by Pintip Dunn
A light hiss fills my ears, and gas enters the room through nozzles positioned in the ceiling. The fumes disappear instantly, but I feel the chemicals in the air, pressing down on me.
I clamp my mouth closed. The gas is going to make my memory rise involuntarily to the surface. I can’t let that happen.
The harnesses pin me against the chair. Think! I’m not going to be able to free myself. How can I keep the memory out? Bellows said to open my mind. Maybe I need to close it instead.
I can’t hold my breath any longer. I take a sip of air—but as soon as I take one, I want more. The air makes me feel peaceful, relaxed. All of a sudden the chair doesn’t feel quite so hard. The plastic is cool and inviting, the kind of surface on which you want to stretch out and take a nap.
No. Those are the fumes talking, not me. I need to close my mind. Close it. I think of a door, made of thick, solid wood. I turn and twist a dozen locks, slide a dead bolt across. I waterproof the door. Add insulation. Reinforce it with concrete. Layer on other metals—gold, silver, platinum, brass. And then I repeat the process.
A thousand tiny swords jab at the door, trying to puncture a hole through my skull. Each moment, by itself, is tolerable. But the swords never stop. They keep poking and prodding, slicing and biting, looking for the window where I let down my guard.
It hurts. And it’s never-ending. That’s what kills me, the incessant stabbing of the swords. I just need a second. One tiny second for the pain to stop, a moment to catch my breath and gather my strength…
I am walking down a hall. It has green linoleum floors, with computer screens embedded in the tile. The lighted walls shine so brightly I can make out a partial shoe print on the ground.
No! I bite my lip until the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth. The swords come back. They’re sharper this time. They slice and slice at my self-control. But I can’t give in. This is all I have left. The last thing I can do for my sister.
I scream inside my mind. I claw and yank and rip. I fight and elbow and jostle. But I do not let go.
Finally, finally, it stops. The swords withdraw, and I melt back against the recliner. I should be grateful. I should feel relief. But I’m so tired I can do neither.
Bellows walks into the room with a different guard. The scientist shakes his head. “I knew it. The formula isn’t performing at peak efficiency because of your injuries.”
My head lolls back and I stare at the ceiling. That wasn’t peak efficiency? I’d hate to encounter those swords on a healthy day. I try to answer, but I can’t open my mouth. All I can do is watch as water squirts out of the gas nozzles and rains all over us.
Well, “rain” in the sense of the raging summer storms that flood our rivers. Already, the water begins to accumulate on the floor.
The back of my reclined seat rises until I’m looking at Bellows. Water pools around his ankles and his beard drips like tangled moss. “Not to worry. The formula will break through to your memory, sooner or later.”
We stare at each other. The water rises to his knees, his thin cotton shirt sticking to his chest in wet, unattractive patches. He doesn’t even flinch.
The water laps at my legs, getting higher by the second, and I creak open my jaw. “Um…should we get out of here? We’ll drown in a minute.”
Bellows sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He pushes a button and the harnesses fall away from my body, leaving me free to go.
“Take her back to her cell,” he says to the new guard. She’s young and pretty and has a row of piercings along both eyebrows. “I’ll talk to her later, once the gas has worn off.”
“But sir?” She watches as I climb on top of the headrest and crouch there. “Will she be okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” Bellows says. “She’s hallucinating, that’s all. It’s a side effect of the formula.”
Hallucinating. This isn’t real. Now that I think about it, the water doesn’t feel wet. Or cold. In fact, I don’t feel it at all. I look at Bellows and the guard. The flood has submerged their mouths, but they continue talking as if sound waves are not hindered by liquid.
I guess in my hallucination they’re not, because I hear Bellow’s next words, loud and clear.
“We’ll give her a couple of days to recover, and then we’ll try again. We’ll keep trying until she gives up that memory. Until she inhales so much formula she forgets what’s real and what’s not.”
The guard helps me off my perch, and together we swim to the exit.
9
I dream. Or, at least, I think it’s a dream. It’s not a hallucination because I remember this actually happening. Except it’s not a regular memory, hazy and indistinct. I live the moment, feeling every sensation, every texture, every detail, like I did in my future memory.
I wish it were real. Oh, how I wish I could go back to that time again.
So, yeah. I guess the best word for it is “dream.”
I lean my forehead against the cool glass sensor on my locker door. My eyes are all hot on the inside, but I’m not going to cry. That would be stupid. I mean, my mom could’ve let the baby miss her nap for one morning. It’s not every day my pot roast is chosen for the school’s Art Extravaganza. But it’s fine. Whatever. The baby needs her sleep. The baby needs to stick to a routine. Anything for the baby.
The locker beeps at me. “Access Denied. Fingerprints Undetected.” Sighing, I replace my forehead with my palm. A second later the locker swings open, and I see, among the jumble of measuring cups and skin tints, a single, orange leaf.
I suck in a breath. I don’t know how he does it. These lockers are supposed to be vandal-proof, but I find a new leaf inside every single day.
As I do everyday, I pick up the leaf and twirl the stem with my fingers.
“I love your entry in the Extravaganza,” a voice says behind me. “It tastes so different from the manufactured version.”
I drop the leaf like I wasn’t just caressing it and turn to face Logan. His hair is wet, as though he’s tried to smooth it down, but a few strands stick up in the back. My heart stutters.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound casual. “It’s one of my family’s favorite dinners.”
What I won’t admit to anyone, especially my mother, is that I made the pot roast because it’s one of the few dishes Jessa can eat. The carrots and potatoes are soft enough to mash, and whenever I put some in her mouth, my sister claps her hands and reaches for more. In those moments it doesn’t matter that my mother’s forgotten about me since the baby was born. It’s Jessa and me together against the rest of the world.
“So you made it for your mom?” Logan asks.
Maybe I did, but she couldn’t even bother to come to school and taste it. A spurt of anger rushes through me. “No. I made it for my father.”
“I thought he was gone.”
Gone. That’s one way to describe it. Eight years ago, my father left for work—and never came home. My mother has never explained where he went.
I slam my locker shut. “He’s coming back.”
Logan blinks. No doubt he’s heard his own version of what happened to my father. “How do you know?”
It was only a distant hope before. Something I would cross my fingers and wish for when I heard my mother crying at night. But now, saying it to Logan, I know it’s true. I feel it down to the very core of my being.
“My mother loves my father too much to have a baby with anyone else.” And Jessa’s baby pictures look just like mine. We are the products of a mixed heritage. We have my father’s eyes, which taper at the corners. And my mother’s seashell skin. “So he’s been back,” I say slowly, working it out in my head. “Maybe he had to leave again for work or something, but now that Jessa’s here, he’s going to come back and take care of us.” I look at Logan, almost pleading, “Wouldn’t you? If you had a little baby like Jessa, wouldn’t you want to be with her?”
“If I had someone like you in my life, I would never leave to begin with,” he says,
his voice steady and sure.
Except he does.
A few short weeks later, his brother Mikey made a racquetball hover above the court, and Logan stopped being my friend. I kept the final leaf in my locker until it crumbled. I even left my locker door open a few times, to make it easy for him.
But a new leaf never showed up. And neither did my father.
When I wake my brain feels sluggish, like I have to push every thought through a sieve before it will register. It’s been a long time since I felt that resentment toward my sister. Could this be why my future self kills her—because I’m harboring some jealousy toward Jessa that I won’t even admit to myself?
No. I didn’t feel jealous or resentful in my memory. I just felt . . . dread. I sit up and pull my knees to my chest. Jessa’s the good one, the sweet one. She doesn’t argue with my mom, doesn’t forget her chores. I’ve never once seen Mom clutch her temples and moan because of Jessa. So what if Mom loves her more? I would love her more, too.
At least one thing’s clear. My mind can manipulate more than my future memory. I can “live” other memories, too.
Testing the theory, I pull up the image of Logan’s face, just as he tells me he will never leave me. I zoom in on the picture until all I can see is the sharp edge of one cheekbone. And yes, there on his cheek is a single, stray eyelash.
I let out a deep breath. So there’s my answer. My brain can zoom like a recording device. It’s not something weird about future memories. It’s definitely me.
The ability started the day I received my memory. Could that process have something to do with these powers?
“Powers” feels like too strong a word. It’s not like I can see the future or make things float. At most I’m a glorified digital camera. Does that really qualify as a psychic ability? If so, it’s not like any psychic ability I’ve ever heard of.
I get to my feet and walk around the cell, swinging my arms back and forth. Now that I’m getting used to the idea, I think I’m okay with it. The worst thing about having a psychic ability is that TechRA will be after you. But they’ve already got me locked up. And the best thing? Well, maybe I can find a way to use it against them.
“Hatchie. Hey, hatchie.”
I halt. Who’s that? The voice seems to have come from right next to me, but there’s no one else in my cell. No one outside the bars, either. I must be hearing things.
“Hey, hatch. When you’re done with the calisthenics, why don’t you come talk to me?”
Calisthenics? I realize my arms are still swinging. Hastily, I tuck them behind my back.
“Over here. In the corner. There’s a loose brick.”
I cross the room in the direction of the voice. Dropping to my knees, I run my hands along the wall. Dust covers my fingertips as they dip into the grout. At the very bottom, I feel empty space where a brick has been removed.
I stretch on the ground, aligning my face with the hole.
An eye looks back at me.
My pulse jumps. The eye is round, with long black lashes that stick straight out. Back at school, those lashes would’ve been the envy of all the girls. She could’ve crimped them, even attached tiny beads. But here in detainment, without the proper beauty tools, the lashes look overgrown, like weeds in an untended garden.
“How come I never noticed this hole before?” I ask.
“Because, hatchie,” the voice says like I’m stupid, “I never took out the brick before. I didn’t feel like listening to a sniveling wimp cry about missing her mama. But after you riled up the girls yesterday, I thought you might be able to amuse me.”
That’s the second person who’s taken my actions to mean something they’re not. I didn’t yell out those things because I’m aggressive or interesting. I was just…impatient.
“Why do you call me hatchie?” I ask.
“Because you’re like a baby bird about to step off a branch and plummet to your death. I call all the new girls that.”
“Who are you?”
The eye blinks. “You can call me Sully.”
“Sally?”
“No. Sully. Either because I’m sullen or because I’m the one who sullies everything up. Take your pick.”
The voice is young, so she must’ve been a newbie herself not too long ago. But her tone is heavy, weighed with the kind of complexity you get only with experience.
“So Sully, when will they let me see my mother?” I don’t want to see Jessa. Too dangerous. But maybe I can warn my mom. Let her know I saw Jessa as a lab subject in a future world, so she can take extra precautions to prevent it from happening.
The single eye rolls. “You don’t get to see your family, hatchie. This ain’t detainment, you know. No visitation rights in Limbo.”
Huh? My skin’s rubbed raw from the coarse jumpsuit, and I live in a cell with buckets of urine and feces that have been festering for days. Of course this is detainment.
“What are you talking about? What’s Limbo?” As I ask the question, I realize I’ve heard the term before, from Chairwoman Dresden.
Sully’s eye closes and I see lines etched into the eyelid, too precise to be veins. She must have a picture tattooed there. I move a little closer, but my head blocks the already dim light, so I ease back again.
The eye opens. “You’re in Limbo because you haven’t done anything wrong yet, so they can’t convict you of anything. But they can’t let you go, either, because you will commit a crime. So they keep you here until something changes.”
“But what could possibly change?” I ask. “I can’t commit the crime if they’ve got me locked up. Right?”
The eye blinks. “Maybe, hatchie. Maybe not.”
“What does that mean?”
She doesn’t respond. I wait an entire minute, but the eye just continues to look at me.
I try a different question. “Sully, have you ever seen them use a needle here? A syringe about the length of my palm, and, you know, cylindrical?”
An emotion I can’t read passes through her eye. “Yes.”
I suck in a breath. “When was it? What do you know about it?”
She considers me for a long moment. Blink, blink, blink. “What’s in it for me?”
I’m not so much of a hatchie I don’t know that information doesn’t come for free. There’s only one problem. I don’t have much to bargain with.
“You want my glop?” I ask.
She snorts. “Please.”
“I’m a good listener. I’ll listen to you whenever you want.”
“Even more pathetic. I didn’t say I needed a friend, hatch. And if I did, it wouldn’t be you.”
I want to bang my head against the wall. “What do you want from me?”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” She laughs. “You don’t have anything I want.” Humming a tune I don’t recognize, she nudges the brick back into place.
“Wait—” I say, but it’s too late. The conversation’s over.
I run my fingers over the wall. The loose brick doesn’t come out as far as the others. I push against it, but it doesn’t budge. She must’ve braced something against it.
Smart girl, that Sully. The half-inch makes it impossible for me to grasp the brick, giving her absolute control over when to start a conversation.
Sighing, I retreat to the opposite wall. I have to find out about this needle, figure out how my future self gets ahold of it, if only to make sure my present self doesn’t.
But whatever Sully knows remains out of my reach. That is, until I figure out how to give her something she wants.
10
I lie flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, and try to remember everything I learned from the Meditation Core.
Inhale through my nose. Exhale from my mouth. Focus on a single, freeze-frame image from my future memory. Jessa’s hair falls to her shoulders, tangled and unbraided.
To her shoulders. How long does it take for hair to grow three inches?
Long enough. So no need to panic. Not
yet. I can figure out my memory. I can stop it from happening.
I inhale. Exhale. Try to get in some kind of zone. I probe my brain, stretching and distorting the memory. Walking through the scene again, I focus on one specific detail: the teddy bear with the red ribbon. I zoom in until all I can see is that bear—its fluffy, white fur; the gleaming, black eyes; the tattered, red ribbon. Then, I change it. I throw all of my mental power into one image: a crisp, blue ribbon. For just a moment, the color flickers from red to blue, but I don’t have time to see which color wins out before I snap out of the vision.
Dear Fate. My limbs feel like spaghetti left too long in the Meal Assembler. I may pass out.
But the FuMA guards have other ideas. A horn blares through the cell block. I bolt upright, just in time to see my gate slide open.
Open. I move to the door and peek out. Are we free to go?
Wishful thinking. Two heavyset guards stand at the end of the corridor, metal rods clamped in their hands. The batons might look less menacing than a whip, but I’ve seen the news footage scrolling across our desk screens. Those rods contain so much energy they can send you flying five feet.
Footsteps shuffle on the concrete, and girls begin to emerge from their cells. As one of my fellow inmates lurches past, I grab her arm. She has pale eyes and translucent lashes. Not Sully. “What’s going on?”
She shrugs, and her arm slides from my grasp. “The Outdoor Core. Half of us go out today, the other half go out next time, since fifteen minutes a week is all we need to maximize our potential.”
My heart leaps. We’re going outside. The sun! I fall in line behind the others, bouncing on my toes. The girl in front of me shakes her head. I smile in return. Fifteen minutes! Fifteen entire minutes to bask in a light I never thought I’d see again.
In the glass-walled intake office, the machines flash their lights. The door to the other room is shut like last time. One of the guards goes up to the entryway. He scans his body, punches in the numeric code, and then we are out.
He leads us to a small courtyard. It is surrounded on four sides by the buildings, but there’s grass and blue sky and the slightest hint of wind. Brightly colored leaves fall from two large trees, and the sun sits high in the clouds.