by Dunn, Pintip
Our anchor.
Potts.
My father.
My throat convulses as I look at the crimson paint on the shed. Did my mom choose that color deliberately? As a warning for others to stay away? In case the message isn’t clear, a holographic phrase runs around the walls of the shed. Keep out, it says. Keep out. Keep out.
At least it doesn’t echo that loop in my brain, Potts is my father.
A young technician approaches, a good-looking guy with jet black hair and laser-sharp eyes. “You want to see inside?” he asks with a rakish grin.
My mouth parts. “Are we allowed?”’
“We’re not supposed to talk to the anchor, of course. Or bother him in any way. But there’s a window up there, so that he can get some natural light.” He gestures, and I notice a skylight in the roof. The window is a small square, no wider than my forearm.
“Yes,” I say. “I would like to see.”
I’d like to do so much. I’d like to introduce him to Ryder, I’d like to brush the dog hair off his clothes, I’d like to fall into silence as we both get lost in the crackle of the fire, and know, in those moments, that he is my father. We wouldn’t even have to talk. We wouldn’t need to have some big, long conversation acknowledging our relationship. That’s not our way—has never been our way.
That would be enough for me. Just one more moment to be with him, to be in the quiet, steady presence that’s been my core my entire life. To let him know that I’ve found someone who takes away my loneliness. Potts would like that, I think. It’s what he’s always wanted for me.
But I can’t have that final good-bye. Not unless I want to jeopardize the mission for which he’s sacrificed his entire life.
The tech pulls out a portable revolving ladder. He sets it against the side of the shed, and then, he smiles at me. Waiting.
“Ladies first,” he says with a flourish.
Out of politeness, I wrench up the corners of my lips. He’s cute, I guess, if you like the type. But he’s not as tall as Ryder, and he’s not as broad. He doesn’t have that flash of kindness in his eyes, or that magnetic energy that infuses each of Ryder’s movements.
Because, in short, he’s not Ryder.
I hop onto the ladder and stick my hand through the leather hold. The revolution takes me to the top of the shed. I peer into the skylight. And look straight down onto Potts’s thinning hair. He’s walking, back and forth, head down, hands clasped behind his back. Probably meditating.
“I’ve never met anyone so simple in my entire life,” the tech says below me. “He doesn’t want anything; he doesn’t need anything. He’s perfectly content just walking, back and forth, and back and forth. Doing absolutely nothing.”
I grit my teeth. He wasn’t always like that! I want to yell. He made himself that way. Stripped himself of his desires, stripped himself of his family. In order to save you. To save a vestige of the human race.
But I don’t yell, of course, because the tech didn’t mean anything by it. He was just trying to make conversation. Just trying to flirt—and doing a terrible job.
I should probably hit the button so that the revolution takes me back down. Should probably say good-bye and leave my father, for maybe forever. But I can’t rip my eyes from his pacing form.
Unbidden, a memory flashes across my mind.
…
“You don’t have as many chipmunks here as I do back home,” my eight-year-old self says.
“Is that right?” Potts kneels inside the kennel, brushing a bloodhound with a black and tan coat. Ten or so more hounds roam the fenced-in area, waiting their turn, and the smell of wet dog and dusty feed fills my nose.
“Oh yes.” With a rag, I wipe the slobber off the jowls of a dog. “Every morning, I wake up to dozens of them outside my window. My cabin is like a chipmunk magnet. They’re probably attracted to my scent—”
I break off. Does Potts think I’m bragging? I wasn’t trying to brag, but before I was in isolation, if I said something like that at school, the girls would link their arms together, so that not even a fly could buzz through, and whisper, whisper, whisper.
Will Potts turn away, too? Maybe he’ll take the rag out of my hands and tell me I’m not allowed to come back. Maybe he’ll say I can’t help him take care of his hounds anymore.
“I don’t know about that. I doubt they’d be able to smell you through the house.” Gently, he slips a finger under my chin and tilts it up. He’s got loose dog fur on his hands. He’s probably getting it on me, too, but I don’t care. “You know, you look like a chipmunk. Maybe that’s why they come to your house. ’Cause they know they’re in the presence of their own kind.”
“You think so?” I grin.
“Oh sure.” He drops my chin. “Those chubby cheeks? Those big round eyes? They certainly scream chipmunk to me. Tell me something. Do you like acorns?”
“I do,” I say solemnly, although I’m not sure I’ve ever tasted an acorn. It’s not a nut my Meal Assembler dispenses, but as soon as possible, I swear to the Fates I’ll get ahold of one.
“That settles it, then. You’re definitely descended from the chipmunks. Didn’t you say you didn’t know your pop? Maybe he’s the king of the chipmunks. And you’re the princess.”
“I think so!” I clap my hands. It makes a soft, thudding noise, since I’m still holding the slobber rag.
Grinning, Potts attacks the bloodhound’s coat. I return to my work, too, but as I clean the saliva from the dogs’ droopy lips, I’m dreaming of acorn tiaras and chipmunks, of living in a hollowed-out tree trunk with my father.
Potts doesn’t mention my ancestry again, but he doesn’t need to. Because at the end of that visit, and every visit thereafter, I find three perfect acorns on the windowsill. And that’s all the mention I’ll ever need.
…
I blink. I’m on the ladder once again, looking through the skylight at Potts, who is still pacing. Only now do I remember the way his hands lingered on my chin an instant longer than necessary. The sheen of moisture in his eyes before he turned back to the dogs. Details my eight-year-old brain must’ve picked up and filed away, even if I didn’t register them at the time.
Or maybe that’s not what happened at all. Maybe those details were never there, and I’m just remembering the scene the way I want it to have happened.
“Hey, are you going to come down from there?” the tech calls. He glances nervously over his shoulder. “The chairwoman’s not going to be happy if she catches me letting civilians peek at the anchor.”
So he doesn’t recognize me. No surprise there, since I don’t have on my FuMA uniform. But if he assumes I’m a civilian, what does he think I’m doing inside a top-secret warehouse? I guess it doesn’t matter.
“Coming,” I say. But as I start to push the button, I catch a flash of something through the skylight. No. It can’t be. I plaster myself against the window.
I can’t believe it. Maybe I’m not imagining details, after all. Maybe Potts—my father—feels every emotion I’ve attributed to him.
Because there, on a table inside the shed, lay three perfect acorns.
42
“The chairwoman’s set the date. You’re due to show your future memory to the committee tomorrow morning,” Jessa tells me three days later, as we board a pod on our way to the gold-star swim meet. My mom gave Jessa the afternoon off to watch the meet, as well as the use of one of FuMA’s self-driving vehicles. She must’ve mellowed since she struck that bargain with Jessa, or maybe she just feels guilty.
She gave Tanner the same time off, but he refused to go after learning that we were taking a pod. Can’t fault the poor guy. His parents died in a suspicious pod “accident,” after all. But if the chairwoman wanted to kill us, there are far easier methods.
I’m dying to know where Ryder is, to know if he’s going to the swim meet, too. I haven’t seen much of him these past few days. I stopped by my living unit a couple times, but he wasn’t there, and I can�
�t ask Jessa, lest I seem too eager.
“Then the committee’s going to be disappointed,” I say instead, as we settle into our curved eggshell seats. “Precognitives don’t receive future memories because we can already see it all.”
Seat belts fasten over us, and the hatch door seals closed. The pod walls turn transparent, and I can see the glass and metal spires of the FuMA building.
“I know that,” Jessa says as the pod shoots into the sky and finds a lane with more clouds than traffic. Pods zip past us, above and below our lane, so quickly that the passengers are a blur. “But the committee doesn’t. And I think the chairwoman’s still hoping you’ll use a manufactured memory. In fact, she’s scheduled an appointment in the Memory Lab for you this afternoon.”
“I’m not doing it, Jessa. Sorry.” I press my lips together. Three more days. Three more days until my life is over. A lot of good a memory—manufactured or not—will do me then.
But Jessa has no idea about my impending death. She saw Ryder’s future memory, but she doesn’t know about the blank wall in my vision. She doesn’t know I’ve been counting down to May Fourth my entire life.
Exhaling, she looks around the pod as though she hopes to catch sight of a bird. But no winged creature can fly at our speed. “I understand why. But I think you might be looking at this the wrong way.”
The pod dives and swoops over the majestic river, nearly as exhilarating as a ride on a hoverboard, but she doesn’t even blink. “You and I both know that future memories aren’t always an accurate measure of someone’s worth. Take Callie, for example. Her memory showed her as nothing more than a common criminal, and yet, she’s the strongest person I know. You can’t tell me we don’t need someone like Callie in our new world. And yet, she’s dependent on Logan winning today to get on this so-called list.”
The pod tilts again, and I grab the armrests to keep from crushing into Jessa. “What’s so special about this new world that they need all these people with superlative abilities?”
She narrows her eyes. “You mean your mom didn’t tell you?”
“I’m not her assistant, Jessa. She doesn’t tell me everything. Besides, she’s too busy upending everything I know about my life.” I sound so bitter my words taste bad in my mouth.
“Mikey said they don’t know what world they’re walking into,” I continue. “They don’t know what challenges they’ll face, so they need to be prepared for everything.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.” She braces herself as the pod takes another dip. “You see, Livvy, we’re going to a parallel world. Do you understand what that means? Our parallel selves will already be living there! So, we can’t just march into society when we arrive, because then, there would be two of each of us.”
I gasp. She’s right. Two of Callie, two of Jessa, two of Tanner. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.
Two Ryders. Two of his nicely sculpted chest. Two of his powerful physique. Now that’s an appealing thought.
“That’s dangerous!” I say. “What if someone in the parallel world catches sight of the duplicates? They might be killed or locked up on sight!”
“Correct. So we won’t be able to live in the existing society,” she says, “which means we’ll need to carve out our own physical space. A place where we can live as a self-contained society. Where the parallel government might know about us—but has no reason to bother us.”
Something clicks in my mind. “You mean, kind of like the mountain community we have here.”
“Exactly like the mountain community.” She looks at me expectantly, but I don’t get the significance of her word.
She leans forward. “The chairwoman told me that at the very highest levels of the government, there’s been a tacit agreement to not expand into the mountains, so that a community can set roots there, should it want to. To not have any contact with such a community, should one spring up. In essence, to let the mountains function as a safe haven for any refugees from a parallel world.”
I stare. The pod drops to the landing pad on the roof of the gymnasium. The vehicle glides to a stop, the seat belts retract, and the walls turn opaque again. And I continue staring at Jessa.
“But who’s to say that a parallel world would make the same agreement?” I frown. “Wait—unless you’re saying the top officials from the International Council have actually had contact with people from a parallel world? How is that possible when we hadn’t even invented the realm machine yet?” My voice rises. “Are you saying if we go into the mountains right now, we’ll find doubles of ourselves living there?”
A smile tugs at her lips. “Don’t sound so freaked out, Livvy. We’re not talking about aliens from outer space, you know. This is just us, from a different world.”
“I can’t wrap my mind around it.”
She sobers. “To answer your questions, I don’t know. Your mom doesn’t know, either. We don’t know if realm machines have already been invented in other worlds—and if so, when they were invented. We also don’t know if there was actual contact from a parallel world or if this is just a wishful hope that’s been flung out into the universe. That could work, you know. In fact, Tanner’s obsessed with the idea of communicating with our parallel selves by taking action in our present world. There’s a bunch of experiments he wants to do, but…” She moves her shoulders. “That will have to wait.”
I know what she means. A lot of things have had to be put on hold. And once they’re on that shelf, most will never be taken down, ever again.
I let out a long breath. I can’t think about that right now. I can’t worry that three days from now, my visions will come to a complete and abrupt stop. I can’t stress about whether everyone I care about will make it through that window—or if they’ll be left behind to fade away. I can’t even untangle the very layered knots of my mother’s culpability.
Now, more than ever, I just want to seize the day. Because the present may be all I have left.
The hatch of the pod automatically lifts, as it does when we’ve been sitting inside too long. Outside, the sun glares off the concrete roof, as other pods land around us.
“Come on,” I say to Jessa. “Let’s go watch Logan win a gold star.”
43
The swim center reverberates with noise, and the smell of sweat and chlorine clings to the air. A large banner with the words Gold-Star National Meet hangs on the far wall, while swimmers wearing navy caps with gold stars warm up in the pool. The bleachers are bursting with people—waving flags, stomping feet, and chatting with neighbors in ever-increasing voices to be heard above the din.
In the exact center of the stands, in the chairwoman’s personal box, a bunch of FuMA guards sit, along with Jessa’s family—Mikey, Angela, and Remi; Preston and Phoebe; Callie, with her hand solid and intact; and last but certainly not least, Ryder. My knees go weak at the sight of him, and I have to stop myself from running to his side.
I wrench my mind to the spectacle of all these people. Wow. Giving Jessa the afternoon off was uncharacteristic of my mom. But now, she’s given the fugitives the use of a personal box? And provided them with her guards? Why?
Guilt. That’s the only reason I can come up with, and yet, even I don’t completely buy that answer.
Beside me, Jessa quickens her steps. She’s made up with each of her family individually, but that can’t be the same as seeing them all at once. With a final leap, she’s in the box—hugging her parents, laughing with Mikey, kissing Angela on the cheek, and tossing Remi into the air. And then, she faces Callie. For a moment, the two sisters just stare. Then, they crash their arms around each other with so much emotion that it takes my breath away.
“They look so much alike, don’t they?” a voice asks behind me. “Same hair, same eyes, even that same brilliant smile.”
I turn, and it’s Ryder. Of course it’s Ryder, with a hint of laughter behind his solemn eyes, with a ready smirk behind his relaxed lips.
I smil
e hesitantly. I want to leap into his arms, but the truth is, I’m still not sure where we stand. I can’t help but remember the conditions he’s placed on our relationship.
Can you promise me that you’ll never betray me again? he asked. Otherwise, I don’t know what I’ll do. It’ll make me feel like the biggest fool in the world.
My future pathways are blocked now when it comes to Ryder. In fact, there are so many holes in all my visions I’m catching only patches of futures here and there. Doesn’t matter, I suppose. I have three days remaining. What could possibly happen in three days?
And yet…and yet…I have this terrible foreboding. I feel like I’ll do exactly as he fears and betray him.
Limbo, it’s not like I’m planning to break his trust. Fates no. He’s been hurt so much in his life—by his biological parents, by Jessa, by Mikey.
By me.
I’d give so much to keep from hurting him, ever again. But I didn’t plan on betraying him the first two times, either. Those actions came about because I felt like I had no choice. What will happen if I’m faced with a similar situation? Will I decide, once again, to go against this boy who’s become so dear to me?
“I saved you a seat.” Ryder gestures at the velvet chairs, pulling me from my thoughts.
“You mean, you saved us a seat,” I correct. “Jessa and me.”
“No,” he says. “I was thinking specifically of you.”
Our eyes meet, and something moves between us. Something that is at once intangible and concrete. Something indecipherable, and yet something that makes the bond between us flare brighter than ever.
My heart throbs. Oh Fates, it’s these moments that reach inside my heart and squeeze. These moments that make me feel like I’ll do anything to preserve what we have—even if it’s only for three more days.
I swallow hard, and we sit down. That’s when I notice he’s wearing electro-cuffs on both his ankles. I look around, and the rest of Jessa’s family is wearing them, too, with the exception of Remi, probably because they don’t make electro-cuffs that small. Ropes of electricity surround the box, effectively trapping the cuffed people inside. Quickly, I count the number of FuMA guards. One for each fugitive. It can’t be a coincidence.