by Pintip Dunn
If it were any other baby, I might toss her in the air. I’ve seen Laurel do that with her son, Eli, and I remember his laugh of pure delight. But this is Remi. Maybe Angela’s too protective of her, but I can hardly blame her.
I take the baby on a tour of the eating area, pointing out the various Meal Assemblers and the pantry of plastic-wrapped trays, and then give her back to her mother. Angela carefully places her back in the length of fabric. For a moment, I wish I were a baby again, so I could be as safe and warm as Remi.
“I don’t know how I would’ve made it through those years without you and Logan,” I mumble.
“You would’ve managed. You’re a survivor.” Calmer now, Angela tugs a plastic block out of the wall and begins to transfer the madeleines into it. “So is Logan, although sometimes I think you’ve adjusted better than he has.”
I hesitate, not sure I should betray Logan’s confidence. But if there’s anybody in the world who worries about Logan as much as I do, it’s Angela.
“He still hopes she’s alive, Ange. He thinks…he thinks his memory is going to come true, the one where Callie cheers him on at a swim meet. Last week, he cut his hand in the same way it was in the memory.”
“Was it an accident?” She puts down the spatula, her voice as sharp as the metal corners. “Or did he cut himself on purpose? Is he so desperate to make the memory come true, he would do anything to help it along? Even hurt himself?”
“I…I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
She snaps the lid in place and fits the block back into the wall. A hose sucks out the excess oxygen, and the madeleines join an array of other airtight blocks, designed to maximize freshness. “I’ll talk to him. It’s not healthy for him to dwell so much on the past. We have to focus on today. And prepare ourselves for what tomorrow will bring.”
The words are strong and sure, but her voice wavers. Like the ripples that expand from a single stone, the trembling gets bigger and bigger until her voice cracks. And I know she’s no longer thinking about Logan.
I touch the soft black down on Remi’s head. “Keep her away from those cliffs, okay?”
“Are you kidding?” Angela smiles, quick and ferocious. “She’ll be lucky if she leaves the house these next eighteen years.”
The door opens, and Ryder swaggers into the room. He does a double take at the cookies. Recovering quickly, he sweeps up half a dozen with one hand. “Who aren’t you letting out of the house? Is that why you made so many cookies? Because we’re stuck inside?”
Angela swats him on the shoulder, the way she used to when he was a little kid. Except now, he towers over her by half a foot, and he has to lean down to kiss her on the cheek.
“It’s called nesting,” she says.
“You should nest more often.” He places a soft kiss on Remi’s head, leaving cookie crumbs in her hair. “Except next time, maybe you could nest with red meat? Lamb chops, rib eyes, beef tartare. That would be epic.”
“I don’t think birds eat red meat,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, because they eat cookies all the time?”
Angela giggles, and whatever else, I’m glad to see her happy again, if only for the moment.
“Get out of here, both of you,” she says. “I need to figure out what to do with these cookies.”
Ryder grabs another handful, and we leave the eating area.
I take a deep breath. “I have a mission for us.”
He groans. “Another one? Jessa, your bite hasn’t even healed, and if we break into another lab, Mikey will ground me for—”
“Not that kind of mission. No more labs. I just need to figure out where a certain purple and green hallway is. Are you game?”
He finishes the snickerdoodle and looks longingly up the stairs, as if wondering if he should’ve gotten out of bed this morning. Then, he turns back to me and sighs.
“For you, Jessa? I’m always game.”
8
Ryder sends me upstairs to grab his magnifying goggles—can’t leave home without them, even if we’re just going to the storage shed—and I skip down the hall toward his room. On the way, I pass Remi’s nursery, catching a glimpse of muscles and bare, glistening skin. I halt. Wait a minute, that can’t possibly be… I double back slowly, certain I’m imagining things. But nope, there he is. Tanner Callahan in the flesh. Literally.
He’s wrestling with a large plank of wood and foam padding. And he’s shirtless. Before I can stop myself, my eyes rake over his torso, exploring every ridge and dip that my mouth watered over the day before, when I didn’t know it was him. Now, I do know it’s him—and it doesn’t make a damn difference. My mouth’s still watering.
I swallow hard. Pull yourself together, Jessa. This is Tanner Callahan. You don’t like him, remember? My brain remembers that, all right. Too bad my hormones didn’t get the memo.
“What in Limbo are you doing here?” I ask, more sharply than I intend.
He looks up, mopping his brow with a soft gray fabric. Dear Fates, is that his shirt? And if so, will he put it back on? I can’t decide what I want the answer to be.
“Making a playpen for Remi,” he says. If he’s surprised to see me, he doesn’t show it. “She’ll be crawling in a few months, and she’ll need a safe place to explore her world.”
Wait—what? I shake my head, trying to compute the information. “How do you even know Remi?”
“Mikey’s my boss at TechRA. One of them, anyway. When I heard that Angela was having a hard time putting her daughter on the ground, I offered to make Remi her very own maze. I design all the mazes for the mice, you know.”
Oh. I look at the octagon-shaped frame he’s already built. It spans more than half the room and yet fits perfectly in the space. The padding is covered with a sturdy tangerine material—Angela’s favorite color. I can’t help it. My heart softens. Remi will love playing in here, and maybe Angela will be eased into not having the baby constantly attached to her.
I open my mouth to thank him. But what comes out instead is: “You’re not supposed to be inside the compound. There’s an unwritten rule that scientists aren’t allowed.”
He picks his way around the raw materials to stop in front of me. His bare torso is now inches away, and it takes all my strength not to back up. Not to lower my eyes from his face.
“Mikey’s a scientist,” he says.
“That’s different. He’s one of us. We may have reached a truce with ComA, but that doesn’t mean we have to be friendly with the likes of you.”
He swipes his sweaty hair off his forehead. “So if this isn’t a friendly visit, then where are my milk and cookies?”
“Come again?”
“I’ve been working for hours. The least you can do is fetch me some refreshments.”
My jaw clenches. There’s no longer any danger of me lowering my eyes anywhere because all I can see is red. “I don’t fetch anything for anyone.”
“No?” He inclines his chin toward the hallway. “Aren’t you heading toward Ryder’s room right now? To fetch him something, I presume?”
“It’s called a favor,” I say between gritted teeth. “For a friend. Not that you would know anything about that.”
“Maybe I would.” His gaze runs over my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. “If you’ll let me be your friend.”
Could I? For a moment, I look back on the half-constructed playpen. He can’t be that bad, can he, if he’s building a maze for Remi? If he feels sorry for an amputated mouse?
But then I remember it was his fault that the mice were locked up in the first place. I remember his vow that he’ll be the person to invent future memory. He’s as egotistical as the rest of the scientists—and that’s their ultimate downfall. That’s the quality that allows them to be okay with torturing little kids. Because it’s all in the name of science.
“I told you already,” I say, spinning on my heel. “I don’t make friends with scientists.”
A few minutes later, I’m still fuming a
s Ryder tugs the sheet off a big, bulky machine, scattering dust motes in the air.
“You could’ve given me a warning that Tanner was in your house,” I say.
“I thought you might want to continue your riveting conversation from yesterday.” He snickers, and I realize that’s precisely why he sent me to fetch his goggles. So that I would run into Tanner.
“That’s real juvenile, Ry. If you wanted to torment me, there’re about a hundred other things you could’ve picked.”
“Hey, I was as surprised as you were to see him this morning,” he says. “And you know what? He’s not half bad. You know how much work he’s saving me by building that playpen for Remi? Mikey totally would’ve made me do it if Rat Boy hadn’t offered.”
I sigh. Thinking about Tanner makes my skin itchy. And that’s the last thing I need. “Can we not talk about Tanner anymore? We have a purple and green hallway to find.”
We’re in the storage shed behind the Russells’ house, and I crouch in front of the doughnut-shaped computer screen that Ryder has just uncovered. It’s the one that translates a memory to the viewer across five senses. I haven’t seen one of these since I was six.
No wonder. When people stopped receiving future memories, these machines became largely irrelevant. They were good for only two things. Torturing victims like me with other people’s memories. And reading the visions a precognitive received. There’s been only one real precognitive in our nation’s history—the chairwoman’s daughter, Olivia Dresden. And no one’s seen or heard from her in the last decade.
The vision in my head might not be a glimpse of the future, but Ryder had the bright idea of scanning it with the doughnut screen, so that we have a physical image with which to work.
“How in space-time did Mikey score one of these?” Just seeing the machine makes my heart race, but I’m being silly. The scientists aren’t chasing me. No one’s going to strap me down and torture me.
Ryder flips a row of switches in front of the terminal. “When FuMA shut down, these machines went to a storage room at TechRA, collecting dust. So Mikey snagged one for our house.”
“So that it can sit here, collecting dust?”
“Something like that.” He flashes a you-know-me-better-than-that grin. If this doughnut screen is like any of the other relics Mikey’s lugged home, Ryder would have taken it apart, studied it, and put it back together within the first week.
“Sit.” He gestures to a storage crate and holds up a metal contraption that looks like a cross between a helmet and a headband. “Put this on and open your mind, the way you’ve been taught.” He squints at the terminal hooked up to the doughnut. “The memory will come to you.”
“What are you talking about?” I adjust the contraption on my head. Is it supposed to feel like it’s falling off? “I haven’t been taught anything. The meditation core hasn’t been part of the curriculum for years.”
“I know.” He smirks. “I’m just reading the script they included for the administrators. Hello, my name is Ryder. How are you this fine day? Would you like a meditation aid?” He pretends to hold up a tray, Vanna-bot style. “Flickering candle? Scents to sniff? No?” He mimes throwing the entire tray over his shoulder. “Good. None of this hocus-pocus stuff works anyway.”
I giggle. “The script does not say that.”
“Okay, you’re right. But do you feel more relaxed?”
I nod.
“Good. I bet that’s part of opening your mind.” He arranges two more crates behind me. “Just be…comfortable. Maybe the vision will show up.”
He puts on a less bulky helmet and ducks into the hollow middle of the doughnut screen.
I take a deep breath and ease myself down. The second my back hits the wooden slabs, the swords are back—hundreds, no, millions of them, jabbing at every corner and seam of my brain, peeling back any layer they can grasp.
I want to give them access. I try to open my mind. We’re working toward the same thing here, the swords and I, but we…just…can’t…connect.
Panting, I sit up. Sweat plasters my hair to my forehead. “I don’t get it. Why is this so hard?”
“How did the vision come to you last time?”
“I was sleeping. There wasn’t any kind of struggle. I just fell into it, like a dream.”
He frowns. Only his head sticks up in the middle of the screens. “What else was different?”
“What I’m wearing.” As soon as I say the words, I know the answer. Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Reaching up, I grasp the black-tourmaline pendant hanging around my neck. “My necklace. My mom took it off when she changed me into pajamas.”
He shakes his head. “Most people would kill to have your powers. I don’t know why you would voluntarily stunt them.”
My fingers trembling, I take off the pendant. Back when I lived in the wilderness, I never used to bump into anyone, ever. Never lunged in the wrong direction when I was trapping a fish. Never got caught without shelter during a freak thunderstorm. My precognition didn’t extend more than a couple of minutes into the future, but I used it as unconsciously as my eyes or my ears.
Then, we moved back to Eden City, and I let my psychic muscles atrophy. I bought this tourmaline pendant, so that the stone’s natural qualities could shield my abilities.
“Why, Jessa?”
I shake my head. It’s not something I can talk about, even with him. Especially because it’s him. Ryder brings flowers to my mom as well as Angela on Caregiver’s Day. He thinks she didn’t accompany me to the wilderness because of circumstances beyond her control. I can’t bear for him to know what I suspect is the truth. That she chose not to join me. That she wishes it had been me who died instead of Callie.
When we returned to civilization and I saw how cold my mother was, I never wanted to use my psychic abilities ever again. She blames me for my sister’s death, and if I could’ve gouged out my powers with a knife, I would’ve. Wearing the tourmaline stone—and in essence shutting down my abilities—is the next best alternative.
I put the pendant down on a crate, ten feet away. “Let’s try again without the necklace.”
Ryder turns back to the screen, and I lie on the crates once more. The wood scratches my shoulders, and I shift until I find a more comfortable position. I breathe in. And out. In. And out.
This time, when I open my mind, I fall into the corridor like a kitten tumbling into a bucket of cream. Fast, unprepared. And then I’m drowning in the vision.
I am running, running down a corridor. The tiles are pale green, and a darker green stripe bisects the wall…
I run past the wait lounges, the purple amethyst couches, pumping my legs, gasping for breath, past the elevators, through the emergency exit, until I reach the metal door with the purple-light security system.
I stand before the door, certain that I was born to fulfill this destiny. And then the vision fades.
This time, instead of being jerked to consciousness, I open my eyes slowly. Ryder’s already out of the doughnut screen and gawking at me.
“Holy Fates, I felt like I was in there with you.” He swipes an arm across his forehead. “No, I was you. The vision was happening to me.”
I nod, my clothes sticking to me in wet patches. “That’s how it felt when the scientists made me live those memories. Except they weren’t nearly as benign as running through a corridor.”
“No wonder Callie killed herself.” Ryder’s voice is hushed and a little spooked, like he’s seen a ghost from the past. Or maybe a flicker from the future. “She saw those girls moments before Dresden sent them to their execution. Their death was imminent—and Callie felt it. She would’ve done anything to save them—and you.”
I swallow, but I can’t dislodge the mass in my throat, the ache like a hole in my heart. I miss her; that’s always been true. But at this moment, I’m so sad, so sick about what she had to live through. The guilt over a murder she never committed. The responsibility she felt f
or all those Mediocres in prison. The final inevitability of her choice.
I need to make it up to her. Somehow, some way, I need to make myself worthy of her sacrifice. Maybe it starts with this vision.
“Did you recognize the corridor?” I ask Ryder.
He moves to the terminal. “No. But give me a few minutes. I’ll grab several stills and run them through the system, using Mikey’s security clearance.”
His fingers dance over the keyball, and I pick up my pendant again. Instead of slipping it on, however, I stick the black stone in my pocket.
Something tells me I’m going to need all of my abilities to figure this one out. For better or for worse. I lie on the ground and prop my black high-top hovershoes against the wall. And wait.
Half an hour later, Ryder looks up. “Got it. The corridor’s right here in Eden City.” He pauses. “It’s one of the basement floors of the TechRA building, where the FuMA offices used to be located.”
Of course. The information should be a revelation, but it doesn’t surprise me. It’s like I’ve always known it. Like my name. Like the path down the purple and green corridor. Somehow, I knew this was all connected.
“Now,” I say, “all we have to do is follow that path.”
9
“What if Dresden’s daughter sent you that message?” Ryder whispers the next day as we’re waiting for our turn through TechRA security. “She’s got sick abilities, and no one’s seen her in ages. I’d bet my hoverboard she hasn’t been at some boarding school for the last decade.”
My eyes widen. “You mean Olivia? You think she’s been held captive all these years?”
“Shhh, keep your voice down.” He looks around the glass walls, but there’s no one else in the waiting vestibule. The guy in front of us has already stepped through the security arches.
“It must be because of the vision of genocide,” I say, warming to the theory. “Dresden’s hiding Olivia because she doesn’t want anyone to know about the vision. Maybe Olivia sent me the message as a cry for help.”
“If that’s the case…we should abort,” Ryder says darkly.