Twinmaker

wouldn’t get near the place.

But why was Ray asking her this? She might have proposed the plan to Turner, but Jesse had been the one to suggest VIA in the first place. Why weren’t they looking to him as well?

Because she had stopped the dupes, she supposed, and because she was doing most of the talking now. That made a kind of sense, but it didn’t mean she had the answers.

Gemma and Turner were suspiciously quiet. Maybe they had already made up their minds, and it didn’t matter what anyone else said.

Then an idea came to her that blew all her doubts away.

“They’ll let us in,” she said, “because we’ll make it impossible for them not to.”

Everyone was looking at her now, not just Jesse and the surviving members of the Skylifter.

“Do tell,” said Ray.

She told them about the crashlanders. Then she reminded them of the video feed Dylan Linwood had put out into the Air. Zep had joked about her being famous for a day, and there was some truth to that: Arcady had seen the video, and he couldn’t have been the only one.

“I thought that was a bad thing at first,” she said, “because of the way it made me look, but now I think we can use it to our advantage. Both the crashlanders and Abstainers are communities primed to latch onto something new or controversial. They’re completely different, and neither is huge, but they draw attention because people outside them disagree on whether they’re good or bad. People talk about them, and talk about what they’re talking about. If we can make the crashlanders and the Abstainers talk about us, I think we can really make something pop.”

“Something like what?” asked Jesse.

“We don’t hide the fact that we’re going to VIA HQ in New York. The exact opposite: we tell everyone— anyone who’s interested. We promise them something worth seeing. Like Ray says, we’ll be exposed when we leave the farm; there’ll be drones all over us as soon as we’re back in civilization. They’re the eyes of the world, and if they’re on us because we’re giving the world a show, the dupes won’t dare act, not up close when they can be seen as well. Home is where the harm is—that’s what my mom says: we think we’re safe when we’re hiding, but we’re not. Let’s come out of hiding and let the world protect us.”

“The drones in Manteca were compromised,” Gemma reminded her. “They couldn’t see anything.”

“Q can help with that,” she said, hoping that was true.

“What if they hit you from a distance or make it look like an accident,” said Arcady, “like they did with the Skylifter?”

“Enough people will know what really happened,” she said, hoping that would be true as well. “Who could ignore something like that? Especially if we spread the word widely enough. There’s no reason we can’t fight this on more than one front at once. Improvement started with a note that told people to keep it a secret. So maybe we should issue a note of our own that does the exact opposite.”

“Anti-Improvement?” said Jesse. “No, Counter-Improvement. That’s better.”

“But we only mention Improvement and the damage it does,” Clair said. “That’s important. Anything else will make us look crazy. Really crazy, I mean.”

“Even though it’s true?” said Arcady.

“Let’s not overcomplicate things. No one will believe us until they see it with their own eyes. If the dupes come out of the shadows to take us down—that’ll do it. If they don’t and we get to VIA with the body—that’ll do it too. Either way, it’ll all come out. When VIA says it’s happening, everyone will believe.”

“What if VIA’s involved?” asked Turner. “The dupes have to be directed by someone.”

“Do they? I really don’t think VIA would be so stupid as to attack their own system—”

“But if they are, what then?”

She thought for a second. “They’ll still let us come. Their best shot will be to discredit us, not destroy us. As long as we stay in the public eye and don’t use d-mat, they can’t engineer an accident or dupe us. They can’t do either without exposing the truth or breaking parity, so we’ll be safe.”

“What about peacekeepers?” asked Arcady.

“Technically, we haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. “They’ve got no grounds to bring us in, and we’ve seen no sign that they’re likely to. Maybe they’ll turn a blind eye if we’re in trouble, maybe we can’t entirely trust them, but they won’t act openly against us.”

“And what about you?” asked Jesse. “Your reputation is also at stake. What’s everyone going to think when you out yourself as . . . well . . . one of us?”

“It’s only temporarily, and I reckon my reputation is pretty shot already.” She offered him a smile but didn’t look any lower than his neck. He still hadn’t put a shirt on and she didn’t want to blush again, not when she was busy arguing her case. “Thanks, though. Maybe we can show the world that being controversial is not such a bad thing when you’re right.”

“I think . . . ,” Gemma started to say, then stopped when people looked at her. She raised her chin. “I think we should do it.”

Clair stared at her. She was the last person Clair had expected to come out in favor of the idea.

“Really?” asked Ray. He looked as startled as Clair felt.

“Yes. It’s better than sitting here waiting for the hammer to fall.”

“I agree,” said Turner, and Clair was doubly amazed.

“We need to go for one simple reason,” he explained. “If VIA won’t listen, WHOLE will be there to take direct action.”

“Uh . . . what does that mean?” asked Jesse.

“It means whatever it needs to mean.”

“I’m not a terrorist,” said Clair.

“No one’s asking you to be one,” Turner said.

There was a tense silence around the table, but Clair felt that was as close to a consensus as she was ever going to get.

“All right, then. Great. So how do we get there?” she asked. “We certainly can’t walk.”

“I know a way,” said Arcady. “You can hitch a ride with train hobbyists.”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Jesse.

“No. We use them all the time. There’s a line running right across our property, and engines go by once a day—east at dawn, back west at dusk. You catch the next one, you’ll be on the east coast in two days, maybe sooner.”

“What happens then?” asked Gemma. “We swim?”

“We won’t have to,” said Turner. “We’re going to take a submarine.”

“Now you’ve got to be kidding,” said Clair.

“I am not.” He folded his arms, his expression betraying no trace of humor. “You want a spectacle, that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”

56

THEY WERE READY to move within the hour. Clair showered and changed out of her soiled farmer’s shirt into a new one and put on her overalls and sneakers. The bodies were taken away, all except for Libby’s, which was hermetically sealed and zipped up in a makeshift plastic shroud. Evidence. Packs were distributed. Clair began to get a camping vibe from the exercise, reinforced when she saw how much gear she was expected to carry. Among the packets of freeze-dried food, canteens, a sleeping bag, and a bedroll were a pistol and two boxes of ammunition. She remembered exactly how heavy they were from lugging similar ones halfway across California.

Instead of complaining, she asked Arcady to show her how to load the pistol. It was smaller than the one Q had made for her, fitting neatly into the palm of her hand as though designed for it. He promised less of a kick and not greatly reduced accuracy at close range.