they had been. It was like a bomb had fallen out of a clear sky and blown her happy world to smithereens.
She wondered if she was kidding herself. Perhaps even then the cracks had been forming, too slowly and too subtly for her to notice but there nonetheless. People didnât contemplate cheating with their best friendâs boyfriend if the friendship was healthy.
Or was that too harsh a way of looking at it? Being attracted to people was normal. Handling it badly, that was the problem.
Whichever way she looked at it, she felt awful.
In the recording, Zep and Libby finished their duet with a theatrical ta-da! and collapsed laughing onto the bed. The Clair taking the recording looked away, and caught sight of herself in Libbyâs bedroom mirror. She wasnât smiling. Staring at her reflection, she took one step closer to the mirror, then another.
Clair couldnât take her eyes away from this image of herself. There was something off about it. Her hair had been shorter than that back then, she was sure. Her stare was too intense, her isolation from the others too keenly felt. Surely, they would have noticed and said something?
The giggling stopped when she was so close to the mirror that her image filled the entire window.
The Clair in the recording turned around. Her friends were standing right behind her.
âYou know what we want,â said Zep.
âDonât wait too long,â said Libby.
The recording flipped to black, and she gaped in shock at the void where her friends had been.
âClair? Clair?â
Someone was calling her. She shook her head and the drone interface came back into focus. The voice belonged to PK Beck.
âYes, what?â There was a tremor in her voice, and no wonder. One of her private memories had just been turned against her, leaving her shaken and upset.
âI asked you to take control of 462441A and check out that arm. Can you do that?â
âYes, yes,â she said, even as she wondered why the dupes had come after her this way. Would they really have gone to the trouble of staging a reenactment? It could have been the original recording, edited.
But there was Zepâs shirt. Why would they edit that too?
âClair, are you all right?
She forced herself to concentrate. There were dupes in Crystal City, alive and dangerous and looking for her. That trumped dupes somewhere else, messing with her head. Both might be different prongs of the same attack, but she couldnât deal with everything at once. And she couldnât curl into a ball, no matter how much she wanted to. She owed it to the real Zep and Libby to keep going.
âIâm hereâ462441A, got it.â
Her drone was flying a close circle over Oswald Park, every sensor pointing straight down, rotating so lasers only blinded half at a time. She brought it out of its holding pattern and into a broad loop that would take it over the stand of bushes. Devin was wrong and Jesse was right. This was much more than a game.
As the drone passed over the bushes, something moved. The drone dipped to zoom in more closely. The leaves parted, giving Clair a brief glimpse of a face. It was one of the members of WHOLE she had met on the Skylifter, which meant that it was a dupe. Before she could say anything, there was a piercing flash of light and heat. The drone twisted away too late. It died with a sharp, cracking sound. Clair felt a secondhand shock as she was wrenched out of its feed and thrust back into her body. She clutched the armrests of her chair for balance.
âIâd say that was something,â Devin conceded.
âOkay, we have an active engagement.â PK Beckâs voice took on a sharper edge. Clair saw new tags joining their corner of the network. âOne asset down. Location Oswald North-East. Moving new eyes into position.â
Clair sought another drone and found it already controlled by Jesse. He was bringing it fast between the buildings, sparing
She wondered if she was kidding herself. Perhaps even then the cracks had been forming, too slowly and too subtly for her to notice but there nonetheless. People didnât contemplate cheating with their best friendâs boyfriend if the friendship was healthy.
Or was that too harsh a way of looking at it? Being attracted to people was normal. Handling it badly, that was the problem.
Whichever way she looked at it, she felt awful.
In the recording, Zep and Libby finished their duet with a theatrical ta-da! and collapsed laughing onto the bed. The Clair taking the recording looked away, and caught sight of herself in Libbyâs bedroom mirror. She wasnât smiling. Staring at her reflection, she took one step closer to the mirror, then another.
Clair couldnât take her eyes away from this image of herself. There was something off about it. Her hair had been shorter than that back then, she was sure. Her stare was too intense, her isolation from the others too keenly felt. Surely, they would have noticed and said something?
The giggling stopped when she was so close to the mirror that her image filled the entire window.
The Clair in the recording turned around. Her friends were standing right behind her.
âYou know what we want,â said Zep.
âDonât wait too long,â said Libby.
The recording flipped to black, and she gaped in shock at the void where her friends had been.
âClair? Clair?â
Someone was calling her. She shook her head and the drone interface came back into focus. The voice belonged to PK Beck.
âYes, what?â There was a tremor in her voice, and no wonder. One of her private memories had just been turned against her, leaving her shaken and upset.
âI asked you to take control of 462441A and check out that arm. Can you do that?â
âYes, yes,â she said, even as she wondered why the dupes had come after her this way. Would they really have gone to the trouble of staging a reenactment? It could have been the original recording, edited.
But there was Zepâs shirt. Why would they edit that too?
âClair, are you all right?
She forced herself to concentrate. There were dupes in Crystal City, alive and dangerous and looking for her. That trumped dupes somewhere else, messing with her head. Both might be different prongs of the same attack, but she couldnât deal with everything at once. And she couldnât curl into a ball, no matter how much she wanted to. She owed it to the real Zep and Libby to keep going.
âIâm hereâ462441A, got it.â
Her drone was flying a close circle over Oswald Park, every sensor pointing straight down, rotating so lasers only blinded half at a time. She brought it out of its holding pattern and into a broad loop that would take it over the stand of bushes. Devin was wrong and Jesse was right. This was much more than a game.
As the drone passed over the bushes, something moved. The drone dipped to zoom in more closely. The leaves parted, giving Clair a brief glimpse of a face. It was one of the members of WHOLE she had met on the Skylifter, which meant that it was a dupe. Before she could say anything, there was a piercing flash of light and heat. The drone twisted away too late. It died with a sharp, cracking sound. Clair felt a secondhand shock as she was wrenched out of its feed and thrust back into her body. She clutched the armrests of her chair for balance.
âIâd say that was something,â Devin conceded.
âOkay, we have an active engagement.â PK Beckâs voice took on a sharper edge. Clair saw new tags joining their corner of the network. âOne asset down. Location Oswald North-East. Moving new eyes into position.â
Clair sought another drone and found it already controlled by Jesse. He was bringing it fast between the buildings, sparing
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