Unchanged (32 page)

I think back to the conversation Lyzender and I had in the tent. I accused him of striking a deal with Paddok. I asked him what he was getting in return for his help. He swore there was no deal. That he was only doing this because their goals aligned.

Was he lying to me then?

My head starts to throb at the thought. I can't keep track of everyone's deception. I can't figure out who is telling the truth and who is telling me what they want me to hear.

Or are they the exact same thing?

“You don't know anything,” I say to Sevan, pushing past him toward the hovercopter.

I hesitate at the base of the stairs. Jase is ready to nudge me with his shotgun. I grab the handrail and hoist myself up the first step. But I'm yanked back down by a hand on my wrist. I spin around to find Xaria glaring at me like the world is ending and it's my fault. I think she's going to scream at me again, like she did in the tent, but her face softens and when she speaks, her voice breaks a little.

“Whatever he's thinking of doing, don't let him do it.”

I forcefully pry my wrist from her grasp. It takes way too much effort for my liking. “I don't have the slightest idea what he's thinking of doing, nor do I care.”

I start to turn back but this time it's her desperate plea that stops me.

“Then let him go,” she says.

“What?”

“If you don't love him, let him go. Let him be with someone who cares about him.”

“I'm not stopping him from doing anything,” I shoot back, irritation sharpening my words.

“But you are.” Her eyes are welling with tears now. It makes her look so much younger. Like a broken doll. “You are and you don't even realize it. Do you know how hard I worked to make him forget about you, to help him move on from the girl who smashed his heart into a thousand pieces?”

I press my lips together, saying nothing. This girl has treated me horribly ever since I arrived. Why should I have any sympathy for her now?

“And it was working!” she cries. “I was finally getting through to him. Then you showed up and he fell apart again. Like someone set off a bomb inside of him.”

I find her word choice ironic given what's about to happen.

I bark out a laugh. “You act like it was my
choice
to be here. Trust me, there are so many places I'd rather be.”

“He's hanging on to something,” she says, and for the first time I see the pain in her eyes. It's magnified by the tears. “He's still foolish enough to think he can fix you, but now it's time for someone to fix him. I can do that. But first, you need to let him go.
Please
.”

“Don't worry,” I tell her. “I did that a long time ago.”

I continue up the stairs and disappear inside the hover. It's larger than the ones we rode in during the tour. The
SWICK TRANSPORTATION
logo on the side indicates it was originally intended for transporting cargo. Not people. The sixteen seats look like they were added as an afterthought. I take the only empty one. It's next to Lyzender. He's twisted his body so that he can see out the window, his head resting dejectedly against the glass.

“We're clear for departure,” Paddok says into her walkie.

Klo engages the autopilot system. Like he did with the Slate, I imagine he's already scrambled the craft's signals.

“What was that about?” Lyzender asks me without looking up.

I realize from his vantage point he must have seen me talking to Xaria.

“She thinks she can fix you,” I mumble, pressing back into the seat and closing my eyes as a painful chill shudders through me. The hovercopter lifts into the air, dropping my stomach.

Lyzender keeps his forehead glued to the window. “She's wrong.”

He says it so quietly, I wonder if he even intended for me to hear.

 

52

SURPRISES

Twenty minutes after we've left the camp, the center of the hover floor splits open, revealing an auxiliary smaller craft attached to the belly. A series of blinking lights and screens flash from below. Klo jumps in and starts running system checks.

“What is that?” I ask Lyzender, who is out of his seat, leaning over the gap in the floor.

“It's your hoverpod.”

My
hoverpod?

Meaning, I'm riding in that? By myself?

“We're good to go,” Klo announces, climbing back out. He gives me a grin. “You won't plummet to the earth in a fiery crash. I checked.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, although maybe that would be the best scenario at this point.

Paddok jerks her chin in my direction, ordering me to get in. There's no point in arguing now. This is happening. Fighting is out of the question in my condition.

I move toward the pod but Lyzender grabs my arm. “Wait.”

Paddok rolls her eyes. “We don't have time for this. Klo's scrambling loop will only last another thirty minutes.”

“I know!” Lyzender snaps, irritated. “Just give me a glitching minute, will you?”

He pulls me to the far back corner of the craft. The interior of the hover is small enough that everyone can hear what he's saying, but the extra inch of privacy does seem to make a difference. If only to make me more uncomfortable. I fidget with my empty hands.

Is this a goodbye speech? If it is, I need to put a stop to it. I'm not sure I can get through it.

“Sevan told you why all these people hate Diotech.” He rushes through the words, racing to get them out before Paddok rips me away. “You remember all the stories he told you?”

I nod, but don't look up.

How could I forget that horrific tour of the camp? Vas's disfigured face. Davish's heavy heart. The resentment that Nem carries around like a weight strapped to his back.

“But you haven't heard the story about why
I
hate Diotech.”

“I know,” I mumble.

Suddenly his hand is on my chin, lifting my face to him. “No,” he growls. “You don't.”

You would think I'd have gotten used to his hostility by now. This new hardened Lyzender. But it still makes some lost, abandoned part of me ache. Like a deeply buried scar that never healed. That still throbs when it rains.

“You think you know, but you're wrong. You only know whatever warped, twisted version they convinced you was real.”

He lets go of my chin but I don't turn away.

“What did they make you believe?” he asks. “That I stole you? That I forced you to leave against your will?”

I open my mouth to argue that it's not just a belief. It's the truth. But the only thing that comes out is a shiver.

“Seraphina.”

“Sera,” I whisper.

“Seraphina,” he repeats insistently. “I hate them for what they did to you. For what they continue to do to you. Even now. They lie to you. They manipulate you. They brainwash you. I didn't steal you.
They
stole you. They stole your whole life. Then they stole you from
me.
”

I want to close my eyes to him. Close my ears to him. Shut it all off.

“Okay,” Paddok says impatiently, stepping between us and taking me by the arm. “That's enough soap opera for today. When are you going to get it through your head, Lyzender. She's one of them. Through and through. You're wasting your breath.”

I'm guided toward the hatch. I step down the five-rung ladder and lower myself into the seat in the center of the pod. The space is small and cramped, only big enough for one passenger. It's clear from the bare-bones command center in front of me that this is an autopiloted device. No human interference is allowed or intended.

“You okay down there?”

I look up to see Klo hunched over the opening, his hands on his knees. He sweeps his dark blue hair out of his eyes.

“Fine,” I mumble.

“Remember,” Paddok is saying to Klo somewhere above me, “everything by the book until we're clear. Don't hack her in. They need to grant the pod access. They need to think we're following their commands to the letter. No movement on our part until the gas is released.”

Gas?

The air inside this tiny contraption starts to suffocate me.

What gas?

What is she talking about? Is this the missing piece I've been trying to figure out? Is this how they plan to get past Director Raze? With some kind of poisonous gas?

Then I remember what Lyzender told me at the lake. About Paddok's son.

“Before the latest batch could be sold to the government, it had to be fully tested. 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.”

Fear kicks my pulse into overdrive. I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. She's going to kill them all. She's going to murder them the same way she thinks they murdered her son!

“Got it, boss lady.” Klo nods. Then he looks back at me, his finger on the button to close the top. “How long can you hold your breath?” He laughs. “Just kidding.”

The lid to the pod starts to seal. I hear a scrambling above me. “Flux. Wait!” Lyzender says, his face suddenly appearing in the closing gap. Something about his wide, unblinking eyes sends a wave of anxiety through my gut. Is he not as certain about this plan as Paddok seems to be?

“Seraphina,” he says. “I'll see you soon.” It sounds like a promise. One that he's making more to himself than to me.

Lyzender's mouth opens as he begins to say something else, but the pod seals shut, silencing his words. Concealing his face.

I stare helplessly at the darkened ceiling.

And then I let out a scream that ruptures the sky.

 

PART 4

THE UNDOING

 

53

DETACHED

There once was a time when human beings traveled the world in giant metal birds. With steel wings and tails. They flew thirty thousand feet above the ground. They tore through the air, etching white scribbles into the sky.

Then came the Great Oil Collapse and everything changed.

Cars fueled by gas became museum relics.

Airplanes were grounded forever.

Wheels became obsolete.

The human race was saved by magnets and vacuums. Hovercopters, MagCars, and hyperloops.

Of course, Diotech was at the forefront.

They were working on it far before the oil vanished. It was almost as if they knew exactly when the last drop would dry up. Timed to the very second.

When I received the upload on the history of transportation, I never questioned Diotech's participation as the pioneers of the industry. The headlines hailing Diotech's supremacy in the race to a new energy source streamed into my brain and implanted in my mind. But I never wondered beyond what those headlines claimed.

The command screen of my tiny pod blinks with a foreboding message:

Detachment initiated

The pod rumbles as it comes loose. I feel a sense of weightlessness for a second and then the engines kick in and I'm thrust back into my seat.

I think about Sevan's tour of the camp. The people he introduced me to. The rebels willing to do anything to exact revenge on the world's largest, most powerful corporation.

“… his baby daughter died during childbirth. Not even a minute old.”

“Dr. Alixter was able to pin the blame on one of their distributors…”

“… it's just a little suspicious that Diotech had the synthetic meats ready to launch into the marketplace right as the BLD crisis hit.”

So many stories. So many broken hearts. Shattered lives.

Too many to be a coincidence?

Too many to be a lie?

Pressure builds between my temples. My brain starts to throb.

The pod banks left and I peer out the tiny windows at the earth below. I can just see the tip of Paddok's hovercopter as I sail away from it.

For some reason, I can't bring myself to watch it disappear.

A few minutes later, the sleek buildings of the compound come into view. That's when I really start to panic.

I have to stop this. I have to at least
try
. I can't just sit here. They have no idea what's about to happen to them.

Think, Sera.

What would Kaelen do?

What would Director Raze do?

I look at the command screen. Perhaps I can warn them from here. Send a message through the system. I tap the glass but nothing happens.

“Communication mode!” I yell at it.

The display doesn't change. The progress along the pod's preset course still glows ominously back at me.

Arrival in 2:42

2:41

2:40

“Redirect course,” I try.

No response.

“Flux!” I swear.

Klo must have locked me out.

I'm completely powerless. I don't have what it takes to be a hero. I don't know why I ever thought I did. In less than three minutes this pod will land in the center of the compound and release some awful gas that will …

I don't even want to
think
about what it might do.

Suddenly a new idea forms.

The gas.

It has to be somewhere on board. How else will they release it? There has to be a capsule or a container. If I can locate the contraption that is meant to disperse it, maybe I can disable it. Or at the very least delay it until I have time to warn them.

I leap to my feet and rotate slowly in the small space, feeling the walls for doors or levers. Anything that might serve as storage. But it occurs to me that the container could very well be on the
outside
of the pod. Strapped to the roof or the belly, ready to diffuse its poison the second it lands.