Anyway, my knee will never allow me to move fast enough. No amount of adrenaline will change that.
“Just relax,” Shiffrin croons. “Everything is going to be fine.”
And then I see her, leading one of the groups. She looks as if she’s trying to calm a startled kitten, creeping forward, arms extended. Unlike the others, she doesn’t carry Verced.
My eyes dart, seeking an exit, thoughts vainly racing to find a solution. But I can’t see any way out of this. I want to scream. How did they find me?
“That’s it.”
I almost feel faint as Shiffrin reaches me, gently taking me by the shoulders as Meng reaches forward with an inoculator.
“No,” I hiss, and I try to jerk away. But other hands have joined Shiffrin’s, and this time I know that it’s over.
Whatever becomes of Noah and Atkinson, even if the bombs go off, I’m not likely to find out about it.
Ding-dong.
The overhead clicks on and there’s a crackle. Then a voice speaks.
“Hello, Adam. It’s Marcus,” Atkinson says in his usual twitchy tone. Everyone freezes. “I surprised you this time, didn’t I? Or m-maybe you knew I was here. After all, you seem to know everything. Don’t you?”
He gives a throaty, humorless chuckle.
“I want you to know that I’ve placed bombs around the colony, one in each biome. I’ve wired them to detonate if anyone tampers with them. And I’ll… I’ll detonate them myself in just twenty minutes. Unless…” He hesitates. “Unless we can strike a deal. You destroyed something important to me. And now I’ll destroy something that’s important to you—unless you meet me in the glade with my missing memories. You’ve got twenty minutes. Come alone. If you don’t, well… we’ll just have to learn to survive outside the domes.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Judging by their expressions, neither can the doctors. We all listen for more—perhaps a response from Dosset—but dead air meets his words. Then there’s a pop and the feed goes out.
Meng has just turned back to me when I hear a beeping on Shiffrin’s wrist. Seconds later, Dosset’s hologram appears. He looks exhausted. But when he takes in the group and sees me, he brightens a little.
“You found her after all,” he says. “Hold onto her. I want her to accompany me into the biome for my meeting with Marcus.”
“But I thought he said to come alone?” says Conrad in surprise.
A swift look from Dosset silences him. “I’ll be there in a moment,” he tells Shiffrin. Then he’s gone.
More hands tighten on my arms as the doctors crowd around, as if afraid I’ll somehow vanish into smoke. But I’m no longer thinking about escape. I’m too stunned, my insides too numb, like my skin when Noah sewed the stitches.
Did I misjudge Atkinson so entirely? Does he really plan to make a deal with Dosset? Or is this some kind of ruse we didn’t plan?
Once the bombs go off, Dosset will be at our mercy. We can make him do whatever we want—and I feel certain that returning the memories to their original owners will be among our first priorities.
So why stop now, when we’re so close?
These thoughts orbit my mind while we wait in strained silence. The doctors seem to be looking to Shiffrin, but Shiffrin only stares into the shadows, her soft features tense. And then, gradually, we hear the hiss, click. Hiss, click. And like an apparition, Dosset emerges from the darkness, rawboned and pale as ever.
“There she is,” he says warmly. As if we’re old friends. Family, even. “I’ll admit, I did expect to see you again, Elizabeth. But not like this.”
“Walking and talking, you mean?” I shoot back.
His smile is jarringly easy.
“I suppose the bombs were your idea?” When I hesitate, he says, “Come, Elizabeth. We must take responsibility for our ideas and our actions.”
“Ironic, coming from you.”
“And that, my dear, is the point. After all, Atkinson is a monster that I created and you unleashed.” He glances at the doctors. Their faces are blank with dread, a sharp contrast to his levity. “I only hope we can stop him before he dooms us all.”
“The bombs aren’t going to doom anyone,” I say, temper rising. His words are a sliver under the nail of my calm. “Mars is habitable. And you know it.”
“Do I?” he asks, bushy eyebrows rising. “Do you? Are you sure you know what you’re committing your friends to, living out there with the brutality of Mars? Are you absolutely sure that Marcus told you everything?”
“He told me the truth,” I say, glowering.
The old doctor clicks his tongue.
“Don’t be so superior, Elizabeth. If you and I can agree on anything, it’s that there are always versions of the truth. I only wonder—which one did he give you?”
I tighten my jaw, realizing that he’s trying to rile me on purpose. To get me to question what I already know.
He watches me, eyes twinkling, then glances at his watch. “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to trust in your good judgment. Shall we?”
My captors release me. With the lack of support, my knee falters again, and it’s Shiffrin who steadies me. As I regain my balance she squeezes my arm, and I feel a small weight fall into the pocket of my jumpsuit.
I look up sharply and she smiles.
“Like I’ve always said,” she murmurs. “I’m here to help you. Remember that.”
Bewildered, I can only nod as I turn away. I casually slide my hand into my pocket and discover the familiar shape of an inoculator.
Lightning angles down my spine. Does she expect me to use it on Dosset or on Atkinson?
Before I can puzzle it out, Dosset moves forward, leisurely swallowed by the shadows. I limp after him as quickly as I can, the rest of the doctors trailing behind.
I half expect to see Sarlow or McCallum materialize out of the gloom and join us, but then I remember they’re still stranded somewhere between here and Aster’s dome. Dosset leads me to the entrance of the grassland habitat, and we part from the other doctors, heading out across rippling fields that sprawl like a rumpled blanket.
Behind us I hear the passage seal, and—do I imagine it?—the subtle click of a turning lock.
Since the glade is in the center of the dome, Dosset and I have some ground to cover. Neither of us is well-suited to travel. We move slowly, my fingers tight around the inoculator.
I could dose him right now. It’d all be over. When we don’t show up, Atkinson will have no choice but to detonate the bombs.
So what stops me?
It’s doubt. Immediately I recognize the black, slippery feeling. Even in Aster’s dome, before Dosset so bluntly framed the question, I’ve wondered if destroying the biomes would be an indelible mistake. It’s that uncertainty that keeps me lurching along in my reduced gravity until the trees of the glade embrace us, reaching for a sky they’ve never touched.
Bursts of color begin to show through gaps as we pass from tree to tree. Then around a tall oak, I lay eyes on the glade itself, and the exterior wall of the biome just beyond. It all looks idyllic and undisturbed, exactly as we left it after our meeting with the rebels.
How silly that plan seems to me now. How silly, all of our plans.
Even Dosset’s.
And then I see it—the bomb. It looks strangely out of place here in this garden sanctum.
The design is simple enough: a copper cylinder with frayed, shiny threads of wire poking out at one end, all wound into a small gray box. The construction feels familiar, maybe one of Romie’s designs—which would make some sense. Atkinson was Romie’s therapist, after all. Wouldn’t he have seen all of Romie’s memories?
Dosset reaches down to his oxygen tank, where a black bag is slung along the top. I hadn’t noticed it in the shadows. From the dark folds, he pulls something shiny and metallic.
At once I recognize the EMP.
“I told you to come alone!”
The voice comes from the trees to our left.
Bushes rustle, and then Atkinson charges out of the foliage and into the glade, eyes savage and wide. In his fist, I can see the detonator—a short metal wedge. Dosset ambles out to meet him.
“Hello, Marcus,” he calls. “I’m glad you made it back.”
Noah emerges from behind a maple, trailing Atkinson. They’re halfway between the explosive and Dosset when I, too, step forward. Realizing who I am, they both stop short.
“Lizzy?” Atkinson asks in disbelief. “W-what are you doing here?”
“I asked her to come along. Given the part she played in all of this, I thought it only fitting that she attend. Don’t you agree?” asks Dosset.
A current of wind ripples through the trees, stirred up by the distant pollen fans. Atkinson doesn’t speak. He’s looking at the EMP. Probably thinking the same thing I am. That if the device goes off and the bombs don’t detonate, we lose all of our leverage. We need to back away and detonate right now.
But still, he hesitates.
“Yes,” Dosset says. “An electromagnetic pulse. Truly, Romesh is one of our brightest. With a knack for making dangerous things. Tell me, what would happen if I were to set it off? Would your detonator be rendered useless? Would your bombs?”
As he turns the block nervously in his hands, Atkinson’s face wrinkles with uncertainty. “I suppose there’s only one way to find an answer. Why not try and see?”
“For the same reason you haven’t detonated the bombs,” says Dosset placidly. “These tools are simply a means for threatening one another. But you and I both know you don’t want to destroy these biomes. If you did, you would’ve already done it. Some part of you—the dominant part, I believe—wants to end this peaceably. More than anything, Marcus, you want peace. Just like me. And I can give it to you.”
“I want my family!” Atkinson shouts at him as he waves the detonator. I can’t help but gasp, afraid he might accidentally set it off with Noah so close. “Can you give them to me? I want my family!”
Dosset manages to remain calm.
“No, Marcus. You don’t.”
“What did you say?” Atkinson breathes, aghast.
“Your family is dead. You know that. What you want is peace with their death. Isn’t that what we’ve given these cadets so many times over these months? Cadets like Elizabeth?” He gestures at me. “And you were happy to give it.”
“Does she seem at peace to you, Adam?” Atkinson’s voice roils with emotion. “Do I? You took away my reason to live!” His whole body trembles as he screams at the older man. “What other memories have you warped for your benefit? What else have you taken?”
Watching them go back and forth, I have an image in my mind of two animals tearing at each other. Ripping bits of flesh, drawing blood, matching wound for wound, but never enough to kill, only to maim.
I’m reminded of my parents. Of me and Terra. And suddenly I realize that I’m again caught in the middle.
Again, this won’t end if someone doesn’t step in to end it.
“Okay, enough.”
They don’t hear at first, so I step forward and raise my voice as loud as I can manage. “I said stop!”
Surprised, they falter—both of them.
“Whatever you two might believe, you’re wrong. You’re both hurting the people you think you’re protecting.”
“Elizabeth—”
“No. Now you listen. Dosset,”—I turn on him—“you think you’re saving the human race, keeping us locked in here. But you aren’t. All of us, every cadet—we’re miserable. Only, the others don’t know why. Because you took away the reason. Which means no matter how much we might want to change, no matter how hard we try, we’ll always be stuck living out the same problems, stuck with the same habits, over and over. All because you can’t trust anyone. Instead, you just control them like they’re robots. But that’s not life. It’s abuse.”
I wheel to face Atkinson.
“And you… you think you’re so much better than him? You could’ve killed me when you uploaded the Memory Bank that night. You said it yourself. The other cadets went brain dead after Dosset put them through the same procedure. But because you wanted answers, to find out what he was doing, you risked someone else’s life. You risked my life.”
“Is that what he told you?” Dosset asks, sounding amused.
“That’s the truth.”
“Elizabeth, when will you learn? Not all wolves hunt in the shadows. Some of us are happy to bare our teeth. Some of us know what we are.” He smiles pleasantly as he turns to Atkinson. “Others, well… they would rather deceive themselves.”
“I’m not like you,” Atkinson says, withdrawing. He nearly trips over a honeysuckle bush but manages to catch his balance. “I’m not like you.”
“You see, Marcus was the one behind all of the brain-damaged cadets, not just your own experience. He was the one who destroyed their neural pathways. I simply placed them into the cryobeds to keep them alive.”
“I… I knew he was up to s-something,” Atkinson pleads, looking to me now. “I tried to find out what it was, but—”
“We tried to stop him, of course,” Dosset interrupts. “But it took time to figure out what was going on. Why cadets were being found in their pods on Monday morning, eyes vacant, devoid of brain activity. You see, he chose them at random to prevent any tie back to him.”
The words cut a trench through my heart, filling me with disbelief.
“Is that true?” I whisper.
“Lizzy, I—”
“The night he chose you, Elizabeth, was the night we finally figured out what he was doing,” says Dosset, sighing as he steps toward Atkinson. “But when we caught up with him, he had already given you the Memory Bank. And rather than face responsibility for his actions, he took a double dose of Verced to erase the evidence from his mind. Or perhaps he was simply attempting suicide, to take a coward’s way out.”
“You don’t know!” Atkinson croaks. “You draw your conclusions and call them facts. But you could have given me the dose yourself, and who could argue? None of us remember!”
“So I decided to make him disappear,” Dosset murmurs, unfazed by the outburst. “Just like I made all his victims disappear. A fitting punishment for an unforgivable crime, wasting life that way.” He shakes his head as if saddened by the memory of the lost cadets. “But it would seem, Elizabeth, that he told you only half the truth. Just like you did to your friends, such as Noah here, when you kept secrets. Isn’t that right?”
Heat creeps up my neck, exposing the validity of his words. I glance at Noah and see the questions written on his face, just like with Romie. I want to tell him that I can explain. But the words turn to dust.
Even if it’s only part of the truth, it’s still the truth. Isn’t it?
“You see, you both had the same choices I did,” Dosset continues. “The same choices you have now. And I believe that, regardless of the EMP, you’ll make the right one.”
“She made the choices she had to make, and so did I,” Atkinson gasps. “The choices you forced us to make!”
“No, Marcus. No one is forcing you to do this. In fact, you don’t want to do these things. You don’t really want to condemn us all to a life out there in this infant ecology. You know how hard it will be. The kind of suffering it will cause. The death. You’ve already seen it yourself. Are you really willing to go to these lengths just to cling to the past? Are you willing to hurt everyone on this planet? Think of the cadets whose lives you already ruined. Think of Elizabeth and all of the pain you’ve caused her.”
“No,” I say, finally recovering my voice. “That isn’t how it is. He would never have done any of this if not for you.”
“And that justifies him?” Dosset prods. “You said it yourself—he risked your life, all for selfish reasons. You can argue if you like, but you know the truth.”
But I’ve finally stopped listening.
“He’s manipulating you,” I say, turning back to Atkinson. “If we d
on’t go through with this, he’ll keep the system going like before. You can’t trust him. Just detonate the bombs before it’s too late! Marcus—” I snap my fingers at him, finally locking his gaze onto mine. “You can’t let him win. He’s a liar!”
Atkinson looks at the bomb and takes a labored breath. When he raises his head, tears are etching streaks on his weathered face.
He doesn’t look at me now. Only at Dosset.
“But my family…” he chokes out.
“…is gone,” Dosset finishes, stepping closer. His voice is bright and warm as a sunbeam. “It was your memory of them that drove you to this place of fear and violence. You’ve become the very thing we knew the cadets would become—a product of emotion. One that could destroy everything we’ve worked so hard to build.” Another step. “You don’t have to be this way.”
“Marcus,” I begin again, but he still won’t look at me. I dig into my pocket, seizing the Verced. Across the clearing, I see that Noah’s fists are balled white.
“My family,” Atkinson moans. “My family, my family…”
“Yes, your family,” Dosset says. He’s only centimeters from Atkinson now. “Sometimes it’s better not to know, Marcus. Sometimes it’s too much. It can be better to simply forget.”
His whole body trembling, Atkinson lifts his arm like a withered tree limb. Head bowed, he places the detonator in Dosset’s palm. I watch our very last hope trade hands. Then I pop the cap on the Verced.
It’s time to move. Time to act. My heart is pounding so loud, I’m sure they can hear it. I step from the shade with a deliberate stride, ignoring the blade in my knee.
“Yes,” Atkinson croaks. “Sometimes we have to forget.”
Dosset’s fingers close around the detonator. I see that Noah has begun to move—
And then Atkinson whips his head up, eyes clear as glass.
“But sometimes we have to remember.”
With one hand he reaches out and tears the cords from the oxygen tank, pulling them free, wrapping them around Dosset’s throat, and around and around. I freeze in disbelief, my feet rooted to the spot. Feeling as if I’m watching from somewhere else, somehow far away.
Biome Page 29