Nine

by Rachelle Dekker

  “It’s time to go home, Number Nine,” Seeley said. “I need you to listen carefully and follow orders. Can you do that?”

  A current of electric energy pulsed through my veins. “Yes.”

  Seeley took a step forward. “Lower that weapon. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  I did as he asked.

  “Director Hammon needs you back at home base. He sent me to get you.”

  “Seeley, what are you doing?” Zoe yelled. “Why go through all the trouble of helping us just to turn on us again? What is wrong with you!”

  I could hear Seeley’s heartbeat quicken. I could see the tightening of his forehead as he fought to hide his emotions. He clearly didn’t want to be doing this, but here he was, following orders. Because that was what his programming told him to do. Just like it was telling me.

  Again the world shifted, and I was in two places at once: my mind in the city-neighborhood, my body in Haven Valley.

  “You should do what he says,” the unicorn girl said. “Follow the rules. Be what you are.”

  “We need to go, Number Nine,” Seeley said. “But first we have to tie up all the loose ends.”

  Everyone knew what he was implying, even the little girl who was standing beside me in my mind. We had to kill Zoe.

  “Zoe knows too much,” she said.

  She was right, Zoe did know too much. And what she knew threatened home.

  Zoe stepped away from me. I could almost smell her fear. Her pulse thundered. Sweat collected across her skin.

  “You don’t have to follow him, Lucy,” she said. “Remember, we can choose who we want to be.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Seeley said.

  “Lucy, I see you—”

  “No, you see what you want to see,” Seeley continued. “You see a sweet young girl, but she’s not. She’s a weapon. A product, created and paid for, and she knows it.” He turned his eyes back to me. “Don’t you, Number Nine? You know what you are.”

  The spirit of Number Nine swept up, strong and powerful. It beckoned me to release any idea but the clearest path ahead of me.

  People were made what they were. Programmed to act and react according to rules that governed their lives. I was programmed to act on orders. And my training officer was giving an order.

  Kill Zoe. I had failed to do that already.

  I wouldn’t fail again.

  THIRTY-SIX

  AS QUICKLY AS the world seemed to lighten, it faded to darkness again. Zoe was nearly too shocked to speak, much less move. She knew that two trained killers could snap her like a twig.

  For the second time in an hour, the young girl she’d come to love deeply faced her like an enemy. The handgun still hung at her side. One quick movement and she could put a bullet in Zoe’s head. Survival instincts urged Zoe to run. But running would be useless. They urged her to fight. But fighting would be useless.

  The same old mocking voice reminded Zoe that this was her fault. She could have walked away a dozen times before arriving at this moment. She could have followed her gut, which had screamed for her to listen at every turn. She could have blocked out Lucy from the beginning. Done what her mother had always taught her: to fear. And what the world had never stopped reminding her: to protect.

  A fierce wind swept across her shoulders and jolted her from the frozen stance she’d taken. She looked at Seeley. Her heart had quickened when she saw him step out of the truck. He’d come for her, just like he said he would. Even after his cruel betrayal, she’d started to believe he was on her side.

  That kind of naïve faith and belief came from Evelyn. Zoe knew better. She was the wall that protected Evelyn from people who would crush her. Maybe it was because they were here in this place, but Zoe had started to let that little girl back in. The belief she’d carried with her out of this place had dared her to ask Lucy if they could change their stories. And then dared her to wonder if such a thing was actually possible.

  Foolish little Evelyn.

  Zoe expected the small hope to die out, like it always did when she knocked it back in place. But it was louder this time. Warmer. It held on more tightly and wouldn’t let her shake the thought, If we’re all just programmed, then can’t we be reprogrammed?

  Couldn’t something made be unmade and then remade differently? If Olivia had been powerful enough to change Number Nine by simply giving her a new name, then didn’t Number Nine have that same power to change? Didn’t Zoe?

  The wall that kept the world out but also kept her cold started to vibrate. It was trying to hold itself together, but what was gathering on both sides of it was growing. She was calling the foundation of the wall into question. It had been built on the idea that Evelyn couldn’t trust anyone, because behind all goodness was just darkness masquerading as light. That idea had come from experience, and maybe it wasn’t wrong, but even then, wasn’t it still just an idea?

  An idea that experience had programmed into her so deeply it dictated her view of everything, including who she was. How many such ideas did she have? How many had she let build her programming, let shape who she was?

  What if they were all wrong?

  Like a dam had been opened, truth as strong as raging water crashed against Zoe. As if songs from her very soul were singing over her, she started to understand something that felt too big for her mind to comprehend. And maybe it was. Maybe she couldn’t understand it all fully, but what she did know in that moment was that if all she believed about herself was just an idea, ideas could be changed.

  Zoe looked up at Lucy and then over at Seeley. Only a few moments had passed, even though it felt like a lifetime of undoing had been done. She was still afraid. They still wanted her dead. But maybe death, too, was an idea? It was too much for her to take, so she shook her head clear and stepped forward bravely.

  “You’re right, Seeley,” she started. “I didn’t believe you could choose. I thought fate was the dictator. You’re dealt cards, and you try your best to make what you can of them.” She glanced back at Lucy. “But what if that’s wrong?”

  “It isn’t,” Seeley said.

  “Would you say the same thing to Cami?” Zoe said. “Would you tell her it was just bad luck that her mother would abandon her and her father would check out?”

  “Shut up,” Seeley hissed.

  “Would you tell her that the pain and distrust she feels from losing the two people that were supposed to love her the most should haunt her forever, taint every relationship she ever has? Would you tell her there’s nothing she could do about it?”

  “Don’t talk about my daughter like you know her.”

  “I do know her. I am her!” Zoe held her arms out to either side of her. “Look where we are standing! I’ve let the trouble I faced here define every action of my entire life. I let the rules given to me by my mother shape the very idea of who I could and couldn’t be. Who says she gets to decide? Who says the world gets to claim the right to shape my identity? What if I want a different story? Who says I can’t have that?”

  “What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense! You can’t change who you were born to be.”

  “And who makes that call in the first place?”

  Seeley went silent.

  Zoe continued, “Who decided that you would choose a selfish woman who would leave you so broken, you’d throw yourself into darkness so deep that you believed you could never be redeemed from it?”

  She waited, but Seeley said nothing.

  “You did,” Zoe accused. She could see fresh rage igniting behind his eyes.

  “How dare you speak about my past, as if I chose to be betrayed by the woman I loved!” Seeley said. “I was blindsided by that witch. I would have never chosen that for my daughter!”

  “No, you didn’t choose the actions of your ex-wife. But you did choose to give yourself over to the pain and darkness that came as a result. That is what you chose, and that choice shaped the man you are now. It informs your story. It’s your program
ming.”

  Seeley gritted his teeth and pulled his lips tight. He was on the verge of exploding because he knew she was right. Zoe could see the dots connecting in his expression.

  She let him simmer and turned back to Lucy. “Just like you chose the love of being given a name. A love that altered the programming of Number Nine.” She stepped to Lucy. “Don’t you see? You alone decide who you are!”

  “Enough!” Seeley demanded. “Number Nine, kill her.”

  Lucy twitched, and Zoe’s feet urged her to step away. But she couldn’t. She could see Lucy’s brain firing on all cylinders. The girl was on the brink of opening the gate to a world of possibilities, and Zoe would not abandon her now. Even if it meant dying.

  “Lucy, Number Nine, whoever you are,” Zoe said. “You choose.”

  “Shoot her, Number Nine,” Seeley said. “That’s an order.”

  Another wave of hesitation. Another pulse of confusion. And then it washed back to the coldness that Zoe had every right to fear, as Lucy raised her weapon toward Zoe, cocked it, and pulled the trigger.

  I PULLED THE trigger and waited for the bullet to release. The world around me faded. The physical representation of my mind disappeared. The divided city scenes vanished. Haven Valley disappeared. Zoe and Seeley were gone.

  I stood on a blank white canvas, void except for the small girl in the blue school uniform. The child who was me, who’d visited me once before, yanked a key from my gut, and given me the tool I needed to unlock my memories.

  “No,” she said. “I gave you nothing. You already had everything you needed. I just helped you remember.”

  “Why are you here? I don’t need help anymore.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know who I am.”

  “Number Nine,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My programming says so. I can feel it. It’s very strong.”

  “Okay.” The small reflection of myself stepped forward and extended her hand. “Can I just show you something?”

  I wanted to see what she was offering, so I accepted her hand. She walked past me, and I turned around to follow. Behind me was a door standing in the middle of the white void. Simple wood, gold knob, just standing alone.

  The girl walked toward it, and I moved with her. Our steps didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t hear my heart or my breathing. It was all still, even though we were moving. I thought she’d step back and let me walk through the door myself, but she didn’t. She grabbed the knob, twisted it, opened the door, and went in without stopping.

  Again the world around me shifted.

  I was sitting in a small office, and I was the little girl who had just been holding my hand. The couch underneath me was velvet, a deep forest green, and my small feet couldn’t yet touch the floor. I ran my fingers along the material. I liked the way it felt against my fingertips. I always had.

  Looking up, I saw a place that was etched deep in my memory. To my left, a wall of shelves was filled with books and knickknacks from all over the globe. Before it stood a well-organized desk topped with charts. Across from the couch sat two wooden chairs on a large round rug. A couple of pictures hung on a plain wall. A woman paced in front of the door.

  She looked back at me, a mixture of worry and pain flashing on her face. A kind face, round and mature, topped with graying blonde hair and filled with a pair of bright green eyes. Olivia, my best friend. My mother.

  She saw me staring and shook off the worry with a smile. Then she tucked her hair behind her ear, something she did whenever she was thinking deeply, and crossed the room to sit beside me.

  My heart was racing. I had lived this moment before. But I hadn’t known then that I was going to lose her. I was both in the scene and remembering it. It felt like a strange twist of cruelty to know she would die and also have her so close. I wanted to warn her as she sat on the couch beside me, but I couldn’t. I could only be there as the memory played out as it was supposed to.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be so distracted.”

  “Something is wrong,” I said, my voice young and high. Speaking the words just as I had when this memory occurred. “Your pulse is racing.”

  She nodded. “Many things are wrong, my sweet girl.”

  “Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

  “No, it’s not for you to worry about. How was training?” She was trying to change the subject.

  “I don’t like to see you worried.”

  “I am only worried because I care about you so much. All of you.”

  “But me the most?” I teased with a giggle.

  She smiled and gave a soft laugh. “That’s our little secret, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said with a smile. But then I remembered her pain. “You’re afraid. Why?”

  “Things are getting out of hand, and I’m doing my best to control them,” Olivia said.

  “Am I one of those things?” I felt the worry that my child heart had produced that day. I was reliving each moment, and I was trying to recall the way it would end, but I couldn’t.

  “No,” Olivia said, taking both my tiny hands in her own. “No, because I am not going to let that happen.”

  I felt a rush of relief. Olivia would never let anything bad happen to me. She reached out and placed her hand on my cheek, tilting my head softly up toward her face. I smiled, her touch warm and comforting.

  “You want to know something?” she asked.

  I nodded excitedly.

  “You look like a Lucy,” she said.

  “What’s a Lucy?”

  She gave another soft laugh. “It’s a name.”

  “But we don’t have names, we have numbers.”

  “Yes, but you could also have a name.”

  I scrunched my nose curiously. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh yes, my sweet girl.” She paused a second, then she lowered her forehead toward me so our eyes were only inches apart, and I could feel the warmth of her breath on my face. “I want you to listen to me,” she said. “I don’t know what the future will bring, but I am certain that people will try to tell you what you can’t be, Number Nine. But you remember I told you that you can be whoever you want. The only thing that will ever limit you is the belief that you can be limited. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  She smiled. “You will, and then you decide if you want to be a Lucy or not.”

  “Can I be a Lucy now?” I asked, my heart filling with wonder.

  “If you want,” she said, releasing my face and sitting back slightly.

  I turned in my seat and pulled up my legs so I was kneeling on the velvet couch. Excitement ran through my bones. I bounced a bit and exclaimed, “I do want to be a Lucy.”

  Olivia laughed and nodded. “Then henceforth you shall be Lucy.”

  I bounced up from my knees to my feet and giggled with excitement. I felt the name rooting deep in my heart. As if Lucy had always been meant for me. I loved it. I loved it more than I had ever loved anything. Except for Olivia. I loved her the most.

  The memory vanished, and I was back, standing between the city and the neighborhood. One towering to my left, the other calm and peaceful to my right. This was the last place I wanted to be. I was so tired of ending up here. My heart was aching from seeing Olivia. Tears rolled down my cheeks as the battle between pain and obedience waged.

  A storm rolled across the sky. With it came a harsh wind and chilling rain. I glanced left to see the little girl in the unicorn shirt standing there. Number Nine. And to my right the girl in the blue uniform. Lucy. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  Lightning struck the sky, and I screamed in rage. Suddenly I wanted to burn everything around me. I didn’t want to be on either side. I wanted to make something new. Be someone else. Could I really do that, as Zoe had suggested? I closed my eyes to block the rain from drowning my eyeballs, and when I opened them again, I was back where I had started.

  In
the white void. A blank slate. A place where nothing was. No ideas about who I was supposed to be, no rules about how I was supposed to act. Could I create something new here? Did I have that kind of power?

  Warmth opened from somewhere else entirely. Somewhere deeper inside than I’d ventured before. Beyond my memories and the past that formed my programming, a truth echoed. I hardly heard it, but I knew it was saying I could be something new. Zoe was right. She had been trying to tell me what was now opening up in my soul.

  And I had shot her.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I FELT THE gun in my hand then, as I was sucked back into Haven Valley. My finger was reacting to the trigger, and there wasn’t enough time to stop it. All I could do was tilt my wrist slightly so that when the bullet left the gun it didn’t sink into her heart.

  I felt the bullet shoot from the pistol, its blowback rippling up my arm. A split second later, I heard it crush through flesh and tissue, grinding a hole through Zoe’s chest with a gruesome thud.

  She inhaled in pain and stumbled backward, her face washed pale, before I could even drop my weapon. And then she fell to her knees, tears brimming in her eyes.

  I recovered my breath then. It had all happened so quickly. I gasped and dived to catch her before she fell to the earth. She fell against my chest, and I could feel her ragged breaths as her body began to succumb to the injury. Propped up on my knees, I rolled Zoe so she was facing up toward me, her body in my arms.

  Warm blood soaked through the front of her shirt. I could feel it thick on the place where it had transferred to my own shirt, and on my arms as it dripped down the side of her body.

  “Zoe,” I said, holding her tightly, adjusting her face toward me. Tears blurred my vision. “I’m so sorry, I—” My words caught in my throat, and I couldn’t think of anything to say that could help.

  My training broke through my emotions, and I remembered I hadn’t hit her heart. I’d sunk the bullet just off to the left. How far, I couldn’t be positive, hopefully far enough that I missed any ligaments attached to the spinal column or diaphragm or . . . Oh, God, I thought.