.

      Then I look at her again, at my mother, and I’m not so sure it is. This is a woman with a multi-billion dollar company. This building is big enough to house what amounts to a small hospital among many, many other things.

      Can my mother actually have people beaten up?

      Maybe. Maybe she can.

      She smiles to show she doesn’t mean it. The smile convinces me that she can.

      “So what’s the project? You want me to wash some test tubes?”

      “No, that’s why we have people like Solo,” she says. “You’re a Spiker.”

      I feel a twinge of sympathy for Solo. I’d been assuming he’s some kind of wunderkind, and here she’s talking about him as if he were a janitor.

      People like . . .

      Quite a bit of condescension locked up in those two words.

      “This will be a wonderful introduction to the kind of thinking and creativity we require at Spiker,” my mother says. “It’ll challenge you, sweetheart. Bring out the talent I know you have hidden deep, deep down inside you.” She’s getting excited now. The lines in her forehead seem to smooth, her eyes gaze with a certain wild excitement at the horizon.

      She pauses, waiting to be sure she has my undivided attention.

      “I want you, Evening, to design the perfect boy.”

      Luna stops rubbing.

      “Am I doing this with crayons? Or will I be working with Play-Doh?”

      My mother smiles tolerantly. “Oh, I think we can do a little better than that. You can start tomorrow morning. If you do it, I’ll have your little friend here tomorrow afternoon.”

      “I think Aislin has her dance class on –”

      “Evening. When I send for people, they come.”

10

      “THIS IS WHERE you’ll be working. Playing.”

      My mother hesitates, frowns, realizes she’s frowning and that frowning causes lines, and unfrowns. “Play, work, call it whatever you like.”

      “So long as I do it.”

      “Exactly.”

      Solo is pushing my wheelchair while my mother leads the way. At the last minute, the orderly who was supposed to be assisting us this morning had an attack of stomach pains. His back-up couldn’t be located.

      It crosses my mind, just for a nanosecond, that Solo might have arranged to be here with me. Maybe he’s as desperate for company as I am.

      Solo pushes my wheelchair into a horseshoe-shaped work station. It’s an amazing space with soaring ceilings and low-slung black leather furniture. There’s a huge ficus tree next to the desk. It’s strung with white twinkle lights, probably a remnant of the long-past holiday season. It’s oddly whimsical in the clean, minimalist setting.

      I don’t have time to admire the decor, though, because I’m too busy gaping at the twenty-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling monitor. I’ve never seen a screen so big. Movie theater big.

      A strand of DNA is displayed on the monitor. This is not just some run-of-the-mill textbook image. And it’s definitely nothing like the primitive double helix model I made in sixth grade out of styrofoam balls and toothpicks. (My mother’s assessment: “What are we, Amish?”)

      This thing . . . this thing is pulsating with energy. It’s alive.

      “That’s the project,” my mother says. “That’s 88715.”

      “It’s real,” I murmur.

      “No, just a simulation. You can see the DNA, you can see entire chromosomes, you can pull out further –” She demonstrates by tracing a finger across the touchscreen that is set at wheelchair level. The image on the wall zooms out. “Now you see a chromosome. Out further, it’s a cell.”

      Solo locks my chair wheel and grabs a chair. He yawns. Clearly, he’s not as mesmerized as I am.

      “The best part is that you can use any number of different interfaces.” Tap, tap, drag. “This one’s made of Lego blocks, for younger kids. See how there’s a Lego representation of the DNA?”

      My mother’s in the zone, her voice animated. She gets like this when she’s excited about an idea. And this little project – this “fluff ” – is nothing compared to her real work, the work she’s overseen on new drug therapies. When she’s laboring on something she’s excited about, she’ll move into Spiker’s lab for days, even weeks, at a time. More than once, she’s come home with her mascara smudged, her nails bitten to the quick, her eyes bleary.

      Usually, it’s because her team has failed. But sometimes, and there are just enough of those times, it’s because they’ve succeeded.

      “You can add or subtract blocks,” my mother continues. “Hover over and you see what each does. Or –” tap, drag, tap – “you can picture each element as a colored blob or as a tile in a mosaic. But either way you can run forward and see the effect.”

      “The effect on what?”

      “On your person.”

      “My what?”

      “Your person.” She enunciates carefully. “Per. Son. The person you’re creating.”

      I lean forward and The Leg shifts slightly. “You almost sound like you’re talking about a real human being.”

      She blinks and brushes back an errant strand of hair. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s not real. That would be illegal. The fines would be astronomical. The government would probably shut us down. I might even go to jail. Me!”

      “I didn’t –”

      “No, no, no. This just provides students with an opportunity to learn how to . . .”

      “To play God?” I supply.

      She snaps her fingers. “Exactly. Exactly, exactly.” Deep sigh. “Exactly. We want to enable the average person, a person like . . . like him” – her eyes flit toward Solo – “to understand what makes humans . . . human.” She waves a dismissive hand and trails Bulgari.

      “‘Like him’?” I repeat.

      “You know what I mean: someone who’s not a scientist.”

      “A mere mortal,” Solo suggests.

      “Stupidity is relative,” my mother says, still addressing me. “And it’s also case-specific. Thomas, the scientist most directly responsible for this project, has an IQ of 169. He also has his entire body covered in ridiculous tattoos. He’s very smart at science. You, Evening, are very smart at school, particularly science, and very stupid at choosing your friends.”

      “Oh, snap,” I say.

      “What?”

      “Sorry. I was flashing back to 2005.”

      The corners of Solo’s mouth flirt with a smile.

      “The point is, you get to play God.”

      “Can I play Portal instead?”

      “You play Portal?” Solo asks.

      “I have,” I say cautiously. “Is it all right with you if a girl plays Portal?”

      “A girl?” He’s puzzled.

      “Yes, I am, in fact, a girl.”

      “I noticed,” he says.

      “No, you did not notice she’s a girl,” my mother snarls. “You noticed she’s my daughter.”

      My