Twenty-One

The small, dim room smells like dirty socks and rust. A mop and bucket are left abandoned next to the far wall, and water drips from an old spigot to my right. Algae lines the way the water runs into a small drain. Everyone made it out of the server room, and Trip found a safe place where Seph could patch me up again. My arm throbs, but it’s better than bleeding to death. I’m glad the others are doing a little scouting to give me a second to breathe. And being alone with Seph for a few minutes isn’t horrible, either.

He pulls the new bandage tight, and I spin around, staring into his intense eyes. The deep trench of concern that was in Seph’s forehead before has all but disappeared, and instead he’s smiling at me. I smile back, grateful he’s once again stayed by my side. But my smile doesn’t last long. My stomach is still a mess from what just happened.

He brushes his hand against my cheek. “How you feeling?” The deep baritone of his voice vibrates in my chest. Or maybe it’s my heart.

“I’ve been better. Thanks for this.” I run my hand along the new strip of fabric tied around my arm.

Seph takes a long drink from the water bottle and tucks it back in the bag. “There was nothing you could’ve done.”

“I know.” But it still doesn’t make me feel any better. If I’d only gotten there a few seconds quicker, maybe that AIRS would’ve been okay. Maybe he could’ve told us something. Anything. But I can’t change the past. I let out a long breath. “How’d you get so good at that anyway?” I nod toward the SOUL full of all the data we just collected sticking out of his pocket.

Seph picks at a loose string on his shirt. “It kind of started as a game. My friend and I would dare each other to do stuff, like change someone’s web page or redirect links to totally wrong places. That kinda thing. And soon, we were hacking into people’s SOULs, changing their tats, giving our friends eyeliner and shit without them even knowing. Then it got bigger and people would pay us to ‘fix’ things for them. Sure, it wasn’t exactly legal. But it didn’t seem so bad, it’s not like we were hurting anyone. Until…”

He doesn’t say anything else. I listen to the water, plink, plink, plink against the concrete. He stares at his hands in his lap, his brows pulling together and separating like he’s debating something in his head.

“When I opened up that WALTER I saw something weird,” I say, breaking the silence. Then I go on to tell him about the chip, how it shouldn’t have been there. Then I hand him Dwayne’s old book. His gaze flits across the pages I flipped the corners down on, and after a few minutes he hands it back.

Seph glances at the door. “Before I got hauled in, I heard a rumor that someone was intentionally glitching WALTERs.” He keeps his voice low even though we’re alone. “I don’t know who it was, but I heard they weren’t happy about another group fixing them and helping them get out of CalTes. Some heavy-duty engineering genius is what I was told. There was a huge reward to anyone who helped get rid of him.”

I bite the skin around my thumb. As the words come out of his mouth, they feel so familiar, like it’s something I should remember from before. “But why would anyone want to hurt WALTERs?” As soon as I ask, an answer pops into my head. VolTon. But why would they sabotage their own creation? And I’m not sure why I didn’t notice it before, but how did Ruthie get one up on that AIRS?

There are so many things I want to ask Seph, but my thoughts are racing, and I can’t seem to make sense of anything. More silence stretches between us. Our eyes lock. Those intense gray hypnotizers hone in on me. The air fills with electricity. My lips part. The hair on my arm stands up and starts to dance, tickling my skin. And it isn’t until this moment, I realize how close we are. Legs pressed against each other’s. Faces so close the heat of his breath brushes across my cheeks. Everything inside me trembles. This isn’t like before. It isn’t life or death, or possibly the last chance for anything. Right now things seem calm, but I still want to close the space between us and feel those soft lips on mine again. Let him wrap me tight in his arms. What would he do this time if I kissed him?

Now when I don’t move, it isn’t strategic. It’s because I’m afraid to break the spell. The outsides of his eyes crinkle, the corners of his mouth pull up like he might know what I’m thinking, and that makes me hesitate even more. He leans in. My eyes flutter closed as his lips graze mine.

Screw it.

I grab the back of his neck and pull him into me. It’s like before, only better. This time, I’m sure he’s kissing me because he wants to, not because there’s any kind of impending doom pressuring him. His hand glides up my back, sending fireworks through my veins. The scruff of his face scrapes against my chin as he pulls me in deeper.

If I could stop the world, or time, I’d do it now so this moment could last forever. But like anything good, he slowly pulls away. Him. Not me. And something inside my chest aches.

“Wait. I need to talk to you,” he says, trying to catch his breath.

“Sure, what is it?” My lips itch to kiss him again.

He takes a deep breath. “They locked me in here for killing someone.”

I blink a few times, not wanting to believe what he said. “No, you couldn’t…”

“I didn’t do it. I mean—I thought I did. But you told that story back in the cave, and I got this thing working.” He shows me the SOUL. “I didn’t tell you right away because I was scared, but before anything more happens between us, you have to know.” He holds my hand up. The one with only four fingers. “This is all my fault.”

The world stops. I can’t even move as he explains how he was hired to do a job. It was supposed to be a joke or something, but he didn’t care. They paid him good money, and it was an easy fix. Hack into the control panel of a LawnBot and set it up to be remote controlled. The guys said it was to pull a gag on one of their friends. Except a few weeks later, he was told the joke killed someone, and before he could ask questions, they were hauling him away. “You have to understand, I didn’t know it had anything to do with you. I might be a hacker, but I’m not a killer, and now I have proof.” He sounds excited.

My stomach clenches. I heard everything he said, but I don’t want to understand. I don’t want to know it’s because of him I’m left with only nine fingers. That I can’t grip things the way I want to anymore. He was hired to hurt me. Maybe even kill me if things happened differently. But why? And is there more he isn’t telling me? I was just starting to trust him, and now this. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I yank my hand away. “This is because of you, but I should be happy because you didn’t kill someone like you thought?” My words are like darts. And right now, I don’t care if they hurt.

“No. That’s not what I mean—”

“And what now? You’re going to run off and ask them to let you go, because you didn’t do what they said you did to get locked up?” My traitorous voice is full of hurt.

“You didn’t do anything, either. At least I couldn’t find anything. There are no records. Zero in the public domain. Nothing at all comes up when I searched your real name.”

The room spins. “What do you mean? Lezah is my real name.” First my hand and now this. My name has been the only thing I’ve been sure of since I got here. I want to ask him what he’s talking about, but I think I might throw up. And his eyes. His eyes are so sad again. I can’t believe I trusted him.

There’s a loud thud as the door slides open, and the missing three from our gang join us in the now-cramped room.

Clara rushes to my side. “Oh, thank God you’re okay.” She pulls me in for a hug, and I let her embrace calm me. My hand throbs, pain in a finger that’s no longer there, because of Seph.

“I hate to break up this little reunion, but we still need to get out of here,” Trip says.

As a group, we go over the plan one more time. Their scouting expedition paid off, and thanks to Ruthie, there’s a better way to get to our destination. Whenever Seph speaks, I can’t force myself to look at him. I shouldn’t be as angry as I am. I accepted the loss of my finger a while ago, convinced myself it could’ve been worse. And it sounds like it really could have. He didn’t do it on purpose. He even said he didn’t know I was involved, but I need to know more. Like who were the guys who hired him? As soon as I get another second alone with him, I’m going to ask. But first, I have to get the hell out of this place.

Once again, I’m lined up single file and creep my way down the hall, trying not to make a sound. It seems like getting there is taking forever.

“How much farther?” Ruthie whispers.

No one answers her. Maybe because, like me, they’re trying to be quiet, or maybe because no one really knows.

Seph disappears around another corner. Thump, thump, thump. Footsteps. They’re behind me and getting closer. Crap. I guess our spider friend didn’t work; or they found him and realized it wasn’t us. I’m the last to duck around the corner. The others have broken into a sprint, and I’m way behind.

I run hard to try and catch up. So much for being quiet. The sound of our feet pounding concrete echoes through the corridor.

A wall slides open and an AIRS darts out. Ruthie screams. Trip pushes her out of the way from the AIRS’s reach, but it grabs him instead. Trip’s no match against the strength and weight of the man on top of him, but he’s giving it all he’s got.

Clara yanks the electrigun from Ruthie’s grasp and zaps the AIRS with a direct hit. His body goes stiff from the burst of electricity running through it. He collapses to the ground. Seph is pushing the guard’s massive mechanical body off of Trip when I finally catch up to them.

“Thanks, bro.” Trip takes Seph’s hand, and Seph pulls him up.

Seph nods in the direction behind me. “Don’t thank me yet.”

From around the corner I just came from, a mass of AIRS march our way. Three across, shoulder to shoulder as they come down the hall. And there’s three, four, five lines of them. AIRS have always scared me with their larger-than-human frames and inhuman faces. And these are here to stop us—probably kill us. My hand trembles as I pull my homemade EMP out, praying it’ll save our lives. There’s no other choice. There’s no other choice. There’s no other choice. But still I hesitate. And they keep getting closer.

Maybe we can outrun them. I glance behind me. Clara drags Ruthie around the next corner, and Seph yells to hurry up as he stumbles after them.

There’s no other choice. But I don’t move. Any moment they’ll be close enough to tackle me to the ground, and yet, I can’t bring myself to do it. Trip rips the weapon from my hand and—does what I couldn’t—pulls the trigger.

In an instant, a mass of bodies is on the ground. I push the image from my mind and follow the rest of the group around the corner, stopping at the door we’ve been searching for. The one I believe is our ticket out of this place.

It’s solid metal, with huge bolts that line up next to each other all the way around. The worst part is that it needs a code to get in. Lucky for us, we have Seph. He uses some wires I found before and hooks them from the SOUL to the door panel. His fingers move lightning fast as he works. I wish there was something I could do to help, but this is all up to him.

Sweat trickles down the side of his face as he continues to pound away.

A loud boom echoes through the hall. Probably the backup team coming to see what happened. “Come on, Seph, you can do it,” I tell him. You need to do it. Now there’s an echo of more pounding feet that aren’t ours.

“Will you stop that,” Seph says, and I notice that I’m rubbing my hands together.

“Sorry,” I say, but what I really mean is hurry the fuck up.

After what seems like an eternity, the lock disengages. Seph yanks the wires from the panel, and I push inside with everyone else.

As soon as the door closes, I know something isn’t right. But it’s not like before when I ended up in that sim. No. This is real. I freeze as I take in the massive room with rows and rows of cradles. Babies cry from every direction.

A shudder runs through me. What the hell?