“So…er…this is my house,” I said as I led the way down the hall into the kitchen.
She followed, if a bit slowly.
“I made tea…do you like tea? I think I have some cookies too, somewhere…” I disappeared into the pantry that was in one corner of the kitchen, searching for the box of chocolate chip cookies I’d spotted the other day. When I reemerged, cookies in hand, I found Camille leaning over the stove and fiddling with the nobs that controlled the burners…which didn’t bode well, because the ends of her hair were brushing over one of the burners. One that she’d turned on.
“Camille!” I rushed to her, pulling her away from the stove just as the thick, coiled metal started to glow orange. “What are you doing? Are you trying to set yourself on fire?” Standing between her and the stove, I looked into her eyes, making sure she was still the young woman I knew and hadn’t gone through some weird body-snatching process. I wouldn’t be overly surprised, I thought, considering everything I’d seen within the Colony’s walls.
Camille stared back at me, her eyes wide. Until that moment, all I’d seen from her had been a young woman with an iron backbone and balls of steel. But looking into her frightened eyes, I found a girl—a scared girl. Her bottom lip trembled.
Mentally kicking myself for my harsh reaction, I wrapped my arm around her narrow shoulders and guided her to the sofa in the adjoining family room. She sat woodenly and stared ahead. Tears streaked down her pale cheeks.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you, but I didn’t want your hair to catch fire,” I told her softly, sitting down beside her. I brushed her hair out of her face with my fingers. “You have such pretty hair; it would be a shame.”
She shook her head, and her voice was wobbly when she finally spoke. “I live in—I’ve never been in a real house before…at least, not that I can remember.” Her eyes seemed to be searching the wall across the room. “Sometimes I have dreams about a place a lot like this, and there’s one about a burning metal machine like that—”
“A stove,” I told her.
“About a stove, except real flames come out of the top,” she said, finally meeting my eyes. “There’s always a woman standing beside me in those dreams, laughing. She makes me feel safe and happy. And then, when I’m laughing with her, she turns on the stove and starts to burn. Flames cover her, and she blackens and dissolves into a pile of ashes and bones. When I wake up, I’m crying.” Camille paused for a moment. “I don’t know who she is. Why does it make me sad that she burns?”
Because you’re only human, I thought, but then I remembered that she wasn’t, exactly. With a gentle smile, I again wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close. Only when she could no longer see my face did I let myself frown. What happened in her past? What’s she remembering? “Do you think—is it possible she’s your mom, or maybe your sister?”
“I know what those are from a book I read, but I don’t have any of those. I only have Father.”
“No, I mean, from before you di—from before you became a Re-gen.” I said the word stiffly, trying not to load it with the disgust I felt for Dr. Wesley and her unnatural science projects. Dead is dead…or at least it used to be. I had no idea what it was like to be a Re-gen, to have died and been brought back to life with fractured memories at best, but it was just…wrong. Did any of them even have a choice, or were their bodies stolen and used without their permission? What happened to letting the dead rest in peace? What about souls, if there is such a thing? I shivered, terrified by the possibilities. What if—
“Dr. Wesley told me most of us don’t dream,” Camille said, drawing my attention back to her, “but that if we do, it might be our memories trying to resurface—so maybe you’re right. But she also said our memories shouldn’t have been able to survive the process. She said those synapses are too fragile and they die too quickly.” She paused. “Synapses…I don’t know what that means.”
“Synapses are…” I searched for a simplified way to explain the complex processes that occurred within our brains every millisecond—processes I didn’t hold a firm grasp on myself. Talk about the blind leading the blind. “Synapses are what happens inside our heads that make us do and think things. There are different synapses that do different things, like store memories or make our mouths open so we can speak.” I was pretty sure I was botching the explanation…royally. “They’re electrical, so—”
“They’re electrical?” Camille asked, pulling away and straightening. She looked at me curiously. “Like, electrotherapy?”
I eyed her. “Yeah…”
“Do you think that, maybe, electrotherapy might bring the memory synapses back to life?” Her pupils expanded with her excitement, drowning out the lighter gray in her eyes.
“I—I don’t know. But if it did, wouldn’t it affect all of the Re-gens, not just you?”
“Well…” Camille raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, looking like she was deciding whether or not to hold in a secret.
I mirrored her eyebrow-raise. “Well…?”
“You know how Mase works with Dr. Max a lot of the time?”
I nodded, suspicion sneaking around in my mind.
“Well, he has keys for that electrotherapy lab—”
“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “That electrotherapy lab? As in, it’s not the only one?”
She nodded and continued. “Some nights, after all the other Re-gens are asleep, we sneak into Dr. Max’s lab and do it to each other.”
“Do what to each other?” I squeaked, dreading the answer. I had a sinking feeling she wasn’t about to tell me they spent the wee hours of the night playing doctor.
“Electrotherapy,” Camille said. She was practically bouncing on the couch cushions.
Again, I paused her with an upraised hand. “Let me get this straight. You and Mase sneak into one of the electrotherapy labs and electrocute each other? Why? ’Cause it’s so damn fun?”
She swatted my leg and giggled. “No, silly. So we can be more powerful than everyone else.”
Uh…that’s not creepy or anything…
“When we first wake up as Re-gens, we’re a lot weaker than normals—regular humans, like you—and it takes a lot of electrotherapy to bring our Abilities back up to whatever strength they were at before. But we can also become stronger than normals by doing more electrotherapy, because it’s too dangerous for them. But I heard Father tell one of his Controllers that he doesn’t want us to be too powerful, because he wants to make sure they can avoid any ‘Spartacus situations’ before they have a chance to turn everyone into Re-gens or T-Rs.” She cocked her head, looking at me quizzically. “What does that mean, a ‘Spartacus situation’?”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the young woman sitting beside me. How does she know all this? And why is she telling me? “A…uh…‘Spartacus situation’ would be a rebellion—a slave rebellion,” I told her, then whispered, “So he does consider us all his slaves.” Biting my lip, I studied the diminutive Re-gen. “Camille, what’s a T-R? Is it like a Re-gen?” Holy crap—does the General want to kill everyone and make them into perfect little Frankenstein slaves?
From his perspective, the plan was genius. Re-gens, if they were initially trained to follow his every command—and didn’t electrotherapize themselves at every possible opportunity, like Camille and Mase—they wouldn’t require the use of his mind-manipulation Ability at all. But why? Why is he doing any of this? For power? Could anyone be so power-hungry…so truly, unequivocally evil?
Camille pursed her lips again and shook her head. “I don’t know exactly what T-Rs are, but it stands for ‘Tabula Rasa,’ and it has something to do with the Ability of this new normal who arrived a few weeks ago.”
Tabula rasa…blank slate. Oh my God, does he have someone who can wipe our minds completely clean? Oh no…
I’d been betting on the dwindling resources left over by civilization to limit his expansion, but if I was right about T-Rs—about the new “normal” who
’d arrived—all bets were off. General Herodson wouldn’t need to rely on Dr. Wesley or scientific equipment or electricity to make his perfect, obedient slave army; he would just need one person with the Ability to wipe a mind free of memories.
Shakily, I stood and walked back into the kitchen. “Do you want some tea?” I’d been planning on drinking English breakfast tea—hearty and full of caffeine—but I searched the little combo box for a packet of chamomile instead. I definitely needed something to calm my nerves, not excite them.
“I’ve never had tea,” Camille said, sitting on a stool on the other side of the counter. “Is it good?”
I picked out a packet of Strawberry Fields for her, tore it open, plunked the teabag in a mug, added a spoonful of sugar, and filled the mug with steaming water. “I like it,” I told her as I slid the mug across the counter to her and began preparing my own. “It’s hot, so I’d wait a few minutes.”
Camille leaned down and sniffed…and giggled. “It smells sweet…and pink!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her innocence. Not innocence, I reminded myself, just a weird form of amnesia unique to Re-gens.
When I didn’t say anything for a few minutes, Camille asked, “Are you mad at me?”
“What?” I blurted. “No, of course not.” I opened the box of unbelievably hard chocolate chip cookies and nibbled on one, more wanting something to occupy my hands than wanting to eat a stale, processed cookie. “It’s just…once I think I understand how horrible he is, I learn something else about this place, and—” I cut my words off abruptly and closed my eyes. I was revealing too much.
“You mean Father?” Camille asked.
Opening my eyes, I watched her warily. I liked her, despite her moments of creepiness, and I owed Mase—big-time—but I still didn’t know how much I could trust them.
Camille stared at me point-blank and said, “I want a ‘Spartacus situation.’ That’s why Mase and I sneak into Dr. Max’s lab to do electrotherapy on each other—so we can be stronger than everyone, strong enough to create a rebellion. But…” She paused, chewing on her bottom lip and testing her tea with the tip of her finger. “This Spartacus situation has to be big enough to get rid of Father and the Controllers.”
“The ‘Controllers’?” I asked, hoping to get more information about the General’s mind-controlling lackeys than Gabe had given me.
Nodding, Camille clarified, “The others like Father, who make the normals do what they want. They control all of the people wearing those.” She motioned to my yellow armbands with a wave of her hand.
I took a deep breath. I’d suspected that taking the General out wouldn’t solve the problem; it would just give the problem a new face…an unknown face. Better the devil you know, and all that.
I munched on the cookie and sipped my tea, thinking. “Do you know who these Controllers are?”
Camille shook her head. “The only people who have direct contact with them are Father and the people they’re controlling, and they won’t reveal their identities because they’re mind-controlled, so…”
Damn! If I’d known who they were, then I could’ve made some sort of insane sleeper cell assassination attempt. And probably gotten myself killed, I thought. But still…
After a long moment, Camille asked, “What was it like before?” I watched her as she raised her mug to her lips, took a sip, and smiled blissfully. Apparently, she liked strawberry tea.
“What do you mean?”
“Everything—the world, people, life—what was it like?”
I tapped my lips with my index finger as I pondered her question. What was it like? It was a question that should’ve been easy to answer, but it wasn’t. “I guess it was kind of like it is in here, except way more chaotic and way less mind-controlled. And it was louder…more energetic. People would get angry or laugh or cry a lot more than Colonists do. Many people spent hours sitting in front of TVs or their computers just surfing the Internet. We worried about making enough money to pay for the things we needed, even though we spent money we didn’t have on things we didn’t need. And there were too many of us.” I frowned. “Most scientists agreed that we were killing the planet, slowly, and that if we continued, we’d destroy our own species eventually just by running out of resources. And, um…” Why is it so hard to explain? Why can’t I think of anything positive?
Camille took another sip of her tea. When she set her mug down, she opened her mouth, and then closed it before saying anything.
“What?” I asked.
She shook her head, staring shyly down at her tea. “You’ll laugh,” she said softly.
At that, I did laugh, but not unkindly. “I might. I can’t promise you I won’t, but I don’t think I’ll be laughing at you. Some things are just funny.”
Camille raised her eyes to meet mine, their gray depths twinkling mischievously. “What was it like between men and women?”
I smiled, not laughing. “What do you mean, exactly?”
Camille frowned, searching for the right words. “Was it always like it is here…like with you and that guard in the warehouse? Did men always treat women like that? I’ve seen…did they make them do things with their bodies? Did women have a choice? Or did they like it? And why do the men want to do that with so many different women? I wouldn’t want to do that with anyone but—” She caught herself mid-sentence, blushing.
“Anyone but Mase?” I finished for her. When she nodded, looking down at her half-empty mug, I said, “I have someone like that, someone who’s the only person I want to, um…be with. His name is Jason.” I smiled fondly, forcing myself not to dwell on the possibility of never seeing him again.
Camille met my eyes. “Once, in the middle of the night, I got out of bed to go to the bathroom and two of the Domestication Officers were in there, and—”
“What’s a ‘Domestication Officer’?” I interrupted. It was a term I’d heard several times, but I still didn’t know what it meant.
“The people who watch over Re-gens,” she said, dismissing them with a wave of her hand. “They’re not always very attentive. Anyway, when I opened the bathroom door and saw they were in there, I stepped back and watched through the crack in the door. They were, um…” Her already-pink cheeks flushed a bright red. “At first I thought the man was hurting her—she was making these noises—but then I saw her face. She was—I’ve never seen anyone look so happy.” Her eyebrows drew together and she shook her head. “I don’t—I thought maybe Mase and I…have you ever, um…what were they doing?”
Though I tried, I couldn’t hold in my nervous laugh. “Uh…yes, I have ever, and I’m pretty sure the Domestication Officers were having sex.”
Camille’s eyes widened in horror. “Sex is forbidden! Re-gens can’t do that!” Slowly, her eyelids narrowed. “But…what is it, exactly?”
I sighed, figuring the apparent Re-gen antisex rule was just another way to control them. Pity for her stunted understanding of life overshadowed my embarrassment at the topic. After explaining the mechanics of the act and emphasizing the emotional connection and how important it was—I really didn’t want Camille to go off and start sleeping around like crazy—I refilled Camille’s mug and sat down on the stool beside hers. Though she’d listened to my explanation eagerly, she turned suddenly glum.
“What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath, and exhaled in a long, despondent sigh. “It’s not fair. I can never do that with Mase.”
“Uh…why not?” Are they physically incapable? Is that one of the differences caused by the Re-gen process?
“If someone saw us, they’d know we were different and we’d be destroyed.”
Oh, right. “You know, I have other rooms here,” I said. A plan was forming in my mind, and Camille had just given me the currency to buy what I needed.
Camille’s eyes lit up, and a purely devilish smile spread across her face.
“I’ll let you and Mase have the house all to yourselves whenever you want,
but…I’d like something in return.”
Camille cocked her head, silently asking.
“Can you both meet up with me tonight? I have some more reconnaissance to do.” At her blank look, I clarified, “Scouting…looking around…gathering information…”
Camille hopped in her seat happily. “Oh—yeah! What are you looking for?”
“Anything that’ll help me get out of here and back to my friends,” I told her.
“You’re leaving?” Her eyebrows drew down and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. I hadn’t expected such a strong reaction.
Reaching for her hand, I squeezed gently. “Yes, but maybe you can come with me. You and Mase.” She looked unsure, so I added, “I’m going to find a way to stop him—General Herodson and the Controllers. I just can’t do it from inside the Colony, at least not right now. He’s too close, and we don’t know who the Controllers are, and it’s too dangerous, and…I just need to get out of here.”
After a long moment of thought, Camille smiled. “We’ll help you, but it’ll have to be tomorrow night. I can think of lots of places for us to do this, um…reconnaissancing.”
I let out a sigh of relief. Camille and Mase knew their way around and seemed to be really good at staying under the radar. I’d been planning to ask Gabe to join me, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more eyes—and Abilities.
“There’s one thing you might want to try to get first,” Camille said. Her eyes were narrowed into conspiratorial slits.
“What’s that?”
“Dr. Wesley’s master key. With it we can get into most of the restricted areas.”
I frowned. “I don’t know how I could get—” But the solution popped into my head. Blackmail. I didn’t owe Dr. Wesley anything, not after discovering her role in killing nearly everyone I loved, so I didn’t feel an inkling of remorse at the thought of potentially hurting her. Plus, I had one hell of a blackmail item.
The neutralizer—it was made from her blood.
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The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 72