Unforgotten (34 page)

I see her face. She’s hovering over me. I notice one of the guards attempting to pull her away but she brushes him off. “I’ll be fine. She has enough Cv9 running through her bloodstream to placate a killer whale,” Maxxer says.

I attempt to roll onto my side but that’s a lost cause as well.

“Help her up,” Maxxer commands the guard, and suddenly I’m being hoisted into a seated position. My head is propped up by a pillow. My legs are adjusted in front of me. I can’t move my head to look at her but thankfully Maxxer squats down in front of me so I don’t have to.

She takes a deep breath, speaking almost to herself. “I should have known they would send you.”

I’m able to blink, but that’s about the extent of my mobility. I feel sleepy. I want to go to bed. But I also want answers. I command myself to stay awake and ask, “Whaa?”

“While you were out, I did a quick scan of your brain. It appears they implanted a stimulated-response system. It’s a kind of mental programming that will only activate when certain requirements are met. Similar to a TDR. In this case, it was set to go off as soon as you acquired the antidote from me. Basically it’s computerized brainwashing.”

I think back to what I saw on the park bench. When I tried to convince Kaelen that there was more to life than being a machine. Something snapped inside him. He turned into an entirely different person. I surmised that I must have set off some kind of automated reaction that was built in to protect him from the truth.

I never even imagined I might have the same thing buried somewhere in me.

“Buh¸” I try to argue. “How? Wheh did they puh ih in?”

Maxxer presses her lips together. “I have no idea. The agent they sent most likely installed it. Probably after he pulled you from the fire and you were unconscious.”

Yes,
I think immediately.

The entire time I was recovering from the burns, he was keeping me sedated with the Modifier. He could have done it at any point during that time.

“Well, anyway,” Maxxer goes on, “my guess is once they figured out I had left you the memory map, they knew I would only allow
you
access to me. So they created a backup plan. They essentially turned you into an assassin without your knowledge.”

I feel ill. Like I might vomit.

This whole time, I’ve been carrying around a disease. An infestation in my mind. Like a bomb ready to explode. Except
I
was the bomb.

I thought I had finally escaped them. I thought I’d finally broken free. But no, it was just an illusion of freedom. They’ve been manipulating me from the moment I woke up in that room. From the moment I first laid eyes on Kaelen. And he knew.

He knew it all along.

And yet, even though I want to feel angry at him, I can’t. All I feel is guilt. I judged him for being Alixter’s personal robot. For being a brainless avatar in Alixter’s real-life video game. But in reality, I was no better than him.

I was an avatar, too.

A puppet. Just waiting for Alixter to pull the right string to make me kill someone.

It turns out Zen and I both had the disease of Diotech running through us. Destroying us from the inside. Taking away our life. Our humanity. Our ability to choose our own destiny.

I feel tears welling in my eyes but my cheeks are so numb, I have no idea if they ever fall. My head slumps forward and I can’t get it up again. Although to be perfectly honest, I don’t really try all that hard.

Maxxer places a hand under my chin and props it back up.

Then she reaches out and gently brushes my cheeks. Her hands come back wet. So apparently I
am
crying.

“It’s okay,” she soothes, her voice melodic and sweet.

“I doh unda-stah,” I say. Now the words are garbled by tears as well as my droopy lips. “Why do they wah to kill yoo?”

But somehow Maxxer understands what I’m trying to ask. “They’ve wanted me dead ever since I left the compound.”

I allow my eyes to close for a moment and immediately regret the decision because I can’t seem to open them again.

“Get me a 50 ml of Zellex. The sedative is too strong. I need her conscious.”

I can feel sleep tugging at my mind. Inviting me into its warm, comfortable bed. Then I feel a sharp stab in my arm and a few moments later, my appendages start to awaken. There’s sensation in my legs again. I try to lift my arm. It rises slowly and then falls again. I open my eyes. Focusing is decidedly easier.

“Thank you.” I breathe out, grateful to be able to form complete words again.

“You’re welcome.”

Maxxer is still kneeling in front of me. I notice the splinters of glass have been cleared away. She stands and walks back to the bar, pouring herself another serving of her weird green energy drink.

“Why do they want you dead?” I ask, watching her pace, the glass clutched tightly in her hands. I get the sense things have not exactly been going her way thus far.

“Essentially because ever since I left the compound I’ve been trying to destroy them.”

“Destroy Diotech?” The feat seems nearly impossible.

She shakes her head. “Not just Diotech. But the people
controlling
Diotech.”

I think back to the first conversation I had with Maxxer. In her storage unit. She mentioned she had a suspicion someone else was funding the company and pulling the strings. But she had indicated she didn’t know who it was.

“You figured out who Alixter is working for,” I realize aloud.

She stops pacing long enough to flash me a cunning smile. “Actually, I already knew.”

“You did?”

She nods. “There’s a group of very influential individuals, some of the wealthiest, most important people in the world. They call themselves the Providence. No one knows much about them because they stay almost completely under the radar. But it’s rumored that they’ve had their hands in every war, every political election, every economic crisis for decades. Some people believe they control everything. Most of these people are labeled crazy conspiracy theorists and quickly discounted. Which is a shame, because it’s the truth.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this the last time?”

“For many reasons,” Maxxer explains. “The most important being I knew you weren’t ready to hear it. I had to bring you into this gradually. Otherwise, I knew you’d become overwhelmed and possibly reject it completely. And I couldn’t afford for that to happen.”

Bring me into this?

I draw a heavy hand to my forehead and press my temple. “Wait,” I say, trying to process the flood of new information. “Why exactly did you lead me here?”

She kneels back down in front of me. “Because, Sera, I
need
you on my team. You are special. One of a kind. You can do things no one else can do. I’ve been
waiting
for you.” Her voice is quiet. Tentative. Desperate.

“You can help me defeat them.”

54

ORIGINS

What I really want to do is rise to my feet and stomp right out of this place. But first, although whatever Maxxer just injected into my bloodstream has allowed me to finally speak correctly, I still don’t have full capacity of my legs. And second, obviously there’s the problem of the fact that we’re currently hundreds of feet underwater.

“
That’s
why you brought me here?” I ask. “Because you want me to help you defeat Diotech?”

Maxxer looks taken aback. “I would think, after everything you’ve gone through, this would be top on your list of priorities.”

“
Zen
is my only priority,” I argue. “I came here to save his life.”

Maxxer stands up and backs away a few paces. I can’t help but notice the shift in her body language. Her shoulders sagging, her face registering what I can only interpret as remorse.

My hand immediately goes to my pocket. I’m horrified when I realize the vial I placed there is gone.

“Where is it?” I demand.

“Sera.” Maxxer tries to calm me. “There are some things I need to explain.”

“Where’s the gene repressor?!” I yell, causing the guards to step menacingly toward me. Maxxer calls them off with a subtle shake of her head.

“I had a hunch that Diotech might have gotten to you first. That a stimulated-response system might have been installed without your knowledge. I couldn’t take any risks. I had to—”

“GIVE ME THE CURE!”

Maxxer sighs. “Sera, I don’t have the cure.”

Ice. Suddenly every inch of my body is covered in ice. Tiny pricks of unbearable chill stab me over and over and over. I feel like I’m falling. Hurtling. Not in a vacuum. Not in the sea. But plummeting headfirst toward the hard, unforgiving ground.

The impact is inevitable.

I will hit.

It will crush me.

And yet, somehow I’ll survive. I’ll go on. And be forever haunted by the memory of my plunge. A permanent dent in my brain. A scar that cannot be healed. Regardless of what my DNA says.

“What was in the vial?” I say, my lips barely moving, the sound barely traveling.

Maxxer shakes her head, refusing to look at me. “Colored water,” she admits softly. “It was a decoy. I had to test you. To see if you had been manipulated.”

“You tricked me?” I shout, struggling to stand up but eventually collapsing back into the couch after much failed effort.

“Please calm down and listen to me,” Maxxer coaxes.

“Zen will die and it’s because of YOU! The gene will kill him!”

“Sera,” she says again. Each instance of my name on her lips reignites my rage. “You need to trust me.”

“TRUST YOU?!” I shriek so loudly my voice bounces off the thick glass and echoes back to me. “After you
lied
to me? Tricked me? Lured me here under false pretenses?”

“Now,” she replies in a sharp tone, “I didn’t give any indication in the memories that I was leading you here to give you the repressor.”

I open my mouth to reply but quickly shut it, my teeth snapping together, when I realize that she’s right. The memories just said,
“Find me.” I
made the assumption that Zen was the reason I needed to find her. Even so, her defense does nothing to quell my anger.

“That’s irrelevant,” I spit. “You
knew
he was going to get sick. You
knew
I’d be looking for a cure. And you knew I would blame Diotech for his illness. That’s probably why you didn’t tell me that he was going to get sick when we first met, even though you had to have known. You thought that if I was given enough time and enough motivation, I would come to despise them and that would only make it easier to recruit me.”

“That’s not true.” But she licks her lips and doesn’t meet my gaze when she says it, giving her away. “I care about you, Sera. And Zen.”

I scoff, “I don’t believe you.”

The door creaks open, interrupting our argument. The man identified as Trestin pokes his head inside. “Is everything okay?” he asks, his curious eyes darting from me to Maxxer.

I’m still plagued by the unyielding sensation that I know him.

That I’ve met him before.

“We’ve been tracking the news of the outbreak in the nav deck,” he informs Maxxer. “It’s turning into quite the media circus. It shouldn’t be long now.”

He turns and offers me a friendly wink.

Media circus.

I know that phrase. I’ve heard it before. When I was leaving the hospital in 2013. When everyone thought I’d survived a plane crash.

The first time I heard it said was by the man who was trying to locate my family. Mr. Rayunas was his name. He said he worked for Social Services. He’s the one who placed me with the Carlson family.

I study the man who just came into the room and I feel my stomach tighten.

No.

It can’t be.

Mr. Rayunas was much rounder. Older. His hair was thinning. He had wrinkles around his eyes. An extra layer of skin under his chin.

This man is young and slender with a full head of thick brown hair.

But the eyes. And the voice. And the smile. They’re the same.

How
though? How is that possible? Why would an older, heavier version of this man be in 2013 with me?

“Thanks, Trestin,” Maxxer replies with a tight smile. “I’ll deal with that later.”

He nods and ducks out again.

Something is going on here. Maxxer is hiding something. A
lot
of things.

I narrow my gaze at her. “Why did you lie to me about Trestin?”

Her eyebrows rise. “I didn’t.

Another lie
.

“He works with you.”

She nods. “He’s a crucial part of the alliance I’ve formed to bring down the Providence.”

“Why did he also work for Social Services in 2013?”

Maxxer freezes. I see the panic on her face. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to remember that. Or I wasn’t supposed to piece it together. Either way, she’s caught. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like I said, he has one of those faces.”

“Oh, STOP!” I cry. “I’m not stupid. I remember him. He called himself Mr. Rayunas. He placed me with Cody’s family. I want to know
why
!”

Maxxer’s eyes close just for a moment, seemingly in surrender. She pulls a chair out from under the bar and places it across from me. Then she lowers herself into the seat.

“The first thing you need to understand,” she begins tentatively, “is that the Providence is bad news. Very bad news.”

“Answer my question,” I seethe.

She raises her hand in the air. “I will. But you have to know my motivations. You have to understand why I did what I did. I’ve learned a lot about this organization. I’ve been transessing all around the world, through hundreds of time periods gathering data on them. They are insufferable. Pure evil.”

She motions out the window at the endless sea. “There’s an outbreak going on right now, in July of 2032.”

“The white fever,” I say, remembering the news footage I saw in the subway.

“Yes. It’s a virus that if left unchecked could destroy the entire population.” She pauses and takes a breath. “They released that virus.”