The Receiver

2 2 - L E G A C Y

Zander and I sit next to each other, across from Zoa's empty office chair, eyes trailing lazily over the various objects on her uncluttered desktop, including her recovered cuff glowing with a rainbow of light as people send her voice and video messages, name after name popping up.

Standing in front of the window with her arms crossed, Zoa's silhouette is a pencil-thin black number one against the gleaming city stretched out before her.

In the opposite corner of the room, two new guardbots stand at attention.

Zander has been silent for a long time. He's fuming internally, but a lifetime of keeping a cap on his boiling emotions somehow prevents me from losing my cool. I put my attention on my legs, squeezing my knees, pinching random bits of skin on my calves, testing the pain.

"How long?" Zander finally breaks his silence. "How long have you been Syphoning to her?"

"Since the very beginning," Zoa says to the window. "When Dr. B ran her threshold test, he mapped both our nervous systems, not just yours."

"Did he know?" he asks.

"Of course he knew," Zoa says, turning from the window. "But I paid him to keep quiet. I knew it would be overdrama if either of you found out."

"I think she's handling herself pretty well, considering," Zander says, glancing over at me.

"Good," Zoa chirps, strolling back to her desk. "Why don't we move onto the more pressing matter then? What exactly did you expect would happen if you shut down the simulation? Because I don't see any uppercrusters rioting in the streets. Only the ones who dwell below do that."

"Are you admitting that you're afraid uppercrusters will care that there's people down there?" I ask.

"I was raised to not be afraid of anything," she says, eyes burning a hole through my head. "Which is why I don't understand what you possibly could've done to convince my brother to help you."

"She didn't," he says coolly. "I did."

"What does that mean?"

"Give it time," he says, nodding to the window.

"In enough time, the simulation will be back in working order. I've got my techs writing a code for a new lasergrid as we speak."

"It's going to take more than that to fix what this little roach did," Zander says, knocking his thumb at me.

"Little roach? So it's a term of endearment now," I nod. "Great."

"It's sort of cute," he shrugs, watching me out of the corner of his eyes. "Now that you've managed to turn me over to the dark side."

"The dark side," I repeat. "Is that a euphemism for something?"

Zoa sinks dramatically into her chair and Zander and I lapse into silence again. There's nothing to do but watch Zoa pick up her cuff from the desk and swipe through her messages, flicking them into the air where they pop like pixelated balloons.

I keep waiting for her to mention punishment, but she doesn't. At least not yet. I'm not sure how it will differ from retribution down below. In Lower, it's usually an eye for an eye, sometimes worse. You take something from me, I take something from you. You kill someone I love, I kill someone you love. Or maybe Receiving itself is the punishment. Maybe Dr. Breasal pumps you full of tens until you either pass out or spiral into madness.

As I wait for the decision about my fate to drop, I'm dying to know what it looks like outside. A city with no floor. I wonder if Iris is outside, if she's somewhere she can see it. I wonder if she's wondering about—