Unchanged (20 page)

“Goodbye,” I say, mimicking his strange, slow wave. Maybe it's some kind of Coder salute.

He repeats the gesture and I'm debating whether I should as well when I notice the nanotat on his hand change. It's only for a flicker of an instant. Not long enough for any Normate eye to catch, but I can see the shift. If Kaelen were here, he would as well.

For a sliver of a second, the palm of his hand is no longer decorated with streaming lines of code, but rather an unadorned image.

A red crescent moon.

When I blink, though, it's gone. Replaced by the same repeating progression of numbers and symbols. Mesmerized, I take a step forward, watching his palm. I wait for it to change again, but it never does. He soon lowers it to his lap.

“I like your nanotat,” I say, feeling unexpectedly brave. “Is it new?”

He flips his palm up and runs his fingertips over the animated text. “It is. I thought I'd give it a try. See what all the hype is about.”

“What does it mean?” I meet his eye, probing him for truth with my gaze. “The code?”

“It's stupid actually. A Coder's paradox. It's the memory of a Coder programming his own memory. Basically a circular reference. It goes around and around forever. Like looking into a mirror within a mirror.”

“An infinite loop.”

“Exactly.” He flashes me an unassuming smile and I swear I see the reflection of a thousand secrets dancing in his eyes. “Well, I guess I'll see you later.”

I nod and slip out of the room. Once in the hallway, I press my back against the wall and suck in large gulps of air, willing my heart to stop galloping in my chest before its frantic activity shows up on someone's Slate.

I don't know what just happened back there. I don't know why my perfidious memories didn't set off warning alarms from here all the way back to the compound.

But I do know, whatever it is, Sevan is in on it.

 

32

RUPTURED

When our hovercopter arrives at the local Feed station in Miami the next morning, Director Raze receives orders to touch down on the grass in front of the station, as opposed to the roof where we usually land.

“Not a chance,” Raze says into his earplant, glaring out the window at the throngs of people below us. “Patch me through to the streamwork manager.”

Kaelen and I sit in the row of seats behind him, our hands tightly clasped together, staring out opposite windows. I turn to watch Raze as he waits for a connection.

“This is Director Raze, head of Diotech Security. There is no way we are landing in the middle of that mayhem.”

He pauses, listening. A moment later, he bangs his fist against the window.

“What's going on?” Crest asks. She's seated in the last row of the hover, behind Kaelen and me.

“Their roof pad is under construction. They say it's impossible to land up there.”

I gaze down at the swarm of bodies and my throat tightens.

“Agent Thatch.” Raze initiates contact with his second-in-command, who's riding in the hover behind us with Dane and Dr. A. “We're being forced to land out front. Contact the private security detail. Tell them we want a protected path cleared from the front lawn to the entrance. Synthoglass barricades. No one can get through. Is that understood?” Raze pushes back against his headrest and sighs. “What a glitching mess.”

We're forced to circle for thirty minutes while the sea below is parted by a group of uniformed guards and large plates of synthoglass are set up to create a secure pathway for us.

As we wait, Crest fiddles with my hair, pulling out pins from my swept-back bangs and reinserting them. I don't think my hair actually
needs
work, it's just her way of expending nervous energy. None of us are excited about having to wade through that chaos down there.

After she secures the last pin and leans back in her seat, I feel a light tapping on the inside of my hand. I look down to see Kaelen's fingertips moving in rapid succession, typing out our secret code against my palm.

CAN WE TALK?

So this is it. We're finally going to address what happened back in Los Angeles. Right here, hovering five hundred feet above a swarming Miami Feed station.

I take a breath and drum out a response.

YES.

He turns to me and speaks in hushed Hindi. I almost want to laugh at how unnecessary his whispers are. It's not like anyone in this hover can understand Hindi.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you.”

“Nah
īṁ
,”
I say, accessing the dense, melodic language. “I handled it horribly.”

Kaelen shakes his head, appearing frustrated. He runs his fingers through his glossy hair. “I sometimes forget that I'm competing with someone else.”

This takes me by surprise. “What? No. You aren't competing with anyone.”

“I'm competing with your past.”

We both know who he's referring to. We don't have to say his name. Even though it bounces through my brain like an echo in eternity.

Lyzender.

Lyzender.

Lyzender.

“My past is gone,” I assure him. “It's literally in the past.”

“Then why are you so scared to be with me?”

I bite my lip. “I'm not scared.”

“What is it then?”

I want to scream that I don't know. That I can't put it into words. That I've tried to explain it to myself but it refuses to make sense.

I'm grateful when Raze interrupts us, barking orders about what will happen when we get to the ground. I feel my stomach drop as the hover begins to make its descent.

“Can we finish this later?” I whisper in English.

Kaelen nods but won't meet my eyes.

We land in the center of the cleared pathway and my heart squeezes as I take the first step down the hover's staircase. The crowds are barricaded behind the high walls of soundproof glass but their voices rise over the top, infiltrating my space. Some are screaming for our attention, wanting us to face them so they can grab a good capture. Some are screaming for us to go back to where we came from, or worse, to hell, where we belong.

Uniformed guards are lined up along the blockade to protect the seams between the glass panels. Kaelen takes my hand as we start the terrifying journey through the parted crowd. Director Raze walks alongside Kaelen, Crest, and me, while Agent Thatch escorts Dr. A and Dane, who have just stepped out of their hover.

We're nearly to the door of the station when I hear the cracking sound. My gaze flicks toward the noise and I watch in horror as an industrial MagTractor backs up, revs its engine, and comes crashing through a gap between two of the synthoglass panels.

Kaelen pushes me aside, out of harm's way, and Director Raze does the same to him. A man—a farmer based on the way he's dressed—jumps out of the tractor. He hurls insults at us as he stalks in my direction. I stand, sick and paralyzed with fear.

Everything that comes next appears to be happening in slow motion. I can see the drastic shift in Kaelen's face. I can almost hear it. The
snap
. The creature breaking free from its shackles.

In a split second, the man is on his back, cowering while Kaelen sits astride him, striking his face with his closed fists. His hands move so fast, they blur through the air. The only sight I fully register is the splatter of blood that sprays with every punch.

The rage hollows out his eyes. In that moment, he looks exactly as Pastor Peder described us: like a soulless monster.

It takes five security guards to pull Kaelen off the man. The first two who try are thrown back immediately, tumbling through the air and crashing with a sickening
crunch
against the synthoglass on either side of us.

When they finally manage to untangle him from the man's pulverized face, Kaelen is covered in the farmer's blood.

We're ushered toward the building. Kaelen is breathing hard. Not from the effort of the fight, but from the storm raging inside him. He's still thrashing and growling as he's hurried inside the Feed station by Director Raze and his men.

I stop just short of the door, long enough to take in the pandemonium that has erupted in our wake. The guards are having a difficult time keeping everyone back. People are pushing to get closer, to steal a peek.

Last time they erased memories to hide the truth about Kaelen.

They won't be able to do that this time.

There are too many people. Too many Slates. Too many witnesses.

Through the mesh of the bodies, I manage to catch a glimpse of the man who attacked us—who never even got close enough to breathe in my direction before Kaelen intercepted him. His face is completely disfigured. His eyes are swollen shut. His nose sits blood-spattered and crooked above his busted lips. The skin of his cheek is peeled back, barely hanging on.

My heart stops when I realize he's not moving.

Something screeches and scrapes inside my ears. A panic so loud it blocks out all other sounds.

I step slowly away from the growing unrest. My feet stumbling over each other. I hit a hard surface. When I turn around, I see it's the door to the station. It's been closed on me. In all this commotion, they don't even realize I'm still outside.

Suddenly, warm breath tickles the nape of my neck. A large hand wraps around my stomach, yanking me back hard. I scream but no one can hear it above the turmoil.

My reflexes are slow, dampened by the spiral of shock I'm spinning in. By the time I even think to fight back, the sizzle of a Modifier stings my skin and I wilt into the arms of a stranger.

 

PART 3

THE UNRAVELING

 

33

CLEANSED

In the darkness of my mind, I remember my birth. Emerging from the thick, gelatinous fluid of the womb. Opening my eyes to the world.

The face I saw before me was Rio's.

Not the empty shell of a person who now roams the compound. A strong, vibrant man with bright eyes and a smile that made me feel like I was home. Even before I understood the concept of home.

He slapped me on the back and told me to breathe.

I remember the oxygen. That first sip of air. It was sweet honey to my lungs.

A MedBot came to clean me. It cleared the fluid from my nose. It washed the residue from my skin. It combed the tangles from my long, damp hair.

Then there were tests. So many tests. Injectors pressed against my skin. Blood drawn from my veins. “Perfect,” was the word I kept hearing. “Absolutely perfect.”

I was so very tired. Somehow Rio knew. He put me in a bed and told me to sleep.

I drifted off to the sound of him sobbing quietly.

“You're here,” he kept saying, over and over again. “You're finally here.”

*   *   *

I awake to voices.

Frenetic movement all around me.

Two pairs of eyes floating above, like stars in a black sky.

The darkness comes and goes. I'm injected with something that makes my limbs feel sluggish and then my eyes grow too heavy to open again.

I can't move. I can't speak.

Even if I could, the only name I would call out would be Kaelen's. What will happen to him now? Now that the world has seen what he can do? I used to think I was the flawed one. I was the one who ran away. But I'm starting to wonder if we're both inherently defective.

“Make it fast,” a woman says. “It won't take long for them to notice she's gone.”

I hear the sound of strained breathing. A man. His voice is vaguely familiar but I'm too disoriented to place it. “He killed him. He wasn't supposed to kill him. I didn't think he would—”

The woman barks a response, harsh and impatient. “Graw was prepared to die for the cause. He knew the risks.”

Are they talking about the farmer? The one who Kaelen beat senseless?

Is he really dead?

My mind flashes back to those two helpless paparazzi on the hyperloop platform and my stomach starts to cave in on itself. I want to vomit but even my gag reflexes are paralyzed.

The air moves around me. The flurry of hands working.

I feel a pinch in my leg, just above my knee. My skin catches fire. It burns like an inferno inside my veins. But I can't cry out. My mouth is frozen. My tongue is so numb, it may as well have been cut out.

Something beeps near my head. It starts out loud and cacophonous. Like a chorus of tiny chirping insects. But as the unbearable pain travels through me, spreading like wild flames, the song starts to die down. One by one, the beeping insects are killed off.

“Did you get them?” the woman asks.

“Just a few more,” the man says. Another injection of searing liquid lava erupts through me and my brain shrieks. I'm reminded of being burned alive at the stake. The pain was so intense, it eventually knocked me out, stole my consciousness. My body was merciful enough to shut down.

I can only pray that it does the same now.

The final insect beeps its last dying breath.

“Done,” the man says.

“Good. Now that.”

Another pinch near my left wrist. I recognize this anguish. The way it twists my bones and claws at my muscles. Rearranging cells. Reprogramming my blood. It's the same excruciation I remember from the genetic disguises we were forced to bear when we first left the compound.

This time, it's not focused on my face. It's focused on my wrist. Where my implant is. My tracking device. The permanent piece of me that connects me to my home. To Kaelen.

The pain keeps exploding in my lower arm. Like tiny detonations one after another. I want to scream for them to stop, but my voice is gone. Everything is gone except for this blinding cloud of torment that has settled around me.

One at a time, my eyelids are pried open. I hope to catch sight of whoever is doing this to me, match the dimly familiar voice with a face, but all I see is a giant hand descending. Its fat fingers rip the Lenses from my eyeballs. Then my lids snap closed again.