Unchanged

by Jessica Brody

  He nods. “My grandfather Reese used to tell me we looked alike. He showed me a few captures of when he was younger. I guess I could see the resemblance.”

  Reese.

  The memory instantly floods my mind. The little boy with red hair who came barreling down the stairs of Cody’s town house. Who taught me how to play his favorite virtual simulation game. Who called my once thirteen-year-old foster brother “Daddy.”

  Unexpectedly, black guilt and red rage flare in my throat. I feel them gnawing at me, strangling me.

  Cody was an enemy to the Objective, I remind myself.

  Even if he didn’t fully understand what he was doing, he still helped me evade Diotech countless times. And now his great-grandson has pledged himself to the other side. The side that wants to see the compound obliterated and Diotech destroyed.

  “Are you okay?” Niko asks.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Your face,” he says, “it got all, I don’t know, screwy.”

  “Screwy?”

  “Like you smelled something bad.”

  “Why are you here?”

  My abrupt question takes him by surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “Why are you fighting against Diotech?”

  A long silence passes between us as Niko seemingly considers whether to respond. I’m sure he’s been warned more than once not to trust me. Not to divulge any information that might compromise their plan.

  “I was born to fight Diotech,” he finally says.

  “What?”

  He appears to relax a bit—now that I’ve proven I’m not here to suffocate him with a pillow. “I guess you could say it was my legacy.” He laughs weakly.

  I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t for a while, either,” he admits. “The only thing I really remember about my great-grandfather was how old he was. And how crazy he seemed.”

  Crazy? That’s not an adjective I would have used to describe Cody. “Did he get warped in his old age?”

  I’ve heard of it happening to people. Especially those born before the latest advancements in neurotechnology. Or those refusing to trust them.

  “I certainly thought so,” Niko replies. “As did the rest of the family. He would go on and on, ranting like a lunatic about some evil corporation that wouldn’t exist for another few decades. A corporation that would build human beings in science labs and manipulate people’s brains and try to control the world. We all thought he’d lost his mind. I mean, that’s what you think when someone claims to know the future, right?”

  A shiver runs through me.

  “Anyway,” Niko continues, “I didn’t like him very much. As a kid, he scared the flux out of me. Every time I saw him, he would force me to listen to his raving stories about this diabolical company and how one day I’d be the one who could stop them. I was the generation that would have to stop them.”

  “Diotech,” I whisper, almost inaudibly.

  I remember when Cody watched my memories from the cube drive. It was in the guest room of his town house when we were trying to save Lyzender’s life. He saw everything that had happened to me since I woke up in the wreckage of the plane crash.

  For me, it was just another act of betrayal—sharing confidential information with an outsider—but for him, it was apparently the start of something else.

  “I thought he was just old and delirious,” Niko says. “Like maybe he was confusing real life with some random sci-fi movie he’d seen as a kid. Then one day, an ad came on the Feed for the artificial womb. I saw the company logo, and every hair on my body stood on end. That’s when I realized he wasn’t crazy. He was…”—his voice grows soft and reflective—“… something else.”

  He stares into the flickering light of my lantern. “Of course,” he continues forlornly, “by the time I realized how right he was, it was too late. He was gone. But I knew what I had to do. It’s almost as though he’d been preparing me for it. I had to stop them. So I found Paddok and the others and I told her I wanted in. Later I met Lyzender and found out about you, the transession gene, and the time he spent with my great-grandfather before he came back here. Everything made more sense at that point.”

  My breathing has become shallow. I can’t bring myself to speak.

  There’s a war waging in my head. The person who once cared for Cody, who once loved him like a real brother, is clashing against the person who is supposed to condemn him. Cody and I are not on the same side. We never were. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. He raised this man to be my enemy.

  He may not have known it at the time—it may not even have been a conscious choice—but he was a traitor. Just like Rio. Just like Lyzender. Just like me.

  Yet there’s an unfamiliar emotion welling up inside me, fighting for my attention. An emotion I can’t identify. It warms me where I should be cold. It softens me where I should be unyielding.

  I stand up a little too quickly. The room does a full spin. I hold on to the bed frame to steady myself.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Niko asks, and I nod. There’s a tenderness in his voice that wasn’t there before. He must hear it, too, because his next words are sharp with impatience. “Is that it? Is that why you came here?”

  I don’t reply. I grab my lantern and start toward the door.

  But I can’t leave. Not without asking the one question that’s been plaguing me since I first laid eyes on Niko. Possibly even longer.

  The loyal soldier in me insists the answer doesn’t matter. But the traitor in me has to know.

  Some battles are won. Some are lost.

  I slowly turn around, swallow the rough lump in my throat, and ask, “Do you know how he died?”

  Niko raises an eyebrow and peers inquisitively at me. “He was old. A hundred and two. He died in his sleep. His heart just … you know, stopped.”

  A ripple of grief passes through me. I don’t fight it off. I don’t erect walls to keep it at bay. But I don’t let myself cry either. I bow my head and hastily blink away the tears that sting my eyes. “Thank you,” I murmur.

  “He was a great scientist,” Niko says softly. “From what I’ve heard, he won a bunch of awards for his work.”

  I lift my head and look at him. In the dim light, he appears to be studying me, measuring my reaction. For some unfathomable reason, I think he’s trying to console me.

  I slink back into the night and disappear behind the flap of my tent. By the time I lie down on my own rickety metal bed, my eyes are wet with unwelcome tears.

  I shouldn’t mourn the death of an enemy.

  I shouldn’t cry over a silly boy who once had a silly crush.

  And I certainly shouldn’t let the words of a stranger console me.

  But I do.

  49

  UNCLEAN

  Early the next morning, Klo receives an alert that the money has been transferred into the specified account. A smattering of cheers and applause wakes me from my restless sleep and Paddok herself enters my tent to bring me the news. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her smile.

  It’s decided that I will be delivered to the compound at seven the next morning.

  As Paddok’s team buzzes around the camp getting ready for the big event, I lie on my bed and let the implications sink in.

  I failed.

  Failed to escape.

  Failed to warn them.

  Failed, failed, failed.

  Once again, I let Dr. A down. And now Diotech will suffer the consequences.

  I drift in and out of a dreamless, guilt-plagued sleep for the rest of the day. When the sun is low in the sky, Lyzender comes to wake me. He tosses a questionably clean towel on the bed.

  “Time to get cleaned up,” he says, the now-familiar sharpness coating his words like liquid glass. “Paddok doesn’t want you going home looking like”—he pauses, gives me a once-over—“like you are now.”

  I haven’t seen my reflection in over two days. Appearances h
aven’t exactly been high on my priority list lately. Not that they ever are. I want to ask why I should bother making myself presentable when I’ll be covered in the dust and ashes of my home in less than twenty-four hours.

  I keep this inquiry to myself.

  I grab the towel and Lyzender guides me outside. We walk for about a half mile from the perimeter of the camp until we come to a small meadow. I halt and stare in wonderment at the thousands upon thousands of tiny white flowers covering the ground like a sprinkling of fresh snow.

  Dandelions.

  The weed that marks the first day Lyzender and I met. The weed that he plucked for me and brought me in a vacuum-sealed tube.

  The weed that Diotech eradicated, along with so many others.

  Or so I thought.

  Looking out on this sea of white cotton, I realize that Diotech has no power here. That Dr. A’s reach has a limit.

  In this wild meadow, miles from civilization, miles from the innovative science of the compound labs, some things are safe from extermination.

  Some things still survive.

  Lyzender has stopped, too. I can feel his eyes on me, watching my reaction. Is that why he brought me here? To try to stir up some buried emotion? To poke at the wounds of my betrayal?

  Well, it won’t work.

  I keep my expression neutral. Indifferent. “Where exactly are we going?”

  He starts walking again. “It’s just over this ridge.”

  A few minutes later we arrive at a small lake cut into the desert floor. Like the towel over my shoulder, its cleanliness is debatable.

  “Be quick about it,” he says shortly.

  He takes a seat on a boulder near the shore and leans back on his hands. Like he’s waiting for his favorite show to start on the Feed.

  I scoff. “Well, at least turn around. I’m not taking my clothes off in front of you.”

  He smirks. “We lived together for over six months in a seventeenth-century farmhouse with no running water. I’ve seen you naked plenty of times.”

  “It’s different now.”

  “Yeah,” he mutters. “You weren’t in love with someone else then.”

  He turns around.

  I pull off my filthy clothes and wade into the cool water. Clean or not, it’s still refreshing. Even though I shiver under the surface, I like the sensation of the lake on my body, washing away the dirt on my skin and hopefully on my soul. If I even have one of those.

  The people around here don’t seem to think so.

  I watch Lyzender’s back as he sits patiently on the rock, staring into the horizon. “Will you tell me more about tomorrow?” I ask, cupping a handful of water in my palm and letting it sift through my fingertips.

  Silence, and then he says, “I can’t.”

  “There are people on that compound who I care about, you know?”

  His shoulders stiffen. “I know.” His tone is glacial.

  “Not just him,” I correct. “Other people. Innocent people. People you must have known when you lived there.”

  “Paddok is not interested in taking innocent lives. She’s only interested in protecting the rest of the world from Diotech.”

  “So you’re saying you won’t kill anyone.”

  Another long, dreadful pause. “I’m not saying that.”

  I bite my lip and brace myself for another onslaught of tremors.

  “What happened to Jenza Paddok?”

  My question takes him by surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “Sevan took me on a tour of the camp. He said you all have your reasons for wanting to destroy Diotech. What is hers?”

  He hesitates. “I don’t know. She never told me.”

  “You’re lying,” I accuse.

  “That again? Why do I always have to be lying?”

  “Because you were there. At that courthouse. The day her case was thrown out. I saw you in a Feed archive. You transessed there to check up on her, didn’t you? You wanted to make sure her claims against Diotech were legitimate before you joined her team. Before you trusted her with your secret.”

  He picks up a rock and throws it hard into the dirt. “Yes. Fine. I was there, okay? I sat in the back row of the courthouse and watched Diotech get away with murder.”

  My chest tightens. “Murder?” I try to sound skeptical. But I’m not sure how convincing I am.

  “Her son,” Lyzender says. “They killed her ten-year-old son.”

  I hop up and down in the water to keep warm. “How?”

  Lyzender sighs. “Nerve gas. A new fast-spreading variety Diotech was working on for the government.”

  I know from my many uploads on the subject that modern wars are mostly fought with these kinds of silent weapons. Deadly vapors that can be released by undetectable drones. But I’ve never heard of a nerve agent killing an American child. Their uses are limited to foreign-war fronts and battle zones.

  “Before the latest batch could be sold to the government, it had to be fully tested,” Lyzender goes on. “On both adults and children. So a drone carrying the gas was delivered to the playground of an elementary school. Fifty-two students were killed.”

  I exhale a breath that has turned stale and moldy in my lungs. I’ve seen what nerve gas can do. The convulsions. The salivation. The complete loss of all bodily function. Imagining fifty-two children going through that is too much to bear.

  I swiftly push the thought from my mind.

  “Paddok tried to file a class action lawsuit against Diotech. It was thrown out for lack of evidence.” He chucks another rock at the ground. “But you and I both know the real reason it was dismissed.”

  My brow furrows.

  “The Providence,” he says.

  The water around me suddenly turns to ice and I’m frozen in place.

  He knows? About the Providence? Did his mother, Dr. Maxxer, share her crazy conspiracy theories with him?

  “Trestin told me,” he answers my unspoken question, referring to one of the men who was working for Dr. Maxxer.

  “You knew Trestin?”

  “He came to visit me when I was staying with Cody. After they murdered my mother. He was sick, dying. The transession gene was killing him, like it nearly killed me. He wanted to tell me why my mother left me. What she died fighting for.”

  A small part of me is desperate to ask him if he believes it. If he’s crazy enough to think that Diotech is being controlled and protected by a secret organization of the most powerful people on the planet. But the rational part of me insists it doesn’t matter. It’s a preposterous explanation that’s founded on the ramblings of a madwoman.

  “Lyzender—” I begin quietly, but he interrupts me before I can finish.

  “Why do you call me that?”

  “Because it’s your name.”

  “That’s never been my name. Not to you, anyway.”

  I know what he’s referring to. I know what he wants me to call him. I can remember the day I named him. It was one of the memories that was originally taken from me and later returned. I bravely recall it now, even though I know it will bring me nothing but harrowing grief.

  “Zen.” The three letters drift from my lips like an exhale.

  He looks at me, eyebrows knit together.

  “It’s a word,” I try to explain. “I read it in one of the texts you brought me. It means—”

  “At peace,” he answers.

  “Like you … Lyzender.”

  As expected, the torment begins. The stabbing guilt, the despairing anguish, the fervent desire to crush my head between my hands until it bursts. Until it stops.

  “… your brain can be programmed to associate a certain memory with any emotion we choose.”

  Stop!

  My emotions aren’t fake. They’re not coded into me like a glitching Slate. They’re mine and they’re real.

  Real because Lyzender was a mistake. Every part of my past—a mistake.

  “You’re so different.” He huffs out the words like
they weigh a thousand pounds apiece. And then, a moment later, more quietly, “So different.”

  “Why?” I demand, furiously splashing the water with my hand. “Because I don’t fall all over you whenever you walk into a room anymore? Because I’m strong enough to resist you now?”

  Abruptly, he spins around. My body is submerged in water, but still I attempt to cover myself with my hands.

  “Hey!” I protest.

  But he keeps looking. Not at the parts I’m trying to hide, but at the parts I didn’t know I had to. My face. My eyes. Me.

  “You used to have this fire about you. This fierceness. Even when they erased everything—when they made you a blank page—it was still there. The girl I met in that cottage never would have sided with them. Never would have loved who they told her to love. Kissed who they told her to kiss. She was the strong one. Not you. It’s like”—he closes his eyes, searching—“it’s like they extinguished your fire. The thing that made you Seraphina is gone. Now you’re just Sera. I prefer the blank page.”

  “I don’t love him because they told me to.” Right now, it’s the only accusation I can dispute. “I love him because he’s him.”

  Lyzender sighs as his head lolls forward, like he’s fallen asleep. Like he’s given up.

  “Because he’s like you,” he whispers.

  I wade closer to him, uncertain I heard him correctly. “What?”

  “I knew eventually there’d come a day when I wouldn’t be good enough for you. When my ordinary was overshadowed by your extraordinary. The day I saw him on the Feed for the first time, some part of me knew that it was over. That I’d never be able to compete with that kind of perfection. You found your match. Even if Diotech had to manufacture it for you. In a way, I guess that makes sense.”

  He turns back around and I float in silence. The tiny ripples my body makes as I maneuver in the water are the only sound for miles.

  I don’t know how to respond to what he’s just said and from his closed-off posture, I’m not sure he even wants me to try.

  The sun is starting to set. It will be dark soon, and I imagine Paddok will want us back before then. So I emerge from the water and wrap the towel around me. Shivering, I slide my feet into my shoes and bundle my clothes under my arm. Without saying anything, I stand next to Lyzender and cast a sidelong glance at him.