by Pintip Dunn
A crash sounds outside the dispensary, and then I hear excited murmurs and footsteps running. Limbo. We’re taking too much time. We should’ve been out of here minutes ago.
I try to push him back toward the chair. “Please. Go sit back down.”
“Why?”
“You’re still weak. I need to retrieve the syringes, and I don’t want to worry about you falling.” I lick my lips. “Besides, you make me nervous.”
He arches an eyebrow and steps closer. “I make you nervous? Is that why you drop the ends of your sentences?”
I freeze. Here it comes. The mocking, the ridicule, the shame. No one typically throws my speech patterns in my face—I am, after all, the chairwoman’s daughter—but I’ve heard the whispers. I’ve imagined the jeers.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Ryder continues. “I used to skip words in my sentences, too.”
My mouth falls open. I can’t imagine it. He’s such a big guy, but more than that, he emits this air of easygoing confidence, the kind you have when you know your place in the world. I’d never guess he had any annoying speech tics. “You?”
“Oh sure. Back when I was a kid. Jessa was so grateful I put up with her not talking, but really, her silence made my few meager words look like a lot.” He moves his shoulders. “It never seemed like a big deal, ’cause Jessa always understood what I was saying.”
Ah. Maybe that’s why Jessa’s never commented on my habit; maybe that’s why she’s never had a problem picking up the threads of our conversations. She’s had practice.
A surge of warmth moves through me, because of Jessa’s friendship and also, inexplicably, because of this guy in front of me. Another surprise. I never thought I would have such soft feelings for such a hard boy.
We look at each other for an infinitesimal moment, during which my stomach sprouts wings and flits around my insides, and then I put my hands on his chest and push him again. Only this time, I’m acutely aware of my bare skin touching his, of the frantic beating of his heart a few inches from my fingers. “Have a seat,” I say. “Please.”
“Fine.” He holds my eyes for another moment and then lurches to the gliding chair and sits down. It’s a small concession, but I’m beginning to suspect just how much it costs him to give even this much.
I can’t let that affect what I need to do next.
My movements jerky, I move down the aisle, passing a small section of tubes with clear formula. I shudder. The clear liquid stands out against the bright, brilliant hues of the rest of the vials in the room, sinister in its absence of color. Ever since I was a child, my mother’s instilled in me a deep suspicion of a vial with clear liquid. Disguised with the same appearance as the most innocuous substance in the world, water, this formula has one function alone: to kill.
I should know. This is the very same formula Ryder injected me with in his future memory. I can’t forget that. No matter how nicely he’s acting, this boy is going to kill me. Soon. In twenty days, to be precise.
Squaring my shoulders, I retrieve the tubes I’m looking for—a grass-green formula and an ocean-teal. I even take the amber-colored one, just in case.
I stick the tubes into a calibration machine on the wall, and it dispenses the proper dosage into syringes.
Pocketing the syringes, I walk back to Ryder and bend down so that our faces are level. He smiles. Oh Fates, don’t notice how the smile transforms his face. Don’t think how that curve of his lips makes your pulse run wild.
Quickly, before I lose my courage, I plunge the teal syringe into his neck and depress the barrel.
His hands shoot out, gripping my neck and yanking me forward. I stumble and land awkwardly in his lap.
“What…did you…do…to me?” he rasps, his voice already fading. His grip already loosening.
“I’m sorry,” I say helplessly. “This was the only pathway I found.”
His hands drop from my neck, fluttering down my arms like falling leaves. “Never…trust you…again.”
“Forgive me,” I whisper. But it’s too late.
He’s already passed out.
8
Ten minutes later I’m tugging Ryder’s unconscious body from the gliding chair into a coffin that I’ve situated on the conveyor belt. I already lowered the belt all the way to the floor and tilted the seat of the chair. With any luck, gravity will help me move his muscular body…
Oomph. I’ve moved him into the coffin all right. There’s only one problem. I fell in first, and he’s landed right on top of me.
For a moment, all I can feel is the hard planes of his chest and thighs pushing into my body. My ears, my neck, even my toes heat. This should be uncomfortable—Limbo, it is uncomfortable—but for some reason, I wish we could stay like this, if not forever, then at least for a few long minutes.
Ridiculous. Clearly, the crush of his weight is making me delirious. I grit my teeth and begin to wiggle out from underneath him. Maybe I should’ve asked Jessa and Tanner to meet me here, in the Cadaver Transfer Unit, instead of outside by the dumping grounds. This is where the bodies go when they’ve outlived their usefulness in the Dream Lab, the place where scientists study the brain activity of people in a coma.
I catch a whiff of formaldehyde, and my stomach turns. Don’t freak out, I order myself sternly. Now is not the time for a panic attack. For all practical purposes, these people have been dead for years. Besides, they donated their brains to science. They knew their bodies would eventually end up here.
At least the corpses are kept in cabinets built into the walls before they’re transferred to their coffins—although I suppose “coffin” is too fancy a word. They’re really just rectangular plastic crates designed to minimize the diseases associated with disposing large quantities of bodies.
A few muscle-aching minutes later, I manage to extract myself. My clothes are now soaked in sweat, but at least Ryder is resting in peace on his back.
Now comes the hard part. I have to take off his pants.
The conveyor belt takes the coffins via a lengthy tunnel to a dumping ground on the outskirts of the FuMA property, where they’re collected once a day. From there, the coffins are either dropped in the middle of the ocean or ejected into space. So long as the scanner doesn’t detect any metal or large movement, the corpse inside the coffin is allowed to exit without an identity scan. That’s what I’m counting on. The teal formula has put Ryder’s body into an anesthetized state, and the slight rise and fall of his chest should fall short of setting off the scanner.
I just have to get rid of the metal.
Taking a deep breath, I grab a pair of laser shears from the work table and attack his pants. Most pants these days are attached by magnets or patented molding technology, but Ryder wears the pre-Boom kind with zippers. It would take too much time to remove them the normal way…and oh my. The heat climbs my face. His legs are sculpted like one of those statues displayed in the Museum of Artifacts. Muscular, lean, and hard.
I swallow. Not that I’m noticing. Really.
I pull the fabric from underneath his legs, giving his underwear a wide berth. Surely there’s nothing in there that the scanner will pick up. Right?
Grabbing a medic gown from a stack on the table, I throw one over his lower body. Better.
I force my gaze away—and it snags on his face. He looks younger with his eyes closed. More innocent. His eyelashes brush against his cheek, and everything about him appears soft. His lips, his skin—Limbo, even the sharp lines of his jaw.
Something twinges in my heart. Regret, maybe? Longing? What would our friendship have been like if our circumstances had been different? If I had been a normal girl who met him in the T-minus school system, would I still feel this same draw to him? Would I gravitate toward his warmth, drink up all his features, the way I’m doing now?
I’ll never know.
“You’re ready.” I would’ve guessed it would be easier to talk to him when he’s not conscious to hear me—but it’s
not. Strangely, my speech is just as fluid whether he’s awake or asleep. “I’m sorry I had to anesthetize you, but it’s a long tunnel. I couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t move. But you’re safe, I promise. I’ll see you soon.”
At least, in seventy percent of the pathways, I will. This is the only way out of here. The branch with the highest percentage of success. He’s going to be mad, but he’ll thank me later. Maybe.
I lower the magnetized lid onto the coffin and activate the conveyor belt with a voice command. The coffin containing Ryder’s body moves up the ramp…and disappears into the tunnel.
…
Hundreds of coffins are stacked around the dumping grounds. As soon as a coffin clears the conveyor belt, bots transfer it to one of a dozen pallets lining the fence. In the short time it took me to run out here, Ryder’s coffin has already been removed and stacked among the others.
“What is this place?” Jessa whispers beside me. She and Tanner have met me here, just like they promised.
“It’s the dumping ground for the morgue,” Tanner says, approaching a stack of coffins and peering at the numbered labels displayed on one side. “Remember those bodies you saw in the hallway outside the Dream Lab? This is where they end up.”
She nods, sadness etched into her features. “Oh. I always wondered where they went. Don’t tell me Ryder’s…here?”
“He’s in A-307. But it’s not what you think.” I smooth my hand over one coffin. Oh Fates, there are people inside each box. Stacked on top of one another like trays of assembled meals.
Quickly, I push the image away and explain everything that happened after they left, from my decision to torture my mom to the anesthesia that I injected into Ryder’s neck.
Jessa’s eyes widen. “Holy Time. You made your mom live through the phobias?”
I nod slowly. “Twenty of them.”
“Wow. She’s not going to be happy with you.”
The understatement of the year. I can no longer see into her future—and as a result, any part of my future that involves her is also blank—but I’d guess there’s a fifty-fifty chance she tosses me straight into detainment when she finds me.
Whatever the consequences, I’ll just have to live with them. Because this was the right thing to do.
I lift my chin. “She’ll have to catch me first.”
“Oh hey,” Tanner calls from the third pallet. “Lookee here. Found him.”
I trip over my feet moving to the pallet and help Tanner wrestle the coffin down. Once we break the seal with a demagnification wand, Ryder’s square jaw peeks out at me, along with his muscled torso. My shoulders sag. Thank the Fates he’s safe.
Jessa rushes to her best friend, her hands hovering like moths over his body. “Oh, Olivia, thank you.” Her voice trembles. “You saved him. You got him out of there, without any pain.”
“But I tortured him,” I say. “With a memory of being drowned alive. And then, I stabbed him. With a syringe that knocked him…”
…out.
“Under the circumstances, I think he’ll forgive you.”
“Like he’s forgiven you?” The words slip out before I can stop myself. Problem is, I know exactly where they came from. From the place deep inside my rib cage, in a spot behind my heart, where I shove all of my guilt and disgust. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said…”
…that.
“Don’t apologize.” She bites her lip, and color floods into the flesh. “This war is making us all do things we’d rather not.”
“People will be saved.” Tanner puts his hand at the nape of her neck. “That’s what we have to remember.”
She nods. “That’s the only thing keeping me going.”
“I thought I was the reason you got out of bed every morning,” he says, tickling her. “Your every breath, your every action—all because of me.”
Jessa snorts, and I laugh. Tanner Callahan is the most arrogant guy I’ve ever met, but he’s certainly one of a kind.
Crouching down, he fastens together six hoverboards of his own invention. Jessa and Tanner had brought the hoverboards to the dumping grounds, along with a couple backpacks of supplies.
This is why I messaged them. I could barely get Ryder into the coffin. There’s no way I could’ve carted him off to safety without assistance.
Tanner stands by Ryder’s head and gestures for Jessa and me to each take a leg. “On three. One…two…three…”
Oof. With a gigantic effort, we heave him onto the hoverboards. After a bit of arranging, he’s situated as comfortably as we can make him.
“That should do it,” Tanner says. “These boards are similar to the ones we use in the hover park. However, they’re powered from the sun, and they utilize the magnets deep in the Earth’s surface. Put the boards on auto-mode, at the lowest speed, and you should be able to get him where you need to go.”
“Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.” I wince. In my determination to say the last word of my sentence, it came out too loudly.
I glance at the metal and glass spires of the FuMA building. I don’t hear an alarm—yet. But that doesn’t mean the guards aren’t searching for me. “If anyone asks, I acted alone. You have no idea where I went, what my intentions are.”
Father of Time. Again. But neither Tanner nor Jessa bats an eye.
“Livvy, are you sure?” my old playmate asks instead. “We can send Ryder on the hoverboards by himself. He’ll have the antibiotics, and when he wakes up, he’ll find his way back to his family. Alone.”
“I have to go with him.” I tell them about the overlapping bruises along my mother’s waist. About Ryder’s claim that Callie is exhibiting the same symptoms. “If Callie has the same illness as my mom, she’s going to need more than one amber syringe. I either have to bring her back here or figure out how to get her more syringes.”
“I should go,” Jessa bursts out. “She’s my sister. If anyone’s going to risk themselves to save her, it should be me.”
I place a hand on her arm. “True. But the chairwoman’s already after me. There’s no reason to jeopardize her trust in both of us. Besides, the genocide’s coming soon, Jessa. In less than a month, my mother will start executing the kids who receive mediocre memories. At least, that’s what my vision predicts. You need to stay here so that you can stop her.
“I know I’m asking a lot.” I lick my lips. “I’m asking you to put Callie’s safety in the hands of someone who’s better suited for the sidelines. Maybe I shouldn’t even be…”
…suggesting this.
She seizes my hand. “I trust you, Olivia,” she says fiercely. “You can do this. I have full faith that you will save my sister.”
Is she right? Jessa’s baby precognition means that she can only see a few minutes into the future, so she has even less knowledge than me. But if her certainty stems from her belief in me…I’ll take it.
9
A few hours later, the unconscious Ryder and I squeeze through a thicket of bushes and come upon a cabin next to a fenced-in area full of bloodhounds. Trees surround the property on all four sides, and every log, every window, looks the same. They probably are. The outside world may change, technology may evolve, cities of metal and glass may shoot into the sky—but here, in these woods, I can almost believe that this cabin will endure for the rest of time.
I want to weep. “We’re here, Ryder.” I wipe a hand across the dried sweat and dirt caked on my forehead. “We finally made it.”
He doesn’t respond, of course. In fact, the floating platform of hoverboards continues forward at the same even pace, and I have to rush to catch up with it.
“Olivia, is that you?” A figure steps outside the chain link fence.
Shading my eyes, I see a hefty man with white whiskers and ruddy cheeks. He wears his usual uniform of water-resistant pants and a black mesh shirt. Potts.
I command the hover platform to stop, and run straight into his arms. He lifts me up and spins me around, the way he’s been
greeting me for the last ten years.
“It’s been too long, girl,” he says gruffly. “Where have you been?”
“I’m no longer in my cabin in the woods, Potts. Went back to FuMA about six months ago. I’m living out in the open now.”
“Your mother okay with that?”
“It was her idea.” I drop my eyes to the ground, even though I’ve never had a problem looking at or talking to this man. “She, um, wanted me to shadow her new assistant. Said it was about time I got re-acclimated to society.” There’s more to it, of course. Such as the fact that I agreed because the terrifying blank wall of my precognition is looming closer and closer. Because the number of weeks remaining until genocide can be counted on one hand. For my own reasons, I want to live—just a little bit—before I have to die.
He grunts. It’s a simple sound that could mean nothing or anything. It’s one of the things I love most about him. He’s one of the very few people I might consider a friend.
A few months after I went into isolation, I got lost during one of my forays into the woods and stumbled onto this lonely cabin with the kennel of bloodhounds.
From the beginning, I was drawn to Potts. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met. First, because he has no interest in the Committee of Agencies, or ComA, the governing entity that oversees our nation. Although he may supply them with his bloodhounds, he stays resolutely out of politics. And second, because he has so few pathways in his future. Whereas most people still have hundreds of branches stemming from a handful of major arteries remaining when they hit middle age, Potts has fewer than ten. His days are exactly the same. He wears the same clothes, eats the same meals. Takes care of his dogs. When I’m around other people, millions of pathways constantly bombard me. Not true with him.
And so, I would sneak away to visit Potts every few months, to play with his hounds or to curl up in front of his fire. To collect the three acorns he always left for me on his sill.
A bloodhound with a reddish-brown and black coat bounds over to me. “Hi Betsy!” I say enthusiastically. She’s probably not the same dog I played with six months ago, but it doesn’t matter. Potts’s bloodhounds are constantly changing, but they’re all named Betsy.