He takes a long pull from his tank, as if burdened by the weight of the memories.
“Upon receiving word of the cataclysm, the doctors were divided. Some thought the cadets should be told the truth. Others thought we should wait and shield them from the news. Eventually, it was decided that they should know.”
Again he pauses. When he goes on, his voice is pained.
“Despite intensive therapy, many cadets became despondent. Others were hostile. Some developed high anxiety, suffering episodes of panic, while a few even tried to harm themselves. Yet this sort of emotional trauma was natural, for they had likely lost their families. We held out hope that Earth would recover. So we awaited a message from the survivors.”
“Did it come?” I ask in spite of myself.
“Yes, it did. We learned that the planet’s atmosphere was failing. We were forced to contend with reality. Unless survivors could reach us, we were to be the last of humanity.”
I can feel my anger ebbing as I imagine how it must have felt to be placed in leadership during the worst calamity in human history. Then I remind myself of everything he’s done and attempt to rekindle the blaze.
“So you started lying,” I say.
“We were faced with a stark truth,” Dosset replies. “People die quickly if they can’t sustain themselves. If we did not succeed in keeping the cadets of Mars Colony One alive, our entire race would go extinct. Your health became our top priority.” He leans back heavily. “The first Revision was a success, though difficult. Such exhaustive memory alteration left many cadets disoriented. Yet the progress we saw was truly remarkable. Disagreements between cadets became almost non-existent. Psychologists reported an increase in general coping abilities as related to weekly stressors. Our main obstacle to contend with was body memories.”
“Body memories?”
“It’s when one is confronted with the feeling that surrounds a past experience but can’t link it to a specific memory. For instance, you might see the face of an acquaintance from many years prior and have a sense of recognition. Yet until you’re able to uncover the tie you share, you’ll have difficulty anchoring that person to a name. Think of it as the ghost of a memory.”
“Like déjà vu,” I say in surprise.
“Yes,” he agrees. He’s begun to take on a new tone, that of a doctor discussing faraway patients, clinical and flat. “Sometimes a body memory can be something as simple as a sound or smell. Though we Revised the experiences these triggers engaged, we couldn’t erase the body memories themselves.”
“Then why keep doing it?” I demand, growing angry again.
“Because you were happier without them,” Dosset says simply. He removes his glasses and polishes a lens on his sleeve, just like Romie. “After a week or two, the cadets again grew agitated, and we saw a resurgence in emotional unrest. So we administered a new Revision. This time we kept the memories and studied them. Eventually, we found consistently positive results by doing a Revision at the end of each week, guided by the memories of the previous one. Of course, we had to rethink other difficulties. With their memories reset so often, we had to give the cadets things to look forward to. That’s where First Expedition originated. It became their focus. It’s important to have goals. Psychologically speaking.”
I push away from the desk, feeling sick. So this is it. This is the big secret. If Dosset is trying to save the human race, why would he shut down Aster and keep us from leaving the domes?
For the same reason we tend the biomes. To him, we’re just plants to be trimmed. Nurtured. Preserved. And we’re so much easier to manage in a block.
All he has to do is think of us as something other than human.
“You’re insane,” I say, unsteadily getting to my feet. “You didn’t save the human race. You enslaved it. The whole colony believes their families are out there waiting for them, and they’re not! They’re dead. And we deserve to know that.”
But Dosset doesn’t lash back. In fact, he seems to consider my words.
“Judging by his reaction, Romie was surprised to hear about the nuclear war,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell him what Marcus said?”
“I… because… because I didn’t,” I say, flustered.
“And when you went to Noah for help, what about then? Did you tell him the truth? Or did you keep things from him?”
“That was different.”
“Why?” he presses. “Because you knew you could manipulate him and use his feelings to your advantage?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“No? Then why did you seek him out as an ally? How did you overcome your extreme aversion to him?”
“I didn’t!” I snarl. “I went to him because I knew it’d outsmart you.”
“Ah,” Dosset says, standing as well. “No doubt that’s why you used the fears of your fellow cadets against them to cause a panic. It wasn’t manipulation, was it? Just strategy.”
His sarcasm is biting, and I have no words to defend myself. But to my surprise, his tone doesn’t remain sharp. In fact, his next words are almost gentle.
“You were faced with the same dilemma I was,” he says. “On one hand was an instinct for self-preservation, and on the other, the ability to see how your decisions would affect your friends. After all, you have their memories. They’re a part of you now.” He squints at me as if assessing me under a microscope. “So what should you do? Make others suffer, knowing you could make them happy? Or sacrifice your own happiness to help others heal? How does one determine which feelings are most important?” He holds out his palm as if weighing the hopes and desires of the colony in his weathered hand. “How do you balance Noah and Chloe, with your own happiness caught in the middle?”
It’s as if he’s still inside my head, the way he’s so accurately pinned down my struggle. To use my knowledge to control what others do, to twist them and mold them, for better or for worse—it isn’t a dilemma. It’s a black hole. And I’ve been trying to escape it ever since I first woke up with a head full of memories.
How can I choose between the people I love? How do I know what’s best for them, especially when it goes against what they want?
Against what I want?
My whole body is trembling.
“That’s not how people work,” I say, taking a shaky step backward. “You can’t just control them. They have to be free to make mistakes and learn from them on their own. That’s how we grow. That’s… that’s what makes us human.”
He looks at me now, placing the full weight of his gaze on me as if for the first time.
“Is it?”
And his voice is so grave, his words filled with such conviction, that I go cold.
“Some of us are too slow to learn,” he says. “Some of us won’t consider the impact our choices have on the rest of us. I’m afraid we simply don’t have time for those people anymore.”
He turns and walks back up the stairs toward the bridge. I sense that our conversation is over, that doctors will soon be returning to lock me away in cryosleep. But I don’t feel like I got any answers. I want to run after him, to shake him, to make him tell me what the point is and where it all ends.
But what would it even matter? Sarlow is waiting outside, and my friends have already been captured.
“So you’re just going to brainwash them, then?” I choke into the silence. “Just change whatever you don’t like?”
And it’s then that I feel truly afraid, because I know that’s exactly what he’ll do. The fear fills my body like lead, and I almost collapse back into the chair. I try to remember—was I happy before, when I didn’t know? It feels like, in some way, I was.
But how deep could that happiness have gone, when it was without the people and memories I cared about most?
“Why even tell me any of this?” I shout after him.
At the railing, Dosset faces me.
“To satisfy a curiosity,” he says. “When I realized that Atkinson had given you t
he entire Memory Bank and that you’d survived, I knew that for the first time I had an equal. A person unlike the other cadets, or even the other doctors. Did you guess it?” He taps his temple. “I have all their memories as well. So tell me, Elizabeth. Knowing what you know now, would you have done differently? Would you have told your friends that everyone they loved was dead? Or would you have hidden what you knew to protect them?”
Even as I open my mouth, I know my next words will be only partly true. Because I didn’t lie to my friends. But I didn’t tell the truth, either. I just left out the parts that were most painful.
“I wouldn’t have lied,” I say faintly.
A small, sad smile crosses his face.
“And yet if you can’t tell the truth, you have to ask yourself—what version of it will make the most people happy?”
“Most people?” I blurt out. “Or just you?”
But he’s already turned away.
As he opens the door, Sarlow enters, followed by McCallum. No Romie this time. I can feel my pulse quicken, fluttering in every vein. The EMP still dangles off Sarlow’s shoulder as the pair creeps forward. I back away, the familiar animal instinct to survive rising again inside me. But there can be no escape from this. No outrunning the inevitable.
Even if I could evade them, where would I possibly go?
Unless… unless…
Now it hits me. My only hope—my very last hope—is to leave the colony altogether.
And that’s how I come to it, my most terrifying conclusion yet. The same conclusion that Atkinson arrived at and eventually acted upon. If I truly hope to get away, I have to leave. Here, Dosset is in control. Out there is all that’s left.
“Nice and easy,” says McCallum as they creep nearer.
I scramble between the chairs, keeping as much furniture between us as possible. But I’ve already strayed too far, and like a wedge, McCallum has isolated me from either stairwell, working me toward the glass wall. Sarlow plants herself on the bridge, preventing me from somehow slipping by and outrunning them again.
There has to be some way out of this. I just need to pull it apart, like Romie would, and put it back together in a different way.
Now shoving chairs to the ground to block McCallum’s path, I reach the far wall. A deep terror settles in my ribcage, a swell like a scream. But I manage to stay focused.
One thing at a time. Start small. First, I need to get past McCallum.
So how?
An idea registers. A long shot—a moon shot, as Romie once said—but at the moment, it’s all I’ve got. I reach down and unclip the buckles of my weighted boots just as McCallum reaches the table in front of me. Floating up like a feather, I take a shaky step onto the tabletop, lean into a tipping angle, and push off.
It’s such a quick decision, I don’t process what I’m doing until I’m airborne. I go up and up, adrenaline giving me greater height than I imagined—I soar upward one meter, two meters, three—while beneath me McCallum shrinks. Though he strains to grasp my ankle, his weight is too much. With a roar, he stumbles over a table and falls away.
The arc of my jump takes me halfway to the bridge. I awkwardly land on another table, nearly skidding off the edge as I coil my legs for another leap, exhilarated and terrified by the sheer height as I waver into the air again. Then I’ve cleared the railing, landing on the bridge directly at its center.
I don’t have time to feel amazed by the success of my plan. McCallum is shouting, cursing, hurtling through the chairs to reach me, and there’s still about a hundred meters between me and Sarlow. Not exactly what I’m built for. This kind of sprint is about explosive speed, the kind that makes your whole body surge and the wind whistle in your ears. And Sarlow is waiting at the end of that sprint, smiling. Knowing I’ll never slip past her.
So I have another crazy thought. My instinct is to run—and she’ll know that, having failed to catch me twice already. So what if I didn’t run away?
What if I ran toward her?
My eyes flit to the EMP. When she took it, the blast radius was set to full. All I need is to engage the trigger and the whole Helix will be on blackout. With the pair of them blundering in the shadows, I might be able to make it down the spiral and disappear.
Yet reaching the device will be no small feat. I don’t stand a chance of overpowering Sarlow. It doesn’t take much to remind me of what happened when Noah got in her way: the blood pouring from his nose, Sarlow twisting his arm behind his back, immobilizing him so swiftly. Why would I be any different?
She must have at least sixty pounds on me. I can’t contend with that.
But I’m out of time. McCallum has nearly reached the stairs at my back. I launch into a sprint as best I can, heading straight for Sarlow. Yet my stride is painfully languid, each step lifting me more than a dozen centimeters off the ground.
Sarlow’s jaw tightens as she crouches, knees bent, ready to pivot. I think she’s saying something, but I don’t hear it. I’m focused on every step, on the shrinking distance. She rises to the tips of her toes, off balance, expecting me to adjust course at any moment. But I don’t. Her eyes widen and then—
We collide.
Again, I’ve risen higher than I expected. My knee slams into her shoulder; I flail, catching the strap of the EMP. There’s a half second that it bobbles toward me. Then Sarlow has seized me around the waist and my momentum changes. I’m driven toward the ground in a rush.
Impact. The kind that echoes in your bones, pushing you outside of your body, forcing you to watch from across the room. Then oxygen rushes back into my lungs at the same time I return to my body, and Sarlow comes down on top of me, her steel grip clamping on my arm.
But I’m still clutching the strap. With willful movements that still feel somehow disconnected from my consciousness, my fingers follow it to the device.
Finding the button, I press it.
A high-pitched whine fills my ears. The air seems to bubble outward, and then at once the lights go black in a seething wave, leaving us in total darkness.
There’s a delay, and then the pain. My whole body is paralyzed with it. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. My lungs convulse, straining for oxygen, but I’m struggling beneath the heavy knee on my chest, planted atop my ribs. I begin to squirm and push, but a fist knocks my hands aside, banging my head back into the floor.
My teeth clack. White dots flood the darkness. A thick arm is shoved against my throat, and in that moment I know that Sarlow means to kill me.
Or maybe instead of Verced, this is how she’ll put me under. Her violent payback for all the hell I’ve put her through these past few days. The thoughts evaporate with my failing air; I feel a tingly chill beginning in my toes like frostbite, sensation growing fuzzy and indifferent.
A voice is shouting somewhere far off. It feels as if my lungs are filled with acid, a burn in my mouth and nose. I grope around for something, anything, and my fingers brush wire and plastic. I’m vaguely aware that this shape is familiar.
But what is it?
Rubber and plastic. Square patches at their ends. Confusion flickers a dim bulb, my last shred of focus beginning to fade. My stun gun. Did it fall out of my pocket during the fall?
Desperate understanding rockets through me, buzzing with a remembrance of the unit’s internal casing. It should have shielded the battery from the EMP.
With what little strength I have left, I tug the patches free and lay them one by one on Sarlow’s arm as she barks for assistance.
Spiders of light dance over her, and she goes rigid with a jagged gasp. Then the black folds back in and she collapses on top of me, compressing my ribcage even further. With her arm no longer pressing into my throat, I have just enough energy to shift her weight to the side and wriggle free.
Coughing, panting, I allow myself five seconds, just five seconds to gather my wits. Not far off, McCallum is calling for his fallen partner.
That’s it—time’s up—I stagger to my feet. I�
��m so weak I can hardly stand. But somehow I find the railing and let it guide me, limping, carrying my feeble body, grateful to have less mass with my boots gone.
When the railing ends, I paw darkness until I find the door, then the handle. It swings open, and I stagger out into the profound blackness, willing my body to move, knowing my pursuer will be close behind.
It’s the strangest, most surreal feeling, walking blind. Never knowing whether your next step will carry you through the void or propel you into a solid wall.
I try to anticipate the curve, but I can’t get the hang of my newly diminished weight. Each movement ends up as a leap, and every few meters I collide with something, bruising my knees, my shins, fingers, and face. At one point my foot catches and I sprawl, slamming into something sharp—a knife-like edge that slices my shoulder, deep.
The wound is bad, and I know it. But I can already hear the clumsy pursuit of McCallum at the top of the incline. I clap a hand to the cut, tears stinging my eyes, and pull myself back to my feet. My fingers are slippery with blood.
A hum begins, and green runners ignite as I near the interrogation rooms. The Helix is far smaller than a dome, so the power is returning much quicker. I squint down the hallway of doors and again feel tempted to stop and help my friends. But I have no help to offer them anymore. I’ll be lucky if even I make it out of here.
I focus on staying upright. Just moving forward, no matter what. One step at a time.
Finally, I see the exit. I nearly collapse as I reach it, cramming the gummy onto my finger. I’m about to press it against the reader when I see that the interface is still dead.
Without power, I have no way out.
The footfalls above me are growing louder, now thundering as McCallum pounds down the spiral. Panic suffuses my limbs. He’ll be upon me any second. If the power doesn’t come back on, I’ll have to hide. I’ll have to—
Light abruptly floods over me, painfully splintering in my eyes. But I squint and manage to engage the reader.
Biome Page 22