Now’s probably not the best time to tell her he has booked a ticket already.
“So, what did you two talk about?” she asks once we reach my room. As she flops herself down onto my bed, I notice the pair of socks still on the floor where I dropped them. I kick them under my dresser while I deposit her manuscript on top of it.
“Not much,” I say. I hate that lying comes so easily to me. “A little about Nicole’s big birthday bash.” I reach for a bottle of nail polish. Scarlet. The perfect color for someone like me.
“She better invite me this year,” Autumn says. Nicole is notorious for inviting a bunch of guys to her parties but only a select group of girls. And every girl at our school hopes to make the cut.
“Can you hand me the nail polish remover?” I point it out to her on the night table on the other side of my bed. She rolls over and picks it up along with a bag of cotton balls.
“And don’t worry.” I take my supplies from her. “She’ll want Julian to go, so she has to invite you.” Rather than crowd Autumn on my bed, I sit on the floor and begin to rub off my pink polish. The sharp scent of ammonia fills the room.
She bites her lip at my mention of Julian. “Did he say anything about me?”
“Um . . . sure. He said you were going to the movies tonight.” Another lie. Julian never said a word about Autumn. He never does when we’re alone together.
“Maybe tonight’s the night he’ll finally kiss me for real!” Autumn squeals. “He’s such a gentleman. He says the physical stuff should wait until a couple gets to know each other better. But, God! I’ve been waiting, like, a month already.”
Ugh. Now I feel even worse. Because I’m happy he hasn’t kissed her. I open the bottle of scarlet and paint my thumbnail first.
“You know, when I first saw Julian was here, I got a little scared,” she confides. “I thought maybe he decided he liked you better.”
He does, but she doesn’t need to know that. “Nothing to worry about here.” And soon there won’t be, because he’s leaving. Then we can put this unpleasant chapter of our friendship behind us. Right hand polished, I move on to the nails on my left hand.
“I trust you,” she says. I can tell deep down that she knows she shouldn’t. But she does anyway. Because she has an enormous capacity for self-delusion. For overlooking the obvious even when it is slapping her in the face. It makes me want to pinch her. To violently rip her out of her cocoon of obliviousness.
Our eyes lock for a long moment. I break off first, screwing the cap back on the nail polish and then standing up. “My essay’s not going to write itself,” I say, turning toward my desk. I don’t want her here anymore. In moments like this I wonder whether we are bound together by true feelings of kinship or if we’ve merely clung to each other these past ten years out of obligation, fear, or lack of other prospects. Her huge doll collection made her the ideal friend back when we first met at our post in Ecuador and at our subsequent stint back in D.C., but since we both got to Frankfurt a year ago last summer, after four years apart, I’m starting to think maybe I’ve outgrown her. That’s what moving so often can do to you. It makes you continually question your place in the world, and seek out those few who understand what you’re going through.
Autumn hops off my bed and pulls my arm so I’m facing her. “You’re so pale. And those bags under your eyes! You need to get more sleep.”
“I’m fine.” I wriggle my arm forcefully from her grasp, careful not to smear my polish. I sit at my laptop and start typing, hoping she’ll take the hint and leave me alone. If she hangs around much longer, I might scream.
“Okay, then,” she says over my shoulder, her voice tinged with hurt. “I guess I better get ready for my date. Hopefully I’ll have something to report tomorrow.”
“Hopefully,” I mutter as convincingly as I can manage.
After Autumn lets herself out, I squeeze my eyes shut in frustration and slam my palm down on my laptop. It clicks closed with a loud pop.
My eyes flutter open, and I sit up with a start. I’m back in the hive, and everything’s quiet.
I exit the chamber. Mira and Julian occupy the armchairs, and Eli remains riveted by his screens.
“Have a seat,” Mira says. “Eli is configuring and testing different parameters. And I am positively dying of boredom.”
“Can you die?” I sink into the sofa, enjoying the way the silken fabric caresses my skin. “I mean, we are already dead.”
“I wouldn’t call it dying, exactly.” Mira purses her lips, as if talking about death is too distasteful a topic. “If something should befall you here, you would cycle through again. Get resorted. You would lose all memory of what happened to you here before—not that it matters to most people, since they don’t retain much anyway. But if it happened to you . . .”
Eli butts in loudly, without turning. “It wouldn’t be convenient to our plans right now. So please, try not to get yourself killed.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Not that I care about their plans, but if I’m resorted, I won’t know that there’s a way out of the hives. And that would be a huge personal setback. “Did Beckah get resorted? I can’t access any of her memories anymore.”
“And Beckah is . . . ?” Mira looks up at the ceiling, and I get the distinct feeling she’s not interested in talking about anything other than the rebellion.
“She’s my friend,” I say. “She disappeared from my hive.”
Mira ignores my sharp tone. “If she had been resorted, you could access her memories. She is more likely in the isolation plains.”
“Isolation?” I ask, goose bumps rising in my soul.
“It’s for anyone who might mess up the equilibrium of the net,” Julian explains. “Like, they don’t want people renting the memories of murderers slashing up their victims.”
I squirm in my chair. “Are the victims there?”
Julian shakes his head. “No. For whatever reason, it seems murder victims skip Level Two entirely. Who knows where they end up.”
“But why would Beckah be there?” I press.
“Was she insane? Violent?” Mira narrows her eyes, as if judging me for being friends with such a person. “The Morati prefer to avoid placing people in isolation, because those people don’t supply the net. And the Morati need all the energy they can get if they’re to break into heaven.”
I gasp. “What? That’s why they aren’t helping us move on? Because they are harvesting our energy?” It sounds like something straight out of The Matrix.
“The Morati tried for centuries to escape this realm, without success. And then one day they broke through the divide between here and Earth and were able to go back. They figure the more people they hold here, the more power they possess, the better the chance they have of reaching the next level.” She sits up, and leans toward me. “You want to know the craziest part? In the beginning people plugged themselves in voluntarily!”
“But why?” I can’t imagine choosing to lock myself away like that.
“Originally Level Two was designed so that in order to access memories, people touched each other’s palms. But this method allowed them access only to the types of memories you’re supposed to relive in order to move on. The Morati offered a system where you could choose which memories you access. Your memories, your neighbor’s memories, strangers’ memories. People loved having millions and millions of memories at their fingertips.”
“We can’t access memories of the Romans, or the Pilgrims or Civil War soldiers. Why not?” I ask.
“People who lived before your lifetime had long moved on by the time the Morati put the net in place. They probably wouldn’t have understood how to use it anyway,” says Mira, settling back into her chair.
“So,” Mira continues, “the Morati made the net even more attractive by creating credits as currency to appeal to humanity’s basic greed. People become so absorbed in amassing fortunes and chasing down the ultimate highs, they forget they are supposed to be conce
ntrating on moving on.”
“So why isn’t the underground helping people cross over? That could reduce the Morati’s power.”
“It could,” Julian says, “but people access only their happy memories. Or rent the enjoyable moments of others. Not what they need to confront to move on.” He stands up and moves closer until he’s towering over me. “You were no different, Felicia.”
Julian’s right, of course. I did skip over everything unpleasant. I didn’t want to face my pain. My weaknesses. My fear. But his patronizing tone annoys me. “Still sore that I spent all my time on the net with Neil instead of with you?”
To my surprise Julian folds his arms across his chest and squeezes his hands until his knuckles are white. Is he jealous? I can’t fathom it. After all, he’s the one who ditched me.
Mira squints at him and suppresses a smile. “To move on you must embrace both the good and the bad parts of yourself. And you have to stop pining for earthly pursuits.” She shoots me an especially pointed look. “And people you left behind.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, though I suspect I know what she’s insinuating.
But Julian’s the one to rub it in. “To move on, you’ll have to give up Neil.”
CHAPTER 10
“GIVE UP NEIL?” I ask, stiffening. How can I possibly give him up before I even find him again? It’s so unthinkable, it’s absurd. “Are you saying I shouldn’t keep searching for him? You do know where he is, right?”
Julian doesn’t answer me. He stalks across the hive and slams out the code that opens the door. Long, long, long. Short, short, long. Where have I heard that before? I rack my brain, and it dawns on me. It’s the Morse code Neil showed me. Why in the world are they using it here? Does it work for every door?
Mira simply shrugs, seemingly not surprised by Julian’s exit. “Don’t worry. There’s not some rule that you have to give him up immediately. And in any case, it’s totally up to you when you move on. It’s hardly surprising you’re not ready yet.”
“Better for us,” Eli says. He removes his glasses, folds them carefully, and tucks them into his shirt pocket. I know it must be an affectation, because there’s no way he needs to wear glasses. At least, my formerly blurry eyesight is perfect now, so his must be too. It makes me prickle with dislike for him.
“Right.” Mira rises and puts her hand on Eli’s shoulder, as if to underscore her solidarity with him. “We do hope you’ll join our cause first.”
“What is it exactly you want me to do?” I ask, wary.
Eli rubs his temples in a circular motion. “We need a more targeted approach.”
“What do you suggest?” Mira sits back down, giving Eli her full attention.
“Felicia is an especially active subject.” He talks like I’m not even in the room. “If we map her brain waves, we can run the search parameters to find other subjects like her. That might reduce our failure rate.”
Mira looks pleased by his suggestion. “I think we should try it.”
“Wait—don’t I have any say in the matter?” I ask, indignant. “And why do you need to find more people like me?”
Eli picks up one of the cables attached to his bank of computers. He attaches small white circles to the frayed ends of the cable and then approaches me. “Keep still.” With precision and speed he presses the patches to my forehead. His eyes are cold, his face utterly expressionless, like a robot. “Go to your chamber. Access a memory.”
I’m so tired of blindly doing what I’m told. Running around with Julian. Coming to this hideout. And now going to my chamber just because Eli wants me to. I back away from him, reaching up and pulling the cable so the patches snap off my forehead one by one. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.” I let the cable drop to the floor. “And why you keep failing.”
Eli’s anger is as quick as the flame of a blowtorch, but then he catches himself. “We can hold you down if we have to,” he says.
“Oh, Eli!” Mira laughs her full-on tinkling-of-bells laugh. “I think she deserves to know what she’s getting herself into.” She springs out of her chair and pounces on Eli, exaggeratedly pinching his cheek. She retrieves the cable and hands it to him.
He takes it and examines the patches for damage. He removes a ripped one and replaces it, stonily silent.
Mira speaks instead. “This is a numbers game. We need more support if we are going to go up against the Morati. We need new recruits. With your help we can find the high potentials and ask them to join our cause.”
“But why only me?” I ask, gesturing in a wide arc at all the hive’s empty chambers. “Wouldn’t you be more successful if you had more help?”
“We keep our cells small, so if one is captured, it’s not a fatal loss,” Mira explains. “The other cells have their own recruits.”
It sounds reasonable. I’m not sure why Eli feels the need to be so supersecretive about all of this. “Okay. So all I’m doing is accessing a memory, right?” I step toward Eli with a resigned sigh.
“Glad to have you on board,” Eli says. His curt delivery is coated with the tiniest sliver of sarcasm. He may allow himself to show an emotion yet.
Once he has reattached the patches, he accompanies me to my chamber, holding the cable like a nurse might hold an IV for a patient at the hospital. I climb in, careful not to make any sudden movements that could pop a patch.
“Make sure you access something emotionally compelling. It will improve the quality of the scan,” says Mira. “May I suggest a memory of Neil?”
Just to spite her I almost decide to access something excruciatingly boring. Such as one of the many times I was packed like a suitcase into a dilapidated bus or pickup truck and made to ride for hours through third-world landscapes of dust and poverty on one of my parents’ trips.
But my need to spend time with Neil wins out, and I slip into one of my well-worn memories of him.
Ward, Felicia. Memory #32019
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The doorbell rings, echoing through the silent house. That must be Neil. I take a deep breath and put down the scissors and the insert from the paper I was clipping coupons from. I scan Grammy’s sleeping face in relief. The bell didn’t wake her, so I won’t either. God knows she’s earned her rest.
After I tuck the afghan tighter around her legs, I give her a quick kiss on her forehead.
I slip my shoes on by the door. When I open it, Neil smiles in greeting. Damp curls cling to his forehead and to the collar of his jacket. He smells like soap and licorice. My heart flutters in my chest. “Ready?” he asks.
“Thanks for helping out,” I say as we walk toward his car. He comes around with me to the passenger side and opens my door. Based on my experience with him so far, this sort of old-fashioned gesture probably shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. No other boy has ever bothered.
Neil gets in and fastens his seat belt. He turns his key in the ignition, and the car rumbles to life.
I latch my seat belt too. “I don’t know why Uncle John thinks I can still do this. I haven’t been around his bees in years.” Probably hoping I’ll get stung a bunch of times. A way to punish me for sullying the family name.
Neil moves the car into drive and then grips the steering wheel at ten and two. “Don’t worry. Andy and I worked with a colony for part of my environmental science merit badge last year. His uncle is a beekeeper too.”
“Right,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Boy Scout stuff again.”
Neil bristles at my mocking. “Boy Scouts have really helped me find my way,” he says, hitting the left turn signal and the brakes at the same time.
I gulp. Now Neil probably thinks I’m rude. I need to say something nice. Something to steer this conversation down more pleasant avenues. Because despite my destructive tendencies of late, I don’t want to crash and burn. Not with Neil.
“I thin
k it’s great,” I say. I mean it too. “You’re a man of many talents.”
“Yeah?” he says, sounding not entirely convinced. “Most girls like you think Boy Scouts is a one-way ticket to dorktown.” He leans forward to check traffic from the right.
“Girls like me?”
“You know . . .” He turns his head away from me as he steers the car into traffic. “Pretty girls.”
It catches me so off guard, a hot blush blooms in my chest and rapidly spreads up my neck and across my face. I know I’m attractive, physically at least. Plenty of people have told me that through the years. Little does Neil know how ugly I am on the inside. He can’t see the scars.
I decide it’s best to ignore his comment. Change the subject. “So John lives off Route Four. It’s only a couple miles.”
“I know where he lives.” He sounds irritated. “This is a small town.”
“It is. Definitely the smallest I’ve ever been stuck in,” I say under my breath.
Neil’s usually so open and so good at coaxing me out of my dark moods. But today he’s guarded and quiet. He doesn’t even look over at me during the drive, making what is in reality only a few minutes seem like an eternity.
When he stops the car in Uncle John’s driveway, I get out and take big gulps of the spring air. I walk to the gate and open it with the key Grammy gave me. “The boxes are along the back fence.”
Neil follows me. “So John just wants us to make sure the hives don’t swarm? Or do we have to put on new supers, too?”
“He doesn’t think any of the supers will be fully capped with honey yet. But if they are, we can take them off and leave them on top of the hives.”
“Sure. Standard procedure.”
“He said the suits are in here.” I stop at the shed and throw open the doors. Two shiny white beekeeper suits lie draped over a chair next to a narrow table covered with supplies.
Without saying a word Neil lifts one of the suits high enough that I can duck under it and shimmy in. Once I adjust the suit around me, I hold the other one up as high as I can for him.
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