Resist

by Tracey Martin

  I will always think of every one of you, all the HYs, as my children, Malone once told me. It’s what parents do.

  I say nothing, waiting to be addressed like I’ve been trained, but inwardly I’m flailing. It’s becoming ever more difficult to reconcile the kindly looking man in front of me with these memories in which I thought he was evil.

  “HY1-Seven, how are you feeling this morning?” Malone asks.

  “Fine.” Is there some sort of trick to that question?

  Malone checks the notes the woman was making on her e-sheet. “I’m glad to hear it. By all accounts you were successful in your mission last night.”

  I’m careful not to glance at Cole as I nod. “Yes, sir.”

  “This suggests your retraining is going well.”

  Retraining is his euphemism for deleting my problematic memories. The bland word makes my lip want to curl, but I’m very good at appearing neutral.

  “Thank you. So am I.” I rub my wrists, trying to figure out if I’m lying. It’s an odd headspace to be stuck in. While I want my memories back, I’m afraid I’d be happier without them.

  Malone’s expression as he studies me is unnerving, and I get the sense that he can’t tell whether I’m lying or not either. I should be able to fool him, but I have to know the lie to do it.

  The silence is thick while I wait for Malone to make a few notes. About my behavior, or about something else? I still can’t figure out why I’ve been brought here. This room holds no clues.

  I count the seconds, growing increasingly concerned, then the intercom beeps to life. “The prisoner has arrived,” says the voice on the other end.

  Apparently, that’s the cue Malone’s been waiting for. He sets the e-sheet down and clasps his hands together in anticipation. “HY1-Seven, I wanted you to be among the first at the camp to witness some truly revolutionary new technology. Technology that one day, I believe, might change life as we know it. And in many ways, it’s thanks to you.”

  “Me?” Since I have no clue what Malone’s talking about, I don’t like where this is going. A silent alarm is flashing in my head, triggered by some vestigial memory.

  “Yes, you. That’s why I’ve brought you here. Although you might not recall the details, you were the key to this mission.”

  Malone walks over to the window, and I spare a glance at Cole while Malone’s back is turned. Cole tells me nothing. His attention is focused on Malone, and his face is as carefully unconcerned as my own.

  My feet twitch. I want to run, but force of will and years of training keep me rooted in place. Then Malone flips the switch by the window, and the room on the other side lights up.

  He has Kyle.

  I gasp, and I’m aware it’s a potentially fatal error as I do. Revulsion bubbles inside me, and I’m lightheaded with it. Nauseated and dizzy and disoriented.

  Focus! But it’s too late.

  Malone’s heard my breathing, and he pounces on this mistake. “You recognize him?”

  My mouth is dry. In the eternity it takes to swallow, I debate whether it’s better to lie or tell the truth. Or tell part of the truth. Those are the best lies, as Fitzpatrick’s drilled into my head. “He’s vaguely familiar, but I don’t know who he is.”

  Malone signals to the woman, and she grabs the e-sheet and begins furiously recording my failure. Shit.

  Meanwhile, I assess Kyle, doing my best to keep my face unconcerned. As long as Malone knows I recognize him, I have to sell the lie that it’s only his appearance that I recognize. That he’s nothing but a trace memory that failed to be deleted.

  “Do you recall his name?” Malone asks.

  I shake my head with force. “No, sir. Just his face is familiar.”

  “Hmm.” Malone doesn’t seem suspicious as much as contemplative.

  Cole’s face remains blank, but his shoulders are a little too square. His pupils a little too dilated. He’s as nervous as I am. Behind him, in the blindingly white interrogation cell, Kyle sits at a spartan metal table. His hands are chained, and he taps his fingers together incessantly. I compare this him to the him in my memories and detect no changes. Even the bit of black roots showing at his scalp are the same length. Not much time has passed since we were in that motel.

  Strangely, this relieves me. As good as the chips in my head normally are at keeping track of time, I have no sense of the passing time since…well, since who knows how long. When Malone erased my memories, he took the time stamps with him. But if Kyle appears the same, I’m missing less time than I feared.

  “We’ll have to reassess your implants today,” Malone says, dragging me out of my thoughts. “All your memories related to Mr. Chen should have been deleted for your protection. I want to know what happened.”

  My gut tightens. If Malone goes poking around in my head, wiping more files, he might discover how much I remember, and he might destroy those memories too.

  There’s nothing I can say though, except, “Yes, sir.”

  Malone smiles, and it’s less kindly than before. “Before we do that, let me fill you in on some history. Chen’s mother, a bioengineer named Sarah Fisher, had altered his DNA before he was born, giving him the ability to repair his body unlike any technology that currently exists. It’s nothing short of a miracle.”

  Mutant, we called Kyle in my memory. So maybe what Malone says about his healing abilities is true.

  “Because Chen’s abilities are so extraordinary, there are many people who would love to get their hands on them. To study them and exploit them. These are secrets that could be used for great good or great evil. But it wasn’t until this past summer that anyone knew Fisher’s child was alive. When we discovered that he was attending Robert Treat College under an unknown identity, you were sent there to find him and bring him to us for his own protection.

  I nod along as Malone talks. Echoes of truth underlie his words. I’m not sure how truthful they are in sum, but I recognize authenticity in the pieces, and they match the fragments in my memories.

  “We believe this boy has a duty to the human race to let us learn from him, to allow us to reverse-engineer what his mother did. The number of lives that could be saved if we did would be enormous. Unfortunately, Chen did not share our enthusiasm for helping.” Malone opens the door into the hall, beckoning me to follow. “And also unfortunately, he got into your head and convinced you that helping us was wrong.”

  I flinch. Whether or not Malone speaks the truth, or whether memory-me was correct that he’s my enemy, the sting hurts.

  Never let the enemy or the outside world get into your head. That’s when you fail. That’s what will get you killed. Four-hundred-twenty-nine variations on a theme.

  “It’s not entirely your fault,” Malone continues. “Your assignment was long and challenging. It was a difficult first mission for anyone, and you’re young. We expect you’ll make mistakes.”

  Maybe he does, though I doubt it. Fitzpatrick sure doesn’t. Nor, for that matter, do I. I was trained to be better than that.

  “But with your programming corrupted…” Malone spreads his hands apologetically. “This is why we have to take precautions right now, but I do forgive you, Seven. You should be assured of that. Chen, on the other hand, must be treated as the threat he’s proven himself to be. Believe me, I didn’t want things to be like this.”

  Malone throws open the door, and Kyle jerks upright as we enter the room. His dark eyes shift focus between me and Malone, wide and fearful, even though his mouth is set defiantly. I’m drawn to his lips, tormented by the thought that I must have kissed them, although I don’t remember it.

  My chest swells with a hundred emotions I can’t place, can’t sort through, can’t understand. The knowledge that Kyle was important to me comes through clearly in my memory, but what that means hasn’t truly been conveyed until this moment. It’s like being in the sa
me room as him, breathing in the undetectable scent of him, wakes up my body. These are not memories I can process into images. These are my cells, every one of them, waking up. Screaming at me to help Kyle.

  Then Malone reaches under his suit jacket, whips out a gun and shoots him.

  I manage not to cry out in surprise, but the gunshot rips through me as well. I feel the impact in my chest, stealing my breath. But it’s Kyle, obviously, who suffers.

  It’s harder than ever to keep the horror off my face as I watch him slump in his chair. Blood spreads across his stomach, his T-shirt slickening with a red stain. Kyle’s face crumples in agony, his breathing hard. It’s not a wound that would kill even a normal person immediately, and presumably Malone doesn’t think it will kill him at all, but watching Kyle suffer might kill me.

  The acrid reek of gunpowder mixes with the smell of Kyle’s blood, and the room is too small to contain the stench. I’m suffocating from it and from my guilt. This is another test. Malone barely looks at Kyle. His attention is focused on me. Do I cry? Do I run forward to help?

  I do neither, but I hate myself for it. Heartless logic tells me there’s no point. I won’t figure out what’s going on between me and Malone without pretending I’m fixed. Running to Kyle will not result in helping him—there’s nothing I can do. And guilt is wasted because there’s nothing I can do.

  In this moment, I hate Malone and logic almost as much as I hate Fitzpatrick.

  I will not cry or run, but I know I’m doing a terrible job of pretending to not be shaken.

  Malone yanks up Kyle’s shirt, and Kyle winces in pain. I wince with him. Fortunately, Malone’s back is to me in that second.

  “Observe,” Malone says.

  Blood doesn’t bother me. Although Kyle’s stomach is a mess of raw, broken flesh, his face is far harder to look at. So I keep my gaze low. After a moment, I realize the volume of blood spilling from his wound has slowed. His gut is knitting itself back together before my eyes. The stream becomes a trickle and stops. Skin reattaches, shiny at first—fresh and raw—then smoothing out, blending in with the rest of him beneath the drying blood. It’s like watching a wound heal in time-lapse photography. Only Kyle’s chest rises and falls, as heavy as his breathing. He’s clearly trying to hide how much the process hurts.

  He lives, though not without a cost. My heart aches in sympathy with his pain. No matter if Kyle corrupted me. No matter if he’s not a good person. No one deserves to suffer needlessly. But that’s what this is. Malone is venting his anger. It’s merely a bonus that he gets to test me at the same time.

  Malone drops Kyle’s shirt. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  I swallow and nod. Everything else aside, it is remarkable. Miraculous.

  Malone steps back, and Kyle lets out a long breath. His face is pale and his eyes glassy. Malone’s face, however, is calculating. He reaches back into his jacket, but this time when he takes out the gun, he offers it to me.

  I take it. When you’re in a bad situation and someone hands you a gun, you take it. I don’t need Fitzpatrick’s lectures to figure that out.

  “We’ve been experimenting with Chen.” Malone seems to realize he got blood on his hands, and he wipes them on a handkerchief. “We want to see how quick his healing responses are to various stimuli. To see how badly he can be damaged and recover. Science can, regrettably, be messy and painful. But sacrifices must be made for advancing the human race.”

  Kyle says nothing, but he glares at Malone with an expression of such pure loathing it could peel the paint off the walls.

  I turn cold with it. Cold and terrified because I know why Malone gave me the gun.

  “Aim higher,” Malone tells me. “The chest this time.”

  I can’t breathe. The gun weighs a thousand pounds in my hand. Anything but this. Every strand of my DNA, every byte of memory in my augmented head, rebels.

  “That’s an order,” Malone says.

  No, it’s a test. One I’m not sure I can pass or fake my way through.

  “Please.”

  I twitch at the sound of Kyle’s voice, and I raise my gaze to meet his. Dark, pain-filled eyes bore into me. Those beautiful eyelashes. Those sharp cheekbones. Even bloody and miserable, he makes my heart beat faster. I want to throw my arms around him, use myself as a shield to block out Malone and his damn tests.

  But of course, it’s Kyle who’d do a better job shielding me. Kyle can take a bullet and live. The pain will probably be intense, but it will pass. He’ll heal inhumanly fast.

  Logic, however, is a bitch that fled when Malone put the gun in my hand. It’s my emotions that rule me. Weak, dangerous, too-human emotions.

  Kyle’s jaw clenches. “Just do it.” It’s not resignation in his voice or even anger. It’s a plea, and it makes no sense.

  Shit. I have too many memories missing. Too many questions that need answering. Too much I don’t understand. This is what I have to do in order to figure everything out.

  So I aim and pull the trigger.

  Chapter Eight

  Monday: Night of Escape

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Kyle, and I cringe.

  I’d sworn I wouldn’t hurt him by apologizing again, but I can’t keep my mouth shut. The musty smell, the dusty darkness and the cold weaken my resolve. Or maybe my resolve died as the result of coming so close to being captured. My guilt was reawakened by RedZone’s proximity.

  A tiny flashlight throws my world into an eerie, yet somehow appropriate, dungeon of shadows. The dark, colorless shapes surrounding me are unfamiliar and unfriendly. They’re reminders that I don’t belong here, or possibly anywhere. Only Kyle, his body pressed against me for warmth, is real and alive.

  After we fled the forest of cut trees, we ran until we found the self-storage lot I’d noticed on the way into town. I navigated us through poorly angled security cameras, and Kyle picked the lock on one of the units. Someone had left boxes of clothes in this one, along with stacks of camping gear and beaten furniture. It was perfect for our needs. So now we huddle on a sofa of dubious cleanliness, a stranger’s worn fleeces piled on top of us and a single flashlight casting the unit in shades of gray. As far as accommodations go, I’ve dealt with worse, and at least there’s no more wind within the sheet-metal walls.

  Kyle shifts, and his leg brushes mine. I try not to twitch, but rather than comfortably snuggling against him like I used to, our position feels unfortunately awkward. My blurted apology doesn’t help.

  “I forgive you,” he says after the silence has stretched for a daring minute.

  I do twitch this time, startled by the simplicity of those words and the effect they have on me. “You do?”

  My dark vision is good enough that I can see the emotions that war over his face. He sighs. “Yeah. Duh, Hernandez. If that’s even your real name.” It’s not, and he damn well knows it, but I appreciate the attempt at levity. Hearing Kyle crack a joke, even a lame joke, helps me breathe normally. “I know you didn’t do any of this on purpose. You’re as much a victim of these people as I am, and I don’t want to be angry at you about it. I’m just not sure what that means though, so don’t ask.”

  I bristle at being called a victim, but Kyle’s not wrong to use the word. It fits the situation well enough, even if I dislike the implications. I’m both liar and dupe. Assassin and target. Not to mention hero and villain. “What what means?”

  He pulls his fleece up to his chin, and the movement has the sad effect of increasing the space between us. I refrain from inching closer. “What forgiving you means. What not being angry means. For us.”

  “Oh.” I curl my fingers around my jacket sleeves because they’re trembling. Does that mean there’s still an us? Somewhere, buried among the secrets we’ve kept and the lies we’ve told, the truth that existed between us remains?

  I miss that truth. I tasted it on Kyle’s lip
s the first time we kissed, and I lost myself in it when he touched me. There was trust in those moments even if there wasn’t trust beyond them. I could believe we had more and could be more. That we were more than our lies.

  I still believe it, but it sounds like Kyle isn’t so sure. That’s no surprise, but it makes my heart swell with hope that he’s entertaining the possibility at all.

  “It’s partly my fault, you know,” Kyle says.

  “What is?”

  He scowls. “Getting captured. Obviously, I knew something was up with you when you freaked out in South Station, and I didn’t do a single intelligent thing about it.”

  He’s referring to the day my memory chip failed. I’d tried to remove RedZone’s tracker so we could disappear together, and I lost a bunch of my memories in the process. Meanwhile, RedZone operatives were chasing me, and I took them down without breaking a sweat.

  Yeah, no doubt Kyle figured out there was more to me than a normal college student.

  He pushes hair out of his face then reburies his hands in the fleece. “I wanted to stay with you, not split up like we did. Partly, I thought I could help you, but I also hoped I might find out who you were. For real. We always knew people might track me down, and if you were the one who was sent to do it, this was my chance to get answers.”

  “I was the one who was sent to track you down.”

  He laughs humorlessly. “True enough. Anyway, after we split and you never made it back to campus, I couldn’t shake my worries that something bad happened to you. Common sense told me I should stay away, that you might be an enemy, but I couldn’t accept it. You were too much more. So later, when those two men who’d been chasing you showed up at RTC, I didn’t run and hide. Not until I realized they were no longer looking for you, but for me.”

  I close my eyes, listening to a whimper escape my throat. “I wanted to call you and tell you I was okay, but I wasn’t allowed. That was before I realized what I was doing by outing you. I guess it didn’t make much difference afterward.”