Constance (Constance #1)(16)

I will.

Be careful out there. Palingenesis won’t let this go just because you’re out. They have too much riding on it.

What are they going to do? I thought they couldn’t delete me now?

Probably not. But I wouldn’t bet my life on how far they’re willing to go to protect their interests. If it were me, I’d let as many people as possible know I was alive. Anonymity is not your friend right now.

It was good advice. Con thanked Laleh a third time and closed the message window. Then she shouldered the backpack and started for home, eager to put some distance between herself and Palingenesis.





CHAPTER SIX


Con lived in Takoma, a neighborhood in the northeast corner of the city on the Maryland line. The fastest way home was the Metro. Unfortunately, the way to the nearest Metro stop led straight past Palingenesis’s front entrance. She didn’t relish the prospect of dealing with the protesters again, not after the day she’d had; however, until her walking improved, she didn’t think she should risk taking the scenic route. But when she turned the corner, everything was peaceful. The protesters had called it a night, and only a handful of righteous stalwarts kept a silent vigil. One lonely holdout rested a handmade sign on his shoulder. It read: “Clones ≠ Human.” Succinct at least. She gave him a bitter thumbs-up, but it must have been too late for sarcasm because he smiled, grateful for her support.

She passed him, close enough to reach out and slap hands, but he never realized what she was. Why would he? She doubted he’d ever seen a clone in person before. Not many people had. That was part of the problem. Palingenesis had gotten its start as a contractor for the Department of Defense, making clone backups to support American soldiers, but those days were over. Since Palingenesis had gone private sector, only the extraordinarily wealthy could afford their services. The other 99 percent of Americans could only look on with a mixture of envy and resentment. Nagged by the sense of being left out, of being left behind. It was a volatile combination, and the Children of Adam had capitalized on that fermenting anxiety. Great wealth doesn’t give anyone the right to pervert the nature of the human race, Butler had bellowed. They enjoy the benefits while we suffer the consequences.

When Con made it to the Metro, both the escalator and elevator were out of service as per the usual. By the time she made it down to the station, she was wheezing like a four-year-old was standing on her chest. She had the lung capacity and muscle tone of a newborn, which she supposed she was, but she took a moment to marvel that after all those stairs, her knee didn’t hurt a bit. For the first time since the accident, nothing ached. Not her back, not her neck. Her knee felt great. Better than great—brand new. She wanted to run. She wanted to jump. It made her want to dance.

She went to buy a ticket at an automated kiosk, but it summarily rejected her banking information. Transaction Declined flashed on her LFD. Wonderful. The next kiosk returned the same error message. It was a cheap LFD that hadn’t been synced in eighteen months, but when she couldn’t even log in to the bank to check her balance, she knew it wasn’t a glitch on her end. Her bank account had been closed. Why the hell had her original done that? How was she supposed to get home with no money? Walk all the way to Maryland?

She wondered if her body was coordinated enough to jump the turnstile, but as she got close, a heavyset Black cop stepped into view.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said, thumbs hooked casually into his utility belt.

“You could just let me through? No one would know.”

He chuckled at her audacity. “That’s not how this is going to go.”

The thought of climbing all those stairs made her bold. She’d handled all the negotiations for the band for a reason.

“You’re right,” she said. “Someone would know. You and me. We would know. And it would mean so much. I would write songs about you. About how, on the weirdest day of my life, a police officer saw I was about at the end of my string and gave me a break. Saved me from walking the eight miles back to Takoma in the middle of the night. In June.”

He looked at her impassively. “That’s some speech.”

“It’s not a speech. I just really need to get home. Please,” she said, not wanting to overdo it. Less was more here, she felt instinctively. Cops hated feeling played.

His fingers typed something in the air to his LFD. The turnstile gate snapped open.

“Alright,” he said, with another chuckle. “Go on then and write them songs.”



Despite being a three-hour walk, it was only four stops to Takoma. She used the time to take an inventory of the backpack. Along with the pills, Laleh had left instructions for when to take the various medications. After tapping a pill out of each bottle, Con popped one into her mouth. The pill immediately got stuck in her throat. She gagged until she coughed it up onto the floor along with the pink protein shake she’d tried to swallow it with. Thankfully, the train was nearly empty at this time of night. She took a minute to practice swallowing, which she had to consciously remember how to do. When she thought she had the hang of it, she tried again and this time managed to swallow each pill without throwing up. She really was like a newborn.

Looking out the darkened window as the tunnels flashed past, Con wondered again how she had died. As soon as the thought escaped, she knew it was dangerous to think about things that way. Besides, she wasn’t dead. She was alive and traveling on a northbound Metro train toward home. But wasn’t the only reason she was alive because she had died? Immediately, her mind scrambled to change the subject, as if she had stumbled onto a channel showing a scary movie. If she was alive, how could she also be dead? The two contradictory ideas struggled to coexist peacefully. She was a paradox and knew how the poor cat trapped in Schr?dinger’s box must have felt.