Chapter 28

One thing that hasn't changed in all these years is spring. The landscape around us is just beginning to burst into lime greens and feathery blossoms. I find it strangely comforting that some things stick to the same rules century after century, eon after eon. I guess the universe got a few things right the first time around. Shoes, on the other hand--along with roads, houses, laws, countries, and people--always seem to need improving.

I think about what I told Dot. Trust. It's ironic that I trust someone, something that isn't even human. I am trusting a machine. I think that's what she is. And yet she has hopes. That's what she said. How can a machine hope for something? My success is her success. I am the last person in the world anyone should pin hopes on. Or maybe she is pinning her hopes on a machine too.

I try not to allow myself these thoughts. From the moment I woke up with a body, I've avoided even thinking about it. I had freedom, at last, when I had lost hope. I had arms to hold Kara. Real arms. I didn't care if they were made out of pigs' ears and putty. They were a gift. But now I have to wonder what kind of gift. I look at my hands in my lap, my left hand bandaged where I slashed through the iScroll. I unwrap the gauze and look at the jagged lines with bits of dried blood still clinging to them. I close my hand into a fist and open it again. My dad always used to say never look a gift horse in the mouth when something good and unexpected like free tickets to a Red Sox game came our way. Don't look to see which section they're in, Locke. A gift is a gift. I wrap the gauze back around my hand. I always trusted what my dad said, but some gifts aren't really free.

"We're almost at the transgrid," Dot announces. "Then we can really fly."

I notice that Miesha briefly closes her eyes and shakes her head.

"You don't have to go, Miesha," I say. "We can drop you off somewhere. Maybe that would be better for all of us."

She looks up at me in the mirror, and a brief second expands like I'm watching her move in slow motion. I am seeing things in a way I didn't see before. It's as though, without the coddling of the estate, my 500 billion biochips are finally waking up and doing what Gatsbro wanted them to do all along, something exceptional. A microsecond becomes a blink, a wrinkle around the eyes, a tightening of the lips. I see the hurt on her face. And then, just as quickly, she covers it with a scowl.

"And where would I go? I have no life to go back to now."

"You must have family. A home. Something." I am instantly ashamed that I've never asked Miesha about her life outside of my closed, privileged world on the estate.

The hurt flashes briefly in her eyes again, but again, she quickly recovers. She has practice at this. "No, Einstein. Why else would I work for Gatsbro taking care of two--"

I raise my hand to stop her and wince, still feeling the pain in my ribs. "I know. I know. Two spoiled children." I look in the mirror at her arms in her lap and the scars that are vines crawling across them. Even my biochips won't reveal that secret to me.

She grunts. "You got that right. Spoiled as in rotten."

Two spoiled children that she lied to, but she also saved me. Why? My trust teeters. The silence hangs.

"Here we go, Escapees," Dot says. "Cross your fingers." I guess crossing fingers hasn't gone out of style, though I would prefer something a little more scientific. The massive ramp pillars of the transgrid loom before us. Dot enters the ramp, and a jolt shakes the car.

I jump and look out the window. "What was that?"

"Not to worry! Just the hook. We're locked in now until I program where we want to get off."

Miesha stares straight ahead, still silent. Is she hurt? Or perhaps wondering where she can get a better price for valuable merchandise like Kara and me? A wave of guilt hits me, but who can I really trust? I had come to care about Miesha this past year. We always had fun trading good-natured barbs with each other. I enjoyed my time with her. There was an empty part in me that she filled. I thought she cared about us. But she lied. She knew what Gatsbro was up to and never said a word. She even came with him and the goons to take us back.

But she didn't take us back. She did just the opposite. Out of compassion or out of some other motivation? Money? I don't know what to think anymore, but I know she still has secrets.

The car accelerates and my shoulders push back into the seat, but it gets strangely quiet at the same time. We continue to climb the ramp, and soon we are joining other cars on the grid. The hook that guides us seamlessly merges us into the first of three streams of traffic.

"So far so good," Dot chirps. She looks over her shoulder at me. "Topeka, right?"

I nod.

She winks and adds, "At supersonic Escapee speed." Her fingers move over the panel, and various lights blink in quick succession. "I have to do it manually now that I'm not directly hooked into the Star system," she explains over her shoulder. "Done! Topeka, here we come. Hopefully."

The grid doesn't have rails like the old freeways I remember. Since we are hooked in, I guess there is no danger of anyone veering off the side, but it feels like we are balancing near the edge. The view is expansive. The three lanes are wide like those on the old freeways, I guess to accommodate a variety of cars. Speed may not be a choice, but apparently style still is. The innermost lane is reserved for the trains, which Dot tells me move considerably faster than the cars but at the same time have longer delays at stations. I hope there's a long delay in Albany and every other stop along the way. I need to get to Kara before--

"And another thing!" Miesha turns around, coming back to life and shaking a finger at me, her head wagging right along with it. "I know you didn't have a lot of choice when they gave you that newfangled body and then made plans for you, but you aren't the only one with limited choices, not by a long shot, Mr. High and Mighty! So don't go thinking you're the only one who's had a tough break. I've had my share too."

Just a few days ago I would have cowered at Miesha's shaking finger. But it's not a few days ago. How could she possibly compare anything she's been through to what I've been through? So she lost her job. She has no family. I have nothing. Nothing. Not even a legal identity in this world I've been dumped into. How dare she compare her problems to mine? I look at her, keeping my face expressionless. Her eyes are still fixed on mine. "Really, Miesha? What's been so tough for you? Tell me. I'm listening."

Her shoulders lower in retreat and she turns back around. "None of your business."

"Figures." The silence is uncomfortable, but I fight to keep myself from filling it. Let her squirm. I stare at the back of her head. I don't need to feel guilty.

The seconds tick past, and I wonder if Dot feels the tension too, but then I see in the mirror that she is smiling--the biggest, toothiest smile I have seen on her yet. "A newfangled body? You've got a newfangled body? Oh, boy, will I ever have a story to tell now."