Q declared that the signal had been delivered, and they shut the door again.
Turner brewed hot chocolate over a fuel cell as they went over the details of the plan. There would be a short drive to the docks in Pleasantville, during which they would be vulnerable.
“But nothing will happen, will, it?” Jesse asked. “No one will do anything with the world watching.”
“Hope for the best,” said Clair, “plan for the worst.”
“Spoken like a true soldier,” Turner said, opening a map of the Manhattan Isles and moving on to their underwater route along the Jersey peninsula. There were a number of possible landing points, including a seaport on Thirty-fourth Street and another in Brooklyn Heights.
“The most direct way to get there,” said Gemma, “would be by the flooded subways. “Penn Plaza sits right on top of one of the old stations.”
“It’ll be sealed up, surely,” said Ray, “and not very public.”
“But safer,” said Turner, looking to Clair.
Clair didn’t want to be the one to decide. Jesse had thrown her with the possibility that her thoughts might not be entirely her own. What if Mallory or someone else was forcing her to make bad decisions, or worse: decisions that might lead them right into a trap? How could she tell the difference?
“Direct is better,” said Gemma. “A parade might get us attention, but we’d also be more exposed. That makes me nervous.”
Turner nodded, and with that decision made, the strategy meeting broke up.
They went back to waiting in their own ways, Turner and Ray playing cards, Gemma sitting alone, Clair and Jesse lying on bedrolls that were still next to each other, although the physical distance between them had taken on a much greater significance now. Jesse settled into a comfortable position on his side, with his right hand under his left cheek. His hair draped like a curtain over his face. One green eye was barely visible, still open, looking at her.
He whispered, “Was that ‘hope for the best’ line from . . . you know?”
“No. Arabelle said it once.”
He looked relieved but also puzzled. “She was never a soldier.”
“I think she thought she was,” Clair said. “Every second of every day, WHOLE’s fighting the entire world.”
“Who knows what it’ll look like when they’re done with it?”
“As long as the dupes aren’t in it any longer, the world will automatically be a better place.”
Clair felt him shift slightly so his toes touched hers. She resisted the impulse to roll over and fold herself against him. Slowly, his eyelid drooped shut, his breathing slowed, and he was asleep.
She didn’t want to sleep. Her dreams bothered her. To keep herself awake, she thought about VIA, and the case she was going to make. Murder. Kidnapping. Identity theft. Conspiracy. All manner of information crimes. Mental rape.
As long as these sound like crimes, she told herself, I’ll know I’m still me.
63
THE CAR SLOWED and shook as they passed through Philadelphia, waking Jesse. He was puffy eyed and sluggish, and Clair felt like he looked. They would be at the end of the line in less than an hour.
It was night outside and the air was bracing. Clair said hello to Q, who had been busy organizing her messages and feeds into a comprehensible form. There were more than she had dared hope, divided between well-wishers and haters. The arguments between both groups were proceeding as well as could be expected, but Clair knew it could be better. Neurological data and insubstantial threats would only fuel the fire so long. She had to give something new to both groups, something that would raise the stakes for everyone.
She spent fifteen minutes recording a speech about what the world might be like if Improvement were real. Suppose you could step into a booth and emerge looking like a supermodel or a famous actor? What if everyone wanted to look the same or like literally the same person? She could see positive uses for such technology—to fix people after grievous injuries, say, or for gender reassignment—but what about the pranks people might play on their friends? What about all the people who just wanted to be freaks for the sake of it? What about athletes like Zep who trained all their lives only to be beaten by someone who’d used Improvement to make themselves stronger overnight? What about parents who wanted their kids to grow up certain ways, whether the children wanted to or not? And what about criminals who might change everything about themselves—fingerprints, face, eye color, even their genes—in order to escape justice?
“Imagine that world,” she told her viewers. “If Improvement isn’t stopped, that’s exactly what’s coming.”
She sent the video to all her followers in the hope that it would be passed on, for good or ill. There were many other interesting things happening in the world, some of them drawing millions, perhaps even billions of viewers. This was small-fry, but it concerned everyone. And every keen glance counted.
Clair asked about the dupes. Q reported that there had been no sign of them. Perhaps, Clair thought, that was because the people behind them were worried about showing their hand. Or maybe they knew about the bodies being held by the farmers: proof, if needed, that some of them had been copied. For that reason, it made sense for the dupes she knew of to go to ground. As Turner had said, though, she didn’t doubt there would be others. The dupes had been around for at least a year. That was long enough to accrue quite a catalog. Fat, thin, short, tall, old, and—she thought of Cashile with a wince—young.
Clair exchanged messages with Ronnie and Tash and her parents, who had been hard at work in their own ways.
“Is there anything else we can do?” Allison asked. “I could meet you at Pleasantville with a change of clothes—even come the rest of the way with you.”
Clair looked down at her overalls and was momentarily tempted.
“Thanks, Mom, but that’s okay.” She didn’t want to put her mother in any danger. “You’re claustrophobic, remember? You can’t even open your eyes in a d-mat booth. How would you cope with a submarine?”
They laughed, albeit a little tearily. Clair found it hard to sign off.
She leaned back against the rattling door of the car, contemplating the wisdom of trying to contact Libby, when a message arrived from an entirely unexpected source.
The message was signed Catherine Lupoi, a name she didn’t recognize, but the address indicated that she worked for VIA.
“Mr. Wallace is eager to meet with you to discuss your concerns,” the message said. “He will expect you tomorrow.”
Clair had to think for a second before she remembered the name, and when she did, she couldn’t believe it.
Ant Wallace was VIA’s head of operations. Q had told her that much about him, and a quick search through the Air uncovered a lot more. He had joined the organization as a volunteer twenty years earlier and risen quickly to the very top. He wasn’t an overt publicity seeker, but he was active in several public arenas, from urban planning to modern orchestral music. In particular, he was an advocate for increased research into the biochemical causes of depression and an occasional speaker at rallies urging the OneEarth administration to do more to inform the public on the issue. “Information, not medication,” he was most often quoted as saying. “Suicide is murder, not euthanasia, and we are all accessories.”
Now he wanted to talk to Clair about Improvement.
Triumphantly, Clair passed on the message to everyone in the car and then posted it to the Air. The response was immediate. Their numbers spiked as word spread: the head of VIA was meeting with a teenaged girl to talk about the possible consequences of Improvement. Perhaps he would take her grievances seriously. Perhaps he just wanted to dress her down in public. Either way, it was new and interesting.