Numbers Ascending

by Rebecca Rode

  The words they shared were unfamiliar. Birth records. DNA. Features.

  Birth parents.

  My reply tore free one strained, ragged layer at a time. “What discrepancy?”

  “The blood sample they took at your birth. It’s a girl with Hawking blood and DNA, but it isn’t yours—is it, dear sister?”

  I lifted my chin in defiance. “We have the same parents.”

  “Parents who lied to us both. Dad even admitted he never intended to tell me the truth. If he’d lie about a stranger living in my house, what else has he lied about?”

  “So what if they adopted me,” I said quickly, glancing at Travers. His face was unreadable. “That shouldn’t matter. I’m still a Hawking.”

  “I don’t think the people will agree. Gram’s bloodline law was pretty clear. You don’t carry Hawking blood, you aren’t eligible to rule. I bet you were dumped off by some Shadows teenager who couldn’t afford her own hospital bills, much less yours.”

  “I never wanted to rule, and you’re still my brother. This changes nothing.”

  “It does if I tell everyone the truth.”

  The threat hovered around the chandelier above us before fading to nothing. Alex watched me expectantly. I felt Travers’s eyes on my back and the accusing glares of two dozen guards. I had avoided Virgil’s blood draw and the truth about my birth, but now I had to face it. A phantom nightmare from my childhood was now becoming irrevocably real. If I wasn’t a Hawking, what was I?

  The threat was clear. Expose Alex as a traitor, and I’d lose everything I was. As much as I hated the spotlight, I’d grown used to the warmth.

  My brother bared his teeth. “Here’s your choice. Support me and you can go back to that lab and live your life. Fight me and I’ll expose you as the fraud you are. Neither option gets you the throne like Dad wanted, but we both know the right Hawking is in place.”

  “People will die if you let this update happen,” I snapped. “They trust us for protection.”

  “The Firebrands’ ideas are a little extreme, maybe, but NORA survived for almost a hundred years under the Rating system. In case you didn’t notice, ours isn’t doing so great either. It may be worth a try.”

  “To undermine everything Gram did?” I exclaimed. “To take us back fifty years and experience life in social prison all over again?”

  He frowned. “You’ve spent too much time with Gram. Of course she has strong opinions about this.”

  “Everyone who lived through it has strong opinions about this!” I leaned over the desk, drawing as close to my brother as I dared. “Alex, listen to me. This isn’t right. We can team up against the Firebrands and Virgil. We’ll warn the people and send your guards to Neuromen to stop the update. But we have to do it now, or it’ll be too late.”

  He pushed his chair back, putting distance between us once again, the expression on his face that of a stranger. Any closeness we’d once shared was overshadowed by his desire for the throne. He wouldn’t join up with me, nor would he warn anyone. Because that would mean giving control back to Dad—and by extension, me. Alex would never give up the Copper Office now that he had it.

  “Don’t do this,” I whispered. “The implant won’t just affect citizens. It will hit Dad. Me. Maybe even you, when they’re done with you. Think of Grandpa Vance. All the pain he was in, how miserable he was.”

  “You don’t get it, Legacy. They’ll do all of this anyway. If you or Dad does get sick, I’ve given the order to put you under until the threat is over. At least this way I can help you.”

  “Alex—”

  “We’re done here.” He motioned to the guards. “Take her and the driver to my father’s cell. They can have a nice little chat while we all wait for the update to drop.”

  Twenty-Six

  Legacy

  Dad sat on a cot in a five-meter-square cell in the basement. When Travers and I approached with our entourage of guards, he rose to his feet. It was then that I noticed his black eye.

  “Dad,” I said with a gasp as a guard opened the door. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now. I’ve been so worried about you.” The anger simmering inside me flared at his strained expression. Everything those Firebrands doled out to my father, Alex deserved ten times over.

  The guards shoved us in and slammed the door. Travers immediately took a post by the door. By the way his eyes flitted about, I knew he was sending a message. I felt a twinge of guilt for not sending him back to Gram right away, but by the determination on his face, he would never have agreed to that anyway.

  I embraced Dad but quickly let go when he flinched. “You are hurt.”

  “Those Firebrand guards have some strong feelings about my reign,” he muttered. “I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

  “If you call being imprisoned all right. Dad, the update carries a disease. It’s going to make a lot of people sick.”

  “I know. I’ve suspected for some time now, but I haven’t been able to get the evidence to prove it. I considered asking you to help me after your Declaration, but I could never ask such a thing from you. The director has made it clear the lengths he’s willing to go for this.”

  The words he didn’t say rang in my ears. We’ve already lost Mom. It would kill me to lose you too.

  The guards’ footsteps disappeared down the hall. We were alone. I took a seat on the edge of the cot, allowing him the rest of the space. “We need to talk. Alex thinks I’m adopted.”

  He sighed. “Not telling you is one of my biggest regrets, Legacy. I’m sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Mom was insistent that you never discover your true lineage. She believed you’d think less of yourself if you knew.”

  I let the sarcasm frost my words. “Nah. Why would discovering that I’m actually a nobody matter?”

  “You were always our daughter. Your blood never mattered to us.”

  “You lied to me my entire life, so you obviously knew it would matter to me and everyone else.”

  His lips thinned. “You’re right. I should have told you when Mom wouldn’t. She was always so stubborn about this. When I brought it up and she resisted . . .”

  He’d given in. He always had. Mom won every argument simply because Dad stepped aside, letting her have her way and therefore her happiness. Once, he’d even offered to give her a work exemption that would allow her to stay home all day. I still remembered how loud their argument had grown that night.

  The next day, Mom went to work as usual, and nobody ever brought the subject up again.

  “You don’t seem all that surprised,” he said quietly. “Did you already know?”

  “I have this memory of Gram and Mom talking about it once,” I admitted. It felt like laying myself bare. “But I would have suspected anyway. Everyone else in the family is named after a precious stone. Gram, you, Alex. Just not me.”

  Dad didn’t speak for a long time. When he finally did, he placed an arm around me and pulled me close. I rested my head against his shoulder like when I was a child.

  “There is such a thing as a legacy stone,” he whispered. “But you won’t find it on any list. It’s something your mom created at the lab before we were married.” He held out his hand for inspection. His wedding ring still glinted from the third finger. I knew it well, having spent my formative years staring at it. The stone was clear, like a diamond. In certain lighting, it held all the colors of the rainbow.

  I forced a sad smile. “You named me after a stone nobody else knew about.”

  “On the contrary. This stone was your mother’s first real experiment, the one that made her a force in the science industry. She wanted to find a clear, unbreakable yet cheap alternative to glass. When she discovered how similar in appearance the legacy stone was to a diamond, people thought it might have high resale potential. But tests proved it too unstable.”

  “Unstable in what way?”

  “Hit the stone with sufficient strength, and the atoms
violently collapsed to create an explosion. It usually happened within ten seconds of impact. Even the tiniest stones were dangerous. She didn’t feel comfortable selling the technology, so the fad died quickly. But when we got engaged, Mom created two identical stones for our rings. We had them set by a skilled metalsmith to prevent an accident.”

  “Correction, then. You named me after an unknown, dangerous stone.”

  His eyes crinkled, the closest thing to a smile I would get tonight. “I’m doing a terrible job explaining this. Let me start over. When Alex’s twin sister died at birth—the one our entire country expected an announcement on any moment—Mom took it hard. On her walk around the hospital wing, she found an abandoned newborn in the nursery, just hours old. She dragged me from the sofa where I slept and showed her to me, saying she was supposed to be ours. I resisted at first, but she was so sure. So happy.”

  “Do you know anything about my birth parents?”

  “Your birth mother signed the release in block text as Kadee Steer, but I wasn’t able to find a woman by that name. It must have been fake. There was no father listed.”

  My shoulders slumped as I silently chided myself. She wouldn’t have abandoned me at the hospital if she wanted to be found later. “It doesn’t matter. Please go on.”

  His voice grew soft. “I named Alex. Mom wanted to name you, but nothing felt right. Finally, she announced she was naming you after her most precious project. Said her legacy stone was rare, beautiful, and carried a raw power that made it unique. Your mother must have seen all three in you.”

  I swallowed down the tightness in my throat. Rare. Beautiful. Raw power. It was poetic, but it wasn’t me. At least the version of myself that sat here in this cell, waiting for a disaster I’d failed to prevent.

  Dad removed his wedding ring and placed it in my hand. “My therapist says I should have taken this off by now. I don’t know why I didn’t, but it’s yours now.”

  “Dad. Not your wedding ring.”

  “It means just as much to you as it does to me, and that’s what matters. Besides, who knows whether we’ll get out of here?”

  “We will. I know it.” I stuffed the ring into my pocket. Its weight was comforting.

  It meant I was wanted.

  “Dad,” I began reluctantly. “The update Virgil is rolling out? I think it was Mom’s. And I’m pretty sure he killed her for it.”

  He stiffened. “Go on.”

  I told him about the lab, the janitor, and Virgil’s half-confession. I carefully avoided any mention of Kole. My cheeks flushed to think of him. Dad was silent through all of it, his gaze fixed on the floor.

  Finally, he faced me, a heavy sadness in his eyes. “I should have discussed this with you before your Declaration. If I had, maybe you wouldn’t be in danger right now. I’m sorry.”

  “So you do know something.”

  He nodded. “Virgil did steal your mom’s experiment and this update was originally hers. But Legacy, he didn’t kill your mom.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  He scowled at the floor again. “There’s something Neuromen hasn’t told the world. Brain implants aren’t 100 percent safe. Studies have shown that cellular-degeneration rates increase around the implantation site. As a result, the person’s life is shortened by a few months. It isn’t much over a lifetime, but Mom thought anything was too much. Her intention was to create an implant that not only didn’t hurt its host but actually improved the individual’s health and extended their life. It provided bursts of electrical energy that renewed certain parts of the brain, kind of like a stimulating massage. A brain-centered Fountain of Youth.”

  I said nothing. I couldn’t have spoken if I tried.

  “It wasn’t until a few years ago that she realized what she’d created. This update could indeed prevent brain degeneration in the long run—but sometimes it could also cause it to spiral out of control, the resulting disease incurable.” He chuckled bitterly. “You know your mom. When she saw the potential of what she’d created, she tried to combat it. She refused to admit that her second project was as dangerous as the first. She wanted to save lives, not take them.”

  A heavy dread settled in my stomach.

  Dad must have seen the rising horror in my expression because he took my hand and squeezed it. “Virgil demanded the project. She saw his intentions immediately and knew he would use it for the wrong purposes. One evening, she destroyed her research, data files, everything related to the update. She even broke into Neuromen’s relay station and destroyed the backup files. Overnight, she became the only person who knew how to recreate the project. Virgil was furious. He ordered her to replicate it and hand it over to him, or her family members would start experiencing ‘accidents.’”

  The night she came home late. No wonder she’d looked so devastated.

  “She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong that night. I assumed her experiment had gone wrong again or something. I had no idea.” The look on my father’s face was that of a broken man.

  My heart squeezed so painfully I wasn’t sure I could endure it. I saw it all like it was happening right now—her expression as she entered my room for our nightly chat, her distracted state as she sat in her usual place on my bed. The pits of black around her red-rimmed eyes, her gaze fixed on the moon visible through the window. The unusual, awkward silence that filled the space between us.

  Finally she stood and headed for the door before pausing to look back. Then came the question that had haunted me every day since.

  “Which do you think is better—a life lived in chains or one lost for freedom?”

  And that selfish, stubborn, oblivious version of myself had looked my suffering mother in the eye and said, “Lost for freedom. Nobody wants to be chained.”

  A sob escaped my throat now. If only I’d known then what the question really meant.

  Dad rubbed my arm. “I know. I don’t agree with what she did either. It’s no use protecting your family when you also destroy them in the process. I believe she wasn’t herself that day and made a poor choice. One she thought noble, but still a poor choice.” He lifted his face to the sky, frustrated. “If only she’d told me. I would have confronted Virgil with an entire army. I would have made sure he never scared her again.”

  “Then he would have targeted you. But if she didn’t tell you about all this, how did you find out?”

  “She sent a delayed message. I received it minutes after the explosion, just before I received word about a fire at Neuromen. I hurried to the scene, but she was long gone. The message deleted itself within two hours, or it would have served as the evidence I’ve been needing. I think she believed he would carry through on his threat to us if I used it against him.”

  “But Virgil has the update now,” I said. “He must have known enough about her research to recreate the project.”

  Dad looked angry. “He had files saved at his home, backups Mom didn’t know about. It was a matter of months before he was experimenting on a duplicate.”

  “Then Mom’s death did nothing but give him the glory and power he always wanted,” I said bitterly.

  Dad fell silent. Even Travers, who’d been watching the entire exchange, ducked his head.

  We sat there as night fell and the cell went dark.

  Twenty-Seven

  Legacy

  The update went out two minutes early.

  It was a vague observation in the back of my mind, like a knowledge that my heart was still beating. A tiny light blinked in the corner of my vision before the message arrived.

  PLEASE WAIT. UPDATE COMMENCING.

  If I’d been watching a broadcast, it would have been automatically paused. Any messages being sent right now would save as drafts. The entire IM-NET was frozen in place. I imagined Virgil bouncing on his toes with glee as the world held its breath.

  Then it took effect.

  I sat on the cot, slouched against the wall with Dad’s blanket spread across my lap. He lay tucked in
a fetal position, his head on the pillow, his mouth slightly open in sleep. There was no visible change. If Virgil had triggered it on the both of us, it could be a while before we felt its effects. But I’d expected something.

  Travers sat on the floor against the bars, struggling to keep his eyes open. He didn’t react to the update either.

  “I should have asked this long before now,” I whispered. “Do you have any family?”

  He nodded. “A wife at home, no children. I’ve tried sending her a message, but it didn’t go through.”

  They were onto him, then. That made him as likely to get triggered for the virus as any Hawking. Maybe his wife too. I imagined her at home, worrying about her husband’s disappearance and trying to contact him without success. “I’m sorry I pulled you into this.”

  “It was only a matter of time. They’ll have access to the estate’s employment list.” He gave a grim smile. “It’s been a pleasure watching you grow up.”

  “No goodbyes. We don’t know if any of us are infected yet.”

  “The question isn’t if but when. It will be better for all of us if we can escape and get to a hospital before the symptoms hit. Perhaps they’ll have something . . .” He trailed off. Travers knew as well as I did that hospitals would be no help against this. Patients were immediately put under to halt the disease’s progression, but there was no cure yet.

  I leaned against the wall again. Alex had made sure our guards were all Firebrands. Where were the guards who worked for Dad? Where was the military? Surely someone knew we were here. “They have to bring food and water eventually, right? We can jump the guards then.”

  Travers motioned to a variation in the bars next to him. A food hatch. They could keep us in here forever if they wanted. The only way any of us would escape this cell was on a stretcher and covered in a sheet.