Arclight (31 page)

“This isn’t working,” I say. “There are too many choices.”

“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m listening.” Tobin has been trying to work a plastic dome with a control panel beneath it loose, and as it finally snaps in his fingers, I wonder if he would have been strong enough to break the dome before Rue cut him.

I’m thankful Tobin isn’t looking my way when it sinks in that I killed my own kind. I murdered who knows how many Fade when I burned them out of him. Rue and the others had to have known what I did. . . .

I turn my head to hide the tears stinging my eyes. Rue tries to help from a distance, but the feeling of forgiveness makes me hate myself—and Honoria—more. Those I killed were a part of him. How can he not hate me?

A screen rises from some hidden compartment made to look like a floor tile. The lights and controls still confuse me, but it’s a safe bet that the one blinking is the one I want.

I lay my hand flat against the blinking panel, and the screen snaps on, filling the room with soft light. White letters scroll on the smaller screen in front of me: SELECT FILE, followed by a chain of numbers in columns. The first twenty or so carry the tag “Regression Test,” and I try not to believe they’re all that remains of Honoria’s failures. The next five say “Fatal Failure” in red, with “Darcy,” and a qualifier that would only make sense to the person who created the file.

“That’s my mom.” Tobin gasps. He tears the dog tags out of his shirt. “Dad called her Cass, but to everyone else she was Darcy . . . Do you think my mom is responsible for what happened to you?”

“Just because they used her research doesn’t mean it’s what she had in mind.”

“Get it off the screen,” he says softly, tucking the tags away. His certainties have been shaken as much as mine the last few hours. While I discovered that I wasn’t who or what I thought I was, Tobin’s problem is the opposite. He’s stayed the same, but everyone around him has changed into someone barely recognizable.

I slide my finger down the list until I hit an arrow that zips through the names all the way to the bottom, where a new category appears in blue: “Fade Regression: Success. MARINA.”

“Punch it,” Tobin says.

A security feed of the White Room appears on the screen. Honoria and Dr. Wolff stand at the console while the Fade-girl, Cherish . . .
I mean, I
. . . prowls inside the cage where they kept Rue.

Cherish looks exactly how I saw her in my mirror. Ashen skin with feathered markings on her . . .
my
. . . face. Fury and terror struggle for control as the me on the screen realizes she can’t escape the light. The sentient tattoos that decorate her skin leap to her defense, creating the familiar veil, but Honoria turns the light higher until Cherish falls to the floor in a writhing heap. Her protective bubble shatters, sifting down as ash. I watch Cherish’s body go into convulsions I’m glad I can’t remember.

“No way Dad knew this was going to happen.” Tobin makes a sound like he’s about to throw up right there on the keyboard.

I stop the playback, searching the list for anything else with my name attached to it. Three more files appear in the queue.

In the first, Cherish is still in the cell, awake but too weak to move. The lights overhead shine so bright I can barely see her until her fingers appear splayed out against the glass. I feel an imprint of her despair from not knowing why she was apart from the hive or why no one came to rescue her . . .
me
.

On screen, black lines melt off Cherish’s arms, to end up as puddles on the floor; that was when we lost the hive completely. The skin I see isn’t bleached out anymore, but red and blistered—the last wounds the nanites are able to heal, and the ones that finally push them past their limits. The blood trickling from her mouth and nose tints scarlet behind the black. She curls into a ball, trembling and scratching at the glass with one fingernail.

A very real sickness overtakes my body in the here and now while I stand watching the people I trusted torture me.

“I . . . I didn’t,” Tobin stammers. “I didn’t know, Marina. I swear.”

I give him a sharp nod because I don’t trust my voice.

The next film shows the men in hooded plastic suits who burned Tobin’s carpet. They drag my limp body out of the cell by my arms. It’s easier to think of the me on the screen in terms of myself now; nothing’s left of Cherish’s appearance to make me think otherwise. The bare tops of my feet slide across the tile; long strands of white hair cover my face. They throw me into a reclined chair, fix straps to my arms and legs, then return to the cell to scrub it down with acid and liquid fire.

The buzz, signaling Rue’s presence in my mind, peaks into a frenzy. I was so focused on the screen that I hadn’t considered how what I saw would affect him or the others in the hive. He hadn’t known the specifics of Cherish’s imprisonment either. Now that he does, I hope he can keep control of himself long enough for the rest of Col. Lutrell’s plan to be put in place; otherwise all of this is for nothing.

“It was the eyes that gave us the most trouble.” Another voice in the room shocks me; the videos have all been silent.

Honoria stands in the doorway with a small remote in her hand, as though this is some filmstrip she’s presenting. Tobin turns, too, taking a half-step in front of me, holding his arm out as a barrier between us. But this time, I’m not the one who needs protection.

This is the woman who stole me from my family, the one who caged me and left me crying in agony until she’d destroyed my life. This is the woman who’s always treated me as though her fears are my fault. I want to tear her apart with my bare hands.

“We weren’t sure they’d ever turn,” she says, ignoring our reactions. “Blue was a surprise. Given your features, I thought they’d settle on brown.”

One step into the room and she stops to lean against the wall, feigning boredom. She looks like she did the last time I saw her—hair that curls where it’s fallen out of the tie she keeps it in; the same scowl sits on her face. But I know so much more now. How can she be the same when the world’s a different place?

She taps her remote and the last video plays. A very human me, with cut hair and perfect skin, lies restrained in a hospital bed. A massive spasm bows my back nearly to breaking before I pitch over the side and vomit black fluid.

“The poison inside went last,” she says as I watch Dr. Wolff console the me on the screen before giving her a shot that knocks her out.

Honoria pauses the image on a close-up of my face.

“It took almost a week for the melanin in your skin to activate,” she says. “We got lucky. An albino would have been difficult to sell, and we were already pushing it by trying to explain away your senses. Fortunately, people tend to see what they want to see.”

She moves off the wall and joins us behind the console, slinking across the floor in a way that’s almost predatory. The hand holding the remote disappears into her pocket and reemerges with a small glass tube, which she sets on the panel. Her face is impassive, unblinking, with a practiced calm that disguises how alert she actually is. Her eyes, grey rather than silver—a distinction I never thought important before—are sharp as ever.

“What’s that?” Tobin asks.

“Open it,” she says to me.

I’m not sure what she’s up to, but I stay behind Tobin. I’m done following her orders.

“I was surprised when Elias said you’d come back. Without the suppressant, you could have reverted by now. The fact that you haven’t says we’re getting closer. You can thank Tobin’s mother for that.”

“My mother didn’t know about this.”

“She knew more than you can imagine.” Honoria grabs my hand, pulling it out straight as though Tobin and his temper are no deterrent at all. “Thanks to her, we have our first real shot at reclaiming our rightful position on the planet. The only trick is to keep the host alive long enough to survive separation.”

She picks up the vial, pulls the stopper out with her teeth, and spills the contents into my open palm. A small pile of black crystals sits there.

An acrid odor hits my nose. I know what this is . . .
Fade ash
. In the background Honoria’s still trying to talk to me, but all I can focus on is the putrid scent. I can’t get away from it.

Rue rescues me again, sending me the impression of clean, cool air. I feel strength pour into my arms and legs, steadying them as sure as if he’d braced me up himself.

“Thanks to Darcy, the death toll was one-sided with this one.” Honoria leans toward my hand and blows the dust away. They’re someone’s remains, and she’s treating them like table salt.

“Who was it?” I ask when I stop shaking. For all I know, it was what’s left of my parents.

“You,” Honoria says without so much as a twitch to suggest regret. “Or rather, the parasites that used to reside in your body.”

“They’re not parasites,” Tobin growls.

She laughs. A mirthless sound devoid of any real emotion, like a filler.

“They weren’t designed to be, that’s true,” she says. “But it’s what they became. They become whatever it takes to get you to believe them. Whatever you saw out there, Tobin, it’s not real.”

“Rue’s real.” I refuse to let Honoria cow me. “He came here for me. He risked his life just so he’d have a chance to find out what you’d done to me.”

And he’s still here.

“He was a scout, nothing more.”

“He loves me.” The words come out quiet.

“Maybe the host does,” she says. “But the parasites that control his actions won’t indulge his fascination for long. You, your Rue, the people we lost, they’re just shells programmed to advance so long as there exists a place they don’t control.”

“No, they’re not,” Tobin says, again defying the woman who’s controlled almost every aspect of his life since he was a child. He can’t intimidate her the way he can most people, but she can’t intimidate him anymore, either. “They didn’t understand free will at first, but they do now . . . we saw it.”

“I knew Elias was dreaming when he said you didn’t go into the Dark.” Honoria smirks at me. “Your precious Fade took you straight back to their nesting ground, didn’t he?” She turns on Tobin. “And you—as stubborn and reckless as your father—wouldn’t get that close without diving in to find out what happened to James firsthand. Am I right?”

Tobin clenches his fists as his sides, and his muscles lock the way they do when he’s ready to punch something or someone.

“He did, and the Fade didn’t hurt him,” I say. “They aren’t dangerous. They found another way to fulfill their purpose. They can have children of their own—like me.”

“And you think that makes them
less
of a threat?” Honoria asks.

She’s not surprised. She doesn’t flinch the way Col. Lutrell did when he realized the Fade had changed—she knew.

I go cold. An accident or a mistake I could accept, but not this. This is vile . . . calculated . . .
evil
.

“How many were there before me and Rue? How many did you put in here?” I ask. Renewed courage comes, not only from having Tobin in reach and Rue in spirit, but from the hive—demanding answers for those of their own who were hurt, and ultimately lost. They give me a sense of new purpose.

“You were the first success; that’s all that matters. The others took their hosts down with them.”

“They were trying to save them!”

“
We
were trying to save
you
. I’d say we succeeded.”

“Save me from what? Existing? You knew I was born Fade! What gave you the right to turn me from what I was into . . .
this
?”

Suddenly my own skin disgusts me because I can’t stop thinking about how wrong it is.

“You shouldn’t have
been
born,” Honoria scoffs. She starts to pace, nervous and angry and a dozen other emotions I can more than see. Cherish reaches out with senses I didn’t know I had, realigning the world. “The idea of your kind procreating, like they had a right to breed with the bodies they stole—you’re nothing but a lie.”

“If I’m a lie, it’s one you told.
You
sent those people to rip me out of the Dark, knowing what would happen to them.”

Anger gives me a bolder voice.

“I didn’t—”

“You knew the Fade would fight to protect their own! And you sent your people to kidnap one knowing that.”

“They knew the risks. They chose to go because what we could gain was worth more than what they’d lose.”

The more she says, the more certain I am that returning to the Arclight was the right choice. Not only is she unapologetic for what happened to me, or her own people, I’d bet she’s already planning another run into the Grey to try again.

“Why me?” I ask.

“Providence. Fate. Statistics.” She shrugs. “You strayed away from the others, and made yourself an easy grab. That was my first clue that something was different, and then I saw you and I knew. When someone turns, their skin retains the scars of their human lives. Yours was perfect, aside from the gunshot. No scars, no vaccination marks, no healed breaks in your bones, no incisions from surgery or piercings. No one gets to your age without a few scrapes unless they’re not human to begin with.”

“You really don’t regret any of it, do you?”

“Only that the process was flawed. You’ve remembered too much, but there are ways around that now that we know your generation can be healed.”

“You don’t even have a conscience left,” I say.

“What does a Fade know of conscience?”

“I thought you said she was human,” Tobin says coolly.

Honoria’s face twitches, her arrogance cracking at last. She’s disgusted by her own success. In her eyes, I’m still less, but I’m also the closest thing she’s got to what she wants. She can’t destroy me without losing that.

Knowing that makes me stronger than her.

“How do you face the people here, and still pretend to care about them after all you’ve done?” I ask.

My words don’t seem to anger her at all.

“You say you remember, Marina—”

“That’s not my name!”

“Fine, then what do they call you?”

“Something beyond your comprehension and ability to voice. Sound and texture and feeling, even taste. You couldn’t begin to understand.”