Corporate Mentality

CHAPTER FOUR

ME

The door slammed shut. I slid down the cool steel wall to the floor and exhaled slowly with my eyes shut. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. After a long time, I opened my eyes and glanced around.

My cabin was the size of my closet back home, with a bed that folded down, a tiny washbasin, and a sign that told me the restrooms were up the hall to the left. Another sign advised use nano-kleen soap for that nano-kleen feeling. I got to my feet, grateful for the opaque door that shut out the hurried press of people outside. The skyhook ride to Felicity Station had been bad enough, with customs and examinations and shots and tile floors and glass walls. Felicity Station itself was even worse. Steel corridors ran in a dozen confusing directions. Voices blared from loudspeakers. Driverless electric carts hummed by, beeping at you to get out of the way, and people towing luggage carts rolled them right over your toes without the slightest apology.

I had known that Felicity’s space station was bigger than we natives needed, but I hadn’t known just how much bigger. Immigration and emigration are both fairly rare, so you’d think we wouldn’t even need a little station, let alone the monstrosity I had just navigated. Felicity, however, occupies a prime location—a lot of shipping and passenger routes cross in our area. Hence the big station.

Truth to tell, Felicity couldn’t exist without it. Although we sell clay for ceramic polymers, the Senate won’t allow high-tech mining. The relatively small amount we can produce isn’t anywhere enough to support an entire economy. Neither are the craft items we export. The revenue generated by the station counterbalances what would otherwise become a nasty trade deficit.

The upshot of all this is that it took me forever to get to my ship, even with signs pointing the way. I felt frazzled, hemmed in by all the people and the noise that bounced off the unyielding walls and floors. Fortunately the door to my cabin kept them out, and I vowed not to go outside until hydraulic pressure drove me into the bathroom.

Then there were the nanobots.

My own nanos could sense them. It was like walking into a marsh and knowing there are millions upon millions of mosquitoes hiding in the grass. They surged around me, in the air system, in the wrist computers of the other passengers, in the flight attendant’s notepad, even in the little computer that had controlled the height and angle of my seat on the skyhook car. A strange hunger awoke. I wanted to reach out and snatch these unclaimed nanos up. It was like the time I had stolen Dad’s nanos, only worse. These nanos weren’t under intelligent control and would be easy to eat. I could feel it.

Had my twin felt this? I didn’t know.

Sweat glistened on my body as I fought temptation. Who knew what programs I would disrupt by taking these nanos? My twin had certainly done so. I kept every one of my nanobots sealed tightly inside my skin. No one was going to die because I lacked control. I was not going to give in to instinct.

I pursed my lips beneath a sudden sense of déjà vu. The hunger felt . . . familiar. I shook my head. Impossible. I interacted with claimed nanos all the time—Dad’s, my twin’s—but I had never felt hungry for them. Why would I feel it now?

I pushed the sensation aside and counted my remaining money as a distraction. My twin had emptied our shared bank account on Felicity, but I had taken to keeping my ceramic and sculpture money in a separate account not even Gremlin knew about. It was enough to get me to Earth in a private cabin and even have a meal or two along the way, if I were careful. Fortunately, the female body keeps more fat on it than the male, so a day of low rations wouldn’t do any damage.

The cabin air smelled stale. I fiddled with knobs labeled ventilation until an artificial cool breeze wafted into the room. I inhaled appreciatively. Air conditioning, I thought, would be nice back on Felicity, especially in midsummer when it gets so hot you don’t want to do anything but sit on the porch and fan yourself.

"Attention all passengers," a voice said practically in my ear. I jumped. "This ship will depart in one minute. Please shut down all communication devices until we have cleared the station. Thank you for your cooperation."

I noticed that the soap advertisement had vanished and the loudspeaker’s words were scrolling across the wall space instead. Interesting. I put my hand on it and felt more nanos at work. The hunger awoke again, but I steadfastly ignored it.

"What assistance do you require?" said the screen.

Startled, I snatched my hand back. "None. Sorry."

The wall space went blank. A moment later, the soap ad reappeared and a soft hum started up. I put my hand back on the wall.

"What assistance do you require?"

"What’s going on?" I asked.

"Docking clamps have been released and the ship is leaving the station."

"How long before we arrive on Earth?"

"Projected arrival in eight hours, fifteen minutes. This includes time for two stopovers, one at Catalina and one at Little America."

"Thank you."

The screen went back to the soap ad. I sat down on my tiny, foldout bed and tried not to worry about Dad and my twin. I had about as much luck as the rajah whose magic carpet only worked as long as he didn’t think the word "elephant."

Dad had always wanted a normal family, though he’d never said what "normal" meant. It probably didn’t include two kids who could swap bodies like other children traded toys.

Trading, of course, had a significant impact on me. I can’t remember whether I was born male or female, and I’m sure most people would think that odd. Even Dad, who should have known better, used to ask about it every so often, as if he’d eventually jostle something loose. Yet these same people, ones who call themselves normal, can’t remember learning to walk or talk. They don’t recall learning to crawl, or when they first fed themselves with a spoon. Nothing odd in that, they think. Well, I don’t remember learning to Trade.

I drifted into a doze. My mind wandered, seemed to float near the ceiling. The earlier memory, the one about feeling hungry for nanos, resurfaced. It was hazy, like a frosted mirror or a half-remembered melody. I tried to concentrate on it, but that only seemed to push it farther away.

I turned my attention inward, to my nanos. They searched through my brain like little librarians, looking for the parts of my brain that showed activity only when I concentrated on the hazy memory. They found the fragments scattered among many different neural cells in my cerebral cortex and cerebellum.

Contrary to popular belief, humans don’t remember everything we experience. We do remember far more than we can actually recall, however. A lot of information simply gets misfiled or is accidentally "disconnected" from other memories. For example, the smell of ginger cookies may bring about vague recollections of wooden cupboards and a woman humming, but no memory of heat or of a sweet, crispy taste. The neural cells which store that particular information simply no longer react to the gingery smell, either because the chemical codes were misfiled or the connections between the cells has changed.

I, however, have an advantage. My nanos skimmed through my brain and found several hundred cells in my cerebellum that reacted to the ghost memory but weren’t sending their information anywhere, as if they were listening to a conversation but not taking part.

I set a couple nanos to alert me in case an announcement came over the speaker. Then I disconnected my sensory perceptions at my thalamus and hypothalamus. The hard bunk vanished, along with the faint sounds of people walking past my cabin door and the faintly metallic smell of the ventilation system. All distractions vanished. I floated in nothing.

I sent a small regiment of nanos into my somatosensory cortex, olfactory bulbs, occipital lobe, parietal lobe, and temporal lobe in order to seize control of my senses of touch, smell, sight, taste, and hearing, respectively. Once the nanos were in place, I ordered the nanos in my cerebellum to stimulate the appropriate neural cells and transmit the information to the nanos waiting in the parts of my brain that controlled sensation.

All sensation, of course, is ultimately nothing more than brain chemistry. When you touch a hot stove, neural impulses flash up your arm and spinal cord to your brain. The impulse causes a chemical change in various brain cells as they receive and interpret the information. If you touch an ice cube, the same thing happens, except the chemical change in your brain cells will be a bit different. A person who loses an arm sometimes still feels pain where the limb used to be because the brain makes chemical changes purely out of habit. So when my nanos recovered the information stored in my memory and telegraphed it to the nanos hovering in my sensory areas, those nanos made certain chemical changes.

Suddenly I was somewhere else.

I was lying in someone’s arms. She smelled like comfort, like warm food and cozy affection. She was singing. The sound murmured in my ears and vibrated softly against my bones as I leaned sleepily against her soft chest. The world was rocking slowly back and forth. I liked this. I knew my twin was already in bed and asleep and I didn’t have to share the rocking and holding.

Tiny beings rushed around my body. Usually they rushed around inside, but some of them had lately taken to wandering around on my skin. A few even left my body entirely. It was fun. They were part of me and I could make them do what I wanted. Usually. Sometimes. A bunch of them crawled over the comfort person’s—Mama’s—skin. Her skin was darker than mine.

One of my little beings found another little being. Then another, and another. These little beings weren’t mine. They made me hungry, but not for food. I wanted the other little things, wanted them very much.

I took them. I took a whole lot. Then I made them dance because it looked pretty.

The world tilted. Something hard cracked my head. Pain. I screamed. My twin woke up and wailed, too.

Now the room was dark. Time must have passed. I was sitting in my crib next to my twin. I felt restricted. Confined. My little beings couldn’t leave the crib—whenever they tried, they hit a line of other beings, a lot of them. I couldn’t get through them, and I couldn’t eat them. That made me angry, and I started to cry. So did my twin. I pulled myself up by the crib railing and bellowed my outrage.

An adult with red hair—I called him Dada when I remembered the word—was looking down at me. I wanted him to pick me up, but he didn’t. His face looked tired.

Then we were in a different place. It smelled different there, like new wood and old sawdust. I was sitting in a warm puddle of sunlight, pounding a painted wooden horse against the floor. My twin was busy turning over the wastebasket. Boxes loomed around us like extra walls. It was like living in a house of giant blocks. Dada was lying on the floor next to us, fast asleep. His face looked very white and his hair looked very red, a cobweb with autumn leaves blowing around it. I didn’t see Mama anywhere.

G G G

The memory ended. I floated in a black lump of guilt. Mother. I had thought all my life that she had abandoned me—us. Then on one terrible winter day, Dad had told us why we lived in what amounted to exile on Felicity, why he and my mother weren’t married anymore. Every shred of anger and hurt had suddenly hardened into heavy guilt at his words.

I set the memories firmly aside. I didn’t need more guilt. Other memories were firing now, and I let myself be swept into them.

G G G

"Time for your bath, Quinn," Daddy said. "Let’s go."

I went on piling blocks on the wooden floor. Daddy wasn’t talking to me—I had already taken a bath. My twin had a set of blocks, too, and a rival fort was growing on the other side of the ocean—throw rug—that lay between us. I had to hurry or my twin’s fort would be bigger than mine and, by our unspoken rules, be able to launch spitballs with impunity.

"Quinn," Daddy repeated. "Bathtime. You’re almost five years old. I shouldn’t have to carry you."

I slowed my stacking. Daddy would be taking my twin off for a bath in a moment, and that would buy me precious time. I could sit back and plan.

Strong hands snatched me up. "Come on, you," Daddy growled with mock ferocity. "You need a bath, mister, and you need one now."

He flung me over his shoulder and started upstairs for the bathroom. My twin grinned at me and went back to the block fort. A handful of my nanobots flew at him, tapping a handful of his and letting my twin know I wanted to Trade. But my twin turned away and ignored my nanos. Anger washed over me and I set up a howl. I had already had a bath that evening. Why did I need another?

[Gremlin![ I silently shouted.

[Not involved,[ Gremlin’s voice replied. That meant Gremlin wouldn’t do anything.

"Enough screaming," Daddy said, unceremoniously stripping my clothes off and dumping me into the tub of hot water. Several hundred nanobots, caught unawares by the sudden dousing, were washed away. Downstairs, I knew, my twin was finishing up an impenetrable fort, probably with blocks stolen from mine, and I was stuck in the tub for the second time that day. I splashed water and got Daddy full in the face.

"Quinn!" he said sharply. "You know better. Do that again, young man, and you’ll be in bed right after your bath."

The droplets beaded up and cascaded off Daddy’s face. His clothes dried instantly. Daddy was better at controlling his nanobots than I was.

"Why do I hafta take a bath? I already—"

"You’re filthy," Daddy interrupted, working shampoo into my hair. "And your sister already had hers. Now it’s your turn. Once your nanobots learn how to keep you clean, you won’t need to bathe so often, but until then, it’s tubtime."

"But we Traded," I protested. "I don’t need a bath!"

"You can’t trade having a bath," Daddy said, and drowned out further protest in a deluge of rinse water. It wasn’t fair! I had to take a bath twice and my twin didn’t take one at all. I was so mad I wanted to hit something. There had to be a way for my twin to take a bath, too.

And then I got an idea.

[Gremlin,[ I thought.

[Here,[ Gremlin’s voice said inside my head.

[Tell my twin I want to play hide and seek when I’m done with the bath. I’ll seek first and you give cold-warm-hot clues, okay?[

[Twin says fine,[ Gremlin replied almost instantly.

Afterward, cleaned and scrubbed for the second time that day and wearing my summer pajamas, I found a pile of blocky rubble downstairs on my side of the rug. A perfect fort blockaded my twin’s side. I clenched my jaw. My twin was nowhere in sight.

"You can play with your sister for a while now," Daddy said. "I’m going to read the paper. And stay clean!"

He went into the living room. I heard the creak of his favorite rocking chair and the rustle of paper. The big square clock on the mantle chimed, and I counted eight little bongs. That meant it was almost bedtime. Outside, the sun was still pretty high in the sky because it was summer. I wandered into the kitchen.

The kitchen faced west and Daddy had drawn the drapes against the sun, though he had left the windows open to let in fresh air. Curtains rustled in the slight breeze. The stove and the kitchen were still hot from cooking supper, though Daddy had long since smothered the flames and banked the coals. I knew better than to touch the black stove’s blistering surface. The wood box was piled high with wood, sorted by hardness so you could make a fire as hot or as cool as you needed. In the summer we burned a lot of soft wood to keep the heat to a minimum, and Daddy bought from the bakery rather than bake at home.

[Gremlin,[ I thought. [Where?[

[Twin is hiding,[ Gremlin’s voice said inside my head. [Says to come find.[

I smiled to myself and headed for the stairs. Wood creaked beneath my bare feet, and I automatically shifted to the little dance I had worked out to avoid the squeaky spots. My guess was that my twin was hiding in the basement—my twin always hid in the basement—and I didn’t want creaking steps to announce that I was going upstairs instead of down.

[Cold,[ Gremlin said, affirming my guess. [Colder.[

"Good," I said, and went into the room my twin and I shared. Our room was a big one, with a giant rag rug between our beds and windows thrown wide to let in the summer air. The sun was on the other side of the house, so the breeze was nice and cool. The air smelled green, like newly cut grass. I got a bunch of toy animals out of the closet—four teddy bears, a rag doll, and a pair of stuffed rabbits—and lined them up on the bed to play parade. I was just scolding the rag doll for pulling a rabbit’s ears when the door creaked open and my twin entered. The dusty streaks on my twin’s nightgown and face showed that I had been right about the basement.

"You didn’t come find me," my twin said belligerently.

"Nope."

"You were supposed to come find me."

"I didn’t want to. You made me take two baths because you wouldn’t Trade. And you ruined my block fort."

My twin’s lower lip poked forward. "Did not!"

I raised my voice. "Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did—"

"That’s enough of that," Daddy said from the doorway. "I think it’s time for—Kate!"

We turned to look at him. "What?" we both answered.

"I was talking to Kate, not you, Quinn," Daddy said to me. "What did I tell you after your bath, Kate?"

My twin gave him a blank look. Daddy’s instructions to keep clean had come to me both times. As I well knew.

"You said we were supposed to keep clean," I said gleefully. "And Quinn didn’t!"

Daddy gave me The Look, and I knew had made a mistake. The Look was a strange mix of being mad and scared and unhappy. I must have broken the rules of the Name Game again.

The Name Game always puzzled me. Everyone else seemed to have one name—Daddy, Mrs. Wells—but I seemed to have two. Well, actually, Daddy had more than two names as well. People called him Lance and Mr. Radford-Michaels, while my twin and I called him Daddy. So I knew other people had more than one name just like I did. Except everyone else seemed to know which name to use. I never knew which one was right. Sometimes people called me Kate and sometimes people called me Quinn. They did the same thing to my twin. Even Daddy switched our names around a lot. There must have been rules, but I could never figure them out.

[Names go with body,[ Gremlin put in suddenly. [Boy body named Quinn, girl body named Kate.[

I stared at my twin as comprehension dawned. By the look on my twin’s face, Gremlin had spoken to both of us at the same time, and the same thoughts were crossing my twin’s mind.

"Why didn’t you tell us before?" my twin demanded.

[Never asked.[

"I told both of you," Daddy said sternly.

"Kate wasn’t talking to you, Daddy," I said quickly, proud that I now knew the proper name. "He was talking to Gremlin."

"Kate," Daddy said, "is a she. And how did you know she was talking to Gremlin?" The Look had left Daddy’s face, but the expression he wore now said that he didn’t know whether he should laugh or be annoyed.

"Gremlin talks to both of us at the same time," I explained.

"I see." Daddy’s voice was grave, which meant he had decided the whole thing was silly.

"Kate didn’t keep clean," I said, getting back to the main issue. "Does she have to take a bath again?"

"I don’t want to take a bath!"

"You should have thought of that before you played in the basement," Daddy sighed. "I hope this won’t wipe out all the hot water—it’s too warm to fire up the heater again. Come on, Kate. And then it’s bedtime for both of you."

Nanobots knocked against mine—my twin wanted to Trade—but I stuck out my tongue and turned my back. Daddy dragged my twin out of the room and I sat on my bed, swinging my legs over the edge and hugging myself in glee. Not only had I tricked my twin into taking a bath, I had also learned the rules to the Name Game. Right now my name was Quinn. The next time I Traded, my name would be Kate.

[No Trade?[ Gremlin asked. Its voice was sad inside my head. [Twin not happy.[

[No Trade,[ I said firmly. [I had to take two baths. It’s only fair my twin has to take one. And my block fort got all knocked down.[

I felt a twinge of guilt. I had used Gremlin to get back at my twin, even though it hated getting caught between us. Sometimes it was fun to tease my twin, but I didn’t like hurting Gremlin. I was sorry, and didn’t know how to say it. But then I realized it was all right—Gremlin usually knew what I was thinking.

A while later, my twin came back into the room, hair wet, nightgown clean. We looked at each other without speaking. My twin met my eyes, nodded, and I knew that as far as bathtime went, we were even. In that instant, we Traded. My nanobots read my brain cells, recorded the chemical sequences that make up memory, took pictures of the way my brain cells were arranged. Each nanobot picked up a piece of information, a single pixel in a hologram. Then they left. A few stayed behind to keep the lungs breathing, the heart beating, the muscles locked so the body wouldn’t fall over. Nanobots flashed across the room, passing a stampede of my twin’s headed in the opposite direction. My nanobots arrived in the girl body, rushed into the brain, rearranged mnemonic chemicals, moved brain cells. It didn’t take long—only a few seconds. From my point of view, I was sitting on one bed one moment, and the next moment, I was sitting on the other. My hair, cut short for the summer, was still damp, and my nightgown felt fresh and clean.

Kate. My name was Kate. I looked down at my nightgown and wiggled my fingers. Kate. Their name was Kate. I giggled and glanced across the room at my twin—Quinn. My twin’s fingers were wiggling too, and I knew the same thoughts were passing through my twin’s mind. I looked at my twin, and we both burst out laughing.

"Hi, Quinn!" I said.

"Hi, Kate," my twin said.

We Traded.

"Hi, Kate!" I said.

"Hi, Quinn!" my twin said.

[Silly twins,[ Gremlin commented, and that made us giggle all the harder.

We Traded again, and my name changed with perfect consistency every time. Kate. Quinn. Kate. Quinn. I knew what my names were, and the feeling made me indescribably happy.

"Hi, Kate!"

"Hi, Quinn!"

"You two go to sleep!" Daddy’s voice came from downstairs. "Don’t make me come up there!"

Stifling a giggle, I lay back on the bed. "Good night, Quinn," I whispered.

"Good night, Kate," whispered my twin.

We fell asleep.

G G G

"What in the world is going on here?" Daddy demanded.

My twin and I glanced up at him, puzzled and startled. The door to our shared closet was still open—the closet monster didn’t live there during the day, so it was safe—and I had just pulled on a blue T-shirt. Blue was my favorite color.

"We’re getting ready for school, Daddy," I said. "We’re almost seven, you know. We can do it ourselves."

"Obviously you can’t," Daddy replied sternly. He was wearing his yellow bathrobe, and for some reason I noticed the fine red-gold hair on his legs. It didn’t really match the deep red hair on his head. "Look at what you’re wearing, Quinn."

I turned and looked at my twin, who was wearing a pink dress with white flowers and black shoes. Realization dawned.

"Hey!" I said, still indignant. "That’s for dress-up stuff. You’ll get it dirty at school."

Daddy ignored me. "You can’t wear a dress, Quinn. Dresses are for girls. You’d better put on something else if you don’t want everyone to laugh at you."

I started laughing. "You forgot you’re a boy! You forgot!" I laughed harder.

"It’s your fault!" my twin said hotly. "I had already said I was going to wear this, but you wanted to Trade before breakfast."

Daddy gave us both The Look again. "That’s enough, you two. Quinn, you’d better change quick if you don’t want to be late." And he left, his slippers making shuffly noises on the wood floors of the hallway. We don’t have any carpets in the house—Daddy doesn’t like them. He says he doesn’t want anyone sneaking up on him ever again, whatever that means.

"I don’t want to change clothes now," my twin said petulantly. "Let’s Trade. You’re a girl, so you can wear the dress."

That sounded reasonable to me. We Traded and clumped down to the kitchen together for breakfast. The table was already set. My favorite blue milk pitcher sat in the center next to the syrup jug, and Daddy had already dished steaming oatmeal into two bowls. At the moment he was at the stove with the bread rack, and I smelled toast and coffee. As we sat down, he turned around and caught sight of my twin.

"Quinn," he said, exasperated. "Are you deaf? What did I tell you?"

By now we were both more adept at picking up cues. Even though Daddy had originally been talking to my twin upstairs, I knew that right now he was talking to me because I was in the Quinn body. Talk went to the body, not the person.

"You said boys can’t wear dresses," I said. "But it’s okay because we Traded. Girls can wear . . . can wear . . . " I trailed off uncertainly. There was something wrong. We had Traded, so it should be all right for me to wear—

[But you’re a boy now,[ Gremlin said.

Daddy gave me a long look, then shrugged and set the plate of toast on the table. "If you want everyone to laugh at you, it’s all right with me. Just don’t expect me to bring another set of clothes to school."

I knocked on my twin’s nanos, asking for a Trade, and said to Gremlin, [Say that I wasn’t the one who put on the wrong clothes.[

Gremlin relayed the message. I was expecting my twin to set up a fuss, but none came. We Traded, and my twin dashed upstairs to put on some different clothes. I reached for the milk jug. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daddy shoot The Look up the stairs, and I wondered why he looked so unhappy.

G G G

"I just don’t understand it sometimes, Grace," Daddy was saying. "I’m not sure what to do." It was the day after the dress incident. Daddy and Mrs. Wells were sitting on the front porch. The leaves on the maple trees in the front yard were a brilliant scarlet and I thought they were very pretty, even though my favorite color was blue. The air was fresh and cool, and Daddy had made us put on jackets before we could play outside.

At the moment, I was hiding around the corner from my twin in yet another game of hide and seek. This time Gremlin had shut off my twin’s hearing and heightened my twin’s sense of smell.

"It’s nothing to worry about," Mrs. Wells soothed. "Children experiment. Why, I remember when my Sharon went around for almost a week declaring she was a boy—even insisted on standing up to go to the bathroom. We just let her have her way, and eventually she gave it up. It’s just a phase."

"What about David?" Daddy asked. "Did he ever pretend he was a girl?"

"Well, let me think. It seems like he did." Mrs. Wells paused. "Oh yes—I remember now. I went in my bedroom one afternoon and found him all dolled up in my Sunday dress with makeup on his face and polish on his nails. About scared me to death. Ronald, rest his soul, all but foamed at the mouth."

I peeked around the corner in time to see Mrs. Wells lean over and pat Daddy’s hand. I liked Mrs. Wells. She baked cookies almost every Saturday and called me and my twin her special taste-testers. Daddy said he was glad she had moved in across the road because he didn’t know what he’d do for a babysitter otherwise. Mrs. Wells said she was glad we had moved in because Daddy had paid a lot of money to get a telephone permit from the government and he didn’t mind if Mrs. Wells came over to use it. That, and she needed small children to make sure she hadn’t lost her touch with cookies.

"Really, Lance," she said. "Children play all sorts of games. They’ll sort it out for themselves."

"I hope so," Daddy said. "I can’t help worrying. My parents weren’t exactly . . . stable, and I went through some of my own rough times. I’m just afraid this sort of thing might be genetic and Kate and Quinn are showing symptoms of some bigger problem."

Mrs. Wells shook her head. "All parents worry about nothing. It’s part of the job. You go ahead and worry if it makes you feel better, but one day you’ll look back on this and wonder what in the world made you so upset."

Then I heard my twin sneaking toward me around the corner, and I dashed away, wondering what Mrs. Wells’s son looked like in a dress.

G G G

The next day, I decided to wear a dress because of Mrs. Wells’s son. By the time recess came around, I was regretting the choice. Wearing a dress only reminds the boys that you’re a girl.

I put my hands on my hips and glared down at the group of boys kneeling on the ground behind the school. About a dozen marbles were scattered in a circle they had drawn in the sand. Dennis North lined up a shot and flicked his thumb. The shooter ticked a marble, but it didn’t roll outside the circle.

"No good," Kevin Sanders said as Dennis retrieved his shooter. "My turn."

Kevin flicked his thumb. The shooter connected with a pale blue marble, which shot out of the circle with satisfying speed. Kevin snatched it up.

"That was your last one, Tim," he said to Tim Pickford. "You’re out."

Tim’s jaw jutted forward, but he picked up his own marble bag and stalked away without a word.

"I want to play," I said, trying to kneel down in Tim’s place. But the other boys—four in all—quickly spread themselves around the circle to fill the empty space.

"You can’t play," Kevin said. "You’re a girl."

My own jaw jutted forward. "So what?"

"We’re not playing with girls today," Dennis said.

"You’re just scared I’ll beat the pants off you."

My statement was more than just a bluff. I had made sure to have the girl body at recess because I was better at marbles when I was Kate. Across the playground, my twin was playing kickball, something that came easier to the male body. Both of us had already learned that if we wanted to do something with small, precise movements, the Kate body was better. The Quinn body was good at games that needed strength or speed. Since my twin had wanted to play kickball at recess today, things had worked out pretty well for us. Until now, anyway.

"I’m not scared!" Dennis said hotly.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Then prove it," I said sweetly. "Let me play."

"We’re not playing with girls today," Kevin said again. He had freckles and bright red hair, brighter than Daddy’s.

"You’re chicken they’d beat you." I made clucking noises at them. "Chicken chicken chicken."

"So let her play," said Jeremy Acre. "She’ll only lose. What do you think, Larry?"

Larry Friend, a blond kid with blue eyes, shrugged.

I took advantage of the situation and squatted down between Jeremy and Kevin. Jeremy gave way only grudgingly. I put six marbles in the circle and pulled out my shooter.

"Girls first," Kevin said.

I positioned my shooter, then stopped. If I was going to beat the boys, I wasn’t going to give them a chance later to say I had taken advantage of the fact that I was a girl.

"We should do bubble gum," I said instead. "What do you think, Larry?"

Larry shrugged.

"Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish," Kevin chanted, pointing to each of us in turn. "How many pieces do you wish?" His finger landed on Jeremy.

"Six," Jeremy said.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, and you are it." The finger pointed to Jeremy again, and the game began.

It didn’t take long to figure out that Jeremy and Dennis were trying to beat just me. They shot only at my marbles, trying to knock them out of the circle, and ignored everyone else’s. Twice I had to give up a perfect chance to knock someone’s marble out so I could knock one of my own marbles further in. In a few rounds, I was down to two marbles in the circle while everyone else had three or four. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

"You and Jeremy are ganging up on Kate," Kevin said to Dennis. "That’s not fair."

"It isn’t against the rules," Dennis said. He had three marbles left. "I can shoot whoever I want. Kate won’t win anyway."

"The bell’s gonna ring soon," Jeremy pointed out. "Whoever has the least marbles in the circle is the loser when it does."

[Gremlin, how much time is left?[ I asked.

[Bell will ring in one minute, forty-two seconds. Mrs. Watson is ringing today and she has stopwatch.[

I was running out of time. If I lost this game, Dennis would make sure everyone knew, and I’d never hear the end of it. I’d have to take more risks. After studying the circle carefully, I noticed that two of Dennis’s marbles were touching each other. If I hit them just right from my side of the circle, I might be able to knock both of them out with one shot. The only problem was that one of Kevin’s marbles was in the way—and it was Kevin’s turn to shoot. I glanced at him. He met my eyes and I knew he had seen the same thing. Without a word, he lined up his shot and flicked his thumb.

"You dummy," Dennis sneered. "You hit one of your own marbles."

"It’s still inside the circle," Kevin replied, calmly retrieving his shooter.

"Kate’s turn," Jeremy said.

[Bell will ring in twenty-one seconds,[ Gremlin said, and Mrs. Watson emerged from the building with a stopwatch in one hand and the shiny steel recess bell in the other.

I set my shooter, cool and dark, into the crook of my forefinger and lined up the shot.

[Ten seconds,[ Gremlin said. [Eight. Six. Four.[

I flicked my thumb. My shooter sped into the circle and hit both of Dennis’s marbles right where they touched each other. They shot apart in opposite directions and streaked over the boundary just as Mrs. Watson began ringing the bell.

"Dennis lost," Kevin announced. "He only has one marble left. Larry has four, so he wins."

"I beat you," I said to Dennis. "Told you I would."

"You didn’t win the game," Dennis replied sullenly. He gathered up his marbles and joined the kids streaming toward the back doors of the school. Larry and Jeremy followed suit. I caught sight of my twin bouncing the kickball on the way in and our eyes met.

[Twin wants to know how marble game went,[ Gremlin said.

[I beat Dennis. I would’ve won the game, too, but he and Jeremy ganged up on me.[

"That was a good shot," Kevin told me. "You should’ve won the game."

"Thanks," I said, feeling suddenly shy. "I know why you hit your own marble."

Kevin flushed and kicked at the ground with his toe. "Jeremy and Dennis weren’t playing fair."

An awkward pause followed. "We’d better go in," I said. "We’ll be late."

Kevin flashed me a quick smile. "See you at lunch recess." And he rushed away.

G G G

"Kate, who’s Gremlin?" Kevin asked.

The ground rocked dizzily beneath me and cool autumn air whooshed past my ears as I pumped my legs back and forth. Kevin was in the swing next to mine, but he wasn’t coordinated with me, so his words swooped between loud and soft.

[Don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell,[ Gremlin pleaded. Gremlin was like that—paranoid. I didn’t know why. Gremlin had been around for as long as my twin and I could remember, and it didn’t want anyone to know of its existence, not even Daddy.

In this way, Gremlin was like our nanos. Our nanos had always been there. We took them for granted, the way we did our fingers and toes. Daddy had nanos, too—our nanos bumped into his once in a while—so my twin and I naturally thought everyone had them. Eventually, however, we’d realized this wasn’t true and had asked Daddy where nanobots come from.

Daddy said they came from him, and we weren’t supposed to tell anyone about them unless we wanted the government to come to our house. The government would chase us down and make us move to another planet. We’d never see our friends again. The government might even take us away from Daddy if we told. He scared us so much that we never told anyone about the nanos or Gremlin. But Kevin had asked about it, and I had to answer.

"Gremlin’s my friend," I said nonchalantly. "How did you know about it?"

"I’ve heard you whisper to Gremlin a couple times," Kevin said, still swooping back and forth. He needed a haircut, and his red hair kept blowing into his eyes. "What’s a gremlin?"

"I don’t know. Gremlin’s always had that name."

[Shut up shut up shut up hush quiet be still silence[

[It’s okay, Gremlin,[ I said. [Daddy told us not to talk about the nanos, but he didn’t say we couldn’t talk about you.[

"Is Gremlin like Bruce’s Kitty?" Kevin asked.

I considered this. Bruce Richardson had an invisible cat named Kitty who followed him everywhere, or so he claimed. No one could see Kitty but him, and he talked to Kitty all the time. Some of the other kids teased him about it, but he didn’t seem to care until Melvin Warnock stomped on the spot where Bruce said Kitty was standing. Bruce freaked out right in the middle of class and his mom had to come and get him. The next day Bruce was back. He and his mom had taken Kitty to the vet and she was fine, but Bruce wasn’t supposed to take Kitty to school anymore.

"They’re sort of the same," I said. Swoop, swoop. "But Gremlin is only around when my twin and I are near each other."

"How near?" Kevin said.

"I don’t know. The length of the playground or so."

"How come?"

[Stop quiet shush no more stop[

"Because." Gremlin’s fear was growing and I decided to change the subject. "How come you don’t hate girls?"

Kevin paused. "I don’t know. I think it’s dumb. And you’re pretty good at marbles." Swoop, swoop. Kevin had green eyes, like a cat’s. I decided Kevin’s eyes were pretty and that I liked him. I wondered what it would be like to live in his house. Kevin would have a nice house because Kevin was so nice. He probably even had a dad and a mom.

"What’s your mom like?" I asked him suddenly.

"My mom? She’s okay, I guess." He grinned at me. "For a girl."

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"What’s your mom like?" Kevin said. Swoop, swoop.

"I don’t have a mom."

"That’s dumb," Kevin snorted. "Everyone has a mom."

I slammed my feet on the ground and stopped the swing so fast I almost fell over. "Well, I don’t," I yelled at him. "And I think you’re dumb!"

I stormed away, trying to stay mad at Kevin so the tears wouldn’t slide down my face.