by Zach Hines
He recognized the face instantly: Robbie. The retro who stalked the halls of Lakeshore for him.
Stay away stay away stay away . . .
There were more. Photos of Robbie and Cody embracing in the park. Robbie and Cody reclining in a chair, Cody in his lap, a group of cats all around them.
Robbie and Cody kissing at Lover’s Leap.
All those strands he had been pulling together . . .
He felt them all slip from his grasp at once, whipping backward into the unknown.
Chapter 29
THE NEXT DAY AFTER SCHOOL, JULIAN BEELINED ACROSS the yard to the parking lot, his head buzzing with anxiety. Tonight they were going back to Callum’s.
Julian threw his bag into the back beside his crumpled-up blazer and then hopped into the driver’s seat.
He turned his car on and looked up, only to discover Nicholas Hawksley standing casually in front of it, one hand tucked into his white blazer pocket, the other holding a paper cup of steaming coffee. Nicholas nodded toward Julian’s front passenger seat as if to say “May I?”
Julian thought about putting his foot on the gas—the tires squealing, Nicholas dodging out of the way. Just driving out of here and not looking back. But . . .
This was clearly a different Nicholas Hawksley standing before him now. His shoulders were sunken and his face, usually bright with the glow of his perfect white teeth, was glum.
He had been the angel of death. But now he was just another awkward twelfth grader. A lanky poser in a tacky white jacket, pretending he had all the answers. And now Julian held something dangerous over him: the truth of his number.
Whatever Nicholas wanted, Julian could handle him.
He unlocked the door.
Nicholas sat down gingerly in the passenger seat. “Good afternoon, Julian,” he said. He surveyed Julian’s car, and his eyes landed on Julian’s white blazer lying in the back. His left eye twitched slightly at the sight.
He brought the paper cup of coffee to his lips.
“Black, bitter, and full of dregs,” he said. “Sometimes what you really need in life is vile, imitation insta-coffee. It wakes you up to the world.”
Nicholas set the cup down, then removed a napkin from his pocket. He used it to wipe a film of dust off Julian’s dashboard. He inspected the napkin, frowned, then folded it up.
“So, what is it?” Julian asked.
“Listen,” Nicholas said, taking another sip of his vile coffee. “I have no idea what happened to Molly or Anastasia. I swear. If I did, I would share it with you.”
Julian looked at him stonily.
Nicholas continued, “The Burners are more than just some club. We have a purpose. I don’t think I need to tell you again about our philosophy that, when—”
Enough of this.
“Why me, Nicholas?” Julian asked, cutting him off. “There’s plenty of other Burners who quit besides me.”
“It’s just, I thought we were becoming friends,” he said.
Julian sighed. “Cut the shit, okay? You want me to burn again, don’t you? I was the one who told everyone that some people disappeared on your watch, and ruined your party, so if I burn again, then everything looks like it’s fine, right? Or, at least, it looks like you’re still in control?”
Nicholas stared him down. “See? You’re clever. That’s why we were becoming friends.”
“I’m not burning ever again,” Julian said flatly. “So, don’t waste your time.”
Nicholas sighed and reached for something inside his jacket.
“Well, the thing about that is . . .”
He took out a piece of paper.
“I’ve done my research on you, Julian, and I’m sorry to tell you that, in fact, you do need to burn one more life.”
Julian screwed up his face in puzzlement.
“I recall quite vividly you telling me that you were burning just to raise your family’s life score. Well, this is the long-form life score report for your family right here,” he said, tapping the paper.
“I looked it up, and even with your two burns, it’s still not enough.” He leaned over with the paper, pointing to a specific line. “You see, there is still the lien on your house right here.” Nicholas looked up at Julian.
Julian could smell the bitter coffee on his breath.
This was beyond pathetic.
“This paper is a lie,” Julian said, pushing the report away. “My father is taking care of everything right now.”
Nicholas scrunched up his face as if he were genuinely baffled. “But Julian, this is the genuine article, right here.”
“You’re lying,” Julian insisted.
Nicholas’s face flushed, animating his sickly pallor with blood and spirit like a real human being. Who knew you could turn the beast back into a boy just by calling him out on his deceptions?
“It’s not,” Nicholas replied. “It came straight from the LakeNet server. The same place I got the information on your mother. And . . .” He looked away. “Frankly, I’m offended.
“I admit that I may have crossed the line sometimes. I may have twisted things or manipulated situations. But I have never, ever, outright deceived anybody.”
Julian looked to Nicholas’s number. A perfectly articulated Five, bright in its blackness on his ghostly white skin.
A fraud. A total fraud.
That was the secret truth of the angel on high.
Julian had to suppress a laugh. He had to resist, also, letting Nicholas know what he held on him. Because if Julian had learned anything from his time in the Burners, it’s that when you have a card to play, you hold it until the time is right.
But that time wasn’t now, because there was a simple response to this sad, defanged version of Nicholas Hawksley sitting beside him: “Get out,” Julian said.
Nicholas sighed. He put the paper back into his jacket pocket, he picked up his paper cup, and he opened the door. Slowly, he stepped out.
“I’m trying to help,” Nicholas said.
But Julian did not reply.
Nicholas closed the door, and Julian pumped the gas and sped off to meet Cody.
Chapter 30
A COLD MIST SNAKED THROUGH THE WOODS, LIKE THE TENTACLES of a ghostly sea creature. Julian and Cody, dressed in dark sweats and hoodies, crept through the elm forest to the back of Callum’s ranch house.
There was a low-register buzzing that permeated the air, and the ground seemed to almost quiver beneath his feet. At first, he thought he was just crunching through wet leaves. But then he looked closer and saw what he was crunching through was not leaves. They were, in fact, cicadas. Or, pupae, actually. Young cicadas that spent their lives hibernating underground, coming up for their first taste of the waking world, only to be crushed under his foot. Hundreds of them.
Cody, noticing his disgust, put her hand on Julian’s shoulder. “Don’t think about it. Just keep moving,” she said.
There was a lot Julian had to keep from thinking about right now.
Like, who was this girl with the notebook full of quantum physics that she may or may not really understand? The daughter of the renegades of the 6/12 incident. The girl who would expose the deadly secrets at the Lake. The girl with the psychopathic retrograde boyfriend who warned Julian to stay away stay away stay away . . .
And what about his mother? She had been a director of this strange project at the Lake, and then she was found dead there. Why?
He had to push these worries from his mind. He needed to stay here, in the present. Vigilant. They couldn’t be sure how closely Callum was being monitored. They couldn’t set off any alarms.
Cody crept up past him, taking the lead. Julian kept focused on following her through the forest, trying not to look down, trying not to register what he was mulching up underfoot.
Finally, they were at the stream, the wash of the water bleeding into the buzz of the cicadas. They found a narrow edge and hopped across it, emerging near the workshop where they’d spoken to
Callum the first time. Julian looked at the small mound of dirt where the cat was buried. He suddenly remembered finding it under the living-room window, a dead ball of fur. It had tried to claw its way inside. . . . To find him, maybe . . .
No. Focus.
“Lights are on,” Cody said, gesturing to Callum’s house.
“But who’s in there?” Julian said.
A dark silhouette stood behind the curtain of an upstairs window—it was hunched over something and tossing dark shadows of objects over its shoulder, as if it was rifling through a desk or a drawer. A second silhouette appeared downstairs. Cody pulled Julian into the shadow of an elm tree at the edge of the yard. They lay down in the brush to hide themselves and watched the windows.
The figure walked into the kitchen, where the curtain was pulled back.
A bearded man wearing a powder-blue robe. A nurse.
“Nurses. They must have got him,” Cody whispered. She punched the ground in frustration.
The nurse in the kitchen flung open the cabinet doors and yanked out the plates and cans in huge armfuls, searching for something.
“We have to leave,” Julian said, pulling back toward the forest. “We’re too late.”
But Cody wasn’t moving.
“Cody,” Julian said, more urgently. “We should go.”
But she just lay there on her arms, her eyes flicking back and forth, studying the movement in the house. She pulled her hood over her head. “Callum quit the Lake for a reason,” she said, whispering.
“We can talk about it later,” Julian said.
Cody shook her head. “He took us out of the Row. He worked with the Friends. He knew the risks of what he was doing. He wanted to help us.”
Julian grabbed her by the sleeve. “Let’s get out of here.”
She pulled out of his grip and then stood in a crouch. She slunk to the outdoor work table and ducked behind it. She palmed around on top of it, feeling for something. She found a gardener’s spade.
She looked back at Julian. “You stay there.”
He watched in agony as two more nurses appeared in the kitchen. These were carrying flashlights. They were ransacking Callum’s place, bagging whatever objects they found of interest.
Cody dashed across the yard to the spot where the cat was buried and dropped to her knees. She started digging furiously.
A swish of light flashed down from the top of the hill. A group of nurses had entered the backyard, carrying flashlights. Julian’s breath caught in his throat. The nurses were searching through containers leaning against Callum’s house. They were carrying bags emblazoned in a white text that read “Evidence.”
Julian looked to Cody. She was digging furiously at the spot where the cat was buried. Did she see them up on the hill?
He needed to warn her, but that would only draw more attention. He was going to have to run out there and grab her. There was no other option.
Shit, shit, shit.
Another swish of light, now coming down the hill. It landed on the workbench and scanned the area. Julian flattened himself on the ground, pine needles stabbing into the palms of his hands. He noticed another movement: a white cicada head, about the size of a quarter, pushing up from the soil, inches from his face.
And still, Cody was out there, digging.
Another light joined the first and now they were jostling, shaking up and down. The nurses were coming down the hill. In a split second, Julian made the calculation, and before he could process what he’d decided, he was up, running across the backyard, the flashlights bright in his peripheral vision. Muffled shouts floated down to them from up on the hill, voices shaking as they ran for him. But Julian’s focus was solely on Cody, who was furiously digging at the hole. He ran up behind her and scooped his arm under her chest.
She grunted, her hands pulling out of the soil where the cat was buried, the dirt falling away in clumps. Something flashed in her hands, something shiny and plastic. But there was no time to look closer. He pulled Cody to the tree line.
She started running as well, and the two of them were soon crashing through the forest like frightened deer. The lights searching behind them swished through the fog. Julian ran ahead of Cody, leading her on a series of turns, disappearing farther and farther into the mist. The beams behind them grew fat in the diffusion of the fog. They were putting distance between them and the nurses.
They kept running at full speed for some time, the sound of their breathing a ragged rhythm over the horrible crunch under their feet. They finally made it to the edge of the forest, where it met a back road. Julian recognized where they were—his car was parked in a turnoff a few bends up. He pulled them down behind a large stone in the gutter to catch their breath.
“What the hell were you doing?” Julian said, his breath coming in gasps, his heart skipping every other beat.
“I was right,” Cody said, sucking in huge gasps. “Callum did want to help. He left this for us.” She was holding a plastic bag covered in dirt. She tore it open. Inside was a note.
C—
I half hope you get this letter, and I half hope you don’t. Because I know it will lead you to trouble.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for not being able to do more. But I have to leave, just like I left the Friends. The nurses have been following me ever since I left the Lentic Research Unit. Plainclothes faces in the crowd. Nondescript cars parked across the street, the windows tinted. They were never going to let me out of their sight. For years, I wondered why they didn’t just put me down and permakill me, but then I realized, they probably wanted me as a lure. They want to shut down the Friends. They want to tie up loose ends. They’re worried about things getting out.
Things about the Attison Project.
As long as I hold this information, they will never let me go.
But someone has to know.
As one of the founding members of the Attison Project, I can tell you that we began with the best intentions. Retrogression and Wrinkles can be a crippling part of the rebirth process, and they were getting worse. We were trying to find a way to eliminate the Wrinkles, reverse them. Imagine a world with guarantees that we wouldn’t come back warped or missing memories or senses?
This is where we started. With the cats.
Then things started to change.
The director installed a new project lead. Her name was Lucy Dex. Under her, we switched from cats to human test subjects. We found that repeatedly extinguishing a fresh rebirth created a sustained window of rebirth sickness. Subjects literally could not remember anything that had happened to them during the course of this process. Subjects who were re-extinguished repeatedly had no concept that this was happening to them. This meant their numbers could easily be manipulated.
A subject who woke up on Life Three could be immediately killed again. He’d wake up in the Lake and be brought back into the receiving center, where he should be on Life Four. But then, before the fog of his mind would abate, he would be killed once more. He would wake up, again, in the Lake and by now be on Life Five. He would then be brought back into the receiving center with no memory of the previous two deaths. This process could repeat. Again. And again. Until the subject would awaken in the Lake on what should be Life Nine. Then, once again, he would be brought into the receiving center. But instead of a Nine tattoo, they could give him what he expected to receive. A Three. He’d be on his very last life, but have no knowledge of that fact.
Suddenly, the Department of the Lakes had a way they could directly control the ballooning population numbers without having to resort to martial law.
You’re a smart girl, Cody. You know why this was vital to the Lake’s interests.
This is a tragedy on multiple levels. Our work for a cure turned out to become a cancer. But the biggest tragedy is that because of this misuse of the Lake, it has started changing, possibly degrading. No one cared to listen. All anyone cared about was maintaining control.
The Attison
Project was carried out at the Lakeshore receiving center on a floor that was not marked on the elevator. It could only be accessed with an authorized keycard. We called it the Spoof floor.
If you access the floor, you may find what you need to get the truth out there.
Again, I’m sorry.
—CC
Cody put the note down. Julian leaned against the boulder, his hands cradling his head.
He had burned two lives.
There was a Three on his neck, but maybe—he just found out—this Three could be a lie.
And his mother engineered all of this?
She had warned his father to prevent them from burning. Why would she, unless she knew the truth?
His chest started heaving.
He could do nothing to stop the tears from flowing.
Chapter 31
GLEN POURED HOT CHOCOLATE SOY FROM A POT INTO three mugs.
Julian and Cody sat at the kitchen table. The light was bright and harsh. Cody’s fingers were still grimy with dirt. Julian looked down at his own hands. He pulled a pine needle out from under a nail. His thumbs—too small. Always too small, in every body he’d ever had.
Glen set the steaming mugs in front of them. Julian looked at his dumbly. The smell of the synthetic chocolate stirred something in his gut. He suppressed a hiccup, his insides still raw from crying.
Glen sat down at the opposite end of the table and pulled Callum’s letter toward himself.
“So, a handwritten confession isn’t really a smoking gun,” he said.
“I know,” Cody said. Her voice had a flat, hard edge to it. Now that she had finally got hold of the thing she had been searching for, it seemed, the “gee-shucks, Mr. Julian” affectation had vanished.
“Who’s to say Callum really wrote this? I could have written it for all you know,” Glen argued.
“I realize that,” Cody said.
“Who are we, anyway? Just a bunch of orphans living in an abandoned house in the woods? We go to the media, they’d dismiss us as retrogrades.”
“I know,” Cody said.
“This is . . .” Glen touched the page again, as if to confirm it was real. “This is worse than I ever thought it would be. But what can we do about it?”