Con Code Read online

  “That’s ridiculous,” Ace says.

  “You’re not keen on being saved, but you were drowned in that upside-down dome until I broke our sphere and saved you.” I rub my cheek. “You punched me in the face as a thank you.”

  “I don’t think she’s making this up,” Miller says.

  “I’m not,” I say.

  “I’ve never been in the game.” Ace throws his hands in the air. “Is this some kind of joke?” He points to the broken window again. “You think you’re funny?” Ace pivots on one foot, making a visual check of the elevator like he wants to make sure it’s still there.

  “Didn’t your family continue to fund the program because after your brother developed the software, he became a donor?” Miller asks.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Ace asks.

  “I mean if the donors get to pick their own Avatar image…?” Miller doesn’t have to say more. I’ve figured out my mistake. Though the Ace look-alike doesn’t seem to be connecting the dots at first. Slowly he nods, then closes his eyes and stays this way for an uncomfortable space of time.

  “We didn’t speak when he deployed,” fake Ace says. “Did you know that?” He asks the question like a challenge. “I thought he hated me for how I fought him on enlisting in that stupid war.” He waits. Maybe he expects one of us to say something, but we’re silent. “Everyone knew who’d win. The Intercontinents had all the resources. Those with the most resources always win.”

  “Who did your brother fight with?” I ask.

  Both men stare at me like I’m imbecilic. Apparently, everyone knows this guy’s family drama, and I don’t, which means I’m an idiot. Maybe I am because I should have continued to not ask questions. A smart person would have remained silent and let the dude monologue.

  “I can’t remember,” I shout as if an emotional outburst will excuse my lack of knowledge of human world history. I could have spent the last weeks downloading news and current events, but I’ve been too preoccupied with how to recover my friends’ files and cover my fake human butt.

  “Ace fought with the Intercontinents.” He extends a stiff blade of a hand for me to shake. “I’m Mav, the brother who fought with the Outer-losers.”

  “Your brother? Ace?” I don’t know this person in front of me, even though every part of me feels like he’s familiar with every one of my flaws. I cross an arm across my body like I’m covering up. I feel exposed all the way to my vital organs, even though I’ve never met this man before today, and he doesn’t know how many times I shot the kid. “And he looks exactly like you. Like exactly.”

  “Not even close,” he says.

  “But names aren’t used in the game,” Miller says. “How would you know the name of Mr. Pierson’s brother?”

  And now I have to focus on covering my fake human butt again. I knew if I opened my mouth I’d say something damaging. There is no way I can explain to them that we all died in the game, took over the zombie holding zone, and named ourselves just to stick it to the remaining legitimate players.

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “Lots of players used names. And nicknames.” I have no idea if they’re buying what I’m saying. I’m staring at them while still trying to come up with what else I can throw out there to sell this crap I’m telling them. “It’s sort of a thing to get a nickname. Like I knew Ace.” I nod to Ace’s brother, Mav. “Tony and Ed, and Silva, and John, Lily, and Tech-chick…” Without meaning to, I’ve named all the players that matter to me in the game. “Just to name a few.”

  “Why haven’t you mentioned any of this earlier?” Miller asks. “This changes so much.” He scratches an already red spot on his neck.

  “You named yourselves?” Mav asks. “Tech-chick though? Really? That’s not much of a nickname or a name.”

  “Meh,” I say, not sure how I feel about her. She wasn’t terrible.

  “I wish we hadn’t allowed the program files to be deleted after one upload,” Miller comments. Which is weird, because Miller and I both know the files aren’t completely deleted. I have a copy.

  Mav’s eyes widen. “What?” He pushes me aside, no longer interested in the novelty that I mistook his brother for him. Matter explained, don’t care anymore. “You deleted my brother?”

  “It wasn’t my call,” Miller says.

  “You lost his intake paperwork, can’t explain to me why there is no tracking information on donor progress or percentage match, which I was guaranteed information on when I agreed to my family funding this project. How many more failures can you brush under the rug?”

  Me. I hope…

  “He had all the necessary skills to be the perfect match,” Mav says. “It should have been him.”

  If I could crawl out of that hall, I would, but it’s super distracting with the way I shift from a stand to a crawl. Not only that, crawling itself is a fairly complicated movement for me as I’m still learning how to control this body. Unsure what kind of trouble I’m already in, I slip my hand into my pocket and wrap my fingers around the data stick containing the donor files still active in the game after I uploaded. I want to magically download the information into my personal memory banks but have no means of plugging the stick into myself, as far as I’m aware. I want to keep it for me, just me, but I also have a sense that I need this Mav on my side.

  “Does it help if I saved this?” I hold up the stick.

  “What’s that?” Mav asks.

  Miller’s eyes go wide at the sight of my digital device. His trust is a fragile cup I continue to spill. Whatever his reasoning for lying to Mav about the existence of this disk, I’ve taken that and a smidge of power from him by revealing my hand.

  “When I heard Spaulding give the techs an order to wipe the program, so they could reset it for a new batch of donors, I panicked,” I say. “I grabbed the nearest device I could and plugged it into the computer. I made a copy of the donor codes.” I’m not even sure what I have a copy of. Does a copy of a donor make it a clone? I have no clue about logistics and semantics regarding digital intelligence transfers and exact identity.

  Mav stares at me. “How did you do this?”

  “Instinct, I guess. I needed to save them.”

  Mav has a hand up like he’s going to reach for the data files but doesn’t touch it. “You saved the files?”

  “I tried,” I say. “I copied everything I could.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” he asks.

  Miller stands as silent witness to our conversation.

  “I’m not sure what I can do.” It’s true. The program was designed to upload only the intelligence that fit the vessel prepared to receive it. In my case, artificial intellect. “They’re trapped, I think.” I slide the device back into my pocket carefully, like every movement I subject the stick to causes catastrophic damage to those digitally frozen inside.

  Mav lowers his voice for once. No longer on high alert, defense, ready to fight, mode. “What did they call you?” he asks.

  “Jennie,” I say.

  Miller has his eyes on my pocket, as though he can see through the fabric to the device inside. It feels like he’s about to tell me that I can’t have the name Jennie anymore because donors aren’t supposed to use names, or nicknames, or any identifiers beyond source codes inside the game. Except, instead of a reprimand, “We’re going to Ecuador,” is what comes out of his mouth. Surprising Mav and me both. “Like a technology summit for donor programs.”

  Mav shifts his weight off the forward lean brought on when I pulled out the disk of donor files. He crosses his arms as he leans away from Miller and me, like he needs space to size us up. I mean, I did just shatter a huge picture window over the top of his head, but whatever. I still say leaning away is a little overdramatic. “Okay.”

  “You can come,” Miller says. “Say you’ll pull the funding if they don’t include you, and then we can see if there is a way to extract the information on that drive.” He nods to my pocket.

  I p
ut a hand over the slot at the top of the opening protectively. There’s no way I’m handing my friends over to strangers. I shouldn’t have told them. “No.”

  “Yes,” Mav says in conjunction with my no. “I’m coming with you.”

  “One more thing,” Miller says.

  “What’s that?”

  Miller nods to me. “We can’t identify this donor.”

  “What do you mean? She’s Jennie.” I want to smile at Mav, but also hide, because I feel like he’s an idiot, but an idiot who can put together why they can’t figure out who I am. I don’t think this guy has a shot to figure out every other simplistic mystery on earth, but this one thing feels like it’s his to solve.

  “No donors uploaded,” Miller reveals. I cringe because there it is. Right there. He’s said it plain as day. “The program glitched and didn’t show which donor. The files were wiped before anyone realized the problem.”

  “No one knows who this is?” Mav asks.

  “Right.”

  “But she remembers being in the game. She remembers people.”

  I’m not sure when it changed during our conversation, but I like that Mav is calling me ‘she’ instead of ‘it’. At least until he decides a computer Frankenstein is most likely an ‘it’ after all.

  “Yes, well… None of us realized that until she broke the window.” Miller points to the broken window frame.

  “Did you ask her?” Mav asks, like this is the simplest thing to solve and we’re wasting time not being in Ecuador already.

  “Jennie?” Dr. Miller asks me. “Do you remember who you are outside the game?”

  “Nope,” I say, totally relieved that this is his method of double checking. “Don’t know.”

  Mav scrunches his forehead again and I feel like he can see me lying like a tattoo on my left arm. “But you remember your code, right?” he asks.

  I look at Dr. Miller for help, like perhaps he has some master plan for passing me off as legit, but he waits for me to answer too. “No,” I say. “Sorry. No.”

  “What was Ace’s code?”

  I blink, glad I genuinely don’t know and thought to blink like a real human might when they don’t know something. I hope I’m not overdoing it. I look up at the black bubble on the ceiling and imagine Spaulding staring intently. Trying to make sense of our drawn-out conversation. It literally makes no sense, so it’s pretty funny to imagine him trying.

  “Ace. I’m talking about Ace,” Mav says. “What’s his source code?”

  “GenAK.” I almost spout off his numbers up to where his sleeve usually covered the rest of his code. And then I realize I let myself be distracted thinking about Spaulding not being in control and how I can’t wait to see his face when Mav tells him he’s coming to Ecuador and let one thing slip. I remember source codes or at least GenCodes.

  Miller narrows his eyes like he’s lost the ability to open them or his trust completely toward me anymore. “Jennie, you said you could not remember any codes from within the game.”

  I drag my eyes from the camera bubble and stare toward Dr. Miller like a child caught in a lie. “I, uh… think seeing Ace, I mean his brother, maybe…sparked my memory.”

  The next days are spent planning, prepping, packing—with added Mav presence. He watches as the techs deliver lesson after lesson about how to appear and behave more humanly. Excitement over travel plans only increases the time devoted to me pulling off a decent ‘human’ act.

  Miller and Mav both choose not to press my convenient memory regarding source codes and donors. It’s as though Dr. Miller has changed warmth toward me, much more Dr. now than Miller. I’m no longer his pet or his child. I liked the feeling of his claim on me. It’s different than Spaulding and how he wants to plaster his name on things and then hold them up and out in other people’s faces. Miller would never do that. He puts his name on things because he doesn’t want to lose them or he doesn’t want other people to take them without asking.

  With plans to leave for Ecuador set, it’s still days before even the hint of leaving can surface beyond the building’s walls. The crowds outside continue to march up and down the sidewalks, parade up the steps, and jostle signs with varying outrage. There have been rumors of more bottle bombs. No one has to spread rumors about tear gas. The last incident was this morning and it definitely plays a part in the current state of ‘relative calm’.

  “Don’t stand there. Work on your movements,” Abby remarks. She’s with me in the room, supposedly teaching me how to act during travel situations while riffling through more donor files. To demonstrate what I’m to do, Abby motions her arms up and down coaxing me to stand and sit like a puppet.

  I sit and stand as smoothly as possible. Not to please her, or any of them for that matter. I want to blend in for my own reasons. To melt into the crowd outside. Find Tony’s family and Ed. Even Tech-chick.

  The team remains determined to decipher my origins before we leave. There’s also the problem of the crowds outside. No matter how much I hope to blend, I walk as though I’m built entirely out of rusty door hinges. And the humans down there aren’t the type to wait for explanations regarding my walk or weird speech sounds. Police arrest anyone who throws bottles at the building. Forty individuals have been arrested so far. And that’s just the east window numbers. The protesters extend around the entire building, bottles at the ready.

  Maybe that’s the reason our travel plans hesitate. After several days, the flame bottles are unpleasant memories. The television continues to cover news about Ecuador and how the Intercontinents prove their power and influence even after winning the war. Every news station has some spin about how “Evolutionary advancements, once again, blossom off the Ecuadorian coast.”

  “Like they won the war,” Mav says behind me. He’s been spending more and more time with our ragtag group, asking prying questions about his brother as though he’s testing me about whether or not I really know Ace. When really, he’s the one who doesn’t know his brother. Mav has no way to fact check all the lies I’m feeding him whenever he asks. Today, however, he has me off guard. I’m currently under the impression the Intercontinents are the resounding winners of the war over resource control.

  The blinds rattle shut from how fast I pull my hand back. “Didn’t they?”

  Ben flaps his pile of papers against the doctor’s bench shrouded in sitting paper. “How do you know nothing?”

  “She’s got amnesia, Ben.” Abby defends me, but it doesn’t sound like a defense. More like a joke.

  “The war was over before the first donors were uploaded.” Gordon pipes in, as though he’s the savior of what would have been a verbal massacre, despite the fact his statement only fills my core-processor-brain with more questions.

  “But Mav said they didn’t win the war,” I say. “Just now. He said that.”

  “No. He said, ‘as if they won,’ like they didn’t accomplish it themselves,” Ben huffs at me, but his words still don’t make sense.

  “That means they didn’t win the war.” I run the sentence over in my mind seven more times to be sure of myself because no one else is making sense and I’m sick of Ben calling me not smart. I am smart. As a matter of fact, I can store more book knowledge in my system in one day than all of the techs could read their entire lives, if they read straight through all their waking hours. “You said they didn’t accomplish it. And Mav said if I’m quoting exactly, ‘like they won the war’, inferring that they did not win the war.” I wait for someone to jump in to clarify for me, other than stupid Ben, but no one does. Not that they look baffled by my logic. They look sorry for me. Like I’m too infantile to understand. But they’re not explaining themselves well. “Is the war not over?”

  “No,” Ben says.

  “It’s not,” I affirm.

  “No!” Ben raises his voice. He takes short breaths like there isn’t time to inhale deeply and explain anything clearly at once. “I mean no, the war is over. No, you’re wrong. No, you don’t get
it. No, there’s no point in explaining anything to you.”

  “Stop it, Ben,” Gordon says as if I need him to defend me. To clarify, I do not.

  “Don’t you see what a waste this is?” Ben points at me. I’m the waste? He throws his file filled with donor information to the rigid tile floor. The pages slide and scatter—a life lost under a bolted bench and cupboard gaps. “This is more than amnesia. It’s like she’s an empty shell and has no experience of human life. She’s an abomination that should be aborted, not supported.” Ben recites the words written on several protest signs outside the building.

  If my synthetic skin was capable of going pale, it would be right now. Everything tightens around my appendages, like moving might rip my coverings, and a tingle surges along my entire body—out from my spinal cord connection to every end of me and then back like I’m firing information, but don’t know what to do with it. If Abby told me to sit right now, I’m certain I’d explode.

  “Don’t be absurd,” Gordon says. I apologize in my head for dismissing his help earlier. I do need him. “She’s in early transplant stages. There’s bound to be glitches.” He points to the large screen on the wall, the one that displayed game information when I woke up. The techs were tracking leaderboards and other priority data at the time. “The game was riddled with so many glitches, if she came out of it perfectly fine, I’d be worried.”

  “You’re such a suck-up, Gordo. Grow a pair and admit she’s unnatural and wrong.” Ben invades Gordon’s personal space.

  “That’s enough!” Abby shouts. “This isn’t the time, Ben.” The look on Ben’s face is more than being told to stand down, it’s heartache and betrayal. Did he expect Abby to back him up? If I’m being honest, I sort of expected her to be on Ben’s side, even if his side was, ‘My foot is the capital of the world.’