Unchanged Read online

  Old, outdated equipment that hasn’t been in supply for over fifty years. And all of it is small enough to be carried by hand.

  Lyzender has been using his reengineered transession gene to transport supplies from the past. And tomorrow he’s retrieving the final piece to some undetectable explosive device.

  He didn’t come back for me.

  Dr. A was right all along. Lyzender is here for one reason and one reason only: to destroy Diotech.

  And it’s up to me to stop him.

  39

  PRETENSES

  Somehow I manage to slip back into the medical tent, into my cuffs, and under the scratchy blanket before anyone seems to notice that I’m gone. When I hear the first sets of footsteps outside, I pretend to be asleep. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. I have too much to think about.

  This crazy group of people—these terrorists—are going to use me to destroy Diotech.

  It wasn’t Pastor Peder that Dr. A needed to be worried about. It was this tiny, seemingly insignificant army hidden in the desert. It was his own people. People he trusted. People Raze trusted.

  As I lie in the dark and listen to the camp grow still, I make a decision. I make my own pledge for revenge.

  They betrayed us and now I will betray them. I will find a way to warn the compound about their plan. I will make sure they never succeed. But before I can do that, I have many holes to fill. There’s still so much I don’t know.

  Primarily, their plan for getting past Raze’s security and getting this device onto the compound.

  Paddok said they’re going to use me to gain access, but how? Even if I’m sent in there alone, Diotech will still conduct their usual scans of any vehicle I’m traveling in. This device Lyzender is helping to build may not register on Diotech satellites but it’ll certainly be detected during an internal inspection.

  I need more information.

  Several more pairs of feet pass by the outside of the tent before I hear someone stop. The tall, thin silhouette of a man appears on the fabric wall. He seems to be debating whether or not to enter.

  I hold my breath and wait. Hoping it’s him and praying it’s not at the same time.

  A moment later, the flap pulls away and Lyzender appears. His features catch the light of the lantern on the table. He doesn’t smile when our eyes meet. The change in him still disorients me. He always used to smile when he saw me. No matter what was happening, no matter what danger was lurking just outside our reach, he would always take the time to smile. To promise me that everything would be all right.

  Now, those kinds of assurances seem to be very far down on his list of priorities.

  “Did you enjoy your late-night stroll through the camp?” he asks, one eyebrow arching.

  So much for going unnoticed.

  His gaze slides to my chained hand, still secured to the bed frame. “How did you get out of the cuffs?”

  I feign innocence. “I don’t know what you’re referring to. I’ve been here the whole time.”

  His expression tells me this game is not worth my time.

  “Did you pick the lock?” He glances around the small space. “With what?”

  “Maybe I transessed out of them?” I keep my voice light, almost playful. “Maybe I traveled to the past and stole the key? Oh wait, I forgot—stealing things from the past is your job.”

  I watch his jaw tighten. “Paddok sent me here to find out what you overheard. I guess that answers her question. Not that it matters. The plan is moving forward regardless of what you know. In your condition, I doubt you’ll be able to do much to stop it anyway.”

  “What makes you think I want to stop it? Maybe I want to help.”

  He cackles. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “You don’t know what I want.”

  “I know exactly what you want.”

  I mirror his eyebrow arch. “Then tell me.”

  He stalks purposefully toward the bed. I have to fight the instinct to push myself back against the frame. When he reaches me, he places one hand on either side of my covered legs and bends down so that we’re eye to eye. So that I can’t look anywhere else but at him.

  “You want to get back to your glossy ExGen boyfriend. You want to prance around in sparkly dresses and be the good little spokesmodel you were built to be. You want to prove to your precious Dr. Alixter that you’re not the traitor he thinks you are. But what you don’t know—what maybe someday you’ll actually realize if you wake the glitch up—is that you’ll never succeed. Because you’ll never be able to prove something that’s not true. I know you better than you know yourself, Seraphina. But that’s easy when all you do is lie to yourself.”

  For a tense moment, the only sound is the rattling my cuff is making against the bed frame as I try to keep my hands from shaking. Lyzender’s breath is hot on my mouth. His fierce stare is almost frightening.

  “What about you?” I manage to fire back.

  He stands up with a chuckle and crosses his arms over his chest. “What about me?”

  “What are you getting in exchange for being Paddok’s transession errand boy?”

  He doesn’t understand the question.

  “What did she offer you in return for confiscating goods from the past?” I rephrase.

  “What makes you think she had to offer me anything? Our agendas are perfectly aligned.”

  “Destroying Diotech?” I confirm.

  He nods. “Right you are.”

  But there’s something insincere in his voice that sets off an alarm in my brain.

  “You look disappointed,” he remarks. “Were you hoping I’d say I’m doing it in exchange for you?”

  “For me?”

  “I help her out, I get you in the end.”

  “I’m not a commodity you can trade,” I argue.

  He tilts his head, pondering. “That’s not technically true. You certainly are a commodity to Diotech.”

  Irritation boils in my chest. “Well, that’s not what I was hoping you’d say, anyway.”

  He finds amusement in my reaction. “Good. Because I’m not doing this for you. For once in my whole glitching life, I’m not doing something for you.”

  “Good.”

  “Good,” he says again.

  Silence falls upon the tent. Neither of us dares to speak or move.

  I start to shiver. I despise my own weakness right now. I despise how vulnerable it makes me feel. I command my teeth to stop chattering. My skin to stop prickling with tiny, unsightly bumps.

  It’s no use.

  Lyzender lets out an exasperated sigh, as though this whole exchange is terribly inconvenient for him. He stalks out of the tent without another word.

  I roll onto my side and face the wall, resting my cheek uncomfortably on my bound arm.

  Surprisingly, Lyzender returns less than a minute later. I turn to see he’s carrying a blanket. This one looks much thicker and warmer. He tosses it haphazardly over me, as though he couldn’t care less where it lands.

  We both know he could leave right now. He could walk out and not look back. And for a moment, that appears to be exactly what he’s going to do.

  But after another loud sigh, he approaches the bed and takes the time to tuck the edges of the blanket under my trembling body, capturing the wondrous heat inside.

  A memory begins to form in my mind. One that I’m sure will bring its fair share of grief and remorse. Like they all do. I try everything I can think of to keep the memory at bay—counting, multiplying, dividing—but it crashes through my mental barriers.

  Lyzender wrapping me in a blanket.

  Lyzender catching me in his arms as I fall.

  Lyzender carrying me to a makeshift bed on the floor.

  It was the year 2013. In an empty kindergarten classroom. The mysterious boy had just told me his version of the truth about who I was. Of course, it was mostly fabrication. Embellished to make me feel anger toward the scientists and corporation that gave me life.
>
  But the sensation is what I remember most clearly now. The way it felt to be so close to him. Wrapped in his steady compassion.

  For a spark of a moment, I feel traces of that same compassion as he reaches over me to secure the final corner of the blanket under my shoulder. As his hand lingers a second too long on my arm. His gaze a second too long on my face.

  Then, like a gust of cold air, the moment is over.

  The compassion is gone.

  Because he’s gone.

  40

  NOURISHED

  I sleep horribly. I don’t know if it’s a side effect of whatever toxin they’ve pumped into my veins, the fact that this is the farthest I’ve been away from Kaelen in over a year, or the memory of my conversation with Lyzender replaying over and over in my mind, but the next eight hours are racked with nightmares and restless tossing and damp sweat that freezes to my skin like a layer of winter frost.

  I’m grateful when I open my eyes and see that daylight has finally broken outside my tent. I count the minutes until the footsteps start—twenty-two—and until someone enters my tent—another seventeen.

  It’s the same girl who came to bring my evening meal and light my lantern the night before. She’s holding another plate of food. Without uttering a word to me, she sets it down next to the untouched plate from yesterday and turns to leave.

  I wince when I look down to see more cooked animal flesh. I’m almost hungry enough to give it a try but then I think about the poor deer lying dead on that table and my appetite vanishes.

  “Is there anything to eat besides meat?” I ask, stopping her at the flap.

  “Unless you want to use your superpowers to magically sprout vegetables out of your ears, then no.”

  I can’t help wondering if everyone here is as disgusted by my presence as this girl is. How can they hate me so much when they don’t even know me? Is it because of where I come from? Because I was created by Diotech? What reasons do they have for despising a company that has cured countless diseases? Prevented a disastrous energy crisis? Improved the standard of living all over the world?

  Why would they want to destroy an entity that’s trying to help people?

  “What’s your name?” I ask the girl, hoping to draw some information out of her. Start a dialogue. Maybe if I can understand their motives better, I’ll have an easier time stopping them.

  “Why? So you can report me to Dr. Alixter and have my face mutilated or my brain turned to mush?”

  I blink in shock. “What? No. He wouldn’t do that.”

  Even as I say it, I see a flash of Rio’s dull, unblinking eyes from that early morning in the Agricultural Sector. When he called me Sariana. His daughter’s name.

  “We have to punish our enemies. Otherwise, how will we stop more people from betraying us?”

  The girl laughs. It’s a hard, abrasive sound that chafes the air. “You clearly don’t know him as well as I do.”

  “I…” I fumble to form a sentence. “I thought since you seem to come in here often, I should know your name.”

  She gives me a harsh stare that chills me even more than I already am. “I’m not here by choice. Trust me, it’s not my lifelong dream to bring you deer meat.”

  My stomach rolls. So it is the deer on my plate.

  “But you’re here by choice, aren’t you? In this camp? With these people?”

  She doesn’t respond. Although she looks like she wants to.

  “Or is Paddok holding you against your will?” I push, seeing that I’m having an effect on her.

  “Paddok is doing what needs to be done. It’s about time someone did.”

  I nod like I see her point. “No one can deny her passion. It’s certainly inspiring. I’m just wondering where it comes from.”

  “Where what comes from?” she snaps.

  “All that energy. That drive. I mean, what could Diotech possibly have done to her to warrant such an excessive reaction?”

  The instant it’s out of my mouth, I know it was the wrong thing to say.

  “You don’t have a glitching clue what you’re talking about!” she roars. “So I suggest you keep your pretty mouth shut.”

  “Whoa, whoa, what’s going on in here?” The flap swings open and into the tent walks the tall and gangly Sevan Sidler.

  Under normal circumstances, I would be happy to see him. He’s always gone out of his way to be nice to me. He’s always felt trustworthy. Now I know the truth about him. How he betrayed us. How he kidnapped me. Injected my veins with a fiery poison.

  His eyes dart uneasily to the girl.

  “Xaria,” he says to her, “your mother is looking for you.”

  She gives me one more venomous glare before turning to leave. As she goes, she scuffs the ground with the toe of her shoe. It catches the side of the plate she just set down, spilling the meat into the dirt.

  Sevan bends to scoop it up. “Don’t mind her. She’s been grouchy since you got here.” He dusts off the meat and returns it to the plate, offering it to me. I shake my head.

  “You have to eat something.”

  “I can’t eat that.”

  “Believe me, it’s much better than the synthetic flux they serve on the compound.”

  “The synthetic flux was never alive.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” He peers over his shoulder at the tent door, then slips his hand into the pocket of his pants, drawing out two small capsules. “Here,” he says. “You didn’t get these from me.”

  Warily, I take the pills. “What are they?”

  “NutriCaps. All the nutrients and hydration your body needs. Plus, they curb the hunger cravings. They’re manufactured by Diotech. That’s why they’re not very popular around here. But if you don’t eat, you’ll die.”

  I guess that would be one way to foil their plan.

  I stare down at the two clear capsules in my hand. After what Sevan did to me yesterday, can I even trust these are what he says?

  “Don’t worry,” he says, reading my hesitation. “I’m not trying to poison you.”

  “Yeah, because you already did.”

  He chuckles. “Touché. And sorry about that, but it had to be done.” He nods toward the pills. “They’ll help with the cold, too.”

  I toss the capsules into my mouth and swallow. I feel the hollowness in my stomach start to disperse almost instantly. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’ve got a whole supply in my tent. I wasn’t sure how my body would handle real meat.” He picks up a chunk of dusty venison from my plate, rips off a piece, and chews. “Turns out it’s pretty good.”

  “Who was that girl?”

  Sevan glances behind him. “Who? Xaria? She’s the daughter of a former Diotech employee. Her mother, Dr. Solara, used to run the memory labs. She was actually my boss, but she was terminated after a bunch of files were stolen under her watch.”

  “What files?”

  He takes another bite, chomping furiously. “Your files.”

  This surprises me. “Someone stole my memory f—?”

  But the answer hits me before I even finish the question.

  “Lyzender,” I murmur.

  He returned to the compound after we escaped and I woke up in the year 2013 without any memories. He stole them for me and transported them on the cube drive so he could show me the truth about my past.

  Or rather his distorted, glitched-up version of the truth.

  “Is that why she hates me?” I ask. “Because her mother was terminated after he stole memory files for me?”

  Sevan teeters his head from side to side. “Among other things, yes.”

  “What other things?”

  He pops the last of the meat into his mouth and wipes his greasy hands on his pants. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Where?”

  “I thought I’d show you around the camp.”

  I shiver at the thought of leaving this bed and the warmth of my new thick blanket. “No, thank you.”

/>   “C’mon,” he urges. “It’ll be fun. Well, maybe not like fun fun but it’ll be good for you to get out of this tent, stretch your legs, breathe some fresh air. I’ll introduce you to some interesting people.”

  The thought of possibly gathering more intelligence about Paddok’s plan of attack is what eventually convinces me to mutter my agreement.

  I clank my cuff against the bed frame, reminding him that I’m not exactly free to roam around.

  Sevan snaps to attention. “Oh, right.” He pulls a key from his pocket but doesn’t completely release me. He unlocks the cuff from the bed and swiftly fastens it to his own wrist.

  “Now you can’t go anywhere without taking me with you,” he jokes.

  I glare at him.

  “Look, it’s not for me,” he explains, nodding toward the outside. “It’s for them.”

  He gives my wrist a tug. I brace for the cold and peel the blankets from my body with my free hand. He helps me out of the bed, offering his shoulder for me to lean on as we shuffle toward the door.

  “It’s warped, isn’t it?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Being a Normate.”

  “Are all of you this helpless?”

  He laughs. “Not all of us.”

  “This is what Dr. A is trying to prevent, you know? This kind of weakness.”

  Sevan pulls back the tent flap and guides me through it. “Dr. Alixter is trying to prevent a lot of things, Sera, but human weakness isn’t one of them.”

  41

  INCENTIVES

  “How long have you been a part of this?” I ask Sevan as we hobble into the center of the camp. I lean on his arm way too much but he doesn’t seem to mind. So far, he’s kinder than anyone else has been to me since I got here. We’ve only been outside for a few minutes and already I’ve gotten half a dozen repulsed glares.

  “For a while now.”

  “Dr. A never knew?”

  “The only people who knew are here right now.”

  I think back to the last time I saw Sevan. At our hotel in Atlanta. “You destroyed my memory files, didn’t you? After that last scan? That’s why I was out so long.”