Min was lying in the open doorway.
She didn’t get up at first. The truth seemed to have overwhelmed her, but that was good. A necessary first step. If she stopped fighting the Program, we could work together again. Things could maybe even go back to the way they were.
“How in the world . . .” Tack hustled to the keypad, then stood there staring and scratching his head. “Huh. So this black square thingie under the digits must be a fingerprint reader. Which means the door opened specifically for you.”
That got my attention. I strode to stand beside Tack. “It let her through? Why?”
Min was slowly getting to her feet. Her eyes flicked my way, and there was no warmth in their wintry depths.
No. Never how things were. A shot in the back had killed that possibility forever.
“You okay?” Tack asked her softly.
Emotions warred on Min’s face as she stood. She still wasn’t ready to accept what the Guardian demanded. I worried she might never get there. What then? I knew firsthand that she made a terrible enemy.
My gun was in the control room. Min was on the brink. One push, and she’d be gone.
I could take her power. Part of her would become me. The thought was horrifying, yet strangely alluring. Was that the way to save her?
PSYCHOPATH TALK.
I shivered all over. Awful. I’d never admit to the thought. Sometimes I scared myself.
“What do you think is back here?” Tack was saying.
Min was standing in a short, carpeted corridor leading to a pair of massive wooden doors. The narrow space had the feel of a bank lobby. “One way to find out,” she muttered, squaring her shoulders. In the time I’d considered murdering her and consuming her life force, she’d pulled it together. I wanted to throw up.
I had no idea what we’d find in there, but this discovery had come at exactly the wrong time. I needed to press my case. Make Min see that we had to fight for our position inside the Program.
“OMG, look at that.” Tack bounded to the doors and tapped a black starburst engraved into the wood—the symbol of the covert military unit assigned to Project Nemesis. “Is this where those bastards hid out?”
“Only the top people, I bet.” Min’s eyes were gleaming. I knew she was still hunting for an escape route—some way around the truth—and this place must’ve felt like a jackpot.
The doors were unlocked. In fact, they didn’t even have one. Beyond was what could best be described as an office suite. The carpet switched over to a deeper, more luxurious gray cut. Tastefully bland landscape art adorned wood-paneled walls. We strolled quietly down the wide hallway, muted by the hushed corporate atmosphere.
Doors on both sides led to offices and meeting spaces. There was a communications center, a room filled with surveillance monitors, one that housed computer equipment, even a small theater. “You could run a world war down here,” Tack said. He was right. This felt like one of those bunkers built for Congress or the president in case of nuclear attack. A fortress far below ground where hard-faced zealots could manipulate world events like vengeful gods.
At the far end of the corridor we reached a second set of identical wooden doors. “Let’s see what’s behind number two!” Tack quipped, pushing through.
The next section was like walking into a new building. Gone was the ultraserious business atmosphere, replaced by living space. The walls were muted blue, the floor hardwood. One side of the hall was lined with sleeping chambers, each with its own full bathroom. The other side had a kitchen, dining room, game room, and spacious lounge area with bookshelves and wide chairs.
Tack snorted. “Work. Play. So what’s behind door number three?” He pointed to another wooden pair dead ahead.
“How big is this place?” I wondered aloud. Min didn’t reply, hadn’t said anything, in fact, since we’d entered the complex. Her expression was unreadable.
Tack forgot to ignore me. “I count twelve sleeping quarters. Not enough for an army, but they could keep the bigwigs comfortable if they were stuck down here overnight, planning more child murder. Remember, Project Nemesis operated covertly in the valley for decades. Nothing they pulled off surprises me anymore.”
There was nothing for it but to keep going. We pushed through the third set of doors and stepped into a corridor of brilliant white. Walls. Tiles. Ceiling panels. Everything glowed harsh and fluorescent, like an expensive hospital. Steel doors lined both sides, but they were locked and wouldn’t open. Straight ahead was a pair of glass doors like the ones leading into the control room, but the chamber beyond appeared much vaster. The starburst seal was emblazoned on both sides.
“End of the line?” Tack guessed.
Min arrowed forward, eyes tight, her lips a white line. Something about her focus made me uneasy. Suddenly, I didn’t want to go any farther. What were we going to find?
Min pushed through the glass doors with Tack on her heels, leaving me no choice but to follow. We entered a low-ceilinged, laboratory-like chamber that seemed to stretch to infinity. Dimly lit. Cold enough to mist my breath. A counter ran along the walls, interspaced with giant tanks, tubes, computer monitors, and workstations. Bundles of wire and plastic piping disappeared through the floor and ceiling.
In the center of the chamber were rows of low pedestals, each topped by a wide metal tube roughly four feet wide and eight feet in length. For some reason, I thought of escape pods on a lame sci-fi show. The air tasted sterile and antiseptic, like a doctor’s office. The chamber was deathly silent except for a periodic hiss, like an air-conditioning unit clicking on and off.
“What in the world?” Tack muttered, stepping deeper into the room.
Min stood in the doorway, staring at the pedestals. All color had drained from her face. Tack walked to a nearby monitor. Spying a keyboard, he tapped the space bar. The screen woke, revealing a stream of letters and numbers.
“Hey, look!” Tack pointed to the monitor. “There’s a name here.”
Goose bumps erupted up and down my arms. Though he hadn’t been speaking to me, I joined him. Jessica Cale was blinking at the top of the screen. Status: 0 was printed beside it.
“Zero?” Tack straightened. “What does that mean?”
I noticed Min was still standing by the doors. Still staring at the pedestals.
Tack stepped back and peered down the long counter, lips moving as he counted. “Sixteen monitors along this wall . . . times four walls. Sixty-four.”
I stated the obvious. “One for each of us.”
Tack scratched behind an ear, too intrigued to bother hating me. “You think these stations, what . . . track us? Like, we each have one individually? That’s so . . . creepy. I wonder where mine is.” He walked down the row, tapping keys, looking for a screen with his name on it.
I walked back over to Min. “Hey. You okay?”
She swallowed. Didn’t speak.
“Guys?” Tack called, his voice tight. “This one’s for Piper Lockwood, but there’s no status number. It just says ‘eliminated.’”
My stomach did a cartwheel. Piper didn’t reset. I buried her in the forest.
Min shook herself, as if coming awake. Her eyes darted to me, and loathing filled them. “Because you destroyed her, right Noah? Obeying the Program. You stole her power for yourself like a vampire.”
My mouth worked, but her fury swept away any defense I might offer. I felt a crushing sense of guilt that quickly morphed to anger. “What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know Piper wouldn’t reset at the time. Plus, that’s the whole point anyway. There are only so many spots!”
“The lights,” Min whispered, gazing up at the ceiling.
Emotions roiling, I glanced up. Dedicated LED lamps burned directly above every pedestal. Except . . . now that I looked closely, I noticed that a few had gone dark. Three pedestals were no longer bathed in stark white light.
Tack was still circling, looking for his own terminal. I watched Min as her breathing picked up. Her arms and legs began to shake. My heart broke just watching.
“Min, I—”
“Get away from me,” she spat. Min seemed on the verge of fleeing the room, but instead she strode to the closest pedestal. I followed, feeling defeated. She’d never forgive me. She’d never accept what was required of us.
You shot her, jackass. When will you get that there’s no coming back from that?
Min climbed the two steps built into the pedestal. I inched up beside her, being careful not to crowd. A square of glass allowed a view inside the tube, but it was fogged over. Min reached out a tentative hand, paused, then wiped the moisture away.
Inside the tube was a body swaddled head to foot in clingy white gauze, leaving only the face visible. A ventilator covered its mouth. Its other features were slack and ashen white.
I straightened, confused. Was this some kind of giant morgue? Why keep bodies on ice in a laboratory at the bottom of a well? But one look at Min, and I realized I’d missed something.
“What is it?”
She didn’t answer. Min stared, wide-eyed, eyebrows climbing off her forehead.
Sneakers pounded across the floor tiles as Tack ran over to join us. With a grunt, I stuck my nose close to the glass window and examined the body. Then I reared back in surprise. “Oh my God!”
“What’s going on?” Tack demanded.
I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. “I don’t . . . It’s not possible . . . What—”
“Sarah,” Min choked out. “Sarah Harden is inside this . . . thing.”
Tack pressed his face to the glass, then recoiled as if slapped. “Jesus, you’re right! What happened to her?” He spun and eyed the doors. “Who brought her down here? Who would even know how to hook this stuff up? How’d they get past the blast door? I was sure we were the only ones who knew this place existed.”
I was shaking my head, dumbfounded. “But . . . no. Sarah was in town tonight. Like, only a few hours ago. I spoke to her, for Christ’s sake.”
Tack’s eyes narrowed. Min’s head swiveled to face me.
“You’re sure?” Tack said. “And why were you with her, anyway?”
“We were trying to shoot each other, if it makes you feel better,” I snapped. “Sarah and some others attacked me at the high school. She was fine! How could someone subdue her, then get her past us, down the shaft, and hooked into all of this crap so soon?”
Tack went pale. “The Guardian? Maybe he, like, moved her somehow. Kinda like a reset? Messing with the source code, or whatever.”
Min put a hand to her forehead. “Don’t you see?” she whispered.
I shook my head, baffled. Saw my confusion reflected in Tack’s eyes. “See what, Min?”
She pointed a shaky finger toward the wall. “Did you find your terminal, Tack? Did you see your status?”
“No. But I didn’t check them all.”
Min swept a hand around to encompass the pedestals. Suddenly, the tubes atop each one looked a lot like coffins. “Maybe you can find your body instead.”
I flinched. Then gaped at the orderly rows filling the laboratory. “No.”
I leapt down, raced to the next pedestal, climbed up, and rubbed the glass. A body stared back at me. Lars. Lars Jergen. His face was barely recognizable without the signature beard, but it was him. I jerked away and ran to the next tube. Sam Oatman lay inside, unmoving.
But he’s in the quarry!
I heard Tack gasp, realized he’d done the same thing in the opposite direction. “Why is Derrick Morris inside this fucking machine?!” he yelled. We glanced at each other, then both looked to Min.
She seemed catatonic, barely able to respond. Min pointed to a pedestal with its light doused. “Check that one, please.”
Tack and I met eyes again. The tube was directly between us and we arrived at the same time. I wiped the glass and peered inside. This body was sheet white, eyes fixed open and unblinking. No ventilator or tubes. I recognized the face and flinched as if burned.
“It’s . . . it’s Devin.”
Tack began ripping at his hair. “He’s unplugged. Because he didn’t reset!”
Pieces abruptly slotted into place. Suddenly I understood. “Oh my God. These are our real bodies.”
Tack shook his head testily. “We’re in a simulation. We don’t have bodies.”
“But the simulation is a perfect re-creation of the old Fire Lake,” I said. “They duplicated everything exactly how it was when the Program engaged. Which included the silo, and this room.”
Tack’s eyes rounded. “But why have this coffin party at all, even in the real world? The Guardian said we’re all dead. He said they needed our brains for formatting, and that’s why they gassed us in town square. If all that’s true, why keep our . . . corpses in cold storage like this?”
I felt a jolt of hope. “Do you think maybe we’re still alive? Like, our bodies are preserved in the real world, in these tubes, and we’re just . . . dreaming?”
“But that doesn’t fit what the Guardian said. Why would he lie? What would be the point of that?” Tack turned. “Min, what do you . . .”
He trailed off. Min had moved to a new pedestal, was staring down into the tube.
“Min?” I called.
She didn’t look up. Tack and I exchanged another glance, then hurried over.
Min had a faraway expression as she gazed within. Tack and I mounted the steps and peered through the glass. She was looking at herself.
I gripped my face, index finger curling over my nose. My stomach churned, and I choked back hot bile. Tack’s mouth was working, but no words came out. Then he reached out and tapped something on the side of the tube. A reading appeared on the glass.
Min Wilder. Status: -4.
The number was blinking in red.
She looked up, eyes glistening. “You guys are wrong, you know.”
“Huh?” Two dunces at once.
Min sighed, running a finger along the metal cylinder. “These aren’t our bodies. The Guardian was telling the truth. He just didn’t tell it all.”
My jaw clenched. I’d spoken with the Guardian that afternoon, a fact I’d still failed to mention. Yet I had no idea what Min was thinking. I felt a familiar tightening in my chest, something I thought I’d left behind in the real world. “What do you mean?”
“These aren’t our bodies, Noah. At least, not the old ones.”
“Then what are they?”
Min stroked the glass softly, gazing at her own still form.
“You’re looking at our clones.”