Eve and Adam (14 page)

He needs to mountain bike. Play tennis. Something aerobic.

Maybe he could be a runner, like I am.

Aislin ogles Adam as he floats in midair like a ghostly Adonis. In the corner of the room, two secretaries whisper and giggle. Someone provides a wolf whistle.

“I think it’s time to face facts,” Aislin says. “Boy parts are on the menu.”

“We haven’t done the legs yet.”

“Oh, I get it. We’re going to kind of close in. Come at it from all other directions first. Leave the best for last.” She elbows me. “Sort of the story of your love life, isn’t it? Leaving the best for last. Or at least for much later.”

“There’s no rush to—”

“Or even much, much later, poor baby.”

“Legs!” I yell the word. I don’t mean to yell the word. I just do.

“Fine, legs,” Aislin concedes. “Short and stumpy?”

“No,” I say. “Although we can try them out. I mean, what am I doing here? Eliminating every imperfection?”

“Well, duh.”

“But who’s to say what’s perfect?”

Aislin shrugs like it’s a stupid question. Maybe it is. But I’d rather debate philosophical questions than sit here with my best friend and design things I’ve never actually, you know … seen. Except in diagrams in health class. And the occasional Google image by accident.

“Really, Aislin. Everybody’s messed up in their own unique way, right? Nobody’s perfect.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” I insist.

“Right. This from the girl who wouldn’t let Finnian Lenzer ask her out because his hair was too blond?”

“He’s practically an albino,” I say. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“’Toine Talbert was too short. And John Hanover was too thin. And Lorenzo whose last name I forget had a funny face. And you blew off Carol because you’re not a lesbian.”

“That’s not exactly my fault,” I say.

“What did you expect Carol to think? You kept saying no to boys. Naturally she was going to think you played for her team.”

“I’m not attracted to girls.”

“But you are attracted to boys?”

“You know I am!”

“In theory. Not so much in reality.”

“I’m selective.”

“You said you couldn’t go out with Tad. Why?”

I mumble something.

Aislin cups a hand to her ear. “What was that, now? You couldn’t go out with Tad because…?”

“Because his name is Tad!” I yell in frustration. “How can I date a guy named Tad? It’s a ridiculous name.”

“Also Chet.”

“Chet? I’m going to date a guy named Chet? What is this, 1952? No one’s named Chet.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I have legs to make,” I say frostily.

“Make them short and bowed,” Aislin says.

“You know I’m not going to do that.”

“Oh, I know that,” she says, triumphant. “You’re going to make them long and muscular. You’re going to slide the lifestyle bar all the way over to track star.”

“Am not.”

But of course in the end that’s exactly what I do. Adam gets long legs. And muscular thighs. And well-developed calves.

He is now three disconnected bits. Leg. Leg. Torso and head.

There is, shall we say, a certain empty space in between those three pieces.

“The undiscovered country,” Aislin intones in a video voice-over.

“Muffins, anyone?”

Solo enters, rolling the coffee cart.

“My point exactly,” Aislin says, motioning him over.

I have several long, long seconds to wonder which is more embarrassing: a giant image of an Adam with a number of missing parts? Or an Adam with those parts?

“How’re you feeling, Aislin?” Solo asks. He doesn’t glance at me.

“I’m better now,” she says, giving him an up-and-down. She grabs a cruller.

“Heard you moved out of the clinic,” Solo says, looking at me for the first time.

“No point in staying,” I reply flatly. “I’m a freak of nature, as you know.”

“Yeah, well. I’m on food-cart duty for one more day,” Solo says, as if I’d just told him I had a hangnail. “I thought I’d come by and see whether you need anything. Chips? Snickers bar?” He pauses, surveying our incomplete Adam. “Hot dog?”

Aislin leans forward, very serious. “Do you have anything heartier than a hot dog? Say, a kielbasa? Italian sausage? A whole salami?”

She is making hand gestures as she goes along.

Solo’s face goes red. He’s only good for about one round of flirtation with Aislin. After that he loses his way.

“He’s shy,” Aislin reports to me as if Solo isn’t there. “I don’t know: Should we make Adam shy? It’s kind of cute.”

“I’ll take a sandwich. Not salami,” I say. “Turkey.”

Solo pulls a turkey sandwich off his cart. He hands it to me and snags a napkin. The napkin drops to the floor. I automatically reach for it, but Solo’s already down on one knee. He grabs the napkin and hands it to me.

Except that when I reach for it, he’s got my hand in his and the napkin is only part of what he’s giving me.

Something small, maybe an inch long, hard and rectangular.

Our eyes meet.

He stands up.

“The other night, I noticed you had your laptop in your room,” he says quietly. “MacBook Pro. A little old school, huh? Still has a USB drive.”

And I know right then what he’s slipped me. A thumb drive.

I can pull it out, notice it, hand it back to him. I can stop whatever he’s up to right now.

I crumple the napkin in my lap in a way that Aislin won’t see. I glance down and confirm that it’s a flash drive. There’s a small Apple logo.

Solo escapes from the room before I can say anything. Before Aislin can say anything else.

Aislin watches him go, enjoying the rear view with the practiced eye of experience. “If you don’t, E.V., I just may.”

I have a quavery, uneasy feeling in my chest. I don’t know what’s on that thumb drive. But I know it’s a secret.

I know it’s a secret from a boy who hates my mother.

Just a little longer and I can go home, I tell myself. I will have kept the deal with my mother.

And I’ll be safe from Solo.

“I’ve got to pee,” Aislin announces. “I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she’s out of the room, I pull the flash drive from the napkin and examine it. Nothing special. And yet somehow, I’m afraid of it.

I wrap it up and shove it into my sweater pocket.

Adam hovers before me, glowing and gorgeous. My unfinished masterpiece.

Suddenly, I feel this explosive restlessness, a craving for the fog and steep streets of San Francisco. I want out of this place. I want to run until my brain shuts off, my legs scream with exhaustion.

Before I can lose my nerve, I cast a quick glance at the screen and randomly tap some options. I don’t think about it; I just do it.

Aislin returns just as I hit the last button:
Apply Modifications.

A hum, a flicker, and there he is. My perfect man, with nothing—and I do mean nothing—left to the imagination.

I tilt my head, squinting. “What do you think?”

Aislin executes a flawless wolf whistle. “Girl,” she says, “I like your style.”

– 24 –

I slip the thumb drive into my computer. The icon pops up on my desktop. Now all I need to do is click on it.

All I need to do.

It’s late. Aislin is snoring softly. I faked sleep to get her to go to bed. I’m in the bathroom, in my pajama bottoms and T-shirt, sitting on the toilet with the seat down. The light is pretty awful for this time of the night. It’s a no-secrets light.

The icon shows the Apple logo.

A click of the mouse or the touch of a finger on the screen is all it takes. Here’s the thing, though: You can’t un-know something once you know it. Once you know, you know. Once you know, you may be compelled to act. Once you act …

You’re overthinking, I tell myself. Overworrying.

And yet …

Why is this so hard? Didn’t I come in here for the purpose of seeing what is hidden within Solo’s drive? Isn’t that why I’m sitting on a hard toilet seat in the middle of the night?

I stick out my index finger, hovering over the screen.

Touch.

The file opens. It contains three other files. One is a video. The other two seem to contain documents or pictures. The video is labeled “#1.”

I take a breath. I find my earbuds—they’ve fallen to the tile floor. I plug them in and stick them in my ears.

The video is of Solo. He’s standing, kind of bouncing back and forth with energy. He’s nervous.

“Eve. It’ me, Solo.”

I smile a little, in spite of myself. Like I wouldn’t know that without him telling me.

“I don’t know if you’re going to watch this. I don’t know what your reaction is going to be. You were never part of the plan. But … well, here you are. And I guess you’re involved now. Now.”

He seems to be losing his way. He starts to reach for the camera, as if he’s going to turn it off. Changes his mind.

“Anyway, you’re part of this because you are who you are. It’s just that before, I didn’t know you. I mean, I knew you existed. I knew about you, but then you became a real person. A person I liked.”

He looks down at his feet. “A person I like a lot.” Pause. Shuffle. “A lot.”

I glance nervously toward the locked door, as if someone might overhear. But I’m the only one hearing. The only one feeling.

“So, anyway, you’re Spiker as much as she is, I guess. So I’m laying this out for you.” Long pause. I sense he’s arguing with himself, regretting this. “I feel like you deserve to know everything.”

Solo clears his throat. He reaches toward the camera and the video ends.

I’m in this deep. I click on the first file.

There are a dozen individual documents in the file. The first ones I open look like budget spreadsheets.

I don’t really have any interest in budgets and I don’t really know how to read a spreadsheet. Maybe they’re incredibly meaningful, but I’m not the person to figure that out.

I’m disappointed.

But I keep looking. The next thing I open is a description of Project 88715.

P
ROJECT
88715, P
HASE
O
NE
: W
E WILL UNIFY SEVERAL NEW AND MATURING TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPED WITHIN
S
PIKER AND OTHERS FROM OUTSIDE THE COMPANY.
T
HE GOAL WILL BE TO DEVISE A SIMPLIFIED USER INTERFACE THAT REDUCES THE EXTREME COMPLEXITY OF GENETIC ENGINEERING TO SUCH A LEVEL THAT ANY MODERATELY BRIGHT OPERATOR CAN CONSTRUCT A FULLY DEVELOPED HUMAN.

P
ROJECT
88715, P
HASE
T
WO
: W
E WILL LINK THE USER INTERFACE PERFECTED ABOVE TO BEGIN ENGINEERING HUMANS.

I stare at the page. This is about the program I’ve been using, the one I am using to create Adam.

A program to allow the creation of simulated humans.

Except for one thing: It doesn’t say anything about “simulated.”

I open the remaining file. The pictures come spilling out.

There’s a picture of a pig. Its flesh is green.

There’s a picture of a puppy with ears, human ears.

There’s a picture of a man with vacant eyes and folds of skin hanging from his chest like sails made of flesh.

There’s, oh God, there’s a girl with a face on …

There’s a row of giant tubes, each with some living thing.

There’s …

I’m sick to my stomach.

The pictures are still spilling out.

A cow that’s all out of proportion, with an udder so large the legs couldn’t reach the ground, even if she were on the ground and not floating in some kind of tank.

And then another giant tank, with something—someone?—suspended in it. I see hair, dark hair, swirling like seaweed, a hand, a foot, but that’s all I can make out, because there’s someone standing outside the tank, grinning. It’s the scientist with all the tattoos.

The computer clatters from my lap.

I twist around, fall to my knees, and get the lid up before I vomit up what little is in my twisting stomach.

Dry heaves. Can’t stop.

Oh, no, no, no. My mother … Oh God.

Aislin bangs on the door. “Hey, what’s going on with you in there? Are you all right?”

I can’t stop the heaves.

Aislin picks the lock. It’s not hard. She has to step over me to get all the way inside. She places a calming hand on the back of my neck. Aislin has long experience with puking.

“Try to breathe, but only through your nose,” she says helpfully.

She sits on the edge of the tub, prepared to wait it out. I hear her pick up my computer.

I try to say “no,” but I can’t find any words.

“Don’t fight it, just relax into it,” Aislin advises. “It’s…” She falls silent. She’s seeing.

“Oh my God,” she says. “Oh, no. What is this? Oh … Oh no. No. No.”

But of course, no is not the answer.

– 25 –

SOLO

I’m awake when someone pounds on my door. It’s not like sleep is an option. I’m so hyped up I can’t lie still for long.

And if I close my eyes, even for a second, the horrifying images from Tommy’s computer are waiting for me.

The pounding intensifies. I throw on a pair of boxers.

For a moment, I wonder if it’s Eve. She’s probably viewed what’s on the flash drive by now—assuming, that is, she has any intention of looking at it at all. Could be she just tossed it in the nearest trash can.

I wonder, again, if I was wrong to share what I’ve learned.

No. Eve’s like me. She’ll want to know.

“Open the damn door.”

A jolt of pure adrenaline shocks me into full alert mode.

It’s Tommy.

He knows.

I have no choice. There’s nowhere to run, not from here, not now. I unlock the door.

Two security guys burst in. One is older, graying. The other’s young. He works out, I’ve seen him at the gym.