“Sorry,” I whispered into Kalan’s ear.
I grabbed his shirt and shoved him to the side. I twisted my cuffed hands as Matthews dove for me, trying to grab the syringe from the side. Matthews yanked it away, but I’d knocked his grip loose. The syringe went flying. A clink of glass on tile, somewhere behind Matthews.
His pleasant mask cracked, and he yelled. He grabbed my hands. I struggled, clawed, pushed. His fingers clutched my wrists, digging into my skin. I cried out.
We both rocketed to the side as Jackson barreled into us. Everyone fell to the floor. A shock of pain lanced through my arm as I landed on my sore shoulder. I screamed.
“Gena, run!” Kalan skidded across the floor and pummeled the downed Matthews with his handcuffed fists.
Matthews still had the use of both hands. He rolled to the side and swung a fist around, trying to hit Kalan off him. His knuckles split, and he howled. Jackson wrenched Matthews’ arms back. Matthews bucked his body and kicked. His shoes squeaked on the tile floor.
No good, we needed complete incapacitation. Where was that injection?
Injection.
I scrambled for Matthews’ jacket, searching for the inside pocket. The Chameleon injections. My fingers brushed plastic, and I yanked at it. Something snagged, then pulled out.
A pen. I threw it aside and wrenched his jacket open. Buttons pinged to the floor. Three syringes in the pocket. I tugged one out, threw off the plastic cap, and jabbed the syringe into Matthews’ side.
With a gurgle, his body stiffened. His skin began to simmer, the color already lightening. Bingo. A double dose canceled out the Chameleon effects.
And had nasty side-effects, maybe from two injections so close together. Small clumps of hair fell from his head. Tiny cracks split his knuckles with each bubble of change. Matthews squealed in pain.
Kalan slid off Matthews, gasping, “Keys.”
Jackson tossed a small key to Kalan. He unlocked my cuffs, and I unlocked his.
“Lock him up.” Jackson jerked his head toward Matthews.
I blinked at him.
“The cuffs, Gena, lock him up.”
“Jackson . . .” Matthews gurgled.
“I won’t help you destroy an innocent kid’s mind.” Jackson fixed Matthews with an icy stare. “That’s exactly the opposite of why I got into this.”
He snatched the cuffs from me and chained the bleeding and still-bubbling man to a table. What about us? He’d saved us from horrific experimentation, but that didn’t mean he’d just send us packing.
“Get out of here,” he said over his shoulder. “Both of you.”
Okay, maybe it did. Kalan helped me up. I clutched his hand to ease the shakiness in my own.
“We have to wake these people up.” Kalan nodded to the sleeping test subjects.
“I’ll get them out,” Jackson said. “You two get lost. I don’t want to see you again.”
Ever, his tone said. He was going to disappear. My gaze flicked to Blaire and the others. I could get to the SLS now, share my memories. Stop Matthews for good. But . . .
“How do we know you won’t just scram and leave them here?”
“I just took down the man who started this!”
“And you helped set him up, too,” Kalan said. “We get these people out together.”
Jackson turned and stomped to the first set of controls. His nimble fingers danced over the touchscreen on the life-support machines next to Blaire. I took his silence as assent.
“Kalan,” I whispered, “stay with him. I’ve got to get to the SLS.”
He leaned his head down to mine. “No way. We’re not splitting up.”
“All the guards are outside. It’ll be cake to get into the lab. I can be done before you guys have those four out.” I nodded toward the beds. “I have to stop the SLS from erasing me. And I have to upload my memories of Matthews before more people kill each other out there.” I pinched my lips. “Then I’ll destroy it.”
Jackson unhooked the last of Blaire’s wires, calling Kalan to help him wheel her bed out.
Kalan touched my shoulder. “Okay. I’ll feel better with you out of here anyway. I’ll tell Jackson you decided to scram.”
I nodded.
Matthews reached out a shaking hand as I passed him. “Wait.”
I knocked his hand to the side and grabbed the remaining two Chameleon injections. Liza’s DNA inside them was as good as her hand on a door lock, and I had everything I needed. Evidence and keys. I dashed for the stairs, Kalan and Jackson wheeling Blaire down the corridor behind me. Matthews groaned and shifted on the lab floor while we began to undo the disaster he’d created.
31
The shadow sits and waits for me . . .
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam XXII
My memory of the map in the Happenings lobby proved to be useful.
I sprinted up the stairs. This was the basement, northwest wing. I needed northeast. An image of the map lit up my brain, my pathway illuminated. Up one flight to the main floor, across the lobby, and to the lab.
I paused on the main floor landing. Two doors, one to the lobby and one to the south wing. I rushed for the lobby.
The door clicked open. Dim lights tossed murky shapes on the marble floor, and shadows lurked under ornate couches. The ferny leaves of a plant fluttered from a gust of air-conditioned wind. Faint screams sounded from the crowd outside. Goose bumps prickled my skin. Lovely. The haunted laboratory of an evil scientist. At least I was decently sure there was nobody crouched in a corner with a butcher knife.
A dull clunk echoed through the lobby. I jumped and peered around the corner of the small alcove I stood in. Three silhouettes clustered outside the main entrance. One of them reared back a shadowed hand. Something hit the door with a crunch, shooting thin cracks through the glass.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
Across the lobby, a door clicked open. I pulled back to the stairwell as footsteps clacked across the tile. A guard. Didn’t he have orders to be outside with the rest of them? I gnawed on my lip, counting the minutes that passed while his footsteps circled the lobby.
Another crunch sounded from the doors, and the footsteps paused. The guard shouted and ran. A door opened and shut.
More wary than before, I stepped into the alcove. I hesitated for longer than I should have, paranoid the guard would come rushing back with his buddies. Another splintering crack came from the main doors, but no guards. Time to go, before my time ran out. I bounced on my toes, building up a beat inside me to fuel me across the open floor. A shattering of glass splintered my rhythm.
I spun to find a jagged hole in the glass door. A canister spun on the marble, snaking smoke.
I scrambled for the stairwell door. Heat and noise blasted me like a giant, fiery push. The force slammed me to the floor, my head smacking hard tile. Lights flashed before plunging into darkness.
The throbbing of my sore shoulder woke me. Heat rolled over me in waves. I couldn’t have been out long, but even that was too long. I sat up just as a mechanical wail split my eardrums and I clamped my hands over my ears.
Flames rippled over the rich rugs in the lobby and licked at the legs of the couches. Ceiling sprinklers didn’t daunt the fire at all. I coughed, black smoke already growing thicker. Orange teeth chewed through the lobby upholstery, eating toward the wooden walls. I kicked the stairwell door closed against the caustic smoke.
I’d never get across that to the SLS.
“Gena!”
I jumped at Kalan’s voice; I hadn’t heard him come up the stairs through the fire alarm. He knelt next to me.
“What happened, are you okay?”
“A bomb,” I shouted over the alarm. “Some kind of homemade bomb. Where’s Jackson, and Blaire and—”
“Blaire’s out,” he yelled, helping me to my feet. “Jackson headed back to the lab the second we got her outside. I led a bunch of medics down to help get the rest of them, and Jackson and Matthews were g
one. Then I heard the bomb go off . . .”
Something behind the door splintered and cracked in the fire. “We’ve got to bolt,” Kalan yelled. “That fire’s probably chemically fueled, it’ll destroy this whole place.”
Panic flared, hot as the flames in the lobby. “I can’t, the fire control system will activate once we’re out of the building. It’ll stop the fire and the SLS will survive.” I’d remain forgotten. The SLS would wait for a new evil to claim it.
“There’s nothing we can do now.”
There had to be, there had to be. There was always something. Another route from the Happenings map glowed in my head. Up to the second landing, across the atrium, down to the main floor of the northeast wing. Before the fire ate through to the second floor and destroyed the atrium.
“We can still get to the lab,” I called over the shrieking alarm.
“No,” Kalan said. A thin trail of smoke seeped under the lobby door. “I’m not letting you kill yourself.”
I climbed to my feet. I wouldn’t have time to upload my memories of Matthews to the SLS and send it out. The fire system would register someone was still in the building, and the airtight fire doors and oxygen removal wouldn’t go into effect. The SLS might burn, but so would I. The longer I was here, the farther the fire would spread. I had to destroy the machine before the fire cut off my escape.
If I didn’t make it through the fire, and my memories of Matthews didn’t survive . . .
Wait.
“The Memo. Kalan, I still have your Memo from when I uploaded my memory in the canyon.”
I pulled the smartplastic square from my pocket and released its nano-injecting tube. Not a great option. Like there were many of those left.
Kalan coughed in the gathering smoke and pulled me to the rear of the landing. “Gena, we have to go.”
“Shh,” I ordered.
Memories flowed through my mind and into the Memo. Images of Matthews morphing into Liza, proudly announcing himself as the Link thief, and pronouncing his justifications. Him next to four comatose subjects whose families didn’t remember them, plotting my demise—and Kalan’s. A few short moments of the theft victims in the hospital.
For good measure, I finished with an image of the streets of Havendale. Fists flying, people screaming, fires raging, homes looted and broken. So they could see how they’d helped fulfill a madman’s desires.
It took only seconds. The collection of memories played in my mind like a movie, one I hoped would smack people out of stupidity.
Kalan would have to take it. I thrust the Memo and one of the Chameleon injections toward him. “Get this out there, make sure everyone knows what Matthews did. I have to destroy the SLS, or someone could still have control over every Mementi in town. Even me.”
His face glistened in the heat. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“You can’t be everybody’s hero, Kalan. We have to work together to win. I’m trusting you with this. Trust me, too.”
He took my hand and kissed my palm. It scalded more than the ripples of heat coming from the lobby door. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
My heart skipped a beat. “If we hurry, you won’t.”
I wanted to say more, but my brain shut off my mouth. He laid my hand on his cheek. His eyes glowed with feelings I was half afraid of and half wished he’d put into words.
“I trust you,” he said.
I brushed his cheek with my fingertips. He took the Memo and Cham treatment from my other hand.
It was harder than I’d expected to push him away. “Go. Hurry.”
He backed toward the stairs. Then he whirled and sprinted down the steps. The alarm screamed louder in his absence. I took off in the opposite direction.
Deeper into the burning building. To the SLS lab.
32
But who shall so forecast the years
And find in loss a gain to match?
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam I
I raced through the atrium above the lobby to the accompaniment of alarms and groaning floorboards. Cold ceiling-sprinkler rain drenched me, puddling the floor.
The floor creaked and buckled under my feet. I lurched, choking on a scream. A loud crack split the sound of the fire alarm, and the ground behind me broke. Thick smoke swelled through the gap. Heat seared my legs. I coughed, ripping my scarf from my head to cover my mouth. I saw myself tumbling in a shower of tile and wood, engulfed by the hungry heat below.
No thinking. Only running.
Ahead of me, a thick fire door rolled into motion. Crapcrapcrap. The sensors had malfunctioned. The door inched down to seal the room. Air would be sucked out until my lungs were as flat as deflated balloons.
My legs pounded forward. Tremors rattled the shattered atrium, quaking deep into my bones. I dove, rolling under the door.
The fire door clanged into place. I sat up and pushed wet hair from my cheeks. Alive. Not deflated. Bad way to go, that. If the fire had spread beyond the lobby, more fire doors would activate.
Oxygen deprivation wouldn’t kill the SLS. I was the only one who could do that now.
I descended to the main floor and rushed down the hallway Ren and I had walked this morning. My running feet splashed and squeaked on the wet tile. Lab 3 loomed ahead on my left. Hours ago, I’d lost my life in that lab.
Someone stepped around the corner at the end of the hall. I yelped, skidding to a splashy stop. Detective Jackson, his blue uniform now nearly black from sprinkler water, strode forward.
“What are you doing here?” I said. “How did you—”
“The SLS,” he yelled over the still-shrieking fire alarm. “I engaged the fire controls so it wouldn’t be destroyed, but I don’t know how far the fire has spread.”
“Where’s Matthews?”
“I let him go.”
“You let him go?”
“We have to save the data.” He waved frantic hands at the lab. “I don’t have all of the updates on my personal backup, I have to sync up and save it.”
“I’m not here to save it, I—” Argh, STUPID. My mouth was bigger than Kalan’s.
The sudden wild look in Jackson’s eyes reminded me how little I knew even of those I’d known my whole life.
Jackson crouched, his ferocity aimed at me. A panicked flutter brushed my ribs. I saw my chance drifting away. Saw myself knocked out, Jackson getting away with enough data to build his own SLS, leaving me to burn or choke.
Not going to happen.
I sped toward Jackson, ripping the plastic top off the Chameleon injection in my hand. He sprang like a jungle cat—leaping toward me, his hand swooping to the gun at his hip. Before he could unholster it, I plunged the needle into his neck.
He let out a strange mewl of pain. A creeping sensation brushed across my arm—his skin rippling against me. I jerked up, throwing the syringe at the wall. Jackson collapsed to the floor. His limp hands splashed in the sprinkler puddles.
The lab. I dashed inside, straight to the door that hid the SLS. Locked. Right. And my Cham injection was no more. I touched the DNA pad and it gave an angry red squawk.
DNA. There was a lot of random DNA floating around.
I rushed out and pulled a weakened Jackson by the arm. Weak, yes, but light, no. I grunted.
Liza Wood’s features looked strange on a new face. They pulled differently over his longer forehead and wider nose, but I was right about the facial muscle structure changing too. He still kind of looked like Liza. In fact, he looked more like Liza than Matthews did. Maybe because he hadn’t metamorphosed his skin until it became tissue paper.
Jackson moaned as I dragged him. I propped him next to the SLS door and slapped his hand against the DNA lock.
It dinged in welcome this time, and the door clicked open. I tugged Jackson into the room and took his gun. Wouldn’t want him using that on me. The door shut behind me, cutting off the fire alarm.
And there it was, with metal panels removed to allow tw
eaking to its inner machinery. It hummed softly, like an audible twiddling of its thumbs. Idling away the time until it hacked apart people’s memories. I shivered in my wet clothes and pulled the control screen toward me. It was set up similar to a tablet interface, with simple touch commands that led me through menus. I found RECENT COMMANDS.
I tapped it and a list popped up. New commands had been added, a few minutes after the one to forget me.
1. Mention GENESIS LEE – fade maximum
2. Mention RORY HERNANDEZ – fade maximum
3. Mention TRAE WILLIAMS – fade maximum
4. Mention BLAIRE JACOBS – fade maximum
5. Mention BRAXTON SIMPSON – fade maximum
A vein pulsed in my neck. So using their minds as his demented playground wasn’t enough. He’d snatched their existence from every mind connected to the system. I wasn’t alone in being forgotten.
My own horrible relief made me want to vomit.
Next to each name was a small X. The cancellation button. I had to make sure the commands weren’t somehow left in force, or no one who used their Link buds would ever remember the five of us again. I stabbed the X’s with my index finger, imagining myself poking Drake Matthews in the eye with each one. Stab, stab, stabstabstab. My wet gloves left tiny dots on the screen as each name vanished.
Something released inside me. I was free again, free to be remembered. If only a cancellation button could bring back all those erased memories to my family. My damp fingers streaked down the screen. I had one more thing to do.
Jackson squirmed on the floor. “What are you doing?” he rasped in a voice that wasn’t his.
“Ending this.”
I was no gun aficionado, but Jackson’s weapon had bullets, a silencer, and a light weight. Easy enough. A safety button sat behind the trigger, and I clicked it off. Point and shoot. Shouldn’t be that hard with the guts of the SLS wide open to me. I lifted the gun.
The screeching of the fire alarm battered my eardrums. I nearly dropped the gun as I spun at the sudden sound. Drake Matthews stood in the doorway, smiling. Blood dripped from his hands and water dripped from his remaining patches of hair.
The Unhappening of Genesis Lee Page 28
