Twinmaker

She frowned. “Why?”

He straightened and glanced at the others.

“Let’s talk,” he said. “In private.”

“Okay. Where?”

“Here.”

He opened the door of the four-wheeler and waved her inside. She slipped across the front seats, and he followed her, shutting the door softly behind them.

Jesse braced himself with one hand on the steering wheel, facing her.

“What’s up?”

“I just want to ask you,” he said, “if you used Improvement.”

She stared at him for a long moment, the lightness that had been in her stomach turning to lead. He was looking right at her, and she was looking right back at him, but weirdly she felt as though she were shrinking into her body, vanishing behind her eyes into a tiny point that peered out at him through layers of dirty glass.

“Clair?”

She snapped back to normal.

“Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”

“I rewatched the video of Dad in Gordon the Gorgon’s office,” he said. “Last night, while I was trying to sleep. She asked if you knew someone who had used Improvement, and you hesitated before saying that yes, you did. There was something in your face—I don’t know what it was, exactly. Like you felt guilty, and not just because of Libby. It came and went so fast, I didn’t notice it before. I can see it now, though, when I watch the video again.”

Because he knows me better too, she thought.

“And there’s all the superhero stuff,” he went on, although she really wished he wouldn’t. “Shooting the dupe, keeping your head when all I want to do is roll into a ball, the strategizing. I thought it was your true calling, remember?”

She did remember, and she cursed herself for feeling like a fraud.

“But Improvement didn’t work,” she said. “My nose hasn’t changed.”

“Is that what you put on the note?”

“Yes.”

“Why?

“Why do you think?” She screwed it up self-consciously.

He shook his head. “How many times did you do it?”

“Sixty, seventy—I can’t remember the exact number.”

“Maybe your nose hasn’t changed because you haven’t used d-mat for a while. Maybe it takes time for the physical changes to kick in. The other stuff might happen more quickly.”

“What stuff? What are you saying, exactly?”

“You heard what Gemma said. People who use Improvement have their brains taken over.”

“But Gemma also said that it doesn’t affect everyone.”

“That’s true. Have you had any of the symptoms? Headaches, mood swings?”

She thought of the pounding in her skull that had been plaguing her for days, which she’d thought was caffeine withdrawal and stress. And she remembered the strange moment of clarity after Mallory had killed herself, and her shaking hands on the way to meet the train. They were shaking again now. She tucked them firmly between her thighs.

“I did it after I saw your dad the first time,” she confessed, unable to meet his eyes. “I used it until Q noticed me, but it didn’t seem to do anything, so I didn’t mention it to anyone. . . . I didn’t think it was important. . . .”

But you’ve changed, Gemma had said. The words reverberated through her mind, reinforced by the sudden certainty that they were true. Zep had noticed. Jesse had noticed. Gemma had noticed. Since using Improvement, she had become a different person. But was it because of Improvement or because of everything that had happened to her? Was Clair 2.0 her or someone else entirely?

She wondered if Libby had felt the same. What had it been like to have her mind taken over by another? Was it like a war or an unstoppable, insidious creep, like the tide rising over the shore? Did Libby’s thoughts and decisions still feel like hers, as Clair’s did now, even as they slowly became someone else’s?

The rhythmic patter of the wheels on the tracks was repetitive and insistent.

Mallory . . . Mallory . . . Mallory . . .

“Are you going to tell the others?” she asked Jesse.

“Why?” he asked. “Do I need to?”

“Don’t you think you should, if someone’s trying to take me over?”

“I don’t know that it’s that simple. You told me the truth, so I know you’re you right now.”

“What if that changes?”

“Is that likely?’

“You’ve got me worried now. What if I start . . . doing things?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Putting people in danger . . .”

He didn’t answer, and she looked up at him, afraid to see that he might be staring at her as if she were an alien.

He wasn’t. He was grinning.

“Danger?” he said. “Like we’re on a picnic right now?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. And, you know, maybe this is a good thing, in a way. Maybe it wasn’t really you who shot the dupe back at the safe house.”

“But what happens if they can’t reverse it? What if . . . ?”

She hugged herself, thinking terrible thoughts.

Five days had passed since Libby had used Improvement. Four days for Clair.

“I’m so frightened,” she said, and burst into tears.

“Hey,” he said, moving closer. “Hey, don’t. I’m sorry. This isn’t what I wanted. . . .”

“What did you want? Why did you bring it up?”

“I had to be sure. I had to know.”

Clair put her face into her hands.

“What if I had lied?” she asked through her sobs. “What would you have done?”

“I don’t know, and you didn’t lie, so it doesn’t matter.” He awkwardly took her into his arms. “It’s okay. You’re going to be all right, I promise.”

“How do you know? How do you know I won’t go crazy and kill everyone?”

“I’ve lived with crazy people all my life,” he said, “and I don’t think you’re one of them.”

She returned his hug, wishing she could stay right there all the way to New York.

“I’m sorry you’re stuck with me,” he said into her hair. “I bet you wish—”

She shut him up the only way she could: by kissing him. Only afterward did she think of her puffy eyes and snotty nose. Only afterward did she wonder at how easy it was, compared to Zep. She just put her hands on either side of his face and pulled his mouth to hers. Her lips parted without hesitation and his tongue sought hers, and she was surprised by how gentle it all was. His goatee tickled her. He smelled of engine grease and tasted faintly of mint. But when she closed her eyes, she saw only him in her mind, not the shadow of someone else, and there was no feeling of doing something wrong. Quite the opposite.

Her heart began to race in an entirely ungentle way, and she didn’t want to believe it at first when she felt him pulling away.

“What?” she asked, blinking at him.

“I was just . . . no, forget it.”

There was a questioning look in his eyes.

“You’re wondering if that was really me?” she said.

He blushed. “No. I mean, yes. I mean, I hope it was. I mean . . . Oh God, could I be stupider?”

She dropped her eyes, feeling her face freeze. The same question occurred to her now, but directed at