Unchanged (27 page)

“Listen to what I'm telling you, Sera. It's
not
him.”

I rip his hands from my face and stomp over to the man, dragging Sevan with me. My emotions are all tangled up. I can't tell if I'm angry or happy or fearful or some noxious mix of the three.

“Cody!” I bellow. “What are you doing here?”

The man backs away, seemingly afraid of me.

Why would Cody be afraid of me? Did Paddok get to him, too? Has he been manipulated into distrusting me like everyone else in this place?

“Sera!” Sevan calls behind me, still attached to my wrist. I try to block him out. “That's
Niko.
He works for Paddok.”

Niko?

I stare at the man with the curly blond hair, trying to meet his eyes, but he drops his gaze to the ground. It's then I start to see the small differences. A squarer chin. Higher cheekbones. A more pronounced brow.

“Who are you?” I ask, my tone transitioning from forceful to inquisitive.

“I'm Niko.” He repeats the unfamiliar name. “Niko Carlson.”

A shiver runs down my arms.

Carlson.

When I speak again, my voice is shaky. “Why do you look like him?”

The man finally finds the courage to meet my gaze and I stare into his blue eyes.

The exact same blue eyes.

“Because he's my great-grandfather.”

 

43

TAINTED

I sip the water slowly, just as Sevan instructed. The lukewarm liquid feels slimy as it navigates down my throat. It doesn't taste like the water we drink on the compound. It's thicker, meaning it's organic, not synthesized to improve taste and purity.

It has a metallic flavor that makes me think about the billions of little microbes swimming around in every drop, waiting to infect my weakened system.

We're seated at one of the wooden picnic tables in the dining area of the camp. People are fluttering around us doing whatever it is they do here. Sevan sits next to me, his cuffed wrist lying on the table beside mine. He says nothing. I say nothing in return.

I'm still trying to process what happened.

Cody's great-grandson is
here
. Working to take down Diotech. The very company that created me. That also created a gene that sent me into the past. To the year 2013, where I first met a gangly, awkward thirteen-year-old boy named Cody Carlson.

It's too much to be a coincidence.

There's a bigger story here. Unfortunately, Niko walked away before I could say anything else. Then Sevan led me here and handed me a cup of disgusting, bacteria-laden organic water.

I take another sip.

I haven't thought much about Cody since I returned to the compound. I haven't had any reason to. He belongs in that
other
part of my life. The part that brings me nothing but shame.

But lately it's become more and more difficult to forget it.

This camp is crawling with reminders.

“Better?” Sevan asks, gesturing to my cup.

I nod.

“Maybe I should take you back to your tent. I think you've seen enough for one day.”

He starts to stand but I don't move. “What about you?”

“Sorry?”

“You never told me why
you
hate Diotech.”

Sevan slowly lowers back down. “I'm not sure you're ready for that story yet.”

I pin him with a glare. “Just because you've seen my memories doesn't make you an expert on my mind.”

He chuckles. “Very well.”

He doesn't speak right away, though. He stares into the distance, as though something out there has momentarily snagged his attention.

“When I first started working at Diotech, I was a shy, lonely programmer. An outcast with no friends and no family to speak of. All I wanted was to fit in somewhere. I worked hard. I got promoted quickly. When I was finally assigned to the memory labs as a Coder, I thought, this is it. I've made it. It was a prestigious position within the company. The memory labs have an elite status on the compound. After Dr. Solara, Xaria's mother, was terminated and they placed me in charge, I thought I was living the dream, you know?”

I don't know. Is there a common dream that all people share?

Why have I never dreamed this dream?

But I nod anyway and he continues. “Then I learned about you and Kaelen. I knew higher clearance levels would mean access to some disturbing information. I knew there would be times I would have to shut off my conscience and pretend things didn't bother me. I just didn't expect…” His voice cracks slightly and he trails off, looking uncomfortable. “For glitch's sake. Human beings? Manufactured? Brainwashed?”

“I'm not brainwashed.” I wish everyone would stop using that word to describe me.

“That's exactly what someone who's been brainwashed would say.”

“But—”

“Who do you think received the order to administer the alterations on you? Who do you think went into your brain and twisted every single memory by hand?”

Twisted?

“What are you talking about?” I demand, feeling irritated by my own confusion. “Dr. A let me keep my memories. He even restored the ones they'd taken before.”

“Yes,” Sevan admits. “He let you keep them, but they still had to be versions he approved of.”

“Versions?”

He sighs and rubs his eyebrow. “Dr. Alixter quickly figured out that simply erasing things from your mind wasn't working. It wasn't keeping you from
him
.”

He doesn't have to say who
him
is. We both know.

“So he decided to try something else. It was a new procedure. It hadn't been fully tested yet, but Dr. Alixter insisted we implement it on you. It's called Memory Reassociation.”

His words set off alarm bells in my brain.

“The girl just took a little bit longer than expected to adjust to the Memory Reassociation procedure.”

I overheard Dr. A saying this to someone on the other end of a transmission the morning of the Unveiling.

“What does it do?” I ask, my mouth suddenly bone dry.

“The idea behind it is that your brain can be programmed to associate a certain memory with any emotion we choose. It twists your recollection of events. It warps your past into anything they want it to be. Do you want someone to feel nostalgic about an abusive parent? Done. Do you want someone to feel betrayed when they remember a happy childhood? Done. We associate the desired emotion, your brain distorts the memory to make it fit. It's that simple. Do you want someone to feel guilty about a love that changed her life forever?” His voice gets very quiet. Like he's run out of fuel. He locks onto my eyes. “Done.”

The shivering intensifies. “That's a lie.” I can barely manage to keep my teeth from chattering.

“You're programmed to think that, Sera. Your brain
wants
it all to make sense. Even if it's illogical. Think about it. Why else would Lyzender be here?”

“For the same reason you're all here!” I try to shout but it comes out strained. “To destroy Diotech.”

Sevan shakes his head. “Not him.”

“Yes, him. He told me so himself.”

“Now
that
was a lie.”

My head is pounding. The thoughts are jumbled, shoving against one another. Like a drunken brawl in my brain. I press my palm against my temple, begging it to stop.

Just stop.

“Dr. Alixter wanted you to feel allegiance to Diotech. To what they're trying to do. But to accomplish that, he also had to make you feel betrayal when you remembered your past. It was all spelled out on the order. I coded the emotions in myself. Everything you feel—about Dr. A, about Diotech, about Lyzender—it's manufactured. I would know, I
put
it there. And I couldn't live with myself afterward.
That's
why I'm here.”

“I don't believe you,” I whisper.

“You're not supposed to. I'm a good Coder.”

Somewhere inside of me, I find the strength to scream, but it's a waning force that's only good for one word. So I choose it wisely. “No!”

I stand up and try to walk away, but I'm yanked back, still cuffed to Sevan. I pull hard, imagining that my abilities are back and I can rip his arm clean out of the socket, but I don't even seem to be making a dent in his skin. “Release me,” I beg quietly.

Surprisingly, he does. Without argument or hesitation. He pulls the key from his pocket and unlocks his end. The vacant cuff dangles from my wrist.

He must know I won't try to run.

He must know I barely even have the strength to make it across the camp to my tent.

Everyone here is a liar. Lyzender, Paddok, Sevan. They'll say whatever it takes to break me. To make me believe I'm on the wrong side.

I'm on the side of humanity. The side of doing good for the world. That's the right side.

I start limping back to my tent.

“Remember the fire,” Sevan calls from the table.

My footsteps slow to a stop.

Fire?
What fire? The one that burned me at the stake in 1609?

But instantly I know that's not what he's referring to. His words. They spark something. An image stirs in my brain. An imprisoned memory struggling to break free. An unforgotten nightmare.

And suddenly I see it. I remember it.

A blindfolded woman standing in the desert. Flames roaring inside a glass cage.

She walks mindlessly into the inferno.

She doesn't even scream.

But I do.

At least I try. Kaelen's hand muffles the sound. Kaelen's words attempt to soothe me. Kaelen's arms carry me away.

Across the compound. Under the glinting metallic archway. Through the doors of the memory labs.

I slowly turn around. Sevan has stood up from the bench. He stares at me expectantly. As if he knows what's happening in my brain right now.

“The memory you erased,” I say numbly. “The night before we left.”

“I gave it back,” he confirms. “During your last scan. It just needed to be triggered.”

My throat is dry. Scorched from the recollection of the flames. “Why?”

“So you could see the truth for yourself.”

“What truth? What did I witness that night?”

“The
real
Objective,” he replies calmly.

“Burning people?”

He takes a step toward me. “
Controlling
people.”

I shake my head.

He takes another step. “Every product in the ExGen Collection contains an untraceable piece of nanotechnology.”

I shut my eyes tight. It's crazy. It's delusional. It's exactly what Dr. Maxxer claimed, and
she
was crazy. She was delusional.

Another step. “A stimulated-response system. Just like the one they used on you in 2032. It will embed itself in the consumer's brain and lie dormant until the day Diotech decides to switch it on.”

I cover my ears with my hands. “Stop! That fire never happened! You coded that memory to mess with my mind.
You
are the brainwasher! Diotech is trying to
help
people!”

“Think about it, Sera.” Sevan's tone sharpens. “Diotech has nothing to gain from making people stronger. The
world
has nothing to gain from making people stronger. A controlled population is a weak population is a safe population.”

I won't stand here and listen to this. I won't let myself be manipulated by these lies.

I turn again and walk away, determined to huddle under my blankets until I drift to sleep.

But just as I reach the tent I catch sight of the dark-skinned girl. The one who brought me my food earlier. Who Sevan called Xaria.

She's standing on her tiptoes, her lips curled into a coy smile as she whispers into someone's ear. Then she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him toward her, steering his mouth to hers.

It's then that I'm able to see Lyzender's face. As it rotates toward me to welcome her kiss.

 

44

ANSWERS

He sees me as soon as his lips touch hers. His mouth falls open and his eyes widen. For a moment, he stands completely still, unsure what to do. When she realizes he's not kissing her back, she pulls away, murmuring something inaudible against his chin.

Then she looks my way and her gaze slices into me.

I duck into the tent and collapse on the bed, facing the cloth wall. The air comes out of my lungs rough and ragged. I try to take deep breaths but it only results in a coughing fit.

I tell myself it has nothing to do with what I just witnessed. My shortness of breath is one hundred percent attributable to my walk through the camp. And to the disturbing lies that Sevan tried to force on me.

Why should I care what Lyzender does?

Who Lyzender kisses?

I shouldn't. I don't. He can kiss every girl within a fifty-mile radius if he wants. It doesn't affect me at all. Actually, that's not true. It's
better
for me. Better that his attention is focused elsewhere. Better that he's not trying to manipulate me anymore. He's clearly found another, more agreeable subject.

One less thing for me to have to worry about.

I need to concentrate on my mission to warn the compound about the imminent attack.

There is nothing else.

I hear the tent flap swish a moment later. I don't have to roll over to know who's standing there. I recognize his breathing. His silence. The way the air in the room bends toward him.

“Seraphina—” he starts to say.

“It's Sera.”

“Seraphina,” he repeats with even more persistence. “We need to talk. What you just saw out there—”