Vitro (7 page)

Wasn’t.
Was.
Just like that.
First there was light blinding burning stinging. Then there was noise: static in her ears in her brain fuzzy

and deafening.
hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts.
When she looked up, numbers ran across her vision, a dizzying stream of ones and zeroes, when she blinked, they scurried away and were replaced by colors.

Her brain jolted; words came.
Blue and sky and sun and light.
There was a word for everything, too many of them and

And what what what what what over and over, loudest word of all.
Back, she thought, want go back darkness hurts!
Then came fear and panic.
She wanted—she wanted—the word burst to the top of her mind—stop! She wanted it to stop all of it Hurts! Stop!
She became aware of a new sensation and with it came a flood of new words—hands and sand and skin and arms. Tingles in her fingers, the sense of weight.
What what what what?
Chaos and noise too much she was a void and the words and the sensations rioted within her she could not control them.
She didn’t remember sitting up but suddenly she was she looked down and words bombarded her legs and feet and knees beyond them sea and water and ocean.
This was the world: sand and ocean legs and light.
She moved her eyes and every direction held new sights and words she couldn’t stop them from coming palm tree and rock and waves and clouds and—
The words stopped.
The noise stopped.
The static in her brain stopped.
The numbers stopped.
Boy.
Her thoughts shivered scattered emptied and at last all was still and silent behind her eyes as she stared at him the world drew back waited.
Boy.

Then slowly the words crept in again they stacked and shuffled and rearranged.
Boy and eyes and nose and mouth and hair and face.
Her mind drew him in hid his image at its center folded over him the world slid into place the chaos ceased.
The words fell into line. She could think now. She could breathe. He gave shape to her thoughts and structure to her mind. She stared at him without blinking, memorizing the lines of his face and the colors in his hair. Her body relaxed.
She was at peace.
The boy was there, and the boy was everything.
“Sophie,” he said. “Hey, you okay?”
His voice electrified her. Her brain rushed to process his words, to make sense of them. Sophie. A name, a girl’s name. Her name?
Hey, you okay?
Before she could understand them, he spoke again. More words, more sounds. All in a rush. She struggled to keep up— had to understand him—but it was too much. She watched his lips. His teeth. The muscles in his throat.
“Say something,” he said.
Say something say something say something.
“Mmm.” A sound! From her own lips! She watched him anxiously, to see if he would approve. She ached for him to approve.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
This was a word she knew. Hurt. Her tongue jerked into action, her lips parted—“Hurt.”
“What? You are hurt?”
A flutter of panic. A flurry of words. She spoke them as they came, desperate to speak. “No. Not . . . not hurt.”
He spoke faster and faster, pouring words across the sand. She raced to pick them up and turn them over and interpret them, but he was too fast and she was too slow. She caught them at random, a word here and there: boat and fly and away and remember and drug and Sophie and boat.
She seized on that last one with desperation. “Boat.” Ones and zeroes crowded her mind; faded into an image of a boat on water.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, stay with me. It’s me, it’s Jim. Jim Julien?”
It’s me, it’s Jim.
Her heart jerked. She could understand this! He was Jim. The boy was Jim. She held the word close and the whole of her identity hung upon it: Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim.
“Jim,” she said, delighting in the sound of it.
“Yeah, that’s right.” He followed with more words, but they rushed over her and evaporated before she could gather them in. That was okay. She had enough for now.
She had Jim.
And Jim was everything.

Sophie blinked, and the spell was broken. The man leaned back, his eyes still on her but his features relaxing a bit. She licked her lips, which she found were dry and rough, and moaned.

“Is that it?” the man asked. He was seated in a plastic chair, facing her squarely. She herself was sitting in a metal chair that looked like something out of a dentist’s office, slightly reclined, her hands perched on padded armrests.

Her mother stood behind the man, but a bright light was concentrated on Sophie and all else was in shadow. She could only see her mother’s shoes and the hem of her lab coat, and beside her someone stood in a pair of white heels, a woman dressed in a white pantsuit, so bright she seemed to glow. But her face was also lost in shadow.

“That’s it,” her mother replied. Sophie heard the click of a pen; somewhere behind her, someone was scratching on paper.

“ Mmmom,” Sophie moaned.
“What did she say?” The man turned around in his seat. He was wearing a silver suit that looked like it cost as much as Jim’s plane.
“Nothing. She can’t talk yet, of course. She’s disoriented.”
No, I’m not, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t form the words. She’d never been so thirsty in her life.
“What do we do now?” asked the man, turning around again. He studied Sophie with his frigid eyes, his mouth pursing even further. He seemed wary of her, as if she might bite.
“We wait a little,” Moira said. She finally stepped forward, into the light, and Sophie’s heart jerked painfully in her chest. Her mother looked the same as she always had, as if she were agelessly frozen at thirty, with short, tight black curls and large blue eyes; she looked like one of the Victorian china dolls Sophie’s stepsister Emily collected, minus all the lace.
Mom, look at me. It’s me, Mom, please see!
But Moira was looking at the man, not Sophie, and she remembered that her mother still thought she was the other Sophie. What was her name? The memory was vague, difficult to catch. She’d heard them talking earlier, when she’d started to wake up . . . Lux. That’s what they’d called her.
“It will take about twenty-four hours for her to acclimate,” Moira was saying. “Walking, talking, basic motor functions— it comes pretty quickly in the newer models, but still, it isn’t instant. She’s imprinted on you, Mr. Andreyev, and that’s the important thing.”
“Please,” he replied, a soft Russian accent curling around the edges of his speech, “call me Constantin. Or Connie.”
A tight smile danced across Moira’s face. “Thank you, Connie. Now, do you have any questions for us?”
“I have a question,” said the woman in white. She also stepped forward. Her brown hair was cut boyishly short, but that did nothing to soften the angularity of her features. Hers was a face you could cut yourself on. She regarded Sophie through half-lidded eyes, as if she were bored or dismally unimpressed.
“Of course, Victoria.” Moira’s voice came out soft and ended in a whisper.
Sophie looked curiously at her mother. She’s afraid of this woman. She could feel her strength returning, and sensed that if she were to speak up, her voice wouldn’t betray her again. But she didn’t. Instead, she stayed still and silent, watching to see what would happen.
The first thing, the most important thing—her mother seemed entirely well and whole. Whatever her emergency was or had been, it didn’t seem to affect her physically, not, at least, in any way that Sophie could tell. She didn’t seem to be held against her will. She seemed . . . fine. Perfectly fine.
Sophie felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. I don’t know the whole story, she thought. I have to give her the benefit of the doubt. But she felt used. Betrayed. Bewildered. It didn’t make sense, none of it. Why am I here? What is this about? Looking at her mother standing so composed, she almost sensed that Moira Crue had no idea that her daughter was on the island.
Had Nicholas told her?
Where was Nicholas?
And who had hit her on the head?
She had a feeling she knew the answer, and it only made her more nauseated. He tricked me. It had to be true. There was no other explanation. Somehow, Nicholas had known she was coming. He’d met her at the airstrip and lied about being sent by Moira when he’d probably had no intention of taking Sophie to her mother at all. But . . . why? What was his game? How did he factor into all of this?
She needed to know what Skin Island was, certain that that would answer half her questions at least. Her mother’s life’s work, Nicholas’s part in it, the mysterious emergency, the other Sophie . . . it all came down to the secrets in this room. I can play along a little longer. She had no idea what this Lux was supposed to be or why she looked like Sophie, but apparently she couldn’t talk. Or walk. That was pretty simple to stick to. Just shut up and listen, Sophie told herself. They’re bound to spill a few answers.
She’d been so lost in her own head that she’d missed what the woman—Victoria—had to say, and she struggled to catch up while trying to look as uninterested as possible. Her mother was speaking.
“The bond won’t be evident until she’s able to speak and function. But we’ve never had a case in which the imprinting failed.”
“If she has only just, for all intents and purposes, been born—how is it that within a day she will be able to speak and walk?” asked Andreyev.
“To answer that, I must back up a little. I’ll start at the beginning, though I’m sure you read all of this in the dossier Victoria gave you. Still, it’s a lot to take in, and I want to be sure we’re clear.” She drew a deep breath. “The Vitros are the result of a groundbreaking neurotechnology we call the Imprima Code, and the chip on which it is contained.” She held up a vial, and Sophie recognized it as one of the vials she’d seen in the freezer consoles the night before.
Moira went on. “We take embryos left over from in vitro procedures—there are millions of them all over the world, tiny cellular clusters of potential—and we raise them, well, in vitro—in glass—and plant the computer chip at just the right moment of embryonic brain growth. The brain grows over and around it, and we monitor it very closely every day. Once the subject reaches nine months of gestation, we can begin transferring data to the chip. Then, when we wake the subject—”
“They already know their ABCs and 123s,” Andreyev finished.
“Oh, much more than that. Basic motor functions, a rudimentary knowledge of math and history. The chip is brilliant, an extremely valuable technology in and of itself. Why, the opportunities afforded us by the chip, even without the imprint technology, is enough to—”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Victoria. “Explain to Mr. Andreyev the imprint technology. That is, after all, what he is here to see.” She extended a tight smile to the Russian that made her face look as if it were made of Saran wrap.
“Yes,” Moira said, a bit faintly. “Of course. The imprint technology is what makes the Vitros so . . . interesting. I developed it myself.”
“And we are very pleased with your work,” said Victoria, and she and Moira’s eyes met in a glacial lock. They looked like rival cheerleaders vying for the spot at the top of the pyramid, only instead of lipstick and pompoms these cheerleaders had P.h.D.’s and secret laboratories to play with.
“How long has she been sleeping?” Andreyev steepled his index fingers and pressed them to his lips as he leaned back in his chair, regarding Sophie from beneath a low brow.
“Seventeen years,” said Moira. “That’s the only way this works. We can’t wake them until we are ready for them to bond with someone. You have to be the very first person they see, and then they’ll never imprint on anyone else. This is Lux’s first impression of the world, and because you are the first one she has seen, you have become the center of her world.”
“Well,” said Andreyev, his frown deepening. “But why? How does it work?”
Victoria’s eyes flitted to Moira.
“Ah,” said Sophie’s mother patiently. “Many species of animals are born with the instinct to imprint. Ducks are a prime example. A newly hatched duckling imprints on the first thing it sees, whether that’s its mother, a human being, or in some cases even an inanimate object like a shoe or a duck decoy. It will follow that first impression—the imprintee—in order to learn how to function. How to forage for food, how to court, how to migrate. Even humans have this instinct to a lesser extent. It’s the reason a baby can identify its mother apart from other people.” She stepped toward Sophie and slowly ran her fingers over a lock of her hair; it was all Sophie could do not to flinch. “The chip isolates this imprinting instinct in the brain and amplifies it exponentially. In essence, it creates a deep, psychological need in the subject, a need to imprint, to mold itself around the mind and will of another. It creates a hole in the subject’s psyche that is filled by the first person that the subject sees upon waking for the first time.” She fell silent for a moment, her eyes studying Sophie with a slight tension around their corners. Then she turned to Andreyev. “The moment Lux awoke, her chip activated, and all that information—the ABCs and 123s, as you call them, as well as her motor functions, her memory, every cognitive process in her brain—it all clicked into place with you at its center.”
Andreyev swallowed. “I did read the files, of course. I didn’t think . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat, looking very unsettled. “I didn’t realize . . .”
“It’s a lot to take in,” Victoria said crisply. “We know that.”
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse. He looked as if he wanted to be as far from Sophie—Lux—as possible.
“Her will is bound to yours. She will obey any command you give her,” Moira went on, a bit vengefully. “She has no will of her own, no sense of self. Her identity is wholly formed around yours.”
“I understand.” Andreyev’s eyes shifted around the room. His left hand, which rested on his knee, opened and closed convulsively. “It’s just . . . she looks so young, so innocent.”
“Of course, that’s part of the charm of the Vitros,” Victoria said, too brightly, as if she were trying to counter the somber depression that had settled over the room, gathering like shadows in the corners. “They are aesthetically pleasing, as well. Surely you see the possibilities? And you read the section about the various classes, I hope?”
“Yes. . . . Well, parts of it.”
“Moira?”
Moira gave a grunt of affirmation. “The classes, yes. By specially designing the code on each Vitro’s chip, we have been able to create a diverse range of specializations. Lux, for example, is what we call a Class Three Bodyguard. She may not look the part, but that is by design. Her chip is supplied with the kinetic and mental resources that will keep her on constant defensive mode. If you are ever threatened, she will intervene on your behalf to defend you against all threats. The only thing that would stop her from protecting you would be a command given by you.”
“And the other classes,” said Andreyev. “They all exist?”
“Of course. We have a prototype Vitro for each category. Lux is, of course, the eighth successfully imprinted Vitro to be born on Skin Island.”
“Only the eighth?” He frowned. “I thought there were more than that.”
“Well. There are four others—early subjects. They didn’t . . . They weren’t successful. However, of the eight—any of whom we can demonstrate for you—we have another bodyguard. We have three domestics, programmed in cooking, housekeeping, and such duties. We have three intelligence models, who specialize in research, memory, translation, and information processing.”
“And of course, these are only the classes we have already produced,” Victoria added. “But the possibilities are limitless: soldiers, nannies, pilots, whatever you can think of, we can manufacture.”
“It’s a limitless new world,” said Moira softly, her gaze traveling to Sophie but not quite meeting her eyes. “And we are only just beginning to explore it.”
Sophie felt bile rise in her throat. So this was Skin Island. This was the Great Secret Thing that had lurked between her and her mother for so long. Her blood pounded angrily through her veins; she had never felt such deep, total revulsion. It’s a hideous new world. And you are its architect.