Unchanged (19 page)

I slide my feet into my shoes and follow him into the hallway.

Room 702 is only a few doors down. Dane moves to swipe his finger against the panel but stops and turns to face me.

“Sera,” he begins cautiously. “What you saw the other night—between me and Dr. Alixter.”

I shake my head. “It was none of my business. I'm sorry I intruded.”

Dane lifts his hand in the air, as if to silence me. “No. I want to explain. Dr. Alixter and I … we have a … well, he's a complicated man,” he finally finishes after much stumbling.

I nod, waiting for him to continue.

His eyes dart toward me, then to the ground. “He grew up in a family who didn't accept him. His parents and brother were very religious people. They believed that science was the enemy. When he told them that he wanted to be a scientist, they essentially disowned him. He ran away and hasn't spoken to them since.”

I find myself wondering why he's telling me this. “Is that why he hates religion so much?”

Dane bites his lower lip. “For the most part, yes.”

When it doesn't seem as though he's going to elaborate, I ask, “What does this have to do with the other night?”

He blinks, as if he's just remembering why he started this conversation. “Oh. I guess what I wanted to say is … seeing Pastor Peder on the Feed, it always puts him in a sour mood. Because it hits him a little too close to home, you know? You shouldn't take it personally. He loves you. You and Kaelen. You are like the children he never had.”

Well, Kaelen is, at least.

Once again, I remain quiet, thinking he'll add more. But he doesn't.

“How do you know all of this?” I ask.

Dane smiles. It's a reserved smile that barely scratches the surface. “I suppose when you work with someone for a long time, you pick up a few things.”

“How long
have
you worked for Diotech?”

He chuckles and rubs his chin. “Wow, I don't even know. I was hired to manage the announcement of the synthetic meat line. And that was…” He pauses to think.

“May 5, 2110,” I say, remembering the archived footage of the announcement that I watched the other night.

He smiles. “You're right. So that would make it—flux—more than seven years already.”

I think back to that footage. How captivating and composed Dr. A was. How miserable and awkward Rio was. That is, until he lifted the little girl into his arms.

Suddenly, I'm struck with a thought. I know it's dangerous to ask questions about Rio, but maybe if I frame it right. If it seems to have come up organically …

“You said Dr. A had a difficult childhood?”

“That's right.”

“Is that why he never had children of his own?”

Dane clears his throat uncomfortably. “Probably.”

“What about Rio? Did he have any kids?”

“One,” Dane says, a sadness unexpectedly clouding his eyes. “A daughter. Sariana.”

A shiver passes through me at the sound of that name again.

Sariana.

It feels like so much more than just a name. It feels like the whole sky.

I swallow. “What happened to her?”

“She died about three years ago. It was horrible. Rio was devastated. She was only eight.”

“How?” I manage to squeeze out.

Dane sighs, blinking out of his gloom. “Broken neck. She fell out of a tree in the Agricultural Sector.”

My blood turns to ice. I don't have to ask. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, I know which tree it is.

The cottonwood. The one that I can't bear to walk past. The one that screams at me when I turn around. Just the thought of those gnarled branches and that warped bark makes me shudder.

“And they couldn't save her?” I ask, my voice trembling.

He shakes his head. “By the time they got to her it was too late.”

I want to know more. So much more. But I have to tread carefully. Too many questions about the daughter of an enemy might raise suspicions.

“Anyway,” Dane says, effectively ending the conversation, “best not to keep him waiting.”

Dane turns and swipes his finger against the door panel of room 702. It slides open and all harrowing remnants of our previous conversation instantly vanish when I see what's waiting inside.

Or rather
who
is waiting inside.

I have to work hard to hold back the gasp that threatens to escape.

“Hi, Sera,” the man says in a friendly voice.

But it's not his cordialness that confuses me. He's always been kind to me. In fact, he's probably one of the nicest people on the compound. I just never expected to see him in our hotel. A thousand miles
away
from the compound.

“Sevan.” I barely manage to squeeze his name through my constricting throat. “What are you doing here?”

I don't know why I even bother to ask. There's only one reason Sevan Sidler, Diotech's chief Memory Coder, would be here. But his answer still sends a tremor of dread through me.

Sevan smiles innocuously. “Dr. A asked me to scan your memories.”

 

30

ABNORMAL

Dr. A has been ordering random memory scans for both Kaelen and me for the past year. He says it's his way of making sure we stay true to the Objective and, in my case, making sure my devious tendencies don't resurface. The scans never bothered me before. They were supposed to be superfluous.

I never had anything to hide before.

Now, as Dane mutters a goodbye and Sevan leads me into his suite, I think about all of the things I've hidden in the past few days. All of the things that will undoubtedly show up on this scan.

The cube drive that was buried in the dirt and that I've been stupid enough to carry with me on every stop of this tour. Lyzender's distraught and heartbroken message vowing to find me. Seeing his face in the Feed footage. My inability to push that face from my mind.

These are the kinds of things that should be reported. The kinds of things that threaten the Objective. Yet I deliberately kept them to myself. I
chose
to disobey.

My legs tremble as I make my way farther inside room 702. Sevan has built a temporary memory lab in the dining room of the suite. It's nowhere near as menacing as the real thing. Still, staring at those instruments—the computer terminal with the special coding keyboard on the desk, the injector lying next to it, the chair with the synthosteel clamps—I feel a cold sweat trickle down the back of my neck.

I also wonder
why
Dr. A ordered this scan in the middle of the tour. Has he had it planned from the beginning or does he suspect something? Did Kaelen get scanned, too? Or is it just me?

Maybe Kaelen told Dr. A about my warped behavior that night in Los Angeles.

My breathing grows shallow.

Should I refuse?

Should I ask to talk to Dr. A first?

Maybe if I run to him now and confess everything, he'll understand. He'll forgive me.

I chastise myself for being so foolish and naïve. Of course he won't understand. Of course he won't forgive me. I knowingly kept secrets from him. I knowingly deceived him. That's unforgivable in his eyes.

“How are you?” Sevan asks, seemingly oblivious to the terror ripping me apart. “How's the tour been going?”

Small talk.

He's making small talk like he always does. He has no idea what he's about to find. What he's going to have to report.

“Fine,” I manage to utter as I try to keep my lips from trembling.

He waits for me to say more and then releases a short laugh when I don't. “Well, that's not what I've heard.”

“What did you hear?” I ask, panic flaring up.

He gives me a strange look. “I've heard that it's been far better than
fine
. Dane has transmitted nothing but glowing reports back to the compound. Apparently the world loves you two.”

I relax somewhat but the relief is short-lived.

“Shall we get started?” Sevan motions to the chair. With a deep surrendering sigh, I lower myself into it and place my arms on the armrests to activate the restraints. The thick synthosteel instantly clamps around my wrists, holding me in place.

Since I'm never conscious during any of the scans, I don't know if the clamps are there as a precautionary measure, or if people actually do struggle when their memories are being evaluated.

“Connecting to your vitals now,” Sevan says.

I've always liked Sevan. Despite the nature of his job—invading people's minds—he's nice to me. He tells me what he's doing as he's doing it. After all this time, I don't need each step of the process explained to me. I know his computer is linking to the signal transmitted from the nanosensors that live in my bloodstream, sending data and information to his system about my physical condition.

But it's reassuring to hear him say it anyway.

I lean back and wait for him to inject me with the serum that will send me into a dreamless sleep and steal hours from my life. It will only seem like a few seconds to me. I will wake up in this chair feeling groggy and disoriented. And there's always a chance that some of my memories will be gone when I do.

Like the night before we left the compound. When I woke up in Sevan's lab with hours missing from my day. I knew I had seen something. Something I wasn't supposed to see. And now I'll never know what it was.

The same thing could very well happen tonight.

It's impossible for every single memory in our brains to be reviewed by a human being, so the scans are programmed to look for abnormalities. Thoughts and memories that vary from the everyday routine of our lives. They're usually accompanied by nanosensor reports of elevated body temperatures, augmented heartbeats, strained breathing.

All the things that will surely expose me for the deviant I still am.

“Okay, looks like we're ready.” Sevan glances one last time at his screen and then picks up the injector. He offers me a smile before placing it against my neck. Even though I know he doesn't mean it to be, it's the most menacing gesture I've ever seen. “See you in a few hours.”

I feel the pressure of the injector against my skin and a moment later everything grows heavy as my brain shuts down and the familiar wave of darkness consumes my consciousness.

By now I am used to the sensation of being taken. Of falling into shadows.

But today, I am terrified. Not of the black curtain itself. But of what I will find waiting for me when it's finally lifted.

 

31

PARADOX

When I come to, light is already breaking outside the window. It must be early morning. I was out for the entire night—more than eight hours. Much longer than my usual scans. That can't be a good sign.

I peer drowsily around the room. Sevan is at his monitor, furiously typing code into the keyboard. A faint beeping alerts him to my consciousness and he turns and smiles.

“Welcome back.”

I attempt to blink the bleariness away but it doesn't want to let go.

I do what I always do when I wake up from a scan. I try to focus on the last thing I remember before losing consciousness. It comes to me easily today. I remember the fear.

My eyes dart back to Sevan, who has resumed typing, his eyes focused, his mouth slightly ajar. It's strange. He doesn't look like he's just witnessed a major infraction. The cuffs around my wrists release and I flex my fingers.

I'm afraid to move. To stand up. Terrified that the worst has not yet arrived, and I want to be sitting down when it does. But after a moment, Sevan lifts his gaze from his screen and regards me with an inquisitive expression. “You're free to go,” he reminds me. As if I haven't done this numerous times in the past year.

I try to speak but only air comes out.

“Do you feel all right?” He frowns at his screen. “Your stress levels are a bit high, but it's probably just anxiety from the tour. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

“I'm okay,” I finally manage to say.

He flashes me a goofy smile. “Good.” Then, when I still don't move, he asks, “Was there something else?”

“The scan,” I begin warily. “It went … smoothly?”

He spins back to his coding keyboard. “Yup. All clear. See you next time.”

All clear?

That can't be right. There was nothing about the last few days that would warrant an all-clear status.

Is there something wrong with the equipment? Was it damaged during travel? Did Sevan not read the output correctly?

The memory of the cube drive should have jumped out at him like a fish in the desert. As well as the boy's face in the Feed footage. There's no way those recall patterns looked anything like my normal day-to-day routine.

Perhaps he's lying. Perhaps the infraction is so big, he's been ordered not to discuss it with me. Which would mean any minute now I'll receive a ping from Dr. A asking to see me. Or worse, one of Director Raze's lackeys will be waiting outside the door to personally “escort” me to Dr. A's suite.

I rise unsteadily from the chair. “Thank you, Sevan.”

He looks up long enough to give me a wave. It's an unusually slow movement. Like he's tracing the sun's arc with his fingertips. On the palm of his hand I notice he has a nanotat. I find that odd because I don't remember ever seeing it before. Also, because Sevan doesn't seem like the kind of person to get one. Nanotats are normally imprinted by artistic types. Sevan always struck me as more rational and scientific.

The design is fitting for him, though. It's a scrolling line of code. It must be Revisual
+
, the language of memories, because I can't read it. I've never received an upload for a computer language before. To me, it just looks like an indecipherable sequence of gibberish.