Twinmaker

“This was a great idea,” Clair confessed to her, feeling flushed and sticky. “I’m glad we did it.”

“Told you I never let you down. Have you seen Zep?”

“No . . . but he’s looking for you.”

“Why don’t you bump him?” asked Ronnie.

“The Air’s so jammed in here,” Libby said. “I can’t get anyone.”

“Well, he won’t have gone home,” said Clair. “He’d never leave a scene like this.”

“Why would he?” Libby took a pull on Clair’s beer. “Everyone’s so totally gorgeous.”

“That guy over there in the purple suit,” said Tash, pointing surreptitiously, “he’s someone, isn’t he?”

“If he isn’t, he should be.” Ronnie pursed her lips in a silent whistle. “Oh, and look—he’s with that amazing redhead we spotted earlier.”

Clair glanced around and saw a couple leaning shoulder-to-shoulder in the nearest doorway. His eyes were perfect almonds, golden-irised like an owl’s. Her hair swept up to golden points in a fiery wave. Clair’s hands came up automatically to touch her thick curls.

“They’re too fantastic to be real,” she said. “Who are they?”

“Don’t know,” said Tash with yearning in her voice. “Their profiles are locked.”

“I put a trawler on their images,” said Ronnie, “but so far I’m just getting junk. Whoever they are, they’re hiding deep in the noise.”

“Who hides at a party like this?” asked Libby. Clair could only guess how often she’d checked her own popularity stats to see how high they’d risen.

“Spies?” suggested Tash.

“You’ve been watching old movies again,” said Ronnie.

“Terrorists?” asked Clair. “Art prankers? Spammers?”

“How many beautiful criminals do you know?”

“Maybe they’re advertising Improvement,” said Tash.

Ronnie laughed. “Why not? That makes as much sense as anything else.”

Clair didn’t get the joke.

“What’s Improvement?”

“A dumb new meme,” said Ronnie. “I got an invite this morning and deleted it immediately.”

“I got one this afternoon,” said Tash. “Check your infield, Clair. You might have been ‘selected’ while you were here, you lucky thing, you.”

Clair did check, and found the message exactly where Tash had suggested. It had come forty-five minutes earlier. She read the opening lines:

You are special.

You are unique.

And you have been selected.

“It does sound like spam,” she said.

“Read it all,” said Ronnie. “It’s a classic.”

Clair skimmed ahead. The idea was to write a series of code words on a piece of paper, of all things, with a description of what you wanted to change about yourself—height, intelligence, good looks, whatever; then you hid it under your clothes and took it with you through d-mat. Do this enough times, the invite said, and whatever you wish for will come true.

Keep this a secret.

You deserve it.

“Not even a sixth grader would fall for those last two lines, would they?” said Tash, adopting a fake voice. “‘No one but you is special enough to receive this message, which we probably sent to everyone in the whole world.’ Yeah, right.”

“It can’t be real,” said Clair, approaching the issue from a more practical angle. “It’d be illegal, for starters.”

“Absolutely,” said Ronnie. “You just can’t change patterns like that. But writing it down makes it seem real, like a spell from a fairy tale—something that ought to work, even though it’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” said Libby. “Things go wrong. This afternoon my fabber mixed up my makeup—I asked for thirteen and it gave me a thirty-one. What’s to stop a booth from mixing a person up as well?”

“Maybe you asked for the wrong skin tone,” said Ronnie.

“I didn’t. You think I haven’t done this a thousand times before?”

“Let’s not argue about some stupid meme,” said Tash. “We’re perfect as we are. Who’d want to change?”

“There’s always something,” said Ronnie.

“Like what?” Tash asked with a grin. “Being such a know-it-all?”

“Pfft. Legs and lungs so I could run a marathon. What about you?”

“Bikini line, no question. Clair?”

“Uh . . .” Clair would have chosen her nose, but she wasn’t playing that game. Behind her sweat-thinned makeup, Libby’s birthmark had turned a deeper shade, as though it was blushing on her behalf.

“My invite came yesterday,” Libby said. “I did it. I used Improvement.”

“Why the hell?” said Ronnie.

“Just in case, okay?” She looked sheepish but her jaw had a defiant set. “The note says it takes a while. Maybe I haven’t d-matted enough yet for it to take effect.”

“You could d-mat for a year and it wouldn’t make a difference,” said Ronnie. “Listen—”

Tash put a hand on Ronnie’s arm, silencing her. Tash looked mortified, probably by the memory of her own “sixth grader” comment.

“No one even notices your birthmark,” she said.

“It’s true,” said Clair. “You’re the only one it bothers.”

“I notice it,” Libby said. “It does bother me.”

“We love you no matter what,” said Ronnie, “and you know Zep will, too.”

Clair nodded a little too hard.

“I think Zep’s seeing someone else,” Libby said.

The resulting chorus of outrage drove all thoughts of Improvement from the conversation.

“Details!” Ronnie demanded, but there were none for Libby to relate, really, just a feeling of distance, of pulling back, that she was certain of but couldn’t explain.

“Gut trumps heart,” said Tash. “I always knew he was too good to be true.”

“He wasn’t good enough,” said Ronnie.

“Agreed,” said Clair. “Why would anyone cheat on you, Libby?”

Libby shot Clair a look that was unlike anything Clair had ever seen from her best friend before. It was challenging and vulnerable at the same time. This was a Libby Clair barely recognized.

She knows, Clair thought. Oh God, she knows.

But how could she? There wasn’t really anything to know. That was the thought Clair had alternately reassured and tormented herself with since it had happened, or not happened, depending on how you looked at it. After an ordinary night hanging out and mucking around at Libby’s place, wherever in Sweden, Zep had walked Clair to the booth on the ground floor and kissed her good night. A simple good-night peck on the lips no different from any other in the past—except this time maybe it went on an instant longer than normal, and maybe something new crackled between them, and maybe Zep felt it too, whatever it was, because he hesitated before getting into the booth and zapping off to the Isle of Shanghai, leaving her reeling with the unprompted and unwanted thought that maybe he was dating the wrong girl.

It should be you, that thought said. Not Libby. Only it wasn’t a thought. It was a feeling so deep in her gut, she couldn’t fish it out. It was snagged in her, interfering with everything—school, her friendships, even her sleep.

Zep was fun, handsome, and her best friend’s boyfriend. He wasn’t an option. And she didn’t know what was worse—the cliche or the strain of holding two equal and opposite feelings at once.