He pressed his hands flat against the elevator walls, one on either side of me, locking my body between his arms. “I thought you might have some questions. About your little… experience by the waterfall.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smirked. “I think you do. And I think you loved it. I think you came back for more.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Better be careful.” It sounded more like a threat than a warning. “Don’t want to end up lost inside your own head. Better to get your thrills out here, in the real world.”
“Is that what we’re supposed to be doing, wandering around this trash heap of a city?” I asked. “Am I being thrilled? I hadn’t noticed.”
Jude dropped his arms. “That’s how you want to play it? Fine.”
The elevator swept up and up.
“Where’d you get it?” I asked.
He didn’t bother asking what. “As human as possible,” he said bitterly. “That’s the BioMax party line. But it doesn’t mean they don’t have the technology to make us different. To make us better. They just don’t want to give it to us. Not officially, at least.”
“Make us better? How’s some crazy intense b-mod trip supposed to make me better?”
He raised his eyebrows, and I realized that now there was no denying it. I’d uploaded the program, and he knew it.
“There’s more where that came from,” he said. “But only if you’re willing to look.”
The doors opened. We were on the roof. Three dark silhouettes tiptoed along a railing at the far edge, wobbling in the wind. There was plenty of wind, ninety-eight stories up.
“They’re not jumping,” I whispered in horror. “Tell me they’re not jumping.”
“No, we’re not jumping,” Jude said. “Just playing around. Admiring the view. Enjoy.” And he slipped into the shadows.
I circled the roof, weaving through abandoned solar arrays and broken satellite dishes. The world above was no less shattered than the world below. The three mechs on the railing swung themselves over the thin metal barrier and began scaling it from the outside. I passed Quinn in a dark corner, wrapped around the guy whose name I would probably never know. Riley and Jude argued against the skyline. I veered in the opposite direction and found myself standing next to Ani, her blue hair black in the darkness. She’d folded herself over the railing, elbows propped on the metal, eyes fixed on the dead buildings that stretched beneath us. My eyes had adjusted to the night enough to pick out a few of the closest ones, but beyond that, there was nothing but a field of shadow.
“Hey,” she said, without turning her face away from the nonview.
“Hey.”
“So, what do you think?”
I shrugged. “Not much to see.”
“I mean about the whole thing,” she said. “Tonight.”
I shrugged again. “Seems like a lot of effort just to go somewhere we’re not supposed to be. What’s the point?”
“Jude says there doesn’t always need to be a point. Sometimes it’s just about having fun.” Ani glanced over my shoulder. I turned to see Quinn and the guy, still going at it. “See? Fun.”
“Maybe it’s none of my business, but… that doesn’t bother you?”
“Why should it?”
“I guess I just thought you and Quinn were…”
“We are. Sometimes.” She smiled faintly. “But this is all new for her. She wants to… you know. Play.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
“Jude says we have to learn not to lay claims on one another anymore,” she said. “He says monogamy’s impractical if you’re planning to live forever.”
“Seems like Jude says a lot.”
Ani beamed. “He’s amazing.”
“And you always listen?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“What?”
“Where we come from. Where he comes from.”
“So tell me.”
“How do you think he knows his way around here so well?” she asked.
I hadn’t really thought about it.
“He used to live here,” Ani said. “Before.”
“Really?” I leaned forward. I’d never met anyone who had actually lived in a city. “I mean, I knew he was…” I wasn’t sure which word would make me sound least like a spoiled rich girl. Everyone knew that the first mechs had been volunteers from the cities and the corp-towns. What everyone also knew, although no one said it, was that you’d be crazy to volunteer for something like that unless you had no other choice. “Do you know what happened to him? Why he volunteered?”
Ani looked alarmed. “I’m not supposed to be talking about the past,” she said. “He’d kill me.”
“I thought we were supposed to forget about our mortal fears,” I teased. “Retrain ourselves to accept immortality. Isn’t that what ‘Jude says’?”
She shook her head, hard. “The past doesn’t matter,” she said, almost to herself. “It’s better forgotten.”
“Easy for some people,” I said quietly. “Not so much for others.”
Ani flopped forward against the railing again. “I don’t miss it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’d never go back.”
“Are you from around here too?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing too hard. I didn’t want to scare her away.
“No. Farther west than that.” There was more than a little pain in her smile, but her voice stayed flat. “My parents are from Chicago.”
“Oh.” From Chicago, not in Chicago. No one lived in Chicago, not anymore. And most of the ones who’d lived there the day of the attack weren’t living, period. The initial blast had only taken out a couple hundred thousand, but then there had been the radioactive dust. And the radioactive water. And the radioactive food. A radioactive city, filled with radioactive people. Who had, pretty quickly and pretty gruesomely, started getting sick. I hadn’t seen the vids, but then, it wasn’t really necessary. In school they made us watch footage of Atlanta. And Orlando.
Once you’ve seen one ruined city, you’ve seen them all.
I didn’t know how to ask the obvious question, but it seemed rude not to try. “Are your parents, uh, are they… did they…”
“Still alive.” Ani’s mouth twisted. “At least, as far as I know. Which isn’t very far.”
“You’re not in touch?”
She shook her head.
“Is it because of… what happened to you?” I glanced down at her body, and she got the idea.
“I wish.” She hesitated. “How much do you know about the corp-towns?”
I shrugged. “Just that it’s a good place to live, if, you know, you need a job. And that if you live there, you get stuff you need.” Stuff like food, electricity, med-tech—stuff you wouldn’t get in a city. Not unless you stole it.
“You get it,” she agreed, “but only if you follow the rules.”
There was a code of good behavior, I knew that. But it made sense to me. If the corporation was running the town, supplying houses and schools and doctors and lights, didn’t they deserve to make the rules?
“And only if you’re willing to give other stuff away,” she continued.
“Like the voting thing?” I rolled my eyes. “Big deal.” Residents of corp-towns sold their vote to the corps. Seemed like more than a fair trade. Most people I knew weren’t planning to vote anyway. Who cared which b-mod-addict fame whore pretended to run the country next?
“Other things, too,” Ani said. “Things for the good of the community. Like minimizing medical costs.”
“Seems fair.”