Hollowgirl (4 page)

CLAIR ONE GLARED
at Clair for one long second, then at Libby. Finally, she nodded.

“Okay, but I'm not happy about it.”

“Take a number. I was expecting a new face and a crashlander ball, not this funky little shindig. Ronnie, which way is the elevator?”

Before Ronnie could answer, Kari woke with a groan.

“Son. Of. A. Bitch. . . . He shot me!”

Clair took one elbow, Ronnie the other. Together they levered the heavy peacekeeper to her feet.

On seeing the blood and PK Drader's body, she asked Clair, “Was that you?”

Clair nodded, her face turning warm.

Kari gripped her shoulder. “Had it coming to him. How long until he comes back?”

“I don't know if he will,” said Clair, remembering what Q had said. She didn't even want to think about the possibility that Q might have been wrong. “We need to get moving.”

“This way,” said Ronnie, guiding them through the observatory.

Clair didn't remember seeing the actual elevator the other time she had been here, just its existence on a floor plan. That was because it was concealed behind a loose plywood panel, unused for years but apparently still working.

Zep pulled the panel off, exposing two sliding doors that Q had opened in readiness. The space within resembled a large d-mat booth with ample room for all of them. The walls were bare metal, broken only by a simple
push-button control panel,
UP
or
DOWN
. When they were all inside, Tash pushed
DOWN
. The doors closed. Clair's stomach seemed to rise into her throat. She could smell Zep's cologne mixed in with her friends' perfumes and the dust, sweat, and grime that she and Kari had brought with them from the outside.

“This is messed up,” said Zep as the carriage descended. “We're all thinking that, right? Clair just killed someone.”

“Clair
Two
did,” said Clair One.

“Am I the only one freaking out?” he asked Clair. “Why aren't
you
freaking out? Have you done this before?”

Clair stared up at him, not knowing the honest answer to that question. She had shot more dupes than she cared to think about, but if Q was right and there were no dupes in the Yard, then that meant that Drader had been himself. A traitor who would have killed her given a chance, but a person nonetheless.

“No, I haven't done this before,” she said. She had just crossed a line. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Her hands started shaking uncontrollably. The gun fell to the elevator floor. Kari picked it up and folded Clair to her chest. The silver bullet hole was right at Clair's eye level. She stared at it as she held Kari in return, finding justification there but no comfort as the elevator descended.

“Nice one, Zep,” said Libby, slapping him on the chest. “You've broken her.”

“I didn't mean to. It's just . . . you know.”

“You're freaking out, yes. Find a way to do it quietly.”

“Zep's right,” said Tash. “This can't be happening.”

“It's okay,” said Kari, her voice a muffled boom in Clair's ears. “We're not hurt. I can't promise that everything is going to be all right, but I can promise to do everything in my power to keep you safe. That's my job.”

“You told me that in New York,” said Clair.

“Hmmm. And look what happened.”

“We're still alive, aren't we?”

There was silence in the elevator, apart from the whining of the mechanism responsible for their rapid descent. Kari rested her chin on the top of Clair's head. That small intimacy made Clair feel slightly better. She just needed a quiet moment in which to catch herself while her entire life fell out from under her. . . .

“Sorry,” said Zep.

“Don't apologize,” said Clair, releasing Kari from her death grip. “You were right. I think I was overdue for a breakdown.”

“Several, by the sound of it.” He grinned at her and her heart lightened a little more.

“So at the bottom of this thing we're going take the train,” said Clair One, her voice harsh. “How do we know they won't be waiting for us there?”

“There's no booth until the other end of the line,” said Ronnie.

“And we have to go that way, right?”

Clair felt weary. Clair One just would not let it go. Clair supposed she wouldn't either, in her shoes.

“There are observation stations at various points along the tunnel,” said Q. “I will arrange transport to meet you at one of those.”

“And then? We can't get out of the Yard. We have no idea where Wallace is. We haven't even started talking about what we'll do if we find him.”

Before Clair could say anything, a chat request appeared in her infield, the first she'd received since arriving in the Yard.

It was from Ant Wallace.

Clair stared at it for a second, chilled to the core. They hadn't spoken since she had blown up his space station, killing earlier versions of both of them. It was like hearing the voice of a ghost that had been haunting her from the shadows, never showing its face.

“I just received a chat request from Wallace,” said Clair One.

“So did I,” said Ronnie.

“And me,” said Zep.

“Don't answer it!” Clair said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. “Don't do anything. Let me think.”

PK Drader had seen her, and Wallace would have been watching through Drader's lenses. Q had masked her on the way to the observatory, so anyone tracing her would see a different name, but Wallace would be aware of that
trick now. He was obviously bumping everyone nearby to see if she took the bait.

“Change our masks, Q,” she said. “Mix us up so there's no chance he can tell who's who. There's no point hiding
you
now.”

“Yes, Clair. It is done.”

Sharing her infield with the others, Clair accepted the chat request. Audio only.

“Clair Hill, I presume,” said Ant Wallace. His image appeared in a window that tightly framed his features, revealing nothing of his surroundings. His face was as charming and warm as ever. Clair knew better than to trust him any more than she had trusted Drader. “The naive girl blessed with powerful friends. Or is that actually a curse? Time will tell.”

“What do you want?” She did her best to keep her voice level, but she could hear a slight hitch in it. Seeing him brought back too many memories, none of them good.

“‘Want'? How could you imagine I want for anything in here?” He smiled. There was no humor in his eyes. “This is my world. Your interference cannot be tolerated.”

“I just want to go home,” she said. “That's all.”

His eyebrows went up.

“If you could do that, I wouldn't be here myself. I thought you knew about that.”

He was talking about the outside, Clair assumed. Ant Wallace was all but confirming that there was nowhere
for her to exist but the Yard. She refused to accept that this would never change. She would
make
it change, somehow.

“Meet with me,” he said. “We have much to discuss. Maybe if we work together we can both get what we want.”

Again, that shark smile, but with a hint of uncertainty this time.

Clair realized that he was fishing. He didn't know which Clair she was. It was better for everyone, she decided, if he remained unsure.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Clair, swallowing her desire to scream at him for tricking her into killing so many people. She wasn't going anywhere
near
him until she was ready. “All I'm doing is trying to get back where I belong.”

He laughed. “All right, play it that way. But you'll find it very hard to go anywhere in here. That I promise you.”

The chat ended abruptly, and at the same moment the elevator began to slow its descent. Wary despite Ronnie's assurances of what might be waiting for them and with Wallace's vague threat still ringing in her ears, Clair took the gun back and positioned herself next to Kari at the front. She felt Clair One and the others pressing close behind her. No one said anything.

With a clunk and a rattle, the carriage halted and the doors opened.

Clair stared out in disbelief.

THEY WERE BACK
where they had started, in the Observatory, with PK Drader's body and the unconscious forms of his three companions lying exactly where they had been left. A low-pitched howl of wind came from outside: the storm Q had mentioned was rolling in. It was only a simulation, numbers interacting with other numbers, but it sounded perfectly ominous.

“That's impossible,” said Clair One, staring hard at the bodies as though defying them to move.

“Did we come back up again?” asked Tash.

“No,” said Ronnie. “We definitely only went down.”

“So how did we get here?” asked Zep.

“What did Wallace do to us?” asked Libby.

Clair stepped out of the carriage and looked up, mystified. There was no way the elevator could have come down from anywhere. Above the observatory was only sky.

“
Did
Wallace do this, Q?” she asked, feeling despair. “Can he just move us around wherever he wants?”

“I have a different theory,” said Q. “Wallace knew this was going to happen, but he didn't do it to you. The Yard did.”

“How?” asked Kari.

“The Yard appears to be a continuous space without
seams or edges. It is, in fact, a series of discrete cells that are simulated when occupied or observed. They are not actually connected. What I mean by this is that you are currently within a section of the Yard that contains the observatory, and only the observatory. For you, at this moment, there is nothing beyond this cell. Try to leave in a way that is not allowed, and you loop back upon yourself.”

“And the elevator isn't allowed?” asked Ronnie.

“That is correct. You cannot move to the next cell by climbing, either, or walking. The only permitted means of moving from cell to cell appears to be d-mat.”

Clair tried to wrap her head around this concept. It wasn't easy. She pictured the world like a cup of bubble tea, with the pearls pressing together at the bottom. They were inside one of the pearls. “So you're saying we're trapped here?”

“Only if we don't use d-mat,” said Ronnie.

“Why didn't you tell us this before?” asked Zep. He banged the inside of the elevator, making it shake.

“I didn't know.” Q hesitated, then said it again, sounding as puzzled as Clair felt. That was as unnerving as her by-the-numbers delivery before. “I didn't
know
. My exploration of the Yard is incomplete. I need time to fully comprehend it.”

“So we
are
trapped,” said Tash. “If the booths aren't safe to use because Wallace controls them—”

“Q can keep us safe,” said Clair as calmingly as she could. She didn't want anyone to panic, least of all herself.
Friends first, then the world.
“Q can keep us masked and make sure we won't be altered or diverted.”

“But Wallace will know that anyone leaving here is us,” said Clair One. “He'll be waiting for us at the other end no matter where we go.”

“Unless we pretend to be PK Drader and his goons?” said Zep.

“Seven of us,” said Ronnie, “four of them.”

“So we pretend to be the four of them with three prisoners,” said Libby. “Oldest trick in the book.”

“But where will we go?” asked Tash. “How will we stop him from following us?”

“I have an idea,” said Clair One.

Clair looked at her in surprise. She suspected she had just had the same one. “Lucky Jump?”

“Exactly.” Clair One almost grinned.

“Just like old times.”

“Just like twenty minutes ago. Let's do it.”

Before Clair could stop her, Clair One strode through the blood, picked up PK Drader's fallen pistol, and wiped it on a clean patch of his uniform.

“Just in case,” she said. “Got a problem with that?”

Clair couldn't argue, although it made the momentary camaraderie they had shared evaporate. Clair 1.0 had never fired a gun before. She had never wanted to. Were
these circumstances changing her already? Damaging her?

None of the others went in search of a weapon. They gathered by the four-door booth to go over the details of the plan. Since they couldn't fit into a single booth, their escape needed to be carefully coordinated, and quickly, before Wallace tried to capture or kill her again.

“Four groups, five Lucky Jumps,” Clair suggested over the sound of the rising storm. “Q, can you track us and make sure we end up in the same place, without letting Wallace follow?”

“I can,” said Q. “Clair, you should know—”

“Somewhere in particular?” asked Clair One.

“I don't care,” Clair said. “If you think of somewhere along the way, let Q know so she can redirect the rest of us; otherwise, let her decide. As long as we all end up together, that's the main thing.”

“Clair—”

“What if we don't?” asked Tash, cutting off Q. “What if we get there and no one else arrives?”

“Call Q and do what she says,” Clair told her. “But don't worry. That won't happen.”

“Don't make any promises you can't keep, Two,” Clair One said. “Nothing much has gone right so far.”

True,
Clair thought, but that wasn't her fault.

“We're going to need allies, moving forward,” she said. “Whatever happens now, the next step is to look for Jesse
Linwood. He must be in here somewhere. He can help.”

Clair One's skeptical look only grew more pronounced. “The Lurker? How can
he
do anything?”

“You'd be surprised.” Clair felt herself beginning to flush, but no one commented on it. “Or Devin Bartelme and his brother Trevin. They're with a group called RADICAL. I haven't seen any sign of them in here, but if they
are
here they're bound to know something about Wallace and maybe even the exit—”

Red flashed across her vision. Q was using her lenses to get her attention.

“Clair, the drones!”

Clair realized then that the rapidly rising thrum was not entirely the storm.

“Quickly, get in the booths!”

Glass shattered on three sides of the observatory's main hall as drones swooped in on gusts of howling wind, sending spears of bright light through the air and booming harsh, artificial-voiced orders.

“Stand still and place your hands above your heads! Failure to comply will be interpreted as active defiance!”

Clair ignored them. She grabbed someone's arm at random and pulled them with her into the nearest booth, crying, “Lucky Jump!” as she went.

One of the drones rushed toward them. There wasn't time to raise her pistol and aim at it. Its gun barrels were pointing right at her.

The drone jerked to one side, firing a spray of bullets in a curving line across the floor. Sparks flew from its fans as Q seized up its electric motors. With a heavy, metallic crunch it dropped to the ground, inert.

The door slid shut on the chaos outside. Clair sagged in relief. Only then did she realize who she was gripping with all her strength.

“You're breaking my arm,” said Libby.

Clair let go and backed up as far as she could go. The space was barely large enough for the two of them, but not as cramped as it had been with Kari. Libby was both smaller and more slender.

“Sorry.”

sssssss—

“That's okay,” said Libby, putting a hand to her chest, which was rising and falling after the hit of adrenaline. “You saved my life back there. I froze like an idiot.”

Clair shook her head. Once upon a time, Clair would have frozen too. Neither of them was an idiot.

—pop

The booth expanded to a standard size. Clair didn't bother to check her lenses. It didn't matter where they were: if Q had successfully masked them, they were safe. But that didn't mean they could stand still.

“Lucky Jump,” Clair said again.

“So you're from my future. . . . ,” Libby started to say.

“It's not like that. I've just lived a bit longer than you.”

“But you know what happened next . . . I mean,
before
for you but next for me.” Libby put her hand palm-forward in the air, like she was swearing an oath. “Zep is right. This is such a mind-fuck.”

Clair couldn't argue with that.

sssssss-pop

“What else happened?” Libby asked when they arrived at their next destination. “I got the feeling we skipped a lot of information. Improvement fixed my birthmark, but what else did it do to me? Did I die when d-mat broke down? What aren't you telling me?”

“Improvement . . . duped you,” Clair said, choosing her words with care. “It put someone else in your place.”

“And the old me, inside? Where did I go?”

“Here.”

“So if you hadn't triggered Wallace's trap and woken up the Yard, I'd just be a pattern in a file, waiting to be deleted.”

“Yes.”

“That's twice you've saved my life, then. And here I was thinking you were trying to steal my boyfriend.”

Clair stared into Libby's cool, blue eyes, so surprised she didn't know what to say.

Fortunately, Libby did. She always did.

“Lucky Jump,” she said. “Don't forget that part.”

sssssss-pop

“It's true,” Clair confessed, her face hot. “I did like Zep.
It was a stupid thing, and I didn't want it to happen. But it did.”

“
What
happened, exactly?”

“We kissed . . . just once, at the crashlander ball. You went home with a headache from using Improvement. While you were gone Zep and I went up onto the roof, and he almost fell off saving some guy. It was . . . intense.” Clair didn't shy away from telling the truth, even though it seemed like a mixture of ancient history and something that had happened only hours ago, scraped raw and scarred over at the same time. “Afterward, I tried to tell you. I wanted to say that I was sorry. But Improvement . . . everything else . . .”

Libby brushed that aside. “Who started it? Was it you or him?”

Clair wished she could look somewhere else, but the mirrors held uncountable Libbys, all staring at her. “I can't really remember.”

“Don't protect him, Clair. I want to know.”

“And you deserve to know. It's just . . . I don't think it was anything either of us thought about, at first. There was just a spark, and then he . . .”

“Tried his luck?” Libby nodded. “You don't have to say any more. I've seen him in action. With me, remember?”

Clair remembered Libby telling her that Zep had been cheating on someone else when they'd gotten together.

“I told him no way,” said Clair. “But then it was me who
kissed him, after he had this big, stupid hero moment. I thought I'd die if I didn't.”

To her surprise, Libby broke into a wide grin. “That's the first ‘Clair' thing I've heard you say since you walked out of the booth.”

Clair couldn't help it. She put her arms around Libby and held her close. After a moment, Libby hugged her back. Clair cried like she had in the Yard's version of San Francisco, gasping sobs beyond her control. It felt so good to have her best friend back, and to be acknowledged as herself, and to forget, just for a moment, everything she had lost in the last few days. Her original goal had been to apologize, and now she had. That felt like real progress. That felt
real
.

“Jeez Louise, you're ruining my dress.”

“Sorry. You must think I'm such a dork.”

“You
are
a dork.” Libby put her hands on her shoulders and held her at arm's length. “I'm not sure I forgive you yet, either of you, but I know you're telling me the truth, and that means a lot.”

“The other Clair hasn't done anything,” Clair said. “The ball didn't happen, so Zep isn't properly kissworthy for her.”

“But she still wants him, I bet. Leave it to me to sort her out. What about you? Are you over him now? Fighting over boys is stupid, especially when I'm outnumbered.”

“God, yes,” said Clair, wiping her face. “That's something
else I need to tell you. After the ball . . . when everything else was going on, I—”

“Don't tell me. You hooked up?”

“Yes. And it's serious. Or it was . . .” She didn't want to think too hard about where Jesse might or might not be right now or else she might start crying again.

“Who? Spill the beans!”

Clair braced herself. “Jesse Linwood.”

“No
way
.” Libby shoved her in the shoulder, her face a mask of scandalized delight. “This I have to hear all about.”

“Lucky Jump,” Clair said.

“Are you changing the subject?”

“Yes.” She was trying to, anyway. It was easier not to think about him than to remember what had happened.

“Are you embarrassed by him?”

“No!” Jesse was smart and honest and loyal, qualities she had been slow to recognize but badly needed now.

“Then why? Are you, like, seriously in love or something? Because if that's true, then one, he's an impressively fast worker, and two, I can get used to anyone, as long as they treat you right. But you have to tell me everything, or it'll just be awkward when he shows up.”

sssssss—

“He died,” Clair said, the hollowness in her voice matching the way she felt inside.

—pop

“Oh crap,” Libby said, brows knitting together. “I'm sorry. I didn't even think. Now who's the dork?”

They stood awkwardly together for several seconds, too close to avoid each other. A gulf seemed to have opened up between them again.

“Lucky Jump,” Clair said, for the fifth and last time.

sssssss—pop

“Listen,” said Libby, “before we get there, I want to say that I'm sorry I called you what I did. You're not damaged. You're just different from the way you were. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The other you wasn't straight with me, and it changes everything that you have been. Really, it does. If I can't trust him and I can't trust you, who
can
I trust?”