Twinmaker

“I don’t know. Let’s not take any chances.”

They took shelter behind a boulder overlooking a low crack in the ground. There they waited, Clair’s palm sweaty on the pistol grip. Would the vehicle go past them or stop? Would it be Q or “Dylan Linwood”? Had their long flight been for nothing?

The engine noise grew steadily louder and then ebbed into a low whirr. Stones ground under wheels as the vehicle came to a halt on the other side of the boulder.

“Clair?” came a loud voice out of the darkness. “I know you’re nearby, but I can’t locate you precisely. Sorry it’s taken me so long. This whole area is under intense scrutiny. I’m lucky I could get in at all.”

Clair sagged with relief.

“It’s okay,” she told Jesse. “That’s our ride.”

“That’s Q? Really?”

“I know she sounds young, but let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.” She poked him lightly on the shoulder. “You know what that phrase means, don’t you?”

She climbed out of the crack in the ground before he could answer. Twenty yards away sat a squat moon buggy of a thing, little more than a frame with four balloon wheels capable of collapsing to fit inside a d-mat booth, then expanding out to seat two. It had a sprinkling of antennae protruding from the rear bench and a small dish pointing skyward. A pair of tiny cameras mounted at the front swiveled to face her, locked on.

“Don’t reply via the Air,” said Q through a speaker somewhere on the buggy. “I have established a secure maser link with the quadricycle. No one can detect it unless they’re standing directly in the beam.”

“You can hear me like this?” Clair asked, speaking aloud as she came closer.

“Perfectly well, Clair.”

“I could kiss you, Q. Hell, I could kiss this thing, whatever it is.”

Jesse approached more warily. “Hello?”

“Jesse Linwood, I presume,” said Q with a new formality. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Same, I guess.”

Clair took off her backpack and helmet and threw them into the space between the seats, then climbed gratefully aboard. The flimsy-looking sides barely flexed under her weight.

“I don’t suppose you thought to pack any supplies.”

“It didn’t occur to me, Clair. I’m sorry. I’ll take you past the booth in Copperopolis, if you like.”

“All right,” she said. “But let’s not hang there too long. We’re running behind as it is. Jesse? Are you getting on or what?”

He was examining the underside of the frame. “Yes. It’s just . . . a nice design. Reminds me of one of the old Mars rovers. Good choice, Q.”

“Thanks, Jesse.” The voice over the speakers relaxed slightly. “Would you like to drive?”

“If that’s okay with you, sure!”

A hatch opened in front of the vacant seat, and a delicate-looking steering system unfolded. It looked like a retro game controller, but with fewer buttons.

“Cool,” he said, finally getting into his seat. He tested the joystick. Beneath them, the buggy stirred. He nodded, pushed the joystick forward. The wheels spun, kicking up gravel. Clair let herself be pressed back into the seat, hoping the long, awkward night would soon be over.

37

THE RIDE WAS too bouncy to be called truly comfortable, although it seemed so after the long walk. Clair offered a weak cheer when they reached the empty roads of Copperopolis. The map in her lenses checked off a series of oddly named streets as they flew by: Knolls Drive, Sugar Loaf Court, Little John Road, Charmstone Way. They sounded like something from a fairy tale, but there was nothing remotely fairyish about the arid, abandoned lots. She imagined dark eyes staring at her through all the broken windows.

According to the map, decoy airships were still drifting all over the state of California. Three were stationary. One of those—the real deal—was at the Maury Rasmussen airfield. She took hope from the fact that it had arrived safely. Furthermore, it hadn’t left yet. She and Jesse were still in the race.

“Are we going to make it?” he asked.

“Don’t jinx us by asking that,” she said, feeling the steady churn in her gut as she thought about what might happen if they didn’t. “What comes after we get away in the airship? Have you thought about that?”

He shook his head. “Have you?”

“Well, I’m not joining WHOLE and becoming a social outcast . . . uh, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“I just want to save Libby somehow, which means finding a way to reverse the effects of Improvement.”

“In four days?”

“Why not? Someone can do this: we just need to find out what they know. It’ll be easier working backward, surely.”

“I can help with that,” said Q brightly.

“It strikes me,” said Jesse, “that there’s only one group that stands to look bad if word of this gets out. That’s VIA. I mean, say Improvement’s really real, and duping is real too, then that proves what a shitty job they’re doing, keeping people like you safe. But how does it work if VIA’s as bad as Gemma thinks?”

“They can’t be,” Clair said. “If it was VIA, there wouldn’t be death squads chasing after us now. I’d have been erased the first time I used d-mat, and the rest of you would be crushed under a million peacekeepers. VIA is too powerful. So it has to be someone working around VIA . . . and you’re right: VIA won’t like that at all. All I’d have to do is get them on our side, and I’d have the biggest ally imaginable. But how would I do that? Who would I talk to?”

“You could start at the top,” Jesse said. Clair couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

“Q, who’s in charge of VIA?” she asked.

“Head of operations is Ant Wallace,” came the instant reply. “His office is in New York City.”

Images flickered across Clair’s lenses as Q supplemented her words with stills and text. Anthony Reinhold Wallace was a man of medium height and medium build, with a pleasantly symmetrical face and lightly graying hair. VIA itself occupied One Penn Plaza, a skyscraper on the west shoreline of the main island of Manhattan.

Clair felt a giddy feeling, as though she were back on the roof of the Phoenix Observatory, staring into an abyss. She thought That’s a really long way to go for the first time in her life. And if she couldn’t get the dupes off her tail, they would be behind her every step.

“There must be an easier way,” she said.

“You’ll think of something,” Jesse said with a confidence she knew wasn’t earned.

“Or Turner Goldsmith will, if we make it to the airship . . .”

“Don’t jinx us, Clair, remember?”

Jesse took the corners fast, lifting two wheels off the ground. Clair clung to the sides of her seat, liking this mode of travel even less than the electrobike, but at least she wasn’t walking anymore. On Copperopolis’s main street, next to an old saloon that looked like something out of the Wild West, they found the town’s only d-mat booth. Its door slid open as they approached, revealing a box much like the one Q had sent Clair in Manteca. This one was addressed to Isabella Charlotte Tremblay but opened at her palm print. Inside were sandwiches, some water, and a fully loaded pistol that was superficially identical to the one in her pocket. Clair swapped sidearms so the one she had couldn’t be matched against the bullets fired in Manteca, sealed the box, put it in the booth for recycling, and returned to the buggy.

Today is Friday, she thought. I’m supposed to be doing chores and then hanging out with Ronnie, Tash, and Libby. How did I end up here?

“Do you think there’s a toilet?” she asked.

“Maybe round the back,” Jesse said, taking a sandwich, staring at it skeptically, and fishing out the meaty