Isaac didn’t understand. What did she mean that his house was a replica? Where did these tunnels come from? What were all these wires and lights and grates? Where were they going? “Set? What do you mean? How did this passageway get into my house?”
Alessa stopped and faced Isaac, setting her hands on his shoulders. “Isaac, do you remember anything from Paragon? Do you remember the compound or the rebellion or Joe?”
The strange dreams he’d been having popped to his mind, and his memory of kissing Alessa, but he still didn’t know how they fit in with what he was seeing. “I… I’m not sure. Sometimes I have dreams about a man who looks like me but older… we’re always sneaking about, and I feel afraid but excited.”
Alessa smiled encouragingly. “That’s Joe. Joe is your older brother.”
“But I don’t have a brother. Just my little sister, Josephine.”
Alessa shook her head. “Josephine’s not really your sister, Isaac. You’re confused, but it’s not your fault – that’s exactly what they want. It’s really 2114, almost two hundred years later than you’ve been led to believe, and this house and this farm are all part of an elaborate set for a show. You and I – and Joe – were rebels fighting against a secret government that was exploiting everyone we knew. We were captured and imprisoned, and they used some kind of mind control to erase our memories and give us new ones.”
Isaac took a step back and just shook his head. No, this couldn’t be true…
Alessa grasped his hands before he could move out of reach and gripped them tightly. “Listen to me, Isaac. You know all of this already. You just have to remember.” She stepped closer to him and spoke softly, never dropping his eyes. “I know what you’re going through. The same thing happened to me. I thought I was a college student in the 21st century until my best friend revealed that it was all fake. She was my sister, Isaac, and I didn’t even realize it.” She paused. “But Janie managed to infiltrate the show and now she’s working with the rebels to help us escape.”
Isaac stopped backing away, but he still couldn’t process all of this. It sounded familiar, like the plot of a story he’d read a long time ago and forgotten about, but he just couldn’t seem to remember what had happened.
“Isaac, we have to keep moving. Just try your best to remember.”
Alessa continued to guide him through the tunnels, checking the map every so often. Isaac’s head was spinning, but somehow he knew that Alessa was telling the truth. He willed himself to remember, but to no avail. It just wasn’t coming back to him.
After a few minutes of trailing Alessa through the corridor, he could hear a commotion back by the entrance. It sounded like someone was trying to bang down the door, but he and Alessa were too far away to see if they’d been successful yet. Alessa threw one hurried glance over her shoulder and pressed forward ever faster.
A moment later she stopped abruptly, peering from the map to the wall on her left. She reached up and began pulling at the grate above her head. With a ping, it pulled loose and Isaac could see a small chute stretching away from the hole in the wall, barely big enough to crawl through.
Alessa folded the map and shoved it deep into her pocket. “It’s a ventilation shaft. We’ll need to follow it to a nearby surveillance room where we can switch to another route that will bring us to the sewer.” She reached up and shimmied into the hole, bracing her legs against the wall for support. Isaac followed her lead and climbed in after her.
Once in the shaft, she passed the grate she’d removed from the wall to Isaac and he fit it back in place with a pop. Then Alessa led the way through a few turns and out through another grate into a small room with hundreds of illuminated panels lining the walls.
She checked the lock on the door and pulled out her map once more. Glancing at the glowing screens, Isaac saw images of his house – the barn, the kitchen, his study. At first he thought they were well-lit photographs, until he saw a group of men in dark heavy armor beating down the door to the foyer closet. Isaac realized they were tiny motion picture screens, somehow showing the current state of the various rooms of his house. In the parlor, he saw his parents and Josephine lying motionless on the floor. He peered closer at the screen to confirm what he’d seen and gasped. “No!”
Alessa dropped the map and jumped to his side. “Isaac, it’s okay! I’m sure they’re all right – for some reason the producers have seemed reluctant to kill anyone, so they just use gas to make the actors pass out. That’s why those guards are wearing masks.”
Isaac’s chest was pounding, but he tried to calm down. Breathing heavily, he demanded, “Who are those people? And why did you say my family were actors?”
Alessa sighed wearily. “Well, they’re not actors by choice. They’re like us – rebels, or maybe just people who were unlucky enough to come across something they weren’t supposed to see. Either way, they were taken prisoner and their memories wiped, then they were assigned to this show as your family.”
“This show?”
“It’s all a TV drama, Isaac. The producers did their best to wipe our minds clean, then whatever they couldn’t get rid of – our feelings for each other, for example – they worked into the plot.”
“I don’t understand…”
“It’s because they needed to keep everyone subdued. They use the shows and the drugs in our food to keep us oblivious and content so we’ll keep working, thinking that we’re all doing our part to rebuild society together. But someone else is running the show, and they’re using us without our knowledge. That’s why we joined the rebellion. To fight, for ourselves and for everyone in Paragon. Is any of this ringing a bell?”
As Alessa filled in the blanks, Isaac could feel something shifting within him. A rush of images exploded into his vision and a searing burst of pain zapped from one end of his brain to the other. He collapsed to the ground in agony as his neurons re-stitched themselves and a flood of memories came rushing back all at once.
He could hear Alessa calling his name, but she sounded distant, her voice merely an echo beyond the cacophony raging in his mind. Suddenly, everything she’d said made sense.
He remembered the war and the outbreak, sheltering with his brother in the government quarantine zone after their mother and father had succumbed to the virus. A wave of guilt flooded over him – their deaths had been his fault. As an unplanned child born to a working class family, Isaac had always carried the burden of taking from the rest of his family, of knowing he was just one more mouth to feed. And then during the outbreak, he had been their undoing. Isaac’s father had gone out to find food after their stores ran out, and came back with the virus. His mother caught it, and within days they were gone. Then it was just Isaac and Joe.
He and his brother had somehow resisted the virus and made it to the quarantine zone, and after years without contact from the outside world, they’d joined their fellow refugees in deciding to start fresh. They’d christened their new society Paragon, a name to embody the spirit of equality that would underscore the sharing and mutual commitment that would define their community. Isaac and Joe had received their daily work assignments, ate their rations, watched the nightly dramas, and finally they had begun to settle in to their new lives.
And then Joe had come home one day babbling about drugs, and everything had changed. After Joe had restricted Isaac’s diet, Isaac realized that he hadn’t been thinking clearly for months. Together he and his brother had joined the secret rebellion. And then a mission had gone wrong – Isaac’s mistake, for which he would never forgive himself – and Joe was gone.
After that, Isaac had resolved that Joe’s loss would not be in vain. That conviction, and Alessa, were all he’d had left. As the only person who had loved Joe as much as he had, Alessa had become his rock, his constant companion and an ally in the war against whatever sinister forces were guiding Paragon’s rule. And then they’d been captured during a crucial mission, separated in jail, subjected to endless torture, and Isaac had prepare
d himself to leave this life altogether, alone.
But then he’d woken up as a different person, a teenager again, on a pastoral farm in a simpler, more peaceful time. As Isaac Mason of 1917, he’d never quite felt like he belonged. He’d always known that something was missing from his life, and had carried a deep sense of guilt that he was, or would be, somehow responsible for his family’s ruin. At the time, he had thought it was because he’d always yearned to leave the farm, abandoning the family business and leaving his sister behind. But he now understood that those feelings were a part of him, etched into his bones, and nothing that anyone or any technology could ever erase.
In the real world, a sinking depression had threatened to overtake Isaac as he struggled to accept his family’s fate and his own entrapment in Paragon. But just as Alessa’s specter had been the only catalyst to help the Isaac of 1917 focus on the present, her supportive presence in Paragon had provided the real Isaac with a reason to exist. And now she’d come back for him, to save him from the awful fate of living a life that was not his own, under the control of the exploitive Ruling Class who saw him and everyone else only as pawns for their manipulation.
Isaac Mason of 1917 was gone now, and in 2114, Isaac was a child no more. He may only have been a boy of 16 when he passed through what would become Paragon’s gates, but he was a man of 24 now, a soldier. And with Alessa by his side, he would do everything in his power to avenge his brother, and finally prove his worth to his parents.
Isaac shivered remembering how readily his mind had slipped into 1917 without a single look back. It must have been months since then; Isaac’s stomach tensed at the thought of all the time they’d lost. It was time now to finish their mission.
Isaac groaned as the rush of memories subsided. He reached out to Alessa, who was kneeling beside him, and croaked a weary, “I remember.”
Alessa flung herself over his chest, breathing a sob of joy as she circled her arms tightly around him. “Oh, Isaac.” After a long embrace, she sat up and cupped his face gently in her hands. With a bright smile, Alessa stared deeply into Isaac’s eyes, her words infused with relief. “You’re back.”
33. BETRAYAL
Despite Isaac’s irresistible sapphire eyes, Alessa was having trouble training her vision on his face. Still woozy from whatever the producers had used to knock her out for transport to Isaac’s set, she was struggling to focus her mind on anything at all. It was a miracle she’d even made it this far.
But now Isaac – her Isaac – was finally back.
Alessa’s body buzzed as she leaned in, hastening the moment when their lips would finally meet after so many months apart. They pressed together, their kiss releasing a dizzy burning that radiated throughout Alessa’s being, taking her breath away.
For the first time in over a year, Alessa felt whole once again. She clutched the wall behind her for support as lightheadedness descended over her, born from the intensity of the turmoil Isaac’s touch had induced. She ran her fingers roughly through his thick hair and concentrated on pouring every ounce of her longing into the kiss.
As they broke apart from their embrace, Alessa struggled to steady herself. She could see from Isaac’s dazed expression that the kiss had shaken him as well. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, a contented smile on his face.
Alessa gathered up the map from the floor and caught her breath as she allowed Isaac to rest for a few more moments. Having just regained his memories, Alessa knew from experience that it would be some time before Isaac could really process everything he’d been through. In the meantime, she would have to take responsibility for leading them to safety.
As the sound of the guards’ voices drew nearer, she was forced to interrupt his repose. Shaking Isaac’s shoulder gently, she whispered an urgent plea. “Isaac. I know you’re exhausted, but we have to get going. They’re getting closer.”
Isaac moaned and nodded, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. Alessa crawled to a second ventilation shaft on the floor opposite the one they’d entered through and dug her nails under the edge to pop it from the wall. With a quick glance behind her to make sure that Isaac was following, she slid on her stomach into the narrow chute.
Shimmying on her belly, Alessa felt her way in the darkness through the path that the map had laid out. She and Isaac moved as quietly as they could, keeping their hushed discussion to a minimum. Finally they arrived at a vent that opened onto a large room. It was marked on the map as the most direct route for crossing into another series of tunnels which would lead to the sewer.
Alessa carefully peered through the grate to check that the room was clear. It was fairly well lit, and all Alessa could see from her position at the base of the wall were some empty desks and chairs a few yards away. For a moment she thought she’d seen a quick movement – a shadow maybe – but when nothing else stirred after two minutes of waiting, she decided she must have imagined it.
Using her elbow, she swung through the cramped space into the grate. It popped out of the wall and clattered across the tile floor. Alessa paused, listening for any signs that the disturbance had been heard, but there were none. She reached through the hole and started drawing herself out into the room.
It was only when she was halfway through the opening that she realized her mistake.
Alessa heard a soft click to her left and her heart dropped to her stomach. She wasn’t alone. Slowly looking over her shoulder, Alessa was horrified to find four guards in heavy black armor with guns pointed in her direction.
The nearest one snarled a quiet, “Freeze.”
Adrenaline surging through her body, Alessa knew her only chance was escape. “Isaac, run!” she screamed, simultaneously shoving herself back into the shaft.
But the guards were too quick. The nearest one swiftly reached into the shaft and snatched up the end of the long ponytail that trailed behind her. He pulled hard to drag her out of the tunnel.
Alessa flipped onto her back and clutched for the knife hidden at her waist, withdrawing it from its sheath and jabbing at the guard’s wrist. The blade glanced off his armor uselessly. She aimed again for his hand, but the sharp blade was unable to penetrate his tightly-woven protective glove.
Alessa fought the urge to panic as she felt her body inching out of the chute. Isaac had grabbed on to her ankles, but in his shaken state, he was unable to do much more than slow the guard’s progress. Alessa could feel her skin starting to lift away from her skull, strands of hair ripping from her scalp and dropping to the floor beside her as the guard tugged with all his might. Then suddenly, she knew what to do.
Alessa positioned her knife at the base of her scalp, swinging skyward as the razor-sharp blade sheared through her hair in one swift motion. And just like that, she was free.
As she slid back into the shaft, she saw the guard stagger backward, knocking into the three behind him as they all lost their footing like toppling dominos.
“Go, go, go!” she shouted to Isaac as they retreated into the depths of the tunnel.
Once they were safely away from the opening and hidden beyond an erratic set of turns in the dark chute, Isaac gasped for air as he looked to Alessa for a report. “What happened back there?”
Alessa tried to catch her breath as she replied. “They… were waiting for us. I don’t know… it was like… they knew.”
All of a sudden it dawned on Alessa. They did know, and there was only one way they could have. Someone had leaked their escape route to the producers; there was a traitor within the rebels. “No…” she whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
Alessa felt sick as she considered what her realization meant. First of all, she and Isaac obviously could no longer follow their planned route to the exit, that much was for sure. But that problem wasn’t insurmountable – assuming that their map was accurate, they should be able to find another path.
More concerning was the fact that Janie was in the middle of executing her own escape, and Alessa had planned to
meet up with her at the exit to the sewer. If the guards knew where Alessa was headed, would they set up an ambush there as well? Alessa shuddered. There was no way to send a warning to her sister.
Isaac sensed her trepidation. “What is it, Alessa?”
“There’s a traitor… Someone told the producers where to expect us. And now Janie…” she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
Isaac’s eyes grew wide and his breathing quickened. He whispered urgently. “Alessa, what?”
Alessa opened her eyes and stared ahead blankly, a numb look on her face. “She was supposed to meet us at the exit.”
Isaac grasped the implications immediately. “Oh, no. She’s going to walk right into their trap.”
Alessa broke down as she nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.
After all this, all they had survived together – the war, the outbreak, life in Paragon, the drama – she was finally going to lose her sister. Alessa couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Anything she did would be futile. She was powerless.
The hope drained from Alessa, left her empty and hollow. She would lose them all, one by one, everyone she cared about. It was only a matter of time before they got Isaac, too. And then what would she have left? What would be the point of any of it? Why should she even bother?
Alessa was no hero, she knew that now. It had been fun, for a time, to put on the rebel’s shoes, to play at subterfuge and revolt, to feel for a moment that she could make a difference. But when it came down to it, she was only just a girl. How could she ever have thought that she could change things?
Isaac clutched Alessa’s hand. “Alessa. Alessa, look at me.”
Alessa sighed heavily, her head slumping towards her chest, her entire body collapsing inward. There was nothing to do now but wait, wait to be caught and put back on another show in another place. This time, she would stay there. Anything was better than here. Maybe they might even kill her, just end it all.
What Tomorrow May Bring Page 143