I want to tell her everything. But “everything” is too close to the truth I can’t tell her—that I’ve left her in the past, that I think Dr. Franklin’s given up on helping me save her, that the school is under investigation, and it’s all my fault.
Instead, I tell her that I’ve seen some videos that make it look as if we don’t have powers. That the Doctor has said and done things that make me question whether or not he’s really our friend.
“The Doctor’s good,” Sofía says immediately.
“I used to think so,” I say, my voice trailing off.
She shakes her head. “We can’t start doubting everyone. The Doctor’s good.”
“But—”
“It sounds as if someone is altering your perception of reality,” Sofía continues. “Someone’s making you question what’s real and what’s not. They’re putting false images in your head. If that’s the case, the first thing whoever’s doing this is going to want is for people to turn away from the Doctor. Create chaos. Create doubt. Make us question not only reality, but each other.”
I think of the videos I watched. I know none of that happened. I nod slowly, agreeing with her. But if the Doctor’s not the one altering the videos, then who—
The officials. When they came, everything started falling apart. One of them—Dr. Rivers or Mr. Minh, or maybe both—they can alter the way we see things. The way we think, what we believe.
My mind churns with possibilities. Ryan was right to be suspicious. Dr. Rivers and Mr. Minh are trying to confirm our powers so they can use them. In my glimpses of the future in the timestream, I saw experiments and abuse: Gwen chained to a wall and Harold locked in a cell as men in lab coats tried to take them apart and see how they ticked. In those scenarios, I’d thought that the government officials were merely the spies who informed on us, but if they have powers too, like the ability to alter our perception of reality . . . then it’d be much easier to break down our resolve, to get us to turn on the Doctor and join them, to get us to do things for them.
“But Bo,” Sofía says, her voice small. “That’s not the only reason why you’re here, is it?”
I look up at her, and all my questions fall away.
There’s fear in her eyes. “You’ve never tried to visit me before, on your own. You could have just called me today, but instead, you’re here.”
“I’m here,” I repeat, as much for my sake as hers.
“Is something wrong?”
I want to answer her. But I can feel time tugging at my navel, pulling me back, forcing me into silence. “I’m sorry,” I get out, just before time snaps me back to the present.
I grip the cloth of my duvet cover. She was right there. I can still smell her shampoo.
And now she’s gone. Or, rather, I am. I left her in the past, not the other way around.
My phone buzzes, and I flip it over, reading the text message on the screen.
You throw that thing away? Ryan asks.
I look at my computer. The drive is still sticking out of the port.
Yeah, I text back.
I wonder how far his powers reach, if he can tell that I’m lying all the way from where he is.
• • •
I ask Dad to take me back to Berkshire early, and he agrees to drive up with me instead of going to church. After our fight yesterday, I think he’s glad to get rid of me. Mom doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t protest that much.
“But Phoebe didn’t get a chance to have a family dinner with you this weekend,” she says in a petulant tone. “Let’s wait until brunch.”
“I have a lot of work to do,” I say. “And we have next weekend.”
What neither of us says is that Phoebe doesn’t really care whether or not she has a meal with me. I mean, she’s nice enough for a sister or whatever, but it’s not like we’re close. We just happen to live together and share the same blood type.
So Dad takes me up past Ipswich and back to school. As soon as the car stops in front of the brick facade of the academy, I rush past the Doctor, who’s waiting to greet me. I hesitate at the door when I notice that the Doc’s continued down to the car to talk with Dad, but I don’t have time to worry about their conversation.
The first thing I have to do is figure out a way to get rid of the government officials. For good. The problems began with them. At this point, I’m starting to wonder if they’re the reason I haven’t been able to control my powers well enough to save Sofía. I have to get rid of them. And to do that, I’ll need help.
I go straight up to the dorm rooms on my unit’s level and bang on Ryan’s door.
“Told you it’d work,” Ryan says, grinning. He steps back so I can enter his room.
“Yeah,” I lie. The drive’s perfectly safe, stuffed between my mattress and box spring back at home. “Listen,” I add, “I watched the first video.”
Ryan’s usually good about keeping his cool, but something flashes across his face in the brief instant between when my words fall silent and he first registers their meaning. Something hard and angry. It’s quickly replaced with a mask of calm, but he can’t control the emotion in his eyes.
“You what?” he asks in a level voice that nevertheless sends chills up my spine. “I told you to get rid of it.”
“It’s safe. At my house. Hidden. No one will find it.”
“No one would find it in a landfill near your house either.”
I shrug. “I watched them. Or the first few, anyway. And we have big problems.”
“We wouldn’t have any problems if you’d destroyed the damn thing.”
I shake my head. He’s not listening. “Those government officials . . . they’re powered too.”
Ryan freezes. “What?”
“They have powers too, like we do. Or at least one of them does. I noticed it with Gwen, before. She thinks Sofía is dead. I had thought it was just that she’d lost faith in me, but now . . . And the Doctor’s been acting strange. At first I thought he was in on it, but now I think the officials . . . they’re altering reality. Or at least our perception of reality. They’re making us think we don’t have powers. I’m immune because I can just go back in time and see reality before they altered it.”
Ryan narrows his eyes in thought. “And I’m immune because . . .” His voice trails off.
“It must be the nature of your power. Telekinesis and telepathy. You have superior control of your mind, so they can’t reach you.”
A grin smears across Ryan’s face. “Yeah,” he says, “that must be it.”
“So just . . . be careful, yeah?” I say. “And start thinking of ways we can really get rid of them. Everyone believes they’re from the government, and I don’t know, maybe they are, but they’re dangerous. They’re trying to destroy us.”
“Yeah,” Ryan says. “I’m on it. And, dude, next weekend? Destroy that drive.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, reaching for the door.
“Thanks,” Ryan says. This is the nicest he’s ever been to me. The most he’s ever paid attention to me, honestly. We’re not friends; we barely speak. But he’s making such an effort now.
He really wants that drive gone.
Ryan shuts the door behind me after I leave, pushing against it so it clicks firmly closed. There are no locks on our doors—well, there are none that we can control. Dr. Franklin warned us that there are lockdown procedures in case one of the students’ powers goes completely haywire, and we’re safer locked in our rooms than anywhere else, but the lockdown has never happened while I’ve been here. Still, I have a feeling that Ryan wishes he could have locked me out as soon as I left. I hesitate, about to knock on his door again and demand some more answers, but I’m not even sure what to ask. There’s just something . . . off about Ryan lately. He’s not acting like himself.
Maybe the officials are starting to get to him too.
“Bo.” Gwen’s voice is quiet, like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear, but she strides down the hallway toward me with purpose. “You’re back.”
I nod.
“And you’re talking to Ryan.”
I shrug. “Yeah?”
Gwen frowns. Before Sofía was gone, they were best friends, always together. I was never close with Ryan, and no one is really friends with Harold, so I sort of drifted around. Being with Sofía put me in Gwen’s group, but I don’t think she ever really considered me a friend.
“Listen,” Gwen says, lowering her voice and walking with me back toward my room. “Don’t put too much trust in Ryan, okay?”
“Why?” I ask. Ryan’s not my favorite person in the world, but he’s a part of our unit. Unlike the officials.
Gwen glances back at his room. “I don’t like him,” she says bluntly. “He’s an asshole.”
I snort. “Well, yeah, everyone knows that. But he’s our asshole.”
Gwen shakes her head. We’re at my door now, but neither of us makes a move to leave. “It’s not like that. He’s not like us. You look at me and him and Harold as part of this unit. This team. But it’s not like that, is it?”
“And Sofía too,” I say, searching Gwen’s eyes. “She’s part of our unit as well.”
“And Sofía too,” Gwen says, her voice cracking over her name. “Before she died.” She places gentle emphasis on that last word, clearly worried about my reaction to it. But after we talked in the foyer before the weekend started, I knew there was something wrong with her. And her words now confirm it. Whatever reality the officials are trying to weave around us, she’s caught in the web.
“But Bo . . . it’s not like that,” Gwen continues. “We’re not a team. At least Ryan’s not. He only ever looks out for himself. He doesn’t care about you or me or anyone here at Berkshire. He only cares about himself.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “He’s trying to save the academy.”
“Save it? From what?”
“The officials and whatever it is they’re planning.”
Gwen’s frown deepens. “I don’t know how to get this through to you,” she says, “other than this: Sofía didn’t like Ryan either.”
I shrug. “Well, no one really likes Ryan.”
“No,” Gwen says in a very serious voice. “She really didn’t like him.”
I narrow my eyes, trying to understand what she’s not saying. “Why not?”
“She had her reasons, and I’m not going to betray them even though she’s not here now. But she didn’t like him. She didn’t trust him. And you shouldn’t either.”