Remember Yesterday

by Pintip Dunn

  “Not as cruel as genocide.”

  He doesn’t have to remind me.

  We don’t speak as we step off the sidewalk and exit the compound. We walk into the woods—an almost entirely different world. Here, in this small, dwindling-by-the-day patch of forest, there’s no metal or technology. There’s just vegetation and rocks and the smell of rich, damp soil. If there was ever a place for peace and relaxation, this is it.

  Problem is, when we reach the gurgling river and push off in the rowboat, Logan still isn’t talking to me. I don’t know if the silent treatment is just the way our friendship is—or if he’s annoyed at me.

  We lived in the wilderness for six years, where the sky was our ceiling and the grass was our floor. Those first few months after we left, in those days when I didn’t talk, and not even Ryder and his mud puddles could draw me out, Logan would take me on the water.

  He would row until we reached a pool of still water, and we’d sit in silence for hours. I’d look at the fish swimming below the surface and the water rippling in concentric circles, and the knots inside my stomach would slowly unwind. As though I could finally stretch after crouching too long in the restrictive box of grief.

  This was how we mourned Callie, in the first months after her death. And even though Logan’s busy with his swimming career and I’m busy with school, this is how we mourn her still.

  I drag my oars through the river, and drops of cold water sprinkle on my forearms. Logan’s face is clenched in concentration, the way he looks before one of his swim meets. Yep, definitely mad.

  I try to think of something to say—and then a prickly sensation converges on my brain. I drop the oar and clutch my head.

  “Are you okay?” Logan grabs my oar before it slides into the water. “What’s wrong?”

  Whispers rumble at the edge of my mind, digging their sharp talons into my scalp. It’s not painful, exactly. Just uncomfortable. Like an insect has crawled into my head space and is buzzing around the empty cavity.

  “It’s probably nothing,” I say through gritted teeth. “I bumped my head on the counter when Ryder was lowering me, and I have a migraine. That’s all.”

  Even as I say the words, I look at my hand, which throbs where the mouse bit me. Where his teeth broke through the glove and pierced skin. The marks are red and swollen, and angry streaks radiate from the bite.

  I swallow. Could I be reacting to it? Nah. These are lab mice. It’s not like they have rabies.

  “Please don’t be mad.” I take the oar back from Logan, changing the subject. “Even if I were caught, even if the scientists experimented on me, they wouldn’t find what they’re looking for. Not with Callie gone.”

  He takes a deep breath and holds it so long he might be doing one of his underwater exercises. “What if she’s not gone?”

  I jerk. “What?”

  “We never saw anyone take away her body.” He stares at his fingers. “We never watched it burn in the incinerator. She had no pulse, but we escaped down the laundry chute before we saw if an antidote revived her. Someone could’ve entered the room after we left. Someone could’ve saved her. We don’t know.”

  My heart knocks against my ears, and I can’t breathe. Because this was my biggest fantasy as a child. This was the dream that took years of “talks” with Angela for me to let go. Callie, still alive.

  Angela knew Callie for only a short time, during the couple of weeks that my sister ran to Harmony to escape her future, but she loved her. If Callie had lived, if she had married Logan like I imagined, Angela would’ve been her sister-in-law, since she married the other Russell brother, Mikey.

  And I would’ve still had my twin.

  Callie and I were conceived from the same egg and sperm, although my embryo was removed and implanted eleven years later. What’s more, we were linked through a psychic bond, making us closer than sisters. Maybe even closer than regular twins. But that bond didn’t survive her death.

  Oh, for a long time, I thought it did. For years, I would’ve sworn I still felt her, somewhere on the other end, barely holding on. But as one year flowed into the next, and I received no other sign, Angela convinced me that it was nothing more than wishful thinking.

  “She’s gone, Logan,” I say gently. “Think about what you’re saying. According to your scenario, someone would’ve had to inject her with the antidote seconds after we left. Nobody even knew you were there.”

  He holds up his hand. I realize he wasn’t staring at his fingers after all, but at a jagged cut running across his palm. “I did this at practice the other day. This cut was in my future memory. The one where I’m warming up for the Gold Star competition and I meet Callie’s eyes in the audience. The one where I feel an overwhelming sense of belonging.”

  He traces the cut, almost tenderly. “When she plunged the needle into her heart, Callie sent out ripples that impacted a lot of people. Half the memories people received wavered and then faded like sound waves traveling away from their source. Because those memories no longer belonged in our time. Callie changed our future. She picked up our universe and moved it to a different timeline.”

  He looks up. Our boat has drifted to the shoreline, and his face is bisected by shadows cast by the leaves. “My memory didn’t fade. It’s just as vivid now as it was ten years ago. That’s one of the reasons I still get endorsements, even though most of the other swimmers’ revenue streams dried up a long time ago. They’ve had to get other jobs, while I could focus on my swimming.

  “And now, with this injury, it seems like my future memory is coming true, at long last. Only, how can that be if Callie’s gone?” He picks up the oar and pushes us off the shore, away from the shade. “Unless she’s not.”

  The sun beats down on my skin, but suddenly I’m shaking, shuddering, shivering inside.

  Unless she’s not.

  That sentence is too big, its implications too familiar. This hope will bury us alive if we let it.

  “You have to let her go,” I say around the mass in my throat. “Mikey, Angela—we’re all so worried about you. You can’t stop living just because she has.”

  He laughs, a short, sharp sound that could cut glass. “Fates know, I haven’t stopped dating these last ten years. In fact, I’m seeing a girl right now.”

  “Yes, but you’re never serious about them. You haven’t had a real girlfriend since Callie died.”

  An expression of immeasurable sadness crosses his face. I reach out to touch him—but pain sears across my head, and I fall forward to my knees. The whispers are back, scrabbling at my brain, searching, searching for a crack or chink, slicing me with tiny, quick jabs. I press my hands to my temples, but no matter how hard I push, I. Cannot. Make. It. Stop.

  “Owwww,” I whimper. “It hurts, Logan. It hurts so much.”

  “Hold on. I’m rowing as fast as I can. I’ll get you back to the compound. I’ll get help.”

  I keep squeezing my head as the boat speeds over the water, keep applying pressure as Logan lifts me in his arms and runs back to the compound. My teeth chatter against one another as first my mom’s and then Ryder’s and then Mikey’s faces pass in front of my vision. Fine tremors erupt along my skin as Mikey lifts my hand and squints at the bite marks.

  “Yep, she’s been infected,” he says.

  And then I pass out.

  3

  I am running, running down a corridor. The tiles are pale green, and a darker green stripe bisects the wall. The wait lounges flash by, at regular intervals along the hallway, with their emerald carpets and purple amethyst couches.

  Green and purple. Purple and green.

  These colors mean something to me. Something important. Something I need to remember.

  I just can’t figure out what.

  Sweat drenches my back, making my shirt cling to my skin. I pump my legs, as steady as a piston, and gasp at the air, not as steady, not as sure. No one is chasing me, and yet I have to run as quickly as possible. Along the corridor, mak
e a left, through the double swinging doors, bypass the elevators, open the emergency exit, down, down, down an endless set of stairs, until I dead-end in front of a door.

  A metal door, locked up tighter than a tomb with its blinking-purple-light security system, its pale-green box of personal identity scans.

  Green and purple.

  I’m here, exactly where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know where “here” is. I don’t know how I knew to follow this particular path. I don’t know why this door is so significant.

  All I know is this is where I’m meant to be. I was born to fulfill this destiny.

  When I wake, my mother is running a cool washcloth along my heated skin. It takes me a moment to figure out where I am—in my bed in the little cottage behind the Russells’ home, in the Harmony compound. Not running in a purple and green hallway I’ve never seen.

  I shiver, and immediately my mom brings her hand to my forehead. “Your fever finally broke after forty-eight hours. Are you cold?”

  I shake my head and rise onto my elbows. “What happened to me?” I croak.

  “A mouse infected you.” She glides the cloth down my arms.

  I sink back onto the pillows. My bones slosh around my limbs like water, and my head pulses with lights. Still, I could sit up if I really wanted to. But I’d rather have my mom keep taking care of me a little longer.

  Ever since I came back from the wilderness, our relationship has been…strained. We were both to blame. She didn’t want to leave her home and move into the Harmony compound. She said it was too dangerous for us to be affiliated with the Underground, but I don’t buy that excuse for a second. I was already on the run with them. I’d say I was already associated. So I went on a hunger strike until she let me live at the compound with Mikey and Angela. I’m not proud of it, but what did she expect? I hadn’t seen her for six years, and it was hard enough for me to move back to civilization. I didn’t want to be ripped away from my community, too.

  Our relationship never recovered, even though she comes by the cottage to see me every day. It’s like she can’t forgive me for choosing another family, and I can’t forgive her for letting me go into the wilderness by myself.

  Except when I’m sick. For some reason, my mom drops her guard then. She even lets herself be affectionate, and I can fool myself into believing that she loves me. The way Ryder’s adopted mother, Angela, loves him.

  “Mikey says you should go back to normal once the poison passes through your system.” She smooths my hair and tucks it behind my ear. I keep my eyes closed. Pretend I’m drifting to sleep so she won’t withdraw her soft hands. “Except, that is, for the enhanced powers.”

  My eyes fly open. “Powers? What powers?” And do they have anything to do with a green and purple hallway?

  Aw, fike. I spoke too strongly, sounded too healthy. In front of my very eyes, she retreats into herself. Her spine gets straighter; her chin lifts higher. She drops the washcloth like it cooked too long in the Meal Assembler.

  “Don’t know.” Even her voice is cooler. “Whatever powers the mouse had. We won’t know until we speak to the administering scientist.”

  “Mikey’s going to talk to Tanner?” I ask hopefully. It’s not out of the question. When we came back to civilization, Mikey returned to his first love—science—and took up a post at TechRA. A scientist in name, but definitely not one of them.

  “No, you’re going to talk to Tanner.” She crosses her arms across her chest. “You’re the one who got yourself into this mess. You clean it up.”

  “But then he’ll know I let his mice loose!”

  “Should’ve thought of that before you broke into his lab.” She tosses back her shoulder-length hair, ready for battle. “Besides, isn’t Tanner your classmate? Strike up a conversation with him. Maybe he’ll spill about the mice without you having to confess anything.”

  I make a face. Yeah, right. I’m as excited to seek out Tanner Callahan’s company as I am to take her advice. At least that’s what I’ve always thought. Unbidden, an image of his gentle hands wiggling loose the mouse’s leg floats across my mind. Is it possible Tanner isn’t the self-absorbed jerk I always assumed?

  Before I can decide, the floors vibrate, and an image of my front stoop appears on the wall screens. My mom puts her hands on her hips, and my heart rate triples. We have a guest.

  I can’t see the caller’s face. Her silver hair, a shade brighter than my mom’s, is pulled back in a sleek chignon. She wears a navy uniform, its lines so sharp it looks like it came straight out of the air press, and a pair of transparent shoes, whose heels might double as icicle daggers.

  Chairwoman Dresden. This isn’t her first visit, and it won’t be her last.

  “Does she know about my infection? Did she find out…” I force the words out of my throat. “I broke into the TechRA labs?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s probably just here to make you another proposition.” Mom moves to the wardrobe and tosses me a jacket, the kind that will mold itself to my body upon wearing. “Here, put this on.”

  “I’m not changing for her.”

  “You can’t wear your pajamas to receive the head of FuMA, Jessa.”

  “She’s the head of a now-defunct agency,” I correct her. “The chairwoman title is merely honorary. What’s more, she’s a future dictator responsible for genocide, our very own post-Boom Hitler. I’ll wear whatever I want.”

  “Just do it.” My mother clicks her tongue. Maybe she’s as sick as I am of our constant arguing. Maybe she, too, wishes we could go back in time and fix yesterday’s mistakes. But too many years have passed. Too many resentments have piled on too many hurts. Even if I wanted to start over with my mom, I wouldn’t know how.

  The floors vibrate again. My mom shoves my safety pads and hoverboard gear into the closet and then looks right into my eyes. “Just remember, Jessa. I don’t need the stars and moon. The only thing I need is you.”

  Right. I don’t even dignify her lies with a response. My family situation is pathetic, no question. I never knew my father, and my sister killed herself in front of my very eyes. My mother chose to stay in her home, wrapped in the comfort of Eden City, rather than venture into the woods and risk hardship to be with her daughter.

  She says she’s acting as an anchor for my father, who time-traveled into the future. She says if she leaves, he will forever be lost in time. But he’s already been gone for twenty-three years, with scant hope of every returning. For all we know, he’s dead, and the time-travel experiment was a miserable failure.

  That’s what all his cohorts believe—everyone except my mom. The experiment was never sanctioned by ComA in the first place. Instead, a group of Underground scientists did the research and built the time-travel machine themselves. When my dad disappeared, they all but abandoned the project. It was just too risky, and no one was keen to lose another loved one.

  In contrast, I’m right here, right in front of her. And she still prioritizes her absentee husband over me. What else am I supposed to conclude other than that she doesn’t love me?

  And yet, you know what’s even more pathetic than a woman who doesn’t love her daughter? Underneath the eye rolls and the bratty behavior, I love her. The woman who deserted me.

  And I would give anything if her lies could be truth.

  4

  My mother leaves the room to answer the door. I stick my arms into the jacket, and the heated rubber molds around my forearms and biceps. What’s it going to be this time? My very own self-driving car. More credits than I could spend in a lifetime. Admittance into the top uni programs for…what, exactly? Do they have university degrees for rappelling or, I don’t know, parkour?

  I sigh, remembering Logan’s words about applying myself. For a moment, I wish I were part of Callie’s generation. They, at least, weren’t plagued by the unknown. They didn’t have to choose an area of study—because their future memories chose one for them.

  Just as quickly, the envy disappe
ars. Future memory was great when it worked. But when it didn’t…well, that’s exactly why I’m in this predicament today. With Chairwoman Dresden making me offers I can’t turn down—and me turning them down.

  I zip up the jacket over my pajama top just as Dresden strides into the room, her icicle heels clinking against the tile.

  My mother isn’t with her. Figures. She’s been conveniently absent during all my conversations with the chairwoman.

  She doesn’t blink at my attire. “Jessa, so good to see you,” she coos, as if we’re great friends and this is a social visit.

  “The answer is no.”

  “You haven’t heard the question.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” My voice is steady, even though my knees, my fingers, my shoulders shake. “The answer is still no.”

  “You might want to hear me out, Jessa.” Her tone turns as clipped as her shoes. “I’m giving you the opportunity to do something selfless for a change.” She walks overs to my desk and plucks up one of my black chips. No doubt it contains vids of a hoverboarder performing tricks. Dropping the chip, she turns and crashes right into the transport tube that delivers packages to the cottage. I snicker. The tube’s made of clear plastic and is as wide as I am. There’s no way she should’ve missed it, but I guess even the chairwoman makes mistakes.

  She straightens slowly. “It seems a position has opened up for a medical assistant, and we think your mother would be perfect for the job.”

  “Oh, really?” I could mention the crash—in fact I’m dying to—but I don’t. “Even though she hasn’t worked in that position in two decades?”

  “Through no fault of her own. There was no one better at her job than your mom. But then these young upstarts showed up with data chips revealing successful futures as medical assistants. Your mother couldn’t compete, no matter how competent she was. She had no data chip, and back then, no future memory meant no job.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about my mother’s life,” I say.