6 Digit Passcode

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6 Digit Passcode Page 23

by Collins, Abigail


  I open and close my mouth mutely several times before I am finally able to conjure up enough words to ask him why, but by then he’s already begun answering me.

  “Division 4 plans on using whatever biological miracle is keeping you alive right now to repeat the process completely artificially. Have they told you yet what that means?” Yes, I think, shuddering, but I choose to say nothing. “Their technology will expand, and those using it will live forever while everyone else dies or rots around them. The human race will become extinct. There are a number of Digits out there like Cyrus who don’t want either of these ideals to become reality. For whatever reason, they support humanity and want to help preserve it.”

  “And what’s your reason? Didn’t you go to that camp knowing what would eventually happen to you? You didn’t really want to be human.”

  “No, I… I did.” His voice is strained. I wonder how many of his human emotions they let him keep, and what he’s feeling with them right now. “I wanted my human life, and if I could take it back, I would. But I wanted to be with Holden more. I cared so much about him that I just went along with whatever the Digits wanted me to do, and I didn’t realize my mistake until it was too late. But it’s not too late for you.”

  There are so many questions I want to ask him, but none of them really matter after all of the things he’s already told me. I know we’re running out of time, but neither of us makes a move to leave. I don’t even know if Dori has a plan for how to get us out of here, or where to go if we actually make it past the gates.

  “So, then, how did you know I was here? Even Cyrus can’t have known where Rin was taking me.”

  Dori shakes his head and sighs. I can tell from his expression that he’s trying to keep from thinking about Holden, but what he did is still haunting him. I don’t think he’ll ever be able to completely forgive himself, no matter how many people he saves.

  “There’s a Digit named Flynn who came here with you,” he says. “She’s posing as one of Rin’s allies, but the truth is that Cyrus sent her here to keep watch over you. I assume you met her on the train to Division 4?”

  My head hurts. I wonder how I can get headaches if my brain technically can’t hurt, but I suppose the rest of my body can still feel pain just the same as any other human’s.

  “Yes,” I answer him, trying to remember as much of my first encounter with Flynn as possible. “She took the tracking device out of my neck. She told me that she can’t be controlled by anyone because she made her own chip.”

  Dori inclines his head slightly and doesn’t seem at all surprised by what I’m telling him. Again, I feel like the only person in this place who doesn’t know my own secrets – my mother kept them from me, my father hid while I found to find them, and now I’m discovering that Cyrus and Flynn were supposed to be protecting me this entire time. I don’t think they’ve been doing a very good job of it.

  As if he’s somehow reading my thoughts, Dori says, “They couldn’t have told you anything; they had to play their parts to avoid suspicion. But we’ve been planning a way to help you escape since they first brought you here. Flynn and I have been communicating through the very same device she removed from your neck. That’s how I knew where to find you.”

  We sit still for a few minutes while he explains the smaller details, but I let my mind wander more than I listen to what he’s saying. I already know everything I need to, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to understand it. If there are other Digits like Flynn and Cyrus – Digits who genuinely care about the preservation of the human race – then why can’t they step up and try to save more people? My mother died because Cyrus failed to protect her.

  Then I remember something Rin told me about the day my mother left Division 4; she said that she wasn’t alone. A man no one had seen before had helped her escape, and he’s been pronounced dead – but his body was never found. I wonder…

  No. There’s no way. Even if Dori is telling me the truth, I still don’t trust Cyrus. He’s just as responsible as Tesla is for getting me into this mess in the first place.

  “Flynn should be here any minute,” Dori says after an uncomfortable stretch of silence. “She said she would meet us here after I had enough time to explain things to you. She knows a way out of here that we think is the same route your mother took when she left. Division 5 is on the other side of the wall, and Cyrus told me there’s a safe place there for you.”

  “And what about my brother? And my friend Crissy and her family? Did Cyrus tell you anything about them?”

  “They’re alive,” he answers quickly, then pauses. “Cyrus couldn’t tell me much else. They’re still in Division 6, but they’re safe for now.”

  The way he says ‘for now’ sends shivers down my spine. I don’t like what he’s implying, even if it isn’t intentional.

  “Am I… Will I ever get to see them again? Rin said that if I went along with what she wanted from me, she would bring my brother here and keep him safe. Can you promise me the same thing?”

  “No,” Dori says, and while I am grateful for his honesty, I wish that just this once he would lie if only to make me feel better. “A week ago, when Cyrus left Division 6, they were alive and well. I don’t think Tesla and the rest of the Council knows about your brain yet, so all they think is that you ran away from camp because you found out that they wanted to convert you – make you into a Digit. But if they ever find out about the truth, everyone you love will be in danger. That’s why it’s very important that we get out of here without being seen.”

  “And how are we planning on doing that, exactly?” I ask him. “I’m sure there are guards all over the place. I know it’s not hard for Flynn to sneak another Digit in without much suspicion, or even a human if they’re here for an experiment, but to sneak two people out? I’m pretty sure Rin won’t let me leave that easily. And my father…”

  Dori turns his head towards me and frowns. His fingers keep running along the gun holster around his waist like it’s an instinct for him now – to turn to violence when he’s not sure how else to feel.

  “But… your father is dead, isn’t he? You told me that you were an orphan; that’s why they brought you to camp in the first place.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. He’s not my real father – I’m not sure I’ll ever find out who that is – but he raised me like I was his. He knew the entire time that I wasn’t, but he still treated me like his daughter. But he’s not even the same man anymore. Now that he knows the truth about me, and the other things my mother was keeping from him, I don’t think he cares what happens to me; he’s allied himself with Division 4 now. He’s the one who locked me in here.”

  Finally, I have given Dori a piece of information that surprises him. He looks confused, but also a bit angry, even though my problems really have nothing to do with him. If anything, I should be the one who’s mad at my father, but I can’t find it in myself to hate him – just like I still love my mother, even after all of the things she hid from me and the rift she created between our family.

  The door opens before either of us can say another word, and I’m thankful for the excuse to stop talking. I don’t want to think about the things I’ve just learned, so I put them aside and focus on my goal: to get out of this prison and find my brother. Fray is all I have left now that I can no longer rely on my father, and the rest of my real family is dead. My little brother is all that matters to me anymore, and if it weren’t for him, I would probably just give up and let the Digits do whatever they want to me.

  But Fray is my responsibility, and I’ve already let him down in more ways than I can count. I can’t do that to him again.

  Flynn steps cautiously into the room, quietly pushing the door closed behind her. Dori looks up at her hopefully for a moment, before he sees her expression and his face falls. She smiles wanly in my direction, but her eyes are narrowed and her entire body is radiating tension. I know before she speaks that something has gone wrong, but I still pr
ay with everything I have that she’s here to deliver some good news, too.

  Not surprisingly, my hopes are meaningless.

  “They’re coming,” she whispers as she approaches us, her hand already clasped around the grip of her gun. “I think they’ve been following you, Dorian. They knew where we would be.”

  Suddenly, an alarm goes off in the distance – a wild shrieking sound that echoes through the building and claws at the insides of my ears. I can barely hear anything over the deafening noise, but Flynn and Dori are standing just close enough to me that I can catch most of what they’re saying to each other.

  “What does the siren mean?” Dori asks. “Are they already here?”

  Flynn shakes her head, but her expression is grim. “No, but they’ve reached the gates. Our soldiers should be able to hold them back for a little while, but I don’t know how we’re going to get out without being noticed now.”

  “What soldiers? There were barely even a dozen guards at the gate when I came through!”

  “Rin has a back-up plan, but I was hoping she would never have a chance to use it. We need to get out of here before that happens.”

  Finally, I speak up, shouting over the sirens with my hands covering my ears. I can’t hear more than the echo of what I’m saying, but thankfully Dori and Flynn understand.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, turning my attention back and forth between the two of them. “What does that noise mean?”

  Flynn and Dori look at each other for a moment, and I know they’re trying to figure out how much they are going to tell me. If my head didn’t hurt so much, I would yell at them to stop keeping secrets from me like everyone else has been, but I’m too tired to do anything but wait and listen.

  “Division 6 is here,” Flynn finally answers. “They’re just outside of the gates, but they’ve brought enough of their army that they’ll be through in no time. Rin has a last-resort plan for dealing with them, but unfortunately, that puts us right in the middle of a war that’s coming to us.”

  “The… the humans,” I begin uneasily; “They’re her army?”

  Flynn nods, and my heart sinks.

  Chapter thirty-three

  We barely make it past the front door before the first shots are fired. They sound off in the distance, crackling like lightning, and I turn several times to look for their source. There are buildings all around us, but from the outside they look deserted; towards the edge of town I can just barely make out a thin layer of white rising up from behind a row of houses, and I know that this must be the wall that separates Division 4 from the rest of the world. It stretches on infinitely, until I can’t see more than a trace of it over a few rooftops, and the patch of fence nearest to us is rattling with gunfire.

  Flynn tries to pass her gun to Dori, but he refuses to take it. I think that with Division 6 so close, he trusts himself even less not to use it against us.

  A pack containing all of my spare clothes and Fray’s teddy bear is slung across my shoulders, and Dori’s holster and gun are at my hip. My hand gravitates towards the weapon, but I stop myself before I can touch it. I’ve promised myself that I will only shoot out of self-defense, and that I won’t take any lives with my gun if it can be avoided.

  “There’s a building a few blocks away that contains an underground exit underneath the wall,” Flynn says, making her way slowly down the street and speaking as softly as she can over the gunfire. “It is protected by a code known only to those of us who have proven our loyalty to the humans; I doubt anyone in Division 4 even knows of its existence. And Dorian, I am afraid I can’t entrust you with the code. You must understand why.”

  Dori nods, but his body is tense. Flynn is leading is, and I am walking beside Dori behind her. I wonder if Holden’s death was a test of his loyalty, but I don’t think that it’s fair if it was. Dori had no control over his own body; none of what happened back then was his fault.

  Sometimes I see a flicker of humanity behind his eyes, and it makes my heart ache. I know that he must be fighting with everything he has to keep his human side in control, but he’s just as aware as we all are of what he really is. He can never go back to the life he had – none of us can.

  We are almost halfway to our destination when the gates shudder open, sending a metallic screeching noise over our heads. Flynn beckons Dori and I to join her behind a low building that looks more like a cottage than a house; we duck down and peer out from around the corner just as the first scream tears through the air.

  I watch silently as a hoard of humans, each bearing their own sets of weaponry and makeshift armor, pile out of Rin’s building and line up at the entrance to the wall as the soldiers of Division 6 pour through. The first human to be killed is a woman; she’s young – probably only a year or two older than I am – and when she runs to the front of the line with her gun in her hand she is shot in the forehead before she can even raise her weapon. The scream comes from another young woman a few pace behind her, and it is so piteous and desperate that I put my hands over my ears in an attempt to block it out.

  What happens next can only be described as carnage.

  A few of the humans get lucky and manage to shoot their Digit enemies in the right place to kill or at least disable them, but I can tell just from watching that these people have not been trained to fight in a war. They barely even know how to hold their guns, let alone shoot them, and yet they charge into battle like they’ve been waiting their entire lives to die in vain.

  Blood spatters all over the ground and the walls of the nearest buildings – the Digits aim for the humans’ heads and hearts, and they rarely miss. Within the ranks, I notice several people I knew at the compound in Division 6, but now their bodies are healed and their eyes are cold; they don’t even hesitate a moment before pulling the trigger. These are the same people I ate meals with, went through my horrible training regime alongside, bonded with to keep myself sane when I had no one else.

  But what strikes me the hardest is the little girl I first saw on the train ride to camp; she had looked so small and fragile then, and she reminded me so much of Fray that it hurt. And now I watch her slide between the other Digits to the front of the line and shoot an old man right between the eyes without so much as even flinching.

  I think of Fray doing the same thing, slaughtering an entire Division without any remorse, and I realize something. Flynn grabs my arm and tries to pull me away, but I hold my ground and watch as dozens of human beings are torn to pieces and trampled over a war that means nothing. Suddenly, I understand something that churns my stomach so badly I lean over and heave on the cement, gasping for breath.

  It occurs to me that Rin never intended to win this war. She wasn’t healing these people so that they could be her soldiers – if she had been, she would have made them into Digits like Division 6 did, or at least taught them how to fight well enough to stand a chance. No, she knew they were all going to die, and she let Division 6 through the gates anyway. She wanted them to be slaughtered.

  Dori was right – Rin really does want to eliminate the human race. As far as she knows, I’m locked away safely inside of the only building Division 6 can’t touch, and she can use me to create a new race that will replace all of the human experiments she’s losing. It doesn’t matter to her whether her entire Division is destroyed, as long as her goal is achieved in the end.

  And it will be if I don’t get out of here before she realizes I’m missing.

  I pull my eyes away from the battle, but I still can’t block out the screams and the gunshots. I remember the same sounds the night my mother died, and again when I was forced to watch simulations of my little brother being murdered; but, somehow, this moment feels worse than any of those. I don’t know if it’s the number of people who are dying, or the reason for their deaths, but I know that I’ll never be able to shake the feeling I have right now, and I almost wish that I could just shut my feelings down like the Digits can.

  “Eve, come on. We have t
o hurry.”

  Dori’s voice pulls me back to reality, and I remember in an instant the exact reason why I don’t want to become a Digit.

  I shake my head to clear my thoughts and turn my entire body away from the carnage. Flynn begins walking away without a word, and Dori motions silently for me to follow her. I notice that Dori’s footsteps are hesitant, like he’s fighting against a magnet that’s trying to pull him backwards, and I realize that Division 6 must have found out that he’s here.

  We make our way along the sides of the buildings, crouching low to keep out of sight, but there’s no one outside to see us anyway. I’m guessing that most of the Digits and all of the humans of this Division are by the gates fighting, but there should at least be a few guards stationed along the fence. I feel uneasy thinking about what that might mean.

  I clutch the strap of my backpack tightly in one hand and keep the other over my gun. My heart is racing like my body knows something that my brain hasn’t quite processed yet, and my hands begin to sweat so badly I have to wipe them off on my pants as I walk.

  Flynn is walking so fast that I have to quicken my own pace to keep up with her, but I notice after a couple of minutes that Dori is trailing behind us.

  “Flynn?” I ask as quietly as I can, just in case one of the buildings we pass happens to not be as vacant as it seems. “Can we slow down for a little bit? I don’t feel so well.”

  Part of me is telling the truth – I really don’t feel very good, with my stomach emptied on the ground and my ears throbbing with the echoes of people dying – but the other part of me wants to make sure Dori is okay. I know he’s not feeling the same things I am about the war raging around us, but he’s got his own battle going on inside of his body. I don’t even know how he’s managed to keep control for as long as he has.

  I slow my pace until I’m walking next to him. He doesn’t look at me, his eyes focused forward, but his hands are balled tightly into fists at his sides.

 

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