The Body Electric

Chapter 12

The prime administrator stands, leaving the tea behind as she crosses her office to the glass wall showing an unmarred view of the Mediterranean Sea. When PA Young touches it, though, the interface system comes to life. A dozen or more images light up as the window turns opaque, blotting out the sky and sea on the other side. Documents with text too small for me to read from where I am, images of a military base, people I don’t know.

In the center, though, is an image of my mother.

PA Young touches my mother’s holographic face and moves the image to the upper corner. Beneath it, she moves an image of the Reverie Mental Spa and a reverie chair—the same chair Mom was in earlier today.

“Your mother has used her technology for recreation up to this point,” PA Young says. “A plaything for rich clientele who want to amuse themselves.”

Her words are harsh; I wouldn’t describe Mom’s work quite so dismissively. Sure, most of our customers just want to relive their glory days, but that doesn’t make it worthless.

PA Young touches another image and enlarges it, putting it beside Mom’s picture. It’s an older man, with olive skin and dark hair greying at the temples. His eyes crinkle at the corners, and he looks as if he’s about to laugh despite the fact that the picture is rather formal.

“This is Santiago Belles, the Representative Administrator from Spain,” PA Young says. “I believe he’s been approached by terrorists who wish to undermine the Unified Countries, and that he’s considering treason.”

I stare hard at the face, trying to see the evil behind his smiling eyes. He doesn’t look like a traitor, but then again, no one ever does, not when you really look.

PA Young brings forward the holograms of Representative Belles and my mother’s reverie chair. She turns around, looking at me expectantly.

I glance at Ms. White, unsure of what I’m supposed to do.

“Ella,” Ms. White says carefully, “you went into your mother’s reverie. Into her mind.”

“And you can go into Belles’s,” PA Young continues. “You can find out who approached him, how deep the terrorist network goes. You have the potential to stop violence before it happens. We could try to trick the information out of him, or torture him, or anything else, but he could never be able to keep a secret from you, not when you were in his head.”

My eyes widen at the thought, and I swallow a lump rising in my throat. Ms. White moves behind me. “We need to do more testing, first,” Ms. White says firmly. “We have to make sure that Belles won’t know that Ella’s in his reverie, and we have to find a way to keep her safe.”

PA Young stares at Ms. White for a long moment, and for the first time I understand why people are afraid of her. Without speaking, she turns back to the glass wall and brings up another image—a video clip. She enlarges it so that it fills up the entire space, then turns around to watch me with cold eyes as it plays.

I choke back my surprise.

My father. He’s right there, in the lab on the screen. The audio’s low, but I can just make out what’s being said. Dad’s talking with a few of the other scientists about a lab assistant that was recently let go while they’re working on some sort of chemical compound. There’s an early prototype of a reverie chair in the background—Dad had been experimenting with the chairs’ functions to tap into android artificial intelligence.

Another man walks in. He looks nondescript—average height and build, wearing a lab coat—but everyone in the lab freezes. I see fear in my dad’s eyes.