“Q, can you hear me?”
There was no response. Clair was immediately worried that something might have gone wrong when Q had been d-matted out of the Farmhouse in Libby’s body. After all, taking control of a new body was obviously hard. Maybe going back was just as hard, particularly when Q had no body to return to.
That the damage might have been permanent was something Clair hadn’t considered. Not only was Q their greatest ally in the fight against the dupes, but she was a victim of Improvement as much as Libby or the others. She deserved a shot at getting her own body back.
“Q, are you there?”
“. . . Clair?”
The reply was weak and uncertain, as though Q had forgotten how to talk.
“That’s it. I’m here. Can you see me?”
“Clair, you’re back! Or I’m back. Or . . . both. How confusing! I don’t know what happened to me.”
“You’d better forget about duping for a while,” Clair said with some anxiety. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes, Clair. I think so, but it might take me a few minutes to get myself straight again. Should you be out in the open like this while I’m so distracted?”
Clair outlined the plan while the farmers drove them to Mandan. Q was reluctant to strip away the mask that had kept Clair hidden from direct observation through the Air. Clair insisted it had to be done, although she, too, felt nervous about it. If her plan didn’t work, she would doom not just herself but everyone with her as well.
“What’s the message of the meme you want to send?” Q asked.
Clair sent her the draft she and Jesse had written. It felt right that they should use the form of the original Improvement text in order to counteract it.
You are special.
You are unique.
You don’t need—or want—to be selected.
Improvement is dangerous.
It kills children,
it kills brothers and sisters,
it kills best friends.
You can stop it
if you want to.
The method is simple.
Spread the word:
Improvement is a lie.
Keeping the secret robs people
of the life they deserve.
Q didn’t offer an opinion as to the message’s literary or tactical merits. Clair took that as a positive sign.
“I found that medical data you asked me to look for,” Q said. “I can attach the links to the message.”
“So the data is genuine?”
“Yes. And I found more matching the same criteria.”
“How many?”
“Seven boys, two more girls.”
That was chilling. Fifteen victims of Improvement, and perhaps more on the way.
“Do you want me to send the message now?” asked Q. “I can seed it to multiple places to guarantee exposure.”
“Might as well. Don’t make me the sender, but link my profile to it and remove my mask when it goes out so people can see me if they want to. Give me two minutes. I’ll post a caption that’ll say everything we need to say.”
She had mulled that over too, but on the point of no return, she hesitated. As far as everyone was concerned, she had disappeared the night of the explosion in Manteca. Zep and Jesse and disappeared with her. What could she possibly say in a word or two that could sum up everything that had happened to her and everything that needed to happen to make things right?
If Libby were here, Clair thought, she would know what to do. Libby was the one obsessed with popularity and catchy captions. She saw the trends and cliques before they happened and knew exactly when to jump aboard. Clair wished she could just go along for the ride now and let Libby take all the credit.
But it was up to her this time. Libby needed her to do it because Libby couldn’t do it herself. There was no other option.
For a caption, Clair adapted an old VIA infomercial. It showed a woman hopping from place to place around the globe, cheerfully unaffected by the experience. The slogan had been “Everywhere for Everyone,” but Clair cut that part. Instead, she added the text “Destination: VIA!” with a link to her itinerary.
“How are you doing, Q?”
“I am making the final adjustments now, Clair,” said Q. “You are yourself again.”
There was no immediate change in her lenses’ format. Clair wondered what she should be feeling. This was her chance to reconnect with her world—her media, her family, her friends. Her life. But it felt oddly distant, as though it all belonged to a different version of her—Clair 1.0, who had never shot someone, never walked cross-country in the middle of the night, never peered behind the curtain of her perfectly sheltered life.
Clair 2.0 had done all those things and more. What if the two versions weren’t compatible?
She uploaded the caption and waited to see what would happen.
57
BETWEEN CONSECUTIVE EYE blinks, her infield went from empty to full. There were bumps banked up two days from Ronnie, Tash, and her parents, rated varying degrees of urgent. Among them were queries from teachers, tutors, and study mates. There were messages from crashlanders, Abstainers, and peacekeepers. There was even one from Xandra Nantakarn, asking if she and Libby would be coming to another ball soon. “Great publicity,” she said. “You girls are quite the mystery. Let me know when you come out of hiding.”
Clair told herself to be glad people were talking about her. That was exactly what the plan needed. Ringing, empty silence would be the death of them all.
On top of family and friends and friends of friends, the PKs wanted to interview her in order to clarify her involvement in several “atypical events” over the previous days. It was quite a sequence: the video stunt at school, the explosion of Jesse’s home, the hostage situation with her parents, her chase by the dupe across the world, her vanishing from the Air and the disappearance of Zeppelin Barker, plus the crash of the Skylifter. Whether they knew she was involved in all of them or were just guessing she was, she didn’t know and wasn’t in a hurry to find out.
Clair sent them the standard polite reply she sent to every one of her contacts, stating that she expected to be in New York in a day or two to talk to someone in VIA. She kept the details of the meeting vague, since at that point there weren’t any to share. She mentioned only that she would be traveling by means other than d-mat because d-mat wasn’t safe for her at the moment. In explanation, she linked to the Counter-Improvement document without saying whether she herself or anyone she knew had used Improvement or not. She was careful to make no mention of either the Abstainer movement or WHOLE. Clair Hill had to be nothing other than ordinary for the story to get any kind of traction.
Clair Hill, the girl crossing North America practically on foot because she’s too frightened to use d-mat. Clair Hill, the girl seeking reassurances from VIA that the world she lives in is in good hands. Clair Hill, wanting to keep her friends and loved ones safe at no small cost to herself.
She had once read about witches who believed that wishing for something three times made it come true. She was aiming for more like three thousand wishes, but the end result she hoped for would be the same.
It didn’t take long for Ronnie and Tash to notice her reappearance. Or her parents. As the four-wheeler raced along the old highway, Clair organized a hookup with all of them at once, figuring it was best to get the conversation over with. Mandan was getting closer with every minute, and she wanted to be alert for what might happen there. But she owed her friends and family an explanation. And she needed their help.