Unchanged Page 32

  Up in the booth, both Seres and the man in the suit are screaming into opposite ears of the poor technician whose shaking hands are poised precariously over the control panel.

  I close my eyes for a brief moment. Somewhere out there, Kaelen is watching. And Dr. A and Director Raze and maybe even Zen. As I pull the last ounce of strength from the depths of myself, I try to forget everyone else. I speak only to them.

  “Belief doesn’t have to make us weaker, though. It can make us stronger. But there has to be a middle ground. At some point, we have to think for ourselves. At some point, we have to believe in what we already know and ignore the rest. Faith is only evil if it’s used to control you. But it doesn’t have to. It can enlighten you, too.”

  “For the glitching love of Christ!” I hear the booming voice in my ear. I glance up just in time to see the man in the suit launch his body toward the control panel, knocking the technician out of his chair. Seres lunges after him, trying to pull him away. But it’s too late. The man’s hand must reach its designated target because just then every light in the studio dies and I am returned to the darkness.

  73

  RESEMBLANCES

  I am breathing underwater. I am drifting in space. I am not part of the world that surrounds me. I am in my own realm of existence. Separate from the anarchy that erupts around me. Distanced from the screaming, the franticness, the calls of guards. I observe them like a goldfish observes life from a tank. Their footsteps stomp below me, disturbing the water, quivering my view. But I just float. And watch. And wait.

  Wait for the results of my actions to take effect.

  Wait for Seres to find the link to the public SkyServer pod that I transmitted to his Lenses. The pod that contains all the incriminating memories I stole from the Diotech servers before I left.

  Wait for the world to change.

  No matter what happens now, my words have set me free.

  Unbound.

  Even as Diotech guards storm the studio, shoving the chaos aside, breaking limbs to get to me.

  Unshackled.

  Even as they press the prongs of the Modifier to my temple.

  Unchained.

  Even as they take me away.

  * * *

  I come to in a metal room. There are no doors and no windows. I imagine myself twenty floors below the ground, below even the server bunker that Paddok failed to destroy. But really, I’ve probably just been stuffed into one of the cells in the Administration Sector that they use to hold volunteers who come to the compound to test out new products.

  I attempt to transesse from one end of the small square room to the other, less out of a will to escape and more out of basic curiosity. As predicted, I go nowhere. My gene has been repressed again.

  Just as it should be.

  No one should have the ability to move through space and time. No one should be able to dodge the consequences of their actions by vanishing into thin air. Everyone should have to face life as it comes to them. Head-on. Courageously. Without the use of scientific witchcraft.

  I’ve done enough of that already. My very existence is a trick of nature. My speed, my strength, my vision, they are all weapons of deception. A way to cheat life … and death.

  It’s time I confront my future like everyone else.

  Like a Normate.

  Like a human being.

  The hours tick by, slow and obstinate. No one comes. No one delivers food. Somewhere on this compound they are deciding what to do with me. What my punishment will be.

  It makes no difference to me what they decide. The real consequences of my actions—the ones that matter—aren’t happening in here. They’re happening out there. Outside the fortified walls of the compound.

  My fate may rest in the hands of Diotech.

  But Diotech’s fate now rests in the hands of everyone else.

  I have no idea what time it is as I have no idea how long it’s been since I was deactivated by the Modifier. But I estimate four hours before a door materializes in one of the steel walls and opens.

  Of all the people I expected to walk through, Kaelen was the last of them. He’s also the person I’m least prepared to see.

  I swallow and sit very still as he enters the room and the door seals closed behind him. It takes every ounce of my strength not to run to him. I can tell from the fidget in his hands and the hard curve of his jaw that he’s fighting the same fight.

  But our restraint is built upon very different foundations.

  For him, running to me, holding me, kissing me will undermine his strength. His authority. I am the prisoner and he is still the hero. I am the traitor and he is still the dutiful soldier. I am the villain and no matter what his genetic blueprint says, he can’t love a villain.

  At least not with his arms or his lips or his words.

  No doubt there are eyes on the other side of these walls. No doubt they are watching us now. Listening to everything we say. Or, as the case may be, don’t say.

  I, on the other hand, don’t restrain myself because he is my enemy. I could never again look at Kaelen and see an enemy. I do it because I gave up my right to run to him, to claim him as my own. I gave it up the moment I betrayed this place and everyone in it. I no longer have the right to love him.

  At least not with my arms or my lips or my words.

  My heart is another story.

  The enhanced DNA running through my veins, building my cells, holding my bones together will always belong to him. But I’ve experienced something that Kaelen has not. I’ve loved deeper than my DNA. Deeper than my skin and blood and marrow.

  I’ve loved Zen.

  I feel bad for Kaelen. He has never felt that. He has never known what that’s like. How it alters you. How it changes you at the core.

  And he probably never will.

  “They want you dead.” Kaelen is the first to speak. I now understand why it took him so long. The words struggle to come out of his mouth.

  I nod. “I assumed as much.”

  They tried erasing my memories. It didn’t work. They tried reassociating my memories. It didn’t work either.

  They’ve evidently run out of ways to control me.

  Death is the only option they haven’t tried.

  Kaelen hesitates. “I’m trying to talk them out of it but—”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, I do.” His answer is hurled back at a thousand miles an hour, instantly exposing his true emotions. He’s furious at me. For what I did. For who I am. For regressing to my former, traitorous self. He looks at me and sees weakness where he wants to see his own infallible strength.

  He doesn’t realize I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt in my life.

  Didn’t he hear what I said on the Feed? Doesn’t he understand he’s working for the enemy? Or does he not care? Since the day I first met him in that abandoned apartment in 2032, he’s made it clear to me, he works for Diotech. His allegiance is to Dr. Jans Alixter. And for a while, that was okay. Because for a while, I thought we were on the same side.

  Will I ever be able to convince him to cross over with me?

  Somehow I doubt it. And that deeply saddens me.

  “Wouldn’t you have done the same for me?” he asks, toxin souring his tone. “If the scenario was reversed?”

  Of course, is the answer that shoves its way into my head.

  But the answer I give is, “This scenario would never be reversed.”

  He can’t argue with that.

  “How does Dr. Alixter want it done?”

  Kaelen shakes his head. “Dr. A is no longer in control of this compound. He’s currently incapacitated.”

  “Incapacitated?”

  Kaelen sighs and removes a rolled-up Slate from his pocket. He opens it and hands it to me. On the screen is a live capture from the inside of the Health Center. I almost don’t recognize the man strapped to one of the hovering beds. He’s too frail, too powerless, too small to be Dr. Alixter, the charis
matic, short-tempered, tyrannical ruler of this compound.

  His body is still but his eyes are open and unfocused. His jaw hangs ajar and moves ever so slightly, as though he’s attempting to mouth words but his lips can’t keep up.

  “After your appearance on the Feed this morning,” Kaelen explains, angling himself away so he doesn’t have to see what I’m looking at, “he went into a state of shock. He snuck into the memory labs and tried to erase his own memories. The results were … damaging, to say the least. The doctors are fairly certain he’ll be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.”

  My mind is whirling. He did this because of me? Because of the things I said on the Feed?

  Or because he was afraid of what might happen to him as punishment for my public treason?

  I take one final look at the shadow of a man Dr. Alixter has become and then roll up the Slate and give it back to Kaelen. He returns it to his pocket and stares at the ground, his hands balling into fists at his sides. At first I think it’s compassion that’s making this difficult for him. He and Dr. A were always close. But I soon recognize the emotion running through him is something else entirely. The slight hunch of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw.

  I’m not the only one he’s angry at.

  “Kaelen?” I ask gently. “Are you okay?”

  “He’s weak!” he shouts, rage suddenly flashing in his eyes, causing me to flinch. “He’s a coward! He tried to bury his head in the sand instead of face what needed to be done. This is the time when we have to be strong. When we should be focused on rebuilding. Relaunching the Objective. Instead he’s lying useless in that glitching hospital bed like a warped idiot.”

  His reaction frightens me. He is so quick to turn on the man who created him, who treated him like a son. Like a protégé. How easily he shames him. There’s no empathy there. Only disappointment.

  The irony is, it’s exactly how Dr. A would react in this very situation.

  It’s almost as though Kaelen really were his son.

  The thought unsettles me. The notion that I could fall in love with anyone like Dr. A is not a notion I’d choose to entertain. But as hard as I try, I can’t chase the idea away. It clings to the corners of my mind, demanding attention, refusing to be so hastily dismissed.

  Then, like a weed, it begins to grow, spread, bloom, until it’s more than a thought. More than just an idea. It’s a life-changing shift in perspective.

  I reflect upon the memory that bombarded me in Dr. Rio’s lab. The realization of my true origins. S:E/R:A was only successful because it contained a portion of actual human DNA. Not synthesized.

  The only reason I’m here—the only reason I exist—is because Dr. Rio took pieces of his daughter’s genetic code and wove them into mine.

  But what about Kaelen?

  He was created after Dr. Rio left the compound. Whose DNA was used to make sure his sequence survived?

  Despite our genetic connection, I always suspected Kaelen and I were different at our cores. He is so charming. So easily angered. So comfortable in the spotlight.

  I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. They are so similar in so many ways. Even down to their silky blond hair.

  As I sit in my cell, once again a prisoner of Diotech, I peer up at Kaelen’s towering, almost menacing figure and another unsettling truth crashes down upon me.

  Dr. Alixter wanted to live on in a stronger, faster, more resilient body.

  And there’s only one way to do that.

  74

  INHERITED

  Suddenly so many things make sense. Their special relationship. Dr. A’s favoritism toward him. The secrets he would entrust in Kaelen but not in me. Dr. A always looked at Kaelen like he was the son he never had. He looked at me like I was a traitor.

  Because I was. In my own actions and in my very birthright. Dr. Rio betrayed this company. He betrayed Dr. A’s ultimate Objective. And I am his daughter. The duplicity runs in my veins.

  I wonder how much of this Kaelen knows. I decide it doesn’t matter. If he doesn’t know the truth about his origins, I’m not going to be the one to tell him. Especially not while he’s so riled up about Dr. A’s shortcomings.

  Kaelen crosses his arms over his chest, reminding me so much of the statuesque boy I first met in 2032. Apparently I’m not the only one who’s regressed.

  “Director Raze and I are making the decisions now,” he tells me with a certain entitled authority that makes me shudder.

  “Director Raze and I.”

  Just like that, Kaelen has maneuvered his way to the top of the chain. Just like that, he’s swooped in and taken over this company, fulfilling his duty as Dr. A’s unofficial commander-in-training.

  If he’s anything like the man who made him in his own image, there’s no hope for me. No matter what his heart might be telling him, no matter how many kisses we shared within these compound walls, his genetic programming will be stronger.

  He’ll despise me just as Dr. A despised me for so long.

  If he hasn’t already started to.

  “Okay,” I reply. Because there’s really nothing else to say. There’s nothing else to do. I’m not going to beg. I’m not going to plead for my life. I’m done trying to escape this place. In my mind, I’ve already escaped. And that’s enough.

  He stands up straighter and releases his arms. “Okay,” he repeats, feeling the same deficiency of words. “I’ll let you know what decision we come to.”

  “Thank you.”

  It’s the most wrong thing to say for so many reasons, but it’s the only thing that comes out.

  I’m not hopeful of the news he’ll bring back here. What else can they do with me besides kill me? Replace my brain? Turn me into an absentminded droid like Rio? I might as well be dead.

  Kaelen swipes his finger against the seamless metal, causing the door to reappear. He begins to walk through it but stops just short and turns back around. “I really did love you.”

  I don’t know what compels him to say it. I know it’s not Dr. A’s genetics that are driving his last-minute confession. It’s something else.

  I release a soft chuckle. “You have to say that. It’s in your DNA.”

  His smile is strained. “Maybe. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

  75

  FAVORS

  Over the course of the day and night, I receive two more visitors. The first is a med bot to inject me with a fresh new set of nanosensors. I’m not sure what that means. That they plan to keep me alive? Or maybe they plan to use them to watch me die.

  The second visitor is Crest. I haven’t seen her since right after the attack. When she was huddled over that poor man’s body, bawling her eyes out. She doesn’t look much better now. Her bubbly, effervescent demeanor is long gone. Replaced by something tired and murky. Even her nanotats are displaying dark, gloomy captures of people screaming in agony and crying over lost loves.

  When they open the door for her, she’s not stoic and statuesque like Kaelen. She runs to me. She throws herself to the ground, wraps her arms around me, and sobs into my shoulder.

  I try to comfort her but it’s never been my strong suit. I end up silently patting her on the back. I won’t tell her everything is going to be okay because those seem like empty words that have no meaning.

  “Sera,” she blubbers. “I’m so lost. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to think. Everything is falling apart. They’re storming the walls outside. They’re trying to get in. I don’t know if Raze can hold them back any longer.”

  Startled, I pull her away and shake her so that she’ll focus on me. “What? Crest. Pay attention. What is happening?”

  She sniffles, attempting to compose herself. “Your feedcast. It’s … people are so angry. They’re rioting outside the compound. They’re trying to climb the walls. They’re flying over in hovercopters and dropping people down. I don’t want them to be angry at me. I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know!”

  She
starts to cry again.

  “No one is angry at you,” I assure her. “No one blames you for any of this. You were just doing your job. How many people, Crest?” She shudders, her gaze drifting. I shake her again. “How many?”

  “I don’t know,” she cries. “A thousand. Two thousand. Too many to count. I can’t even see them all. Eventually, Raze darkened the VersaScreens so we couldn’t see out. How long do you think he can hold them off?”

  This is bad. This is very bad. Director Raze is already short on soldiers after the bunker explosion. He already sent the police away. If enough people decide to storm this place, I don’t think he can fight them off.

  “Listen,” I tell Crest. “You need to get out of here. Can you get to a hover?” Her eyes glaze, like she’s lost in a daydream. “CREST!” She blinks her attention back to me. “Get to the Transpo Sector. Find a hover. Get as far away from here as you can. Do you hear me?”

  She nods vaguely. “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m strong. Remember what you said to me? That night in my room? I’m stronger than I give myself credit for.”

  She nods again, uncertain. I feel myself panicking. She has to get out of here. She has to. I can’t handle one more innocent person I love dying because of my choices. And Crest is as innocent as they come.

  “You look terrible,” she says vacantly, reaching out to run a fingertip through my unwashed hair.

  A hint of a smile breaks onto my face. “I know.”

  “You need a bath. And a body scrub. And a hairbrush.”

  “Can you do me a favor?” I ask her.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you go to my room and get my brush, and my body scrub, and all of the other things you think I might need? Then can you get in a hover and take them somewhere far away from here?”