Dissolution

Chapter 6 - Product XKC2501

I barely made it outside before it hit me. I leaned against the wall, trying to contain the sucking emptiness in my gut. Distantly, I heard the sound of something breaking in the living room, a curse, and then the automatic whir of the vacubot. I turned away, stumbling across the front path.

I didn't get very far. Just around the corner, to the little nook I used to hide in after I fought with my parents. I collapsed into it now, stroking the smoothness of the collar around my neck over and over again like a child. It hummed comfortingly underneath my fingertips. I gripped it and tried to breathe. It felt like the whole world had flung itself sideways.

I'm not going to MERCE.

It hurt even to think about it. I squeezed my eyes shut. Somewhere nearby, a hovercar door slammed, but I ignored it. My world was the cool plastinium of the house and the heat of my tears soaking into me. I rested my forehead on the wall.

When had I even started modding? I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember a time I hadn't wanted to go to MERCE. To be free of ANRON and their tests. To build things that moved. The first thing I'd ever saved up for was soldering equipment, and that had been the beginning of the end. After that I'd discovered the magic of turning something solid over and over in your hands, and then tightening that one screw or fixing that one snapped wire and having it come to life again. I had so many broken things that Mom had given up complaining that my room looked like a junkyard.

I thought of them now, the things in my room. Most of them were half-finished: abandoned in my rush to learn something else. I'd wanted to know everything before the Auctioning so I could show MERCE what I could do. I'd imagined that, one day, the what ifs and the wouldn't that be awesomes in my mind would become silver bits coasting down a machine line, assembling like the birth of a world.

I didn't hear the front door slide open. I was lost in that dream and the loss of it, until suddenly I heard new voices on the other side of the wall. I frowned and upped the sensitivity of my ear implants just in time to hear my mother, her voice as tight as a stretched cable.

"I'm sorry, please have a seat. Can I get you anything?"

I blinked. A stranger, it had to be. But how? There had been nobody else in the house. Surely I would have heard my mother opening the door. And nobody else had automatic UConn access except for my parents, myself, and . . .

And ANRON.

I got up in the darkness, feeling my blood thrum. My hands were cold and clumsy. I leaned against the wall and pressed my ear to it. Now I could hear them, each breath and each syllable.

"Robert. Michelle."

I flinched. I didn't know the owner of that voice. I didn't want to. I had never heard my parents' names spoken that way—like they were being tasted, weighed, evaluated. The image leapt to my mind of a predator drone scanning a battlefield, fixing on a fellow soldier, scanning him for a moment with terrible clarity, and then moving on. "I'm afraid I have some bad news."

I knew my parents well. I imagined my mother crossing her arms, my father pausing. "What is it?"

Another voice sounded. This one was gentler, more conciliatory. In my head, I immediately nicknamed him Mr. Soft and the other one Mr. Sharp and dressed them in sunglasses and cut black suits and expensive cigars from the Ads. "Is Madeline around?"

For a moment, hope dazed me. Maybe they didn't want me after all. Maybe they'd seen my interview and were coming to negotiate a private sale to MERCE. But then I remembered the contract, and the sweat chilled on my palms.

Mom said something I couldn't catch. Probably an excuse: she was good at those. The next thing I heard was the first suit, the dangerous one. "I see," he said flatly. And that was it. Silence dripped into the gaps. Mr. Soft hastened to fill it.

"Well then, we'll start here. As you know, you signed your daughter . . . Product XKC2501, up for Project Samson."

I didn't know, I thought murderously. The flare of anger whited out the world for a moment, distracting me enough with my own rage that for a few seconds I heard nothing except for my own harsh breathing. And then I snapped back, straining to hear. Wishing I'd taken longer to read my license, so I'd know exactly what Project Samson was.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Soft said. Sincerity leaked out of him like he was a sieve. "There was a random selection. She was drawn for Project Samson's experimental group. Her license has been revoked under clause 12(a) of her contract."

There was a horrible pause. And then Mr. Sharp cut in impatiently, translating. "We're reclaiming the Product."

My heart stopped.

"What are you saying?" My father's voice rose, quiet at first, and then increasing in volume and incredulity. "You told us it was a special investment. You didn't . . . you didn't say you could do this . . ."

My mother cut across him with the bloodless precision of a scalpel. "What are you going to do to her?" she asked. Her voice was cold and contained. She sounded like she had all those years ago. There is nothing wrong with ANRON.

"That's classified information," Mr. Sharp said. "Now, our sensors told us she was here, so . . ."

I stopped listening. Sensors? My mind moved in slow motion. My body got there first and I found myself looking down at the glowing light of my UConn.

Inside, my mother's voice shook. "We have raised her for eighteen years for ANRON," she said. There was a terrible clarity in her voice. She had to know the answer. We all knew the answer. Even I did, although I hadn't quite gotten there yet. I knew what happened to Experimentals if we died suddenly, or after we grew old. It was all in the contract. Mom liked to describe it as giving even after we were gone. Dad liked to pretend it didn't exist. And I had never wanted to think about it. I was young, barely eighteen. I didn't have to worry about death, or the scalpel afterward, or whatever discoveries and medical leaps they might make through the secrets hidden in my body. Not if I was going to MERCE.

My mother continued, implacable. "We deserve to know what will happen to her. Tell us."

There was a pause. Mr. Sharp said, "Jones, don't," and then Mr. Soft exhaled it all in a single breath, as if it had escaped after he'd tried to hold it in: "I promise it will be quick."

Nothing. And then suddenly there was an explosion of footsteps, a heavy thud, a cry. I couldn't move. It felt like my muscles were filling with ice. I heard shouting, and then another thud. I recognized the groan as it filtered through the wall. Of course I did. My father sounded surprised, as if he'd just woken up and the world had changed.

It had.

I couldn't think. I needed help. I needed to not end up on a slab. But I had nothing. Shock froze me as I stared at the UConn they were using to track me. Until I heard the words, low and hard: "Find her."