Lock In (Lock In, #1)(19)

“I notice you didn’t address my point,” Mom said.

I sighed and held up a hand to tick off points. “One, because commuting into the District from Potomac Falls every day would be a pain in the ass, and you know it. Two, because I’m twenty-seven and it’s embarrassing to still live with my parents. Three, because my tolerance for being a prop for Dad’s political ambitions is getting lower by the day.”

“That’s not fair, Chris,” Mom said.

“Come on, Mom,” I said. “You know he’s going to do it tonight. I’m not the five-year-old he can trot out for congressional hearings and Haden fund-raisers. I’m a federal agent now, for God’s sake. I don’t think it’s even legal to trot me around anymore.” I had a twinge as the painkillers stepped down another notch, and held up a hand to my jaw.

She caught it. “Your molar,” she said.

“Lack of molar, actually.” I put my hand down, fully aware of the irony of indicating jaw pain on my threep. “I’m going to go check in on myself,” I said, and turned to go to my room.

“When you move, you’re not going to move your body, are you?” Mom asked. There was a thread of anxiousness in her voice.

“I’m not planning to right now,” I said, turning back a little to look at her. “Let’s see how it works. I didn’t notice any lag today, and as long as I don’t there’s no reason to move.”

“All right,” Mom said, still unhappy.

I went over and gave her a hug. “Relax, Mom,” I said. “It’s not a thing. I’ll have the spare threep here. I’ll visit. A lot. You’ll start to wonder if I’ve actually left.”

She smiled at that and patted my cheek. “Normally I’d call you on patronizing me, but this one time I’ll take it,” she said. “Now go check in on yourself. Don’t take too long. Your father wants you to make an appearance before we all sit down to dinner.”

“Of course he does,” I said. I squeezed Mom’s arm as I left.

Jerry Riggs, my new evening nurse, waved to me as I walked into my room. He was reading a hardcover book. “How you doing, Chris?”

“I’m in a little bit of pain, actually,” I said.

Jerry nodded. “The bedsore?” he asked.

“The molar extraction,” I said.

“Right.” Jerry set down his book and walked over to my cradle, which had conformed to let me rest on my left side, because my current bedsore was on my right hip. He started rummaging through the bedside cabinet.

“I have some Tylenol with codeine,” Jerry said. “Your dentist left it for you.”

“I have to be able to function this evening,” I said. “There’s nothing more dangerous than a stoned threep at a political fund-raiser.”

“All right,” Jerry said. “Let me see what else we have here.”

I nodded and went over to my body—to me. I looked as I always did, like someone sleeping. My body was neat and clean, which was not always a guarantee with a Haden. Some Hadens didn’t bother with having their hair cut or trimmed because, honestly, what did it matter? My mother had quite the opposite opinion on the subject, however. As I got older I adopted her position for my own.

The cleanliness was a different and more complex issue, as it would be with a body whose various holes and systems were tubed, bagged, and catheterized. My mother was concerned about me moving out not just because she would miss me. She was also worried that, left to my own devices and schedule, I would let myself wallow in my own filth for days on end. This was an unwarranted concern on her part, I thought.

I bent over to look at my bedsore. True to advertisement, it was a nasty red welt across my hip. I touched it, and felt the dull ache of it at the same time I felt my threep hand moving across it.

I felt that sensation unique to Hadens, the vertigo that comes from perceptually being in two places at once. It’s much more noticeable when your body and your threep are in the same room at the same time. The technical term for it is “polyproprioception.” Humans, who generally have only one body to deal with, aren’t naturally designed for it. It literally changes your brain. You can see the difference between a Haden brain and an unaffected brain on an MRI.

The vertigo happens when your brain remembers it’s not supposed to be getting input from two separate bodies. The simple solution when it happens is just to look somewhere else.

I turned and focused on the other other me in the room: my previous threep, which was my primary threep until I got the 660. It was a Kamen Zephyr, now sitting on an inductive charger chair. A very nice model. The body was ivory with blue and gray limb accents—I did undergrad and got my master’s at Georgetown, and it seemed the thing to do at the time. My current threep was an understated matte ivory with subtle maroon pinstripe accents on the limbs. I vaguely wondered if I was letting down the alma mater.

“Here we go,” Jerry said, and held up a small bottle. “Lidocaine. Should do the trick for a couple of hours. That’ll get you through the dinner and then after that I’ll put some extra-strength ibuprofen into your system. As long as you stay sense-forward on your threep you should be fine.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Interesting that you don’t always stay fully sense-forward on your threep,” Jerry said, as he prepped the lidocaine.