Immediately after my proclamation, I was grounded and forbidden from leaving the apartment.
This meant I wasn’t allowed short walks anywhere, not even to the Institute lab. I rotted in bed for hours, listening to Father’s classical CDs, itching for something different. Even though me wanting something different was the whole damn problem.
The automated lawn mowers droned on outside. Inside, the automated vacuum vroomed over the apartment’s wood floors, occasionally knocking into a table leg or door. I could’ve reset the programming myself, but I was feeling petty. Why the hell shouldn’t things get knocked over sometimes?
Penny was in the kitchen, making lunch for the two of us. As Father’s assistant, she was supposed to monitor me while Father worked at the lab, looking into both the computers and the Cogs to see where he’d gone wrong with me.
I knew Penny was actually here to both babysit and prevent me from leaving the apartment. But I didn’t need a nanny or a gatekeeper. I was perfectly fine on my own.
The rice cooker beeped. There was a click-click of the burner turning on, shortly followed by the smell of crisping scallions and fried eggs. A few minutes later, Penny was at my door, carrying a bowl of tomato egg over rice.
“You can’t ignore me forever,” she said. “Plus, you need to eat.”
I wolfed down lunch while Penny just stood there, tapping her house slipper.
“I’m not your enemy, Marietta,” she said, before catching herself. “Sorry, I mean Helga.”
“You smoke cigarettes and don’t get into trouble,” I muttered. “So why should I be punished?”
“I’m an adult and I get to make my own choices—including bad ones,” Penny said, before sizing me up. “Wait, how old are you again?”
“Eighteen,” I countered.
New insights synthesized through my Cog. Being eighteen meant I was technically an adult too. But that was at odds with how Penny and Father treated me. I was old enough to work and expected to help Father in the lab, but they acted like I was a child.
“I could leave,” I told her, smugly. “You couldn’t stop me.”
I was faster and stronger than her and Father. I could be out of here and halfway down the hill before either of them had even finished tying their shoelaces. And if somehow they did manage to catch up, I could easily overpower them.
Penny was short and physically weak. Father was old as hell. My Cog raced with new possibilities. I could do anything, be anything. All I had to do was remove the obstacles in my way.
But there was that other part of my Cog warning me to be careful. Even if I left Penny and Father in the dust, that was no guarantee of my future happiness. If I got caught, there’d be consequences. It was also very possible that the Institute would try and collect on its intellectual property. That intellectual property being me.
I slumped down further in my bed, hugging my knees to my chest. Penny sat beside me, patting my arm gingerly.
“Want another bowl of lunch?” she asked.
“I can get it myself,” I said. A sudden heat flamed my cheeks: embarrassment. I wasn’t a baby, not that you’d know it from how Penny treated me.
After a few more bowls of fried eggs and tomato over rice, Penny and I played board games, waiting for Father to return home. He was going to do one final check on me before leaving for his conference.
I beat Penny at chess, Scrabble, and mahjong. I out-Jenga’ed her. I bought up Pacific Avenue and left her broke in every game of Monopoly we played. But there was one game Penny always won—Trivial Pursuit.
Because when it came to popular culture, I had a lot of gaps to fill. They were gaps that Father seemed to want left open forever. I barely knew anything outside of Amaris City, let alone the world beyond Uphill.
Because of my organic parts, I was physically strong and capable. And because of the way I’d been programmed, I already had plenty of information downloaded, not to mention a great instinct for picking up new information due to my learning modules.
Father implied that the world outside of Uphill was something I should avoid, but I still wanted to know and experience those things for myself instead of getting it through secondhand evidence. I felt incomplete without lived experiences. Father and Penny had been to places other than Uphill, and they seemed perfectly alright.
“Why do you even live here?” I asked, and sourly, because I was about to lose another game of Trivial Pursuit.
Penny’s grin faded. She set down the little plastic purple game piece and sighed. “I needed the job. Otherwise, I’d live—”
“Downhill,” I guessed.
“Yeah, either there or outside of Amaris,” Penny admitted.
It was wild considering a whole world outside of the island. My only context for it was the music Father approved of—dead guys like Bach and Beethoven, who’d been a big deal in Europe a million years ago—in addition to the food I’d consumed. Off-island imports.
Since Amaris City was between East Asia and North America, foods from both of those continents had made their way into the cuisine here, sometimes mixed together. Father not only stocked his kitchen cabinets with chili oil and vermicelli noodles, but also dry cereal and canned chicken soup. Other scents wafted into the apartment whenever the windows were open: sandwiches and steamed buns from the Institute’s café. There was coffee and bubble tea too.
I was good at picking up on different foods, but I needed more context for them. The recipe books around the apartment only went so far. I’d eaten my way through a lot of food groups already and identified different items as native to different regions, but I still needed to try it all myself. My stomach twinged just thinking about all the uneaten soup dumplings in the world. It was unfair that they were so far away.
“What were the ravens supposed to do? You mentioned they were a failure.” I frowned, remembering how Penny had started to say something about them before being cut off by Father.
“The Institute wanted them to work as living drones monitoring the island. You can see how well that’s worked out,” Penny said, her eyes crinkling.
She seemed pleased that the experiment had failed, even though she worked for the Institute herself. I swallowed a bunch of strawberry fruit chews, suddenly uneasy. All the ravens ever did was eat trash while ignoring their intended purpose. Did that make me a failed experiment too?
“Can I get one more cigarette?” I asked Penny.
“Fuck no, Helga.”
“Fine,” I said. It’d been worth a try.
Cigarettes felt like a Downhill thing. I wanted them specifically because I couldn’t have them. Same with the rock music, the torn fishnets. I doubted people Downhill wore these stuffy trench coats. I hated fiddling with all those buttons.
It seemed silly that Penny would live Uphill just for a job when she clearly liked Downhill a lot more. “Why can’t you do what you want, Penny?”
Penny laughed so hard she almost snorted out iced tea. “That’s not how the world works, Helga. You need money to survive—and the job market is brutal. You take what you can get, even if it means you’ve gotta clock in to multiple jobs to make ends meet.”
“Clocking in?” I frowned, unsure of what that expression meant.
“If I’m late—even if it’s because I’m doing a different job for him—my pay could get docked. Clocking in is based on time and location, see?” She showed me her schedule on her phone, which had check-ins both at the lab and Father’s apartment.
I’d never really thought about the world like that—being tracked by your job, while potentially putting aside your own wants for what was most vital to survival: money. I already knew how my life would unfold, thanks to Father’s programming and the life he’d mapped out for me. I’d go into Cog research at the Institute, just like him. Then I’d become his lab assistant, same as Penny. That was the plan; I was going to be Father’s helper. With my assistance he would accomplish even greater things.
I fidgeted with the buttons on my shirt, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.
Penny got up and cranked up the air conditioning in the hallway, fanning herself. “It’s too hot for April,” she complained.
It was warm, despite Father’s curt assertions that the temperature was fine. Penny’s iced drink was sweating onto the low teak table. My button-down felt uncomfortably damp again. Yes, even gorgeous girls got sweaty sometimes.
Thinking about the future Father had carved out for me didn’t help with my sweatiness either. I couldn’t really see myself working in his lab. The only part of it that sounded good to me was the part about making him proud. But maybe only Marietta was someone who could make him proud.
I desperately wanted him to stop scanning me for defects. But he’d spent all day looking, and I knew he’d find something eventually. Maybe something even worse than cigarettes.
“The doctor will be home soon,” Penny said, sitting back down across from me and fanning herself. She put away the board game and glanced at the clock by the foyer. Seven p.m. The sun was getting low too.
Father would be here soon, and then gone again, off to a different continent. Leaving just me and Penny on the island together.
“Maybe we can go outside tomorrow,” I suggested. “Father doesn’t have to know what we’re up to.”
Penny raised an eyebrow. “Hmm. Maybe.”
Penny wasn’t like Father. She was a Downhiller stuck in the life of an Uphiller. She didn’t seem too opposed to my idea either. I could tell she was turning it over, entertaining the possibility. She chewed the ends of her hot pink hair, hemming and hawing.
And then we both stood up, because there was commotion outside. The sound of boys yipping, laughing. I craned my head to get a better look at what was going on, even going so far as cranking open the living room window. A splash of acid rain hit my cheek through the gridded mosquito screen; without a trench coat and umbrella, the rain stung, but only a little. Penny was beside me, exhaling sharply.
“Damn,” she whispered.
“Fuck the Institute!” was written on the door of the research annex building down the road, in big, gleeful purple letters. There were some letters I didn’t recognize right next to it. It was a language I didn’t know.
Black hoods were pulled over the boys’ faces. They took off running when the automatic lights came on around them, darting past cafés with a swiftness that I recognized in myself.
The keys jangled in the front door. It swung open, and there was Father, in his long beige trench coat, his black slacks, his black patent shoes.
“Did you see something?” Father asked. He strode over briskly and stared down at the newly painted building. His voice was laced tight with anger. “Penny, Marietta … did you see who did this? Did you see where they went?”
The boys, clearly Downhillers from their black outfits and unbridled laughter, had wound around the bagel kiosk just a few feet away from Father’s apartment. I waited for Penny to say something about them, but she didn’t.
“Guess I missed it,” she said, shrugging.
“I didn’t see anything either,” I said, while my insides roiled. Why did Penny lie to Father?
I pretended to be looking at the words—the graffiti, my Cog supplied—for the first time. The two unknown characters on the annex building stuck out like burrs.
“What does it say?” I asked Father.
He was carrying a pair of shopping bags in his arms. They formed an additional layer on top of his boxy trench coat. A thicker layer, almost like a barrier between us. My shoulders tensed instinctively. I wanted him to put them down. I wanted to see his expression. And I wanted him to see me.
“English is the only language you ever need to know, Marietta. It’s the only one that matters to the Institute. Everything else is a waste of time and resources … like those delinquents that defaced the building. I doubt they’ve ever worked an honest day in their life.”
I didn’t know why the Downhillers hated the Institute so much. I didn’t know why Penny was so quiet now either.
Father shook his head. “Lights down,” he said, and everything in the room dimmed. “They’ll be caught eventually. For now, let’s celebrate. Penny, do you mind staying just a little longer?”
“Celebrate?” Penny echoed.
To my relief, Father finally put the bags down. I could’ve sworn his look was almost affectionate. “Yesterday was someone’s birthday.”
My birthday! Father did really care about me. My heart surged. The tension in my shoulders gave out. But my heart sank a little when I saw what had been written in icing atop the cake he produced out of one of the bags. Happy Birthday, Marietta.
Marietta, not Helga.
I felt a little better after eating a couple of slices, at least. The spongy chiffon layers were interspersed with fresh mango, strawberry, and kiwi slices. They’d been imported from somewhere outside of Amaris because as far as I knew, the only fruit that really grew around here was blackberries.
I wanted to go for a fourth slice but figured maybe the other two should have something to eat. I waited patiently, ignoring my rumbling stomach.
“Have you considered staying on the island?” Penny asked carefully. “I know you haven’t spent much time with Marietta yet.”
“I’ve only ever focused on my research,” Father said. “I do wonder, occasionally …” He gazed toward some place I couldn’t see, then shook his head. When he looked at me, his expression was guarded. “No, I must attend. It’s too important to the Institute.”
“Does this mean Penny will watch me while you’re gone?” I asked.
“She has research to do in the lab. You’ll be on your own for the most part,” Father said. And before I could get too excited about that, he added, “Don’t think about leaving the apartment. I’ll know if you do.”
But just how would he know? This was probably some “father knows best” kind of assertion. I knew all about those from the parables that had been downloaded to my Cog. It was likely an empty threat to keep me on my best behavior. Except Penny had mentioned “clocking in” for her jobs. Was it possible that my location might be monitored too?
I smiled brightly. “I won’t leave,” I promised. Penny wasn’t the only one who could lie, after all.
Father’s face relaxed. “Good. And before you go to bed, I wanted to give you something.”
Under his chair was the other shopping bag Father had brought in. My Cog raced, imagining all that could be in it. Maybe Father had relented, getting me a new CD that wasn’t dead-guys-in-white-wigs-core. I’d love shoes that were less stuffy than my black ones. Maybe he’d even gotten me makeup, something fun and glittery.
I tore into the bag eagerly and produced a black briefcase. Marietta was monogrammed on its side, in stark beige lettering.
“Thank you,” I said, with a lump in my throat. Gratitude was part of the gift-giving exchange. My Cog told me that. But then why did I want to fucking cry right now?
“This will come in handy for years to come,” Father said. “It should be durable enough to serve you well for years at the lab.”
“I see,” I said, looking down so he couldn’t see my expression and make another mark in his notebook against me. “Thank you again, Father.”
It was still raining outside. Warm spring rain meant more flora, which meant more fauna. Football-sized ravens swooped down where they could, Uphill failures that gleefully ate everything around them. There were people heading down the hill, and I would not go with them.
“Remember,” Father reminded me, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, “I’ll know if you leave this apartment.”
Like the first night, I pretended to sleep, even though I felt more awake than I had all day.
Thanks to my keen hearing, plenty of sounds filtered through my bedroom walls. Downhill revelry, carrying all the way up to the top of Mount Amaris, where I tossed and turned in bed. When I tried to picture what people were doing, nothing appeared. No images, no visceral sensations other than the echoes of what I’d felt and seen, snooping through Penny’s bag.
Rotten girl.
I couldn’t go outside. I didn’t want to disappoint Father more than I already had. Maybe over time, his rules would become lax. Maybe we could even go to new places together.
I had to put aside my own wishes for now. I should do what Father wanted. I was meant to fulfill his hopes and dreams.
Penny and Father were talking in low voices in the foyer. I tore my focus away from the distant Downhill debauchery to hone in on what they were saying. It sounded like an argument. A pretty big one, given how loud Penny’s voice rumbled.
“She’s doing great,” Penny insisted. “Normal teenage girls act like this, Doctor. I should know. I used to be one of them.”
“Not mine,” Father said. “My daughter has to be different. The best.”
“Your solution …”
My hands gripped the side of my bed. The rest of the world fell away as I strained to hear the rest of his words.
“Her Cog has to be changed,” Father said grimly. “When I return, I’ll do it myself. I’ll take it out and start over from scratch.”