Robin Wasserman - Frozen

Another long pause.

“We would never have been friends, would we, if it weren’t for your accident,” he said, asking a question that wasn’t a question. “We probably would have graduated without ever having a single conversation.”

I kept staring straight ahead. “Probably.”

“And even if we had talked…”

“You would have hated me,” I said. “Shallow, superficial bitch, remember?”

“You wouldn’t have bothered to hate me. It wouldn’t have been worth it to you.”

I didn’t deny it.

“But I’m different now,” I said. “Everything’s different.”

“I know. But would you keep it that way?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you had a choice, if you could go backward. Would you want to be the old Lia Kahn again, with your old life and your old friends—or stay like this, who you are now?” Stay with me, he didn’t say, but it was all over his face.

“Auden—”

“Don’t lie,” he said. “Please.”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “I’d go back. Of course I’d go back.”

“Even if it meant losing—”

“No matter what it meant,” I said firmly. “If I could have my body back, my life back, don’t you think I’d want it? No matter what?”

“No matter what.” He stood up. “Good to know.”

“Auden, that’s not fair. You can’t expect me to—”

“I don’t expect anything.”

“Don’t go,” I said. “Not like this.”

“I can’t stay,” he said. “Not like this.”

He left. I stayed. Maybe I should have tried, I thought. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was me.

Before, rejecting guys had been easy—and I’d had a lot of practice. Before, I knew what it felt like when it felt right. I knew what I wanted. And I knew there would always be someone new who would want me.

Before.

He’s just not my type , I thought. Too scrawny. Too intense. Too weird.

But I couldn’t be sure. Walker was my type—and I didn’t want him, either. Not really. Not anymore.

Maybe I wasn’t programmed to want. Maybe that was just something else lost, like running, like music. Something else that had slipped through the cracks of their scanning and modeling. Maybe it was one of those intangibles—like a soul, like free will—that didn’t exist, not physically, and so wasn’t supposed to exist at all.

The waterfall wasn’t loud enough to drown out my thoughts. But it was a start. I found myself a wide, flat rock near the bank, a few feet from where the water plunged over the edge. The place looked different in the light. For one thing, you could see the bottom clearly. Which made it look even farther away. Beyond the rumbling white water, the river ribboned out flat and calm again, but not for long. There was another precipice, another plunge, another fall. From where I sat, I couldn’t see whether it was as long or as deep; the river just dropped away. I took a pic—not of the second waterfall, but of the empty space beyond the river, the air where there should have been land. It was crap—a little crooked, like I’d tried an artistic shot and failed miserably when, in fact, I just hadn’t cared enough to steady the lens. I posted it to my new zone anyway. Anything to fill up the empty space.

A mist rose from the gushing water. I was tempted to stand by the edge, wave my hand through the dewy cloud, but that seemed too close. I might have fallen in; I might have jumped. I stayed where I was, watching the water, trying not to think about Auden and Walker, and especially not about Zo.

But I couldn’t help hoping that one of them might voice me to apologize, to tell me I’d misunderstood and the whole thing was a hideous mistake. One hour passed, then two. No one did.

“You probably shouldn’t jump in the daylight. Too easy to get caught.” Like the waterfall, Jude looked different during the day. Every silver streak, every black line etched into his skin, stood out in sharp relief. And seeing him against the pastoral backdrop made him look all the more machinelike.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, jumping up as he sat down.

“I should ask you that,” he said. “Last I checked, this was my place.”

“Oh, so now you own the river?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t scare me. Fire away. I’m staying.”

“Enjoy,” I said. “I’m going.”

“After I came all this way? I would have thought a girl like you would come equipped with better manners.”

“So you’re stalking me now? How’d you know I was here?”

“I know all.” He smirked.

“I’m leaving.”

“Okay, wait!” He spread his arms wide in truce. “Your zone, okay? You posted the pic. I recognized the view.”

“You’ve been lurking on my zone?”

“What can I say? I have a lot of time on my hands,” Jude said.

“Use it for something else,” I snapped. “Stay out of my life.”

“Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I think you’re worth a little extra effort.”

I couldn’t believe it. Not another one. Not today. At least this time around I wouldn’t have to worry about letting him down easy. “Look, I’m flattered—Well, I’m not, actually, but let’s say I am. I’m not interested, okay? So—”

“You think I’m interested?” He burst into laughter. “You really are an egomaniac, aren’t you? I mean, I knew you were spoiled and self-absorbed, that’s par for the course. But this? Please. Trust me, I’m not into the chase. When I want something, it chases me .”

And I was the egomaniac?

Still, I sat down again. He had some kind of agenda, that was obvious. And if it wasn’t the expected one, that was interesting. Or at least interesting enough to distract me from the things that actually mattered.

“So why are you here?” I asked.

“Brought you something.”

“What?” Like I cared.

“Just something to help you let go.”

“What makes you think I have any interest in doing that?”

He smiled. “Because letting go, that’s the key. If you’re too scared to let go, you’ll never be in control. Not really.”

“Is that supposed to make sense?” I asked. “Let go so I can get control? Do you even listen to yourself talk, or do you just spit out this crap at random?”

“It’s all connected,” he said, so disgustingly pleased with himself. So sure. “People only fear letting go because they fear they won’t be able to get the control back. That they’ll keep going until their urges and instincts destroy them.”

“But you know better?”

“I know you’re afraid of what you’ve turned into, but only because you don’t know what it is, not yet. And because you don’t understand it, you think you can’t control it.”

“You’re wrong.”

“You’re a machine ,” he said. “And that means absolute control—or, if you so choose, absolute release. You have the power to decide if you let yourself.” He pulled something out of his pocket, small enough to fit snugly in the palm of his hand. “You wanted to know why I came looking for you? To give you this.”

He tossed the object at me, and I caught it without thinking. It was a small, black cube with a tiny switch on one side and a slim, round aperture on the other. Harmless.

“It’s a program,” he said.

“For what?”

“For you. Or for your brain, at least. You can upload it wirelessly through your ocular nerve.”

“That’s not possible.” No one at BioMax had said anything about additional programming; no one had hinted that I might be able to… reprogram myself.