Unforgotten

  “Sera,” Maxxer tries, “that’s ridiculous. You can’t possibly compare me to those monsters.”

  “I can!” I shout back. “And you want to know why? Because you are exactly like them. You use people to get what you want. You manipulate innocent minds to achieve your own goals. You steal people’s humanity, just as you’ve stolen mine!”

  On shaky legs, I stalk toward the door. Out of the corner of my eye I see the guards make a move to intercept me but Maxxer stops them. “Let her go.”

  “Oh, really!?” I spit back at her. “I can go? Thank you very much for your permission!”

  The sarcasm is bitter and hot on my tongue. Cody would be proud.

  I slam the door behind me.

  56

  PLACE

  Once I’m on the other side of the door I fall to pieces. It took the last ounce of emotional strength I had not to break down in front of Maxxer, but now all of that is gone. I slide against the wall, allowing gravity, and the weight of everything I lost today, to drag me down.

  The world is underwater. I view it through my relentless ocean of tears. My body is involuntarily convulsed by the sobs. My chest screams in pain. I let go. No longer trying to gather myself. No longer attempting to take deep breaths. What is the point? Breath. Air. Living.

  They’re all illusions.

  Deceptions created to make me think that I’m alive. That I matter. That I’m a human being.

  I may have blood running through my veins. I may need oxygen and water and food to survive. But beyond that I’m merely a machine. A toy. A weapon of wars. And the victory will go to the side who can best figure out how to exploit me to their advantage.

  I reach into my pocket and find my locket.

  It feels worthless now. I am so undeserving of such a precious gift. Unworthy of anything that it once represented.

  I flick open the door. A robot activating. I close my eyes.

  I could go anywhere. I could escape. The possibilities are endless. I could live out the rest of my days—however long that might be—on a remote island somewhere. Where I can’t hurt anyone. Where no one cares who I am or what I’ve done.

  Or I could transesse right into the mouth of a volcano.

  That would certainly be faster. A more efficient way to end my own suffering. And the suffering of everyone who I’ve hurt—and even killed.

  But strangely, in that moment, there’s only one place I want to go.

  There’s only one face I want to see. Only one person who could possibly understand what I’m feeling.

  The problem is, I don’t know where he is.

  But for some reason I have this perplexing nagging feeling that it doesn’t matter. That I don’t need to know. I’ve never actually tried transessing to a person before. It’s always been to a place or time.

  However, right now I feel him calling to me. Not his voice. Not with words. But just … him.

  I gently twist the broken chain three times around my wrist, securing the open heart-shaped charm under the wrap. Then I close my eyes and focus my attention on his face.

  The tiniest drop of warmth spreads through my icy-cold body.

  But right now, it’s enough.

  When I open my eyes, I find myself in a cramped, dimly lit room. It’s a stark contrast to the massive command center I just left. There are no windows here. No sleek glass or crisp white furniture. No warm, blazing fireplace or glossy countertops.

  All the extravagance is replaced with dirty metal and rusted pipes and paint peeling from a cold floor.

  But one thing brightens the room more than any window. More than any fireplace. One piece of incomparable beauty sits alone in the dreariness, slumped on a hard metal bench.

  Kaelen opens his eyes when he hears me approach. He smiles, somewhat dazedly, the effects of the Modifier starting to wear off.

  I don’t allow myself to think. I don’t allow myself to feel or doubt or analyze or argue.

  I bound forward.

  In one step, I reach him.

  In one breath, my lips are crushed against his.

  In one stuttered, confused heartbeat, he’s kissing me back.

  It’s impossible to know how he learned what to do. I have no doubt this was not one of the many instructional downloads he received before setting off on his mission. Perhaps it’s just something we’re born knowing. Or in our case, created knowing.

  Because he does.

  His mouth moves perfectly in sync with mine. Anticipating me, completing me. His hands find their way up my back, his fingertips urging me closer. I collapse into him. Press against him. Disappear inside him.

  The intensity of the energy that passes between us is unlike anything I’ve ever known. Now. Or before. Or ever.

  It’s the highest voltage. The strongest current. The brightest light. The fastest wind. The highest mountain. The deepest breath.

  It’s raw and powerful and untamed.

  And right now, it’s the only thing keeping me alive. It’s the electricity that fuels me. Like being plugged directly into the sun.

  Kaelen breaks from my mouth long enough to gasp for breath and ask, “What is that?”

  “You feel it, too?” I ask.

  He nods earnestly.

  “I don’t know,” I admit.

  But I do know I want more.

  We dive for each other again. Our mouths aching for each other. I reach for his shirt, yanking it up over his head. I have no idea why I’m doing it, I just know I have to touch his skin. And he has to touch mine.

  We have to be closer. Closer than I’ve ever been to anything.

  My sweater comes off next and in a blurred instant, we’re pressed back together. The feel of his bare chest against mine is indescribable. The previous sensation times a trillion.

  My whole body is tingling. I want something. But I don’t know what.

  It’s like my whole body is alert, waiting for it. Expecting it. Knowing it will not be satisfied until it gets it.

  I haven’t felt this way since …

  Since …

  In a sickening flash, I see it. I remember.

  That night in the woods. Our last night together. I was taken over by an unfamiliar urge. An unfamiliar need. When I asked Zen about it later, he tried to explain.

  “Something that will bring us closer together. As close together as we can be.”

  I pull back, disentangling myself from Kaelen, sitting up. He pants beside me, his face registering confusion.

  “Why did you stop?” he asks.

  I clutch my sweater in my hand and quickly slide it over my head. “I can’t do this.”

  He doesn’t understand. I know that. “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

  He sits up, reaches out, and touches my face. Tenderly. Kindly. There’s no trace of the boy I met in that bedroom two days ago.

  The one powered by Alixter.

  The one driven by a program.

  This is someone else. Someone new. Someone buried deep inside. Who never knew how to get out.

  Who never knew he could.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he says softly.

  I shake my head, willing the tears to stop. They don’t listen. He catches one on his fingertip and studies it carefully. As though he’s never seen one before.

  And chances are … he hasn’t.

  I push my arms through the sleeves of the sweater, still damp from our swim, and pull it down. “I don’t understand what is happening between us.”

  “Neither do I.”

  I believe him.

  “I found you without knowing where you were,” I tell him. “I transessed to you. Like you were a place in my mind. A physical location.”

  He nods. “I know.”

  I tilt my head and study this new Kaelen. Still perfect, but made even more beautiful by the shift in his eyes. The realness I see there now. I don’t know what changed him. What flipped the switch. But if I had to guess, I would say it was the exact same thing that changed me.
r />   “That’s how you found me,” I realize aloud. “Today in Cody’s lab. And here in the submarine. You transessed to me.”

  “I don’t know how it works,” Kaelen admits. “Alixter never said anything about that. The scientists taught me how to transesse to places and times. Not people. I just somehow knew I could do it with you. Like if I tried hard enough, I could feel where you were.”

  “Does it work with other people?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Only you.”

  “Alixter sent you to get the cure,” I confirm for the final time, needing to hear it from him. To hear it said aloud.

  “Yes.”

  “And to bring me back.”

  This answer takes more time. More strength. “Yes,” he says at last.

  I swallow, allowing myself to sink into him. I lay my head against his bare chest, feeling the electricity of our contact sizzle pleasantly against my cheek. I close my eyes. I listen to his thundering heartbeat. Like a horse galloping. Like a prisoner held against his will.

  “You were right,” he says quietly into my damp hair.

  “About what?” I whisper, keeping my eyes closed.

  I think about my own heart. The one held tight against my wrist. Still open. Still active. If he decides to obey the second half of his orders and bring me back, I can’t stop him. I am defenseless. My future is his to take. If he wants it.

  But it doesn’t matter. Right now I know I would go anywhere with him.

  “About this,” he replies. Then he lets out a stale sigh that feels like it’s been trapped inside him for ages. “It’s not a choice.”

  57

  REMAINED

  I drift in and out of sleep for what feels like days. When I wake, Kaelen’s face is the first thing I see. He didn’t leave. Although he certainly could have. His transession gene doesn’t have an Off switch.

  But he stayed.

  Right here. His chest solidly under my head. Supporting me while I slept.

  I push myself up and stretch my arms over my head. As I do, something falls off my lap and tumbles onto the floor. Curiously, I glance down and see Lulu, Jane’s fabric doll, lying on the grimy floor. Half of her left arm has been burned clear off, leaving behind a charred, black stump.

  I scoop her up and look curiously at Kaelen. “Where did this come from?”

  He shrugs sheepishly. “I took it from you.”

  I frown. “You did? When?”

  “After I removed you from the fire. You were unconscious. I was ordered to empty your pockets and confiscate everything. I didn’t know which items were functional—like the locket—and which ones weren’t.”

  I bring Lulu up to my nose, inhaling the fabric, hoping to catch a brief scent of Jane or the farm or my life before everything fell apart. But all I smell is the smoke that seeped into her cloth body during my failed execution.

  “Well, thank you for giving her back to me.”

  “I don’t understand.” Kaelen frowns at the doll. “What does it do?”

  I laugh for the first time in what feels like weeks. “It doesn’t do anything. She’s just … I don’t know … a comfort, I guess. She reminds me of someone I used to know.” I tuck the doll in my pocket, keeping her safe there. “Any idea what time it is?”

  He glances at his watch. “By my calculations, 7:22 a.m.”

  For a moment I feel invigorated. Refreshed. Then the moment passes and the previous night rushes back to me. Maxxer’s betrayal. Diotech’s manipulation. Zen’s lost cure. And the anger seeps back into my thoughts.

  “What do we do now?” Kaelen asks.

  But I don’t have the slightest idea. I can’t simply desert Zen and let him die alone in Cody’s house. And yet, what hope do I have of saving him?

  No matter what I do, no matter where I go, someone will always be following me. Someone will always be chasing me. Someone will always be trying to use me.

  But what about me?

  What do I want?

  At one point, this was an easy question to answer. An automated response. Now, the answer is not so clear anymore.

  “Sera.” Kaelen’s voice interrupts my thoughts and I peer over at him.

  “Yes?”

  “What happened last night?” he asks. “After they used the Modifier on me.”

  The fact that he asked the question means he didn’t take my memories while I was sleeping. He left them alone. The thought comforts me.

  I shake my head. “Everything went wrong. Maxxer gave me the cure and I tried to kill her.”

  “I’m sorry,” he admits. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just—”

  “Following orders, I know. I don’t blame you.”

  “So you have the antidote, then?” he asks.

  I feel tears start to well up again. “No. It was a fake. Maxxer was testing me. She had a suspicion that you—I mean, that Diotech would try to manipulate me. And she was right.”

  “So she can’t save Zen?”

  The sound of Zen’s name in Kaelen’s deep, smooth voice sends a series of flutters through my stomach. Like a flock of birds scared out of a tree. It’s all wrong now. As though he shouldn’t be allowed to say it. As though I shouldn’t be allowed to hear it on his lips.

  Lips I touched last night. With my own.

  “I don’t know,” I say in a broken voice. “She said only we”—I drag my finger through the small crevice of space between us—“have bodies that can sustain the gene. It’s why Alixter made you. Any normal human who receives the transplant will inevitably…”

  My voice quivers to a halt as last night plays back through my mind. I fast forward, I rewind, I pause, I replay, I search for signs. Symptoms. A shiver. A bead of sweat. A hint of weakness. Anything.

  But there’s none.

  Maxxer appeared to be perfectly healthy.

  And she’s had the transession gene in her system for the longest. After all, she was her own first test subject.

  “Come on.” I spring to my feet and tug Kaelen’s arm.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To figure out why Maxxer is still alive.”

  Kaelen hesitates, pulling back. “She won’t divulge any information in my presence. She knows I work for Alixter. You’ll never get her to talk.”

  I nod in agreement. “Which is why I don’t plan on talking to her.”

  58

  PURSUED

  The warm dry air slams against Dr. Maxxer’s pale, sunken face as she opens the door of the lab and gazes into the desert night. Her heart thuds against her ribs. Sweat trickles down her face as a shiver tremors through her body.

  Clutched desperately in her palm are three capped vials.

  She peers into the darkness, listening.

  She is alone.

  But it won’t last.

  A loud, earth-shattering cough rises up in her throat, thrashing to get out. She cements her lips together and pushes it down, tears stinging her eyes. Blood trickling down the back of her throat.

  She shudders. Gauging the distance. Wishing she had the stamina to transesse there. Knowing she has to conserve enough energy to get back. Otherwise she’ll be stuck here forever.

  She shoves the vials of clear liquid into her pocket and slips out the door. Her legs scream with pain as she forces them to run. Her heart sputters helplessly trying to keep up. Her body threatens to give out. To collapse. To finally let itself be destroyed by the very process that was designed to protect it.

  She is too weak to do this.

  She waited too long to return.

  But she knows she has to reach the house. She has to get there.

  If he dies, it will be her fault.

  She takes the long way, knowing there will be fewer sensors to dodge. But she knows that means more time on her feet. More opportunities for everything to fail and for her to become food for the foxes.

  She stumbles along the rough dirt terrain. One particularly large divot sends her smashing to her knees. The impact
of the fall crushing her like a thousand horses galloping across her organs. She gasps for breath. Her stomach convulses, attempting to vomit up empty air. She gags and expels more blood onto the desert floor.

  She wills herself back onto her feet.

  GET UP!

  Another chill rocks her ailing body but finally she’s able to push herself up and stagger forward.

  She reaches the concrete wall that separates the house from the rest of the compound. Knowing her fingerprint will never open the gate, she has no choice but to go over it.

  Her feet scrape ineffectually against the façade as she fights to get traction up the side. The rough concrete rips at her palms, shredding her skin.

  She crashes onto the other side, biting her lip to keep from screaming in agony.

  A light shines down from above, blinding her. She squints into the sky, barely managing to make out the sharp silent blades of the hovercopter circling above.

  “Stop,” booms an emotionless voice. Not human. “Don’t move.”

  With the vials tucked safely in her pocket, she struggles to her feet and runs. Her legs threatening to give out with every painful step.

  She reaches the front door of the house and yanks it open, tumbling inside.

  He’s asleep when she reaches him. Looking peaceful. His soft red beard rippling with each breath. She digs into her pocket and pulls out two of the three vials, thrusting them into his palm and tightening his fingers around them.

  He wakes at her touch, his eyes heaving open. A smile appearing.

  “You’re here,” he says, his voice thick with sleep.

  But the joy fades as soon as he’s able to focus on her haggard, diseased face.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “The gene,” she manages to squeak, the oxygen barely able to fuel the words.

  The light from the hovercopter blasts through the window, lowering steadily as the craft comes in for a landing. Her time is coming to an end.

  “You have to find him,” she whimpers as she squeezes his fingers tighter around the two vials. “You have to find him.”