Unchanged Read online

  That’s what Dr. A calls them. Normates. An amalgamation of normal and primate. It amuses me that he uses the word so loosely, when he himself is plagued by the same limitations they are.

  I stop walking and stare back at them. I don’t mean it to be a challenge, but they appear to take it that way, because they all look away and return to their game, pretending that they don’t notice me. I watch the action for a minute. I know the rules of MagBall from an upload. When I asked Dr. A if I could join in one time, he told me that it would be unfair. Their strength and speed would be no match for mine.

  The team in red sends the MagBall into the goal at the other end of the field, eliciting an eruption of cheers. I’m about to turn and leave when I notice one boy has not returned to the game. He’s tall and lanky with electric-blue hair that’s been fashioned into slopes atop his head. He’s standing at the edge of the synthograss, watching me. Our gazes connect and, unlike the other players on the field, he doesn’t turn away. He’s not afraid of me. In fact, he almost looks like he wants to say something to me.

  I send a query through my DigiLenses, capturing his face with a blink and running it through the Diotech personnel database to find a name.

  The result appears across my vision a moment later.

  Klo Raze

  Raze?

  Like Director Raze? Is this boy Director Raze’s son? I didn’t even know Raze had any family members on the compound. Why has he never mentioned Klo before?

  He takes a hesitant step in my direction but freezes, his body visibly tensing. Like a deer caught in the beam of a hovercopter. His eyes dart to something behind me and I turn to see Dr. A strolling down the path from the Owner’s Estate to greet Kaelen, who I now notice is a good ten yards ahead of me.

  “Sera?” Kaelen calls back. “What are you doing?”

  I hurry to catch up with him, offering Dr. A a smile that I pray looks genuine. “Good evening.”

  “It most certainly was,” Dr. A replies, a tad too sharply for my comfort. He gives me a once-over and I’m suddenly extremely self-conscious about my windswept hair. “Now it’s practically night.”

  “Sorry, Dr. A,” Kaelen is quick to reply. “We were kissing in the gardens and lost track of time.”

  I wince inwardly at Kaelen’s brutal honesty. Does he have to tell Dr. A everything we do?

  I guess I should be grateful that he hasn’t mentioned Rio. Or at least not yet. But it doesn’t really matter. My memories will give me away eventually. That moment is bound to show up on my next random scan. And I’m bound to be reprimanded for it.

  Dr. A cocks an eyebrow. “In the gardens, you say? Interesting venue. Then again, I created you two with the inability to resist each other. So how could I ever fault you for what’s in your DNA?”

  Dr. A guffaws as he reaches out to ruffle Kaelen’s hair before throwing an arm around his shoulders and guiding him toward the Estate. “Join me for a drink, my dear boy. We have much to discuss about tomorrow.” He pauses long enough to glance back at me with disapproval. “Sera, gem. Why don’t you change into something more suitable for evening meal? And fix your hair. You’re looking a bit … rumpled.”

  I nod obligingly and follow them. As we reach the end of the tree-lined pathway that leads to the Owner’s Estate, I brave a glance back at the MagBall field.

  The boy is still there. Still watching. Even though the game has gone on without him.

  6

  FORTUNATE

  I watch stony-faced in the ReflectoGlass as the nanopin disappears against the silky golden-brown fibers of my hair.

  “There,” Crest says, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “All finished.”

  As usual, her efforts are more impressive than the final result. The elaborate half updo she has attempted sits slightly off center on my head. As Dr. A’s personal assistant, fixing my “rumpled” hair is not necessarily in Crest’s job description, but she seems to enjoy helping, even if she’s not very good at it. I don’t complain though. It saves me the trouble of doing my own hair. A task I despise, even though I’ve received multiple uploads that have made me a rather accomplished hairstylist.

  “It’s a bit warped,” she says, frowning at her creation. “But I majored in business. Not beautification.” She sighs. “Next time you want to prance around in thirty-mile-per-hour winds, how about wearing a hat?”

  “Sorry,” I say, my vibrant purple eyes still staring at my reflection.

  The Feed has been minimized to a small window in the corner of the ReflectoGlass, pulling my focus away from the shimmery blue dress that I haphazardly picked out of my closet. A reporter is talking about the highest-performing stocks of the day. Of course, Diotech Corporation is at the top of the list. The stock has been soaring ever since the announcement of the Unveiling. And Dr. A predicts this rise is only the beginning. Once the first product line of the Objective has been released into the marketplace in a few months, Diotech will be untouchable.

  Crest’s jubilant face appears next to mine. She gives my head a light bump with her own. “Why so sad, my pearl? Is it really that horrible?”

  She’s referring to my hair and I immediately feel bad. I always try my best to praise Crest for anything she does for me. Especially since I’ve never heard Dr. A offer her a single compliment, or even so much as a thank-you. And Crest works so hard for him.

  “No. I love it. It’s beautiful. Your best work yet.”

  She laughs, her dark eyes dancing. “You should probably request an upload on the art of lying. You’re dreadful at it. Now, tell me. What’s wrong?”

  “I ran into Dr. Rio again,” I tell her, cringing as soon as I realize my mistake.

  It’s just Rio now.

  His brain isn’t capable of advanced science anymore. His title and accolades have been stripped away. He’s no longer himself. He only looks the same. Apart from the creepy eyes and permanently ajar mouth.

  “And?” Crest prompts.

  “And I completely warped out.”

  I can always confide in Crest. She’s the only one who doesn’t judge me for the reactions I can’t seem to control, no matter how hard I try. Kaelen doesn’t understand my anxiety about disappointing Dr. A. He’s always been his favorite. If anyone can understand the pressures of pleasing the president of Diotech, it’s Crest.

  She sits down next to me on the small velvet bench, but keeps speaking to my reflection. “So?”

  “So,” I echo. “That means I failed him. What if Dr. A sees that memory in my next scan? What if he thinks it means I’m still the girl who betrayed the Objective?”

  “Don’t be silly. That was over two years ago.”

  How could I forget? That date has been seared into my memory like an engraving in stone. I know it better than I know my own birthday.

  January 9, 2115.

  The day I left the compound. With him.

  “Dr. Alixter has forgiven you,” Crest assures me, referring to him by his full name. Kaelen and I are the only ones who call him Dr. A. He told us to. He thought it sounded less formal. But hardly anyone calls him by his first name, Jans. “He’s fixed you.”

  I nod. I want to believe this, but I’m not sure I can. There’s an iciness when Dr. A addresses me. A distance. One that doesn’t exist between him and Kaelen. Just further evidence that I have to keep trying. I have to keep proving myself.

  I study Crest’s face in the glass. Her sleek curtain of jet-black hair is cut in choppy, uneven layers. A chunk of longer strands falls to the bridge of her nose, splitting her short bangs in half. I can never look at Crest for too long. She has more nanotats on her body than anyone I’ve ever seen. And sometimes staring at them makes me dizzy. She says she’s addicted to them. That they give her a sense of control.

  I point to the one on her cheek, which she’s reprogrammed since yesterday. Now it’s displaying a loop of two people kissing in slow motion. “Who are they?” I ask.

  She gives me a surprised look. “You’ve never
seen The Rifters? It’s only the best show on the Feed.”

  “Fictional shows don’t interest me. I can never believe the stories.”

  She shakes her head in disappointment. “Dr. A made you too logical for your own good.” She points at the moving graphic on her cheek. “You see, that’s Ashander and that’s Glia. They are hopelessly in love but they can never be together because their blood is incompatible due to the alien experiments. But that’s a whole other plotline. Anyway, in this scene Ashander braves death and the destruction of their two worlds just to steal one kiss from her. It was the most thermal, romantic thing ever.”

  Crest’s eyes close and for a moment I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. But then she snaps to and beams at me. I can tell she’s waiting for a reaction so I force a smile and say, “Wow.”

  I expect that’s what she wants from me. Some kind of mutual enthusiasm for what she’s explained.

  She chuckles and stands up from the bench, giving my cheek a light tap with the comb in her hand. “Dreadful liar.”

  “You told the story well,” I offer as consolation. “You were very passionate.”

  “Well, it’s about as much passion in my life as I can hope for right now. Once again, I’ve proven disastrous in the love department. Jin still hasn’t returned any of my pings.”

  Jin is a lab assistant Crest has been pining after for months. She calls him her “Dark Matter.” Partly because he works in the Aerospace Sector, but mostly because she says there’s a darkness around his heart, like a semipermanent storm cloud. That’s why she’s obsessed with him.

  Crest sighs and her thoughts disappear into another place for a moment. A sad place. When they return, she says, “You know how lucky you are, right? You and Kaelen. To have someone created just for you. Your perfect soul mate. It’s something out of a fairy tale.”

  I want to remind her that Kaelen and I are Print Mates, not soul mates, but something tells me to simply reply with, “Yes. I know.”

  She is visibly relieved. “That’s good.”

  Something on the glass catches her eye and she grimaces and expands the Feed window until it’s taking up almost the entire wall. “Oh flux, not this idiot again.” She turns up the volume and a silky charismatic voice floods my bathroom.

  “The time to act is now. Before Diotech unleashes these monstrosities into the world. Is that what we want? Synthetically engineered humans walking among us?”

  From his inflection on the word human, he could easily have replaced it with rodent and no one would have noticed.

  “As if those horrible labor robots they shoved upon us weren’t disturbing enough, are we going to let this godless company take over our country with synthetic beings?”

  Shouts of opposition follow his question and the cams zoom out to reveal a giant crowd gathered around the speaker at the podium. His dark, graying hair is concealed beneath a Western-style, wide-brimmed hat, and the whites of his eyes are tinted blue by the prescription glasses he’s wearing. He clearly doesn’t believe in corrective eye surgery. The strip of text at the bottom of the Feed window reads: Pastor Peder: Church of Eternal Light.

  Crest groans. “Godless,” she echoes with disgust at the man’s face. “Well, you’re heartless!”

  “We must band together,” he goes on, eliciting cheers from his spectators. “God has tasked us with this tiresome challenge. Are we going to turn down God’s request?”

  A resounding “No!” shakes the ReflectoGlass.

  “Then help me!” Peder pleads to his audience. “Join me in opposing this disgraceful corporation and all that they are attempting to do to corrupt us.”

  “Oh, shut it,” Crest grumbles, and deactivates the Feed. Peder’s face vanishes and I’m grateful for the silence.

  Dr. A says I’m not supposed to worry about Pastor Peder. He’s not a threat to us. He just enjoys hearing himself talk. But it still doesn’t mean I like having that man in my bathroom. And it doesn’t help that nearly every time I turn on the Feed someone is talking about him.

  A ping flashes across the glass a moment later. It’s for Crest, from Dr. A. He’s reprimanding her for not correctly packing his hovercase for tomorrow’s departure.

  She paints on a grin. I can tell she’s trying to renew the same enthusiasm she came in here with, but she’s struggling to find it. “Well, duty calls. You should really get down to the dining room.”

  I turn toward the door, but stop when I feel Crest’s hand around my arm, squeezing just a little too tight. When I look back at her, the sparkle in her eyes is gone.

  “Life is messy for the rest of us. You have it really good here, you know? Promise me you won’t forget that.”

  Her intensity unnerves me but I manage a smile. “I won’t forget.”

  7

  MORE

  By the time I get downstairs, it’s after nine and Dr. A, Director Raze, and Dane, the head of Diotech publicity, are already deep in discussion about the next steps in the Objective. I find them in the living room, sipping a deep brown liqueur out of what look like real crystal glasses. Crystal is now manufactured synthetically but Dr. A has an obsession with old-fashioned things that were built before Diotech mastered synthetics.

  “It’s not as valuable if you can just whip it up in a lab in a matter of minutes,” he’s been known to say. “But it is nice to be able to offer a cheaper version to the masses, isn’t it?”

  Every time he says something like this I wonder about my own value. And Kaelen’s. We were, as he said, “whipped up in a lab.” Perhaps it wasn’t in a matter of minutes, but isn’t the concept the same?

  Kaelen does not have a drink in his hand. He says he doesn’t like the way it dulls his senses. I’ve never tried it. Not that Dr. A has ever offered.

  All four men stand when they see me. Kaelen has changed into a dark gray suit with red trim. He looks striking.

  Dr. A’s gaze dips over my dress, a full-length shimmering blue evening gown with swirling silver and gold nanostitching embroidered into the hem. I watch his reaction diligently. It’s the only one I care about. After all, it’s Dr. A who insists we dress up for evening meal.

  His lips split into a grin. “Gorgeous as always, my gem,” he says, and I feel my shoulders relax. Even though my various uploads have given me an impeccable fashion sense, the hundreds of stunning garments in my closet still make me feel awkward and slightly off balance. As if they were meant for someone else.

  Kaelen walks over to me, kisses me on the cheek, and whispers one word into my ear. “Luminous.”

  I can’t help but smile. “You have to say that.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s in your DNA.”

  “To love you? Yes. To think you look especially beautiful right this second? Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that.”

  “Excellent timing,” Dane chirps. “I was just about to show everyone the final edit of our new Feed ad.”

  He commands the wall screen to activate and selects a file from a pod on the internal network. The familiar Diotech logo covers the entire wall, eventually bleeding into fast, stylized cuts of a girl’s full, pink mouth, a man’s tanned, toned biceps, a slender feminine leg, a pair of dazzling iridescent eyes, hair that sparkles in the light.

  “This will stream directly after the Unveiling,” Dane explains. “You won’t be able to turn on the Feed without seeing it.”

  The ad continues with two bodies in motion. Running, punching, kicking, leaping. The slow-capture effect almost makes it look like they’re flying. We never see either of their faces, but it’s obvious from their agile turns and soaring heights, these are not Normates. Normates don’t move like that. Only ExGens move like that.

  It doesn’t take me long to recognize that the two people in the footage are Kaelen and me. I remember when they captured it a few months ago. We stood in front of a green screen in the publicity building for nearly a day while Dane told us what to do, how to pose, where
to look, how high to jump.

  A voice booms over the imagery. A deep, clear voice that demands attention. Demands to be heard.

  “Be stronger. Be faster. Be smarter. Be more.”

  The Diotech logo appears again, this time with two lines of text beneath it.

  The ExGen Collection

  Coming Soon

  The screen fades to black.

  “What do you think?” Dane asks, his face radiating with pride.

  Everyone in the room breaks into applause. I hastily join in, desperate to hide my real reaction.

  In truth, I’m torn. The advertisement does exactly what it’s supposed to do: promote Diotech’s newest product line. Make people want to improve themselves. But everything about it is misleading. Normates won’t be able to actually become ExGens like me and Kaelen. They will only be able to purchase a handful of self-administered genetic modifications that will each enhance one specific attribute. Like eye color, skin tone, muscle capacity, hair sheen, brain function, body shape.

  “Absolutely splendid,” Dr. A commends. “They will be lining up outside every drugstore in the country! Well done, Dane.”

  Dane grins, basking in the compliment. We all know how rarely Dr. A dishes them out.

  Dr. A puts his arm around Kaelen’s shoulder and leads him toward the dining room. “Let’s eat. It’s quite late and I’m starving.” He flashes a glance back at me and I know what he’s thinking. It’s my fault we’re eating late.

  I bow my head, accepting the blame.

  Dane comes up behind me and pinches my waist. “Don’t worry. I kept him distracted. It’s part of the job.”

  I give him a grateful smile.

  “Now,” he whispers to me, checking to make sure Dr. A is out of earshot, “what did you really think of the ad?”

  “I loved it.” My response is quick. Maybe too quick.

  Dane scowls in disbelief. “C’mon. It’s me. You can be honest.”

  “I’m just confused,” I concede.