“Lissa, look, I’m sorry it’s left you in pain—”
“You took my twin!” she shrieked at him, on her feet, swaying, her head spinning, not knowing how she’d gotten there. “Can they give her back? Can they make the link again? That’s the pain, Bruce! That’s the pain you left me in! I told you, I told you and you wouldn’t listen!”
For a moment he just stared at her, his face frozen, his mouth just opening on something else he’d been going to say, not turning as the door whooshed open again and two figures entered, wearing stealth-flyer uniforms. “Lissa, no, that makes no sense. It must be just shock from the operation—”
For an instant Elissa thought her head would explode. Rage and grief and horror swept through her. She knocked against the wheeled operating bed, which in turn knocked against the table at its side, rattling the plastic goblet of water. Elissa spun and gave the bed a violent thrust, sending it spinning across the room. The table fell, clattering. The goblet was flung off it, and the water splashed across the floor.
“Shock?” Her voice no longer sounded like hers. “Just shock? You have no idea what you’re talking about! If you hadn’t knocked me out before you did that to me, I’d be dead of what you’re calling just shock, you stupid, freaking—” She stopped, her chest heaving and burning, her teeth clenching so hard her jaw spasmed. There were no words bad enough.
The people in the flyer uniforms were coming toward her now, moving either side of Bruce. She wasn’t scared of them anymore. There was nothing they could do anymore. Nothing that could hurt her worse than she was already hurt.
Behind them, by the door, Bruce stood still. Something of her anguish must have gotten through to him: He’d gone a shade paler, and his mouth was set. “Lissa,” he said. “Stop. It’s okay. We’re taking you back now. If she still matters, if she really does matter that much, you can see her.”
You can see her. You can see her. The words echoed in her ears. Bruce didn’t understand, he still didn’t understand, but that wasn’t what made what he’d said echo against the inside of her skull, a throbbing, ominous beat as if she were invisibly bleeding to death.
There have been no attacks with the younger age groups, Cadan had said. And Bruce had explained why. The thing they’d done, the horrible time bomb SFI had built into the Spares, they’d only built it into them once they reached thirteen or so. And they’d set it to be triggered by contact with their twins—again, what Bruce had said explained what the IPL scientists had found, that the attacks had happened only with Spares who’d been reunited with their twins at least—what was it?—two weeks ago?
One thing remained, that Cadan had mentioned but that Bruce hadn’t. Either because his gang of terrorists hadn’t told him, or because they didn’t know either.
She remembered Cadan’s smile as he met her eyes, and the relief in his face, relief because he knew what he was saying meant for her and for Lin. The attacks, he’d said, had happened only to those pairs with no current telepathic connection.
He’d added, of course, that it didn’t guarantee anything, added that all the Spares’ brain scans showed abnormal activity. And he was right. Lin, like all the other Spares, had that same time bomb built into her brain. Lin, like all the other Spares, had the potential to go psychotically insane.
But she’d been with Elissa for more than six weeks now, far, far longer than any of the other Spares had been with their twins, and not only had she not gone insane, there’d been no traces of the fugue state that Zee and others had shown.
Because of the link. Because of the link that, with us, is stronger than with anyone else we’ve met, stronger than with any of the other Spares and their twins.
The uniformed people took hold of Elissa’s arms, led her toward the door. She went, unresisting. It was the link that kept me safe. The link that blocked the trigger in Lin’s brain. The link they’ve destroyed.
They took her through long windowless corridors, into an elevator that rose, whining, past floor after floor. Bruce, silent, followed.
He doesn’t know. He thought breaking the tie between us would keep me away from her, would keep me safe.
But the others . . . She gave a quick look sideways at the unreadable face of one of her escorts. Bruce didn’t know. But someone did. These people—I’m not their sister, they weren’t going to risk that kind of abduction, plus an illegal operation, out of altruism.
SFI had built time bombs into the Spares as a safeguard, as a way to get the Spares back into their custody if they should ever escape. A few deaths, Bruce had said, and our whole world would have been happy to bundle the Spares back into the facilities.
How different would it be now? With so many Sekoian citizens—and Philomelen citizens, for all she knew—still convinced Spares were nonhuman, scarcely different from full-body clones? How many deaths would it take before they’d be happy to hustle the Spares back to Sekoia . . . or into the custody of anyone willing to take them?
And who would those willing people be? As the elevator came to a halt, as its doors opened on chill sunlight and the solid shadow of the waiting stealth flyer, Elissa’s gaze slid again toward the people on either side of her. You didn’t just find SFI files, she thought. And you’re only unwillingly ex-SFI. You want to be current SFI. You want things back as they were, with ships powered by imprisoned Spares. For you, the Spares going crazy, getting more and more people to see them as dangerous—that’s exactly what you want.
But with most of the Spares, the damage they could cause was limited. A death here, a death there. It wasn’t enough. Not enough to make a whole planet’s population rebel against IPL’s edict that the Spares be kept safe, given sanctuary.
But Lin . . . Lin wasn’t just telepathic, or empathic. Lin’s power wasn’t limited to just the link with her twin. Lin could set buildings on fire, bend metal, explode ships. Lin could kill with her mind as easily as ordinary people could with a fighter ship.
If Lin went insane, it wouldn’t be just damage she’d cause. It would be devastation.
And—once again, she heard Bruce’s voice, explaining what the SFI had done to the Spares, explaining what had happened to Zee—the trigger won’t reset until I’m dead. If that happens to Lin, it won’t be just a short-term thing, something we can contain, something that we can fix. It’ll be the end, for both of us.
Elissa didn’t know why the link, in itself, should have been powerful enough to block the vicious trigger SFI had put in Lin’s brain. But she was sure, beyond doubt, that it had.
And now . . .
And now they’d destroyed it.
The stealth flyer didn’t, of course, take Elissa and Bruce back as far as the spaceport. It dumped them out halfway along the side of the valley leading up to it, took off, and its outline had faded away into the sky before Elissa had even begun to get her bearings.
Not that she was managing to do so quickly. She still felt as if she stood on the edge of screaming, empty blackness, the only coherent thoughts in her brain her horrified realization of what the destruction of the link meant. And whenever she looked at her brother, a murderous anger so strong that, had she been capable of feeling any other emotions, would have frightened her.
Bruce had his thumb on his com-unit, reactivating it.
“What the hell is the use of that?” Elissa said, hating him. “SFI aren’t going to come for you here.”
He shot her a quick look. It was the first thing she’d said to him since the recovery room she’d woken in, and ever since then he’d seemed to find it difficult to meet her eyes.
“It has a standard SOS beacon programmed in,” he said. “The spaceport people will be looking out for us by now, anyway. We disappeared from the balcony—Mother will be frantic.”
It was the first Elissa had thought about that, and she couldn’t summon up much reaction to it. “Way to go on considering her feelings, then,” she said.
Bruce’s eyes met hers so briefly she couldn’t catch the expression in t
hem. “I didn’t have a choice.” Then: “I—I didn’t think I had a choice.”
Elissa’s knees were beginning to fold beneath her. She let them, sinking to kneel on the moss-covered rock. “If those are doubts, it’s a bit freaking late. And why are you coming back too, anyway? If you think sisterly loyalty is going to stop me telling everyone what you did—”
“Of course not!” For the first time he met her eyes fully, and she saw a glimpse of his familiar arrogance. “I wasn’t going to disappear and leave Ma worrying about me. I knew I’d have to come back. I knew that was the sacrifice I’d have to make.”
Sacrifice? Again, fury rose into her eyes, making her blind. You call that a sacrifice?
It must have showed in her face, because Bruce didn’t say anything for some minutes—not until they heard, far off, the thrum of a flyer. Then he cleared his throat.
“Lissa, listen, what you said, back there—it’s not really hurting, is it? I mean, it’s not real, it’s just some kind of mental thing—it can’t really hurt you.”
Elissa put up her hand, a barrier so she needn’t see his face, getting to her still-shaky legs, looking in the direction of the flyer. It was sleek, silver, a shape she thought was familiar. “I already told you, and you didn’t listen. When it mattered, when I needed you to listen, you didn’t. You think I’m going to waste my breath on telling you again?”
“Lissa—” His voice was half-guilty, half-frustrated, and maybe there was hurt there too, somewhere underneath, and a willingness to believe her.
She didn’t care. She turned away from him, walking toward where their rescue vehicle—the Phoenix’s shuttlebug—was descending.
“Lissa.”
“I wish I had my twin’s powers,” she said, not looking back, bitterness flooding her voice. “If I did, I’d burn you alive.”
And then, finally, Bruce didn’t say anything else.
The shuttlebug landed. The door slid back and a tall, long-armed figure jumped out to stride along the ridge toward them, calling her name even before he reached her.
“Lissa, thank God. We’ve been tearing the spaceport apart.” Ivan wrapped her in a hug that took her off her feet, and she felt him look over her head at Bruce. “You’ve been gone two hours. What the hell happened here?”
Markus had gotten out of the shuttlebug after Ivan and was only a little way behind him. And now a third figure jumped down, fair hair glinting in the sun.
Behind Elissa, Bruce cleared his throat. “I’m a member of a group of freedom fighters. I helped them take my sister away in order—”
“You did what?” Ivan’s voice boomed in Elissa’s ear. “You stupid, wretched boy, what the hell were you thinking?”
Even without looking at him, Elissa could tell Bruce was fighting to make his voice sound certain. “It’s the group’s belief that the Spares are too dangerous to be permitted to join the general population. With this in mind, we found it necessary to take Lissa—”
“Lissa.” Cadan had reached them.
As Ivan let her go, Cadan’s arms came around her. “Lissa. God—” He looked down into her eyes, and broke off. His face went still. His hands tightened on her arms and his head moved, just fractionally, up so he could look at Bruce. “What happened? What happened to her?”
“I’m explaining, the group I’m with found it necessary—”
Cadan’s voice lashed out like a whip. “What happened to her?”
“They burned out her link with her Spare,” said Bruce.
Elissa felt the shock of the words go through Cadan’s body. Where he held her, his arms went rigid. “They did what?”
“They burned out the link.” There was defiance in Bruce’s voice now. “She told me about it, Cadan. The Spare—she’s been taking over Lissa’s mind. It’s no good for her. All it does is put her in danger. The group, we agreed, it would be better if she lost it, if she could go back to being normal—”
“We? This group—you’re with them?”
“The boy’s a freedom fighter, Cadan,” Ivan said. He gave a dry twist to the words. “He was telling us a minute ago. He didn’t quite get as far as saying freedom from what, or who he’s fighting.” There was contempt in his voice, and Bruce flushed.
“You let them do this to her?” said Cadan. “You let them?”
“He helped them.” Ivan’s voice was still dry. “However they got hold of her, they wouldn’t have managed it without her big brother’s help.”
“Cadan, will you listen to me, for God’s sake!” Bruce was angry now, his voice rising in frustration.
“Listen to you?” Gently, Cadan let go of Elissa’s arms. He turned toward her brother, every movement tightly controlled. “Listen to you? Do you have any idea what you did? We thought she was dead!”
“What?” Bruce took half a step back. “Why—”
“Because I thought she was.”
Elissa hadn’t heard the footsteps on the moss-covered rock, hadn’t seen the fourth and fifth figures get out of the shuttlebug. But the voice was as familiar as her own.
Lin.
She spun around. Six feet away, Lin stood as rigid as the rock beneath their feet, her face chalky, her hands behind her back. At her shoulder, Edward Ivory waited. There was a gray look to his face. If Lin had thought Elissa was dead, then he must have thought it too.
But right now Elissa had no room to spare for anyone but her sister. “Lin.”
“Don’t come near me.” Lin’s lips, nearly as pale as her face, hardly moved. Her voice was flat, and she kept her gaze on the ground. “I thought you were dead. I—”
“You felt the link die.”
“Yes.”
“Oh God, Lin . . .” She hadn’t even thought. Blinded by her own anguish, falling through the abyss, it hadn’t even crossed her mind that the loss of their link would have hit Lin, too. And, unlike Elissa, her sister would have had no warning.
“Don’t come near me!” Lin’s voice stabbed like lightning, and Elissa realized that, without thinking, without meaning to, she’d started to move toward her twin. Still, Lin wasn’t looking at her. She was looking past Elissa, into the distance. “I’m not safe. Not for you. I had to come, I had to, once they said a message was coming in, once they tracked it to him”—her eyes flicked in Bruce’s direction—“but that’s all. Once we’re back, I—” Her voice cracked. She squeezed her eyes shut as if she could only continue talking if she could shut out the world. “I have to go away. I can’t see you anymore.”
Oh God. Oh God, of course that’s true. It was the only way to keep either of them safe—Elissa from being killed, Lin from becoming her killer. But we can’t . . . We’ve already lost the link, we can’t be totally separated as well!
It was too much to comprehend, too much, all at once, to even begin to face. Elissa put her hands over her own eyes, shutting it all out, trying to shut out even her thoughts.
“Dad,” said Bruce, somewhere, the sound of his voice grating on every one of her exposed nerves. “Cadan . . . Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it to turn out like this. But listen, I did it for her sake. She’s been tied to this—this psycho for weeks. God, for longer than that! She can’t think for herself anymore, she’s damaged. She said herself, she wants her out of her head! Okay, drastic measures, yeah, but it’s for her sake—”
“You stupid bastard, will you shut the hell up?” Elissa had never heard Cadan sound like that before. And when she took her hands down and looked at him, she thought she would scarcely have recognized his face, either.
Behind Lin, Mr. Ivory said, “Cadan, there’s no need for—”
Bruce took half a step back. “Hey. I don’t—”
Mr. Ivory might as well not have spoken. Cadan’s eyes, full of contempt, stayed fixed on Bruce. “I said shut up.” The whiplash cracked again through his voice. “You have no idea what you’ve done. Carry on explaining yourself to the authorities back at the spaceport. And anyone else you want. No one here has the sligh
test interest in hearing anything else you have to say.”
He turned away from Bruce and put an arm around Elissa. She could feel the suppressed anger like an electric current going through him, but his touch was gentle, as was his voice. “Let’s get back, okay?”
Elissa looked toward her sister. “Lin. Someone has to—”
“Someone is.” Ivan’s voice was as gentle as Cadan’s had been.
Edward Ivory put his arm around Lin’s shoulders, turning her in the direction of the shuttlebug. It was the way he’d touched Elissa when, as an eight-year-old, she’d gone through a spell of walking in her sleep, every night waking to sobbing panic in different places all over the house. Each time, her father had steered her back to bed like that, his arm around her shoulders, his hand a reassuring clasp on her upper arm.
For an instant, seeing him like that with Lin brought a fleeting comfort. Then, as Lin turned, Elissa saw why she’d kept her hands behind her back.
Lin’s wrists were handcuffed together.
She came because she was afraid I was dead. They all came, all the people who love me. And yet, out of all of them, Lin could only come if she was wearing handcuffs. Because otherwise just being near me puts us in too much danger.
I should go to her. Comfort her. Tell her . . .
But there was nothing to tell her. No comfort Elissa could offer. And every time Lin looked at her, every time their eyes met, it might be the last time, it might be the trigger that would get Elissa killed. And God knew who else.
Bruce called it a fail-safe. And it might have been meant that way. But that’s not what it’s done to Lin. It’s turned her into a weapon.
At the entrance of the shuttlebug, as Lin moved to climb in, Mr. Ivory’s hand under her elbow to support her, Elissa caught a glimpse of her sister’s face. Grief and pain rushed over her all over again, choking her, drowning her.
“Lin.”
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