by S. Harrison
“Come in. Are you there, Percy? Professor Francis?”
Still no reply.
“Oh my god,” whispers Bit. “You don’t think they’re—”
There’s a hiss of static, and thankfully Jonah’s voice issues from the radio, interrupting Bit’s morbid thought. “That was a close one, but we made it into the hatch. We’re going back to the lab to see if we can rig another diversion. I’ll contact you at the other end. Get that slate and good luck.”
“Copy that, Major,” says Dr. Pierce. “You heard the man, girly. We’ve got a job to do. Are you up to it?”
“I don’t know,” mumbles Bit.
Dr. Pierce kneels beside her and puts a consoling hand on her shoulder. “You liked that boy, didn’t you?”
Bit lets out a sniffle. “I did.”
“Well he’s not dead yet. If there’s only one chance in a million that we might be able to save him, I think you owe it to him to at least try. And even if we can’t save him, I think he’d want you to be brave and finish this. Do it for the boy.”
Bit stares at the Lobot for a second, then she sets it on the floor beside her and takes a deep breath. She looks up at Dr. Pierce, gruffly wipes a tear from her cheek, and nods determinedly. “For Brody.”
“That’s the attitude, girly,” says Dr. Pierce. “Now let’s get a move on.”
“Are . . . are you sure Finn will be alright, lying there all by herself?” Bit asks, looking down at me with concern. “What if she stops breathing or something?”
“The toxin wasn’t designed to kill its victims. That would completely defeat the purpose of the X-27. She’ll be just fine, and besides, it’s a short walk down that corridor, then a quick climb up some stairs and a ladder into the dome. We’ll find your slate and then come right back here to check on her before we go to the neural core. With Major Brogan’s assistance, and a little luck, we’ll have reset the entire system before the drug has even worn off.”
Bit sighs. “OK. But just one second,” she says as she kneels at my side, and her face comes into view, hovering over me. She pulls her walkie-talkie from her satchel and lays it on my chest. “I’ll leave this here for you and send you updates. We won’t be long, Finn,” she says with a worried smile. “Don’t go anywhere, OK?”
Her lame joke isn’t even funny, but I would smile if I could. Bit and Dr. Pierce both stand and walk out of view. I listen to their footsteps echo down the corridor as they head deeper into the hillside. “We’ll be back soon, Finn!” Bit calls out, and it isn’t very long before the sound of their steps fades into silence.
With nothing left to do but wait, I stare at the light set into the concrete ceiling as I try to move my fingers and toes, but it’s no use—I’m completely paralyzed. I count the seconds in my head to pass the time. Ten minutes pass.
It feels like an eternity alone in the silence, and I’m thankful when the monotony is broken as Bit’s voice issues from the radio on my chest. “We’ve reached the quantum-grain reservoir, Finn. It’s huge. And so deep! There’s some kind of pipe-shaft thing in the middle, and I can actually see the quantum grains moving along it toward the dome!”
The wonder in her voice makes a smile form in my mind. Only she could still be marveling at a place that has constantly tried to kill us ever since we arrived.
The signal cuts off, so I continue counting time. It’s at least another ten minutes before I hear from her again. “We’re at the bottom of the ladder, Finn! Oh my god I wish you could see this! The whole underneath of the dome is shimmering!”
“Put that damn thing away, girly,” Dr. Pierce growls in the background.
“Sorry, Finn, gotta go. Don’t worry, we won’t be much longer.”
I’m not worried. My friend never ceases to amaze me, and if anyone can get us out of this, Bettina Otto can. As I watch a moth flittering around the light above me, I whisper a silent thank-you to Brody. He didn’t do what he did to save us. He did it for her.
“Wow,” whispers a voice. “Even your thoughts are pathetic.” At first I wonder what on earth Bit could mean by that, but I realize that the voice didn’t come from the walkie-talkie when I feel the weight of someone’s hands pressing onto my legs.
My body may be paralyzed, but it isn’t numb, and a surge of panic ripples through me as the pressure of the hands is followed by knees, and the mysterious figure begins crawling on top of my body toward my head. If I could run I would, but I’m completely helpless as I see my own face slowly rove into view and hover over me, inches from my nose. Infinity’s dark-blue eyes glare down into mine. Her hair is tied in a smooth, tight jet-black ponytail that falls across her shoulder, and the blood that was dripping down her face when I last saw her has completely vanished.
“Hello again, Finn,” she says with a sadistic smile.
I can’t move my lips to speak, but I know this is all in my mind, and so I respond in the only way I can, by thinking the words. What do you want, Infinity? If you think you can scare me or threaten me again, you’re wrong. I’m not afraid of you.
Her expression softens as she rests her head on her hands, digging her elbows into my chest. “So, you figured out that you’re not going insane, huh? I apologize for that little scuffle we had earlier. Roughing you up and trying to choke your mind out of my body was the wrong way to go about this, but y’know, I’m a very violent individual, and more often than not, strangulation is my go-to solution.”
Leave me alone, I think coldly.
“Hey, c’mon now, don’t be like that,” she says snidely. “Seriously, navigating my way out of that mess in our head is like crawling through spaghetti, but I made the effort especially to come and speak to you face-to-face. This is a courtesy call. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to take my body back the first chance I get. So enjoy it while it lasts, because when I take complete control, you’re gone. Consider this a notice of eviction.”
Why do you hate me so much? I think in reply. Surely this isn’t the way it has to be. Both of us have a right to live. This body is as much mine as it is yours. There must be some way that we can exist side by side? We can share this body.
A bemused grin creeps onto her face as she slides off me and sits cross-legged on the floor beside my head. “I know it may seem like it, and I might have even said it more than once, but I don’t hate you, Finn. But what I do hate,” she says, poking me in the cheek with the point of her finger, “are all the things you make me feel. Just the thought of your wet-blanket emotions infecting me makes my skin crawl. Honestly, how the hell do you expect me to be true to myself when your goody-good feelings burrow into my head like parasitic worms, and suddenly, I’m too guilty to shoot someone in the face or stab somebody through the heart?”
I can’t help what I feel, I respond mentally.
“Oh, I know,” says Infinity. “And that’s the whole problem. For a while there you even made me think that I was beginning to care about your idiotic schoolmates. Otto has earned my respect, but you almost had me convinced that I was actually starting to like some of the others. Well, now my head is clear, and I know those thoughts were nothing but illusions leaking into me from you. I can’t live like that, Finn. I’m a weapon, and a weapon with a conscience is useless.”
But you don’t have to kill anyone, Infinity. No one can force you to do that anymore. You can have a normal, peaceful life.
Infinity throws her head back and laughs out loud. “A normal life?! Oh, you crack me up, Finn, you really do. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re in denial or just plain stupid. In case you hadn’t noticed, we are like no one else on the planet, the first of a new species, superior in every way. There was never going to be any normal life for us. As long as we exist, somebody out there will want to own and control this body and everything it can do. Otto said that I was a slave, and she was right. You and I were both trapped in worlds we didn’t choose for ourselves, but the difference is . . . I want to be free.”
I want that, too, I thin
k. We can learn from each other and find a way to make this work. Emotions don’t make someone weak; they make them human. We can do this together.
Infinity leans over me and slowly shakes her head. “Aw, that’s so sweet. But you really don’t get it, do you? I’ve never once been asked what I want to do, only commanded to enforce the will of others. Used to protect the interests of the powerful by eliminating those who stand in their way. No one ever looked at me like I was a person. I’m seen as property, a tool to be used as my masters see fit. No one ever treated me as a human being, and there’s only one reason why—I. Am. Not. Human. And neither are you.”
Then . . . what are we? I mentally ask.
“Honestly? I’m not sure,” replies Infinity. “I was told that I was made in a lab for only one purpose, to kill. I suspect the truth is much stranger, but I’m beyond caring. All I knew for sure was that I was better than anyone else. I was unique.
“At least that’s what I thought until I found out about you. I was curious at first. I wanted to know if you were treated any differently from me, and in a lot of ways, you were. Some people actually seemed to care about you, but the more I uncovered, the more I realized . . . your life sucks. I may have been a slave, but you, Finn, you’re locked in a gilded prison cell surrounded by idiots. You’re right; no one can force me to kill anybody ever again, but guess what? . . . I’m gonna do it anyway—because I like it. Nothing else compares. Well, you know what I mean,” Infinity says as she playfully punches me on the arm. “Here, let me remind you.”
Pictures of memories suddenly begin swirling through my head, and it’s like I’m falling through a flickering gallery of violence and turmoil, each image a jump to a different place and point in time when Infinity killed. I see angry expressions on the faces of strangers instantly wiped into dead-eyed stares by flashes of gunfire. I see Infinity’s fist gripping a sawtooth knife, plunging its red-smeared point into flesh left and right. There’s the glint of a long slashing blade, an enemy’s wide-eyed surprise, and the wet thud of a severed limb slapping onto concrete. I see fingertips spear into an old man’s eye as fluid and blood spurts from his eye socket over the back of Infinity’s hand.
Gurgling screams ring in my ears as I watch acid-splashed noses, eyes, lips, and tongues liquefy and drip through men’s fingers like molten wax. I see people’s skulls popping like paint-filled water balloons through the crosshairs of a rifle scope in a dozen exotic locations, and I witness a boot on the back of a man’s expensive suit, sending him sailing off the roof of a skyscraper toward a dotted line of streetlights a hundred floors below. Everywhere I look is another gruesome death. I can’t turn away or close my eyes to the horror, but what’s a thousand times worse than seeing Infinity’s nightmarish memories is feeling exactly what she felt. If I could only use one word to describe it, it would be joy, but to call it that completely betrays what I know the emotion to be. It almost feels as if I’m being overwhelmed by the sight of a beautiful sunset, but the hues of pink and purple and orange and red bathing the sky are the colors of an inferno burning the world to cinders beyond a horizon of insanity.
Stop. Please, I plead in my mind as a sickening spasm rolls in my gut. The horrific images instantly vanish, and a feeble whimper squeaks from my throat.
“You’re welcome,” Infinity says with a sarcastic smile. “Look at us, Finn, being all civil with each other, remembering the fun times, hanging out like best buds.”
The radio on my chest crackles to life, and Bit’s voice issues from the tiny speaker. “Finn, I’m still at the bottom of the ladder. Dr. Pierce is at the top, trying to hot-wire the keypad to the hatch. But after he’s done that, we’re in!”
“Speaking of best buds,” says Infinity. “You’re lying here, useless, while the girl you call your bestie does all the hard work. Y’know, if it wasn’t for me she would’ve been taken by those things right outside that door. I was the one who saved her, plucked her right off the ground, and threw her to safety. If I’d left it up to you, she’d be gone.”
You . . . did that? I ask.
“Sure did. Like I said, Otto earned my respect. But if you insist on fighting me, Finn, I might not be so kind to your little friend next time. It only took three seconds to save her, but trust me, it will be just as simple and just as quick for me to end her.”
Wait a second . . . I don’t understand. How did you save her? I ask with my thoughts.
“Your hands are my hands, that’s how,” replies Infinity. “And I’m warning you, if you don’t let me out, I’ll use those hands to—”
Oh my god, I say, cutting her threat off with my thoughts before she can deliver it. You don’t know how to take complete control, do you? If you did we wouldn’t be talking, you’d already have done it by now.
Infinity raises a finger at me and opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out. I can see her out of the corner of my eye as she slowly lowers her hand and glowers venomously at me. She looks mad. Real mad. There’s something she’s hiding from me, something she doesn’t want me to know.
All of a sudden something dawns on me. Infinity can read my thoughts. She did it out there on the promenade. She’s been doing it the whole time we’ve been talking. She’s doing it right now. I can feel her listening. But does that mean I can read her mind, too?
“Shut up!” she yells. Infinity crouches over me and glares at me. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” she growls as she grabs my face, clawing her fingers into my cheeks.
At first I look straight into her eyes, refusing to be intimidated, thankful that my paralyzed body is preventing me from flinching. But then I decide to try something new.
What do you know, Infinity? I ask.
She grabs my face harder and looks even angrier. “I told you to shut up, you stupid bitch.”
Tell me what you know.
The corner of Infinity’s mouth twitches nervously. “Whatever you think you’re doing, stop it,” she orders, but her words are tainted with unease.
I could be wrong, but I think I just saw a flicker of worry in those eyes, or was it . . . fear?
“What?” Infinity says incredulously. “Why the hell would I be afraid of you!?”
The longer I look, the more I feel a strange pull inside my head, like my consciousness is being drawn out from the front of my skull.
“What . . . what are you doing?” Infinity stammers. She tries to pull her hand away from my face, but she can’t. I can feel her trying to turn her head and take her eyes off mine, but she simply isn’t able to. “I’m warning you, Finn! Stop!”
I get it now, I whisper in my thoughts. You said my hands are your hands, so does that mean that your mind . . . is also mine as well?
As soon as I think the words, something very strange happens. I begin to see past Infinity’s hateful stare and beyond her outer layers of bravado. Her expression softens like she’s hypnotized, and her fingers, gripping my face, relax.
The more I stare at Infinity, the stronger the tugging in my head becomes, until all of a sudden a spinning swirl of darkness appears on her brow, just above her nose. I will myself toward it, and even though I can’t move, it feels as though I’m rising from my body. The swirl expands until it’s a shadowy revolving whirlpool covering her entire face like a mask. Bigger and bigger it becomes, until it completely envelops my head, too, and I feel like I’m floating up off the ground and crossing a bridge through a dark gateway into a completely different place altogether.
CHAPTER TEN
My heart races as I look around and try to take in what just happened. I think I may have actually done it; I’ve pushed through into somewhere else. Whether this new place is Infinity’s mind or another part of my mind or a mixture of both, I can’t be completely sure, but whatever part of our psyche this may be, it’s a mess in here.
Scattered over a shimmering field of crystalline black are what appear to be the shattered pieces of thousands upon thousands of mirrors, haphazardly stacked in a s
ingle floating layer that reaches as high as I can see. There are a multitude of different shapes and sizes, and each fractured shard flickers with images. The very large pieces seem to be more stable, staying mostly intact, while the small and medium-size ones are noiselessly breaking and re-forming as the cracks separating them simultaneously heal together and then snap apart again.
I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay in here, so I need to make the most of it and find out as much as I can. I take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves and begin scanning across the nearest images. They appear to be fleeting seconds of captured memories, and I’m surprised to see that I recognize a lot of them. Every snippet I can identify is relatively fresh; I’d guess no more than an hour or so old.
In one of them I can see Bit, standing in the underground lab. She’s holding a slate in her hands and speaking as everyone looks up at the holographic model of Blackstone Technologies floating in the center of the room. In another I see Jonah, Percy, Jennifer, and Professor Francis saying good-bye as they leave to walk through the tunnels to the second hatch. In another fragment I see Brody gently sliding Bit’s glasses onto her nose, and in yet another I see him again, lying on the path, scrambling through his satchel as the wave of robotic spiders closes in behind him.
I don’t know what this place is, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s some kind of gallery of my very recent memories. But if that’s what it is, then why are some of the memory shards different from the others? I can see moving shapes and colors, but the images contained inside them are blurry, as if the fragments are jagged windows made of frosted glass.
I look over my shoulder, back the way I came, and what I see is not what I expected. It’s like I’m looking out my own eyes, staring at the ceiling at that same solitary moth fluttering around the light above where I’m lying. A moment ago I was looking up into Infinity’s face, but she’s gone now, which makes perfect sense when I think about it. I was never really looking at her to begin with. She was never there at all, and that entire uncomfortable conversation we just had was only in my mind.
