“Wait,” she hears herself say. “You’re safe. I’m in a private setting—and I’ll add another level of security. Hold on. Okay? Just—wait a minute.” She briefly closes her eyes, then opens them again. “There, see? I’m offline, secure and encrypted. Full private mode. All right?”
The confusion in his eyes tells her that he has absolutely no idea what in Heaven and Hell she’s talking about. He opens his mouth, looks for a moment as though he might ask her to explain—and then he turns and runs at breakneck speed towards the swamp, away from her.
“Wait!” Ever cries, indignant. “I said, wait!”
She’s at his side in an instant, faster than she knew she could move, particularly with her foot, which rebukes her with another chiding stab of pain. She ignores it, more interested in the boy than in her stupid foot. The Original boy seems shaken by Ever’s sudden proximity. His eyes, inches from her own, are two round dark spheres. She revels in his fear—someone is scared of me—but at the same time, she wants to comfort him.
How the hell do you do comfort someone?
Impulsively, she grabs his shoulder. He flinches and drops the thick wooden water bucket, which rolls away from him. She releases her grip, and he takes a step back, but doesn’t run. Exhaling, Ever eases her approach, lightly touching a finger to his arm, consciously making sure not to use her port finger.
“You’re hot,” the boy says, looking with surprise at her warm, slender fingers.
“Yes,” Ever agrees.
The boy swallows, steels himself, locks eyes with her. “Are you here with an eviction?”
“What? Oh!” She laughs. This poor Original has mistaken her for some sort of button-pushing incorporation official. “No, I’m… not involved with that.”
He eases, a little. “Are you… is anyone else with you?”
“No, I just…” Ever allows herself a little smile, and tells the truth: “I ran away.”
“Ran away?”
“That’s right. And so like I said, I’m off the radar. I’m in private mode—right to privacy, you know? The Limited Autonomy Act? Never mind. Just… just don’t worry. No one knows where I am, or that I’m talking to you now. So you don’t have to be scared.”
“I’m not scared,” he snaps, and then adds, hesitantly: “But what’s private mode? Limited auto…?”
“Oh.” She searches for the simplest explanation. She never had to describe Syn structure to anyone. The knowledge of it is embedded in everyone she knows, as built-in as breathing or scratching an itch. How do you explain breathing to someone without lungs? “It’s complicated.”
The boy frowns. “I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were stupid—fine, okay,” Ever says. “Limited Autonomy is a… protected right. Private mode, well, that’s… I mean, it’s … you know. A basic function.”
“Function.”
“You… you do know how Syns… how we…?”
“I know how you work,” he says defensively. And then, more slowly, more honestly: “I mean, I know you’re… part machine.” He stops speaking, as if worried that this statement might offend her. It doesn’t. So he continues, encouraged, seeming almost proud of the small scraps of knowledge he has about her kind: “You don’t get old and die like we Originals do. You have cures for your sicknesses. But you need to be near electricity. And heat can… damage you?”
“Yes,” Ever admits, noticing again the thin film of perspiration covering her. She wipes her brow, trying to be delicate about it, hoping the boy doesn’t notice how sweaty she is.
“You’re sweating a lot,” he says. So he did notice.
“Yeah, well, so are you.” Her eyes flash irritation. Then she realizes that there is an almost-concerned quality to his question, and to his stare. “Oh. I mean—I’m fine.”
“You were… born, right?”
“Of course I was born.” What sort of idiotic question was that? Does he think she was built in some sort of factory?
“You were born an Original.”
“Of course. Yes. Everyone was.”
“But you made yourselves machines, and gave up being your Original selves—”
“We didn’t give anything up. We enhanced our Original selves.” She has never defended this before, but the way the boy is framing things pisses her off. She hates how much she sounds like her father, defending the Synthetic movement, but she can’t seem to stop herself. “We used technology to fulfill our potential. Transhumanism was—is—all about expanding, not limiting. You Originals are the ones who clung to the dark ages, choosing inevitable death over the extended life. Your people are the ones who made the stupid decision to remain inferior.”
His expression is cold, unreadable. “Inferior?”
“Yes, inferior,” Ever replies with equal ice. She is the queen of frozen delivery, even as sweat pours down her back. “Inferior, by choice. Who wants to choose death over life?”
“Not everyone had a choice. Right?”
She pauses at this statement; he’s not wrong. Not everyone was afforded the opportunity to upgrade. It cost a lot of money. But still. That wasn’t the point. She gets back on track.
“Maybe, maybe not. But the Original resistance wasn’t some noble campaign to extend the Syn option to everyone. The goal was to shut down the Syn initiative entirely—”
“If your world is so great and mine’s so inferior, why’d you run away?”
“Because everything being perfect all the time is boring as shit,” she says immediately.
This answer seems to soften him, a little. Something in his expression shifts. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well. Hope you enjoy your escape.”
He sets his chin and stubbornly turns from her, exaggeratedly looking around, apparently looking for his wayward water bucket or something. Watching him, Ever feels irritation intermingled with pity, cushioned by something else. There’s something riveting about him. His attitude, the stubbornness, his lean muscles. The way he stood up to her. His eyes—big, brown, and focused, never sliding to the side and pulling information from elsewhere, something Syns constantly do. Everything about him is right out front, surfaced. She really wants to see his eyes again.
“Ere.”
He looks back at her. She expects a retort from him, or a glare. But instead when their eyes meet, he seems just as confused and curious as she feels.
“What.” He says it flatly, a statement, not a question. “What do you want.”
You, she thinks. She wants him. She wants to touch him. She takes a step toward him, walking gingerly on her injured foot. She sees him note her uneven gait, wonder about it. She reaches out her hand. She doesn’t just want to touch him, she needs to touch him. The thought wraps itself around her; something is set in motion, or maybe it was always in motion. I’ve always been moving toward this boy, she thinks wildly, feeling crazy and certain all at once.
“I want to keep talking to you,” she says, slowly.
“Me? The inferior Original?”
“I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Well,” he says. “Good job hitting the target without