Biome

by Ryan Galloway

  “Don’t move,” I warn, shifting my hand to the defibrillator. The patches are still on her arms, now moved closer to her elbows. Ugly red welts show where I placed them the first time. Seeing the threat, she grows still, eyes wide.

  Once I’m convinced she isn’t going to start flailing again, I lean in close to her face, trying for a menacing tone.

  “You and I need to have a talk. Got it?”

  A timid nod.

  “Good. In a second, I’m going to take off the tape. And if you don’t keep quiet, I’m going to zap you. I don’t know how bad that hurt the first time, but I’m betting round two will be even less fun now that you’re all wet.”

  No response.

  “Okay. Are you going to be quiet?”

  Another nod. I reach forward and tug the tape off of her mouth as swiftly as I can. It still leaves a blotchy rectangle on her skin.

  I open my mouth to begin telling her the same things I told Noah and Chloe, but words fail me this time. Am I really going to trust her? Can I hope that someone like Terra will believe me? And that if she does, she won’t turn me in as soon as I let her out of my sight? I can’t help but feel like that’s exactly what she’ll do.

  Yet as I already figured out, I don’t really have a choice. I wish I could just lock her away in a Helix of my own, to silence her the way Dosset has silenced Atkinson. It’d be so much safer.

  But I have no Helix, no Stitch to erase what she already knows. Time passes as we stare at each other. I’m searching for the right way to begin, to make her see reason. No doubt she’s hating every centimeter of my guts right now.

  “You really don’t like me, do you?” I finally say, more aggressively than I’d intended.

  It’s not what she expected, I can tell. Not point blank like that. Her eyes flit to the floor, then dance around the pod before coming back to mine. “Why do you say that?” she rasps, a bitter smile on her lips.

  “Because in all your memories, you hate me.”

  She blinks, uncomprehending.

  “I’ve got a story to tell you. And you’re going to believe it, because if you don’t, every cadet on the colony is going to lose something important. Including you.”

  “Making threats?” She says it with a sneer. “No wonder the doctors are after you.”

  “Just listen,” I snap, placing a hand on the defibrillator again. My anger is a fuse, I realize. A spark to the fire that propels me, making me bold. Or determined, at least. Stopping, thinking, planning—those are my weak points.

  The sneer vanishes and her lips draw into a thin white line.

  “Go on.”

  And so I tell her. Once I get going it’s actually pretty easy, having already been through this twice before. Plus, I literally have a captive audience.

  Her face remains expressionless for most of what I say. When I start relaying memories of her life on Earth or our various encounters, she stops clenching her jaw and just listens.

  Even if she doesn’t believe me, maybe that’s okay. Maybe, like Noah, she’ll just choose to accept what I’m saying rather than wholeheartedly believe it. There’s no getting past the fact that I attacked her, abducted her, threatened her. Trust may no longer be an option.

  “None of that makes sense,” Terra says once I’m finished. “What could they possibly be hiding that would cause them to alter our memories?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Noah, Chloe, and I.” Then I carefully add, “And you.”

  She pauses. “Oh, so this is part of the recruiting process? You actually want my help?”

  I’ve already got a barbed answer on my lips, but I manage to swallow it. She’s testing me. Trying to get the best of me. Isn’t that what she was after in each of her memories—to prove that she was better, stronger, prettier?

  “I won’t say you were my first choice,” I say. “But unless you want the doctors deciding which memories you get to keep, you’re going to have to trust me. Or at least help me.”

  At that point I hear footsteps, and I instinctually put my hand back over the defibrillator. Terra sees the move and tenses.

  We both sit in absolute silence as the steps grow closer and closer. A combination is punched outside the door and it opens, revealing three people: Noah, Chloe, and one other.

  It’s Romesh, the boy who imagined my stun gun.

  Chapter Eight

  The trio enters the room, takes in the sight of Terra’s captivity, and gawks. With her arms wired up to the defibrillator, I must look like a torturer at work.

  “Hi,” I say awkwardly.

  “What’s going on?” Noah closes the door, a hand wrapped in white gauze from where I bit him earlier. “What’s she doing here? Are we taking hostages?”

  “Seems that way,” says Terra in a pained voice.

  Chloe’s mouth is hanging open.

  “We bumped into each other,” I say, feeling suddenly defensive. “She threatened to turn me in, so I zapped her. What’s he doing here?” I shoot a look at Romesh.

  “Just observing,” he says with a small, nervous wave. “I’m Romie.”

  “I know who you are. This is one of your ideas.” I tap the defibrillator. “Modified stun gun. Ring any bells?”

  He scratches his head.

  “Well, not exactly. But it’s very creative.”

  “Lizzy,” Chloe interrupts, following the wires up to Terra’s burned arms. “Did you… did you tell her about—”

  “The doctors? Yeah, I told her.”

  “Seems like she’s taking it well,” says Noah quietly. He’s recovering from his shock. I can almost see his reticence settling back in—the slope of his shoulders, the way he leans back against the door, bent like a palm tree, away from the others. “Is she going to help us?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Terra says, frowning. She seems to be enjoying all the attention. “It sounds like a lot of work.”

  This actually makes me laugh.

  “You have more important things to do?”

  “Not me. I mean the doctors. Like I said, none of this makes sense. It must take forever to go through all our memories and erase them one by one. Have you thought about that? The kind of time it would take?”

  “Of course.”

  But I haven’t. Not really. Up until now, I’d just assumed they were hiding a really dark secret, and that it was worth whatever it took. And maybe I’m right. Only maybe the secret is darker than I had even imagined, for it to merit such meticulous labor.

  “You still didn’t tell me why Romie is here,” I say, changing the subject.

  “I told him,” says Noah, face flushing. “I… wanted to be sure I wasn’t going crazy.”

  “You thought I was lying,” I say.

  It isn’t meant to be an accusation, but it comes out that way. Because clearly I’ve underestimated him. Or misunderstood him at least. He doesn’t just blindly trust me after all. I find that I feel a little betrayed—which surprises me.

  I should have expected this, shouldn’t I? If I were him, I’d probably think I was going crazy too. Undoubtedly I’d confide in Chloe.

  My head is already muddy with digging into Terra’s memories, but I reach back for any of Romie’s other thoughts. Inventions float through my mind: the assembly for a solar panel lining, the schematics for a more efficient water reclaimer. The effort makes the room spin, so I stop.

  It’s a little late to be screening him anyway. He already knows.

  “It’s not that I didn’t trust you,” Noah is saying. “I just…”

  “He wanted proof,” Romie volunteers. When I turn on him, he pales a bit. “S-so, we conducted a search. And we found supporting evidence.”

  From the pocket of his jumpsuit, he produces a small white tube. It’s an inoculator, just like the one Shiffrin used to knock me out before each Revision. Like all the doctors used on all the cadets.

  I take my hand from the defibrillator an
d hold it out, and he drops the cylinder into my palm. The numerous fine needles are concealed beneath a plastic cap.

  “Verced,” I murmur. “You stole it?”

  “From Doctor Conrad’s suite. One of his lab coats was hanging on the back of the door. It was in the front pocket.”

  Not surprising. Conrad is usually a bit absentminded. Unlike Dosset, who seems to be calculated in everything he does.

  “How did you know what it was?” I ask suspiciously. I’ve got no reason to be so skeptical of him, but I’m still bothered that Noah didn’t believe me on his own.

  “You said they used a drug to knock us out,” Noah says. “What else would it be?”

  “Insulin?” Terra says.

  “He doesn’t have diabetes,” I reply.

  “Okay, so a booster,” she sneers. “Just because he carries an inoculator, that doesn’t mean he’s out to brainwash all the poor, helpless cadets.”

  I’m strongly considering another jolt from the defibrillator when Romie interrupts.

  “As I said, the inoculator isn’t proof,” he says. “It’s supporting evidence. Lizzy’s theory isn’t so unrealistic. It’s not hard to change a person’s mind about something, even without the use of an apparatus.”

  “A Stitch,” I say.

  “Um, yes. Whatever that is. Doctor Atkinson was telling me about this kind of thing just days before he disappeared.”

  “You knew Atkinson?” I say, dropping the inoculator into my pocket as I finally let go of my misgivings.

  “He was the Clover psychologist and therefore my therapist,” Romie replies. “A kind, sensitive man. We had many meaningful conversations. He was also a chemist and a highly serviceable engineer.”

  “Did he say anything about me?” I ask impatiently. “Or the Memory Bank?”

  “No, not that. But in a way, yes. We talked about memories often. How we tend to think about them as files in a database, to be called forth whenever we like. In reality, the process is more like repainting a memory from scratch each time we recall it. The accuracy fades. And perhaps more importantly, since we essentially recreate our memories, they’re susceptible to distortion. Small details, like whether or not it was raining outside, can be easily confused. Even just a pointed question, or casting doubt on an account of an incident can do the trick. You might ask someone if they’re sure someone’s eyes are green and not blue, and it would be enough to make them change their memory… or at least doubt the truth of it. The thing is, memories aren’t nearly as reliable as we make them out to be. And we usually see them very one-sided.”

  He says all of this very swiftly, then pulls his glasses from his nose and begins polishing them on his jumpsuit. The rest of us trade blank faces.

  Suddenly I think I know why the idea for his stun gun was so detailed.

  Noah clears his throat.

  “I think what Romie’s saying is that suggestion is a powerful tool,” he translates.

  “Exactly,” says Romie. “And if you have technology that could amplify it, say, by a few multiples of ten, it’d be tough to resist. Or even tell the difference.” He shrugs. “I find the whole concept incredibly fascinating.”

  “But we’re not talking about suggestion,” says Chloe. “Lizzy has our memories. Ones that were taken from us.”

  “Okay, so reverse it,” says Romie. “Use that technology to capture the memory in some format, and then burn out the neurons in a subject’s brain. It’s not that dangerous. We kill brain cells constantly. Just with simple things, such as stress or dehydration. With the right hardware, you’d simply target precise areas of the mind. Then you’d do the suggestion method to implant those memories in the new surrogate’s head. Easy as three point one-four.”

  Again, we’re all quiet.

  “You mean… pi?” Chloe says slowly.

  Romie smiles again, bobbing his head so that his curly hair bounces. “Yes. Easy as pi. It’s an expression.”

  “But why?” asks Noah slowly. “That’s the question. We still don’t know why they would be doing this in the first place.”

  They all look at me.

  “Whatever the reason, Atkinson had other ideas, and apparently I was part of them. But he got caught. If we can get him back, we might be able to finish what he started,” I say.

  “That’s a pretty weak plan,” says Terra.

  “It’s all we’ve got so far,” I growl, temper rising again. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I might,” says Romie. Everyone turns. “Well, maybe a different theory at least. It’s possible that Atkinson wasn’t looking to overthrow Doctor Dosset at all. Maybe he was looking for answers that he thought were inside the Memory Bank. To gauge an uncertainty, such as whether or not a person’s eyes were green. Er, so to speak.”

  The thought is so unexpected, yet so plausible, that I can’t even think of a reply. If Atkinson didn’t have some kind of strategy, then no one can help us.

  I suddenly realize just how important it is that someone out there has an answer. That it doesn’t all come down to me.

  “But then why would he give the Memory Bank to Lizzy?” Chloe asks. “If he wasn’t trying to help us, he could have left her out of it.”

  “Maybe he couldn’t read the memories unless they were in someone’s head,” Romie suggests. He looks at me. “You called the device a Stitch?”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence fills the room. For being so filled with thoughts the past twenty-four hours, my brain has gone suddenly quiet.

  I’d thought I was picked for a reason. I’d thought there was a plan. Now I see how foolish I was, believing it could all be so easy. But the notion that I’m alone out in this swirling darkness with no one to step in and make sense of it all…

  I close my eyes.

  It’s just like my nightmare, the one about being crushed. I can feel the way I do when I wake up standing in the hall or alone in the kitchen, not knowing where I’ve wandered in my fretful sleep. Mother used to blame my dad for encouraging my imagination. And who knows? Maybe it was his fault for all the wild stories he’d tell me before bed. But the terror was nothing to how good it felt when he came running.

  Even now, I remember the beating of his heart as he wrapped me in a hug so strong that nothing could tear me away. He’d whisper in my ear that everything was fine, that it was going to be okay. I’d try to tell him about what I’d seen, how scared I’d been, but he’d say, “You’re safe, Dizzy. It doesn’t matter. Nothing can hurt you now that I’m here.”

  And I believed him. His deep, gentle voice, the special name that only he used, his way of being there the second I needed him—it was all proof that nothing could hurt me as long as he was around, and he was never far.

  But that was before the colony. Before my parents had different ideas about what they wanted for their future.

  About what they wanted for me.

  Standing in the middle of Noah’s pod, alone in my head with the voices of over two hundred strangers, I know with certainty that the monsters are real this time. No one will come running or make them go away. Though I long to feel someone wrap their arms around me and tell me that I’m safe, it isn’t going to happen. It’s just us out here.

  “I don’t believe that,” Chloe says.

  My eyes open, bringing the room back into focus.

  “You don’t believe what?” asks Terra. “That Atkinson was only thinking about himself? It’s human nature, kids. People do what it takes to survive.”

  “But he wasn’t just thinking about himself,” Noah argues. “He didn’t run. He tried to fight. You saw Conrad’s eye, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Chloe agrees. “And… and I don’t think he would do that to Lizzy. He wouldn’t have just chosen a random cadet to dump these memories on and then given up. He could’ve at least erased them afterward if he really felt it didn’t matter. Right?”

  “In theory,” says Romie.

  “On top of which, as Noah said, he gave Doctor
Conrad a black eye,” Chloe continues. “Why would he resist if it was hopeless? He must’ve been trying to get away, to fight back. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t think he could win. He would’ve just let them erase his mind.” She folds her arms, revealing the scar on her wrist. “If he’s as kind as you say he is, Romie, then he’d probably help us if he could. But right now he needs our help.”

  And this is why everyone likes Chloe. Because she believes the best about people, even the ones she’s never met. I wonder how it’s possible for someone to be so full of hope while others can only assume the worst. Like Terra.

  Like me.

  “Good thinking,” Noah tells her.

  Chloe blushes and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Also, he let me keep the memories of our talks,” Romie adds. “Maybe he was trying to subtly tell me what was going on. I don’t know. I just think we should consider all the angles.”

  One by one, they all look at me again. I know they’re expecting some kind of direction. But I’m not like my dad or Chloe. I have no comfort, no reassurance to give. So for the first time in a long time, I decide to just be honest about what I’m thinking.

  “Look,” I say quietly. “I didn’t ask for this. If I’d found out Atkinson was going to give me these memories, I would’ve told him to pick someone else. But now that I know what I know, I can’t go back. Because I think in some way, even if we don’t remember our past, we still feel its effects. And if we aren’t given the chance to deal with things, to understand them and put them to rest… we may never grow beyond them.”

  I look at the floor, thinking of Noah’s panic. Terra’s insecurity. Chloe’s denial. But now my boldness has burned out in a trail of smoke. I risk a glance and find that Chloe is smiling at me.

  “So it’s a long shot,” Romie says abruptly. “Beyond a long shot—a moon shot. But perhaps we can do it if we integrate our strengths.” He almost sounds excited. “I mean, if Atkinson was able to outwit Doctor Dosset once, he might be able to do it again.”