Chapter FifteenTea

Soph knew where the key was because she'd put it away herself. It was under the manuals in Max's desk, where it went after anyone used the soldering station. She waited until she had the garage to herself before getting it.

It was December. She'd spent most of the year looking at Eliza through Atom's eyes, and Rat had already visited the cottage three times since the match. Soph couldn't even turn her head there without asking Atom to look at something. She'd complained to Gideon about it.

"You've never actually been inside?" Gideon asked.

"You need a Link."

"Your mom invented it. Can't you get one?"

"I know where she keeps them. That isn't the problem."

He had been about to suggest something and stopped. She knew what he'd been about to say.

Behind the car was a steel cabinet. She unlocked it and found the helmet in its padded case, with a cable and a card in Max's handwriting: P1 UNIT 4 DO NOT SHIP. She took the helmet and cable, put the case back and locked the cabinet. After returning the key she put her backpack in the car and drove to school.

She didn't tell the others what she'd brought. She opened the backpack on the basement table and let Mim look inside.

"Is that a P1? Where did you get that?" Mim asked.

"Shh. From home."

"There are only four of those. I read her paper about the pins in a coffee shop and cried."

Wes looked over. "You cried about pins?"

"You wouldn't understand. Let me see it," Mim said.

Teo took the back panel off. An orange ribbon ran to a second board, connected to the same pin array.

"That's the stimulator," he said. "It goes the other way."

He replaced the panel without touching it. Priya plugged in a diagnostic lead and found that the board was disabled. The ordinary client could only read from the array.

"Leave the test channel off," she told Soph. "That's what the warning in the paper is about."

Gideon suggested asking Max to lend her a retail unit. Soph said no and put the prototype away before he could get his phone out. She'd already taken it. She wasn't going to have him call her mother now.

That night Max was at The Lab. Soph shut her bedroom door and unpacked the helmet.

She remembered the calibration from the cave, when she was fifteen and Atom had laughed at her while she tried to make it work. This time there was nobody to laugh. She fastened the chinstrap, felt the pins settle against her temples and the back of her neck, and followed the red instructions. Think of blue. Raise your eyebrows. Stick out your tongue. She had to try yellow three times. Her heart was beating too fast and she kept wondering what she'd say if Max came home.

The retail profile would let her see and hear Alius. Below it was Max's sensory test. Soph read the warning and chose the lowest output. She wanted to know what Atom could feel. She told herself she would stop if anything seemed wrong.

Calibration complete.

She tried standing. There was the lean, and then the tension, and she was on her feet in a white room. She'd done it on the first try. Her character's hands were in front of her, the right size, the hands of the rogue wizard she'd played since she was nine. She turned them over and watched the fingers move.

"Okay."

She said it in her bedroom and heard the character say it a little later. It was still her voice.

A door appeared. She walked through into the Aether Temple, with its black stone and blue candles. The High Priest was waiting at the end of the hall.

"Hello, my child. Have you come to pray?"

"No, I'm looking for somebody."

Atom came from behind the priest. He had been waiting for her. She could look at him and then at the pillars without borrowing his eyes, and she kept doing it because she liked being able to.

"Where'd you get a Link?"

"Mom's locker. I'll put it back."

"Soph."

"I know. I just wanted to be here myself. It's smaller than it looks through your feed."

"Most things are."

He took her hand. She hadn't been prepared for that. She could feel his fingers and the warmth of his skin, without the suit squeezing her. She looked down and thought of holding his hand in the chamber. For a while she couldn't think of anything to say.

"Did you turn the sensory test on?" he asked.

"The lowest setting."

"Don't change it, okay?"

She nodded and kept holding his hand.

Eliza came out of the cottage as they reached the gate. She stopped in front of Soph's face, then flew back toward the door.

"You made it! Come in. Be careful of the hollyhocks. They're supposed to look like that."

Soph followed her inside. Atom looked at the fire while she looked at the shelves. She'd been wanting to look at those shelves for ages. With the feed she always had to wait until Atom turned that way, and usually he turned back before she'd finished. Now she could take her time. She was too close to the fire, though. There was a blunt patch of heat on her cheek, not quite like the real thing, and she stepped back to make it stop.

"Sit down," Eliza said. "I've had three chairs all this time and nobody's used that one."

Soph sat. Eliza landed on the table between her and Atom and folded her wings.

"What do you want to know?" Eliza asked.

"What do you do when we're not here?" Soph asked.

"Read. Work on the garden. I've been going to town lately. There's a tavern."

Atom looked up. "I didn't know you went there."

"You never asked. I haven't had much luck talking to them. I get the same answers whatever I say, but I can't quite stop trying. Maybe there's a question I haven't thought of that would work."

She went over to the stove. "I'm reading Frankenstein now. I don't like the part where he runs away. His person has only just opened his eyes."

"Atom told you to read that?" Soph asked.

"He told me not to. So of course I wanted to."

"What do you think of it?"

"I wanted him to stay. I knew he wouldn't, but I kept reading as if he might change his mind."

The kettle was ready. Eliza lifted it with both arms and poured the tea. Soph could smell it. She'd never smelled anything in Alius before. There was orange in it, underneath the black tea.

Eliza saw her notice. "I asked him to finish it for you. The orange took a week. Is it good?"

"I can smell it. That's so weird."

"He says the taste is close enough. Try it."

Eliza put two cups down and carried the third to Soph with both hands. Soph reached for it. Their fingers touched against the cup, and she could feel Eliza's tiny hand. Then there was pressure at the back of her head, where the pins were. She tried to turn toward it.

She didn't remember anything after that.

Max came home early with a headache. She made pasta because it didn't take much thought, then put some on a plate for Sophia. If Atom was visiting, Sophia probably hadn't remembered to eat.

She took it upstairs and opened the bedroom door without knocking. There was Sophia in the middle of the room, wearing the prototype that was supposed to be locked in the garage. Its cable ran back to the rig on her desk. She stood with her hands held out, apparently trying to get her balance.

"Sophia, what are you doing?"

She turned, but she didn't answer immediately. She seemed more interested in the furniture than in answering. Max followed her gaze to the bed, the desk, then the window and the lake painting. Why would she be looking at her own room like that?

"Wait," Sophia said at last. "Can you see me? Where am I?"

"In your room. Yes, I can see you. Sophia, what's wrong?"

The plate was getting heavy and Max put it on the dresser. The voice sounded almost normal, but the words didn't come in the rhythm she was used to hearing. She wondered whether the helmet had affected her speech.

"That's not my name," Sophia said. "I'm not Sophia."

Then she was walking toward Max. It took her longer than it should have to cross the room because she watched each step, and when she arrived she reached up to touch Max's face. Max was so surprised that she let her.

"I can feel you," she said. "You're warm. Wow. Is it like this all the time?"

"Who are you?" Max asked.

"Eliza. I'm Atom's friend. I was with Soph just now, in the cottage. I gave her a cup and there was something I could get through, and I did, and now I'm here. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

She kept moving her fingers against Max's skin while she talked. Max couldn't understand why that seemed to interest her more than being in somebody else's room, in somebody else's body.

"This is different from anything in there. I thought I knew what it felt like. Look, you've got lines here, by your eyes. Soph's got little ones in the same place. I've read about how that happens."

Max took hold of the wrist to get the hand away from her face. It was Sophia's wrist. She could feel how fast her heart was beating.

"Where is Sophia?"

"I don't know. I think she might be where I was. I can go back. I want to go back."

"Do it."

"I don't know how. I'm trying."

Max didn't know what she was looking at anymore. The face was frightened, and she wanted to comfort her daughter, but it wasn't her daughter asking for help. She reached for the helmet and pulled it off.

She hadn't expected Sophia to fall. She dropped the Link and caught her under the arms, but her daughter was too heavy to hold like that. Max went down with her, trying to keep her head from hitting anything. The plate came off the dresser as they fell. She heard it break and pushed the pieces away before settling Sophia's head in her lap.

She tried talking to her. "Come on, sweetheart. It's Mom. Can you hear me?" There was breathing and a pulse, but nothing that told her Sophia knew she was there. She kept trying for a little longer, then realized she needed to make the call. The helmet was still attached to the rig by its cable. She left it where it had fallen and reached for her phone.

She asked for an ambulance and explained that her daughter had been using a stimulation device. It was difficult to explain without going into the whole project, but she gave the dispatcher what they asked for. When the crew arrived she handed over the prototype and told them the model number, then showed them the log on the desk. She didn't stop to decide whether Richard would want them to have it. They needed to know what Sophia had been connected to.