The Veritas Project

by C. F. E. Black

  A breath I’d been holding escapes. We are not all the same.

  “Oh, and Val,” he says, as the doors open again on Level Five. “I started to tell you earlier, but I’m in love with Pru.” He raises a hand then slaps it to his head. “That’s why I’m a code breaker.” He presses his lips together in a flat smile. “Had to tell someone, figured it’d be you, since you’re in the same boat.”

  I gape at him.

  “Come on, Val,” he takes his hand away from his head and motions toward our domus. “Don’t look so scared. Everybody knows.” He laughs. “Yes, especially Marcus. You can’t hide it. We see your mind every week, you know. Firewall or no firewall, it’s obvious.”

  “But I never saw it in you,” I say. “How?”

  “Yeah, so that firewall? I sort of made another one for my head only.”

  He walks ahead of me, leaving me stunned in silence in the hallway. Julius, it turns out, is more of a Code breaker than I ever was.

  In our domus, the lights are out except for the dim bulbs that never darken beside each bedroom. All but two of these bulbs are glowing a faint red. Occupied. Looks like even Pru is nestled in one of these tiny rooms already. Julius and I step up to the two unoccupied rooms, which are right beside each other.

  “I slept in this one the past two nights,” he tells me. “That doesn’t happen often, same room three times in a row.” He smiles like this is some accomplishment then leans over. “It was never going to work,” he whispers. “All my code breaking. I was bound to get caught sooner or later. Might as well help you before they box me into oblivion, right?”

  “Right.” I bite my lip, then force myself to say what I’ve been hiding. “Julius, you know they can actually kill us. If it gets bad enough.”

  He tilts his head and the light from the tiny bulb on the wall makes his red hair look green. He holds this position a moment, then nods once. “No, I didn’t know that. But it makes sense.”

  “How’s that?” I drop my hand from where it was poised above the door handle.

  Julius straightens. “I found some secure files on the server one day a few months back. And, feeling spritely, thought I’d have a look around. I didn’t get far before Yamaguchi showed up and marched me to the box—then, funny enough, recruited me for the bin lab herself. But I saw some files about Order members that had the word ‘transferred’ on them in red.” He purses his lips. “Guess that’s what that meant.”

  “I should have told you.” My gaze falls to my feet. “You should have known what could happen. I’m sorry.”

  He swipes a hand through the air, clearly dismissing something. “Oh, I knew what I was doing, Val. Don’t stress yourself out on my behalf. All we did was save a few thoughts for ourselves. How bad can it be, really?” A shiver runs across his shoulders. “I thought it was pretty fun myself. Flipping the bucket over, or whatever it is people say about buckets.”

  “I think it’s a cart actually.”

  “Whatever. It was fun. So”—he curtseys—“thank you.”

  Laughing feels good. “You’re crazy, you know that? And thank you for all of this.”

  Nine

  Before I even reach the fifth floor the next morning, I feel uneasy. My usual Saturday morning trip to the lab was completely useless today, with my brain coursing through the possibilities of what will happen when Julius and I are caught and punished—and why it hasn’t happened yet. But as I push open the door to our floor, the sound of feet slapping the tile in bursts chills my blood. A disturbing sound. Something has happened.

  As soon as the door to the stairwell clicks shut behind me, four of our Order members sprint by. They’re heading toward our domus, and just as I open my mouth to question why, I hear it. The sickening wail of a man.

  It’s Julius. I know it is.

  My feet start running, too. He got cooked! And just because of me. I did this to him! Julius the crowd pleaser, the joker, the one everybody likes. The genius hacker who’d finally gotten caught. Would they discover everything now? Are they coming for me now, too?

  Please, no.

  Sweat starts at the base of my neck. He’ll be all right. But as I catch up to the other Order members, anger gurgles in my throat. The Director. He’s the reason Julius is getting the fear of science racked into his brain right now. I shudder, wondering how long they had him under. Our full-Order streams are fifteen minutes. Anything over that escalates into torture. An hour leaves our brains like cooked meat. Half a day, charcoal. Our brains can only take so much before they get overwhelmed, overdone, fried. What fifteen other people are thinking, as they think it, all at once, into one brain: the brain in the box.

  Someone ahead of me whimpers. They’ve seen Julius. My breath quickens automatically as I approach our domus door, which is open now as our Order filters in. Word spreads quickly here, and everyone is coming to see.

  The dimmed light spilling across the ceiling always makes this room feel more comfortable than the rest of the Center, just like they planned. The soft, white furniture, the clean, crisp feeling of the always-laundered towels, the scent of lavender and lemon. None of it serves its purpose of comforting me as my eyes find Julius. He’s sprawled on the white couch, his pale skin whiter than I’ve seen it. His eyes are open, but ringed in bluish circles that spell exhaustion and the memory of recent tears.

  His regulation black shirt lies beside him on the floor. Red, raised lines run from his neck to his navel. A few drops of blood ooze out of the scratches in places. As his eyes rake absently around the room, a fit seizes him and he starts tearing at his chest, scooping bits of skin under his fingernails as he squirms and flicks and jerks.

  “Julius!” Flavius is beside him, grabbing Julius’ hands and trapping them so he can’t hurt himself anymore. “Julius, look at me!” Flavius’ face is red; even underneath his blond hair I can see the flush coming through. “Julius. It’s over.”

  My mouth hangs open, but I am not the only one in dismay. Maxima stands rigid, fear blanching her face. Several others have entered the room now, silent. Julius has never gotten the box like this before. A few wrist-slap trips to the box, but not this.

  Julius struggles against his captor a moment, then seems to awaken. His blank eyes find Flavius. He sputters a few breaths, then looks down at his chest and cringes. Flavius helps him sit up.

  “Which one am I?” Julius asks, looking fearfully around at those of us gathered.

  “You’re Julius V,” Flavius says.

  “Let him alone.” Pru’s stony voice edges in from the doorway. Her arms are crossed and her mouth flat.

  Flavius whips an angry glare at her. “He’s been boxed. Can’t remember who he is. It’ll come. Just give him a minute.”

  “Leave him,” Pru demands. “Each time one of us gets the box, it affects us all. Let him suffer. Maybe then he won’t do whatever it was again.” She spears me with her gaze then spins on her heel and disappears.

  Her harsh words and dying footsteps fill the room for a moment as the rest of us consider the truth behind what she just said. Slowly, Flavius gets up, pats Julius once on the shoulder, and leaves. With him, the rest of our Order begins to trickle back out of the room.

  Julius watches us go, his eyes widening. “Which one?” he shouts as Marinus and Maxima leave.

  He starts rocking back and forth on the couch, his breaths coming faster. Now it is only Marcus and me remaining.

  “Help me!” Julius screams, a look of horror on his face. “A mirror, please!”

  I glance at Marcus. We both know a mirror is often the worst thing for a person who’s just come out of the box. When it’s hard to remember your identity, a mirror can be the most disorienting thing—not knowing that the face looking back is your own.

  Julius gets up, clearly searching for the nearest mirror. He’s still too unsteady to get far without toppling over. Marcus is there to catch him.

  “A mirror!” Julius croaks.

  “How long were you under, Julius?
” I ask, helping sit him back on the couch.

  He stares at me. “Who is Julius? Which one is he?”

  “He’s got red hair. Freckles,” Marcus adds kindly.

  Julius starts shaking his head violently and attempting to claw at his chest again. Marcus pins his wrists in one hand.

  “It really messed him up,” I say over Julius’ struggling limbs. Though I am afraid for him, the creeping fears of what they will do to me surpass my concern for my friend, drowning out even my own guilt at my selfishness. A crushing feeling weighs on my lungs, causing my own breaths to quicken.

  Marcus nods, keeping his eyes on Julius.

  “Let’s get him to a mirror,” he says finally. “Help me get him up.”

  “You think it’s all right?”

  “Mirror! What does Julius look like?” He sounds like a madman, but his words make sense to me.. Only a few days ago I was in the same boat. My simul-streams with Marcus were the easiest way to come back to reality. I saw myself from Marcus’ point of view and that always worked. I knew who V was because he defined her for me.

  Suddenly, I drop Julius’ arm and nearly topple over backwards.

  You are sharing too much of your identities with each other. The Director’s words stampede into my mind.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?” Marcus steadies Julius and eyes me warily.

  “Nothing,” I say, utterly terrified at what I just remembered. “Come on, Julius. There’s a mirror over here. You’re the one with the freckles and red hair, all right? You’re a boy, and you’re name is Julius.” It’s always good to repeat the person’s name as often as possible. And I’ve found it’s helped me in the past to remind me I’m a girl because that narrows it down by half.

  We take Julius to the mirror in our domus bathroom, the men’s side. Once he’s stable and he’s convinced us he won’t hurt himself anymore, we leave him there to find himself again in his reflection.

  I say nothing, but inside I’m hoping, begging, screaming for him to be all right. Because whatever happens to him is my fault. At least they didn’t delete him. Not yet, anyway.

  As I walk slowly down the white halls, going nowhere but away from Julius, a refrain repeats in my head: It was worth it, it was worth it, it was worth it.

  Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll believe it.

  My screens are up and I’m dancing in a cocoon of nucleotides when Crecentia clomps up to me, smug disapproval painted into her smile.

  “I’d like to see your progress,” she barks, startling me, as I scroll through my data in the lab. I’ve been at it for a few hours, nervous and forgetful and fidgety ever since I left Julius, wondering why they haven’t come for me yet. Surely they saw me in his memories when they boxed him …

  They know. They’ve sent Ugly here to bring me in. My fear twists my thoughts into defensive mode.

  “Just looking back at my previous combination. I put it in the simulator, and it will divide just fine, but the RNA just isn’t responding the way I want it to.” I point to an animated cell, which contains a simulated version of DNA programmed to accept the epi-tag sequence I created for eternally young skin. This intelligent program is unmatched in its ability to predict the usefulness of altered genetic code.

  Crecentia tilts her head as she watches the animation. “Let me see the end.”

  I tap on a scrolling bar, sending it to the end of the screen, fast-forwarding to the end of the cells’ reproductive life. The simulator essentially tests what will happen to the cells after a lifetime of dividing in a human.

  “See, here,” I indicate with my finger, “is the part of the gene that gets silenced. You can tell it’s still not staying active because look at this.” I pinch my fingers in a few times, zooming out until the simulated human’s hand is visible. Wrinkles abound on the veiny hand.

  “Hmm.”

  A nasty sound, and she turns to go. She doesn’t say anything about my breaking Codex, though. I wonder why? Looking again at my research, my heart pounds with worry. I can’t have long before they come for me. I need to do something to stack the cards in my favor, if that is at all possible.

  “Wait. I have one more hypo I was about to try.”

  Crecentia checks her wristband. “We’ve got seven minutes before dinner. I’m going to pack up.” She pivots and walks back to her lab station.

  One more hypo before I go. I have had it planned, but it’s taken some pretty thorough pretests to make sure the chemical sequence won’t alter anything on the chromosome but what I want it to. I haven’t quite finished these pretests, actually, but I’m desperate at this point. I pull to the forefront a file I’ve been adding to, and I realize that what I’m doing is childish. I’m trying to show off a drawing, like we did as children.

  Still. My fingers know the route to the simulator. Plink! The simulator glows a faint orange when it is calculating, or chewing, as I like to imagine, on my new chemical tag. I tell the computer to save my work and start closing down the items I don’t need anymore: lists of available chemical compounds and the possible permutations that will affect this particular section of the chromosome, previous failed combinations, and endless shorthand notes on what each base pair relates to on this microscopic section of DNA along with all the links to the research I’ve done and collected on the triggers of the epigenome. So much time and human endeavor is represented in the boxes I’m closing out of one by one.

  I’m poised to swipe the whole t-screen dormant, waiting for the error message.

  “Combination Accepted.”

  What?

  A green box glows around the edges of the simulator screen. I blink a few times. Lean in closer. Read it again. Accepted? Warmth sprouts all over my body; my feet begin to dance up and down, up and down. Then I’m shouting.

  “Crecentia!” I’d so much rather share this moment with someone else, but my smile cannot be contained. Where is she? I browse the room, waiting, calling.

  My lead emerges from one of the freezers at the back of the laboratory. “Valeria? What is it?” She makes her way to me, looking slightly vexed that I had the gall to call her back over.

  “It worked! Look!” Like a child, I point at the glowing green box on the only active part of my t-screen. The words still blink in and out, exclaiming my victory.

  I watch her, exuberant.

  Crecentia remains silent, approaches the screen, scrutinizes the words as if they might say something different if she looks closer. Ha! I beat you, as I knew I would. I want to say this out loud, or some version of it, when she spins around, mouth flat, eyes wide.

  “Well done, Valeria. I will review your work this evening and, if it appears a legitimate success, we will both submit the finding for review by the laboratory board. Congratulations.” This last word slips out between drops of venom.

  Ten

  The tension in the streaming pod sticks to the back of my throat as I breathe. Sunday has arrived, and with it, my last moments before getting caught. The chair is cold, the green light eerie. The pod technician, a lanky member of our domus staff, types in the full-Order stream sequence in the t-screen shining in the center of the circle of chairs. Here we go. All will be exposed. My code-breaking and my breakthrough. Will the one cancel out the other?

  It starts immediately.

  My body jerks, refusing, as it always does, the onslaught of fifteen other minds. Screams from several Order members accompany the beginning of this session. I haven’t screamed in years, but I still occasionally throw up afterwards.

  Flashes of light precede the memories, then the light settles into images, soundless words, and subtle emotional pulls. Excitement about Laelia’s progress in the animal lab, frustration at a patient in Romulus’ hospital ward, and anger—no, self-loathing?—in Marinus as he reacts to an ugly look he gets from someone who might be me.

  When the confusion subsides and I come back to myself, I realize with a gut-crumpling clarity that within the pool of memories shared tonight was the scene of J
ulius and me at Pru’s workstation. What’s odd is that none of my memories of interrupting my sensors were there. Nor Julius’ memories of it. I do remember seeing us fleeing up the stairs, but that is innocent enough.

  I look over at Julius, a few chairs away. He’s raking his fingers back and forth over the crown of his head. When he notices me, he drags his hands down his face, then manages a half smile that looks almost rugged on his pale, freckled face. Confidence is stitched into the crooked tilt of this smile.

  The firewall! The screens surrounding us when Julius cut off my sensors’ signal. That must be what prevented that memory from reaching this stream. He said he could firewall his thoughts; maybe, somehow, he firewalled mine while we were in his lab station.

  I stare at him as everyone around me begins to stand up. He is so much more of a genius than I ever realized. Soon, I’m the last one still sitting and I scramble up, grateful that my blood-red face is masked by the green light of the streaming pod.

  “Much is expected,” I mutter, completely unaware that the first half of our mantra was even spoken aloud. Nearby, Pru shoots daggers at me with her pointed glare, annoyed that she was implicated in our rebellious memories, or perhaps simply that our rebellion was not fully displayed.

  No wonder Julius felt so confident we’d be okay. He’d found a way to cover our tracks.

  But Pru!

  He had no way of firewalling her thoughts from this stream. Because of her, we’re exposed! The Director will read my thoughts tonight, and he’ll see something missing.

  All it will take is a check back through Pru’s memories to see Julius and I were up to no good. Pru knew what we were doing, and so the Director will know, regardless of the erased evidence.

  As we file out of the pod, Marcus weaves his way up the line so that he’s right behind me.

  “I couldn’t see whatever you did, but I’m sure he will. And when he does, you’re gone. I hope you are happy with your choice.”