I reach inside my pocket, withdraw the coin without looking at it. “I have brought with me a few of our ideas on ways to improve the Center—I mean the image of the Center.” I have to catch myself before I sound too suspicious. I am a stranger who works for the HFH, not V working as Abel Ebner’s personal messenger. She cannot know this until after I’m gone, when she reads the files.
She eyes me with curiosity. Is that recognition? Is it my voice? I’m trying to temper my words, to give them a slower cadence, a deeper pitch while I’m in here with her. She knows me too well. Perhaps in my excitement, I lapsed. She nods.
Relieved, I set the coin on the desk, slide it toward her. “Here are our ideas. I know you are a busy woman, and I did not expect to receive but a moment of your time, so I loaded all pertinent information onto this.” I lift my hand, the coin’s identifying letters face down. Perhaps she won’t look too closely at it now.
“Thank you.” She pulls the coin closer but leaves it on the desk. “I will peruse these when I have the time.” She stands. “If you are amenable, let’s continue our conversation as we finish the tour?”
“Of course.”
I follow her all the way back out to the employee elevators. She taps the button, and we wait.
“I believe you wanted to see the gardens?” she asks. “They are a feat of engineering genius. I think the world would love to know more about our gardens. We give the children and older Order members free time in the gardens every month—time in nature is so important for growing minds! But I aim to increase that time.”
“And perhaps let the children outside?” I can’t retract my words, but I reel in my leaping eyebrows. I had not intended to say it with such disdain.
Yamaguchi remains firm, the authority in this duo. “Eventually, yes. The outings to the mall are not as peaceful as we’d like. To let our children explore the real outdoors will require a greater reassurance from your organization that the world will not hurt them.”
I have no response to this, so I offer a noncommittal grunt. The elevator arrives with a ding. Yamaguchi taps a number, but when she turns to me, her body obscures the panel.
“I was expecting you today.” Her face beams a bright smile.
I’m somewhat confused.
“I know who you are.” She mouths my name, Valeria, and I sputter into a coughing fit. “Nothing to be afraid of. Abel said he’d send me what I needed. He hoped you’d find a way to do it. Every means of communication in and out of here is watched by the Senate, which, as you may know, is now, after a reshuffling of some of the staff, headed up by Mr. Crowne.”
Shocked, I say, “He’ll ruin them.” I mean the Order members. I nearly said us.
Yamaguchi presses her lips together. “I will not let that happen. But it won’t be easy. I’m hoping what you left in my office will prove helpful.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “And I’m sorry, dear, for what happened. For what happened to Abel.”
Does she know? It is strange to be talking with her like this. Like old friends. Like colleagues. Did Abel tell her about me? I don’t suppose it matters.
“When you left and the other Valeria took over…” She shakes her head.
A shiver flickers down my frame. “She’s the old me.” It makes my skin crawl, but saying it out loud will help me adjust to what that statement means: it means my Order has forgotten me. He has forgotten me.
“Yes. She was brought in soon after you left. Looks a little like you, oddly enough, once they shaved her blond hair. Abel didn’t have the opportunity to oversee her memory modification like he did with the other transfers we’ve had during his time here. He was too busy looking for you, I believe.”
Does that mean he hasn’t helped Marcus avoid memory modification either?
The elevator dings. I glance at the panel, but Yamaguchi’s body is poised ready to exit, and I still can’t see the number. As soon as the doors open, though, I realize where she’s brought me and my heart flips.
The numbers on the wall confirm it; she’s brought me to the roof. Is he here?
As if reading my thoughts, she nods.
One look at the woman beside me and I know she will save this place.
“Valeria, I’m not guaranteeing anything. He’s been through the treatments like everyone else. With my new duties as Director, I haven’t been able to handle this batch of memory modification, so I have no way of knowing if the treatments worked on him.” She clasps her hands, almost apologetic. “He’s out there.” Her weak smile is all I need as a cue to go.
Nearly panting, I push open the heavy door to the roof.
Twenty feet away, Marcus stands by the edge, hands in his pockets. At the sound of the door banging shut behind me, he whips his head around and stares at me with brow furrowed.
I am undone. I can see in his confused expression that he doesn’t know me. I take a few steps, my heart aching like it might split. My disguise! Of course! Forgetting any risk, I rip off my wig and pull the eyebrows off my face, use the hem of my shirt to smear off my makeup, which would be foreign to him. His eyes—oh, those beautiful blue eyes!—crawl down and back up my body, searching for familiarity. Please, Marcus! Remember!
My voice is not cooperating, so I step closer.
He squints at me, tilting his head a few times. Is that recognition? I open my mouth to say something, but only a croak emerges.
“You’re Valeria, aren’t you?” he asks suddenly.
Explosion! He does know me! But what an odd question to ask if he truly remembers …
Hot tears brew behind my eyes. “Yes.”
“I keep having brain flashes about you. In them, I know you are Valeria V, but then when I come out of the brain flash, you aren’t the same Valeria V that’s been in our Order our entire lives. How do I know you?”
Blessed brain flashes! They’ve kept me with him. I let the tears capsize onto my cheeks.
“What’s the matter?”
I want to reach out, but I don’t. Touch will only freak him out more. I was like that before I left the Center. Remembering my last time up here, I walk over to the edge, trying to recall just how I felt that day, with Marcus beside me. The tears combine with a few chokes of laughter.
“Are you sick? Should we get you inside?”
“No … no.” I look back at him, tears flowing.
“I’ve upset you. I can see that.” He moves up to the edge beside me. “I used to know you. I see you often enough in my head. How do I know you?”
A half smile curls my lips. I can’t tell him that I’m the real Valeria V; it won’t do any good unless he remembers on his own. And then I think of what Pru said the last time I was on a rooftop. She’d told me they can’t really erase memories; they just bury them under so much other information that you eventually forget what you used to know. But it’s still there somewhere, so I dig for it.
“Did you grow up here?” I ask, trying to jog his memory. Before I’d left, he’d always been able to remember that he didn’t come from the Center. I want to see if they’ve taken all that, too.
He watches me like I’m a stranger, and my insides ache. But as he considers my question, I realize that even if he remembers the V he knew, she’s not the V who’s standing here now. I don’t need him to define me anymore, and the freedom of that helps fight back against the pain of losing him. Being a stranger to Marcus is the price I have to pay for knowing myself.
His jaw flexes. “They keep telling me I grew up here, but I know I didn’t. I don’t really remember ever being anywhere else, but I know I wasn’t always here. I have this one memory that always reminds me I’m not from here. They can’t get it.”
A flash of him sitting on the couch, before the woman in navy scrubs came in. He never told me what that memory was.
“What is it?”
His eyes narrow. “A man named Abel Ebner. He was our old Director. But in my memory, he wasn’t called that. I just knew him as … well, as a friend.” My heart pounds. �
�And there’s just this one conversation I remember with him. He told me he had big plans for me.” He blinks, his eyebrows loosen. “And that’s it.”
There is so much to tell him!
He continues, “Did I know you back then, before I came here?”
“No, Marcus, we knew each other recently. Here. Do you remember?”
He scowls, but somehow still looks unthinkably handsome. “I feel like you and I … You are so familiar to me.” He seems so strained, so confused. He looks out at the distant city, hands slipping again into his pockets. “They’ve been running so many sims on me. I’ve been excluded from full-Order streams for a while, till they can get my head right. Said I needed some mental remediation, like I’m getting stupider or something. But I think it’s because I know—or knew—something they don’t like.” He turns, his blue eyes boring into me now. “Is it you?”
“Marcus.” I just want to say his name again, hoping it will bring him back. “We used to stream together; that’s how you have brain flashes from me. Those are my memories you’re seeing. The ones we shared. I get flashes from you, too.”
“It’s all real? All that I see in those flashes? They keep telling me it’s a side effect of the sims.” And in his eyes, a fire I’ve seen once before kindles.
“Yes! What you see in the brain flashes is real.” My insides blaze.
“There’s one brain flash I keep getting, but it’s my own, I know it is. And I see you. I see your face, and I feel in it. I feel like I want to …” He pauses, his strong arms tense up beside me as something jolts through his body. “V,” he whispers, and in his eyes a light dawns and he remembers. “You came back.”
More tears are tickling my cheeks, my neck. I nod, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
Before I know it, before I even think of doing it, I laugh, pulling his fuzzy head into my hands and kissing the top of it, letting my tears rub off on him. When he looks up, his face only inches from mine, I know more than anything else that I love him. I’ve always loved him. And I’m not afraid of this kind of feeling anymore. I’m not afraid of the Codex or the Senate or Mr. Crowne or being swept away into a collective mind. I’m not afraid of the work ahead, of doing whatever it takes to give Marcus and the others this same freedom.
And I don’t have to worry about being consumed, as I was before, by what I love, because this time, I know exactly who I am. I am Valeria Ebner and I have been given much.
With a smile, I whisper, “Much is expected, indeed.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone who helped make this book a reality, most especially the Lord, who is really the reason for it all.
To my husband, thank you for believing in me from the first time I told you I wanted to be a writer. You helped me pursue my dream. This book is the result of many things, but more than you know, it is a result of your encouragement and support. Thank you to my parents, for all the books you read to me, for it was then that my love of story began. To my sister, your excitement about V fueled me onward. To Rachelle, for greatly improving this book. Also, thank you to my church family, whose prayers have carried me farther than I will ever know this side of eternity.
Thank you to my first readers, especially Aidan and Owen and Emma, for your enthusiasm. And to all my students, you are why I write.
Finally, thank you, Xan, for giving me the idea to write a book and for never doubting.
Soli Deo gloria.
About the Author
C. F. E. Black learned her love of literature from two professor parents and a handful of excellent English teachers. She now pours this love back in to serving young people through teaching and writing books for teens. She lives in North Alabama with her husband, son, and fur-family. Connect with her at www.cfeblack.com.
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