by Pintip Dunn
He shrugs and adjusts the contraption on my head. “Fine. Open your mind and focus on receiving your memory. I’ll be right next door, monitoring you. Good luck.”
Before I can say anything else, he walks out, leaving the door open behind him.
The door is not closed, locked, or barred. It is open. A door made of glass, swung open at an angle. Like my mind. Like my future.
A rush of something flows through me. I feel it everywhere—in my toes and elbows. Behind my ears. The tip of my nose. What on earth? Is it relief? Stress? Anticipation?
I shift against the cushions, and my concentration shatters. What if my memory doesn’t come? Maybe I should’ve taken the candle. Panic shoots through me, and I dig my fingernails into my palms. No. I can’t think that way. I’ve got to focus.
Okay. What else is open? The wide blue sky, opening up over the fields. The canned vegetables the Meal Assembler cracks open for dinner. The windows I fling open on a hot, summer day.
The memory from the future that flows into my ready, open mind.
Open, open, open.
I feel that something again, stronger this time. Oh, my. It’s not my emotions—it’s my memory. My memory. OPEN.
I am walking down a hall. It has green linoleum floors, with computer screens embedded in the tiles. The lighted walls shine so brightly I can make out a partial shoe print on the ground. The acrid smell of antiseptic burns my nose.
I turn a corner and skirt around the shattered remains of a ceramic pot. A trail of soil leads like breadcrumbs to a broken plant stalk and loose green leaves.
I walk down an identical hallway. And then another. And another.
Finally, I stop in front of a door. A golden placard, with snail spirals decorating each corner, bears the number 522. I go inside. The sun shines through the window, the first window I have seen in this place. A teddy bear with a red bow sits on the windowsill; otherwise, everything is hospital white. White walls, white blinds, white bed sheets.
In the middle of the sheets lies Jessa.
She is young, hardly older than she was when I saw her yesterday. Her hair falls to her shoulders, tangled and unbraided. Wires protrude from her body like they are Medusa’s snakes, winding every which way before ending in one of several machines.
“Callie! You came!” My sister’s lips curve in a beautiful smile.
I am gripping something in my hand, something hard and small and cylindrical. “Of course I came. How are they treating you?”
Jessa wrinkles her nose. “The food is gross. And they never let me play outside.”
I flex my hand and roll an object along my palm. It’s a syringe, with clear liquid swimming in the barrel. A needle. I am holding a needle.
“When you leave, you can play as much as you like.” I move the wires off her chest and place my hand squarely over her heart. “I love you, Jessa. You know that, don’t you?”
She nods. Her heart thumps evenly against my palm, the strong, steady beat of the complete trust a child has for her older sister.
“Forgive me,” I whisper.
Before she can react, I whip my arm through the air and plunge the needle straight into her heart. The clear liquid empties into my sister.
Jessa stares at me, eyes wide and mouth open.
Loud beeping fills the room. And then the heart rate monitor goes flat.
4
I can’t breathe. I take huge gulps of air, but it doesn’t help. I’m drowning. I’m drenched in sweat, and my sweat is drowning me. I jerk up, and someone pushes my head between my knees. My reflection stares up at me from the tile. I’m back in the memory room.
“Breathe,” William says. “I didn’t see that coming. Who was that girl?”
“My sister,” I mumble.
“You killed your own sister? Mother of Fate. Who are you?”
Good question. Who am I? Criminal. Murderer. Sister-killer.
No. No. No. That was a dream, a hallucination. That wasn’t my memory. Not my future.
But it was. I can tell from the nausea clenching my stomach. The phantom ache in my shoulder. The nightmare’s not fading. It’s just as real now as it was a few moments ago. Just as real and even more horrible.
Oh, my baby Jessa. The girl I swore to protect. What have I done?
I begin to shake, insistent twitchy motions that vibrate my shoulders and rattle my teeth. My hands clench, but the shaking only spreads.
“Calm down.” William grabs a blanket from a shelf and throws it over me. “Relax a minute and don’t move.”
Like moving is an option. I’m not sure moving will ever be an option again.
I huddle under the blanket. It smells like laundry detergent. The stiff fibers brush against my skin, and sweat trickles into my eyes. I pull the blanket over my head until my world is nothing but deep, dark blackness.
William clears his throat. Pushing the blanket down, I see him ejecting the chip out of the machine. He crosses the room, pries my hand open, and places the chip in my palm. I stare at it blankly.
“I know you’re in shock,” he says. “But you need to listen to me very carefully. You’ve had an atypical memory, one where you commit a Class A felony. According to FuMA law, I have to arrest you.”
“Arrest me?” I sit up straight, and the blanket falls to the floor. “But I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You haven’t, but you will. The law is clear. There are no second chances at FuMA. No innocent until the crime’s actually committed.” He walks to the door and looks at me. I see a kindness I didn’t notice earlier. “In exactly one minute, I’m going to sound the alarm. You need to get out of here. Now.”
My mind screams with questions. Why are you helping me? Who are you? Where do I go? But he’s gone, and the clock’s ticking.
Escape!
Half a second later, I’m on my feet and flying down the hallway. The clamor of voices reaches me as I wrench open a heavy door, but I don’t look back. Right, then left, then left again, past the conference room door, and…yes! A crowd of people going about their business. Lots of girls in silver mesh jumpsuits, their hair flowing down their backs.
I slow to a walk and tuck my head down as I cross the floor. My black sneakers squeak on the tile, shooting my heart into my throat. Has he sounded the alarm yet? The sea of people in navy and black slacks flows around me unabated. Their footsteps tap the floor in the ordinary rhythm of employees, not the relentless, hard slaps of officers in pursuit.
I’m almost at the exit when I hear a male voice. “Callie? Is that you?”
Putting on a surge of speed, I burst out of the building and run for the woods. The bullet train would get me farther, faster, but if I get in a compartment, they’ll lock it down and I’ll be trapped. My best bet is to hide. If only I can get to the trees in time.
Twenty yards.
I hear thudding footsteps behind me. And they’re getting louder. Which can only mean one thing: my pursuer is gaining on me, fast.
Ten yards.
Come on, Callie. Run!
I’m almost there. I just have to get to the woods, and then I’ve got a shot. There are twists and turns in there. A bush to crouch behind, a log to crawl into. Just a few more yards. You can hold them off, Callie. You’ve got to.
Five yards, four, three…
I hear the whistle of motion and brace myself to be tackled. Instead, someone brushes past me and then slows down, running next to me.
Next to me? What on earth?
I see a familiar blur of features—and then I hit the woods.
“Logan?” I almost trip over some exposed tree roots. “What are you doing here?”
He grins, and dimples pop out in his cheeks. The zipper of his jumpsuit is pulled down a couple of inches, and he smells like chlorine, as if he’s come from an early morning swim practice. “Just being a good citizen, reporting to FuMA for my post-memory check-in.”
“No, I mean, why are you chasing me? Do you work for FuMA?”
> “Of course not. That’s the last thing I would do.” His tone makes me think of the boy who used to be my friend. The one whose hair stuck up in the back, who was my defender against all slights, real and imagined. “I called your name and you took off. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Can I trust him? I glance over my shoulder. The steel and glass building looms behind me. Even as I’m looking, a siren pierces the air, sending a couple of birds squawking out of a tree. My heart stops. The alarm.
I make a gut decision. There’s no time for anything else. “I’m in trouble, Logan.”
“Don’t tell me that’s for you.”
“They were going to arrest me. I ran.”
His eyebrows crease together, like maybe he’s sorry he followed a fugitive into the forest. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” I shouldn’t be indignant. In the future, I murder my sister. The sooner I accept that, the better. “Almost nothing. It was my memory.”
“They’re after you because of something you did in your memory?”
I nod. Underneath the droning of the siren, I hear the faint barking of dogs. Oh, Fates. Dogs are trained to follow a scent. My knees give out, and I stumble on the uneven ground.
Logan catches my arm and turns me to face him. “Your memory. How bad was it?”
I blink rapidly. I’m not going to cry. If I cry now, I might as well throw myself at the mercy of the hounds. “It was bad,” I whisper. “Really bad.”
“Okay,” he says. “Follow me.”
We wind deeper into the forest. If Logan’s taking a marked path, I don’t see it. Yet his stride is steady and sure, so he must know where he’s going.
The trees become dense, and a canopy of leaves closes over our heads so that we jog in the shadows despite the bright morning sun. Rocks and vegetation litter the ground, and the air feels moist and cool. Every once in a while, I hear the bark of a dog, but it’s so distant I start to relax. They won’t put much effort into finding me. I’m just a girl. I have no real power. I pose no real threat.
Except, perhaps, to my little sister.
My breath hitches on a sob. Mom must be awake by now. She’s probably sitting with Jessa at the eating table, looking at the clock as their peppermint tea cools. They’ll worry if I don’t come home. I should let them know what happened. But even if I could get a message to them, what would it say? Sorry, Jessa, I’d love to come back and eat the toast you ordered for me, but it turns out I’m going to kill you in a few months’ time.
My face crumples, my eyes burning with dammed-up tears. I bring my hand to my mouth and bite down, hard. I can’t do this right now. I cannot do this. A pack of dogs waits to haul me away. I’ve got to keep it together if I’m going to escape.
I drag my eyes to Logan’s back. He has the classic swimmer’s torso—broad shoulders and narrow waist. Through the blur of tears, I see his muscles flexing underneath the silver jumpsuit. That’s good—think about his back. Think how Marisa would drool over this view.
Marisa. My breath catches again. She must’ve gotten her memory. She must’ve seen herself as a famous live actress. I’ll never see her on stage. I’ll never see her again.
I exhale, slowly. I can’t think about her, either. I focus on clambering up the rocks in front of me. The ground slopes upward and the trees thin out here. I can see the sun again. It burns my ears, and sweat condenses on my forehead like the beads outside a glass of water. I feel like we’ve been hiking forever, but probably no more than ten minutes have passed.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Logan looks over his shoulder, scanning the ground below us. “You can’t stay here. They’re going to find you, no matter where you hide.”
“Where do you suggest I go?”
We’re climbing up, up, up. There’s nothing here but a cliff that dead ends in empty space, with a roaring river below.
He squints at me under the unseasonably warm sun. And then, all of a sudden, I get it.
“No,” I whisper. “I’m not jumping into the river. That’s suicide.”
“Not if you know where to jump. Not if you have a place to go.”
What on earth is he jabbering about? “I don’t, clearly.”
“I do,” he says.
He continues climbing. I follow, conscious of the space separating us. I made the snap decision to trust him, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe my judgment was clouded. I was scared, and I wanted to trust him again. But people change in five years. He might not be mentally sound. Because this idea he’s proposing? It’s crazy.
A memory flashes across my mind. I was eleven or twelve, and we were picnicking on the cliffs next to the glass and steel building, overlooking the river. Mom was nursing Jessa, so I crept right up to the edge, much closer than she normally allowed. I wanted to see the water crashing over the boulders, to imagine the majestic white foam spraying across my skin. Instead, I saw a woman climb onto the metal railing…and swan dive over the edge. She hung in the air for an infinitesimal moment, caught in the sun’s rays as if by the flash of a camera. And then she smashed onto the boulders below.
I’ve had nightmares about falling to my death ever since. But I’m not about to tell Logan that.
We reach the top. The ground plateaus before dropping off in a cliff. Here, there’s no metal railing to keep people back and safe. There’s just hard-baked earth crumbled into dust and granular lumps.
Logan turns to me. “Listen, Callie. There’s a safe haven in the wilderness. It’s called Harmony, and it’s a refuge for anyone who wants a new chance at life. People with psychic abilities who are hunted by TechRA. People like you who want to escape their futures.”
My hands clench at my sides. “How do you know this?”
“My brother,” he says. “After TechRA arrested him, my family became members of the Underground, the group that set up Harmony. In case they came after anyone else we knew.”
I stare at him, a million questions on my tongue. But they all fade next to the very idea of Harmony. A place to start over, to pretend my memory never happened. Was it possible?
All I’d have to do is jump off this cliff. Leave behind everything I’ve ever known.
I shake my head, hard. “I don’t know what I was thinking, running away. I can’t escape my future. I’m a criminal.”
“Will you listen to yourself? The only thing you’ve done is sit in an uncomfortable chair and receive a memory from the future. Nothing else has changed. You’re still the same Callie you were this morning.”
“You don’t understand. My memory—”
“Hasn’t happened yet!” He reaches out as if to grab my shoulders, but he’s too far away. “What if you can change your future? What if you made it physically impossible for your memory to happen? I’m thinking you’ve got a pretty good shot at doing that if you disappear from civilization.”
“But the Chairwoman said that was impossible.”
“She was lying,” he says flatly. “Our entire socioeconomic system is built around future memories coming true, so of course she has to say that. It won’t be easy, since all of Fate is working against you. It will take an enormous amount of willpower and strength, which most people don’t have. But it’s happened. I’ve seen it.”
I stare at him. Is he right? I’m not sure of anything anymore. But this is the first flicker of hope I’ve had since receiving my memory. If I never see Jessa again, then I can’t very well kill her, can I? Or will Fate lead me back to my sister, no matter what I do?
“Let’s say there’s even a small chance I’m right,” he says. “Isn’t it worth taking?”
Yes! A thousand times yes! Save Jessa’s life? I’d move mountains for that chance…or jump into raging rivers full of boulders.
And yet I hesitate. “I’m not that strong,” I whisper. “I can’t even defy my teachers at school. How am I supposed to go up against Fate?”
He looks at me like he can see straight into my soul. “If anyone can, it
’s you.”
I want, with every cell in my body, to believe him. But what does Logan Russell know? He hasn’t talked to me for five years. “I can’t fight Fate. But I know who can. FuMA. I’m going to let them arrest me. Lock me up, so that I can’t fulfill my memory. Even if I want to.”
He stills. “But then you would be in detainment. For the rest of your life.”
You’ll never see the sun again, a voice inside me whispers. Never get married and have your own family. The inside of a cell will be your home for the rest of your days.
I don’t care. Tears drip onto my cheeks, and I swipe them away. This is my sister we’re talking about. My sister.
“I can’t imagine ever doing what my future self did.” I swallow hard. “But it happened. So I can’t guarantee I won’t change my mind.” I straighten my shoulders. “The safest thing for me to do is take the decision out of my hands. And FuMA’s offering to do just that.”
He closes the distance between us. “You can’t turn yourself in, Callie. Think about what you’re saying.”
“Both you and the Chairwoman said it—the hand of Fate is strong. I have to take extreme measures in order to defeat it. What can be more extreme than going to detainment?”
He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, I twist away and look down the hill. “They’re coming.”
A fast-moving pack of bloodhounds drag along a blur of guards in navy and white uniforms. They’ve just begun their ascent, but the dogs are galloping up the slope, as if they can’t wait to rip me apart. I’ve got a minute, tops.
My hand closes around the black chip, and I pull it from my pocket. Without another thought, I throw it as hard as I can over the precipice. There. It’s gone. Just because I’m turning myself in doesn’t mean I have to tell them about Jessa. They don’t need any more reason to investigate her.
I turn back to Logan. His eyes pierce me with an expression of deep, unspeakable regret. Does he actually care? Underneath the years of silence and betrayal, does a kernel of friendship still remain?
“I’m sorry, Callie.”
There’s so much I want to say. I’m going away, for a very long time. This is my last chance to reconcile our old hurts. The last time to feel a real, human connection.