The Body Electric - Special Edition by Beth Revis

The lift reaches the docking station and bumps to a stop. The lacrosse team shouts out something Australian and cheer-like that I can’t understand and pours out. I follow, slowly, eyes still searching the crowd for Dad.
    And then I see him, standing on the other end of the docking station. Luzzoliers crowd their boats near the lifts, hoping to snag tourists right away. You could, technically, walk the city, but no one ever does—the luzzu boats are too well known, too much a “must-do” part of the New Venice experience. The lacrosse players take up five boats, all rocking and nearly tipping over as they jump in a bit too excitedly.
    But Dad’s not near these boats. He’s on the far edge of the docking station, well away from the tourists, at the Grand Rialto bridge that connects the docking station to the Renaissance recreations.
    I rush past the people piling into the luzzu boats. At the front of each boat is a carved eye—a part of the traditional Maltese design, but even though they’re made of nothing but paint and wood, it feels as if they’re staring at me as I race down the platform.
     
    “Pretty girl!” a luzzolier in an older boat painted yellow and black calls. “Ride my boat. Cheap! No need to walk!”
    I raise my left hand at him, showing him the green stripe on my cuff that proves I’m a native to New Venice and not going to be swayed by the same pick-up lines that work on tourists. Sure enough, he shrugs and edges his boat closer to the crowd near the lifts.
    When I reach the Grand Rialto bridge, I see Dad standing at the highest point of it, facing the plaza. Street androids walk up and down, selling pastizzi and hot dogs, falafel wraps and gyros. Pigeons—which had apparently overrun the original city in Italy—are a mix of the real thing and mechanical ones, each fitted with camera lens instead of eyes.
    I keep racing, Dad always just beyond me. He flashes on and off so quickly now that I can barely keep up—down this street, then the next, over the bridge, past the people queueing up at a luzzu station, over another bridge, around a building, across a plaza, through an alley. The streets grow narrower, and there are less tourists and more natives like me—people who work in the city. I see their real faces now, not the smiling ones they show the tourists. They nod as I run by, watching me curiously. Probably assuming I’m late for work.
    And then Dad stops. He’s in front of a doorway, one that looks rather inconspicuous. It’s painted a dingy burgundy, the color cracked and peeling away. The number eight is scratched into the door, followed by a capital Q and another eight. The stoop is littered with empty candy wrappers, a crumpled wad of paper, and, oddly, a small jar full of what looks like honey. A blackened silver-colored knocker shaped like a fist holding a giant ring is bolted to the exact center of the door. Dad doesn’t move. His eyes stare straight ahead—not seeing me, as I know he can’t.
    I stop, my chest heaving from the run, my hair sticky with sweat. I try to move myself into Dad’s line of vision. I want to pretend, even if for just a moment, that he’s here and looking at me. But he’s not. Of course he’s not. I reach through his head and lift the metal ring, letting the knocker fall against the weather-worn door. It opens almost immediately, as if the person on the other side was waiting for me.
    Jack Tyler.
     

 

    eighteen
     
    Jack’s eyes are wide and shocked. I notice that his nose, while unbroken, is still swollen from where I hit him earlier.
    “How in the hell did you find me?” Jack demands.
    My head snaps back in surprise. I thought he was the one to hack into my cuff and send me the tracking code to get here. I glance nervously behind me, half-expecting someone to pop out of the waterway nearby, as if this were all a setup.
    “Shit, did you bring the police?” Jack growls. He starts to slam the door shut, but I cram my foot in the