by Pintip Dunn
My pulse races. My head pounds. It’s all I can do to stand with my spine perfectly rigid, my hands clasped behind my back, as I’ve been instructed.
The perfect soldier. Or assassin.
A woman with brown hair and golden highlights steps around me and approaches the chained girl. After a few moments, the woman moves away again.
“On this fourth day of May, do you have any final words?” a voice intones from the stadium seats.
The girl straightens her shoulders and begins to speak. My ears start humming, a low, insistent buzzing that fills the entire capacity of my mind.
A few minutes later, she finishes. I step forward, catching a few glimpses of her face through her hair. A curve of her cheek. The corner of her lips.
As I pass, the brown-haired woman hands me a clear rectangular case, holding a single syringe. I remove the needle and hold it to the light. A clear liquid flows inside.
“Forgive me,” I whisper. And then I inject the syringe right into the middle of the girl’s chest.
Her limbs begin to convulse, her arms, her legs, her knees, her elbows—all with a life of their own.
The next few seconds pass in a blur. Sweat breaks out all over my body, the thoughts ricocheting inside my mind like ignited fireworks. Someone talks, but I can’t process the words. I respond, but I don’t know what I say.
When the girl collapses to her knees, I move forward to break her fall.
Her body goes limp, as though all her muscles have turned to liquid. I lay her on the ground.
I move the girl’s hair, and finally, finally her features come into view. Her lips are relaxed, and her eyes are closed.
Olivia Dresden. The chairwoman’s daughter. Dead. Just as the entire arena hoped.
4
The arena fades. The feel of the girl’s hair—my hair—disappears, replaced by the sharp bite of my nails digging into my palm. My lungs contract, as though they’re learning how to breathe again, and my heart’s trying its best to break the gold-star record for sprinting. I’m still here, it seems to shout. Still working, still beating.
Still alive.
I open my eyes, clawing at the contraption on my head. It falls to the floor with a clank, but nobody flinches, nobody blinks. They’re all too busy staring at me.
Instinctively, I back away. The crowd parts for me, and I duck behind a bot-charging station, because I have to get away from their looks. I have to get away from their eyes.
“That boy’s going to kill you,” the guy closest to me chokes out.
Maybe. Maybe not. The syringe had clear liquid in the barrel, just like Callie’s. The future Ryder stabs it into my heart, just like one version of Callie did to Jessa.
But Jessa’s not dead. She’s standing across the room from me.
“Hot or not, I wouldn’t want him in my life,” the young female technician mutters.
“Is it…true?” Tanner asks. “Do you see that in your future?”
I rub my temples, struggling to clear the fog. Do I? I sift through my futures—and yes, there it is. Now that I’ve seen the future memory, all the other pathways fall away, so that there is one dominant branch left: the one where Ryder Russell injects the syringe into my body, and I collapse. But it is not the only branch remaining. Which means, like Callie’s future memory, it doesn’t necessarily have to come true.
In fact, the pathways where my future intersects with Ryder Russell are so varied that I don’t know what to think. In my possible futures, he is everything from my enemy to my lover—a scenario that makes the heat flame up my cheeks. But the fact is, I have no way to guess how this boy will impact my life, if at all.
Except for one thing. A fact I’ve never revealed to anyone. Exactly twenty days from today, on May Fourth, my visions stop. Doesn’t matter whose future it is: mine, Bao’s, the Meal Assembler technician’s. All my life, I’ve never been able to see a single future past this date. Instead, my vision smacks into a terrifyingly blank wall every single time.
There’s only one explanation, really, and Ryder’s future memory just confirmed it. May Fourth will be the day that I die. Mostly likely at his hand. That’s why my precognition stops.
Which means I have only twenty days left to live.
All of a sudden, I’m shivering, goose bumps popping up along my arms. A delayed reaction to the vision? I guess. It’s not every day I receive confirmation that I’m going to die. My body has no idea how to respond.
I look at Tanner, and the answer must be reflected in my eyes, because he takes a few steps back. I say it anyway. “Yes. Ryder Russell will kill me in the future.” This time, the words aren’t too loud or too soft. I don’t drop the end of my sentence. I say it just right, because I’m saying it as much to myself as I am to the rest of the room.
“He would never do that,” Jessa bursts out. “I know him, just like I know my sister. Callie would never kill me, no matter what the future told her, and Ryder wouldn’t, either. This memory doesn’t mean anything.” Her voice pitches weirdly, bordering on hysterical. She knows, as well as I do, that the two situations are not remotely the same.
She is Callie’s adored younger sister. And I am the unlovable daughter of Ryder’s biggest enemy.
Jessa shoves a stray hair behind her ear. “Where is he?” she demands of Bao.
The technician swipes his hands along the keyball. “Sector Z-8. Room 628.”
Without another word, Jessa spins on her heel and tears out of the room. Tanner takes off after her, and a moment later, I follow. I’d rather be running after Jessa than trapped in a room with all those stares in any pathway of my future.
We catch up with her at the elevator lobby. She bends over, putting her hands on her legs and breathing funny.
“I’m sorry, Livvy,” she says, her head down. “I can’t imagine how you must feel, seeing that. But there’s got to be a mistake. Ryder wouldn’t hurt a mouse. For Fate’s sake, he used to put acorns in the squirrels’ coffins so that they’d have something to eat in the afterlife. He’d never kill you. Never.”
I don’t respond. I can’t. Because I feel the truth of this particular future in my bones. Because the more people who watch a memory, the more Fixed it becomes. That’s why my mother ordered that future memories be implanted in a black chip inside every wrist. That’s why she encourages prospective employees, loan deputies, and application officials to use these memories as a guarantee. That may even be a contributing factor as to why Callie was successful in changing her future—when so many others are not. Callie’s future memory was seen by only two people, her and the administrating officer. It never had the chance to become Fixed.
And I’m very, very afraid—with a room full of people watching—that it’s too late to derail my and Ryder’s futures from this course.
The elevator capsules arrive, and we take them to Sector Z. As Jessa leads us to the right location, her steps speed up, while mine slow down. I’m not looking forward to coming face-to-face with my future murderer, but it’s more than that. My mother is in that room. She’s made it her life’s mission to make sure every future memory comes true, in order to eliminate the “ripples” that might mess up our world.
Now that she’s seen Ryder’s vision, what will she do? Will she kill me in order to preserve her precious fabric of time? This wouldn’t be the only branch where she sacrifices me for her policies. I should know. Those visions were the nightmares that had me screaming in my youth.
But no matter how slowly I walk, we eventually reach Room 628.
The room has the stark white walls and shiny tiles of every office in the FuMA building. Three reclining chairs with spherical cushions are lined up across the floor, and in the corner, there’s a doughnut-shaped com terminal that will translate a vision across five senses.
Two of the chairs are empty. In the third, Ryder is strapped in place, with sensors on his closely shaven head. Instead of struggling against the chains, as we saw in the monitors, he sits calmly, his
dark skin gleaming under the bright lights.
My mother poses next to the com terminal, one hand on her hip. With the other hand, she strokes a familiar metal case. A box that houses FuMA’s instruments of torture. A case that contains black chips loaded with memories of all the phobias ever known to man.
5
The air feels heavy, wet. Saturated with sweat or tears—or some other moisture I don’t want to know about. The smell assaults me, sharp and metallic, sterile and at the same time, disturbingly human.
At our entrance, Ryder emits a low, guttural noise. He attacks the chains, his biceps bulging, his chest flexing. So much force rolls off him I expect the bindings to snap.
They don’t.
He sets his jaw and tries again, letting loose a snarl so desperate that it burrows inside me, digging its claws into my stomach. A sheen of moisture slicks over his skin, four parts sweat and one part blood. If my nerves weren’t vibrating before, they are now.
My mother laughs in his face. “I see we have an audience,” she purrs in the voice she reserves for the public, the one that layers a veneer of silk over thorns. “So much the better. More people to help me figure out which memory will make you scream the loudest.”
Ryder bares his teeth at her. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be.” She snatches one of the black chips and holds it up to the light. “What should we try first, hmm? You falling headfirst into a pit of snakes? Or cockroaches crawling all over your skin?”
Jessa wraps her hand around my forearm, her fingers as cold as my core. Both she and Tanner have experienced this method of torture firsthand. For different reasons, when they were children, they were forced to live other people’s memories, other people’s nightmares, over and over again, in an effort to make them comply.
“You dare to execute the chairwoman’s daughter,” my mother storms. “You will be punished.”
She shoves away the case of black chips, and I dart a panicked look at Jessa. Maybe he’ll kill me in the future. That doesn’t mean he deserves to be tortured.
Do something! I plead with her silently.
Jessa nods, takes a shaky breath, and releases my arm.
“Chairwoman, a word?” she says, her tone even and measured. You’d never guess she was the same girl who moaned inside the control room, the one who trembled like a kite outside the elevator capsules. “The prisoner hasn’t technically done anything. The vision hasn’t happened. As my sister showed us, it might never happen.”
My mother’s face contorts. “Callie’s one of very few people who has ever changed her future.”
“With all due respect, Chairwoman, you haven’t given other people a chance,” Jessa says. “Don’t you remember? You’ve forced every other would-be criminal to fulfill their visions in order to contain the ripples.”
My mother tilts her head, considering her assistant. Over the last six months, Jessa has slowly worked her way into my mother’s confidence. She’s impressed the chairwoman with her efficiency, demonstrated her loyalty a thousand different ways. If anyone can talk my mother out of this, it’s Jessa. If anyone can save Ryder from this torture—
“You may be right, Jessa,” the chairwoman says. “And if that were the entire reason for this punishment, I might desist. But there’s more you don’t understand. Ryder has information I need.”
“I’ll never give it to you,” he spits out. “You can torture me as much as you want. I will never betray my family.” He shifts his glare to Jessa. “Unlike some people.”
She steps forward. “Ryder…”
“Don’t talk to me, traitor,” he growls. “I’d rather live a hundred nightmares than take any help from you.”
Jessa’s mask slips, and she shudders.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to our families?” His eyes are two black coals, burning into our skin, searing into our hearts. “While you’ve been sleeping in a cozy bed, eating your fill from the Meal Assemblers, we’re barely surviving. Angela’s so stressed that her body stopped producing milk. Remi doesn’t like solid foods, so we go to sleep every night listening to her cries of hunger.”
“But I packed formula,” Jessa whispers, her lips so white I think she might faint. “There should’ve been enough to last six months.”
“Fell into the river our first day on the run,” he says. “And that’s not all. Callie’s pregnant. As joyous as that is for her and Logan, she’s been as sick as our pre-Boom ancestors, and she’s not receiving the proper nutrition. Mikey, Logan, and I have been giving her the best of our rations, to give this baby a fighting shot. But that doesn’t even take into account her latest injury.”
Jessa inches backward until her shoulders hit the wall. Even then, her feet continue to move, her heels rising and falling, as if the action can get her away from Ryder’s words. From Ryder’s truth. “What happened?”
His jaw twitches, and I can tell he no longer gets any pleasure from sharing this news. “She cut her palm with a hunting knife. It’s gotten infected, and we’ve run out of meds. That’s why I came back to civilization, to get her antibiotics.” He lifts his head and looks straight at his former best friend. “If she doesn’t get proper treatment for the infection—both she and the baby will die.”
A strangled noise works its way from Jessa’s throat. Right in front of our eyes, her facade crumbles. Guilt leaches the color from her face, and even the navy blue uniform can’t hide who she is: a girl who loves her family—and has lost them all.
“Just tell me where they’re hiding,” the chairwoman interjects smoothly. “That’s all I need to know. You could save Callie’s life—and yourself a world of pain.”
Ryder sets his jaw. “Never. She made me promise before I left. She’d rather die than go back into your custody.”
“How about just your father, then? And Jessa’s father, too. Mikey and Preston, two of my very best scientists before they betrayed me. They’re the ones I really need.” My mother’s eyes flash. “Turn over those two, and I’ll let the rest of you die in the wilderness in peace. I’ll even give you a pharmaceutical pack to take back with you.”
He laughs, short and loud and harsh. “That’s what you’ll never understand, Chairwoman. We’re a family. That means we stick together.”
“Suit yourself.” She shrugs, as if she didn’t want him to cave so easily anyway. She fastens her eyes on her personal assistant. “I thought you’d cut emotional ties with your family, Jessa. That they were all but dead to you. At least, that’s what you told me. Remind me again whose side you’re on?”
Jessa blinks rapidly, as if she’s being roused from a dream. “I’m on your side, Chairwoman. You know that.”
“Prove it.” My mother picks up the case of black chips and holds it out to her.
Jessa looks from Ryder to the chairwoman and then back again. “What…what do you mean?”
“Prove you’re still loyal to me.” The chairwoman’s mouth twists, and it chills me to the bone. “Prove you won’t let old relationships interfere with your duties. Prove you’re the assistant I thought you were these last six months.”
The breath whooshes out of my body, as the implications of my mother’s words hit me in the stomach.
“How am I going to do that?” Jessa asks faintly, as though she knows exactly what the chairwoman is saying but is still hoping she’s wrong.
“Easy. I’m not going to torture your friend by making him live other people’s nightmares,” my mother says. “You are.”
Jessa slumps forward, and her shirt lifts, revealing the handprint birthmark at her waist and the curve of her spine.
I flash forward to her futures. This is an impossible situation for Jessa. Impossible. She can’t jeopardize the trust she’s built over the last six months. She’s sacrificed so much to get this position, and now, she’s poised to stop the chairwoman from committing genocide. And yet, she can’t torture her best friend, either. She may have betrayed her family, but this would
cross a line she won’t be able to uncross.
This moment, this decision, will break something inside her. No matter what she chooses, she will hate herself for the rest of her life. I see the hollow shell she becomes. The shadow of the strong and selfless girl she used to be.
She’ll turn into…me. A girl living on the edge of life. Only observing but never acting. Helpless to bring about the change she so desperately wants. Reliant on other people to do what she thinks is right.
And it makes me want to weep.
I may never have loved anyone as much as Jessa loves Ryder. But I’ve seen a nearly infinite number of futures, and I know what love is. And, as I stand here beside Jessa, something happens to me. Her heart reaches inside my heart and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes. Until my entire chest is one big ache. Until my pathways shrink down to a narrow and precise tunnel.
Until I know that there’s only one decision I can possibly make.
“I’ll do it,” I say, stepping forward. “I’ll torture our captive.”
6
They gape at me—my mother, Tanner, Jessa. Even Ryder. I don’t know if it’s because I spoke without being addressed. Or maybe because I volunteered to do something, anything. Most likely, it’s because this is the first definitive action I’ve taken since I asked Jessa to fight with me—or more accurately, for me. But they all stare as though I’m a shadow that’s suddenly turned solid.
And maybe I am.
I take the case and hug it close to my chest. The image of Jessa’s spine drifts through my mind. So curved, so fragile. As though it might snap at any moment.
“It is my right to torture this boy.” My voice is stronger and clearer than it’s been in months, maybe even years. It has just the right amount of force, and I don’t drop a single syllable. “I was in his vision. He stuck a syringe into my chest. I watched my body go limp, fike it. I saw myself die.”