The Body Electric

Chapter 16

Lead scientist Dr. Philip Shepherd with his team working on a prototype for meta-functioning android technology.

While Dad used nanobots to come up with something of a cure for Mom’s Hebb’s Disease, his real scientific focus was on android technology. This picture must have been taken very soon before he died. I glance back up at it, taking note of everyone.

Everyone in the picture—with the exception of Jack—was killed in the same terrorist-planted lab explosion that killed Dad.

My body grows tense. “Now what are the chances that only Jack survived?” I growl under my breath. My eyes narrow as I focus on his smiling face.

I pull the photo out of the article and blow it up to life-size. I try to look at Jack, but my eyes go to Dad. He’s smiling here. He looks happy. Proud. And his hand is on Jack’s shoulder, as if he’s his son.

I slice my arm through the holographic projection and sweep it aside, cutting Dad out of the photo. I do the same to the right-hand side of the photo, isolating Jack. In the hologram, he’s just a little taller than me, like in real life. His hair is different here, shorter. I lean up on my tiptoes, nose-to-nose with a holographic image of this boy who, somehow, is tangled up in the parts of my life I’ve kept hidden. His eyes stare forward, glittering with the holo-light.

“Who are you?” I ask, but of course he doesn’t answer.

I swipe away the photo and scan the article attached to it. Jack’s listed as an intern, with a note that his parents are aides in the Representative Assembly.

I turn back to the interface system, trying to find more on Jack. I find an article dated only about a year ago—no, not an article. An obituary. Two government officials working in the Prime Administrator’s office killed in a car crash near the beaches in Gozo, and a note saying they were survived by their only son, Jack Tyler. They died nearly a month after Dad.

So he’s an orphan.

Like me.

I jerk back, repulsed by my own thoughts. I am not an orphan. I still have my mother. How could I even think that?

I swipe my arms across the holo-display, pushing away the rest of the obituary. So what if he has a tragic past? I think about the picture of him with my father. Maybe Jack Tyler contributed to my own tragic past.

I search using other perimeters, but I can find no new information. He’s done a very good job at keeping himself off the interface—or of erasing things that used to be there.

I sigh, disappointed in the fruitless research. I sweep aside the search box, but another holo-icon replaces it almost immediately. I stare, reading the words across the bottom with growing shock:

Open in case of search for Jack Tyler.

I check the file information—whatever this is, it’s hard-wired directly into my cuff. Only I could have put this file here, or someone who was actually feeding wires directly into my system. This is no easy hack—someone would have had to have either stolen my cuff (which is impossible, as I’ve never taken it off), or linked directly to it, which is also impossible as no one has shared a direct link to my cuff in years.

The holo-icon twirls inside my vision.

I know I didn’t put this file here. But I also know it’s impossible for anyone else to have either.

I touch the holo-icon, and it opens as soon as I select it.

Processing, the screen flashes at me. I feel a buzzing at my wrist and look down to my cuff, which is synced to the interface system. Program complete, it says.

Program? Program?! I don’t want to open a program—I just wanted to see what was in the file! My eyes grow foggy—the program has already linked to my nanobots, the ones that display directly into my eyes. I blink madly, even though I know it’ll do no good, but I freeze when I see the words being projected into my vision.

To find Jack Tyler.

I squeeze my eyes shut, my mind racing. This must be some sort of bot virus. Jack Tyler must have found me, hacked the code into the system.

I move automatically to my cuff. I can call Ms. White, the police—anyone. I can show this program to them, have them trace the hack, figure out where Jack Tyler is and how he’s involved with all of this.

And then I open my eyes. In the reflection of the mirror hanging on the wall across from the table, I see myself, my irises silver from the nanobots.

And standing behind me is my father.

“Dad?” I whisper, my voice cracking on the word.