by MG Buehrlen
It was like a punch in the gut. Like the time Claire kicked me in the stomach on accident when I wouldn’t stop tickling her. That churning, sickening feeling that makes you double over. The thought of Ivy dying never crossed my mind. All this time I thought it made things easier if Levi knew who I was. I guess it only made things easier for me. My compassion fell back in through the window with a thud. The window slammed shut.
“But I do remember you,” I said, clambering to fix what I’d broken, to make him feel better. “I remember some things. We played Polygon together. I remember the first time you beat me–”
“Stop.” He cut me off with a raise of his hand. He clenched his jaw, like I was hurting him even more.
I tried harder. I needed to make his hurt go away. “I can make it so you don’t remember any of this. I can erase this timeline and make it so I never came here. I just have to do a touchdown–”
“Don’t you dare.” He glowered down at me, his eyes almost black behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Don’t you dare take my memories away from me. You don’t have that right. What makes you think you have that right?”
“Then what do you want me to do? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
The elevator landed softly with a clunk. The doors scraped open. Levi strode out into another long hallway, this one even more brightly lit, looking like a hospital wing. I hurried after him.
“Levi?” I said, catching up.
He wouldn’t look at me. “I want you to get what you came for,” he said. “Then I want you to leave and never come back.”
I felt wretched. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made a horrible mistake by descending. I couldn’t even remember why I’d descended in the first place. Why hadn’t I just waited and talked to Porter after school? What had been my rush?
In the end it wouldn’t matter what Levi said or wanted. I had to erase this timeline whether he liked it or not. I had already made too much of an impact on him. What he knew now would change the course of his life. I hated to do it to him, but I didn’t have a choice.
We came to two double doors, which Levi unlocked with his key card. He nudged one of the doors open a crack and peered through. Then he motioned for me to follow him into another bare, sterile hallway. No windows. No other doors. Just white walls and a sloping concrete floor leading down to yet another hallway at the end.
How far had we gone underground?
When we came to the end of that hallway, Levi peered around the corner. I wasn’t sure what he was watching out for. If someone came along, it wasn’t like there was anywhere for us to hide.
He pulled on my sleeve, letting me know the coast was clear, and we continued around the corner. The hallway opened up into a large open area. Standing before us was a wide, brightly lit room with windows all the way around like the newborn nursery at a hospital. Dad took me to the nursery to look in the windows when Audrey and Claire were born. As we neared it, however, it looked nothing like a nursery inside. It looked far more foreboding than that.
It was a robotics surgical lab. I’d seen one once at the AIDA Institute when Mom brought me in for a tour of her department. A huge, spider-like machine with half a dozen robotic arms stood in the center of the room, arched and poised over an empty surgical table. It looked futuristic, even for my Base Life. There were dozens of monitors and other machines scattered around the room, and wires and hoses snaked across the floor. Large, disc-shaped surgical lights hung from the ceiling. At the back of the room, a man with short, curly, caramel-colored hair, dressed in a white lab coat and black slacks, stood with his back to us. He seemed to be laying out quite the collection of sharp, nasty-looking stainless steel tools on a prep table.
“Get down,” said Levi. “It’s Hr Flemming.”
Levi grabbed my hand and pulled me to the floor beneath one of the windows. Our backs pressed against the outside wall of the lab. The bright blueish light from the surgical discs spilled out over our heads and onto the floor at our feet.
Flemming was in there. The man who created me. Gave me Newlife. Wove my lives throughout time.
I inched up to peek over the window ledge. I just wanted to see what he looked like – to put a face with Porter’s stories – but Levi gave me a yank and my tailbone smacked down onto the floor.
I ripped my hand from his and mouthed, “Ow.”
He gave me a look that said he’d skin me alive if I tried that again.
I heard the door to the lab open and close, then two male voices around the corner to my left. They spoke to each other in thick Danish. I moved to my hands and knees and crawled toward them. I was only going to peek around the corner, but Levi grabbed me by the hips and pulled me back.
“Are you crazy?” he whispered. “It’s this way.” He jerked his head in the opposite direction to a closed door across the hall. He stood up, bent at the waist, and quietly padded toward it. I followed after him, giving up on seeing what Flemming looked like.
When we reached the door, Levi swiped his key card through a reader on the wall. It beeped. The green light flashed. He eased it open, pulled me through, and shut it behind me, closing us in a small white room with a single hospital bed in the center. Several monitors beeped quietly beside it. A thin, frail body lay on the bed beneath a white blanket, still as a corpse. I moved slowly forward, my body growing more numb with each step.
It was Blue, but I could hardly believe it. He looked like he was hours from death. His skin was so pale I could almost see through it. His muscle mass was completely gone. His head was shaved like mine, and over a dozen wires were stuck to his skull, monitoring his brain functions. Half a dozen more were stuck to his chest and arms. A large white bandage covered the right side of his head, just above his ear.
My hand fluttered to my mouth. Nothing could have prepared me for seeing him like that. So weak and defenseless. It was no wonder Porter said he looked so different at AIDA. I wouldn’t have recognized him in 1927 either.
With my free hand, I entwined my fingers with his, but his touch wasn’t comforting. His skin was cold and clammy, like the formaldehyde frogs we dissected in Biology last year. “What have you done to him?” I whispered.
“He just had surgery,” Levi said, his voice as cold and lifeless as Blue’s skin. He pushed his wire rims up the bridge of his nose.
“What kind of surgery?”
“An experimental procedure on his right temporal lobe. Hr Gesh hopes it will help him retain more of his memory when he descends.”
I slid Blue’s hand from mine and moved to the head of the bed. My stomach lurched. There were pale pink sinuous scars all over his scalp. I lifted a hand to my own head and felt the same scars. The same rivulets of tissue. My fingertips traced over a recent incision, complete with stitches, above my right ear. “I’ve had the same surgeries.”
Levi nodded, wrapping his fingers around one of the chrome bed rails. He squeezed until his knuckles went white, then let go. “Hr Gesh has demanded we repair your defects. Your linear traveling. Your memory loss.”
“And you think this is right?” I looked up at Levi, angry tears stinging my eyes. “Trying to rewire a human brain like a circuit board?”
He visibly stiffened. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m just the apprentice. Besides, you consented to the tests. It’s what you want. You’re defective.”
I shook my head, hot fury coiling within me. “I am not defective,” I said, running my hands over the scars on my arms. The burns. The bruises. “Gesh and Flemming are defective. This whole damn Institute is defective.”
I glared at Levi, daring him to argue with me, but he didn’t. In fact, his well-worn frown threatened to break for the first time. The ghost of a smile reached his eyes, but only for a second.
He agreed with me.
In that moment, Levi and I came to a silent understanding. A quiet moment of truce, punctuated by the rhythm of Blue’s heart monitor. He didn’t like the experiments any more than I did, but he went along with
them because they were what Ivy wanted. What I’d wanted in this past life. And he supported Ivy’s wishes because he loved her more than anything.
It was exactly how I felt about Audrey. I hated seeing how the treatments affected her. The nosebleeds. The throwing up. The bruises. But I supported her because she wanted to go through with the treatments, no matter the side effects.
“I get it,” I said, giving him a single nod. I did. And I liked Levi for it. I hated that I no longer knew him in Base Life. I had a feeling we’d be friends.
There was a shuffle of feet outside the door. The snick of the card reader. The beep signaling admittance.
“It’s Hr Flemming,” said Levi. “Get down.”
I dropped to the floor and slid under the bed between the wheeled legs. The blankets draped over Blue hid me mostly from view.
The door opened. A slice of light spread across the glossy concrete floor. Black slacks and black shoes entered the room. The door closed. The shoes took a few steps forward, then stopped short. “Levi,” said Flemming. “Hvad laver du her?” What are you doing here?
Levi rattled off his answer in Danish. Something about wanting to check Tre’s bandages again. He was worried he hadn’t dressed the incision well enough. He spoke confidently – no sign of anxiety. Flemming clapped him on the back and kindly chided him for being too much of a perfectionist – that he couldn’t have dressed the wound better himself.
While they conversed, I bent my head down to the floor so I could catch a glimpse of Flemming, but it was no good. He stood too close to the bed for me to see his face.
Then Flemming shifted on his feet. He clasped his hands before him and did something that stopped the very breath within me.
He rubbed circles around his pinky knuckle with his thumb.
CHAPTER 30
MY CREATOR
My heart was an icy stone embedded in my chest. It grew in weight, pulling me toward the floor. My arms wavered, threatening to collapse beneath me.
Everything Porter ever said to me came billowing back, swallowing me like fog. All that stuff about how Flemming had created me. How Flemming gave me Newlife. How Flemming wove me throughout history. How Flemming met Gesh at school. How Flemming was the second founder of AIDA. He’d been talking about himself the entire time. Porter was Flemming. Porter created me and Blue. Porter started all of this. Not me.
And all this time I’ve felt like I was to blame. And he’d let me feel that way. Never once hinting that maybe he had a hand in it too.
My hands curled into fists, my nails biting, digging, into my palms. I believed he was on my side. That he’d never do anything to hurt me. He let me believe Gesh was the one who experimented on me, tortured me. But he’d done it too. With Levi’s help.
I ran a shaking hand across my scarred scalp. How was I supposed to believe anything Porter ever said to me again?
I felt the need to confront him. I wanted to crawl out from under the bed and scream at him, just to see the look on his face. I wanted to go back to Base Life just so I could chew him out on Mrs Yoder’s front porch steps. I wanted to smash his stupid cigar in his face. I wanted to knock his stupid Orioles cap off his stupid head.
But my list of retribution ended as Flemming’s black shoes turned and headed toward the door with Levi at his heels. I stared out after them, my jaw dropped, as they both passed through the door. How long would Levi leave me there before he came back? If he even came back for me at all?
The door closed, and I was alone with Blue.
FEAR
I waited under the bed for what felt like forever, the pulse of the heart rate monitor counting the seconds above me. It wasn’t until my legs started to cramp that I finally crawled out.
Levi hadn’t come back.
I folded Blue’s cold hand in both of mine, hoping to provide him some warmth. “Are you there?” I whispered, leaning over him. “Did you descend with me?”
I held my breath, my eyes searching his face, his hands, for any sign of movement, any sound. But there was only the slight rise and fall of his chest. The faintest puff of air from his nose. I wouldn’t get my answers from him in this state. And I wasn’t going to shake him and try to wake him up. It wasn’t in me to be that cruel. Even if he did snitch on me to Gesh.
This mission was over. A failure.
I trailed my fingertips down the side of his face. I pressed my lips to his ice cube skin. Then I let go of his hand and forced myself to walk away. It was time for me to go home.
I paused at the door, my hand on the lever, listening for footsteps outside. When I was sure there were none, I opened the door and peeked into the hall. I wished I could say goodbye to Levi before I ascended, tell him I was sorry, if I could find him. Sorry for everything.
The surgical lab stood empty before me. I stepped out into the hall, letting the door fall gently closed. I listened for Levi’s voice, but all was quiet.
I knew I should return Ivy’s body back to where I started, but without Levi’s key card, I wouldn’t be able to get through the locked doors. I’d have to leave her in the labs.
I was just about to ascend when I heard Flemming call out to me from my left.
“Ivy?”
I froze. My first instinct was to bolt, to ascend as fast as I could, but something stopped me. I wanted to see the face of the man who’d been lying to me these past few months. So I turned to look him in the eye.
My heart was no longer an icy stone in my chest. It now pumped with fiery heat. Porter was, without a doubt, Iver Flemming.
He looked like he was in his late forties. His short, caramel hair was wild and curly, the kind that would turn into a crazy afro if he grew it out, which was probably why he kept it so short in Base Life. He had old-school-looking sideburns that were sprinkled here and there with gray. No sign of white yet. His eyes were the same – watery, shadowed, and red around the edges. His hands were in his doctor’s coat pockets. He wore a puzzled expression.
“Er du søger Levi?” he asked. Are you looking for Levi?
My eyes narrowed and my nostrils flared. I knew I should ascend. I knew I should get the hell out of there before he discovered I wasn’t Ivy anymore, that I was a Descender from the future. But I couldn’t leave without saying one thing to him.
And I said it with all the bite and venom I could muster.
“You’re a liar.”
He creased his brow. “Undskyld?” Excuse me?
An office door between Flemming and I swung open. Another doctor stepped out into the hall, his attention fixed on a clipboard he held in his hand. He looked about the same age as Flemming, only he was notably better looking. The kind of look Gran would call debonair if he were an actor in one of our black and white films. His hair was light and slicked back. He had a couple days’ worth of facial hair and a deeply dimpled chin. His light blue pinstripe collar shirt was rumpled under his white doctor’s coat. A red tie hung loose around his neck.
Gesh. I knew it was him immediately.
He glanced up at Flemming, then back to the clipboard, then up at me. “Ah. Nummer Fire.” Number Four, Ivy’s official name. He pulled off the reading glasses he wore. “What are you doing here?” He spoke in thick Danish. His voice was smooth chalk.
The moment I met his eyes, a droplet of panic slithered down my spine. It paused in the small of my back, a dimple of anxiety, then radiated out until it had cocooned my entire body in fear. It was the same fear I felt during my memories of him. The same thing I felt when I saw his portrait at AIDA Headquarters. I struggled to suppress my fear so it wouldn’t show on my face as he studied me, but I don’t think it worked.
He frowned at me. “Kunne jeg have et ord?” Could I have a word?
He didn’t wait for my reply. He disappeared into the room he came from. Porter-Flemming gave me one last puzzled look, then turned and walked away, veering out of sight around a corner at the end of the hall, leaving me all alone with Gesh.
“Nummer Fire,” Gesh b
arked.
I jumped and scurried to his doorway. Not because I wanted to, but because Ivy’s body seemed conditioned to do whatever he said. It was a small office, no windows, just a desk that almost filled the entire room and several file cabinets along the far wall, each bursting with papers and file folders like a bomb had exploded inside each one. An archaic-looking computer sat on the desk, surrounded by stacks and stacks of papers and books and files. More books and files were stacked on the floor. Gesh sat at the desk, his back to me, entering something into his computer.
“Komme i,” he said. “Luk døren.” Come in. Close the door.
I did as he said, yet again. My past life’s body moved like a robot controlled by remote control. I shut the door and stood with my hands clasped before me, waiting. Sweat pooled in my palms. I knew I should ascend, but I couldn’t leave Ivy alone with him. It was my fault she was in his office to begin with. My fault she’d get in trouble for being in the labs on her day off. I glanced down at the scars on my arms. If he was going to hurt me again, I couldn’t leave Ivy to bear the brunt of the pain.
He hammered out a few more entries into his computer, then swiveled around in his chair to face me. He pulled his glasses off again and tossed them onto a pile of papers. He leaned back in his chair. It squeaked. He tented his fingers. “Fortæl mig, hvordan din test gik i går.” Tell me how your test went yesterday.
I tried to let go and let my instincts respond, but no answer came. So I blurted out the most neutral thing I could think of. “Det kom tilbage positiv.” It came back positive. When he narrowed his eyes, I panicked and quickly added, “Sir.”
His eyes narrowed further.
That was it. I was dead in the water. I had no idea what I was saying. No idea if I would’ve addressed him as sir back then. Would I have said Hr Gesh instead?