“We’re going to discover that together. You have so many gifts, Elisha. Believe me—numbers don’t mean a thing. A one becomes a zero, and a life is erased? Not here. Here, you are always someone. You have purpose.”

For the first time in forever, I smile. “I hope that’s true. I’m so tired of BS people posting their BS lies. Nothing out there is real. If there isn’t a picture or your Life Stream didn’t record it, it didn’t happen, it didn’t matter. But the truth is, nothing matters. It’s all…stupid. Pointless.” Dipping my head back, I wet my hair.

When I raise my head, Allard’s sparkling eyes meet mine. “I think we can find out what matters to you. So, what do you say we get to work making you unrecognizable? I’m not worried about your face—by the time summer is over and everyone returns to campus, the collagen and other injectables should have worked their way out of your system. Whatever your mom was using to keep you looking like her will be gone, and we’ll see the real Elisha. But maybe we should start with your hair.” She holds up a pair of scissors. “Do you trust me?”

Pouring shampoo into my hand and working the soap into my hair, I consider her. She helped me escape. She’s taking me in. She’s the closest thing I have to family now… “Yes,” I decide, using a handheld shower head to rinse out the bubbles. “What are you thinking?”

“As you know, asymmetry is important to disguise yourself from the facial-recognition cameras that are all over the place. That goes for hair, too. I think we should chop it off. Maybe angle it just above your shoulders?”

I rub creamy conditioner into my thick locks, weighing my wet hair in my hands, recalling my mother’s signature windswept spirals. When she smiles in the cutesy, infectious way of hers while twirling a curl around her finger, she twists whoever she’s manipulating right along with her. We spent years growing my hair out in the hopes it would mimic hers but never quite succeeded. All I ever wanted was to be hers…but I was never enough. Her love fluctuated with my share price.

Thinking back to my debut on the Social Stock Exchange, I remember our last moments together before I went public and everything changed:

“After today, it will be up to you to keep your investors happy,” she said. “Always be a story—the more dramatic, the better. If you do, you’ll live in luxury. Your currency account will be forever full. If you don’t—if you fall from the Index—you’ll be Unrankable. Useless. And then you might as well disappear.”

Wrapping her arms around me from behind, she rested her chin on my shoulder, comparing our mirrored faces reflected on a wall screen. Our house was equipped with the latest in Life Streaming technology. Cameras recorded our every move, and our lives could be edited to movie quality and streamed direct to the Networks with less than a five-second delay.