Until Adrien’s hand brushed against the memory disrupter in my neck.
I froze. My heart sank back down from its floating heights, and I pulled away. All the happiness I’d just been feeling was suddenly sliced through by a horrible, sour ache. I looked sadly into his face. Circumstance was betraying us, and there was nothing we could do to fight it.
“I won’t remember any of this. I won’t remember you.” The cutting loss of the thought felt almost like a physical pain. I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew I’d only just found it—found him—but being with him felt like the single most significant thing that had ever happened to me. It wouldn’t be imprinted on my memory chip, but it seemed too important a thing to be removed so simply, so permanently. Adrian said that our humanity was a precious and unbreakable thing, but how could that be if it could be stolen away with a single piece of hardware? It wasn’t fair!
I tried to bury my thoughts so I wouldn’t lose this moment here with him. I couldn’t think about the future or the past. All I could do was be fully present right now. I reached up a finger to trace his full lips. Tears gathered in my eyes. “You’ll just be another subject in the crowd. I won’t know you. I won’t remember how to do this—” I lifted my lips to his.
He finally pulled away, sounding out of breath. His eyes blazed into mine with an intensity I’d never seen before.
“Listen to me, Zoe,” he said, his hands resting firmly on my shoulders. “We will find each other. I will get your medicine to you. And we’ll escape that shuntin’ place for good this time. I’ll teach you how to kiss all over again. I know it.”
“Because you’ve seen it in a vision?” I asked.
He looked down. “No, not exactly,” he said. “But there are other kinds of faith than the kind I have in my visions. This is too strong, too real. We’ll find it again.”
I hugged him hard, nestling underneath his arms, my ear to his chest, wishing we could stay there forever, that I never had to leave. “You promise?”
“I promise,” he whispered in my ear, holding me tight against his chest and stroking my hair.
We stood there like that for a long time, until he finally pulled away. “I gotta go make some arrangements for us to get back into the city and get my pretend parents—they’re spies for the Rez,” he said in answer to my questioning face, “to call the Academy and say I’m sick right when school opens tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back to the apartment before they come to check me out. The sooner we get back, the less suspicion there will be.”
“But Flu 216 is so dangerous,” I said. “People die sometimes. If you died because of me…” Guilt choked me. I thought of those beautiful eyes turned lifeless. The thought made me nauseated. “I couldn’t live with myself.”
“Stop that.” He took my chin and lifted my eyes to his. “No one’s going to die. Sanjan will make sure to give me the mildest strain. I’ll be fine.” He said it with such confidence I could almost believe it.
He led me to the couch. “Try to get some sleep. It’s three in the morning and I’m sure it will take me a few hours to arrange everything. I’ll just be in the next room if you need anything, ’kay?”
“Okay.” I tried to sound strong, confident. Tried not to be weak and pull him onto the couch with me and make him swear to never let me go. But he said we’d be together again. He’d promised. The idea of trust was brand new to me, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to trust him.
He smiled and kissed me gently, then went into the other room, turning the light off as he went. I tucked the blankets up around me tight and tried to sleep.
* * *
I woke up to Adrien caressing my brow. I sat up, dreamy and smiling, then remembered with a crushing blow that I was going to leave him. But just for a while, I reminded myself. And we wouldn’t really be apart. He’d be at school with me. We’d be together, even if I wouldn’t know it or remember him.
“It’s time,” he said. I nodded and rubbed my face as I got to my feet. My eyes still felt swollen and tired. My whole body ached but the sleep had helped.
Adrien led me into the adjoining room that looked like a combination office and lab. A med table was lodged in one corner and a short middle-aged man stood in front of it.
“Zoe, this is Dr. Chol.”
“Greet—I mean, hi, Dr. Chol,” I said. I was surprised at his last name—only officials had real last names instead of just work designations.
He smiled and shook my hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I felt my face flush, remembering what Adrien had said about his visions of me as a leader. Did this man Chol think that was true? Did he expect that of me?
“Come on, have a seat,” Adrien said. “Chol’s our resident head doctor. He’ll fix up your hardware so after you pull out the drive, you’ll be connected to the Link and the glitching will be masked.”
Chol sat down on a chair in front of me. His hair was graying around the edges but his skin was smoother and less worn-looking than Adrien’s mother’s. “We’ll be going in manually, since your access port is already occupied. You’ve seen these before, right?”
He gestured to a pair of half-tube forceps and a six-inch-long snaking metal probe on the table.
I nodded. I’d had similar procedures done my whole life when new hardware was inserted as I’d grown up, but the probe had never seemed quite so big before.
“I’m going to insert the subware right at one of the back corridors of the already existing hardware, so it shouldn’t look anomalous if they run a scan.”
He picked up the intimidating instrument and clicked on an ancient video monitor on the table that I guessed he would use to navigate. “Okay. You ready?”
I nodded, hoping he didn’t notice my trembling.
He came around to face me, forceps in hand. I tried not to wince as he inserted the forceps deep into my nose to make a smooth path for the probe. My hands gripped the armrests as the forceps went deeper and deeper. Chol leaned in close, eyes intent on the monitor.
I let out a little whimper before Chol finally said, “There. Got it.”
Adrien took my hand. “Just close your eyes and it will be over soon.”
I nodded, hearing the clink of metal on metal as the snake probe slid up the shaft provided by the forceps.
“And…” Chol said slowly, “we’re in. Keep absolutely still.”
I swallowed, trying to keep my head still while I did.
Chol was right. This part didn’t hurt—much. It was just an incredibly uncomfortable sensation. The occasional tug of the tiny probe felt like bugs squirming under my skull.
Adrien squeezed my hand. “You’re doing great. Chol installed all my hardware, which is pretty impressive, since I’d never grown up with any. He’s the best.” Chol looked over at me and winked. I squeezed Adrien’s hand, infinitely glad he was here with me.
After about ten more minutes of trying to sit as still as possible, Chol announced he was done. He slid out the probe, then pulled out the forceps. I jumped off the chair as soon as he was done, rubbing my head to get rid of the sensation. I let the shudder I’d been holding back run through my body, jumping up and down a few times and stretching my neck.
“Your turn,” Chol said to Adrien.
I looked at him sympathetically.
He laughed. “Just a routine checkup. No probe for me ’cause my access port is free.”
“No probe, huh?” I asked with arched eyebrows. I walked around him and pushed aside his thick bushy hair to look at his input port. I’d never really had the opportunity to look at one up close for very long. I’d seen them everywhere, of course, but it wasn’t like I could go up to someone and ask if I could inspect their input port out of curiosity. The tiny lights under the skin lit up along the microfiber wires, and I traced the swirling line gently. The filaments flickered, blues and purples and oranges brightening in reaction to his brain patterns.
I realized with a b
lush how long my fingers had lingered tangled in Adrien’s hair and I dropped my hands. Adrien let out a sigh, and I realized he’d been holding his breath. I smiled shyly, amazed at the completely new experience of sparking emotion in another person.
“Nope, he gets off easy today,” Chol said, grinning and pushing Adrien into the chair I’d just vacated. “Let’s just plug this in here—” He attached a slim wire cable into the access port in the back of Adrien’s neck. “And voilà! Oh. Hang on, this machine is a little temperamental.”
Chol banged his hand a few times on a monitor, muttering, “Godlam’d secondhand piece of junk— A-ha! There we go.” The screen flickered to life, showing the map of Adrien’s internal hardware.
“Now. Let’s just make sure he’s completely clean and he won’t set off their equipment as anomalous when you go back.”
I nodded, watching the screen with interest. It looked identical to what we studied in school in my biotech classes. Most of the sliver-thin hardware webbed around the amygdala but tiny branches connected to other nerve receptors all throughout the brain. Chol tapped the screen to zoom in.
“This would work better with a 3-D imaging system,” I said, leaning in to look.
Chol smiled. “Yeah, well, we don’t exactly have the same resources available to us as the Community. Mostly we get Community discards and junkyard parts. Stuff the Community won’t miss. But we manage just fine.”
I nodded, watching him check the coding on the tech to make sure it would clear. He was moving too fast for me to really follow all that he was doing. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, I thought, pulling back. It’s not like I would remember anything I learned here.
If they were able to create an architecture in Adrien’s brain that mimicked V-chip hardware, while keeping him protected from Link control, then there had to be a way to do the same thing for everybody else. I wondered what other advances the Rez had made and if that’s what they had in mind.
And where did I fit in? Telekinesis was amazing but what good was being able to grab a hairbrush from across the room in the larger scheme of things? I mean, I couldn’t even control it.
“We’re done.” Chol released the cable from Adrien’s neck.
“I guess it’s time to go back,” I whispered.
He nodded. “Mom has a biosuit ready for you.”
I stared for a moment into his aquamarine eyes, then hugged him tight. He pulled back. “Shh, it’ll be okay. It’ll be—”
He didn’t finish the sentence. His arms were still pressed around me but his face had gone slack and he was staring beyond me blankly. I looked behind me, terrified at what I might find. But nothing was there.
“Adrien? Adrien!” I tried not to shriek. “What’s wrong?”
I shook him but he barely budged. I tried to squirm out of his grip so I could try to get help, but his hands seemed frozen in place around me.
“Adrien!” I said again, feeling near hysterical tears. Was he broken?
He suddenly blinked rapidly and dropped his arms.
“Adrien! Are you okay? Did something go wrong with Chol’s programming?” I pushed up the hair at the base of his neck to look at his input port, but his hand stopped mine.
“I just had a vision.” His voice came out low and strangled-sounding.
I looked back at his face. His caramel skin was mottled and flushed. There was an intense, unreadable expression on his face.
“What is it?”
His eyes finally focused in again on my face, his features still tense, somewhere between angry and scared. He closed his eyes tightly, tilting his forehead against mine and rubbing his hands up and down my arms gently, as if he was memorizing the feel of my skin. As if he’d never be able to touch me again.
“Oh, Zoe.” He cupped my chin gently, tears welling in his bright eyes. “Try not to forget. I know it’s impossible, but try not to forget me.”
He kissed me again softly, then urgently, twining his fingers in my hair. Whatever he’d just seen had obviously terrified him. I sank against him, overwhelmed at the urgency of his kiss. I kissed him back just as eagerly.
We stood, holding each other’s faces, memorizing every last detail. I was desperate with my own need to capture this last, lingering moment, desperate to forget the horrible sink at the pit of my stomach telling me all this would be lost forever once they pulled the chip out. Please don’t let me forget. I opened my mouth to his and tried to take him in so deep that my soul, if I had one, might remember what my brain forgot.
Chapter 10
“DO YOU REMEMBER anything else from your disappearance?”
“No.” I sat in a chair facing a sharp-featured woman with a smooth, oiled bun. It was a seat I had filled every week for the past three weeks. The retina display played out at the edges of my sphere of vision. I didn’t need the readouts to provide me with more information on the woman sitting in front of me in a charcoal-gray suit with tightly wound brown hair. Chancellor Bright, the head of the Academy. She’d been appointed the new Chancellor a week after my disappearance. I’d never encountered the previous Chancellor, or many officials at all for that matter, but ever since my disappearance, I was seeing a lot of Chancellor Bright. I didn’t know why she kept calling me in—my story was the same every time.
“Do you remember anything that happened while you were on the Surface?”
“No,” I repeated. “I still retain only the knowledge of what I reported upon discovery. I was heading to Room A117 and then I was walking down a road. I followed protocol for anomalous events and attempted to locate an official to whom I could report myself. At Entrance Gate C10, I made myself known to the Guards who contacted Central Systems, underwent transport and extensive testing once back at a treatment facility, and was returned to my family quarters by the next evening.”
“Yes, I know all that,” the woman snapped. She lifted a hand to smooth the side of her hair, collecting herself. She reached over to the table next to her, lifting a teacup and saucer to her lips. She sipped her tea, her eyes studying my face closely.
“Do you know why I’ve been appointed here?” she asked. She paused as if expecting a response, her eyes again searching before she continued.
“The Uppers requested me specifically for this position because I always produce results. They require an explanation for the assault and subsequent disappearance. I have yet to produce any explanation, and that is unsatisfactory.”
She set down her teacup and leaned toward me. “But I don’t believe it was your intention to harm anyone. I think someone else was there, perhaps someone who incapacitated you both and then kidnapped you. I’d like to help but you must tell me what I want to know.” She reached out, touching the top of my hand and piercing me again with her sharp eyes.
“So tell me, Subject Zoel, who else was there? What else did you see outside the city?”
I met her gaze. “I have no details of that time period. I was informed that a memory disrupter was utilized.”
Her nostrils flared slightly at my answer. If she were capable of emotion, I would say she seemed frustrated. Her face smoothed, and her eyes looked at me calmly.
“The Uppers will find this highly dissatisfying. These anomalous events are grounds for deactivation, but it is at my command that you remain here at the Academy.” Her face shifted suddenly and she seemed about to say something else to me, but she sighed as if she thought better of it. Her eyes flicked to a black circle on the ceiling of her office.
“I trust my command will not have to be overridden due to additional anomalous behavior. You will notify me immediately of any anomalous behavior you observe in your systems.”
I stood, a slight tremor passing through my hands. “I will report to you directly if anything does occur. Community first, Community always.”
I had turned toward the door when suddenly the Link dropped, knocking me off balance with the sudden rush assaulting my senses: the musty smell of the carpet in the room, the acrid taste in
my mouth left over from my daily dietary supplement, a choking rush of fear. It was dizzying, but with all of my strength, I willed myself not to reach out to steady myself. The beeping of my heart monitor filled the room.
I bit my lip, willing myself to stop shaking from wave after wave of clear, vibrant sensation. My head was buzzing in fear, and my hands started to tremble and pulse with heat. I willed myself to be still, to not show the panic that had gripped every part of my body.
“Subject Zoel Q-24,” the Chancellor said, crossing the room in a few quick strides.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
“What is the cause of this disturbance?”
I squeezed my eyes and took a deep breath. There had to be an explanation she’d believe—something that would save me from the deactivation that she’d seemed all too ready to command. I reached a hand down to rub my shin. I took my time, breathing in slowly and thinking of Markan. I had to be still, for Markan. If he ever glitched, he would have to struggle all alone if I didn’t survive. By the time I raised my head to look at her, I’d managed to collect myself.
“I miscalculated the distance from that chair.” I tried to keep my voice to its previous monotone. “I imagine the pain adrenal response tripped my monitor.”
She leaned in closer, tilting her head to the side in a way that made her sharp-featured face seem birdlike. Something about her gaze made my scalp tingle. “Are you certain? Tell me again what just occurred.”
I forced myself to return her piercing gaze without looking away. I repeated my previous explanation. She said nothing, only continued her unnerving stare like she could see right through my skin to my glitching V-chip.
“May I leave, Chancellor?” I asked, finally breathing calmly enough that my monitor fell silent.
She pursed her lips tightly, making the tiny lines around her lips multiply and crinkle. She pinched her face and leaned in, putting a hand on my arm. She paused, as if stopping herself, and pulled away, quickly rearranging her features into either a smile or a grimace. I could not tell which.