It lasts forever.
When I open my eyes, my forehead throbs. And I am lost.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sunday Evening: Present
“I’m okay.” I put my hands on Cole’s arms and push them off me. “I’m okay. Just…”
Just nothing. I am so not okay I’m not even in the same galaxy as okay. And now I’ve made things worse.
Oh, Kyle. What have I done? My eyes burn with repressed tears. I need to hold it together, for my sake and his.
Shakily, I climb to my feet. Cole hovers around me like he’s afraid I’ll fall over. Maybe I will. Then my malfunction will be complete. All I need is some steam to pour out my ears and electrical sparks to zap through my eyes.
Jordan presses a hand against my forehead. “What happened?”
“I’m not feverish. What are you doing?”
“The question is: what were you doing?”
Five pairs of eyes stare at me, and that doesn’t include the guards’. I’m sure they’re staring too, but I’m looking down the barrels of their guns, not at their eyes. The gun barrels are black and cold. Soulless. Just like Kyle’s shark eyes.
I shrug. “You know computers always die at the worst possible moment. Apparently mine’s included.”
“Your computer?” Cole says.
I tap my head. “You know.”
He gives me a wry look. “Are you calm?”
“Yeah.” What a joke.
“Good.” The way Cole says it, it obviously isn’t. “Malone wants to see you.”
I half-expect that pronouncement will be followed by those guards binding my arms and telling me to “move” at gunpoint, but it isn’t. Malone and his goons can’t read my brain without plugging me in. He doesn’t know what I discovered. All anyone can tell is that I became hysterical. That’s bad, and Malone will want to know why, but it doesn’t make me a threat. It merely makes me unstable.
Must focus. Must stabilize. Must not give Malone any more reason to wipe my brain this very night.
I’m careful not to react outwardly, but I feel as though a metal rod shoots through my spine. A titanium backbone—that’s what I need. My chin is up, my shoulders back, my hands relaxed. The rod keeps everything in place, including my brain. If Malone is in his office, it’ll take approximately two minutes to get there. One-hundred-twenty seconds to settle on an explanation. One chance to pull it off.
But hey, this is what he trained me for. My shock has passed. There will be no more screwups tonight.
“All right.” I fix my ponytail and breeze past the guards. “Sorry about that, by the way. Been a rough couple days.”
One of them whispers a rude name at me that he doesn’t think I hear.
I walk slowly but purposefully so it doesn’t appear that I’m stalling as I concoct my scheme. The best lies are grounded in reality—four-hundred-ninety-four variations on this theme over the course of my life. It must be true, too, because Malone relies on the principle.
Kyle and Malone’s number two are gone when I enter the building. Malone’s assistant is also gone, and the security guard escorts me up a flight of stairs instead of the elevator. He knocks once on Malone’s door.
The butterflies in my stomach are calm as they prepare for World War III, but my adrenaline levels surge. Planning is nerve-racking. Performing is not. I think back to how I was a paranoid mess in South Station yesterday until I saw Malone’s men. Once I began running, the calm overtook me. It’s Fitzpatrick’s doing. I owe her a lot for my training.
I also owe her a punch in the face for it. That will come later. Even if Malone destroys Sophia, Seven will manage it one day.
“Come in,” Malone says as the door opens. He gives me a thoughtful look, and I attempt to appear meek and ashamed. He signals to the guard. “You can go.”
“Sir, I’m really sorry—”
Malone cuts me off with a gesture. “Sit.” While I do, the electric kettle starts to boil, and he sets two cups on the table. “Some chamomile, I think, to help you calm down.”
“Thanks.” I watch him closely as he scoops the tea into a strainer. I don’t intend to drink any of it in case he slips something else in there with it.
“I understand you’re upset about Kyle,” Malone says, pouring the water.
“Yes, sir.”
He hands me a teacup. “You were friendly with him.”
“Yes, sir. It was a shock seeing him bloody like that, but I don’t know what I was thinking outside. I’m sorry. These last couple days—”
“Have been very trying for you, I understand. Believe me. You might be one of our greatest creations, Seven, but you’re also partially human. I know.” Malone sits with a sigh. “I’m afraid Kyle didn’t trust my men. Apparently, he’d seen them yesterday with you, and you put a bad association in his mind.”
I clear my throat. “It’s true. Kyle was with me yesterday morning. When I came to, I was afraid something bad was going to happen, but I didn’t know what. The paranoia was so strong, and I thought the terrorist group was coming after both of us. When I saw those men, I ran and made Kyle run with me.”
Malone sips his tea, nodding. “That certainly fits with what my men told me yesterday. They also told me you denied knowing him.”
“I thought I was protecting him.”
“I see.” He doesn’t entirely believe me, but he wants to.
Lie bigger. Take control of the story.
“So Kyle put up a fight when your men came looking for him?” I groan. “It’s all my fault he’s hurt.”
“I’m afraid that yes, he fought and ran. He tried to jump out of a moving car, I understand. That’s how he banged his face up.”
I believe that. It’s probably the most truthful thing Malone’s said so far. Poor Kyle. Poor, brave Kyle. I’m proud he put up a fight. But my secret pleasure over that only increases the sickness in my gut. My whole face burns with the threat of tears, but I hold them in. The thought of Kyle locked up somewhere, believing I betrayed him and waiting to die, is like some mental ice water. It’s painful, but it’s all I have to keep myself from losing it.
“It is unfortunate that you scared him yesterday,” Malone continues. “But on the other hand, we figured he might be unwilling to trust us at first, so it’s not surprising.”
I pretend to drink some tea. “Is he okay now?”
“Physically, he’s fine. His body healed on the drive down. It’s truly amazing. His mother—God rest her soul—was a genius. Kyle holds the key to immortality, and he’ll understand that one day. But emotionally?” Malone presses his hands together, feigning distress. “We’re going to have to win his trust, but I’m confident we will once we explain everything. At the moment, we gave him a sedative so he could rest. I think it would be wise for you to be present tomorrow morning when we talk to him.”
It would be wise, but the offer is a lie. “Thank you. I think so too.”
“Good. How are your memories, by the way?”
Excellent, which is a problem. Time for another lie. “Coming along. They’ve started returning in chronological order. I’m all accounted for up until age ten.”
In other words, Malone can’t yet ask me about how the tracker was removed.
He rubs his chin. “Chronologically now? How unexpected.”
Indeed. “I think once I stopped concentrating on finishing my mission, everything fell into place.”
“That is something. We’ll run some more scans on you tomorrow. I’d like to get as much information as possible about what happened in case it happens again, to you or to someone else. We might even be able to prevent it.”
I stand, following his lead. “That would be good. I don’t ever want to go through this again.”
Malone smiles, but his eyes are cold. I’m seeing shark eyes everywhere tonight. But w
ith Malone, it’s a fitting comparison. “I imagine not. Good night, Seven.”
“Good night.”
I hear him reach for his phone as I leave, but I don’t turn around. It’s hard to say which of us lied more in that conversation, and that satisfies me. We’re on even ground now.
Outside his office, I bend down and fiddle with the lace on my boot. Malone’s door is thick, but I chose my position carefully to keep my ear close.
“We need to move up Chen’s transfer,” Malone is saying to someone. “First thing tomorrow morning. The mission had a profoundly negative effect on HY1-Seven’s stability. It’s the same problem that always plagued us with the entire HY1 line. They’re too emotional for extended assignments.”
He pauses while the other person speaks. My trembling fingers slip on my lace, and I stab myself with my nail. Malone lied, nothing I didn’t know. But tomorrow morning is too soon for what I’m considering. I need more time. Shit.
“After Chen is gone, I want her brought down to the lab,” Malone says, then another pause follows. “I still don’t know how her tracker was removed, but we can try pulling that from her implants tomorrow. Then I want all memories of this mission erased from her brain.”
My breath sticks in my throat, but I manage to keep my face composed for the security camera that watches me. Then, swallowing, I finish tying my lace and hurry away.
It’s seven thirty p.m. I don’t know exactly what “first thing tomorrow morning” means, but I’d bet I have less than twelve hours to figure out how to fix this.
I am HY1-Seven. I am Sophia. I am a soldier, a spy, one of the good guys. And I am not about to let Malone destroy that.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sunday Night: Present
I need to get away, to think, but there’s nowhere private. Wandering around the camp isn’t simply off-limits at this time of night, it’s stupid. Just because Malone’s planning on wiping my memories tomorrow doesn’t mean I’m not going to be observed closely. He must think I’m no threat, or I’d have been locked up.
I intend to prove him wrong.
Of course, that’s great and all, but I haven’t figured out how. The only thing I have going for me is that Malone doesn’t know that I know what I know. Even thinking it gives me a headache.
I rest my head in my hands and meticulously review every scrap of information I have on the camp’s security. It’s not much. Though we’ve studied various types of security systems and protocols, our own have never been used as examples even though you’d think they would be held up as good models. But I understand why—we’re RedZone’s property. You don’t give the slaves the keys to their escape. Especially not when you’re training the slaves to be escape artists.
Once I’ve exhausted that line of thought, I go over the technical details of every similar type of mission we’ve studied. In the end, the only conclusion I can draw is that I’m screwed.
The bathroom door opens. “Soph?”
Bracing myself, I leave the stall. “Sure you should call me that in here?”
Jordan leans on the edge of the sinks with a worried smile. “We determined the bathrooms are the one place in our quarters that don’t have monitoring equipment.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I’d have taken longer showers all these years if I hadn’t thought I was being watched.”
“Tell me about it. You know what this means?”
I eye her warily. “What?”
“You can talk to me in here. Talk honestly.”
Honestly. There’s a word I haven’t had much use for lately.
I fidget with my jacket. If I told Jordan even half of what I’m contemplating, I’d be putting her in an awkward position. She’s either going to have to cover her ass by ratting on me, or, quite possibly, she’s going to want to risk her ass by helping.
It’s way too risky to allow her to be involved. No one else is getting hurt because of me.
“Don’t do that,” she says.
“What?”
Jordan crosses her arms. “You’re shutting up and locking down. Preparing to run out of here—I can tell. But forget it. I will fight you if I have to. You’re not leaving until you tell me what happened after dinner. You made it easy for me to corner you in here. Make the rest easy too.”
“Yeah, okay.” I hold my hands up in mock surrender then bolt.
She’s on me immediately and closer to the door. A shoulder into my side knocks me off course. I recover, grab her arm, and she twists free. We grapple for the door handle, fairly well-matched, our boot soles squeaking against the tile.
But my heart’s not in it. Part of me needs to share what I’ve learned, and part of me thinks Jordan deserves the truth. Also, neither of us seriously wants to hurt the other.
When Jordan gets a lock around my torso, I sag into her. “Yield?” she asks.
“Yes.”
She releases me, and I lower my head to her shoulder. “Soph, please. Talk to me. We’re family, remember?”
I sniff, feeling gross. Being on the outside has made me soft. This is one Sophia trait I could do without. “I remember everything.”
“Isn’t that good?”
“It’s supposed to be, isn’t it? I thought I’d remember and all would be good, but really, I remember and all is very bad.” A chill taps its way down my back like fingers over a keyboard. I hoist myself up onto the sinks, and Jordan sits next to me.
“How bad?”
“Really bad. All yesterday morning I was worried because I believed bad people were coming for me. But I was the bad people; I just didn’t remember. Funny, isn’t it? In a screwed-up way, I mean.”
She chews on her thumbnail. “You’re not a bad person. Now do me a favor and start at the beginning.”
“Right.” If I’m going to involve her in this, if I’m going to raise hell and raze the camp—I wish—I might as well do it properly. So I tell Jordan about my mission, everything Malone shared with me. I tell her about RTC and falling for Kyle and seeing the story on the news about the bio bomb.
I tell her about how I began to research it, and how I discovered Dr. Wilson—our Dr. Wilson—was a suspected criminal with ties to an international syndicate known as The Four. I tell her how the CIA’s files on The Four are all classified, but once I began picking out keywords and names, I could start putting things together.
I tell her The Four is involved in all sort of arms deals; the buying and selling of political secrets; and the research, development and sale of high-tech and neurological weapons. They have suspected ties to all kinds of bioengineering companies like Promethean 3. And they have four operational directors, one of whom is named George Malone, AKA Reid Harris. Reid, not read, like my screwed-up memories kept telling me earlier.
I wait for Jordan to say something, but I think I overloaded her circuits. She gapes at the floor, expressionless. I back away from the heaviest info and take a new tactic. “Wilson was part of the team Malone used to break into a genetic engineering lab over the summer and steal blueprints for creating targeted viruses. It was called Project Pinpoint. Malone sold the information to terrorists, and they used the weapon in New York. Wilson died in an attempt by the CIA to break up the sale.”
Jordan closes her eyes. “Oh…oh…oh, hell.”
“Wow. If I left you speechless, maybe I can do the impossible and escape too.”
She regresses to gnawing on her thumb again. “Escape? Back up a minute. You’re telling me you found out all this. Then what? Did you already know about Kyle?”
“No.” I hop down from the sink, hold my hands under the faucet and drink some water. I’ve done way too much talking, and I haven’t told her half. If I leave now, though, I might lose the opportunity. It’s only luck that’s kept others out of the bathroom for so long, and luck is not something I seem to have a large supply of.
And when I told Malone I thought Kyle was in danger—what of that? That phantom enemy was me. No one else. Does Malone suspect I discovered anything?
I have to believe not or I’d be in a cell like Kyle. It’s easy to see enemies where there are none—fifty-one variations on this theme have warned us against paranoia in the field. It’s what blinded me at RTC, why I jumped to the conclusion that Kyle was my enemy instead of my objective.
I hope Malone assumes my anxiety got the best of me, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. I have to get out of here before Malone erases my memories. Before he erases the Sophia from me—all she knows, all she’s experienced, all she loves, all she believes.
All she remembers. All the guilt she feels. The AnChlor, the men I killed. How many of them were innocent people The Four wanted dead for some reason? Maybe some were criminals, but I’m not sure I want to know. I wasn’t saving the world; I was ruining it. Destroying it like Malone intends to destroy me.
Get a grip. I feel like my brain is on overdrive. Tempting as it is to have those memories removed, I can’t indulge that sort of weakness. I have to remember, because if I don’t, I can’t atone for what I’ve done.
Thumb chewing aside, Jordan is taking all this very calmly, which is kind of scary. “So then what?”
“Then what—after I found out about Malone, there was no way I was turning X over to him. I figured with enough money I could disappear. I’d let X decide what he or she wanted to do, go into Witness Protection or something. That was the extent of my planning as of two days ago. But I did get my hands on money in case we needed it.”
Jordan stops swinging her legs. “You have money? Where did you get it?”
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