Looking back, it’s obvious Megan had known I wouldn’t be okay with blowing up a third of the building. That’s why she never told me the details of what she was doing when she asked me to get her things. It’s why she disappeared afterward instead of meeting me like she promised. She hadn’t even tried to convince me it was an accident until years later in Moscow, when she’d re-appeared out of nowhere to join my crew. And I’d been so stupidly happy to see her, so drunk on kisses and praise, that I’d been willing to believe all her excuses.
I let the cushion fall and turn away from the window, fists clenched, nails biting my palms. Out of nowhere, I’m pissed at Val. Pissed at her for appointing herself my protector, for taking away all my memories of Megan that didn’t fit the true love narrative until she decided I was ‘ready.’ If I’d had them from the start instead of getting them dumped on me all at once, maybe I wouldn’t feel like an outsider in my own mind.
But if Sasha Six had the whole picture, why had she stayed with Megan? Why had any of them stayed? I could understand the original Sasha, maybe even Sasha Two. But Three, Four, Five…Val hadn’t erased their memories of being cloned. Were they idiots with a death wish? Blinded by love? Maybe it was a forest for the trees situation, and each time Megan did something selfish, the other Sashas convinced themselves it was a single incident instead of a pattern. Fuck if I know.
There’s nothing left for me in our room. It’s as empty as I am. I leave, closing the door quietly behind me. It’s only when I step outside that I realize I’d been breathing shallow, just in case the air still smelled like her. I consider heading for the fourth floor, but decide not to. There’s no reason to revisit those memories. I’d learned a bit of everything in the classrooms up there—physical combat, disguises, combat medicine, some elementary jacking, and how to deconstruct, clean, reassemble, and fire just about every type of weapon there is. A handler needs to know the capabilities and limitations of every member on her crew, but this place doesn’t have anything I need now. I don’t even know what I need.
Maybe I should go back to Siberia. To the crew. My anger’s burned low enough, leaving only the ashes of hurt behind. I’m nowhere close to forgiving them, especially not Val, but I think I can be in the same room as them without being tempted to throw a punch. More than anything, I want answers. I want them to look me in the eye and explain why they’d gone along with Val’s lie, and why they’d been okay with Megan cloning me so I could die. And if I don’t go back, Elena might worry. That thought is a complete surprise. It pops into my head uninvited, and I don’t have a clue where it came from. Yeah, she came looking for me last night. Yeah, she kissed me, probably because she felt sorry for me. But that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter.
“Hey, Jefecita. I’m hanging around for now. You know?” My shoulders relax as her voice fills my head. No talk of gods or changing the world. Just a promise—hesitant, uncertain, but real. Right now, real is what I need.
I walk to the end of the hallway, where the gutted building opens into the evening air. Below me, the tui bird calls again, singing to the sinking sun. The Eagle’s roof gleams in the distance, a square of silver in the middle of a small patch of green. I close my eyes. It’s time to go.
Tuesday, 06-15-65 09:45:21
I SHUT OFF THE Eagle’s engine, unfastening my safety harness with numb fingers. My skin aches with cold, but the dead center of my chest burns with hate. Not caring would be easier. Hate grows where love’s ashes lie, and right now, that’s how I feel. Like something burned beyond recognition. Perhaps hate isn’t the right word. Betrayal, maybe? I don’t want anything to happen to my crew. I don’t want them to get hurt. Or maybe I do. I just want…I want them to…
Turn back time so none of this ever happened? Yeah, right. An apology would be a decent start. An explanation, too. They owe me that, at the very least. But then what? What if they apologize and explain, and it’s not enough?
I don’t know, but it’s impossible to predict how I’ll feel until it all plays out. Besides, nothing about our situation has changed. AxysGen still wants us dead, and we don’t know why. Erasing our names from the database won’t protect us forever. Their resources are practically unlimited, and so is the supply of people they can send to track us down.
A shudder races down my spine, and for a moment, I do feel the cold creeping in. There’s another reason for crewbonding outside of the universal human need for family. In this business, lone wolves don’t live long, and I’ve died enough times already. I don’t want to do it again. That means a truce, at least temporarily.
I exit the Eagle and head for the lift. It whines as it carries me down, and the light of the bunker floods my eyes. When I adjust, I see that everyone’s in the main room. I notice Elena first, sitting at the table and staring glumly at a half-gnawed nutrient bar. Doc and Rock are across from her. Cherry’s perched on the counter, where she’s not supposed to be. Rami’s standing beside her, one hand on her thigh. Val’s databox is sitting on the table, projecting her avatar nearby. The atmosphere is, ironically, funereal.
They all turn toward me when I step off the lift. Elena’s eyes widen, and she starts to get up before thinking better of it. The others are more cautious. They watch me with varying looks of guilt, Val in particular.
Doc breaks the tension. “Are you back for real?”
My heart twinges. The question reminds me of her age. I don’t know how I feel about a twelve-year-old kid activating me, modding me, and lying about it, or how responsible I should hold her for it. How much of the cloning was Megan’s influence? How much of the deception was Val’s?
I look around at all of them. “That depends on what you have to say for yourselves.”
Rami sighs. They look as dejected as I’ve ever seen them, no makeup, no wig, eyes lowered. “We’ll tell you whatever you want to know. You deserve that.”
There are so many questions straining to get out of me that swallowing them back hurts. My throat burns, and my lips tremble as I ask, “Why did you all lie to me?”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Doc says, but at a sharp look from Cherry, she falls silent.
“We were going to tell you when you were ready,” Rami continues. “Val explained that your emotional state was very fragile, and we all agreed—”
“You all agreed?” I scoff, staring Rami down. “How nice.”
“It is possible our decision was a mistake,” Val says. “I would have preferred to consult you, but that would have made the choice irrelevant.”
I shake my head in furious bewilderment. “You would have preferred to consult me?”
“Plus, the decision was already made,” Cherry adds, cutting me off before my anger can build any further. “I didn’t find out your memories were abridged until after you were already awake. Val contacted me right before you arrived in Brazil. I didn’t think it was my place to burst your bubble, especially while Rami was still missing with Val’s databox.”
Why doesn’t that surprise me? Cherry kept quiet so I’d rescue her spouse, just like Doc kept quiet so I’d rescue her brother. Everyone always wants something from me, usually something that has the potential to get me killed.
“What about before? I know cloning me so I could do the dirty jobs was Megan’s idea, but why did you all just…go along with it?”
Maybe it’s not fair to blame them for that. The other Sashas were adults, capable of making their own stupid, self-sacrificing decisions. But I’m furious they lied to me, and I don’t care whether I’m being rational or not. My fury has tapped into a wellspring of hurt, a grieving wish that somebody, any of my friends, had tried harder to save me. Even just once. Even if they expected me to come back a few days later.
Cherry looks at me with a sad smile. “Come on, Sasha. Would you have listened if we’d questioned Megan’s plan? If we’d tried to talk you out of it?”
“Besides,” Rami says, “it’s what you said you wanted.” It’s not a defense so much as a flat stateme
nt of fact. Rami seems to know I won’t tolerate an apology in one breath and excuses in the next.
I shake my head, letting out a laugh that’s mostly breath. “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with? You’d rather let me sacrifice myself for you six times than tell me I was being stupid?”
“At least she admits she was being stupid,” Cherry mutters to Rami.
“If you don’t feel bad about it, why’d you hide it from me this time?” I look at all of them, but no one answers. “Still don’t have a reason for that, huh? Still no half-decent excuse for erasing a chunk of who I am, just ‘Val did it first.’ Well, I have one. I know why you did it. It’s so I wouldn’t be too depressed to save your asses again. Just like I do every damn time.”
Before I can keep tearing into them, Doc pipes up, “But you never really died, Sasha. You came back.”
That’s when I realize Doc doesn’t get it. I look into her eyes and I know: she thinks I’m only mad about the secrecy, not about the pain they failed to prevent. It’s true, I’m pissed beyond belief that Val convinced my crew, my family, to hide my past from me, but the fact that they watched me die without trying to talk me out of it hurts nearly as much.
“I still died, Doc. It hurt like I can’t even describe. But that wasn’t the worst part. The darkness, the cold…the fear of ending. ‘Coming back’ doesn’t make that go away. It’s still there inside me.”
Doc looks away.
“You have to understand,” Rami says, “it wasn’t like this before. You woke up as the same old Sasha, behaving like you’d had a near-death experience—not as an entirely new person. After you recovered, everything went back to normal.” They hesitate. “I don’t expect that to make you feel better. I’m just giving you context.”
Rami’s right. It doesn’t make me feel better. Val had told me my ‘predecessors’ sometimes struggled, but what does that mean? I can feel ghosts of how the other Sashas had felt, thanks to the new memories crowding my head. They’d been sad, scared, and angry, but the resentment hadn’t been there. Probably because the previous Sashas had, at least, been whole. But no. Val chopped me up into pieces, just so I’d be a better handler. More useful. And my friends hadn’t even had the decency to tell me.
I look at Val. “You withheld chunks of my life from me. Is that why it’s…why I’m…different?”
“There is no way to be certain,” Val says. “The relationship between neurology, psychology, and the interplay between memory, perception, and consciousness is still poorly understood. However, in my opinion, it is a likely explanation.”
That’s as close as Val will come to a ‘yes’, but it doesn’t satisfy me. “Not good enough. This is all a calculation to you, isn’t it? A logical decision. What percentage was based on ‘fixing’ me as fast as possible so I could protect you from AxysGen and get the crew back together, and what percentage was you actually giving a shit about my mental health?”
“Hey,” Elena says, trying to make peace. “Val already told you the truth. I know I haven’t been her biggest fan, but I believe her. She cares about you, whatever that means for her.”
Val seems to appreciate the sentiment. She gives Elena a grateful look, which only infuriates me more.
“Does she?” I’m not trying to spit poison at Elena. She’s the only one in this room who hasn’t been lying to me, but I’m too pissed to stop. I clutch my head, digging my nails into my scalp. “Don’t any of you fucking get it? It’s like someone else is inside my head. I see all these memories that aren’t mine, things I didn’t do, choices I didn’t make…wouldn’t have made…like my brain was hijacked or something. It’s not even my brain at all!”
Rock makes an unhappy noise. His expression is worried, but I don’t care.
“Don’t look at me like that. Just because you don’t talk doesn’t mean you couldn’t have told me. I blame you for this as much as anyone else. And you.” I glare at Rami. “Why did I even think you’d understand? You don’t even know who the hell you are half the time. Lying’s all you’re good at, isn’t it?”
Rami’s brown eyes well with tears, but I can’t stop. This has festered long enough.
“Cherry, you were the first person I trusted after I went off-grid. We shared half of nothing to stay alive, but you never really gave a shit, did you? You were fine with lying as long as it made things easier for you. As long as it got Rami back safe.”
Cherry holds my gaze in angry silence, lips pressed together.
“And Doc, why the hell did you think it was okay to operate on me without my consent? You of all people should know how messed up it is when other people make choices for you!”
Doc’s face doesn’t move, but something like horror clouds her eyes.
Finally, I look at Val. “And you…I don’t even have fucking words. I was always the one who believed in you and the good you can do. I was the first one to trust you, to treat you like a fucking person. But it turns out, you’re a shitty one.”
Val’s face is blank, so I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She doesn’t speak, and neither do the others. Not until Elena stands up.
“Did that help?” she asks, looking at me.
My heart sinks straight through the floor. No. It didn’t help.
“Then stop shouting and think about what will.”
Before I can argue, a green light flashes from the corner of the room. I look at the main terminal, but it’s in sleep mode. The green is coming from the smaller terminal beside it: Megan’s.
At first, I don’t believe it. Megan’s terminals are locked tighter than any tech I’ve ever seen, and she never gave anyone else access. Not even me. No one, and I mean no one, has ever accessed her terminal before, let alone wirelessly. The crew is surprised too.
“What the hell?” Cherry shouts, hopping down from the counter and walking to the terminal. When she turns back to the rest of us, she looks stunned. “Incoming message from…Veronica Cross?”
I laugh bitterly. Of course, it’s Veronica Cross. Being a clone with a patch-job memory isn’t enough to deal with, so the universe has decided to throw this at me too.
“Well?” I nod at Cherry. “Answer it. Why the hell not?”
“Are you sure about this?” Rami asks. “She could try and track our location.”
I shake my head. “Take the call.”
Tuesday, 06-15-65 10:12:13
THE WIDESCREEN ON THE WALL above the terminal activates, revealing a familiar face—Veronica Cross. She looks like all the billboards—blonde, filtered, fake. Her pale skin is unblemished, and her teeth are blindingly white. She bares them like I imagine a lion would before it leaps.
“Sasha Young." Cross’s baby-blue eyes fix right on me. “You’ve caused me more than a bit of trouble lately. I’d been considering adding another swimming pool, but was the crater really necessary?”
My jaw clenches. I’m still so angry my chest hurts, but I make my reply flat, monotone. Melting down in front of my crew is one thing, but I can’t afford to let Cross see me lose control. “How did you get this terminal’s comm address?”
Cross’s smile doesn’t budge. “A better question would be, ‘Why are you calling’?”
None of us say anything.
“The answer is: to offer a ceasefire. I need something from you, and you’ve proven surprisingly hard to…detain.”
“Detain this, bitch,” Elena says, sticking up her middle finger.
Cross’s expression doesn’t change, but the muscles around her eyes tighten enough to show the crow’s feet her makeup and plastic surgery can’t quite hide. “I know my people have been pursuing you, but I don’t actually want you dead. I merely require your cooperation.”
I scan the room. The crew looks skeptical, mixed in with more than a little disgust, but I don’t really care to hear their opinions. “What the hell do you mean?”
“A mutually beneficial exchange. I have a job for you and your crew.”
“What?” Elena blurts out. �
��Are you crazy? First you try to kill us, and now you want to hire us for a fucking op?”
I glare so Elena will shut up. She does, but the storm clouds around her head don’t disappear. “AxysGen has their own corp teams for that,” I say to Veronica. “What’s your game?”
“No game. At least, not one in which any of you are major players. While I had good reason to want you dead after the incident in Mumbai, you and your crew have proven far more resilient than I expected. I want to use that to my advantage.”
“So, what?” Cherry asks. “You gonna sic us on one of your competitors?”
Cross sighs. “Yes and no. Unfortunately, I need some housekeeping done.”
“I thought you were supposed to be top dog at AxysGen,” Cherry says. “Someone yanking your chain?”
I give Cherry a sharp look. Her sarcasm and Elena’s anger aren’t doing me any favors. “What are we supposed to get out of this?”
“A clean slate,” Cross says. “Deleting your profiles from our database was impressive, but you had to know it wasn’t sustainable long term. Even if your biometrics aren’t flagged every time you enter an AxysGen property, I haven’t forgotten that you exist.”
“So, you’re threatening us if we don’t work for you,” I mutter.
“I’m offering you an opportunity.”
“Offering us the ‘opportunity’ to stay alive. Like I said, threatening.”
Cross waves her hand. “Call it whatever you want. Here’s my offer. Some of AxysGen’s other board members have taken issue with my opinion on the allocation and distribution of the company’s resources. I need information about one James Sloane that may change their minds.”
“So, what? You want us to break into someone else’s mansion instead of yours?”
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