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The phrase kept echoing in her mind like cymbals.
A fall for a fall, a voice inside her added.
LEDA (#ulink_c2531085-1c69-5948-9732-e58a6fa58aa7)
“WHAT ROOM SETTING would you prefer today, Leda?”
Leda Cole knew better than to roll her eyes. She just perched there, ramrod-straight on the taupe psychology couch, which she refused to lie back on no matter how many times Dr. Vanderstein invited her to. He was deluded if he thought reclining would encourage her to open up to him.
“This is fine.” Leda flicked her wrist to close the holographic window that had opened before her, displaying dozens of décor options for the color-shifting walls—a British rose garden, a hot Saharan desert, a cozy library—leaving the room in this bland base setting, with beige walls and a vomit-colored carpet. She knew this was probably a test she kept on failing, but she derived a sick joy from forcing the doctor to spend an hour in this depressing space with her. If she had to suffer through this appointment, then so did he.
As usual, he didn’t comment on her decision. “How are you feeling?” he asked instead.
You want to know how I’m feeling? Leda thought furiously. For starters, she’d been betrayed by her best friend and the only boy she’d ever really cared about, the boy she’d lost her virginity to. Now the two of them were together even though they were adopted siblings. On top of that, she’d caught her dad cheating on her mom with one of her classmates—Leda couldn’t bring herself to call Eris a friend. Oh, and then Eris had died, because Leda had accidentally pushed her from the roof of the Tower.
“I’m fine,” she said briskly.
She knew she’d have to offer up something more expansive than “fine” if she wanted to get out of this session easily. Leda had been to rehab; she’d learned the scripts. She took a deep breath and tried again. “What I mean is, I’m recovering, given the circumstances. It’s not easy, but I’m grateful to have the support of my friends.” Not that Leda actually cared about any of her friends right now. She’d learned the hard way that none of them could be trusted.
“Have you and Avery spoken about what happened? I know she was up there with you, when Eris fell—”
“Yes, Avery and I talk about it,” Leda interrupted quickly. Like hell we do. Avery Fuller, her so-called best friend, had proved to be the worst of them all. But Leda didn’t like hearing it spoken aloud, what had happened to Eris.
“And that helps?”
“It does.” Leda waited for Dr. Vanderstein to ask another question, but he was frowning, his eyes focused on the near distance as he studied some projection that only he could see. She felt a sudden twist of nausea. What if the doctor was using a lie detector on her? Just because she couldn’t see them didn’t mean this room wasn’t equipped with countless vitals scanners. Even now he might be tracking her heart rate or blood pressure, which were probably spiking like crazy.
The doctor gave a weary sigh. “Leda, I’ve been seeing you ever since your friend died, and we haven’t gotten anywhere. What do you think it will take, for you to feel better?”
“I do feel better!” Leda protested. “All thanks to you.” She gave Vanderstein a weak smile, but he wasn’t buying it.
“I see you aren’t taking your meds,” he said, changing tack.
Leda bit her lip. She hadn’t taken anything in the last month, not a single xenperheidren or mood stabilizer, not even a sleeping pill. She didn’t trust herself on anything artificial after what had happened on the roof. Eris might have been a gold-digging, home-wrecking whore, but Leda had never meant to—
No, she reminded herself, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. I didn’t kill her. It was an accident. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. She kept repeating the phrase over and over, like the yoga mantras she used to chant at Silver Cove.
If she repeated it enough, maybe it would become true.
“I’m trying to recover on my own. Given my history, and everything.” Leda hated bringing up rehab, but she was starting to feel cornered and didn’t know what else to say.
Vanderstein nodded with something that seemed like respect. “I understand. But it’s a big year for you, with college on the horizon, and I don’t want this … situation to adversely affect your academics.”
It’s more than a situation, Leda thought bitterly.
“According to your room comp, you aren’t sleeping well. I’m growing concerned,” Vanderstein added.
“Since when are you monitoring my room comp?” Leda cried out, momentarily forgetting her calm, unfazed tone.
The doctor had the grace to look embarrassed. “Just your sleep records,” he said quickly. “Your parents signed off on it—I thought they had informed you …”
Leda nodded curtly. She’d deal with her parents later. Just because she was still a minor didn’t mean they could keep invading her privacy. “I promise, I’m fine.”
Vanderstein was silent again. Leda waited. What else could he do, authorize her toilet to start tracking her urine the way the ones in rehab did? Well, he was welcome to it; he wouldn’t find a damned thing.
The doctor tapped a dispenser in the wall, and it spit out two small pills. They were a cheerful pink—the color of children’s toys, or Leda’s favorite cherry ice whip. “This is an over-the-counter sleeping pill, lowest dose. Why don’t you try it tonight, if you can’t fall asleep?” He frowned, probably taking in the hollow circles around her eyes, the sharp angles of her face, even thinner than usual.
He was right, of course. Leda wasn’t sleeping well. She dreaded falling asleep, tried to stay awake as long as she could, because she knew the horrific nightmares that awaited her. Whenever she did drift off, she woke almost instantly in a cold sweat, tormented by memories of that night—of what she’d hidden from everyone—
“Sure.” She snatched the pills and shoved them into her bag.
“I’d love for you to consider some of our other options—our light-recognition treatment, or perhaps trauma re-immersion therapy.”
“I highly doubt reliving the trauma will help, given what my trauma was,” Leda snapped. She’d never bought into the theory that reliving your painful moments in virtual reality would help you move past them. And she didn’t exactly want any machines creeping into her brain right now, in case they could somehow read the memory that lay buried there.
“What about your Dreamweaver?” the doctor persisted. “We could preload it with a few trigger memories of that night and see how your subconscious responds. You know that dreams are simply your deep brain matter making sense of everything that has happened to you, both joyful and painful …”
He was saying something else, calling dreams the brain’s “safe space,” but Leda was no longer listening. She’d flashed to a memory of Eris in ninth grade, bragging that she’d broken through the Dreamweaver’s parental controls to access the full suite of “adult content” dreams. “There’s even a celebrity setting,” Eris had announced to her rapt audience, with a knowing smirk. Leda remembered how inadequate she’d felt, hearing that Eris was immersed in steamy dreams about holo-stars while Leda couldn’t even imagine sex.
She stood up abruptly. “We need to end this session early. I just remembered something I have to go take care of. See you next time.”
She quickly stepped out the frosted flexiglass door of the Lyons Clinic, perched high on the east side of the 833rd floor, just as her eartennas began to chime a loud, brassy ringtone. Her mom. She shook her head to decline the incoming ping. Ilara would want to hear how the session had gone, would check that she was on her way home for dinner. But Leda wasn’t ready for that kind of forced, upbeat normalcy right now. She needed a moment to herself, to quiet the thoughts and regrets chasing one another in a wild tumult through her head.
She stepped onto the local C lift and disembarked a few stops upTower. Soon she was standing before an enormous stone archway, which had been transported stone by stone from some old British university, carved with enormous block letters that read THE BERKELEY SCHOOL.
Leda breathed a sigh of relief as she walked through the arch and her contacts automatically shut off. Before Eris’s death, she’d never realized how grateful she might feel for her high school’s tech-net.
Her footsteps echoed in the silent halls. It was sort of eerie here at night, everything cast in dim, bluish-gray shadows. She moved faster, past the lily pond and athletic complex, all the way to the blue door at the edge of campus. Normally this room was locked after hours, but Leda had schoolwide access thanks to her position on student council. She stepped forward, letting the security system register her retinas, and the door swung obediently inward.
She hadn’t been in the Observatory since her astronomy elective last spring. Yet it looked exactly as she remembered: a vast circular room lined with telescopes, high-resolution screens, and cluttered data processors Leda had never learned to use. A geodesic dome soared overhead. And in the center of the floor lay the pièce de résistance: a glittering patch of night.
The Observatory was one of the few places in the Tower that protruded out past the floor below it. Leda had never understood how the school had gotten the zoning permits for it, but she was glad now that they had, because it meant they could build the Oval Eye: a concave oval in the floor, about three meters long and two meters wide, made of triple-reinforced flexiglass. A glimpse of how high they really were, up here near the top of the Tower.
Leda edged closer to the Oval Eye. It was dark down there, nothing but shadows, and a few stray lights bobbing in what she thought were the public gardens on the fiftieth floor. What the hell,she thought wildly, and stepped out onto the flexiglass.
This sort of behavior was definitely off-limits, but Leda knew the structure would support her. She glanced down. Between her ballet flats was nothing but empty air, the impossible, endless space between her and the laminous darkness far below. This is what Eris saw when I pushed her, Leda thought, and despised herself.
She sank down, not caring that there was nothing protecting her from a two-mile fall except a few layers of fused carbon. Pulling her knees to her chest, she lowered her forehead and closed her eyes.
A shaft of light sliced into the room. Leda’s head shot up in panic. No one else had access to the Observatory except the rest of the student council, and the astronomy professors. What would she say to explain herself?
“Leda?”
Her heart sank as she realized who it was. “What are you doing here, Avery?”
“Same thing as you, I guess.”
Leda felt caught off guard. She hadn’t been alone with Avery since that night—when Leda confronted Avery about being with Atlas, and Avery led her up onto the roof, and everything spun violently out of control. She wanted desperately to say something, but her mind had strangely frozen. What could she say, with all the secrets she and Avery had made together, buried together?
After a moment, Leda was shocked to hear footsteps approaching, as Avery walked over to sit on the opposite edge of the Oval.
“How did you get in?” she couldn’t help asking. She wondered if Avery was still talking to Watt, the lower-floor hacker who’d helped Leda find out Avery’s secret in the first place—Leda hadn’t spoken to him since that night, either. But with the quantum computer he was hiding, Watt could hack basically anything.
Avery shrugged. “I asked the principal if I could have access to this room. It helps me, being here.”
Of course, Leda thought bitterly, she should have known it was as simple as that. Nothing was off-limits to the perfect Avery Fuller.
“I miss her too, you know,” Avery said quietly.
Leda looked down into the silent vastness of the night, to protect herself from what she saw in Avery’s eyes.
“What happened that night, Leda?” Avery whispered. “What were you on?”
Leda thought of all the various pills she’d popped that day, as she’d sunk ever deeper into a hot, angry maelstrom of regret. “It was a rough day for me. I learned the truth about a lot of people that day—people I had trusted. People who used me,” she said at last, and was perversely pleased to see Avery wince.
“I’m sorry,” Avery told her. “But, Leda, please. Talk to me.”
More than anything, Leda wanted to tell Avery all of it: how Leda had caught her cheating scumbag of a father having an affair with Eris; and how awful she’d felt, realizing that Atlas had only ever slept with her in a fucked-up attempt to forget Avery. How she’d had to drug Watt to uncover that particular grain of truth.
But the thing about the truth was that once you learned it, it became impossible to unlearn. No matter how many pills Leda popped, it was still there, lurking in the corners of her mind like an unwanted guest. There weren’t enough pills in the world to make it go away. So Leda had confronted Avery—screamed at her atop the roof, without fully knowing what she was saying; feeling disoriented and dizzy in the oxygen-thin air. Then Eris had come up the stairs, and told Leda she was sorry, as if a fucking apology would fix the damage she’d done to Leda’s family. Why had Eris kept walking toward her even when Leda told her to stop? It wasn’t Leda’s fault that she’d tried to push Eris away.
She had just pushed too hard.
All Leda wanted now was to confess everything to her best friend, to let herself cry about it like a child.
But stubborn, sticky pride muffled the words in her throat, kept her eyes narrowed and her head held high. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said wearily. What did it matter anyway? Eris was already gone.
“Then help me understand. We don’t have to be this way, Leda—threatening each other like this. Why won’t you just tell everyone it was an accident? I know you never meant to hurt her.”
They were the same words she’d thought to herself so many times, yet hearing them spoken by Avery wakened a cold panic that grasped at Leda like a fist.
Avery didn’t get it, because everything came so easily to her. But Leda knew what would happen if she tried to tell the truth. There would probably be an investigation, and a trial, all made worse by the fact that Leda had tried to cover it up—and the fact that Eris had been sleeping with Leda’s dad would inevitably come to light. It would put Leda’s family, her mom, through hell; and Leda wasn’t stupid. She knew that looked like a damned convincing motive for pushing Eris to her death.
What right did Avery think she had, anyway, gliding in here and granting absolution like some kind of goddess?
“Don’t you dare tell anyone. If you tell, I swear you’ll be sorry.” The threat fell angrily into the silence. It seemed to Leda that the room had grown several degrees colder.
She scrambled to her feet, suddenly desperate to leave. As she stepped from the Oval Eye onto the carpet, Leda felt something fall out of her bag. The two bright pink sleeping pills.
“Glad to see some things haven’t changed.” Avery’s voice was utterly flat.
Leda didn’t bother telling her how wrong she was. Avery would always see the world the way she wanted to.
At the doorway she paused to glance back. Avery had slid to kneel in the middle of the Oval Eye, her hands pressed against the flexiglass surface, her gaze focused on some point far below. There was something morbid and futile about it, as if she were kneeling there in prayer, trying to bring Eris back to life.
It took Leda a moment to realize that Avery was crying. She had to be the only girl in the world who somehow became more beautiful when she cried; her eyes turning an even brighter blue, the tears on her cheeks magnifying the startling perfection of her face. And just like that, Leda remembered all the reasons she resented Avery.
She turned away, leaving her former best friend to weep alone on a tiny fragment of sky.
CALLIOPE (#ulink_2f5371a0-0605-5ee9-a311-23b4ceb50c2e)
THE GIRL STUDIED her reflection in the floor-length smart-mirrors that lined the walls, lifting her mouth in a narrow red smile of approval. She wore a navy romper that was at least three years out of fashion, but deliberately so; she loved watching the other women in the hotel shoot envious glances toward her long, tanned legs. The girl tossed her hair, knowing the warm gold of her earrings brought out her caramel highlights, and fluttered her false lashes—not the implanted kind, but real organic ones; grown from her own eyelids after a long, and painful, genetic repair procedure in Switzerland.
It all exuded a tousled, effortless, glamorous sort of sexiness. Very Calliope Brown, the girl thought, with a frisson of pleasure.
“I’m Elise on this one. You?” her mom asked, as if reading her mind. She had dark blond hair and artificially smooth, creamy skin, making her seem ageless. No one who saw the pair of them was ever quite sure whether she was the mother or the more experienced older sister.
“I was thinking Calliope.” The girl shrugged into the name as if into an old, comfortable sweater. Calliope Brown had always been one of her favorite aliases. And it felt somehow fitting for New York.
Her mom nodded. “I do love that one, even if it’s always impossible to remember. It sounds like it’s got … spunk.”
“You could call me Callie,” Calliope offered, and her mom nodded absently, though they both knew she would just call Calliope by endearments. She’d said the wrong alias once, and it ruined everything. She’d been paranoid about making the same mistake ever since.
Calliope glanced around the expensive hotel, taking in its plush couches, lit with gold and blue strands that matched the hue of the sky; clumps of businesspeople muttering verbal commands to their contact lenses; the telltale shimmer in the corner that meant a security cam was watching. She stifled an urge to wink at it.
Without warning, the toe of her shoe caught on something, and Calliope crashed violently to the ground. She landed on one hip, barely catching herself on her wrists, feeling the skin of her palms burn a little with the impact.
“Oh my god!” Elise’s legs folded beneath her as she knelt beside her daughter.
Calliope let out a moan, which wasn’t difficult given how much actual pain she was in. Her head pounded angrily. She wondered if the heels of her stilettos were totally scuffed.
Her mom gave her a shake and she moaned harder, tears welling in her eyes.
“Is she okay?” It was a boy’s voice. Calliope dared tilt her head enough to peer at him through half-lidded eyes. He had to be a front-desk attendant, with his clean-shaven face and the bright blue name-holo on his chest. Calliope had been to enough five-star hotels to know that the important people didn’t advertise their names.
Her pain was already subsiding, but still, Calliope couldn’t resist moaning a little louder and pulling one knee up to her chest, just to show off her legs. She was gratified by the mingled flash of attraction and confusion—almost panic—that darted across the boy’s face.
“Of course she’s not okay! Where’s your manager?” Elise snapped. Calliope stayed quiet. She liked letting her mom do the talking, when they were first laying the groundwork; and anyway, she was supposed to be injured.
“I’m s-sorry, I’ll call him …” the boy stammered. Calliope gave a little whimper for good measure, though it wasn’t necessary. She could feel the attention of everyone in the lobby shifting toward them, a crowd beginning to gather. Nervousness clung to the front desk boy like a bad perfume.
“I’m Oscar, the manager. What happened here?” An overweight man in a simple dark suit trotted over. Calliope noted with delight that his shoes looked expensive.
“What’s going on is that my daughter fell in your lobby. Because of that spilled drink!” Elise pointed to a puddle on the floor, complete with a lost-looking lime wedge. “Don’t you invest in a maid service here?”
“My sincerest apologies. I can assure you nothing like this has ever happened before, Mrs. …?”
“Ms. Brown,” Elise sniffed. “My daughter and I had planned on staying here for a week, but I’m no longer sure we want to.” She bent down a little lower. “Can you move, honey?”
That was her cue. “It really hurts.” Calliope gasped, shaking her head. A single tear ran down her cheek, ruining her otherwise perfectly made-up face. She heard the crowd murmur in sympathy.
“Let me take care of everything,” Oscar pleaded, turning bright red with anxiety. “I insist. Your room, of course, is complimentary.”
Fifteen minutes later, Calliope and her mom were firmly ensconced in a corner suite. Calliope stayed in bed—her ankle propped on a tiny triangle of pillows—holding perfectly still as the bellman unloaded their bags. She kept her eyes closed even after she heard the front door shut behind him, waiting till her mom’s footsteps turned back toward her bedroom. “All clear now, sweetie,” Elise called out.
She stood up in a fluid motion, letting the tower of pillows tumble to the ground. “Seriously, Mom? You tripped me without warning?”
“I’m sorry, but you know you’ve always been terrible at a fake fall. Your instincts for self-preservation are simply too strong,” Elise replied from the closet, where she was already sorting her vast array of gowns in their color-coded transport bags. “How can I make it up to you?”
“Cheesecake would be a good start.” Calliope reached past her mom for the fluffy white robe that hung on the door, emblazoned with a blue N and a tiny image of a cloud on the front pocket. She pulled it around her, letting the threads of the tie instantly weave themselves shut.
“How about cheesecake and wine?” Elise made a few brisk motions with her hands to call up holographic images of the room service menu, pointing at various screens to order salmon, cheesecake, a bottle of Sancerre. The wine popped into their room in a matter of seconds, propelled by the hotel’s temperature-controlled airtube system. “I love you, sweetie. Sorry again for flinging you on your face.”
“I know. It’s just the cost of doing business,” Calliope conceded with a shrug.
Her mom poured them two glasses and clinked hers to Calliope’s. “Here’s to this time.”
“Here’s to this time,” Calliope echoed with a smile, as the words sent a familiar shiver of excitement up her spine. It was the same phrase she and her mom always used when they arrived somewhere new. And there was nothing Calliope loved more than starting somewhere new.
She headed into the living room, to the curved flexiglass windows that lined the corner of the building, with dramatic views over Brooklyn and the dark ribbon of the East River. A few shadows that must have been boats still danced across its surface. Evening had settled over the city, softening the edges of it all. Scattered flecks of light blinked like forgotten stars.
“So this is New York,” Calliope mused aloud. After years of traipsing the world with her mom, standing at similar windows in so many luxury hotels and looking out over so many cities—the neon grid of Tokyo; the cheerful and vibrant disorder of Rio; the domed skyscrapers of Mumbai, gleaming like bones in the moonlight—she had come to New York at last.
New York, the first of the great supertowers, the original sky city. Already Calliope felt a burst of tenderness toward it.
“Gorgeous view,” Elise said, coming to join her. “It almost reminds me of the one from London Bridge.”
Calliope stopped rubbing her eyes, which were still a bit itchy from the latest retinal transfer, and glanced sharply at her mom. They rarely spoke of their old life, before. Yet Elise didn’t pursue the subject. She sipped her wine, her eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon.
Elise was so beautiful, Calliope thought. But there was something hard and a little bit plasticky about her beauty now: the result of the various surges she’d had to change her appearance and go unrecognized each time they moved somewhere new. I’m doing this for us,she always told Calliope, and for you, so you don’t have to. At least not yet. She never made Calliope play more than a supporting role in any of her cons.
For the past seven years, ever since they’d left London, Calliope and her mom had moved constantly from place to place. They never stayed anywhere long enough to get caught. The pattern was the same in each city: They would trick their way into the most expensive hotel in the most expensive neighborhood, and scout the scene for a few days. Then Elise would pick her mark—someone with too much money for his or her own good, and just enough foolishness to believe whatever story Elise decided to tell. By the time the mark realized what had happened, Elise and Calliope were always long gone.
Calliope knew that some people would call the pair of them cheats, or con artists, or swindlers. She preferred to think of them as very clever, very charming women who’d figured out how to level the playing field. After all, as Calliope’s mom always said, rich people get free things all the time. Why shouldn’t they, too?
“Before I forget, this is for you. I just uploaded it with the name Calliope Ellerson Brown. That’s what you wanted, right?” Her mom handed her a shining new wrist computer.
Here lies Gemma Newberry, beloved thief, Calliope thought in delight, burying her most recent alias with a silent flourish. She was as shameless as she was beautiful.
She had a terribly morbid habit of composing epitaphs each time she set aside an identity, though she never shared them with her mom. She had a feeling that Elise wouldn’t find them quite so amusing.
Calliope tapped at the new wrist computer, pulling up her list of contacts—empty, as usual—and noticed to her surprise that there wasn’t a school registration listed. “You’re not making me go to high school for this one?”
Elise shrugged. “You’re eighteen. Do you want to keep going to school?”
Calliope hesitated. She’d gone to school so many times, playing whatever role their particular scheme cast her in—a long-lost heiress, or a victim of some conspiracy, or occasionally just as Elise’s daughter, when Elise needed a daughter to seem attractive to some victim. She’d attended a preppy British boarding school and a French convent and a pristine public school in Singapore, and had rolled her eyes in sheer boredom at each one.
Which was how Calliope had ended up running a few cons of her own. They were never as big as Elise’s cons, which netted their real payout; but Calliope liked to do something on the side if she saw an opportunity. Elise was fine with it, as long as Calliope’s projects didn’t impede her ability to help out her mom whenever she was called upon. “It’s good for you to get some practice,” Elise always said, and let Calliope keep everything she earned herself—which supplemented her wardrobe quite nicely.
Usually Calliope tried to gain the interest of a wealthy teenager, then conned him into buying her a necklace, or a new handbag, or the latest Robbie Lim suede boots. On a few rare occasions she’d managed to get bitbanc payments—not gifts—by pretending to be in serious trouble, or by finding out people’s secrets and blackmailing them. Calliope had learned through the years that rich people did a lot of things they would rather keep buried.
She briefly considered going to high school, doing the same thing as usual, but she quickly dismissed the idea. This time, she would go bigger.
Oh, there were so many ways to hook a mark—the “accidental” run-in, the sidelong glance, the nuanced smile, the flirtation, the confrontation, the accident—and Calliope was an expert in all of them. She’d closed out every con she’d ever started.
Except Travis. The one mark who’d ever left Calliope, rather than the other way around. She’d never figured out why, and it still nettled her, just a little.
But he was just one person, and there were millions here. Calliope thought of all the crowds she’d seen earlier, streaming in and out of elevators, rushing home or to work or to school. All of them preoccupied with their own small worries, clutching at their impossible dreams.
None of them even knew she existed, and if they did know, they wouldn’t care. But that was what made this game fun: because Calliope was about to make one of them care, very much. She felt a bright, glorious, reckless rush of anticipation.
She couldn’t wait to find her next mark.
AVERY (#ulink_d3f1cd99-cb75-593e-99a8-a369739f8ea3)
AVERY FULLER WRAPPED her arms tighter around herself. The wind tore at her hair, yanking it into an unruly blond tangle, whipping the folds of her dress around her like a banner. A few droplets of rain began to fall. They stung lightly where they touched her bare skin.
But Avery wasn’t ready to leave the roof. This was her secret place, where she retreated when all the furious lights and sounds down there, in the rest of the city, became too much to bear.
She looked out to the hazy purple of the horizon, which stretched into a deep fathomless black overhead. She loved the way she felt up here, aloof and alone and safe with her secrets. It’s not safe, a nagging feeling told her, as a pair of footsteps sounded. Avery turned around, nervous—and broke into a smile when she saw that it was Atlas.
But the trapdoor flung open again and suddenly Leda was there, her face suffused with anger. She looked thin and drawn and dangerous. She wore her very skin as if it were armor.
“What do you want, Leda?” Avery asked warily, though she didn’t really need to ask; she knew what Leda wanted. She wanted to break her and Atlas apart, and Atlas was the one thing Avery would never, ever give up. She took a step in front of him as if to protect him.
Leda caught the gesture. “How dare you,” she spat, and reached out to shove Avery—
Avery’s stomach lurched, her arms wheeling as she tried desperately to cling to something, but it was all too far away, even Atlas, and the world had devolved into a blur of color and sound and screaming, the ground hurtling ever faster toward her—
She sat up abruptly, a cold sheen of sweat on her brow. It took her a moment to recognize the dim bulkiness of her surroundings as the furniture in Atlas’s bedroom.
“Aves?” Atlas murmured. “You okay?”
She curled her knees to her chest, trying to slow the erratic beating of her heart. “Just a nightmare,” she told him.
Atlas pulled her close and wrapped his arms tightly around her from behind, so that she was safe in the warm circle of his embrace. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Avery did want to talk about it, except she couldn’t. So she turned around to silence him with a kiss.
She’d been sneaking over to Atlas’s room every night since Eris died. She knew she was playing with fire. But being with the boy she loved—talking to him, kissing him, just inhaling his presence—was the only thing that kept Avery from spinning off the edge lately.
And even here, with Atlas, she wasn’t wholly safe from herself. She hated the web of secrets that kept tightening around her, driving an invisible wedge between them, though Atlas had no idea.
He didn’t know about the delicate balancing act Avery now found herself in with Leda. A secret for a secret. Leda knew about them, and the only reason she hadn’t blasted it to the world was that Avery had seen her push Eris, up on the roof that night. Now Avery was hiding the truth about Eris’s death under threat from Leda.
She couldn’t bring herself to tell Atlas about it all. The knowledge would only hurt him, and the truth was, Avery didn’t want him to learn what had really happened that night. If he knew what she’d done, he might not look at her this way anymore—with such blinding love and devotion.
She wrapped her fingers tighter in the curls at the base of Atlas’s neck, wanting to stop time, to disappear into this moment and live in it forever.
When Atlas finally pulled away, she felt his smile, even if she couldn’t see it. “No scary dreams anymore. Not while I’m here. I’ll keep them away, I promise.”
“I dreamed that I lost you,” she blurted out, a note of trepidation threading through her voice. Now that they were together, against all odds, losing Atlas was her greatest fear.
“Avery.” He put a finger under her chin and gently lifted it, so that she was looking into his eyes. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know,” she replied, and she knew that he meant it, but there were so many obstacles in their path, so many forces stacked against them, that at times it all felt insurmountable.
She lay back down in the soft, warm space next to his body, but her thoughts were still scattered. She felt like she was coiled too tightly and couldn’t be unwound.
“Do you ever wish another family had adopted you?” she whispered, voicing a thought she’d had countless times. If he’d ended up with some other family, if some other boy had grown up as her adopted brother, then Atlas wouldn’t be forbidden. She wondered what it would have been like, meeting him in school, or at some party; bringing him home to meet the Fullers.
It would all be so much easier.
“Of course not,” Atlas said, startling her with the vehemence of his tone. “Aves, if I’d been adopted by a different family I might never have met you.”
“Maybe …” She trailed off, but she couldn’t help thinking that she and Atlas were inevitable. The universe would have conspired for them to meet, some way or another, pulling them together with a gravitational force that was all their own.
“Maybe,” Atlas conceded. “But that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. You’re the most important thing in the world to me. The day your parents brought me home—the day I first met you—was the second-best day of my life.”
“Oh really? And what was the best day?” she asked with a smile.
She expected Atlas to say that the best day was when they confessed their love for each other. But he surprised her. “Today,” he said simply. “Which will only last until tomorrow, and then tomorrow will be the best day. Because every day with you is better than the one before.”
He leaned over to kiss her lightly, just as a knock sounded on the door.
“Atlas?”
For a terrible instant, every cell in Avery’s body was frozen. She looked up at Atlas and saw her own terror reflected on his handsome face.
His door was locked, but here—like everywhere in the apartment—Mr. and Mrs. Fuller had the ability to override.
“One second, Dad,” Atlas called out, a little too loudly.
Avery stumbled out of bed, wearing her ivory satin shorts and a bra, and stumbled breathlessly toward Atlas’s closet. Her bare feet nearly tripped over a shoe as she ran.
She’d just managed to pull the door shut behind her when Pierson Fuller strode into his adopted son’s room. The overhead lights flicked on with his steps.
“Everything okay in here?” Did she hear a note of suspicion in her dad’s voice, or was she imagining it?
“What’s going on, Dad?” Typical Atlas, answering a question with a question. But it was a good deflective technique.
“I just heard back from Jean-Pierre LaClos, in the Paris office,” Avery’s dad said slowly. “It looks like the French might finally let us build something next to that antique eyesore of theirs.” His form was just visible through the slats of the closet door. Avery stayed utterly still, pressing back into a gray wool coat, her arms crossed over her chest. Her heart was pounding so erratically she felt certain her dad would hear it.
Atlas’s closet was much smaller than hers. There was nowhere to hide, if Pierson came to open the door. There was no possible explanation for why she would be here, wearing a bra and pajama shorts in Atlas’s room, except, of course, for the real reason.
Out there in the bedroom, her pink shirt lay on the floor like a glaring searchlight.
“Okay,” Atlas replied, and Avery heard the unspoken query. Why was their dad coming over in the middle of the night, for something that didn’t sound particularly urgent?
After what was surely too long a silence, Pierson cleared his throat. “You’ll have to come early to the development meeting tomorrow. We’re going to need to do a full analysis of their streets and waterways, to start prepping.”
“I’ll be there,” Atlas said tersely. He was standing directly on top of the shirt, trying to discreetly cover it with one of his feet. Avery willed her dad not to notice the movement.
“Sounds good.” A moment later Avery heard the door to her brother’s room click shut.
She leaned back and slid helplessly down the wall to a seated position. It felt like tiny needles were prickling all over her skin, like that time she’d been vitamin-checked at the doctor, except laced with adrenaline. She felt restless and reckless and strangely exhilarated, as if she’d tripped into quicksand and somehow emerged on the other side unharmed.
Atlas flung open the closet. “You okay, Aves?”
The closet lights turned on as he opened the doors; but for an impossibly brief instant, Avery was in the dark while Atlas seemed illuminated from behind—light streaming around him, gilding the edges of his form, making him seem almost otherworldly. It seemed suddenly impossible that he was real, and here, and hers.
And in truth, it was impossible. Everything about their relationship kept proving impossible at every turn, yet somehow they had willed it into being.
“I’m fine.” She stood up to run her hands up his arms, settling them finally on his shoulders, but he took a reflexive step back and reached for her top, which still lay there on the ground.
“That was not good, Aves.” Atlas held out the shirt, his features creased with worry.
“He didn’t see me,” Avery argued, but she knew that wasn’t the point. Neither of them mentioned what their dad might have already seen: Avery’s bedroom, on the other side of the apartment, her pristine white bedcovers rumpled but decidedly empty.
“We need to be more careful.” Atlas sounded resigned.
Avery pulled her shirt over her head and looked up at him, her chest constricting at what he wasn’t saying. “There’s no more sleeping over, is there?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. They couldn’t risk it, not anymore.
“No. Aves, you need to go.”
“I will. Starting tomorrow,” she promised, and pulled his mouth to hers. Now more than ever Avery knew how dangerous it was, but that just made each moment with Atlas infinitely more precious. She knew the risks. She knew they were walking a tightrope; that it would be so, so easy to fall.
If this was their last night sleeping over, then she was going to make it count.
She wished she could tell him everything, but instead she willed it all into her kisses: all the silent apologies, the confessions, the promises to love him forever. If she couldn’t tell him aloud, there was no other way to tell him than this.
Clutching Atlas by the shoulders, she yanked him forward, and he followed her into the closet as the overhead light clicked back off.
WATT (#ulink_f0df7d7a-cf0e-5f49-ac1f-ab087ba3d45f)
WATZAHN BAKRADI LEANED back in the stiff auditorium chair, studying the chessboard currently displayed over his field of vision. Move rook three spaces on the left diagonal. The chessboard, projected in ghostly white and black onto the high-res contacts he constantly wore, changed accordingly.
That wasn’t a wise move, pointed out Nadia, the quantum computer embedded in Watt’s brain. Her knight immediately swooped forward to capture his king.
Watt stifled a groan, eliciting a few strange looks from the friends and classmates seated around him. He quickly fell silent and focused his gaze forward, to where a man in a crimson blazer stood at a podium, explaining the liberal arts offerings at Stringer West University. Watt tuned him out, just like he’d done all the other speakers at this mandatory assembly for the junior class. As if Watt had any intention of taking a history or English class again after high school was over.
You’ve been losing to me on average eleven minutes more quickly than normal. I believe it’s a sign of distraction, Nadia added, flashing the words over his contacts like an incoming flicker.
You think? Watt thought testily. Watt had good reason to be distracted lately. He’d taken what seemed like an easy hacking job for a highlier girl named Leda, only to fall for her best friend, Avery. Until he’d learned that Avery was actually in love with Atlas, the very same person Leda had hired him to spy on. Then he’d accidentally delivered that secret straight to Leda, who was vicious and high and out for revenge. An innocent girl had ended up dying because of it. And Watt had just stood there and let it happen, let Leda walk away scot-free—because Leda knew about Nadia.
Watt wasn’t sure how she’d figured it out, but somehow, she’d learned Watt’s most dangerous secret. Anytime she wanted, Leda could turn Watt in for possession of an illegal quantum computer. Nadia, of course, would be destroyed forever. As for Watt, he’d go to jail for life. If he was lucky.
“Watt!” Nadia hissed, sending a zap of electric shock down his system. The Stringer representative was stepping down from the podium, replaced by a woman with shoulder-length chestnut hair and a serious expression. Vivian Marsh, the head of admissions at MIT.
“Few of you will apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Even fewer of you have the grades to get in,” she said without preamble. “But for those of you who do, you’ll find that our program rests upon three tenets: explore, experience, evolve.”
Watt heard a soft pattering of fingers on tablets. He glanced around; some of the kids from his advanced math classes were typing furiously, hanging on Vivian’s every word. His friend Cynthia—a pretty Japanese American girl who’d been in Watt’s classes since practically kindergarten—was on the edge of her seat, her eyes lit up. Watt hadn’t even known Cynthia was interested in MIT. Would he have to compete against her for the limited spots?
Watt hadn’t really considered what he would do if he didn’t get into MIT. For years he had dreamed of attending their extremely competitive microsystems engineering program. It was the research team in that very department that had invented the millichip, and entanglement software, and the room-temperature supermagnets that prevented quantum decoherence.
Watt had always assumed he would get in. Hell, he’d invented a quantum computer on his own at age fourteen; how could they not take him?
Except that he couldn’t exactly talk about Nadia on his application. And as he looked around at the other students, Watt was forced to confront the very real possibility that he might not get in after all.
Should I ask a question? he thought anxiously to Nadia. Something, anything to get Vivian to notice him.
“This isn’t a Q and A, Watt,” Nadia observed.
Suddenly, far too quickly, the Stanford rep was stepping up and clearing his throat.
Without thinking, Watt shot to his feet, cursing as he stumbled down the row of seats. Seriously? Cynthia mouthed as he climbed over her, but Watt didn’t care; he needed to talk to Vivian, and anyway, Stanford was at best his safety school.
He burst out the double doors at the back of the auditorium, ignoring the eyes that turned accusatorily toward him as he did, and began sprinting around the corner to the school exit.
“Ms. Marsh! Wait!”
She paused, one hand on the door, an eyebrow raised. Well, at the very least he would be memorable.
“I have to say, it’s rare that I’m chased out of a school auditorium. I’m not a celebrity, you know.” Watt thought he heard an edge of wry amusement behind her tone, but couldn’t be sure.
“I’ve been dreaming of going to MIT ever since I can remember, and I just … I really wanted to speak with you.” Your name! Nadia prompted. “Watzahn Bakradi,” he said quickly, holding out a hand. After a moment, Vivian shook it.
“Watzahn Bakradi,” she repeated, her gaze turned inward, and Watt realized she was doing some kind of search of him, through her contacts. She blinked and focused on him again. “I see that you participated in our Young Engineers’ Summer Program, on scholarship. And you weren’t invited back.”
Watt flinched. He knew exactly why he hadn’t been asked to return—because one of his professors had caught him building an illegal quantum computer. She’d promised not to alert the police, but still, the mistake had cost him.
Nadia had pulled Vivian’s CV onto his contacts, but it wasn’t helpful; all it told Watt was that she’d grown up in Ohio and had studied psychology as an undergraduate.
He realized that he needed to answer her. “That program was four years ago. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’d like the chance to prove it to you.”
Vivian tilted her head, accepting a ping. “I’m speaking with a student,” she said to whoever it was, probably an assistant. “I know, I know. Just one moment.” As she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, Watt caught a glimpse of an expensive platinum wrist computer. He wondered, suddenly, what she really thought of coming down to speak on the 240th floor, even if it was at a magnet school. No wonder she was in a hurry to leave.
“Mr. Bakradi, why is MIT your top choice?”
Nadia had pulled up the MIT guidelines and mission statement, but Watt didn’t want to give a safe, canned answer. “Microsystems engineering. I want to work with quants,” he said boldly.
“Really.” She looked him up and down, and Watt could tell her interest was piqued. “You know that program receives thousands of applications, but only selects two students per year.”
“I know. It’s still my top choice.” It’s my only choice, Watt thought, giving his best smile, the one he always used on girls when he and Derrick went out. He felt her softening toward him.
“Have you ever seen a quant? Do you know how unbelievably powerful they are?”
An untruth would be optimal here,Nadia told him, but Watt knew he could dance around the question.
“I know there are only a few left,” he said instead. There were quants at NASA, of course, and the Pentagon; though Watt had a feeling there were far more illegal and unregistered quants—like Nadia—than the government would care to admit. “However, I think there should be more. There are so many places we need quantum computers.”
Like in your brain? Watt, be sensible,Nadia urged, but he wasn’t listening. “We need them now more than ever. We could revolutionize global farming to eradicate poverty, we could eliminate fatal accidents, we could terraform Mars—”
Watt’s voice rang overly loud in his ears. He realized that Vivian was looking at him, her eyebrows raised, and he fell silent.
“You sound eerily like the science-fiction writers of the last century. I’m afraid that your opinion is no longer popular these days, Mr. Bakradi,” she said at last.
Watt swallowed. “I just think the AI Incident of 2093 could have been avoided. The quant in question wasn’t responsible. The security hadn’t been properly set, there was an issue with his core programming …”
Back when quants were still legal, they’d all been given the same piece of fundamental core programming: that the quant could take no action to harm a human being, no matter what later commands were given to it.
“His?” Vivian repeated, and Watt realized belatedly that he’d used a gendered pronoun to describe a computer. He said nothing. After a moment, she sighed. “Well, I have to say, I look forward to personally reviewing your application.”
She stepped through the door and into a waiting hover.
Nadia, what on earth do we do now? he thought, hoping she might have a brilliant solution. She usually picked up on situational details that he had missed.
There’s only one thing you can do,Nadia replied, and that is to write the best damn essay Vivian Marsh has ever seen.
“There you are,” Cynthia breathed, when Watt finally made his way to their locker. Technically, it was Cynthia’s locker: Watt had been assigned one, but it was at the end of the arts hallway, and since he never went that direction, and never carried much stuff anyway, he’d gotten in the habit of using Cynthia’s instead. Derrick, Watt’s best friend, stood there too, worry creasing his forehead.
“Yeah, what happened? Cynthia says you skipped out early?”
“I went to try to talk to the MIT admissions officer, before she left.”
“What did you tell her?” Cynthia asked, while Derrick shook his head, muttering something that sounded like “Should’ve thought of that.”
Watt sighed. “I’m not sure it went well.”
Cynthia glanced at Watt in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, at least if I tank, it’ll increase your chances of getting in,” Watt replied, a little too flippant; but sarcasm had always been his defense mechanism.
Cynthia seemed hurt. “I would never think like that. Honestly, I was hoping that we would both end up at MIT. It could be nice, having a friendly face so far from home …”
“And then I’ll come visit you both, and pester you constantly!” Derrick said, throwing his arms jovially around both their shoulders.
“That would be fun,” Watt said cautiously, with a glance at Cynthia. He hadn’t realized that they shared the same dream. She was right: it would be nice—walking across the leaf-strewn campus together on their way to class, working together in the engineering lab late at night, getting lunch in that enormous arched dining hall Watt had seen on the i-Net.
Then again, what would he and Cynthia do if only one of them got in?
It’ll be fine, he told himself, but he couldn’t help thinking that this was just one more thing in his life that could end in disaster.
He seemed to be collecting a lot of those lately.
RYLIN (#ulink_04d825f6-63cd-5f05-b1ad-a1cf34aca711)
THAT SAME AFTERNOON, Rylin Myers leaned forward on the checkout scanner, counting down the minutes till her shift at ArrowKid was over. She knew she was lucky to have this job—it paid more than her old one at the monorail, and the hours were better—but every moment here still felt like utter torture.
ArrowKid was a mass retailer of children’s clothing in the mid-Manhattan Mall, up on the 500th floor. Until recently, Rylin had never set foot in a store like this. Arrow was the kind of place where midTower parents came in packs: wearing brightly colored exercise pants and dragging toddlers by the arm, strollers bobbing through the air alongside them, pulled by invisible magnetic tethers.
Rylin glanced around the store, which was a dizzying kaleidoscope of sound and color. Jarring pop music played on high volume through the speakers. The entire space smelled overwhelmingly of ArrowKid’s sickly sweet self-cleaning cloth diapers. And crammed on every display were children’s clothes, from pastel-colored baby onesies to dresses in a girls’ size fourteen—all of it covered in arrows. Arrow-stitched baby jeans, arrow-printed T-shirts, even little blankets covered in tiny flashing arrows. It made Rylin’s eyes hurt just to look at it.
“Hey, Ry, can you help out the customer in fitting room twelve? I’ll man checkout for a while.” Rylin’s manager, a twentysomething named Aliah, sauntered over and flipped her close-cut dark hair. There was a bright purple arrow on her shirt, spinning slowly like the hands of a clock. Rylin had to look away to keep from feeling dizzy.
“Of course,” Rylin said, trying not to be irritated that Aliah had started calling her by the nickname she reserved for close friends. She knew her manager just wanted to duck under the counter and ping her new girlfriend when she thought the employees couldn’t see.
She knocked on the door of fitting room twelve. “Just wanted to see how things were going in there,” she said loudly. “Any sizes I can grab for you?”
The door swung open to reveal a tired-looking mom perched on a stool, her eyes glazed over as she probably checked something on her contacts. A pink-cheeked girl with a smattering of freckles stood before the mirror, turning back and forth as she studied her reflection with critical intensity. She was wearing a white dress that read BE DAZZLING and was covered in tiny crystal arrows. Her feet were encased in a pair of arrow-printed boots. They already belonged to the girl; if she’d picked them up today, Rylin would have seen a subtle holographic circle marking them as a new purchase, reminding her to ring them up. She thought of the times she and her best friend, Lux, used to shoplift on the lower floors—nothing big, just a couple of tubes of perfume and paintstick, or once a box of chocolate puffs. You couldn’t get away with that up here.
“What do you think of this?” the girl asked, turning to let Rylin inspect her.
Rylin gave a watery smile. Her eyes darted to the mom—after all, she was the one who would pay—but the older woman seemed content to stay out of her daughter’s shopping habits. “It looks great,” Rylin said weakly.
“Would you wear it?” the little girl asked, her nose wrinkling adorably.
For some reason all Rylin could think of were the clothes she and Chrissa used to wear, some of which had been given by the Andertons, the upper-floor family she’d worked for as a maid. Rylin’s favorite outfit at age six had been a swashbuckling pirate costume, complete with a feathered cap and a gold-hilted sword. She realized with a start that it had probably once belonged to Cord. Or Brice. The knowledge should have made her embarrassed, yet all she felt was a strange sense of loss. She hadn’t spoken to Cord in a month—probably wouldn’t even see him ever again.
It’s for the best, she told herself, the way she always did when she thought of Cord. But it never seemed to work.
“Clearly not,” the girl huffed, pulling the dress back up over her head. “You can go,” she added pointedly, to Rylin.
Rylin realized belatedly that she’d made an error. She tried desperately to backtrack. “I’m sorry, I just lost track of my thoughts for a moment—”
“Forget it,” the girl said in a single breath, slamming the door in Rylin’s face. Moments later she and her mom were walking out of the store, leaving a pile of discarded clothes in the fitting room behind them.
“Ry.” Aliah made a disappointed clucking noise as she walked over. “That girl was an easy sale. What happened?”
Don’t Ry me, Rylin thought with a sudden burst of anger, but she knew better than to say anything; the whole reason she had this job was because of Aliah. She’d been applying for a waitress job at the café next door when she’d seen the shooting arrow display that spelled out HELP WANTED in the holographic window, and stepped inside on a whim. Aliah hadn’t even cared that she had no experience in retail. She’d taken one look at Rylin and let out an excited squeal. “You can totally fit into our junior sizes. Your hips are, like, really narrow. And your feet are even small enough for some of the sandals!”
So here Rylin was, wearing the least offensive merchandise she could find in the store—a tank top and her own black jeans, not an arrow in sight—trying halfheartedly to sell clothes to midTower kids. No wonder she sucked at it.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time,” she promised.
“I hope so. You’ve been here almost a month and yet you’ve barely hit the sales minimum for a single week. I keep making excuses for you, saying it’s a learning curve, but if things don’t change soon …”
Rylin bit back a sigh. She couldn’t afford to be fired, not again. “Got it.”
Aliah’s eyes flicked as she glanced at the time in the corner of her vision. Rylin had been surprised that most girls who worked here could afford to wear contacts, even if it was just the cheaper versions. Then again, this was an after-school job for most of them; they didn’t have younger sisters to support, or a never-ending stack of bills to pay.
“Why don’t you head home, get some rest,” Aliah suggested gently. “I’ll close up. That way you can start fresh tomorrow. ’kay?”
Rylin was too exhausted to argue. “That would be amazing,” she said simply.
“And, Ry, why don’t you take one of those”—Aliah gestured toward a display near the entrance, of printed T-shirts in a bright lemon yellow, covered in purple arrows—“to wear to work tomorrow? It might help you feel a little more … enthusiastic.”
“Those are for ten-year-olds,” Rylin couldn’t help pointing out, eyeing the shirts with trepidation.
“Good thing you’re super skinny,” Aliah replied.
Rylin held her breath as she grabbed the shirt at the top of the stack. “Thanks,” she said, flashing the biggest smile she could manage, but the older girl was already on a ping, her hand to her ear as she whispered something and laughed.
When Rylin waved her ID ring over the touch pad in the door and stepped inside, the comforting smells of batter and warm chocolate rose up to meet her. She felt an immediate stab of regret that Chrissa had beat her home yet again. Ever since Rylin had started working evenings, rather than the crack-of-dawn shift she’d had at the monorail, Chrissa had been handling more of the cooking and grocery shopping. Rylin felt guilty; those had always been her jobs. She wanted to be the one taking care of her fourteen-year-old sister, not the other way around.
“How was work?” Chrissa asked cheerfully. Her eyes drifted to Rylin’s new T-shirt and she pursed her lips, suppressing a smile.
“Don’t you dare say anything, or your birthday present this year will be nothing but a huge bag of arrow-printed underwear.”
Chrissa tilted her head as if considering it. “How many arrows per pair are we talking, exactly?”
Rylin let out a laugh, then fell silent. “Honestly, at this rate, I’ll be fired long before your birthday. Turns out I’m not the best salesperson.” She came to where Chrissa stood at the cooktop, making the banana pancakes they both loved so much. “Breakfast for dinner? What’s the occasion?” she asked, and reached into the bag of chocolate flakes to grab a handful.
Chrissa batted good-naturedly at Rylin’s hand, then tossed the rest of the chocolate flakes into the mix and let the infra-powered spoon stir the batter. She looked up at her sister with evident excitement, jerking her chin toward an envelope on the table. “You got some news.”
“What is that?” No one sent real paper envelopes anymore. The last one Rylin had gotten was a medical bill; and even that was in addition to her weekly reminder pop-ups with sound, and only because the payment was a year past due.
“Why don’t you open it and see,” Chrissa said mysteriously.
Rylin’s first thought was that the envelope was heavy, which signified something momentous, though she wasn’t sure whether to be excited or afraid. There was a familiar blue crest embossed on the back. THE BERKELEY SCHOOL, SINCE 2031, it read in gilded letters along the top. That was Cord’s school, Rylin remembered, up in the 900s somewhere. Why would they be sending anything to her?
She slid a fingernail beneath the crisp edge of the envelope and pulled out its contents, dimly aware that Chrissa had come to stand next to her, but she was too focused on reading the strange and surprising letter to say anything.
Dear Miss Myers,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Eris Miranda Dodd-Radson Memorial Award to Berkeley Academy. The scholarship was established in memory of Eris, to reward unrecognized individual potential in underprivileged students. The value of your scholarship is detailed on the next page. Full tuition is covered, as well as a stipend for academic materials and other cost-of-living expenses …
Rylin blinked up at Chrissa. “What on earth is this?” she asked slowly.
Chrissa squealed and threw her arms around Rylin in a breathless hug. “I was hoping this was a ‘yes’ envelope, but I wasn’t sure! And I didn’t want to open it without you! Rylin!” She took a step back and looked at her sister, her entire being suffused with a happy glow. “You got a scholarship to Berkeley. That’s the best private high school in New York—maybe even in the country.”
“But I didn’t apply,” Rylin pointed out, to which Chrissa laughed.
“I applied on your behalf, of course. You aren’t mad, are you?” she added, as if the thought had just now occurred to her.
“But—” A million questions rippled through Rylin’s mind. She seized on one, randomly. “How did you even find out about this scholarship?”
Rylin had known about it, of course; she’d seen it mentioned on Eris’s obituary video, which she’d watched dozens of times since that fateful night. The night her whole life turned upside down—when she went to an upTower party, way up on the thousandth floor, only to find the boy she loved with another girl. Then that girl had died in front of Rylin’s eyes, pushed off the side of the Tower by one of her drugged-out friends, who proceeded to blackmail Rylin, forcing her to keep quiet about what had really happened.
“I saw the obit video pulled up on your tablet. You watched it a lot of times,” Chrissa said, and now her voice was quiet and her eyes were searching Rylin’s. “You met Eris when you were with Cord, right? Was she a friend of yours?”
“Something like that,” Rylin said, because she didn’t know how to tell Chrissa the truth—that Eris was someone she’d scarcely known, except that Rylin had seen her die.
“I’m sorry, about what happened to her.” The timer beeped, and Chrissa scooped the pancakes into two fat stacks, handing the plates to Rylin.
“But—” Rylin still didn’t understand. “Why didn’t you apply to the scholarship for yourself?” Of the two of them, Chrissa was the one with real promise: she made straight As in her honors classes, and would probably play volleyball at the college level. She was the one who deserved a fancy upper-school scholarship. Not Rylin, who hadn’t even been in school the last few years.
“Because I don’t need it like you do,” Chrissa said intently. Rylin followed her to the table, carrying the plates of stacked pancakes. One of the legs of their table was broken clean off, causing it to wobble as she set the plates down.
“Between my grades and volleyball, I’m on track to get a college scholarship anyway. You, on the other hand, need this,” Chrissa insisted. “Don’t you see? Now you don’t have to be the girl who dropped out of school to work a dead-end job, for my sake.”
Rylin fell silent at the flicker of guilt in her sister’s explanation. She’d never really considered what Chrissa had thought, when Rylin had dropped out of school to work full-time after their mom died. She’d never imagined that Chrissa might blame herself for Rylin’s choice.
“Chrissa, you know it’s not your fault that I took the job I did.” And Rylin knew that she would do it all again in a heartbeat, to give her little sister the chance she deserved. Then she thought of another complication. “Anyway, I can’t quit work now. We need the money.”
Chrissa’s smile was contagious. “Didn’t you see what it said about a cost-of-living stipend? It’s enough to keep us going, and if we get into a tight spot, we can always figure something out.”
Rylin looked again, and saw that Chrissa was right. “But why would they pick me? I’m not even in school right now. There must have been so many applicants.” Her eyes narrowed at Chrissa as she began to think through the odds. “What did you put on my application, anyway?”
Chrissa grinned. “I found an old essay of yours about working at a summer camp, and made some tweaks to it.”
Two years before their mother died, Rylin had applied to be a junior counselor at an expensive summer camp. It was all the way in Maine—somewhere with a lake, or maybe it had been a river; the kind of place rich kids went to learn useless things like canoeing and archery and braiding friendship bracelets. For some reason, maybe because she’d seen too many holos about summer camp, Rylin had always fostered a secret desire to attend one. Of course they could never afford anything like that. But Rylin had hoped that maybe, if she worked there as a counselor, she would still have a version of the experience.
She’d gotten the job. Though it quickly became irrelevant, because her mom had gotten sick that year and nothing else mattered after that.
“I can’t believe you found that,” she said, shaking her head in amused wonder. She would never cease to be surprised by Chrissa’s resourcefulness. “Though I still don’t understand why they would pick me.”
Chrissa shrugged. “Didn’t you see the description? It’s a weird, nontraditional scholarship, for ‘creative-minded girls who would otherwise be overlooked.’”
“I’m not exactly creative-minded,” Rylin argued.
Chrissa shook her head so violently that her ponytail whipped back and forth, a dark shadow behind her head. “Of course you are. Stop selling yourself short, or you’ll never survive at that school.”
Rylin didn’t answer that. She still wasn’t sure whether or not she was going.
After a moment Chrissa sighed. “I’m not surprised you were friends with Eris. From the sound of this scholarship, she was really cool. I mean, she clearly wasn’t like the other highliers, if this is how her family chose to honor her.”
Suddenly Rylin’s mind was alit with memories of that night—of breaking up with Cord, then trying to win him back, only to find him with Eris; of seeing Eris on the roof, yelling at the other girl, Leda, then watching in horror as Eris tumbled off the side of the Tower and into the cold night air. She shivered.
“You’re going, right?” Chrissa asked, her voice hopeful.
Rylin thought of how it would feel, being at an expensive highlier school with a bunch of strangers who wouldn’t give her the time of day. Not to mention Cord. She’d promised herself she would stay away from him. And then there was school itself—how would she handle being in a classroom again, learning and studying and taking tests, surrounded by a bunch of students who were probably a lot smarter than she was?
“Mom would want you to go, you know,” Chrissa added, and just like that, Rylin’s answer was clear.
She lifted her eyes to her sister’s and smiled. “Yeah, I’ll go.” Maybe something good could finally come of that night. She owed it to herself, and to Chrissa, and her mom—hell, even to Eris—to try.
CALLIOPE (#ulink_7c901250-c496-5400-9903-2f91a1c95e54)
THE TWO WOMEN strode through the entrance to Bergdorf Goodman on the 880th floor, their four sharp heels making satisfying clicks on the polished marble. Neither of them paused at the sumptuously decorated lobby, its holiday-themed display holos dancing around the crystal chandeliers and jewel cases; tourists crying out whenever the reindeer swooped down toward their heads. Calliope didn’t even glance in their direction as she followed Elise up the curved staircase. It had been a long time since she was impressed by something as prosaic as a holographic sleigh.
The designer floor upstairs was scattered with clumps of furniture, each of them partitioned by an invisible privacy barrier and equipped with a body-scanner. Real gowns were draped on mannequins in various corners, for nostalgia’s sake. No one actually tried on anything here.
Elise flicked her eyes significantly at Calliope before heading toward the youngest, most junior-looking employee: Kyra Welch. They’d already preselected her online, for the simple reason that she’d worked at the store a grand total of three days.
Just a few meters away from the girl, Elise made a show of sinking onto a pale peach settee. She crossed one leg over the other and began scrolling through cocktail dresses on the screen before her. Calliope stood idly to one side and stifled a yawn. She wished she’d gotten one of those honey coffees from the hotel this morning. Or even a caffeine patch.
The salesgirl predictably hurried over. She had alabaster skin and a perky carrot-red ponytail. “Good afternoon, ladies. Did you have an appointment?”
“Where’s Alamar?” Elise demanded, in her most dismissive tone.
“I’m so sorry—Alamar is off today,” Kyra stammered, which of course Elise and Calliope had already known. The girl’s eyes skimmed quickly over Elise’s outfit, taking in the designer skirt and seven-carat stone on her finger, so high quality it was almost indistinguishable from a real diamond. Evidently she concluded that this was someone important, someone Alamar shouldn’t have upset. “Perhaps one of our senior sales associates can—”
“I’m looking for a new cocktail dress. Something showstopping,” Elise talked over the younger woman, waving at the holographic display to project this season’s designs onto a scan of her body. She flicked her wrist to scroll rapidly through the images, then held out her palm to pause at a plum-colored dress with an uneven hem. “Can I see this one, but shortened?”
Kyra’s eyes unfocused, probably checking her schedule on her contacts. Calliope knew she was debating whether to abandon her restocking duties in favor of this new, most likely lucrative commission.
She also knew that at the end of the shopping spree, after the various dresses had been instantly woven and sewn by the superlooms hidden in the back of the store, Kyra would haltingly ask for an account number to charge it all to. “Alamar knows,” Elise would say, with her sorry but I can’t be bothered shrug. Then she would walk out of the store, her arms laden with bags, without a backward glance.
Technically, they could have paid for the dresses the normal way—they did have money squirreled away in a few different bancs all over the globe. Though at the rate they spent, it never seemed to last very long. And as Elise always said, why pay for something you can get for free? It was the motto they lived by.
Elise and Kyra dissolved into a discussion of silk paneling. Calliope looked up, already bored, and saw three girls her age crossing the store, wearing identical plaid skirts and white button-downs. A slow smile spread across her face. No matter what country they were in, private-school girls invariably made easy targets.
“Mom,” she interrupted. Kyra stepped aside for a moment to give them some privacy, but it didn’t matter; Calliope and her mom had long ago established a code for situations like this. “I just remembered an assignment that I need to go finish. For history class.” History meant a group con. If she’d used biology class, it would have meant a romantic one—a seduction.
Elise’s eyes lit on the trio of girls and flashed in instant understanding. “Of course. I wouldn’t want you to lose your place on the honor roll,” she said wryly.
“Right. I do need to graduate with honors.” Calliope kept a straight face as she turned away.
She muttered “nearby private high schools” under her breath as she moved toward the accessories section, where the girls seemed to be headed. It only took two search results before she found the right one; she could tell since the students on the homepage were wearing the same lame uniform. Bingo.
She stationed herself in the girls’ path and began to studiously loiter: picking up various items, studying them as if actually considering them, then setting them down again. She was keeping an eye on the progress of the group, but still, she couldn’t help relishing the feel of a cool leather belt or a slippery silk scarf in her hands.
When the girls were only a row away, Calliope stumbled forward, knocking a whole table of purses to the ground. They fell across the polished wood floor like pieces of spilled candy.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” Calliope muttered, in the posh British accent she and her mom had been using all week—not the cheap cockney one she’d grown up with, but a refined one she’d mastered after careful practice. She had purposefully tipped the table so that the clutches fell in the girls’ direct path; forcing the trio to either step carefully through them or kneel down to help. Unsurprisingly, they did the latter. Rich girls never left something expensive on the ground, unless they’d been the one to toss it there.
“It’s okay. No harm done,” said one of the girls, a tall blonde who was far and away the most beautiful of the three. She had such an air of sophistication that on her, the ridiculous school uniform was transformed into something almost chic. She stood up at the same time as Calliope, setting the last little beaded clutch on the table.
“You all go to Berkeley?” Calliope asked, in that crucial instant before they started to walk away.
“Yeah. Wait, do you go there too?” asked one of the other girls. She frowned a little, as if wondering whether she’d seen Calliope before.
“Oh no,” Calliope said breezily. “I recognized the uniforms from the admissions tour. We’re in town from London—staying at the Nuage—but we might move here for my mom’s job. If we do, I’ll be transferring schools.” The lines rolled easily off her tongue; she’d spoken them many times before.
“That’s exciting. What does your mom do?” The blonde spoke again; not pushy, but with a quiet, genuine interest. Her clear-eyed gaze was somehow disconcerting.
“She works in sales, for private clients,” Calliope couldn’t resist saying, with a deliberate vagueness. “So what do you think of Berkeley? You like it there?”
“I mean, it’s school. It’s not like it’s fun,” the third girl finally chimed in. She had tawny skin, and her dark hair was pulled into a chic fishtail braid. She quickly looked over Calliope’s outfit, taking in her cream-colored knit dress and brown boots, and her eyes grew warmer in evident approval. “You would like it there, I think,” she concluded.
Calliope hid a familiar flash of disdain at these empty-headed girls. They were so easily persuaded of anything, as long it fit within their narrow worldview. She couldn’t wait to con something from them—shave off a little of the wealth they hadn’t worked for and were clearly not entitled to at all.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Calliope Brown,” she declared, holding out a hand laden with stacked enamel bangles and a fresh dove-gray manicolor. After a moment, the girl took it.
“My name is Risha, and this is Jess, and Avery,” she told Calliope.
“We actually need to get going,” the blond girl—Avery—said, with an apologetic smile. “We have appointments at the facial bar downstairs.”
“No way!” Calliope lied, with a practiced laugh. “I have an appointment there in half an hour. Maybe I’ll see you on your way out.”
“You should just come now, with us. I bet they can take you early,” Risha urged. She glanced quickly at Avery for confirmation, and Calliope didn’t miss the slight nod of approval that Avery gave at the suggestion. So, Avery was the one who called all the shots. Calliope was hardly surprised.
She’d never been quite as good at faking friendship as she was a romantic attachment. Lust was so delightfully uncomplicated and straightforward, while female friendships were inevitably layered with conditions, and history, and unspoken rules of behavior. Still, Calliope was nothing if not a fast learner. She could already see that Risha would be the easiest of the three to win over, but Avery was the crucial one, so she focused her efforts on her.
“I’d love to come, if you don’t mind,” she admitted, smiling at each of them in turn, her eyes lingering the longest on Avery.
As they walked through the doors of Ava Beauty Lounge, Calliope took a deep breath, inhaling the glorious scents of lavender and peppermint and spa. Everything inside was done in shades of peach and cream, from the soft carpet underfoot to the delicate sconces hanging on the walls, casting pools of golden light on the girls’ faces.
“Miss Fuller,” said the store manager, snapping to instant attention. Calliope studied the other girl with markedly more interest. So, she was the type of person who got recognized at places like this. Was it for her beauty, or her money, or both? “I didn’t realize you were a party of four today. I’ll add another facialette station to your cluster.”
He began to usher them all forward just as another girl walked out of the inner lounge and froze at the sight of Avery.
“Hi, Leda.” Avery’s voice was distinctly chilly.
The new arrival—a thin black girl with wide eyes and darting, nervous gestures—pulled herself up to her full height. It wasn’t very tall. “Avery. Jess, Risha.” Her eyes lit on Calliope, but she apparently decided it wasn’t worth introducing herself. “Enjoy your facial,” she said on her way out, managing to turn the innocuous phrase into something almost vindictive.
“Thanks, we will!” Calliope said cheerfully, delighting at the three horrified expressions that whirled toward her. But she didn’t give a damn about these girls’ intra-clique drama. She was here for a free facial, thank you very much.
Soon the four of them were seated at the gleaming white facial bar, clutching glasses of chilled grapefruit water. A bot wheeled over and handed them each a pink-and-white-stitched apron. “To keep the facial products from splattering onto your clothes,” the facial attendant explained, in answer to Calliope’s curious look.
“Oh, right. We wouldn’t want the girls to ruin their fabulous uniforms,” Calliope deadpanned, and was gratified to hear Avery laugh.
A row of lasers on the opposite wall turned on, aiming beams of focused photons toward the girls’ faces. Calliope instinctively shut her eyes, though she knew the lasers were too precise to hurt her. She felt nothing but a slight tickle across her nerves as the laser skimmed over the surface of her skin, collecting data on her oil levels and pH balance and chemical composition.
“So,” she asked Avery, who was sitting to her left, “what’s the deal with that Leda girl?”
Avery seemed startled by the question. “She’s a friend of ours,” she said quickly.
“She didn’t seem that friendly.” The lasers began to flash more quickly, signaling that they were almost finished with their dermatological analysis.
“Well, she was a close friend of mine until recently,” Avery amended.
“What happened? Was it about a boy?” It usually was, with girls like this.
Avery stiffened, though her face remained immobile as the laser traced across her poreless porcelain skin. Calliope wondered what they would even give her; she was so obviously already perfect.
“It’s a long story,” Avery answered, which was proof enough to Calliope that she was right. She felt a momentary stab of sympathy for Leda. That must suck, being the girl who had to compete with Avery.
A holographic menu popped up at Calliope’s eye level, with treatment recommendations. Next to her, she heard the other girls chatting in low voices as they debated which add-ons to select: a soothing cucumber mask, a hydrogen infusion, a crushed-ruby scrub. Calliope checked the boxes for everything.
A steaming cocoon dropped down from the ceiling before each of them, and the girls leaned forward and closed their eyes.
“Avery,” said the brunette girl—Jess, Calliope remembered. “Your parents’ holiday party is still happening this year, right?”
Calliope’s ears perked up a little at the mention of a party. She turned her head just slightly to the left, letting more of the steam hit the right side of her face, so that she could listen.
“Didn’t you get the invitation?” Avery asked.
Jess seemed to quickly back down. “Yes, but I just thought, after everything that happened … Never mind.”
Avery sighed, but she didn’t sound angry, only regretful. “There’s no way my dad would cancel. During the party, he’s going to announce the completion of The Mirrors—that’s what he named the Dubai Tower, since it has two sides that are mirror images.”
Dubai Tower? Suddenly Calliope remembered what the sales associate had called Avery when they walked in, and the puzzle pieces clicked into place.
Fuller Investments was the company that had patented all the structural innovations needed to build towers this tall: the ultra-compounded steel supports, the earthquake shock protectors stuffed between every floor, the oxygenated air that was pumped throughout the higher floors to prevent altitude sickness. They had built the New York Tower, the first global supertower, almost twenty years ago.
Which meant that Avery Fuller was very wealthy indeed.
“That sounds like fun,” Calliope chimed in. In her lap, she clenched one hand atop the other, then flipped them over again. She’d been to parties far more exclusive and incredible than this, she tried to remind herself: like the one at that club in Mumbai with the champagne bottle as big as a small car, or the mountainside lodge in Tibet where they’d grown hallucinogenic tea. But all those parties faded in her memory—as they always did—when confronted by the specter of some other future party that Calliope wasn’t invited to.
A puff of steam rose from the top of Avery’s cocoon as she gave the answer Calliope had been hoping for. “If you’re not busy, you should come.”
“I’d love to,” Calliope said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. She heard Avery mutter under her breath, and an instant later the envelope icon in the top of her vision lit up as her contacts received the message. Calliope bit her lip to keep from smiling as she opened it.
Fuller Investments Annual Holiday Party, read the scrolling gold calligraphy, against a black starry background. 12/12/18. The Thousandth Floor.
It was kind of badass, Calliope admitted to herself, that the only address they needed to write was their floor. Clearly they owned the whole thing.
The girls’ chatter moved on, to something about a school assignment, then a boy that Jess was dating. Calliope let her eyes flutter shut. She did love rich things, she thought with unadulterated pleasure, now that she got them for real—and usually on someone else’s dime.
It hadn’t always been like this. When she was younger, Calliope had known about these sorts of things, but never actually experienced them. She could look, but never touch. It was a particularly excruciating sort of torture.
It felt like a long time ago, now.
She’d grown up in a tiny flat in one of the older, quieter neighborhoods of London, where none of the buildings stretched higher than thirty floors and people still grew real plants out on their balconies. Calliope never asked who her father was, because she honestly didn’t care. It had always been Calliope and her mom, and she was fine with that.
Elise—she’d had a different name back then, her real name—had been the personal assistant to Mrs. Houghton, a stuffy rich woman with a pinched nose and watery eyes. She insisted on being called “Lady Houghton,” claiming that she descended from an obscure branch of the now defunct royal family. Elise managed Mrs. Houghton’s calendar, her correspondence, her closet: all the myriad details of her useless, gilded life.
Elise and Calliope’s life felt so dull in contrast. Not that they could complain: their apartment should have been adequate, with its self-filling refrigerator and cleaning bots and a subscription to all the major holo channels. They even had windows in both bedrooms, and a decent closet. Yet Calliope quickly learned to see their life as something unforgivably drab, illuminated only by the occasional touches of glamour that her mom brought home from the Houghtons’.
“Look what I have,” Elise would proclaim, her voice taut with excitement, each time she walked in the door with something new.
Calliope always hurried over, holding her breath as her mom unwrapped the package, wondering what it contained this time. An embroidered silk ball gown with sequins missing, which Mrs. Houghton had asked Elise to take back for repairs. Or a handpainted china plate that was one of a kind, and could Elise please track down the artist and have her make another? Even jewelry, on occasion: a sapphire ring or a diamond choker that needed to be professionally cleaned.
Reverently, Calliope would reach out to touch the sumptuous fur shrug, or crystal wine decanter, or her absolute favorite, the supple Senreve shoulder bag in a shocking bright pink. She would look up into mother’s eyes and see her own childlike longing reflected there, like a candle.
Always too soon for Calliope’s taste, her mom would pack away the treasure with a sigh of regret, to take it to the repair shop or cleaners or back to the store for return. Calliope knew without being told that Elise wasn’t even supposed to bring these things home at all—that she did so for Calliope’s sake, so that Calliope could get a little glimpse at just how beautiful they were.
At least Calliope got the hand-me-downs. The Houghtons had a daughter named Justine, one year older than Calliope. For years, Elise had brought Justine’s discarded clothing home to their flat, rather than taking it to the donation center as Mrs. Houghton instructed. Together Calliope and her mom would sort through the bags, exclaiming over the gossamer dresses and patterned stockings and coats with embroidered bows, tossed aside like used tissue because they were a season old.
When her mom worked late, Calliope would go to her friend Daera’s apartment down the hall. They spent hours pretending they were princesses at afternoon high tea. They would put on Justine’s old dresses and sip cups of water at Daera’s kitchen table, curling up their pinkies in that funny, fancy way, speaking in a butchered approximation of the upper-crust accent.
“It’s my fault you have such a taste for expensive things,” Elise said once, but Calliope didn’t regret any of it. She would rather see a tiny sliver of that beautiful, charmed world than not know of its existence at all.
Everything came to a head one afternoon when Calliope was eleven. She’d had the day off from school, so Elise was forced to bring her to Mrs. Houghton’s house while she worked. Calliope had firm instructions to stay in the kitchen and read quietly on her tablet—which she did, for almost a full hour. Until she heard the little beep of the house comp that meant Lady Houghton had left.
Calliope couldn’t help it—she darted straight up the stairs into the Houghtons’ bedroom. The door to Mrs. Houghton’s closet was wide open. It was just begging to be explored.
Before Calliope could think twice she’d slipped inside, running her hands longingly over the gowns and sweaters and soft leather pants. She reached for that bright fuchsia Senreve purse and slung it over one shoulder, turning from side to side as she studied her reflection in the mirror, so excited that she didn’t hear the second beep of the house comp. If only Daera were here to see this. “You will address me as ‘Your Highness,’ and bow when I approach,” she said aloud to her reflection, fighting not to giggle.
“What do you think you’re doing?” came a voice from the doorway.
It was Justine Houghton. Calliope started to explain, but Justine had already opened her mouth to let out a shrill, bloodcurdling scream. “Mom!”
Mrs. Houghton materialized an instant later, accompanied by Elise. Calliope winced under her mom’s gaze, hating the way her expression flitted between recrimination and something else, something frighteningly close to guilt.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, though her fingers were still closed tight around the handle of the purse, as if she couldn’t bear to release it. “I didn’t mean any harm—it’s just that your clothes are so beautiful, and I wanted to see them up close—”
“So you could get your grubby little hands all over them?” Mrs. Houghton reached for the Senreve bag, but for some perverse reason Calliope held it even tighter to her chest.
“And, Mom, look—she’s wearing my dress! Though she doesn’t look nearly as good in it as I did,” Justine added, nastily.
Calliope glanced down and bit her lip. This was indeed one of Justine’s old dresses, a white shift with distinctive black Xs and Os along the collar. It was true that it was a little long and shapeless on her, but they couldn’t afford to tailor it. Why do you care? You gave it away, she wanted to say, resentment rising up in her, yet for some reason her throat had closed up.
Lady Houghton turned to Elise. “I thought I instructed you to donate Justine’s used clothing to the poor,” she said, her tone clipped and businesslike. “Are you, in fact, poor?”
Calliope would never forget the way her mom’s shoulders stiffened at that remark. “It won’t happen again. Say you’re sorry, dear,” she added to Calliope, gently prying the purse from her rigid hands and passing it over.
Some deep-rooted instinct of Calliope’s rose up in protest, and she shook her head, mutinous.
That was when Lady Houghton raised her hand and slapped Calliope across the face so hard that her nose bled.
Calliope expected her mom to retaliate, but Elise just dragged her daughter home without another word. Calliope was silent and resentful at the time. She knew she shouldn’t have been in the closet, but she still couldn’t believe Lady Houghton had struck her, and that her mom hadn’t done anything about it.
The next day Elise came home in a flurry of agitation. “Pack your bags. Now,” she said, refusing to explain. When they got to the train station, Elise booked them two one-way tickets to Moscow and handed Calliope an ID chip with a new name. An unfamiliar pouch jangled at Elise’s waist.
“What’s that?” Calliope asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
Elise glanced around to check that no one was watching, then opened the drawstring of the bag. It was full of expensive jewelry that Calliope recognized as Mrs. Houghton’s.
That was when Calliope realized her mom was a thief, and that they were on the run.
“We’re never coming back, are we?” she’d asked, without a shred of regret. A sense of limitless adventure was unfurling in her eleven-year-old chest.
“That woman had it coming. After everything she did to me—after what she did to you—we deserve this,” Elise said simply. She reached for her daughter’s hand to give it a squeeze. “Don’t worry. We’re heading on an adventure, just the two of us.”
And from that day on, it was indeed a glorious, nonstop adventure. The money from the Houghtons’ jewelry eventually ran out, but by then it didn’t matter, because Elise had figured out how to get more: she’d swindled a proposal from a gullible, wealthy older man. She’d realized that Mrs. Houghton had given her something even more valuable than jewelry—the voice, and mannerisms, and overall demeanor of someone entitled. Everywhere she went, people thought Elise was rich. Which meant that they gave her things without expecting her to pay, at least not right away.
The thing about rich people was that once they thought you were one of them, they became much less wary around you—and that made them easy targets.
Thus began the life Calliope and her mom had lived for the past seven years.
“What flavor would you like for your facial cleanser?” a spa attendant asked, and Calliope blinked to awareness. The other girls were sitting up, their skin glowing. A warm, scented towel was curled around Calliope’s neck.
She realized that her treatment included a custom face wash, which had been created during her treatment specifically for her.
“Dragonfruit,” she declared, because its shocking red-pink was her favorite color. The technician deftly twisted open the jar, revealing a scentless white cream, and tossed in a red flavor pod before holding it up to a metallic wand on the wall. Moments later the jar of bright red face wash spun out of a chute, with a list of all the enzymes and organic ingredients that had been uniquely combined for Calliope’s skin. A tiny cranberry sticker completed the package.
When they emerged into the gold-and-peach front room and the other girls started leaning toward the retinal scanner to pay, Calliope pulled the trick she always performed when shopping in groups. She hung back; dilating her pupils, muttering curse words under her breath.
“Is everything okay?” Avery asked, watching her.
“Actually, no. I can’t log into my account.” Calliope gave a few more pretend bitbanc commands, letting a note of agitation creep into her voice. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
She waited until the gentleman from the front desk was pointedly clearing his throat, making it awkward for everyone, before turning to Avery. She knew her cheeks were bright pink with embarrassment—she’d long ago learned to blush on command—and her eyes were gleaming with a silent entreaty. But none of the girls made any offer to help.
A boy would have paid by now; though out of self-interest, not chivalry. This was precisely why Calliope preferred lust to friendship. Fine, she thought in irritation; she would just have to do this the direct way.
“Avery?” she asked, with what she hoped was the right amount of self-consciousness. “Would you mind covering my facial, just till I figure out what’s going on with my account?”
“Oh. Sure.” Avery nodded good-naturedly and leaned forward, blinking a second time into the retinal scanner to cover the exorbitant cost of Calliope’s facial. Just as Calliope expected, she didn’t even seem to register the long list of add-ons. She probably had no idea how much her own facial had cost.
“Thank you,” Calliope began, but Avery waved away the gratitude.
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, the Nuage is one of my favorite places. I know where to find you,” Avery said lightly.
If only you knew. By the time Avery got around to collecting—if she ever even remembered to—Calliope and her mom would be long gone, living on a different continent under new names, no trace left of them in New York at all.
The many boys and girls who’d known Calliope these past few years, whose hearts she’d left carelessly strewn throughout the world, would have recognized her smirk. She felt sorry for Avery and Risha and Jess. They were headed back to their boring, routine lives, while Calliope’s existence was anything but boring.
She followed the other girls out the door, dropping the jar of cleanser into her bag—the special-edition Senreve bag in bold fuchsia, of course—with a satisfying clunk.
RYLIN (#ulink_9c56bdcd-927d-57af-82e4-1cff052da247)
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, Rylin stood before the grandiose carved entrance to the Berkeley School, immobile with shock. This couldn’t be her, Rylin Myers, wearing a collared shirt and pleated skirt, about to start at a preppy highlier private school. It felt like it was happening to another person, a bizarre series of images that someone else had dreamed.
She adjusted the strap of her tote bag over one shoulder, shifting her weight uncertainly. The world was brightening around her as the timed bulbs subtly adjusted their luminosity to indicate the lateness of the morning. Rylin had forgotten how much she loved the effect; one time she’d sat on Cord’s doorstep as the sun rose outside, just watching the slow shift of the overhead lights. Down on the 32nd floor, the lights never shifted from their single fluorescent setting, unless one of the kids on her block threw something to smash out a bulb.
Well, it was now or never. She started toward the main office, following the highlighted yellow arrows on the school-issued official tablet she’d picked up last week. Unlike her normal MacBash tablet, this one worked within the boundaries of the tech-net that surrounded the school, though it could only carry out basic approved tasks, like checking her academic e-mail account or taking notes. And the tablets all shut down during exams, to prevent cheating. There was no hacking the tech-net, Rylin knew; though plenty of kids through the years had tried.
She tried not to stare as she moved through the hallways. This place looked the way she’d always imagined college campuses, with its wide, light-filled corridors and stone colonnades. Directional holos popped up each time she turned a corner. In a courtyard down the hall, palm trees waved in a simulated breeze. A few kids passed, all wearing the same uniform.
Of course, Rylin had seen the uniform before—in the laundry, back when she worked for Cord Anderton.
She had no idea what she would say when she saw him. Maybe she wouldn’t see him, she thought with a dubious hope; maybe this was a big enough campus that she could avoid him for the next three semesters. But she had a feeling she wouldn’t be that lucky.
“Rylin Myers. I’m here to meet with an academic adviser,” she told the young man behind the desk, when she’d finally reached the main office. She still couldn’t believe that this school even had a human academic adviser. DownTower, things like college recommendations and course assignments were distributed by an algorithm. These people must feel pretty full of themselves if they thought they could do a better job than a computer.
The man typed on a tablet. “Of course. The new scholarship student.” He glanced up at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “You know that Eris Dodd-Radson was very beloved here at Berkeley. We all miss her.”
It was an odd welcome, to bring up the person whose death had made her very presence here possible. Rylin wasn’t sure how to reply, but the man didn’t seem to expect an answer. “Have a seat. The adviser will see you in a minute.”
Rylin sank onto a couch and glanced around the room, its beige walls decorated with framed teaching awards and motivational holos. She wondered suddenly what her friends were doing—her real friends, downTower. Lux, Andrés, Bronwyn, even Indigo. She knew a few people at Berkeley, but they all already hated her.
And just like that, as if she’d summoned him with her thoughts, Cord Anderton walked into the office.
She’d told herself over and over these past weeks that she didn’t miss him, that she was doing perfectly fine without him. But it nearly undid her, seeing Cord now; his oxford shirt untucked, his dark hair a little unkempt. So familiar, and so achingly off-limits.
She sat still, letting her eyes drink him in, dreading the moment when he would notice her and she’d have to glance away. It was a cruel cosmic joke, that the very first person she ran into at her new school had to be Cord.
His gaze almost slid past her, seeing just another half-Asian girl in the uniform—and then he seemed to register who she was, and did a double take. “Rylin Myers,” he said, in the old familiar drawl; the one he used for people he didn’t know well. Rylin’s heart broke a little when she heard it. It was the way Cord had spoken the first night he met her, when she was nothing but the hired help. Before she stole from him and fell in love with him and everything spun wildly out of control.
“I’m as shocked as you are, trust me,” she told him.
Cord leaned back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have to admit, this is one place I hadn’t expected to see you.”
“It’s my first day. I have to meet with an adviser,” Rylin explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be here. “What about you?”
“Truancy,” Cord said carelessly. Rylin knew that he sometimes skipped school to visit his parents’ house on Long Island and drive their illegal old autocars. She thought of the day he’d taken her out there, a day that had ended on the beach in a rainstorm, and she reddened at the memory.
“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” She hadn’t planned on having this conversation with Cord, at least not today, but there was no avoiding it. She was here, in his world—or was it her world now too? It certainly didn’t feel like it.
Cord hesitated, seeming torn between his resentment toward Rylin and his curiosity about what she was doing here—and what she had to say. Apparently curiosity won out. “Follow me,” he told her.
He led Rylin out of the office and down the hallway. It was getting more crowded as the first bell approached, students gossiping in small clusters, their gold bracelets and wrist-comps flashing as they gesticulated to make a point. Rylin saw their eyes travel curiously over her—taking in her unfamiliar features, her angular beaded earrings, her close-cut blue fingernails and the scuffed flats she’d stolen from Chrissa, because she didn’t own any footwear that qualified as “simple black shoes without a heel.” She kept her head held high, daring them to challenge her, resisting the urge to look over at Cord. A few people said hi to him, but he just nodded in greeting, and certainly never introduced Rylin.
Finally he turned through a set of double doors into a pitch-dark room. Rylin was startled by the holographic label that popped up as they crossed the door. “You have a screening room at school?” she asked, because it was weird and because she desperately wanted to break the silence.
Cord messed with a control box, and after a moment, the track lighting along the stairs flickered on. It was still very dark. Cord was little more than a shadow.
“Yeah, it’s for the film class.” Cord sounded impatient. “Okay, Myers, what’s up?”
Rylin took a deep breath. “I’ve imagined this conversation at least a hundred different times, and in absolutely zero of those scenarios was I here, at your school.”
Cord’s teeth gleamed in a hollow smile. “Oh, yeah? Where did you imagine this conversation?”
In bed, but that was wishful thinking. “It doesn’t matter,” Rylin said quickly. “The point is, I owe you an apology.”
Cord stepped back, toward the top row of seats. Rylin forced herself to look directly at him as she spoke. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you ever since that night.” She didn’t need to clarify; he would know what night she meant.
“I wanted to ping you, but I had no idea what to say. And it didn’t seem like it mattered anymore. You were up here, and I was down on thirty-two, and I figured it was just easier not to dig it all up.” And I’m a coward, she admitted to herself. I was afraid to see you again, knowing how much it would hurt.
“Anyway, now I apparently go to school with you—I mean, I’m here on scholarship—”
“The one Eris’s parents endowed,” Cord said, unnecessarily.
Rylin blinked. She hadn’t counted on the fact that so many people would talk to her about Eris. “Yes, that one. And since I’m going to keep seeing you around, I wanted to clear the air.”
“‘Clear the air,’” Cord repeated, his voice flat. “After you pretended to date me so that you could steal from me.”
“It wasn’t pretend! And I didn’t want to steal—at least, not after the first time,” Rylin protested. “Please, let me explain.”
Cord nodded but didn’t answer.
So she told him everything. She admitted the truth about her ex-boyfriend, Hiral, and about the Spokes—how she’d stolen the custom-made drugs from Cord that one time, the first week she worked for him, to keep her and Chrissa from being evicted. Rylin lifted her chin a little, trying not to falter as she explained how Hiral had blackmailed her into selling his drugs for bail money. How V threatened her, forcing her to steal from Cord again.
She told Cord everything except how his older brother, Brice, had confronted her, saying that unless she broke up with Cord—unless she acted like she’d only dated him for the money—he would send her to jail. She knew how close Cord was with his older brother and had no desire to get in the middle of that relationship. So she made it sound like Hiral did it all.
And she didn’t tell Cord how much she’d loved him. How much she still loved him.
Cord didn’t say anything until Rylin’s last words fell into the silence like stones, causing it to ripple in waves around them. By now it was well into first period; they’d both missed their meetings in the main office. Rylin didn’t care. This was more important. She wanted, desperately, to make things right with Cord. And if she was being honest with herself, she wanted so much more than that.
“Thank you for telling me all this,” he said slowly.
Rylin took an involuntary step forward. “Cord. Do you think that we could ever—”
“No.” He flinched away before she could finish the question. The movement hit her like a blow to the stomach.
“Why?” she couldn’t help asking. She felt like she’d ripped her heart open, let its contents spill like sawdust all over the floor, and now Cord was walking carelessly all over it. She somehow held back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.
Cord let out a breath. “Rylin, after everything that’s happened, I don’t know how to trust you. Where does that leave us?”
“I’m sorry,” she ventured, knowing it wasn’t enough. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did hurt me, Rylin.”
Someone cracked open the door, letting a flood of light into the room, then backed away hastily when they saw Cord. In the brief moment of illumination, Rylin caught sight of his face: distant, cold, closed-off. It terrified her. She would rather that he yell at her, seem angry or wounded, even cruel. This casual indifference was infinitely worse. He was retreating somewhere deep inside himself, where she could never reach him—where he would be lost to her forever.
“I wish I could rewind, do things differently,” she said uselessly.
“I wish that too. But that’s not how life works, is it?”
Cord took a step forward, as if he was about to leave. Rylin realized in an instant of clarity that she could not let him be the one to walk away from her, not if she were to maintain any semblance of pride. She moved quickly to the door and glanced back over her shoulder.
“I guess it isn’t. I’ll see you around, Cord,” she told him, which was, unfortunately, the truth. She would keep seeing the boy who didn’t want her, over and over again.
Later that day, Rylin moved mechanically through the lunch line, wondering how many total minutes she had left at this school. Already she wanted to start a ticking countdown in the corner of her tablet, the way some girls did for their birthdays.
Predictably, the school had launched her on a schedule of entirely base-level classes—including freshman biology, since biology was the one science she’d never taken at her old school. She was actually relieved that she’d shown up so late to her meeting with the registrar, Mrs. Lane, if only because it spared her a full half hour of that woman’s incredulous condescension. “It says here you were working at a store called Arrow?” Mrs. Lane had asked with a haughty sniff. Rylin half wished she’d bought a pair of the flashing Arrow rainboots and worn them around school, just to make some kind of point.
As she stepped up to the retinal scanner to check out, Rylin grabbed a shining red bottle of water from one of the dispensers. The scripted logo read MARSAQUA, in letters that looked like icicles against a bright red planet. The cartoon letters repeatedly melted, dripped to the bottom of the bottle, then floated back up to re-form ice crystals.
“Martian water,” she heard from behind her.
Rylin whirled around, only to see her worst nightmare standing there. Leda Cole.
“They chip away chunks of the Martian ice caps, then bring it back to Earth and bottle it. It’s fantastic for your metabolism,” Leda went on. Her voice was frighteningly sweet.
“That sounds harmful to Mars,” Rylin replied, proud of how unconcerned she sounded. Leda was like the vicious stray dog that used to lurk near their apartment—you couldn’t afford to reveal any weakness before her, or she would never lay off the attack.
“Come sit with me,” Leda commanded, and started off without waiting to see whether Rylin would follow.
Rylin didn’t bother hiding her sigh of irritation. Well, she might as well get all her shitty conversations over with on the first day. It could only go upward from here, right?
Leda had planted herself at a two-person table near a flexiglass window that overlooked an interior courtyard. Rylin saw kids out there playing with flying video-cams and chatting around an enormous fountain. There was so much real sunlight flooding in from the ceiling, filtered by mirrors from the roof, that it felt like they were outdoors—if outdoors was ever this clean and symmetrical and perfect.
She sank into the seat across from Leda and dunked one of her sweet potato fries in aioli. Leda obviously wanted her to feel intimidated, but Rylin wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“What the hell are you doing here, Rylin?” Leda demanded, without preamble.
“I go to this school now.” Rylin gestured down at her pleated skirt and lifted an eyebrow. “We’re wearing the same uniform, in case you didn’t notice.”
Leda didn’t seem to have heard. “Did the cops send you?”
“The cops? Do you realize how paranoid you sound?” The idea was ludicrous, that Rylin Myers would become some kind of undercover police spy.
“All I know is that you’re a walking reminder of a night I’d rather not think about.” That makes two of us, Rylin thought. “And now, for some inexplicable reason, you’re here at my school, instead of down on the twentieth floor where you belong!” Leda’s voice quavered, and Rylin realized with pleasure that she sounded just a little bit … afraid.
“Last I checked, Leda, it didn’t say your name on the arch out front. So no, this isn’t your school. And I live on the thirty-second floor,” she corrected, “but I’m here on scholarship.”
Understanding flashed in Leda’s eyes. “The Eris scholarship,” she breathed.
“That’s the one,” Rylin said cheerfully, and took a bite of her enormous cheeseburger, relishing the look of disgust that flitted over Leda’s face. “Now, unless you have more threats for me, I’d suggest you back off and let me enjoy my lunch in peace. I’m not here to mess with your perfect life.” She put just a little emphasis on perfect, as if to indicate that she didn’t quite buy into the notion that Leda’s life was so perfect after all.
Leda stood up abruptly, scraping her chair across the dark walnut floor. She grabbed her uneaten spinach salad and tossed her hair over one shoulder. “Let me give you some free advice,” she said, a fake smile pasted on her face, and glanced again at Rylin’s burger. “Girls don’t ever eat the grill special.”
Rylin smiled back, just as wide. “That’s funny. Because I’m a girl, and I just did. Guess you don’t know everything after all.”
“Be careful, Myers. I’m watching you.”
What a great first day it was shaping up to be. Rylin leaned back in her chair and took an enormous sip of the overpriced Martian water, because why the hell not.
LEDA (#ulink_ec2df355-787c-5f38-afc4-d85ab52c2a27)
“WHERE’S MOM?” LEDA hesitated in the doorway of her family’s dining room, keeping the toes of her boots lined up with the ivory carpet of the hall. Her dad was sitting at the table alone, tapping his fingers absentmindedly on its ultramodern glass surface as he read something on his contacts.
He glanced up. “Hey, Leda. I think she’s running a little late.”
“Dad, what dates do we have the Barbados house in January?” Jamie asked without preamble as he sat down. Leda cautiously ventured inside and pulled out the chair across from him. The table had no legs: it floated unsupported in the air, the ultimate centerpiece of their home’s spare, minimalist décor. Leda thought it was tacky and impersonal, but then, it was fitting that their apartment should feel more like a hotel than a home. A home would imply that the people who lived there actually cared about one another.
Matt Cole cleared his throat. “Actually, we released the Barbados time-share.”
“What?” Leda was stunned. They’d had the time-share in Barbados for ages: a sprawling, serene house atop a hill, with a tiny cobblestone path directly to the beach. Leda had always loved how relaxed her parents were there, as though they became the best, purest versions of themselves, freed of the grime of New York.
“We thought we’d take a year off, maybe do something new,” her dad explained, but Leda wasn’t buying it. She wondered if he’d lost a lot of money recently. Maybe he’d spent too much on Calvadour scarves for his teenage mistress, she thought resentfully, thinking of the exorbitant present he’d given Eris before she died.
“That sucks. I wanted to see if I could bring friends,” Jamie said, and shrugged. “I’m starving. Can we eat?” Typical Jamie; he was never really bothered by anything for very long.
“Let’s wait for Mom,” Leda said quickly, but her dad was already pushing a discreet touch-screen pad at the center of the table. Their chef, Tiffany, appeared, pushing a wide cart laden with dishes.
“Mom said to start without her. She’s held up in a meeting,” their dad explained. Leda pursed her lips and reached for the bowl of pasta without comment. She saw that it was her favorite, a kale-noodle penne with crumbled soy protein and phenerols. Her mom had totally picked this menu to cheer Leda up. A stubborn, contrary part of her was determined not to like it.
“How was school, Leda?” her dad asked. That was his version of parenting: asking scripted questions that he’d gotten from some How to Talk to Your Teenage Daughter book. Leda wondered if they shelved that one next to How to Hide Your Teenage Mistress.
“Fine,” she said curtly, and started to take a bite of the penne, only to put down her fork with a clatter. “Although, there was a new girl at school today. Isn’t that weird, that she was able to start mid-semester like that?”
“I think I saw her,” Jamie chimed in, for once. “The scholarship student?”
Leda glanced at him in surprise. Jamie usually never noticed anything, unless you could smoke it or drink it or had given it to him as a present. Then again, Rylin was pretty, if you could look past her disrespectful attitude.
“Exactly. She moved here from the twentieth floor,” Leda said dramatically, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “Can you imagine?”
“Sort of like how you felt, when we moved here from midTower,” her father said, which shocked Leda into silence.
“No, not at all like me,” she countered after a moment. She didn’t appreciate being compared to an arrogant lowlier. “This girl is rude and insulting. She thinks the rules don’t apply to her.”
Jamie burst out laughing. “Look who’s talking. Leda, you’ve never thought rules apply to you!”
Matt Cole tried to stay impartial, but amusement danced across his features. “Leda, I think you should give this girl the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure she had a tough first day, starting at a new school in the middle of the year. Especially as a scholarship student.”
This was her opening. “You’re right,” Leda said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “And I imagine it’s been extra hard on her, because she won Eris’s scholarship, and of course we all miss Eris so much.”
Silence settled over the room. Leda’s family knew she’d been on the roof, of course; they’d picked her up from the police station that morning after everyone provided their witness statements, and had reviewed it with their lawyer in excruciating detail. Eris’s death was one of those things they seemed to have collectively decided not to talk about. As if all their family’s dirty little secrets could be wrapped up and buried, just the way Eris herself had been, and then they would disappear.
Leda watched her dad’s face closely. Looking for what, she wasn’t quite sure. An acknowledgment of his relationship with Eris, she supposed.
She saw it right away. He flinched at Leda’s words, just barely, but it was enough. She quickly looked down.
Leda had expected to feel pleased at seeing the proof, right there on her dad’s face—yet all she wanted, suddenly, was to cry.
For the rest of the meal she pushed her food around, letting her dad and Jamie talk about lacrosse and some great save Jamie had made and whether or not the school would hire a new coach next year. As soon as she could, she mumbled an excuse and escaped down the hall to her bedroom.
A knock sounded at her door. “Leda?”
“What?” she snapped, wiping at her eyes. Didn’t her dad understand that she had no desire to see him?
He tentatively pushed the door open. “Can we talk?”
She swiveled her desk chair around but stayed where she was, her legs crisscrossed beneath her.
“I just wanted to check on you,” he said, fumbling. “You haven’t spoken about Eris much, since she died. And then what you said, at dinner …” He trailed off awkwardly. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Of course I’m not okay, Leda thought. She almost pitied how clueless her dad was. She’d mentioned Eris at dinner because she wanted to provoke him, because she was sick of pretending that everything was fine, that a cozy pasta dinner could fix things the way it had when she was little. He was the one who’d started sleeping with her friend, and had betrayed everything their family was built on.
But more than that, Leda was disgusted with herself. She’d been keeping it a secret too, and that made her as culpable as he was.
So many times since Eris’s death she had wanted to confront her mom with the truth. She would march up to Ilara, ready to spill it all: that Dad was a two-timing scumbag and that they needed to leave him. “I have something to tell you,” Leda had said, on more than one occasion, “something important—”
Yet Leda could never bring herself to actually say the words. Eris was already gone, she told herself; what good would it do to tear her family apart now? Each time Ilara looked at her with those dark eyes, so full of love, Leda wavered and fell silent. She didn’t want to be the one to break her mom’s heart.
The child in Leda couldn’t bear the thought of her parents splitting up. Her family might be riddled with secrets and betrayals, but it was still her family. And she would rather keep them together, even if it meant sitting on this secret for the rest of her life.
She had earned this, she thought darkly. This twisting, tormenting guilt was her penance, for what she’d done to Eris.
“I’m fine,” she said tightly, in answer to her dad’s question. What else could she say to him, anyway? Hey, Dad, remember how you were having an affair with my friend, and then she fell off the roof? Guess what? I’m the one who pushed her!
“You and Eris were close, right?” her dad persisted. God, why couldn’t he just go away? And why did everyone keep asking that? Just because she and Eris had some friends in common didn’t mean they were attached at the hip.
“We were friends, but not best friends.” Leda was ready to end this conversation. “Actually, Dad, I have a lot of studying to—”
“Leda,” her dad interrupted, and now he was the one who seemed to be desperate, “There’s something I want to tell you about Eris—”
No, no, no. “Sorry!” Leda stood up abruptly, knocking her chair to the floor, and began frantically throwing items in her massive tote bag. She was wearing floral yoga pants and a black zip-up, but it didn’t matter; she needed to get the hell out of here. She absolutely could not stay and listen to her dad’s fucked-up confession about how he’d been sleeping with her so-called friend. “I’m late to study at Avery’s. Can we talk later?”
Understanding, and a little bit of hurt, flashed in her dad’s eyes. Maybe he knew that she knew. “All right. We’ll talk another time.”
“Thanks! See you later!” she said with false brightness, and ran blindly out of the apartment.
Only after she’d slipped inside a hover did Leda realize she had no idea where she was going. Of course she couldn’t actually head to Avery’s. It was too late for a workout class at Altitude, though she could go to the coffee bar there … but then she might see Avery or, worse, one of Eris’s parents … Leda was far too angry and shaken up for that.
The hover started beeping angrily, indicating that it would charge her for the delay if she didn’t enter a destination soon, but Leda couldn’t be bothered to care. God, what had her dad been thinking, bringing up Eris? Why would he make that kind of confession to his own daughter?
Leda felt like everything was spinning wildly out of control. If she hadn’t sworn never to touch drugs again, she would be searching for a xenperheidren right now; but it had become a matter of pride, and Leda’s pride was matched only by her stubbornness.
She hated thinking about that night. Of course, Leda knew that she was safe: no one could prove what she’d done to Eris. There’d been no cameras on the roof, no way for anyone to find out that it was Leda’s fault. Nothing except her three witnesses.
Come to think of it, maybe she should check in on them, make sure they were sticking to their story.
Suddenly Leda knew exactly where to go. She entered an address in the hover’s system and leaned back, closing her eyes. This would be fun.
WATT (#ulink_4ecd363b-86f9-5f88-811c-ac076e47c6e5)
WHAT IF YOUcompose the first draft, then I tweak it to sound like me? Watt begged Nadia for at least the tenth time.
“May I remind you that last fall, you gave me firm orders never to write anything for you again. These are instructions from your past self.”
Last fall Watt had been called into the school office for plagiarism, because Nadia’s essay had come out a little too perfect. He’d been more careful since then. These are extenuating circumstances, he thought huffily.
“I’m just the messenger. Take up the fight with your past self.”
“Nadia—”
“That’s it. Per your past instructions, I’m turning off. Wake me up when you have a draft,”Nadia replied, and beeped into silence.
Watt stared at the blank monitor uncertainly. It was true; he had definitely told Nadia to turn herself off if he kept begging her to write his papers. Past Watt was too damned clever for Present Watt to want to deal with right now.
He began speaking aloud, his dictation-screen picking up the words as he said them.
“The reason I want to work with quantum computers is …”
He paused. There were a million things he could discuss in this essay: that quants were faster and smarter than people, even though people had made them, of course; that they could solve problems that humans never dreamed of. God, just a hundred years ago, it took a digital computer several hours to factor a twenty-digit number. Nadia could do it in four seconds flat. Watt couldn’t even imagine what she would be capable of if she were linked to other quants—and put in charge of international trade, or the stock market, or even just the operations of the U.S. food bank. Nothing would go to waste anymore. Human error would be virtually eliminated.
But none of that had to do with Watt on a personal level, or why the program should choose him over the other thousands of applicants.
If only he could write about Nadia, about how unerringly good she was. She can’t be good; she’s a machine, he corrected himself. But Watt knew that at his core, he believed in Nadia’s good intentions as if she had a human conscience.
He thought of what Vivian Marsh had said, that she wanted to personally read his application essay, and felt his heart sink.
“Watzahn!” His mom knocked at his door. “Your friend is here. For your group project.”
“Cynthia?” They had a video to make for English class. He wondered why Cynthia hadn’t warned him that she was coming over. “You should have pinged, we could have met at the library,” he added, opening the door—only to see Leda Cole standing there, wearing pink floral yoga pants and a self-satisfied smirk.
“We could’ve,” she said smoothly, “but I wanted to use your computer. It’s so much better than the ones at the library, you know?”
“Of course. Watzahn is so proud of his computer. He works on it all the time!” Watt’s mom pronounced, beaming.
Quant on, Watt thought frantically, feeling disoriented and blindsided. What the hell was Leda Cole doing here?
“Thank you, Mrs. Bakradi,” Leda said sweetly, her eyes wide and innocent. She stepped into Watt’s room and swung a tote bag onto the floor, kneeling as if to get out the fictional homework assignment. Watt stared in shock at his mother. He couldn’t believe she was even letting a girl into his bedroom. But Shirin just nodded and smiled at Leda, reminding them to let her know if they needed anything. “Don’t work too hard!” she said, and shut the door quietly behind her.
“Sorry I’m not Cynthia,” Leda purred. “Though I’m glad to hear that one of us has moved on from the Fuller siblings.”
“She’s just a friend,” Watt shot back, then felt ashamed that he’d risen to her bait.
“Too bad.” Leda’s fingers kept tapping against the floor. He didn’t think she was on anything—her eyes were too clear, her gaze steady—yet there was a taut, thrumming nervousness to her movements.
He knelt next to Leda and took her bag from her hands. “Seriously, you need to go.”
“Come on, Watt. Be nice,” she admonished. “I came all the way down here to talk to you.”
“What the hell do you want?” he demanded. Watt, be careful, Nadia cautioned. He let his hands fall uselessly to his sides, clenching them into fists, and sat back on his heels.
“I thought you knew everything, with your little supercomputer tracking all of us all the time,” Leda said acerbically.
Nadia, if you hadn’t turned yourself off, I wouldn’t have been caught like this!
Perhaps you shouldn’t have violated theguidelines you set for yourself, Nadia replied, with ruthless logic.
“What did you tell my mom, for her to let you in?” he asked Leda, to buy time—and because she was right, she shouldn’t be able to sneak up on him like this. He wanted to make sure it never happened again.
Leda rolled her eyes. “I was nice to her, Watt. You should try it sometime. It often works on people.” She stretched her legs out and leaned against his bed, glancing up at the tangle of clothes floating near the ceiling on cheap, disposable hoverbeams.
“I don’t have a closet in here. It’s the best I could think of,” Watt said, following her gaze, not sure why he was explaining himself.
“Actually, I’m impressed.” Leda’s eyes were still darting around the room. “You’ve really maximized the space in here. What was this originally, a nursery?”
“No, the twins got the bigger room when they were born.” He shifted, suddenly seeing the room through Leda’s eyes: the rumpled navy bedcovers, the cheap halogen lighting along the ceiling, the narrow desk littered with secondhand virtual reality gear.
“Twins?” Leda asked, as if she was genuinely curious.
Nadia, what’s she doing?
I believe this is the rhetorical tactic of koinonia, whereby the speaker gets the opponent to talk about himself instead of tackling the subject of the debate.
No, I mean, what does she want?
Watt stood up, losing patience. “You didn’t come over here to make small talk about my family. What’s going on?”
Leda unfolded herself in a slow, graceful movement to stand next to him. She took a step closer, tipping her face up to look at him directly. Her eyes were darker than he remembered, her lids dusted with a smoky powder. “You aren’t even going to offer me a drink before I go? Last time you gave me whiskey,” Leda murmured.
“Last time you seduced and drugged me!”
She smiled. “That was fun, wasn’t it? Well, Watt”—she reached up to tuck a stray hair behind his ear and he yanked his head angrily away; he was starting to feel very confused—“if you must know, I need you to monitor some people for me.”
“Forget it, Leda. I told you, I’m done with all that.”
“That’s too bad, because I’m not done with you.” She’d dropped the playful tone, her voice cold with the veiled threat. She had him cornered, and they both knew it.
“Who do you want me to monitor?” Watt asked warily.
“Avery and Rylin, for starters,” Leda said. There was a new energy to her voice, as if bossing Watt around somehow lent her strength. “I want to make sure they stay in line, that neither of them is talking to anyone about what happened that night.”
He realized she was wearing the same pearl studs that she’d had on the last time she came over here, and the memory caused his anger to bubble up even hotter. “You want me to spy on both of them and report anything unusual?” Watt asked. “Two full-time monitoring tasks. That’ll cost you.”
Leda burst out laughing. “Watt! Of course I won’t be paying you! Your payment is my silence.”
Watt didn’t need Nadia to tell him he’d better not respond to that. Anything he said would only dig him in deeper. He just nodded once, jerkily, hating her.
“You see, Rylin started at my school today,” Leda mused aloud. She’d started circling through his room like a predator, opening various drawers and glancing at the contents, then shutting them again. “It really caught me off guard. I hate that feeling. The whole reason I pay you is to never feel that way, ever again.”
“I believe we just established that you don’t pay me,” he replied evenly.
Leda slammed another drawer shut and lifted her eyes to look directly at Watt. “Where is it?” she demanded. “Your computer.”
Nadia. Can you pretend to be an external? he thought, and made a show of pushing a useless button on his monitor. “Right here. Look, I’m turning it on,” he said. “And now it’s starting up.”
“I don’t need a running commentary.” Leda took a seat on Watt’s bed without being invited. Some strange part of Watt realized that was the first time a girl had ever been on his bed. He’d hooked up with plenty of girls before, of course, but he always went back to their places. He shook his head, a little irritated; why was he thinking about sex right now?
“Let’s start with Avery,” Leda began.
“What? Right now?”
“No time like the present,” she said with false cheerfulness. “Come on, pull up her room comp.”
“No,” Watt said automatically.
“Too painful a memory?” Leda laughed, but it rang hollow to Watt’s ears. He wondered what had happened tonight, to send her down here. “Fine, then. Her flickers.”
“Still no.”
“Oh my god, move over,” she snapped, pushing him impatiently from his chair. Their legs brushed, sending a strange row of sparks up Watt’s body. He quickly edged away from her.
“How do you input commands?” She leaned forward and gazed expectantly at the monitor.
“Nadia, say hello to Leda,” Watt instructed, very loudly and slowly. Use the speakers, Watt thought, but Nadia was already doing so—using every speaker in the room, including the ones on his old VR gear.
“Hello to Leda,” Nadia boomed. Watt barely choked back a laugh. She was using a robotic, monotonous voice, like in old science fiction movies.
Leda practically jumped. “Nice to meet you,” she said cautiously.
“Wish I could say the same,” Nadia replied.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Leda smiled.
Great, go ahead and antagonize her, Watt thought, rolling his eyes.
I’m just following your lead. “You think you can blackmail Watt because you’ve got something on him? Do you even know what I have on you? I see everything you do,” Nadia warned, as ominously as she could.
Leda shoved back the chair in a show of anger, but Watt could tell Nadia’s proclamation had shaken her.
“You watch it. Both of you.” Leda pulled her bag onto one shoulder and stormed out without another word.
Watt waited until he heard the front door close behind her before collapsing backward onto his bed, rubbing his hands over his temples. His bedcovers still smelled like Leda’s rose perfume, which pissed him off to no end. “Nadia, we’re screwed,” he said aloud. “Is she going to keep blackmailing us for all eternity?”
“You won’t be safe unless she’s in jail,” Nadia told him, which he already knew.
“I agree. But we’ve been through this already. How could I send her there?”
He and Nadia had tried everything they could think of. There was no video of Leda pushing Eris: there weren’t any cameras on the roof, and no one had been recording on their contacts when it happened, not even Leda, not even Nadia—who deeply regretted it, but then, no way could she have predicted that outcome. Hell, Nadia had even hacked all the satellite cams within a thousand-kilometer vicinity, but none of them had picked up anything in the darkness.
There was, unfortunately, no way to prove what had happened on the roof. It was Watt’s word against Leda’s. And the moment he said anything, he and Nadia were toast.
Nadia was quiet for a moment. “What if you recorded her confessing to her actions?”
“Can we deal in reality and not hypotheticals? Even if she did say the truth aloud, no way would she say it to me.”
“I disagree,” Nadia said levelly. “She would say it if she trusted you.”
For a moment Watt didn’t understand what Nadia was implying. When he did, he laughed aloud. “Do I need to reprogram your logic functions? Why would Leda Cole trust me, when she so clearly hates me?”
“I’m just trying to explore all possible options. Remember, you programmed me to protect you above everything else. And statistics would suggest that the more time you spend with Leda, the greater your chances of winning her trust,” Nadia replied.
“Statistics are useless when your chances of success increase from one-billionth of a percent to one-millionth.” Watt pulled up the covers, closing his eyes. “Did you know about Rylin going to school with them?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I did. You never asked me about her, though.”
“Have you hacked their school?” An idea was forming in his mind. “What if we messed with Leda a little—put Rylin in all her classes, so Leda can never escape her?”
“Like I haven’t already done that. You underestimate me,” Nadia said, sounding self-satisfied.
Watt couldn’t help smiling into the darkness. “I think the more time you spend in my brain, the more my personality has grafted itself onto you,” he mused aloud.
“Yes. I’d venture to say I know you better than you know yourself.”
Now there was a terrifying notion, Watt thought in amusement.
“Nadia?” he added as he started to drift off. “Please don’t ever turn off around Leda again, no matter what commands I’ve given in the past. I need you, around her.”
“That you do,” Nadia agreed.
RYLIN (#ulink_faa0f237-9bf5-5eaf-a734-3b6643b23337)
RYLIN STRODE QUICKLY down Berkeley’s main hallway, keeping her gaze forward to avoid accidentally making eye contact with Leda—or worse, Cord. At least it was finally Friday afternoon, the end of her seemingly endless first week here.
She followed the directions on her school tablet, past an enormous sandstone bell tower and a shining statue of the school’s founder, whose head moved majestically to follow her progress as she walked. She turned left at the athletic center toward the art wing, ignoring the somewhat morbid shrine to Eris that had been erected in one corner of the hallway, full of candles and instaphotos of her and notes from students who probably hadn’t even known her that well. It gave Rylin the creeps. Though she wasn’t sure whether that was because she’d seen Eris die, or because of the fact that she was here on scholarship, taking Eris’s spot in their class, which made Rylin’s existence a bizarre sort of living shrine.
When she pushed open the door to Arts Suite 105, a dozen heads whipped toward her—almost entirely girls’. Rylin paused, confused.
“Is this holography?” she asked. The room was black, lined with dark view screens and a velvet charcoal carpet.
“It is,” Leda Cole called out from where she sat in the back row, next to the only available seat in the room.
“Thanks.” Rylin’s heart sank as she took the empty desk, wondering what exactly she’d gotten herself into. She pulled out her school tablet and doodled a few loopy cartoons in its notepad function, but she still felt Leda’s eyes on her.
Finally Leda grabbed something from her bag—a blue cone-shaped silencer, inscribed with calligraphied letters that read Lux et Veritas. She should get one of these for Lux, Rylin thought sarcastically. Of course Leda was the type of person who would buy branded gear from a university bookstore before she’d even gotten in.
Leda flicked on the silencer, and the rest of the room immediately hushed, the machine distorting sound waves to create a little pocket of silence. “Okay. How did you get in here?” she snapped.
“I thought we’d been through this. I go to school with you now, remember?”
“Look around. These are all seniors.” Leda gestured sharply to the other girls in the class. “This is the most popular elective at school, with a ninety-person waiting list. The only reason I’m even here is because they reserve a few spots for juniors, and my application essay was best.” She clenched the edge of her desk as if she wished she could break it. “What’s your explanation?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Rylin admitted. “I was just assigned this class. It appeared on my schedule the other day, so here I am.” She shoved her tablet toward Leda as if to offer proof. Accelerated Studies in Holography; instructor, Xiayne Radimajdi.
“Watt,” Leda muttered under her breath, saying it as if it were a curse word.
“What?” Rylin couldn’t have heard correctly. Wasn’t that the boy from the roof, who’d come with them to the police that night?
Leda sighed. “Never mind. Just don’t screw this up for me, okay? I’m hoping to get a recommendation out of it.”
“To Yale?” Rylin said drily, glancing at the silencer.
“Shane went there,” Leda snapped. At Rylin’s confused look, she sighed. “Xiayne Radimajdi. He teaches this class! His name is right there on your tablet.” She rapped sharply at the evidence, and cut her eyes to Rylin in evident disbelief.
“Oh.” Rylin hadn’t realized that Leda was saying the name Xiayne. She’d been wondering how to pronounce it. “Who is he?”
“The triple-Oscar-winning director!” Leda exclaimed. Rylin just stared at her blankly. “You haven’t seen Metropolis? Or Empty Skies? That’s why this class only meets on Fridays—because he works the rest of the week!”
Rylin shrugged. “The last holo I saw was a cartoon. But those things you just mentioned sound depressing anyway.”
“Oh my god. This class is wasted on you.” Leda tossed the silencer back into her bag, turning away from Rylin just as the door swung inward. The whole room seemed to edge forward, collectively holding its breath. And then Rylin understood why the class was composed mostly of girls.
Into the room walked the most incredibly attractive guy Rylin had ever seen.
He was tall, and not much older than they were—in his early twenties, maybe—with deep olive skin and shaggy dark curls. Unlike her other professors, who all wore neckties and blazers, he dressed with shocking disregard for the dress code, in a thin white T-shirt, a jacket with zippers all over it, and skinny jeans. Rylin glanced around and noticed that she and Leda were the only ones not swooning.
“Sorry I’m late. I just got off the ’loop from London,” he announced. “As you all probably know, I just started filming a new project there.”
“The royalty one?” a girl in the front row exclaimed.
Xiayne turned. The girl shifted, but then Xiayne gave a devilish smile, and she visibly relaxed. “I’m not supposed to share this, but yes, it’s about the final queen of England. A little more romantic than my usual material.” The announcement elicited a few gasps and ooohs.
“Now, Livya, since you were so eager to volunteer, can you tell me what we discussed in the last class about Sir Jared Sun?”
Livya sat up straighter. “Sir Jared patented the refractive technology that allowed holographs to obtain motion perfectly aligned with the observer, creating the illusion of presence.”
The door to the classroom slid open again, and a familiar form appeared there. Rylin instinctively sank lower in her seat, wishing she could sink all the way into the floor—farther, even; into the mechanical jumble of the interstitial level and the floor below, all the way down to the ground itself, littered with trash and god knows what else, it didn’t matter—she just wanted to disappear.
“Mr. Anderton,” Xiayne said, sounding amused and unsurprised. “You’re late. Again.”
“I got held up,” Cord offered by way of explanation, and Rylin couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t exactly said he was sorry.
Xiayne glanced around the room as if searching for some explanation for why he was missing a desk. He seemed to register Rylin’s presence with some astonishment. He hadn’t singled her out yet, hadn’t made her do one of those awful self-introductions that some of the other professors insisted on. What if he did so now, and in front of Cord?
But to Rylin’s shock, the professor winked at her, in a way that could only be described as conspiratorial.
“Well, Mr. Anderton, it seems you need somewhere to sit.” Xiayne pushed a button and a desk rose up out of the floor, directly in front of Rylin.
Cord didn’t glance Rylin’s way as he took his seat. Only the tension in his shoulders betrayed any reaction to her presence. Rylin sank miserably lower.
“As we discussed last week,” Xiayne continued, undeterred, “settings are the easiest aspect of the world to re-create in holographic form, because, of course, they are stable. A far more difficult task is the portrayal of something living. Why is that?” He snapped his fingers, and a cat leapt from behind his desk onto the top of it.
Rylin barely refrained from gasping aloud. She’d seen plenty of holograms before: on their screen at home, and of course the adverts that popped up whenever she went shopping. But those were loud and flashy and low-resolution. This cat felt different. It was rendered in exquisite detail, and moved so realistically in a thousand small ways—the lazy flick of its tail, the way its chest lifted lightly with its breath, the challenging blink of its eyes.
The cat jumped onto the desk of the girl in the front row who’d spoken earlier. She let out an involuntary squeal of shock. “Movement,” Xiayne went on, ignoring the scattered laughter. “The movements of anything living must be rendered with perfect relation to any viewer, no matter where he or she is located with respect to the holo. Which is why Sir Jared is called the father of modern holography.”
Xiayne went on for a while about light and distance, about the calculations needed to make something seem larger to the viewers who were closer to it, but smaller to those farther away. Rylin tried to listen, but it was hard to focus with Cord’s dark head right in front of her. She willed herself not to stare. A couple of times she saw Leda looking at her out of the corner of her eye, and she knew the other girl was missing none of it.
When the bell finally rang to signal the end of class, Xiayne quickly changed tack. “Don’t forget that your next project is in pairs, and is due in just two weeks. So you all need to find a partner if you haven’t already.”
The room burst into a hum as everyone began pairing off. Suddenly, Rylin was seized by a terrible, overwhelming fear that she might somehow end up with Cord. She thought of the way he’d looked at her earlier this week, resentful and hurt. No matter what, she could not be partnered with him.
The sounds of the room seemed to be growing louder, making Rylin almost dizzy with the pressure of it. She did the only thing she could think of.
“Partners?” she asked, turning to Leda.
Leda blinked at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding,” she said flatly.
Rylin forced a smile. She had a feeling she would regret this. “What have you got to lose?” she asked.
Leda glanced from Rylin to Cord and back again. “Fine,” she said after a moment, with a flash of reluctant respect. “Just don’t expect me to do all the work for you.”
Rylin started to reply, but the other girl had already stood up to gather her things.
Rylin bit back a sigh and started toward the front of the classroom. She might as well introduce herself to the professor and ask what this assignment was.
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Katharine McGee
New York City, 2118. A glittering vision of the future, where anything is possible – if you want it enough.The dazzling sequel to The Thousandth Floor.Manhattan is home to a thousand-story supertower, a beacon of futuristic glamour and high-tech luxury… and to millions of people living scandalous, secretive lives.LEDA is haunted by nightmares of what happened on the worst night of her life. She’s afraid the truth will get out – which is why she hires WATT, her very own hacker, to keep an eye on all of the witnesses for her. But what happens when their business relationship turns personal?When RYLIN receives a scholarship to an elite upper-floor school, her life transforms overnight. But being here also means seeing the boy she loves: the one whose heart she broke, and who broke hers in return.AVERY is grappling with the reality of her forbidden romance – is there anywhere in the world that’s safe for them to be together?And then there’s CALLIOPE, the mysterious, bohemian beauty who’s arrived in New York with a devious goal in mind – and too many secrets to count.Here in the Tower, no one is safe – because someone is watching their every move, someone with revenge in mind. After all, in a world of such dazzling heights, you’re always only one step away from a devastating fall….
First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers Inc in 2017
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
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London SE1 9GF
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www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © 2017 by Alloy Entertainment and Katharine McGee
All rights reserved.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Cover photographs © Ilina Simeonova / Trevillion Images;
Westend61 / Getty; Hongqi Zhang Alamy; Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com).
Katharine McGee asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008179946
Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008179939
Version: 2017-07-26
For my parents
Contents
Cover (#ub3aa5086-f575-52c7-8d00-77e7b60e339f)
Title Page (#u1865f683-0fa5-5913-9082-79471248ba4c)
Copyright (#uba5d2a1c-d1e3-5de1-8709-e30453cf7639)
Dedication (#ua78feda4-dd80-5720-bb40-dcd75be60d07)
Prologue (#ub14ac259-287e-5425-b78a-6677e700b06c)
Mariel (#u1eb5cf49-f966-54dd-a031-8e24387d2161)
Leda (#u8c212d07-ff00-54f0-9f98-6879037ba76a)
Calliope (#u28af4eff-1efd-5001-8221-0bc0211aed11)
Avery (#ub1569831-d8c3-5e38-8ff8-3550459554f2)
Watt (#ucf2cde10-b94f-5935-9898-93e4f3832737)
Rylin (#ue5d9c650-3d38-58f7-ab71-e34d82b066b6)
Calliope (#u8d16a870-5194-5c1f-bbfa-09e715bfad48)
Rylin (#u49978d6b-86e2-5f01-9d5a-938356c07a46)
Leda (#u15fbe85b-aedc-52c3-b5e5-ea253a794745)
Watt (#u9d9d49ba-42da-5410-874e-cf7032f4175e)
Rylin (#u2dca375b-c66b-5aca-8ca7-54e4a7e462cc)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Calliope (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Avery (#litres_trial_promo)
Rylin (#litres_trial_promo)
Leda (#litres_trial_promo)
Watt (#litres_trial_promo)
Mariel (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_5de7f614-462b-58f7-a1cd-566cef3356d4)
IT WOULD BE several hours before the girl’s body was found.
It was late now; so late that it could once again be called early—that surreal, enchanted, twilight hour between the end of a party and the unfurling of a new day. The hour when reality grows dim and hazy at the edges, when nearly anything seems possible.
The girl floated facedown in the water. Above her stretched a towering city, dotted with light like fireflies, each pinprick an individual person, a fragile speck of life. The moon gazed over it all impassively, like the eye of an ancient god.
There was something deceptively peaceful about the scene. Water flowed around the girl in a serene dark sheet, making it seem that she was merely resting. The tendrils of her hair framed her face in a soft cloud. The folds of her dress clung determinedly to her legs, as if to protect her from the predawn chill. But the girl would never feel cold again.
Her arm was outstretched, as though she were reaching for someone she loved, or maybe to ward off some unspoken danger, or maybe even in regret over something she had done. The girl had certainly made enough mistakes in her too-short lifetime. But she couldn’t have known that they would all come crashing down around her tonight.
After all, no one goes to a party expecting to die.
MARIEL (#ulink_26ba8dd8-1462-5d07-80de-f6edae1bcb80)
Two months earlier
MARIEL VALCONSUELO SAT cross-legged on her quilted bedspread in her cramped bedroom on the Tower’s 103rd floor. There were countless people in every direction, separated from her by nothing but a few meters and a steel wall or two: her mother in the kitchen, the group of children running down the hallway, her neighbors next door, their voices low and heated as they fought yet again. But Mariel might as well have been alone on Manhattan right now, for all the attention she gave them.
She leaned forward, clutching her old stuffed bunny tight to her chest. The watery light of a poorly transmitted holo played across her face, illuminating her sloping nose and prominent jaw, and her dark eyes, now brimming with tears.
Before her flickered the image of a girl with red-gold hair and a piercing, gold-flecked gaze. A smile played around her lips, as if she knew a million secrets that no one could ever guess, which she probably did. In the corner of the image, a tiny white logo spelled out INTERNATIONAL TIMES OBITUARIES.
“Today we mourn the loss of Eris Dodd-Radson,” began the obituary’s voice-over—narrated by Eris’s favorite young actress. Mariel wondered what absurd sum Mr. Radson had paid for that. The actress’s tone was far too perky for the subject matter; she could just as easily have been discussing her favorite workout routine. “Eris was taken from us in a tragic accident. She was only seventeen.”
Tragic accident. That’s all you have to say when a young woman falls from the roof under suspicious circumstances? Eris’s parents probably just wanted people to know that Eris hadn’t jumped. As if anyone who’d met her could possibly think that.
Mariel had watched this obit video countless times since it came out last month. By now she knew the words by heart. Oh, she still hated it—the video was too slick, too carefully produced, and she knew most of it was a lie—but she had little else by which to remember Eris. So Mariel hugged her ratty old toy to her chest and kept on torturing herself, watching the video of her girlfriend who had died too young.
The holo shifted to video clips of Eris at different ages: a toddler, dancing in a magnalectric tutu that lit up a bright neon; a little girl on bright yellow skis, cutting down a mountain; a teenager, on vacation with her parents at a fabulous sun-drenched beach.
No one had ever given Mariel a tutu. The only times she’d been in snow were when she ventured out to the boroughs, or the public terraces down here on the lower floors. Her life was so drastically different from Eris’s, yet when they’d been together, none of that had seemed to matter at all.
“Eris is survived by her two beloved parents, Caroline Dodd and Everett Radson; as well as her aunt, Layne Arnold; uncle, Ted Arnold; cousins Matt and Sasha Arnold; and her paternal grandmother, Peggy Radson.” No mention of her girlfriend, Mariel Valconsuelo. And Mariel was the only one of that whole sorry lot—aside from Eris’s mom—who had truly loved her.
“The memorial service will be held this Tuesday, November first, at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, on floor 947,” the holo actress went on, finally managing a slightly more somber tone.
Mariel had attended that service. She’d stood in the back of the church, holding a rosary, trying not to break out into a scream at the sight of the coffin near the altar. It was so unforgivingly final.
The vid swept to a candid shot of Eris on a bench at school, her legs crossed neatly under her plaid uniform skirt, her head tipped back in laughter. “Contributions in memory of Eris can be made to the Berkeley School’s new scholarship fund, the Eris Dodd-Radson Memorial Award, for underprivileged students with special qualifying circumstances.”
Qualifying circumstances. Mariel wondered if being in love with the dead scholarship honoree counted as a qualifying circumstance. God, she had half a mind to apply for the scholarship herself, just to prove how screwed up these people were beneath the gloss of their money and privilege. Eris would have found the scholarship laughable, given that she’d never shown even a slight interest in school. A prom drive would have been much more her style. There was nothing Eris loved more than a fun, sparkly dress, except maybe the shoes to match.
Mariel leaned forward and reached out a hand as if to touch the holo. The final few seconds of the obit were more footage of Eris laughing with her friends, that blonde named Avery and a few other girls whose names Mariel couldn’t remember. She loved this part of the vid, because Eris seemed so happy, yet she resented it because she wasn’t part of it.
The production company’s logo scrolled quickly across the final image, and then the holo dimmed.
There it was, the official story of Eris’s life, stamped with a damned International Times seal of approval, and Mariel was nowhere to be seen. She’d been quietly erased from the narrative, as if Eris had never even met her at all. A silent tear slid down her cheek at the thought.
Mariel was terrified of forgetting the only girl she’d ever loved. Already she’d woken up in the middle of the night, panicked that she could no longer visualize the exact way Eris’s mouth used to lift in a smile, or the eager snap of her fingers when she’d just thought of some new idea. It was why Mariel kept watching this vid. She couldn’t let go of her last link to Eris, forever.
She sank back into her pillows and began to recite a prayer.
Normally praying calmed Mariel, soothed the frayed edges of her mind. But today she felt scattered. Her thoughts kept jumping every which way, slippery and quick like hovers moving down an expressway, and she couldn’t pin down a single one of them.
Maybe she would read the Bible instead. She reached for her tablet and opened the text, clicking the blue wheel that would open a randomized verse—and blinked in shock at the location it spun her to. The book of Deuteronomy.
You shall not show pity: but rather demand an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, burn for burn, wound for wound … for this is the vengeance of the Lord …
Mariel leaned forward, her hands closing tight around the edges of the tablet.
Eris’s death wasn’t a drunken accident. She knew it with a primal, visceral certainty. Eris hadn’t even been drinking that night—she’d told Mariel that she needed to do something “to help out a friend,” as she’d put it—and then, for some inexplicable reason, she’d gone up to the roof above Avery Fuller’s apartment.
And Mariel never saw her again.
What had really happened in that cold, thin air, so impossibly high? Mariel knew there were ostensibly eyewitnesses, corroborating the official story that Eris was drunk and slipped off the edge to her death. But who were these eyewitnesses, anyway? One was surely Avery, but how many others were there?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The phrase kept echoing in her mind like cymbals.
A fall for a fall, a voice inside her added.
LEDA (#ulink_c2531085-1c69-5948-9732-e58a6fa58aa7)
“WHAT ROOM SETTING would you prefer today, Leda?”
Leda Cole knew better than to roll her eyes. She just perched there, ramrod-straight on the taupe psychology couch, which she refused to lie back on no matter how many times Dr. Vanderstein invited her to. He was deluded if he thought reclining would encourage her to open up to him.
“This is fine.” Leda flicked her wrist to close the holographic window that had opened before her, displaying dozens of décor options for the color-shifting walls—a British rose garden, a hot Saharan desert, a cozy library—leaving the room in this bland base setting, with beige walls and a vomit-colored carpet. She knew this was probably a test she kept on failing, but she derived a sick joy from forcing the doctor to spend an hour in this depressing space with her. If she had to suffer through this appointment, then so did he.
As usual, he didn’t comment on her decision. “How are you feeling?” he asked instead.
You want to know how I’m feeling? Leda thought furiously. For starters, she’d been betrayed by her best friend and the only boy she’d ever really cared about, the boy she’d lost her virginity to. Now the two of them were together even though they were adopted siblings. On top of that, she’d caught her dad cheating on her mom with one of her classmates—Leda couldn’t bring herself to call Eris a friend. Oh, and then Eris had died, because Leda had accidentally pushed her from the roof of the Tower.
“I’m fine,” she said briskly.
She knew she’d have to offer up something more expansive than “fine” if she wanted to get out of this session easily. Leda had been to rehab; she’d learned the scripts. She took a deep breath and tried again. “What I mean is, I’m recovering, given the circumstances. It’s not easy, but I’m grateful to have the support of my friends.” Not that Leda actually cared about any of her friends right now. She’d learned the hard way that none of them could be trusted.
“Have you and Avery spoken about what happened? I know she was up there with you, when Eris fell—”
“Yes, Avery and I talk about it,” Leda interrupted quickly. Like hell we do. Avery Fuller, her so-called best friend, had proved to be the worst of them all. But Leda didn’t like hearing it spoken aloud, what had happened to Eris.
“And that helps?”
“It does.” Leda waited for Dr. Vanderstein to ask another question, but he was frowning, his eyes focused on the near distance as he studied some projection that only he could see. She felt a sudden twist of nausea. What if the doctor was using a lie detector on her? Just because she couldn’t see them didn’t mean this room wasn’t equipped with countless vitals scanners. Even now he might be tracking her heart rate or blood pressure, which were probably spiking like crazy.
The doctor gave a weary sigh. “Leda, I’ve been seeing you ever since your friend died, and we haven’t gotten anywhere. What do you think it will take, for you to feel better?”
“I do feel better!” Leda protested. “All thanks to you.” She gave Vanderstein a weak smile, but he wasn’t buying it.
“I see you aren’t taking your meds,” he said, changing tack.
Leda bit her lip. She hadn’t taken anything in the last month, not a single xenperheidren or mood stabilizer, not even a sleeping pill. She didn’t trust herself on anything artificial after what had happened on the roof. Eris might have been a gold-digging, home-wrecking whore, but Leda had never meant to—
No, she reminded herself, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. I didn’t kill her. It was an accident. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. She kept repeating the phrase over and over, like the yoga mantras she used to chant at Silver Cove.
If she repeated it enough, maybe it would become true.
“I’m trying to recover on my own. Given my history, and everything.” Leda hated bringing up rehab, but she was starting to feel cornered and didn’t know what else to say.
Vanderstein nodded with something that seemed like respect. “I understand. But it’s a big year for you, with college on the horizon, and I don’t want this … situation to adversely affect your academics.”
It’s more than a situation, Leda thought bitterly.
“According to your room comp, you aren’t sleeping well. I’m growing concerned,” Vanderstein added.
“Since when are you monitoring my room comp?” Leda cried out, momentarily forgetting her calm, unfazed tone.
The doctor had the grace to look embarrassed. “Just your sleep records,” he said quickly. “Your parents signed off on it—I thought they had informed you …”
Leda nodded curtly. She’d deal with her parents later. Just because she was still a minor didn’t mean they could keep invading her privacy. “I promise, I’m fine.”
Vanderstein was silent again. Leda waited. What else could he do, authorize her toilet to start tracking her urine the way the ones in rehab did? Well, he was welcome to it; he wouldn’t find a damned thing.
The doctor tapped a dispenser in the wall, and it spit out two small pills. They were a cheerful pink—the color of children’s toys, or Leda’s favorite cherry ice whip. “This is an over-the-counter sleeping pill, lowest dose. Why don’t you try it tonight, if you can’t fall asleep?” He frowned, probably taking in the hollow circles around her eyes, the sharp angles of her face, even thinner than usual.
He was right, of course. Leda wasn’t sleeping well. She dreaded falling asleep, tried to stay awake as long as she could, because she knew the horrific nightmares that awaited her. Whenever she did drift off, she woke almost instantly in a cold sweat, tormented by memories of that night—of what she’d hidden from everyone—
“Sure.” She snatched the pills and shoved them into her bag.
“I’d love for you to consider some of our other options—our light-recognition treatment, or perhaps trauma re-immersion therapy.”
“I highly doubt reliving the trauma will help, given what my trauma was,” Leda snapped. She’d never bought into the theory that reliving your painful moments in virtual reality would help you move past them. And she didn’t exactly want any machines creeping into her brain right now, in case they could somehow read the memory that lay buried there.
“What about your Dreamweaver?” the doctor persisted. “We could preload it with a few trigger memories of that night and see how your subconscious responds. You know that dreams are simply your deep brain matter making sense of everything that has happened to you, both joyful and painful …”
He was saying something else, calling dreams the brain’s “safe space,” but Leda was no longer listening. She’d flashed to a memory of Eris in ninth grade, bragging that she’d broken through the Dreamweaver’s parental controls to access the full suite of “adult content” dreams. “There’s even a celebrity setting,” Eris had announced to her rapt audience, with a knowing smirk. Leda remembered how inadequate she’d felt, hearing that Eris was immersed in steamy dreams about holo-stars while Leda couldn’t even imagine sex.
She stood up abruptly. “We need to end this session early. I just remembered something I have to go take care of. See you next time.”
She quickly stepped out the frosted flexiglass door of the Lyons Clinic, perched high on the east side of the 833rd floor, just as her eartennas began to chime a loud, brassy ringtone. Her mom. She shook her head to decline the incoming ping. Ilara would want to hear how the session had gone, would check that she was on her way home for dinner. But Leda wasn’t ready for that kind of forced, upbeat normalcy right now. She needed a moment to herself, to quiet the thoughts and regrets chasing one another in a wild tumult through her head.
She stepped onto the local C lift and disembarked a few stops upTower. Soon she was standing before an enormous stone archway, which had been transported stone by stone from some old British university, carved with enormous block letters that read THE BERKELEY SCHOOL.
Leda breathed a sigh of relief as she walked through the arch and her contacts automatically shut off. Before Eris’s death, she’d never realized how grateful she might feel for her high school’s tech-net.
Her footsteps echoed in the silent halls. It was sort of eerie here at night, everything cast in dim, bluish-gray shadows. She moved faster, past the lily pond and athletic complex, all the way to the blue door at the edge of campus. Normally this room was locked after hours, but Leda had schoolwide access thanks to her position on student council. She stepped forward, letting the security system register her retinas, and the door swung obediently inward.
She hadn’t been in the Observatory since her astronomy elective last spring. Yet it looked exactly as she remembered: a vast circular room lined with telescopes, high-resolution screens, and cluttered data processors Leda had never learned to use. A geodesic dome soared overhead. And in the center of the floor lay the pièce de résistance: a glittering patch of night.
The Observatory was one of the few places in the Tower that protruded out past the floor below it. Leda had never understood how the school had gotten the zoning permits for it, but she was glad now that they had, because it meant they could build the Oval Eye: a concave oval in the floor, about three meters long and two meters wide, made of triple-reinforced flexiglass. A glimpse of how high they really were, up here near the top of the Tower.
Leda edged closer to the Oval Eye. It was dark down there, nothing but shadows, and a few stray lights bobbing in what she thought were the public gardens on the fiftieth floor. What the hell,she thought wildly, and stepped out onto the flexiglass.
This sort of behavior was definitely off-limits, but Leda knew the structure would support her. She glanced down. Between her ballet flats was nothing but empty air, the impossible, endless space between her and the laminous darkness far below. This is what Eris saw when I pushed her, Leda thought, and despised herself.
She sank down, not caring that there was nothing protecting her from a two-mile fall except a few layers of fused carbon. Pulling her knees to her chest, she lowered her forehead and closed her eyes.
A shaft of light sliced into the room. Leda’s head shot up in panic. No one else had access to the Observatory except the rest of the student council, and the astronomy professors. What would she say to explain herself?
“Leda?”
Her heart sank as she realized who it was. “What are you doing here, Avery?”
“Same thing as you, I guess.”
Leda felt caught off guard. She hadn’t been alone with Avery since that night—when Leda confronted Avery about being with Atlas, and Avery led her up onto the roof, and everything spun violently out of control. She wanted desperately to say something, but her mind had strangely frozen. What could she say, with all the secrets she and Avery had made together, buried together?
After a moment, Leda was shocked to hear footsteps approaching, as Avery walked over to sit on the opposite edge of the Oval.
“How did you get in?” she couldn’t help asking. She wondered if Avery was still talking to Watt, the lower-floor hacker who’d helped Leda find out Avery’s secret in the first place—Leda hadn’t spoken to him since that night, either. But with the quantum computer he was hiding, Watt could hack basically anything.
Avery shrugged. “I asked the principal if I could have access to this room. It helps me, being here.”
Of course, Leda thought bitterly, she should have known it was as simple as that. Nothing was off-limits to the perfect Avery Fuller.
“I miss her too, you know,” Avery said quietly.
Leda looked down into the silent vastness of the night, to protect herself from what she saw in Avery’s eyes.
“What happened that night, Leda?” Avery whispered. “What were you on?”
Leda thought of all the various pills she’d popped that day, as she’d sunk ever deeper into a hot, angry maelstrom of regret. “It was a rough day for me. I learned the truth about a lot of people that day—people I had trusted. People who used me,” she said at last, and was perversely pleased to see Avery wince.
“I’m sorry,” Avery told her. “But, Leda, please. Talk to me.”
More than anything, Leda wanted to tell Avery all of it: how Leda had caught her cheating scumbag of a father having an affair with Eris; and how awful she’d felt, realizing that Atlas had only ever slept with her in a fucked-up attempt to forget Avery. How she’d had to drug Watt to uncover that particular grain of truth.
But the thing about the truth was that once you learned it, it became impossible to unlearn. No matter how many pills Leda popped, it was still there, lurking in the corners of her mind like an unwanted guest. There weren’t enough pills in the world to make it go away. So Leda had confronted Avery—screamed at her atop the roof, without fully knowing what she was saying; feeling disoriented and dizzy in the oxygen-thin air. Then Eris had come up the stairs, and told Leda she was sorry, as if a fucking apology would fix the damage she’d done to Leda’s family. Why had Eris kept walking toward her even when Leda told her to stop? It wasn’t Leda’s fault that she’d tried to push Eris away.
She had just pushed too hard.
All Leda wanted now was to confess everything to her best friend, to let herself cry about it like a child.
But stubborn, sticky pride muffled the words in her throat, kept her eyes narrowed and her head held high. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said wearily. What did it matter anyway? Eris was already gone.
“Then help me understand. We don’t have to be this way, Leda—threatening each other like this. Why won’t you just tell everyone it was an accident? I know you never meant to hurt her.”
They were the same words she’d thought to herself so many times, yet hearing them spoken by Avery wakened a cold panic that grasped at Leda like a fist.
Avery didn’t get it, because everything came so easily to her. But Leda knew what would happen if she tried to tell the truth. There would probably be an investigation, and a trial, all made worse by the fact that Leda had tried to cover it up—and the fact that Eris had been sleeping with Leda’s dad would inevitably come to light. It would put Leda’s family, her mom, through hell; and Leda wasn’t stupid. She knew that looked like a damned convincing motive for pushing Eris to her death.
What right did Avery think she had, anyway, gliding in here and granting absolution like some kind of goddess?
“Don’t you dare tell anyone. If you tell, I swear you’ll be sorry.” The threat fell angrily into the silence. It seemed to Leda that the room had grown several degrees colder.
She scrambled to her feet, suddenly desperate to leave. As she stepped from the Oval Eye onto the carpet, Leda felt something fall out of her bag. The two bright pink sleeping pills.
“Glad to see some things haven’t changed.” Avery’s voice was utterly flat.
Leda didn’t bother telling her how wrong she was. Avery would always see the world the way she wanted to.
At the doorway she paused to glance back. Avery had slid to kneel in the middle of the Oval Eye, her hands pressed against the flexiglass surface, her gaze focused on some point far below. There was something morbid and futile about it, as if she were kneeling there in prayer, trying to bring Eris back to life.
It took Leda a moment to realize that Avery was crying. She had to be the only girl in the world who somehow became more beautiful when she cried; her eyes turning an even brighter blue, the tears on her cheeks magnifying the startling perfection of her face. And just like that, Leda remembered all the reasons she resented Avery.
She turned away, leaving her former best friend to weep alone on a tiny fragment of sky.
CALLIOPE (#ulink_2f5371a0-0605-5ee9-a311-23b4ceb50c2e)
THE GIRL STUDIED her reflection in the floor-length smart-mirrors that lined the walls, lifting her mouth in a narrow red smile of approval. She wore a navy romper that was at least three years out of fashion, but deliberately so; she loved watching the other women in the hotel shoot envious glances toward her long, tanned legs. The girl tossed her hair, knowing the warm gold of her earrings brought out her caramel highlights, and fluttered her false lashes—not the implanted kind, but real organic ones; grown from her own eyelids after a long, and painful, genetic repair procedure in Switzerland.
It all exuded a tousled, effortless, glamorous sort of sexiness. Very Calliope Brown, the girl thought, with a frisson of pleasure.
“I’m Elise on this one. You?” her mom asked, as if reading her mind. She had dark blond hair and artificially smooth, creamy skin, making her seem ageless. No one who saw the pair of them was ever quite sure whether she was the mother or the more experienced older sister.
“I was thinking Calliope.” The girl shrugged into the name as if into an old, comfortable sweater. Calliope Brown had always been one of her favorite aliases. And it felt somehow fitting for New York.
Her mom nodded. “I do love that one, even if it’s always impossible to remember. It sounds like it’s got … spunk.”
“You could call me Callie,” Calliope offered, and her mom nodded absently, though they both knew she would just call Calliope by endearments. She’d said the wrong alias once, and it ruined everything. She’d been paranoid about making the same mistake ever since.
Calliope glanced around the expensive hotel, taking in its plush couches, lit with gold and blue strands that matched the hue of the sky; clumps of businesspeople muttering verbal commands to their contact lenses; the telltale shimmer in the corner that meant a security cam was watching. She stifled an urge to wink at it.
Without warning, the toe of her shoe caught on something, and Calliope crashed violently to the ground. She landed on one hip, barely catching herself on her wrists, feeling the skin of her palms burn a little with the impact.
“Oh my god!” Elise’s legs folded beneath her as she knelt beside her daughter.
Calliope let out a moan, which wasn’t difficult given how much actual pain she was in. Her head pounded angrily. She wondered if the heels of her stilettos were totally scuffed.
Her mom gave her a shake and she moaned harder, tears welling in her eyes.
“Is she okay?” It was a boy’s voice. Calliope dared tilt her head enough to peer at him through half-lidded eyes. He had to be a front-desk attendant, with his clean-shaven face and the bright blue name-holo on his chest. Calliope had been to enough five-star hotels to know that the important people didn’t advertise their names.
Her pain was already subsiding, but still, Calliope couldn’t resist moaning a little louder and pulling one knee up to her chest, just to show off her legs. She was gratified by the mingled flash of attraction and confusion—almost panic—that darted across the boy’s face.
“Of course she’s not okay! Where’s your manager?” Elise snapped. Calliope stayed quiet. She liked letting her mom do the talking, when they were first laying the groundwork; and anyway, she was supposed to be injured.
“I’m s-sorry, I’ll call him …” the boy stammered. Calliope gave a little whimper for good measure, though it wasn’t necessary. She could feel the attention of everyone in the lobby shifting toward them, a crowd beginning to gather. Nervousness clung to the front desk boy like a bad perfume.
“I’m Oscar, the manager. What happened here?” An overweight man in a simple dark suit trotted over. Calliope noted with delight that his shoes looked expensive.
“What’s going on is that my daughter fell in your lobby. Because of that spilled drink!” Elise pointed to a puddle on the floor, complete with a lost-looking lime wedge. “Don’t you invest in a maid service here?”
“My sincerest apologies. I can assure you nothing like this has ever happened before, Mrs. …?”
“Ms. Brown,” Elise sniffed. “My daughter and I had planned on staying here for a week, but I’m no longer sure we want to.” She bent down a little lower. “Can you move, honey?”
That was her cue. “It really hurts.” Calliope gasped, shaking her head. A single tear ran down her cheek, ruining her otherwise perfectly made-up face. She heard the crowd murmur in sympathy.
“Let me take care of everything,” Oscar pleaded, turning bright red with anxiety. “I insist. Your room, of course, is complimentary.”
Fifteen minutes later, Calliope and her mom were firmly ensconced in a corner suite. Calliope stayed in bed—her ankle propped on a tiny triangle of pillows—holding perfectly still as the bellman unloaded their bags. She kept her eyes closed even after she heard the front door shut behind him, waiting till her mom’s footsteps turned back toward her bedroom. “All clear now, sweetie,” Elise called out.
She stood up in a fluid motion, letting the tower of pillows tumble to the ground. “Seriously, Mom? You tripped me without warning?”
“I’m sorry, but you know you’ve always been terrible at a fake fall. Your instincts for self-preservation are simply too strong,” Elise replied from the closet, where she was already sorting her vast array of gowns in their color-coded transport bags. “How can I make it up to you?”
“Cheesecake would be a good start.” Calliope reached past her mom for the fluffy white robe that hung on the door, emblazoned with a blue N and a tiny image of a cloud on the front pocket. She pulled it around her, letting the threads of the tie instantly weave themselves shut.
“How about cheesecake and wine?” Elise made a few brisk motions with her hands to call up holographic images of the room service menu, pointing at various screens to order salmon, cheesecake, a bottle of Sancerre. The wine popped into their room in a matter of seconds, propelled by the hotel’s temperature-controlled airtube system. “I love you, sweetie. Sorry again for flinging you on your face.”
“I know. It’s just the cost of doing business,” Calliope conceded with a shrug.
Her mom poured them two glasses and clinked hers to Calliope’s. “Here’s to this time.”
“Here’s to this time,” Calliope echoed with a smile, as the words sent a familiar shiver of excitement up her spine. It was the same phrase she and her mom always used when they arrived somewhere new. And there was nothing Calliope loved more than starting somewhere new.
She headed into the living room, to the curved flexiglass windows that lined the corner of the building, with dramatic views over Brooklyn and the dark ribbon of the East River. A few shadows that must have been boats still danced across its surface. Evening had settled over the city, softening the edges of it all. Scattered flecks of light blinked like forgotten stars.
“So this is New York,” Calliope mused aloud. After years of traipsing the world with her mom, standing at similar windows in so many luxury hotels and looking out over so many cities—the neon grid of Tokyo; the cheerful and vibrant disorder of Rio; the domed skyscrapers of Mumbai, gleaming like bones in the moonlight—she had come to New York at last.
New York, the first of the great supertowers, the original sky city. Already Calliope felt a burst of tenderness toward it.
“Gorgeous view,” Elise said, coming to join her. “It almost reminds me of the one from London Bridge.”
Calliope stopped rubbing her eyes, which were still a bit itchy from the latest retinal transfer, and glanced sharply at her mom. They rarely spoke of their old life, before. Yet Elise didn’t pursue the subject. She sipped her wine, her eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon.
Elise was so beautiful, Calliope thought. But there was something hard and a little bit plasticky about her beauty now: the result of the various surges she’d had to change her appearance and go unrecognized each time they moved somewhere new. I’m doing this for us,she always told Calliope, and for you, so you don’t have to. At least not yet. She never made Calliope play more than a supporting role in any of her cons.
For the past seven years, ever since they’d left London, Calliope and her mom had moved constantly from place to place. They never stayed anywhere long enough to get caught. The pattern was the same in each city: They would trick their way into the most expensive hotel in the most expensive neighborhood, and scout the scene for a few days. Then Elise would pick her mark—someone with too much money for his or her own good, and just enough foolishness to believe whatever story Elise decided to tell. By the time the mark realized what had happened, Elise and Calliope were always long gone.
Calliope knew that some people would call the pair of them cheats, or con artists, or swindlers. She preferred to think of them as very clever, very charming women who’d figured out how to level the playing field. After all, as Calliope’s mom always said, rich people get free things all the time. Why shouldn’t they, too?
“Before I forget, this is for you. I just uploaded it with the name Calliope Ellerson Brown. That’s what you wanted, right?” Her mom handed her a shining new wrist computer.
Here lies Gemma Newberry, beloved thief, Calliope thought in delight, burying her most recent alias with a silent flourish. She was as shameless as she was beautiful.
She had a terribly morbid habit of composing epitaphs each time she set aside an identity, though she never shared them with her mom. She had a feeling that Elise wouldn’t find them quite so amusing.
Calliope tapped at the new wrist computer, pulling up her list of contacts—empty, as usual—and noticed to her surprise that there wasn’t a school registration listed. “You’re not making me go to high school for this one?”
Elise shrugged. “You’re eighteen. Do you want to keep going to school?”
Calliope hesitated. She’d gone to school so many times, playing whatever role their particular scheme cast her in—a long-lost heiress, or a victim of some conspiracy, or occasionally just as Elise’s daughter, when Elise needed a daughter to seem attractive to some victim. She’d attended a preppy British boarding school and a French convent and a pristine public school in Singapore, and had rolled her eyes in sheer boredom at each one.
Which was how Calliope had ended up running a few cons of her own. They were never as big as Elise’s cons, which netted their real payout; but Calliope liked to do something on the side if she saw an opportunity. Elise was fine with it, as long as Calliope’s projects didn’t impede her ability to help out her mom whenever she was called upon. “It’s good for you to get some practice,” Elise always said, and let Calliope keep everything she earned herself—which supplemented her wardrobe quite nicely.
Usually Calliope tried to gain the interest of a wealthy teenager, then conned him into buying her a necklace, or a new handbag, or the latest Robbie Lim suede boots. On a few rare occasions she’d managed to get bitbanc payments—not gifts—by pretending to be in serious trouble, or by finding out people’s secrets and blackmailing them. Calliope had learned through the years that rich people did a lot of things they would rather keep buried.
She briefly considered going to high school, doing the same thing as usual, but she quickly dismissed the idea. This time, she would go bigger.
Oh, there were so many ways to hook a mark—the “accidental” run-in, the sidelong glance, the nuanced smile, the flirtation, the confrontation, the accident—and Calliope was an expert in all of them. She’d closed out every con she’d ever started.
Except Travis. The one mark who’d ever left Calliope, rather than the other way around. She’d never figured out why, and it still nettled her, just a little.
But he was just one person, and there were millions here. Calliope thought of all the crowds she’d seen earlier, streaming in and out of elevators, rushing home or to work or to school. All of them preoccupied with their own small worries, clutching at their impossible dreams.
None of them even knew she existed, and if they did know, they wouldn’t care. But that was what made this game fun: because Calliope was about to make one of them care, very much. She felt a bright, glorious, reckless rush of anticipation.
She couldn’t wait to find her next mark.
AVERY (#ulink_d3f1cd99-cb75-593e-99a8-a369739f8ea3)
AVERY FULLER WRAPPED her arms tighter around herself. The wind tore at her hair, yanking it into an unruly blond tangle, whipping the folds of her dress around her like a banner. A few droplets of rain began to fall. They stung lightly where they touched her bare skin.
But Avery wasn’t ready to leave the roof. This was her secret place, where she retreated when all the furious lights and sounds down there, in the rest of the city, became too much to bear.
She looked out to the hazy purple of the horizon, which stretched into a deep fathomless black overhead. She loved the way she felt up here, aloof and alone and safe with her secrets. It’s not safe, a nagging feeling told her, as a pair of footsteps sounded. Avery turned around, nervous—and broke into a smile when she saw that it was Atlas.
But the trapdoor flung open again and suddenly Leda was there, her face suffused with anger. She looked thin and drawn and dangerous. She wore her very skin as if it were armor.
“What do you want, Leda?” Avery asked warily, though she didn’t really need to ask; she knew what Leda wanted. She wanted to break her and Atlas apart, and Atlas was the one thing Avery would never, ever give up. She took a step in front of him as if to protect him.
Leda caught the gesture. “How dare you,” she spat, and reached out to shove Avery—
Avery’s stomach lurched, her arms wheeling as she tried desperately to cling to something, but it was all too far away, even Atlas, and the world had devolved into a blur of color and sound and screaming, the ground hurtling ever faster toward her—
She sat up abruptly, a cold sheen of sweat on her brow. It took her a moment to recognize the dim bulkiness of her surroundings as the furniture in Atlas’s bedroom.
“Aves?” Atlas murmured. “You okay?”
She curled her knees to her chest, trying to slow the erratic beating of her heart. “Just a nightmare,” she told him.
Atlas pulled her close and wrapped his arms tightly around her from behind, so that she was safe in the warm circle of his embrace. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Avery did want to talk about it, except she couldn’t. So she turned around to silence him with a kiss.
She’d been sneaking over to Atlas’s room every night since Eris died. She knew she was playing with fire. But being with the boy she loved—talking to him, kissing him, just inhaling his presence—was the only thing that kept Avery from spinning off the edge lately.
And even here, with Atlas, she wasn’t wholly safe from herself. She hated the web of secrets that kept tightening around her, driving an invisible wedge between them, though Atlas had no idea.
He didn’t know about the delicate balancing act Avery now found herself in with Leda. A secret for a secret. Leda knew about them, and the only reason she hadn’t blasted it to the world was that Avery had seen her push Eris, up on the roof that night. Now Avery was hiding the truth about Eris’s death under threat from Leda.
She couldn’t bring herself to tell Atlas about it all. The knowledge would only hurt him, and the truth was, Avery didn’t want him to learn what had really happened that night. If he knew what she’d done, he might not look at her this way anymore—with such blinding love and devotion.
She wrapped her fingers tighter in the curls at the base of Atlas’s neck, wanting to stop time, to disappear into this moment and live in it forever.
When Atlas finally pulled away, she felt his smile, even if she couldn’t see it. “No scary dreams anymore. Not while I’m here. I’ll keep them away, I promise.”
“I dreamed that I lost you,” she blurted out, a note of trepidation threading through her voice. Now that they were together, against all odds, losing Atlas was her greatest fear.
“Avery.” He put a finger under her chin and gently lifted it, so that she was looking into his eyes. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know,” she replied, and she knew that he meant it, but there were so many obstacles in their path, so many forces stacked against them, that at times it all felt insurmountable.
She lay back down in the soft, warm space next to his body, but her thoughts were still scattered. She felt like she was coiled too tightly and couldn’t be unwound.
“Do you ever wish another family had adopted you?” she whispered, voicing a thought she’d had countless times. If he’d ended up with some other family, if some other boy had grown up as her adopted brother, then Atlas wouldn’t be forbidden. She wondered what it would have been like, meeting him in school, or at some party; bringing him home to meet the Fullers.
It would all be so much easier.
“Of course not,” Atlas said, startling her with the vehemence of his tone. “Aves, if I’d been adopted by a different family I might never have met you.”
“Maybe …” She trailed off, but she couldn’t help thinking that she and Atlas were inevitable. The universe would have conspired for them to meet, some way or another, pulling them together with a gravitational force that was all their own.
“Maybe,” Atlas conceded. “But that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. You’re the most important thing in the world to me. The day your parents brought me home—the day I first met you—was the second-best day of my life.”
“Oh really? And what was the best day?” she asked with a smile.
She expected Atlas to say that the best day was when they confessed their love for each other. But he surprised her. “Today,” he said simply. “Which will only last until tomorrow, and then tomorrow will be the best day. Because every day with you is better than the one before.”
He leaned over to kiss her lightly, just as a knock sounded on the door.
“Atlas?”
For a terrible instant, every cell in Avery’s body was frozen. She looked up at Atlas and saw her own terror reflected on his handsome face.
His door was locked, but here—like everywhere in the apartment—Mr. and Mrs. Fuller had the ability to override.
“One second, Dad,” Atlas called out, a little too loudly.
Avery stumbled out of bed, wearing her ivory satin shorts and a bra, and stumbled breathlessly toward Atlas’s closet. Her bare feet nearly tripped over a shoe as she ran.
She’d just managed to pull the door shut behind her when Pierson Fuller strode into his adopted son’s room. The overhead lights flicked on with his steps.
“Everything okay in here?” Did she hear a note of suspicion in her dad’s voice, or was she imagining it?
“What’s going on, Dad?” Typical Atlas, answering a question with a question. But it was a good deflective technique.
“I just heard back from Jean-Pierre LaClos, in the Paris office,” Avery’s dad said slowly. “It looks like the French might finally let us build something next to that antique eyesore of theirs.” His form was just visible through the slats of the closet door. Avery stayed utterly still, pressing back into a gray wool coat, her arms crossed over her chest. Her heart was pounding so erratically she felt certain her dad would hear it.
Atlas’s closet was much smaller than hers. There was nowhere to hide, if Pierson came to open the door. There was no possible explanation for why she would be here, wearing a bra and pajama shorts in Atlas’s room, except, of course, for the real reason.
Out there in the bedroom, her pink shirt lay on the floor like a glaring searchlight.
“Okay,” Atlas replied, and Avery heard the unspoken query. Why was their dad coming over in the middle of the night, for something that didn’t sound particularly urgent?
After what was surely too long a silence, Pierson cleared his throat. “You’ll have to come early to the development meeting tomorrow. We’re going to need to do a full analysis of their streets and waterways, to start prepping.”
“I’ll be there,” Atlas said tersely. He was standing directly on top of the shirt, trying to discreetly cover it with one of his feet. Avery willed her dad not to notice the movement.
“Sounds good.” A moment later Avery heard the door to her brother’s room click shut.
She leaned back and slid helplessly down the wall to a seated position. It felt like tiny needles were prickling all over her skin, like that time she’d been vitamin-checked at the doctor, except laced with adrenaline. She felt restless and reckless and strangely exhilarated, as if she’d tripped into quicksand and somehow emerged on the other side unharmed.
Atlas flung open the closet. “You okay, Aves?”
The closet lights turned on as he opened the doors; but for an impossibly brief instant, Avery was in the dark while Atlas seemed illuminated from behind—light streaming around him, gilding the edges of his form, making him seem almost otherworldly. It seemed suddenly impossible that he was real, and here, and hers.
And in truth, it was impossible. Everything about their relationship kept proving impossible at every turn, yet somehow they had willed it into being.
“I’m fine.” She stood up to run her hands up his arms, settling them finally on his shoulders, but he took a reflexive step back and reached for her top, which still lay there on the ground.
“That was not good, Aves.” Atlas held out the shirt, his features creased with worry.
“He didn’t see me,” Avery argued, but she knew that wasn’t the point. Neither of them mentioned what their dad might have already seen: Avery’s bedroom, on the other side of the apartment, her pristine white bedcovers rumpled but decidedly empty.
“We need to be more careful.” Atlas sounded resigned.
Avery pulled her shirt over her head and looked up at him, her chest constricting at what he wasn’t saying. “There’s no more sleeping over, is there?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. They couldn’t risk it, not anymore.
“No. Aves, you need to go.”
“I will. Starting tomorrow,” she promised, and pulled his mouth to hers. Now more than ever Avery knew how dangerous it was, but that just made each moment with Atlas infinitely more precious. She knew the risks. She knew they were walking a tightrope; that it would be so, so easy to fall.
If this was their last night sleeping over, then she was going to make it count.
She wished she could tell him everything, but instead she willed it all into her kisses: all the silent apologies, the confessions, the promises to love him forever. If she couldn’t tell him aloud, there was no other way to tell him than this.
Clutching Atlas by the shoulders, she yanked him forward, and he followed her into the closet as the overhead light clicked back off.
WATT (#ulink_f0df7d7a-cf0e-5f49-ac1f-ab087ba3d45f)
WATZAHN BAKRADI LEANED back in the stiff auditorium chair, studying the chessboard currently displayed over his field of vision. Move rook three spaces on the left diagonal. The chessboard, projected in ghostly white and black onto the high-res contacts he constantly wore, changed accordingly.
That wasn’t a wise move, pointed out Nadia, the quantum computer embedded in Watt’s brain. Her knight immediately swooped forward to capture his king.
Watt stifled a groan, eliciting a few strange looks from the friends and classmates seated around him. He quickly fell silent and focused his gaze forward, to where a man in a crimson blazer stood at a podium, explaining the liberal arts offerings at Stringer West University. Watt tuned him out, just like he’d done all the other speakers at this mandatory assembly for the junior class. As if Watt had any intention of taking a history or English class again after high school was over.
You’ve been losing to me on average eleven minutes more quickly than normal. I believe it’s a sign of distraction, Nadia added, flashing the words over his contacts like an incoming flicker.
You think? Watt thought testily. Watt had good reason to be distracted lately. He’d taken what seemed like an easy hacking job for a highlier girl named Leda, only to fall for her best friend, Avery. Until he’d learned that Avery was actually in love with Atlas, the very same person Leda had hired him to spy on. Then he’d accidentally delivered that secret straight to Leda, who was vicious and high and out for revenge. An innocent girl had ended up dying because of it. And Watt had just stood there and let it happen, let Leda walk away scot-free—because Leda knew about Nadia.
Watt wasn’t sure how she’d figured it out, but somehow, she’d learned Watt’s most dangerous secret. Anytime she wanted, Leda could turn Watt in for possession of an illegal quantum computer. Nadia, of course, would be destroyed forever. As for Watt, he’d go to jail for life. If he was lucky.
“Watt!” Nadia hissed, sending a zap of electric shock down his system. The Stringer representative was stepping down from the podium, replaced by a woman with shoulder-length chestnut hair and a serious expression. Vivian Marsh, the head of admissions at MIT.
“Few of you will apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Even fewer of you have the grades to get in,” she said without preamble. “But for those of you who do, you’ll find that our program rests upon three tenets: explore, experience, evolve.”
Watt heard a soft pattering of fingers on tablets. He glanced around; some of the kids from his advanced math classes were typing furiously, hanging on Vivian’s every word. His friend Cynthia—a pretty Japanese American girl who’d been in Watt’s classes since practically kindergarten—was on the edge of her seat, her eyes lit up. Watt hadn’t even known Cynthia was interested in MIT. Would he have to compete against her for the limited spots?
Watt hadn’t really considered what he would do if he didn’t get into MIT. For years he had dreamed of attending their extremely competitive microsystems engineering program. It was the research team in that very department that had invented the millichip, and entanglement software, and the room-temperature supermagnets that prevented quantum decoherence.
Watt had always assumed he would get in. Hell, he’d invented a quantum computer on his own at age fourteen; how could they not take him?
Except that he couldn’t exactly talk about Nadia on his application. And as he looked around at the other students, Watt was forced to confront the very real possibility that he might not get in after all.
Should I ask a question? he thought anxiously to Nadia. Something, anything to get Vivian to notice him.
“This isn’t a Q and A, Watt,” Nadia observed.
Suddenly, far too quickly, the Stanford rep was stepping up and clearing his throat.
Without thinking, Watt shot to his feet, cursing as he stumbled down the row of seats. Seriously? Cynthia mouthed as he climbed over her, but Watt didn’t care; he needed to talk to Vivian, and anyway, Stanford was at best his safety school.
He burst out the double doors at the back of the auditorium, ignoring the eyes that turned accusatorily toward him as he did, and began sprinting around the corner to the school exit.
“Ms. Marsh! Wait!”
She paused, one hand on the door, an eyebrow raised. Well, at the very least he would be memorable.
“I have to say, it’s rare that I’m chased out of a school auditorium. I’m not a celebrity, you know.” Watt thought he heard an edge of wry amusement behind her tone, but couldn’t be sure.
“I’ve been dreaming of going to MIT ever since I can remember, and I just … I really wanted to speak with you.” Your name! Nadia prompted. “Watzahn Bakradi,” he said quickly, holding out a hand. After a moment, Vivian shook it.
“Watzahn Bakradi,” she repeated, her gaze turned inward, and Watt realized she was doing some kind of search of him, through her contacts. She blinked and focused on him again. “I see that you participated in our Young Engineers’ Summer Program, on scholarship. And you weren’t invited back.”
Watt flinched. He knew exactly why he hadn’t been asked to return—because one of his professors had caught him building an illegal quantum computer. She’d promised not to alert the police, but still, the mistake had cost him.
Nadia had pulled Vivian’s CV onto his contacts, but it wasn’t helpful; all it told Watt was that she’d grown up in Ohio and had studied psychology as an undergraduate.
He realized that he needed to answer her. “That program was four years ago. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’d like the chance to prove it to you.”
Vivian tilted her head, accepting a ping. “I’m speaking with a student,” she said to whoever it was, probably an assistant. “I know, I know. Just one moment.” As she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, Watt caught a glimpse of an expensive platinum wrist computer. He wondered, suddenly, what she really thought of coming down to speak on the 240th floor, even if it was at a magnet school. No wonder she was in a hurry to leave.
“Mr. Bakradi, why is MIT your top choice?”
Nadia had pulled up the MIT guidelines and mission statement, but Watt didn’t want to give a safe, canned answer. “Microsystems engineering. I want to work with quants,” he said boldly.
“Really.” She looked him up and down, and Watt could tell her interest was piqued. “You know that program receives thousands of applications, but only selects two students per year.”
“I know. It’s still my top choice.” It’s my only choice, Watt thought, giving his best smile, the one he always used on girls when he and Derrick went out. He felt her softening toward him.
“Have you ever seen a quant? Do you know how unbelievably powerful they are?”
An untruth would be optimal here,Nadia told him, but Watt knew he could dance around the question.
“I know there are only a few left,” he said instead. There were quants at NASA, of course, and the Pentagon; though Watt had a feeling there were far more illegal and unregistered quants—like Nadia—than the government would care to admit. “However, I think there should be more. There are so many places we need quantum computers.”
Like in your brain? Watt, be sensible,Nadia urged, but he wasn’t listening. “We need them now more than ever. We could revolutionize global farming to eradicate poverty, we could eliminate fatal accidents, we could terraform Mars—”
Watt’s voice rang overly loud in his ears. He realized that Vivian was looking at him, her eyebrows raised, and he fell silent.
“You sound eerily like the science-fiction writers of the last century. I’m afraid that your opinion is no longer popular these days, Mr. Bakradi,” she said at last.
Watt swallowed. “I just think the AI Incident of 2093 could have been avoided. The quant in question wasn’t responsible. The security hadn’t been properly set, there was an issue with his core programming …”
Back when quants were still legal, they’d all been given the same piece of fundamental core programming: that the quant could take no action to harm a human being, no matter what later commands were given to it.
“His?” Vivian repeated, and Watt realized belatedly that he’d used a gendered pronoun to describe a computer. He said nothing. After a moment, she sighed. “Well, I have to say, I look forward to personally reviewing your application.”
She stepped through the door and into a waiting hover.
Nadia, what on earth do we do now? he thought, hoping she might have a brilliant solution. She usually picked up on situational details that he had missed.
There’s only one thing you can do,Nadia replied, and that is to write the best damn essay Vivian Marsh has ever seen.
“There you are,” Cynthia breathed, when Watt finally made his way to their locker. Technically, it was Cynthia’s locker: Watt had been assigned one, but it was at the end of the arts hallway, and since he never went that direction, and never carried much stuff anyway, he’d gotten in the habit of using Cynthia’s instead. Derrick, Watt’s best friend, stood there too, worry creasing his forehead.
“Yeah, what happened? Cynthia says you skipped out early?”
“I went to try to talk to the MIT admissions officer, before she left.”
“What did you tell her?” Cynthia asked, while Derrick shook his head, muttering something that sounded like “Should’ve thought of that.”
Watt sighed. “I’m not sure it went well.”
Cynthia glanced at Watt in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, at least if I tank, it’ll increase your chances of getting in,” Watt replied, a little too flippant; but sarcasm had always been his defense mechanism.
Cynthia seemed hurt. “I would never think like that. Honestly, I was hoping that we would both end up at MIT. It could be nice, having a friendly face so far from home …”
“And then I’ll come visit you both, and pester you constantly!” Derrick said, throwing his arms jovially around both their shoulders.
“That would be fun,” Watt said cautiously, with a glance at Cynthia. He hadn’t realized that they shared the same dream. She was right: it would be nice—walking across the leaf-strewn campus together on their way to class, working together in the engineering lab late at night, getting lunch in that enormous arched dining hall Watt had seen on the i-Net.
Then again, what would he and Cynthia do if only one of them got in?
It’ll be fine, he told himself, but he couldn’t help thinking that this was just one more thing in his life that could end in disaster.
He seemed to be collecting a lot of those lately.
RYLIN (#ulink_04d825f6-63cd-5f05-b1ad-a1cf34aca711)
THAT SAME AFTERNOON, Rylin Myers leaned forward on the checkout scanner, counting down the minutes till her shift at ArrowKid was over. She knew she was lucky to have this job—it paid more than her old one at the monorail, and the hours were better—but every moment here still felt like utter torture.
ArrowKid was a mass retailer of children’s clothing in the mid-Manhattan Mall, up on the 500th floor. Until recently, Rylin had never set foot in a store like this. Arrow was the kind of place where midTower parents came in packs: wearing brightly colored exercise pants and dragging toddlers by the arm, strollers bobbing through the air alongside them, pulled by invisible magnetic tethers.
Rylin glanced around the store, which was a dizzying kaleidoscope of sound and color. Jarring pop music played on high volume through the speakers. The entire space smelled overwhelmingly of ArrowKid’s sickly sweet self-cleaning cloth diapers. And crammed on every display were children’s clothes, from pastel-colored baby onesies to dresses in a girls’ size fourteen—all of it covered in arrows. Arrow-stitched baby jeans, arrow-printed T-shirts, even little blankets covered in tiny flashing arrows. It made Rylin’s eyes hurt just to look at it.
“Hey, Ry, can you help out the customer in fitting room twelve? I’ll man checkout for a while.” Rylin’s manager, a twentysomething named Aliah, sauntered over and flipped her close-cut dark hair. There was a bright purple arrow on her shirt, spinning slowly like the hands of a clock. Rylin had to look away to keep from feeling dizzy.
“Of course,” Rylin said, trying not to be irritated that Aliah had started calling her by the nickname she reserved for close friends. She knew her manager just wanted to duck under the counter and ping her new girlfriend when she thought the employees couldn’t see.
She knocked on the door of fitting room twelve. “Just wanted to see how things were going in there,” she said loudly. “Any sizes I can grab for you?”
The door swung open to reveal a tired-looking mom perched on a stool, her eyes glazed over as she probably checked something on her contacts. A pink-cheeked girl with a smattering of freckles stood before the mirror, turning back and forth as she studied her reflection with critical intensity. She was wearing a white dress that read BE DAZZLING and was covered in tiny crystal arrows. Her feet were encased in a pair of arrow-printed boots. They already belonged to the girl; if she’d picked them up today, Rylin would have seen a subtle holographic circle marking them as a new purchase, reminding her to ring them up. She thought of the times she and her best friend, Lux, used to shoplift on the lower floors—nothing big, just a couple of tubes of perfume and paintstick, or once a box of chocolate puffs. You couldn’t get away with that up here.
“What do you think of this?” the girl asked, turning to let Rylin inspect her.
Rylin gave a watery smile. Her eyes darted to the mom—after all, she was the one who would pay—but the older woman seemed content to stay out of her daughter’s shopping habits. “It looks great,” Rylin said weakly.
“Would you wear it?” the little girl asked, her nose wrinkling adorably.
For some reason all Rylin could think of were the clothes she and Chrissa used to wear, some of which had been given by the Andertons, the upper-floor family she’d worked for as a maid. Rylin’s favorite outfit at age six had been a swashbuckling pirate costume, complete with a feathered cap and a gold-hilted sword. She realized with a start that it had probably once belonged to Cord. Or Brice. The knowledge should have made her embarrassed, yet all she felt was a strange sense of loss. She hadn’t spoken to Cord in a month—probably wouldn’t even see him ever again.
It’s for the best, she told herself, the way she always did when she thought of Cord. But it never seemed to work.
“Clearly not,” the girl huffed, pulling the dress back up over her head. “You can go,” she added pointedly, to Rylin.
Rylin realized belatedly that she’d made an error. She tried desperately to backtrack. “I’m sorry, I just lost track of my thoughts for a moment—”
“Forget it,” the girl said in a single breath, slamming the door in Rylin’s face. Moments later she and her mom were walking out of the store, leaving a pile of discarded clothes in the fitting room behind them.
“Ry.” Aliah made a disappointed clucking noise as she walked over. “That girl was an easy sale. What happened?”
Don’t Ry me, Rylin thought with a sudden burst of anger, but she knew better than to say anything; the whole reason she had this job was because of Aliah. She’d been applying for a waitress job at the café next door when she’d seen the shooting arrow display that spelled out HELP WANTED in the holographic window, and stepped inside on a whim. Aliah hadn’t even cared that she had no experience in retail. She’d taken one look at Rylin and let out an excited squeal. “You can totally fit into our junior sizes. Your hips are, like, really narrow. And your feet are even small enough for some of the sandals!”
So here Rylin was, wearing the least offensive merchandise she could find in the store—a tank top and her own black jeans, not an arrow in sight—trying halfheartedly to sell clothes to midTower kids. No wonder she sucked at it.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time,” she promised.
“I hope so. You’ve been here almost a month and yet you’ve barely hit the sales minimum for a single week. I keep making excuses for you, saying it’s a learning curve, but if things don’t change soon …”
Rylin bit back a sigh. She couldn’t afford to be fired, not again. “Got it.”
Aliah’s eyes flicked as she glanced at the time in the corner of her vision. Rylin had been surprised that most girls who worked here could afford to wear contacts, even if it was just the cheaper versions. Then again, this was an after-school job for most of them; they didn’t have younger sisters to support, or a never-ending stack of bills to pay.
“Why don’t you head home, get some rest,” Aliah suggested gently. “I’ll close up. That way you can start fresh tomorrow. ’kay?”
Rylin was too exhausted to argue. “That would be amazing,” she said simply.
“And, Ry, why don’t you take one of those”—Aliah gestured toward a display near the entrance, of printed T-shirts in a bright lemon yellow, covered in purple arrows—“to wear to work tomorrow? It might help you feel a little more … enthusiastic.”
“Those are for ten-year-olds,” Rylin couldn’t help pointing out, eyeing the shirts with trepidation.
“Good thing you’re super skinny,” Aliah replied.
Rylin held her breath as she grabbed the shirt at the top of the stack. “Thanks,” she said, flashing the biggest smile she could manage, but the older girl was already on a ping, her hand to her ear as she whispered something and laughed.
When Rylin waved her ID ring over the touch pad in the door and stepped inside, the comforting smells of batter and warm chocolate rose up to meet her. She felt an immediate stab of regret that Chrissa had beat her home yet again. Ever since Rylin had started working evenings, rather than the crack-of-dawn shift she’d had at the monorail, Chrissa had been handling more of the cooking and grocery shopping. Rylin felt guilty; those had always been her jobs. She wanted to be the one taking care of her fourteen-year-old sister, not the other way around.
“How was work?” Chrissa asked cheerfully. Her eyes drifted to Rylin’s new T-shirt and she pursed her lips, suppressing a smile.
“Don’t you dare say anything, or your birthday present this year will be nothing but a huge bag of arrow-printed underwear.”
Chrissa tilted her head as if considering it. “How many arrows per pair are we talking, exactly?”
Rylin let out a laugh, then fell silent. “Honestly, at this rate, I’ll be fired long before your birthday. Turns out I’m not the best salesperson.” She came to where Chrissa stood at the cooktop, making the banana pancakes they both loved so much. “Breakfast for dinner? What’s the occasion?” she asked, and reached into the bag of chocolate flakes to grab a handful.
Chrissa batted good-naturedly at Rylin’s hand, then tossed the rest of the chocolate flakes into the mix and let the infra-powered spoon stir the batter. She looked up at her sister with evident excitement, jerking her chin toward an envelope on the table. “You got some news.”
“What is that?” No one sent real paper envelopes anymore. The last one Rylin had gotten was a medical bill; and even that was in addition to her weekly reminder pop-ups with sound, and only because the payment was a year past due.
“Why don’t you open it and see,” Chrissa said mysteriously.
Rylin’s first thought was that the envelope was heavy, which signified something momentous, though she wasn’t sure whether to be excited or afraid. There was a familiar blue crest embossed on the back. THE BERKELEY SCHOOL, SINCE 2031, it read in gilded letters along the top. That was Cord’s school, Rylin remembered, up in the 900s somewhere. Why would they be sending anything to her?
She slid a fingernail beneath the crisp edge of the envelope and pulled out its contents, dimly aware that Chrissa had come to stand next to her, but she was too focused on reading the strange and surprising letter to say anything.
Dear Miss Myers,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Eris Miranda Dodd-Radson Memorial Award to Berkeley Academy. The scholarship was established in memory of Eris, to reward unrecognized individual potential in underprivileged students. The value of your scholarship is detailed on the next page. Full tuition is covered, as well as a stipend for academic materials and other cost-of-living expenses …
Rylin blinked up at Chrissa. “What on earth is this?” she asked slowly.
Chrissa squealed and threw her arms around Rylin in a breathless hug. “I was hoping this was a ‘yes’ envelope, but I wasn’t sure! And I didn’t want to open it without you! Rylin!” She took a step back and looked at her sister, her entire being suffused with a happy glow. “You got a scholarship to Berkeley. That’s the best private high school in New York—maybe even in the country.”
“But I didn’t apply,” Rylin pointed out, to which Chrissa laughed.
“I applied on your behalf, of course. You aren’t mad, are you?” she added, as if the thought had just now occurred to her.
“But—” A million questions rippled through Rylin’s mind. She seized on one, randomly. “How did you even find out about this scholarship?”
Rylin had known about it, of course; she’d seen it mentioned on Eris’s obituary video, which she’d watched dozens of times since that fateful night. The night her whole life turned upside down—when she went to an upTower party, way up on the thousandth floor, only to find the boy she loved with another girl. Then that girl had died in front of Rylin’s eyes, pushed off the side of the Tower by one of her drugged-out friends, who proceeded to blackmail Rylin, forcing her to keep quiet about what had really happened.
“I saw the obit video pulled up on your tablet. You watched it a lot of times,” Chrissa said, and now her voice was quiet and her eyes were searching Rylin’s. “You met Eris when you were with Cord, right? Was she a friend of yours?”
“Something like that,” Rylin said, because she didn’t know how to tell Chrissa the truth—that Eris was someone she’d scarcely known, except that Rylin had seen her die.
“I’m sorry, about what happened to her.” The timer beeped, and Chrissa scooped the pancakes into two fat stacks, handing the plates to Rylin.
“But—” Rylin still didn’t understand. “Why didn’t you apply to the scholarship for yourself?” Of the two of them, Chrissa was the one with real promise: she made straight As in her honors classes, and would probably play volleyball at the college level. She was the one who deserved a fancy upper-school scholarship. Not Rylin, who hadn’t even been in school the last few years.
“Because I don’t need it like you do,” Chrissa said intently. Rylin followed her to the table, carrying the plates of stacked pancakes. One of the legs of their table was broken clean off, causing it to wobble as she set the plates down.
“Between my grades and volleyball, I’m on track to get a college scholarship anyway. You, on the other hand, need this,” Chrissa insisted. “Don’t you see? Now you don’t have to be the girl who dropped out of school to work a dead-end job, for my sake.”
Rylin fell silent at the flicker of guilt in her sister’s explanation. She’d never really considered what Chrissa had thought, when Rylin had dropped out of school to work full-time after their mom died. She’d never imagined that Chrissa might blame herself for Rylin’s choice.
“Chrissa, you know it’s not your fault that I took the job I did.” And Rylin knew that she would do it all again in a heartbeat, to give her little sister the chance she deserved. Then she thought of another complication. “Anyway, I can’t quit work now. We need the money.”
Chrissa’s smile was contagious. “Didn’t you see what it said about a cost-of-living stipend? It’s enough to keep us going, and if we get into a tight spot, we can always figure something out.”
Rylin looked again, and saw that Chrissa was right. “But why would they pick me? I’m not even in school right now. There must have been so many applicants.” Her eyes narrowed at Chrissa as she began to think through the odds. “What did you put on my application, anyway?”
Chrissa grinned. “I found an old essay of yours about working at a summer camp, and made some tweaks to it.”
Two years before their mother died, Rylin had applied to be a junior counselor at an expensive summer camp. It was all the way in Maine—somewhere with a lake, or maybe it had been a river; the kind of place rich kids went to learn useless things like canoeing and archery and braiding friendship bracelets. For some reason, maybe because she’d seen too many holos about summer camp, Rylin had always fostered a secret desire to attend one. Of course they could never afford anything like that. But Rylin had hoped that maybe, if she worked there as a counselor, she would still have a version of the experience.
She’d gotten the job. Though it quickly became irrelevant, because her mom had gotten sick that year and nothing else mattered after that.
“I can’t believe you found that,” she said, shaking her head in amused wonder. She would never cease to be surprised by Chrissa’s resourcefulness. “Though I still don’t understand why they would pick me.”
Chrissa shrugged. “Didn’t you see the description? It’s a weird, nontraditional scholarship, for ‘creative-minded girls who would otherwise be overlooked.’”
“I’m not exactly creative-minded,” Rylin argued.
Chrissa shook her head so violently that her ponytail whipped back and forth, a dark shadow behind her head. “Of course you are. Stop selling yourself short, or you’ll never survive at that school.”
Rylin didn’t answer that. She still wasn’t sure whether or not she was going.
After a moment Chrissa sighed. “I’m not surprised you were friends with Eris. From the sound of this scholarship, she was really cool. I mean, she clearly wasn’t like the other highliers, if this is how her family chose to honor her.”
Suddenly Rylin’s mind was alit with memories of that night—of breaking up with Cord, then trying to win him back, only to find him with Eris; of seeing Eris on the roof, yelling at the other girl, Leda, then watching in horror as Eris tumbled off the side of the Tower and into the cold night air. She shivered.
“You’re going, right?” Chrissa asked, her voice hopeful.
Rylin thought of how it would feel, being at an expensive highlier school with a bunch of strangers who wouldn’t give her the time of day. Not to mention Cord. She’d promised herself she would stay away from him. And then there was school itself—how would she handle being in a classroom again, learning and studying and taking tests, surrounded by a bunch of students who were probably a lot smarter than she was?
“Mom would want you to go, you know,” Chrissa added, and just like that, Rylin’s answer was clear.
She lifted her eyes to her sister’s and smiled. “Yeah, I’ll go.” Maybe something good could finally come of that night. She owed it to herself, and to Chrissa, and her mom—hell, even to Eris—to try.
CALLIOPE (#ulink_7c901250-c496-5400-9903-2f91a1c95e54)
THE TWO WOMEN strode through the entrance to Bergdorf Goodman on the 880th floor, their four sharp heels making satisfying clicks on the polished marble. Neither of them paused at the sumptuously decorated lobby, its holiday-themed display holos dancing around the crystal chandeliers and jewel cases; tourists crying out whenever the reindeer swooped down toward their heads. Calliope didn’t even glance in their direction as she followed Elise up the curved staircase. It had been a long time since she was impressed by something as prosaic as a holographic sleigh.
The designer floor upstairs was scattered with clumps of furniture, each of them partitioned by an invisible privacy barrier and equipped with a body-scanner. Real gowns were draped on mannequins in various corners, for nostalgia’s sake. No one actually tried on anything here.
Elise flicked her eyes significantly at Calliope before heading toward the youngest, most junior-looking employee: Kyra Welch. They’d already preselected her online, for the simple reason that she’d worked at the store a grand total of three days.
Just a few meters away from the girl, Elise made a show of sinking onto a pale peach settee. She crossed one leg over the other and began scrolling through cocktail dresses on the screen before her. Calliope stood idly to one side and stifled a yawn. She wished she’d gotten one of those honey coffees from the hotel this morning. Or even a caffeine patch.
The salesgirl predictably hurried over. She had alabaster skin and a perky carrot-red ponytail. “Good afternoon, ladies. Did you have an appointment?”
“Where’s Alamar?” Elise demanded, in her most dismissive tone.
“I’m so sorry—Alamar is off today,” Kyra stammered, which of course Elise and Calliope had already known. The girl’s eyes skimmed quickly over Elise’s outfit, taking in the designer skirt and seven-carat stone on her finger, so high quality it was almost indistinguishable from a real diamond. Evidently she concluded that this was someone important, someone Alamar shouldn’t have upset. “Perhaps one of our senior sales associates can—”
“I’m looking for a new cocktail dress. Something showstopping,” Elise talked over the younger woman, waving at the holographic display to project this season’s designs onto a scan of her body. She flicked her wrist to scroll rapidly through the images, then held out her palm to pause at a plum-colored dress with an uneven hem. “Can I see this one, but shortened?”
Kyra’s eyes unfocused, probably checking her schedule on her contacts. Calliope knew she was debating whether to abandon her restocking duties in favor of this new, most likely lucrative commission.
She also knew that at the end of the shopping spree, after the various dresses had been instantly woven and sewn by the superlooms hidden in the back of the store, Kyra would haltingly ask for an account number to charge it all to. “Alamar knows,” Elise would say, with her sorry but I can’t be bothered shrug. Then she would walk out of the store, her arms laden with bags, without a backward glance.
Technically, they could have paid for the dresses the normal way—they did have money squirreled away in a few different bancs all over the globe. Though at the rate they spent, it never seemed to last very long. And as Elise always said, why pay for something you can get for free? It was the motto they lived by.
Elise and Kyra dissolved into a discussion of silk paneling. Calliope looked up, already bored, and saw three girls her age crossing the store, wearing identical plaid skirts and white button-downs. A slow smile spread across her face. No matter what country they were in, private-school girls invariably made easy targets.
“Mom,” she interrupted. Kyra stepped aside for a moment to give them some privacy, but it didn’t matter; Calliope and her mom had long ago established a code for situations like this. “I just remembered an assignment that I need to go finish. For history class.” History meant a group con. If she’d used biology class, it would have meant a romantic one—a seduction.
Elise’s eyes lit on the trio of girls and flashed in instant understanding. “Of course. I wouldn’t want you to lose your place on the honor roll,” she said wryly.
“Right. I do need to graduate with honors.” Calliope kept a straight face as she turned away.
She muttered “nearby private high schools” under her breath as she moved toward the accessories section, where the girls seemed to be headed. It only took two search results before she found the right one; she could tell since the students on the homepage were wearing the same lame uniform. Bingo.
She stationed herself in the girls’ path and began to studiously loiter: picking up various items, studying them as if actually considering them, then setting them down again. She was keeping an eye on the progress of the group, but still, she couldn’t help relishing the feel of a cool leather belt or a slippery silk scarf in her hands.
When the girls were only a row away, Calliope stumbled forward, knocking a whole table of purses to the ground. They fell across the polished wood floor like pieces of spilled candy.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” Calliope muttered, in the posh British accent she and her mom had been using all week—not the cheap cockney one she’d grown up with, but a refined one she’d mastered after careful practice. She had purposefully tipped the table so that the clutches fell in the girls’ direct path; forcing the trio to either step carefully through them or kneel down to help. Unsurprisingly, they did the latter. Rich girls never left something expensive on the ground, unless they’d been the one to toss it there.
“It’s okay. No harm done,” said one of the girls, a tall blonde who was far and away the most beautiful of the three. She had such an air of sophistication that on her, the ridiculous school uniform was transformed into something almost chic. She stood up at the same time as Calliope, setting the last little beaded clutch on the table.
“You all go to Berkeley?” Calliope asked, in that crucial instant before they started to walk away.
“Yeah. Wait, do you go there too?” asked one of the other girls. She frowned a little, as if wondering whether she’d seen Calliope before.
“Oh no,” Calliope said breezily. “I recognized the uniforms from the admissions tour. We’re in town from London—staying at the Nuage—but we might move here for my mom’s job. If we do, I’ll be transferring schools.” The lines rolled easily off her tongue; she’d spoken them many times before.
“That’s exciting. What does your mom do?” The blonde spoke again; not pushy, but with a quiet, genuine interest. Her clear-eyed gaze was somehow disconcerting.
“She works in sales, for private clients,” Calliope couldn’t resist saying, with a deliberate vagueness. “So what do you think of Berkeley? You like it there?”
“I mean, it’s school. It’s not like it’s fun,” the third girl finally chimed in. She had tawny skin, and her dark hair was pulled into a chic fishtail braid. She quickly looked over Calliope’s outfit, taking in her cream-colored knit dress and brown boots, and her eyes grew warmer in evident approval. “You would like it there, I think,” she concluded.
Calliope hid a familiar flash of disdain at these empty-headed girls. They were so easily persuaded of anything, as long it fit within their narrow worldview. She couldn’t wait to con something from them—shave off a little of the wealth they hadn’t worked for and were clearly not entitled to at all.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Calliope Brown,” she declared, holding out a hand laden with stacked enamel bangles and a fresh dove-gray manicolor. After a moment, the girl took it.
“My name is Risha, and this is Jess, and Avery,” she told Calliope.
“We actually need to get going,” the blond girl—Avery—said, with an apologetic smile. “We have appointments at the facial bar downstairs.”
“No way!” Calliope lied, with a practiced laugh. “I have an appointment there in half an hour. Maybe I’ll see you on your way out.”
“You should just come now, with us. I bet they can take you early,” Risha urged. She glanced quickly at Avery for confirmation, and Calliope didn’t miss the slight nod of approval that Avery gave at the suggestion. So, Avery was the one who called all the shots. Calliope was hardly surprised.
She’d never been quite as good at faking friendship as she was a romantic attachment. Lust was so delightfully uncomplicated and straightforward, while female friendships were inevitably layered with conditions, and history, and unspoken rules of behavior. Still, Calliope was nothing if not a fast learner. She could already see that Risha would be the easiest of the three to win over, but Avery was the crucial one, so she focused her efforts on her.
“I’d love to come, if you don’t mind,” she admitted, smiling at each of them in turn, her eyes lingering the longest on Avery.
As they walked through the doors of Ava Beauty Lounge, Calliope took a deep breath, inhaling the glorious scents of lavender and peppermint and spa. Everything inside was done in shades of peach and cream, from the soft carpet underfoot to the delicate sconces hanging on the walls, casting pools of golden light on the girls’ faces.
“Miss Fuller,” said the store manager, snapping to instant attention. Calliope studied the other girl with markedly more interest. So, she was the type of person who got recognized at places like this. Was it for her beauty, or her money, or both? “I didn’t realize you were a party of four today. I’ll add another facialette station to your cluster.”
He began to usher them all forward just as another girl walked out of the inner lounge and froze at the sight of Avery.
“Hi, Leda.” Avery’s voice was distinctly chilly.
The new arrival—a thin black girl with wide eyes and darting, nervous gestures—pulled herself up to her full height. It wasn’t very tall. “Avery. Jess, Risha.” Her eyes lit on Calliope, but she apparently decided it wasn’t worth introducing herself. “Enjoy your facial,” she said on her way out, managing to turn the innocuous phrase into something almost vindictive.
“Thanks, we will!” Calliope said cheerfully, delighting at the three horrified expressions that whirled toward her. But she didn’t give a damn about these girls’ intra-clique drama. She was here for a free facial, thank you very much.
Soon the four of them were seated at the gleaming white facial bar, clutching glasses of chilled grapefruit water. A bot wheeled over and handed them each a pink-and-white-stitched apron. “To keep the facial products from splattering onto your clothes,” the facial attendant explained, in answer to Calliope’s curious look.
“Oh, right. We wouldn’t want the girls to ruin their fabulous uniforms,” Calliope deadpanned, and was gratified to hear Avery laugh.
A row of lasers on the opposite wall turned on, aiming beams of focused photons toward the girls’ faces. Calliope instinctively shut her eyes, though she knew the lasers were too precise to hurt her. She felt nothing but a slight tickle across her nerves as the laser skimmed over the surface of her skin, collecting data on her oil levels and pH balance and chemical composition.
“So,” she asked Avery, who was sitting to her left, “what’s the deal with that Leda girl?”
Avery seemed startled by the question. “She’s a friend of ours,” she said quickly.
“She didn’t seem that friendly.” The lasers began to flash more quickly, signaling that they were almost finished with their dermatological analysis.
“Well, she was a close friend of mine until recently,” Avery amended.
“What happened? Was it about a boy?” It usually was, with girls like this.
Avery stiffened, though her face remained immobile as the laser traced across her poreless porcelain skin. Calliope wondered what they would even give her; she was so obviously already perfect.
“It’s a long story,” Avery answered, which was proof enough to Calliope that she was right. She felt a momentary stab of sympathy for Leda. That must suck, being the girl who had to compete with Avery.
A holographic menu popped up at Calliope’s eye level, with treatment recommendations. Next to her, she heard the other girls chatting in low voices as they debated which add-ons to select: a soothing cucumber mask, a hydrogen infusion, a crushed-ruby scrub. Calliope checked the boxes for everything.
A steaming cocoon dropped down from the ceiling before each of them, and the girls leaned forward and closed their eyes.
“Avery,” said the brunette girl—Jess, Calliope remembered. “Your parents’ holiday party is still happening this year, right?”
Calliope’s ears perked up a little at the mention of a party. She turned her head just slightly to the left, letting more of the steam hit the right side of her face, so that she could listen.
“Didn’t you get the invitation?” Avery asked.
Jess seemed to quickly back down. “Yes, but I just thought, after everything that happened … Never mind.”
Avery sighed, but she didn’t sound angry, only regretful. “There’s no way my dad would cancel. During the party, he’s going to announce the completion of The Mirrors—that’s what he named the Dubai Tower, since it has two sides that are mirror images.”
Dubai Tower? Suddenly Calliope remembered what the sales associate had called Avery when they walked in, and the puzzle pieces clicked into place.
Fuller Investments was the company that had patented all the structural innovations needed to build towers this tall: the ultra-compounded steel supports, the earthquake shock protectors stuffed between every floor, the oxygenated air that was pumped throughout the higher floors to prevent altitude sickness. They had built the New York Tower, the first global supertower, almost twenty years ago.
Which meant that Avery Fuller was very wealthy indeed.
“That sounds like fun,” Calliope chimed in. In her lap, she clenched one hand atop the other, then flipped them over again. She’d been to parties far more exclusive and incredible than this, she tried to remind herself: like the one at that club in Mumbai with the champagne bottle as big as a small car, or the mountainside lodge in Tibet where they’d grown hallucinogenic tea. But all those parties faded in her memory—as they always did—when confronted by the specter of some other future party that Calliope wasn’t invited to.
A puff of steam rose from the top of Avery’s cocoon as she gave the answer Calliope had been hoping for. “If you’re not busy, you should come.”
“I’d love to,” Calliope said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. She heard Avery mutter under her breath, and an instant later the envelope icon in the top of her vision lit up as her contacts received the message. Calliope bit her lip to keep from smiling as she opened it.
Fuller Investments Annual Holiday Party, read the scrolling gold calligraphy, against a black starry background. 12/12/18. The Thousandth Floor.
It was kind of badass, Calliope admitted to herself, that the only address they needed to write was their floor. Clearly they owned the whole thing.
The girls’ chatter moved on, to something about a school assignment, then a boy that Jess was dating. Calliope let her eyes flutter shut. She did love rich things, she thought with unadulterated pleasure, now that she got them for real—and usually on someone else’s dime.
It hadn’t always been like this. When she was younger, Calliope had known about these sorts of things, but never actually experienced them. She could look, but never touch. It was a particularly excruciating sort of torture.
It felt like a long time ago, now.
She’d grown up in a tiny flat in one of the older, quieter neighborhoods of London, where none of the buildings stretched higher than thirty floors and people still grew real plants out on their balconies. Calliope never asked who her father was, because she honestly didn’t care. It had always been Calliope and her mom, and she was fine with that.
Elise—she’d had a different name back then, her real name—had been the personal assistant to Mrs. Houghton, a stuffy rich woman with a pinched nose and watery eyes. She insisted on being called “Lady Houghton,” claiming that she descended from an obscure branch of the now defunct royal family. Elise managed Mrs. Houghton’s calendar, her correspondence, her closet: all the myriad details of her useless, gilded life.
Elise and Calliope’s life felt so dull in contrast. Not that they could complain: their apartment should have been adequate, with its self-filling refrigerator and cleaning bots and a subscription to all the major holo channels. They even had windows in both bedrooms, and a decent closet. Yet Calliope quickly learned to see their life as something unforgivably drab, illuminated only by the occasional touches of glamour that her mom brought home from the Houghtons’.
“Look what I have,” Elise would proclaim, her voice taut with excitement, each time she walked in the door with something new.
Calliope always hurried over, holding her breath as her mom unwrapped the package, wondering what it contained this time. An embroidered silk ball gown with sequins missing, which Mrs. Houghton had asked Elise to take back for repairs. Or a handpainted china plate that was one of a kind, and could Elise please track down the artist and have her make another? Even jewelry, on occasion: a sapphire ring or a diamond choker that needed to be professionally cleaned.
Reverently, Calliope would reach out to touch the sumptuous fur shrug, or crystal wine decanter, or her absolute favorite, the supple Senreve shoulder bag in a shocking bright pink. She would look up into mother’s eyes and see her own childlike longing reflected there, like a candle.
Always too soon for Calliope’s taste, her mom would pack away the treasure with a sigh of regret, to take it to the repair shop or cleaners or back to the store for return. Calliope knew without being told that Elise wasn’t even supposed to bring these things home at all—that she did so for Calliope’s sake, so that Calliope could get a little glimpse at just how beautiful they were.
At least Calliope got the hand-me-downs. The Houghtons had a daughter named Justine, one year older than Calliope. For years, Elise had brought Justine’s discarded clothing home to their flat, rather than taking it to the donation center as Mrs. Houghton instructed. Together Calliope and her mom would sort through the bags, exclaiming over the gossamer dresses and patterned stockings and coats with embroidered bows, tossed aside like used tissue because they were a season old.
When her mom worked late, Calliope would go to her friend Daera’s apartment down the hall. They spent hours pretending they were princesses at afternoon high tea. They would put on Justine’s old dresses and sip cups of water at Daera’s kitchen table, curling up their pinkies in that funny, fancy way, speaking in a butchered approximation of the upper-crust accent.
“It’s my fault you have such a taste for expensive things,” Elise said once, but Calliope didn’t regret any of it. She would rather see a tiny sliver of that beautiful, charmed world than not know of its existence at all.
Everything came to a head one afternoon when Calliope was eleven. She’d had the day off from school, so Elise was forced to bring her to Mrs. Houghton’s house while she worked. Calliope had firm instructions to stay in the kitchen and read quietly on her tablet—which she did, for almost a full hour. Until she heard the little beep of the house comp that meant Lady Houghton had left.
Calliope couldn’t help it—she darted straight up the stairs into the Houghtons’ bedroom. The door to Mrs. Houghton’s closet was wide open. It was just begging to be explored.
Before Calliope could think twice she’d slipped inside, running her hands longingly over the gowns and sweaters and soft leather pants. She reached for that bright fuchsia Senreve purse and slung it over one shoulder, turning from side to side as she studied her reflection in the mirror, so excited that she didn’t hear the second beep of the house comp. If only Daera were here to see this. “You will address me as ‘Your Highness,’ and bow when I approach,” she said aloud to her reflection, fighting not to giggle.
“What do you think you’re doing?” came a voice from the doorway.
It was Justine Houghton. Calliope started to explain, but Justine had already opened her mouth to let out a shrill, bloodcurdling scream. “Mom!”
Mrs. Houghton materialized an instant later, accompanied by Elise. Calliope winced under her mom’s gaze, hating the way her expression flitted between recrimination and something else, something frighteningly close to guilt.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, though her fingers were still closed tight around the handle of the purse, as if she couldn’t bear to release it. “I didn’t mean any harm—it’s just that your clothes are so beautiful, and I wanted to see them up close—”
“So you could get your grubby little hands all over them?” Mrs. Houghton reached for the Senreve bag, but for some perverse reason Calliope held it even tighter to her chest.
“And, Mom, look—she’s wearing my dress! Though she doesn’t look nearly as good in it as I did,” Justine added, nastily.
Calliope glanced down and bit her lip. This was indeed one of Justine’s old dresses, a white shift with distinctive black Xs and Os along the collar. It was true that it was a little long and shapeless on her, but they couldn’t afford to tailor it. Why do you care? You gave it away, she wanted to say, resentment rising up in her, yet for some reason her throat had closed up.
Lady Houghton turned to Elise. “I thought I instructed you to donate Justine’s used clothing to the poor,” she said, her tone clipped and businesslike. “Are you, in fact, poor?”
Calliope would never forget the way her mom’s shoulders stiffened at that remark. “It won’t happen again. Say you’re sorry, dear,” she added to Calliope, gently prying the purse from her rigid hands and passing it over.
Some deep-rooted instinct of Calliope’s rose up in protest, and she shook her head, mutinous.
That was when Lady Houghton raised her hand and slapped Calliope across the face so hard that her nose bled.
Calliope expected her mom to retaliate, but Elise just dragged her daughter home without another word. Calliope was silent and resentful at the time. She knew she shouldn’t have been in the closet, but she still couldn’t believe Lady Houghton had struck her, and that her mom hadn’t done anything about it.
The next day Elise came home in a flurry of agitation. “Pack your bags. Now,” she said, refusing to explain. When they got to the train station, Elise booked them two one-way tickets to Moscow and handed Calliope an ID chip with a new name. An unfamiliar pouch jangled at Elise’s waist.
“What’s that?” Calliope asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
Elise glanced around to check that no one was watching, then opened the drawstring of the bag. It was full of expensive jewelry that Calliope recognized as Mrs. Houghton’s.
That was when Calliope realized her mom was a thief, and that they were on the run.
“We’re never coming back, are we?” she’d asked, without a shred of regret. A sense of limitless adventure was unfurling in her eleven-year-old chest.
“That woman had it coming. After everything she did to me—after what she did to you—we deserve this,” Elise said simply. She reached for her daughter’s hand to give it a squeeze. “Don’t worry. We’re heading on an adventure, just the two of us.”
And from that day on, it was indeed a glorious, nonstop adventure. The money from the Houghtons’ jewelry eventually ran out, but by then it didn’t matter, because Elise had figured out how to get more: she’d swindled a proposal from a gullible, wealthy older man. She’d realized that Mrs. Houghton had given her something even more valuable than jewelry—the voice, and mannerisms, and overall demeanor of someone entitled. Everywhere she went, people thought Elise was rich. Which meant that they gave her things without expecting her to pay, at least not right away.
The thing about rich people was that once they thought you were one of them, they became much less wary around you—and that made them easy targets.
Thus began the life Calliope and her mom had lived for the past seven years.
“What flavor would you like for your facial cleanser?” a spa attendant asked, and Calliope blinked to awareness. The other girls were sitting up, their skin glowing. A warm, scented towel was curled around Calliope’s neck.
She realized that her treatment included a custom face wash, which had been created during her treatment specifically for her.
“Dragonfruit,” she declared, because its shocking red-pink was her favorite color. The technician deftly twisted open the jar, revealing a scentless white cream, and tossed in a red flavor pod before holding it up to a metallic wand on the wall. Moments later the jar of bright red face wash spun out of a chute, with a list of all the enzymes and organic ingredients that had been uniquely combined for Calliope’s skin. A tiny cranberry sticker completed the package.
When they emerged into the gold-and-peach front room and the other girls started leaning toward the retinal scanner to pay, Calliope pulled the trick she always performed when shopping in groups. She hung back; dilating her pupils, muttering curse words under her breath.
“Is everything okay?” Avery asked, watching her.
“Actually, no. I can’t log into my account.” Calliope gave a few more pretend bitbanc commands, letting a note of agitation creep into her voice. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
She waited until the gentleman from the front desk was pointedly clearing his throat, making it awkward for everyone, before turning to Avery. She knew her cheeks were bright pink with embarrassment—she’d long ago learned to blush on command—and her eyes were gleaming with a silent entreaty. But none of the girls made any offer to help.
A boy would have paid by now; though out of self-interest, not chivalry. This was precisely why Calliope preferred lust to friendship. Fine, she thought in irritation; she would just have to do this the direct way.
“Avery?” she asked, with what she hoped was the right amount of self-consciousness. “Would you mind covering my facial, just till I figure out what’s going on with my account?”
“Oh. Sure.” Avery nodded good-naturedly and leaned forward, blinking a second time into the retinal scanner to cover the exorbitant cost of Calliope’s facial. Just as Calliope expected, she didn’t even seem to register the long list of add-ons. She probably had no idea how much her own facial had cost.
“Thank you,” Calliope began, but Avery waved away the gratitude.
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, the Nuage is one of my favorite places. I know where to find you,” Avery said lightly.
If only you knew. By the time Avery got around to collecting—if she ever even remembered to—Calliope and her mom would be long gone, living on a different continent under new names, no trace left of them in New York at all.
The many boys and girls who’d known Calliope these past few years, whose hearts she’d left carelessly strewn throughout the world, would have recognized her smirk. She felt sorry for Avery and Risha and Jess. They were headed back to their boring, routine lives, while Calliope’s existence was anything but boring.
She followed the other girls out the door, dropping the jar of cleanser into her bag—the special-edition Senreve bag in bold fuchsia, of course—with a satisfying clunk.
RYLIN (#ulink_9c56bdcd-927d-57af-82e4-1cff052da247)
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, Rylin stood before the grandiose carved entrance to the Berkeley School, immobile with shock. This couldn’t be her, Rylin Myers, wearing a collared shirt and pleated skirt, about to start at a preppy highlier private school. It felt like it was happening to another person, a bizarre series of images that someone else had dreamed.
She adjusted the strap of her tote bag over one shoulder, shifting her weight uncertainly. The world was brightening around her as the timed bulbs subtly adjusted their luminosity to indicate the lateness of the morning. Rylin had forgotten how much she loved the effect; one time she’d sat on Cord’s doorstep as the sun rose outside, just watching the slow shift of the overhead lights. Down on the 32nd floor, the lights never shifted from their single fluorescent setting, unless one of the kids on her block threw something to smash out a bulb.
Well, it was now or never. She started toward the main office, following the highlighted yellow arrows on the school-issued official tablet she’d picked up last week. Unlike her normal MacBash tablet, this one worked within the boundaries of the tech-net that surrounded the school, though it could only carry out basic approved tasks, like checking her academic e-mail account or taking notes. And the tablets all shut down during exams, to prevent cheating. There was no hacking the tech-net, Rylin knew; though plenty of kids through the years had tried.
She tried not to stare as she moved through the hallways. This place looked the way she’d always imagined college campuses, with its wide, light-filled corridors and stone colonnades. Directional holos popped up each time she turned a corner. In a courtyard down the hall, palm trees waved in a simulated breeze. A few kids passed, all wearing the same uniform.
Of course, Rylin had seen the uniform before—in the laundry, back when she worked for Cord Anderton.
She had no idea what she would say when she saw him. Maybe she wouldn’t see him, she thought with a dubious hope; maybe this was a big enough campus that she could avoid him for the next three semesters. But she had a feeling she wouldn’t be that lucky.
“Rylin Myers. I’m here to meet with an academic adviser,” she told the young man behind the desk, when she’d finally reached the main office. She still couldn’t believe that this school even had a human academic adviser. DownTower, things like college recommendations and course assignments were distributed by an algorithm. These people must feel pretty full of themselves if they thought they could do a better job than a computer.
The man typed on a tablet. “Of course. The new scholarship student.” He glanced up at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “You know that Eris Dodd-Radson was very beloved here at Berkeley. We all miss her.”
It was an odd welcome, to bring up the person whose death had made her very presence here possible. Rylin wasn’t sure how to reply, but the man didn’t seem to expect an answer. “Have a seat. The adviser will see you in a minute.”
Rylin sank onto a couch and glanced around the room, its beige walls decorated with framed teaching awards and motivational holos. She wondered suddenly what her friends were doing—her real friends, downTower. Lux, Andrés, Bronwyn, even Indigo. She knew a few people at Berkeley, but they all already hated her.
And just like that, as if she’d summoned him with her thoughts, Cord Anderton walked into the office.
She’d told herself over and over these past weeks that she didn’t miss him, that she was doing perfectly fine without him. But it nearly undid her, seeing Cord now; his oxford shirt untucked, his dark hair a little unkempt. So familiar, and so achingly off-limits.
She sat still, letting her eyes drink him in, dreading the moment when he would notice her and she’d have to glance away. It was a cruel cosmic joke, that the very first person she ran into at her new school had to be Cord.
His gaze almost slid past her, seeing just another half-Asian girl in the uniform—and then he seemed to register who she was, and did a double take. “Rylin Myers,” he said, in the old familiar drawl; the one he used for people he didn’t know well. Rylin’s heart broke a little when she heard it. It was the way Cord had spoken the first night he met her, when she was nothing but the hired help. Before she stole from him and fell in love with him and everything spun wildly out of control.
“I’m as shocked as you are, trust me,” she told him.
Cord leaned back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have to admit, this is one place I hadn’t expected to see you.”
“It’s my first day. I have to meet with an adviser,” Rylin explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be here. “What about you?”
“Truancy,” Cord said carelessly. Rylin knew that he sometimes skipped school to visit his parents’ house on Long Island and drive their illegal old autocars. She thought of the day he’d taken her out there, a day that had ended on the beach in a rainstorm, and she reddened at the memory.
“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” She hadn’t planned on having this conversation with Cord, at least not today, but there was no avoiding it. She was here, in his world—or was it her world now too? It certainly didn’t feel like it.
Cord hesitated, seeming torn between his resentment toward Rylin and his curiosity about what she was doing here—and what she had to say. Apparently curiosity won out. “Follow me,” he told her.
He led Rylin out of the office and down the hallway. It was getting more crowded as the first bell approached, students gossiping in small clusters, their gold bracelets and wrist-comps flashing as they gesticulated to make a point. Rylin saw their eyes travel curiously over her—taking in her unfamiliar features, her angular beaded earrings, her close-cut blue fingernails and the scuffed flats she’d stolen from Chrissa, because she didn’t own any footwear that qualified as “simple black shoes without a heel.” She kept her head held high, daring them to challenge her, resisting the urge to look over at Cord. A few people said hi to him, but he just nodded in greeting, and certainly never introduced Rylin.
Finally he turned through a set of double doors into a pitch-dark room. Rylin was startled by the holographic label that popped up as they crossed the door. “You have a screening room at school?” she asked, because it was weird and because she desperately wanted to break the silence.
Cord messed with a control box, and after a moment, the track lighting along the stairs flickered on. It was still very dark. Cord was little more than a shadow.
“Yeah, it’s for the film class.” Cord sounded impatient. “Okay, Myers, what’s up?”
Rylin took a deep breath. “I’ve imagined this conversation at least a hundred different times, and in absolutely zero of those scenarios was I here, at your school.”
Cord’s teeth gleamed in a hollow smile. “Oh, yeah? Where did you imagine this conversation?”
In bed, but that was wishful thinking. “It doesn’t matter,” Rylin said quickly. “The point is, I owe you an apology.”
Cord stepped back, toward the top row of seats. Rylin forced herself to look directly at him as she spoke. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you ever since that night.” She didn’t need to clarify; he would know what night she meant.
“I wanted to ping you, but I had no idea what to say. And it didn’t seem like it mattered anymore. You were up here, and I was down on thirty-two, and I figured it was just easier not to dig it all up.” And I’m a coward, she admitted to herself. I was afraid to see you again, knowing how much it would hurt.
“Anyway, now I apparently go to school with you—I mean, I’m here on scholarship—”
“The one Eris’s parents endowed,” Cord said, unnecessarily.
Rylin blinked. She hadn’t counted on the fact that so many people would talk to her about Eris. “Yes, that one. And since I’m going to keep seeing you around, I wanted to clear the air.”
“‘Clear the air,’” Cord repeated, his voice flat. “After you pretended to date me so that you could steal from me.”
“It wasn’t pretend! And I didn’t want to steal—at least, not after the first time,” Rylin protested. “Please, let me explain.”
Cord nodded but didn’t answer.
So she told him everything. She admitted the truth about her ex-boyfriend, Hiral, and about the Spokes—how she’d stolen the custom-made drugs from Cord that one time, the first week she worked for him, to keep her and Chrissa from being evicted. Rylin lifted her chin a little, trying not to falter as she explained how Hiral had blackmailed her into selling his drugs for bail money. How V threatened her, forcing her to steal from Cord again.
She told Cord everything except how his older brother, Brice, had confronted her, saying that unless she broke up with Cord—unless she acted like she’d only dated him for the money—he would send her to jail. She knew how close Cord was with his older brother and had no desire to get in the middle of that relationship. So she made it sound like Hiral did it all.
And she didn’t tell Cord how much she’d loved him. How much she still loved him.
Cord didn’t say anything until Rylin’s last words fell into the silence like stones, causing it to ripple in waves around them. By now it was well into first period; they’d both missed their meetings in the main office. Rylin didn’t care. This was more important. She wanted, desperately, to make things right with Cord. And if she was being honest with herself, she wanted so much more than that.
“Thank you for telling me all this,” he said slowly.
Rylin took an involuntary step forward. “Cord. Do you think that we could ever—”
“No.” He flinched away before she could finish the question. The movement hit her like a blow to the stomach.
“Why?” she couldn’t help asking. She felt like she’d ripped her heart open, let its contents spill like sawdust all over the floor, and now Cord was walking carelessly all over it. She somehow held back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.
Cord let out a breath. “Rylin, after everything that’s happened, I don’t know how to trust you. Where does that leave us?”
“I’m sorry,” she ventured, knowing it wasn’t enough. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did hurt me, Rylin.”
Someone cracked open the door, letting a flood of light into the room, then backed away hastily when they saw Cord. In the brief moment of illumination, Rylin caught sight of his face: distant, cold, closed-off. It terrified her. She would rather that he yell at her, seem angry or wounded, even cruel. This casual indifference was infinitely worse. He was retreating somewhere deep inside himself, where she could never reach him—where he would be lost to her forever.
“I wish I could rewind, do things differently,” she said uselessly.
“I wish that too. But that’s not how life works, is it?”
Cord took a step forward, as if he was about to leave. Rylin realized in an instant of clarity that she could not let him be the one to walk away from her, not if she were to maintain any semblance of pride. She moved quickly to the door and glanced back over her shoulder.
“I guess it isn’t. I’ll see you around, Cord,” she told him, which was, unfortunately, the truth. She would keep seeing the boy who didn’t want her, over and over again.
Later that day, Rylin moved mechanically through the lunch line, wondering how many total minutes she had left at this school. Already she wanted to start a ticking countdown in the corner of her tablet, the way some girls did for their birthdays.
Predictably, the school had launched her on a schedule of entirely base-level classes—including freshman biology, since biology was the one science she’d never taken at her old school. She was actually relieved that she’d shown up so late to her meeting with the registrar, Mrs. Lane, if only because it spared her a full half hour of that woman’s incredulous condescension. “It says here you were working at a store called Arrow?” Mrs. Lane had asked with a haughty sniff. Rylin half wished she’d bought a pair of the flashing Arrow rainboots and worn them around school, just to make some kind of point.
As she stepped up to the retinal scanner to check out, Rylin grabbed a shining red bottle of water from one of the dispensers. The scripted logo read MARSAQUA, in letters that looked like icicles against a bright red planet. The cartoon letters repeatedly melted, dripped to the bottom of the bottle, then floated back up to re-form ice crystals.
“Martian water,” she heard from behind her.
Rylin whirled around, only to see her worst nightmare standing there. Leda Cole.
“They chip away chunks of the Martian ice caps, then bring it back to Earth and bottle it. It’s fantastic for your metabolism,” Leda went on. Her voice was frighteningly sweet.
“That sounds harmful to Mars,” Rylin replied, proud of how unconcerned she sounded. Leda was like the vicious stray dog that used to lurk near their apartment—you couldn’t afford to reveal any weakness before her, or she would never lay off the attack.
“Come sit with me,” Leda commanded, and started off without waiting to see whether Rylin would follow.
Rylin didn’t bother hiding her sigh of irritation. Well, she might as well get all her shitty conversations over with on the first day. It could only go upward from here, right?
Leda had planted herself at a two-person table near a flexiglass window that overlooked an interior courtyard. Rylin saw kids out there playing with flying video-cams and chatting around an enormous fountain. There was so much real sunlight flooding in from the ceiling, filtered by mirrors from the roof, that it felt like they were outdoors—if outdoors was ever this clean and symmetrical and perfect.
She sank into the seat across from Leda and dunked one of her sweet potato fries in aioli. Leda obviously wanted her to feel intimidated, but Rylin wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“What the hell are you doing here, Rylin?” Leda demanded, without preamble.
“I go to this school now.” Rylin gestured down at her pleated skirt and lifted an eyebrow. “We’re wearing the same uniform, in case you didn’t notice.”
Leda didn’t seem to have heard. “Did the cops send you?”
“The cops? Do you realize how paranoid you sound?” The idea was ludicrous, that Rylin Myers would become some kind of undercover police spy.
“All I know is that you’re a walking reminder of a night I’d rather not think about.” That makes two of us, Rylin thought. “And now, for some inexplicable reason, you’re here at my school, instead of down on the twentieth floor where you belong!” Leda’s voice quavered, and Rylin realized with pleasure that she sounded just a little bit … afraid.
“Last I checked, Leda, it didn’t say your name on the arch out front. So no, this isn’t your school. And I live on the thirty-second floor,” she corrected, “but I’m here on scholarship.”
Understanding flashed in Leda’s eyes. “The Eris scholarship,” she breathed.
“That’s the one,” Rylin said cheerfully, and took a bite of her enormous cheeseburger, relishing the look of disgust that flitted over Leda’s face. “Now, unless you have more threats for me, I’d suggest you back off and let me enjoy my lunch in peace. I’m not here to mess with your perfect life.” She put just a little emphasis on perfect, as if to indicate that she didn’t quite buy into the notion that Leda’s life was so perfect after all.
Leda stood up abruptly, scraping her chair across the dark walnut floor. She grabbed her uneaten spinach salad and tossed her hair over one shoulder. “Let me give you some free advice,” she said, a fake smile pasted on her face, and glanced again at Rylin’s burger. “Girls don’t ever eat the grill special.”
Rylin smiled back, just as wide. “That’s funny. Because I’m a girl, and I just did. Guess you don’t know everything after all.”
“Be careful, Myers. I’m watching you.”
What a great first day it was shaping up to be. Rylin leaned back in her chair and took an enormous sip of the overpriced Martian water, because why the hell not.
LEDA (#ulink_ec2df355-787c-5f38-afc4-d85ab52c2a27)
“WHERE’S MOM?” LEDA hesitated in the doorway of her family’s dining room, keeping the toes of her boots lined up with the ivory carpet of the hall. Her dad was sitting at the table alone, tapping his fingers absentmindedly on its ultramodern glass surface as he read something on his contacts.
He glanced up. “Hey, Leda. I think she’s running a little late.”
“Dad, what dates do we have the Barbados house in January?” Jamie asked without preamble as he sat down. Leda cautiously ventured inside and pulled out the chair across from him. The table had no legs: it floated unsupported in the air, the ultimate centerpiece of their home’s spare, minimalist décor. Leda thought it was tacky and impersonal, but then, it was fitting that their apartment should feel more like a hotel than a home. A home would imply that the people who lived there actually cared about one another.
Matt Cole cleared his throat. “Actually, we released the Barbados time-share.”
“What?” Leda was stunned. They’d had the time-share in Barbados for ages: a sprawling, serene house atop a hill, with a tiny cobblestone path directly to the beach. Leda had always loved how relaxed her parents were there, as though they became the best, purest versions of themselves, freed of the grime of New York.
“We thought we’d take a year off, maybe do something new,” her dad explained, but Leda wasn’t buying it. She wondered if he’d lost a lot of money recently. Maybe he’d spent too much on Calvadour scarves for his teenage mistress, she thought resentfully, thinking of the exorbitant present he’d given Eris before she died.
“That sucks. I wanted to see if I could bring friends,” Jamie said, and shrugged. “I’m starving. Can we eat?” Typical Jamie; he was never really bothered by anything for very long.
“Let’s wait for Mom,” Leda said quickly, but her dad was already pushing a discreet touch-screen pad at the center of the table. Their chef, Tiffany, appeared, pushing a wide cart laden with dishes.
“Mom said to start without her. She’s held up in a meeting,” their dad explained. Leda pursed her lips and reached for the bowl of pasta without comment. She saw that it was her favorite, a kale-noodle penne with crumbled soy protein and phenerols. Her mom had totally picked this menu to cheer Leda up. A stubborn, contrary part of her was determined not to like it.
“How was school, Leda?” her dad asked. That was his version of parenting: asking scripted questions that he’d gotten from some How to Talk to Your Teenage Daughter book. Leda wondered if they shelved that one next to How to Hide Your Teenage Mistress.
“Fine,” she said curtly, and started to take a bite of the penne, only to put down her fork with a clatter. “Although, there was a new girl at school today. Isn’t that weird, that she was able to start mid-semester like that?”
“I think I saw her,” Jamie chimed in, for once. “The scholarship student?”
Leda glanced at him in surprise. Jamie usually never noticed anything, unless you could smoke it or drink it or had given it to him as a present. Then again, Rylin was pretty, if you could look past her disrespectful attitude.
“Exactly. She moved here from the twentieth floor,” Leda said dramatically, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “Can you imagine?”
“Sort of like how you felt, when we moved here from midTower,” her father said, which shocked Leda into silence.
“No, not at all like me,” she countered after a moment. She didn’t appreciate being compared to an arrogant lowlier. “This girl is rude and insulting. She thinks the rules don’t apply to her.”
Jamie burst out laughing. “Look who’s talking. Leda, you’ve never thought rules apply to you!”
Matt Cole tried to stay impartial, but amusement danced across his features. “Leda, I think you should give this girl the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure she had a tough first day, starting at a new school in the middle of the year. Especially as a scholarship student.”
This was her opening. “You’re right,” Leda said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “And I imagine it’s been extra hard on her, because she won Eris’s scholarship, and of course we all miss Eris so much.”
Silence settled over the room. Leda’s family knew she’d been on the roof, of course; they’d picked her up from the police station that morning after everyone provided their witness statements, and had reviewed it with their lawyer in excruciating detail. Eris’s death was one of those things they seemed to have collectively decided not to talk about. As if all their family’s dirty little secrets could be wrapped up and buried, just the way Eris herself had been, and then they would disappear.
Leda watched her dad’s face closely. Looking for what, she wasn’t quite sure. An acknowledgment of his relationship with Eris, she supposed.
She saw it right away. He flinched at Leda’s words, just barely, but it was enough. She quickly looked down.
Leda had expected to feel pleased at seeing the proof, right there on her dad’s face—yet all she wanted, suddenly, was to cry.
For the rest of the meal she pushed her food around, letting her dad and Jamie talk about lacrosse and some great save Jamie had made and whether or not the school would hire a new coach next year. As soon as she could, she mumbled an excuse and escaped down the hall to her bedroom.
A knock sounded at her door. “Leda?”
“What?” she snapped, wiping at her eyes. Didn’t her dad understand that she had no desire to see him?
He tentatively pushed the door open. “Can we talk?”
She swiveled her desk chair around but stayed where she was, her legs crisscrossed beneath her.
“I just wanted to check on you,” he said, fumbling. “You haven’t spoken about Eris much, since she died. And then what you said, at dinner …” He trailed off awkwardly. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Of course I’m not okay, Leda thought. She almost pitied how clueless her dad was. She’d mentioned Eris at dinner because she wanted to provoke him, because she was sick of pretending that everything was fine, that a cozy pasta dinner could fix things the way it had when she was little. He was the one who’d started sleeping with her friend, and had betrayed everything their family was built on.
But more than that, Leda was disgusted with herself. She’d been keeping it a secret too, and that made her as culpable as he was.
So many times since Eris’s death she had wanted to confront her mom with the truth. She would march up to Ilara, ready to spill it all: that Dad was a two-timing scumbag and that they needed to leave him. “I have something to tell you,” Leda had said, on more than one occasion, “something important—”
Yet Leda could never bring herself to actually say the words. Eris was already gone, she told herself; what good would it do to tear her family apart now? Each time Ilara looked at her with those dark eyes, so full of love, Leda wavered and fell silent. She didn’t want to be the one to break her mom’s heart.
The child in Leda couldn’t bear the thought of her parents splitting up. Her family might be riddled with secrets and betrayals, but it was still her family. And she would rather keep them together, even if it meant sitting on this secret for the rest of her life.
She had earned this, she thought darkly. This twisting, tormenting guilt was her penance, for what she’d done to Eris.
“I’m fine,” she said tightly, in answer to her dad’s question. What else could she say to him, anyway? Hey, Dad, remember how you were having an affair with my friend, and then she fell off the roof? Guess what? I’m the one who pushed her!
“You and Eris were close, right?” her dad persisted. God, why couldn’t he just go away? And why did everyone keep asking that? Just because she and Eris had some friends in common didn’t mean they were attached at the hip.
“We were friends, but not best friends.” Leda was ready to end this conversation. “Actually, Dad, I have a lot of studying to—”
“Leda,” her dad interrupted, and now he was the one who seemed to be desperate, “There’s something I want to tell you about Eris—”
No, no, no. “Sorry!” Leda stood up abruptly, knocking her chair to the floor, and began frantically throwing items in her massive tote bag. She was wearing floral yoga pants and a black zip-up, but it didn’t matter; she needed to get the hell out of here. She absolutely could not stay and listen to her dad’s fucked-up confession about how he’d been sleeping with her so-called friend. “I’m late to study at Avery’s. Can we talk later?”
Understanding, and a little bit of hurt, flashed in her dad’s eyes. Maybe he knew that she knew. “All right. We’ll talk another time.”
“Thanks! See you later!” she said with false brightness, and ran blindly out of the apartment.
Only after she’d slipped inside a hover did Leda realize she had no idea where she was going. Of course she couldn’t actually head to Avery’s. It was too late for a workout class at Altitude, though she could go to the coffee bar there … but then she might see Avery or, worse, one of Eris’s parents … Leda was far too angry and shaken up for that.
The hover started beeping angrily, indicating that it would charge her for the delay if she didn’t enter a destination soon, but Leda couldn’t be bothered to care. God, what had her dad been thinking, bringing up Eris? Why would he make that kind of confession to his own daughter?
Leda felt like everything was spinning wildly out of control. If she hadn’t sworn never to touch drugs again, she would be searching for a xenperheidren right now; but it had become a matter of pride, and Leda’s pride was matched only by her stubbornness.
She hated thinking about that night. Of course, Leda knew that she was safe: no one could prove what she’d done to Eris. There’d been no cameras on the roof, no way for anyone to find out that it was Leda’s fault. Nothing except her three witnesses.
Come to think of it, maybe she should check in on them, make sure they were sticking to their story.
Suddenly Leda knew exactly where to go. She entered an address in the hover’s system and leaned back, closing her eyes. This would be fun.
WATT (#ulink_4ecd363b-86f9-5f88-811c-ac076e47c6e5)
WHAT IF YOUcompose the first draft, then I tweak it to sound like me? Watt begged Nadia for at least the tenth time.
“May I remind you that last fall, you gave me firm orders never to write anything for you again. These are instructions from your past self.”
Last fall Watt had been called into the school office for plagiarism, because Nadia’s essay had come out a little too perfect. He’d been more careful since then. These are extenuating circumstances, he thought huffily.
“I’m just the messenger. Take up the fight with your past self.”
“Nadia—”
“That’s it. Per your past instructions, I’m turning off. Wake me up when you have a draft,”Nadia replied, and beeped into silence.
Watt stared at the blank monitor uncertainly. It was true; he had definitely told Nadia to turn herself off if he kept begging her to write his papers. Past Watt was too damned clever for Present Watt to want to deal with right now.
He began speaking aloud, his dictation-screen picking up the words as he said them.
“The reason I want to work with quantum computers is …”
He paused. There were a million things he could discuss in this essay: that quants were faster and smarter than people, even though people had made them, of course; that they could solve problems that humans never dreamed of. God, just a hundred years ago, it took a digital computer several hours to factor a twenty-digit number. Nadia could do it in four seconds flat. Watt couldn’t even imagine what she would be capable of if she were linked to other quants—and put in charge of international trade, or the stock market, or even just the operations of the U.S. food bank. Nothing would go to waste anymore. Human error would be virtually eliminated.
But none of that had to do with Watt on a personal level, or why the program should choose him over the other thousands of applicants.
If only he could write about Nadia, about how unerringly good she was. She can’t be good; she’s a machine, he corrected himself. But Watt knew that at his core, he believed in Nadia’s good intentions as if she had a human conscience.
He thought of what Vivian Marsh had said, that she wanted to personally read his application essay, and felt his heart sink.
“Watzahn!” His mom knocked at his door. “Your friend is here. For your group project.”
“Cynthia?” They had a video to make for English class. He wondered why Cynthia hadn’t warned him that she was coming over. “You should have pinged, we could have met at the library,” he added, opening the door—only to see Leda Cole standing there, wearing pink floral yoga pants and a self-satisfied smirk.
“We could’ve,” she said smoothly, “but I wanted to use your computer. It’s so much better than the ones at the library, you know?”
“Of course. Watzahn is so proud of his computer. He works on it all the time!” Watt’s mom pronounced, beaming.
Quant on, Watt thought frantically, feeling disoriented and blindsided. What the hell was Leda Cole doing here?
“Thank you, Mrs. Bakradi,” Leda said sweetly, her eyes wide and innocent. She stepped into Watt’s room and swung a tote bag onto the floor, kneeling as if to get out the fictional homework assignment. Watt stared in shock at his mother. He couldn’t believe she was even letting a girl into his bedroom. But Shirin just nodded and smiled at Leda, reminding them to let her know if they needed anything. “Don’t work too hard!” she said, and shut the door quietly behind her.
“Sorry I’m not Cynthia,” Leda purred. “Though I’m glad to hear that one of us has moved on from the Fuller siblings.”
“She’s just a friend,” Watt shot back, then felt ashamed that he’d risen to her bait.
“Too bad.” Leda’s fingers kept tapping against the floor. He didn’t think she was on anything—her eyes were too clear, her gaze steady—yet there was a taut, thrumming nervousness to her movements.
He knelt next to Leda and took her bag from her hands. “Seriously, you need to go.”
“Come on, Watt. Be nice,” she admonished. “I came all the way down here to talk to you.”
“What the hell do you want?” he demanded. Watt, be careful, Nadia cautioned. He let his hands fall uselessly to his sides, clenching them into fists, and sat back on his heels.
“I thought you knew everything, with your little supercomputer tracking all of us all the time,” Leda said acerbically.
Nadia, if you hadn’t turned yourself off, I wouldn’t have been caught like this!
Perhaps you shouldn’t have violated theguidelines you set for yourself, Nadia replied, with ruthless logic.
“What did you tell my mom, for her to let you in?” he asked Leda, to buy time—and because she was right, she shouldn’t be able to sneak up on him like this. He wanted to make sure it never happened again.
Leda rolled her eyes. “I was nice to her, Watt. You should try it sometime. It often works on people.” She stretched her legs out and leaned against his bed, glancing up at the tangle of clothes floating near the ceiling on cheap, disposable hoverbeams.
“I don’t have a closet in here. It’s the best I could think of,” Watt said, following her gaze, not sure why he was explaining himself.
“Actually, I’m impressed.” Leda’s eyes were still darting around the room. “You’ve really maximized the space in here. What was this originally, a nursery?”
“No, the twins got the bigger room when they were born.” He shifted, suddenly seeing the room through Leda’s eyes: the rumpled navy bedcovers, the cheap halogen lighting along the ceiling, the narrow desk littered with secondhand virtual reality gear.
“Twins?” Leda asked, as if she was genuinely curious.
Nadia, what’s she doing?
I believe this is the rhetorical tactic of koinonia, whereby the speaker gets the opponent to talk about himself instead of tackling the subject of the debate.
No, I mean, what does she want?
Watt stood up, losing patience. “You didn’t come over here to make small talk about my family. What’s going on?”
Leda unfolded herself in a slow, graceful movement to stand next to him. She took a step closer, tipping her face up to look at him directly. Her eyes were darker than he remembered, her lids dusted with a smoky powder. “You aren’t even going to offer me a drink before I go? Last time you gave me whiskey,” Leda murmured.
“Last time you seduced and drugged me!”
She smiled. “That was fun, wasn’t it? Well, Watt”—she reached up to tuck a stray hair behind his ear and he yanked his head angrily away; he was starting to feel very confused—“if you must know, I need you to monitor some people for me.”
“Forget it, Leda. I told you, I’m done with all that.”
“That’s too bad, because I’m not done with you.” She’d dropped the playful tone, her voice cold with the veiled threat. She had him cornered, and they both knew it.
“Who do you want me to monitor?” Watt asked warily.
“Avery and Rylin, for starters,” Leda said. There was a new energy to her voice, as if bossing Watt around somehow lent her strength. “I want to make sure they stay in line, that neither of them is talking to anyone about what happened that night.”
He realized she was wearing the same pearl studs that she’d had on the last time she came over here, and the memory caused his anger to bubble up even hotter. “You want me to spy on both of them and report anything unusual?” Watt asked. “Two full-time monitoring tasks. That’ll cost you.”
Leda burst out laughing. “Watt! Of course I won’t be paying you! Your payment is my silence.”
Watt didn’t need Nadia to tell him he’d better not respond to that. Anything he said would only dig him in deeper. He just nodded once, jerkily, hating her.
“You see, Rylin started at my school today,” Leda mused aloud. She’d started circling through his room like a predator, opening various drawers and glancing at the contents, then shutting them again. “It really caught me off guard. I hate that feeling. The whole reason I pay you is to never feel that way, ever again.”
“I believe we just established that you don’t pay me,” he replied evenly.
Leda slammed another drawer shut and lifted her eyes to look directly at Watt. “Where is it?” she demanded. “Your computer.”
Nadia. Can you pretend to be an external? he thought, and made a show of pushing a useless button on his monitor. “Right here. Look, I’m turning it on,” he said. “And now it’s starting up.”
“I don’t need a running commentary.” Leda took a seat on Watt’s bed without being invited. Some strange part of Watt realized that was the first time a girl had ever been on his bed. He’d hooked up with plenty of girls before, of course, but he always went back to their places. He shook his head, a little irritated; why was he thinking about sex right now?
“Let’s start with Avery,” Leda began.
“What? Right now?”
“No time like the present,” she said with false cheerfulness. “Come on, pull up her room comp.”
“No,” Watt said automatically.
“Too painful a memory?” Leda laughed, but it rang hollow to Watt’s ears. He wondered what had happened tonight, to send her down here. “Fine, then. Her flickers.”
“Still no.”
“Oh my god, move over,” she snapped, pushing him impatiently from his chair. Their legs brushed, sending a strange row of sparks up Watt’s body. He quickly edged away from her.
“How do you input commands?” She leaned forward and gazed expectantly at the monitor.
“Nadia, say hello to Leda,” Watt instructed, very loudly and slowly. Use the speakers, Watt thought, but Nadia was already doing so—using every speaker in the room, including the ones on his old VR gear.
“Hello to Leda,” Nadia boomed. Watt barely choked back a laugh. She was using a robotic, monotonous voice, like in old science fiction movies.
Leda practically jumped. “Nice to meet you,” she said cautiously.
“Wish I could say the same,” Nadia replied.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Leda smiled.
Great, go ahead and antagonize her, Watt thought, rolling his eyes.
I’m just following your lead. “You think you can blackmail Watt because you’ve got something on him? Do you even know what I have on you? I see everything you do,” Nadia warned, as ominously as she could.
Leda shoved back the chair in a show of anger, but Watt could tell Nadia’s proclamation had shaken her.
“You watch it. Both of you.” Leda pulled her bag onto one shoulder and stormed out without another word.
Watt waited until he heard the front door close behind her before collapsing backward onto his bed, rubbing his hands over his temples. His bedcovers still smelled like Leda’s rose perfume, which pissed him off to no end. “Nadia, we’re screwed,” he said aloud. “Is she going to keep blackmailing us for all eternity?”
“You won’t be safe unless she’s in jail,” Nadia told him, which he already knew.
“I agree. But we’ve been through this already. How could I send her there?”
He and Nadia had tried everything they could think of. There was no video of Leda pushing Eris: there weren’t any cameras on the roof, and no one had been recording on their contacts when it happened, not even Leda, not even Nadia—who deeply regretted it, but then, no way could she have predicted that outcome. Hell, Nadia had even hacked all the satellite cams within a thousand-kilometer vicinity, but none of them had picked up anything in the darkness.
There was, unfortunately, no way to prove what had happened on the roof. It was Watt’s word against Leda’s. And the moment he said anything, he and Nadia were toast.
Nadia was quiet for a moment. “What if you recorded her confessing to her actions?”
“Can we deal in reality and not hypotheticals? Even if she did say the truth aloud, no way would she say it to me.”
“I disagree,” Nadia said levelly. “She would say it if she trusted you.”
For a moment Watt didn’t understand what Nadia was implying. When he did, he laughed aloud. “Do I need to reprogram your logic functions? Why would Leda Cole trust me, when she so clearly hates me?”
“I’m just trying to explore all possible options. Remember, you programmed me to protect you above everything else. And statistics would suggest that the more time you spend with Leda, the greater your chances of winning her trust,” Nadia replied.
“Statistics are useless when your chances of success increase from one-billionth of a percent to one-millionth.” Watt pulled up the covers, closing his eyes. “Did you know about Rylin going to school with them?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I did. You never asked me about her, though.”
“Have you hacked their school?” An idea was forming in his mind. “What if we messed with Leda a little—put Rylin in all her classes, so Leda can never escape her?”
“Like I haven’t already done that. You underestimate me,” Nadia said, sounding self-satisfied.
Watt couldn’t help smiling into the darkness. “I think the more time you spend in my brain, the more my personality has grafted itself onto you,” he mused aloud.
“Yes. I’d venture to say I know you better than you know yourself.”
Now there was a terrifying notion, Watt thought in amusement.
“Nadia?” he added as he started to drift off. “Please don’t ever turn off around Leda again, no matter what commands I’ve given in the past. I need you, around her.”
“That you do,” Nadia agreed.
RYLIN (#ulink_faa0f237-9bf5-5eaf-a734-3b6643b23337)
RYLIN STRODE QUICKLY down Berkeley’s main hallway, keeping her gaze forward to avoid accidentally making eye contact with Leda—or worse, Cord. At least it was finally Friday afternoon, the end of her seemingly endless first week here.
She followed the directions on her school tablet, past an enormous sandstone bell tower and a shining statue of the school’s founder, whose head moved majestically to follow her progress as she walked. She turned left at the athletic center toward the art wing, ignoring the somewhat morbid shrine to Eris that had been erected in one corner of the hallway, full of candles and instaphotos of her and notes from students who probably hadn’t even known her that well. It gave Rylin the creeps. Though she wasn’t sure whether that was because she’d seen Eris die, or because of the fact that she was here on scholarship, taking Eris’s spot in their class, which made Rylin’s existence a bizarre sort of living shrine.
When she pushed open the door to Arts Suite 105, a dozen heads whipped toward her—almost entirely girls’. Rylin paused, confused.
“Is this holography?” she asked. The room was black, lined with dark view screens and a velvet charcoal carpet.
“It is,” Leda Cole called out from where she sat in the back row, next to the only available seat in the room.
“Thanks.” Rylin’s heart sank as she took the empty desk, wondering what exactly she’d gotten herself into. She pulled out her school tablet and doodled a few loopy cartoons in its notepad function, but she still felt Leda’s eyes on her.
Finally Leda grabbed something from her bag—a blue cone-shaped silencer, inscribed with calligraphied letters that read Lux et Veritas. She should get one of these for Lux, Rylin thought sarcastically. Of course Leda was the type of person who would buy branded gear from a university bookstore before she’d even gotten in.
Leda flicked on the silencer, and the rest of the room immediately hushed, the machine distorting sound waves to create a little pocket of silence. “Okay. How did you get in here?” she snapped.
“I thought we’d been through this. I go to school with you now, remember?”
“Look around. These are all seniors.” Leda gestured sharply to the other girls in the class. “This is the most popular elective at school, with a ninety-person waiting list. The only reason I’m even here is because they reserve a few spots for juniors, and my application essay was best.” She clenched the edge of her desk as if she wished she could break it. “What’s your explanation?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Rylin admitted. “I was just assigned this class. It appeared on my schedule the other day, so here I am.” She shoved her tablet toward Leda as if to offer proof. Accelerated Studies in Holography; instructor, Xiayne Radimajdi.
“Watt,” Leda muttered under her breath, saying it as if it were a curse word.
“What?” Rylin couldn’t have heard correctly. Wasn’t that the boy from the roof, who’d come with them to the police that night?
Leda sighed. “Never mind. Just don’t screw this up for me, okay? I’m hoping to get a recommendation out of it.”
“To Yale?” Rylin said drily, glancing at the silencer.
“Shane went there,” Leda snapped. At Rylin’s confused look, she sighed. “Xiayne Radimajdi. He teaches this class! His name is right there on your tablet.” She rapped sharply at the evidence, and cut her eyes to Rylin in evident disbelief.
“Oh.” Rylin hadn’t realized that Leda was saying the name Xiayne. She’d been wondering how to pronounce it. “Who is he?”
“The triple-Oscar-winning director!” Leda exclaimed. Rylin just stared at her blankly. “You haven’t seen Metropolis? Or Empty Skies? That’s why this class only meets on Fridays—because he works the rest of the week!”
Rylin shrugged. “The last holo I saw was a cartoon. But those things you just mentioned sound depressing anyway.”
“Oh my god. This class is wasted on you.” Leda tossed the silencer back into her bag, turning away from Rylin just as the door swung inward. The whole room seemed to edge forward, collectively holding its breath. And then Rylin understood why the class was composed mostly of girls.
Into the room walked the most incredibly attractive guy Rylin had ever seen.
He was tall, and not much older than they were—in his early twenties, maybe—with deep olive skin and shaggy dark curls. Unlike her other professors, who all wore neckties and blazers, he dressed with shocking disregard for the dress code, in a thin white T-shirt, a jacket with zippers all over it, and skinny jeans. Rylin glanced around and noticed that she and Leda were the only ones not swooning.
“Sorry I’m late. I just got off the ’loop from London,” he announced. “As you all probably know, I just started filming a new project there.”
“The royalty one?” a girl in the front row exclaimed.
Xiayne turned. The girl shifted, but then Xiayne gave a devilish smile, and she visibly relaxed. “I’m not supposed to share this, but yes, it’s about the final queen of England. A little more romantic than my usual material.” The announcement elicited a few gasps and ooohs.
“Now, Livya, since you were so eager to volunteer, can you tell me what we discussed in the last class about Sir Jared Sun?”
Livya sat up straighter. “Sir Jared patented the refractive technology that allowed holographs to obtain motion perfectly aligned with the observer, creating the illusion of presence.”
The door to the classroom slid open again, and a familiar form appeared there. Rylin instinctively sank lower in her seat, wishing she could sink all the way into the floor—farther, even; into the mechanical jumble of the interstitial level and the floor below, all the way down to the ground itself, littered with trash and god knows what else, it didn’t matter—she just wanted to disappear.
“Mr. Anderton,” Xiayne said, sounding amused and unsurprised. “You’re late. Again.”
“I got held up,” Cord offered by way of explanation, and Rylin couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t exactly said he was sorry.
Xiayne glanced around the room as if searching for some explanation for why he was missing a desk. He seemed to register Rylin’s presence with some astonishment. He hadn’t singled her out yet, hadn’t made her do one of those awful self-introductions that some of the other professors insisted on. What if he did so now, and in front of Cord?
But to Rylin’s shock, the professor winked at her, in a way that could only be described as conspiratorial.
“Well, Mr. Anderton, it seems you need somewhere to sit.” Xiayne pushed a button and a desk rose up out of the floor, directly in front of Rylin.
Cord didn’t glance Rylin’s way as he took his seat. Only the tension in his shoulders betrayed any reaction to her presence. Rylin sank miserably lower.
“As we discussed last week,” Xiayne continued, undeterred, “settings are the easiest aspect of the world to re-create in holographic form, because, of course, they are stable. A far more difficult task is the portrayal of something living. Why is that?” He snapped his fingers, and a cat leapt from behind his desk onto the top of it.
Rylin barely refrained from gasping aloud. She’d seen plenty of holograms before: on their screen at home, and of course the adverts that popped up whenever she went shopping. But those were loud and flashy and low-resolution. This cat felt different. It was rendered in exquisite detail, and moved so realistically in a thousand small ways—the lazy flick of its tail, the way its chest lifted lightly with its breath, the challenging blink of its eyes.
The cat jumped onto the desk of the girl in the front row who’d spoken earlier. She let out an involuntary squeal of shock. “Movement,” Xiayne went on, ignoring the scattered laughter. “The movements of anything living must be rendered with perfect relation to any viewer, no matter where he or she is located with respect to the holo. Which is why Sir Jared is called the father of modern holography.”
Xiayne went on for a while about light and distance, about the calculations needed to make something seem larger to the viewers who were closer to it, but smaller to those farther away. Rylin tried to listen, but it was hard to focus with Cord’s dark head right in front of her. She willed herself not to stare. A couple of times she saw Leda looking at her out of the corner of her eye, and she knew the other girl was missing none of it.
When the bell finally rang to signal the end of class, Xiayne quickly changed tack. “Don’t forget that your next project is in pairs, and is due in just two weeks. So you all need to find a partner if you haven’t already.”
The room burst into a hum as everyone began pairing off. Suddenly, Rylin was seized by a terrible, overwhelming fear that she might somehow end up with Cord. She thought of the way he’d looked at her earlier this week, resentful and hurt. No matter what, she could not be partnered with him.
The sounds of the room seemed to be growing louder, making Rylin almost dizzy with the pressure of it. She did the only thing she could think of.
“Partners?” she asked, turning to Leda.
Leda blinked at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding,” she said flatly.
Rylin forced a smile. She had a feeling she would regret this. “What have you got to lose?” she asked.
Leda glanced from Rylin to Cord and back again. “Fine,” she said after a moment, with a flash of reluctant respect. “Just don’t expect me to do all the work for you.”
Rylin started to reply, but the other girl had already stood up to gather her things.
Rylin bit back a sigh and started toward the front of the classroom. She might as well introduce herself to the professor and ask what this assignment was.
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Катарина Макги
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Детская проза
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: New York City, 2118. A glittering vision of the future, where anything is possible – if you want it enough.The dazzling sequel to The Thousandth Floor.Manhattan is home to a thousand-story supertower, a beacon of futuristic glamour and high-tech luxury… and to millions of people living scandalous, secretive lives.LEDA is haunted by nightmares of what happened on the worst night of her life. She’s afraid the truth will get out – which is why she hires WATT, her very own hacker, to keep an eye on all of the witnesses for her. But what happens when their business relationship turns personal?When RYLIN receives a scholarship to an elite upper-floor school, her life transforms overnight. But being here also means seeing the boy she loves: the one whose heart she broke, and who broke hers in return.AVERY is grappling with the reality of her forbidden romance – is there anywhere in the world that’s safe for them to be together?And then there’s CALLIOPE, the mysterious, bohemian beauty who’s arrived in New York with a devious goal in mind – and too many secrets to count.Here in the Tower, no one is safe – because someone is watching their every move, someone with revenge in mind. After all, in a world of such dazzling heights, you’re always only one step away from a devastating fall….