Proxy (12 page)

He pulled the pen away from Knox’s side and showed it to him, clicked a few times as Knox’s eyes went wide and then Syd put it back in his pocket. He let go of Knox’s arm.

“You kidnapped me with an antique pen?” Knox asked. The stupidity of it seemed to clear his head, focus his eyes.

Syd shrugged. “Listen: Guys like me don’t survive long in Sterling Work Colony. If you don’t help me out here, you’ll be responsible for two deaths, not just the one. I don’t know you and I don’t know if that means anything to you, but there it is.”

Knox looked at the entrance to the alley. If he was going to run, this was the moment. He looked up at the sky, scanning for drones. After a long silence, he turned back to Syd. His body slackened.

“I didn’t mean to kill her,” he said. His eyes met Syd’s. This was the moment. He opened up. “I swear it was an accident. I swear it.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Syd said. “They’re after me because of you.”

“I-I . . . ,” Knox stammered. Syd had rattled him.

Good. Syd needed to rattle him. He had to get through that arrogant, pampered shell of a patron and try to find a person underneath, someone who might care just a little that he had ruined another human being’s life. Syd stepped closer to Knox.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You can help now.”

“I just . . . ,” Knox said. Then his expression hardened, and he sprang onto Syd like heat lightning, slamming Syd against the generator and pinning him to the ground with a knee in his stomach. The hat with the D toppled off his head. Knox’s forearm was pressed across Syd’s throat and all his weight was pressing down, squeezing the air out of him.

Of course. The rich kids must learn self-defense for moments just like this, Syd thought. He’d been stupid to let his guard down.

“Who sent you?” Knox demanded, his emerald eyes flashing rage. Flecks of spittle splattered on Syd’s face. “My father? Did my father send you?”

“I . . .” It was Syd’s turn to choke out words. He couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. He tried to pull Knox’s arm away, but he had no leverage, and beneath his pretty boy exterior, Knox was clearly stronger than Syd, better fed and better trained. He squirmed but couldn’t get free. “Not lying . . . ,” he croaked. He used the side of the Dumpster to edge his sleeve down his arm, revealing the shining metal branding. “Not lying,” he said again.

Knox’s eyes darted over to Marie’s name. He saw the glistening of the metal letters in the raw skin. The pressure of his arm slackened a tiny bit.

That was all Syd needed. He twisted so that Knox lost balance and then bucked with all his might to toss Knox off him. As soon as he was clear, he rolled away and jumped to his feet.

Knox was on his feet too. He charged and swung. Syd sidestepped and just missed a punch to the throat. He tried to land a kick to the groin—they don’t fight pretty in the Valve—but Knox blocked it. He’d been trained by someone who knew how to brawl, or at least, knew how Valve kids would brawl.

They circled each other.

Syd knew he couldn’t stay out here much longer, especially not standing up. He’d be found.

Knox knew he couldn’t beat this kid easily. He didn’t know how long he could keep fighting like this. He hoped Syd hadn’t noticed he was already tiring.

“Look, Knox,” Syd said, panting. “Just help me and I’ll never bother you again. I know you saw me with the Guardians today. I know that’s how this works. You’ve always seen it. And I know your father pays for it. If I hate anyone, it’s him. I would never work for him. That’s why I never cried when they punished me. I didn’t want to let your father use my tears. They belong to me. So why, after all those years that I didn’t do his work for him—punishing you—would I start doing it now?”

“Because you’re afraid,” Knox said.

“No,” Syd said, and he thought, maybe he really meant it. “That’s you. You’re afraid. I’m just angry.”

They circled each other, breathing heavily. Syd’s eyes kept darting from Knox to the warehouse door and to the alley entrance. Some of the ferocity had left Knox’s face. He didn’t let his guard down, but Syd could tell he was making progress. He just had to hold out a little longer.

“You don’t even have to trust me,” he told Knox. “Just help me get away.”

He decided to take another chance. He dropped his fists. He stood still.

Knox hesitated, flexed, and then let arms fall to his side. He didn’t take his eyes off Syd and time squeezed hours into seconds as they passed. He needed to be rid of this boy. Knox had already killed a girl. He had to deal with that. He couldn’t deal with his proxy’s issues too. But the easiest way to get rid of him would be to get him the fake ID. Syd couldn’t exactly go back to being Knox’s proxy anymore. Not after they’d met. It just wouldn’t work. The system had to be impartial.

There was an added benefit, Knox realized. Helping Syd get away would drive his father crazy.

“I’ll get you the ID,” Knox told him. “And then you’ll disappear? Never find me again.”

“Definitely.”

“And if you’re lying, I’ll kill you. No one will be able to protect you. I have the cred to end you wherever you hide.”

Syd nodded.

“All right.” Knox scratched the back of his neck as he thought. “I need a datastream to do this.”

“Where are your glasses?”

“I lost them inside.”

“You don’t carry extras?” Syd figured every rich kid had a few projectors to spare.

Knox shook his head. “At home. I can do it at my place.”

“How are we going to get there?” Syd asked. He bent down and picked up the old cap. He brushed it off and put it back on, pulling the brim down low over his face. “Even like this, I can’t exactly go strolling through the streets of the Upper City.”

Knox rummaged in his work shirt and pulled out a little patch. He tossed it to Syd.

“Just put that on, okay? It’ll trick the basic scanners for at least another hour.”

“You just carry these patches around?” Syd had his doubts. He worried that Knox was going to drug him, that he’d wake up half tweaked out of his mind in a transport to Sterling.

“Just tonight,” said Knox. “Selling them to kids at the party. Your friend was about to pay for two of those . . . and now you’re getting one at no cost.”

“Everything costs,” grunted Syd. “So if I put this on, what happens then?”

“It’ll overwrite your biofeed for a bit,” Syd said.

“I mean, after that.”

“You Valve kids have no imagination.” Knox shook his head. “There’s not much I can’t get with this smile.” He grinned. Now that there was mischief to get into, it all felt a little less overwhelming. The world started to feel familiar again. He walked toward the entrance to the alley. “Wait here, okay?”

“You’re not going to run, are you?” Syd asked.

“It’s your turn to trust me.”

“I don’t,” said Syd. “Not even a little bit.”

“Not even after our kiss?” Knox laughed. Syd didn’t. The proxy had no sense of humor. “Lighten up, swampcat.”

Syd glared at him. He was now very certain that even if Knox wasn’t his patron, he would hate him.

“You did cry, by the way,” Knox called back as he walked away.

“What?”

“That whole first year, when we were kids. You cried from day one.”

“When you broke that clay tablet.” Syd nodded. “You remember?”

“I remember.”

“That makes two of us.”

“All right.” Knox pursed his lips. “BRB.” He turned and left the alley.

You better be, thought Syd, as he put the patch on skin and watched it light up and dissolve. He leaned against the Dumpster, trying to focus, to see if he felt any different as his ID changed.

He didn’t feel a thing.

[17]

BRB? KNOX WONDERED IF Syd would even know what that meant. He couldn’t believe he was helping this kid. He shouldn’t even
know
him.

It wasn’t like he meant to kill the girl. It was an accident. Why should he have to go through all this just because of an accident? It didn’t seem fair. He never wanted anyone to get hurt. He just wanted to have some fun. He wondered: If he got Syd a new ID, would it cancel out Marie’s death? Would his balance be back to zero?

He started to feel better now that the patch was mostly out of his system and he had a sense of purpose, a goal. The right motivation. Clear his conscience and drive his father crazy.

He smirked. The CEO’s son’s proxy escaping. That would send consumer confidence into the toilet. The stock price would plummet.
Ha-ha, Dad. Who’s learning their lesson now?

Knox found a group of younger girls he thought he recognized from the halls at school standing near the back of the line to get into Arcadia. There was a Guardian up by the door next to the SecuriTech GateMaster Pro X Club Model, a sleek black robot built with a keen eye for celebrity and style. Its algorithm was one of the most closely guarded secrets in the entertainment business. Of course, Knox and Nine had hacked it to get into clubs back when they were thirteen.

He stayed at a distance from the entrance and approached the girls, keeping his head turned away from the club entrance.

“Hey.” He sidled up to them. They stared at him, speechless. He had never spoken to these girls before and normally wouldn’t, which they certainly knew. He was at the top of the social order. They were not. But maybe they were gaping for another reason. He ran his hand through his hair to make sure it was okay. Finally one of them spoke. The words poured out of her.

“OMG. We heard about the accident? Are you okay? I mean, like, that must have been so . . . well . . . you know . . .” She was a brunette. A little horse-faced, but with a high-end makeup job. Her concern was touching. One of her friends shushed her.

“Thank you.” Knox reached out and touched her arm, nodding with appreciation. Her friends all dropped their jaws. Knox let the brunette stare into his eyes for a while. He made them look a little sad, a little pained. It wasn’t hard at the moment. No one moved. Knox knew he had them.

On the wall behind the girls, advertising holos flashed from their profiles, gene mods and diet patches, passion scents and romantic restaurants. A sports drink. A horror movie. On any other night he might have been intrigued, might have wanted to get to know these girls, at least for a few hours.

“What’s your name?” he whispered.

“Galafrain,” the girl answered. “Or just Gala.”

“Like a celebration,” Knox said. She nodded. Her friends looked back and forth between them. “Listen, Gala, you know my car got wrecked in the accident, and my friend and I need a ride home . . . you think you could help us out?”

“I don’t have . . . ,” she started, and looked mortified.

“Or just call us a ride, huh? I’d do it, but . . .” He looked meekly at his shoes, rubbed the back of his neck, gave an embarrassed smile, and let the unfinished sentence fade without explanation. Let them fill in their own reasons.

“I can call my mom’s transpo service,” one of the other girls piped in. Knox looked at her and let his smile blossom. He hugged her.

“You guys are my heroes,” he said to the girls as he started to back away. “All of you. For real.”

When Knox came back into the alley, Syd stood from behind the generator.

“You’re back,” he said.

Knox smirked. “You thought I’d ditch you, just like that?”

Syd didn’t answer. He’d had exactly that thought.

Knox had seen that look Syd was giving him a thousand times on holos over the years, like Syd thought he was better than everyone else just because he suffered. His arrogance was probably hiding some deeper issue, like he wet the bed or something.

Whatever, thought Knox. He didn’t need to analyze his proxy. He just needed to get him away from the city. He wondered what his father would do when the proxy vanished. What would he do when he heard Knox helped? He’d have to take notice, anyway. Maybe he’d want to negotiate for Syd, give Knox something in return.

Knox snorted to himself. It was a dumb idea. His father didn’t negotiate with terrorists. SecuriTech rule number one.

The transport pulled up to the mouth of the alley, and Knox motioned for Syd to get in.

“Is it safe?” Syd wanted to know. He didn’t like the idea of hopping into some Upper City vehicle.

Knox rolled his eyes and got in. Let Syd make his own choices. Syd didn’t know that these private transpo services were paid for their discretion. They ran on autodrive. There was no one to betray them and the program stored no data. Anonymity was a privilege worth paying for.

Syd got in, but he didn’t even look at Knox once they were on the way. Didn’t even compliment his brilliance at using those girls to get an untraceable ride home. Ungrateful proxy.

Knox leaned back on the cool leather seat and rested his head on the window, watching the glistening skyscrapers pass and thin out, revealing parks with trees and artificial lakes and the private mansions built on the old landfill bluffs. Knox had heard they didn’t have green space in the Valve.

It looked like an alien landscape to Syd. He’d never seen so much open space, so much green. He’d heard about it, and seen it in movies, but to drive through it on the restricted roads . . . it was not something he’d ever imagined doing. His senses were on high alert. He didn’t like being up here. At least in the Valve, he knew the rules, knew the dangers. Up here, he had no idea what to expect. But they drove without seeing so much as a security checkpoint.

The landscape was far from alien to Knox. There was the corner where Bao Lin’s Candies used to be, the park where he first kissed Cheyenne and she punched him, the trail by the lake where he and Nine first tried syntholene and ran around all afternoon singing at the Carebots with their strollers and pink, whining babies.

There was the intersection where his mother’s body was dumped.

There was the route to the restricted speedway where Marie died.

Amazing how those places looked just like other places.

They skirted Xelon Park along the side where the weeping willows grew. The trees were already dying, like they did every year. They were expensive, but the park’s subscribers insisted on them. New ones were generated and planted every summer, only to die by the next spring.