Unchanged Read online

  Suddenly, I understand. And relief washes over me.

  It’s only the data they want. Not the hundreds of lives. Or the buildings. Or the money. Just the information. The intellectual gold.

  The rest is just a pile of synthetics.

  Moisture is pooling in Lyzender’s desperate eyes. He wants me to tell him it’s okay. He wants my permission to obliterate it all.

  But I can’t give him that and he knows it.

  It’s not mine to give.

  And even if it was, I think he knows what my answer would be.

  He wipes his eyes and taps the panel on the wall. A digital keypad appears. He inputs a ten-digit sequence. Paddok sucks in a breath behind me as the screen announces:

  First Security Measure Bypassed

  A retina scan appears next. Lyzender removes another nanostrip from his case, this one fashioned into a Lens. He slips it into his eye and aligns his face with the screen while a green light flickers across the bridge of his nose.

  Second Security Measure Bypassed

  Finally, the screen displays a small square, big enough for the tip of an index finger. Lyzender produces the first nanostrip he used and hands it to Paddok. “Would you care to do the honors?”

  She looks surprised by the offering but carefully takes the strip and presses it to her finger, jumping slightly as the molecules fuse to her skin.

  But she doesn’t reach for the screen. At least not right away. She closes her eyes for a moment and bows her head.

  “This is for you, sweet Manen,” she whispers, almost inaudibly. “I’m sorry.”

  Månen.

  Norwegian for moon.

  We step aside as Paddok extends her hand—the red crescent moon on her palm flashing in and out of view—and holds her disguised fingertip up to the screen.

  This is it.

  It’s all over.

  In a few minutes, Diotech will be nothing but a memory.

  It seems to take forever for the system to verify. I start to count the seconds.

  1, 2, 3, 4 …

  I never reach 5.

  Because the large slab of steel in front of us glides open, revealing the eerily dark chamber of the server bunker. Inside, a single pinpoint of red light blinks on and off. By the time any of us recognizes to whom the weapon belongs, the molecules in the air around me are already quivering. Then I watch in horror as Paddok’s body flies halfway down the length of the corridor.

  56

  RIPPED

  Gunshots echo inside my skull. The sound of bodies collapsing. Thunking against the ground.

  Paddok’s people are firing.

  But on who?

  That’s when I see them. Emerging from the darkness of the bunker like ghosts. Dozens of them. Dressed in black, wielding long-range mutation lasers.

  Diotech agents.

  I feel another ripple of air inches away from my nose and Davish sinks to the floor next to me.

  They were here all along. Waiting in the dark.

  An ambush. A trap.

  Kaelen got my message.

  Relief wells up in my chest, flooding my eyes with tears. The lights go out. I can’t see anything. There’s more desperate gunfire, but they are firing into the dark. They don’t know if they will hit anything. Or anyone.

  “Hold fire!” Jase calls out. They can’t risk shooting their own people.

  I hear the soft whizz of the lasers. Direct shots. The agents must have night vision installed on their Lenses.

  Someone tugs on my hand and suddenly I am running. Running through the blackness. I nearly trip over something. My whirling mind tells me it’s a body.

  Paddok perhaps?

  Is she dead?

  Or just stunned?

  How high did they set those lasers? Were they as considerate as Paddok was? Choosing to temporarily debilitate? Or did they opt for a more permanent solution?

  The hand around mine tugs harder, willing me to run faster. My legs beg me to stop. My lungs burn. I cough and stumble and collapse to my knees. But I’m scooped into the air before I even hit the ground.

  The ride is jostling. My head bangs against my chest. It’s like the world is coming apart beneath me.

  I can feel us ascending. We’re in the lift. Riding it back up.

  Then more running.

  The daylight blinds me as we reach the outside. I blink and shield my eyes with my hands. It’s then I look up and see Lyzender’s face above me. His skin glistens with sweat. His mouth is pulled tight from the effort of carrying me.

  He sets me down on my feet and I sway slightly before leaning against a cold surface for support. I hear a scraping sound and turn to see Lyzender fidgeting with a metal grate built into the wall of the building.

  I glance around. We are alone.

  Where is everyone else? Did we leave them down there to perish?

  Lyzender manages to pop off the grate and then he’s hoisting me up, shoving me into the narrow hole.

  “Go!” he yells in a hoarse whisper. “Get in!”

  I scurry forward on my knees and Lyzender climbs in behind me. He fumbles with the grate, securing it back onto the opening, sealing us inside.

  “Keep going!” he commands.

  I crawl on my hands and knees. Lyzender is right behind me, urging me along, telling me to turn left and then right and then left again. I want to stop. I want to curl up into a ball and wait for them to find me. But Lyzender doesn’t let me. He keeps screaming for me to move forward.

  To go deeper into this maze of tiny hallways.

  I had no idea this even existed inside the compound.

  It seems like we’re crawling forever. The light in here is murky at best and the haze that has settled around my vision doesn’t help. The metal surface chafes against my palms. My arms give out multiple times and I stumble, nearly knocking my chin on the hard surface beneath me. Finally, Lyzender gives me the order to stop.

  I collapse, gasping for air. I tuck my knees into my chest and bury my head between them.

  I start to cry.

  Lyzender is suddenly in front of me. So close. So dangerously close. I can feel his own labored breath against my face.

  “Seraphina,” he says, placing a hand on each of my knees and shaking me gently. “It’s going to be okay.”

  His words are useless, though. Empty syllables with no meaning.

  “Why am I here?” I scream at him, feeling my face flush with bitter heat.

  He looks taken aback, fumbling to answer. “I saved you.”

  “What about them?!” I yell.

  But I don’t even know who them is. Dr. A? Kaelen? Paddok? Klo? Who am I crying for? Who am I grieving?

  I start to tremble. “Diotech is good. They’re good. They’re good.”

  I will keep saying it. I will say it until I can’t speak anymore. Until they’re the only words I can hear.

  Lyzender grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me. “Sera. Listen to me!”

  I rock back and forth, repeating my mantra. “Diotech is good. The Objective is good. They’re good.”

  “Sera!” He shakes me harder. “Let go! Let them go! You are stronger than this. You are stronger than them. I know you are. Why do you think they keep erasing your memories? Why do you think they need to tangle them up with false emotion? They are afraid of you, Sera. Afraid of what you can do. You are more powerful than they want you to realize. But you have to believe it. You have to know that you can beat them. I can help you. Let me in, damn it!”

  His urgency shocks me into a stunned silence. I stare into his weary, fervent eyes and lose myself for a moment.

  “Diotech is good,” I hear myself whisper again. But it’s not me. It’s a voice coming from far away. From years ago. From another dimension.

  He falls back in exhaustion, resting his head against the opposite wall of the air duct. He closes his eyes.

  As I continue to rock back and forth, his face starts to shift. His angry façade is falling away. Lyzender
Luman is coming back. The boy I met when I was locked in a restricted sector of a compound. The boy I let lure me away from the only life I’d known. The boy who vowed to save me over and over again.

  “Diotech is good,” I murmur. “Diotech is good.”

  He winces at my words. Like every syllable is a dagger in his chest.

  “They erased me from your memory so many times,” he whispers. “And yet you always remembered me. You never forgot.”

  More and more of his emotional disguise is stripped away. Until it’s only him left. The way I always knew him. The way I loved him with so much of myself.

  “Remember me now,” he pleads.

  Yes … always yes.

  “Diotech is good. Diotech is good.”

  Lyzender’s eyes fly open again. A renewed determination in his gaze.

  “Diotech is—”

  In a flutter of a heartbeat, he’s there. His hands on my face. His mouth on my mouth. He kisses me hard, stealing the words from my lips. Stealing the sensation from my fingers. My head knocks back against the steel duct, but I feel no pain. I only feel him. On me. In me. Around me.

  Consuming every part of me.

  I wrap my arms around his neck and draw him closer to me. I open my mouth to him. He wastes no time filling the empty space. Filling the empty time.

  Time we could have been doing this.

  His hands move from my cheeks to my hair. Twisting, tangling, grasping.

  The words keep echoing in my mind.

  Diotech is good. The Objective is good.

  I silently beg for them to stop. They can’t be true while this is happening. They can’t exist while this feels so amazing. Those two worlds can’t survive in the same universe.

  A million images flood my mind at once.

  Dr. A’s disapproving eyes.

  Kaelen’s soft lips.

  Mosima Chan’s openmouthed laugh.

  Rio lifting his daughter into his arms.

  Paddok’s body blasting into the air.

  One by one I try to block them. Chase them away with the heat of Lyzender’s lips on mine. But the images return like angry insects. Wanting to feed on my flesh.

  With a single violent thrust, I push Lyzender back. I’m surprised by how hard he hits the wall behind him. Either my strength is returning or I’ve found a new source.

  I touch my fingertips to my mouth. My lips still tingle. They no longer feel like my own.

  I am not myself. I am a stranger trapped in my skin. Or maybe the skin is the stranger and I’m the real person.

  My vision starts to swim.

  I collapse forward. Lyzender is there to catch me. His arms encircle me. His chest breaks my fall. His breath on my neck warms my cold, cold heart.

  “Shhh,” he coos into my ear. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I’m right here.”

  I sob silently against him, wanting to pound his chest and pull him closer to me in the same breath.

  “I did this,” I murmur. “I did this.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “I did. I warned Dr. A about your plan. I sent Kaelen a message during the transmission. I used a secret code that we invented. That’s why they were there, ready for you.”

  Lyzender doesn’t say anything for a long time. But he doesn’t let me go, either. He keeps stroking my hair. He keeps holding me. I don’t even feel his embrace loosen.

  How can he not hate me? How can he not shove me away and call me a traitor?

  Because that’s what I am. I betray everyone.

  Apparently it’s just what I do.

  “I wish I could have met you under different circumstances,” he says wistfully. “Far away from this terrible place.” I feel his lips press urgently against the top of my head. “I wish I could have fallen in love with you in a different world.”

  I lift my head to meet his eyes, but instead I meet his lips. My mouth finds its way back to his. Entirely on its own. My lungs breathe him in, like he’s the only oxygen they’ll ever need. My arms encircle him, like they’ve never held anyone else.

  What is happening to me?

  Where did I go?

  Where did I come from?

  I feel like I’m being torn in half. Split right down the middle. A ragged, bloody seam the only evidence that I was once whole.

  I pull myself away from his warm, inviting lips. “I’m not the girl you met in that cottage,” I murmur. “Not anymore.”

  “You’ll always be the girl I met in that cottage,” he says. “They can’t change that. They can’t break that.”

  The sobs come again, violent and reckless. Tormenting me as the weight of a century crushes down on my heart.

  They already did, I want so desperately to tell him. I’m already broken.

  But I’m not given the chance. Because somewhere in the distance, the loudest, most deafening thunder is ripping the air apart.

  An explosion big enough to tear the world in two.

  57

  TEMPEST

  My knees bang against the metal underneath me as I fight to find my way back through the tunnels of air ducts. Lyzender is somewhere behind me, calling my name, calling me back.

  I don’t turn around.

  Something unfamiliar fuels me now. Something not in my blood. Not hardwired into my genes. A squeezing panic that threatens to suffocate me if I don’t move faster.

  As I round one of the sharp corners that wasn’t designed for human traffic, the sharp edge slices across my arm. I bite my lip as the pain spirals my vision and the blood starts to flow. But I can’t stop to tend to the wound.

  I keep crawling. Willing myself forward. The memory of that horrific, teeth-rattling blast is enough to make the throbbing in my arm feel like background noise.

  “Flux! Sera!” There’s terror in Lyzender’s voice. He’s reached the first puddle of blood.

  I find a grate that leads to the outside. I pivot around so I can kick it out with my feet. It gives way easily and I scoot to the edge of the drop and let myself fall. I land in a crouch on the ground.

  “Sera!” He’s behind me now, pushing himself out of the opening.

  “What did you say about the explosion?” I scream at him.

  He blinks. “What?”

  “You said it wouldn’t make a sound. You swore we wouldn’t hear it. Because it would be contained by the bunker.”

  Comprehension weighs on his face.

  That blast was deafening. Earthshaking.

  Which means it didn’t detonate in the bunker.

  Which means it wasn’t contained.

  “Seraphina,” he tries.

  I don’t wait for him to finish. I take off at a run, scanning the Medical Sector with my limited vision as I go. Everything looks intact. There doesn’t seem to be damage to any of the buildings. Even the pathways are perfectly manicured. Not a flower petal out of place.

  I know we entered the bunker through the Medical Sector. Lyzender guided us right under that familiar rectangular archway. The VersaScreen that concealed the lift was in Building 2.

  I remember!

  But I also remember that long, white corridor that seemed to stretch on for miles.

  “Which way was it heading?” I whisper. I close my eyes and try to picture the way we were facing when we stepped off the lift. I spin in a slow circle, trying to align myself in the right direction.

  When I open my eyes, I feel my knees give out. The world collapses around me.

  I’m looking right at the Residential Sector.

  Lyzender’s winded voice is behind me. “Sera, wait! It’s not safe!”

  I take the shortcut through Buildings 3 and 7, sprinting as fast as my weak legs will carry me. I’m still frustrated by my inadequate speed. When is this glitching inhibitor going to wear off?

  By the time I reach the school, I can hear the screaming. Anguished cries from people in pain. People in mourning.

  When I turn the corner and burst onto the Rec Field, I see the smoke. Risi
ng up from a giant chasm carved into the ground. It’s three times the size of the field I’m standing on. A jagged, gaping hole where the residential apartment buildings once stood.

  Where Diotech employees and their families slept and ate and shared stories about their day.

  Gone.

  Gone.

  Gone.

  My legs go numb. The only organ I can feel is my pounding heart.

  The only thought in my brain is that it’s my fault.

  It’s all my fault.

  If I hadn’t warned them—if I hadn’t sent Kaelen the message—none of this would have happened. The plan would have gone off without a hitch. The device would have been triggered inside the airtight bunker. The explosion would have been contained.

  All that would have been lost was some stupid useless data!

  But instead, it ripped a hole in the earth, leaving behind nothing but rubble and ash.

  And bodies.

  Bodies everywhere. More than I can count. More than I woke up with in the ocean after Freedom Airlines flight 121 plummeted from the sky.

  I feel a similar chasm opening up inside of me. Threatening to consume me whole. Swallow me into the darkness.

  And wouldn’t I love to let it?

  Wouldn’t I love to just disappear right now?

  Fall into this giant crack in my heart and never resurface.

  I nearly trip over a large piece of rubble. It looks like a chunk of ceiling. Angrily, I bend down and push it. It takes all my strength to move it even an inch, but somehow I manage to roll it over.

  I immediately wish I hadn’t. More bodies await me underneath.

  I stagger away, my vision tunneling. My knees buckling.

  A sharp wail slices through the air, snapping me back into myself. I turn around to see Crest, my darling friend. I want to kiss the sky and thank the heavens that she’s not dead.

  She’s alive. Alive and running.

  Not to me, though. To a contorted body splayed on the ground. When she reaches it, she drops to her knees. I hurry toward her, stopping short when I see the face of the man she’s huddled over. He’s handsome. With a chiseled jawline and high cheekbones. His eyes are closed, revealing long vibrant green lashes.