Original Syn. Beth Kander
and a curse. Like it or not, Shadower takes everything in. Everything: from ports, from people, from the wires in the walls. It’s as if the entire world speaks at a louder volume for Shadower. It’s useful for eavesdropping. It’s also crazy-making.
Shadower is a magnet and the information is metal, always flying in and clattering against the magnet. The clanging is crazymaking, but Shadower has grown accustomed to it; has learned to filter, tune in and tune out as needed. If Shadower listens hard enough, even the most carefully hidden files call out, here I am, here I am.
Any quiet hum of information erased, any virtual-footsteps wiped away in a clever but not infallible cover-up, none of it is ever gone; it is only shifted over to another channel, and Shadower can tune in to every single station.
Yes. There it is.
Shadower presses closer, leaning into the quiet hum singing behind all of the larger, louder surrounding sounds, carefully following the faint but unmistakable path of lilting information still humming behind where hard data once lived. Facts cannot be erased, only smudged like a pencil eraser on an old sheet of paper.
A flash—a scene—a something—a someone—more than one—three—yes!
Shaking from the effort, tension running through steeled nerves and gritted teeth, Shadower siphons and saves one single image before Heaven’s clean-up crew sucks everything else up, up, and away. Thankfully, the image secured is as damning as it is chilling: three bodies, too out of focus for their faces to be identifiable, but clearly dead, discarded Syn corpses—and beside them, a half-dozen live Syn soldiers.
Shadower imagines the cleanup crew, running programs to eliminate the electronic evidence, pouring chemicals over the dead bodies in preparation for incineration. Heartless, evil bastards, erasing their own neighbors to protect the all-powerful Syn leadership.
Bastards, all of them.
The confirmation of multiple suicides, willfully covered up by the Syn Council, will send shockwaves throughout the clandestine network. Rumors would become facts. Facts would inform action. Planning would continue.
Shadower doesn’t give a shit about Syn terminations—well, unless the self-eliminating Syns could be reached and radicalized before they just went and killed themselves like useless little idiots; that might be nice. Shadower would be happy to give a suicidal Syn the option of doing something more productive, like helping the network burn the Syn world to the ground. Going out with a real bang, instead of just being erased.
Sad-sack Syns aren’t the real concern here, though. Shadower’s goal is not to prevent Syn suicides.
The real objective is to change the world before all Originals are extinct.
The dead Syns are only interesting because their cold corpses might just pave the way for an Original revolution. For a return to the way things were—the way they were always meant to be.
We’ll have our revolution, God willing, Shadower thinks.
Assuming God hasn’t also given up and offed Himself.
Chapter 3: Ever
It’s not hyperbole to say that Ever Hess is the most beautiful girl in the world; it’s verified fact. Her beauty has been confirmed via multiple assessments examining symmetry, proportions, dermal surface integrity, and every other objective measure of beauty.
As she likes to put it, pretty much everyone wants to bang her. (Old world vernacular is amazing; bang is such a satisfying expression.)
Ever’s beauty is certified, and continually cultivated. She doesn’t rest on the generous laurels of genetics and mechanical enhancements. She is a devout believer in daily doses of Vitamin D, and worships at the altar of excellent moisturizer. Her flawless skin is neither pale nor tawny, but a perfect glowing shade of health. Her eyes are large, brown, rimmed above and below with heavy black lashes. She is delicately bird-boned and just curvy enough. No knobbed knees or sharp elbows; she is rounded where softness is pleasing, toned where strength is desirable.
It’s all by design. Ever was preserved at the moment of physical perfection, just past any trace of awkward adolescence but nowhere near the realm of graying, stiffening, wrinkling. She was suspended in that fleeting moment that passed her peers swiftly and irretrievably, while they were too busy lamenting their flaws to notice their beauty before it was gone.
In the old world, people somehow thought beauty was subjective. There were all these weird theories, like “different people peak at different times.” Bizarre claims about how some people crave thick thighs, others lust for lean legs, some really do prefer darker skin or lighter eyes or smallness or fullness or ski-jump noses or freckles—there’s no one way to be beautiful!
Ever’s pretty sure that whoever came up with all that crap must have been ugly.
Committed as she is to the preservation of her looks, Ever is equally dedicated to the innovation of her “look.” She likes to shake things up; her hair color is her favorite variable. She’s a redhead this week. Changing the hue weekly has been a ritual ever since she first turned seventeen, a few decades ago. She’s tried literally thousands of colors over the years. It’s hard to distinguish Shining Cinnamon #347 from Shimmering Paprika #2,012, but each marginally-different color represents something scarce and thereby sacred: the ability to change.
She knows that her constant craving for altering her appearance stems from a strong rebellious streak, goaded on by a lifetime of living in a world where change and progress were celebrated while she herself was firmly locked in and told not to change a thing.
She is almost as self-aware as she is self-obsessed.
(But not quite.)
Ever strolls the deck of her family’s boat, back straight, head high. A decade of dance lessons perfected her posture, and the voice of her strict, sleek ballet teacher still echoes in her mind, chiding her to be mindful of her movement.
“Remember, ballerinas,” the instructor would intone in her thick Russian accent, hard and violent with her consonants as she raised her pencil-thin eyebrows and sucked in her already-flat stomach. “A dancer is always carrying herself well. A dancer remains a dancer wherever she goes, even just on the sidewalk, even in the dark. Every movement, it is a dance.”
Recalling this reprimand, as Ever leans over the side of the boat she flattens her back, tightens her midsection, summons the old technique. Even the clothing she wears evokes her ballerina days—black, slimming as a leotard, the sleek fabric smoothing itself over her trim figure. She hopes the Russian dance teacher would be pleased with her look. No way of knowing: the woman has been dead for years.
Sometimes Ever thinks it would be preferable to be dead and well-remembered, which seems much easier than remaining alive and alluring.
“Ever!”
She closes her eyes, as if her lids might somehow block out the sound. There’s no need to respond, as her mother knows exactly where she is, and could just as easily have sent a message rather than screeching like a harpy. Calling out for one’s child is a leftover function, archaic and useless, like looking at one’s wrist when someone asked what time it was; gestures often outlive the objects or tasks that inspire them.
Ever fights her mother’s noise with silence. It’s a tactical move. Predictably, to continue the cold war they both insist on prolonging, Ever’s mother comes out to the deck to meet her stubborn child on their latest battlefield.
Marilyn Hess is striking, though not as perfectly-crafted as her daughter. Her hair hovers between blonde and brunette, chemically maintained but never varied, always pulled back in a low chignon. She displays just a hint of middle-age, given away by the soft impressions around her eyes and mouth that form when she frowns, little lines in her face drawing the blueprints for where wrinkles would eventually have appeared. Her high cheekbones and long arms give her the illusion of being taller than she actually is, but she’s tall enough