Twinmaker - Шон Уильямс

TwinmakerTwinmaker - 1bySean Williams

1

THE LUCKY JUMP was all the rage that year. Clair had tried it once but had become bored after arriving at a string of destinations that seemed anything but lucky. An empty field, a theater advertising a show in a language she didnt understand, an underwater viewing platform full of noisy kids, and somewhere so wet and hot she didnt even leave the booth. Clair could get better views from home, surfing media through her lenses, and be comfortable into the bargain.

It was Libby, of course, who convinced her to give it another try.

Come on, itll be jazzy.

How exactly?

Theres this cliquethey call themselves crashlanders. Ever heard of them?

Clair shook her head. Libby was into that kind of thing, not her.

Theyre the coolest of the cool, Libby said. You wouldnt believe how popular they are. Hardly anyone can join them, but were going to.

Just like that?

Trust me, Clair. Have I led you astray before?

Plenty of times.

Come on! What about when we auditioned for the circus even though we couldnt even juggle? Or visited that hacked satellite and Ronnie threw up?

Yes, but then we got stuck at the South Pole

Youre the one who set the booth to Chinese.

Only because you dared me to try!

They laughed. That was a memorable moment. They had only gotten moving again when Clair found a friend of a friend who knew how to change the settings back.

Where did you hear about the crashlanders? Clair asked.

Through Zep. Hes not one of them, but hed like to be.

Clair just nodded. Lately she clammed up when Zeppelin Barker, Libbys boyfriend, entered the conversation.

Come on, Clair. Say yes. You always do in the end.

That was true, although she couldnt imagine it ever being jazzy to d-mat from place to place. There was no point resisting one of Libbys whims when she had her mind set on it.

All right.

Great! Ill come to your place after class. Be ready.

Clair lived in Windham, Maine, with her mother and stepfather. She and her best friend went to high school on the other side of the continent, near Sacramento Bay, California. Libby lived somewhere in SwedenClair always forgot the name, but that didnt matter. She just told the booth to take her to Libbys, and so it did.

Clair dialed a familiar outfit from the fabbers memory: navy plaid skirt and tank top, with black boots, bicycle shorts, and belt, and a navy headband in the vain hope of keeping her curly hair in line. Shed given up on ever having Libbys perfectly straight blond locks. Where she was dark, Libby was light; combine the two of them, shed often thought, and youd get someone of precisely average coloring.

Libby was running late. While she waited, Clair searched the Air for anything regarding the crashlanders. Apart from an old book with the same name, there were several peacekeeper reports concerning the new clique and its members. Founded by a woman called Alexandra Nantakarn, the clique held crashlander balls at different points around the world every night: in old missile silos, abandoned hospitals, and other ruins, often illegally. Exclusive parties in exotic locales sounded like the kind of thing Libby would be into, but there was no information on how the balls were organized or who was allowed to attend.

Before Clair could perform a more detailed search, Libby arrived, looking fashionable in white tights, silver A-line dress, bright-red leather retro Doc Martens with yellow laces, and a skull-hugging yarmulke that matched the boots but left her hair free to do what it did best. Her makeup was a wild contrast between white foundation and primary-colored lipstick and eyeliner designed to pull attention away from the brown birthmark that, despite numerous skin treatments, stretched from her left ear to her chin. Clair had given up trying to convince Libby that the mark was anything other than a minor imperfectionunlike, say, Clairs nose, which she had inherited from her birth father and hated with a blinding white-hot passion.

Come on. Libby dragged Clair out of the apartment and up the hall. Its starting.

The ball?

Exactly!

Whats the huge hurry? asked Clair, messaging her stepfather to apologize for not saying good-bye in person. Well be there in a sec.

No, we wont, because I dont know the way, Libby said, adding with an enigmatic grin: But its vitally important we get there first.

What?

Youll see. Libby pulled a makeup applicator from her pocket and touched up the pancake over her birthmark. The booths mirrored interior reflected and re-reflected thousands of Libbies and Clairs in all directions.

Libby said to the booth, I want to get lucky.

Somewhere, a machine shuffled every possible public d-mat address and selected one by chance. Instead of taking them to a destination they specified, like home or school, the booth would take them to a random point anywhere on the Earth. People used Lucky Jumps to sightsee or while away an empty afternoon. Clair had never heard of anyone using them to actually get anywhere in particular.

Bright light flared from the booths eight corners, and the air thinned around them. Clair opened her mouth from years of habit. Her sinuses strained.

sssssss

She stuck a finger in her right ear, wiggled it

pop

The lights returned to normal and the door opened.

They were on a rugged coast, looking out over choppy water under skies as gray as granite. The northwest coast of England, her lenses told her. Nowhere.

Well, this looks fun, said Clair.

Better than that thing you took me to last monththe Morris Dance Festival, whatever it was.

I was promised men in tights, conceded Clair.

And if any of them had been under seventy, maybe it would have worked out. Again, Libby told the booth. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Were not seriously going to randomly jump around until we find the ball, are we?

Thats the plan.

Its going to take us forever, said Clair. Well literally be in here forever.

Dont be such a worrywart. Just wait and see.

sssssss-pop

Red Australian desert vanished at the horizon into the endless starscape above. A nocturnal lizard crouched in the light spilling from the booth, frozen by the sudden development.

Crap, said Libby.

You can say that again.

All right, all right. Libby put her applicator in her pocket and embiggened Clairs hair with her fingers. There, perfect. Third time really lucky, please.

The door slid shut on the sight of the lizard, stolidly chewing on an insect that had been attracted by the light.

sssssss-pop

The doors opened on an utterly ordinary, utterly uninteresting Ugandan d-mat station.

Clair folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.

Libby was starting to look a little impatient herself.

Okay, I guess the surprise is ruined now. No one knows where the crashlander balls are until they happen, see? People Lucky Jump around until they find somewhere with potential and then they all converge.

Anyone can do this?

Anyone can suggest venues on the crashlander forum, but they make the final decision. And they dont let anyone come to the ball who hasnt found a venue before. You get it?

Clair did see. This wasnt just about a party. The ball was literally their ticket into the cool new clique, which in importance to Libby was right up there with the clothes she was wearing and the person she was dating. Schoolwork barely rated.

Clair piggybacked on Libbys feed from the crashlander forum and splashed its content across the infield of her lenses. Uganda vanished behind a wall of images, projected onto her retinas by contacts she had worn from birth. The forum was full of people exchanging images of suggested sites taken with their lenses. There were a lot of images.

Clair and Libby jumped twice more, without success.

This is giving me a headache, said Libby despondently, brushing her bangs back into line after the doors closed and the gale outside ebbed to a muffled scream.

Harder than you thought? Clair tried not to sound smug.

Much. Maybe we should pack it in.

Why? Weve only just started.

I thought youd be pleased.

Someone has to find a venue. It could still be us.

Not at the rate were going.

This was the way it always went. Clair didnt like giving up on anything once she got into it, and Libby was easily bored. Well just have to go faster, then. Booth? Again, please.

sssssss-pop

Clair was seeing the fun of it, now. There was the challenge of finding the right place entirely by chance, combined with finding it before anyone else did. The odds for the former were lowthere were tens of millions of d-mat booths in the world, after all, maybe hundreds of millionsbut that made the odds of being the first to any one of them higher. Clair figured it canceled out.

And if they found the place, they would be crashlanders. They would be cool, and Zep would come to them, because he was as much a publicity hound as Libby. That incentive she kept carefully to herself.

Their seventeenth Lucky Jump put them in the middle of what looked like an abandoned industrial complex somewhere high up, judging by Clairs unpopped ear and the instant chill against her skin. She stepped out and looked around, skeptical.

Booths ancient, said Libby, circling it with a look of profound dissatisfaction. It was an outmoded model, square, with a single round-edged door opening out of each white face. Just four transits at a time. Itd be a total bottleneck.

Could work in our favoryou know, make it feel exclusive? said Clair, gazing up at thick iron girders and bulging rivets, and beyond all that, a high, domed ceiling. The floor below was empty, because industry was a thing of the past. Anything except people could be fabricated at will, as long as it had been through a d-mat booth or a fabber at some point in its existence.

Its freezing, said Libby, hugging herself, and the airs thin.

We can fab heaters, Clair said, peering through a window at the infinite quilt of mountains outside. Oxygen, too, if people need it.

Because passing out is a definite buzzkill.

Doesnt it give you a high if you breathe it pure?

Libby shrugged. Dont forget the parkas, she said. Theyre always sexy.

Clair checked the Air for details on their location. They were in Switzerland, it turned out, and the amazing building around them wasnt an old factory at all, but an abandoned astronomical research station, the Sphinx Observatory, just over two miles up on the top of a hollowed-out mountain, with an ice palace somewhere at the end of an old elevator shaft below and observation decks that had been sealed up for a decade. . . .

Clair read on with amazement. Was this place real?

Im getting a buzz, she said. Quick, take my picture.

She opened her arms, and Libby stared hard for a second while her lenses worked.

Got it, gorgeous girl. You want me to post it to the forum?

Worth a try.

You really think theyll come?

Only one way to find out.

Libbys lenses flickered in the gloom, and when Clair checked the crashlander forum, she saw images of herself standing in the observatory spreading out into the world.

How will we know if they like it? Libby asked, worrying at her lip.

Theyll just come, I guess.

For five minutes, nothing happened. Libby kicked the floor in moody silence, hands plunged deep in the pockets of a thick woolen coat she had ordered through the booth, while Clair paced around the enormous space, refusing to give up hope. She was finding it harder, though, with every passing minute, as the cold seeped into her skin and she became aware of a faint dizziness from the thin air. Giving up, as Libby was clearly ready to do, would be a lot easier than persisting much longer. And the odds of talking to Zep were practically zero anyway, even if the party happened. . . .

The booth behind them clunked. They ran across the room to see. One of the four doors was closing. In quick succession, the remaining three closed too, and the echoing metal space was full of the hum of matter and energy spinning into new forms. Clair stopped pacing, barely able to breathe with anticipation. They were stranded, but only temporarily, and soon they wouldnt be alone. She saw the same eager alertness on Libbys face. Neither of them dared speak.

Hey, said the first person out, a lanky man in his twenties with a British accent and a swoop of yellow hair that completely covered half his face. He stared around him with one green eye wide and gleaming, and shivered. This is savage.

You like it? asked Libby.

Maybe. Wheres the telescope?

Dont know, said Clair. We havent looked yet.

He wandered off to explore. The door he had come through was already closing, processing someone else.

The second door opened, admitting another young man in a thick, furred overcoat, who simply ran across the room to the nearest window and gasped with something that might have been excitement or alarm. It was hard to tell. The view through the window went a long way down.

Libby looked at Clair, who shrugged.

The third potential partygoer was a girl with Thai features and a South American accent.

Are you Liberty Zeist? she asked Clair.

No, I am, said Libby.

And you want to be a crashlander.

Uh, obviously. We both do.

Havent you heard that all the good sites have been taken?

Libby looked at Clair in frustration. Clairs heart sank. All their jumping and standing around in the cold had been for nothing. If the crashlanders had already been here, that meant no ball and no Zep.

Just messing with you, said the woman with a grin. This is a great find. Congratulations.

She produced three beers from her backpack and tossed one each to Libby and Clair. The third she opened.

What are you waiting for? Its time to party.

But how do you know? Libby asked. Doesnt there have to be a vote or something?

Democracy is so twentieth century. Besides, the queue for the booth is thirty deep already. Id say the decisions been made. The woman grinned and raised her can in salute. Xandra Nantakarn. Welcome to the crashlanders.

Clair turned to Libby and saw the delight she felt mirrored on her best friends face. They whooped and high-fived and toasted each others brilliance with their gifted beers.

2

ANYONE IN THE world over fifteen years of age could solo jump. Anyone over eighteen could consume alcohol. For the crashlanders, and for seventeen-year-olds like Clair and Libby, that was a winning combination.

For the next hour, people arrived singly or in pairs, four times every three minutesthe fastest the old booth could cycle. Most brought supplies with them. Before long the cold metal space of the old observatory was transformed by inflatable couches, radiant heaters, multicolored spotlights, and even sparklers and other small fireworks. Food and drink flowed in ever-growing quantities. Eventually, someone brought a whole fabber through, so there was no more waiting for the old booth to cycle to see what came next.

Clair helped herself to a handful of warm roasted chickpeas and another beer and followed Libby through the crowd, syncing her lenses and ear-rings to the media enjoyed by whatever cluster she was closest to. Two separate dance parties were forming at opposite ends of the cavernous space, one swaying to cruise music with a syncopated Spanish beat, the other jerking and twitching to harsh, atonal synth. Libby migrated from one to the other with willful unpredictability, drawn by the attention of those around her.

Super crashlanding, Libby.

Outrageous space, Libby.

Libby, how did you find it?

Sometimes they thought Clair was Libby because of the photo Libby had posted to the forum. Libby corrected them, then accepted their admiration. Not once did she say that it was Clair who had made her post the picture. The beer in Clairs stomach soured slightly: Libby would have bailed on the site in a second. But what could Clair say? Besides, she wouldnt have been there at all but for Libbys insistence. They were both crashlanders now. It evened out, like their complexions.

There was no sign of Zep, even though Libby must have invited him: boyfriends or girlfriends were allowed, Clair had learned, whether they were officially crashlanders or not.

Then, ninety minutes into the ball, a metallic crash came from the booth. Both Libby and Clair spun around in alarm, fearing some kind of accident or breakdown that would bring the still-growing party to an end. The doors had opened on a delivery of oxygen canisters that went right up to the booths ceiling. Canisters spilled out in a noisy silver flood across the floor, disgorging an achingly handsome young man from their midst.

Clairs breath hitched in her throat.

Zep! Libby rushed forward to help him to his feet. He was long, lean, and tanned, wearing a translucent red-check shirt with a white wifebeater underneath and holding an oxygen bottle in each hand. His grin was infectious. People cheered, whether they knew him or not.

For medicinal purposes only, now, he said, taking a long pull on one of the bottles and handing the other to a random stranger. If symptoms of altitude sickness persist, please seeoh, hey, Libs.

Clair was excited to see him, but she averted her eyes as he and Libby locked lips. The way Libby pulled his blond head down to hers left no illusion as to who belonged to whom.

One of the bottles knocked against Clairs left boot. She raised it to her mouth to take a hit of cool clarity. It didnt help her light-headedness, though. It wasnt oxygen she craved, and it didnt ease the guilty ache in her heart at all. She turned her back on the tableau and moved away.

Hey, Clair-bear, Zep called after her. Wait up

She wandered on her own for a bit, not going so far as to deliberately avoid the happy couple but enjoying being among people she didnt know except as names and captions in her lenses. There were day-trippers in feathery cloaks and gothic moonwalkers in black and silvertwo migratory groups who never normally met, since they occupied different hemispheres, day and night. The crashlanders had united them, as the ball united all races, types, and sexual orientations. Clair flirted a bit, flattered and embarrassed at the same time by the men and women who approached her, but her heart wasnt in it.

She moved on. It was getting crowded and increasingly hard to hear anything over the excited shouting and singing. There were a lot of nosebleeds from the altitude, but that didnt seem to dent anyones desire to party. She wondered what would happen if someone got really hurt. Would the peacekeepers come to shut the ball down? Clair took some guilty comfort from the thought that if trouble did break out, Libby would get the blame, just like she took all the credit.

Hey, said someone, I think that Zep guy is looking for you.

You mean Libby, she said, beginning to get a little tired of her perpetually mistaken identity. Im Clair, the other one.

Oh, okay, sorry.

She headed for the nearest lookout, which was colder but had a spectacular view. A pair of unexpectedly familiar faces stood out from the crowdfashionably bespectacled Ronnie and blue-haired Tash, friends from school. The girls drew her into their corner, where they hugged and kissed her and danced with her to a song they had been sharing. Clair felt her mood bounce back. The emotional knock of seeing Zep with Libby couldnt endure in the face of her friends determined good cheer. They were at a crashlander ball! What wasnt exciting about that?

As the song wound down, Tash explained that they had scored invites when friends of friends responded sympathetically to their urgent need to attend. Libbys Air-wide announcement that she and Clair had made it in had prompted a rush of interest from their high school. Ronnie and Tash were the lucky ones.

Then Libby joined them, bursting out of the crowd with her hair plastered across her forehead, darkened with sweat.

This was a great idea, Clair confessed to her, feeling flushed and sticky. Im glad we did it.

Told you I never let you down. Have you seen Zep?

No . . . but hes looking for you.

Why dont you bump him? asked Ronnie.

The Airs so jammed in here, Libby said. I cant get anyone.

Well, he wont have gone home, said Clair. Hed never leave a scene like this.

Why would he? Libby took a pull on Clairs beer. Everyones so totally gorgeous.

That guy over there in the purple suit, said Tash, pointing surreptitiously, hes someone, isnt he?

If he isnt, he should be. Ronnie pursed her lips in a silent whistle. Oh, and lookhes with that amazing redhead we spotted earlier.

Clair glanced around and saw a couple leaning shoulder-to-shoulder in the nearest doorway. His eyes were perfect almonds, golden-irised like an owls. Her hair swept up to golden points in a fiery wave. Clairs hands came up automatically to touch her thick curls.

Theyre too fantastic to be real, she said. Who are they?

Dont know, said Tash with yearning in her voice. Their profiles are locked.

I put a trawler on their images, said Ronnie, but so far Im just getting junk. Whoever they are, theyre hiding deep in the noise.

Who hides at a party like this? asked Libby. Clair could only guess how often shed checked her own popularity stats to see how high theyd risen.

Spies? suggested Tash.

Youve been watching old movies again, said Ronnie.

Terrorists? asked Clair. Art prankers? Spammers?

How many beautiful criminals do you know?

Maybe theyre advertising Improvement, said Tash.

Ronnie laughed. Why not? That makes as much sense as anything else.

Clair didnt get the joke.

Whats Improvement?

A dumb new meme, said Ronnie. I got an invite this morning and deleted it immediately.

I got one this afternoon, said Tash. Check your infield, Clair. You might have been selected while you were here, you lucky thing, you.

Clair did check, and found the message exactly where Tash had suggested. It had come forty-five minutes earlier. She read the opening lines:

You are special.

You are unique.

And you have been selected.

It does sound like spam, she said.

Read it all, said Ronnie. Its a classic.

Clair skimmed ahead. The idea was to write a series of code words on a piece of paper, of all things, with a description of what you wanted to change about yourselfheight, intelligence, good looks, whatever; then you hid it under your clothes and took it with you through d-mat. Do this enough times, the invite said, and whatever you wish for will come true.

Keep this a secret.

You deserve it.

Not even a sixth grader would fall for those last two lines, would they? said Tash, adopting a fake voice. No one but you is special enough to receive this message, which we probably sent to everyone in the whole world. Yeah, right.

It cant be real, said Clair, approaching the issue from a more practical angle. Itd be illegal, for starters.

Absolutely, said Ronnie. You just cant change patterns like that. But writing it down makes it seem real, like a spell from a fairy talesomething that ought to work, even though its impossible.

Nothings impossible, said Libby. Things go wrong. This afternoon my fabber mixed up my makeupI asked for thirteen and it gave me a thirty-one. Whats to stop a booth from mixing a person up as well?

Maybe you asked for the wrong skin tone, said Ronnie.

I didnt. You think I havent done this a thousand times before?

Lets not argue about some stupid meme, said Tash. Were perfect as we are. Whod want to change?

Theres always something, said Ronnie.

Like what? Tash asked with a grin. Being such a know-it-all?

Pfft. Legs and lungs so I could run a marathon. What about you?

Bikini line, no question. Clair?

Uh . . . Clair would have chosen her nose, but she wasnt playing that game. Behind her sweat-thinned makeup, Libbys birthmark had turned a deeper shade, as though it was blushing on her behalf.

My invite came yesterday, Libby said. I did it. I used Improvement.

Why the hell? said Ronnie.

Just in case, okay? She looked sheepish but her jaw had a defiant set. The note says it takes a while. Maybe I havent d-matted enough yet for it to take effect.

You could d-mat for a year and it wouldnt make a difference, said Ronnie. Listen

Tash put a hand on Ronnies arm, silencing her. Tash looked mortified, probably by the memory of her own sixth grader comment.

No one even notices your birthmark, she said.

Its true, said Clair. Youre the only one it bothers.

I notice it, Libby said. It does bother me.

We love you no matter what, said Ronnie, and you know Zep will, too.

Clair nodded a little too hard.

I think Zeps seeing someone else, Libby said.

The resulting chorus of outrage drove all thoughts of Improvement from the conversation.

Details! Ronnie demanded, but there were none for Libby to relate, really, just a feeling of distance, of pulling back, that she was certain of but couldnt explain.

Gut trumps heart, said Tash. I always knew he was too good to be true.

He wasnt good enough, said Ronnie.

Agreed, said Clair. Why would anyone cheat on you, Libby?

Libby shot Clair a look that was unlike anything Clair had ever seen from her best friend before. It was challenging and vulnerable at the same time. This was a Libby Clair barely recognized.

She knows, Clair thought. Oh God, she knows.

But how could she? There wasnt really anything to know. That was the thought Clair had alternately reassured and tormented herself with since it had happened, or not happened, depending on how you looked at it. After an ordinary night hanging out and mucking around at Libbys place, wherever in Sweden, Zep had walked Clair to the booth on the ground floor and kissed her good night. A simple good-night peck on the lips no different from any other in the pastexcept this time maybe it went on an instant longer than normal, and maybe something new crackled between them, and maybe Zep felt it too, whatever it was, because he hesitated before getting into the booth and zapping off to the Isle of Shanghai, leaving her reeling with the unprompted and unwanted thought that maybe he was dating the wrong girl.

It should be you, that thought said. Not Libby. Only it wasnt a thought. It was a feeling so deep in her gut, she couldnt fish it out. It was snagged in her, interfering with everythingschool, her friendships, even her sleep.