Jag swore and thrashed. The other agents pressed closer, pushing Jag in front of them. He looked everywhere but at me.
“I didn’t,” I said. “Jag, I swear I didn’t.”
“Give it to me.” Zenn grabbed my arm again.
“Don’t touch her!” Jag yelled, kicking backward. Two men fell down. I punched an agent in the stomach. When he doubled over, I grabbed his taser and pointed it at Jag’s tech-cuffs.
I flew backward from the blast of three tasers.
“Vi!” Jag’s anguished voice rang in my ears. I stared straight up, unable to move. The canopy of trees created an umbrella that blocked out the stars. A single taser beam should have knocked me out. With three, I should be dead.
The fire in my chest needed cooling. Hot pain spread into my lungs and I couldn’t gulp enough oxygen to put out the flames. A rushing white noise like water falling hundreds of feet clogged my ears. I closed my eyes and wished for death.
Air moved over and around my face. The crackling of dry leaves echoed through my head. Slowly, the rustling was drowned out by something much worse. Words.
Thane’s voice infiltrated even my death. So many choices, he said. Good or bad? Zenn or Jag? What’s it going to be, V?
Only one person called me V.
My dad.
The voice belonged to my dad.
I could only come up with one explanation: Thane Myers was my dad.
20.
I entered a dark place. The sun didn’t shine. No smiling. No hugging. No happy reunions.
Only betrayal.
That man had taken my memory. Of him.
That man was controlling everything.
That man—my dad—had controlled me and persuaded me with his voice.
Inside, I felt like a raging storm, strong enough to destroy anything in my path. Too bad I couldn’t move. But my voice still worked.
And so I screamed, desperate to drain the debilitating feelings. Anything to get the shock and hurt out of my mind.
“Help her.” That voice soothed. Jag’s tone always did. “Please, Zenn.”
“So. The rumor is true,” Zenn said, disdain dripping from every word. “You two are together.”
Endless pain screamed through my senses. I couldn’t rid myself of it.
“Zenn, don’t. Our argument doesn’t involve Vi.”
“Everything involves Vi. Everything I’ve done is for her.”
“You betrayed her.”
A rustling noise joined the shrieking in my ears. “Just because I dropped out of the Resistance doesn’t mean I stopped working for our cause. I’ve been protecting her for a long time. And not just because I want to use her for something. But because I love her.”
“Let me get this straight.” Jag’s voice took on the strange quality that made my eyes heavy and the truth float to the surface. “You defected right when she needed you most. Is that what you’re saying? That you turned Informant to keep working for the cause?”
Zenn exhaled, a heavy sound full of fury and frustration. “I didn’t defect. You want her to die?”
“Of course not.” Jag clipped the words out.
“Well, Thane doesn’t take no for an answer. It was either help him or watch her die. What would you have done?”
A long pause followed, filled only by the wailing torment in my soul.
“Help her,” Jag repeated, softer this time. “Please.”
Time crawled by. Finally, whispers of cool air flitted across my face. “Vi,” Zenn said. “Settle down, beautiful.”
The wretched screaming stopped. Every cell in my body raged with fire. “Here, can you drink?” Zenn asked. Water trickled into my mouth, cooling the deception.
“Jag, listen,” Zenn continued, his voice following his footsteps as he moved away. “I didn’t—”
“Stop,” Jag commanded. “I already know everything.”
“You never heard my side.”
“Whatever. I heard every single word.” Jag’s words carried grief amidst the fury.
Silence descended, trapping their conversation in my ears. Half of me wished I knew more about what they were discussing. The other half was fine with the ignorance. At least then I wouldn’t have to choose sides.
“She’s carrying a tracker,” Zenn said, his voice foreign and far away.
“No,” I croaked. “Not true.” I staggered to my feet. “Jag. I—I didn’t. He’s lying. I don’t have a tracker. Promise.” I coughed and blood dripped down my throat.
Hope entered Jag’s blazing eyes, but Zenn strode forward and seized my arm. He motioned to the other SF agents, who’d retreated into the forest. As they came forward, Zenn dragged me back toward Jag, who looked like the sky might swallow him. “Empty your pockets.”
I dug my hands in my jeans and came up empty-handed. “I don’t have anything.”
“All your pockets,” Zenn said, nodding toward my feet.
Toward my shoes that had a secret pocket, something only Zenn knew. Betrayal tasted like metal, thick and tinny in my throat.
I knelt down and probed the tiny slot with two fingers. I felt something papery. Slowly, I withdrew it and cupped it in my palm, unwilling to believe that the dream could be true. That I’d been carrying this in my shoe for the past two weeks, that Zenn had brainwashed me.
Zenn wrenched my fingers apart and a green-paper package sat there. For my perfect match in his handwriting glared up at me.
“Ah, you do still have it,” Zenn said. His eyes looked cloudy and distant. “My birthday present. Happy birthday, Vi.” He laughed in his precious voice, the one that used to heal my agony and calm my fears. The one that had said the three most important words on earth just a few minutes ago.
But he’d invited me to take a walk with him so he could trick me. “No.” I shook my head, looking only at Jag. “Stop.”
“It’s coated in protectant.” Zenn unwrapped his gift, peeling back an inner filament layer surrounding the tech. Before I could process the word “protectant,” my vision blurred, my chest burned, another cough tore through my throat. Through it all, I saw the ring, golden and shiny and beautiful. What would it have meant to me if I’d opened it that night in the park?
Honestly, it would have meant everything. It would have meant I was good enough for Zenn. That he loved me and thought of me during his Special Forces training. That we would be together when he was finished. Jewelry means something in the Goodgrounds, remember?
“Oh, Vi,” Zenn said. “I can’t believe you didn’t open it. This breaks my heart.” His eyes were clear, his voice held no sarcasm. “We’re matched.” He held up his right hand, where he wore an identical band of gold around his pinky finger.
Then his eyes clouded over. He seized my right hand and slid the ring on my pinky finger. Tech sizzled through my flesh—definitely a tracker.
Through my tears, the betrayal showed on Jag’s face. “Zenn, stop it. Please.”
“I guess you aren’t totally in tune with tech.” He pushed me toward another agent, who cuffed me. Twice.
“Vi?” Jag asked, the question hanging between us.
The words in my mouth tripped over each other. My mind raced, trying to find the exact thing to say that would take the pleading out of his eyes, remove the accusation in his voice. The explanation stalled and gathered in my throat.
Jag’s mouth tightened and his eyes hardened. “Nice.”
21.
Memory modification is an extremely advanced form of control. Much more than suggestion, which is what the transmissions do. MemMod is only done to those who have a memory They need them to forget. I know, because the one time Ty came home, she’d told me she couldn’t find her way. She’d suspected They’d been performing MemMod on her, but she couldn’t remember what for.
Her eyes were cloudy—like Zenn’s. Ty said she couldn’t see, and I’d had to lead her to her bedroom. I brought her lunch and then dinner. And the whole time, all I could think was how I was going to kill the
Thinker that had erased my sister’s memories.
I begged her not to go back, but she said she had to. I’d never see her again. After that, I stopped plugging into the transmissions. I dyed my hair. Zenn and I snuck out and stayed up all night just to watch the sun rise the next morning. We skipped rocks in the lake. I went to parties and stole shoes and anything else I could think of to show that no one—and I mean no one—could control me. Through it all, Zenn had been there with me, my silent partner. My perfect match.
But now I wasn’t sure of anything. My memory of that day in the park had been modified, stolen. They’d taken my memory of Zenn and his birthday present—and I use that term loosely. Even boiled cabbage is better than a kiss of betrayal, a gold-plated tracker, and a whispered word of MemMod.
And who’d done that to me? My match, the person I loved and trusted the most after my dad disappeared.
Jag stood straight, his eyes boring into mine. So cold. Finally the agents pulled him away.
Zenn pushed and prodded me in another direction. Two agents walked with him, and they joked about how easy it had been to find us. I tuned them out and thought about what might happen to Jag.
“Worried about your boyfriend?” Zenn asked when he caught me looking back.
“Yeah. When did you go all Green?”
He looked shocked, but quickly wiped the emotion away. “Please. I saw you with him.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Sleeping in a tree with him. Vi, are you really so desperate?”
“At least I didn’t kiss him to cover my ass.”
He flinched like I’d slapped him. He blinked a couple of times and fell back with his squad. The thing is, the words hurt me as much as him.
The facility was a lot farther away than it looked. It took most of the night to get there, mostly because I kept tripping on purpose.
“Knock it off,” Zenn said, pulling me to my feet once again. “My mission needs to go smoothly.”
And there it was. I was Zenn’s mission. Probably his first, and he needed to make a good impression for the big boys in the Association—for Thane.
The facility stood five stories tall, shiny and silver, made with seamless tech. Zenn led me inside with his traitorous hand on my shoulder. He kept glancing from left to right as if he expected an ambush, but none came.
Icy air blew in my face. It didn’t cool the heat spreading from my chest into my limbs. The tech felt different here. New. Bad.
The stark walls lay bare: no art, no color, no hint that anyone had ever been here before. An alarm sounded, and four Mechs whizzed out of a door in the far left corner.
“I thought you said she was clean,” Zenn hissed to another agent.
“She is.”
“Where’s Jag?” I demanded.
“Who?” Zenn’s eyes looked like he’d had an optical-enhancement that didn’t turn out so well. Blurred. Foggy.
Each Mech’s siren erupted as they scanned my left wrist.
“I thought you said it wasn’t activated,” Zenn shouted over the whoop-whoop-whoop! of the Mechs.
“That’s what that guy said!” I yelled back.
“What guy?”
“Him!” I pointed to Baldie as he appeared next to me, wearing his Greenie robes.
Baldie reset each Mech, silencing the alarms. “Thank you, Specialist Bower, you may go.”
Zenn stood there, blinking fast. That obviously wasn’t what he’d expected. “Who are you?”
“I’m invisible. You should go now.” Baldie stood with a smile on his face that only touched his lips. The tech lights glared on his scalp. Tension and power emanated from him.
Zenn opened his mouth to protest. Then the defiance slid off his face, and he turned to the other agents. “We should go now.” The way he repeated Baldie’s words screamed of control.
I puzzled over exactly what Zenn had done on his own and what he’d been told to do. I wondered which of the words he’d said to me came from his mind or from someone else’s. I wondered if he knew my dad was Thane Myers or not. I wondered if it mattered. I still loved him. I still couldn’t stand idly by and watch him be controlled.
“Welcome, Violet,” Baldie said after Zenn had gone. “We have a lot to talk about.” He gestured toward the door in the far corner. His voice could definitely influence me—if I let it.
“Like I’m going anywhere with you. Where’s Jag?”
He turned and took a step toward me. “Trust me, it’s in your best interest if we move to a more secure location.” His eyes darted around the sterile room, as though expecting danger.
“I want to see Jag first.” I moved toward the exit. Baldie appeared in front of me in a flicker of light.
That was teleportation without a terminal. Way advanced in the tech department.
“How did you do that?”
He held up his left hand. He wore a wide silver ring on his middle finger. A symbol adorned it—two looping snakes with no beginning and no end.
“Jag will be fine. The Special Forces pose no threat to him—or you. Their job was to bring you safely here.”
“Then where is he?”
Baldie stepped forward and held out an identical ring. “I’ll give you this if you’ll please just go through that door.” He nodded behind him to the door in the corner.
Something didn’t add up. He’d give me an advanced teleporter ring just to walk through a door?
“Yeah, it’s probably not activated,” I said. “Like my tag. Oh, wait. That is activated. You said it wasn’t.”
“It’s not.”
“Then what’s up with the Mechs?”
“They merely sense bar codes. All tags have a bar code, I believe.”
Yeah, he was right, but I still didn’t believe a single word he said. “I set off the alarm at the border. Explain that.”
“We have Mechs stationed at each entrance to the Goodgrounds.” He glared back at me, then gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”
I folded my legs underneath me. “I’m not going anywhere until I see Jag.”
“Fine.” Baldie nodded to the wall. A projection screen brightened, and a picture of Jag appeared. He wore a blue shirt and lay sleeping on a bed under white sheets. Iron bars barely showed at the top of the screen.
“That’s nothing,” I said. “That looks like Ward D. No. I want to see him, in person.”
“He’s through that door.”
“Then get him the hell out here!”
He glared down at me. For a second I thought he’d throw me over his shoulder and carry me through the door. I stared back, willing him to do what I wanted. His eyes glazed over, and he nodded again. A few minutes later, Jag walked through the door, wearing a black shirt. That lame projection was Ward D.
Jag didn’t speak. He wouldn’t look at me as I sprinted toward him. Tech-cuffs still circled his wrists, and his right eye looked puffy and bloodshot.
“Jag!” I flung myself at him, but he had no way to catch me. We stumbled backward together, landing in a pile on the floor. “I didn’t know, Jag, I swear I didn’t,” I breathed in his ear. “Zenn tricked me. I didn’t—oof!”
“No talking.” Baldie shoved me away from Jag, using himself as a barrier between us.
Jag kept his icy gaze trained on the blank wall behind me, silent, as Baldie helped him stand.
“You’ve seen him, now go.” Baldie pushed me behind Jag, who was already being herded through the door by two Mechs.
“Jag!” I yelled. “We have to stay—” Baldie slapped on a silencer and the rest of my words died.
Jag’s left arm twitched, but he didn’t break stride or turn around.
Baldie steered us down a long hallway (un)decorated exactly as the main entry. Doors bordered both sides. All white, all closed, all unlabeled.
At the end of the hall, a waist-high silver desk broke the monotony of the walls. Baldie tapped on an electro-board. Images flashed to life, filling at least a dozen projection screens simultaneous
ly.
I moaned with the spike in techtricity. A moment later the fireball in my chest burned.
But I couldn’t look away from the pictures.
A five-year-old Tyson and a three-year-old me played in the water, dipping our feet and splashing each other. I could almost hear our laughter. A sob broke from my throat, mingled with a smile.
A young boy—obviously Jag with his playful grin—played ball with his brothers Pace and Blaze. His blueberry eyes sparkled in the sun with freedom.
In front of me, Jag clenched his fists.
My dad, exactly how I remembered him, filled the screen. Clean-cut brown hair. Crinkly green eyes. Alabaster skin. The tears flowed freely now, and I raised my hand halfway toward the picture before letting it fall back to my side. He wasn’t that man anymore. I wasn’t sure who he was. The man on the back of Jag’s book? Thane Myers? Or the man in my memory? He couldn’t be all three.
A man and a woman appeared next. I’d seen the man in Jag’s nightmares. His parents. Jag’s shoulders shook as he broke apart again. The stupid silencer kept me from consoling him verbally. I laid my hand on his back, and he didn’t shrug me off.
Another picture filled the screen. A man sat in a red armchair. The middle Greenie, wearing the black robes of a Director. And—now that my memory was complete—the man who’d taken Ty away.
Jag was still cuffed, so I slipped my hand around his waist in an effort to calm my rage.
The projection began to move and speak. “Hello, Mr. Barque and Miss Schoenfeld. Welcome to the Tech Production Facility, located in the Badlands. You’re here to learn how you can serve the Association.”
I reached up and removed the silencer, something not lightly done. Pain ripped through my neck and shoulders, and I screamed.
“Now, Violet,” the Director said. “Sometimes silence is called for.”
“You killed Ty,” I managed to gasp out. “Screw you.”
Jag chuckled. “Ditto.”
22.
We never let go of the ones we lose.