by Dunn, Pintip
His chest puffs out. “What can I say? I have what they call ‘universal appeal.’”
“In the final third, the technicians, male and female, seem to find him about as appealing as lab mice. Not only do we fail miserably in filching the syringes, but they also report us to the chairwoman.”
Tanner’s mouth opens and closes. “But I like lab mice,” he protests. “And so does Jessa.” He fiddles with her collar. “You think lab mice are cute, don’t you, Jess?”
She slaps his hand away. “Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” She turns to me. “Are those odds…good?”
I shrug. “About as good as we’re going to get.”
She releases a long breath. “Let’s do it. I just hope we get a syringe before Callie’s entire arm disappears.”
32
We tunnel our way through the crowd. Again and again, people turn, mouths open and eyes slit, ready to condemn us for cutting. But then, they see our uniforms—at least mine and Tanner’s and Jessa’s, since Ryder’s still wearing his gray jumpsuit—and they face forward once again. No one wants to risk being pulled out of line by a FuMA official when they’re so close to the front.
Still, it takes us nearly fifteen minutes to reach the first conference room. Along the way, we decide that, instead of accompanying us inside, Ryder should procure us some weapons—just in case. He peels off as we reach the conference room, and I say a quick prayer to the Fates for both our successes.
We walk into an open area that’s been divided into twenty cubicles. A female FuMA employee stands at the front, directing traffic, while technicians sit at wide tables holding disinfectant guns and covered racks of what I assume are needles. The last round of patients has just emptied out of the room, and the scent of blood and alcohol envelops me.
Tanner gives the FuMA employee his best smile. “I’m Tanner Callahan.” His tone is as warm and decadent as melted caramel. “You might know me as the scientist who discovered future memory.”
“Of course!” the lady coos. She may have zapped the wrinkles from her skin and tinted her eyelids a cloudless sky blue, but she still gives off a distinct grandmotherly vibe. “I’m Elsa. I’ve been hoping to catch a glimpse of you ever since I started working here.” She runs her gaze over him, from his floppy black hair to the high-top hover shoes, in a survey that is anything but maternal. “I must say. I didn’t expect you to be quite so…young.”
“That’s the great thing about scientists who play with time travel. I can be any age you want me to be,” he says with a wink.
Elsa giggles. “Aren’t you adorable? Tell me, do they make Tanner Assemblers? I could eat you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Jessa makes a gagging sound in her throat. I step on her foot, and she turns it into a cough. This is good. Elsa’s use of the word “adorable” cues me that we’re on one of the successful pathways.
“Listen, can you do me a favor?” Tanner leans forward conspiratorially. “As you know, I work closely with the chairwoman.” He gestures at us. “These ladies are her personal assistant and her daughter. She sent us down to grab a few syringes from each batch, so that she can test them for quality control. You know how important this project is to her, and she wants to ensure personally that the formula is effective.”
Elsa doesn’t hesitate. “Of course, of course.” She turns and claps her hands above her head. “Listen up, techies! This is Tanner Callahan, the Father of Future Memory. He’s here to retrieve a few needles from each station, under Chairwoman Dresden’s orders. Got that?”
She faces forward again, muttering under her breath, “The Father of Future Memory? Limbo, he can father my babies.”
I blink. Did she actually say that? I turn toward Jessa, and she nods, as if reading my mind. Yes, she certainly did.
Wow. Either Elsa’s suffering from an episode, or Tanner’s more charming than I thought.
Jessa and I head to the cubicles. This is almost too easy. We don’t have to resort to physical subterfuge or sleight of hand. They’re just handing us the syringes.
I walk down the row, collecting three amber-colored syringes from each table. When I reach the final station, however, a prickling on my scalp makes me turn around. Elsa’s no longer flirting with Tanner. Instead, she’s speaking into her wrist com, a crease between her eyebrows.
My stomach sloshes uneasily, and I reach into her future. Three things happen at once. Her pathways flip through my mind, fully intact for once. A couple of burly FuMA guards burst into the room. And Tanner cups a hand around his mouth and yells, “Run, Jessa! Run, Livvy! Run!”
Run? Aw, Limbo. I should’ve reached into the future sooner. Because Elsa’s approaching me now, flanked by two guards carrying electro-whips, not looking remotely grandmotherly.
I grab Jessa’s arm. “A technician’s about to lurch up and barrel right into Elsa’s path. She’ll shriek, throw up her hands, and smack both of the guards in the face. That’s our opening.”
We head toward them, and sure enough, in three seconds, the scene plays out just as I foresaw. I duck right and Jessa ducks left. Half a minute later, we join Ryder and Tanner in the atrium.
“Now what?” I pant.
In response, Ryder places an electro-whip directly in my hands.
33
We start sprinting.
Shouts lob over our heads like frantic volleyballs, and there’s a blur of motion in my peripheral vision.
“Where did you get this?” I yell at Ryder, holding the weapon as gingerly as possible, given that I’m running. I don’t think I’ve touched an electro-whip in my life, much less used one. And I really don’t want to start now.
“I raided the artillery cage while you were in the conference room,” Ryder says.
That’s when I notice they all have electro-whips, and their hands are wrapped much more confidently around the shafts than mine.
“Set it to low,” Jessa pants. “You’ll immobilize the guards for a few minutes, but you won’t hurt them.”
I nod, trying to focus my thoughts. This is it. The scene I foresaw as a child: Jessa and me, fighting side by side. In some pathways, we used electro-whips. In others, we wielded stun guns or employed force-field walls. In none of them did we sit around and drink tea.
We make our way through the atrium, moving against the current of people. As difficult as it is to trip over feet and bump into shoulders, there’s a certain security in the crowd. Once we emerge into the corridor, just the four of us and a long empty stretch of tile, my heart shoots into hyperdrive. Our protective shield is gone, and we need to make it down the arena-length space before we can get off this floor.
“Keep the weapons hidden,” Tanner says, perspiration dotting his lip. “We don’t want to use them unless we have to.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
We walk down the hall, as quickly and casually as we can. Our footsteps slap noisily against the tile, and the fumes of grease and short-circuited wiring scent the air. A couple of bot service techs emerge out of a doorway. But because the electro-whips are ensconced inside our jackets and Ryder’s jumpsuit, they merely salute us and continue on their way.
Once we reach the double doors, we hit our first decision point.
“The moving ladder is not as fast, but the elevator capsule gives them a chance to ambush us.” Jessa flicks the hair out of her face. “Olivia? I know your precognition’s blurry, but any insight?”
I bite my lip. “I don’t want to give you the wrong information.”’
She raises her eyebrows. “The guards are hunting us down as we speak. We have to get to Callie before they capture us.”
“Okay.” I close my eyes, concentrating. “Moving ladders. That’s my best guess. But take out your electro-whips. Just in case.”
We pull out our weapons and exit through the double doors into the ladder well. Two mechanical ladders are strung in the center of the well, one rolling up, the other rolling down. Every rung is equipped with hand grip
s and a small ledge. A pre-Boom staircase winds around the ladders, although it is primarily used by the mechanics for repairs.
First Jessa and then Tanner leap onto the moving ladder, slipping their hands into the leather grips. The double doors fly open and a swarm of FuMA guards bursts inside.
Limbo, Limbo, Limbo. I guessed wrong, once again.
“They’re here! They’re here!” Ryder shouts up to Tanner and Jessa.
“On the next floor, too,” Jessa calls down. “They’ve got us surrounded.”
“Electro-whips on!” Tanner commands.
I switch on my weapon, and for a moment, that low hum of electricity paralyzes me.
“Start swinging, Olivia,” Ryder yells, his wrist already snapping and retracting. “Now, while we still have the chance.”
He’s right. The guards didn’t expect to see us in the ladder well, and they’re fumbling at their waists for weapons. The next few seconds will be determinative.
Above me, slashes of electricity crackle and flash as Jessa and Tanner battle with the guards on the next level. Without giving myself a chance to think, I snap my wrist. The electricity arcs through the air and strikes a guard in the chest. He crumples to the floor. My stomach twists, but I can’t dwell on it. I can’t.
I crack my wrist again. And again. Beside me, the wave of lightning above Ryder’s head goes wild. More guards fall.
And then, a meaty guy emerges into my focus, his mouth set and his features stern. Instinct has me reaching into his pathways. The futures rush through my mind, sharp and clear. I have no idea why I can see some pathways and not others—but I don’t have time to dwell on it. I foresee a ray of electricity whipping through the air and winding around my ankle. One sharp tug, and I’m falling, falling. Wrenched from the ladder and dropped into the seemingly bottomless well below.
No. Not if I have anything to do with it.
I jump as the lightning flashes through the air, and the electro-whip just misses my ankle. Father of Time, it misses. I want to weep, but when my feet land back on the rungs, they slip, and I’m sliding along the ladder, falling anyway.
“Ryyyyydderrrrrrrr!” I grasp at the metal, trying desperately to stop my descent. But instead of kicking Ryder in the head and knocking him off, I’m slammed against the ladder. The rungs strike me across the chest and stomach, but I’ve stopped falling.
I hug the rungs to me, panting. And then I realize that the hard wall of Ryder’s chest is pressed against my back. How he caught me, I don’t know. And I don’t really care.
I glance up, and Ryder’s dark eyes peer at me. “Are you okay?” he asks, his tone laced with concern.
A level flashes by. The ladder we’re clinging to is still moving, oblivious to the battle taking place. Above us, I can make out Jessa’s strong calves. Tanner looks down and shoots us a thumbs-up sign. Below, the bodies of the guards lie prone on the platforms of two separate levels. One or two of them begin stirring, but it’s too late. The ladder has already carried the four of us out of reach.
This battle is over.
A smile splits my cheeks. “I’m perfect,” I say to Ryder.
34
A few minutes later, we barge into room B-273. Medical equipment lines the walls, and a see-through Callie is convulsing on a bed in the middle of the room. Two medics in scrubs, with masks over their noses and mouths, stand around her, but they’re not doing anything to help her. Instead, they’re tapping notes into their wrist coms, while Callie’s body arches off the mattress.
She’s gasping, and her eyes roll wildly in her head. Her arm below her elbow is gone, and she’s writhing as if each of her cells is being chiseled off, one by one.
I suck in a breath, bringing my hand to my chest. Somehow, I never imagined this. Somehow, I never considered that it would be painful to vanish from this time stream, bit by bit.
As though preplanned, Tanner and Ryder each approach a medic, shoving them away from the bed.
“Hey, you can’t be in here!” one of them shouts. “This is a restricted area—” He falls silent as Ryder presses the handle of the electro-whip into his chest.
Jessa runs to her sister, lines of determination etched into her forehead. Ignoring the seizing and the pants, she stabilizes Callie’s good arm and injects the amber-colored syringe into the inner side of her elbow.
For a moment, Callie stiffens, and then her body goes limp—her legs, her whole arm, even the arm that’s half gone. She moans, but it is a sound of relief, as though the pain has finally lifted.
Jessa crawls onto the bed beside her sister, cradling her torso. “Oh Callie,” she sobs. “I’m here, Callie. I’m here. You’re going to be okay.”
“Jessa?” Callie looks up at her sister, her eyes glazed. “Is that really you?”
“We’re never going to be apart, ever again,” Jessa says fiercely.
And then, I hear the distinct sounds of heels clicking against the tile. As it has my entire life, my stomach drops.
Before I can shout a warning, the door whooshes open, and the chairwoman stalks into the room.
Ryder and Tanner are otherwise preoccupied, so I switch on my electro-whip and advance toward my mother.
“Don’t, Olivia,” she says softly. Her chignon, which is normally so tight, wobbles dangerously. Any moment now, the entire up-do will come down. Her jacket is off; her shirt is untucked. This is my mother like I’ve never seen her. “A battalion of guards waits outside this room, ready to move in at my signal. I have even more guards on standby. You’re not going to be able to fight your way out of this one.”
Through the window, I see dozens of guards standing at the ready, hands clasped behind their backs. More than the number in the ladder well. More than the four of us will be able to take on, especially now that we have an injured party to protect.
She’s right. The electro-whip droops in my hand. As she likes to tell me, the chairwoman is always and unequivocally right.
She sweeps around the room, looking at her personal assistant, Jessa, and one of her head scientists, Tanner. But she ends up in front of me. Whatever she wants to say, she intends to address me.
“Why must you fight me every step of the way, Olivia?” she asks. “This is my life’s work. I’ve been building toward this goal for years. Every action I took, every thought I had, was for this. I’ve sacrificed my family, I’ve sacrificed my morality—” She stares at Callie’s missing hand, shuddering. The harsh light exaggerates every wrinkle, every crease in her face. “And yet, you continue to thwart me.”
“We had a deal,” I say coldly. “I turn in my friends, in exchange for their pardon and access to all the formula they need. Instead, you decided to throw them in detainment and withhold the medicine from Callie for no good reason.”
She slaps her hand on an end table, and the glass vibrates violently. “There is a good reason. If you were listening to the newsfeed, you would know that. The truth is, the situation’s even more dire than I presented. But that’s the problem with you precogs,” she says, which is wholly unfair, since I’m the only true precognitive of our time. “You discount something just because you can’t foretell it. But don’t you see, Olivia? That was intentional, too. I wanted to protect you from the truth.”
“Protect me?” I scoff. “Mom, I’ve known ever since I was six years old that you were going to commit genocide one day.”
“And look what happened after you saw that vision.” She reaches out her hand, as if to touch my cheek, but more than space separates us. “You isolated yourself, closed yourself off from society. You screamed and screamed whenever anyone was present—even MK, even Tanner. The only company you would tolerate was the animals’.”
She slides a glance at Tanner, who has an unreadable expression on his face. “You know, I used to have Tanner catch chipmunks in the woods, so that we could let them loose outside your window. Even squirrels made you skittish, but you thought chipmunks were the perfect size. You’d get this big, delighted smil
e every time you glimpsed one.” She stops. “There was a time when I would’ve done anything to see that smile,” she says, almost to herself.
My head feels off-balance, like it doesn’t belong on my body. I look between my mom and my old playmate, not sure whom I’m seeing more differently. I had no idea. I always thought my slice of the woods had a lot of chipmunks, but I never dreamed my mother put them there. Or that she’d ordered Tanner to catch them.
The thought is mind-blowing. Not impossible, of course. In a universe of nearly infinite worlds, anything is possible. Doesn’t mean it’s likely.
“You did that?” I ask Tanner.
“Yes.” A sorrow I don’t understand laces his voice. “But not because she made me. Because I wanted to.”
My mother steps between us, as though she won’t tolerate the attention moving off her. “Enough talking. I hope the four of you have been enjoying one another’s company. Because you’re about to get a lot more of it. You will be escorted to your detainment cells. As for Callie…” She sets her jaw. “She’ll be staying right here. You may have managed to give her one more dose. But all you’ve done is delay the inevitable.”
For a moment, nobody speaks. The barely audible hum of the medical equipment roars in my ears. An overeager guard knocks his head against the window. All around this world, people make decisions that lop off branches of their possible pathways. And still, I’m struggling to comprehend my mother’s words.
We can’t be going to detainment. This can’t be the end of our fight.
And it’s not.
Jessa eases out from behind her sister and lays Callie gently on the bed. Hopping onto the floor, she faces my mother. “Not so fast, Chairwoman.”
35
I gape at Jessa. Around the room, varying degrees of surprise show on Tanner’s, Ryder’s, and the medics’ faces. But no one’s eyes are wider than my mother’s.