Gifted (4 page)

He scoops me in a half-circle toward him so we're facing one another. I can't look at his face so I stare at his arms. The vein on his bicep pulses. I press my hand against his chest. His heart pounds beneath my palm.

“Bm-bm, bm-bm,” I say, echoing his rhythm. My hands creep up to his shoulders. They are safe and sturdy, like branches I could climb. His Adam's apple bobs. I lean in and inhale the scent of his neck. Then he pulls back and places one hand gently under my chin. Our eyes meet, our lips press together. For a moment, I'm fuzzy about where my body ends, the same way I feel when I get sucked into a song. But Dorian drops his arm and steps back quickly.

“Oh!” I press two fingers against my tingling lips.

“Someone's coming,” he says and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.

I hear the squeak of another bike on the river path behind us.

“Dorian?” someone calls. “That you?”

“Is that your dad?” I ask, my stomach in a knot.

Dorian grimaces when Marley pulls up beside us. His long braids are tucked up under a knit cap he's worn ever since I've known him.

“Were you out looking for me?” Dorian asks his dad. “I told you I'd be late.”

“You forgot to mention where you'd be.” Marley's voice is hard. “I overhead some kids at the warehouse say there was a show out at Nowhere tonight. You wouldn't know anything about that, now would you?”

My heart leaps into my throat. “I should get home.” I tiptoe backward away from them. “I haven't seen Nonda since this morning. She might be worried. Sometimes she forgets…”

“We'll walk you,” Marley says.

“That's okay,” I tell him. “I'll be fine.”

“No,” says Marley. “I want to talk to you. Both of you. And this concerns Nonda, too.”

I grip the recordings in my pocket and consider tossing them into the river like stones, but I don't. Instead, I walk far apart from Dorian, with Marley in between, calculating the hours until I can release the songs.

 

ORPHEUS

“You don't have
to stay with me,” Arabella says after the others go in search of the obligatory mingle to up their Buzz ratings and make their PromoTeams happy. But I stick with her in an out-of-the way corner of the gallery beneath Quinby's painting of giant pill bugs on moldering orange and brown oak leaves.

“Good for my cred to be seen with you,” I say, but we both knew it's a lie—she's not established in the Buzz quite yet. Truthfully, I feel protective of Ara. She seems addled and easily confused, especially with the Juse now in her system, so I want to stay close.

Everybody says we make the perfect pair but our timing's always been off. She liked me last year when I was dating Europa Al-Asad. By the time Europa and I broke up, Ara was with Eleven Beckham. They broke up when he was recruited to play midfield for PetroChina. We got together for a minute right before her surgery a month ago and since then she's been recovering. Maybe now that things are getting back to normal we'll finally figure out what's between us.

“So…” she says, her words a little slurry from the Juse. “Does your father own my brain now?” She laughs and taps the side of her head.

“Does he own your brain?” I snort. Her hair is newly gold with tiny braids woven into intricate paths. I have an urge to follow one with my finger. “Your whole entire brain?”

“Don't make fun of me!” she whines. “I don't really understand the whole patenting and copyright thing.”

“Don't freak out,” I say and give her a quick hug, drawing in her smell—herbal and fresh like a newly planted garden. “Here's how it works. Chanson Industries bought the rights to any music your brain creates, just like Quinby's patron owns her paintings, and Rajesh's patron owns his books. You get a cut of the profits from all your songs that Chanson streams or the concerts they set up, or any LiveStreams that you do. Plus your PromoTeams will keep you in the Buzz. It's all a big machine,” I tell her.

“Speaking of which,” she says, “I'm supposed to get vid or pix into the Buzz of me with Quinby. You know, the phantom chatterbox. Pre-launch stuff. Blah ditty blah blah.”

“Is that going to be your first hit single, ‘Blah Ditty Blah Blah'?” I ask and laugh way too hard at my own dumb joke. Raj's Juse has definitely hit.

She tries to smile, but I see tears brim on her blinged-out eyes. “Hey,” I say and reach out to comfort her, but then the shiny baubles embedded on the end of each lash mesmerize my fuzzy brain. “Must be hard to blink with all that weight.” I stare at her for another second, cocking my head from left to right. “Wait a sec. You look different.”

“Different good or different bad?” She self-consciously pats the swirling structure on her head.

I get up closer to her face to study her. “It's your eyes, isn't it? They're bigger or something?”

“Double eyelid surgery.” Ara bats her lashes, which makes the tears roll down her cheeks. She carefully wipes them away. “Makes them bigger. Less Asian-y.”

“I thought Asian-y was good for marketing.”

“Except in the eyes,” says Ara. “Or so my PromoTeam says.”

“They said that? Ugh. Who'd you get assigned to?”

Again, the hesitation. Like she knows but can't quite pull the info from the folds of her mind. “Piper,” she says finally. “Piper McLeo.”

“Actually, she's good. Knows what she's talking about,” I tell her with a sigh. “She's an old family friend, you know.”

Ara smirks. “Who in the music industry is not a friend of your family?”

“All of my dad's enemies,” I say and we both dissolve into Juse-infused giggles even though it's definitely not funny. Ara nearly doubles over in hysterics. She grips my arm for support but then she starts to slump. I grab her beneath the armpits and shuffle her toward the wall to prop her up. She slings her hands onto my shoulders.

“Am I still beautiful?” she asks with her face close to mine.

“Of course,” I tell her. Then we're nose to nose, lips quivering as we start to kiss, but Ara pulls away.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she mutters and looks around, hoping none of that was caught by a 'razzi drone, since her contract specifically states that all public romantic ties must be pre-approved by the PromoTeam.

“No, I'm sorry,” I tell her. “I should know better.” I step back and take a breath to regroup. “Okay, look. Here's what we're going to do. I'll help you get your photo op with Quinby and then you leave with me, deal?”

“Orpheus,” she says, straightening her dress. “If you can work that miracle, I'll go anywhere with you.” She gives me a teasing smile—a glimmer of the old Arabella showing through. Both our carapaces glow.

I lead her through the crowd by the wrist. She hangs back, loose-limbed and lithe, waving to people and flashing smiles as we pass. SCEWL does a good job preparing Plute kids so that when we wake up from our ASAs we already have some skills, and everything's coming back to Ara. Her walk fools the 'razzi into thinking she's someone special. They send her image into the algorithm again and again, upping her chances of getting in the Buzz tonight.

I spot Quinby, literally on a pedestal, at the front of the gallery. She's posing for pix, dolled up beyond belief. Her hair is Marie Antoinette–worthy, piled high in dark brown twists fashioned to look like twigs with fake hummingbirds and butterflies woven in. The whole tree motif is carried throughout her look. Rather than paint her, her stylists have polished her nut-brown skin to a high sheen, and draped her body in silky shades of green to match her nearly neon eyes.

“Brilliant branding,” Ara mutters with an eyebrow cocked.

“Quin!” I call up to her. “Quinbo!” When she doesn't answer I take a deep breath and yell, “Hey, Q-Bert!” That gets her attention.

She squats with knees together at the edge of the pedestal and breaks into a smile. “Orphie! Don't call me that here,” she says, but she's laughing along with me. I wonder if Raj has slipped her something, too.

“Oh, sorry, Q-Bert! You're stunning, by the way.” I slouch against the pedestal base. “Q's mom and mine used to be best buds,” I tell Arabella and ignore the flash of pity across Quinby's face when I say
used to be
.

“I've known this maggot since we were born,” she says.

“Hey, do a favor?” I tug Ara closer. “My lovely friend needs a byte on the Buzz.”

“Arabella! Oh my god! Is that you? I heard you were back!” Quinby squeals in that way girls have of being terribly over-excited to see one another, especially when they don't really care that much. But Q is a good sport and she knows the game. “Your look is so
snazbags
!” She reaches out and leads Ara around the back of the pedestal to the steps. “Come on up here, girl.”

As soon as they're together, arms entwined like they're the best of friends, FingerCams up high to generate their own stream of pix, the platform rotates and the 'razzi drones zoom over. The buzzing cloud of dragonflies hover near the Girl-of-the-Moment and the One-in-Waiting taking a spin on the pedestal of fleeting fame. Piper will send Ara on hundreds of these ops before she drops a single song so by the time she debuts, she'll have made her way into the public psyche like a termite boring into wood. The Plutes will want her on their ticket dockets at my father's arenas and Plebes will pay for playing her songs whether they're good or not.

While I'm watching them, a girl walks up. She doesn't look like anybody else at the gallery. No over-the-top hair, no paint job, no makeup. Just plain, in baggy pants and a fading blond ponytail. When I look at her more carefully though, I see that she's older than me but still quite pretty, with a broad forehead, gray-green eyes, and a slightly upturned nose. I glance down for a peek at her carapace, but oddly, both of her hands are bare.

“Orpheus?” she asks and eyes me cautiously.

“Yes,” I say. “Do we know each other?”

“My name is Calliope. I was in your sister's class at SCEWL, before…” She stops and stands awkwardly. “And your father used to be my patron.”

“Oh.” I step back, wondering if she's a nutjob. “He's patron for a lot of people.”

Her eyes flash dark and broody like the sky before a storm. “I'm the one suing him.”

“You'll have to be more specific,” I tell her with a snort. Definitely a nutjob. Who else would show up at a gallery opening dressed like a Plebe? “There are at least fifty people suing my father on any given day.”

Calliope's jaw drops. She steps forward, pinning me between her body and the wall. “Do you know what it's like to have music take over your brain? It never stops. It's like there's a band inside your mind and the band keeps playing on and on and on.” She grabs the sides of her head.

“Congratulations,” I say sarcastically. “Sounds like your ASA was a success!”

“I was the first,” she says. “Did you know that? And your father paraded me around as proof for Plutes of what was possible for their kids. He has it all worked out, doesn't he?” She keeps herself positioned between the pedestal and me so I can't get past. “Who needs years of expensive private schools, backroom deals, and corporate ladders to climb when you can buy your kid an Acquired Savant Ability surgery and voilà—she's a genius.”

I laugh at her. “And what's so bad about that?” I ask, even though I suspect it's horrifying. I see the way my friends change. How obsessed they become with their vocation, unable to enjoy most of life.

“Nothing,” she says. “Except that your father is a liar. He never intended to let me have a career. He sold my contract out from under me along with hundreds of others who'd signed with him. Then he used that money to put the other patrons out of business so he could claw his way to the top and we were left with nothing.”

“Hey,” I say, hands up as if in surrender. “That's business.”

“No!” She stamps her foot in my direction. “It was my LIFE! The only job I could get after that was as a warehouse picker. It took me years to save enough money so I could have the reversal surgery and not be haunted by music all the time.”

“Look,” I say, softer now. “I'm sorry that happened to you, but it's got nothing to do with me.”

“Oh, it's got everything to do with you, Orpheus,” she hisses. “You haven't gotten an ASA yet and who could blame you after what happened to your sister?”

The hair on the back of my neck bristles. I step toe to toe with this crazy woman. “Don't bring my sister into this,” I warn and think of beautiful Alouette, brain wasted, perpetually lying in the MediPlex since her botched surgery ten years ago.

“Why haven't you done it yet?” she asks. “You're nearly seventeen. You know he won't hand over the company to you unless you get the surgery. But I know you have your doubts.”

I press my back against the wall, wondering how she knows so much about me.

She moves closer. In the bright lights of the gallery she appears otherworldly, as if she's stepped out of the past to warn me about the future. “You're just a pawn in your father's game. He'll use you like he used your mother and your sister. He'll claim everything he does is for his family's sake, but really that's just a smoke screen to hide his greed.”

“Leave my family out of this!” I push past her but she latches on to me.

“Consider this fair warning,” she says into my ear. “I'm only the first person in a long line who'll sue him over sold contracts and botched reversal ASAs. Think of me as the floodgate opening. Once we expose what's really going on, the system will begin to crumble.”

I turn and look at her but I can't find any words.

“Join us!” she says. “Imagine the message it would send if Harold Chanson's own son questioned the system. Do it for your sister. You owe her that!”