Twinmaker

75

HOPE RETURNED IN a flood, tempered with a fear that someone would notice before the fabber fully processed its data. Clair didn’t know what it was making, but she could guess.

One custom chip built from scratch in a booth. One transmitter to widen the bandwidth.

The fabber opened with a chirpy ping. Inside was something small and angular, about the size her little finger. She reached in and picked it up.

“Clair?” Mallory asked. Clair could hear the woman’s light footsteps approaching.

A simple menu appeared in her lenses. It gave her two options: connect or disconnect. She chose the former. A status update appeared that said locating, with a pulsing dot indicating some kind of activity. Locating her, Clair presumed. Wallace’s private network could have taken her anywhere. Until the transmitter connected with Q, Clair remained on her own.

Clair tucked the transmitter behind her back as Mallory stepped into the cubicle.

“I still have a couple of minutes,” Clair told her.

“Show me what you just fabbed.” Mallory punctuated the order with a twitch of her pistol’s barrel.

“I can’t,” said Clair. “I drank it.”

She gestured at the empty coffee mug Jesse had left in the alcove, thankful for once that he didn’t have the habits of a normal person. Anyone else would have recycled it in the fabber without a thought.

Mallory gestured with the pistol again. She didn’t look convinced.

Locating, said the status update.

Clair stepped through the entranceway, back into the office.

“Stop there.” Mallory backed into the alcove, keeping the pistol aimed at her, and touched the mug with her free hand.

“It’s cold.”

“That’s how I like it.”

Mallory put both hands on the pistol grip and herded Clair back into the office.

Clair obeyed, wondering why Q was taking so long to find her. How far from New York was she?

“Hold out your arms,” Mallory said. “Wider.”

The transmitter was tucked into the waist of Clair’s pants. If Mallory searched her, she was bound to find it.

“I want to talk to Wallace,” she said. Anything to distract her.

“Not until I’m sure it’s safe. Legs apart.”

“You think I’m going to attack him with coffee?”

Signal found.

“Clair! Can you hear me? Is it really you?”

The voice came clearly through her ear-rings. Q sounded relieved, excited, and very close.

“Yes!” Clair bumped back. She didn’t dare mouth the words as she normally would. Mallory was too close, running her hands along and under her arms. Even from behind she might notice. “Really!”

“Oh! I was so worried. I knew that dupe wasn’t you. Do you know where you are?”

“Private d-mat booth. Can you see it?”

“Yes. I have access to all the station’s systems.”

“Activate it. Change the pattern. Get rid of Libby.”

“Send her somewhere else?”

“Don’t care. Before she finds the transmitter!”

Mallory was checking her legs, moving upward. Clair was out of time.

Hoping it was impossible for someone to perform a body search while simultaneously holding a gun, Clair chopped her right elbow downward as hard as she could, striking Mallory on the side of the skull.

Mallory fell backward with a cry. Clair staggered a step too, clutching her elbow. She had never done anything like that before. She was amazed by how much it hurt.

There wasn’t time to worry about the pain. Mallory was fumbling at her pocket for the pistol. Clair braced herself and kicked as soon as the gun came up to point at her. The pistol shot out of Mallory’s hand and skittered across the room. Clair lunged for it with her left hand, wishing she’d had the forethought to elbow Mallory with that arm. She was right-handed.

Mallory came after her but not quickly enough. Clair was on her feet, holding the gun. There was no need for an autotargeting system this time. From that distance, even with her left hand, Clair could have shot Mallory with her eyes closed.

Mallory froze.

“You won’t.”

Clair looked into Libby’s face and saw nothing but Mallory.

“Try me.”

Mallory straightened.

“All right, then. Go on, do it.”

ssss—

The air was thinning around them as Q activated the booth.

—ssss—

“Do it, Clair! Do it!”

—pop

Clair blinked. Apart from an afterimage of Libby’s desperate, pleading face in her retinas, Mallory was gone.