Resist: Tales from a Future Worth Fighting Against

MONA LISA SMILE ^{BETH REVIS}

AT EXACTLY SEVEN o’clock in the evening, every vid screen in the nation illuminated with Alexoi Dempsley’s smiling face.

“This is going to be a good one,” Penny’s roommate, Billie, said as she leaned closer to the vid screen. Billie, like most people in the nation, had something of a crush on Alexoi Dempsley. It wasn’t hard, given his charisma and charm, accentuated by a chiseled face and an easy grin.

Penny hated him.

Billie settled into the couch with a relaxing sigh. The seven o’clock program was mandatory viewing for all citizens, providing a daily update from the government. Most families scheduled their lives around the program—parents and children gathered for supper in front of the vid screen, ending with dessert as the Prime Chancellor gave his pre-recorded closing remarks. Lower class workers marked the shift change during the program; parties among the upper class never started until after the program ended. The very elite had holo action viewers; the program was always live cast, and with the holographic display, it seemed as if handsome Alexoi Dempsley was actually sitting in the fancy sitting room of the elite, talking directly to each person.

“Today’s program,” Alexoi’s voice rang out through the speakers on Penny’s cheap, flat vid screen, “is about art.”

Billie squealed with anticipation, nudging Penny.

“And we have a special treat!” Alexoi clasped his hands together. “Please welcome Senior Art Director, Lev Reichs!”

A man in his fifties stepped into view. He was tall enough to offset the paunch at his waist, and his salt-and-pepper hair gave him a bit of a distinguished look that he wouldn’t have had a decade ago.

“Thank you for having me,” Director Reichs said, smiling as he sat down in a chair opposite Alexoi.

Alexoi’s face turned grave. “First, we should address the…unhappiness that has fallen upon some members of the Citizenry.”

Director Reichs nodded. “Let’s. Last month’s events were a test of our Prime Chancellor’s mercy—”

Billie snorted.

“—and of course, His Excellency rose graciously to the occasion.”

Alexoi didn’t recap the story; everyone knew it. A street artist known only by initials—S.Y.B.L.—had grown increasingly daring in their graffiti, going so far as to deface the Prime Chancellor’s own home. No one knew who the artist was. The initials could have been a name—most people referred to the artist as Sybl, pronouncing it like the old Greek oracle, “sybil.” Detectives theorized that each initial represented a different person, and that the defacing art was done by a group, not an individual. Rumors abounded—Sybl’s art was done by the Prime Chancellor’s discontent son; it was marketing ploy by one of the major corporations; it was clues about an upcoming terrorist attack; it was a distraction implemented by the government so the public didn’t notice new restrictive laws being passed.

A nationwide manhunt had resulted in nothing for years, but eventually, Sybl was caught. And it was just a girl. Skinny and short, with gripper shoes and rock-climbing muscles that enabled her to scale walls, equipped with nothing more than cans of synth paint and a cocksure attitude.

Alexoi’s warm brown eyes were sympathetic. “No one wanted the criminal known only by her pseudonym Sybl to be—”

Director Reichs cut Alexoi off. “We must not think of what her consequences were,” he said. “Of course the Prime Chancellor didn’t want to use capital punishment against her, but more than that, no one in the Citizenry wanted her to commit her crimes.”

“Exactly,” Alexoi confirmed. “Her actions led to all the unpleasantness.”

Billie threw up her hands, almost hitting Penny in the face. “‘Unpleasantness?!’” she said. “That’s what they call a public execution?”

It had been the first execution of the Prime Chancellor’s career. Or, at least, the first one shown during the mandatory viewing program. Alexoi Dempsley had come on the screen, warning parents that while the scene they were about to view would be graphic, all children were still required to view it.

But it wasn’t just the execution that could be labeled “unpleasant.” The aftermath was still lingering.

The vid screen shifted scenes. Instead of Alexoi and Director Reichs seated in an office at the Capitol, the vid screen replayed the closing of the National Gallery, with the words of the Art Edict spoken in a soothing voice.

“Are they going to take it back?” Billie asked.

Penny shook her head. She doubted that the Art Edict would ever be overturned.

The vid screen shifted back to Alexoi and Director Reichs. “Some call the Art Edict a banishment of art,” Alexoi said gravely.

Director Reichs shook his head. “The Prime Chancellor has no interest in banning art,” he said, chuckling.

“Could have fooled me,” Billie muttered. Penny shushed her.

“Yes, art in all forms was temporarily banned,” Director Reichs said, gently stressing the word. “But that was for the public’s safety, of course.”

Billie threw up her hands. “How?” she screamed at the vid screen. “How is banning art for our safety?!”

“Billie,” Penny said in a low voice.

Billie sat back down, sobered. They were both artists—recent graduates of the Citizenry Art School, the last graduates before the Art Edict. They had been counting on jobs that had been banned by the new law. Not even commercial art was allowed; all advertisements since the Edict were text only. Both girls were broke, barely scraping by, and if the Art Edict wasn’t overturned soon, they would have to sign up for shift work.

But they also knew better than to protest.

First, the galleries and art schools had closed. A temporary measure, or so they were told. Then the books had been confiscated, from silly little primers with drawings of puppies for children, to historical books, heavy with glossy pages, illuminating paintings from hundreds of years ago. Few people noticed or cared; old-fashioned books were mostly just a collector’s item. But everyone noticed when the net pages with art had been blocked, each illustration or photograph of a sculpture replaced by a white box with a black “X” through it. Finally, homes were inspected. Vid pics were wiped—again, a temporary measure, they said—and physical forms of art, even family photographs, were confiscated. There were whispers that other forms of art, like fashion and music—would soon be regulated as well, but for now, the Art Edict limited only visual arts.

Penny had never really realized how much art was in the world until it disappeared from her life. She’d taken for granted the old peeling wallpaper illustrated with bunnies and trees in the coffee shop she liked. She’d barely noticed the scrolling photographs of the nation that filled the vid screen when it wasn’t in use. Advertisements that had tried too hard to be flashy with models and vids were suddenly dull with nothing but text, even the colors limited to reduce the chance of being labeled “art.”

Billie rubbed her forearm, where a large black square stood against her tanned skin. Nanobot tattoos had also been regulated with the Art Edict. Billie had cursed wildly, but there was nothing she could do. Nano tats used a special ink that could change the image and color of the design, and Billie had loved hers. Some days she’d had her tattoo be a rainbow of watercolors, abstract and beautiful, all up and down her arm. Other days she’d animate the tattoo; she was fond of a kitten batting at a ball of yarn around her ankle. When she had her tattoo display a snake around her neck, Penny had known not to even attempt talking to her.

But now Billie’s nano tat—all nano tats—were nothing but a square black box. The government had overridden the tat frequencies, and while they couldn’t remove the ink from the people’s skin, they could immobilize the tats.

Penny had gotten a nano tat a few years ago at the same time as her boyfriend, but she hadn’t used her own in years. When she and Toni had broken up her junior year, she’d deactivated her tat. It had reminded her too much of his impulsive love of color and the way they’d sync their tats so that even their skin displayed their love. Although Penny couldn’t remove the tat forever, deactivating it had put it offline and hidden the traces of nano ink so that the remnants were nearly invisible. She had relished excising Toni from her skin and her life, although she never could have guessed that deactivating the tat prior to the Art Edict would mean she, unlike Billie and thousands of others, wouldn’t have to wear a black box on her arm like a badge of shame.

Director Reichs continued. “While the sweeping—but temporary—banishment of art was in place, it was done in order to protect us.”

Alexoi’s smile deepened, and Penny found her breath catching despite herself. “You mentioned temporary?”

Director Reichs grinned. “Yes. We’ve had time to further explore the nature of art and what is acceptable for the Citizenry. This was always the Prime Chancellor’s intent. You’ll see over the next few weeks art returning to the people.”

Billie screamed so loudly that Penny almost fell off the couch. “Look!” she said, squealing and showing her arm. The black square of her nano tat dissolved, the ink spreading out in a cloud and the reboot display showing on her skin. Billie tapped her wrist, and the nano tat started to show new patterns.

“Yours too?” Billie asked, looking up at Penny excitedly.

Penny tugged down her shirt. With the nano tat deactivated, it hadn’t come online as Billie’s had. Penny found that she wanted to keep it that way. Art had been taken from her; she didn’t want it back on her body at the government’s whim. With it offline, it was still, somehow, hers and hers alone.

“Ugh, you’re so boring,” Billie grumbled when Penny didn’t turn her nano tat back on.

“We’re rolling out acceptable art over the next few weeks, and we’ll be celebrating this with the opening of a new gallery,” Director Reichs continued.

“Acceptable art?” Alexoi asked, echoing Penny’s thoughts.

Director Reichs turned to him. “Yes,” he said. “Art should not be political. It should be beautiful. And we will strive to ensure that beauty is what graces our great nation.”

Alexoi adopted a more serious tone of voice. “And to those, like Sybl, who claimed that all art is political?”

Director Reichs laughed, and Alexoi joined in almost immediately. “Well, that’s just ridiculous. Art, at its very basic definition, is not political in the least. Art is not propaganda. Art is higher than that. Art is above politics.”

“Such as a landscape?” Alexoi suggested.

“Indeed. All the artists from the past who exhibited true art never touched on politics.” Director Reichs frowned. “Of course, some artists strayed from their purpose, creating works that were no longer art. We can all agree, for example, that the Renaissance made a mistake to illustrate so many scenes focused on religion.”

“Of course,” Alexoi said immediately. “And as we know, even art from the Renaissance that wasn’t religious held problems.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Director Reichs shook his finger, his tone admonishing. “That’s not quite fair, Alexoi. You’re referring, I presume, to the Mona Lisa?”

Alexoi nodded, a look of unease barely visible on his face. They’ve gone off script, Penny thought.

“The Mona Lisa is not political in and of itself. Sybl made it political. Yet another of her crimes—not only did she spread lies through graffiti, she corrupted good art and turned it into propaganda.” Director Reichs shook his head mournfully. “Da Vinci’s masterpiece is the greatest loss to the Citizenry, if you’ll allow an old man his foibles.”

Penny bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Public outcry for the burning of the Mona Lisa had been louder than Sybl’s execution—hundreds of art lovers had been arrested after that. This is why they’re doing this, Penny realized. The government knew they’d created a powder keg by destroying art that had existed for a millennium. They had to contain the problem. They had to appease the people.

“True art is above dirty politics,” Director Reichs continued. “And to show the Citizenry what true art is, we’ll be opening a new gallery, one piece at a time.”

“Oh?” Alexoi winked at the camera; everyone in the Citizenry was in on the joke that he knew what was happening and was merely leading Director Reichs on.

Director Reichs turned to the audience, and for a moment, Penny felt that he was staring directly at her. “We’ve narrowed down a list of art students, recent graduates from the Citizenry Art School. Our first national artist will be selected soon to paint the Prime Chancellor’s portrait. The painting will be unveiled a month from now, followed by an art celebration as we open the new National Gallery!”

The rest of the mandatory program hour was far tamer, with alerts on travel mandates, information on what protection to wear before going outside the next day, and a fluff piece on some schoolchildren. During the Prime Chancellor’s closing remarks, Penny’s wrist unit buzzed.

She glanced down at it, then her head whipped to Billie. Her roommate was still preoccupied with playing with her nano tat, but Penny could see that Billie’s wrist unit had no new message.

Penny scrolled through the message quickly, her eyes widening in surprise. She knew from the program that the list of artists was being culled from recent graduates, but she’d never imagined that she would actually be one of those selected.

Penny was to appear at a certain address—the location of the new National Gallery—at eight in the morning. Although the message was shown as an invitation, there was very clearly no way to decline; in fact, the message concluded with an official statement citing the Summons Law—anyone who did not answer a summons would be arrested.

Her stomach twisted. The Prime Chancellor was going to redefine what art was, and Penny might be the one to hold the brush.

PENNY RECOGNIZED THE building as soon as she arrived. She squinted through the acid rain shield over her head at the brick building, recently refinished with new solar paint.

This had been the location of one of Sybl’s most iconic paintings. And the reason why the government burned da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Rain drizzled over her faceplate as Penny stared up at the building. It was different now—not just the solar paint, but also a new balcony had been installed, changing the shape of the wall. But Penny knew where the dozens of stenciled people had been painted. Her eyes moved across the building. Sybl had painted men and women, children, even a few dogs and a cat, all boldly looking over the avenue, many times larger than life. And each face, from the tallest man to the smallest puppy, had a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa smile smeared over their lips.

This was the painting that had moved Sybl from a nuisance to a political dissident. While her other graffiti had been considered rude, even shocking, it was the series of Mona Lisa smiles, tacked across empty-eyed children, that struck the truest chord.

Penny turned slowly on her heel. The wide avenue stretched a full kilometer without breaking, perfectly framing the Capitol building. Sybl had known this when she scaled the wall. She purposefully painted the crowd to stare down the Capitol, to smile meekly.

Complacently.

The art school hadn’t been closed yet when Sybl had painted the Mona Lisa smiles. Penny had had a professor whose critique showed how much she actually liked the rogue artist. “See the way they look to our government and smile, each smile exactly duplicated like the last, no other expression? Sybl is pointing out how willing we are to see what the government is doing and make no protest at all!”

The professor was fired a week later. Or, at least, she was gone.

The Mona Lisa smile had been catchy—instantly recognizable, not just because of the fame of the old original, but because those twitched-up, closed-lip expressions so perfectly encapsulated silence. “The Mona Lisa knows something; can’t you see?” Penny’s professor had said when her students hadn’t appreciated Sybl’s art. “But her mouth is closed. We know what’s happening. And yet we’re silent, too.”

The professor’s replacement had moved quickly to digital art studies.

The wall was now bland, all traces of Sybl’s graffiti gone. There—where a little girl holding a red balloon, her face disproportionately eerie with the Mona Lisa smile—exactly where that little girl had been, there was now a small bump in the solar paint.

A scanner droid.

Penny was being watched. Everyone was being watched.

Penny turned to the stairs, heading inside.

IF THERE WERE more interviewees here, Penny never saw them. She was directed to a large, windowless room. Near the door was a desk with a chair behind it and one in front of it. On the other side of the room was an artist work station, similar to what she’d used for her classical studies class at university. Penny’s fingers ached to take up a brush. After the university closed, she couldn’t even afford proper paints to practice, and then paints had been banished.

A woman with a motherly smile and pale, gray-red hair entered, a folder in her hand. “Thank you for meeting with us,” she said with sincere warmth.

“It’s my honor,” Penny replied. She took her chair in front of the desk after the woman sat.

“I am Ms. Slunki, assistant to the Head Director of Art, Lev Reichs.”

She very clearly waited for Penny to appreciate her position. After Penny offered a closed-lip smile in admiration, Ms. Slunki adjusted her folder on the desk.

“Your former professors recommended your portraiture very highly,” Ms. Slunki said.

“It was my favorite subject,” Penny offered. Her eyes darted back to the easel.

Ms. Slunki grinned indulgently. “Would you like to—?” Before she finished asking, Penny was nodding her head vigorously. “Come with me.”

Ms. Slunki stood and led Penny to the easel. An array of tools and supplies were laid out on the work station. Ms. Slunki activated the hologram display in the center of the station.

This was a far better unit than the ones used at university. The figure displayed in light was vivid and clear, even when Penny zoomed in to see the details of the face of the Prime Chancellor.

“We want a portrait of our dear leader,” Ms. Slunki said, “as you know from last night’s program. Go ahead and start sketching while I conduct the rest of the interview.”

Ms. Slunki rattled off easy questions, which Penny answered immediately. Her full name and identification had been verified when she scanned in after her arrival, but Ms. Slunki’s questions were more specific. What did Penny think of art in general? What were her favorite pieces? Why did she pursue art as a career? Did she hope to join the commercial field, or had she set her heart to something else?

Meanwhile, Penny adjusted the holographic model of the Prime Chancellor, her eye already seeing him as a subject, not the leader of the Citizenry. She brought up a chair, and had the Prime Chancellor sit, but that didn’t suit him. She swept her hand to the left, deleting the chair, then frowned. He seemed aggressive when he stood, too aware of his power, too obvious. Penny brought back the chair with a wave of her hand, but adjusted it so that it directly faced her. It was the profile where the Prime Chancellor looked too strong; when she had the holographic model sit and stare directly at her, there was…

Yes. There was honesty there. That was the position she would paint the Prime Chancellor in.

Decision made, Penny started sketching. She used a vid screen first, blocking the initial sketch out. Penny had moved to graphite and paper before she realized Ms. Slunki was gone.

How long had she been alone? She vaguely recalled Ms. Slunki excusing herself but had lost all sense of time.

Penny had finished prepping the main canvas when she became aware of someone else in the room.

“Don’t let me interrupt.” The deep male voice was certainly not Ms. Slunki, and yet Penny recognized it. She turned.

“Director Reichs,” she said.

He smiled at her and took a step closer. “Interesting that you chose to show the Prime Chancellor sitting.”

“He seemed more personable this way.”

Director Reichs nodded, agreeing. “And you’re a quick artist. That’s good. We want to stage the grand opening in a month.”

Penny’s heartbeat ratcheted up. Did this mean she was already selected to create the portrait? Surely it wouldn’t be that simple?

Director Reichs strolled closer, peering over Penny’s shoulder at the primed canvas. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to find qualified artists these days,” he said, his voice low and near her ear. “We’ve already dismissed half your fellow applicants.”

Director Reichs strolled away, creating a rhythm between his words and his footsteps that Penny found entrancing, almost distracting. “I must confess; I don’t understand your generation.” He sounded exasperated, a grandfather impatient with his grandchildren. “Art just—it just is. Defacing it, corrupting it with these other meanings—”

“How could anyone do that to the Mona Lisa?” Penny said, mostly under her breath. The words echoed Toni’s, just before they’d broken up. She’d almost forgotten the old fights they’d had about Sybl and art and politics.

Director Reichs made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat. “Yes, exactly. A portrait is a portrait. Your work here isn’t that different from what da Vinci created.”

Penny laughed aloud, once, bitterly. “I’m no da Vinci, sir.”

“No, no,” Director Reichs agreed. “But your intent, obviously. He painted a portrait of a noblewoman. You are painting a portrait of our leader. There is no deeper meaning to this art. A portrait is just a portrait, no more, no less. And you—what do you want out of this experience?”

Penny thought for a moment. “I want to get paid,” she said finally. There were other reasons, of course, but it was well past lunch time, and Penny was sick of insta-rations for meals.

This was clearly the correct answer. “And so did da Vinci,” Director Reichs said. “You’re more like him than you think.”

PENNY ACHED BY the end of the day. Her legs were no longer used to standing for so long; even her fingers hurt from holding the brush. She stretched, her spine popping, and dimly became aware of Ms. Slunki standing in one corner, waiting for her.

“Congratulations!” Ms. Slunki said. “You are one of the three.”

“Three?” Penny asked.

“Three portraitists selected to complete a painting of the Prime Chancellor.”

Ms. Slunki turned and left the room, indicating for Penny to follow.

“But I thought he wanted only one?” Penny asked, jogging to keep up.

“Director Reichs doesn’t like taking chances. He will select the best of the three to be displayed.”

Penny thought about this. She wanted to ask if she got paid for her work regardless of the selection, but thought it best not to mention it yet.

“What time should I return tomorrow?” she asked instead. They had been walking quite awhile, and Penny was a bit turned around.

Ms. Slunki laughed. “Your needs will be provided for you for the duration of your stay,” she said, stopping in front of an automatic door.

Penny hesitated, peering inside the room. A sparse bedroom was outfitted with a small desk and table. A wardrobe stood against one wall, and Penny glimpsed standard issue clothing inside. A little door led to a bathroom.

There were no windows, and the only exit was the automatic door Ms. Slunki stood at, operated via a biometric scanner. The walls were painted white; the bed coverings were white; the furniture was white.

“You’ll be able to focus better on your work—I mean, your art—in an environment like this,” Ms. Slunki said cheerfully.

Penny stepped inside reluctantly. She suspected this room assignment had less to do with inspiration and more to do with security. Keep her and the other two artists inside, contained, unable to be influenced by rebels, watched 24/7. Penny looked around the room. There—above the door, beside the bed, to the right of the wardrobe—scanner droids, unobtrusively painted white to blend into the decor, recording everything she said and did.

“I’ll fetch you in the morning!” Ms. Slunki said cheerfully before locking Penny inside.

Penny paced the tiny room. She wondered if anyone had told her roommate where she was, or if Billie would wait a bit and then simply get a new roommate. Crime was rare thanks to strong law enforcement, but disappearances were less so. She hoped Billie wouldn’t throw out all her possessions. There was a storage unit in the basement of her apartment where they’d put Billie’s girlfriend’s odds and ends after she went missing. After Sybl, the art world was a dangerous place to live. Penny had a box under her bed of mementos from friends she’d not seen in years. Toni’s toothbrush was in there. He hadn’t disappeared entirely—Penny knew he’d gone into hiding, and why—but she couldn’t bring herself to throw out something of his, even if he’d been an idiot to throw himself into protests after they’d broken up.

Penny eyed the standard issue clothes in the wardrobe. Sybl had done an art exhibit with them at the school, too—stuffing the one-piece uniforms with sheep’s wool and positioning them with their backs to the library, a sort of fence blocking the building. The student news feeds had said it was to protest the library being closed, but Penny always thought the illegal art installation had been a comment on the students who hadn’t cared about the library—and the information inside it—enough to fight for it.

Her finger idly sketched an “S” shape on the sleeve of standard issue. Now that she thought of it, there was no sign that the installation had been done by Sybl. There had been no signature on the clothes, no proof that it had been the rogue painter.

Despite knowing the scanner droids were watching, Penny didn’t hesitate as she lifted her shirt over her head and wiggled out of her pants. She selected a plain white shift and slipped into it. Her fingers brushed against the almost invisible square on her left shoulder. She was glad she hadn’t reactivated her nanobot tattoo. Although it would be nice to play with it now, in this room devoid of anything but the color white, Penny had the distinct impression that showing it to the scanner droids would not be wise. She left it hidden in her skin.

Penny picked her clothes off the floor but didn’t see a hamper. She heaped them on the chair by the door and went to bed.

The next morning, her own clothes were gone. There would be nothing for her from now on but the standard issue uniforms.

IT WAS MS. Slunki who let slip that the first of Penny’s competitors had been let go from the art competition.

“He was part of an underground sect,” the woman said, her voice a scandalized whisper. “Imagine, trying to be subversive under the watchful eyes of Director Reichs!”

Penny focused on her painting. Shadows were her favorite thing to paint. Vermeer and the Dutch masters may have loved light, but Penny always loved to dip her brush in taupe and gray, blending away the bright spots into darkness.

“What happened to him?” Penny asked without turning, her face close to the painting, the stringent oil burning her nose.

Ms. Slunki didn’t answer immediately. “Oh,” she said, her tone more reserved. “He’s gone now.”

Penny’s brush stilled. She tapped her wrist, idly, scratching an itch. Then she resumed painting.

WEEKS WENT BY. Penny wasn’t sure what happened to the other painter, but she gradually became aware of the increased pressure for her to complete the Prime Chancellor’s portrait. Director Reichs frequented her studio. Ms. Slunki was gone. When Penny ran out of ochre paint and put down her palette, rooting around for more, Director Reichs stormed out of the studio on her behalf, shouting for servants to bring Penny anything she needed immediately.

It was never said, but Penny knew the other artist was gone too. It made her sad, in a way, to not even know who her competition had been. Was the other artist male or female? Had the artist been in Penny’s classes? Her mind scrolled through lists of fellow students, people she knew or even just names she’d recognized on plaques at galleries. It could have been anyone. But whoever it was, was no one now.

“What can I get you?” Director Reichs said.

Penny breathed through her nose, channeling her anger at being disturbed. She was close now. The painting lacked only finishing touches, but it was those touches that were the most important. Wide swaths of paint formed the rough shapes—a hand, a leg, a face. But if she didn’t add just that one sliver of white to the iris, the eyes looked dead. Without the little dark shadow under the bottom lip, the smile was false. Without that single strand of gold, the hair was lifeless.

“Anything,” Director Reichs continued. “We have to stay on schedule. You tell me what you need, and I’ll—”

Penny whirled around. “I need time!” she said, more passion in her voice. “And no more interruptions!”

Director Reichs’s eyes narrowed. Penny’s shoulders dropped. “Sir,” she added.

“Artists can be temperamental,” Director Reichs conceded. “I know that.” He stood there awkwardly. “The unveiling is soon.”

“I know,” Penny said.

They stared at each other. Penny wondered what would happen to Director Reichs if he failed. The only entertainment aside from painting each day that Penny had been granted was her daily viewing of the mandatory program. The new art museum had been heavily publicized, and the date had been set in stone. The Prime Chancellor himself had issued a statement praising Director Reichs’s aggressive reclaiming of art for the people, framing it as an epic battle between true art and corruption by false artists.

If this portrait, which was to be the centerpiece of the exhibit, the heart of the museum, the shining example of True Art of the Citizenry—if it failed, if Penny failed, then Director Reichs failed.

“Get back to work,” Director Reichs said, his voice low but firm.

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.

SHE QUIT GOING to the little room they’d made for her. She slept on the floor of the studio; short, fitful naps that were merely pauses between painting. She had never put so much care into a painting before.

Before, she never thought about who her art was for. She just—made it. It was art for art’s sake.

But now, Penny was deeply aware that her work would be seen. Not just by people who happened to stroll into the gallery, but by everyone. Literally everyone in the Citizenry. The mandatory program held the eyes of every citizen, and it would be focused on her work.

“It’s coming along quite well.”

The voice behind her was soft, a staged whisper. Penny ground her teeth. She hated observers. She’d come to accept Director Reichs’s constant presence, and she could ignore the security guards—they watched the door, not her. But this was someone new. The director had been doing that lately, providing brief glimpses of Penny and her art to the elite. She tried to ignore them, even when she recognized the voices as important people on the mandatory program.

Penny blocked out the others in the room as she stepped back, inspecting her work. She’d been fiddling with it for several days now, moving slower, methodically layering in the final touches.

It was nearly truly finished now.

Carefully, Penny lifted the canvas from the easel and laid it flat on her work table.

“What’s she doing?” the new voice asked. Penny picked up the small bucket of varnish, stirring the clear liquid with a metal stick.

Before Director Reichs could answer, she said, “Varnish.” In the old days, an oil painting of this size would have taken months to dry, and then the varnish step would have added a few more days before the painting could be hung. But this varnish was different, enhanced with crystalline stabilizers and nanobots that seeped into the oil, preserving and protecting it forever. Once applied, the painting was, so to speak, set in stone. Penny’s arms strained as she churned the viscous liquid. The metal stirring stick was sharp-edged on one side—necessary to slice through the crystalline stabilizers if they were exposed to air for too long—but Penny was practiced enough in the process to avoid cutting her palm.

Footsteps. The director and his guest were drawing closer.

“We should inspect it before you add the varnish,” Director Reichs said, his voice firm. Penny’s hand compulsively gripped her stirring stick, the sharp edges pressing into her skin.

“Nonsense,” the other man said. Penny’s breath stilled. She finally recognized the voice.

The Prime Chancellor beamed at her. “It’s like a photo, isn’t it? Practically perfect.”

Penny’s fist clenched so hard around the stirring stick that her skin broke. She did not pry her fingers apart even as she felt warm blood leak over her palm, slide down the metal stirrer, and plop into the varnish.

Penny couldn’t take her eyes off the man. She had studied his face for the past several weeks. She knew each crease at the corners of his eyes, each strand of hair that was more silver than brown. She knew the colored patterns of his irises.

The lips weren’t the same, though, and that surprised her. In every image of the man she’d studied, his lips were tense. Here, however, his smile was easy.

Genuine.

Somehow, after learning the Prime Chancellor’s face so well that she could recreate it with paint, she’d forgotten that he could smile.

The tension grew as she stood there, awkwardly staring at the Prime Chancellor. What should she do? Bow? Continue to work? Her eyes darted to the director, who nodded subtly. Slowly, slowly, Penny forced her hand to move, stirring the varnish. A drip of red blood swirled into the clear, viscous liquid, but no one noticed.

“I must say, Reichs, I was worried,” the Prime Chancellor said. It was eerie to see the real man staring into the eyes of the painted one. “But this is quite good. An accurate presentation of life. The way art should be.”

Emboldened by the praise, Penny spoke up. “If you like it now, wait until you see the varnish,” she said. She stepped forward. There was actually rather a lot of her blood in the varnish now, the sharp metal stick slick with red. The men didn’t notice though, even as she lifted the stick, wiping her hand on a dirty paint rag to hide her wound. Penny couldn’t blame them. There was magic in varnish.

Carefully holding the bucket, Penny slowly poured the varnish over the painted Prime Chancellor’s face. As soon as the crystal liquid touched the canvas, the glossy varnish made the painting vividly real. The colors were more brilliant; the features on the painted face came alive. The Prime Chancellor actually gasped in delight.

Penny hid her smile.

Once the varnish was evenly distributed, she tapped her wrist unit, activating the nanobots in the liquid to seal the painting.

It was done.

PENNY WAS NOT consulted on the frame nor allowed to oversee the painting’s hanging in the museum. Instead, her regular clothes were returned to her, and she was summarily discharged. She couldn’t help but feel like a prisoner who’d been granted her freedom and then told to move along.

In addition to her clothes, Penny was also given a payment chip. A year’s worth of pay for a little under a month’s work. Not bad.

Penny had not been given a ticket to the opening of the museum and the unveiling of her portrait. She had suspected that would happen when Director Reichs had not even allowed her to sign her name to the portrait.

“Art does not belong to the artist,” he had said nobly. “It belongs to the people.”

Rather than return to Billie and her apartment, Penny went first to the credit office, where she opened a new, secure account and deposited her payment chip. Then she walked to the mag-lift station. She bought three tickets, each going in different directions. Penny stopped in the shop and bought three hats and three scarfs.

Then she went to the slop house behind the mag-lift station. During her freshman year, her class had done a mural there to “lift the spirits of the poor and destitute.” Most of the paint was gone, chipped away or vandalized. Not with works of art like Sybl’s graffiti, but with pedantic, careless slops of synth paint declaring “Declan was here!” or displaying a scanner code and directions to use it “for a good time.”

Within moments, Penny had pulled aside three girls, all roughly of her same build. She gave each one a ticket, a hat, a scarf, and instructions.

Once the girls were gone, Penny ducked out of a back exit, down an alley, and toward a basement office.

A gruff male voice greeted her when she stepped inside the dimly lit room. “What d’you need?” He looked up from his desk, saw Penny silhouetted in the light as she closed the door, and cursed. He knocked over a microscope in his eagerness to cross the room. Penny squeaked as he picked her up, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her from the floor in a massive hug.

“Toni,” Penny breathed, allowing herself one moment to rest her head against his warm, hard chest.

“Pen, what’re you doing here?” Toni’s initial excitement was replaced with concern. “You know what I’ve been doing—”

“I do.” Penny took a step away from him; she couldn’t think when she was this close to Toni, when she could smell his cologne and remember the past fights so vividly.

“I thought you didn’t care about politics.” There was accusation in his voice. This was their old fight, the source of their break up. Toni had wanted to protest. Penny had thought it was pointless.

“I care about art,” Penny said after a long moment, not quite meeting his eyes.

But Toni knew her too well. “What did you do?” he asked, a mixture of hope and fear in his voice.

She explained quickly, as much as she was able. Toni’s face lit up. “So I take it you’re going to need—”

“Yeah,” Penny said. “You can do that?” It wasn’t a real question. She knew what Toni could do, what he had been doing since he dropped out of university and went underground after they broke up. He had always resented the way she hadn’t followed him then. When she asked now if he would help her, it wasn’t a matter of his skill. It was a matter of his forgiveness.

“Of course,” Toni said.

Penny slid into the chair under the big light. The room’s setup was almost like a dental office, but Toni was no dentist. He was a nanobot engineer.

He got to work immediately. After applying a topical anesthesia to Penny’s face, he injected a saline solution with nanobots just under her skin, at her cheek bones, chin, forehead, and the tip of her nose. Penny tried not to flinch; the needle was small, but it was still weird to see the sharp tip puncturing her face.

“These are the good ones,” Toni said, putting away the needle and cleaning the injection sites. “No scanner droids will ID you, not even the top models.”

“Thanks,” Penny said. She rubbed her face; it didn’t feel different, aside from a slight puffiness. It didn’t look different, either—except to the cameras around the city. The nanobots now in her face would scramble the computers, making her appear on their digital screens as someone else, unable to be traced back to her own facial identity.

Toni held his hand out to Penny, gripping it firmly. “Art never dies,” he said solemnly. It was his goodbye, and Penny couldn’t help the tears pricking her eyes. She nodded once, then ducked out of the office.

Art never dies. That had been their phrase, but in the past, it had meant something different for each of them. Penny had thought of art’s immortality as something implicit—art never died, because it could never die. And, therefore, it didn’t need to be fought for.

She had been wrong.

Toni’s interpretation was closer to the truth

Artists die. Sybl was proof of that. Penny—the whole Citizenry—had watched Sybl die. There was no going back from death.

But her art…

The Prime Chancellor and Director Reichs and everyone else had tried to kill it. They’d burned the Mona Lisa just because Sybl had used her smile to show how dangerous acceptance of the brutal laws of the citizenry could be. They’d painted over or torn down the walls Sybl had defaced. They’d tried to erase her from history.

But they couldn’t erase her from the minds of those who loved her. Loved art. Loved freedom.

Penny walked across town, descended into a subway, and boarded the first train that arrived. She rode to the end of the line and got off at the final station. The outskirts of the capital city were less heavily populated, but it was still easy to walk to a hotel and book a room for the night using the fake papers Toni had given her.

Penny was exhausted—not just from running around town, but from the adrenaline. She almost fell asleep on the bed, but she started awake when the mandatory program came on. The entire wall facing the hotel’s bed illuminated. Penny was glad she’d splurged on a room with a good quality wall unit. She sat up, leaned closer. If she squinted, it was almost like she was there.

“Welcome to a very special program!” Alexoi Dempsley’s voice vibrated with energy that seemed to palpably emanate from the display. While he always made sure to make every mandatory program seem important, tonight Penny suspected that the enthusiasm was real.

“I’m here today with Director Reichs and—” Alexoi took a deep breath, “—the Prime Chancellor himself!”

The Prime Chancellor walked into view, smiling slightly at the way the people in the background gasped at his arrival. Public outings for the Prime Chancellor were rare, and while he always gave speeches during the mandatory program, he did so in a separate location, pre-rerecorded. This was live.

Penny smiled.

“It is my pleasure to be here for the opening of our new national art museum!” the Prime Chancellor announced. He swept his arm back, and the camera followed, zooming into the room where they stood.

The wall unit’s display shifted. Penny stood up from the bed as light shot out of either side of the wall unit, creating the illusion of an open room. The holographic display made it feel as if Penny was actually inside the art museum with the Prime Chancellor; only the warm bed behind her reminded her she wasn’t.

Alexoi drew attention to himself. He excitedly told viewers about the inception of the art museum, its intent and future plans. “We have only three works of art on display today, but of course that number will grow!”

Director Reichs took over, leading Alexoi and the Prime Chancellor to the first work—a small sculpture of the Capitol Building. Director Reichs talked about the architecture that was on display, describing colonnades and their historical context with breathless joy. Penny wondered who the artist was—or if there had been an artist at all. The sculpture was an exact replica of the building; it could have been a 3D model printed from stone.

“And I love the landscape!” Alexoi chattered, leading the men—and the viewers at home—to the second work of art on display. Penny was impressed with the realism of it, until she realized the large framed landscape was actually a photo. While Penny had seen photographs that were true art, this was simply a high-resolution snapshot of the sea on the eastern coast. There was no artistry here, simply size. Calling this photo a “landscape” was, technically true—but it lacked depth. It lacked meaning.

Alexoi looked as if he would carry on the role of narrator when the view panned over to Penny’s portrait, but the Prime Chancellor cleared his throat and everyone stilled, waiting for him to speak.

“My favorite, of course,” he said in a deep voice that demanded respect, “is the portrait. Although I am perhaps biased.” No one chuckled at the joke until the Prime Chancellor allowed a rare smile to cross his face.

Penny’s heart raced. The three men positioned themselves in front of the canvas—her canvas—in such a way that the image was still clear to the mandatory program viewers. She stood, walking closer to the wall unit, until she was nose-to-nose with her own work of art.

“This,” the Prime Chancellor said, “is art.” His holographic projection was so close to her that she felt as if they were standing beside each other, friends viewing the same painting. “Real art,” the Prime Chancellor emphasized.

Penny touched her wrist.

Programming her nanobot tattoo had been far more complicated than she’d ever thought, especially knowing that every eye was on her, even in her private room. She had become adept, over the weeks of painting, at touching her wrist as if she had an itch, using the sub-derma controls to carefully program exactly what she needed the nanobots to do.

The tricky part, however, had been transferring the nanobots to the painting.

The scanner droids filming the mandatory program zoomed in on Penny’s portrait of the Prime Chancellor. They started at the feet, rising slowly, then settled on his face.

“The artist captured our beloved Prime Chancellor perfectly,” Alexoi’s voice said as the portrait filled the screen.

“I agree,” the Prime Chancellor said emphatically.

And then, slowly, the painting started to shift. It was subtle enough that no one caught it at first. As Director Reichs started to talk about the methods the artist used, Penny tuned him out.

Her nanobot tat had been embedded in her body, microscopic robots designed to display art on her skin, shifting in any way she pleased. Removing such a tattoo was fairly easy—the bots followed directions. So she programmed them to leave her body through her blood. Into the varnish.

“What is—” Alexoi started to ask, but the Director’s voice drowned him out.

Penny’s grin widened as she tapped on her wrist again.

Slowly, the painted smile on the Prime Chancellor’s face shifted. The skin around his mouth lightened; the lips thinned; the teeth disappeared behind a calm, serene, Mona Lisa smile.

Penny expected the camera to cut away, but it lingered on the image, perhaps entranced the same way people once were when they saw da Vinci’s work. Seconds ticked by. Penny didn’t breathe. Did the operator just not notice the change? That was surely impossible. But the longer Penny stared at her own work, the more her spine straightened. Her chin tilted up. A sense of pride—and hope—replaced every fear she had held before.

Through the speakers, people were shouting, cursing, ordering the camera to move. A thud shifted the image—Alexoi Dempsley lay sprawled on the floor after unsuccessfully trying to tackle the camera operator. Director Reichs rushed forward in an attempt to rip the canvas from the wall, but the security tasers around the painting threw him back.

And the image of the Prime Chancellor smiled complacently on.

The camera operator panned over to the real Prime Chancellor. His face was purple with rage, his eyes bulging—the antithesis of his peaceful smile on the portrait.

Eventually, finally, for the first time in living memory, the mandatory program was cut short.

Penny left the hotel. It wouldn’t be long before they would come looking for her. The girls she’d hired from the slop house would serve as a distraction, and Toni’s nanobot facial scramblers would hopefully slow them. Painting the Mona Lisa smile on the Prime Chancellor’s face had also painted a target on her back, Penny knew that. She’d known it from the start.

She wondered if it would ever be worth it, putting her life in jeopardy for a single painting, a single act of rebellion. But then at the mag-lift terminal she passed a kid with synth paint, scrawling the words “SYBL LIVES!” on the side of a wall.

And Penny smiled.