The Body Electric

Chapter 10

I jerk so hard that I crack my skull against the sonic hood. I throw it back, ripping the electrodes off my skin, nearly breaking the chain of my necklace in the process. My skin vibrates. I stare at it, awed and scared, as my flesh ripples like an earthquake. The vibrations seep past my skin, into my bones, and I feel as if I’m hearing something, the buzzing of my soul within the confines of my flesh.

And then I blink, and everything is silent and still.

I cover my eyes with a shaking hand, trying to regroup. A hallucination. My body is reacting to the extra nanobots I injected myself with. That last image was... disturbing. And it shouldn’t have been possible. Reveries aren’t real. I wasn’t really there in Mom’s head. Memories are nothing more than electrical impulses shooting across the brain’s synapses. There is no way Dad—it wasn’t Dad, it was just a dream of him—there’s no way that could have seen me. Could have spoken to me.

I gasp, and check Mom’s stats, worried that the last image of Dad being so weird and creepy affected her. But she’s blissfully asleep, still in her dreamworld, her health stats calm and far better than they were before we started.

The door slides open and Ms. White bursts in, her eyes wide and panicked. “Ella!” she screeches. “What did you do?” She rushes to my side, noting the cold sweat prickling my skin.

“I did it,” I say, fully realizing what just happened.

“Are you okay?” Ms. White ignores me, checking the health stats on my cuff. “Where’s your mother?”

I jerk my wrist free and grab her hand, forcing Ms. White to look at me. “I did it,” I repeat, a smile breaking out on my face. “I did it!”

“Did... what?” Her voice is hesitant and wary.

A quiet beeping starts from the control panel, followed by a flash of red. “Mom’s almost out,” I say, jumping from the chair and pushing past Ms. White. Her head turns between me and the secondary reverie chair, and I almost wish I’d been looking at her face when she noticed the empty nanobot vial.

“Ella!” She gasps, chasing after me.

I race into Mom’s reverie chamber just as her eyelids flutter open. “Good reverie?” I ask, beaming at her. My smile falters. What if she remembers when it almost broke? What if she remembers Dad being so strange?

But then I see her expression, and my heart melts in relief. “The best,” she says.

I help her get up out of the reverie chair. “What did you remember?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

Mom squeezes my hand. “My last good day.”

She moves forward to talk to Ms. White, but I’m paralyzed. Her last good day. Every day since then has paled in comparison to that one day, years and years ago.

Mom’s new nursing android, Rosie, stands at attention by the door and Mom leans against her as she heads to the lift.

“Coming?” Mom asks, the happy glow of her reverie around her so palpable that I can almost see it.

“No—I need to talk to Ella about her internship,” Ms. White says before I can reply. She shoots me a look, and I wave Mom on. After we hear the lift doors close behind Mom and the android, Ms. White turns on me, her face a mix of pride and anger.

“Ella!” she says, her voice already rising. “That was really, really dangerous!”

I shudder, my body remembering that moment when it seized, and then it became nothing. I’d thought I’d died.

“I was fine,” I say to her dismissively. “And more importantly, it worked.”

Ms. White sucks in a breath. “What was it like?” she asks eagerly, the familiar sparkle of scientific discovery in her eye.

“It was amazing!” I shout, spinning around her. “I was in her reverie! I could control it!”

Ms. White’s eyes widen.

“It was just like I was there,” I continue. I start to tell her everything, but she raises her hand to stop me, a grim look replacing her excitement.

“How many bots did you take?” she asks. “Just one vial.” “One... vial?”

“Is that too much?”

“I... uh... you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I feel fine.” At least, I do now. If I took too many, maybe that’s why my body reacted so violently.

“Ella, that was very irresponsible. And dangerous. You could have overdosed.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t.” “But you could have.” “But I didn’t.” I glare at Ms. White. What I do is not her business, especially when what I do, I do for Mom. Ms. White sinks into the reverie chair Mom just left. Her shoulders slouch forward, the ends of her hair obscuring her face. “You’re going to have to let go one day,” she says.

“Excuse me?” The words sound harsh in my own mouth.

“This internship year was supposed to prepare you for college, not prepare you for becoming a nurse to your mother. The year’s almost up, and look at what you’re doing. You’re killing yourself, just to let your mother dream for a half hour.”

“It’s worth it,” I mutter.

Ms. White grabs my chin and forces me to look up at her. “It’s not,” she says.

I jerk free. “What do you want me to do?” I ask, practically shouting. “Just let my mother die?”

Ms. White’s gaze doesn’t waver from mine. “Yes,” she says simply.

I reel back violently, as if she’d struck me across the face.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ms. White says. “I just need you to understand that you’re going to have to let your mother go one day. Maybe one day soon. And it’s not worth risking the rest of your life to scrabble together a few more minutes for her.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I say, my jaw tensing. “El—”

“I do not want to talk about this.”

We glare at each other. It’s so rare for us to disagree. Since Dad’s death and Akilah’s service year on the lunar base, it’s just been me and Ms. White against the world.

Ms. White sighs and pushes up against her knees. “I didn’t come down here to fight,” she says. “I came here because there’s someone to meet you.”

For one crazy moment, my mind flashes to the boy I met in the groveyard. Did he follow me home? His pale blue eyes are burned into my memory, scorching my mind.

“Are you ready?” Ms. White asks, leading the way to the door.