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  He spat out gulps of water. While struggling to tread, he touched his chest. It was still there, his heart wild inside it like a trapped bird. His arms—still there. His legs—there. He checked other important areas. Everything, everything in its right place.

  He was here. In a new body.

  A giddy thrill coursed through him.

  Fuck me, I did it!

  He had died and come back—this was a thing that people did every day, and now, finally, he had done it, too.

  A loud tone sounded from far ahead. A yellow light on the beach strobed on and off. Julian knew, like everyone knew from elementary school lessons, that the light and the tone guided you home. He started swimming toward it, his arms moving with increasing confidence as the knowledge set in that they were, in fact, his arms. His new arms.

  On the beach, Julian hid his nakedness—he felt embarrassed, but less embarrassed than he imagined he would be, given that everyone else was naked, too. He surveyed the beach—it seemed normal, apart from nurses wrapping naked rebirths of every age and type up in pale blue paper gowns. The paint was peeling on the receiving center up on the hill, revealing large splotches of bare concrete. An American flag shifted weakly in a small breeze. This was the place he had spent so much time dreading? It was . . . pretty innocuous. Pretty lame.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. It was a grim-faced nurse, offering him a gown in latex-gloved hands. “I would hustle up now to beat the crowd,” she said, gesturing toward a large group of about twenty confused older people. Food poisoning at an early bird special? Gas leak at a retirement home? He put his gown on and headed up the hill.

  There was a tickling, cottony feeling inside his mouth. He ran his tongue over his front teeth. He used to have a slightly chipped tooth from a fall he took one Halloween when he was three. But now it was whole again. He ran his tongue over it repeatedly. It felt alien.

  He touched his arms, his chest, and ran his hands along his stomach. It was firm and hard, whereas in his previous body, he had begun to develop a thin but noticeable layer of cushioning fat around his belly. He squeezed the muscles together in his butt. He touched it when no one was looking—it was taut and hard.

  The nurses, dour and serious all of them, herded Julian to the shortest line inside the receiving center, behind a young man with red hair and a twitching eye. A massive American flag hung from the ceiling at the head of the room. The bureaucratic sanitization of this place filled Julian with reassurance. This was normal. A normal thing to do.

  But then he saw the nurse in purple at the podium under the flag.

  It was the Prelate, Julian recalled as his memories came back.

  He stood stiffly, surveying the proceedings from behind a purple cowl and menacing black goggles. If the bureaucracy was vaguely comforting in its promise of order, the Prelate was a grim reminder that order also meant repercussions. It meant punishments for those who veered off course. Feeling the familiar tendrils of anxiety prick at him even in this new body, Julian turned away from him.

  A nurse approached him with a clipboard. “Would you complete this survey for us?” she asked. “Your answers are for statistical purposes only.”

  Julian took the clipboard and looked at the survey of about ten multiple-choice questions.

  What best describes the feeling you have inside your new body?

  Julian stared at the answers. For a moment, they blurred together into an indistinct jumble of letters. He blinked several times until the words came into focus. He gripped his pencil and circled “(A) Disconnected—it does not yet feel this is the real me.”

  What best describes your current mental state?

  (A)“At peace. You feel whole and/or contented.”

  (B)“Happy. You feel a sense of joy or elation.”

  (C)“Distressed. You feel that something is wrong.”

  (D)“Lost. You feel uncertain about your circumstances.”

  Julian circled “At peace.” But he immediately second-guessed himself.

  His head spun. He handed the survey back to the girl and rubbed his eyes, trying to push away his confusion.

  A male nurse in thick glasses waved him into a numbering booth. Wanting to appear adult and experienced, Julian answered his questions—name, address, ID number—simply and directly, in as few words as possible. The nurse turned Julian around, and he soon felt the cold steel of a stethoscope through his thin gown. Two minutes passed as the nurse studied Julian’s breathing. Julian looked away, toward the long hallways and closed doors of the administrative wing.

  This is the Lake receiving center in Lakeshore, he told himself. Those were the hallways your mother walked.

  What was behind those doors? What was in those rooms? She had known.

  “Well,” the nurse said, turning Julian back around. “It seems your heart skips a beat every minute.”

  Julian blinked. “Is that a problem?”

  “It’s a pretty common Wrinkle. Nothing to worry about.”

  Nothing to worry about?

  Julian closed his eyes when the numbering gun was put to his neck. He felt a quick, prickly stab. His new number. The punctuation to his new life.

  In the bathroom, standing in his gown, Julian stared at the number Two on his neck. He touched it. This was all so easy, he realized. Except for a vague sense of unreality that was already starting to fade, everything about this seemed relatively painless.

  Well . . .

  Except, of course, that he could recall nothing about the final moments of his death. He remembered the van, and the memories of that cat . . . But what had transpired exactly once they arrived at Lake Tower? Did he actually jump? He must have. But was it willingly? Did he feel the impact? He pushed the thoughts from his mind before he could consider the grim possibilities.

  He stood in another line outside, this one for the bus back to Lakeshore. He watched with his new eyes as the driver stubbed out a cigarette, a small spark leaping out from under his boot. The bus rocked as the driver pulled himself up the steps to his seat. He turned it on and it rumbled to life, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  Julian got home late. His father and brother were already asleep. He walked quietly through the house to his room, took off his gown, and put on clean underwear. “If you’re feeling bad, always put on clean underwear.” This was one of his mom’s favorite pieces of advice.

  He lay down in his bed and stared at the ceiling. You’re a Two now, he thought. All those days as a One . . . all that time spent saying no. All that time spent pushing back, hiding away . . . it was gone.

  You are someone new now, he thought. He held this thought in his mind for a few long minutes, turning it over carefully and examining it for hidden feelings and secret valences. He felt no disdain with being transformed, but he felt no comfort with the thought either. It was just there. A new fact he had to accept.

  Lost?

  At peace?

  Did it matter?

  He was new. This was the only fact that mattered. A new Julian.

  Suddenly, he grabbed his phone from where it was charging on the bedside table. He opened a new message.

  Recipient: Cody.

  He typed: “Hey. So where is that party of yours?”

  Chapter 14

  THE NEXT MORNING, JULIAN FOUND HIS FATHER IN THE workshop. It wasn’t even 7:00 a.m., and he was already in his dirty overalls, sifting through a pile of tools.

  “Hey Dad, I’m a Two now,” Julian said.

  His dad turned around and upon seeing the Two on Julian’s neck, he let out a sigh of relief. “Is that where you were last night?”

  “Twenty-four-hour extinguishment clinic,” Julian lied. “Sorry I didn’t tell you. It was just—something I had to do myself.”

  He had spent the morning considering whether he should tell his father about You Never Forget Your First Time. But then he might also have to admit why he did it. That he was chasing the promise of finding out something about Mom.

&nb
sp; And a promise from who? A kid running a high school suicide club?

  It would sound foolish and stupid and naive. And he didn’t want that shot down—not now. He needed to believe in something right now.

  “I’m sorry, Julian. But you’re doing the right thing,” his father said softly.

  “I hope so,” Julian replied. He hiked his backpack up on his shoulder and went to the kitchen to corral Rocky.

  Rocky was strangely silent on the ride to school. But before he hopped out at the middle school, he turned to Julian and asked a question: “That was you, wasn’t it? On DeadLinks?”

  Julian looked back at his brother blankly.

  Shit.

  Of course. The Burners had made a video.

  The knowledge that Rocky had seen the video brought it crashing home for him: he had leaped off the Tower. What he did was reckless. Risky. Dangerous. Actually: wrong. Breaking into the Tower . . . throwing himself off the top . . . in a high-numbered district, no less! This cold, hard reality somehow got lost in all the planning, excitement, and subterfuge.

  And yet, it had happened. It was a thing he did, and a thing he didn’t want his brother to ever look up to.

  “They’re supposed to be cool, right? The Burners,” Rocky said.

  “Supposed to be,” Julian said blandly.

  “So, you’re cool now, too, I guess,” Rocky said, a proud smile on his face. He hopped out of the car and made his way to middle school, laughing with a blond-haired kid who ran up to him.

  Cool?

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  What kind of example was this? Jumping off a thirty-story building, breaking the law, and losing a heartbeat?

  Then another troubling realization hit him: if Rocky saw the video, then everyone saw it.

  Julian’s heart sank as the realization set in.

  Of course everyone saw the video. That was the whole point. So much of their planning time for the jump was spent discussing the mechanics of recording it: camera placement, angles, lighting . . .

  Julian always knew that his death was meant for public consumption, but some part of him kept putting off coming to terms with what that actually meant. Maybe, he thought, he would just come back on Life Two shameless and ready to accept the world’s watching eyes.

  But here he was, a Two, his old sense of shame still intact.

  In homeroom, he could feel the eyes of everyone turn to him as soon as he walked through the door. He felt them stay on his back as he crossed the room to his seat. During his morning classes, yet more eyes tracked his every move. Even in the hallways, when he tried to stick to the shadows, the eyes would follow him. Compounding this were all the watchers on their phones, playing and replaying the video. Views stacking up higher and higher until they towered over him.

  Julian’s instinct was to shrink away, but of course Nicholas was there to greet Julian the moment he entered the cafeteria at lunchtime, his white jacket crisp and freshly pressed and his broad smile revealing a row of polished, expensive-looking teeth.

  Nicholas started applauding, and Julian became hot with embarrassment. Soon, everyone in the cafeteria joined Nicholas in cheers, whistles, hoots, and shouts. The Burners banged their feet in a rhythm, like at a football game. The sound rose to a deafening roar and reverberated off the concrete walls. The din filled Julian’s head, and he looked away from it, closing his eyes, trying to push his embarrassment down inside a black hole.

  Finally, the befuddled teachers and guards tamped down the commotion and Nicholas, beaming, led Julian across the room to the Burners’ table like a trophy kill. In a daze, Julian returned their fist bumps and high fives.

  “Jules,” Nicholas said, pulling him in close. “You make your plans and you hope for the best. But this . . . this is more than I could have ever hoped for. We have over five thousand views, and it’s only been up since six a.m.”

  He studied Julian’s face and scrunched his brows together in curiosity. “You have watched it, haven’t you?”

  Julian shook his head.

  Nicholas’s eyes bulged in surprise. “Aren’t you wondering why everyone is cheering for you? My goodness, boy, let’s embrace the good times here!”

  “I-I just . . . ,” Julian stammered. “I don’t want to.”

  Nicholas clicked his tongue in a playful tsk. “Oh, I get it. This is about seeing your dead body,” Nicholas said. “That’s a perfectly normal response. Many people don’t want to attend their funeral party, let alone watch the moment of . . . impact,” he said, raising his brow to highlight his punning. “But you have got to see this. It has made a real impression.”

  “Because the loser One kid just popped his cherry?”

  Nicholas frowned. “Julian,” he said sharply. “Show some pride in yourself. People are watching this video because it is exactly what the Burners stand for. A powerful, impressive, undeniable moment when the system is burst open right in front of everyone, right at the pinnacle of society. You made this statement, Julian,” Nicholas said, tapping the table furiously with his fingers. “People are listening.”

  Nicholas retrieved his phone from his pocket and queued up the video. He offered it to Julian like he was slipping him a drug.

  “Take a look at the message you sent to the world,” Nicholas said.

  Julian took the phone.

  He pushed play.

  Titled You Never Forget Your First Time, the video was forty-eight seconds. It was a series of shots from different angles and at different speeds and in varying degrees of close-ups. It began with a body—his body, he realized intellectually; but emotionally, it was just a body here, a freaking ragdoll for all it mattered—plummeting thirty stories to the sidewalk and exploding into a cloud of red mist, spraying blood onto a hapless Lake employee standing outside the door, carrying a briefcase. This entire sequence was about eighteen seconds, all in. The other thirty seconds were various reprises from different angles and speeds. In all angles, Julian’s face was pixelated and blurred—a crucial part of Nicholas’s plan to protect his identity in case the authorities came snooping.

  Watching it, Julian was surprised to find his reaction bordered more on relief than revulsion—it was difficult for him to link that exploding body with who he was now, but at least the pixelation on the face was so well done.

  “So, no one can unscramble my face? Not even the police?”

  “No way in hell,” Nicholas said, sounding mildly offended.

  “And the body?”

  “We picked it up within minutes of impact. All the little pieces.” Nicholas smirked. “Bleached the hell out of the sidewalk, too. Not a scrap of DNA left behind.”

  Julian exhaled. “But everyone at school knows it was me. Even my little brother in middle school knows.”

  Nicholas rolled his eyes.

  “Look, Julian. Worst case is if the police do somehow link the falling body back to you . . . this is, mind you, if they even bother to investigate it, and then someone at school squeals, despite the fact that they know I am protecting you . . . in this rare event, there are people I know who could make a problem like that go away very quickly.”

  Julian nodded. After the clip finished, he looked at the view counter, which was running up more views even as he watched.

  “But come on, this is some impressively sick stuff right here. Who knew you could be such a sensation, right?” Nicholas asked.

  “Not me,” Julian said, handing the phone back to Nicholas.

  “Jules, that was a leading question,” Nicholas replied. “Because the answer is . . . I knew. I knew all along that there was someone important inside you who needed to be set free. Now meet me after school in the parking lot,” Nicholas said. “There’s something we need to do. It will make you feel much better about this whole thing.”

  The rest of the day, Julian still found himself wanting to shrink away from all the attention. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but marvel at Nicholas’s power: he had managed to open up this entirel
y new world—a world where people looked at you, cheered for you, thought about you. . . . It was disorienting, but impressive.

  If Julian wanted to truly be this person Nicholas had given him the opportunity to become, then he would have to embrace a version of himself that Nicholas wanted him to be. He would need to own it. The kid in white who watched his own DeadLinks videos.

  But it all seemed impossible to Julian. He was going to end up a huge faker. A hack. A pretender.

  This worry ate away at him bit by bit all afternoon. He wondered absently if maybe he was actually starting to experience some kind of disassociation—a delayed-onset retrogression maybe?

  After school that day, Julian met Nicholas in the parking lot. He led him to the Burners’ van parked behind the gymnasium. Julian took the passenger seat as Nicholas drove it out of the school lot and up a winding dirt road that stretched into a tree-lined bluff that overlooked the Lake. Julian’s One body lay in a garbage bag where the back seat was supposed to be.

  “Trust me,” Nicholas said. “This is like a closing ritual. For your One, I recommend it.”

  From the top of the bluff, the road wound into a thick grove of evergreens. The afternoon sun was an orange glow on the horizon by the time they came to a stop in a small clearing. In a quick flash, Julian saw an image of his mother, superimposed in the hazy light, looking at him with ghostly green eyes. The image made his skin rise up in goose bumps. He tried to shake it from his mind, but he couldn’t. Her face lingered for a moment behind his eyelids, slowly fading as he rubbed them.

  She was the reason he was doing all this. Why he flung himself from a rooftop. Why he was thrust into the spotlight. Why he hadn’t just gone to an ex clinic for a doctor-assisted extinguishment like a normal person. If there was some secret truth out there about her, Nicholas was going to find it. If he could get them into Lake Tower, he could surely get Julian anything else he wanted.

  “Hey,” Julian said as Nicholas pulled the van to a stop in the shadow of a pine tree. “So, I did this ridiculous burn the way you wanted . . .”