Chapter 13

Our house on Francis Street was a big move up for us. Before that we had lived in a cramped apartment in a bad neighborhood. I had shared a bedroom with my brother. Every memory of him is filled with slamming doors and yelling. He was wild and ran with a wild crowd. In that neighborhood that was all there was to run with. But when my sister was spotted running with a gang and the police showed up on our doorstep, that was when we moved. My brother moved in with friends and refused to come, and since he was almost eighteen, my parents didn't force him. For nearly two years we lived with my grandparents while my parents saved every penny for the house on Francis Street. It was a dump, but in a good area, and my uncles helped my dad gut it and make it livable. They made my sister help too, and she hated every minute of it. She wanted to be back with her friends in the old neighborhood.

I was spared from the scraping and hauling because I was "their student." They always said it just that way, their student, like I was the genius of their loins. I was the only one who excelled in school, and my parents held me up as proof that they had done right by at least one of their children. I was going to be a doctor, a senator, a scientist who found the cure for cancer--maybe all three. It didn't matter what, just something big. I could do anything, they said, I just needed to stay focused. I knew what that meant--not wild like my brother or sister. So I did stay focused, for them. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life anyway. It seemed wrong not to have a goal, so I let their goal be mine. And for a time, I even thrived on it.

But then one day, something changed. Something inside me. I needed more. Something of my own that was for me and no one else, but I had no idea what that something was. I just knew I needed something more than being redemption for my parents. The grades and praise weren't enough anymore, but I couldn't tell them. I couldn't tell anyone.

Then I met Kara and Jenna. We may have gone to the same school, but our neighborhoods were barely in the same universe. Kara and Jenna both came from wealthy families. Like me, they excelled in school, and they had the pressure to perform but for entirely different reasons. Jenna was an only child and apparently a miracle child as well. The sun rose and set with her as far as her parents were concerned. Kara's parents were both brilliant high achievers: her dad a CEO of an investment banking firm, and her mother, a managing partner in a law firm. Her brother was at Harvard studying law. For Kara's parents, greatness was an assumption, and anything less than the stars was shamefully unacceptable.

We had all been on the fast track to mind-numbing, soul-smothering academic brilliance--feeding on it even--but somewhere else inside we were starving. That's when we put the brakes on, but we couldn't do it by ourselves. We needed one another.

I spent a lot of time at their houses. They never came to mine. I didn't invite them. It's not that I was ashamed of our shabby furniture or the cramped rooms or even the cheap plastic chairs on the porch and half-dead poinsettias left over from Christmas. I wasn't. I just didn't want to share Kara and Jenna. I didn't want my parents to say a single word about them, good, bad, or otherwise. I wanted everything about them to be mine. I think I was secretly afraid that someone else might break the spell, because I was sure that's what it had to be for these two girls to spend time with me, call me, and most important, voice my thoughts. Girls, I had always assumed, were better at articulating feelings, but Kara and Jenna articulated my feelings, and they taught me to voice them too. I became a different person. They both loved poetry, so I memorized lines of poems to impress them, but soon I found I liked it too. We took turns spouting lines of poetry that spoke to us and the moment.

I all alone beweep my outcast state.

I tramp a perpetual journey.

I saw and heard and knew at last

The How and Why of all things, past ...

Everything we talked about seemed deep and real, and the truest words that had ever been spoken on the planet. Words that would heal the world. Words that would heal us. We finished one another's sentences. I was in love with both of them. And there was a time I thought Jenna--

"Locke! Are you paying attention?" Kara pulls on my hand. "We're on the run now. We can't afford for you to go off to la-la land."

I had lapsed. "I was only--" There is no point in explaining. She knows. Kara can still finish my sentences. I look at her. "Go ahead."

"Dot says the first thing we're going to have to do is get registered IDs. Transgrids and all public buildings require them before entering."

"Don't you already have ID for the transgrids, Dot?" I ask.

"Passengers require them too," Dot answers. "It gets ugly if you hook into a transgrid without proper ID."

Dr. Gatsbro had told us about transgrids--roadways in most large cities and for major transportation routes. Vehicles enter a ramp and the car's navigation is taken over by the system. They proceed at faster but regulated speeds and are routed to their destinations. The driver actually does very little driving. As with most of Dr. Gatsbro's descriptions, it sounded ideal. There was no mention of IDs or ugly consequences without them.

"How ugly?" I ask.

"The car is automatically rerouted to the Office of Security Violations. That is, unless they assess you to be an immediate threat. In that case, you are incapacitated." She makes a brief buzzing sound like a jolt of electricity. "But most survive it," she adds.

"Lovely," Kara says. "Some good news at last."

"But," Dot says, and then pauses, waiting until she has eye contact with both of us in her mirror, "I have ways."

"Tell us," I say.

"Star Drivers have special access to historical roads for the purpose of tourism, and a few of those roads will get us far enough into the city that you can reach--" She glances over her shoulder to look directly at me. "There are certain individuals who can provide IDs."

I nod. Some things transcend time, and the black market is obviously one of those things.

"We don't have any money, Dot. But--"

"Money? These individuals don't trade in money. They trade in Favor."

"You mean we'll have to return the favor?"

Dot glances briefly in the mirror at me and turns her head slightly to the side, like I am speaking a foreign language. "Something like that," she answers.

"Why are you helping us, Dot?" Kara asks suspiciously. "Is that what you want? A favor?"

Dot shakes her head.

"But helping us will get you into trouble," I say. "You said something about being released. Will you lose your job?"

Dot looks at me but doesn't answer right away. "Just where are you from?" she finally asks.

Kara squeezes my thigh. "We're from Boston," she says. "We've just been ... away for a while."

Dot raises a brow. "I see. Yes, I will be released, but since this is my first offense, it will likely be temporary. Maybe only a month of inactive duty and retraining. It is worth it, I think. Star Drivers talk among themselves. We hear stories about Escape. We dream about it and what it would be like. Even though you are a different kind of Escapee, this gives me a glimpse. It will be a story to hold on to and one that I can share with other Star Drivers." She looks sharply at us through the mirror. "That's how we amuse ourselves. We imagine what Escape is like. Even Bots can imagine and have dreams. Seeing the world from a vehicle is limiting."

I try to process her last words. Even Bots--

"My God, she's a--" Kara says.

I jump forward, looking over the seat. Dot has no legs. She has no human shape below her waist. I stare, feeling light-headed. She appears to be plugged in to a console.

"You don't have--"

"A whole body? It is considered an unnecessary expense. The Council on National Aesthetics doesn't require them for my line of work. Easy for them to say."

I fall back in my seat. Neither Kara nor I speak. We have only heard of Bots, never seen one. I expected something different. Something more like a machine. Why didn't Dr. Gatsbro ever show us one? I look at my hand resting on the seat, only a centimeter from Kara's. Both perfect, both flesh and blood, both created in a lab probably not much different from the one Dot was manufactured in.

"You're disturbed. You didn't know I was a Bot?"

I shake my head. "Sorry. It's just that--" I look at Kara, hoping she can help.

Kara leans forward in the seat and speaks softly to Dot. Her voice is slow and kind. "We're not disturbed, Dot. We're lost. Like we said, we've been gone for a long time. A very long time. The world's gone on without us." Her head drops for a moment and then she looks back up. Dot's eyes fix on her through the mirror. "We've had our own version of"--her voice cracks, and she clears her throat--"our own version of being released. We've had years of 'inactive duty.'" She leans closer and whispers, "Do you understand?"

Dot nods, like she is hypnotized, never taking her eyes from Kara.

"I thought you would," Kara says. "There's so much we need to know, or we'll never ... escape. Can you tell us everything? Everything we might need to know?"

Dot's head bobs. "Everything," she says firmly. "I understand. I do." Our revulsion at her half body has been covered up by Kara's careful, soulful plea.

Kara sits back in her seat, and as she does, she briefly glances at me. Even though her eyes are clear and cold, with none of the warmth I just heard in her voice, I pull her close to me. I don't care. I know what she has done, and it serves us both. I am scared, and I want to survive, and Dot ... she is only a Bot, and she might be able to help us.