Unchanged

by Jessica Brody

  “Those lashes,” I can hear her say. “They can turn a good girl bad in three seconds flat.”

  This must be Jin. The lab assistant she always talked about. The one she called her Dark Matter.

  He’s so still. So very still. The only movement is a single nanotat on his left arm. A swirling, high-speed journey through dark sky and blinding white stars.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder and I jump.

  “Sera?”

  It’s Lyzender. But I don’t turn to look at him. Instead, I look up. Into a morning sun that shouldn’t be shining. That shouldn’t be so eager to get up and brighten the day with its luminance.

  My body is heaving in dry sobs.

  He steps in front of me, his expression grave. “Sera. We need to get out of here. We need to get back to the hover.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “Seraphina.”

  “NO!” I scream, shoving him hard. “I did this to him! I killed him! I’m not leaving!”

  I turn back to Crest. She’s pushing Jin’s hair from his forehead and brushing the dust and ash from his cheeks, revealing cuts in his skin. Blemishes in his pale white skin. With her thumb, she rubs at a gash above his eyebrow, trying to erase it. But her hands aren’t magic. She only manages to smear the blood across his forehead. And now he looks worse.

  This makes her cry even harder.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “It’s my fault. All my fault.”

  She doesn’t seem to hear me over the deafening noise of her own pain.

  Suddenly, behind me, there’s a deep, angry roar. The sound of trapped wolves and vengeful murderers. When I turn around, I expect to see someone charging toward me, a weapon drawn and poised to slay, but instead I see someone running away from me. Running like the world is chasing him.

  It’s Lyzender.

  Finally giving up on me. Finally accepting the fact that I’m a lost cause, just like Paddok said. That I will never be me. I will always be them. Diotech—good or bad, helpful or evil, protective or destructive—runs in my veins. Their science is my body. Their inspiration is my life.

  I was made here.

  And here is where I must stay.

  A voice calls my name from across the chasm. A voice full of desperation and heartbreak. I look up and see the face I was made to love. The face that lifts me from nightmares, quiets fears, and makes earth-splitting chasms feel like mere cracks in the ground.

  His dark blond hair shines brilliantly in the sun, finally giving reason to the yellow orb’s presence on this dark morning. His eyes sparkle as they meet mine across the great divide. There is no smile on his face. I’m not sure how anyone could smile in this devastation.

  But there is relief.

  The same relief that’s coursing through me right now, giving me the will to move. To run to him.

  “Kaelen!” I cry as my feet falter uneasily on this rubble-laden path. I don’t look down. I refuse to see what I’m stepping through. I know it’s more than rubble. I know it’s people, too. People I once knew. People I might have said hello to in the mornings. Faces I would surely recognize.

  Right now I have to stay focused on the one thing that’s keeping me from collapsing in on myself: Kaelen is alive. He didn’t perish in this disaster.

  My foot catches on something and suddenly I’m plummeting downward. Into the horrors that lie beneath me. I thrust my hands out to break my fall and something sharp slices through my right palm.

  “Sera!” Kaelen calls. Even though I know he’s moving toward me, it sounds as though he’s getting farther away.

  Blood gushes from my hand. I lift it up to see what cut me and my gaze falls on a pair of red-handled trimming shears.

  No.

  Please, no.

  I’m crying again before I even look down. Before I even see his face.

  I lost him once before. Logic tells me it should be easier the second time around. Like I’ve had practice or something.

  But logic is nowhere to be found in this chaos of smoke and death.

  There is only sorrow. There is only pain. The kind that blinds you and makes you feel like you’re drowning on land.

  I pull Rio’s head into my lap and stroke his face. It’s marred with scratches where the demolished building came crashing down on him. He was probably outside trimming the hedges.

  So many hedges.

  I can feel blood from a gash in the back of his head trickling between my knees.

  I open my mouth, open my throat, open my soul, and let out a wail.

  The gruesome sound terrifies me. I have trouble believing that it actually came from me. It was animalistic. No, more like someone ripping something animalistic apart. I’ve never heard such a noise escape me before.

  A quiet groan startles me and I look down to see a tremble of movement on his face.

  “Rio!”

  “Sera.” I can hear the injury in his voice. The fading strength. Death waits nearby, ready to take him from me, but somehow he’s still here.

  He coughs, a spittle of blood trickling from his mouth. I wipe it away with my hand.

  His eyes fight to open. I feel a clench in my chest as I wonder which eyes will be staring back at me. The Rio I remember? Or the eerie barren version they replaced him with?

  I resolve to stay with him no matter which one I see.

  “Seraphina?” he says again, and I wilt in relief.

  Seraphina.

  Rio was the one who gave me that name. The real Dr. Rio. The man who created me. Who brought me to life and treated me like a daughter.

  When his eyes drag open, I see him again.

  I grab his hand and squeeze it. “I’m here.”

  Another cough as he struggles to speak. “Do you know why I helped you escape?”

  I bite my lip and shake my head. I only know the reasons Dr. A told me. And who knows if those are true anymore.

  “Because you’re free,” he tells me. “You were always free.”

  “Rio, I—”

  “I never told you who you really are. I should have told you.”

  “I’m an ExGen,” I say numbly. But the title no longer holds the same pride it once did.

  He tries to shake his head, but the movement only makes him cough up more blood. He winces against the pain.

  “Stay still,” I urge him. “Please.”

  He tries to speak again but the words are too quiet. I lean down and press my ear to his lips. “Find out who you really are,” he says.

  I feel a delicate shudder of breath against my cheek. There’s a finality about it. A release of suffering. He’s gone. No longer suspended between life and death. Between sanity and madness.

  I didn’t think there were any tears left inside me. I thought I had cried them all. But somehow, from somewhere, a single drop of rain leaks onto his cheek.

  Like a miracle.

  Like the beginning of a storm.

  58

  CROSSING

  “Stay right where you are, lover boy.”

  I feel the sharp steel against my neck before I see the man holding it. I look up. Kaelen has crashed to a halt only an arm’s reach away. He glares somewhere above my head, at the knife’s owner. Then his gaze finds me and I watch the fear take shape in his eyes.

  “Up you go,” the man says to me, easing me to a stand by the elbow. The blade stays firmly pressed against my throat. “Very good.”

  Kaelen is frozen. Everything is still except the twitch of his fingers. He can’t decide whether to follow the man’s orders or charge and take his chances.

  “Thought you could get away with it, didn’t you?” The stern voice is breathy and warm at my ear. He smells of smoke and desert dust and deer meat.

  “Jase.” I finally place him. I assumed he was dead.

  “You thought you could tip off your little Diotech friends and not pay for it, huh?”

  “I didn’t—” I start to argue, but the blade crushes my windpipe, rendering me silent. />
  “Shut the glitch up,” he roars. “How’d you do it? How’d you warn them?”

  I flash a look at Kaelen but don’t answer. The truth will only aggravate him more.

  “You got out,” I squeak.

  It’s not a question. It’s a statement of hope. If he got out of the bunker before it blew, maybe others did, too. Maybe they’re not all gone.

  He laughs maniacally. “What? Are you disappointed? That you weren’t able to kill us all? I escaped the same way you and that coward Lyzender got out. I ran. But not before detonating the device on those glitching baby killers.”

  “You…” I’m unable to finish the thought.

  “I had no choice,” he growls, pressing the knife harder against my skin. I feel it prick the surface. A dribble of warm liquid trails down my neck. “They are all dead. Paddok, Davish, Nem, all of them. Because of you. Now Manen’s death will never be avenged. Or my daughter’s. Or any of them.”

  Kaelen takes an uneasy step toward us. “Jase, is it?”

  Jase whirls me toward him. “Don’t move. I’ll slit her throat. I swear.”

  “She’ll heal,” Kaelen challenges.

  Jase lets out a dark laugh. “Not with the inhibitor running through her system.”

  Kaelen tilts his head, not fully understanding.

  “That’s right. We weakened her. Took away her superpowers. So she couldn’t beat the flux out of us.”

  Kaelen looks to me. Is it true? his eyes ask. I respond with the subtlest of nods. Comprehension passes over him like a shadow. He gets it now.

  If Jase cuts, I die.

  “Look,” Kaelen tries. “Dr. Alixter will pay you whatever you want. Just let her go.”

  “The glitch with Dr. Alixter,” Jase spits. “Where is he anyway? Hiding in his mansion? Too much of a coward to come out here and fight his own battles? Instead he sends his warped army to do his dirty work. Well, joke’s on him. Because they’re dead, too. None of them could have survived that blast.”

  All those agents in the bunker.

  Gone. Killed in the wake of my stupidity. I thought I was helping. I thought I was saving lives, not annihilating them.

  “What do you want?” Kaelen asks diplomatically. But I can see his composure slipping. His temper flaring. If that monster comes out now, we might both die.

  “I want her to apologize. For all of their deaths. For existing. And then I want you to watch her die.”

  “Do it,” I tell Jase, leaning into his blade. “Cut me. Slice me to pieces. You’re right, I deserve it. I’m not meant to be here. I never should have been created.”

  “Sera, no!” Kaelen cries, trying once again to inch forward. But one flicker of movement from Jase’s knife causes him to retreat.

  “It’s okay,” I tell Kaelen. “This is how it has to happen. You don’t know how many people have died because of me. How many lives have shattered just because I exist. I’ve done enough damage. I don’t need to live to do any more.”

  He shakes his head quietly, moisture pooling in his eyes. His shoulders start to shake.

  I’ve never seen Kaelen cry. I didn’t know he was capable of it.

  The sight sends another deep splinter through my already shattered heart.

  A commotion behind us snags my attention. Without releasing the knife, Jase turns us both until we’re facing the giant chasm. I hear Lyzender’s voice bark, “Move! Come on! Let’s go.” Then I see two people shuffling toward us. One hidden behind the other.

  I gasp when I finally make out the man in front.

  A bound and battered Dr. A. His face is covered with gray ash. A purple bruise is forming above his left eye.

  He stumbles toward us and I can see Lyzender trudging behind him, shoving a gun barrel into his back.

  “I found him clutching some dead guy’s body,” Lyzender says.

  Dane, I think with dread.

  Lyzender lurches to a halt when he sees the situation in front of him: Jase’s arm around my neck, the edge of his knife piercing my skin.

  “Jase!” he yells, momentarily losing focus on Dr. A. “What are you doing?”

  Dr. A uses the distraction to run. He doesn’t get very far, though. Lyzender yanks him back and points the gun at his temple. “You stay,” he commands.

  “I’m doing what should have been done from the beginning,” Jase replies. “She warned the bastards and led us right into an ambush.”

  “Jase, don’t do this. She’s not your enemy. Diotech is your enemy.”

  “She is Diotech!” Jase bellows. “You’re the only one too stupid to see that.”

  “I’m afraid he’s right.” Dr. A speaks for the first time. It’s not in his usual charming, cocky voice. He sounds defeated. He sounds broken. “She is very much a part of this corporation. Just like God, I created my children in my own image.”

  “For glitch’s sake, shoot him already!” Jase screams at Lyzender. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Why you’re here. Paddok promised you’d get to kill him when the time came. So do it.”

  Paddok promised …

  Is that it? That’s what Lyzender got in return for helping her? A chance to kill Dr. A?

  This whole time, it had nothing to do with me, but everything to do with revenge. He’s not here to rescue me. He’s here to murder the founder of Diotech.

  Lyzender’s gaze flashes to me and I glare back at him.

  “Wow, Lyzender. I’m flattered, really,” Dr. A says. He tries for sarcasm but it comes out tired and too heavy. “You’ve spent so much time and energy thinking of me and I haven’t given a second thought about you.”

  “That’s flux.” Lyzender slaps the gun hard against Dr. A’s temple. Dr. A sinks to his knees. “You’ve spent years of your life trying to make me disappear. You’ve erased me, you’ve warped me, you’ve banished me into the past, you’ve even tried to replace me.” He juts his chin toward Kaelen. “But I keep coming back, and you despise me for it. Just as much as I despise you. Because no matter how many little experiments you whip up, no matter how hard you try to produce love in a glitching test tube, nothing compares to the real thing. Admit it, you hate me because I can give her the one thing that you can’t manufacture in a lab. You hate me because you can’t duplicate me.”

  In the distance, I hear sirens. Lyzender must hear them, too, because he looks to the sky. Emergency hovers are inbound.

  “Your time is up, little girl,” Jase growls at me, angling his knife so the blade is perfectly poised against my vein.

  I glance from Lyzender to Kaelen. The two people I have loved with everything I have. As different as wrong and right. Land and sea. Mountain and sky.

  At this very moment, however, they are identical. Twins in their fury. Companions in their hatred of the man threatening to slice open my throat.

  But I’m surprised to see that neither one of them is looking at me. Or at Jase. They are looking at each other.

  Kaelen gives Lyzender the subtlest of nods. I don’t know what is exchanged in that minuscule movement but whatever it is, Lyzender understands.

  Kaelen leaps backward, fast enough to make the air spin. Jase startles, turning his head away from mine in an attempt to follow Kaelen’s blur.

  This movement is all Lyzender needs. He releases Alixter, shoving him to the ground. He takes aim at Jase’s exposed head and fires.

  59

  EQUALITY

  Dr. A crawls hastily away, pulling himself to his feet and darting in the direction of the Intelligence Command Center. Lyzender aims the gun at his vanishing form but he’s knocked off balance when Kaelen charges him, slamming into him from the side. The gun plummets to the ground but neither one goes after it. Instead, they lunge for each other.

  I watch in horror as the two people who each hold half of my fractured heart punch wildly and sloppily in the air, each hoping to land a strike. I’m surprised by how inept they are. Especially when I’ve seen both of them fight so elegantly before.

  There�
��s something about this ruined place and the emotional stakes of what they’re fighting for. It slows Kaelen down and trips Lyzender up.

  Kaelen swings fast and hard but Lyzender miraculously manages to duck the blow and charges headfirst into Kaelen’s stomach. Growling and snarling, he knocks Kaelen onto his back. But Kaelen is on his feet again in a blur, rushing toward his opponent. This time they both go down. Lyzender twists his body so he can wrap his legs around Kaelen’s neck. He squeezes, but it’s no match for Kaelen’s superior strength. He breaks from the hold in a flash and positions himself atop Lyzender, pinning him down with a knee to the chest.

  He manages to deliver two firm blows to Lyzender’s jaw before Lyzender wriggles away, jumping to his feet and landing a kick squarely between Kaelen’s shoulder blades.

  Kaelen groans but doesn’t fall. He whirls around, striking Lyzender’s knees until they’re both on the ground again and Kaelen is once again taking his aggression out on Lyzender’s defenseless, Normate face.

  “Stop it!” I scream. Because it’s not fair. It will never be fair. No matter how quick Lyzender is. No matter how much he wants to win, he’s no match for Kaelen’s unparalleled power. The capability programmed right into his DNA.

  Nature can put up a good fight. It can scrap like the scrappiest of fallen warriors. It can kick and bite and punch, but science will always be one step ahead. In technique. In force. In adaptability.

  Because it can move faster. Evolve faster.

  “Stop!” I cry again. But no one is listening to me. They’re still grappling on the ground, jockeying for control. Lyzender is tiring. He’s throwing everything he has at Kaelen and it’s not enough.

  So he fights with words. Because it’s all he has left.

  “She will never love you the way she loved me!” he yells in between Kaelen’s blows. “You are a poor replacement. A stand-in. A fake.”

  I hear a frightening growl come from the entanglement of bodies and my stomach contracts.

  I know that sound.

  It’s the same sound Kaelen made when he attacked that farmer outside the Feed station and the paparazzi on the hyperloop platform. The same sound that escaped him when he protected me in the subway back in 2032.