Ani shot me an odd look, equal parts pity and concern, then turned away the moment I caught her eye.
“I have seen the truth,” Savona said, peering into the camera. “And I have seen the danger. Not just to our souls, to the very fabric of human society, but to ourselves, to yourselves. The danger is real, and it is imminent, and this is why we must act. Self-protection is a moral imperative.” He hung his head. “But words are empty. Words are meaningless. I offer you more than words. I offer you evidence of the danger. A young man who’s faced the abyss and barely lived to tell the tale. This brave young man’s story called to me, as it will call to you. As the Brotherhood moves forward, we will all look to him as a beacon. A light in the darkness, a reminder of what we stand to lose if we fail.”
I knew. Before the camera panned across the stage, settling on a thin figure emerging from behind the curtain, tracking him as he hobbled toward the podium, I knew. He shook hands with Savona, then looked out over the audience, his eyes finding the camera. Finding me. They were a brighter green than I remembered—then I realized he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He’d been the only person I knew who wore glasses, because no one in their right mind would turn down the simple med-tech to fix myopia. But then, no one in their right mind would allow that kind of defect to slip into their child’s genetic code in the first place, not when they had the credit to fix it. As I understood it, his mother hadn’t been in her right mind, not with all the talk of preserving God’s natural plan. When she died, he’d kept the glasses, a tribute to the woman, I thought, not an embrace of her insanity.
Except here he was, embracing the Honored Rai Savona. No glasses.
“I’m Auden Heller,” he said, his voice raspy and hoarse. “And this is the story of how I almost died.”
I could feel them all staring at me, waiting for me to react. But I kept my face blank. That was the serious advantage to mech life—when you were disconnected from your body, it couldn’t give you away.
They’ve already watched this, I thought. They all know.
Which meant it would be useless to run away or shut it off. I would only look weak. I would stay; I would listen. It was no more than I deserved.
And I wanted to see him. Even like this.
Auden eased himself into a chair next to the podium. His movements were slow and careful, as if to protect brittle bones. “I hope you don’t mind if I sit,” he said, his voice amplified by a hidden microphone. “I get tired so easily now. Rai wanted to do this over the network, so I could speak from my home, but I told him no.” His voice rose, some of the color bleeding back into his pale face. “It’s important that we be here together, in person, celebrating one another’s humanity. Without electronic barriers, without machines, keeping us apart.”
“Impressive ventriloquism, isn’t it?” Jude murmured. “You can barely see Savona’s lips move.”
I jabbed an elbow into his side. “Shut. Up.”
“I used to think this was my fault,” Auden said, gesturing down at his ruined body. His cheeks were hollow, his face etched with scars that he must have had the doctors leave intact for effect. He was thinner than he’d been before, and, bent by a twisted spine, his left shoulder dipped below his right. He wore short sleeves, and the skin on one arm was markedly darker than on the other, the telltale sign of a transplanted limb. His hand lay in his lap, its fingers half-curled, and I flashed on the last time I’d seen him, when I rested my hand in his and he hadn’t even realized it. The nerves transmitting the sensation had dead-ended at his severed spine. “I was naive,” he continued. “When I met the skinner, I believed its disguise. I thought it was my friend. It’s very good at simulating human emotion—they all are. And emotional exhibition stimulates emotional response. That’s how we’re built. If someone smiles at you, you instinctually smile back. Even if that someone is a machine. You forget.” He broke off coughing, his whole body spasming. Savona took a step toward him, but Auden got himself under control. And he told the story.
Our story.
I couldn’t look at him while he spoke. Telling the world how he’d befriended me after the download. Telling thousands of strangers how he’d assured me I was human, I was still me. Telling Ani and Quinn and Riley about the day I’d leaped off the edge of the waterfall. How he’d nearly died trying to save me, the mech who would never need saving.
My fault, for letting both of us forget what I really was. Jude had helped me see that. I couldn’t blame Auden for seeing it too.
“I believe it didn’t mean to hurt me,” Auden said. I wondered if he knew I was watching. If he thought about me at all—but then I realized he must think about me every day, every time he collapsed after walking up a flight of stairs, every time the nerve implants jolted his muscles into action with a painful blast of electricity or his transplanted liver failed. I’d spent a lot of time pumping the network these past few months. I knew what doctors could fix and what they couldn’t. “Just as I believe the skinners don’t want to damage society. They honestly believe they’re harmless. But I learned that motives don’t matter.” He raised one arm and used it to lift the other one, the limp, discolored one. “The skinner I took as my friend didn’t chop off my arm. But I still lost my arm because of the skinner. I nearly lost everything.” He left out the part where he’d wanted the download for himself and been denied, thanks to a genetic tendency for mental instability that might never manifest itself—unless it already had. Believing that, at least, would have made it easier for me to watch.
Auden began coughing, his face going red and flushed with the effort to suck in enough air. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged. “It doesn’t matter that the skinners mean us no harm. Some things create danger just by existing. But our eyes are open. Our spirits are willing.” The crowd began to cheer. “Together, we will face the threat!” he shouted over the roars. “And together we will defeat it!”
Jude muted the applause.
“He doesn’t mean it,” I said, though even I was aware how lame it sounded. “He’s been brainwashed by that lunatic.”
“Or he’s just trying to hurt you,” Riley said quietly. “The way he thinks you hurt him.” He was the only one not looking at me. His eyes were still fixed on the screen, where Savona was helping Auden off the stage.
“You don’t know anything about it,” I snapped, but of course he did. They all did now.
“He’s an arrogant little bastard,” Jude said. “Always was.”
“Shut up,” Ani and I said together. She brushed Quinn’s hand off her leg and stood up. I backed away. Ani was into hugging, and I didn’t want anyone touching me.
“I’m going to my room.”
Jude raised his eyebrows. “Twice in one day?”
I shrugged. He thought he knew everything. Let him.
“Stay,” Jude said. “This is going to get ugly, fast. We need to be ready.”
“You be ready. I’ll be in my room.”
Jude ran a hand through his shock of dark hair. “Why can’t you just—”
“Let her go,” Riley said. He still wouldn’t look at me.
“She shouldn’t be alone,” Jude said in a low voice.
“Let her go,” Riley said again.
I went.
Alone was easier said than done.
“Go away!” I shouted. The knocking stopped. But then the door eased open, enough for me to glimpse a patch of blue-black hair through the crack. “Unwanted visitor,” I told the room. “Terminate.”
The room didn’t respond, nor did it deploy countermeasures to keep Ani out. Apparently the new smartchip tech had its limits. Quinn had had the house fully equipped the month before, moments after the AI chips hit the market, promising us it would change all our lives. Like the automated plane, it was a perk of excess credit, a luxury the rest of the world would enjoy only through vids. So far it had been less than earth-shattering, learning who liked what when it came to lighting, temperature, noise level, all the little things that can make life so irritating. When you were walking around with a computer in your head, it was hard to be impressed by an artificially intelligent doorbell. Especially one not intelligent enough to keep out unwanted visitors.