Unchanged (31 page)

I know from my many uploads on the subject that modern wars are mostly fought with these kinds of silent weapons. Deadly vapors that can be released by undetectable drones. But I've never heard of a nerve agent killing an American child. Their uses are limited to foreign-war fronts and battle zones.

“Before the latest batch could be sold to the government, it had to be fully tested,” Lyzender goes on. “On both adults
and
children. So a drone carrying the gas was delivered to the playground of an elementary school. Fifty-two students were killed.”

I exhale a breath that has turned stale and moldy in my lungs. I've seen what nerve gas can do. The convulsions. The salivation. The complete loss of all bodily function. Imagining fifty-two children going through that is too much to bear.

I swiftly push the thought from my mind.

“Paddok tried to file a class action lawsuit against Diotech. It was thrown out for lack of evidence.” He chucks another rock at the ground. “But you and I both know the real reason it was dismissed.”

My brow furrows.

“The Providence,” he says.

The water around me suddenly turns to ice and I'm frozen in place.

He knows? About the Providence? Did his mother, Dr. Maxxer, share her crazy conspiracy theories with him?

“Trestin told me,” he answers my unspoken question, referring to one of the men who was working for Dr. Maxxer.

“You knew Trestin?”

“He came to visit me when I was staying with Cody. After they murdered my mother. He was sick, dying. The transession gene was killing him, like it nearly killed me. He wanted to tell me why my mother left me. What she died fighting for.”

A small part of me is desperate to ask him if he believes it. If he's crazy enough to think that Diotech is being controlled and protected by a secret organization of the most powerful people on the planet. But the rational part of me insists it doesn't matter. It's a preposterous explanation that's founded on the ramblings of a madwoman.

“Lyzender—” I begin quietly, but he interrupts me before I can finish.

“Why do you call me that?”

“Because it's your name.”

“That's never been my name. Not to you, anyway.”

I know what he's referring to. I know what he
wants
me to call him. I can remember the day I named him. It was one of the memories that was originally taken from me and later returned. I bravely recall it now, even though I know it will bring me nothing but harrowing grief.

“Zen.” The three letters drift from my lips like an exhale.

He looks at me, eyebrows knit together.

“It's a word,” I try to explain. “I read it in one of the texts you brought me. It means—”

“At peace,” he answers.

“Like you … Ly
zen
der.”

As expected, the torment begins. The stabbing guilt, the despairing anguish, the fervent desire to crush my head between my hands until it bursts. Until it stops.

“… your brain can be programmed to associate a certain memory with any emotion we choose.”

Stop!

My emotions aren't fake. They're not coded into me like a glitching Slate. They're mine and they're real.

Real because Lyzender was a mistake. Every part of my past—a mistake.

“You're so different.” He huffs out the words like they weigh a thousand pounds apiece. And then, a moment later, more quietly, “So different.”

“Why?” I demand, furiously splashing the water with my hand. “Because I don't fall all over you whenever you walk into a room anymore? Because I'm strong enough to resist you now?”

Abruptly, he spins around. My body is submerged in water, but still I attempt to cover myself with my hands.

“Hey!” I protest.

But he keeps looking. Not at the parts I'm trying to hide, but at the parts I didn't know I had to. My face. My eyes.
Me
.

“You used to have this fire about you. This fierceness. Even when they erased everything—when they made you a blank page—it was still there. The girl I met in that cottage never would have sided with them. Never would have loved who they told her to love. Kissed who they told her to kiss.
She
was the strong one. Not you. It's like”—he closes his eyes, searching—“it's like they extinguished your fire. The thing that made you Sera
phina
is gone. Now you're just Sera. I prefer the blank page.”

“I don't love him because they told me to.” Right now, it's the only accusation I can dispute. “I love him because he's him.”

Lyzender sighs as his head lolls forward, like he's fallen asleep. Like he's given up.

“Because he's like you,” he whispers.

I wade closer to him, uncertain I heard him correctly. “What?”

“I knew eventually there'd come a day when I wouldn't be good enough for you. When my
ordinary
was overshadowed by your
extraordinary
. The day I saw him on the Feed for the first time, some part of me knew that it was over. That I'd never be able to compete with that kind of perfection. You found your match. Even if Diotech had to manufacture it for you. In a way, I guess that makes sense.”

He turns back around and I float in silence. The tiny ripples my body makes as I maneuver in the water are the only sound for miles.

I don't know how to respond to what he's just said and from his closed-off posture, I'm not sure he even wants me to try.

The sun is starting to set. It will be dark soon, and I imagine Paddok will want us back before then. So I emerge from the water and wrap the towel around me. Shivering, I slide my feet into my shoes and bundle my clothes under my arm. Without saying anything, I stand next to Lyzender and cast a sidelong glance at him.

He extends his hand toward me. I look down to see a dandelion lying in his open palm, its fragile white fibers still intact.

I stare at it, unsure what to do. I'm afraid of what it will mean if I take it. But I'm more afraid of what it will mean if I don't.

I gently pinch the stem between my fingers, flinching slightly when my skin touches his.

He nods too many times for it to look natural. Then we start back to camp.

With the heavy shadows that follow us, the ten-minute walk feels like an hour. The air is so thick around us, it's like walking through mud. The ground seems to sprout fingers that grip my ankles, making it nearly impossible to take another step.

When we finally reach my tent, he doesn't make any move to accompany me inside. Not that I expected him to. Not that there's any reason for him to.

Still, it disappoints me.

And I hate myself for it.

Lyzender has already started to walk away.

“He's not perfect,” I say to his back. He stops but doesn't turn around. “He has a temper. I don't know where it comes from, but he can't control it. He becomes irrational. Fueled by anger and rage. You can't calm him down. It's like something takes over him. Something living and breathing inside of him.”

I watch Lyzender's shoulders rise and fall with his steady breath.

What do I hope he'll say to me now?

I don't know.

I don't even know why I told him what I did.

At the very least, I pray that he'll face me again. So that I can see if my words have changed him. Swept away some of the weariness from his features. Erased some of the burden from his eyes.

But like so many of my prayers lately, this one also goes unanswered.

And I watch Lyzender walk away.

 

50

ILLOGICAL

By morning light, the camp is abuzz with activity once again. Everyone is preparing for the big day. The day I help a group of rebels destroy my home.

I lie on my bed, holding the stem of the dandelion Lyzender gave me. I'm not sure how it survived the night. I take it as a good omen. Maybe it means I'll somehow survive this day.

Dr. A doesn't believe in omens. He doesn't believe in signs.

I can picture him now, snatching the dandelion away, crushing the soft fibers between his fingers.

“Omens are for people who lack a solid understanding of science,” he would say. “Who lack logic.”

I want to yell back at him that logic can't help me now. In my mind, I've played out every possible
logical
outcome of this day and none of them are good. All of them mean disaster and the death of people I love.

The glitch with logic. I need something else now. I need something that defies common sense.

I need a miracle.

A shuffle of footsteps outside my tent alerts me to a visitor. I set the dandelion carefully back down on the table. Sevan enters a moment later, his expression grim. Despite all the lies he's told me, he's not like Paddok and the others. I can see it in his somber eyes. He's not celebrating this day. He's mourning it like me.

He must have people on that compound he cares about. He must not want to see them all perish. So why is he letting this happen? Why isn't he trying to stop it?

He steps toward me and opens his palm, revealing a nutrition capsule. “Take this,” he urges. “You'll need your strength.”

That's the understatement of the century.

I don't hesitate. I place the tiny pill on my tongue and swallow.

“And take this, too.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small silver cube drive.

My
cube drive. The one Lyzender buried in the earth for me.

I sit up. “How did you—?” I begin to ask.

But Sevan is already rushing to explain. “It was in your pocket when we took you. I was directed to search you and throw away anything that might emit a signal, but I kept this. I turned it off so it couldn't be traced but Klo said it was probably too small to register anyway.” He holds it out to me. “I thought you might want it back.”

I stare at the cube drive. It looks even smaller in Sevan's large palm. I think about the memories that were once stored on it. Memories taken from my own mind. Then I look up at Sevan and his dark, weary eyes, and I think about how tiny this drive is compared to the server bunker. How many memories are trapped down there? Memories stolen by Diotech and altered by Sevan's hands.

I take the drive and slip it into my pocket.

He flashes me a gentle smile. “I'll be out here when you're ready.” Then he leaves.

I pick up the dandelion from the table and hold it in front of my lips. I'm supposed to make a wish. That's what people used to do with dandelions. But I don't know what to wish for anymore. Everything my heart wants feels like a betrayal to someone.

So I just suck in a breath and blow.

The feathery seeds scatter throughout the tent before settling like dust at my feet.

I stand and, careful not to step on them, slowly walk outside, into the fresh morning air. Sevan offers his arm and leads me through the camp, to where a hovercopter is waiting to take me home.

 

51

REQUESTS

The device is smaller than I imagined. It's encased in a sturdy metal box that Klo carries delicately on to the hovercopter.

Fifteen people are accompanying me to the compound: Paddok, Klo, Jase, Lyzender, Davish, Nem, and nine others I've never formally met. I'm relieved when I find out that Niko isn't one of them. A relief I probably shouldn't feel, but do all the same.

Every single one of my chaperones carries a firearm stolen from the past.

I point to Lyzender, who is packing a bag with supplies. “Why is
he
going?” I whisper to Sevan.

“He insisted. I'm assuming it was part of his arrangement with Paddok.”

Something about the way Sevan says the word makes me instantly suspicious. “What kind of
arrangement
?”

He shrugs. “I don't know. Some sort of deal was struck when he joined up. That's all I've been told. I'm not surprised, though. Why would he jeopardize his life hopping through time without getting something in return?”

“Jeopardize his life?”

“I thought you knew,” he says in surprise. “The transession gene? It kills you. And quite painfully from what I've heard. It's why it was banned. No Normate system can withstand the strain.”

“But I thought…” My voice fades.

It suddenly occurs to me that I didn't think this through. Of course, I know what the transession gene can do. I'm the one who nursed Lyzender when he was sick. I'm the one who risked everything to save his life. When he told me Cody had reengineered the gene, I guess I just assumed he had also figured out a way to make it safe. I never even considered the possibility that Lyzender might get sick again. Why would he purposefully choose to go through that a second time? He could die. He
will
die if he doesn't get another dose of the Repressor from Diotech.

“All I know is,” Sevan goes on, oblivious to the internal battle waging in my mind, “it must have been one hell of a request.”

Sevan is staring pointedly at me. I meet his gaze. “What?”

“What?”
he repeats, almost laughing. “Are you really that warped that you can't figure it out?”

“You said you didn't know!”

“I can take a wild guess and bet two billion dollars that I'm right.”

“You think it's me,” I say, kicking the dirt. “You think he's doing this for me.”

“Can you think of anything else?”

I turn my attention back to Lyzender. Xaria is now dramatically throwing her arms around his neck and crying into his shoulder.

Sevan follows my gaze. “Think again.”

Lyzender disentangles himself from her, casting a hasty glance at me. His expression is dark and unreadable. He kisses her cheek, murmurs something I can't hear, and jogs up the stairs of the hover.