The Body Electric

Chapter 14

My heart thuds in my chest. I can’t get the way he looked at me out of my mind—not just in Representative Belles’s reverie, but in real life, too, when I saw him—Jack Tyler—at my father’s grave.

I tap into the spa’s security feed, watching as Representative Belles wakes up. My cuff connects automatically to the mental spa’s interface system, the image crystal-clear on the thinner-than-paper responsive tech-foil skintight around my wrist.

Ms. White is all smiles and graciousness as she helps him up and leads him to the lifts that go to the rest of the Reverie Mental Spa. I count to ten, waiting for him to be well and truly gone, but also waiting for my heart to calm down. I catch a little of the representative’s conversation with Ms. White before they disappear into the lift—he’s completely satisfied with the reverie of his grandfather and completely ignorant of what I was doing in his mind, that I even was in in his head at all.

As soon as the representative is gone, Ms. White returns to me. She watches me in silence while I peel off the electrodes and straighten up the chair.

I take a deep breath. “He’s scared,” I say finally.

“Scared?” Her gaze is intent, worried.

I nod. “I think he’s afraid of another war.”

“A war he’s contributing to.” When I don’t answer this, Ms. White continues, “Anything else?”

I look down, rubbing the sudden chill from my bare arms.

“Ella?” Ms. White asks gently.

“Just a name,” I say. “Jack Tyler.”

Ms. White stiffens, as if she found herself unexpectedly at the edge of a precipice.

“Do you know him?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “It’s just—it’s strange to hear a specific name, you know? That might be the person who led the terrorist attack that killed your father, and to have a name to associate with that attack, just like that… it makes it all more real. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” I say. My stomach twists. That hadn’t occurred to me—that Jack may have had a hand in Dad’s death. Jack Tyler is about my age, but it’s possible he helped with the terrorism attack.

A shaky breath escapes my lips. I remember the sound of his voice in my ears, the way he looked a Dad’s grave, the way he looked at me.

“Ella?” Ms. White asks, her voice filled with concern. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her reach toward me, but her hand drops away before she touches me.

“I’m okay,” I say softly. “I’m sorry—I just…” When I close my eyes, I see Jack Tyler’s eyes. I feel the bombs Representative Belles felt.

“Sometimes,” she says, “I forget how young you are. Ella, I know this is hard. This is not the life a teenaged girl like you should lead. You should be applying for universities, still be carefree, go out on dates and to parties. I’m the one who’s sorry. I wish you could have those things.”

“This is more important,” I say, and I mean it.

 ***

Ms. White goes to Triumph Towers to report directly to PA Young, but I just go to bed. My head is throbbing, a low buzzing sound vibrating in my ears, and I just want to slip into nothingness.

By the time I wake up, it’s well past lunch. I walk down the hall, surprised my mother hasn’t woken me up yet. “Hey, Mom,” I say softly, pushing open her heavy door. The apartment—like all buildings in New Venice—was built with a panic room. The architects of the city were the same ones who rebuilt Malta after the Secessionary War, and every home has at least one safe stronghold. We converted the panic room in our apartment into Mom’s bedroom—it has a built in generator and a dedicated power and water source that we can use for the machines that monitor her health.

Mom looks up at me from her bed. She’s still in her dressing gown, her hair in thin, soft wisps around her face. When she blinks, I notice that her pupils are silver—she’s watching a program using her eye nanobots.

“I can’t find the book I want,” she says, offering me a goofy, self-depreciating smile. “You know, the one that movie was based on.”

“Titanic of the Stars?” I ask. She’s read the book at least a half-dozen times before.

She nods and holds out her wrist to me. I type across her cuffLINK, bringing up the book she wants, a historical drama about the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the world’s first interstellar ship. “You know how it ends,” I say, half-laughing as I download the book into her eye bots for her.

“Well, obviously,” she says. “It’s based on Godspeed. Of course I know how it ends. But I’ve heard this version is good.”

I blink. “Oh?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light. “You’ve not read this one before?”

Mom laughs. “It just came out, Ella, how could I have?”

My stomach drops. A symptom of advanced stages of Hebb’s Disease: Memory loss.

I step outside and call for Rosie the nursing android. It records this new symptom of Mom’s disease without betraying any emotion.

I open the door wider, letting it into Mom’s room.

“Take care of her,” I say.

“Of course,” Rosie replies in her even, clipped tones. “It’s what I am programmed to do.”

“Ella?” Mom calls, her voice cracking in a cough, the sound like splintering wood. I rush to her side, watching helplessly as she heaves.

She mutters something as I arrange a blanket around her legs after she stops wheezing.

“What?” I ask, forcing a cheery smile on my face.

“Not much longer now,” Mom says, her voice barely a whisper. “Then you’ll be free of me.”

It takes a moment for the full impact of her words to hit me, for me to realize what she means by “free.” I swoop down over her and wrap her in so tight a hug that she squeaks in protest.

“I don’t want to be free of you.” My voice is strained and raspy; I don’t want her to see me cry. “Not ever.”

Mom smiles up at me as I pull back, examining her face.

I can already see the goodbye in her eyes.