Robin Wasserman - Frozen

“The body ages,” I countered. “They say it’ll only last fifty years.”

“The body ,” Sascha said. “But now you know bodies can be replaced.”

The body would last fifty years. But brain scans could be backed up and stored securely, and bodies could be replaced. And replaced again.

I had died more than a month ago; I could live forever. Exactly like this.

Lucky me.

“They were late. Only by ten minutes, but that was weird enough. Kahn family policy: never be late. It meant an immediate disadvantage, a forfeit of the moral high ground. Still, at 10:10 a.m., I was alone in the “social lounge,” which, if the building-block architecture, hard-backed benches, and spartan white walls were any indication, was clearly intended to preclude any socializing whatsoever. I didn’t want them to come. Any of them. I hadn’t invited them, hadn’t agreed to see them… hadn’t been given a choice.

10:13 a.m.: Waiting, my back to the door, staring at the wall-length window without seeing anything but my reflection, ghosted into the glass.

10:17 a.m.: Three more ghosts assembled behind me, milky and translucent on the spotted pane. Three, not four.

Not that I’d expected Walker to show up, to pester my parents until he got an invitation to come along, to perch nervously in the backseat, his long legs curled up nearly to his chest, his back turned to Zo as he stared out the window, watching the miles roll by, suffering the Kahn family as a means to an end—to me. If he’d wanted to visit, he wouldn’t have any need to tag along with them.

If he’d wanted to visit, he already would have.

“Lia,” my father said from the doorway.

“Honey,” my mother said, in the tight, shivery voice she used when she was trying not to cry.

Zo said nothing.

I turned around.

They stood stiff and packed together, like a family portrait. One where everyone in the family hated one another but hated the photographer more. The huddle broke as they moved from the doorway, my mother and father a glued unit veering toward me, Zo’s vector angling off to a bench far enough from mine that, if she kept her head in the right position, would keep me out of her sight line altogether.

My mother held out her arms as if to hug me, then dropped them as she got within reach. They rose again a moment later; I stepped backward just in time. My father shook my hand. We sat.

My mother tried to smile. “You look good, Lee Lee.”

“This brain hates that nickname just as much as the last one.”

She flinched. “Sorry. Lia. You look… so much better. Than before.”

“That’s me. Clean, shiny, and in perfect working order.” I raised my arms over my head, clasped them together like a champ. “You’d think I was fresh off the assembly line.” I told myself I was just trying to help them relax. My mother wiped her hand across her nose, quick, like no one would notice the violation of snot-dripping protocol.

“Lia—” My father hesitated. I waited for him to snap. The unspoken rule was, we could—and should—mock our mother for her every flaky, flighty word until he deemed (and you could never tell when the decision would come down) that we had gone too far. “The doctors tell us you’re nearly ready to come home. We’re looking forward to it.”

That was it. His tone was civil. The one he used for strangers.

You did this, I thought, willing him to look at me. Not over me, not through me. And he did, but only in stolen glances that flashed to my face, then, before I could catch him, darted back to the floor, the ceiling, the window. Whatever I am now, you chose it for me.

“Zo, don’t you have something for your sister?” my mother asked.

Zo shifted her weight, then rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She dug through her bag and pulled out a long, thin rod, tossing it in my direction. “Catch.” I knocked it away before it could hit me in the face, but the body’s fingers weren’t fast enough to curl around it. The stick clattered to the floor.

“Zo!” my mother snapped.

“What? I said ‘catch.’”

I picked up the stick, turning it over and over in my hands. It was a track baton.

“We won the meet last week,” Zo muttered. “Coach wanted me to give it to you. I don’t know why.”

“We?”

My father smiled for the first time. At Zo. “Your sister’s finally discovered a work ethic.” He beamed. “She joined the track team. Already third in her division, and moving up every week, right?”

Zo ducked her head; the better to skip the fakely modest smile.

“You hate running,” I reminded her.

She shrugged. “Things change.”

“Tell us about your life here,” my mother said. “How do you spend your days? You’re not working too hard, are you?”

I shook my head.

“And you’re getting enough to—” She cut herself off, and her face turned white before she could finish her default question: You’re getting enough to eat?

“Ample power supply around here,” I said, tapping my chest and noting the way her smile tightened around the corners. “My energy converter and I are just soaking it in.”

I wish I could say I wasn’t trying to be mean.

She didn’t ask any more questions. Instead she talked. Aunt Clair was helping design a new virtual-museum zone with a focus on early twenty-first-century digital photography. Great-uncle Jordan had come through his latest all-body lift-tuck without a scratch, literally, since the procedure had worn away that nasty scar he’d gotten skateboarding in the exquisitely lame Anti-Grav Games, which, it turned out, were actually full-grav, anti-knee-pad. Our twin cousins, Mox and Dix, were outsourcing themselves to Chindia—Mox had snagged an internship at some Beijing engineering firm and Dix would do biotech research for a gen-corp in Bombay. Last I’d seen them, Dix had “accidentally” broken Zo’s wrist in a full-contact iceball fight, and Mox had tried to make out with me. Second cousins, he argued, so it was okay. Bon voyage, boys.

Then there was our parents’ best friend, Kyung Lee, who was having trouble with his corp-town, the workers who lived there rioting for better med-tech, something about a biotoxin that had slipped through the sensors. Kyung was afraid if things didn’t calm down soon, he might have to ship them all back to a city and hire a whole new crop, although the threat of that, according to my mother, should be enough to settle anyone.

As the half-hour mark passed, I tuned out. After another twenty minutes my father stood up, giving his pants a surreptitious brush, like he wanted to shed himself of the rehab dirt lest it soil the seat of his car. A new car, according to my mother. After all, I’d ruined the last one.

“This has been a lot of excitement for you today, Lia,” he said politely. “You must be tired.”

I didn’t get tired anymore. I only shut down at night because it was on the schedule, and I only followed the schedule because I didn’t have anything better to do.

I nodded. They filed toward the doorway, and I followed, half-wishing I could leave with them and half-wishing they would go and never come back. This time my mother forced herself to hug me, and I let her, although I kept my arms at my sides. It was strange to have her so close without breathing in the familiar scent of rosemary. But then, it was probably strange for her, with our chests pressed together and her arms around my shoulders, that I wasn’t breathing at all. I thought about faking it for a few seconds, just to make things easier for her. But I didn’t.