At least it looked like my mother, but my mother wasn’t the type to hire armed guards, or to kidnap her own daughter, or to bark commands like “Shut him up”—when Jude’s gag came out and then promptly went back in again until he’d promised to behave—and “Stop acting like a child.” She’d always been the one who acted like a child, so easily persuaded by my father that whatever she’d done was wrong.
My mother didn’t have steel in her voice.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked, glaring at call-me-Ben, because starting with him was easier than figuring out what this new mother had done with the old one.
“Ben’s doing me a favor,” she said.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” Ben said, then mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “blackmail.”
She favored him with an icy smile. “I simply explained to your friend what I knew about the inner workings of his corp and how reluctant he might be for certain information to emerge.”
“We’ve already gone public with everything,” I said. “No one cares about what BioMax does to mechs.”
“Your version of ‘everything’ is somewhat narrow, dear. And the ‘public’ isn’t exactly anyone’s greatest concern. Ben knows that when I talk, the right people listen. So he decided on a different course.”
“Kidnapping me?”
“Extricating you from a dangerous situation,” my mother said. “One I would never have guessed you were foolish enough to put yourself into. I wasn’t about to leave you there.”
“So you trusted him?” Jude asked.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” she said coolly. “Both of you. Though I can’t say that was my intent.”
The guards dropped their heads. “I told you, taking him seemed like the best way not to make a scene,” one of them mumbled. “Didn’t think you’d care—”
“And I told you, I’m not paying you to think.”
“Did your mother learn her gangster talk from watching the vids?” Jude whispered.
She cleared her throat, pointedly.
“What the hell is going on, Mom?”
“There’s something wrong about this whole situation, and that corp-town wasn’t safe for you,” she said.
“I’ve tried to assure your mother that her fears are misplaced,” Ben said. “But she won’t believe me.”
“The question isn’t whether I believe him,” my mother said, as if he weren’t there. So at least one thing hadn’t changed: She was still treating the help like dirt. “Living with your father, I’ve become quite skilled at knowing when people are lying. Your friend Ben here isn’t—he’s just ignorant. M. Poulet, on the other hand, is like your father. Nothing but lies, all the way down. And whatever’s going on there, I don’t want you to be a part of it.”
What about Zo? I almost said, but stopped myself. Because either she didn’t know Zo was there—in which case I wasn’t about to enlighten her—or she did know, and didn’t care. In which case she’d learned more from my father than the ability to spot a liar.
“Who are you?” I asked instead. “And what have you done with my mother?”
“I know what you think of me,” she said. “I played the part I had to play. I did my job. But think about it: Your father may treat me like a fool, but does he really seem the type to marry one?”
“Nobody’s saying you’re a… fool.” Not out loud, at least. Had I been imagining it? Had she been like this the whole time, and I hadn’t noticed? Or had she, for whatever perverse reason, spent the last seventeen years in hiding? “If you’re so good at seeing through bullshit, then I guess that means you knew all along? What he did? What BioMax ‘made’ him do?”
All the air went out of her. “No.”
“And when you found out, you didn’t see the need to do anything.”
“I stayed,” she said.
“Fucking right. You stayed.”
“Watch your language,” she said. “Yes, I stayed. That’s what I did. If he was capable of… what he did—”
“Murder his daughter,” I said loudly. “That’s what he did.”
“If he’s capable of that, he’s capable of anything.”
“You were watching him,” Jude guessed. “Guarding him.”
“Someone had to. Make sure he stayed in line. Make sure he stayed miserable.”
“Even if it meant you were miserable too,” Jude said.
“No more than she—” I stopped myself.
“Deserves?” my mother suggested.
Ben cleared his throat. “Give your mother a break.”
“Shut up, Ben.” The response came in chorus, my mother and me in sync.
“It doesn’t matter why I stayed,” my mother said. “I did. Which is how I knew it was time to help you.”
“I’ve tried to explain to your mother that she’s overreacting,” Ben said.
“Nothing unusual about that,” I agreed, fingering the vial of Amperin adhered to my upper arm. “Now that you’ve done your motherly duty, any chance you could drop us back where you found us?”
“You see, M. Kahn,” Ben said, “they’re perfectly happy to—”
“They’re children,” my mother snapped. “What makes them happy isn’t really my concern.”
“With all due respect, M. Kahn, I’m not your kid,” Jude said. “If you want me to contact my parents, I’m sure they’d be happy to take me off your hands.”
She laughed. “So I see you’ve told all your friends about your idiot mother, Lia.” She twisted around in her seat to get a better look at him. “You think I don’t know about you? That you came from nothing? That you have no parents? You think I didn’t learn everything I could about the person who stole my daughter right out from under me?”
“Jude didn’t steal me. I’m not some thing that belongs to you, like your stupid Chindian tea set.”
“You’ll be safe at home,” my mother said. “Both of you.”
“It won’t be for long,” Ben said. “I’m taking a tech crew out to one of the server ships on Sunday. They’re pretty sure they can cut off the virus at the root, restore the server integrity, and then all this will be behind us.”
“Always the optimist. You must—” I stopped, mouth open, the rest of the thought vanishing as his words registered, and everything clicked into place.
Sunday. As in the day that phase three would be put into action.
Because if it doesn’t happen now, we’ll have to wait another month.
For security reasons they sent launches to the server farms only once a month. It was the best way to minimize and control access. Everyone knew that.
“I must what?” Ben prodded, when I didn’t continue.
But I shook my head, gears turning. Sunday. So we had three days. Three days to figure out what they were planning to do at that server farm—and stop them.
“Forget it,” I said. “You’re in charge, right? We’re just children. Do whatever you have to do.”
“I will,” my mother said.
So would I.
The van pulled up to the estate. Jude had never seen it before. But I could tell, from the way he looked at me, that he’d just had all his suspicions confirmed. I was exactly the person he’d always thought I was: the poor little rich girl, doing what Mommy told her to do because it was easier than fighting back. He didn’t say a word to me, or to any of us, as the guard escorted him into the house. Ben caught hold of me before my guard and I could follow.