by Lola Dodge
We weren’t sure what to expect when we arrived—Quanta had only gotten a vague impression of the space where Cass had gone offline—but between Knight and Dex’s real experience as Black Helixes and her glimpses into the future, we’d go from there.
Finally, the pod coasted to a stop. We exited at a much less crowded station. If we kept heading for the coordinates, we’d end up in one of the skyscrapers to the left.
Quanta drifted out of formation, steering us toward a specific sky bridge, and the rest of us fell back around her, trusting her to guide us the right way.
Our disguises hadn’t flickered yet, but there was no way to tell how Devan’s energy was holding up. We shouldn’t be in the danger zone yet. It was still too early in the day.
With more of Quanta’s prompting, we entered a door midway up the nearest scraper. It looked the same as the other buildings nearby, made sparkling polymerized glass, but its extra security was more than obvious. I spotted sensors, cams, security panels, and a thick contingent of surveillance drones.
Knight took the lead inside, drawing us away from the main lobby and down a side corridor. I saw why when turned the corner. The front had potted plants and a posh interior, but no foot traffic. The real entrance was around the back.
Black Helixes guarded the access corridor. Nodding, we strode past them. A laser scanner bathed our arms in red as we stepped through the heavy doorway. My pulse ratcheted up, but no alarms blared yet, so our forged Helixes were doing the job.
Inside, the hallway narrowed into more of a tunnel. Our rapid footsteps echoed on the metal flooring until the end of the path, where a single heavy security door waited.
A wall panel slid back, and a man stepped out holding a scanning wand. “You idiots again? What now?”
Knight dropped his voice unnaturally low. “You tell me. We were on leave.”
“Called you in, huh?” The man stuck the wand back in its holster and waved to whoever was inside the security booth. The creaking of the blast door’s opening echoed down the hall. “Must be time to transport out some of the prisoners. Troublemaking jagoffs.”
My hackles rose, and from the subtle shifts in everyone’s bodies, I wasn’t the only one suppressing the urge to strangle this guy. I dropped my voice an octave. “Sooner we take care of it, sooner we get back to the beach.”
“Damn straight,” Dex said.
The guard heaved the door open and waved us through. My heart sank as we crossed the threshold. The center of the building was hollow, creating a towering atrium. I hadn’t been expecting an open layout, but being able to see the levels of floors didn’t give us any edge.
Dread coiled in my stomach. I’d have to lean over the railing to spot the top or bottom, and the quickest glance at nearest doors told me everything I needed to know.
Each doorway had its own clearance system. Some had print or retinal scanners. We couldn’t pass either.
“Crap.” Quanta slipped a whispered curse.
No security was on patrol, but Green Helixes in lab coats strode purposefully around the circular levels. None of them paid us any attention. It worked to our advantage if squads of Black Helixes were a normal sight, but the scope of the building…
We’d need weeks to explore every area. We only had hours, if that.
Quanta as Kendrick veered away from the group to lean over the center railing. For a split-second, Devan’s guise slipped off and her shocked, exhausted face came into view. She lunged for Quanta’s arm, pulling her back into our circle. “Don’t step away I can’t—”
An alarm blared.
Even as my adrenaline spiked, a calm settled. All the quiet had been getting on my nerves. This was more of what I’d been expecting.
A thousand things in a moment.
Devan either lost her focus or let it go, revealing us to any sensors pointed our way. Panels pushed out from the walls. I shot out the nearest one before its weaponry could target us. The gunshots sparked a wave of screams as the civilian Helixes dashed for cover.
We needed cover, but our level lacked so much as a bench to flip and hide behind. There was only door after sealed door.
“We can’t stay here!” Cipher’s hands crackled with electricity as she sprinted for the closest door.
“Wait! Don’t—” Quanta was too late.
Another blast of gunfire sprayed. I dove, bearing Quanta to the floor. She covered her head as the bullets passed over us.
Cipher screamed, but the sound choked off too soon. The blue lightning at her fingertips died as she went limp.
“Emma.” Knight tugged at her, blood seeping between his shaking fingers. “Don’t. Emma. Please.”
Armed guards swarmed out of the wall. I shifted Quanta behind me, wanting to tell the others to run, but Dex and Devan already lay still.
Jesus.
Disaster. A tragedy. As the Helixes closed in, Quanta gripped my T-shirt.
“No.” Her voice gritted with iron. A halo of bluish light flashed around her. The spectral blue wisps twined her fingers.
Then time froze.
The Helixes stood with weapons raised, and Knight’s hunched-over form was locked in anguish. I couldn’t move or speak, but I didn’t have to. Relief poured over me.
Quanta was winding us back.
When the world snapped back into motion, it moved in reverse. The Helixes were pulled back and life returned to our friends’ eyes. Step by step, Quanta’s power pulled us backward.
The sounds of gunfire faded beneath the roar of time. I’d heard it before, but never so loudly. It sounded like the whole universe was screaming. I would’ve clapped my hands to my ears, but I had no control of my body and the sound was bone-deep. It throbbed between my ears.
I feared it would never stop as we rolled slowly backward. Quanta’s powers drew us out of the facility, back into the pod, through the Citadel, and back onto the boat. My head was splitting with pain as the roar cut away.
Quanta and I staggered, dropped suddenly back into the present. I caught the wall, and she caught me. We stood in the tunnel to Roboloco, returned to morning.
Back to square one.
Chapter Twenty-Five
QUANTA
I almost puked on Tair’s shoes. The echoes of time still clanged around my head, but I’d managed to pull us all back in one piece. More or less. I leaned into Tair, trying to keep my knees from shaking.
That had been way, way, way too close. I let myself breathe in his warmth for a few seconds, reassuring myself that he was alive, and I was alive, and none of what we’d seen was permanent.
“Uh. Guys?” Dex’s voice brought me back to reality.
Heaving out a breath, I pulled myself away from Tair. “We bit it.”
“How far did we get?” Knight’s brows pulled together.
Tair set his com to project a map and walked everyone through what they’d forgotten—or what they hadn’t lived. My genetic tie to Tair was the only thing that let him remember the other timelines, and I couldn’t be more grateful to Eva. If I had to do this on my own…
Yikes.
Tair pointed at our target spot on the holo map. “We had no trouble getting to the facility, and we managed to get in, but it’s a maze of secure doors. We only lost our disguises for a fraction of a second, but that was enough to trigger an alarm.”
“It was me?” Devan’s face fell. She looked about to crumble, but then her hands balled into fists and she shook her head. “Not again. I won’t let us down this time.”
I patted her shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault we got shot.”
“Shot?” Cipher squeezed Knight’s arm. “Whose fault was it?”
Oops. Should not have said that. “It was my fault. I stepped too far away from Devan and the security panels got triggered. At least now we know what happens.” I was glad we’d gotten in. Less glad for the new memories. I saw death everywhere I looked, but the timeghostly versions were never as vivid as the real things—they showed me muted blue sc
enes. Blood was scary red, and the heartbreak on Knight’s face…
I rubbed my arms against a chill. How many more times would I have to watch them all die before we found Cassie and the others?
“Let’s go.” Knight started for the holographic cliff face. “You can draw us the layout on the ride and we’ll strategize which doors to try first.”
Devan covered us in illusions, and we crossed the shore to pile into the boat. The ride to the harbor wasn’t long, but it was long enough for me to sketch the inside of the building as Tair gave everyone the run down. I circled a couple doors that might be promising, but we hadn’t been in the atrium long enough for me to scope out its timeghosts before everything went sideways. This time, I’d do better.
The second trip through the Citadel was even worse. We couldn’t talk without cracking our disguises and the last thing I wanted to do was sit with my own thoughts. But that was exactly what I needed to do. Even if I had to sift through a million crushing ugly futures to find the one golden one where we survived.
As we settled in for pod ride number two, I lowered my mental walls. New spaces always kicked up a ton of timeghostly static. I caught flashes of the pod’s past riders and had to grit through a barrage of images kicked up by the Citadel itself. Dense populations were not my friend. Eventually, I cut through the mess and found a little cranny of focus.
I wanted our futures. Because how did we survive this? Now that I’d found my center, the ghosts of the future fluttered into place around me.
Alone, I sprint down a dim corridor, tracking bloody footprints behind me; the six of us get backed up to the railing in the atrium as Black Helixes close in. One tosses an explosive. Dex pushes Devan and me out of the way, but the explosion destroys the railing, blasting his body on a spiral toward the ground floor; Knight and the boys are locked in hand-to-hand combat, trying to keep a wave of Helixes off us, but Knight’s heel slips in someone’s blood and he takes a knife to the ribs. “NO!” As Cipher lunges for him, blue lightning balls from her fingertips and her powers explode in a mushroom that whitens over everything—
Not helping. This so was not helping.
But we weren’t quite to the building yet. I could either watch the cartoon advertisement for a snail beauty serum that flickered over the glass, or I could get to work. I dove back in.
“I can’t…” Devan stumbles and our disguises fall; Tair offers his arm for a Helix scan at Door 1022, and the lock buzzes, allowing him and the rest of us through; still in our Helix disguises, we stride around the atrium. I slow from the group, peeking down below where attendants in white coats are frantically jogging with a stretcher. They’re too far away to hear, but I catch a glimpse of blonde hair tumbling out of a head restraint. Kiri.
I jerked up in my seat, drawing every gaze in the pod. There was no way to explain right now, but if everyone had seen how I operated, then hopefully they’d just picked up that we had a clue. Tair kept watching me with Pasha’s eyes, and even though that was creepy, I knew he’d follow my lead once we got going.
My feet kicked back and forth with nerves. Now we knew for sure that one of our people was in the building, and that was a lot more than we’d had before, but I couldn’t pinpoint when Kiri got rolled out and catching her in the hallway wouldn’t necessarily help us find anyone else. Plus, if she was on a stretcher? Our plan for escaping the Citadel was iffy at best, and it definitely didn’t account for people who couldn’t walk themselves to the door. One of the guys could piggyback her, but if anyone else was unconscious? Nobody was going to be able to haul Oliver out.
I fidgeted with the hem of my T-shirt as I tried to wrap my head around this reality. It wasn’t my first suicide mission, and I wasn’t giving up hope, but I was starting to wonder if this was futile. But we were zooming into the station before I could decide, and we couldn’t turn around now.
We followed the same route, heading into the building’s sneaky side entrance. A pit bloomed in my stomach as soon as we stepped into the scary huge atrium. So many floors, so little time.
I stuck close to Devan and directed Knight with little head flicks. We passed Door 508 and I wondered if we should just start trying some at random. We could definitely get into 1022, but who knew if that was up or down or even led to anything we needed to see?
Timeghosts teemed at the edges of my vision, but the future showed more of the same chaos I’d been picking up, and the past was an endless stream of white-coated scientists crisscrossing the halls. Nothing specific. No glimpses of Cass or the others. I gritted my teeth, ready to dig deeper, but an actual blast from my past breezed by, shattering my focus.
I did a double-take to make sure I was seeing what I thought and not just losing my grip.
Akua.
Akua—freaking—Dowling.
The recognition froze me in place. She wore the same old coat emblazoned with a Blue Helix, and her dark braids spilling down her back. I couldn’t help recalling the days when she was my headshrink/caretaker. She hadn’t been as bad as Nagi or Darren—who I really didn’t want to think of right now—but seeing her here…
I shook it off. Why was she even alive?
She’d helped me escape. Maybe not on a timeline she remembered, but either way, she was in charge of me when Tair and I broke out of Alpha the first time. Nagi should’ve killed her on principle.
I could only think of one reason a headshrink who studied Red Helixes was in the building. She must have new patients. I wrenched Devan to a stop and everyone else pulled up short with us as Akua strode nearer, fixated on her clipboard.
For once, I didn’t need to check the future to see how things played out. I’d spent years trying to manipulate Akua, and I’d never forgive or even like the woman, but I knew she had a scrap of her original humanity left under that Seligo shell of hers. I could get her to tell me what I needed.
I grabbed her arm before she could brush past me. “Akua. Where are they?”
Her body went so rigid, I could practically see her hair stand on end. “Qu—”
“Where? How do I get them out?”
She blinked, brown eyes ultra wide, but it only took her a few breaths to get over the shock of hearing my voice again. “You can’t be here. He knows what you can do and—”
“I know! Please, Akua. Tair’s sister. The girls. Don’t make them live through what I did.”
Her gaze flicked to the Black Helixes that flanked me. She was obviously calculating, and knowing her, she’d read an army of dangerous Reds at my back. She cracked, just like I knew she would. “Downstairs. It’s Door 80, but you’ll never clear security in those disguises.”
“Then why don’t you walk us there?” I poked her back with a knuckle, hoping she’d read it as a gun barrel. I didn’t want my actual gun on the cams.
As expected, Akua jumped. “Follow me.” Finally, all those years acting crazed were bearing fruit. Akua probably thought me capable of anything at this point.
She turned back in the direction she’d come from and led us to long corridor that ended in a bank of lifts. The doors opened with no need to press a button. We all piled in after her, and she gave a voice command as soon as the doors shut. “Research, Level Eight.”
My brows scrunched. There was cooperation and then there was—
A timeghost warned me, but I couldn’t move fast enough.
Akua slapped her palm to the wall. A deafening alarm blared.
“Intruders!” She screeched.
Should’ve seen that coming. Akua might have a shred of humanity—but she’d swallowed the Seligo propaganda like a captive tiger swallowed a whole cooked chicken.
Before we could even think about how to turn off the alarm, panels dropped from the ceiling and a few insistent timeghosts told me exactly where this was going. I lifted the neck of my T-shirt over my nose. Gas streamed down in toxic yellow clouds.
Our disguises dropped as Devan ducked to the floor.
Akua banged on the wall. “No. I’m st
ill in here!”
I kicked her in the shin, bringing her down with the rest of us as we huddled away from the choking cloud. We had seconds, maybe. “You want to die with us, Akua, or you want to do something about this?”
“What did you expect?” She started choking.
My eyes teared. I grabbed for my bookmarked moment, but my mental muscles whiffed. I couldn’t grab it.
“We have to stop this!” Cipher wormed away from Knight and lifted a hand, sending a bolt of lightning zagging for the device.
It exploded in a toxic cloud.
The blast rang my head like a gong and thankfully knocked the air from my lungs. I caught glimpse of the others through the fog—some of them had breathed in and their faces twisted. Choking. Dying.
Enough.
Tair’s hand found mine. I grabbed for the past.
This time, my grip held.
We shuddered back to Roboloco HQ. I gripped Tair even harder this time, breathing through the throbbing pain that banged my brain like cymbals.
Tair rubbed his forehead, obviously feeling the same. “That was unexpected.”
“Did we do this already?” Knight asked.
I had a feeling all the questions would get old, but all I could do was answer. “I met an old friend. We’ll tell you on the way.”
I drew the building again on our boat ride but fleshed it out a little bit more. “This is the lift we’re heading to. We need Door 80. That must be where the Reds are being kept.”
After the same slog back through the Citadel, we found ourselves in the atrium again. Akua strode past, staring at her clipboard. I didn’t feel the need to say hi this time. Complicated girl, that Akua.
We got on the lift. Dex—as lowest on the Seligo hit list—was most likely not to get us killed, so he spoke up to give the floor number. “Research, Level Eight.”
I held my breath, waiting for the ceiling panels to drop, but instead, the lift hummed and started bringing us downward. We’d almost died twice thus far, but this still felt too easy. The timeghosts told me that was just wishful thinking.
