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Authors: Anna Sheehan
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was no longer on her monitor screen. I threw on clothes without checking to see if they were clean.
I opened the door and peeped outinto the hallway. Everyone had moved back into the lab while I was sick. Quin’s room was right across from me. He’d left his door open and the holovision on. Quin was asleep, but some actor was loudly and casually killing another actor about halfway up his wall. I was glad. The noise would cover my departure.
I’d done this before. Snuck out of the lab or the dorm at night, crept away from thesafe place I was supposed to be. Sometimes I would go swimming, floating in the otherwise empty water in the pool at UniPrep, or even, if it was warm enough, at the manmade lake to the north of ComUnity, flickering through the instinctive minds of the fishes. Often I would flee up to the roof, try to find Jupiter in the stars. Europa was too far away to see without a telescope, but Jupiter was usuallypretty easy to spot. But I wasn’t well enough to swim, and I didn’t want the solitude stargazing lent me. I knew I wouldn’t be alone no matter what I did. 42 was whispering in the corner of my mind. Maybe she was the one driving me. I don’t know.
She used to do this, years ago. 42 would frequently sneak out the window alone, or with 11, or with me. We’d flee down the street and across the parkand under the hoverline past the bus depot, downtown. She’d even run away the night she died – it was mere chance they had dragged her back before it took her.
There was a club about twelve blocks away called the u
Night
ed. I walked alone in the moonlight, Rose’s image burning in my mind. Rose was crying. And I couldn’t comfort her … because I was the one who was hurting her. I was dying.
Therewasn’t much vice in the controlled, gated ComUnity, but they were careful to keep enough avenues for trouble open to keep the ‘inmates’ happy. The u
Night
ed pulsed loudly by itself in the night, amidst shops and boutiques that closed carefully by sundown. It was late enough there was no line outside the club. The club mostly catered to the college age interns who worked for UniCorp, but the youthfrom all corners came and went, entering and exiting as if the club breathed them like oxygen. The music pulsed like a heartbeat, shaking the ground, humming through my back. The club a single animal, a growling beast, the only thing alive in the night.
There was a man checking ID at the door. This was no problem. 42 had pulled this off even when she was thirteen. She took hold of his hand andtold him it would be okay. I didn’t have a voice, but I knew how to do it. It was a different doorman, of course, than the one three years ago. He didn’t recognize me, and started when he saw my skin in the harsh light by the door, but I grabbed him and stared into his mind.
‘It’s all okay. Let me in.
’
He was tired, and not exactly sober, and the bass dazed his internal equilibrium. It was notat all hard to push his mind. He let me pass.
Six months ago, I’d have felt guilty about this. I would never have pushed another person’s mind or read anything they didn’t want me to see. I would never have told anyone what I saw there. Since I’d known Rose, my sense of ethics had become a little skewed. What I wanted and what Rose needed seemed so much more important than clearly defined rulesof ethics and morality. 42 had never had such compunction – she was angry, like Quin, and willing to use any advantage her biology gave her. I hadn’t made any decisions about what was or wasn’t right until after she had died. I hadn’t had to – she took care of all that for me. Once she was gone, I needed to figure a lot of things out. I had created a persona with a deep code of ethics and a strongsense of self – and all of that was slowly eroding, breaking away like the shoreline.
I dove into the sea of people, the music rattling my swollen brain, rolling through my exhausted body. The lights were dim and
I opened the door and peeped outinto the hallway. Everyone had moved back into the lab while I was sick. Quin’s room was right across from me. He’d left his door open and the holovision on. Quin was asleep, but some actor was loudly and casually killing another actor about halfway up his wall. I was glad. The noise would cover my departure.
I’d done this before. Snuck out of the lab or the dorm at night, crept away from thesafe place I was supposed to be. Sometimes I would go swimming, floating in the otherwise empty water in the pool at UniPrep, or even, if it was warm enough, at the manmade lake to the north of ComUnity, flickering through the instinctive minds of the fishes. Often I would flee up to the roof, try to find Jupiter in the stars. Europa was too far away to see without a telescope, but Jupiter was usuallypretty easy to spot. But I wasn’t well enough to swim, and I didn’t want the solitude stargazing lent me. I knew I wouldn’t be alone no matter what I did. 42 was whispering in the corner of my mind. Maybe she was the one driving me. I don’t know.
She used to do this, years ago. 42 would frequently sneak out the window alone, or with 11, or with me. We’d flee down the street and across the parkand under the hoverline past the bus depot, downtown. She’d even run away the night she died – it was mere chance they had dragged her back before it took her.
There was a club about twelve blocks away called the u
Night
ed. I walked alone in the moonlight, Rose’s image burning in my mind. Rose was crying. And I couldn’t comfort her … because I was the one who was hurting her. I was dying.
Therewasn’t much vice in the controlled, gated ComUnity, but they were careful to keep enough avenues for trouble open to keep the ‘inmates’ happy. The u
Night
ed pulsed loudly by itself in the night, amidst shops and boutiques that closed carefully by sundown. It was late enough there was no line outside the club. The club mostly catered to the college age interns who worked for UniCorp, but the youthfrom all corners came and went, entering and exiting as if the club breathed them like oxygen. The music pulsed like a heartbeat, shaking the ground, humming through my back. The club a single animal, a growling beast, the only thing alive in the night.
There was a man checking ID at the door. This was no problem. 42 had pulled this off even when she was thirteen. She took hold of his hand andtold him it would be okay. I didn’t have a voice, but I knew how to do it. It was a different doorman, of course, than the one three years ago. He didn’t recognize me, and started when he saw my skin in the harsh light by the door, but I grabbed him and stared into his mind.
‘It’s all okay. Let me in.
’
He was tired, and not exactly sober, and the bass dazed his internal equilibrium. It was notat all hard to push his mind. He let me pass.
Six months ago, I’d have felt guilty about this. I would never have pushed another person’s mind or read anything they didn’t want me to see. I would never have told anyone what I saw there. Since I’d known Rose, my sense of ethics had become a little skewed. What I wanted and what Rose needed seemed so much more important than clearly defined rulesof ethics and morality. 42 had never had such compunction – she was angry, like Quin, and willing to use any advantage her biology gave her. I hadn’t made any decisions about what was or wasn’t right until after she had died. I hadn’t had to – she took care of all that for me. Once she was gone, I needed to figure a lot of things out. I had created a persona with a deep code of ethics and a strongsense of self – and all of that was slowly eroding, breaking away like the shoreline.
I dove into the sea of people, the music rattling my swollen brain, rolling through my exhausted body. The lights were dim and
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