by Lola Dodge
“Don’t you see the moment of slaughter?” Quanta had said she could, and it put her off food that came from animals. A reasonable hang-up.
The clone shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me.”
A chill slipped down my spine. Lack of compassion didn’t bode well. Neither did the full cup of pills that seemed to be her side dish. She gulped them down between sips of orange juice.
“Pain?” I asked.
“I’ve been getting headaches.” She tipped the last pill into her mouth and took a final swig of juice. “These fix me right up.”
“How long have you been getting headaches?” The way she’d worded it indicated they were new, and that was an interesting thought. What could’ve triggered her? Was it the same thing triggering Quanta?
She pursed her lips and stayed silent. I’d pushed too hard with the medical question. I finished the little breakfast I could force down before trying a new question. “What’s next on the schedule?”
“We have a holo room session together.”
I tried to keep my face smooth. It wasn’t unexpected, but there was too much she could see and project from my recent past. Eva’s location. My sister’s.
And far too much about the real Quanta. I was positive the clone wouldn’t like seeing how Quanta and I had interacted these last few days.
“In a few minutes,” the clone said. “We have some time first. If you want to…” She wiggled in her seat, looking away from me.
I still couldn’t decide if the coyness was deliberate, but either way it wasn’t connecting. “If I want to…?”
“Practice. Talking in our heads.” She bit her lip.
“We can try.” I’d much rather her be worrying over telepathy than the past or the future.
“Over here.” The clone led me into the sterile white living room.
I sat onto the couch, and she settled in next to me, smoothing down her dress. “How does it work?”
“Take my hand.” I offered it out to her.
As soon as her fingertips brushed mine, a cold wave shuddered from my scalp to my toes and my vision doubled.
Two clones. Two rooms.
One nightmare scenario.
A new reset point. It felt the way it did when Quanta set one—my vision twinning and a familiar wave of dizziness. Only this time, my skin crawled.
The clone snatched her hand away like she’d been burned. “What was…”
“What was what?” I swallowed back another wave of crawling skin as I touched her shoulder. She couldn’t know what we’d done. If she didn’t already know she could reverse time, she was one step closer to finding out. Can you hear me?
Yes. Awe carried through her mental voice. This feels so…right. Doesn’t it?
Right was the opposite of the word I would’ve chosen. Even her mental voice jarred. It was almost the same as Quanta’s, but a touch discordant. Almost…fractured in quality.
It’s amazing. I hoped I wasn’t projecting her the eerie discomfort I felt. You can hear me all right?
She nodded. We really were meant for each other, weren’t we?
I managed not to recoil, but I hoped she didn’t feel my body rejecting her statement. Did Doctor Nagi tell you how we were paired?
He made me for you. To replace the broken Quanta.
The broken—You know about her?
Yes. The clone tightened her grip on my hand. She took you down the wrong path. I’m going to fix it.
I gently tugged away. I didn’t want her in my head when this was our topic. “What path is that?”
“You’re going to be Seligo.” Her eyes slipped out of focus. “I can see it. You and me together hundreds and hundreds of years from now.”
I didn’t believe that was possible. “Is that all you can see?”
“No. I can see every…” Her gaze shifted to something over my shoulder. “We need to go to the holo room now.” She hopped up and hurried into her bedroom.
I stood, tense and waiting. What had she seen?
And what did it mean for my future? For Quanta’s future?
Be calm. Assuming the clone’s powers were as similar to Quanta’s as they continued to seem, then she was only seeing possible future. My theory was dead on; the clone was fixating on the future she wanted, and she had to be seeing a future of herself with one of my clones.
Otherwise, that future would never happen.
“I’m ready.” The clone strode out in a pair of heels matched to her skin tone. “Hurry.” When she pressed her hand to the print scanner, the door clicked open.
“You’re not locked in.”
“Why would I be?” She held the door open and gestured for me to go ahead. I obeyed.
Guards stood outside the room, but they didn’t follow us down the hallway. Her heels clacked against the floor.
She had free reign of the building. Escape was possible.
I just had to convince the clone to work with me.
Chapter Thirty-One
QUANTA
As our boat skimmed across the waves, I tried to keep my brain chugging. I’d nibbled at the protein bar Cipher shoved at me, but my belly wasn’t having it. The energy bev I’d pounded stayed down, but I didn’t feel any more alert. Instead, my heart beat too fast and my headache pulsed instead of throbbing. I couldn’t tell if it was nerves or my impending doom.
The five of us sat alone below deck. Dex had hooked us up with a serum smuggler who ran back and forth to Theta, so we had a fast ride and the cargo hold to ourselves.
Cipher leaned against Knight, keeping her eyes closed and gripping her stomach. Dex was fiddling with little tech toys while Devan clenched and unclenched her glowing fingertips.
I stayed as far away from them as I could get in the narrow hold, hugging my knees to my body from my position on the floor. Still, the blue haze of timeghosts pressed on my brain.
Fighting back took more energy than I wanted to spend right now, so I let their layers blur over reality.
Knight and Cipher crouch behind a barrier, tense as they peer at something dangerous in the distance; Devan stands over me, her light spilling out. “Sorry,” she says as reaches for me with glowing yellow fingertips. A sharp, cut-off scream sounds; bullets fire in a relentless roar, and Dex takes two in the chest; Knight lies still in a pool of blood, and Cipher crackles, her hair lifting like a halo as tears slide down her cheeks; I fall on hands and knees as a blue glow seeps out around me, and the nearest people start to fall—
Shaking, I rocked back and forth.
There was nothing good to see. Not a glimpse of the clone or Tair or our Reds. Just vague images of terror and horrible things to come.
I didn’t ask the question that kept swooping through my head. Instead, I dry swallowed and tucked my head between my knees.
Should we really do this?
I had to, but the others…
Devan stared determinedly out the round window. I knew she wouldn’t back down if there was any chance of getting her friends back.
The other three might see it as a mission, but none of them deserved to die in the line of duty. I’d told them that earlier, yet here they still were.
Every time the future peeked through, I saw the same—my implosion. I hadn’t made peace with it, and I didn’t have time to, but I wasn’t going to stay crouched in the hold waiting for it to happen.
I let out a shaky breath. I had to find something on Tair and the girls, but if I was going to fail, I needed everyone else to keep going. “I want to change the plan.”
Knight stopped rubbing Cipher’s back to shoot me a look like I was crazy. “It’s already too dangerous. We can’t just—”
“I know it’s too dangerous. That’s why we’re changing the plan.”
“You saw something?” Dex asked.
Not one thing so much as a general sense of we’re doomed, but I wasn’t telling them that. The fact that I was doomed should be enough to convince them. “I’m almost out of time. If I go all supern
ova today, I don’t want you guys in my path.”
Everyone stilled. Even me. I hated admitting it out loud.
“Today?” Cipher’s voice squeaked. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as I want to be.” It wasn’t a done deal, but there was no way this day wasn’t going off the rails.
“Then what’s your new plan?” Knight asked.
“Devan and I can check out the target buildings on our own. You three wait on the boat, and we’ll call you in if we need you.” But the only message I’d actually send would be one that said run away. Fast.
“Wait. It’s okay if I’m in your path when you blow?” Devan scowled.
“It’s not okay, but if it happens, you can vaporize me with light, right?” And I knew I was being really flip about it, but there was no other way I could say it and not be terrified.
She gripped the neck of her T-shirt. “You’re asking me to kill you?”
“Yeah. You mind?”
She opened and closed her mouth as fear widened her eyes.
“Shit.” Dex pounded the wall. “I can’t sign up for that.”
“We came to help you,” Cipher said, “not to watch you die.”
I gripped the serum patch on my upper arm. “I appreciate the thought, but I’ve watched all of you dying a few too many times. Can we just agree to save people who can still be saved?”
Knight ran his fingers through his hair, leaving the strands spiked up. “The two of you on your own?”
“Devan will be fine.” She definitely wouldn’t stay back if I asked her to, and of all of us, she had the best chance of surviving. Her powers were made for hiding. “It’s you three who worry me.”
“Devan?” Knight asked. “What do you say?”
She pulled her gaze from the floor and stood up straighter. “Whatever you guys do, I’m going in. This might be my only chance to save them.”
Cipher chewed at her lip ring. “I don’t like leaving you on your own, but having two teams might be smarter. Then we can help each other when shit hits the fan. What do you think?”
Knight nodded. “If that’s what you want.”
Excellent. I slid Tair’s watch from my wrist and tossed it to Knight. “Trade me for a com with the building coordinates? You can keep track of my readings with this one. If my waves spike too much, you guys hijack a faster ship and get out of the harbor.”
“Which waves?” Knight flicked through the watch’s display screens.
“Whichever ones go scary into the red.” I wasn’t sure on the specifics, but I had a feeling the data would be pretty clear when I finally went unstable.
Knight tossed me a com. I tucked it in my pocket and pulled myself to my feet. “I’m going up top for a bit. I need some air.”
I left before they could say anything else. Leaning against the rail at the back of the boat, I tried to catch my breath as the wind whistled past.
Dread weighed me down.
Splitting up was the best way to save the others, but as for me…
We’d see.
I really wanted to live. I had so many things I wanted to do. Actually see the world. Taste all the foods. Meet this sister of Tair’s I kept hearing about. And there were games to play, and Reds to rescue, and so many problems that I could help with if I could just get my powers to settle down.
It wasn’t too much to ask for.
So I was going to keep fighting to survive.
As I stared over the sea, trying to firm up my determination, dizziness made the world spin. For a second, my vision doubled and a wave of shivers wiggled down to my toes.
That was…
I gripped the railing.
I really was losing it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
ALTAIR
The matte-black walls of the holo room felt claustrophobic. I gripped the back of the clone’s chair as the systems whirred to life.
The clone reclined comfortably, wearing the headset that linked her mind to the machinery. My pulse quickened as figures began to glow around us. The projection was the problem.
She might see a flash of something vague and ignore it, not knowing the importance of a single scene in time, but any thought that was projected was also recorded. When Quanta was captive, Doctor Nagi had had a team working full-time to decode and contextualize her thoughts.
I’d be an idiot not to assume the same was happening here.
Even knowing it, there was little I could do to stop it. We were alone in the center of the room, but guards waited outside. I’d have a precious few seconds before they crashed in. I could easily reach down, slide my hands to the clone’s neck, and—
I recoiled. I still wanted to believe the clone was worth saving.
She was confused. Possibly twisted. But beyond rescue?
I didn’t think so. Yet. What she said and did in this room would make me certain.
The clone shifted in her chair, and holograms started blossoming. I scanned as quickly as I could, trying to see what she was seeing, but the images moved too fast to process. “What are you looking for?”
“Same as always.”
Devan Coda flickered into the room and was gone. Then a flash of blue hair.
Cipher. The clone was looking for Reds.
I leaned harder into her chair and the metal creaked. “What will you do when you find them?”
“Capture them.” She shot me a puzzled look. “They can’t be out on their own.”
“No?”
“Of course not.” Holos darted in and out, but the clone seemed able to balance interacting and searching for leads in time. “They’re too dangerous.”
“What about you?” If I kept up my questions, I might be able to keep her distracted enough not to project anything incriminating.
“I am, too. That’s why I’m helping Doctor Nagi.”
“But the fate of the captives…” I wanted to understand her logic. I slipped a hand to her shoulder. Aren’t you afraid he’ll give you the same treatment?
The clone winced, and the holos disappeared, leaving the room still and silent. I’m different than them.
I pulled back my hand. She returned her attention the wall, and the machinery started whirring again. She clapped her hands to her temples, digging her fingers into her scalp.
I couldn’t check her vitals, but the way she hunched her shoulders and scrunched her face was eerily familiar. Quanta looked the same when she had one of her power headaches.
But the clone wasn’t destabilizing.
Or was she? I needed to get a better look at the pills that came with her meals.
A holo seascape stole my attention. Waves lapped the side of a boat. There were no sounds, but the images were so vivid I could fill them in.
As the perspective shifted, Quanta’s face came into view.
My Quanta. Hope swelled in my chest.
Was this the future? The past?
The image twisted before I could tell, and Quanta’s face distorted. The holo machinery whirred with strain. The clone leaned forward. “This time. I have to find…”
Devan’s bobbed head of hair popped into view in the same seascape, but her image was blurred. Oily and distorted.
Just like the edges of her illusions.
She and Quanta were both causing interference with the clone’s sight. I thought I spotted another flash of blue hair before the image dissolved.
The clone kicked her feet hard against the chair. “Why is it always so hard with them?”
I kept my voice and posture casual. “They’re powerful.”
“You know something else?” Her tone darkened with accusation. “Tell me.”
I kept my silence.
“You have to help us find them. You know how many people they can hurt.”
It sounded reasonable. No one could argue that Reds weren’t dangerous.
That didn’t justify killing them on sight. And I wasn’t a part of whatever “us” she was referring to. Now I doubted I could flip her
worldview as planned, but I still needed her cooperation. “Everyone deserves a chance.”
She scowled, settling back into her chair and filling the room with holos. “Not everyone.”
I let go of the last shred of hope I could turn the clone to Eva’s side. She was already too deep in Doctor Nagi’s pocket. Even if I could—
“There!” A building with a distinct zigzagging architecture stood in front of us as Citadel dwellers strode past.
Nothing unusual.
Then two figures appeared. Both holos blurred and twisted, but by their heights and shapes…
Quanta and Devan.
I gripped her shoulder, hoping to throw the clone off their trail. Don’t—
“Ah!” She clutched her temples, and the holos blurred to nothing, leaving the room still and silent.
I fought to keep my breathing even. “You’re hurt?” She was obviously in pain, but why so suddenly? If there was any chance this was related to Quanta’s destabilization, then I had to figure out the cause.
The clone snarled and tore free of the holo headset. Swinging out of the chair, she grabbed my sleeve. “Come on.”
“To where?” I let her tug me from the room as dread coiled in my stomach.
“You’ll see.”
The sickening sensation tightened.
I was positive I didn’t want to know.
Chapter Thirty-Three
QUANTA
Our boat docked at the edge of a sprawling harbor. Bile climbed my throat as I peeked out the window.
It was crowded.
Really, really crowded with boats and people. That bustle meant a lot of timeghosts to wade through, and I was going to be struggling to walk straight, let alone get an early warning if the Seligo found us out.
And even if I hung on through the crowds…
Theta Citadel.
Its walls weren’t walls exactly, but a series of really tall, thin poles that stuck out like the arms of a millipede, writhing down the coast. Nothing grew near the metal.
Anything that got too close would get lasered into a pile of ash. The timeghosts of long-dead birds flickered at the edges of my vision, flying for the city, but vaporizing again and again and again.
