by Beth Revis
I snatch the second thin pillow and metallic blanket from his hands, spreading them out over my foam mattress, and then lay down as far away from Jack as possible, my body scrunched against the angled stone wall.
Part of me feels stupid. But part of me feels scared.
I don’t know who I am anymore, and I don’t like the way Jack seems to know me in a way I don’t know myself. I don’t pretend to understand the situation. Jack has memories of me—a blue-and-brown damask bed cover, a night together, kisses that stop the whole world.
But… I don’t have those memories.
“I’m sorry.”
I peek over my shoulder; Jack has his back to me and spoke the words to the wall.
“I forget,” he says, still without turning. “You—I forget you’re not my Ella anymore.”
“I’m not,” I say softly. I don’t know what I used to be, I only know what I am now.
“I know.”
The night is silent. Although I am not touching Jack at all, I’m deeply aware of his presence, just a few inches from me.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he says finally, his voice so low I can barely hear it. “To have loved you the way I loved you, and for you to not even remember who I am.”
I roll over, facing the center of the tower, and, after a moment, Jack shifts too. He watches me intently, his face cast in darkness, his eyes unreadable.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. The words feel feeble and useless, but they’re all either of us has.
We both turn away from each other, and we let the night encase us.
fifty-one
I wake up in his arms.
For one brief moment, I panic. This isn’t my bed, my home. I freeze, and my brain whirls into motion.
It’s barely dawn. I can’t see the sun, just that everything’s a little brighter, a little less midnight blue and more orange-gold. I’m tangled up in two blankets, mine and his, and Jack’s barely covered at all. His arms are around me, one under my head, the other thrown over my body. His face is centimeters from mine.
This is a comfortable position. It is one, I realize, that we must have practiced. My body knows how to meld against his.
I stare at his face as the world grows lighter. His eyelids twitch, clinging to a dream. His mouth murmurs, and even though I cannot hear the sound, the shape his lips form is my name.
How does he know me? I want to reach into his mind and know not simply what he knows of me, but how. I want to see myself through his eyes; I want to know the Ella he cannot forget.
I close my eyes and try to think of that year Jack and I supposedly spent together. I remember that year… trips to the doctor’s with Mom, trying to hold everything together. Giving up on dreams of going to university, losing Akilah. I don’t remember much of that year; it was not a year I wanted to remember.
And Jack wasn’t in it.
Except… he was. His memories of that year are different from mine, but they both seem real.
It doesn’t make sense. Either someone added me to his past, or took him from mine.
When I open my eyes, Jack’s are open too. I watch as his pupils focus on me, the corners of his lips tilting up. “Good morning,” he says warmly.
And I try to remember if this happened before, because this is a memory I would want to keep.
But there is no echo of it in my mind.
fifty-two
I sit up suddenly, embarrassed by how close I was to Jack. He seems to realize the awkwardness of the situation, because he doesn’t say anything as he packs away the beds. He uses his burner cuff to contact Julie and Xavier, who spent the night hiding in the old bunker from World War II, then moved to a hidden house where there are apparently medical facilities to examine Akilah.
“The tunnels are entirely compromised,” Jack says after he turns off his cuff. “UC officials were seen near the catacombs, too. I have a boat coming to pick us up here, but we’re going to have to be careful. The UC knows too much.” He looks around at the small tower that was our home last night. “There are other safe houses we can hide in.”
“Hide?” I say.
“What do you want to do?” Jack says. “Launch a full-scale attack on the UC? Because I’m all for that, except I’ll have to find some more weapons somewhere. A missile launcher would be nice.”
I honestly can’t tell if he’s being sincere or not. “No,” I say, just in case.
Jack shrugs and returns to his work, making sure we leave no trace behind at the tower. But… I don’t want to hide. I want to go home.
Home… an empty apartment with the remnants of a mother I didn’t know.
“Ms. White!” I gasp.
Jack jerks his head around to me.
“She doesn’t know Mom was a whatever! She’ll just go into work today—and there won’t be anyone there, and she won’t know what happened, and—”
“Not just that,” Jack adds darkly, “If the UC wants you that badly, they might threaten her.”
They already did something to my mother—maybe even killed her when they made that thing that looked and sounded so much like her. They could do that to Ms. White, too…
I have to save her—I have to save her, and Mom, and Akilah. And I have to stop whatever PA Young’s doing. I’m not sure why she wants me so much. It has to do with the fact that I could go into other people’s reveries. Maybe she wants to turn me into her perfect spy. Maybe there’s something else that reveries can do, something I’ve not yet discovered, but PA Young wants me to exploit. Whatever it is, it’s clear that PA Young will stop at nothing to get to me, and will hurt everyone I love in the wake of her cruel disaster.
Jack sits on the floor of the tower and motions for me to join him. Using the projector built into his cuff, Jack logs onto the security feed outside of Reverie Mental Spa.
“How are you doing that?” I ask wonderingly. This vid feed is from the light pole across from the spa, one of countless feeds controlled by the government.
Jack shrugs as if hacking into UC-controlled security feeds are nothing and zooms in on the front door of Reverie Mental Spa. The building is still dark. Through the big glass windows, behind the front desk, I can see that Ms. White’s office door is still closed and locked.
“She should be there by now,” I mutter, worry rising in my throat.
“Do you know where she lives?” Jack asks.
I give him the address quickly, and Jack gets to work. His fingers slide over the projected keyboard from his cuff, and he mumbles to himself as he works on this new hack. Within moments, though, he shows a house in the suburbs of New Venice, nearer to Mellieha than to the main city. It’s a crowded street filled with row houses that all look nearly identical: dusty limestone, traditional terraces, cut-out windows.
One door on the street hangs open, the bright blue wood swinging over the stone steps of the stoop.
“That’s the one,” I say, pointing at the screen.
As we watch, a man in military-grade black leans over the steps and slams the door shut.
I recoil as if I’d been hit. My body vibrates, a long, skin-crawling buzz that rattles my bones and electrifies my flesh.
Someone from the military just shut Ms. White’s open door.
Jack meets my eyes.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, I think over and over again in my head.
“They have her now, too,” he says.
Somehow, Jack secures the tower, making it look like nothing more than a dusty relic once more. We walk for a long time, making our way to the coast, then meet up with someone in a boat. No one talks as this stranger, this friend to the Zunzana, blends in with the fishing boats and circles around the island to a small, hidden dock leading to an isolated house in Gozo.
“This is a safe place,” Jack says after he pays the man who took us here. “But maybe you should stay inside and hidden until we know more.”
Julie and Xavier see us as we approach and throw open
the door, embracing Jack happily. It feels weird to me to be so removed from this happy reunion of friends. I notice the cuts and bruises on their faces and bodies—not only from the fight and destruction yesterday, but also from transporting Akilah.
Jack leads Julie and Xavier to another room so they can discuss plans, but he leaves me in the kitchen first. They have a kitchen android that offers to make me a meal, but even though my stomach growls, I refuse. There’s a bitter taste in my mouth that I can’t escape.
I wander the house. It’s surprisingly large—bedrooms on the top floor; a large kitchen, dining area, and office on the ground floor. Behind one door, I can hear the low rumble of voices as Jack discusses options with Julie and Xavier.
Ha. Options. What options do we have? We have nowhere to go. There’s nothing we can do—just four teenagers against a global government with the power to replace people with doppelgangers?
Nothing.
There’s one more door, made of rough-hewn wood. A cold breeze flows under the door, and I’m not surprised to find steps when I push it open. I descend into the basement, my fingers on the stone wall. This area, like the tunnels we were in yesterday, is cut directly from the stone foundation of the island.
The bottom of the stairs is a cluttered, cobwebbed mess, but there’s a clear path in the grimy floor—footprints and scuffmarks. I follow it a few steps to another door. This one is covered with wood, but I suspect it’s made of steel. A keypad is lodged in place by it—this is the panic room nearly every house in Malta has since the Secessionary War.
It’s not locked, though. I push it open with both hands pressed against the heavy door.
Light spills out of the room, momentarily blinding me. This room, unlike the dirty, cluttered basement, is sterile and bright, lined with steel and fluorescent lights. It reminds me a bit of my mother’s room at our apartment—it, too, is made from a panic room, and it, too, is cluttered with the accoutrements of a hospital. I’m reminded of how Xavier was a med student—that desk cluttered with documents and diagrams must belong to him. The cabinets over it are well-stocked with first aid and emergency supplies, but I’m not focused on them.
In the center of the room is metal gurney, a long, chrome slab on wheels.
And strapped to the top of it is Akilah.
fifty-three
I touch Akilah’s hand, covered by tech foil restraints. Her body is warm; she looks peaceful, asleep. At my touch, her body twitches.
“Wake up,” I whisper. And then, louder, “Wake up.”
The back of my tongue aches, and my eyes burn with unshed tears. The irony is not lost on me; the echoes of those same words reverberate in my mind from the dreams of my father.
My cheek touches Akilah’s as I draw closer, whispering directly into her ear. “Wake up.”
I feel movement.
My body snaps back, instantly wary.
Akilah’s eyes are open, staring at me. For a moment, I see nothing but rage and murder. And then she blinks. Her face grows softer.
“Ella?” she whispers.
“Akilah!” I throw myself on her restrained body, hugging her. “Is it really you?” I ask.
“What’s happening?” Akilah tries to move her arms and legs, but can’t.
My mind goes blank. How much do I tell her? If she’s just waking up from this weird nightmare, what words do I use to tell her that the true nightmare is just beginning?
“How much do you remember?” I ask gently.
“I—I was at the lunar base.” Akilah looks around, her eyes rolling as she strains to see more. “Am I in the infirmary?”
“No,” I say softly.
Akilah’s quiet for a moment. “No, I didn’t think so.” Her eyes seek mine. “But I remember… there was a skirmish. Some Secessionary Rebels attacked. There was—they said, when I was assigned military for my service year, they said there was no violence, that there had been no fighting since the war. But they lied. There was fighting all the time—just on the edges, where most of society didn’t see it.”
I squeeze her fingertips.
“Why am I bound?” Akilah asks.
“What else do you remember?”
She shuts her eyes. “I think I was hurt,” she says. “I remember pain.”
Her eyes open. “Is that why I can’t move? Am I hurt? Did they send me back to Earth? Or are we still on the moon? How did you get here?”
I open my mouth still unsure of the answers.
And then Akilah says, “I want my mom.” The words are almost whispered, but there is such emotion in them, such desperate longing.
“Oh, Aks,” I say.
She meets my eyes, piercing me with my gaze. “Am I hurt? Is that why I can’t move?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Then why?”
“It’s…” My voice trails off. “I mean, you were hurt. In a way. It’s hard to explain.”
“Please, Ella, please. Please. Help me. I want to get up.”
My grip on her fingers slide away. “I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Please.”
I take a step back, still shaking my head. Tears spring into my eyes.
“Ella.” My name is aching longing.
I lean in closer. I stare straight into her eyes. Eyes are the windows to the soul, that’s what Dad always said.
And her eyes are lens. I see the false pupils dilate and focus, I see the too-gleaming glassiness across the tops. There is a light inside these eyes, but it is not her soul, it is manufactured from a bulb.
I feel the exact moment when I accept that this thing before me is not my friend, and I see the exact moment when she realizes it.
Her body bucks wildly, thrashing against the metal gurney, straining on the tech foil restraints. A stream of vicious curses follow me as I scramble away from her.
“I will get free, and I will rip your head from your body!” she screams, slamming her head back against the gurney so hard that she dents the metal. Her jerking motions are enough to make the gurney move, scratching against the tile floor.
There is nothing of my friend in this thing. All that before—the softly spoken words, the confusion—it was all a ploy to try to trick me into releasing her.
Xavier bursts into the room, snatching up a bottle from the table and sending a cloud of pale green mist at Akilah’s face. It seems to calm her—or at least slow her—long enough to him to jab an IV needle in her arm. Soon, her body is motionless.
“I keep having to increase the sedatives,” he says in his low, gravelly voice. “The nanobots in her system are smart and adaptive. Soon, we won’t be able to keep her unconscious.”
I look at him with hope in my eyes, but he shakes his head. “She won’t wake up, Ella, not really, not ever.”
We both know what he means: even if her eyes open, even if she’s conscious, she won’t be in control of herself.
“If she wakes up and we can’t contain her,” he says wearily, “we’ll have to…”
“Don’t say it,” I snap.
Xavier nods, acquiescing. But he adds, “We will, though.”
We’ll have to kill her. Before she kills us.
“We should do it now,” Julie says. I hadn’t noticed her—she’s leaning against the doorframe. Jack’s behind her, scowling. “It’s dangerous,” she adds when we don’t respond. “She’ll bring the government here.”
“Her geo-locators are dampened,” Xavier says.
Julie rolls her eyes. “The government has the best hackers. They could override our systems at any time, and be here before we have time to piss ourselves.”
My eyes dart fearfully from Julie to Xavier. I don’t know if I could stop them if they tried to kill Akilah.
I don’t know if I should.
“We’re not going to kill her.” Jack’s voice is low and gravelly. He scowls at us. I remember then that she was his friend, too.
fifty-four
An android serves us lunch. I stare a
t it as it places sandwiches in front of us, wondering what the android does when no one is here. This is a safe house, used only in emergencies, a throw-back to the days when the Zunzana had power. When Jack, Julie, and Xavier are somewhere else, does the android just shut itself up in the charging closet and wait? Or does it piddle around the house, keeping everything tidy, just in case?
I stare at the sandwich—sliced meat and lettuce between two slices of hard bread—as Julie argues that we should keep moving.
“If you won’t kill that thing downstairs”—Akilah, she means Akilah—“Then we should at least leave it and hide somewhere else.”
My eyes shoot to Jack, and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am.
Xavier puts down his sandwich, watching us all silently as the tension builds in the room.
“We’ve been hiding since we came back from the lunar base,” Jack says. “I’m ready to fight.”
“Fight what?!” Julie slams her back against her chair. “The ‘government?’ That’s too nebulous; we can’t fight something without a face.”
I shut my eyes, trying to think as Julie and Jack argue. I don’t know what I am. I’m not an android like the one who served us this morning. But I’m not human—at least, not entirely. Something happened to me, something changed me. My body is different—and my mind. The hallucinations, the fear. It’s all turning me into something I’m not. And, somehow, Jack’s wrapped up in this, and Dad, and Mom. Something made me forget Jack. Someone.
What does the government want? PA Young has tried everything—manipulation, hacking, violence—to discover some aspect of my parents’ research. Some part of Dad’s nanobot and android technology, some element of Mom’s reverie chairs. Something—something—in all of that is the key for whatever it is PA Young wants to do.
“I need to go back to the Reverie Mental Spa,” I say. My soft words cut through the angry yelling from Julie and Jack, and they both turn to me, eyes wide.