Like Mr. Bender, I could leave everything I was behind, including my name. Leave because of Allys and all the things she says I am.

Leave because of all the things I am afraid that I will never be again.

Leave, because maybe I'm not enough.

Leave because Allys, Senator Harris, and half the world knows better than Father and Mother and maybe Ethan, too.

Leave.

Because the old Jenna was so absorbed in her own needs that she said yes when she knows she should have said no, and the shame of that night could be hidden in a new place behind a new name.

But friends are complicated.

There is the staying.

Staying because of Kara and Locke and all that they will never be except trapped.

Staying because for them, time is running out and I am their last chance.

Staying for the old Jenna and all she owes Kara and Locke and maybe all the new Jenna owes them, too.

Staying because often percent and all I hope it might be

Staying because of Mr. Bender's erased life and regrets.

Staying for connection.

Staying because two of me is enough to make one of me worth nothing at all.

And staying because maybe Lily does love the new Jenna as much as the old one, after all.

Because maybe, given time, people do change, maybe laws change.

Maybe we all change.

A Plan

I have an advantage.

At four a.m. in the blackness of my room, I can still see. The hall light has been strategically disabled. I stand behind my door, two hours before the appointed time, because I am a horse and do not tire.

And because I can't sleep.

Fear is caffeine running through my veinless body, jumping from biochip to biochip, circling around my preserved ten percent, my brain, only a butterfly no larger than the real thing, but the most important piece of acreage in my universe. The difference between staying and leaving. I do not tire, but I catch my breath again and again. Betrayal. Loyalty. Survival. Sacrifice. They battle within me.

Five a.m.

Fifty minutes to go. Is it too late to change my mind? Would the old Jenna have jeopardized her future for the sake of someone else? I lean close to the wall, the open door sandwiching me, touching my toes. In the dark, they will never see me. I play out the plan for the hundredth time and then I hear a creak on the loose floorboard outside my door and my remembered heart flies to my throat. Footsteps moving into place.

I don't need to look at my clock. My neurochips know to the second how much time has passed. It is time. My breaths come in gulps, and in an instant I curse and cherish neurochips that remember and mimic too much.

Twenty minutes until dawn. Now. It's time. I shake my fingers.

Betrayal. Loyalty.

Survival. Sacrifice.

Choose, Jenna.

I scream. Loud and long. I cry out.

I listen.

I hear doors bang. Swearing. A yell. Footsteps.

I scream again. "No. . . stop . . . help!" Loud so it vibrates from the walls.

Two pairs of footsteps pound up the stairs calling, "Jenna!"

Two pairs of footsteps running down the hall. Seconds from my door and an empty bed.

Father curses the light that is out.

Seconds

Through the door. To the bed. An empty bed.

And I slip out.

The door slams behind me. Lily jumps from the darkness and, in a swift, practiced movement, inserts and turns the key.

The locked door that was supposed to shut me in just in case now holds them, just in case.

"Hurry," Lily says, handing me another key. "You may not have much time. I'll try to explain, calm them down. But you know how they are. Your father may rip this door from its hinges."

The banging and yelling have already started. I touch the door. "Try to understand," I say.

"Jenna! What are you doing? Let us out!"

"Are you okay? What's wrong? Jenna!"

The door quivers with my father's shoulder.

"Go," Lily says. "Hurry."

I take the stairs two at a time, my clumsy feet stumbling twice, my hand gripping the railing to keep me from a free fall. I tumble to the floor at the last stair, scrambling on all fours as I right myself. I run down the hall and grab the crowbar just inside Lily's door that she left as promised, and then I burst into Mother and Father's room, letting the door bang into the wall. My fingers shake as I try to maneuver the key into the closet lock. It won't go in! Is it the wrong one? Mother's and Father's pounding rattle the house. I can hear Mother as clearly as if I were standing next to her. Her orders, her pleading, and finally her frantic realization, stab at me. My legs weaken. Hurry, Jenna!

"God, let it fit!" I cry, shaking and twisting the key. It slides in. I sob and turn the lock, and the door swings open.

"I'm here, I'm here," I say, feeling perilously out of control. Think. Slow down.

I lift the crowbar like a club. Which one first?

I lower the bar and slide it beneath the bracket on the first backup. Kara. It doesn't budge. Please. I heave my full weight on it, and the rivets pop loose. The bracket flies into the wall and down to the floor.

The second one. Locke. Three tries, and the rivets break loose.

And finally the third one. Jenna. I touch the top of the backup, and a dizzy wave overwhelms me. Hurry, Jenna! Now! I slide the bar beneath the bracket, and with all my strength, I bear down with a single swift push. The bracket flies loose on the first try.

I remember every detail Father told me about the backups. Once I remove them from their power docks, they will only stay viable for thirty minutes. The special environment that holds them will stop spinning and will let them go.