Duplicity (23 page)

If I can be transferred to “any other system”—

Then it's not just
my
body I can swap into.

I check Emma's duplicate percentage, now at eighty-nine.

And I get cocky again.

*   *   *

The Exorcist's third icon holds the instructions Seb referred to in her prerecording: server passwords, how to cloak what I'm doing from JENA while I'm in my shadow room, and how to transfer items between the Project and the real world. I want to plant the Exorcist in the room they've locked Emma in, but that's no longer an option since they broke the mirrors.

I call up my room instead and focus on the desk drawer. Just like Obran did when he jacked my shine. Just like he did—too quickly—when he threw the letter opener and the bots overloaded trying to create it so fast that the effort shattered the glass. I take my time. When I let go of the Exorcist, it vanishes from my hand. A clunk sounds from my real world drawer.

Step 1 of the plan is in place.

Which is when I realize I never checked the fourth icon.

“Ninety-nine percent complete,” JENA says overhead.

No time to worry about that. I call up Emma's room as quickly as I dare—not the shadow version of it, but the lavender comforter on her bed and the trinkets along her dresser, somewhere she'll feel safe. I run my hand on the wallpaper to check its texture. It's solid. The room should have another few hours in it before JENA gets through. Emma might never forgive me for this, but I'm out of ideas and it's the only chance I can give us.

I've figured out this much: alone, there's no way I can take down the Project. I need a lot more firepower. But I know someone who has that firepower—who has connections to dozens, maybe hundreds of hackers—and Jax is damn well going to listen to me this time. I just need a few minutes to call him. Then JENA can swap me to the moon if she wants.

It's not a great plan but it could work.

God I hope it works.

“Transfer commencing,” JENA says.

Crap. It's too soon. I'd banked on having at least another minute, but whatever. If I've learned nothing else in here, it's how to work under pressure.

“Administrative override,” I say. A transparent screen appears between me and Emma's closet mirrors. From my first swap to the real world, I know JENA matches a target to a duplicate by ID. Mine is Fifty. Emma's is Fifty-Three. So if I trick the computer into thinking
I'm
Fifty-Three, then it'll swap Emma into this safe room instead.

AUTHORIZATION CODE?
flashes onto the screen.

I trace in Seb's admin password like it's a contest.

WELCOME, ADMINISTRATOR,
it types.
PLEASE ENTER A COMMAND.

“Reassign current transfer,” I say. “I am Fifty-Three's duplicate.”

Nothing happens. Every second is a year. I'm thinking JENA's caught me, that I've finally pushed too far, when the screen flashes again.

!!WARNING!! REASSIGNING THE CURRENT TRANSFER WILL DELETE THE ORIGINAL DUPLICATE. OKAY TO PROCEED?

“Yes!” I yell, half-hysterical that this is actually working, half-panicked that I'm already too late. “Transfer now!”

My head screams murder. It's just as bad as last time, and I get whiplashed into space that isn't space and lights pop all over my vision and then it's dark—dark as the bathroom when Obran first swapped me—and my hands grip what feels like cold porcelain. I heave into what I hope is a sink. Wipe my mouth with my arm and take a minute to get my bearings, but I can't make sense of anything except the slit of sun (
real
sun) filtering under the door behind me.

It worked.

It worked?

I trip over something as I turn to open the door. The knob won't move at first, then a man's voice in the ceiling says “Transfer complete” and a green light flashes. The door unlocks. The first thing I see is the closet in the dorm room with the broken mirrors.

I close my eyes and pray for forgiveness.

I open them and push Emma's hair out of my face.

The world doesn't look much different from her eyes. I'm shorter, and I almost biff it turning around because the floor's slanted—except it's just her freaking wedged boots—and I have no idea how to walk in the things. I wrestle them off my feet and toss them against the closet. Flip the light on in the tiny bathroom and wash my hands, and when I bring the water to my lips it's like being reborn. I know it's just water, but trust me. If heaven had a taste, this would be it.

When I can't drink anymore, I brace myself on the sink and feel for Emma's phone in her jeans. Nothing. Obran must've taken it. I pat down the front pockets, the back pockets … the back pockets … the back pockets feel good. I bite my cheek and clench my hands so they'll stop wandering.

And then I have a really weird moment where I consider my most obvious new assets, except I know somewhere, somehow, she'll know if I do anything, and I have a five-minute battle with myself saying “Just get it out of your system” on one side and “Don't be a perv” on the other and dammit, I don't do anything, I just scratch the damn bra's itchy band and try to focus on what I need to do.

Someone knocks at the door that locks from the other side.

“Yes?” I say, and it's so much higher-pitched than I'm used to that I jump.

Obran opens the door. I have to clench the sink again because seeing him through the mirror is nothing like seeing him—me—
whatever,
from this side. How Emma sees me. Everything's off just a bit, like he's some version of me returned by aliens. My hairline angles the wrong way. My nose slants a little right instead of left.

I might need one of Vivien's paper bags soon.

“Ready to go?” he asks.

I have to be confident. As Emma's duplicate, I should know what's going on. I hope the face I'm making is a smile as I nod and step forward.

“Um … you need shoes,” he says.

I glare at the boots next to the closet. I hope it's normal for duplicates to need time to get used to their bodies because that's what I'm going to claim. I grab each boot and sit down to put them on, and when they're latched in place I reach for the wall for balance. Obran steadies my elbow. It's everything I have not to deck him across the face.

“I just threw up on that arm,” I say, giving him an innocent smile.

He makes a face and lets go. “It takes a little getting used to,” he says, turning to the door. “And it takes forever to get from one place to the next. But we need to go. I have some things to pick up and then we have dinner plans.”

Dinner. I make one last frantic visual search for Emma's phone, hoping she left it on the nightstand, but the room's sterile clean. Soon it doesn't matter. Soon Obran's ushering me out and the phone's farthest from my mind as I try to figure out how the heck hips move. I stagger for the wall like a toddler and grab the handicap rail support. By the time we reach the end of the hall I'm not drawing weird looks anymore from the people passing by, but I get a little too confident on the stairs and Obran has to grab my arm so my head doesn't go into a railing. For Emma's sake, I'm grateful. For my sake, I might be sick again.

Obran leads me into an underground garage that could be the mall parking lot if it wasn't filled with black Mercedes with equally black tinted windows. One idles for us in the aisle, and I really don't want to get in but Obran pulls open the back door for me and I can't risk his suspicion. I flop onto the seat. He slams the door behind me, walks around the back, and gets in on the other side. Dark tint blocks my view out of every window. A partition walls us off from the driver and the front seats. The car moves and I grab my seatbelt because I know Emma would never go without.

I wonder how long it'll take them to figure this out. That Emma's duplicate doesn't actually exist, and that Emma's in Seb's safe room, and that I'm—

I wonder what will happen if they
do
figure it out and I'm stuck in Emma's body the rest of my life.

My seatbelt doesn't quite make it to its buckle.

“You okay?” Obran asks.

I didn't even think of that. Suddenly I can't breathe right, but I force my seatbelt to click. The car shifts left and I gag.

“Motion sickness is pretty typical the first twenty-four hours,” Obran says, completely unconcerned, one finger tracing the inside of the window. “It'll pass.”

I steady myself on the seat and focus instead on the feel of the leather. On its smoothness under my fingers. The roughness of the stitching. On being here. Here and not there.

“Does the guilt pass?” I ask.

“Guilt?”

“For taking over someone else's life.”

He looks at me. I'm not over how weird it is to see myself outside myself, moving without me moving him, a one-sided mirror.

“I've improved my target's life a hundred percent,” he says. “But for your trade?” He watches his finger trace the window. “He had to tarnish one last pure thing, I guess. I will never forgive myself for underestimating him.”

“But you let them take her.”

He closes his eyes. “There was no other way.”

If I keep pushing, he's going to know. So I don't ask why he didn't figure something else out or why he didn't challenge them. Why he's such a filthy coward.

“You really think they can't be saved?” I ask, and the car shifts again. I want to look at anything but him, but the windows only show changing variations of light, no shapes. “That this is the only way to fix them?”

“I wish the Overseer had at least taken the time to show you the whole Project, to show you some of the success stories.” He drops his hand. “It is much easier, much better for the world as a whole, to replace a broken part rather than try to patch one that may keep breaking. Don't worry about them.”

“Maybe that's the problem,” I say. “That everyone does what's easiest.”

“In this case, it's necessary.” He sighs. “After tonight we don't have to keep up this charade anymore. You go your way. I'll go mine. I think that'll be best for both of us.”

I'm not exactly opposed to that considering the circumstances, but I say, “Like break up?”

“Let's be honest. The only reason he was with you was to see what you look like naked. And the only reason you were with him was to save him. He's been saved. I have more important things to focus on now than relationships.”

“That is
not
why I—” I breathe out. “That is
not
why he was with her. Might have started that way, but he changed. She changed him. He was listening to her, and he could've become
you
, you know, with some time. It's not the easy way. But it would've been the right way.”

“I forgot,” Obran says, chuckling. (Do I sound that evil when I laugh? Frack.) “You're still in love with me. With him. That'll pass, too. You're thinking perfect situation—that he'd continue listening to her, that he wouldn't try to drag her down with him. And that's only half the equation. Even if she fixed that piece of him, it doesn't mean he'd stop pulling bank accounts. We do our work for the greater good, Emma. Do you let a dog continue biting your kids until you can finally teach him not to? No. You get a new dog that doesn't bite, and you don't sacrifice your children for the sake of the dog.”

“Dog,” I grumble.

“What?”

“They aren't animals,” I say. “Your metaphor doesn't work. It's more like, do you let the big brother keep tricking his little brothers until you can finally teach him not to? You just get rid of him and get a new one?”

“They
are
animals,” Obran says, grinning at me in a way I don't think Vivien would approve of. “You can't understand the same way I do, because your target doesn't think the same way they do. The Overseer has had to make many, many adjustments to me since the swap. I've had many … impulses to do things I shouldn't.” His eyes drop from my face, then quickly to the window. “JENA corrects me each time, and I get stronger. And I realize just how broken he was.”

“Mistakes are part of being human. Some people make more than others. It doesn't mean they shouldn't get a chance to—”

“This is why we can't stay together,” Obran says, and his fist clenches at his side. “Your belief that everyone has the will, however buried, to be a good person. It's just not true.” He exhales, and in the reflection of the window, I see his mouth quirk. “Not yet.”

I pause a minute before asking, because he just said I'm thinking like Emma. “Not yet?”

He turns to me, smirking. “You'll like this. As JENA gains influence and investors, they'll be able to spin up more servers in more countries. She'll pluck the bad fruit out of society first. Then they can move on to others, to people in places of power, and soon everyone will do the right thing, all the time. There will be no more war, only negotiation. No more murder. Eventually everyone will be born into JENA, and the world will know, for the first time, pure peace.”

“That's insane,” I say before I can stop myself. “Who decides what the right thing is for everyone?”

“The Overseer, of course.”

The woman I saw hyperventilating into a paper bag?

Are you kidding me?

*   *   *

I'm too shocked to say anything else the rest of the car ride. This is the first time I've thought of JENA affecting anyone outside Seb, Emma, and me. I wonder if I'm evil for wanting to tear the entire operation down when the end goal is peace.

Fake peace, I tell myself.

One crazy person's idea of peace.

The car rolls to a stop, and I know if I sit too long, Obran will come open my door. I click my seatbelt off and bolt out. We're outside my house. Not Emma's, mine. Emma's Camry is still in the driveway.