Imposter (18 page)

Mira

After Eliot and I finish talking, we decide to head back to the banquet hall. When her com unit alerts her to an important phone call from a first named Kennedy, she falls behind.

“I’ll be right there,” she says, waving me off through the door.

“Okay, but I—” I’m too late; the door shuts before I can offer to wait. Frustrated, I decide that I’ll go anyway.

As I get to my destination, I hear a voice call out. “Socrates!”

I crane my head around, but don’t see anyone searching for me among the tricking stream of people heading to and from the hall.

“Over here, old chap!”

I turn in the direction of the voice. A middle-aged man with rich, tanned skin and a wide, bright smile grins at me as he quickly strides over. “That was some speech you gave.” He twirls the tip of his mustache into a point. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

I offer him a fleeting nod. “That was the point.” I search my mind, but I can’t remember his name. 

The man wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “I bet you didn’t expect that response from those other old geezers, did you?”

I shudder. “No, they’ve…” I fish for the right words. Something Socrates would say. “They’ve always reminded me of sheep more than people, unable to make up their own minds without the shepherd present.” I shrug, but I can still hear their taunts. “It doesn’t matter; people will vote how they will.”

“I heard it’s going to be close.”

I chuckle. “They say that every time.”

As our voices trail off, a calculating, considering gleam enters the stranger’s eyes. As he trails his gaze down my body, I cross my arms over my chest and take a step back. “For as long as I’ve known you, I never thought you’d pick a teenage girl as your Second.”

I gesture at myself in an attempt at levity. “It’s not the gender that matters, you know that. It’s the soul inside that counts.”

The man chuckles. “Yes, and I’m sure you don’t pay attention at all to the exterior do you, old man?”

“Soc!” Eliot’s voice, the most welcome sound I’d heard all day, echoes down the hall. “I’ve been trying to find you all over the place.” She takes my arm before I can respond. “Hello, Sisyphus,” she says as she pulls me away from him. The other First greets her in turn. “I’m sorry to steal Socrates away from you, but lunch is about to start, and the president is expecting us.”

Sisyphus nods, and a grim, considering smile plays across his lips. “Of course he is.”

“You’ll have to watch him,” Eliot says as she leads me away. “He can’t be trusted.” She leads me across the same hated banquet hall as before to the long, already crowded table in the front.

Two vacant spots sit opposite an athletic man with short brown hair. He grabs a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and gulps down its contents.

Eliot leans down to whisper in my ear before we sit down. “I’m not sure where she is, but you also need to watch the president’s wife, Veronica. She’s a snake if I ever saw one.”

President Andrew MacNeil stands as we reach the table. Eliot offers her hand to him. He clasps it in both of his before turning to me. “George Eliot, Socrates, I’m pleased you could join us.”

Eliot murmurs a greeting, and I follow suit. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Veronica, come here, please,” MacNeil calls out into the crowded room.

The president’s wife talks with two guards standing near the back door. She wears a red dress so tight it could have been painted onto her body. At her husband’s command, she pastes an engaging smile on her face. After a couple more whispered comments to her companions, she spins around and walks toward us.

I grab Eliot’s arm. “Those are the guards who tried to take Will in for questioning.”

“Who?” She spares me the barest of nods.

“The guards who followed Will and me down the hall. Don’t you remember?”

Eliot shakes her head, confused. “You must have forgotten to mention them, my dear.”

“Did I?” My face burns. “You’re right. Sorry.”

President MacNeil returns, his wife perched on his arm. “Socrates, George Eliot.” Her voice is rich, cultured, and she says our name as if greeting a good friend. “What a pleasure that you could join us.” She extends her pale, delicate hand. I take it, unsure whether she wants me to shake it, or kiss it as though she were royalty. I opt for the former. “Though to be honest, I’m surprised you came back. With the way you disappeared after your speech, we were afraid something terrible had befallen you.”

The way she says it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “I’m fine.” I gesture to myself for the second time this evening. “As you can see.”

“So that melodramatic presentation was just that? Theatrics?” Scorn drips from every word.

“Now, now Veronica.” President MacNeil lets out a nervous chuckle. “Give the man a break. He’s been through a lot lately.”

Her lips thin into a straight line. “As you wish, my dear.”

The president winces. “Please, let’s sit down.” With an apologetic smile, he leads her to the table and pulls her chair out for her.

My hands hover over the back of my chair.
Should I pull Eliot’s chair out as the president did for his wife?
Technically, Eliot’s my wife and I her husband, even though she’s older in this body and of the opposite gender. Sensing my confusion, Ellie takes matters into her own hands and scoots into the chair across from the president.

“Please excuse my wife.” President MacNeil gives us a self-deprecating chuckle. “All the protesting and arguing about the Bill are really wearing on her. She’s usually not this forward.”

If Veronica’s eyes could shoot acid, he’d be sizzling in his seat. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong; I was merely expressing what everyone else is thinking.”

I glue my attention to the glass flute in front of me. In my mind, I imagine the pale yellow liquid turning a dark, crimson red and filling the cup up so quickly, it threatens to overflow. Eliot clears her throat, startling me, and I flush.
Pay attention. You can’t afford to slip up, now.

A flurry of servants arrive, carrying platters full of bowls filled with thick, chunky soup. They serve our table first, placing a savory bowl in front of each of us before departing without a word. I swirl my spoon in the clear broth, tangling it in some variety of herbs and vegetables until Ellie kicks me under the table. I glance up to see both Ellie and Veronica studying me closely. I force my lips to curl up at the corners. “Sorry, I guess my thoughts are running away with themselves today.”

Veronica turns back to her soup, and Eliot jerks her head toward my bowl. Without waiting for a response, I lift my spoon to my mouth and begin to eat.

After that, our servants deliver thick, steaming planks of white fish with mashed potatoes on the side and long-stemmed green vegetables. The juice from the meat coats everything, and it is so well seasoned it almost melts in my mouth.

“So, Socrates,” the president says after swiping at his mouth with his napkin. “How are you feeling? I heard you’ve had a rough adjustment so far.”

I bite my lip for a few seconds, considering my words. “I think I may have waited a bit long, to be honest. I was so weak from my illness that the transition took a lot out of me. I suppose I should have listened to my doctors after all.” I chuckle.

“Indeed.” Veronica stares at me over the rim of her glass as she takes a small, delicate sip. “One would think it’s almost like you’ve found a new life.”

I choke on a sip of wine and quickly think of something to say. “Well, I did grow younger by about seventy-five years.”

The president smiles wanly while his wife presses her ruby red lips together.

“And I switched to a female body.” I wink at our dinner companions. “That in itself is an adjustment.”

The president forces a tired chuckle to his lips, the lines bracketing his mouth deepening a bit more around the edges. “I can only imagine.” He tosses back the last of his drink and gestures to a passing waiter for a refill.

Veronica doesn’t say anything, but the shrewd assessment she sends my way tells me this isn’t over, not by a long shot.

Will

“I swear I heard something.” A high-pitched whisper echoes behind a dusty display case dedicated to something called the Pony Express.

“There ain’t nobody down here but us, you idiot,” his companion hisses. I crouch down and inch closer. “Don’t know if this is quite what the boss was looking for, but I think it’ll work.”

“He just wanted a rendezvous point, right?” I sneak around to the corner, almost stumbling into their floating lights, magnetically tethered to small bases on the ground. I freeze until I’m sure neither of the men saw me.

The other man chuckles. “I heard he wanted a few of ‘em, just in case. I was told to find one within a mile of the Castle but not too close, if you know what I mean.” The lights bob up and down gently as the men collect the weights and take them further down a service corridor.

I peek around the edge of a display case, breath caught in my throat. Three shadows, all grotesquely elongated, stretch across the floor away from me. I can’t see enough of the men’s faces to identify them, but they seem young, though one is considerably taller than the other two. The shortest one shifts from side to side and nervously glances over his shoulder back the way they came.

“Damn it, Jack,” the tall one hisses. “Cut it out. You’re making me nervous.”

“I can’t help it. This place gives me the creeps. I swear I heard something.”

“Yeah, the air hissing through your ears, that’s what you heard.” I chuckle without thinking, and then clamp a hand over my mouth.
Be careful. If these guys catch you, you’re as good as dead. No one would even think to search for your body all the way out here.

The men finish checking out the rest of the hall and then head back in my direction. I retrace my steps to the lobby and duck behind the stagecoach. I hug the wooden base and slink around it so the display is always between us.

For the next few minutes, they continue to search the rest of the first floor, their voices muffled. When they come back around to where I am, Jack pauses and stares straight at the stagecoach. “Those stupid mannequins are staring at me, Zeke.”

The nervous one shakes his head. “They’re plastic or wood or something like that. It don’t matter anyway. They’re fake.”

“Can we go now?” the third man, his bald head glinting in the faded light, scowls back down the hall.

“No! You remember what the boss said. We’re supposed to check every room. We gotta make sure this place is safe for after the party.”

Jack stomps up the stagecoach and kicks the base. My heart leaps into my throat and I feel as stiff as one of the old mannequins perched on the stagecoach, frozen in a single moment in time.

“Fine, let’s just get this over with.” Without waiting for his fellow rebels’ responses, he spins on his heel and stalks to a wide set of stairs.

Just as his heel hits the stairs, my com unit beeps. All three men whirl around, searching the shadows for the source of the noise. I duck under the display and press my hand over my wrist, turning off the unit that’s going to get me killed. Fear steals all thought away and leaves me to operate on instinct alone. I have to hide. I have to get out of there.

“Dammit! Now you’re making me paranoid.” Zeke punches the bald man in the arm. “Stop jumping at every single damn creak. This building’s old. We’re the first people inside in a hundred years, if not more. Of course there’s gonna be noises.”

Racing heart lodged firmly in my throat, I wait until the men are safely up the stairs before darting out from underneath the stagecoach display and back to the corridor I came from.  When I get to the elevator, I stab the call button, hoping it’s still here and hasn’t been summoned somewhere else.

“Come on, come on,” I murmur. It won’t take those men long to finish the rest of the Postal Museum, they could be returning any time now. Finally, the door dings and I leap inside before slamming my hand down on the right buttons to take me back to the Natural History Museum. It’s only once I’m safely inside, I turn my com unit back on. Almost immediately, it beeps again.

“Will? Where are you?” Brennan’s voice sounds cross.

My stomach sinks when I remember that I was supposed to help finish serving dinner. “I’m…” my voice trails off as I try to think of a plausible explanation for my absence. “I’m in the elevator.”

“Well, you better get your ass back over here. I need your help.” The com clicks off; he’s hung up on me before I can respond.

When I get back to the banquet hall, Brennan scowls at me and stabs his finger at the kitchen. Once safely out of the reach of my supervisor’s  wrath, a fellow servant I’d only met a couple times, Tony, greets me with a tired smile. “You’re Will, right?”

“Yeah, sorry I’m late.”

He lifts one shoulder and drops it. “It happens. You missed the first couple courses, but you’re just in time for dessert.” He directs me to a long metal counter and points at the trays full of strange, sweet treats. After he’s finished, he picks up one of the trays and hands it to me. “Think you can handle this?”             

“Yes.” I heft the tray in my hand, and he passes me another tray.

“Good, start with the left rear quadrant.”

“You got it.” I balance one tray on my shoulder and swing open the wide double doors into the banquet hall. Firsts and the other entitled bastards laugh and joke as they eat and drink more food than I’ll probably ever see in my life. I force myself to focus on the air in front of me and tune out all the rest.

When someone bumps into me, I jump. “Going the wrong way?” The young servant’s silver-covered hands clench convulsively on his tray.

I glare at him. “I don’t know why you hate me. I swear I haven’t done anything to you. Leave me alone, okay?”

“You want me to leave? You’re the one who’s good at backing off and watching people die.”

I tighten my grip on the tray. “What are you talking about?”

The young man sees someone over my shoulder and stiffens. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” He sidesteps around me and heads to the right.

His words follow me as I hand out the contents of my tray. When I finish, my gaze strays to the front of the room, where Socrates makes idle conversation with the president of the United States and his wife
.
I tuck my tray under my arm and slip back into the kitchen. Other servants engulf me like waves washing around a lonely rock in the ocean.

“Move it!” The silver-gloved guy says again. He jams his shoulder into mine, and my tray crashes to the floor. “Get out of the way.”

That rage burning inside me explodes. I shove the man before I even know what I’m doing. His back hits the wall, and his tray flies through the air, landing with a sharp metal clang. Almost instantly, the room goes silent while every head turns toward us. I ball my hands at my sides, barely able to keep from attacking him again.

Slowly, the young man gets to his feet, dusts his hands on his pants, and picks up his tray. “Don’t touch me again, or I’ll—” The muscles in his jaw clench as he bites back his next words.

“Or you’ll what?” I can’t contain myself any longer. Gregory grabs my elbow, but I shake him off. “What are you really going to do to me?” I measure him with my gaze. He’s a little shorter than I am and more muscular, but in a fair fight, I could probably take him. “You’re the one singling me out. I haven’t done anything to you.”

A stocky, shorthaired woman approaches my adversary and murmurs in his ear. Like me with Gregor, he brushes her off. “I’m fine,” he says before turning his focus back to me.

“You’re an idiot. You have no idea what you’re getting into.” He shifts from side to side as though deciding whether to back down or attack.

“Then tell me!”

“You couldn’t handle it,” he sneers. “You’re too weak.”

Before I tell myself what a bad idea it is, I clench my hand into a rock-hard fist, and let it fly toward his face. The man blocks it easily with his tray, ducks, and undercuts me with his own punch. I dance to the side, but a motion out of the corner of my eye distracts me, and I falter. His next hit pounds into my stomach. I stagger back, the breath knocked out of my lungs. The man’s two companions from earlier approach us, anger flooding their stern faces. They shout his name, just as he hits me again. Unable to force the air back into my lungs, I can do nothing but watch my opponent’s fist arc toward me until it connects with my cheek. Black spots cloud my vision, and I fall back into Gregor. My supervisor stumbles beneath my weight and forces me to my feet.

“Get out of here!” He shoves me out a side door into an adjoining hall before slamming them shut behind me.

Back at my apartment, I limp into the bathroom. I press my hand into the scanner on the wall. A blue light flashes as it reads my handprint and takes my biometric data. “Injury detected,” a low, monotone voice notes. “Analyzing data.” A small slot opens underneath the scanner, spitting out a thin sliver patch on a piece of waxy paper.

“Place eye patch on injured eye.”

I grab the paper, peel off the patch, and stick it over my throbbing eye. The scanner then spits out a needle patch.

“Place needle patch on the inside of your left wrist.”

I do as it says, and after a slight prick, I feel a cool sense of relief.

“Recording data.”

Two weeks ago I would have panicked, worried that my supervisor would flay me alive for getting into a fight. Now I don’t care. That guy had it coming. As I slip into my bedroom, I realize I’m not alone. Evie’s napping in my bed, curled on her side under the covers, the empty spot next to her reminding me that that was where I should have been all along. Maybe she’s right, and I should just let Mira go.