The Body Electric - Special Edition by Beth Revis Page A

first. Nearly everyone in the plaza has their eyes glued to their wrists—some are on calls with others or going over their schedules or reviewing notes for the workday. The tourists are holding their wrists up, lining up photos on their cuffLINKs. The only people not staring at their cuffs or with silver eyes showing their nanobots are the security force. Dressed in all-black, the officers stand at attention, their eyes skimming the milling crowd for any trouble.
    I twirl my own necklace through my fingers as I stand before Triumph Towers. Before, I had always looked at these buildings with a sort of patriotic pride—they’re gorgeous, skyscrapers that are both magnificently tall and also beautifully built. But now they seem ominous. Glittering in the sunlight, but still—ominous.
    A piercing, high-pitched laugh echoes through the plaza, and I’m not the only one who spins around in the direction of the little girl in the neon-bright pink dress who’s half-hiding behind the statue at the base of one of the towers. An older man carrying two cups of a gelato lunges at the girl and she skitters away to her mother, laughing, before racing up to the man and snatching the chocolate gelato cup. I squint, but it’s not until the man turns and sits on the base of the statue beside his daughter that I realize who it is.
    Representative Belles.
    He looks so different here from when I saw him earlier, after the reverie. He seems lighter, somehow, as if he has no worries. The little girl in the bright dress doesn’t stop bouncing around and spinning as she eats her gelato, and the representative and his wife smile fondly at her. She tries to do a pirouette while balancing a huge dollop of gelato on the little shovel-like flat spoons the android vendors dole out, and chocolate plops down the front of her pink dress. She looks on the verge of tears until Representative Belles swoops down, whispering something in her ear and sending her into a gale of giggles.
    The corners of my lips twitch up. The representative seems nice.
    I hope he’s not a traitor.
    I hear a small buzzing sound just before I feel a jab of pain in my hand. I smack my wrist automatically, and my palm comes away smeared with the guts of a fat bumblebee, the stinger embedded into my skin, already puffy and swelling.
    “That looks like it hurts,” a voice says.
    My stomach drops, and I swallow nervously as I lift my eyes.
    And see Dad. Real Dad. My Dad.
    I don’t know how I could have been tricked by the hologram tracker program earlier, even if for just a moment. It was nothing compared to Dad standing in front of me right now. He’s real . His hair moves in the gentle sea breeze, his chest rises and falls with each breath, a heartbeat thrums at the vein on his throat.
    I leap up, throwing my arms around him. This is Dad. He’s warm and real and here .
    “How… how?” I stammer, clutching the sides of his arms. “You… you’re dead .” I whisper the last word, dreading the sound of it on my lips.
    “Ella,” he says, his voice trailing off. My name spoken in his voice is heaven; my heart leaps and I want nothing more than to live in this moment, me, holding onto Dad, real and in front of me and clearly, obviously, not dead.
    “What happened?” I say. “Was it fake? Your death? Are you in hiding? Is that why you couldn’t come to me and Mom, why you disappeared? We thought you were dead, Dad, we thought—” My voice cracks, and words fade.
    “Ella,” Dad says again, and something twists in my stomach, something sickening. A whisper of doubt rises in my mind, but I push it down, my fingers seizing against Dad’s linen jacket, holding him tight, keeping him here.
    “What’s going on?” Tears are streaming down my face now. “You were dead, and now you’re not, and Akilah’s dead, and then she wasn’t.” A horrible fear enters my mind. “You’re not like her, are you? Do you remember me?” I giggle, a hysterical, bubbling sound. “Of