I nodded, distracted by the possibilities. With all those people it would be easy to slip away from the crowd, into the corners of the building that I’d never been allowed to enter. With an event like this going on downstairs, it seemed likely that the place would be understaffed, maybe even cleared out, which would give us a clear path.
It wouldn’t do to give in too quickly. Not when they both knew exactly how I felt about Savona and, I could tell, had come in girding themselves for a fight. So I let them argue and spin and cajole; I let them explain all the ways that this could be a new start for us, that many of the most vicious antiskinners were followers of the Brotherhood and their watching the leaders recant could change everything, that I was the key to forgiveness. Especially given my history with Auden—
That’s where I stopped them. “I’ll do it.”
Kiri beamed. “I promise, if it’s a disaster, you’re welcome to say I told you so.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I will.”
I twirled for the mirror, and the nearly weightless silk skirt billowed around me. Under any other circumstances it would have been an optimal opportunity for preening. The sleek ball gown hugged every curve of my perfectly sculpted mech body, and the shimmering blue—which shifted across the spectrum from sky to indigo and back again as I moved—glowed against my smooth, pale skin. Riley brushed his lips against my neck, then traced a finger down my bare back until it reached the sash of silk slung low over my hips. “You sure you have to go out tonight?” he said softly. “You could stay here, and—”
“I’m sure,” I said. The ball gown wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of delinquent style, and I suspected the idea of breaking into BioMax might have seemed slightly less surreal if I’d been decked out in something more appropriate. But camo gear, even the kind programmed to blend into any background, wouldn’t offer much invisibility at the BioMax ceremony. The idea was to blend, and—I shot a final confirming glance at the mirror, taking in the elaborately twisted blond braids, the jeweled designs sparkling along my arms and breastbone, the oceans of silk—I blended.
“Whoa,” Riley breathed, eyes widening as Zo stepped out of the bathroom, her shoulders hunched and arms crossed her chest as if she were preparing for attack.
Her hair was clean and shining for the first time in years, pulled up in a loose chignon that highlighted the long arc of her neck. She’d traded in her standard uniform of baggy shirts and sagging retro jeans for an asymmetrical black gown. Satin coated one arm, leaving the other bare, and a latticework of temp tattoos crawled from her wrist to her neck. It looked like her skin was knit from silver lace, and somehow it worked. She looked beautiful, but not in a shocking ugly-duckling-turns-swan kind of way. Zo was still Zo, and crap clothes and greasy hair couldn’t hide a genetic bounty for which our parents had paid a fortune. She looked better, but no matter how much she tried to hide it, she’d always looked good. I’d always known Zo was beautiful.
I’d never known how much she looked like me.
Or at least, the me that used to exist, in a different body with a different face. Zo was now almost exactly the age I’d been when the accident happened. And it occurred to me that watching her get older would be like getting a glimpse into the future I didn’t get to have.
“You look great,” I told her.
She scowled. “Whatever.”
“You look like some old lady,” Sari commented, from her habitual sulking spot in the corner.
“You look amazing,” Riley said. “Both of you.”
Zo stopped hunching after that. She kept sneaking glances at herself in the mirror, and I wondered what she saw. If she saw me.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Riley asked. He pressed his hand to the small of my back. As an org I’d found that gesture irresistible—something about a warm hand on cold skin, at exactly the spot where I felt strongest and most vulnerable all at the same time. But I was a mech, and it was just a hand. I smiled at Riley.
“You hate parties,” I reminded him. “I realize I look hot enough to make you forget that. But you’d remember as soon as we walked in, and you’d be miserable.”
“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” he said.
Zo cleared her throat, loudly.
“Both of you, alone,” he clarified. “Aren’t you afraid your father will be there?”
Zo flinched, but fortunately, his eyes were on me.
“I hope he’s there,” I said. It was only a half lie. We needed him there, if this was going to work. But it didn’t mean I was looking forward to the encounter.
“Me too,” Zo said, and if you weren’t her sister, you wouldn’t notice that it was the voice she used when she was lying, and when she was afraid. But there was fury in it, along with the fear. It leaked out exactly the way our father’s did, like radiation—stealthy but lethal. “He’s the one that should be afraid to see us.”
I almost believed her. The more time we spent together, the more we fell into our old patterns: me the rule-abiding, cautious good girl, her the wild child who threw herself headfirst into anything, her life a constant dare to the universe to do its worst. While I was playing nice with BioMax, doing my job and pretending nothing had changed, lying to Riley and hating myself for how easy it had become, Zo had spent the last few days with Jude, putting her hacking skills to good use by helping him ferret out blueprints, plot strategies, conspire, spew out one convoluted plan after another until hitting on one that at least had a prayer of working. It all seemed so easy for her, and I’d assumed that was because it was easy, because she was fearless. But it suddenly occurred to me that she was fearless because she couldn’t conceive of having anything to fear—maybe all this still seemed like something out of a vidlife, a melodrama with an inevitably happy ending. I knew it was possible to delude yourself that way; after the accident, I’d done it myself.
“Zo. You sure you’re up for this?”
“I’m sure.” She glared at me, daring me to try to talk her out of it or, worse, forbid her.
“Then let’s go,” I said. That won me a grateful look.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Riley said, as we were leaving. “They can’t make you.”
I kissed him and wondered when he’d gotten so naive.
There were only a hundred people crammed into the BioMax banquet room, but the walls were net-linked, and thousands of faces stared at us from all over the country. It was easy enough to ignore them; I was used to being watched.
While Zo haunted the room, hovering by the buffet table and avoiding our father, I sat up on the dais with the assembled dignitaries, waiting for my cue. It was usually frustrating the way the mech body created a distance between me and the world, every touch and sound a painful reminder that nothing seemed quite real only because I wasn’t. But times like this it was an advantage. I could stay locked in my head, watching my body move as if it belonged to someone else, shaking repugnant hands, smiling at the enemy, forming words I would never mean. Standing at a microphone, looking out over an audience of corp directors, BioMax suits, Brotherhood sympathizers, following the script: “I’m so gratified that we can come together in dialogue.” “I’m looking forward to our shared future.” “Tolerance.” “Forgiveness.” “Common ground.” “This is a new beginning.” And other such bullshit.