In the daytime, I knew, there would be an impressive view of the surrounding woods and, when the trees were bare, the gorge below. Right now, it was just blackness and reflections of the room.
“Hey, Dad,” Claudia said.
He turned his head to look at us in the reflection of the window. It could have been my imagination, but the movement seemed odd, almost robotic. I didn’t know him well, but I could tell this was very different from his usual slouchy style. He was generally warm, easygoing, and friendly to the point of being a little goofy. Now he seemed distant and distracted.
“Hello, pumpkin,” he said. He turned his head so he was looking directly at us over his shoulder. “Oh, hello, Jimi,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Bembry.”
He nodded once and smiled. “Chris, remember?”
“Right,” I said. “Hi, Chris.”
“Is Mom home?” Claudia asked.
“In the kitchen, I believe.” Then he turned to look out the window again.
Claudia stared at him another second, looking worried. Then she turned to me. “Come on,” she said quietly.
I followed her through to the kitchen, which was almost as big as the family room, but done up in whites and grays and silvers.
Her mom was sitting on a stool at the island, reading something on a tablet with a large glass of white wine at her elbow.
Claudia stopped at the entrance to the room and leaned against the wall. “Hey, Mom.”
Her mom looked up and smiled. She looked like she had aged five years in the month or so since the last time I’d seen her. “Hi there, Claud,” she said, holding out an arm, beckoning Claudia to come closer.
As Claudia went over to her for a hug, her mom said, “Hello, Jimi. What a nice surprise.”
“Hi, Bonnie,” I said.
Claudia kissed her on the cheek.
“What have you two been up to?”
“Just hanging out,” Claudia said quickly, as if maybe she was concerned that I was going offer something a little too close to the truth. “Is it okay if Jimi stays over?”
“Of course.”
“How’s it going?” Claudia asked, tipping her head in the direction of the family room, where Chris was sitting.
Bonnie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. For an instant the façade she’d been wearing fell away, revealing a much deeper level of worry and weariness. “Okay, I guess,” she said. “Same as it’s been.”
They stood there for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. I don’t know what passed between them, but they seemed to be communicating on a level that would rival anything provided by Wellplants.
We got some lemonade and hummus and chips and went upstairs to Claudia’s room.
She flicked on the holovid, and a movie that I was pretty sure was still in theaters came on—obviously courtesy of some super-premium holo-channel. Neither of us watched it, though.
“See what I mean?” she said, gesturing to the floor below us.
“Has he been like that the whole time?”
“Pretty much. I mean, he was totally out of it at first, right after he got spiked. But since then, yeah. And my mom is totally freaked out, too, which means I’ve pretty much lost both of them for the time being. And he won’t even talk about it. Refuses to acknowledge there’s anything weird going on.”
“And that’s the 10.0, right?” I asked. The Wellplant 10.0 was the newest and most ambitious model yet. There had been a lot of criticism of it, rumors of bad reactions and speculation that maybe they had rushed it to market and there’d been difficulties meeting demand due to problems with raw materials—problems aggravated by what happened at Omnicare.
My understanding was that all of the 10.0 inventory was being prioritized for existing Wellplant users who wanted to upgrade. Chris must have paid someone off or used his business connections to jump the line.
“He insisted he didn’t want to start with the 9.3 and then have to upgrade.” She shrugged. “My mom didn’t know he was getting a 10. I don’t know if she would have let him if she’d known.”
“She didn’t want him to get it, either?”
“She wasn’t crazy about the idea. She was afraid of malfunctions or infections or other complications, but she knew he really wanted one and that there were all sorts of advantages.”
Claudia suddenly leaned forward, looking closer at the holovid. “Hey, that’s Sarah Chao,” she said, getting off the bed to look even closer. Sarah Chao was one of my favorite actors and had starred in three of the biggest movies in the last two years. “It’s true. She really did get a Wellplant.” Just before she said it, the image pulled in for a tight close-up, and there above her eye was a little gray glass disk. Claudia sat back on the bed, shaking her head. “Man, they are everywhere these days.”
“Seriously,” I said, staring at Sarah Chao. It seemed like just a year ago, only the superrich were getting spiked, but since then it seemed like all sorts of people were getting them. With Wells’s programs to give them to government officials and cops and whomever else, you couldn’t get away from them. Invasive Plants, I thought.
For the next half hour or so, we talked about Claudia’s dad and mom, then we got down to business, talking more about Ogden and CLAD and Earl and Melanie and Hitchcock. We both felt there was something to be concerned about, and we came up with some crazy theories, but none of them ultimately made sense.
By the time the movie was over, it was getting late and we were a bit talked out. When the next movie started, we went quiet, and we both fell asleep before the end and woke up to the credits. Claudia staggered sleepily to her feet and stretched, and for a moment her head was in the middle of the credits, words like BEST BOY and KEY GRIP appearing to slice through her skull. Then the holoplayer recalibrated and the hologram display moved back away from her.
She waved it off and climbed into bed. I climbed in next to her. By the time I was under the covers, she was already asleep. I heard her snore once, then I was asleep, too.
I woke up around two a.m., my throat parched, and I went downstairs to get a glass of water. As I walked past the family room, I saw that Chris was right where he had been earlier, in the exact same spot, the exact same position. The only difference was that I could see in the reflection of the window that his eyes were closed and his mouth slightly open.
That’s why I jumped when, without opening his eyes or turning to look at me, he said, “Hello, Jimi. Couldn’t sleep?”
“Just getting a glass of water.”
His eyes opened, looking right at me in the reflection in the window. “I see.” He stared at me for a long moment, like he was studying me, analyzing me. Then he said, “Well, don’t let me stop you.”
His eyes closed again, and he went back to whatever he had been doing.
Thoroughly creeped out, I went into the kitchen and filled a glass from the dispenser in the refrigerator. Then I stood there for a few seconds drinking it, putting off going back. When I finally did, he was gone.
I knew he was the same guy as always, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, but making my way back upstairs to Claudia’s room, through that big, unfamiliar, darkened house, I was scared like a little kid, afraid I was going to bump into him in the darkened hallway or see him staring at me from the shadows.