SEELEY DROVE THE truck up the final rise to where Haven Valley was marked on the map. He breached the top of the climb and looked down into a small town dropped into the middle of the valley. He’d heard plenty of stories and remembered the news coverage well, but to see it with his own eyes was something else.
He carefully guided the truck down toward the valley and spotted McCoy’s Jeep. They were here, which brought a sense of both dread and relief. He’d wrestled with his predicament for the duration of the drive and felt no differently now than he had when he’d driven off Xerox’s campus.
There had to be another option. He’d considered driving straight to Cami, but they’d never make it out of the country before Hammon caught up with them. He thought to warn her, but if she was being surveilled, then they were listening too, and he couldn’t risk putting her in more danger. He didn’t have a single ally who Hammon didn’t control or a card to play that Hammon wouldn’t see coming.
This only choice was clear, and heartbreaking. It shouldn’t carry so much weight, he’d reminded himself over and over. Cami was his daughter. Zoe was just a woman who had snuck in and manipulated his heart. Lucy was a science experiment they’d grown in a lab. Neither was worth his daughter’s life. It should not feel so difficult to execute an order that protected his own flesh and blood.
But the implications of silencing Zoe and Lucy were haunting him. They had touched his life, forced him to examine who he was, and tricked him into believing he was not the sum of his sins. They’d given him something. Hope. With their deaths, he’d resign himself to darkness. Which would cost him his soul. But Cami was worth his soul. After all he’d put her through, she deserved at least that much.
If Zoe is still alive.
He couldn’t help but wish Lucy had already killed her, and that he’d show up, collect the prize, and leave without more blood on his hands. That would be easier than pulling the trigger himself.
As he drove his truck into the valley, he switched his mind to the execution. He knew Lucy would hear him coming. The rest would play out after he assessed the situation. After he assessed Lucy.
He parked beside the black Jeep and shut the engine off. He grabbed his handgun from the passenger’s seat and shifted so he could tuck it into the back of his jeans. It was loaded with the same tranquilizers they’d successfully used on Lucy in the past. He just needed to get close enough to fire.
He stepped from the truck onto Haven Valley soil. A strong breeze chilled him to the bones. An eeriness fell over him as he stepped around to the front of the truck and surveyed the strange, hidden town. It was haunted by the past. He could feel it seeping up from the dirt, and it made him wish he wasn’t there. It set his nerves on edge.
He walked down the middle of the road a few feet before he caught movement in his peripheral vision. Lucy stepped out from between two stores, pistol raised, Zoe behind her.
“Lucy,” Seeley said. The girl didn’t falter in her stance. He couldn’t get a shot off before she took one first. She was too fast. Even if he could get her to lower her weapon, she’d have the advantage as long as she held the gun. He’d have to get her to discard it.
Zoe stepped out in clear view. Her lip was cut, the side of her face bright red, already starting to swell. The injuries looked fresh.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “How did you find us?”
“A contact told me they spotted McCoy’s Jeep crossing into Tennessee,” Seeley said, then swept his eyes up and down the street. “Not a bad place to hide out.”
“How did you get away?” Zoe asked.
“I created an opportunity and took it but had to lie low for a couple hours while they finished their full perimeter sweep. Then I needed transportation and money. I came as soon as I could. What happened to your face?”
Zoe ignored him, her eyes searching his face. Something felt different about the way she was watching him. Still hesitant, still afraid, still suspicious, but there was also an innocence there peeking around the corners. A new lightness, as if she’d begun to let go of the weight the world had stacked upon her. It was intriguing.
What had happened between her and Lucy?
“Is he alone?” Zoe asked Lucy.
Seeley could see Lucy’s unique abilities working. “If others are with him, they’re too far away to hear.”
“I’m alone,” he said. “But if I found you, so can Hammon.”
“Can we trust him?” Lucy asked Zoe.
Time to assess.
THE ORDERS HAD been clear. If I ever encountered Zoe Johnson again, I was to kill her. Her face was the first thing I’d seen when I came to in that dark stone hallway, and she’d driven a blade into my thigh. Killing her would have been easy. She even provided the weapon.
Then one of my training officers gave me different orders. Orders that conflicted with my previous ones. So I quickly calculated and prioritized the commands, with the intent to fulfill them both. First get Zoe Johnson to safety, then kill her.
But something happened in the course of my execution. I hesitated. I didn’t remember hesitating before. But there, standing before Zoe, her weapon aimed at my face, I had a strange, unexpected reaction. I was uncertain.
My orders were simple, but my mind wasn’t sure I wanted to carry them out. Suddenly all the things that had been clear were clouded by Lucy. I thought she was dead, but she had just been turned off. Shut out. Standing in the strange place called Haven Valley, she wanted back in. And I felt powerless to stop her.
But she was me. Wasn’t she?
Who was I? What was I? The question started to unravel what I had just moments ago been so certain of. And the world shifted slightly. I was still in Haven Valley, standing before Zoe in the middle of a street, a gun pointed at my face. But I was also back inside the deep reaches of my mind, where I had spent so much time trying to remember who I was. After all of that work, I was still standing here asking the same questions.
I saw the place in my head differently now. With new perspective. A city divided in two. One blissful neighborhood, one towering city. With the shuffle of my feet I could be in one or the other. Stand just right and I could have a foot in both.
That place represented me. One side Lucy. One side Number Nine.
Zoe’s words drained into my ears, and I responded, but part of me was also caught up outside of time. Maybe Lucy was trapped in that strange place where Dr. Loveless’s drugs had taken her. Maybe Number Nine was here with Zoe?
Maybe it was the other way around.
“Better figure it out,” a small voice said. I turned toward the looming city and saw the little girl with the unicorn shirt I had long ago started to hate.
I didn’t get the chance to ask her why I was here or what was going on, because it seemed as soon as my personality had been divided, it was back together and I was standing in Haven Valley.
“What if I don’t want to be Number Nine or Lucy?” I had asked Zoe. “Do we get to choose who we are?”
She didn’t respond, but she had that same look she’d had many times before. She was trapped. Was I trapped too? But I already knew the answer, and like Zoe I didn’t want to be.
She wanted to play a game. Pretend we could have any story we wanted, and for a moment the atmosphere around us lightened. Both Number Nine and Lucy seemed to fade into the background as a different idea took root.
Then he came. Just the sound of an engine at first. I retrieved Zoe’s discarded weapon for protection, and we sought cover by the brick buildings. Then as he got out of his vehicle and I saw his face, all the moments I’d had with him in the past washed over me.
Moments in the training gym, in the surrounding woods, on the obstacle course, in the boxing cages. He’d been strict but kinder than some. He and Olivia had taken special interest in me because of my skill level.
I also remembered him after my memories were taken. He’d betrayed us. No, he’d betrayed Lucy. Lucy wanted him dead for that.
I aimed the handgun at him. One clean shot was all it would take.
I also remembered he was there when Zoe broke me free. Or took me from my home. The conflicting messages spiraling in my mind were treacherous.
I needed direction, so I turned to Zoe to give it to me, but Seeley spoke. “Why are you asking her? You have your memories back. Don’t you remember me?”
Of course I did. Both sides of me remembered, but we had very different experiences with him. “Yes.”
“Did you trust me before?” Seeley asked.
Number Nine would have followed him into war. Lucy had followed him into an ambush. “Yes.”
“Good. Nothing has changed, Number Nine.”
The two sides of me that had faded into the background came back into full focus. Number Nine led the charge. My body tensed. I corrected my posture, made sure my eye contact was strong. I was speaking with an officer who commanded respect.
“What’s going on, Seeley?” Zoe asked.
“I remember you too,” Seeley said to Number Nine. “I remember how much quicker you were than the others. I remember how precise and diligent you were. Always succeeding where the others failed. Do you remember?”
“Yes. I was special,” I said. Number Nine said. She had been perfect then.
“You still are,” Seeley said.
Zoe stepped in front of me and said something I didn’t hear. The halves of me that had seemed equal before had been tipped in favor of the powerful city.
“It’s time to go home, Number Nine,” Seeley said. “I need you to listen carefully and follow orders. Can you do that?”
A current of electric energy pulsed through my veins. “Yes.”
Seeley took a step forward. “Lower that weapon. I’m not here to hurt you.”
I did as he asked.
“Director Hammon needs you back at home base. He sent me to get you.”
“Seeley, what are you doing?” Zoe yelled. “Why go through all the trouble of helping us just to turn on us again? What is wrong with you!”
I could hear Seeley’s heartbeat quicken. I could see the tightening of his forehead as he fought to hide his emotions. He clearly didn’t want to be doing this, but here he was, following orders. Because that was what his programming told him to do. Just like it was telling me.
Again the world shifted, and I was in two places at once: my mind in the city-neighborhood, my body in Haven Valley.
“You should do what he says,” the unicorn girl said. “Follow the rules. Be what you are.”
“We need to go, Number Nine,” Seeley said. “But first we have to tie up all the loose ends.”
Everyone knew what he was implying, even the little girl who was standing beside me in my mind. We had to kill Zoe.
“Zoe knows too much,” she said.
She was right, Zoe did know too much. And what she knew threatened home.
Zoe stepped away from me. I could almost smell her fear. Her pulse thundered. Sweat collected across her skin.
“You don’t have to follow him, Lucy,” she said. “Remember, we can choose who we want to be.”
“You don’t believe that,” Seeley said.
“Lucy, I see you—”
“No, you see what you want to see,” Seeley continued. “You see a sweet young girl, but she’s not. She’s a weapon. A product, created and paid for, and she knows it.” He turned his eyes back to me. “Don’t you, Number Nine? You know what you are.”
The spirit of Number Nine swept up, strong and powerful. It beckoned me to release any idea but the clearest path ahead of me.
People were made what they were. Programmed to act and react according to rules that governed their lives. I was programmed to act on orders. And my training officer was giving an order.
Kill Zoe. I had failed to do that already.
I wouldn’t fail again.