Return Once More (7 page)

Surprise turned quickly to suspicion in his steely dark gaze. “What are you doing in here, Miss Vespasian?”

His eyes narrowed to slits, and my mouth went dry. He closed his eyes briefly, and I knew he was asking the brain stem tat to give him my schedule. “You're supposed to be in … Research, are you not?”

Instinct said to lie, but he could bust me with a few punches into the table comp. “I got my Companion card and was curious. I'm sorry. It won't happen again.”

“See that it doesn't. Run along.”

I escaped out the hatch behind him, my fast steps betraying my nerves. His black gaze followed me, pricking sweat between my shoulder blades until I turned a corner and dropped from his line of sight. I stopped, pressing a palm to the wall of the cold, stainless steel corridor until my heart slowed to a normal pace.

Ezekiel was the unofficial leader of the Elders and the head of our Academy. After studying the past for clues, collective humanity decided no one person should hold power, and that went for the Elders as well. But everyone listened to Zeke.
Everyone.
Even though he never treated us poorly or sanctioned us more harshly than required, he scared the pants off me, a chemical and physical reaction I'm sure my bio stats reflected and catalogued. He had the same effect on Analeigh and Sarah. And before Jess, Levi, and Peyton split off into their own clique when we were twelve, they had felt the same, too. Oz never mentioned it. He never mentioned much of anything, though, so it was hard to tell whether that meant anything.

I felt sorry for Sarah for getting stuck with him even if she did get to be the one in ten million who experienced true love. If Oz's name had showed up on my card … Well, it wouldn't have been a happy day no matter how intense his gray eyes were behind those glasses. I didn't know if he liked me, or anyone, for that matter. He was probably the best student in our class, giving Analeigh a run for her money both in that department and the seriousness one.

The empty hallways whispered back the sound of my slippered footsteps. I followed twists and turns by memory, nothing on the bare walls to guide me down a correct path, and when the doors to the Research Lab whooshed open, Analeigh's shoulders slumped with relief.

“Oh, thank the System you're back. I was worried.”

I smiled, hoping to hide the remnants of nerves slicking my forehead with sweat. “Worried you'd have to lie if someone came looking for me, you mean?”

“Maybe.” She gave me a sheepish grin. “You know I can't lie.”

It was true. Her face and neck got these impressive, bright red blotches when she tried. It was why I hadn't told her about finding Jonah's cuff, at least not yet. If I did decide to use it—
if
—she couldn't be involved. It had to be my secret.

“Did you find anything?”

Discussing Caesarion held little appeal, and there wasn't much to tell, anyway. I shrugged and joined her in one of the circular booths. A screen sat atop a waist-high pedestal, and three of the surrounding walls were mirrors. The fourth projected clothing on our bodies based on the coordinates we typed into the system. The comps and tats could provide us any and all required information on the spot, but evaluations showed a higher likelihood of retaining facts when we ingested information the old-fashioned way—manual research. Not having to manually learn languages was the only cheat the Elders allowed, so the days leading up to a new trip were filled to the brim with reading about clothing, mannerisms, customs, and anything else we needed in order to blend into a certain time period.

“Do you need any help with our wardrobe for the Triangle?”

“Nah. Check it out.” Analeigh punched a few buttons and spun me around.

Ankle-length skirts and fitted tops lined with buttons down the back covered us both. The blouses tucked in at our waists, and boots—with more buttons—covered our feet and ankles.

“Hmm. Don't we get hats? I feel like Edwardian fashion means hats.”

“No hats in New York City!” Sarah called over the wall from the next cubicle.

“Hats for the wealthy, but we're going to be fitting in with immigrants. So no hats, but we will get to pin our hair up,” Analeigh clarified.

“But I like hats,” I replied, being difficult on purpose.

She rolled her eyes and punched another button. Wide-brimmed hats appeared on our heads in the mirror with fat, sheer ribbons secured under our chins. I nodded. “Much better.”

“You can't wear hats on the trip!” Sarah yelled.

“Sarah, I know you can't see us, but we're still only like four feet away. You don't have to yell.” I gave Analeigh a look, and we shared a quiet giggle.

“Whatever,” Sarah said, poking her head into our cubicle. “We need to finish downloading facts before supper.”

Analeigh switched off the hologram. She and I stepped into the empty space in the room, a circle at the center surrounded by fitting booths, and then the three of us headed for the hatch, matching again in all black, supple Kevlar. We stepped into the labyrinth of sterile, steel-and-white hallways, our words bouncing back at us like pellets from an old firearm.

“You guys want to split up the research?” I asked as we headed back the way I'd come, toward the Archives.

“We're not supposed to—”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Stars, Analeigh. As long as we complete the names, order of event, and setting, who cares? We can store all of the research in one file and download it three times under each of our names. No one will be the wiser.”

We'd taken advantage of Sarah's prowess with comps and tech more than once. It still surprised me she'd been sorted into the Historian Academy instead of Technologies because I'd never met anyone who could manipulate machines the way she could.

“I guess.” Analeigh sighed. She'd probably do her own, anyway.

Once surrounded by the thick, cloudy glass and dancing images in the Archives, the three of us split the research and got to work. I'd grabbed the easiest third—the manifest. The historians on Earth Before had listed the victims of the Triangle Fire, those who had lived and those who had died, so all I had to do was load it into a file, along with their physical characteristics.

Since every class of apprentices had recorded the Triangle Fire, all of the girls in the building had an extensive file, even though few of them were individually significant. Their historical contribution lay in their collective demise, not any individual survival. Morbid, but true.

Even the summary of the event hurt my heart. “It's terrible, isn't it?”

“Which part?” Sarah frowned. “The part where the poor immigrant girls were underpaid and worked literally to death in those factories for years, or the fact that it took over a hundred of them dying in the gutters of a New York City street on a Saturday afternoon for anyone to give a shit?”

“I vote for the fact that even though that day changed labor laws in the United States, they kept supporting factories that employed the same practices in other parts of the planet for years,” Analeigh added, her eyes glued to the comp in front of her.

“All of it.” I swallowed hard, wishing I could be more professional like my friends. “It's all terrible.”

I scanned the list of victims again, and the name Rosie Shapiro jumped out at me. I pressed a finger against the name of Jonah's True and the comp pulled up her file. It would definitely be interesting to see her next week.

The idea that Jonah had perhaps done this exact same thing spread a comforting warmth through my blood, even if it must have been terrible for him to stand there and watch her die. I didn't think I could do it, be in the room while Octavian put my True to death, but Jonah had always been stronger than me.

Rosie's file pulled up, displaying a picture and a short list of facts from both the original history and the multiple accounts based on Historian observations. She was pretty, my brother's True Companion, with peachy cheeks, dark curls, and delicate features. The related photographs rolled a shudder up my spine. The sight of a bunch of soaking wet girls my age splattered on the New York City sidewalk squelched my desire for dinner.

I downloaded a picture of Rosie and stored it to the protected file Sarah had set up in my brain stem tat. She'd created password files for the three of us when we were twelve and thought secret diaries seemed like the coolest thing in the world.

The tat could conjure her photo from the file while we were at the Triangle and use facial recognition software to locate her in the room. It should be easy enough to find her before the fire started. I would probably get into trouble again for focusing too much on one, insignificant life but this time, at least, I knew the reason. It was partly to feel closer to my brother that I wanted to see Rosie Shapiro for myself, but partly because maybe meeting his True face-to-face would convince me there was no real reason to break a million and one rules in order to meet my own.

*

Analeigh sat me down when Sarah hopped in the shower after dinner, pinning me with a hard gaze. “I don't know what's up with you, but it's something. You're all jumpy, and you were staring at that table comp like it held the secret to the universe. Downloading a manifest isn't that interesting.”

The sound of running water filled our suite while I struggled with my reply. I might be good at keeping secrets, but it burned to hold them in my mouth. I wanted to tell Analeigh about Jonah's cuff and everything else, but it wasn't fair to her and maybe not to my brother, either.

Plus, I didn't want her to talk me out of what I wanted—to go see Caesarion.

“I don't know. Still thinking about Caesarion, I guess.” Not technically untrue.

“Really?” The dry tone of her voice spiked my worry, but Oz stuck his head in the door at the same moment, saving me from having to outright lie to my best friend.

He blinked at the sight of us, as though we're somehow unexpected fixtures in our own room, and his storm-cloud eyes filled with irritation as they swept the room, searching for Sarah. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, but words seemed to escape him. Sarah was his reason for being here, and Oz seemed lost at finding her unavailable. His quiet, watchful nature turned anxious sometimes, like now, although it didn't make sense in this situation. We'd known him as long as he'd known Sarah, so nerves didn't make much sense.

Most of the science fiction stories from Earth Before assumed that if we ever advanced to a point like ours—scientifically, medically—that everyone would lead healthier, longer,
not anxious,
perfect lives. The truth was, our geneticists and medics
could
ensure all of us were put together in a way that made us live longer, and that no one was born with any kind of disorder at all. That wasn't practical, though. So, we got to deal with Oz and all of his awkward.

“She's in the toilet,” Analeigh supplied, taking pity on him.

Oz fidgeted in the doorway, gazing down at his hands. After his third longing glance at the empty hallway behind him, I couldn't take it anymore. “You don't have to lurk in the doorway, Oz, for goodness' sake. Sit down and talk to us.”

Analeigh and I stared as he shuffled toward Sarah's desk and perched gingerly on the edge of the chair. Oz wasn't that tall but he was strong. His broad chest filled out the tight clothing, showing off his muscular arms, and his fingers tapped an impatient rhythm on the back of the steel chair in the silence.

“What's wrong with him? He's even jumpier than usual.”
Analeigh's whispered voice popped into my head, surprising me. Oz sat close enough to hear the sound of us whispering, but probably not to catch the words.

Scientists on Earth Before had discovered that our throat muscles make the involuntary movements to form words even when we only think them. Not everyone on Genesis had this enhancement, but for Historians, it was necessary. We might need to communicate in a scenario where talking was prohibited or our language program might glitch. We had the most bio-enhancements of anyone in the System—unlike the universal wrist tats, the ones connected to our throats and brain stems were unique to our Academy.

The throat tattoo worked exactly like talking—limited range, a few feet, usually line of sight—which meant anyone close by sporting the same tech could overhear. Oz was a little close for comfort, but I decided I didn't care that much if he did overhear.

“I don't know.”
But maybe I did, I thought, my mind flicking back over where his dot placed him earlier today. “So, Oz, how was Pearl Harbor?”

The question sounded innocent enough to my ears, but his sharp gaze snapped to mine. It felt as though he could see right through my skull, knew that I'd seen his dot hovering elsewhere. I tried a smile, which only seemed to irritate him further, pulling his full lips into a frown.

“Loud and bloody. As expected.”

He was lying. The cut of his eyes toward the bathroom, the way he licked his lips. His anxiety rose even higher and diffused into the air, urging my own into a climb. The bio stats didn't lie, even if Oz did, and now I was sure what I'd seen in the Archives hadn't been a glitch. Oz
had
been in Asia today, watching the Mongol invasions when he wasn't supposed to be.

The question of
why
intrigued me more than a little. And if the stats hadn't been wrong about where he'd been, they also weren't wrong about him being alone.

Which meant I wasn't the only apprentice with an unauthorized cuff.

The sound of running water abated a moment before the uncomfortable silence actually killed me. I wondered if he and Sarah talked when they were alone. Maybe they were too busy making out, although I had a hard time picturing Oz relaxing his lips enough to kiss anyone.

Sarah's lilting singing voice crawled underneath the closed door and helped eased the tension in the room before she banged loose from the bathroom, tugging the towel tighter around her chest when she spotted Oz. “Oh. I didn't realize how late I was.”