by S. Harrison
“I thought I was . . . protecting you by separating your mind, but I was wrong.”
“Save your strength, old man,” I whisper as tears pour down my face. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“No, I’m not . . . going to be fine. That’s why you need to listen. Infinity was always just another part of you,” Jonah says as he slowly raises his hand and touches my face. “Now you are whole . . . again. I . . . can see it. Search inside yourself, Finn . . . you know it’s true.”
I don’t need to search; I know that he’s right. I’m not sure how it happened, but what I do know is that the last time I heard Infinity’s voice in my head was when I walked out of Dome Two, right after Nanny Theresa sliced my pendant from my neck. Ever since then, whenever I had to fight and I needed Infinity’s strength, it was there. If I had to make a tough call and needed her bravery, I could feel it. Whenever I was in a tight spot with no way out and needed her to pull me out of the fire, she was there for me. But she wasn’t really, was she? It was me. I did all those things. Infinity’s voice didn’t disappear from my head. It’s just been coming out of my mouth this whole time.
“I feel it, Jonah,” I reply. “I know who I am now.”
“Good,” Jonah whispers. “I took so much . . . from you, Finn. Now, let me give . . . something back.”
I frown in confusion; I have no idea what he means.
Jonah turns his head and looks at Commander Zero. “Listen to me very . . . closely, Zero,” Jonah says to him. “Listen to every word I say.”
Zero nods and presses his right earphone hard into his ear. Jonah takes a labored breath and says a string of words that make no sense at all. “Zero command-code alpha, neural-barrier dissolve, authorization Brogan, level ten . . . deactivate.”
All of a sudden Commander Zero looks like he’s been struck by a bolt of lightning. He rears up on his knees, his back arches, and he grips the sides of his head like he’s in agonizing pain.
Margaux screeches and skitters out of the way as Mantis shouts in panic through her headset. “What have you done to him?! Commander!”
Zero’s entire body shudders and spasms, then his limbs go loose, and he topples backward, thudding onto the floor, unconscious.
Jack, Mantis, and Bulldog spring to their feet and rush to Commander Zero’s side, and I’m about to do the same when Jonah grabs my hand and holds it tightly. I can hear the Saviors calling out to Zero in my headset.
“Quickly, take his mask off,” barks Mantis.
“Is he still breathing?” shouts Jack.
“Commander! Can you hear me?” yells Lila.
Jonah looks up into my eyes, and tears trickle down the sides of his face. He smiles warmly, and even though his voice is only a whisper, I can hear it through the shouting as if it were the only voice in the world. “Finn, I love you . . . like you are my daughter. No matter what happens never, ever . . . forget that.”
Tears drip from my chin as Jonah’s smile fades. His hand loosens from around my wrist, and his gaze gently drifts away from my face as the last flicker of life slowly dwindles and finally disappears from his eyes.
He’s gone.
Sorrow erupts inside me and fills every fiber of my being as I collapse onto Jonah’s chest and sob uncontrollably. I loved him, too; I loved him so much that the pain of losing him feels like a knife stabbing deep into my heart.
I feel a hand gently touch my back. Bit kneels down by my side. I look up at her, and she pulls me into a warm embrace as I cry into her shoulder.
“Finn?” croaks a raspy voice. “Finn?” the voice says again.
It’s so strange that I pull away from Bit and look up at her in confusion. It definitely didn’t come from her. Bit glances over at the Saviors, and so do I. What I see defies explanation. Commander Zero is sitting up. He’s staring right at me, and in the dim light of the cargo hold, I see his face for the first time.
My eyes go wider than they ever have before, and I gasp out loud, not because he has deep, winding scars crisscrossing his battle-weary skin, but because . . . I know him.
This can’t be real. How can this be?
I lean in, studying his features just to make sure I’m not losing my mind. If I look past Zero’s cuts and see beyond the stubble and dirt and dust smeared over his caramel-colored skin, the unmistakable handsome face of the boy I fell in love with all those summers ago is right here, sitting only four feet away. I stare at him in complete disbelief, unsure whether or not to believe my senses, but as he smiles, his beautiful, soulful emerald-green eyes seem to shine through the dark and fill me with light. My overwhelming happiness bursts from my lips in a joyful laugh. I don’t know how, but it is him.
“Hello, Carlo. Welcome back. I’ve missed you more than you could ever know.”
That’s what I should’ve said. But of all the phrases that I could’ve chosen, out of all of the millions of combinations of letters I could’ve put together, the only thing that I could come up with to say in this moment was “Holy shit.”
“Do you really have to swear, Finn?”
“Sorry, Onix . . . but that’s exactly what I said, and it’s pretty tame compared to what Bit said when she found out Mariele was her mother.”
“Yes, you’ve told me what she said before, Finn. Please do not repeat it.”
“Ha-ha, OK. Y’know, I’ve told you about that day so many times, and you never seem to get sick of it.”
“I’m a computer, Finn, I’m incapable of boredom, and besides, you know how much I love story time.”
“That’s true; you have ever since it happened. But that day changed all of us. I still see Margaux around campus sometimes. She’s quiet now and seems to keep to herself. I can’t believe Bit and Brody are still together, but I haven’t seen any of my other schoolmates since I started university. The Saviors are always going off on some rescue mission. They’re so busy since they got a new Commander, but Gazelle is coming to stay next week, and I can’t wait to see her. I still can’t get used to calling her Caitlin, though, no matter how much she pesters me to. It’s been three years now, but I still remember all of it like it was yesterday.”
“Three years, two months, six days, fifteen—”
“I don’t need to know the hours and minutes, Onix.”
“Sorry, Finn.”
“That’s OK. Anyway, he’ll be here soon, so I’ve gotta go. If Mother or Nanny Theresa are looking for me, tell them I’ve gone riding by the lake or that I’m locked in my room studying and I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“And what will you actually be doing, Finn?”
“The same thing I always do on a warm summer night like this, Onix, sitting by the pond, throwing stones with Carlo.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to . . . my parents for your endless support, Lucy for never giving up on a dream, Tegan for sharing my vision, Sasha for taking a chance, and, of course, Courtney for believing that Infinity wasn’t too far to reach. A huge cheers to Britt, Jason, Hai-yen, Ben, Tyler, Mikyla, Katherine, Rachel, and everyone at Skyscape. Thank you to everyone at Brilliance, to Elena, Brianna, Kimberly, and Allison at Wunderkind, and finally, to you, the reader who has been right there beside Finn and Bit every step of the way; thank you so much, and . . . you ain’t seen nothing yet.
—S.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2015 Lucy Ngata
S. Harrison is an author from New Zealand, where he often indulges his love of watching superhero movies and art-house films. He frequently escapes to the many islands of the South Pacific, where he is hard at work on his writing.
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