by Lola Dodge
Doubtful.
I pushed my hair back and tried to refocus. My inner eye had a serious case of conjunctivitis, but I could read between the lines of the mish-mosh timeghosts.
Bad things were going to happen. Just because I hadn’t seen the hopeful options didn’t mean they weren’t there.
But I wished I saw a version of the future where Tair and I skipped out hand in hand.
No dice.
“Can you see Kiri? Aliya?” Devan gripped her sleeping bag. “Can you find them?”
“Not from here.” And not with my current lack of focus. I was still reading too many timeghosts, and the volume clogged everything up. Or maybe that was just Devan’s interference. Her images still looked a little fuzzy in my inner eye. It didn’t help my headache.
“You’d better not ditch my people to go after your boyfriend.”
“I’m not ditching anyone. And can we rewind? You tranqed us and left my boyfriend unconscious to get picked up by the Seligo.” Her light flared, and I covered my eyes. “And stop glowing all over the place. It hurts my head.”
“You’re glowing too.”
“No.” I double-checked just in case. “I’m not.”
Devan squinted. “You are. Maybe I’m the only one who can see it, but the light bends around you weird.”
“Great.” I rubbed my arms. More tricks were not what I needed right now. If anything, I had too many, and they were pushing me closer and closer to going nuclear. Though based on the worst-case future, Devan and Cipher imploded, too. I shuddered. “How’s your control?”
“Depends.” Devan opened her palm and soft light glowed, casting shifting shadows around our little hideout. Then she made a fist, and dozens of people filled the room.
“Handy.” Definitely better than my power set. The people looked really realistic. Only the lack of timeghosts would’ve tipped me off—although they didn’t make any noise, either.
She shrugged and the people disappeared. “It’s okay.”
“Where were you when Kiri and Aliya got taken?”
Her lip trembled, and I wanted to punch myself. I just made it sound like her fault. “I don’t mean—”
“No. I should’ve been there.” She sighed. “My brother had an accident, and it was bad enough that my aunt risked calling me home. The two of them were supposed to stay hidden.”
“If they’re alive, we can still find them.”
“I hope so.” Devan tucked her hair behind her ears. “I really hope so.”
There wasn’t much else to say.
We finished getting ready for bed, and then Devan dissolved the overhead light.
I curled into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes, but I wasn’t optimistic about getting any rest. Timeghosts kept flickering until my head spun. My head spun. My heart beat too fast.
The morning was way too far away.
I clutched Tair’s watch to my heart. I wanted him here with me.
It was strange.
I’d been on my own for so long with no hope I’d ever find someone to care about me, never mind anyone I could care about. We hadn’t known each other long, but I’d gotten really used to him.
I liked having him around. I liked how he made me feel.
I liked how he felt.
We’d hadn’t spent nearly enough time together. I wanted to play chess and test out more of his sister’s VR games. Then we could snuggle, and maybe act out some of the saucier versions of our future.
The timeghosts of the moment didn’t show anything like that happening.
I hoped the good stuff was just hidden in the bad.
Hugging myself tighter, I called to him with every psychic muscle I had. Tair? Can you hear me?
Pain stabbed between my temples. I hadn’t expected it to work, but it was worth a try.
Just in case, I tried to send him one last message.
Please be alive.
I scrunched my eyes closed. If I could just make it to the morning…
Help was on the way.
I just had to hold myself together a little bit longer.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ALTAIR
Doctor Nagi’s assistants pushed my table down a sterile hallway. Security panels dotted every few meters of wall and ceiling, and armed guards stood in the gaps between them. I wouldn’t be able to get out of my room, let alone the building. Unless I had help.
When we reached our destination, the men cautiously unstrapped me. I could easily overpower them—they were Greens like me, researchers rather than guards—but it would only cause trouble. I’d play Doctor Nagi’s game until I had reason to misbehave.
I just had to be careful not to play along so well that I was the one who got tricked.
The attendants let themselves out, and the door sealed shut behind them, leaving me in a generic apartment decorated in white and beige. It had a bed, bathroom, and desk area, and a secondary door. The faint hum of technology was the only sound that broke the silence. Cams and sensors would be hidden in every surface.
The holographic window projected a tranquil lake. I suspected this facility was closer to the ocean than inland—somewhere on Theta’s west coast.
Not a single decorative item took up space, and the furniture was all solid. Nothing could be thrown or otherwise fashioned into a weapon.
I settled onto the bed and lifted my glasses to rub my forehead.
This was grim.
I’d been focusing on my own dilemma, but now that I was locked in with the clone, worry for Quanta hit back with a vengeance. Rather than concocting theories, I focused on the one comforting truth. Quanta could talk her way out of anything. It was agony not knowing where or how she was, but I had to believe she’d find the path that led to her freedom.
I had to do the same thing here. More than an hour passed as I sat scheming and running through scenarios. A rattling noise finally broke me out of my trance.
The secondary door cracked open, and someone with gray eyes peered into the room. “Altair?”
The voice sparked an unpleasant quavering in my chest, but I swallowed back the sensation. It was time to put on my act. “You can come in.”
She pushed the door all the way open, and I missed a breath. The sundress was gone, replaced with canary-yellow pajamas. She looked exactly like Quanta as I’d first met her.
Instead of fixating on their similarities, I concentrated on the differences. The clone’s hair hung straight and smooth, unlike Quanta’s tangled mass. Her nails were painted candy red where Quanta’s were usually smudged with charcoal.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Do…” She bunched her toes in the carpet, almost painfully shy. “Do you want to come next door?”
“I’d like that.” I needed to sound her out and win her over.
She stepped through the doorway and hopped aside to let me past. Another wave of eerie déjà vu rolled through me as I crossed the threshold.
The room was exactly like Quanta’s penthouse. The same white carpet. Same plastic furniture. The only difference was the kitchen; the clone had appliances where Quanta’s had been gutted. The clone had a gas range and a knife block, neither of which would’ve been allowed within floors of Quanta. That answered the question of trust.
“You can sit.” The clone pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. It was the same table Quanta and I had used as our reset point for dozens of trips through time, but the more I focused on the differences, the easier it was to shake free of the similarities.
Obediently, I sat in the chair. I needed to sound out whether Doctor Nagi was coaching her to play me, or if she was a victim in his schemes.
She sat across from me, staring both at me and through me. I stopped myself before I shivered. “What do you see?”
The clone finger-combed her hair, glancing away from me. “I’m not supposed to tell.”
Supposed to didn’t mean she wouldn’t. I just had to figure out t
he right buttons to push to get her to keep talking. “What do you want to talk about?
“Lots of things.” She leaned her head against her hand and started another stare that made my skin crawl.
“You’ll have to ask the questions, then.”
“Why did you become a Green?”
I gripped my forearm above my Helix tattoo. It was still a question I could answer, even if I didn’t like the topic. “It’s what my parents wanted.”
“I know.” She leaned farther over the table. I didn’t like her knowing anything, but I had to assume she could read my past like a book. “I mean why did you do it, though? You could’ve done anything you wanted.”
I moved my hands to the tabletop and forced myself not to tense up. Seeing the past didn’t mean she understood the whys behind my actions. “I wanted to do what my parents wanted.” I’d had to obey them to keep up my double life. “I don’t regret it.”
“Will you be a Seligo like they wanted?”
Don’t tense. She knew what she knew, and she was digging for more, but I couldn’t shut down her questions. “I don’t think that’s an option now.”
“It is. If…” She chewed her lip, losing the boldness that had been fueling her until now.
I didn’t like where this conversation was headed, but I couldn’t let her unfinished thought stand. “If…?”
“If you stay with me.” She straightened and met my gaze. “Doctor Nagi can forgive you. If you stay with me and work with us, we could be together for a thousand years.”
I tensed. How likely did that look in her eyes?
I’d never work with the Seligo. Particularly if the “reward” for compromising my morals was immortality—which I’d never sought or desired.
But I had to wonder. When Quanta scanned the possible futures, she filtered them by what was likely to happen. Was the clone filtering to see futures she wanted?
If that was the future she was pulling for, I’d just answered another key question, but her dream would never come true. “I’ve been disowned and I’m a traitor. It’s too late to be elevated.”
“You’ll see.” A smile tilted her lips. “We’re going to do great things together.”
A wisp of dread unfurled inside me. Any future that made her smile like that wasn’t one I wanted to live.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
QUANTA
I didn’t sleep. At all.
Tair’s watch said 0500 when I finally got up to pace and wait out the last two hours. The cavalry needed to come sooner.
By 0730, Devan was pacing with me, and my vision blurred.
Tears. Frustration. Powers frazzling. I couldn’t see straight anymore.
Just after 0800, the main door finally rattled. I jumped to swing it open.
Cipher, Knight, and Dex stood dressed all in black and hauling duffel bags of gear. My throat closed up with gratitude and hope. “Finally.”
Their timeghosts hit me in waves, but I was determined to stay in the present. Now was not the time to get distracted.
Knight stepped inside first. His gaze flicked around, taking in the space and landing on Devan. She had her hands in her jeans pockets, but light spilled out.
Cipher stepped around him. “You’re Devan?”
Devan nodded, but her eyes looked way too wide. Awed, actually. “Devan Coda. You’re Cipher.”
Cipher winced a little at the groupie greeting. She turned to me instead. “You look like hell.”
“Look who’s talking.” That last ferry ride must’ve been a doozy. Now flop sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, and her complexion was about the same as a cooked egg white.
She set down her pack and started digging while Knight and Dex cased the rest of the building and did whatever tech/security stuff they did. Cipher tossed me a pouch. “Here.”
I caught it with shaking fingers. I lost track of what the rest of them were doing as I peeled off my old patch and stuck a new one in its place. Chemicals tingled against my skin.
Finally, I let myself breathe.
I had my serum. I had help. I could survive this, and I could get Tair and the girls back.
One millisecond at a time. “How soon can we get on a ferry?”
The three new arrivals looked away from their hushed conversation. Dex ran a hand through his flowing hair. “I know a guy. We have an in, but what after that?”
Knight set his tablet on a turned-over crate and zoomed in on a map of Theta. “The Lady couldn’t confirm locations for Tair or the Reds, but going on guesswork…” He pinched the map, zooming to show three pins. “There are only three possibilities.”
“Why only three?” I leaned in a little, but was careful not to get too close. I didn’t trust myself right now.
“You can’t keep a Red captive anywhere. There are only so many buildings with the level of security the Seligo would need.”
I fiddled with my sleeves as doubt niggled at me. Tair wasn’t a Red, and there was no reason he’d be kept the same place as Kiri and Aliya. Or that the two of them were still alive. Devan stared at the tablet like she could pull the answers out, but she wasn’t having any luck.
“So we split into three teams and see what we can see.” I cast a hopeful glance at Cipher. “Unless you can just hack us in and check?”
“No way in hell.” She folded her arms over her leather jacket. “We’re too close, and I’m not trying to die here. You have to figure it out with your powers.”
I gripped my sleeves. I didn’t know if I could. The timeghosts had been so chaotic, and I was already on the verge of losing it.
But I had to find a lead. There just wasn’t another way to find where the Seligo had stashed Tair. “I’ll try.”
“So will I,” Devan said.
We all turned to look at her. Her jaw was set with determination, but I wondered what she was hiding that made her so suddenly sure of herself. “What are you gonna do?”
“Maybe nothing. But I can make a distraction.”
“What kind of distraction?” Knight asked.
In a breath, dozens of illusion people appeared. Knight and Dex jumped to action, but Devan made the figures disappear before anyone got shot.
“You could warn us first.” I put a hand over my heart.
Dex gave her a hard look. “What else can you do?”
While Devan gave them all the rundown, I clicked my teeth together. A power show might be the only way to draw out the clone, but in reality…
Why would she leave the building? She was safe inside, and the Seligo definitely wouldn’t be sending their prisoners out to say hello. If I put myself in the clone’s shoes, I couldn’t think of anything that would make me leave my safe place.
Except for Tair, but she already had him. Devan could make a thousand fake Tairs, and the clone would still know she had the real one.
The best plan I could think of was using myself as bait and hoping the Seligo were stupid enough to put me and Tair in the same room. But they weren’t stupid, and even then…
Worry twisted inside me. Hypothetically, as long as I could get to Tair, we could wind time back again and again until we got out of the building. But resetting drained my energy like nothing else, and I was already running on fumes.
Hurting. Exhausted. Battling timeghosts just to follow the conversation.
And every time I caught a glimpse of the future, I saw myself imploding.
Was it that inevitable?
I didn’t want to believe it, and I wasn’t giving up, but…
My lip trembled.
I forced myself to join in the rest of the planning. We’d split into groups. Cipher and Knight. Devan and me. Dex on his own. Each group would case a building, and we’d set up a base below street level to watch and plan a way in. Knight and Dex had done the same thing on their last Citadel missions.
It seemed logical. Maybe even doable.
All I had to do was shut up the voices inside me that kept screaming we were insane.
Because insane or not, I had to get to Tair.
Chapter Thirty
ALTAIR
The holographic window barely showed dawn when I stopped trying to sleep. After a shower, I changed into the scrubs that had been left for me.
Then I sat on the stiff sofa to wait. I wasn’t sure how much time passed before the secondary door eased open. The clone peeked through. “You’re awake?”
“I’m awake.” And fully alert now. “You can come in.”
Today’s sundress was a soft coral color, and the clone had repainted her nails a matching shade. I was drawn—
Goose bumps sprang down my arms. It’s not her.
I wasn’t confused where my feelings lay, but the clone tugged at my instincts every time I let down my guard. The genetic bond was that strong.
The clone paused in the doorway. “Our breakfast is here.”
“What else will we do with the day?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m busy like every day, but you can stay with me. If you want.”
Busy every day? I needed to see what that looked like. “I’d be happy to.”
“Come on.” She stepped aside, inviting me to her room.
An attendant was wheeling out a cart as I entered. The door clicked locked behind him, but if the clone or I had wanted to dive for the doorway, there would’ve been plenty of time. The building’s security wasn’t lax by any means, but the clone was treated more like a guest than a captive. I’d have to make an opportunity to take advantage of that.
“Sit,” she said.
Déjà vu hit hard as I sat down in front of the plate of bacon and eggs. I’d eaten this same meal more times than I cared to remember, resetting again and again with a similar Quanta.
I’d expected her breakfast to feature Quanta’s favorite things, like sugary cereal and cocoa. Instead, it was piled high with eggs and meats. “Sausages?”
“They’re my favorite.” She stabbed a link with her fork. “Want one?”
“No… Thank you.” I watched her chew. And I couldn’t help asking. “You eat meat?”
“Every day.” She stabbed another sausage for emphasis.
