Hollowgirl (2 page)

CLAIR WAS TWELVE
the first time a story about d-mat truly scared her. She was at a sleepover with Libby and a girl named Jude, a friend who later drifted away after getting into sports. They had been whispering long past their bedtime when Libby said in an almost gleeful voice, “Did you hear the one about the girl who used d-mat to lose weight . . . and died?”

Jude threw a pillow. “That's not true. You can check it out on the Air. It's all made up.”

“It's true. You know Mei from school? Her cousin was the girl's sister's best friend.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Jude, “if you say so.”

“I
do
say so.”

More to forestall an argument than anything else, Clair asked, “What happened to her?”

It was simple. The girl in the story had had an abusive boyfriend who thought she was overweight. He hacked into the network and made it so she lost a certain percentage of the fat in her body every time she went through d-mat. She shed weight, sure, but he didn't realize that fats were everywhere in the body, in every cell, every nerve.

Eventually, she just . . . stopped. When they opened her up to see what had gone wrong, they discovered that the girl's skull was completely empty. Her boyfriend's selfish hack had hollowed her out from the inside.

The thought chilled young Clair to the core. D-mat was supposed to be completely safe. The very suggestion that it might not be threatened to bring her world crumbling down.

Just as it crumbled down five years later. She knew now that some urban myths were true.

“We didn't dream it, did we?” Clair's voice echoed from the buildings around her.

They seemed to be standing in an empty square in the middle of a city. But Clair knew that couldn't be real. The world was dust now. When Jesse and Trevin had shot down the satellite that was supposed to contain the Yard—attempting to bring Ant Wallace to justice and rescue everyone he had illegally copied—they had unleashed a terrible chain reaction that dissolved everything that had ever been through d-mat. Clair had fled with Peacekeeper Sargent and Q into the actual Yard, which she now knew was really deep under a frozen lake in Russia.

Where they
appeared
to be was in San Francisco, according to the Yard's version of the Air, which her lenses accessed just as they always did. They told her that she was in the southwest corner of Union Square near a
gallery that specialized in rare manga. The Air also provided the date, time, and temperature. It told her that no one was currently following her—which was a relief after the intense scrutiny of recent days—and which of her friends were connected and where they were. She could even hear them talking through the chat she had open.

“Are you
sure
this is the right place for a crashlander ball?” Tash was saying.

“Positive.” Ronnie's voice had a shiver to it. “Could be warmer, though.”

“That'll change when everyone gets here,” said Libby.

The only jarring note was the sound of her own voice when she herself wasn't speaking. . . .

“I feel like I've just woken up,” said Kari Sargent. The tall peacekeeper was standing nearby, turning around in a circle with her arms held out from her body, palms raised to the sun.

“That's my fault,” said Q. Her voice came over Clair's augs as clearly as it used to, but Clair cocked her head, not entirely reassured by Q's presence in her ears. For days Q had been hiding in Kari's head, operating her body like one of Ant Wallace's dupes. It seemed that Clair had passed Q's test of friendship, but she was now unsure what that meant for the two of them.

“In order to pretend to be you, I had to temporarily suppress you,” Q said to Kari. “That was hard. You're very strong.”

Kari shrugged. She didn't seem bothered by what Q had done to her. Shouldn't she have been angry? Clair would have been.

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Kari said. “That's what you were thinking before we came here. You had to break into the Yard just like you broke into me.”

“In some ways the situation is very similar,” said Q. “The Yard is as complex as a living thing. We don't really belong here.”

“What
is
‘here,' exactly?” asked Clair, waving a hand to take in the square, the city, the world. Her fingernails were chipped. She could hear the sound of wind rustling through nearby trees. “It feels so real—but it can't be, can it?”

“That depends on your definition of ‘real,'” said Q. “What you are experiencing is a simulation that is as exactly detailed as the real world, re-created from the data stored in the Air—the Air that used to exist, I mean, outside this simulation. Every measurement and every property of every single thing on Earth has been copied and re-created in the Yard, using the same physical laws that scientists use to understand the world outside. The only difference is that instead of being built on subatomic particles and forces, the Yard is built on data, and this has implications . . . that I am investigating. It is
very
complicated. . . .”

She trailed off, lost in the thought.

“So the Yard can feel real even though it's not?” Clair pressed.

“It
is
real, for all intents and purposes. Simply a different kind of real.”

“And the outside . . . ?”

“There is no communication with the outside.”

“Because it's forbidden by the simulation,” asked Kari, “or because there's no one to communicate with?”

“Perhaps both.”

Clair wrapped her arms around her stomach, feeling her ribs jutting into her elbows. This was bad. For a moment she had hoped that Wallace's terrible chain reaction might have somehow spared San Francisco, maybe other cities as well, but if Q was saying what Clair thought she was saying . . .

“They're all really dead,” Clair said, remembering the blue dawn sweeping around the globe.

“Yes,” said Q. “Every d-mat user who couldn't get somewhere safe in time.”

“The Stainers will be happy.” Kari's face was twisted in a way that indicated the joke wasn't supposed to be funny. “That's . . . so bad I don't think there are words for it.”

Clair agreed. She could barely hold the thought in her head.

The world was gone.

And yet it was right here, too, seemingly the same as it had ever been, inside the Yard.

Clair could still hear her friends talking over the open chat. They had no idea what was happening. To them, the world they were in was precisely as real as it appeared to be. They were going to a party together. No one they loved had died.

Feeling overwhelmed, Clair put the chat on mute. She took a deep breath and shuddered it out.

Real.

Cool sunlight reflected off a windowpane, blinding her when she inadvisably glanced at it.

Real.

A creeping sickness in her gut was one part hunger, one part dread, and a large part self-blame.

Real.

“Libby and the others are in Switzerland,” she said. Jesse wasn't among them, which worried her. She couldn't hear his voice or locate him anywhere in the Yard, not on a search through the Air. Perhaps a deeper search would find him, later. “We should join them.”

“Are you sure that's what you want to do?” Kari asked. “
She's
there too.”

Clair winced. “She” was a copy of herself. Clair had accidentally broken parity again by allowing two of herself to exist at once—and if what Q had told them earlier was correct, this other Clair was also real, not a dupe.
And now she was with her friends . . . with Tash and Ronnie, and Libby, and Zep . . .

At least two people on that list were supposed to be dead.

Clair felt dizzy. She crouched down with her arms around her shins, face pressed firmly into her knees. Her eyes closed so tightly she saw bursts of colors.

Real.

“Make it stop,” she said. “I can't take any more.”

A hand came down on her shoulder. Up close, Kari Sargent smelled of ash and blood and fear.

“I know how you feel,” Kari said. “Are we dead or alive? Or are they? Maybe that's the better question. What if Billie really is in here? I grieved for her when I was dreaming that Q was me. Would I feel the same way about her now because she's not allowed to exist?”

Billie was Kari's girlfriend, lost in the crash caused by Clair's first breaking of parity, when d-mat had stopped working all over the world. There had been lots of deaths. At the time, that had seemed like the worst thing imaginable.

Clair rose up to Kari as the older woman stooped to her level. For a moment they just held on to each other and cried. They were alive. So many weren't. Some were confusingly in between. But at least the two of them had each other.

“Screw the law, and screw philosophy, too,” Clair said
through ragged gulps for air. “We have to accept them, don't we? Or else we're worse than the people who copied them.”

“Yes, yes.” Kari sounded relieved. “You're right, of course. What was I going to do—
arrest
everyone for being an illegal duplicate?”

She laughed and pulled away, wiping her eyes with one hand.

“We can go to them,” Kari said. “If you want to. But we should move quickly. Wallace will be in here. This is his place, his artificial Earth. If he finds us before we find him, it's all over.”

They stood, Clair telling herself to ignore the confusion and press on. Kari was right. They couldn't afford to drag their heels.

“Q, is it safe to use d-mat in here?” she asked through the Air, then repeated the question when Q didn't immediately respond.

“Sorry, Clair. I was thinking about something. You know, although it seems impossible, I actually recognize many of the algorithms used to maintain conceptual continuity across the nodes—”

“Right now I just need to know about d-mat.”

“Oh yes, d-mat will function normally. I will monitor your transmissions and make sure nothing interferes. I will also create a mask, so your passage will not be noted.”

“Thanks. Really. We couldn't do this without you, Q.”

Q didn't respond at all. Clair was used to Q getting lost in technobabble, but she didn't normally ignore people.

“Where are we going?” asked Kari.

“To the Sphinx Observatory,” Clair said, shaking herself out of her concerns. “Where this whole thing started.”

CLAIR GAVE THE
booth the destination and the mirrored door slid shut, surrounding them with infinite reflections. Whereas in the real world, d-mat used complex fields to take matter apart, particle by particle, and then put it back together exactly as it had been, in the Yard, Clair supposed, simulations of complex fields would do the same thing to simulations of particles. She wondered what would happen if she told it to take them outside the Yard. An error message? Or would it send them nowhere at all . . . ?
An experiment for later
, she thought.

Distantly, at the far reach of her many reflections, Clair caught a flash of a face that was neither dark like hers nor light like Kari's, but something in between: a young woman with tan skin and bright purple hair, someone Clair had never seen before.

In an eyeblink, it was gone. Clair recoiled, and Kari caught her arm.

“Another dupe?”

Clair felt her pulse race in her throat. Had she seen it at all? Jumping at shadows or mental glitches wasn't going to help anyone.

“Q said there weren't any dupes in the Yard,” she reminded herself as much as Kari. “Everyone was reset. Besides, she's watching over us now. We'll be okay.”

Kari touched her brow. “Oh yeah, right. I forget she can do that now that she's not in here. . . .”

Clair wondered if that was why Kari wasn't angry. She and Q had spent several days in the same body, after all. What had they learned about each other in that time?

sssssss—

Clair looked up at the ceiling, listening.

“It sounds exactly the same,” she said.

“I know.” Kari grinned, all her reflections grinning with her. “So weird to hear it again.”

—pop

The booth shrank, pressing them close together. They had arrived. In the second before the door opened, Clair's resolve faltered. Her heart held such a chaotic mix of emotions she couldn't begin to describe how or what she felt. “Intense” was one word. “Everything” another.

When the door opened, Clair took a step backward, unconsciously placing Kari's larger form between her and the space beyond. Cold air flooded the booth, making her shiver. The observatory sat atop a mountain over eleven
thousand feet high: she should have asked the booth to fab her a parka.

Kari walked out into the cavernous space and glanced at the darkened windows directly opposite the booth, then to her right.

“Have you come for the party?” said someone.

“Welcome!” said another. “You're the first ones here.”

Clair hugged herself tighter. She knew those voices.

“No, I haven't,” said Kari. She glanced behind her, into the booth, where Clair was hiding from more than just the cold. Then she turned back. “Libby and Clair, isn't it? I'm PK Sargent. And you must be Ronnie, Tash, and Zep.”

Kari walked out of view. Clair heard footsteps coming to meet her across the dusty floor. It was gloomy out there, with dawn still hours away. She knew exactly what the space would look like. The observatory had the echoing ambience of an empty factory, with thick iron beams studded with rivets and lots of space, its only furniture a boxy four-door booth that had seen better days. Observation decks provided uninterrupted views of the surrounding mountains. The glass would need a clean before the ball began. . . .

“Who called the peacekeepers?” asked Zep. “Talk about a buzzkill.”

“It wasn't me,” said Ronnie. “And anyway, what buzz is there to kill?”

“Do you know where everyone went?” asked Tash, her voice tinkling in the reverberant air.

“No, I don't,” said Kari. “There was no one where we came from either.”

That struck Clair as odd too, now that she thought about it. A moment ago they had been in central San Francisco during daylight hours, yet there hadn't been anyone around except them.

“Who's ‘we'?” asked Libby. “I don't see anyone else.”

This was Clair's cue. It was either come out now or run away forever. She wondered why she felt so ashamed, like she was hiding something or lying to them, when in fact she was as much a victim of circumstances as they were. But what circumstances they were—illegal copying, murder, the end of the world . . .

Mentally slapping herself, she opened her eyes again and stepped out of the booth.

“It's me.”

They each reacted differently.

Libby gasped. If she had gone any paler, she would have been transparent.

Tash's eyes went wide, her mouth moving in a silent
Oh my God.

Ronnie said, “This isn't allowed. What's going on?”

Zep looked from one Clair to the other and back again, then kept shaking his head in denial.

The other Clair retreated a step, her hand flying to her
mouth as though she was about to throw up.

“Who
are
you?” she asked.

Clair didn't shrink away from their reactions. Now that there was no going back, she felt more committed.

“I'm you,” she said, staring right at her double. The other Clair wasn't exactly the same: her hair was shorter; her face was clean. “I'm not a dupe.”

“What's a dupe?” asked Tash.

The question took her by surprise. “A copy of a person with someone else's mind inside. Don't you remember?”

“That's just an urban myth,” said Ronnie, her eyebrows meeting in a frown behind the frame of her glasses, “like Improvement.”

“Improvement isn't a myth,” said Clair and Libby at the same time.

They looked at each other, then away.

Clair began to understand then. Libby was wearing a silver dress with white tights and red boots. The other Clair was wearing blue plaid and a navy headband. Zep had on a red checked shirt and tight blue jeans. Tash and Ronnie had dressed in their best party gear too.
Clair knew these outfits.
They had worn them to the ball. But it wasn't only their clothes that dated back two weeks or more.

“You've just used Improvement, haven't you?” she said to Libby. “That's when you were copied, and everyone else with you, because you used Improvement on the way to the ball. I remember you telling us about it there.”

“Telling us about what?” asked the other Clair.

“I didn't tell anyone anything,” said Libby. She was flushed now, a carnation pink that was anything but delicate.

“You did, only it wasn't this version of you.” Clair wished there was an easy way to explain, and someone else to do it for her, since she doubted they would take her word for it.

Then she remembered that there
was
someone else.

“Q? Can you help me out here? Are you listening?”

“I am listening, Clair,” said Q. By the way the others reacted, Clair knew that they were hearing the voice too. No more asking for permission to open chats; Q was much cleverer now that she knew what she was.

“My name is Q,” she said, her tone more measured than when she talked to Clair. “I am not human, but I am Clair's friend and I want to help her help you. I will explain what has happened, and afterward I will answer your questions as best as I can.”

“Wait,” said the other Clair, who Clair was beginning to think of as Clair 1.0: the Clair she had been before the crashlander ball. “First tell me why there's a copy of me but not of anyone else.”

“It's not deliberate,” Clair said. “That's just how it worked out.”

“Why?” A flash of anxiety crossed her double's face. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Again, a flash of unwarranted but irrepressible shame. “Q will explain, if you let her.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Clair tightened her lips. They had the same genes. They were equally stubborn. If Clair 1.0 wanted to force the issue, Clair 6.0 was happy to push back, but what was the point?

“I'm not the copy,” she said bluntly. “You are. You're a backup saved when Libby used Improvement, the same as everyone else here.” She hesitated, then pressed on, knowing that this would be as hard for them to hear as it was for her to say. “The reason why there's only one of
them
is because their originals are dead.”

That provoked another shocked reaction, more of disbelief than anything else.

“
I'm
not a copy,” said Tash.

“And neither am I,” said Clair 1.0, narrowing her eyes. “I'm me and I'm real, and if this is some kind of stupid crashlander hazing, then screw you and whoever's behind it. We don't want to belong to your clique anymore.”

Clair understood. They didn't trust this new Clair, and looking at it from their point of view, who could blame them?

“It's hard to explain,” she said in a softer tone. “I made a mistake. I made lots of mistakes. If you just let Q talk, she'll tell you all about it.”

“But first,” said Q, “a correction. Not all of you are dead.
It is quite likely that Tash has survived, outside.”

“Well, that's a huge relief to the rest of us,” said Zep.

“Outside where?” asked Libby.

“What's
inside
?” asked Ronnie.

At least, thought Clair, they had moved on to different questions.