by Laura Burns
His face was pale, his expression haunted. “How … how long?” he choked out.
“What, the nanotech?” Dave asked. “Karina’s had that since before you ever met her. Her primary mission was to convince you to join the Wolfpack, Ethan. You’re such a nonjoiner that we’ve had trouble testing you! Anyway, you turned down the chance once, so we put Karina on the case. She can be very persuasive.”
With a grin, he typed a few more words into the dean’s cell. Karina’s smile grew wider, and she walked over to Ethan, plopped herself down in his lap, and kissed him.
Ethan shoved her away so hard that she fell to the carpeted floor. “You don’t even remember who I am!” he cried.
Karina picked herself up, her pretty face puckered in a wounded expression.
“Don’t be so hard on her, you big bully,” Dave protested. “She’s our greatest success story. You want to talk about influence. A pretty girl has it in spades, am I right?” He input another command, and Karina went to the couch in the back of the room, sat down, and zoned out. Her mouth hung slightly open, and her eyes stared blankly. Cold brown marbles. Dead eyes.
“She’s in standby mode,” Sarah said. “You just turned her off.”
“Yup,” Dave said.
“When Izzy shot her with the trick bullet, that’s what happened. You put Karina into standby.”
“Exactly,” he replied. “It’s a fantastic test. We wanted to see how the rest of you would react to the killing. And then afterward we wanted to test your memory, Sarah, to see how well that total recall of yours would withstand the Bromcyan and the influence of your peers. Most of all, of course, the whole mission was designed to find an assassin. Sometimes nobody is willing to pull the trigger, but usually there’s one who works up the nerve to do it. Izzy, though, she didn’t even hesitate! Bam! No one has ever been so willing to kill before.”
“How many times have you done that test?” Sarah asked. “You tried to do it again the next day.”
“Oh, we do it whenever we want,” Dave replied. “It’s easy enough to wipe everyone’s memory—sometimes the Bromcyan alone works for that, and if not, we use midazolam. Then we just start over. In that particular test, Karina always makes the best victim—so sweet and funny and pretty, such a nice girl. Anyone willing to kill her has to be a real badass. Or a sociopath, which I think was the case with Izzy.” He sighed. “I’m usually very good at matching a candidate with their eventual line of expertise. It’s important to have a basic inborn compatibility between the operative’s psychological makeup and the types of commands they’re expected to follow in the field. The better fit they are, the less likely they are go against the suggestion. Less fighting. Less stress hormones. A higher success rate. I mean, we’ve got spies, policy makers, seducers, hackers … whatever a client needs. We can’t just plug any operative into any job; it still comes down to who they really are. You can’t expect a hacker to turn into a ninja.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Ethan asked. “These are human beings you’re talking about.”
Sarah felt a pang of sadness. She’d said something just like that to Ethan once about the patients at the asylum. In a normal world, she would be happy that he had finally learned to be a decent person.
But the world would never be normal again.
“I’m just helping them realize their full potential,” Dave said, unperturbed. “I tell you what, though, you kids are really putting me through the wringer lately! First you, Ethan, refusing to do what we expected. Half the time we couldn’t even manage to dose you with Bromcyan! And then Izzy turning out to be an uncontrollable killing machine. And you, Sarah! We really got you all wrong. After you promised Dean Farrell you’d be a good little girl and acted like you hadn’t seen Izzy shoot Karina, I thought you’d passed the test. I thought you were malleable enough to doubt your memory after some peer pressure, that you’d be a candidate we could control without any glitches. We were all ready to install your nanotech—I couldn’t wait to see how it would work with that brain of yours. But you were lying. You’re a liar.”
His friendly eyes had turned mean, finally. It had always been there, the ruthlessness, but now it was on the surface.
Ethan reached out and took Sarah’s hand. “I couldn’t have imagined a better partner than you, Sarah,” he said softly. “No matter what they put us through now, I want you to know that.”
“Aw, so touching,” Dave said smarmily. “Why would I put you through anything? I’m not the bad guy.”
“You just sat here for twenty minutes and told us everything about Fortitude’s sick behavior. And you know Sarah’s memory won’t let her forget. The Bromcyan doesn’t work on her. So there’s no way you’ll let us live after that,” Ethan said. “But I think I’d prefer to be killed than to be pumped full of your precious tech, so it’s okay.”
“You’ll get away with killing me,” Sarah told Dave. “I’m an orphan. Nobody to give a shit. But if Ethan turns up dead, you’ll have a world of trouble. He’s got a family. His parents are well known and wealthy. They’ve got connections—”
“And heads full of nanotech,” Ethan cut in. “Right, Dave?”
Dave winced. “Busted. But it’s not nanotech. Your parents kick it old school with the smart chip, and theirs are too old to be very smart, frankly. The nanotech is first generation.”
“Oh my god, Ethan,” Sarah gasped. “Your parents?”
He nodded, his face set. “It’s okay. It at least explains why they sent me here, why they never cared about what happened to Philip. Fortitude probably killed my brother. They’ll have no problem killing me too.”
“You two are so melodramatic,” Dave said, shaking his head. “No one’s getting killed. Well, unless you refuse to cooperate.” He typed something into Dean Farrell’s cell, and Karina popped up off the couch with a smile on her face.
She didn’t even glance at them as she walked across the room, out of the office, and disappeared. A moment later she appeared outside, walking across the wet grass in the first gray light of dawn. Sarah felt a shock realizing that the entire night had passed—somehow she’d felt that the darkness would never end. The rain had stopped, but the wind picked up Karina’s long hair and sent it flying about her face. Sarah didn’t know what to think as she watched her old roommate through the window. Karina had that same old bounce in her step and a calm smile on her lips.
The dorm door swung open, and Kayla appeared, followed by Tif and Maya. From the other side, Harrison and Logan joined them. Then they all followed Karina, walking straight across the lawn.
Toward the bluff.
“What are you doing?” Sarah demanded.
“They’re heading toward the edge,” Ethan said in a strangled voice. “He’s going to make them walk off the bluffs.”
“Just like Nate,” Sarah cried. “They’ll die, just like Nate!”
“Sadly, yes, they will,” Dave said. He came over and perched casually on the arm of Sarah’s chair, watching through the window as Karina and the others got closer to the edge. “I hate to lose so many assets. Especially Karina. She’s good. Right, Ethan?”
“What do you want?” Ethan asked through gritted teeth.
“Why, I want the two of you to play nice,” Dave cried. “What else?”
They were ten feet from the edge of the cliffs now, all of them walking right toward it without even slowing down.
“No? Okay. Then we’ll just sit back and watch your friends commit suicide,” Dave said. He leaned over and spoke softly in her ear. “This time, you’ll know for sure it was your fault, Sarah.” He patted her on the knee, and a silver ring flashed on his finger.
A silver bird stared at her from the ring. Stared from a horrible little black eye.
Sarah’s body went cold, her heart giving a lurch. She’d seen that ring before—on the finger that pulled the trigger of the gun that killed her mother.
Dave. Dave had murdered her parents. He was going to murder her friends.
“Fine,” Sarah snapped. “Just make them stop.”
Dave typed quickly into the cell, and all six kids stopped walking. As if nothing had happened, they turned around and started back toward the dorms, talking and laughing like normal.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I assume Sarah speaks for you, too, Ethan?” Dave asked.
“Yes,” Ethan growled. “What do you want us to do?”
“Here’s how it will work,” Dave replied, walking back around to sit behind the big desk. Every move he made, every word out of his mouth made Sarah feel physically ill. His fake friendliness, his delight in all the disgusting things he was telling them … it paled in comparison to her memory of him. Shooting her mother. Chasing her father down like a dog and shooting him too. Everything wrong in her life, everything awful that had ever happened, was his fault.
“The two of you are going to put your little noses to the grindstone, work very hard, and get excellent grades,” Dave was saying. “You’re going to finish your education here at Sanctuary Bay. And then you’re going to go out into the world and take advantage of all the extraordinary opportunities that a degree from this school will afford you. It sounds like torture, doesn’t it?” he added sarcastically.
“That’s it? We just graduate and leave?” Ethan said.
“No, no, no. You graduate, leave, and have an outrageously successful life,” Dave corrected him. “Which you might have had anyway, Ethan. But you wouldn’t, Sarah. Let’s face it, you’d have been lucky to stay off the pole.” He stood up. “Do we have a deal? Or should I murder some of your buddies?”
There’s no choice, Sarah thought. He could make anyone here kill themselves with a keystroke. Or kill one another. Hell, for all I know there’s tech in Ethan and he’ll turn on me. But someday I’m going to find a way to get Dave alone, and I’m going to kill him.
Just like he killed my parents.
“Can we just go back to our rooms now?” Ethan asked in a flat tone. “Just forget any of this ever happened?”
“Nothing would please me more,” Dave replied.
“Fine, then. We’ll be good,” Sarah agreed. “We’ll do whatever Fortitude wants.”
“Excellent! I knew you’d be reasonable,” Dave said. He pushed an intercom button on the dean’s desk. “Our friends are ready to go back to their rooms.” He gave them both a huge smile.
Like a shark, Sarah thought, staring at the white, white teeth.
“I trust I’ll never have to see either of you again,” Dave said. “Because if I ever do, it’s not going to be as pleasant for you.”
The security guards appeared, and Sarah and Ethan went with them without a backward glance. Nobody spoke as they walked back to the main lobby. As they were about to part ways, Ethan to his room and Sarah to hers, Ethan suddenly grabbed her and pulled her close.
Over his shoulder Sarah saw the guards roll their eyes at each other.
“We have to bring this whole place down,” he whispered, pressing his lips against her ear as if he was kissing her. “They’ll probably try to implant us tonight. We won’t get another chance to escape.”
Sarah ran her lips over his cheek, bringing her mouth close to his ear. “Fire,” she whispered. “If the school is burning, firefighters would have to come from the mainland. Dave won’t let his whole lab burn down.”
“All right, that’s enough,” one of the security guys interrupted. “Let’s go.”
“We’re supposed to meet with Dr. Diaz before chemistry, remember?” Ethan said.
“Right,” she replied. “I’ll see you there.”
20
“Dr. Diaz?” Sarah said, knocking on the door of his office. The doctor’s waiting room was empty, as usual, but she could hear him moving around inside the office. “It’s Sarah. Can I come in?”
The movement stopped, and for a long moment there was silence.
“Dr. Diaz?”
“Not here,” Dr. Diaz called.
Again, silence. Sarah wasn’t sure if she was supposed to laugh. It was a strange joke. “Um, I can hear you,” she finally said.
The door creaked open a tiny crack, and Dr. Diaz peered out at her, squinting.
“It’s me. Ethan’s meeting me here. Do you think it’s safe to talk?” she murmured. “Should we go down to the deep storage room?”
Suddenly his eyes opened wide, and he pulled her inside and shut the door. “No need,” he said in a rush. “I’ve brought the relevant files up here. They were watching me down there but no one ever comes here.” He gestured to his desk, which was covered with papers. “They thought they could hide the truth but the truth doesn’t hide, the truth shines.”
“Okay.” Sarah studied his face, finally understanding what Ethan had meant by “perturbed squirrel.” Dr. Diaz wouldn’t meet her eye. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Stop staring at me!” he yelled.
Sarah was so shocked that she didn’t answer, and he turned away and began rifling through the papers on his desk.
“Hey, Dr. D,” Ethan called, opening the door.
Dr. Diaz jumped in surprise, then stumbled back into a corner of the office as if he was frightened.
“What’s going on?” Ethan asked. “Sarah, did you tell him what happened?”
“No,” she said. “He’s…” She struggled to find the words, then gave up. “There’s something wrong.”
“It’s the Bromcyan, that’s what’s wrong,” Dr. Diaz whimpered. “They hide it, they put it in all the files, all the people, but they never say the truth.” He ran his hand through the papers on his desk. “I arranged them every different way but the truth isn’t there. It’s in here.” He tapped at his head.
“Did they get to him?” Ethan asked, alarmed. “Is Dave making him this way?”
“This time I hid. This time I got away. This time I spit it out. I know what it is now, I know. I made the test for it. I figured it out.” Dr. Diaz sounded agitated, and he grabbed a file folder from the floor, clutching it to his chest like a teddy bear.
“Nate was a little like this before he jumped,” Sarah murmured to Ethan. “But Diaz doesn’t seem like he wants to hurt himself.”
“Dr. D? Can I see that file?” Ethan asked.
“It’s Bromcyan. That’s the answer,” Dr. Diaz said, looking intently at Sarah.
“I know it is,” she agreed. “Is there something in that file about Bromcyan?”
“Yes,” he said, relieved.
“Let me see.” Sarah reached for the file in his hands, and he slowly relinquished it. She glanced down at the light brown cover. “It’s a student file from the eighties. Ramon Diaz.”
Shocked, her eyes flew to Dr. Diaz’s face. “Ramon Diaz.”
“I won’t let them in again. I spit it out,” Dr. Diaz whispered. “I made the test for it.”
“Were you a student here?” Ethan asked.
“I won’t let them in,” Dr. Diaz muttered.
Sarah opened the folder and glanced at the top page of the thick file. Right away she saw a word that made her heart stop. “Schizophrenia,” she said. “Dr. D, are you schizophrenic?”
“It’s the Bromcyan,” he replied.
“Nate’s Bromcyan levels were going haywire when he died, that’s what our good friend Dave said,” Ethan put in. “And he told you he was hearing voices in his head.”
“But don’t you think that’s because there were voices in his head, literally?” Sarah asked. “I mean, commands from Fortitude. His brain being lit up against his will, it pretty much is voices in his head.”
“Not voices, songs,” Dr. Diaz said. “But I won’t let them, not again.”
“This says Dr. Diaz was diagnosed at age fifteen, which is very young. He’s … he’s severely impacted by the disorder.” Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she skimmed through the medical records detailing psychotic breaks, suicide attempts, and severe depression. “If he wasn’t at Sanctuary Bay, he would’ve had to be in an institution.”
<
br /> Dr. Diaz began keening, rocking back and forth in his chair.
“They treated him with Bromcyan,” Sarah read, flipping through. “It took two years to get the dosage right. It’s really high. There’s a note that says to never go below there or he’ll be at risk of another episode. But otherwise he’s symptom free. The last page says ‘Do Not Recommend Civilian Life.’”
She put down the folder and Dr. Diaz stopped keening long enough to snatch it back. He held it to his chest again, and it seemed to calm him down.
“Dr. D, have you been here ever since high school?” Ethan asked.
“I have a doctorate,” Dr. Diaz replied, his voice steady. “I had a friend.”
“Someone who came with you to college? Who gave you the Bromcyan?” Sarah asked.
“I spit it out.”
“They stabilized him, educated him to suit their needs, and brought him back here. He’s like a slave,” Ethan said. “Fortitude has been drugging him his whole life, just like my parents.”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said slowly. “He has a good life here, Ethan. Better than he would otherwise. He’s free of the schizophrenia. Remember what Dave said—it’s like a miracle cure for the mentally ill. Maybe it’s not so bad in his case.”
“I won’t let them in again. They said medicine, these files are not medicine. It’s the Bromcyan, it’s the answer to our questions,” Dr. Diaz said, anger in his eyes.
“We know, Dr. D,” Ethan said gently. “The thing is, there are two uses for Bromcyan. One is bad, and that is the answer we were looking for. But the other use is good, and that’s the way the school has been helping you.”
“You didn’t take your last dose,” Sarah said. “You spit it out? Do you take a pill?”
“I spit it out.”
“A pill? That’s remarkably low-tech,” Ethan muttered.
“It really is just medicine for him. They’re not controlling his mind. It’s just meds and therapy, like Dave said. Why waste money putting tech in a chem teacher?” Sarah shook her head. “But you have to take that medicine, Dr. D. It’s what makes your mind clear.”