Unchanged

by Jessica Brody

  “Did you get them?” the woman asks.

  “Just a few more,” the man says. Another injection of searing liquid lava erupts through me and my brain shrieks. I’m reminded of being burned alive at the stake. The pain was so intense, it eventually knocked me out, stole my consciousness. My body was merciful enough to shut down.

  I can only pray that it does the same now.

  The final insect beeps its last dying breath.

  “Done,” the man says.

  “Good. Now that.”

  Another pinch near my left wrist. I recognize this anguish. The way it twists my bones and claws at my muscles. Rearranging cells. Reprogramming my blood. It’s the same excruciation I remember from the genetic disguises we were forced to bear when we first left the compound.

  This time, it’s not focused on my face. It’s focused on my wrist. Where my implant is. My tracking device. The permanent piece of me that connects me to my home. To Kaelen.

  The pain keeps exploding in my lower arm. Like tiny detonations one after another. I want to scream for them to stop, but my voice is gone. Everything is gone except for this blinding cloud of torment that has settled around me.

  One at a time, my eyelids are pried open. I hope to catch sight of whoever is doing this to me, match the dimly familiar voice with a face, but all I see is a giant hand descending. Its fat fingers rip the Lenses from my eyeballs. Then my lids snap closed again.

  “Destroy them,” the woman orders.

  “On it.”

  I hear a rustle of movement. “We’re running out of time. Are we clear yet?”

  Someone grabs hold of my wrist, lifts it off the hard surface I’m lying on. “I think we’re clear.”

  “You can’t think,” the woman scolds. “You have to know. If Alixter tracks her back to the camp, we’re all dead.”

  There’s a long, uneasy silence. A wordless war being waged somewhere above my head.

  The man swallows. I can almost hear the lump in his throat scratching its way down. “We’re clear,” he finally says, uncertainty rattling his words.

  “Take us up!” A shriek of an order. But it’s obeyed. I feel a low rumbling beneath me, the stomach-dropping sensation of a hovercopter rising from the ground.

  Once again, I try to cry out for Kaelen. Once again, I’m denied a voice.

  “This plan of his better work,” the woman mumbles under her breath as we soar higher and higher into the sky. “Otherwise, this will all be for nothing.”

  34

  STRANGERS

  I wake up in an arctic tundra. A freeze that clings to my bones. That saturates my blood, turning it to a river of floating ice.

  I shiver violently, the contractions tensing my sore, listless muscles. The chill surprises me. I’ve never felt anything like it before. My body is designed to stabilize in extreme temperatures. Keep me warm when it’s too cold and cool me down when it’s too hot.

  But this is something else.

  My eyes flutter open. I blink and try to make sense of my surroundings. I’m outside. No, I’m inside.

  No …

  I’m outside, but shielded by cloth walls. Some kind of makeshift house?

  The answer lumbers into my brain a moment later, far too slowly. Like my mind is struggling to access everyday definitions. Words and meanings that should come instantly, but don’t.

  Tent.

  It’s a tent. I’m lying on a rickety metal bed with no blankets. Nothing to shield me from this insufferable cold.

  It’s almost impossible to move, as though my limbs are literally frozen solid. Wiggling my fingers is a chore. Pivoting my head takes all my strength. But finally, I’m able to cast my gaze to my left arm, which is outstretched, draped across the edge of the bed. I follow it down, past my elbow, until I see my face-up palm.

  My wrist.

  Something is wrong with my wrist. It’s completely smooth. Not a scar, not a freckle, not a thin black line.

  My genetic implant is gone.

  I sit up abruptly, seizing my wrist with my other hand. The sudden movement makes everything spin and warp. Like I’m seeing the room through one of those humorous distortion apps you can run on a ReflectoGlass.

  What is happening to me?

  I run my fingertip across the skin where my implant used to be.

  I fight to access my most recent memories. I remember the farmer who charged the barriers with his tractor. I remember Kaelen attacking him. I hung back to assess the damage and that’s when it happened.

  I was taken.

  By who?

  What did they do to me? Where did they bring me? Wherever it is, I have to get out of here. I have to find a way to contact Director Raze.

  It takes so much effort to pull myself to my feet. And when I do, the room does another full rotation, pulsing like a human heart. I grab on to something to steady myself. It’s a pole in the center, presumably holding up this archaic structure.

  The whole tent trembles under my weight.

  I wait for another teeth-chattering shiver to pass through me before continuing toward a sliver of light coming from a small gap in the fabric wall of the tent.

  “I wouldn’t go out there,” a voice says from somewhere behind me. I jump and spin. My vision blurs, distorting the dark silhouette of a person sitting in the corner. Who has apparently been there the entire time.

  How did I not hear him breathing?

  My vision readjusts a moment later and a face finally comes into focus.

  His face.

  The boy who ruined my life. Who haunts my dreams and fuels my guilty conscience. The boy I can’t forget, no matter how hard I try.

  His name echoes deep in my brain, shuddering through me like a sob.

  Lyzender.

  He sits in a chair, his legs propped up on a small folding table. The soles of his shoes are coated in dark red dust. I squint to make out the object in his hand.

  A book.

  A real book made out of board and paper. Like the kind Dr. Rio used to collect.

  I know that seeing him here in front of me—in this time—should make me lose my balance again. Should make it hard for me stand, speak, breathe. I should doubt his existence. Doubt my sanity. Argue with reason.

  But I don’t do any of those things.

  Because in truth, it makes perfect sense. All the pieces fit. His promise to find me. The question asked during our live Feed interview. His blurry face in the footage from Jenza Paddok’s court case.

  I tried to convince myself none of it was real. A cruel trick of the imagination. But somehow, I could never quite succeed. No matter what I told myself, no matter what Dr. A assured me, one way or another, Lyzender’s return seemed inevitable. Like I’ve been subconsciously waiting for it.

  What doesn’t make sense—what I find myself observing anxiously—is the unusual severity of his features. The hard line of his jaw. The dimness in his eyes.

  “The tent is guarded,” he goes on, glancing back at his open book, as though he couldn’t care less about my presence. “They don’t trust you.”

  He’s not the boy from my memories. The boy who won me over with smoothly delivered lies and flowery promises. He looks older and there’s a darkness about him. A sun that’s forgotten how to shine.

  Not that it matters to me in the slightest.

  All that matters is that I find a way out of here.

  “I’m the only reason you aren’t in iron chains right now,” he tells me, flipping the page.

  “Where am I?” I ask.

  “In a tent.”

  I’m racked by another chill. “Where? Antarctica?”

  He raises a single eyebrow as he watches me shake. His face twitches ever so slightly—a flash of something, but it’s gone before I can identify it. “Not exactly.”

  “Look,” I say sharply, trying to ignore the bolt of electricity that passes through me when I look at him. “I don’t know why you’re working with a nutcase like Pastor Peder, but—”
>
  “I’m not.”

  I’m startled by his admission.

  He’s not working with Pastor Peder?

  Who else would want to kidnap me?

  “Well, regardless, Diotech will find me here. They have methods to track me wherever I am. And when they do, they will punish you. In ways you don’t even want to know.”

  “I’m quite familiar with Diotech’s methods of punishment,” he says casually, flipping another page. “As are most of the people here. But in regard to them locating you, I wouldn’t count on that.”

  I rub my fingertip against my bare wrist, where my genetic implant used to be. Lyzender notices. “If only I’d been able to do that earlier, huh? This story would have turned out very differently.”

  I stop rubbing.

  He closes the book and places it on the table. “Anyway,” he goes on, stretching his arms above his head, “it’s all gone. The implant, your Lenses, your Slate, even your nanosensors.” He pins me with a gaze that I can feel deep in my gut. “Trust me, no one is going to find you here.”

  So that’s what they were doing in the hover. That’s what the fire blazing through me was. They were destroying my sensors—the microscopic robots programmed to transmit information about my vitals back to the Diotech network. It’s how Dr. A knew I had snuck back onto the compound with Kaelen one year ago. When I was searching for the genetic Repressor to save Lyzender’s life.

  It’s how I was counting on them finding me now.

  But if he’s telling the truth and they’re really gone, it’s hopeless.

  “Who did this to me?” I demand.

  He doesn’t answer. He leans back in the chair, balancing on its rear legs.

  “Lyzender,” I growl.

  “Oh, so you do remember me?”

  “Of course I remember you.”

  He nods, as though he was expecting me to say that. “Sevan said you would.”

  Sevan.

  I was right. He is involved in whatever this is. But where is he now? Is he here? Was he the voice I heard on the hovercopter? Was he the person who grabbed me in the crowd?

  I try to boil all my questions down to one. “What is his part in all of this?”

  Once again, I’m refused an answer. The only response I get is, “He warned me about what they did to you this time.”

  “What they did to me?” I snarl. “They fixed me! They made sure I wouldn’t fall for your lies again. They saved me. From you.”

  “From me?” He slaps a hand to his chest so hard the sound makes me jump.

  “Yes.”

  He tips his head back and lets out a deep, mocking laugh. There isn’t an ounce of joy in it. “Wow. I’m flattered. Truly flattered. That I’m high enough on Alixter’s flux list to be considered such a dangerous threat.” He rubs his chin pensively. “Although that really doesn’t say much about them, does it? That a harmless guy like myself could be so intimidating to a corporation as powerful as Diotech?”

  His rant has left me speechless. I’ve never heard such venom come from his mouth before. The boy from my memories was sweet and gentle and mellow. He told stories to the children on the seventeenth-century farm where we lived. He won over the horse that hated me. He spoke to me with such tenderness.

  Now something ugly and poisonous lives within him. It infects his voice, twists his laugh, tightens my chest.

  “So that’s it, huh?” He’s glaring at me now, but it’s not the same pair of eyes that stared back at me through the wall screen of our Los Angeles hotel. Those eyes were weary and distraught but there was no observable hate.

  Not like now. Not like this.

  “I’m out and he’s in? Just like that?”

  He doesn’t actually say Kaelen’s name but I can only assume it’s who he’s referring to. If it really was him who asked that question during the Feed interview, then he’s seen us together. He watched that kiss.

  “All because Dr. Alixter”—I despise the way he says his name, as though it’s a made-up word—“convinced you I was the enemy?”

  “You are the enemy,” I whisper.

  Because it’s how Dr. A would want me to respond.

  Because it’s how Kaelen would respond.

  Because it’s the truth.

  He launches to his feet, sending the chair clattering back. “Why?” he roars, color rushing to his face. “Because I loved you? Because I would have done anything for you?”

  I catch his blatant use of the past tense. But it doesn’t affect me. I don’t love him anymore. Why should I care if he still loves me?

  Especially when it wasn’t even real.

  What Lyzender and I had was an illusion.

  “Because,” I correct him, “you are working with your mother, Dr. Maxxer, to destroy Diotech.”

  He lets out another one of those unnerving derisive laughs. It sounds like a knife is chafing the inside of his throat. “Is that what he told you? Your precious Dr. Alixter?”

  I nod but stay silent. Lyzender’s erratic state is starting to frighten me. Not that I couldn’t fight him and win. That’s not what I’m afraid of.

  I’m afraid I might have to.

  “Well, at least Alixter got half of it right,” he says. “I am trying to destroy Diotech. And I’m not the only one. But my mother is dead.”

  Dead?

  The word sinks into my stomach and begins to rot.

  “You mean,” I begin tentatively, “because she eventually died? Of old age?”

  I never assumed Dr. Maxxer would still be alive today. The last time I saw her was in the year 2032 after her transession gene had been repressed. She had to be at least fifty then. Which means today, in 2117, if she were alive she would be over 130. Normates have been known to live to 120. But 130? That’s a stretch.

  “No,” Lyzender replies darkly, “because Dr. Alixter sent someone to kill her. On July 14, 2032.”

  “The day after I left her,” I say aloud.

  “Cody and I saw it on the news. A mysterious submarine bombing in the Kara sea, off the coast of Russia. Cody recognized the location immediately. He said you went there to find my mother.”

  “Rylan Maxxer? I can assure you she is not an issue. That problem has been dealt with.”

  Dr. A swore she was too crazy to be a threat. That her rants about a secret organization called the Providence were only signs of her delusion.

  If that’s true though, then why kill her?

  “H-h-how?” I stutter. “How did he get to her? He outlawed transession a year ago. The gene hasn’t been reproduced since.”

  “Maybe he sent someone before he outlawed the gene. Maybe even your boyfriend. Or…” Lyzender screws his mouth to the side, feigning deep, profound contemplation. “Maybe he lied to you.” His mouth drops open, aghast. “But no! That’s impossible. Dr. Alixter would never ever lie to anyone.”

  I shake my head in bewilderment. That scathing tone. That bitter sarcasm. Who is this person? Where did he come from?

  Has he really changed that much in a single year?

  “Diotech is trying to help people,” I tell him boldly.

  “Diotech is trying to control people.”

  No! a voice screams in my head. Don’t listen to him. He’s trying to lure you back in. He’s trying to deceive you again.

  “That’s a lie,” I assert, keeping my voice stern.

  “Like all the other lies I told you?” He smirks, the sarcasm still thick in his tone.

  “Yes.”

  He takes a step toward me. I instinctively take a step back. “So when I told you I loved you?”

  I feel my legs starting to wobble. “Lie.”

  He takes another step. I retreat again. The tent wall is at my back now. I can’t move any farther.

  “And when I told you I’d always protect you?”

  He’s too close. His scent has reached me. It’s masked by a layer of sweat and dirt, but my nose can still identify it. My mind can still pair it to memories.

 
Memories that should keep me from him.

  Not draw me in.

  “Lie,” I say again.

  Another step and he’s upon me. His nose is inches from mine. The air that leaves his mouth is the same air I breathe in. “And when I told you I’d never stop looking for you?”

  My throat is dry. I try to wet it but there’s nothing to swallow.

  Somehow, I am no longer cold. And I hate him for that.

  I will my body to shiver again.

  “Lie,” I finally manage to squeeze out. But even I can hear the waver in my own voice.

  He smiles. It’s not playful. It’s not spiteful. It’s something else.

  “Yet here we both are,” he says.

  His eyes travel to my lips. He watches them tremble. I press them tightly together.

  “Don’t,” I warn him, hoping it will make me seem strong. Resolved. No longer the girl who was so easily tempted by those lips.

  His mouth lingers close. His nose brushes against the tip of mine.

  “Don’t what?” he asks, presuming innocence.

  I can hear my heart thundering in my chest.

  Can he hear it, too?

  After everything we’ve been through together, does he just know it’s racing?

  “Are you afraid I’m going to kiss you?” he asks. “Is that what you think?”

  I draw all the oxygen in the world into my lungs and hold it.

  I will push him away. I will muster all the pitiful strength I have left and use it to put as much distance between us as this tiny tent will allow.

  “I want to talk to the person in charge,” I assert, then I close my eyes. It’s easier that way. Not to have to look at him.

  I feel a rush of cold come back to me, like an arctic wind has swept in. When I open my eyes, he is already halfway out of the tent. “C’mon,” he mumbles, “I’ll take you.”

  35

  HEROISM

  I follow Lyzender out of the tent and into a world unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The site is so daunting and awe-inspiring that I involuntarily stop walking. It’s nothing like the Diotech compound with its sleek metallic edges and synthetic walls and VersaScreens that will show you anything you want. It’s nothing like the cities we visited on the tour with their skyscraping towers and bustling MagCar expressways.