False Memory

by Dan Krokos

  “It’s okay.” Then I mouth, Are you okay?

  She freezes. Her mouth opens, but I put a finger to my lips.

  Olive shrugs.

  And walks past me, into the showers.

  I stand there for a full minute in my towel, wondering why she didn’t give me a wink, or a nod. Anything. Then I dress in a fresh black suit that does nothing to warm the chill on my skin. I’m not sure what I did to make her act so strangely, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.

  We eat breakfast mostly in silence, not wanting to risk saying the wrong thing while under surveillance. While Olive showers, I try to let Peter know something is off about her, but I can’t communicate it with just my eyes. And writing a note would be a red flag to anyone watching us on video. The tension in the air grows. I want to scream and drop the act. I still can’t believe I went into the bathroom specifically to draw Peter in. We could be back in the cell, truly denied our memory shots this time.

  And we still have no real plan, no way to stop the “experiment” from happening. Because there’s no way to be sure what we’re walking into. They’re using all of us, so our first goal should be to meet up. It’s impossible to know how far they’ll space us apart, because I don’t know the true range of our fear.

  So regrouping will be the tricky part. Once together, we’ll find a way to track down Beta team.

  Unless it’s too late by then. The fear waves from Beta could overtake the city by the time we reassemble. The madness I remember Tycast mentioning, how the energy ultimately drives people insane . . . how long would it take?

  I bite the inside of my already-raw cheek and taste blood on the side of my tongue. I grab a pencil and quickly scribble Find a way to meet up on a piece of paper. I tap it with my finger, and Noah sees it. Peter comes around and glances at it. Noah picks up the pencil and—

  Conlin comes back. Her white coat is gone, replaced with more casual clothes. She smiles at us, making it as genuine as possible. “How do you feel?” she says, as I palm the paper off the table and crumple it into a ball.

  How do we feel, she asks. Outside we’re alabaster, but inside...

  Peter says, “Fine.”

  “Great. Ready to get started?”

  “I am,” Noah says. The sadness in his eyes cuts through me.

  We stand as one, and Conlin leads us from the room.

  21

  Conlin leads us down the hallway to an elevator. We pass the cell, but none of us looks inside. The elevator doors open on the parking garage. Two vans wait under fluorescent lights, rear doors open.

  Conlin points to the left van. “Miranda and Noah in that one.” She points to the right. “Peter and Olive in that one. Okay?”

  I step into the van, waving good-bye to Peter and Olive, making myself a silent promise I will see them before the day is over.

  Conlin shuts the doors and Noah smiles at me in the dim cargo area. “Hey, Mir.”

  “Hello, Noah.”

  That’s all we say. The van starts and a driver we can’t see pulls out of the building. Noah shuts his eyes, and after awhile I do too, falling into a quiet place. It might be the last calm moment of my life.

  Time passes. The van stops and I come back to reality, feeling like an armed bomb. I have no weapons, but I don’t need them. Noah looks like he wants to say something, but he’s in the same place I am.

  “Whatever happens...” he says.

  “Save it. Tell me later.”

  He frowns, but it turns into a grin, as I knew it would.

  The rear doors open and bright sunlight stings my eyes. We’re somewhere in the city—buildings and people everywhere. Two men wearing casual clothes wave Noah out of the van. They shut the doors, leaving me in darkness again. A second later we’re heading toward wherever I’m supposed to go.

  It isn’t far. I try to imagine how they’ll place us, but there’s nothing to base it on. I fall into a light meditation once more, letting the worries and doubts slip from my shoulders like heavy chains.

  The van stops again; same drill. Two men—I assume the ones who drove the van, since their doors didn’t open last time—stand at the rear.

  “C’mon out,” the one says. They look friendly enough, nondescript. I step down onto the roof of a parking garage in the middle of downtown Cleveland, a few feet from the edge. Buildings rise up around me, echoing traffic noise from the streets below. Key Tower stands tall in the east. It’s still morning, maybe nine o’clock.

  “What are we doing here?” I say.

  The one wearing aviator sunglasses sticks his hand out for me to shake. “Hey, I’m Bill. This is where Dr. Conlin wants you to perform the experiment. We’re supposed to record the results, then take you home.”

  The man who is not Bill has a gun under his jacket; he does nothing to hide the bulge.

  Bill says, “We’re supposed to go back in the van so you have privacy.” He checks his watch. “Are you ready?” he asks me.

  “Yeah, are you?” I say, as I give off the smallest wave of fear I can. This one actually feels good.

  The effect is immediate. Bill and the other guy stiffen, eyes widening. We’re standing three feet from the edge. I kick Bill in the chest and he staggers back, arms flailing, hands grabbing at air. The edge of the roof catches him mid-thigh and he flips over. He hits the ground two seconds later, the same sound the bodies made in the mall. This time it isn’t so awful; it’s hard to feel anything but freedom. Finally, after hours of pretending to be helpless, I can finally act. It’s like growing wings.

  The other guy has been going for his gun, but the fear has slowed him too much for me to care. I grab the barrel as he raises it, then swing my right hand under his gun arm to uppercut his wrist. The small bones bend, then break, and he shrieks. I pull the gun away and toss it over my shoulder. He tries to punch me with his other hand but I deflect it and kick the inside of his knee. He topples over with a moan, clutching his leg with both hands.

  I stand over him. “Where are the others?”

  He spits on my boot and moans again. I kick him in the stomach, mostly to wipe the spit off. “Where are they?” I won’t ask again.

  I crouch next to him and rifle through his jacket. I find a folded up piece of paper. It’s a map of downtown, scribbled in various places—Peter, Noah, Grace, Tobias, Miranda, Olive, Joshua, Nicole. I’m guessing Joshua would be Noah’s double, and Nicole would be Olive’s. The names have arrows pointing to specific spots on the map. I look where I am, then see Gracewritten three blocks south and one block east. I shove the paper in my pocket.

  The man cowers on his back. “Please don’t kill me.”

  I’m about to reply when I catch the scent—roses. The nearest Rose is blocks away and yet the energy is strong enough to affect my sense of smell. The dry run has already begun. I leave the man on the roof and get behind the wheel of the van. I start it and peel down the ramp, rear doors banging together because I forgot to shut them. Doesn’t matter; Grace is close. I burst onto the street and hang a left, tires squealing and horns honking in my wake. People stand still on the sidewalks. Confused. I’m hoping they’ll be spared the brunt of the fear, since I’ve created a gap in the little octagon of fear waves.

  Faces rush by, just people, all these people trying to live their lives. Not knowing what’s coming for their minds. I grip the steering wheel tighter.

  A cop car blasts through the intersection ahead of me, followed by another. I slow, even though the light is green, then pass through it as the rose scent strengthens. I make a left, following the cops east. On the right corner is an empty, weedy lot with cracked pavement, and a peeling brick building much like the one near the pier, this one only three stories tall. It’s full of broken windows, with a faded sign I can’t even read. I pull into the lot’s north side, shocks rocking on the uneven pavement.

  Grace leans against the dirty brick. The intersection in front of her is empty except for two abandoned cars, the doors still open. The d
rivers must have fled on foot. Across the street a homeless man claws at the wall, his collection of aluminum cans spread around his feet from a burst bag. He can’t figure out how to get around the building.

  Grace waves at me. I mash the gas to the floor, knowing it’s a stupid idea, but feeling the need to channel my rage into something physical. The van rockets forward, aimed right for Grace; Grace laughs and steps away from the wall. She grows in my windshield, dropping into a crouch. At the last possible instant, she jumps straight up, disappearing above the van as I ram the building’s northeast corner and gouge out a chunk of half-crumbled brick. The van rocks sideways and I bang my head on the driver’s side window. The dislodged bricks shoot into the empty street, tumbling over the pavement. I hear a soft thump as Grace touches down on the van’s roof.

  I open the door and there she is. She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me out—I’m too dizzy to stop her. The pull turns into a throw. I try to orient myself midair but land on my side and skid into the intersection.

  It’s possible I approached this the wrong way.

  Pain lancing through my limbs, my attempt at standing ends with me hunched over, hands on my knees. Blood pounds in my head; if I have a concussion because of my own stupidity...

  Farther east, dozens of cars are smashed together, a crowd of people surging down the street, screaming. So many people terrified of something they can’t see. I’ll never know what it’s like to be in that grip, to feel what they’re feeling. But I can’t help them yet, because my fight is here, with Grace. I can only hope they get free safely, before the fear drives them mad.

  Grace stands easy, hands loose, waiting for me. Even with the city screaming for attention, it chills me to look into her face, my face. “I told Dr. Conlin you were probably faking. I said we couldn’t be sure when you last had shots. How did you do it?”

  I ignore her, pulling my shirt over my head, revealing my black scaled armor. I don’t need to hide under my clothes any longer, and I don’t want to give her something she can grab on to. The little scales glimmer in the sun. I unbutton my pants and let them fall to the ground. Down the street, north of me, two ambulances scream past. One of them clips a telephone pole and goes up on two wheels. A helicopter chops by overhead and leaves us in relative silence again.

  “Not gonna tell me?” Grace says.

  “Noah,” I say, kicking aside my boots and pants. “He had vials in his mouth. He must’ve gotten into the cache before you guys caught him.”

  The stretchy armor covers my feet, thin enough to feel the pavement rumble as something explodes in the distance. Behind me, a fireball rises into the sky and dissolves into black smoke.

  “He’s adorable,” Grace says. “So much better than Joshua. I can see why you like him.”

  I wish I had a weapon. Anything. Just because she looks like me doesn’t mean she isn’t better, faster, stronger. She could be all those things. Fighting her could be suicide. Forgetting the gun on top of the parking garage is something I want to be able to laugh about one day.

  Grace steps back, putting her shoulders against the van.

  “I have to fight you now,” I say.

  She looks a little sad, like she doesn’t have a choice. Which I guess she doesn’t. “I know,” she says.

  I run toward her as she falls into a simple stance, feet spaced properly and hands up. Right before we collide, she reaches up and grabs the lip of the van’s roof, curling her legs up and over, flipping into a crouch. I plant my foot on van’s side—running at full speed now—and leap vertically. I kick out while I’m still rising; she blocks my leg with both arms crossed in an X. My feet touch down on the roof, leg tingling from her block; the metal flexes, snaps and pops under our feet.

  On the street next to us, an empty police cruiser rolls by with the doors open. The lights flash but there is no siren.

  I kick Grace again while the cruiser stops against a telephone pole. Grace catches my kick this time and holds on to my leg, then lifts me, swinging me off the van toward the building’s second floor.

  Not good. The second time she’s thrown me in a minute, this time at a brick wall. I brace, eyes squeezed shut against the impending impact—

  I hit one of the broken windows, crash through jagged pieces of glass. The suit protects my body, but the glass slices my face and neck. My shoulder hits the wood first and I skid across the dusty floor. I’ve been skidding a lot lately. I roll to my feet in time to get punched in the chest.

  Which makes me stutter-step backward until my heels hit the bottom of a staircase. The whole place is dusty and dark, the few remaining windows too grimy to let in much light. The broken windows sketch dim yellow patches on the floor, illuminating great clouds of dust motes that swirl as we pass through them. Grace screams, tries to drop an elbow on my face, but I plant my foot on her chest to keep her away. I shove her back and flip onto my stomach, scrambling up the stairs.

  The next floor is darker. Old desks shoved against the wall with filing cabinets piled on top of them. I run. The cuts on my face are bleeding now, but it’s a good pain, hot. Not crippling like blunt force trauma.

  “You can’t win!” she yells after me. “The city is already lost. Let us tattoo you and you won’t even care!”

  Oh, okay.

  Up the final flight of stairs. Grace grabs my leg halfway and tries to pull me down. I kick free and crawl the rest of the way. The door at the top is padlocked, but the lock rusted last century.

  I kick it. The lock and door snap at the same time. Bright sunlight floods the stairway, blinding me for an instant. Grace uses some part of her to hit me squarely on the spine. I go down on one knee, lunge upright, desperate to put space between us. I run for the eastern edge but she trips me. On my knees again, a few feet from the empty space above the street. Another kick; I go down. My hand claws at the edge, but even if I reach it I don’t know what to do. Too high to jump without breaking something.

  I roll over in time for her to land on me. Our faces are inches away and she’s crushing the breath out of me. I try to bring my knee up, but she has me pinned.

  My head is free, so I smash my forehead into her nose. It breaks. Blood flecks my face. She punches me in the mouth and my lips crush. Blood flows between my teeth and on to my tongue. But she’s disoriented. I brace my foot against her, lift her above me, over me, behind me, with every ounce of strength I can muster. Her armored legs pass in front of the sun. I roll onto my stomach, see her flail in open space three stories up. She arcs over the street in a smooth descent. Comes down hard on her side. Her head bounces. She doesn’t move, doesn’t twitch.

  Slowly, I get my feet under me.

  I stand on the lip, hands on my hips, heaving, a little shocked I’ve thrown two people off roofs in the last ten minutes. In the distance, two fighter jets scream low over Lake Erie and pull up into the clouds. Closer, south of my position, a fire truck lies on its side in the street, half on fire. The irony would make me laugh if I could.

  The streets near me are empty; the citizens have fled. If I look east, deeper into downtown, I see people running. Nearby sirens cloak most of the screams. The people seem to be massing, funneling into one giant, insane snake that slithers through the streets.

  I picture the map in my head—Peter is east. But Noah and Joshua are so close, just to the south.

  Grace hasn’t moved, and I’ve wasted enough time. I spit out a mouthful of blood and drag my hand over my throbbing lips. As the adrenaline ebbs, my body decides now is a good time to turn into a giant bruise. To stay loose I run down the stairs to the van, which I allow myself to lean against while I decide which direction to head. It’s a question of who needs my help the most. Some of my hair sticks to my bloodied face, so I gather it up and tie it into a quick ponytail. South, I’ll go south.

  “Miranda.”

  I turn around. Noah stands there, grinning. His outer clothes are gone too, just his black scaled armor shining in the sun. Relief floods through
my veins, cooling my hot blood. Since our reintroduction, I’ve never been so happy to see him.

  “Noah,” I say, moving to him. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes. I squeeze back, letting him take some of my weight. “It’s awful, Noah. How do we stop it?”

  “Where’s Grace? I saw her on the map.”

  “She’s dead.” I kept my vow to kill her before this was over. If only it made me feel better. I’ll never know how much of Grace was the tattoo, and how much was her. During the fight I didn’t even think to try to damage the circuitry in her neck. Maybe I could’ve freed her, turned her to our side. Even as I think it, I know second-guessing my actions will only hurt me right now. She came at me so hard, so fast, there was no opening to destroy the tattoo anyway. Not to mention I’m weaponless.

  I smell something that hasn’t gone away since this began, but the scent of roses is stronger around Noah.

  And growing.

  Noah doesn’t say anything. One of his arms is moving. I try to pull back but he has me tight. “Noah,” I say. He’s fast. I try to jerk out of his arms but he already has the knife in his hand. I see a flash of silver as it goes around my side—

  The knife plunges into my back.

  White pain shoots to the top of my skull, worse than anything I’ve felt so far, and I cry out. He releases me and I stagger back a few steps. I reach back and feel the knife handle. It didn’t go in all the way; the armor only parted so much. My fingers come back with blood.

  “Joshua,” I hiss, remembering the map, his name scribbled on it.

  He smiles at me, a wolf with bared teeth. “Is she really dead? You stupid bitch. Is she really dead?”

  My weak knees threaten to fold. My legs are shaking, liquid. I feel the knife inside me, my blood beating around the blade. But it’s not deep. It’s not too deep.

  “Threw her off the roof,” I say. “Around the corner. Go check.” My voice is weak. The others need me. I have to keep it together. The armor should act as a bandage, like when Peter cut the tracker from my ankle. Unless the knife wedged the material too far apart.