Pretty Girl-13

COMPETITION




THE LAST TWO ONE-HOUR MAPPING SESSIONS WERE A FRUSTRATING waste. Tattletale was clever at hiding, which was good. She’d had longer to practice than anyone. And Girl Scout was stubborn. She refused all Dr. Grant’s invitations to step out, as if she knew the next step after mapping. And maybe she did. Angie had no idea how much of her life the alters watched, like movie critics in the dark of the theater, passing judgment on her choices.

Dr. Hirsch suggested moving ahead immediately with the next part of the procedure, at least with the alters they’d scanned. While Mom and Dad watched in awe and Angie in rapt curiosity, he pulled up a beautiful brain scan, a 3-D simulation spinning on his computer screen.

“That’s me?” Angie asked.

Under a transparent shell that was recognizably the surface of a brain, bright-colored clumps marked the personality regions in the hippocampus. “The red one is you, Angie, the dominant, by far the most extensive. The purple cluster is the ‘Slut’—excuse me, ‘Little Wife’—persona, and the yellow splash there is the male figure called, er, Angel. So now we introduce the modified light-sensitive genes into the neurons only being used by alternative personalities.”

Angie was fascinated. Did her sense of who she was all come down to a few cubic centimeters of cells in the middle of her head?

“What if you aim wrong?” Mom asked. “Is there any risk of deleting Angie? I mean, that would be totally unacceptable, wouldn’t it, Mitch?”

Dad didn’t hesitate. “Unacceptable.”

Angie let a small breath escape. Dad still cared, even if he couldn’t make eye contact with her. He pressed the doctor. “How safe is this procedure?”

Dr. Hirsch harrumphed a bit impatiently. They’d been through this before they signed consent forms. “Optogenetic technique has been used extensively to treat the neurons involved in Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, spinal injury, and even certain forms of blindness. Using it for memory control is experimental—the new frontier. As I explained, the carrier virus will be injected only near the brain cells we want the new genes to enter. We can target with exquisite precision.”

Dad nodded. Mom asked, “The virus itself? It’s harmless?”

“Absolutely,” Dr. Hirsch assured her. “Really the only function it retains is the ability to inject genes into a cell. And we’ve chosen those genes, haven’t we? The only risk we run is that we will not succeed in silencing the alters, not that we will damage the core personality or Angie’s brain. The neurons themselves won’t even be harmed. We just eliminate their ability to send a signal by altering the membrane calcium channels and ion pumps.”

Mom looked baffled. Dad ran his hands through his hair. “Now I’m completely out of my depth.”

Angie got it, sort of, thanks to seventh-grade Life Science. “And how exactly do you get the virus into me? How do you put in the kill-switch genes?” she asked.

Mom frowned. “Please don’t use the word ‘kill,’ hon.”

Dr. Hirsch stroked his goatee. “You know, I rather like the term. I may use it. ‘The K-switch genes.’ We’ll only require three small bore holes for access.”

“Holes!” Dad jumped to his feet. His chair tipped over backward with a soft thud on the office carpeting. “In her head? I don’t remember anything about drilling through her head! You said injected. I thought we were talking about a shot!”

Mom looked just as alarmed. “Will you shave off all her hair? I’m not prepared for that.” She smoothed her sleeves. And her face. “We’ll have to find just the right wig so no one knows. There’s so much to prepare.”

Angie pulled back and let them handle all the anxiety. It wasn’t worth obsessing about. Whatever they needed to do, they’d eventually do. As it turned out, though, she kept most of her hair, and it covered the tiny holes they drilled in her skull to lay in a channel to her hippocampus. The gene-seeding process was long and tedious, but much quieter than her hours in the scanner. Now they had to wait at least a couple of weeks for the genes to move in and take control of these calcium channels or whatever before they could be turned off.

Should be a quiet couple of weeks, Angie thought. But she was wrong.

It was getting harder to get up in the morning. What was the point, anyway? It wasn’t like she could concentrate on school with the constant clamor in her head. Before the stupid mapping procedure, she’d been fine. She’d been getting good grades and even thinking she might be able to move up in a few classes after Christmas. Now there was chaos. The alters were all stirred up.

She would dress and head into school, only to discover that Slut had slipped into the bathroom to put on thick eyeliner and dark red lipstick. Clearly Girl Scout had called that one right. Without warning, Angie would find her shirts pulled off the shoulder with her straps showing. Then Girl Scout would copy over homework in her own neat handwriting while Angie was asleep and reorganize her homework folders so she couldn’t find anything. Tattletale would ride imaginary horses all night long, which left Angie’s head pounding in the morning, as if hooves had kicked her repeatedly in the head.

Kate was an island of sanity for her. Lunch every day led to chatting every night. And if Angie ever said, “I need chocolate ice cream or I’ll die,” within half an hour Kate was there in her parents’ ancient third car, ready to roll.

“You’ve got a lot of stress,” Kate said after the third ice-cream night in a row. “Maybe you should take up jogging or something. I’m gaining weight here. Look—look what I’m reduced to eating.” She pointed to her wilty cafeteria salad and bent a shred of purple cabbage like rubber.

“Sorry. I’m eating for five,” Angie said, testing the waters.

Kate laughed. “I know you haven’t been implanted with quadruplets. That excuse won’t fly.”

Angie whispered, “I’ve started remembering, in a way.”

Kate’s smile instantly straightened. “Oh, Ange. Oh wow.” She reached across the lunch table. “Was having amnesia better?”

“Well, yes, in a way,” Angie said. “See, we figured out that while my mind was checked out for three years, my body was hosting a bunch of multiple personalities.”

Kate gasped, her eyes wide. “A bunch? Are you kidding?” She searched Angie’s face for clues. “Nope. You’re not kidding. How disturbing and … and cool.”

“Cool.” An ironic laugh escaped. “Sort of. Actually, they’re the ones who remember what happened. Now they’ve decided to share. It’s not pretty.”

“Whoa.” Kate sank back in her chair, arms crossed. “Whoa. Okay, that’s worth a lot of chocolate ice cream. Tonight I’m buying.” She hesitated. “Do you … want to talk about it? I mean to a real person, not a doctor?”

“Eventually. Soon. I’m still figuring out how to wrap my head around kidnapping and bondage and stuff. And three chicks and a guy sharing my body.”

“Hey, we’ve all got issues,” Kate said. “Yours just have names.”

“And agendas,” Angie said. “I don’t know how to keep them under control.”

“Obviously,” Kate said. “I mean, like, who dressed you today?”

“Oh no!” Angie remembered laying out embroidered blue jeans and the red sweater she usually layered with a black shirt. Now she had a flowered peach-colored blouse on top and a wide headband, courtesy of Girl Scout; tight black spandex pants and spike heels, courtesy of Slut; and a crazy glass bead bracelet, courtesy of Tattletale. “Can’t they at least talk to each other?” Angie wailed. “I look like a hick country tramp!”

“Seriously,” Kate agreed. “Can you give them different days of the week?”

“How?” Angie asked.

“Put up a calendar in your room and assign dressing days or something.”

“That’s too weird,” Angie said.

“Like this isn’t?”

“Oh God. You’re right.” At least it was practical advice.

Angie wasn’t getting any practical advice from Dr. Grant now. It was like the doctor was obsessed with this research, this experiment. Instead of therapy, she was trying too hard to pull everyone out. Angie could feel her frustration. Five torturous sessions in the machine, and only two alters mapped. Well, to be fair, Angie had ordered Tattletale to stay low. But Girl Scout—what was her problem? And the other two were acting out. It was like they didn’t want to get better.

They needed another breakthrough.

“I wonder if the Little Wife’s preventing them from surfacing,” Dr. Grant pondered. “She’s a very strong personality. She’s used to owning the night. Now she’s been pushed to the side. I wonder if we should go ahead and remove her as soon as we can to make room for the others to step forward?”

Angie’s stomach turned just a bit queasy.

The doctor picked up on her hesitation. “You have her story. The police have her statement and her evidence. Clearly, she’s suffered the worst of your trauma.” Dr. Grant still didn’t know about Tattletale’s secret. “Don’t you think it would be a mercy, to have all that off your mind? Literally?”

“Maybe so.” Angie picked at the new scar on her arm.

“I’m not pushing, Angie. I hope you know that,” the doctor said. “It’s only one option.”

“What’s another one?” Angie asked.

“Here’s the alternative. We can continue along the lines of traditional therapy. We’ll work on breaking down the walls between you and this Little Wife. We’ll encourage her memories to flow directly to you, and you’ll reexperience the emotions for yourself. Then we’ll work on helping you deal with feelings that were too charged for your younger self to manage. At some point down the road, you will try to arrange a compromise with her to give up her independence and merge into you.”

Merge? With the Slut? “But I’d be changed, wouldn’t I?”

“Life is change,” the doctor said.

Angie felt someone shove her aside. “You can f*cking embroider that and hang it on your wall, Lynn.” The awful words came out of her mouth.

“Well, hello again, Little Wife,” the doctor said.

“Either way, you want me dead, don’t you?” Little Wife/Slut asked while Angie sat a million miles away, straining to hear. “Not a goddamned person appreciates me. Not inside, not outside.”

The doctor reached out a hand. “I appreciate you,” she said. “But I think you’re unhappy and spreading that unhappiness to Angie.”

“Then I’ll just get happy. My way,” Little Wife/Slut said. She slapped the doctor’s hand away.

Angie’s hand still stung when she found herself back inside of it. “Oh, Dr. Grant. I’m sorry.”

The doctor’s eyes lit up. “Did you actually hear that?”

Angie nodded, her cheeks hot.

“Then we’re making some progress. The walls are thinning.”

No! Angie needed that barricade. “I don’t like her. I don’t like her attitude. I don’t like her clothes. I don’t like her voice. I don’t want her in me. Get her out. Erase her. Please.”

A piercing wail shot through her skull, and she clapped her hands to her head. She felt herself pulled into darkness, the cabin at her back. Strong arms tried to force her into a rocking chair, and she resisted with all her strength. The doctor’s office came back into focus.

“Angie. Angie. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I am,” Angie said, breathless. “I’m in control. But schedule it as soon as you can.”

Dr. Grant said, “I’ll give you a little longer to think it over. It’s a big step. And irreversible.”

In the distance, she heard, You have to sleep sometime, Pretty Girl.

It was three a.m., and those words still haunted her. Terrified to close her eyes, Angie sat upright in bed, all the lights on. Her eyes burned, but she hardly blinked, as every blink got a little bit longer. Finally, her eyelids refused to blink up again, and she slipped into that weird state between waking and dreaming.

The angel figurine on her dresser swelled to full size. The white porcelain filled in with color—pale peach-toned skin, a splash of pink over the cheekbones, black, curling, flowing hair, dark eyes with the reflection of fire in their centers. Man? Woman? It was hard to tell. He/she stepped forward, a hand hidden behind. The wings rustled with thick, white feathers that reached impossibly wide and high, bigger than the walls and ceiling should have allowed.

“Who are you?” Angie asked.

“Fear not. I am Angel, the answer to a prayer.”

“My prayer?”

The angel shook his head. “Not yours, Angie. Another’s.”

“What do you want?” she whispered.

“Peace.”

“Don’t we all,” Angie said with a little laugh.

“Justice. Vengeance. Completion.” Angel pulled his hands from behind his back, flourishing a long, silver sword. Flames from the point licked the night sky, where the ceiling should have been.

Thank goodness the ceiling is gone, Angie thought in her waking sleep. Scorch marks would have been so hard to explain.

When the alarm rang, Angie jolted out of the chair. She hadn’t meant to sleep. A quick scan showed nothing out of place in her room. No new notes or strange presents waiting for her. She retained the strange impression of a dream about beating wings, but it faded quickly by daylight.

Extremely groggy, she got ready for school, double-checking her clothes and makeup before she left. No one had sabotaged her. It was only a one-mile walk to school, too close for the bus to pick her up. Mom had insisted on driving her every morning so far, as if letting her walk on her own for fifteen minutes of rush hour would expose her innocent daughter to mortal dangers. Right. Too late for that.

This morning, Mom had an early monthly staff meeting, so Angie begged for a chance to be normal and walk to school. The wind was blowing crisply, but wrapped in a new down jacket, Angie was ready for it.

She wasn’t the earliest one up and about. Mrs. Harris was out pushing the stroller. She waved to Angie and drew alongside her. “How’s your mom feeling these days?” she asked. The tone of her voice made it clear she was asking about the pregnancy.

Angie shrugged. “She doesn’t talk about it much. I think she’s getting over the morning sickness. What a crazy thing to do, at her age. I mean—”

She cut herself off, realizing that Mrs. Harris was about the same age as Mom.

Mrs. Harris laughed. “She’s a brave one. Of course, George and I tried and tried for years. We eventually saw the light and adopted Sammy. He’s been such a blessing.”

She pulled back the blanket to reveal a sleeping angel. Long, pale lashes brushed his fat cheeks. His lips were pursed with a little bubble clinging to them. Angie thought he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

“How old is he?” she asked. “It would be so fun if he and Mom’s baby turned out to be playmates.”

“Coming up on ten months,” she said. “He’s a fiendish crawler and just about ready to walk. He’s rarely this still, believe me.”

“Do you ever need a babysitter?” The words were out of her mouth before she knew it. What did she know about babysitting? She’d never even taken the Red Cross class, but it would be good practice before Mom saddled her with taking care of her own little brother or sister.

Mrs. Harris smiled. “Why, yes, Angie. Thank you. George and I would love a night out, much as we love this little one. Maybe we could set up something regular. I remember how nice a little extra income was when I was your age.”

“Sammy,” Angie said, watching the little boy breathe. The bubble quivered.

“Samuel means ‘asked of God.’ We asked, and he sure answered.”

“Know anything about him? He looks American.” The only other adopted kids Angie knew had been picked up in Central America and China.

“It was a private adoption. His mother died in childbirth, and the father was too overwhelmed to raise him alone.”

“That’s so sad. Poor little dude.” She couldn’t tear her eyes away. “Anyway, he’s lucky to have you and Dr. Harris. I hope Mom’s baby is this cute. Oh, gosh. I have to get to school. But call me anytime.”

Angie picked up her pace as she left the cul-de-sac. Socializing would earn her a tardy, but it was worth it if she got a steady job. A honk startled her out of her wits. A blue car idled across the intersection.

“Need a ride?” Greg’s head poked out of the driver’s window.

Angie hesitated. Things had been left very awkward, to say the least.

“Come on. Hop in. It’s freezing out there.”

“Thanks.” Angie crossed over, walked around to the passenger side, and got in, stuffing her backpack by her feet. She buckled and studied the backs of her fingernails.

Greg pulled away from the stop sign. “How’s it going? We haven’t talked. I think you’ve been avoiding me.”

Angie’s embarrassment resurfaced as a burst of annoyance. “Of course we haven’t talked. There wasn’t much left to say. I’m sure Liv wants nothing to do with me now.”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Greg said softly. “Do you think I’m nuts?”

“Oh. Well, thanks. I, uh, I don’t know what came over me. I mean I wasn’t—” No explanation sprang to mind, nothing that he’d believe, anyway.

“Ange. It’s okay. Really. In fact, let me know if it ever comes over you again.” He dropped his right hand from the steering wheel to rest on her knee.

What? “What?”

“I just … may have been a little nuts to stop.”

Now Angie was completely confused. “But you were right. If you and Liv are—”

“Well, we’re not,” he interrupted. “I mean, not like we’re committed or anything. We’re just hanging together for fun. Only it’s not that fun.”

He pulled over to the curb and killed the engine a few blocks short of school. He took her hand. “Ange, I really missed you. Then you were back in my life for, like, two seconds and then gone again. Can we, I don’t know, see if the old spark is still there?”

“But what about Li—”

Greg stopped her protest with a kiss. She closed her eyes and felt the swooshing of the lazy river again, felt the heat of a long-ago sun. Three years of forgotten time fell away and she was thirteen and caught in the incredible grip of first love. She sighed against his mouth. His hands slipped around her and pulled her toward his seat at an awkward angle. The gearshift poked her in the ribs. “Ouch,” she muttered.

“This is majorly uncomfortable, isn’t it?” he commented. His eyes flicked to the backseat. Angie’s flicked to the clock. They had fifteen minutes to make out before school started. Was it worth it? Hell yes, a voice inside urged her. Well, the good doctor had told her to listen to her voices! Why not?

They scrambled out their own doors and met in the backseat. “Duck,” Greg whispered, staying below window level. “Duck.”

“Goose.” Angie giggled and pulled him down to cover her. “You’re it.” Her arms wrapped his neck. Her legs wrapped his waist. Daring. But how else would they fit? It wasn’t a big car.

He sank his face into her neck and kissed the skin all the way along the edge of her V-neck shirt until he got to the cleavage point.

Her skin fizzed with every touch. “Are we sparking yet?” she asked. Her breath was shallow. Just looking into his black olive eyes gave her goosebumps.

“All eight cylinders, you bet!” He laughed and rubbed his cheek on hers. His face was just a little prickly, and it gave her the strangest feeling of déjà vu. She licked his lips with the tip of her tongue. That sure got his attention. The kisses deepened, and his hands slid up inside and found her bra. Then the kissing stopped. His face took on a look of concentration, and he was rocking his hips harder against her. His sweater scratched the soft skin of her stomach where her shirt pulled up, and his belt buckle gouged against her. She whimpered, and he laughed, misunderstanding, and pressed harder through his jeans. A wave of terror shot through her. What was she doing? He would be out of control soon. No! School was starting. But yes, she had to, had to have him closer and more. Little animal sounds in her throat begged him. His breath came in gasps. He groaned a word that might have been her name. Then he was done with her, leaning back and resting his head against the car window. “Oh wow,” he gasped. “Oh wow.”

Angie was cold, exposed, her top pushed up around her neck, her body confused, throbbing, still stretching for something out of reach. “What …?”

He slapped the ceiling and hooted. “Angela Gracie, you are the best-kept secret. You may look like a domestic Chevy, but under the hood, you’re a hot, fast Porsche. What an awesome ride.”

Perhaps he thought that was a compliment? Angie didn’t know what to say.

He threaded his hands into her hair. “And that’s with everything on. I knew we still had it.”

Angie found a tiny voice. “Does that mean … does that mean you’ll tell Livvie now? About us?”

Greg’s face turned slightly confused. “Oh, uh, yeah. I … just give me a little time to figure out how. I don’t want to upset her. You understand. That’s what’s so great about you. You know Liv.” He kissed her on the nose. “Come on. Hop up front. We’re really late for class.” He shot her a white grin that sent lightning flashes straight to her toes.

Angie unfolded from the backseat and straightened her clothes, before she opened the door to move. Greg still liked her, all right. The problem was, she didn’t know whether to feel wonderful or stupid. And her body ached for him.