Arden: How did it go?
My knee bobs up and down as I sit in my second-to-last-period class, anxiously waiting for Sebastian to finish at the doctor’s. We need answers. Or at least a prescription slip scrawled in chicken scratch. Hell, I’d even settle for an insurance receipt. Anything that might help us figure out how to save Sebastian.
Sebastian: Weird. I know every word in pretty much every language and “weird” is the one that sums it up best.
Arden: That’s a tall order. Weirder than everything else that happened in the last two days?
Sebastian: This one takes the cake. I’m on my way back to school. Meet you at your locker before sixth period? It’ll be easier to explain in person.
Arden: You’re killing me.
My eyes widen and I snap my hands back from my phone after just realizing what I wrote. Sebastian is actually dying and here I am joking about it.
Arden: Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.
He doesn’t respond and the silence makes me want to vomit. I alternate between staring at my phone, willing those three little dots to appear, indicating he’s texting, and checking HiveMind against my newly created backups.
When the bell rings, I practically leap out of my seat and run through the hallway as fast as I can before it starts to fill up. I manage to get there before him and retrieve the eye from my locker since I had completely forgotten it during lunch thanks to my anxiety about delivering the news. Thankfully, Zoey stowed it away safely for me. I try my best to lean against the red metal as casually as I can.
When he approaches, I mutter the least cheery “Hey” the world has ever seen.
“Hi.” His face is blank, but the furtive glance he darts around at the hallway tells me everything I need to know: He needs privacy. Real privacy this time. I jut my chin toward the empty classroom across the hall and pull the door shut behind us.
Sunlight beams through the windows, illuminating the way he shoves his hands into his pockets. “So. Apparently, I’m cured.”
I squint at him, waiting for the punch line, but nothing comes. Cured. As in … not dying? Hope twinges in my chest. “Cured of what?”
He turns away from me for a moment, sucks in a deep breath, and then says in a normal tone of voice, “Last week, my stage four inoperable brain cancer was spreading aggressively. The doctors predicted I’d deteriorate quickly from here on out and my body would start shutting down. I was supposed to be dead in less than a month, probably sooner.”
One month. That matches with the timeline I’d already figured out. My tongue hangs thick and dry in my mouth. “And now you’re not dying?” I repeat, trying to make sense of this.
“Yep.” He steps closer to me in the already tight space, his hot breath tickling my neck. “They ran a million tests this afternoon. All traces of cancer, gone.”
“That’s—” I start to say but fumble on the end of the sentence.
“Impossible, I know. The doctors are stumped. Don’t know how it even happened. They declared it a miracle, but my mom was talking in the car over here about some new procedure I did Monday night. She was calling everyone she knew, saying, ‘It worked! It actually worked!’” He rakes his hand through his hair. “My guess is whatever this procedure was, it had side effects.” He points to his brain.
I shake my head. “Yeah, but why would I be experiencing them too?” I tap my finger against my lips, thinking back to what Kimmel said about our project saving lives. “I think our project was what cured you.”
“No, it wasn’t ours.” Sebastian leans against the desk next to me, squeezing in beside me. “It’s some medical procedure called Duplicell. The thing they’re showcasing at the press conference. Apparently, I’m debuting as the first successful prototype.”
I nearly slide to the floor. “That’s my brother’s project.”
“Well, maybe we can ask him about the side effects, then? If that’s why I’m losing my memories.”
I hop to my feet and wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. “That still doesn’t explain why I’m affected. And not just me. My mom and Kimmel are still losing memories too.”
Sebastian purses his lips. “Any chance you guys were cured as well?”
I sway in place as my legs turn to jelly. “That leaves us with two theories. Yours: All four of us were dying. And mine: The two things aren’t related and someone is deleting our memories for an entirely different reason. I like mine.”
“Either way, we have a starting place now.”
“Yeah. My own flesh and blood.” I let out a sigh. “We should go talk to him right now.”
Sebastian nods. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
We ditch our last class of the day and circle the glass MVH building to get to the entrance of Varga Industries on the opposite side of the school. Puffy white clouds skid across the windows, mirroring the show in the sky. Lavender bushes line this side of the building, tinged with the faint smell of cigarette smoke.
At this time of day, the security guard at the desk lets us in with just a flick of our ID cards and our signatures scrawled on a sign-in sheet. We ride a spotless elevator with several lab coat–clad people up to the sixteenth floor. Inside Leo’s office suite, the inviting scent of rose potpourri welcomes us. I stop short. Zoey sits behind the reception desk with a headset strung over her ears. After a beat, she offers a wave. “What are you two doing here? I hope it’s to visit me. Yay visitors!”
I cock my head at her. “I was just going to ask you the same thing.” She must have raced up here as soon as the bell rang.
“Your brother needed some extra help and I have study hall last period.” She slides the headset off her ears and loops it around her neck.
I squint at her. “With answering phones?” This seems beneath Zoey. Even if she’s been shuffled around to various scientists instead of working on her own project, she should be in the lab, not behind a desk.
“Oh, I’m actually just making a few calls to media outlets in prep for the press conference.”
Cool puffs of air-conditioning chill my cheeks as I nod. “What can you tell me about Duplicell?”
“Not much. I haven’t been too involved in the actual procedure stuff.” She pats the headset. “Been mostly handling some of the business and marketing aspects for him.” She beams at me. “I’m really good at charming people on the phone. And he is definitely not.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” I say. “By the way, I have a lot to fill you in on.”
“Oh God. Don’t tease me with juicy gossip when I’ve got a list the size of Kentucky to call.” She holds up a sheet of paper that unfurls with hundreds of media phone numbers. Her eyes widen with mischief. “Tell me the highlights.”
I give her an even shorter recap than the one written on my body: Kimmel’s Post-it note and the gist of the Ethics Committee activity list. When Sebastian gives me a tiny shake of his head, I leave out the info about Sebastian being cured. And the part where he was dying in the first place. Zoey’s face contorts in horror when I tell her the updates. “Oh man. This is getting bad. What are you going to do?”
“Talk to Leo, actually. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” We turn toward the sleek steel door indented into chic gray-and-white-striped walls. Massive abstract prints of cell data hang on either side of the door. Several uncomfortable-looking chairs with wings instead of armrests circle a table, as if Leo expects a crowd waiting for his services.
I push the swinging steel door open into the sleek lab, my messenger bag bouncing on my thigh. Leo drops the papers he’s holding. They flutter to the ground and scatter. He wears his standard uniform of a white lab coat with a bow tie affixed to the collar.
Leo’s jaw clenches when he sees me. “Arden! What were you thinking this morning, tricking me like that?” He turns to Sebastian. “Wait, I thought you had an appointment tomorrow?”
“I was thinking I wanted to help you. But now I’m not so sure.” I bend to pick up the papers he dropped.
He crouches to my level and helps me scoop up the sheets. When I catch a glimpse, my heart breaks. They’re all handwritten but crossed-out love notes to Brandon.
“What. Did. You. Do. To. Sebastian?” I enunciate each word to prevent ferocity in my voice from diluting them.
“Cured him!” He’s so excited he practically bounces up and down.
“I know that part.” Sebastian leans against a lab table opposite Leo, casual, the good cop to my bad cop routine. “But what exactly did you do?”
“Improved you in every way.” Leo dances an arc around Sebastian, studying him with a weird grin stretching his lips. “Twenty-ten eyesight now, for starters.”
Sebastian touches his temples. “At least that explains the lack of glasses.”
I ball my hands into fists. “It doesn’t explain anything at all!”
“Your hair grows faster now,” Leo continues. “Sharper hearing. Keen sense of smell.”
Sebastian sniffs the air as if he might notice a difference.
“You smell that?” Leo slides a beaker filled with clear liquid toward Sebastian, who pinches his nose. “That’s perfluorocarbons. Humans normally perceive it as odorless!”
Sebastian glances at me in horror. “It smells like lemon. And auto grease.”
I sniff too, but I only smell the permanent chemical stench lingering in the lab.
“What about my memories?” Sebastian’s sneakers squeak along the scuffed white floor. We stand side by side, soldiers on the first line of defense. “They’re all gone.”
Color drains from Leo’s face. “Is this what you and Mom were talking about last night? I thought she had it under control.”
I roll my eyes at him. “I wouldn’t be here if she did.”
“The timing of everything’s too coincidental,” Sebastian says. “We think it’s a side effect of your procedure.” He laces his fingers with mine, sending the vital message that we’re in this together. His hand keeps me grounded.
“No. No way.” Leo pulls at the tips of his hair, making it stick out like a mad scientist’s. “That’s not possible.”
I force my mind out of the gutter and back to reality. “Was Sebastian the only one you’ve experimented on so far?”
Leo drags his hands down his cheeks, pulling the skin taut. “Besides Dad and countless rats, yeah.”
I land back on Earth with a thud. “You—you experimented on Dad?” Sandpaper coats my throat, making it difficult to swallow.
Leo swallows hard. “And that prototype failed.”
“You mean he died. They all died.”
Leo stretches out his hands. “This is not new information. What did you think my thesis project was?”
A way to cure diseases is all I remember. Obviously that wasn’t all I once knew. This information has been removed from my mind too. My head pounds just thinking about the data loss.
“I need to see your HiveMind account, Bash.” With force, he twists a monitor toward him so hard the display wobbles.
No way am I giving Leo’s computer access. “I have it synced here.” I extract my laptop from my messenger bag and prop it open, displaying the obvious truth of Sebastian’s empty mind in all its glory.
Leo claps a palm over his mouth. “I don’t understand. This shouldn’t have happened.” He backs up a few paces, and when his butt hits the opposite desk, he spins on his heels and yanks the phone off the hook. His finger stabs one of the speed-dial buttons. “Hey.” His hey sounds anything but cheery. “Cuomo’s memories are gone. They’re not even in HiveMind. Did something … happen during the upgrade process?”
He listens for a moment, face regaining color, nodding. “That’s what I thought.” His chest puffs out a relieved sigh. “Okay, thanks.” He hangs up but refuses to look me in the eye. “My assistant and I both triple-checked the data. Copied everything over. It’s not our fault, I swear.”
“It’s happening to me too.” I slam my laptop shut and slide it back into my bag.
“Then that settles it.” He throws up his hands in a victory cheer. “It’s not a side effect! It can’t be.” He grins. “We didn’t touch you, Arden.”
I arch a brow. “Then clarify the procedure for me. How do you replace the cancerous cells?”
Leo beams. “Think of it like find and replace in your word processor. Instead, we sync the body to the Duplicell software, and then the program finds the cancerous cells. After that, Teddy prints them and replaces them by connecting directly to the cell DNA.” His voice is confident and rehearsed. He’s delivered this line hundreds of times before.
Right. Of course. That’s Teddy’s entire project.
I grab a sheet of paper from a stack on the desk and quickly scrawl myself a reminder to ask Teddy how he replaces the cells. We can probably catch him after the final bell rings. Still, I need more answers from Leo first. “But how exactly does your software work?”
Leo clicks on an icon on his desktop. As he swivels the screen to face us, a video pops up on the monitor. “This will explain—” He stops talking, then turns to blink at me. “Arden?” He tilts his head toward Sebastian. “Bash?” He looks incredibly confused. “What are you guys doing here?”
My gut sinks. I know all too well what just happened. His memory of the last five minutes has been deleted.
It makes me think we were asking the right questions. Or the wrong ones, depending on your point of view.
Leo’s face changes to one of excitement. “But I’m glad you’re here.” He nudges Sebastian on his shoulder. “How do you feel? Good, right?”
Sebastian and I both exchange glances.
My eyes flick to the video he was about to play. “Hey. Do you have any videos about the procedure? I’d love to see one.”
“Yes, actually! I just got it back from production. Came out great.” He squints at the screen. “Oh weird, it’s already cued up.” He hits play.
The video window fades from black to show patients lying in hospital beds. As we watch, Zoey pops her head in and beckons Leo’s help on something. Leo holds up a finger to indicate he’ll be back in a minute. My attention turns back to the screen.
Six months to live. The words fly at the screen, accompanied by fast-paced music.
Terminal. A shot of a little boy with no hair, waving good-bye to a teddy bear.
Inoperable. A patient in tears as a stone-faced doctor points to a CT scan.
No hope left. Shots of graves, each with patients who died way before their prime.
Until now. A burst of sunlight fills the screen. Leo walks out of it. He’s wearing a suit and bow tie that look utterly ridiculous on the guy who always wore T-shirts and shorts to school, even in the winter. “A year ago my father was dying of pancreatic cancer.”
My airways constrict, tightening like a drawstring pulled taut. I can’t watch this part. I can’t.
I back away from the video and bite back a sob. Sebastian slides an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. My whole body stays tense while Leo relays the details of Dad’s disease and deterioration. Every word he says is like a knife plunged into my heart, piercing those memories I still have but don’t want to remember. Dad first telling us about his diagnosis. The scare when he collapsed out of nowhere in the middle of a family fun trip to the beach. The wires and machines connected to every part of his body. Endless waiting rooms where the good news never came.
It’s only when Leo starts speaking again in the video that I relax in Sebastian’s embrace.
“I couldn’t let anyone else I loved die like that. So I created a way to cure diseases. Not just that, I offer enhancements.” The video shuffles through the list that Leo mentioned earlier.
“Here’s how it works,” Video Leo says. Both Sebastian and I lean into the monitor.
An animation pops up showing a single cell. Leo’s voice narrates. “A tumor is made up of several different cells.”
Several more cells fly onto the screen and join the first one, linking up together. “Each cell contains DNA. The DNA of the tumor is slightly different from what used to be there before the tumor grew.”
A strand of DNA spins around on-screen. One of the links in the DNA severs like a rope chopped in half. “Most scientists try to cut out the tumor with surgery. But we repair the cell on a molecular level. No surgery required.”
The animation switches back to the single cell, this time with a dark spot in the center. “We duplicate each cancerous cell in our lab.” The cell multiplies, forming two spinning versions.
“We then repair the broken DNA on a cell-by-cell basis, altering the molecular data to eradicate the disease.” The cell on the right, the duplicated one, turns clear again, no dark spot.
“Then through a simple noninvasive procedure using bio software, we replace the diseased cells with the cancer-free ones.” The video shows an outline of a human body with one cell flying out while a new cell whizzes into the vacated spot.
“We don’t cut it out, we change it on a molecular level so it never returns.” The video shows smiling, happy people dancing waltzes, hugging teddy bears, and throwing fishing lines into sunlit rivers before the screen goes to black.
Sebastian stares at the monitor for another moment before turning to me. “Nothing about the side effects.”
I sigh. “Or the actual procedure.”
“I wish we knew why I agreed to the cure. And what it has to do with our own project.” He taps his fingers on the desk. “Maybe we can try to get another memory and find out?”
I shake my head. “It’s too risky. I’ve already been caught down there once. The Ethics Committee thinks I’m the one behind this.”
He shrugs. “If they’re already onto you, then it doesn’t matter if you’re caught again.”
He’s right. We have to do this now. I grab the trusty eye from the table, but there’s a weird sound like a maraca shaking. I lift the lid to check and I gasp at the sight of a shriveled mass. An inch of melted ice water covers the bottom of the container, glittering with dissolved salt. The eye is useless now; the retina can’t be scanned.
This is sabotage.
I rush out the doors to where Zoey and Leo are huddling over a list on her computer. I thrust the lunch box toward her. “Did you see anyone tamper with this? Anyone at all?”
Her eyes widen. “No! I guarded it with my life before I put it in your locker. Why? What happened to it?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my gut twisting. Whoever is monitoring me knew I left the eye unattended with Zoey and swooped in as soon as she stowed the eye in my locker. The locker has an electronic lock on it, so if the hacker can fuck with HiveMind, they can most certainly break into my locker as well. Hell, they probably knew my locker combination just from watching me.
Someone wants to keep me out of that basement.