False Memory Read online

  Peter holds up his hands. “Guys, stop. If Rhys says he saw something, he saw something.”

  I throw up my hands. “Listen to me. Why do you think we’re here? I mean, what is our purpose?”

  Miranda stands up. “Rhys, indoor voice please.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” I say.

  Miranda shrugs. “Fine. I’ll get my mom, and she can tell you how crazy you are.”

  I stop her with a hand on her shoulder. She looks down at it, then up at me. Why is she acting like this? Good plan—let’s tell her mom I’ve found something bad, when I’m saying her mom is the one behind it. Her bright green eyes hold mine steadily.

  “Sit down, Miranda,” I say.

  Noah laughs from the floor, stretching over his extended leg. “Giving orders now?”

  Peter is the only one taking me seriously. And maybe Olive, who is uncertain and quiet, as always. They’re too trusting. They always have been. We’ve been living here for years, training, learning how to use this power we don’t fully understand. I shouldn’t have been in the server room, but it doesn’t change what I saw. I still remember the headline—

  PROJECT ROSE / PROJECTED WAVE RELEASE PATTERN FOR CITY

  Min: Four (4) Roses.

  Then, at the bottom—

  Two roses can be used effectively in smaller cities. Recommend pairing with partner. Roses One and Three can be paired. Do not recommend pairing Three and Five. Do not recommend pairing two of the same clone. Roses Two and Four can be used in any configuration.

  I make a final plea to my friends. “They gave us numbers . The program talked about what configuration we could be used in. It said ‘projected wave release pattern for city.’ You tell me what that means. It said we were clones.”

  Olive almost laughs. “Clones, huh? You lost me there.” Noah finally stands up, pulling his arm across his chest.

  “You swear to God you’re not kidding?”

  “Rhys’s jokes are usually believable,” Peter says. I take a deep breath. “I swear. I saw it.”

  “Then let’s look into it,” Noah says. “You probably misunderstood, but let’s look into it. Then when it turns out you’re an idiot, you can clean the bathroom for the next six months.”

  “Deal,” I say.

  Noah glances over my shoulder, and I turn. Miranda’s mom stands in the doorway, one sculpted eyebrow raised. She is beautiful like her daughter, not yet forty and only a few lines on her face to show for it. She’s wearing a crisp gray business suit.

  “Everyone out,” Mrs. North says. “I’d like to speak with Rhys alone.”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. North,” Noah says.

  Mrs. North rolls her eyes. “Really, Noah? Get your ass moving.” They file out at once. I’m in trouble and they know it. I want to scream at them to stay. No one is grasping the severity of the situation, and it’s my fault for not explaining it right.

  We are going to be used to hurt innocent people. How’s that for an explanation?

  But I let them go. I will let Mrs. North explain herself, and then I will take my next course of action. We’ve lived in comfort for so long I don’t blame them for being blind to the truth. If I hadn’t seen it, I might not believe it either.

  “Rhys,” Mrs. North says. She points at the table. It has a half-played game of Monopoly spread over it. “Have a seat.”

  I sit down across from her, closer to the door and the weapon hidden in my bunk. Mrs. North is our martial arts instructor. She taught us how to use a staff, a sword, our fingers and feet. She folds her powerful, delicate hands on the table. Hands I’ve felt so many times, but never in kindness. Always on the mat, always when I was too slow and a strike slipped through, cuffing me on the head or neck.

  Mrs. North sighs and moves one of the hotels on the board with her thumb. “I feel any explanation I give you will not be good enough.”

  I lick my lips.

  She nods. “Yes, I see that. What were you looking for, Rhys?”

  “Something has been off for as long as I can remember. Even my earliest memories are from this tower, all of us living together. And you never explained why. None of the parents did. The others...they know something isn’t right, but they’re afraid to see it. They don’t want to see it.”

  “What were you looking for, Rhys?”

  “The truth,” I say.

  She nods. “Did you find it?”

  “Yes. You’re raising us to be weapons. We can create fear from nothing, and I bet some people are willing to pay you for that power. You’re...you’ve made copies of us.” Saying the word makes me feel silly, but I say it anyway. “Clones.”

  My own father died a few years ago, but the other parents stuck around to help raise us. Because we’re special, they said. A family.

  “You’re wrong,” Mrs. North says.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are,” she says. “We aren’t cloning you. You are the clone.”

  “What? No.”

  “Yes. All of you. Miranda? Who do you think that is? Look at me.” Mrs. North’s green eyes are flecked with brown and gold. “Look at my face, Rhys. Who am I?”

  “No...” I say.

  “Yes. We made you. And we can do what we want with you.”

  “What happens now?”

  There is new tension in Mrs. North’s shoulders. I’ve never been able to beat her one-on-one. Only recently have I been able to hold my own.

  Mrs. North unbuttons the front of her business suit. “I’m going to put you in holding and keep your memory shots away. After a while you will forget this, and then I can place you back with the others. I’ll have to do the same for them, too. Which is your fault, Rhys. Your fault. You go poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, and stuff like this happens.”

  I think about going back to the way things were. Clueless. With the same outcome—our use as the ultimate weapon. I can’t have it. I can’t let them make me forget.

  Mrs. North takes off her slender wristwatch. “Now. Will you come with me, or do I have to force you?”

  Neither of us moves for a long beat. Mrs. North blinks. I spring out of my seat and lunge for my bunk. My revolver is there, under the pillow. We aren’t supposed to keep the weapons in our room, but I do. I hear Mrs. North step onto the table and spring off; she’ll be on me in the next second. I slide my hand under my pillow, feeling cool steel. My fingers close around it as Mrs. North hits me so hard in the back of the head my vision fuzzes black for a second. She wraps her arms around me and twists, throws me across the room. I land on my back, sliding, but she doesn’t see I had already closed my hand on the gun. I aim it at her heart and pull the trigger. The gun bucks in my hand and a red hole opens in her chest. Another step before she falls to one knee. She covers the hole on her blouse with one hand, but it drops away.

  I don’t waste time. I roll off the floor and gather what items I have and throw them into a pack. I kneel over Mrs. North and check her pulse. Still beating. I missed her heart. I put the gun against her forehead and hold it there. But I can’t do it. I don’t know why. Because she was a mother to me all those years, alongside the others? Even if she was as brutal a mother as I can imagine, she still helped raise me. It was a lie, I know, but I can’t. I can’t pull the trigger. The gun leaves a pinkish ring of burned skin on her brow.

  A guard kicks in the door with his rifle up and ready. I fire a shot between his eyes. He falls in the doorway, wedging it open.

  I stand up, sparing Mrs. North a final glance.

  Then I run.

  More guards fall before me, faceless men who’ve been there my whole life but have never spoken a word. They die. In Mrs. North’s office I find more ammunition and a strange metal headband. They go in my pack. I find a parachute stashed in the bottom of a cabinet, along with bundles of cash. I find cases of memory shots. Eyes on the door, I fill my pack till it’s near bursting. Leave it to Mrs. North to keep a parachute and enough cash on hand in case she needed to escape. I�
��ll remember to thank her one day, if she survives.

  I close my eyes and open them.

  Now I stand in front of a window overlooking the city and the lake. Gunfire erupts behind me. The window shatters and I jump through the falling shards, out into open air. The wind rushes through my hair...the violent tug as the parachute opens. The scent of roses.

  I close my eyes.

  You’re Miranda. Not Rhys. Miranda. I am Miranda. Miranda North.

  But at the same time, I’m Rhys.

  As my eyes open once more, I lose myself completely.

  I’m in a forest. The Beta team base is nearby—I’ve seen the other versions of us training in the woods. They’re almost as far along as us, maybe a year behind.

  Dr. Tycast seems like a good enough guy. I wonder if I can warn Beta team without getting myself killed. But my Alpha is a lost cause. They’re in the woods, chasing me, blind to the truth. They think I’ve gone mad. My friends, turned against me because of a lie. They’ll be used. Sold to kill. And there’s not a thing I can say or do to convince them otherwise.

  “Rhyyyyyys!” Someone calls to me. They’re closing in. I jump onto a low branch of the nearest tree and start climbing. It doesn’t matter if they kill me. All that matters is what will happen to them after they do.

  There is only one thing I can do to save them.

  I wait in the branches for an hour. Maybe more. My breath stays shallow through force of will, muscles relaxed but ready. Then I see Peter crouched under the tree, unaware I’m directly above him. He scans some bushes across the path, calm as still water. Now is my chance. I slip off a branch as silently as I can and free-fall, pulling my revolver. I land behind him in a crouch, then rise up. Peter, who might have believed me. Peter, who was fair to everyone.

  “Rhys,” Peter says without turning around. He raises his hands slowly.

  I shoot him in the back of the head. The tall grass around me rustles as small animals flee the explosion. I’m running again. The forest thickens around me, branches snagging my suit. My passing sounds like an elephant trampling through the brush. I leap over a large bush into a clearing. The sky is purple, speckled with stars. Noah stands in the clearing with his sword out.

  “Who did you shoot?” he says. He’s breathing heavy. “Peter.”

  “Why, Rhys? Why?”

  “Because I won’t let us be monsters. Mrs. North will make us forget everything.”

  “She won’t. You have to trust her.” He unslings a rifle from his back and holds it vertically, barrel down.

  I point the revolver. “Don’t.”

  “Are you crazy, Rhys? She told us you were crazy. That your body was rejecting the memory shots.”

  “Listen to yourself. Memory shots. Who are we, Noah? Why are we here?”

  “You killed Peter.” He lifts his rifle, but too slowly. Like he was giving me time, or afraid to shoot. I pull the trigger and a bright red hole opens on his forehead and he disappears into the tall grass.

  Olive bursts from the tree line where she was hidden, sword raised. I spin, lose the gun when she chops it from my hand. She kicks, slim heel connecting with my Adam’s apple. I fall into the grass, struggling for breath through my aching throat. She jumps on me, screaming, and raises the sword above her head. My own sword is jammed on my belt under her thigh, so I slam my knee into her butt, and she wobbles forward and rolls off me. Her sword point sticks in the dirt next to my head. I grab her leg and twist her over, pulling her close. One hand grips her throat and the other pins her sword arm to the ground. A quick pinch of her delicate wrist bones and the sword falls from her fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, squeezing until the little capillaries in her eyes burst and she stops struggling. I squeeze some more. Until she’s dead. I start crying. Big, fat tears falling onto Olive’s black suit. But they can’t be used to hurt anyone now. No one will make them forget.

  I slide off her, still crying, and find my gun in the tall grass by luck. I stand up and drag my forearm across my eyes. My breath hitches. When I open my eyes, Miranda stands at the edge of the tall grass. Her face is resigned, sad. I wish I could say something to make it okay.

  “I love you,” she says.

  I start crying again, face pinched, cheeks aching. But I keep my gun on her, shaky though it is.

  “Don’t do this,” she says. “I love you, Rhys. You’re my brother.”

  Is she just saying that? Is this her cunning? Does it even matter? I can’t trust her. She came with the others.

  “Show me your hands, Miranda.”

  She holds them up, palm out, and steps into the clearing. I hear a helicopter in the distance, the faint rhythmic buzz of its blades.

  “Don’t come any closer,” I say.

  Because it’s Miranda, she ignores my request and moves closer. Soon she’s right in front of me. My resolve crumbles as she pushes my gun away and wraps her arms around me. Her body trembles against mine.

  Afraid of me.

  “Come back with me,” she says against my shoulder. “Come home.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Rhys.” She pulls the knife off her back and pushes off me, slashing sideways at my throat. I block it with my forearm; the blade pierces my suit and flesh, clicks off the bone. Pure, hot pain. I put the gun against her breastbone and pull the trigger. She gasps. I pull the knife from my arm and catch her as she falls into me. I hold her upright and she stares into my eyes.

  “I hope you’re right,” she whispers. “I don’t believe you are, but I hope. I hope you...”

  “I am,” I say.

  “Then kill them all.” She rests her forehead against my chest and dies.

  Now I’m truly alone, but it doesn’t make me sad. There are no tears because they’ve been boiled away by rage. With shaking hands I lay her in the grass, next to the only family I’ve ever known.

  They created us to be weapons, and I’m going to show them what happens when you don’t use one responsibly.

  I’m going to kill them all, like Miranda said to.

  Slowly, I make my way out of the woods.

  28

  I open my eyes and burst into tears. Sobs rack my body. The sight of Rhys stirs something within me. I reach for him and he reaches for me. I bury my face in his shoulder and cry and cry and cry. And not because of the residual pain in my head, the throbbing needlepoints wherever the band touched my skin. It’s because the horror he felt is now my own. I still feel the weight of the trigger, the spike in his gut with each one he killed. The loss dwarfs anything I’ve felt so far. That pain is the only reason I haven’t run screaming from the apartment, why I haven’t pushed him away in disgust. As impossible as it seems, I understand what he did, and why.

  “Now you see,” he says.

  “You killed them,” I say.

  “Yes. I did.”

  “You would’ve killed us...”

  “If you hadn’t found out the truth on your own, or I couldn’t

  show you in time . . .”

  His memories stay with me, but the vividness fades until I can breathe normally again. Rhys holds me the whole time. I want to ask where Noah is, but I know he’s not here. Otherwise he’d be beside me. Outside, noon has become afternoon. I check the stove—3:47. I spent hours in his memories, though it felt like minutes.

  “Why are we different?” I say.

  His breath tickles my ear when he talks. “Your team was the first one raised outside of our ‘parents’ influence. You came a year behind us, and the current Beta team a year behind you. Maybe it was the creators’ influence that kept my team from seeing the truth, something you never had growing up.” He pulls back. I want to hide my puffy wet face, but he puts a firm hand along my cheek.

  “Your team never knew me,” he says. “If there were other versions of me, I’ve never found them. Maybe I’m special. Or maybe they removed my clone from your memories.”

  He pauses, blond brows furrowing. “But that doesn
’t explain why you’ve used the memory band, and the others haven’t...” He shakes his head and sighs through his nose. “I just don’t know. What I do know is the tattoo for the Betas came shortly after I left. It was only a matter of time before they controlled you, too.”

  I wipe my nose on my armored forearm, which works as well as you’d expect. “And then we wouldn’t be here to fight.”

  “Exactly.” He waits while I take a moment to pull myself together, sniffling and rubbing the tears off my cheeks. “Do you hate me?” he says.

  The question startles me. “No.” I swing my legs over the side of the couch. He stands up. “Where’s Noah and Olive?” I say.

  “I sent them to recover my cache of H9 and memory shots. I stole enough to last.”

  “H9,” I say.

  “The stuff we’ll use to destroy their labs. You’re already familiar with it.”

  The fires that consumed my home. Yes, I’m familiar.

  He doesn’t try to hide the pain in his eyes. Maybe he doesn’t care if I see. I can’t imagine what it’s like to meet us, an almost exact copy of his team. The team he murdered, to save them from the fate of monsters. I can’t wrap my head around it; there had to be another way. It only makes sense he would kill us, too, before letting us be captured.

  “Where did you get the memory band?” I say, pushing the horrible thoughts aside.

  “I stole it. You saw, in Mrs. North’s office. Along with a good supply of the memory serum. And some weapons and H9 from the Beta team armory. I’ve been watching you ever since, both teams, waiting to make my move, seeing who I could trust.”

  Trust. The concept sounds funny when it’s reversed. The whole time my instincts have been screaming not to trust him, simply because I don’t know him. I didn’t stop to consider that maybe we have to earn his trust too. I want to fight this strange bond I feel toward him now. But I don’t think I can do that any more than I can fight being me. I have a piece of him inside me now. There is no going back, no way to erase the shared memory.