Duplicity (10 page)

“Just follow.”

She does, until we reach the bathroom, where she pulls back her hand back. “You know, this is really awkward.”

“You don't believe me, so I'm going to prove it to you,” I say. “There's a mirror in the bathroom.”

I flip on the light.

“Oh. Right.” She casts a nervous glance downstairs. “Again, if your dad comes up … door's open?”

Always the good girl. I smile. “Not this time.”

She stalls, then steps in, watching me. I close the door. Point at the mirror and try to keep my heart rate down.

“Like right now,” I say. “I have no reflection. I don't see me at all. Obran's somewhere else. What do you see?”

Emma looks at me and back at the glass.

“I see us.”

“No, no. He'll come, he always does. Then you'll see. He won't like my clothes. He won't like my boots. He'll change them.”

He has to change them. I'm baited like a bag of weed in a high school hallway. Besides, something will happen. I have no reflection right now, so he has to come back. I think of the crunching glass, of some
thing
coming for me, and I shiver and wonder what I'll do if that happens again.

“You haven't been changing for me, right?” Emma says, touching my arm. “I don't care about any of that stuff, you know.”

“For the four hundredth time,
no
. Plus, tats don't just wipe off. Skinning takes months, even by laser. Explain that to me.”

“I … well, how do I even know they were real?”

“You really think I put on the same giant temporaries every day?”

“Could be those nylon things.”

I turn and pull my shirt up so she can see the skulls on my back.

“Is that nylon?” I say over my shoulder.

Silence. I jump when her finger traces the lines, and it sends goose bumps down my spine when she follows the drops of ash-dark blood. She rubs part of it and the goose bumps sink deeper, sink into my nerves when she pulls away, and I remember the first time I saw her, the first time I wanted her and thought that's all I wanted her for—

And the first time I realized it wasn't.

“I didn't know you had this one,” Emma whispers.

I tug my shirt down and examine the glass. Still no Obran.

“He's not coming,” I say.

“Maybe it's because I'm here?” Emma's palm brushes my jaw and forces me to look at her. “Calm down. You're shaking.”

“He has to come,” I tell her.

“Brandon.”

“He
has
to—”

She kisses me.

And I forget about the mirror.

I play nice at first, because she plays nice very well but the longer she plays it, the more jet fuel pulses through my veins, the more I need her and I feel myself slipping and I don't care. I pull her close. Her body curves against my chest and she sighs, the vibration thrilling in my mouth, then her hands slip around my neck and there's no space between us.

Of course I want more. Her kiss is fireworks and engine fuel and I'm not thinking past that, and she gets bolder, and the jet fuel in my blood roars wild. I slip my hands under her shirt. Slide them up her sides. Sneak my thumbs under the band of her bra where they meet soft, soft skin, and she whispers my name, and that's what drives me over the edge.

I press her up against the door. Kiss her mouth, her jaw, her neck while my hands slip around to the clasp on her bra.

“Brandon,” she gasps. She says something else about Dad, but then I'm kissing her again and she doesn't stop me. I flick the clasp on her bra and—er, I flick the clasp and it … what the hell kind of clasp is this? Like there's a virgin supermagnet holding it together, but I can't see what I'm doing and I laugh into her neck at the stupidity of it, and she giggles until I drop my hands and yank up on the bottom of her shirt. She grabs my wrists or I would've had that sucker off in two seconds.

“I said, I think I hear your dad,” she says by my ear.

“He'll stay in his office,” I whisper. I kiss the skin behind her jaw light as I can, my body boiling with the need to be closer. Her turn for goose bumps. I pull lightly on the bottom of her shirt, asking this time.

The office door creaks.

Emma gives me a you-said-he'd-stay death glare.

“Brandon? You home?” Dad calls.

The first stair squeals. Emma flips off the light.

“He won't check if it's dark, will he?” she whispers, her hands like vises on my wrists.

I don't answer because I just remembered we're in a room with a mirror.

Crick
. Dad's footsteps draw closer, but I swear I heard something else echo off the bathroom wall. Emma leans her head against my chest.
Creak
. The floor? Dad's socks brush past in the hallway and fall silent.

“Your heart is going like, a million beats a minute,” Emma murmurs.

Clink
. Like a coin dropping on a counter.

Or glass on tile.

“Do you hear that?” I whisper, not daring to breathe.

Crinkle. Clink.

Ting.

“Hear what?” She lifts her head. “I think your dad's going back downstairs.”

Crack. CRACK
.

Five more seconds, and I'll turn on the light. Obran can't come now. He can't. He
won't
. He's not real, Emma said so, and I close my eyes and try to believe that.

“Emma, remember when I told you it wanted to trade?” I say.

Five (
smash!
)—

Four (
like ornaments on concrete
)—

“Yes, but you didn't tell me what,” Emma says.

Three (
like a steamroller over a car
)—

Two (
dead silence
)—

I whisper, “I think he wants to trade places.”

One.

I lurch for the switch.

 

9. OPPOSITE DAY

WHEN I WAS SIX,
I stuck my finger between a plug and a light socket. That's what it feels like when I overreach the switch and hit the mirror.

Except this is so much worse. This is like being plugged in, like channeling lightning through my teeth and my chest and my fingers, and I try to pull back and I try to yell but I can't. Something jerks me, like it's pulling my stomach through my arm, and it gets really cold and then—

Then I can't feel anything at all.

I open my eyes to darkness.

Emma?

I can't move my mouth. I touch my lips, but my nerves tingle like an army of ants, numb. I reach to my side, feeling for anything to get my bearings. My hand gropes air. Light flickers like a TV screen coming on, so bright I have to cover my eyes. I blink until I can put my arm down.

And I'm not really religious but I start praying.

What's around me is and isn't my bathroom. The light doesn't hit it right—everything shines in grayscale, just the edges, like chairs in a movie theater. Silver lines the silhouette of the toilet, the cabinet next to me, the shaggy bath mat. No color. Only hints of texture, as though anything in shadow doesn't exist. And everything's in reverse. The toilet's on my left instead of my right. The faint palm trees on the shower curtain bend east instead of west.

The Trade.

The light comes from the real bathroom on the other side of the mirror, where Emma and I—Emma and
Obran
—are still against the door, listening. I'm watching my life on the biggest YouTube screen in the world.

“Is he there?” Emma asks, her voice echoing like I'm underwater.

Obran releases her and looks around the bathroom like a kid at Disney World. He touches the counter. Feels the grout between the tiles. Pats his clothes and curls his fingers through his hair. He smiles at me, and I stand there, stupid, too shocked to move and thinking this can't be real, thinking I'll wake up any minute in last night's clothes, coming off a bad high but no worse for wear—

“No,” Obran says in my voice. “I think you've cured me. Sorry if I freaked you out. I won't mention him again.”

Emma looks at the tile he'd touched and puts a hand on his cheek. “I think you might want to see a doctor. Really. You're boiling up.”

“Yeah, I think I will.” Obran reaches around her for the door. “We should probably get out of here before my dad comes back.”

That gets me moving. I jump on the dark counter and slam a fist into glass that feels like plastic cloth. It ripples when I strike it, leaving a spidery void in the picture. Obran lets Emma out and smirks at me.

“Game over, hacker,” he whispers.

The light goes out. The door closes. Everything around me vanishes, including the counter I'm sitting on, and then blazing white erupts overhead and this time my eyes don't need time to adjust.

The first thing I notice: my ink's back. Scorpions on my left arm, gears on my right. I study my leather wristband, my faded jeans, my Rage tee. I reach for my ears, my face. Click my tongue against my teeth. All twenty-one piercings in place.

The second thing I notice: there's no door in this room. It's a ten-by-ten cube with absolutely no furnishings and no windows. Steel cages protect two rectangular fluorescents above, whose gleam reflects dull against the cement floors, the cement walls. No light switch, no mirror. I can think of only two places that would have rooms like this.

An asylum.

Or a prison.

I hear Jax ask,
You worried the Project's gonna snatch you up?

Oh shit.

The one thing I didn't search, the one thing I didn't even think about because it's just an online urban legend—

A woman in a maroon suit appears across from me. Literally, out of thin air. Chin-length hair, raven dark. Egyptian makeup and rich caramel skin. Mid-twenties, maybe older. Nice legs, but looks like she might cut me for saying so. She doesn't fidget, doesn't smile, barely inclines her head to look at me.

“Mr. Eriks. I am Wendy.” She sounds like every commercial ever voiced by a woman. “Do you know where you are?”

“Frickin' high on something,” I grumble.

“Incorrect. You are in the assimilation cellblock. You have been incarcerated for identity theft, tax evasion, bank fraud, wire fraud, credit card fraud, and conspiracy to commit these, all of which are federal offenses. Do you understand?”

The only thing I can choke out is, “I want my lawyer.”

“Your request is denied. You have been found guilty and will serve your sentence of twenty years. Do you understand?”

No. No, absolutely not. The Project isn't real. It's a joke. A stupid hacker
joke
.

Wendy stares at me way longer than normal, waiting. She still hasn't moved from her original position, hands clasped in front of her. I don't even think I've seen her shoulders rise to breathe.

“I detect you don't believe any of this is real,” she says. “Your reaction is typical of new assimilates. Disappointing.”

“Disappointing?”

“Yes. Disappointing: adjective. Failing to fulfill one's expectations or—”

“I know what it means.”

She still hasn't blinked. “Mr. Eriks, inducting an inmate is an immense waste of memory, so I will be blunt. You are now a part of Project Duplicity, a private, worldwide movement to remove dangerous hackers from society and repurpose them. Like a fledgling serial killer, your Internet crimes have escalated over the past year, from petty software cracks to identity theft and resale. It is Duplicity's responsibility to prevent future damage. Our supercomputer, JENA, found you on the network and has been tracking your activities. She created a digital replica of your personality from your information on Facebook, Twitter, and your iPhone, as well as natural observations of your behavior by way of mirrors, the technical details of which are classified. She then made moral adjustments to your replica to ensure that while you serve your sentence, your double performs as an upstanding, contributing part of society. In the real world, JENA is overriding your personality with the one she created, enabling her to separate your mental signature from your body and upload you into this digital prison. It is not a physical place you can be rescued from, and you will serve your sentence of twenty years whether or not you understand or agree with the terms of your incarceration.”

Even though I'm pretty sure I don't have a throat anymore, I feel something choke me.

The Project is supposed to be Internet superstition. You know, like when you get those e-mail chain letters and if you don't forward them to twelve million people, your best friend will get cancer, your girlfriend will set your house on fire, and someone will run over your dog. No one in his right mind would actually fear getting pulled out of his body and installed on a disk.

And I don't know why but that makes me snicker.

“Is this amusing?” Wendy asks.

“It's impossible,” I say.

“Yet here you are. Now if there's—”

“Don't I at least get a toilet?”

I swear Wendy rolls her eyes.

“You're a
program
now, Mr. Eriks,” she says, like this is an easy thing to absorb. “Your current image, what you can see and touch, is entirely self-projected. As a human, you cannot imagine being without a body. In time you may find, like the other hackers, that you do not need it.”

I study the ink on my arm. If it's not real, I should be able to—one of the scorpions crawls farther out of the scar on my wrist.

I might consider it a victory if it didn't remind me how royally screwed I am.

“This is how Obran changed me?” I ask.

“Obran?” Her eyes click. That's the only way I can describe it, like an old-fashioned camera, complete with the noise. “You mean your duplicate. Those details are classified. But I can tell you there is a distinctive barrier between your Self in the Project here, and your Self in the real world. Changing one Self from the other location is very carefully monitored.”