He looks at me, clearly thinking I’m insane.
“Give him some time. He just needs to process this. He’ll help us. I know he will.”
Kaelen crosses his arms. “He gets one hour. Then we do it my way.”
45
SHIFT
The small park across the street from Cody’s town house is cold and dreary. There’s a fountain in the center that has completely frozen over and the small brown sparrows are actually standing on its solid surface. Kaelen and I sit on a bench as far apart as we can. We are completely silent. I hear the faint sounds of children laughing on a nearby playground. I convinced him to wait until Cody came home, knowing that Cody just needed time to process.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye. Despite his handsome, chiseled features, he looks tired. A thin layer of dirt shadows his hands. His hair needs to be combed. And his clothes are rumpled. There’s still a large, frayed gash in the side of his pants where I ripped the Modifier from his pocket.
He’s regarding the other people in the park, completely enthralled. As though it’s the first time he’s ever seen humans.
After a few minutes, beautiful white flakes begin to dance out of the sky, falling around us, covering the ground at our feet in a fluffy white dust. Kaelen looks slightly startled as he stares upward.
“It’s called snow,” I tell him, guessing from his reaction that he’s never seen it before.
Because it’s the same reaction I had when I saw it for the first time.
Six months ago. We’d just arrived on the Pattinsons’ farm. It was early spring. The sky clouded over with gray, the temperature dropped, and suddenly out of the sky came this magnificent white powder. I spun in circles underneath it, loving how it covered my dress in tiny sparkling specks. I never wanted it to end.
It was so beautiful.
Kaelen stares blankly upward. If he finds any beauty in the frozen rain, he doesn’t express it.
“How did you find me?” I ask. I keep my voice low, barely a whisper, but I know he can hear it.
Even so, he doesn’t answer. Just keeps his gaze forward.
“Were you close enough to track me?” I guess, even though I never felt my tattoo vibrate so I know this is probably not the answer.
But again, he doesn’t respond.
I glance down at his left wrist, his own black mark peeking out from under the cuff of his shirt. “You do realize they gave you one, too.”
I see his gaze flick downward but he stays silent.
“That would imply they don’t completely trust you. That it’s possible you have the same tendencies as me. To disobey. To run away.”
“I would never disobey Dr. Alixter.” It’s the first thing he’s said since we sat down and I can tell by the way his voice slips into that eerie monotonous tone that he’s reciting one of his automated responses. Something he’s been programmed to say. Without even knowing that he’s saying it.
“Right,” I say, nodding. “Because he’s looking out for your best interests.”
His head clicks toward me. “I sense insincerity in your tone.”
I snort. “How observant.”
“Why are you being insincere?”
“It’s called sarcasm.”
“Sarcasm,” Kaelen repeats. “Used to convey scorn or insult.”
I have to laugh at how much he sounds like me when I first escaped the compound. Exactly like me, actually. And I immediately realize that they must have uploaded both of our brains with the same definitions.
“It means I’m ridiculing you,” I explain.
He faces me, cocking his head inquisitively. “Why?”
“Because you have no idea what you’re talking about! Because you’re completely brainwashed, just as I was, regurgitating everything you’ve been taught to so blindly believe. Because Alixter isn’t looking out for anyone’s best interests but his own.” My voice is rising alarmingly fast. I have to take deep breaths to calm myself down.
Silence follows. Heavy and uncomfortable. Hanging in the air like humidity.
And then, “Are you implying Dr. Alixter is a dishonest man?”
I scold myself for getting so worked up. For letting him affect me like that. My words are just wasted breath. Wasted energy. I should know there’s nothing I can do to fix him. His brainwashing is deep. Too deep. Much deeper than mine ever was. He’s already proved that to me. Alixter found whatever defect in my wiring allowed me to eventually break through the programming and see the truth. And he fixed it. In Kaelen.
The thought brings a wave of sympathy crashing down on top of me.
He was never given a choice.
Despite what they led Kaelen to believe, despite how much Alixter was able to make him feel grateful for who he is and what he’s able to do, he was never asked if he wanted to be special. If he wanted to be brought into this world in such an unnatural way. If he wanted to fight a battle that he doesn’t even know why he’s fighting.
And that’s when I realize …
Kaelen is a victim, too.
A victim of Diotech. A victim of science. A victim of Alixter’s greed.
I, at least, had someone to set me free. Kaelen has no one.
“Yes,” I say softly. This time my voice is compassionate, not bitter. Tender, not angry. Genuine, not sarcastic. “That’s what I’m implying.”
Kaelen appears to be digesting this information. I decide, knowing how his brain works, that it’s better not to give him time to process.
“Kaelen,” I say as gently as I can. “Alixter is not an ally. He’s an enemy. He doesn’t care about you. He only cares about his own agenda.”
If only I knew what that was.
“My agenda is Dr. Alixter’s agenda.” Another dispassionate reply, informing me that I’m not making any progress.
But I can’t stop now. I have to at least try.
Because I believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that somewhere inside there might be a real person. And that person deserves a chance.
“Says who?” I challenge. “Who put that idea into your head? Where is that response coming from? Don’t you see that it’s just a preprogrammed reaction? It’s not you who’s speaking. You’re nothing but a computer to him. Don’t you want to be more than that? Be your own person? Think your own thoughts? Live your own life?”
“What is the purpose of that?”
I sigh, leaning back against the bench, feeling despondent. The program is strong. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to break through it.
And yet, somehow, Zen did.
For me.
So I press on, letting it all out. Maybe if I overload his system with data, I’ll have a chance of breaking in. Finding a hole. A chink in the armor.
“So you don’t have to be a prisoner!” I cry in a strained, hushed tone. “Don’t you see, you’re no better off than I was in that cell in 1609! He is controlling everything you do. Everything you think. Everything you say. Any thought that enters your brain is designed to benefit him. Any desire you feel is something he devised. It’s all to serve him and that company. But it doesn’t have to be like that. You can get out. You can break free. You have a choice. You want to know why I ran away from the Diotech compound? Because I didn’t want to be his. I wanted to be mine. I wanted to be me.” I pause and take a breath before adding somberly, “I wanted to figure out who that even is.”
I see his eye twitch ever so slightly. Then his face goes rigid. He looks frustrated. He pounds the bench so hard, the wood splinters, causing a few curious stares from passersby in the park. But for the first time, I don’t care about making a scene or attracting attention. The anger—the imbalance—means it’s working. I’m getting somewhere.
“You’re only saying this to distract me so that you can try to run again,” he argues, and I hear it. The smallest, faintest crack in his otherwise stable voice.
I gaze at him with pity in my eyes. I feel sorry for him. So very sorry. I remember what it was like
to be told that my entire existence was a lie. I remember that feeling of uselessness. Pointlessness. Betrayal.
“I’m saying it to help you.”
There’s a long, drawn-out silence. Kaelen stares at the ground. But I watch his face intently. Searching for signs of a transformation.
After almost a full minute, I finally see something. His jaw hardens. He grits his teeth together. His fists clench like he’s going to pound the bench again. A feeling of victory starts to shiver across me. I’ve done it. I’ve broken through. He looks as livid as I felt when I finally learned the truth. And I can’t blame him for being enraged, disgusted, fuming. His entire world, everything he thinks he knows, has just crumbled around him.
He opens his mouth to speak and I give him my full attention, wanting to be there for him. To support him as he goes through this difficult discovery.
“Dr. Alixter warned me that you would do this,” he seethes. “He told me you would use whatever means possible to sway me from my mission. I won’t let that happen.”
He turns toward me and at once I realize that I must have set off some kind of trap. A minefield. His anger is not directed at Diotech. It’s directed at me. Alixter was prepared for this. Prepared for my attempts to influence him. And he evidently built in reassurances.
Another preprogrammed response.
This one, however, is not benign.
It’s a monster.
Kaelen’s eyes are wide with rage. His face scarier and more crazed than I’ve ever seen it. The calm, collected, steady Kaelen is gone. And something far more frightening has taken its place.
“If you try to do that again,” he growls, “I will kill Zen myself.”
46
LUCKY
The conversation is over. I refuse to say anything else for fear that whatever has triggered Kaelen’s sudden transformation will only get worse. And Kaelen seems too angry to speak.
We sit in the cold, bleary silence, with snow gathering at our feet, until the sun goes down. A few minutes later I spot Cody shuffling along the sidewalk across the street, evidently on his way home. He looks haggard, tired, drained, like the weight of a planet has fallen onto his shoulders. He disappears into his house.
Kaelen must spot him, too, because he starts to rise to his feet. I put my hand up to stop him. “Wait.”
To my surprise he actually breaks focus and looks at me expectantly.
“Let me go in alone. Let me try.”
I can tell by the look on his face that this is not his favorite idea. But he also hasn’t said no. So I go on. “He’s overwhelmed. And you busting in there is not going to help. I think I can get it out of him.”
“You don’t even know what you’re looking for,” Kaelen argues.
“Neither do you,” I point out.
This seems to stump him. He lowers himself back onto the bench. “You have fifteen minutes,” he says.
“Twenty,” I retort.
Kaelen gives me a sharp look.
“Fifteen,” I yield quietly, and then exit the park, jogging across the street to Cody’s house. I bound up the five steps and press my finger against the buzzer and wait.
There’s no answer.
I press it again, holding it longer.
Finally, I hear a voice come through the small box attached to the brick wall. “Go away.”
I look straight into the camera. “Cody,” I say as gently as possible, “can I please talk to you?”
“Why don’t you just magically appear? With your stupid transession gene or whatever?”
I break into a small smile. “I don’t want to do it that way. I want you to let me in.”
“I don’t know anything!” he screams. It echoes into the street below.
“I know,” I say quietly. “I believe you.”
There’s a long pause and then finally I hear a chime and the door clicks open. I enter the hallway. Cody is waiting for me.
I brush the snow from my shoulders and hair and walk farther inside, eyeing the hallway that leads to the guest room. The thought of Zen back there, sick, sends a shard of glass through my heart.
“Still no change,” Cody informs me, as though reading my thoughts.
“Where’s Ella?” I ask, glancing around at the empty rooms. “And Reese?”
“I convinced her to take him to her parents’ house. I thought it would be safer that way.”
I bite my lip and nod.
Safer.
From Kaelen.
From me.
“Can I sit down?”
Cody beckons halfheartedly toward the couch. I take a seat and exhale. He turns on the wall screen and pulls a small white video game controller from a cabinet. He plops down next to me. “I was just going to play a game.”
“Okay.”
He flicks a small knob on the controller and the screen illuminates with the image of a destroyed battle zone. Cody carefully maneuvers an animated warrior through it.
“Why isn’t this like the one we played last night?” I ask, remembering how the underwater kingdom surrounded us on all sides, blocking out the real world, protecting us from its horrors. This game appears to be limited to the wall screen.
Cody doesn’t avert his eyes. His tongue hangs out in concentration as he attempts to move his man around a series of barrels that have the word EXPLOSIVE written on the side in big red letters.
“This is an older game. From when I was a teenager. I like to bring it out when I’m having a bad day.”
A bad day.
I guess that would be me. I’m the cause of his bad day. It seems like no matter where I go, no matter what year it is, no matter how old or mature Cody gets, I always manage to swoop in and ruin his life.
I lean back and watch the action for a moment, noticing how easily the man on the screen is able to battle his way through the torn city. Fighting off enemies at an impressive rate. It reminds me of my time in the woods with Zen. When he tried to teach me to fight. When we thought that was all I needed to protect us. A few combat moves.
Oh, how much more complicated everything has gotten.
“Where’s your friend?” he asks, his focus still on the game.
The term catches me off guard. Friend? I definitely wouldn’t call Kaelen a friend. From the moment we met, I’ve considered him my enemy. Because Alixter was my enemy. And he works for Alixter.
I look at one of the fictional enemies Cody just killed in the game, lying dead in the middle of the animated street.
Could I actually kill Kaelen? Even the thought of it makes me feel nauseated.
“I left him outside.” I peer at Cody’s fast-moving fingers. “Can I try?”
He pauses the game and looks at me for the first time since we sat down. “You want to play?”
“Yeah.”
Cody considers this for a moment and then shrugs. “Sure. We can team up.”
He walks over to the cabinet and removes a second controller, identical to his own. He presses a button and a blue light illuminates on it. Then he hands it to me.
“What are we doing?” I ask, glancing curiously at the controller.
“Winning World War II.”
“Okay.”
“Shoot anything that has a swastika on it.”
“What’s a swastika?”
He points toward a strange red symbol on the screen. “That thing.” He shows me his controller and begins pointing at the various knobs and buttons. “The joystick moves you back and forth. This button makes you shoot. This one makes you jump. These two together make you duck. And these two together make you swivel.”
I blink, memorizing his directions. “Got it.”
Cody regards me for a moment. “The girl who proved Goldbach’s conjecture? Yeah, I’m sure you do.”
He restarts the game and we’re off. I pick it up easily. My fingers moving swiftly across the controls. It’s enjoyable. It occupies my otherwise swimming mind. I can see why Cody turns to it when he’s having a bad day.
>
We survive a surprise attack on the bridge and make it to a sleeping enemy camp. I manage to annihilate everyone within a matter of seconds. Before Cody has even made it off the bridge. He whistles, impressed.
“You got a secret vendetta against Nazis?” he asks.
I laugh but don’t respond otherwise. I just keep going. Keep shooting. Keep ducking punches. Diving away from bombs. Keep fighting.
Never. Stop. Fighting.
What Cody doesn’t know is that when I look at the screen, when I stare those computer-generated soldiers in the eye, I don’t see their flat, two-dimensional faces. I see Alixter.
In every single one of them.
I see his chilling blue eyes. His white-blond hair. His handsome, smug features. His soulless grin.
And I destroy it.
If only it were that easy.
But then I remember Kaelen waiting outside, counting down the seconds until my fifteen minutes are up, and I know I can’t hide in here all day. Neither of us can. Any minute now, Kaelen will be transessing through that door, ready to use whatever means necessary to get the information he’s looking for out of Cody’s head.
“Cody?” I say cautiously, keeping my eyes glued to the enormous screen.
“Yeah?”
“Why do you think the memories in my head would lead me to you?”
I can hear him sigh next to me. I can tell I’ve broken the rule. Brought up the subject I wasn’t supposed to bring up. But what choice do I have?
If I want to protect Cody from the wrath of Alixter via Kaelen, and save Zen’s life, I have to get the information myself.
“I told you,” he says, sounding irritated. “I don’t know.”
I open my mouth to argue but I’m interrupted by a bright beeping sound. A notification box has popped up on the upper left side of the screen: The lotto announcement will air in two minutes. Would you like to change the input?
“Yes,” Cody says to the screen, pausing the game and dropping his controller next to him. He taps the surface of the coffee table, causing it to shift into another giant flat-panel screen. Like the one embedded in his kitchen counter. He maneuvers through various digital contents until he comes across a small orange-and-white square with a row of numbers displayed across the middle. I recognize it. I saw something similar on Cody’s countertop just this morning. Except that one was almost a week old. This one has today’s date.