Rose shot him a glare and his grin vanished. “I want to talk to her alone, Miggy. Can you go ahead of us and make sure the way is clear?”
Miguel sighed and started down the corridor. Rose waited until he was a dozen yards ahead before prodding me to follow.
I stopped in my tracks. “I’m going on my own, so there’s no need to touch me. I don’t like it.”
She smirked. “Your thoughts on the matter are irrelevant.”
I shook my head at her. “It’s weird you don’t get that we’re in the same boat. Lose any more friends mysteriously today?”
Rose’s cheeks pinked. I could tell my riposte had landed.
“Don’t make it impossible for us to talk,” I said calmly. “We can help each other. You need to understand that my class is not your enemy. We didn’t set up any of this—we’re simply trying to survive. Like you.”
Her cheek twitched. Rose gritted her teeth, but then exhaled slowly through her nose. “It’s . . . hard for me,” she said quietly. “Trust hasn’t worked out well for us in the past.”
I chuckled genuinely. “That I get. See? Progress already.”
Rose rolled her eyes, then gestured down the hallway. I took the olive branch, such as it was.
We began slowly walking down the corridor. Rose kept her eyes moving, alert for anyone who might overhear us. For the first time, I got the sense that she wanted something from me other than a fight.
“Things are getting . . . odd,” she began cautiously. “For almost four months we lived aboard the station, doing light training and reading about colony procedures. Sophia and her staff never mentioned anything about other Nemesis classes.”
That surprised me. I thought they’d known about us all along, during our whole time in the Terrarium. I abruptly wondered whether Rose knew we were orbiting Mars, not Erath. Had Sophia confided in her, too? In the moment, I decided not to ask.
Then something else occurred to me. “You know, I’ve never even seen another crew member. Not in the halls, or the arena, or our common room in the testing facility. Just Sophia. Isn’t that weird?”
Rose nodded. “It was like that for us at first, but there are others. They control interactions tightly at first.”
I frowned. “I mean, I’ve seen guards. They stormed our hiding spot like a SWAT team. But it was only a handful, and only that once. Is it possible there are a lot fewer people here than Sophia is letting on?”
Rose thought silently as we turned a corner. “Maybe,” she said finally. “The station does seem mostly empty. A hundred and fifty crew members could be a lie.”
“She said the same number to me,” I said excitedly. “Why mention it at all?”
“And why don’t they go down to the colony?” Rose muttered. “That’s what I don’t get. These people regenerated us, observed us, and now make us compete. But if there’s that many people aboard, why aren’t they colonizing the surface themselves?”
I bit my lower lip. “They need the Nemesis Programs for some reason. It’s been that way from the beginning.”
“Zealots,” Rose muttered. “But they have our missing classmates somewhere.”
“More vanish every day.” I glanced at her. Rose’s face was scrunched. “Did something happen since we last . . . talked?”
She snorted at my euphemism. “Dropped to the floor and strolled to victory. I’m an idiot.”
“I was losing badly. I gambled because I had to.”
Rose’s scowl returned. “We played a group game today. Three-on-three in an obstacle course. My team lost to your friends Akio, Rachel, and Darren. Harper got her leg hung up in a cargo net, and then Scott royally choked on the puzzle. Otherwise—”
“Not sure it matters,” I said gently.
She grunted. “We lost. I went back to our dorm ready to rip them both new ones.” A pause. “They never showed up.”
I paced silently a few steps. “Did you see Sophia?”
Rose shook her head angrily. “She didn’t even bother to announce their reassignment. She’s too busy hunting some stowaway guy and your lunatic friend, Thomas Russo. The crew is super pissed at those two, by the way. They better stay hidden. Although since this station is literally the entire world right now, how long can that last?”
I shivered. I’d been thinking the same thing.
“Our people go missing, too. Sometimes I can’t even keep track.”
Rose halted in the middle of the corridor. “We’re down to ten of our original twenty. People who were promised spots in the colony weeks ago are now . . . They’re just gone.”
I met her eye and held it. “Do you have any idea where they go? No more games, Rose. What is repurposement, really? If they’re all just getting new jobs on the station, why not show us that? What purpose is served by keeping us worried and afraid?”
“Sophia said the eliminated classmates would be a distraction,” Rose answered doggedly. “That we’d lose focus on the colony.”
“And you believe that?”
“Yes! Why else would they do it? If Chrysalis went through all the trouble of regenerating us, they must have a plan that makes sense. In the end, it’s illogical not to trust them. Another giant ruse doesn’t make any sense.”
I thought of all the times we’d been lied to as a part of Project Nemesis. The murders. The Program. The Terrarium. Why not one more? How can we trust anything?
“Has anyone been sent down to the colony from the station?” I asked suddenly. “Anyone at all?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I think we’re supposed to be the first.”
I shook my head again. “Does that make sense? Why leave everything up to us, a bunch of high school kids?”
Rose’s lips thinned. She squinted down at the floor as if working something through in her head. Finally, she grunted sourly.
“We have to plug along and do what they say,” she said, striding forward again so that I was forced to jog after her. “We don’t have any other options. The people who run this station have all the power, but there’s no reason to think they’re using it to abuse us. That’s like talking crap to a line of ants.”
I was disappointed. “You can’t really believe that.”
She stopped suddenly and spun on me. “Here’s what I do know. People are being removed from the colony team for failing the tests. Right or wrong, that’s reality. I plan to get down to the planet, so that means I have to play ball. Same goes for you. There’s nothing we can do to resist, so we might as well win, and get the prize. I want to breathe fresh air again. Go outside, for real. There’s only one way to do it.”
“So say the greatest collaborators in history.”
Her face reddened once more. “We’re prisoners on a freaking space station, Min. Grow up.”
She took off again. I called after her. “Rose, don’t—”
“You better hustle,” she called back over her shoulder. “Sophia seems distracted right now. I have no idea why. But if she finds you out roaming the hallways, she might get upset. I only swung by to warn you.”
I hurried to catch up. It was getting annoying, scampering after her long legs like a mouse. “Warn me about what?”
Rose didn’t even glance at me. “Nemesis Three won’t be joining in on any funny business with your class. I talked to all of my people, one at a time, to make sure we’re on the same page. We need to be focused on the colony, and we will be. If you guys decide to do something stupid and get yourselves eliminated, I won’t shed a tear. More room for us.”
I glanced up to see Miggy standing by an open door. This wasn’t my old hallway.
“What’s this?” I asked suspiciously.
Miguel smiled at me. “Your new digs. I think y—”
Rose spoke over him. “You’ve been removed from the training facility by Sophia’s orders. Doesn’t mean you can wan
der around or anything, but you live here now. She asked that you think about what she said.” Rose’s green eyes burned with curiosity, but I merely nodded.
She turned to go. I caught her by the sleeve. “We should talk again, Rose. We’d make better friends than opponents.”
Rose removed my fingers from her black jumpsuit. Dusted off where I’d touched the fabric. “I don’t have opponents,” she said icily. “I have enemies. You don’t want to be one of those.”
We locked eyes, and the stony curtain had returned. Rose smiled. “Tell Noah I said hi.”
Before I could respond, she nodded for Miguel to follow and strode away down the hall.
28
NOAH
“You . . . you killed her. Tack, she’s part of the crew!”
“She’ll be fine.” Tack was already headed back out the door. “Trust me, this isn’t what it looks like. We have to go.”
I glanced at Sophia, lying sprawled on the floor like a rag doll, and didn’t think she wasn’t going to be fine. But something in Tack’s tone gave me pause. He’d gone to some dark places inside the Program, but he wasn’t like Toby. Tack had sounded confident he hadn’t just committed a double murder.
But she looks dead. That guard looks dead. Those facts aren’t up for debate.
I raced into the corridor after him. Black Suit was waiting there, along with Sarah and Derrick. Glancing down the hallway I saw two more guards slumped on the ground. Derrick was sweating like a convict. Even Sarah looked shaken. Tack pointed to the closest open doorway. “We have to run, but Noah, pop in here so you understand.”
I shook my head, anxiety rooting me in place. Derrick pushed me from behind. “Go look, man. Then tell me what the hell is going on!”
I stumbled to where Tack was waiting impatiently and peered inside. It was an interrogation room identical to mine, with another body in the corner. I recoiled in shock, but Tack blocked my retreat. “Noah, look! Look at her.”
Swallowing bile, I edged closer and stared at the body. Then I shouted in surprise.
It was Sophia. She was lying on the floor, mouth fixed open in surprise.
But she was in my room. I watched Tack shoot her.
Tack pulled me back into the hallway and walked me to the next open room.
A third body, this one slumped in a chair.
Sophia.
Again.
My mind nearly shut down.
“How . . . how is . . .”
Tack shot me a worried look. “Don’t ask me. I don’t know how or why, but there are copies of Sophia all around the station.”
Copies? I stared at Sophia’s body. The blast burns on her uniform sure looked real enough.
I crept over and gently tilted her back in the chair. There was a wound on her forearm—the slightest charring of skin. But I detected nothing strange about her. Except for the fact that she was in three places at once.
Tack must’ve read my thoughts. “I don’t know what Sophia is, but there are dozens of her.”
My head was spinning. Nothing would add up. “Why’d you shoot her? This can’t be undone. Whatever she is, she runs the station . . . You didn’t have to . . . You could’ve . . .”
“Chrysalis isn’t a safe place,” Sarah said from the doorway. “We don’t know about any of these people. How many crew members have you met so far?”
None. Just Sophia. Her and a few guards . . .
I struggled to control my emotions. “How’d you escape the cargo hold?” I asked Tack. “Who showed you this?”
“I’ll let the old guy explain.” Tack led me back out into the hall and nodded sharply at Black Suit.
“Tack and I have been searching for the kids sent to repurposement,” he said. “I had a couple of gas masks in the hideout and we got them on in time, then escaped during the confusion. I’d promised Cyrus I’d look for his missing friends, and that seemed as good a plan as any until we figured out how to jailbreak the testing facility.”
I felt a surge of hope. “Did you find them?”
Black Suit shook his head. “We found the most likely sector—there’s a place where several corridors are patrolled around the clock—but we can’t get close. I was poking around in that area when a handful of the crew nearly surprised me. I hid and watched them. One of the group was Sophia. Then my eyes nearly popped when a second Sophia strolled up to join them. I thought maybe she was a twin, but then a third Sophia appeared, followed by a fourth. I couldn’t believe it, but it was unmistakable. Quadruplets? I’m not buying it. Then we came here and found three more.”
My eyes narrowed. “How’d you find me?”
Tack chuckled. “We grabbed some dude in a gray uniform and got him to tell us, then shoved him into a supply closet.”
I glanced at the guards lying facedown on the floor. “How many people did you kill, Tack?”
Tack’s voice was ice. “I’ll take out as many as I have to.”
Black Suit grunted. “Stop being dramatic. These blasters we stole are set to stun. The highest setting, but nonlethal.”
Tack rolled his eyes. “For now.”
I licked my lips. Felt like I was riding a leaf through a hurricane. What is going on? What do these people want from us?
“We should spring as many of our class as we can,” Derrick urged. “Build up a force right now, before we’re discovered.”
“There’s no time for that,” Black Suit said. “The only reason we’re standing here chatting without troopers circling like sharks is that I tricked the security system. We had ten minutes and nine are gone. We need to go.”
“Go where?” I blurted, eyeing the white walls around me. “Chrysalis is their space station, and now we’re fugitives aboard it. Plus, I’m not doing anything before finding Min. I won’t leave her.”
Tack glared at me. “Of course we won’t leave her. That’s the point of all this.”
I pressed my fists to my head. “Talk straight, Thomas. What are you planning?”
He grinned wickedly. “A full-blown disaster. I know where she is, Noah. And I know how to get her out. You’re gonna have to trust me.”
Trust. Trust Tack. I felt like I might keel over.
“Which way?” Sarah asked. “I don’t want to get locked up again. It’s been happening to me way too often lately.”
“We head for the heart of this madness.” Tack checked his weapon. “Time to hit these creeps where it hurts.”
He yanked me by the shoulder and we all fled down the corridor.
29
MIN
The room was an upgrade.
Practically a suite. I had a larger bedroom and bathroom, even a small sitting area. A window looked down on the planet I was supposed to inhabit one day. It made a tidy cell, because that’s what it had been for three excruciating days. I was being deliberately isolated, but had no idea why. What did Sophia want from me? A bird in a cage?
I sat on a bench by the window and stared at the world below.
Mars.
I’m seeing Mars, not Earth.
I grew up in a trailer park in the northern Idaho mountains, and now I’m on a space station one million years into the future, orbiting a different planet.
It was almost too much to accept. Would’ve been, in fact, if I hadn’t survived so many other impossibilities that this was just more fuel for the fire. I’d already spent literal eons inside a supercomputer battling for my life. In some ways this was basic by comparison.
If any of it’s real.
The question wouldn’t stop nagging me. Improbable things were happening so fast, my brain remained wary that everything was a lie. Maybe I was in another simulation, running a different program. Maybe I was dreaming in hyper-sleep, or just plain dead. Any of those possibilities made as much sense as what my senses were telling me. It was hard to accept that m
y life had been singled out for such incredible things.
A tone at the door. I turned as Sophia entered. Her usual self-possession was gone, replaced by hard edges.
“Come. We need to move.”
I eyed her curiously. In all our previous interactions she’d never seemed flustered, yet that’s how I would’ve described her. “Is something wrong?”
Her gaze grew icicles. “I’ve fallen into a pattern of explaining myself to you. No more. You will come with me on your own or I’ll make you come.”
A man in a gray Chrysalis uniform stepped into the room behind her. He was large and sandy-haired, with pale green eyes and a narrow nose. With a shock, I realized he was the first man I’d seen aboard Chrysalis that wasn’t my dad, and only the second regular crew member I’d seen clearly at all.
Where are they all hiding? They certainly don’t crowd the walkways.
“This is Harold,” Sophia said. “He will see you to a more secure room location.”
“Secure?”
“Let’s go,” she snapped. Sophia turned and stepped out into the hall.
It was clear I’d get no more from her, and equally clear that Harold was not there to make friends. He watched me dispassionately, huge fists hanging at his sides like meaty anvils.
I strode for the door. Harold let me pass and followed on my heels as Sophia led us down the corridor. I couldn’t imagine what had caused her sudden shift in deportment, but I suspected I’d learn soon enough.
More secure room? I just got this one.
We stepped into an elevator. It traveled so smoothly I could barely tell we were moving, but moments later the doors opened onto a new floor. A robotic voice announced, “Command Level.” We exited and turned a corner, reaching a circular metal door. Harold opened it to reveal a tube-like corridor built of glass and chrome stretching from the inner ring of the station toward a massive sphere at its center.
Sophia paced down the tunnel toward an identical portal at the opposite end. Windows along both sides revealed similar access tubes set at intervals, like spokes on a wheel, all converging on the center of Chrysalis. Gazing out through the glass-paneled walls, I stared into the infinite depths of space. To my left was Mars and a gleaming moon I needed to learn the name of. Phobos? Ares? Something like that. I knew Mars had two of them. Did it still?
Chrysalis Page 22