by Pintip Dunn
She stands abruptly. “It’s so boring being the only kid here. I thought if I gave Jessa a teddy bear, she would come play with me. But I haven’t seen her. Maybe my mom forgot to send it.”
My mouth drops open. “That was you? You sent Jessa the teddy bear?”
“Yeah. MK gave me the bear, but I already had one.” Her lower lip sticks out. “I thought Jessa would come by for a visit, but she hasn’t.”
Regaining my composure, I lean forward. “I’m sure she would play with you if she could.” I rub her shoulders, like I might do with my sister. “I’m trying to help her, Olivia. But I can’t do that unless I find this precognitive. Something bad happens in the future, and I need to find out what it is. Do you understand?”
She nods. Her narrow shoulders rise with her next breath. “I’m the precog. And this bad thing you’re looking for? I think it’s my nightmare.”
I rock back onto the marble. I can’t believe it. We found her. The source of the prophecy, the information being fed to an entire team of scientists. It was the Chairwoman’s daughter all along. A six-year-old girl. And we found her.
Logan’s hands close over my arms. I can’t tell if he’s supporting me or holding himself up. “Can you tell us about your nightmare?” he asks Olivia.
She shakes her head. “Too hard to explain. You’ll have to watch it yourself, the way my mom does.”
“How do we do that?” I ask.
“On the same machines they use to read your future memory.”
We wrench open the glass door. MK has her hands on her hips, studying the open files projected above her desk screen. Looking up, she blows a strand of hair off her forehead. “Just think how worse off I would be if you weren’t here right now. How’s it going in there?”
“Not bad,” Logan says. “We were hoping we could take Olivia on a walk. To visit William, maybe? It’s getting a little rowdy in there.”
“Yeah, I can hear the thumps.” She laughs. “I suppose that should be fine. Make sure you stay in the building, though, and have her back in an hour.”
He thanks MK, and then we’re on our way. As soon as we get to William’s office, we’ll hook Olivia up to the scanner. The machine will read the images in her mind, and I’ll see her vision of the future. If my theory is correct, I’ll finally know why a future Callie decided to kill her sister.
If, if, if. Nothing’s definite, and yet, the muscles in my neck and shoulders turn to stone. This is the answer. I can feel it.
The halls are mostly empty. Olivia skips ahead of us, her braids unraveling a little more with each bounce. The few people we see give her indulgent smiles, letting us pass without question.
“No wonder the Chairwoman doesn’t have a child-minder,” I murmur to Logan. “She doesn’t want anyone to find out.”
Olivia starts racing down the hallway. “Hurry up!” she calls over her shoulder. “We’re almost there!”
“Olivia, be care—”
A uniformed employee comes around the corner, carrying a potted plant. Olivia slams into him, knocking him to the ground. The pot flies out of his hand, smashes into the wall, and breaks into a million pieces.
The ceramic remains scatter across the floor. A trail of soil leads like breadcrumbs to the broken plant stalk.
The cool wind of Fate blows against my spine. I’ve seen this image before.
Logan helps Olivia to her feet and apologizes to the man.
The man frowns, his mustache twitching. “I don’t have time to deal with this. I’m late for a meeting.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” Logan says. “We’re interns here. We’ll call a bot to clean it up.”
Grumbling about out-of-control kids and their irresponsible child-minders, the man strides down the hall. I wait until he’s out of earshot, and then I turn to Logan.
“That broken pot was in my memory,” I whisper. “It looked just like that. The trail of soil, the broad green leaves. My memory’s coming true.”
All of a sudden, I’m not sure I’ve made the right decision. Maybe I don’t need to know the future. Why am I tempting Fate? Maybe I should just grab Jessa and run.
Logan takes my hand and repeats my words back to me. “Knowing the future doesn’t take away your free will. Only you can decide what you will do.” He grips my hand. “We’ve come so far, Callie. Let’s finish this.”
I look at him, the person who’s been by my side almost this entire journey. “I’m scared.”
“Me, too,” he says.
43
It’s the same room. Same chair with cylindrical cushions, humming machines, tray of meditation aids. Same shiny black tiles, although the dust has been swept to the side and forgotten, like a pile of mouse droppings. Same glass walls, but the white sheets providing the illusion of privacy have been pulled down.
I focus on these minor differences, but it’s no use. I can’t catch my breath, and every fiber in my body screams run!
Instead, I grab the glass bottle from the tray and twist off the stopper. The spicy scent of peppermint clears my nose. I think of a morning, not too long ago. Sitting around the eating table with my family, drinking peppermint tea. Jessa warms her hands in the steam rising from her mug, while my mother closes her eyes, lost in dreams of the past.
The memory washes over me, and I inhale deeply. My heart slows to a steadier rate. Maybe these meditation aids work, after all.
William adjusts the metal headpiece on Olivia’s head. She’s sitting on the recliner, her ankles crossed as if she’s done this a hundred times. And maybe she has.
“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” he says to me, leaning over and tightening Olivia’s chin strap.
I roll my eyes at his deliberate double meaning. “Ha ha.”
“My mommy always lights me a candle,” Olivia says. “I like to play with the flame.”
William raises his eyebrow, as if not sure he should be giving fire to a little girl. “If that’s what gets you into the proper state of mind, by all means…” Shrugging, he sets up a candle on a bedside table and wheels it over Olivia’s lap. “Open your mind and let the vision come to you. If you need anything, we’ll be right next door.”
He beckons to me, and I follow him to his office in the adjacent room, where Logan’s waiting. Since there’s no white sheet, we can see Olivia through the glass walls. I wave at her, but she’s busy trying to pinch the flame between her fingers.
William plugs wires into a desk screen. Instead of flat and horizontal, the screen is vertical and curves all the way around, so that it resembles an oversize donut. Logan’s already found his way inside.
“How did you get in there?” I ask.
“Just duck under,” Logan says. “Careful you don’t hit your head.”
I join him inside the machine. All around me, white lights dance, chasing each other like fireflies across the black screen.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Olivia’s mind figuring out where to land.” William ducks under the machine and pops up next to us. “When the vision comes to her, these lights will form images so we can live it with her.”
“Live it?” Logan reaches out to touch a light, and his fingers bump into the screen. “Don’t you mean watch?”
“You’ll see what I mean.” William passes out headpieces and motions for us to put them on. “The vision will translate across all five senses. You’ll feel like you’re experiencing the vision yourself. You’ll see it through Olivia’s perspective.”
The lights begin to vibrate, drifting together to form a solid mass.
“Here it comes,” William whispers. “Hold on tight.”
My hands are wrapped around black bars. Thick, bloody scratches travel down my arms, and the smell of urine and feces chokes the air. Teenage girls in dirty school uniforms press all around me.
At the end of the cell, a brunette roars and leaps onto a redhead’s back, grabbing her hair and yanking until it detaches in clumps. Another girl in the corner sings at
the top of her lungs. Her head lolls around in a pile of feces, streaking her once blonde hair with brown.
Suddenly I hear short, staccato raps against the concrete floor. We all fall silent, even the singing girl. Two people appear at the end of the hallway. They converse briefly, and then the tall one walks toward us. I see a navy uniform and silver hair cut closely to a well-shaped head. Her face is more lined, but the features are unmistakable. Chairwoman Dresden.
I stand on wobbly legs and grip the bars even tighter. “Mom,” I say. “You have to call off the execution.”
She scans past me a few times, as if she doesn’t recognize who I am. She finally meets my gaze and winces. “I told you, Olivia. You knew the price of receiving a mediocre memory, but you wouldn’t listen, would you?”
“My future self sent me a happy memory,” I say. “In it, I held my newborn baby and felt at peace with the world.”
“It was mediocre! You of all people should’ve known what was coming.” A muscle ticks at the corner of her mouth. “It was your vision of the future that showed us what we could become. A race of superhumans.” She wraps her hands over mine, on the bars. “I know you’ve got talent, Olivia. You’re my daughter, aren’t you? Why didn’t your future self send a better memory? You could’ve chosen any memory. One that showed off your superlative skills as a violinist. One that illustrated your mathematical genius. Why did you send this one?”
I straighten my spine. “I don’t know why she did it, Mom. Maybe my future self thought it wasn’t right to execute ninety-nine percent of the population on the basis of their memories. Maybe she knew this was the only way to get you to listen. To show you there’s more to humanity than pure talent. There’s also happiness. And love.”
Her fingers fall away. “Not in this world, I’m afraid. We can’t allow any mediocre genes to contaminate the breeding pool. The execution has been set. You and the other Mediocres will serve your sentence in two hours.”
She turns and walks away, her heels clicking against the floor, toward the person I now assume is her assistant.
“Mom!” I call after her. “You can’t do this. I’m your daughter. Your daughter!”
“No.” Her voice carries down the long hallway, and I can’t see her face anymore. The only thing I can make out is her navy uniform. “No daughter of mine is mediocre.”
44
The image breaks apart, and white lights buzz against the black screen. I’m breathing, but the air turns to lead when it enters my mouth. My heart pounds, but the beats scatter like insects in the night.
So this is why. I finally have my answer. I finally know why my future self kills Jessa.
The donut screen whirls around me. I’m in the center, but I’m no eye of the storm. I’m spinning fastest of all, so fast I’m about to collapse. But then Logan grabs my arms, holding me up.
I glimpse myself in the reflection of his irises. The girl he’s always seen, but the one I wasn’t sure existed until now.
A high-pitched cry punctures the air, followed by a heavy crash.
“Olivia,” William says. As one, he and Logan rip off their headpieces and duck under the machine.
A moment later, I hear her hysterical babbling: “I didn’t know…it was worse than before…why did Mommy say I wasn’t her daughter…why were all the Mediocres killed…”
“Shhh,” Logan says. “It’s going to be okay. Shhh.”
Moving in slow motion, I take off my headpiece and fall to my knees. Future memory will cause this, the systematic execution of the mediocre. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I can prevent it all if future memory is never discovered. It can be stopped if I kill my sister.
I take a shaky breath. It was always my decision. Nobody forced my hand. Fate never pre-empted my will. My sister or ninety-nine percent of the population. The death of a single girl or genocide.
I close my eyes. My hand finds its way to my mouth. I bite, but my mind doesn’t register the pain. It’s too full of those girls in the prison cell. The fighting ones and the listless ones. The one rolling in her own feces and the teenage Olivia. Another cell and another, all full of seventeen-year-old girls and boys. Executed day after day until mediocrity is snuffed out. Until all that’s left is a society of superhumans.
How can I let that happen? How can I kill my own sister?
A thick wetness coats my tongue. I take my hand from my mouth and see teeth marks puncturing skin. Blood. I look wildly around the room and land on the medical kit with the syringes inside.
I glance into the next room. Olivia’s head is cradled in Logan’s lap, and he’s stroking her hair. William is picking up the machine that’s been knocked to the floor.
It’s my decision. But really, when it comes down to it, what choice do I have?
I take the needles from the medical kit—both the clear and the red—and stuff them in my pocket. I leave the room and hear Logan call out after me. I don’t look back.
I walk down the 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. The acrid smell of antiseptic burns my nose.
I curl my fingers into a fist to staunch the flow of blood, but red drops litter the floor. 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 numbers 522. I take a deep breath, but no matter how much air I draw, I can’t seem to get enough.
There’s nowhere left to run. No one left to save me from this moment. This is my future, and I’m living it.
I go inside. The sun shines through the window, the first window I have seen for hours. A teddy bear with a red bow sits on the sill.
So the Chairwoman sent Olivia’s present, after all. The madwoman has a heart. A bubble of laughter rises in my throat. Underneath the despotic lunacy is a woman with consideration. A tyrant who tickles. A killer who cries.
The laughter bursts from my mouth like crazy, frothing foam, and then it shuts off as I take in the rest of the scene.
Everything is hospital white. White walls, white blinds, white bed sheets.
In the middle of the sheets lies Jessa. Oh, she is so young. So innocent. My bones turn to liquid, and I sink to my knees by the bed.
Her chestnut hair billows around her head, 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 smile.
It takes me three tries to force the words through my parched lips. “Of course I came.” I pick up her slender hand. It fits in my palm the way a sparrow belongs in her nest. “How are they treating you?”
Jessa wrinkles her nose. “The food is gross. And they never let me play outside.”
A lifetime of memories flit through my mind. Newborn Jessa rooting in the air like a baby bird searching for food. Toddler Jessa crying for me to kiss the boo-boo on her knee. My sister as she was last month, wiping the tears from my face.
I stand up. It’s always been my choice. Knowing the future doesn’t take away my free will. I have complete control over my actions. This is my decision. Mine. Not FuMA’s, not the future’s, not even Fate’s.
“When you leave, you can play as much as you’d 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 an older sibling.
Tears drip down my face. This is an impossible choice. Impossible. But I have to make it.
I’m so sorry, Jessa. Words can’t describe how sorry I am. You are more than my s
ister. You are my twin, my half, my soul.
You are the candle that shines when all power is extinguished. The proof that love exists when life is snuffed out.
When all my layers are stripped away, when everything I know is turned inside out, all I have left is this.
My love for you.
It’s the only thing they can’t touch.
“Forgive me,” I whisper, although I will never, ever forgive myself.
I reach into my pocket and take out the needles.
The door clatters open, and Logan bursts into the room. His gaze zeroes in on the syringes. “No, Callie. Don’t do this. Don’t—”
It’s too late. I smash the red needle to the floor, destroying the antidote. And then I whip my arm through the air, plunging the clear needle straight into my own heart. The liquid empties into my body.
He crosses the room in three strides and catches me as I sway forward. “What have you done? Oh dear Fate, what have you done?”
I reach up to touch his cheek, but already I’m too weak and my hand stops halfway there. He lowers his face to meet my fingers. I feel the bristles on his jaw and the hot, wet salt of his tears.
“This is the only way.” My voice trembles, as if it knows these are the last words I’ll ever say. “The only way to save Jessa. The only way to save the future.”
She’s the Sender. I’m the Receiver. One is useless without the other. If there is no Receiver, Jessa can’t send her memories. They won’t be able to excavate her mind. They won’t discover future memory.
The girls in the prison will be safe. My sister will be safe. Everyone will be safe.
Except me.
I turn to my sister one last time and look straight into the face of an angel. The round curve of her cheek catches the glow of the light, and her hair falls around eyes so luminous they could’ve been plucked from the stars.
I love you, I mouth inside my head.
I look up at Logan, and my last thought is: despite everything, I’m so glad I took Jessa to the park on October Twenty-seventh.
And then everything goes black.