by JA Huss
“Was I speaking a foreign language just now? I told you, you can’t die.”
“So that green gas can’t hurt me?”
“No.” He laughs. “It can’t hurt me. Because Thomas had Lincoln code it for our DNA.”
“Well, aren’t the two of you just a couple of fucking Wondertwins. This is just great. I’m gonna not-die—whatever the hell that means—and you’re gonna be just fine. Just wonderful. Does this shit get any better?”
“Well, there was plenty of antidote in the fucking train car, just like there was plenty of water and rations. But not anymore. It’s not my fault we’re here,” he says.
“I didn’t do it,” I say, getting pissed off about his accusation. “Maybe it is your fault. Maybe you’re the one who wrecked the train? Ever think of that, Mental Man?”
“Wasn’t me, Trip Chick.”
“Why not you? You’re the one with all that weird mentalist shit inside your head. I’m the wind, Sadie. I’m a force. Well, OK. Fine. But it’s more likely that the stupid force of nature inside your head got out of hand and… and…”
“And what?” He laughs. “I don’t know how to stop electricity. The train car wrecked because the power went out and we slowed down as we approached the gates. And that was all you. I saw it. I might not be able to talk when Thomas is in control, but unlike him, I see everything.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Messages inside your head? Remember that little conversation?”
“That was you!”
“Yeah. Back at the tower. But I wasn’t in your head when the car stopped. And just before you woke up you were talking to people. Mumbling, ‘Who are you. Who are you?’”
I think about that for a little bit. Because he’s right. My head did hurt. “There’s static in there,” I say.
“What kind?” he asks. Like people say this all the time and he just needs a little clarification to understand it better.
“Are there different kinds?” I ask.
“Describe it,” he practically snarls.
Dick. “Like… like an in-between radio signal. Static like that. And lights flashing. There were words too.”
“What do they say?”
“Just… ‘Sadie, Sadie, Sadie.’ Calling me. You know.”
“Prodigy?” he asks.
“Probably. But then, just before I woke up, they said, ‘Where are you, where are you, where are you?’ Three times. Just like that.”
“They’re looking for you.”
“Obviously.” I roll my eyes.
“It’s some kind of transmission. And now that I know that—thanks for the punctual update, by the way—that’s probably who came to the tower. You were broadcasting to them. You’re probably still broadcasting to them. So hey, bright side.” He fake-laughs. “Looks like we’ll be rescued. Too bad it’s gonna be a bunch of mad scientists who come looking for us.”
We think about that for a long, long time. Time in the dark passes in strange ways and I spend it thinking about the green gas. Then not-dying, whatever that means. And probably going unconscious, at least. Waking up back wherever it was I came from, I guess.
It might all be my fault.
And just then, when I think it can’t possibly get any worse, the flashlight is flickering. Which means the phone is dying.
We really are stuck here. We really are fucked.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to mess things up. I don’t understand anything and I don’t know what I’m doing but I don’t want to go back there. I don’t know what I want, but I don’t want to go back there.”
“Well, Thomas and I don’t agree on much. But we are both one hundred percent on board with staying the fuck out of the grip of Prodigy School.” He sucks in some air and pauses. “We were so fucking close, too. So fucking close.”
“Close to what?” I ask, tipping my head up so I can see his face. It’s still lit up from below. Reflecting eerie shadows onto his cheeks.
“Revenge. We have the perfect plan. And even though I scared the fuck out of Thomas last month when all that shit went down and he tried to blow his fucking head off with a goddamned gun—as if that would make things better—just to get rid of me again…” He stops to sigh. “I was only there to help. That’s all. I just wanted to be there when it all finally went down. And now look. I’m stuck in a grave I made myself. With a girl who has no idea what’s going on. With a plan that can’t even be implemented because my satellites—well, technically, they belong to Thomas, but anyway, our satellites are the trigger that starts the ball rolling and Case won’t be able to initiate Lincoln’s program without them.” He pauses again. More in control when he speaks. “In case you’re wondering what all that has to do with anything, I’m the only one who can initiate the satellites. Irony can suck my dick.”
I almost find him funny. Almost. “Well, maybe next time you should consider letting your team in on your secrets. Then they can carry on without you. And you sure do swear a lot more than Thomas. I think he’s the good twin.”
“Fuck off.”
I laugh. I should be insulted, but he’s frustrated and defeated. And this is the asshole who tied me up and touched me twice. This is the asshole who made himself out to be a god who had all the answers.
His depression lifts my spirits.
“So let me see if I can put all this together. Thomas used drugs to keep you away for all these years. Locked you up in his head by eliminating his emotions. Then that Case dude shot him with something that messed up all his perfectly laid plans. That released you from your prison. And when Thomas figured out you were back, he tried to blow you out of his mind with a gun. Stop me when I get it wrong.”
“Ding. Ding. Ding,” he says, mocking me with his slow words.
“Why did you tie me up? Kiss me? Touch me?”
He shrugs. “Why not? You’re pretty. And young. You didn’t know anything about anything.”
I tilt my head up to see him again.
He’s smiling when he looks down at me. “Besides, you’d want to touch you too if you were me. I was locked up in that head of his for fifteen years.”
“You’re a pervert.”
“You liked it.”
I say nothing. Because I did.
I look up again and now he’s grinning like a boy. “Thomas made a move on me too,” I say.
“I saw,” he grumbles.
“He kinda frustrated me. After… you.” A chuckle from Sullivan. “You just take. But Thomas doesn’t.”
“He’s dumb like that.”
It’s my turn to grin and chuckle. “I thought you were an everyday run-of-the-mill asshole, but I’m reevaluating.”
“I’m not an asshole?”
“You’re the definition of asshole. But I like your diabolical side.”
“Well, that’s awesome. I can waste away to pathetic weakness waiting for Prodigy to come take me back, knowing you prefer me to him.” He looks down at me, not smiling. “I appreciate the gesture.”
“There has to be a way out.”
“There isn’t. Not without explosives. It might take them a while to blast through the doors back at the southern tower, but they will. And then they’ll blast through these too. Or maybe they know there’s a tunnel over here and they’ll say fuck those southern doors and just head west.” He lifts his arm. Like he’s pointing to something. “They’ll come right though that gate there. Or you know what’s even better than that?” He pauses to see if I’ll play along, then just continues when I don’t. “They might figure out that there’s a tunnel connecting to this one up north or out east. Maybe they’ll just sneak up from the south and surprise us.”
Dick. “Optimist you are not.”
“What’s there to be optimistic about? We’re stuck in the goddamned tunnel. This is all Thomas’s fault. We’ll get out of here eventually. We might spend the next twenty years as Prodigy prisoners, but eventually we’ll get out of that too. And I tell you what… the ne
xt time I see an opportunity to get rid of that asshole, I’m gonna take it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - SULLIVAN
I sigh into the encroaching blackness. Thinking, thinking, thinking.
“Do you hate him?” she asks.
I think about this question for a little bit. The light on the phone flickers, then dims, flickers a few more times until the battery finally dies. I tried to call Case and Lincoln while I was waiting for Sadie to wake up. But no luck. No satellite signal down here in the fucking earth.
“Well?” Sadie finally says. “Do you or don’t you?”
“Hate is a strong word. Do you hate people?”
She laughs. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Well, I don’t hate him. He’s me, for fuck’s sake.”
“But you’d like him to be the…what do you call it? Like… secondary personality? Instead of you?”
“He is the secondary personality, Sadie. I’m the one who was born in that body.”
“Then why was he in control for so long?”
“Because they tricked me.”
“Who? Prodigy?”
“Who else.”
“What happened?” she asks.
I stay silent.
Sadie turns her body a little. Her head is resting on my thigh. She was sweating profusely while she was sleeping, but she’s cooling off now. I wonder what they did to her to make her this way?
“If I knew what they did to me, I’d tell you.”
“Are you a mind-reader too? I thought that was my job.”
“Can you read my mind?” she asks.
“A little bit. I can read most people. Thomas can’t. He only reads them when they die for some reason. And only when he’s not on the drugs. Like now. Which is why he was off his game that morning you showed up. Someone died and he caught all those thoughts. Which gave me an opportunity to get a better hold on him. Quick tip. The inner ramblings of crazy people will make you crazy. So if your superpower is collecting the thoughts of the dead, try not to get yourself locked up in an insane asylum. I never understood any of it when I was younger. And I barely understand much more now. But I do know I can’t read your mind unless I’m… inside you.”
“What’s in there?” she whispers into the dark. “In my head? What did they do to me?”
“It’s computer shit. I told you that. Nanites and some kind of interface. We have one too.”
“What kind of interface?”
“I don’t know. They locked me out, obviously. If they hadn’t we wouldn’t be here. I’d have taken over again. You know. The way it’s supposed to be.”
“So that’s your plan? Take over Thomas. Become him?”
“Kick him out, you mean? Hell, yes, that’s my plan. I mean, I’m not against his little revenge scheme. My life only gets easier with Prodigy gone for good. But he’s the one who stole my body. Fucking body-snatcher.”
She thinks about this for a little bit. “So there must be a link, right? Between us?”
“I can only assume, since I can access your interface.”
“Hmm,” she says. Then silence.
I let that linger until I can’t stand it anymore. “You’re forming an opinion about me.”
“I suppose.”
More silence.
“Well, what is it?”
“Do you care?”
“Why not? We’re stuck here for the duration. Let it all out, Sadie. Hit me with your opinion.”
“Well,” she says, pushing herself up until she’s on her elbows. I can’t see her leg in the darkness, but I decide she’s probably well enough along her little healing journey to sit up. So I help her until she’s got her back against the hard stone wall. Our shoulders are touching, which I find oddly comforting. “I think,” she continues, breathing hard from the effort, once she’s settled. “I think we might be parts of something, you and I.”
“Yes. It’s the most likely answer. But definitely the worst-case scenario.”
“Why?”
“Because they only do that for one reason, Sadie. They pair us up to keep us in control. Have you ever heard of the Alpha-Omega Program?”
“No,” she says. “Not that I remember, anyway.”
“It was a genetic program at my Prodigy school. Maybe they did that at your school too. I don’t know. But the basics go something like this. If your goal is to make a superhuman you’re gonna need a way to control them. There’s only so many ways to control a genius like Lincoln Wade, right? He has super-strength on top of that giant brain of his. Same with the rest of us, although Linc was always the leader in the superpower shit. Thomas kept him in check with the planning, but Lincoln was, is, and always will be the most dangerous Alpha to come out of that school. Regardless of what they think of me and Thomas.
“So you have to have something to hold over him. A threat. They did that by genetically engineering each of us a counterpart. The Omegas were created with one thing in mind. To be able to kill us if we got out of hand. They coded something called inhibition poisoning into our DNA. So if we tried to hurt the Omega, we’d get sick immediately. Like, crippling sickness that makes you double over, fall to the floor, and hug yourself.”
“But couldn’t you kill all the Prodigy people?”
“No,” I say. “They gave us drugs so we’d experience the same effect if we tried to hurt them. Those drugs wear off, but not the Omega bond. That one is forever.”
“Do you think I’m your Omega?”
I shake my head. “No again. This is why I tied you up that first time. I was testing it. Even today, Lincoln can’t physically hurt Molly. She is, and will always be, his worst weakness. But when I tied you up, I felt nothing. So you can’t be my Omega.”
“Well, that’s good, right?”
“You could be something even more dangerous. There’s just no way to tell. I have no clue what they did to you. And you don’t either.”
“But Thomas said my memories will come back.”
“It’s been almost a week, Sadie. I don’t think they’re coming back.”
She ponders this for a few moments. “So… who am I?”
I shrug. “No clue.”
More silent thinking.
“I realize this… past of mine can’t be ideal.”
“Pfft.” I laugh. “Understatement.”
“But it is my past, right?”
“I get it, Sadie. I do. I’m missing parts of my past too. Lots and lots of years. Almost more are missing than I remember. So it sucks to lose something of yourself like that. But do I really need to know what they did to us back when Thomas was in control and I was suppressed? Do you really want to remember those things?”
She huffs out some air. “Yes.”
“Well, I tried,” I say with a sigh. “I don’t entirely believe me, either. I’m pissed as hell about all the years since Prodigy School. The years when Thomas had me locked away while he was off living his life. But it does me no good to dwell.”
“So why do you want to get rid of him?”
“He pretty much stole my fucking body, Sadie. I’m me. Not him. I’m me.”
“Maybe you’re both you?”
“We’re not both me,” I say, almost hissing the words out from between my teeth. “There’s only one me. If there were two of us, well, we’d be an us then, wouldn’t we?”
“Hmmm,” she says again.
“What’s that hmmm for?’
“I’m just thinking. Wondering, really. I get it, Sullivan. I’m not saying your feelings are invalid or anything. It was just a question. Mostly because it’s true what you say. And it’s also pretty likely that I have some kind of link in me. To you, obviously. But it feels like…”
I wait for her to finish. Not patiently. And when the pause drags out for several seconds with no continuation, I say, “Feels like what?”
“Like some part of me is missing.” Her body turns towards me, her arm pressing against mine. I wish that stupid fucking phone was
still working so I could look at her. “Do you think they split me in half too?”
Split me in half. God. Those words make me sick to my stomach.
“I mean… What if I have some other personality inside me too.? What if… Oh, fuck.”
“What?” I ask, placing my hand on her arm.
“What if the reason I can’t remember things is because I’m the other me? God, that makes no sense.”
“No,” I say. “It does. It makes perfect sense. What if they did the same thing to you that they did to me? And now you’re…”
“Thomas. I’m the Thomas in this scenario. The body-snatcher.”
I wonder what the other her is like?
Then I feel guilty for thinking that.
“So…” she continues after a short pause. “So they’re gonna come get me.”
“And me,” I add.
“Yes, and you. Which, from what Thomas says, was the whole reason I was at the hospital that day. To get you. So if they get us both, that means…”
I don’t wait this time. It just needs to be said so she knows what she’s up against. “That means they’re gonna switch you off again. Put you back in that dark room where they’ve been keeping you for however long. And let the other you take over.”
She leans her whole body against mine now. Defeat, that move says. “I don’t want that, Sullivan.”
“Me either, Sadie. I kinda like you, odd as that is, since it’s so fucking obvious you are my Omega. Not in the traditional sense, obviously. But somehow, some way, they linked us. If I go down, you will be the reason why.”
We sit in the dark for a long time after that.
I have so much more to talk about, but none of it is good. None of it needs to be said now. So I let the itchy feeling of healing nanites preoccupy me. That’s enough to make me sick—the thought of all those little fuckers inside my body, just running off a program that I never asked for and have no control over. The only bright side to it is they will be finished soon. And then they will retreat to that little corner where they hide when not needed.
“Sullivan?” Sadie says, breaking my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“If they break the tunnel and the green gas comes and makes me not-dead… Don’t let them take me back.”
