Shutdown

by Heather Anastasiu

  I suddenly felt inordinately tired again. I had a feeling the boy on the ground in front of me was a mystery I might never truly figure out.

  My clothes felt crunchy, having dried on my body after the storm. I tried running my fingers through my hair to rebraid it, but it was dirty with clumps of mud from dropping into the ditch yesterday. I picked out the dried mud for half an hour before I gave up and sat back against one of the mounded cave formations on the ground.

  No matter what Adrien said, I wasn’t going to stay here forever. I wasn’t going to just wait around safe and sound while my brother was still caught in the Chancellor’s snare. I should have gotten him out of the Community before she moved him to her personal estate.

  At the same time, I wasn’t foolish enough to leave yet in case Adrien was right about the second vision still possibly coming true. I’d just have to trust that his first instinct about his new visions happening simultaneously had been right. I’d give it two weeks at the most to make sure we averted the second vision.

  Adrien finally woke up a few hours later. He glanced in my direction, but didn’t say anything. After the hours of quiet throughout the night, though, I’d had enough silence. I went over and plunked myself beside him while he reached for half of a protein bar for breakfast.

  “So if we’re going to be stuck here, we might as well talk to help the hours pass.”

  He looked over the water bottle at me, as if suspicious of how nice I was being after our fight. “Talk about what?”

  I shrugged. “Anything.”

  He just stared at me.

  “How’d you sleep?” I finally prodded.

  “Fine.”

  “Now you ask me something.”

  He raised an eyebrow and gave me a half smirk. “Trying to teach me to converse like a normal human?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m only trying to fill the silence. It’ll help the time pass quicker.”

  “I didn’t notice the time was passing slowly.”

  “You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?”

  The smirk was in full force now. “It’s my style.”

  I laughed and sat back with my elbows on my knees. “Okay, I’ll try another tactic. How about a hypothetical? What would you do if the war was over and you could do anything?”

  His jaw tightened. “You know I have his memories. He played this little game with you before.”

  “I know,” I said softly. “That’s why I’m asking. I know what his answer was. But now I want to know yours.”

  “Oh.” His face softened lightly in surprise. “Well, um. You go first. You never did tell him yours.”

  I looked out the cave entrance at the bright midmorning sunlight sparkling on the lake. “I’ve thought about it sometimes since then. I’d want a really big house.”

  “Really?” He sounded surprised. “I didn’t figure you for the materialistic sort.”

  “If you’d let me finish, I was going to say that I’d want a big house where all my family and closest friends would live. Markan would be there with me.” I swallowed hard at the mention of my brother’s name, then went on. “Kind of like the Foundation, but everyone would be there because they wanted to be. They’d all go out to their separate jobs every day, but we’d all meet together for dinner every night. There’d be this huge table and we’d all sit together with mounds of good food and talk and laugh for hours every night.”

  “And what about the rest of the day?” he asked. His voice had lost its mocking tone. “What would you do?”

  I smiled and closed my eyes, imagining it. “I’d buy a hundred canvases and fill each one. There would be academies just for artists, and I’d go and learn to paint all day.

  “So what about you?” I opened my eyes. “What would you do?”

  His voice was hesitant at first. “I’d be a mathematician. But we’d be doing the kind of math that leaves numbers behind. That happens when you get deep enough into studying it. It’s more about theories than facts. Actually, it starts becoming a little like philosophy.”

  “Really?”

  “Both math and philosophy are asking the same question. Why? Then they use reasoning to try to discover the answers.” He nodded to himself. “They make sense when so little else does.”

  “Is that why you’ve spent so much time studying them?”

  He looked up at me, then down at his folded hands again. “Partly. After what the Chancellor did…” He swallowed. “Everything felt alien. All the people around me, you all felt … not just like strangers…” He paused as if looking for the right way to explain it. I was suprised he was actually opening up and didn’t say anything in case it made him clam up again. “It was like you were all a different species. You and Sophia were always crying whenever you visited me. You asked me questions I never knew the answers to. I didn’t know how to communicate with you. I genuinely didn’t understand what was going on around me at a very basic level.”

  His face contorted. “And on top of it all, I was being put through those strange and painful treatments. It was all so confusing. But around the second month, I started reading. I began with philosophy because I had that memory of you calling me a philosopher. At the beginning, you see,” he looked up at me, his eyes both searching and sad, “I genuinely wanted to go back to being him. It’s what you all told me I should be trying for, so I did.”

  Wow. I sat a little stunned. I hadn’t known any of that was going on in his head. I’d been so desperate for him to go back to being normal during those afternoon visits, I hadn’t seen how much he’d been struggling.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “But I never could. When I started working my way through the philosophy texts, though, I felt this rush of recognition because here, finally, were people speaking a language I could understand.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely curious. I hadn’t listened closely enough back then, but I could now. I accepted he was different, I just still didn’t understand why or how deeply the differences went.

  He looked upwards, as if sorting through his memory. “They were asking questions like: how do you know what you think you know? Is it because you trust in the power of reason to work your way to an answer? Or can you only know the things you personally experience through your five senses? And even if you trust in only what you yourself experience, aren’t those experiences filtered by the mind anyway? So is reality merely what you think it is?”

  My brain seemed to twist in on itself as I tried to follow him. “That all seems really complicated. I’m not sure I understand.”

  A half smile tugged at his lips. “I didn’t either, not at first, but slowly the puzzle pieces started falling into place. It was like the philosophers were turning life into math problems. With enough time, I could start breaking each one down into manageable chunks to start solving some of the equations.”

  “So what did you find out?” I leaned in. “What’s the answer to why?”

  His face clouded over a little. “That’s the thing. At a certain point, it gets beyond logic, or at least the human ability to reason it out. It’s true of both math and philosophy. Like I said earlier, there’s always a point where things stop being facts and start to become theories about the way the world works. Like this.” He reached in his pocket and rummaged around for a moment, then pulled out a tiny object.

  “It’s a snail shell I found by the lake when I was gathering water last night.” He slid over closer until he was sitting beside me. He held up the shell closer. “See these tiny spirals all over the shell?” He traced the spiraling line with the tip of his forefinger.

  I nodded.

  “This shell and others all throughout the world follow the same mathematical sequence. Flower petals and pinecones and shells all grow according to this identical pattern. Even the ratios of the bones in the human body are related.” He held up his hand. “We see these patterns everywhere, but we don’t know why they happen.”

  He looked back up at
me, his gray eyes bright. It was a surreal sight. I’d seen Adrien excited about ideas like this in the past, but it was different now, and not just because the blue-green color was gone from his eyes.

  He continued, oblivious to my scrutiny. “I mean, it’s an efficient growth pattern. But how do the plants know it’s the most efficient? Millions of years of evolution, of trial and error, I guess. But still. Why, across multiple species and multiple millennia, do they all follow the exact same pattern? And that’s not even getting into humankind’s most recent adaptation with all these powers we glitchers have developed. The smartest minds throughout history haven’t been able to even make a dent at solving some of the great whys of the universe.” He shook his head, looking out toward the cave entrance. “It’s all this insane mixture of order and chaos. The more I understand, the less I understand.”

  I stared at him, watching his long fingers as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. There was such spark and life in his eyes as he’d spoken. I didn’t know how to say it in a way that wouldn’t make him angry, but he was wrong. The old Adrien wasn’t gone completely. Maybe there wasn’t even an “old” or “new” like I’d been categorizing him in my mind. It was more like parts of him that had always been there were simply more dominant now.

  I looked at him closer, frowning slightly as I tried to puzzle out how to fit the old and new into the single amalgam that was simply Adrien.

  He’d always been good with numbers. It was why he was such a good techer. He could fly through code because he understood mathematical structure and relationships in a way I never could. He’d been amazed at the complexity of the universe before the lobotomy too—one of our first conversations had been about the limits of science, back when he was trying to convince me human beings had souls. It was the same impulse as I’d seen when he was talking about the shells. He used different methods and came to different conclusions now. He got just as excited when talking about ideas, but he was less likely to make sweeping statements about what those unexplained mysteries meant. He didn’t communicate as easily as he used to. He was slower to become emotional. But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel things, and maybe even feel them very deeply.

  I reached out to put my hand on his. After letting it linger a moment, his eyes half-dropping closed, he suddenly pulled away and jumped to his feet.

  “I wanted to get an early start today heading toward the city to find some more oxy tanks,” he said. He threw a few objects in his almost empty pack and then pulled on his boots.

  I frowned deeper, staring after him. Why did he always do that? Every time I was on the cusp of connection with him, he’d sever it.

  “I should be back in about a day,” he mumbled. “Two at most.” He headed out of the cave, keeping low until he got to the tree line. His clothes and pack were still so caked with mud from the storm, he blended in perfectly with the ground.

  A sad ache settled in my chest and I leaned back against the cave wall. I stared after him long after he’d disappeared into the forest. As much as I saw similarities with the boy I’d loved, maybe the differences were still too insurmountable for love to translate.

  Chapter 19

  I STOOD AT THE BASE of the cave with my hand over my eyes, searching the horizon for any sight of Adrien. He said he’d be back within a day or two.

  That had been four days ago.

  Last night I’d put on the coolant harness and bathed in the lake, but not even the wonderful feeling of finally being clean had been able to dislodge the icy fear about Adrien that had settled in my stomach. At about midnight I’d been forced to give in to exhaustion and put on the biosuit so I could sleep. I’d set the alarm on my arm panel for just two hours, wanting to use up as little of the air supply as possible. But the loud clanging of the alarm only finally woke me after an extra hour and a half.

  I looked over at the tank leaning against the wall. Only thirty minutes of air left. Enough for a short nap, and I was already reeling from exhaustion again. Three and a half hours hadn’t been nearly enough after another three days without sleep.

  My eyes were weary and gritty as I squinted to look past the lake, willing Adrien to appear. My head pounded from the headache that had lodged itself behind my eyeballs two days ago. It had been a little better after the few hours of sleep last night, but now it was back in full force.

  Finally I pulled back in frustration and paced a well-worn path around the cave. I was so stupid. How could I have allowed him to risk his life yet again for me? Since he’d seen himself with me in the vision, I’d taken it for granted that he’d make it back fine. But we didn’t know how these new visions worked. I should never have let him go.

  What if someone saw him sneaking into the city or trying to steal the oxy tanks? Oxy tanks were bulky. What if they slowed him down so much he couldn’t escape? What if cameras caught his face and the recognition software set off an alarm? The city’s Regulators would be on him in seconds. There were a hundred other things that could have gone wrong too—

  “Zoe.”

  I whipped around, sure it was just my imagination playing tricks.

  But no, it was really him.

  He stood right inside the entrance of the cave, so dirty I barely recognized him. I ran toward him and threw my arms around him, ignoring the crusted-over grime that coated his entire body. Pressing my head to his chest, I listened to his heartbeat as if to reassure myself he was real.

  His arms slowly curled around me. I clutched him tight and willed him not to pull away. Not this time.

  He didn’t. Instead, his arms tightened ever so slightly, pulling me in closer. The feel of his arms so secure and warm around me made all my fears finally begin to subside. He was here. He was safe. I whispered the two phrases inside my head like a mantra. He was here. He was safe.

  He finally pulled back from me. There were deep shadows under his eyes. “I couldn’t get any oxy tanks, Zoe. I’m so sorry.”

  “What happened? Why did it take so long? And what on earth is that smell?” I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

  He cracked a grin at my last comment, but it was gone quickly as he sat down by the wall near the entrance.

  “I snuck into the steel foundry because I knew they’d have oxy tanks. But once I got inside, I realized they were all too big for me to carry, much less sneak out of the city. So I spent the day sleeping in a maintenance closet and then tried to break into a medical facility the next night.”

  “Adrien,” I hissed, “you promised you wouldn’t try anything so risky!”

  He shrugged off my worry and massaged his temple. “I had trouble getting in. I could have hacked the security codes if I’d just had the right equipment!” The frustration was clear on his face. “I kept thinking of the oxy tanks that were stored right behind the flimsy clinic walls. So I took an ax I’d brought from the foundry—”

  “You didn’t!”

  “—and hacked through the door,” he continued, ignoring me. “The alarms went off, of course. I thought I might still have enough time to get in and grab a couple oxy tanks or epi infusers at least, but the clinic was in a more densely populated area. Regs were there in half a minute. I barely managed to slip out through the back door. I had to spend the next couple days hiding in the sewers until they stopped patrolling and I was clear to come back. I just went about it all wrong.” He shook his head. “But I had to come back and make sure you’re okay. When I go back in, I’ll be more careful.”

  “No,” I said firmly.

  He looked up, obviously confused. “No, I shouldn’t be more careful?”

  “No, as in, you are not going back.”

  “Of course I’m going back. I didn’t get any oxy tanks, and you still need—”

  “What I need,” I interrupted, “is for you to stay alive and safe. I won’t let you risk your life for me. I shouldn’t have let you go in the first place.”

  “But you have to sleep.” He looked at me as if I was making no sense. “And to sleep you need
oxy tanks.”

  “We’ll figure it out in the morning,” I said. I had a feeling he’d just fight me on it if I told him what I really thought. Tomorrow, one way or another, we were leaving this cave. He looked like he might say something else, so I held up a protein bar, the second to last one left. “I bet you’re hungry. And,” I said, scrunching up my face, “maybe you could use a bath in the lake.”

  He laughed. “Judging by the look on your face, it must be bad. After the first night in the sewer I got kind of immune to it all.”

  I smiled and said sarcastically, “Well, not all of us have had such luxury.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hands. “Bath first. Food second.”

  I handed him the coolant harness and the tube of soap.

  When he came back in a fresh tunic, I couldn’t stop looking at him. Having him back again after the long, seemingly endless past few days was like a gift.

  I watched his hands as he snapped off a quarter section of protein bar and rewrapped the rest. I wished I had drawing supplies. I wanted to capture on paper what his hands looked like in motion. So careful in their every movement, artful almost.

  After a while, he noticed me staring.

  “Are you tired?” I asked. “Do you want to sleep?”

  He shook his head. “I’m rested enough.” He squinted his eyes, as if scrutinizing me. “But you look really tired.”

  I put a hand up to rub my aching temple. “I used up most of the oxy tank last night and got a few hours of sleep.”

  “It doesn’t look like it did much good.” A deep worried crease settled in his forehead. “I’ll stay up with you tonight to make sure you don’t accidentally fall asleep.”

  His eyes were locked on mine. I couldn’t read what I saw there. He looked at me like … like … I swallowed and forced myself to look away. No. He’d made it abundantly clear that he didn’t feel that way about me. Not anymore.