Authors: Jessica Khoury
Vitro (26 page)
The helicopter churned to life. Jim looked out the window to see Strauss hotfooting it up the hill, waving a gun and shouting, though her words were lost to them.
Jim gave her a little wave as the bird lifted into the air, and she stopped and stood still, a glowing white figure in the midst of ashes and chaos. The look on her face sent a chill down Jim’s spine, and he turned away.
Sophie leaned her head on his shoulder; she was still shaking. He put his arm around her. “Going home,” he said into her ear.
“Wherever that is.”
“You’ll find it.” Of that, he was confident. If there was one thing he could say with certainty about Sophie Crue, the one thing that she’d always been, even as a child, it was that she didn’t back down and she didn’t give up.
“Yes,” she said. “I will.”
Her hand slid into his, surprisingly familiar, and he held it gently, stared at it with no small amount of wonder and bewilderment, both at the events that had transpired to bring them back together and at the burgeoning sense that even as all the terrible events of Skin Island were growing smaller and smaller below, something new was beginning, something unexpected and fragile and terrifying . . . something he wanted more than he could have ever imagined.
They turned for one last look. The Vitro building smoldered in the night, growing smaller and smaller until it became a tiny red eye in the large black beast that was Skin Island. Then Sophie turned her head and shut her eyes, breathing in deeply until her body ceased to tremble.
But Jim watched the island as they rose higher and turned northward, watched it until it melted into the dark sea and faded from sight altogether.
from:
ghkg874a@mcnwrcom
to:
[email protected]
date:
10 October 08:46
subject:
update
Remember how I told you trying to override the code on the chip would be like inventing the bicycle before the wheel? Lux invented the wheel. We were able to retrieve her chip, and found it undamaged—and filled with a new code, a code written by Lux herself. A lengthy technical description would take pages to write, so I’ll cut to the chase—in rebelling against Jim at that last crucial moment, she reversed the flow of information fed to her brain by the chip, overrode it with her own force of will. All this time, we’ve been translating code into human thought, but Lux did the opposite: she translated human thought into code. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of the full ramifications of this. So far, we’ve been able to use this new code, the Lux Code, to cure the Vitros—yes, cure them. Even Wyatt and Jay. We are able to communicate with the mind in ways unprecedented even in theory, reading thoughts, accessing memories, not just in the Vitros . . . but in anyone. We’ve stumbled into a new frontier, but we proceed with caution. None of us wish to repeat the mistakes of the past.
I cannot express the delight with which this discovery was received by our new investor. Corpus . . . they have remained ambivalent. They are not pleased with us, and it will take more than this to sway them, I think. At the moment, all that is stopping them from shutting us down is Andreyev, but I hope that in time our advances will regain their support.
Speaking of which, I will not be able to contact you again for some time. They are closing in on us, tightening security, after what happened here with you and Jim. And there was another incident, something in South America from what Andreyev tells us—anyway, they’ve turned paranoid lately and despite all our success here on Skin Island, I am worried about what they will do. They are tying off every loose end. The Vitro Project is just the beginning.
Do not reply to this e-mail. I will cut off all contact for a while. I suggest you do likewise. Lay low for a while, and tell Jim to do the same.
Yours, Mom
