by Pintip Dunn
“We’ve got to get out of here!” he yells. “We’ve got to—”
The door at the end of the hall opens, and half a dozen guards spill into the corridor.
Too late.
One of them grabs my arms, shoving me to the ground, while two others point their Tasers at me—one at my temple, the other at my chest.
I’m unarmed, I want to say. Just a girl, rendered helpless by a cough. It shouldn’t take three of you to contain me. But of course I don’t. Even if they could hear me above the noise, they wouldn’t listen.
Two more guards approach Tanner and flank him. But they don’t restrain him. They don’t wrench his arms behind his back. They don’t force him to his knees.
Why not?
The question worth a lifetime of credits, and maybe a couple of Meal Assemblers to boot.
I try to catch Tanner’s eye in all the commotion, but he either doesn’t see me—or he won’t.
The door opens again, and Chairwoman Dresden strides inside, her icicle heels slapping the tile, her smile shoving blades into my heart.
She waves her wrist in front of the security system, enters a code, and the alarm shuts down. Finally. We can hear one another talk again, but I’m no longer sure that’s a good thing.
“You’re so predictable, Tanner. I knew it was only a matter of time before you brought her back,” Dresden says. “I didn’t realize it would be so soon after my announcement, however. The riots are still going strong. A curfew is in place. But you couldn’t wait any longer to betray me, could you, darling boy?”
“This has nothing to do with you,” Tanner rasps. “I have to take Jessa to see her sister. She’s the only connection Callie has to this world, to this time.”
Something I can’t read flickers in Dresden’s eyes. “Yes, I know. Even though you never bothered to tell me. I had to find out from other people, scientists who are more loyal than you.” She tilts her head. “Always so earnest, so idealistic. Even as a little boy, you thought you could save the world. But what did I tell you when we took you in and trained you to be our hope for the future? You must be loyal to me—or people will die.”
I gulp. What is she saying? Does she mean she’ll kill Callie to punish Tanner? Will she kill me? No way. She’s allowed both of us to live for the last ten years. She needs us. Doesn’t she?
I may be confused, but Tanner doesn’t have any trouble understanding her meaning. His shoulders droop, and his head lowers. Right before my eyes, he transforms into a six-year-old boy again. “I’m sorry, Chairwoman. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn the Fates right, it won’t. I won’t allow it.” She snaps her fingers in the air. “Take them away.”
“Wait a minute.” I yank my arms, and the guards yank back, turning my body into a tug-of-war rope. “Where are you taking us?”
Dresden’s smile gets wider and colder. A few more degrees, and it’ll shatter in a million pieces. “You’re going to isolation, of course. But don’t worry. You won’t be there long.” She checks her wrist com. “A mere four hours and fifty-three minutes. Then you’ll be free to do as you wish once again.”
My blood turns solid. Four hours and fifty-three minutes. The exact amount of time I have remaining to send Callie a memory and tether her to this world.
“You can’t mean that.” I dart a look at Tanner, but he refuses to meet my eyes. Dresden can’t possibly understand what she’s saying. “I need to get close enough to touch Callie, for only a few moments. I need to send her a memory. It’s the only way to keep her alive.”
She turns to me, her eyelids at half-mast. “I told you already. I understand all of this, no thanks to my traitor boy. Your sister was valuable to me once upon a time. But now we’ve wrung her brain dry, and keeping her alive is costing ComA too many credits.”
“No.” I lunge forward. “Please, Chairwoman. I’ll do anything you want. You don’t even have to bribe me. I’ll sit in that chair. I’ll let the scientists study my brain. For as long as they want. I won’t even complain. I promise.”
She flickers her eyes over me. “You had your chance, Jessa. You turned me down, time and time again.”
“Please!” I’m begging now, but I have no choice. I need to make her change her mind. “I’ll come work for you. I’ll be your assistant. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s why you showed me the vision. So that I could make it come true.”
Her nostrils flare. “Do you think I’m stupid? I’ve seen how you really feel about me. Why would I want an assistant whom I can’t trust? When you come to me, for real, you’ll have to give me more than just words, Jessa. You’ll have to show me, with actions, that you’ve changed. Irrevocably. You’ll have to prove to me, once and for all, that you’re on my side. Until then, don’t bother negotiating.”
She spins on her heels, but Tanner grabs her sleeve.
“Don’t do this, Chairwoman,” he pleads. “Callie’s given you so much. Because of her brain, we were able to discover everything.”
“She also took everything from me.” Her voice rises, filling the hallway as thoroughly as the sirens. “I got back only what was originally mine.”
The room’s spinning; my forehead’s burning. I can barely process what they’re saying. But something Tanner says doesn’t seem right. Something makes me focus in on his words and replay them in my mind.
“What do you mean, she let you discover everything?” I look from Dresden to Tanner. “I thought you weren’t able to learn much by examining her brain.”
Dresden turns to me, her eyes wide open. I guess she’s no longer bored. “You mean he didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“A few days ago, Tanner accomplished what I was beginning to believe was impossible.” Triumph rings through her voice. “He discovered future memory and put our world back on track.”
No. He couldn’t have been the inventor. He was with me when Dresden made her announcement. He was just as surprised as I was. Wasn’t he? Or is Tanner a bigger actor—a bigger liar—than I ever suspected?
I won’t believe it—I won’t—until I hear the words from his lips. “Tanner? Is she telling the truth? Did you invent future memory?”
For the first time since Dresden appeared, he lifts his head and meets my eyes. “Yes. I did.”
The air tangles in my throat. Before I can figure out how to breathe again, Dresden steps forward. “Tell her how you discovered it,” she says, her voice too gleeful, her expression too smug. “Tell her what—or, should I say, whom—you used.”
It hits me then. The guards grab my elbows to keep me from pitching forward, but it doesn’t matter. I’m free-falling anyway. I’m detached from my body, spinning in space, unable to tell which way is up.
The memories. He used the memories I sent into Callie’s mind to keep her alive. I’m the Sender; she’s the Receiver. Together, we were the key to the invention of future memory. The scientists were supposed to study our genetically identical twin brains. By observing the way messages were passed between us, they were supposed to derive a key insight that would lead to the invention of future memory.
But Callie changed everything by stabbing a needle into her heart. By making it impossible for me to send memories into her mind…until a week ago. When I did exactly what she sacrificed her life to prevent.
Callie lies in a coma, the last ten years of her life a black hole. Three lives—mine, my mom’s, and Logan’s—have been irreparably harmed. For what? This?
We’ve come full circle. I left civilization and came back again. I followed a maze and walked straight into a trap I never saw coming. One that plops me back into the world we thought we’d left behind.
“You tricked me,” I whisper. “You told me to send my sister a memory. You said it would save her life.”
“It did save her life,” Tanner says miserably. “At the time I made the suggestion, that’s all I was thinking about, I swear. But the monitors were already set up to record her brain activ
ity, and when you sent that memory, it captured the transmission. What was I supposed to do? Here was all this data, right in front of me. Data that was ripe for analysis. Data for which I’ve been searching my entire life.” He reaches a hand toward me, but one of the guards slaps a cuff on his wrist and pulls it down. Doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t let him touch me anyway.
“I couldn’t resist, Jessa. For the sake of science, I had to see. I’d already laid the foundation with my mice. The messages you sent to Callie provided me with the final missing piece of the puzzle. They gave me what I needed to invent future memory.”
“For the sake of science, you betrayed me,” I say, my voice hard, my heart harder.
“I told you. I didn’t know what the discovery of future memory meant.” His eyes beseech me. The cut in his forehead reminds me. “Please. You believed me. You forgave me.”
My soul cements until it is thick, solid concrete. “I don’t forgive you anymore.”
31
We are led to a small, square cell. Plain walls, no furniture. It can’t measure more than ten feet by ten feet.
One of the guards shoves me toward a wall. He has a five o’clock shadow tattooed onto his laser-smooth cheeks, and he stops in front of the complicated security panel by the door. “You’re in here for four hours and forty minutes. Let’s round it up to five hours, just to be safe.” He keys in the parameters, and a red digital clock appears in the air. “Once the timer counts down, the doors will open and you’ll be released. Until then, make yourself cozy.”
He laughs at his not-funny joke and leaves the room. The door closes behind him.
A second later, I’m attacking the metal surface, dropkicking the doorknob, punching the security system. Pain lances through my hands and feet, but I keep hammering. My sister’s out there, and I won’t be locked in here. I won’t.
Parts of the panel break off and dangle in the air. The hologram clock wavers and disappears. My hands are slick with something wet and slippery and red, and then a pair of arms wraps around my torso and pulls me away.
“Jessa, you’re bleeding,” Tanner says. “Why don’t you—”
I throw his hands off me. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”
“I’m sorry.” His eyes are like black holes in space, with their own gravitational pull. I could tumble into them so easily—but I’ve learned my lesson. I fell into them once, and I won’t make that mistake again.
“This isn’t the way I wanted things to work out,” he says in a low voice. “Believe me, I never wanted to hurt you or Callie.”
“Funny. I’ve heard you say that before.” I gasp at the air. The oxygen leaks out of my lungs the moment it arrives. “Too bad I can’t overlook the end result this time. Because of you, my sister is dead once again.”
“Jessa, I—”
I clap my hands over my ears, and liquid smears into my hair. More blood. “Don’t talk to me. Not now, not ever.” I crawl into the corner, making myself as small as possible. Getting as far away from him as possible.
I can’t do this. I can’t talk to Tanner. I can’t listen to his excuses. I can’t sit here and exist. Not when this is happening again. I barely survived the first time. If Callie is taken from me once more, I will shatter.
“She never came back to you.” Tanner’s voice floats above me. “Her body is here, but her mind continues to skip through time. Even if you could have maintained the bond, there’s no telling if she would’ve ever come back.”
“Are you trying to make me feel better—or yourself?”
I lift my head just in time to see his face crumple. He sags against the wall, sliding lower and lower until he joins me on the floor. “I’m sorry, Jessa. You have no idea how sorry I am. I didn’t know this would happen, but you’re right. I never should’ve betrayed you in the first place. This is my fault.”
I collapse into sobs. Because it doesn’t help me to hear his apology. Sure, it gives me someone to blame. It gives me a target for my anger. But hating him doesn’t bring back Callie.
I want to rip the security system from the walls. I want to wrap the past around Tanner’s and my necks, pulling and squeezing until one or both of us passes out. I want to stomp on Fate’s face and dare a thunderbolt to come into this cell. If it strikes me, so much the better, because then I won’t have to feel this pain anymore.
I don’t know how long I cry. I don’t know when my lungs give out. Eventually, I’m aware of the cool, hard concrete against my skin. Of my throat scraped raw and of the dried tears stiffening my face.
Tanner lies parallel to me, close but not touching. When I look at his face, he blinks, slowly, drowsily, as if he’s been watching me for a good long time.
And then, I feel it. The bond snaps. A severance so clean and thorough I know there’s no hope of resurrecting it. The bond that’s been with me ever since I was born, connecting me to my sister. The one Angela convinced me that I imagined, the one that became stronger than ever when I sent that memory into Callie’s mind.
The bond that connects Callie with our time.
I get on my hands and knees, but I can’t rise any farther. Like a newborn calf, my shaky limbs won’t support me, and I crash to the floor. “She’s really gone now. She’s dead.” As I say the words, the meaning crashes over me.
The. Abrupt. Stark. Finality. Of. It. All.
I can’t breathe. My lungs fold in on themselves, over and over. I can’t think. My mind detaches from my body and goes whirling into space, searching, seeking, chasing my sister through time. I can’t feel. My nerve endings blow up—and die. Like Callie. Like every good thing left in this world.
Tanner scoops me up and settles me on his lap, cradling me like a baby. A few thoughts flash across my brain. I hate him. He’s my enemy. He killed my sister.
At this moment, I’m too broken to care.
“I know it feels hard right now,” he murmurs. “I know it feels unbearable, like you’ll never survive. That’s how I felt, too, when my parents were killed. I didn’t think I could go on. But I did. Time passes. You take one breath and then the next. The moment disappears, and the next one arrives, and you’re still here. There’s honor in that. Simply enduring.”
I close my eyes and keep them closed. Because that’s what life without Callie feels like.
Dull. Dark. Dead.
32
The hologram clock is no longer in the air. The big red numbers no longer count down. I destroyed that security feature with a single slam of my fist. Eventually, though, the time runs out, and the door slides open. We are free to go.
I stare at the open door, and if a shred of my soul remained, I might’ve laughed. Just like that? We’re held prisoners for a few hours, my sister dies, and now, we can roam the hall as we please. Go home, if we have any place left to call home.
Clearly, we’re not going to do that. Clearly, we have some place else to go first.
I turn and meet Tanner’s eyes.
“Her body might not be there anymore.” His voice is low and cautious, as if too heavy a tone might break me. “Dresden probably dispatched someone to dispose of her as soon as the bond was severed.”
“I have to see.” The tears cling to my eyelashes like goopy mascara. “In case she’s still there, I have to pay my respects. That’s something Logan and I never got to do before. I need to do this now.”
He nods, his face soft. “Of course you do. Let’s go.”
I follow him out of the cell, and we retrace our steps back to the subterranean corridor. I shouldn’t let him lead me anywhere. I should spit in his face. He betrayed me. He killed my sister.
But my rage has disappeared into the same dimension as my laughs. He didn’t mean to hurt you, a voice inside me says. Tanner Callahan isn’t a murderer. All he’s guilty of is being an overly enthusiastic scientist. It’s Dresden who’s evil. Not him.
I rub my temples. I can’t…think…right now. I can’t untangle my triple-knotted emotions. I’m too…tired. I wish I c
ould close my eyes and sleep for a million years. And I will, as soon as I say good-bye to my sister. For the very last time.
We walk to the secured door. For a moment, I’m dizzy with déjà vu—but this time, when Tanner scans his retinas, there are no flashing lights and no blaring alarms. There’s only a reassuring click that grants us access into the room.
He holds open the door, momentarily blocking my path with his arm. “Are you ready for this?”
I take a deep breath. “Don’t…come in with me. I need a few minutes with her. Alone.”
“I’ll wait right here. If you need anything, just call, okay? I’m not leaving here without you.”
And I’m not leaving here with him. But I don’t have enough energy to argue, so I nod wearily and go inside. As before, the darkness swallows me, but there’s a light gleaming from the far corner of the room. The very last pod in the very first row. My sister’s body.
Preston must already be here. Tanner told me the machines are programmed to alert him when Callie’s vitals enter dangerous territory. He was probably with her when she passed.
It is a comfort—albeit a small one—that Callie wasn’t alone in her final moments.
I approach the lit-up pod. I’m still a dozen yards away when my skin prickles. My pupils dilate. Every part of my body is on high alert. Something’s wrong.
Preston sits, with his head bent over my sister’s body. But his hands aren’t clasped together, and he’s not praying to the Fates or otherwise. He’s not mourning her.
Instead, his hands are on her pulse, as though he’s checking it. I don’t understand. I whip my head to the machines, and there’s her heartbeat, steady and sure.
What? I stumble backward, my world on a merry-go-round that won’t stop, won’t slow. It just spins faster and faster until I might fall right off this dimension. How can this be?
My sister is still alive.
33
My mind whirls, so fast and hard that my jaw aches. I grip my head, but it’s not computing. My sister, alive. How? How? How?