by Cady Vance
“Lucas, is he here?” I ask in a hurried whisper. “Have you seen…”
“Hey, kid sister.”
I freeze, hearing the voice that is the other part of my soul. Slowly, I spin in my slippers to see Odin standing in the doorway, hospital gown swallowing him whole. His eyes are puffy and streaked in red. His hair is flat against his pale forehead. But he’s never looked better to me.
“Odin!” I fly at him, throw my arms around his waist and bury my face in his shoulder. Laughter tickles the back of my throat, and I squeeze him tighter than I’ve ever squeezed anything or anyone before. “I thought you were dead. I couldn’t believe it when the doctor said. I’m so happy I was wrong.”
He pats my head and ruffles my hair before leaning back. “You weren’t wrong, Thora. I was dead. They stopped my heart to get me to cooperate, and then brought me back with Galvanism. Lucas told me all about the treatments.”
“So, they did kill you.” I curl my hands into fists and shake with more anger now that I’m not overwhelmed by grief.
Lucas steps forward. “We’ve puzzled out some things since we got here. The Sleepers were told to stop our bloody heartbeat with that taser if anyone put up a fight. They never meant to kill him in any sort of final way.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Odin says. I blink up at him, so amazed he’s standing before me now. He grins and looks at me as if he can’t believe he’s seeing me either. “After Lucas told me you Collapsed, I was scared as hell you weren’t okay.”
“Lucas made sure I was.”
Florence clears her throat from behind me, and Odin rips his gaze from mine to give her a crooked grin. “I’m guessing you’re Florence, the crazy thief.”
“You’d guess right.” She twirls and bows. “Now, this is a lovely reunion and all—Lucas, glad to see you’re a-ok—but while we do have the Sleepers temporarily engaged in a high speed chase with empty cabs, I think we should get out of here. Like, now. Before they realize those taxis are empty and come back here wondering what the hell happened.”
“I agree,” a new voice says. A familiar voice. Spiders skitter along my skin, all the blood draining from my face, from my arms and from my legs to form a defeated puddle at my feet.
“Aiden.” Lucas’s voice is hard, his eyes now blazing with a new emotion—fury.
“Oh my fucking god,” Florence gasps.
I spin to face Aiden, who is standing in the open doorway, arms crossed over his chest and blocking our way. But even with his tough exterior, there’s a sadness in those endlessly gray eyes I had come to trust.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave this guy behind,” Aiden says, voice just as hard. I wonder who he’s talking about. Odin or Lucas. But when Aiden and Lucas eye each other with testosterone bouncing off every surface of the room, I no longer have to wonder at what he means. “The two of you should have left. It would have worked.”
“What is this?” Lucas asks in a low voice.
“He works here. As a janitor.” Florence’s voice is steel. She glares at Aiden, fists shaking at her side. He won’t even look at her.
“Wait a minute.” Lucas strides forward and points a finger to Aiden’s chest. “You. You’re the janitor? My contact?”
Aiden nods. I can see Lucas fighting the desire to punch the shit out of him.
“I was using you to find out where all the clues would be tonight.”
“I can’t believe it.” Lucas throws up his hands and starts pacing the floor. “No wonder you went bloody mental when I came near. You thought I’d sort out who you are.”
“Everyone’s gone,” I say to Aiden. “You can’t stop the four of us by yourself.”
“No, I doubt four against one leaves much room for question,” Aiden says. “But I’m not the only one here. Some other nurses stayed behind.”
“I can’t believe you pretended to be our friend,” Florence hisses.
Aiden drops his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry. It was wrong. I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I never wanted anything like this to happen, especially…especially not after I got to know you.” He lifts his gaze to boldly meet Florence’s dark and stormy eyes. “That’s why I left.”
“What?” Florence’s mouth drops open, his words the furthest thing from what either of us expected, though I wondered as much when he saw me in the hallway and didn’t raise the alarm. He knew then we were trying to get out of here, and he didn’t stop us. It doesn’t make up for anything, but it’s hard for me to hold onto my anger when I know he regrets what he’s done.
“Some of the doctors didn’t want to send the Field Workers after you. They said the stress would be too much,” he says. “So, they sent me to find some insomniacs and go with them through the trail of clues. To get you guys to trust me and lead me to the Insomniac Cafe.”
“Like a spy?” Florence barks out a bitter laugh. “Well, congrats friend. You were pretty damn convincing.”
“The others,” Aiden continues, “the ones who wanted to use the Field Workers. They found out about our plan and broke into my apartment for a map I made of all the clue stops. That’s why they kept showing up everywhere. They found my research and used it to do things their way.”
“Lovely.” Florence’s voice drips with sarcasm.
“Why didn’t your people want to send the Sleepers after us?” Odin asks. “And why did the others want to? What’s the point of all this?”
Aiden leans against the doorframe, looking away from us. “You’re valuable. You know how much your parents pay to keep up your treatments? And, I don’t know the details, but they’re planning some new program. A way to use your condition to make even more money. Lots of money. Losing just one of you means losing a goldmine.”
“That’s all fine and dandy, but I saw you.” Florence edges closer to him, daring him to meet her fiery gaze. “I saw the metal flakes attach to your skin like they did to ours. It was a test. You passed. You’re one of us. How could you work for them? How could you, Aiden?”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He reaches a hand into a messenger bag I haven’t noticed until now and pulls out a handful of black t-shirts. “You have to go downstairs to get outside. The lobby is crawling with nurses now, and you can’t go down there like this. You need to wear these.” He tosses the first shirt to Lucas, who catches it in a single fluid motion. “Most of them haven’t had a good look at you, so you just have to hope they don’t pay much attention now. Besides, we can use the back entrance.”
“Thora?” Aiden asks, holding the black shirt out to me. I take it from his fingers but don’t give him any hint as to what I’m thinking. I don’t want to forgive him, not yet. He throws the next shirt to Odin with a flick of his wrist.
“And Florence,” he says with a sigh so long and deep, I’m certain now of the real reason he felt he needed to leave us last night. For Florence. To keep her safe. That plan certainly backfired on him. “I really am sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
She snatches the shirt from his fingers and rams it over her head. “Don’t think this fixes things.”
“I figured as much.” He nibbles on a fingernail and then nods his head solemnly as if he’s come to an important decision. “Then, there’s no reason to hide what I am anymore.”
“What you are?” Florence asks, taking a step away from him.
“I’m not an insomniac.” He reaches up to his neck and rubs his shoulders. “I got so upset earlier when you said insomniacs may be robots, because…I’m a machine. An advanced machine.” Florence squints at his back and gasps. Aiden turns to reveal a patch of skin peeled away from his neck, displaying a jumble of wires.
“A machine?” I whisper, heart thumping hard. “How? Why?”
“One of the doctors here—a scientist—created me when they were first developing Galvanism. They used me to get the details right, without experimenting on humans.” He reaches over his shoulder to patch up his neck. “I can�
�t explain it all right now. I just wanted you to know, so maybe you could understand why I did what I did. I belong here, in the end.”
“That’s how you were able to magnetize.” I remember him reaching back and fiddling with his shoulder. At the time, I thought he’d been freaking out like I was.
“I have a switch to turn it on.” He points to his neck. “They put it there so I could pass the test.
I don’t even know what to say. It’s almost more than I can comprehend. And I suddenly feel more sorry for Aiden than I’ve ever felt for myself. Even though he is a machine, he seems as human as we are and just as capable of emotions.
He clears his throat. “Anyway, you need to get out of here.”
“Right,” Lucas says, clearly as bowled over by this information as I am. Florence hasn’t said a word.
“Here.” I toss Lucas his clothes from the cubby hole room. “Change into your jeans so they don’t notice your bare legs.” Fire flames my cheeks. “We’ll, um, wait in the hall. Sorry I don’t have your pants, Odin.”
“He can have mine,” Aiden says, already pulling down his uniform pants. I cough and turn away before he reveals the pair of skinny jeans he was wearing on the streets. He tosses the pants to Odin with a nod.
Florence and I step into the hall with Aiden. He shoves his hands into his pockets and stares at the floor. I don’t know what to say to him. He seems like such a real person, it’s hard to believe he’s powered by hard drives and batteries. Strangely enough, I’m finding his identity pretty easy to accept, like the crazy night has numbed me to the extraordinary.
Lucas steps into the hall, now fully dressed in a black tee and jeans. My thoughts flick back to the first time I saw him inside The Strand, almost exactly how he is now. If only I’d known then what the night would bring, I never would have come this far. And no matter what has happened, I’m glad I went searching for the Cafe. If anything, I’ll always know it’s not my fault that I’m the way I am.
Odin joins us, looking more alive than ever, clad in a black tee and scrubs.
“Let’s go,” Lucas says.
Aiden walks us down the hall and holds the stairwell door open. I keep making small glances at my brother. It’s hard to be tense when he’s here by my side. We reach the first floor, and two nurses stride right by our group. I force myself to keep moving past them like nothing is wrong. I’m certain they’ll notice there’s something off about us, especially Odin’s odd ensemble. Or my slippers. Or Odin’s bare feet.
“Search the streets outside,” Aiden says to us in a raised voice. “Make sure none of them are sneaking around out there.”
“Got it,” Lucas says in a fake American accent before taking the lead down the hall, away from the front lobby. We pass nurse after nurse, and each time I’m sure they’ll see through our flimsy disguises, but they don’t seem to notice we’re here.
Aiden extracts a key ring and unlocks a mid-hallway door. He opens it and motions us into the next stretch of hallway, back doors in sight. I pass under his arm and shoot him a grateful smile, feeling as if I’ve begun to forgive him for his actions. It’s not really his fault after all.
“Thora, wait.” He grabs my arm and holds me back from the others as they rush down the hall and throw open the doorway to our escape.
Suddenly, he jerks, face falling into a blank mask. He steps in behind me, swings the door shut and pokes a bright yellow button on the wall. Smoke billows up from the floor and clenches tight around my nostrils.
I cough. The floor tilts.
And I am falling into gray.
Thirty-Five
The safest place for your child is within our walls.
- The Galvanism Handbook for Parents
My eyes adjust to the bright lights. My throat feels full of roaring fire. I cough and blink, seeing Aiden standing before me with his arms crossed over his chest. The spark of life I’ve seen there all night is gone. He’s a blank slate.
“Aiden?” I croak out, glancing on either side of me to see I’m lying on a bed in a treatment room, the monstrosity machine roaring with life. Aiden must have moved me here when I passed out.
What happened? Where is everyone else?
The neon yellow button. The smoke. The sensation of being sucked into darkness. He used some sort of gas on me. Aiden did. I squeeze my eyes tight, fear pounding my entire body, headache threatening to roar back and consume my skull.
“The doctor should be arriving shortly.” Aiden’s voice is even and monotone. “If you move, I will be forced to send electronic currents into your body which will cause your heart to stop beating. The doctor has stated he refuses to revive you this time if you insist on using unnecessary force against me.”
I take in a sharp breath and notice the taser in his fist. My vision blurs.
“Aiden.”
He won’t even look at me. It’s as if the guy I know has vanished, has been swiped clean. Maybe he really has been. Suddenly, his body shudders, and his face transforms from blank into a strange smiling version of himself. But it still doesn’t look like Aiden at all.
“What’s happening?” I ask, and I hate how my voice comes out a squeak. “Where are my friends?”
“Don’t worry, kiddo.” Aiden moves closer, speaking in an oozing honey tone that sounds eerily familiar. I scramble off the bed to get away from him. “They got out of the Clinic before the gas hit. Our priority was you anyway.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, edging around the stark white walls of the room toward the door that will get me the hell out of here. One robot can’t stop me. “Doctor Clark?”
“Good girl.” He smiles, and it sends shivers of unease down my spine. I press my hand against the wall and take two steps closer to the door. Almost there. “We want to put you at ease as much as possible, and we thought I might be better than that blank Personality.”
“I don’t understand.” One step closer to the door. “Have you been a robot this whole time, too?” Nothing would surprise me at this point.
He laughs. “No, no. I’m just my Personality. We programmed this body to take on a few of the better minds around here in case something like this happened at some point.”
“Something like what?” I glance away from him for only the slightest of seconds to size up the door.
“You might as well sit back down, kiddo. The door is locked.”
Before he can say anything else, I throw myself at the door. My fingers twist around the knob and turn, but I’m met with resistance. Heart thumping hard against my ribcage, I bang on the door as hard as I can. Panic roars through me. It only takes a few hard punches for my hands to burn and throb with pain. The door is steel and strong. I must be in one of those high security rooms Lottie told us about.
I whirl around. “Something like what? Why are you here? What are you going to do to me?”
“If you calm down, all of this will go a lot easier for you,” Aiden-Doctor-Clark says.
“All of what?” I demand.
“You and your friends pulled quite the stunt earlier.” He frowns, something that looks natural on Aiden’s face but doesn’t match the Doctor Clark I know at all. “You have caused us a lot of damage and lost us a lot of money and assets.” I wonder if by assets he means us, insomniacs. “Several of our investors were already threatening to pull their funding and demanding we show them our research progress. Today. After your stunt, it’s even more imperative we show them what we have.”
“Research progress?” I clench my hands into fists at my sides, the word experiment echoing through my brain.
“Unfortunately, you and your friends got rid of our example cases.” His eyes flash with anger, another signal that even though this is Doctor Clark’s Personality, it isn’t really him at all. Or maybe it is, and I’ve never seen the real him underneath his eerie bedside manner mask.
“Lottie?”
“That’s right.” His patronizing smile makes a return, and I find myself backing as far away from hi
m as I can get. “But luckily, we have you. Our secret weapon.”
Every single inch of my body freezes, terror coursing through me at his words. “Secret weapon?”
“Please calm down, kiddo. We really want to make this as easy on you as we can.”
“What are you going to do to me?” It hasn’t taken me long to realize why I’m in this room, why the doctor is on his way, why they have Aiden personalized into Doctor Clark. They are going to perform some sort of experiment on me to show their investors what they can do. And I’ve never been more afraid of that machine squatting in the corner with its wire arms reaching out at me.
“It is time you understand what’s going to happen.” He waves to the machine. “As I know you’ve determined, this machine does more than revitalize you after a Collapse. Or at least it is intended to. You’re the only one we’ve been able to make progress with in that regard.”
“And what regard would that be?” I ask, my voice getting louder and louder with each syllable. “Just get it over with and tell me what the hell you’re about to do to me.”
“Oh, I won’t be doing it,” he says with another patronizing smile. “A real doctor is on his way. Though I’m surprised it’s taking so long.” The smile morphs into that strange frown again. “Regardless, what we’ll be doing is implementing a new Personality into your brain, saving the Thora Green Personality, of course, for when you aren’t being rented.”
The world tilts under my feet. I reach out for the bed, pressing my palm into the hard surface to hold myself steady. The rushing in my ears drowns out everything else, Aiden-Doctor-Clark’s words muted under a cacophony of confusion and fear.
“What?” The word is a whisper of breath on my tongue.
“It’s okay, kiddo.” He’s at my elbow, easing me onto the bed, and for some reason I let him because I am too dazed to put up a fight. What he’s saying cannot be true. No matter what has happened, this is too far. Too much for my brain to handle. “I know it’s a lot to understand right now. It won’t hurt though, I promise. You won’t even really know it’s happened.”
