Javier blinked suddenly, like he'd been thinking about something very far away. "Uh… I don't know." He rolled over onto his stomach. "Our skin was only a prototype when our clade started working in Costa Rica. That's why my uncles made sure my dad could leave; they wanted to preserve the trait. So you're the first female model that I know of who carries it. That probably makes you a whole new clade."
Amy liked the sound of that. "Do you think I could start sampling other vN? Mixing them all up inside myself until I came up with something… awesome?"
"More awesome than what you've got, now?" Javier asked. He pulled a blade of grass between his fingers and began peeling it into shreds.
"Look, I know your trait is really special, but–"
"I meant the total disaster you caused back there," Javier said. "You annihilated your clademates. I've never seen anything like it. How did you do it?"
Tell him. You're a born killer. A top predator. He's not safe with you.
Amy pillowed her head on her arms. "I don't remember." She eyed him. "Why'd you come back for me?"
Javier visibly suppressed his laughter. "For you?" He reached into his back pocket and took out two folds of bills – the ones the ranger had given them last night. "Come on. Give me some credit."
"You rolled me for cash?"
"I thought you'd be dead! You weren't gonna need it!"
"Oh, so you're a graverobber. That's so much better."
"It's not graverobbing if you didn't die. Which you didn't." Javier made a show of counting on his fingers. "That's twice I've saved your ass, now. You're racking up a pretty huge tab."
Amy sat up and folded her arms. "Well, it's a good thing you stole my money, then!" She pushed herself up off the ground and started walking.
The campground featured constantly forking paths that liked to hide themselves behind trees, the likes of which Amy had never seen before. This was good – she needed the time alone. While looking for some sort of interface tucked in amid the trees, she had rehearsed telling her mom and dad what had happened, but there was too much to tell: her new body and its new traits, Granny, Javier. She had no idea why she'd gotten so angry with him, earlier. It wasn't like she could really complain. She rolled bodies for cash all the time in games. It was part of good scavenging, and Javier had already proved himself a great scavenger. It just stung a little bit, to be on the other side of the equation. It meant he thought of her as a thing and not a person, like she was just some stupid little in-game AI with no thoughts or feelings. She'd come to expect that from certain humans, but not her fellow vN.
"Sorry, could you help me?"
Amy jumped. She turned around.
A woman towing two rolling plastic water barrels nodded at her. She was very pretty, but in a human way, with the beginnings of crow's feet at the corner of each blue eye, and brown roots beneath her black hair. The strap on one of her barrels had broken, making it difficult to grip. She held up the other barrel's good strap in her fist. "If you get this one, it'll make towing the broken one a lot easier."
"Sure!" Amy grabbed the strap. "I was, uh, just looking for the showers," she said. "Do you know where they are?"
The woman shook her head. "Don't bother," she said. "The hot water's been gone all day. Geothermal regulator's offline, right in time to ruin everybody's weekend." She made a show of sniffing the air. "Can you smell my husband from here? He's riper than a pricey piece of cheese, right now."
Amy laughed. "No, I can't."
"I swear this is the last time we go camping. He always says it'll be better next time, and I always believe him, but he's never right. Ever. You'd think I'd learn, but no. The bastard's too damn handsome and he knows it." She tugged the lead on the rolling barrel. "And he made me tow all this just so I could take a shower! Says he likes me when I'm sweaty. Perv."
Amy rolled her eyes. "Sounds like someone I know."
"Let me guess. Your human's a real piece of work." The other woman looked around the campgrounds. "You're here with somebody, right?"
Amy paused. "How did you know that?"
The woman made a show of giving her an elaborate onceover with her eyes. "You're not carrying any keys or wallet or anything. You must have left them with someone else."
"Oh. Right. Yes. I am. I'm here with someone else." Amy tried to shrug nonchalantly. "We sort of had a fight."
The other woman nodded sagely, like she knew everything about it. "That's been happening, lately," she said. "Especially with your model. The failsafe failing can really kill the trust in a relationship, apparently."
It occurred to Amy that she hadn't yet seen her new face in a mirror. But of course what had happened at school had made the feeds, and of course she was going to be recognized. She backed away. "I'm not–"