“And after that?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Oh,” said Mathis, “if you’re still alive by then, we’ll probably terminate you.”
PART FOUR: Manual Override
(The process by which an automated system is suspended, modified, or otherwise put under the operator’s direct control)
Ten
“Niki! Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
I’d come into the house quietly, hoping to wash my dirt-smeared face and put on some makeup before I talked to my parents. I hadn’t wanted them to see me like this. But Crackers burst into excited barks as soon as he caught my scent, and before I could bolt, my mother came flying out of the kitchen to meet me.
“You look like a ghost,” she breathed, catching my face between her hands. “Oh, honey! Who did this to you? Are you hurt?”
“I’ll live,” I said roughly, ducking away from her. I kicked off my shoes and went into the living room, throwing myself down on the sofa and dropping my forearm across my burning eyes. The arm with the quicksilver in it—the chip Sebastian had put there. But why had he done it? Why?
Mom took a hesitant step toward me. “Do you want me to get your father? Or—is there something we should talk about first?”
I heard the catch in her voice, and I knew what it meant: she was trying to be calm and reassuring, because she thought that was what I needed. But inside she was terrified.
“Mom,” I said hollowly, “I haven’t been assaulted.” Or at least, not in the way she thought. “Milo and I broke up this afternoon. But he didn’t even touch me. He just … left.”
“Oh.” She exhaled the word, sad and slow. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s a bigger problem.” I made myself sit up again. “Mom, I have something to tell you and Dad, and I need to say it quickly. Because…” I swallowed. “I’m going to disappear soon, the way I did last summer. And this time, I won’t be coming back.”
Nine
In the end, telling my parents wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. I was still in shock over Sebastian’s betrayal, and my initial hysteria had given way to a numb, fuzzy state where nothing seemed entirely real. Even as I talked, I felt like I was floating above myself, surveying the scene in the living room as a detached observer. Noticing odd little details like the dead fly on the coffee table and the flecks of toothpaste in my father’s beard—things I would have dismissed or overlooked in the past but which held a strange fascination for me now. Maybe because I knew that whatever I set my eyes on, I might well be seeing for the last time.
But I couldn’t forget how I’d got here or why I was telling this story. I needed my parents to know not only what was about to happen to me but what kind of person their daughter really was. All the secrets I’d kept from them, all the lies I’d told. How I’d taken my mother’s painstaking lessons in kindness and courtesy and turned them into an operating manual for the human race, treating people like machines because that was the only way I could understand them or make myself care. How every relationship I’d ever had was an illusion, including my relationship with them. Because I’d been genetically programmed to submit to whoever owned me, so the choices I’d made to respect and obey my parents hadn’t been choices at all.
“I don’t belong on this world,” I said finally. “I was never meant to be part of it. I know you wanted me to get married and have a family of my own someday. But I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, even if I could stay.” I gave a pained shrug. “I’m just too … alien.”
Tears had welled up in Mom’s eyes, and now they spilled over. She buried her face in her hands, and Dad put an arm around her. Neither one looked at me or spoke. I might as well have been dead to them already.
Well, wasn’t that how I’d wanted it? Now they knew I wasn’t Their Kind after all, they wouldn’t mourn me any more than they should. Maybe they’d even adopt another child to replace me. A nice, ordinary child who could fill the empty space I’d left in their hearts and give them the grandchildren they longed for. And in the end, they’d come to believe that my going away had been the best thing for all of us.
Or at least I hoped so, and I’d done everything I could to make that possible. Because the only thing I hadn’t told them, the one secret I’d kept to myself, was what Mathis planned to do to me when he got me back. They didn’t know—they didn’t need to know—that all I could look forward to was a few weeks or months of captivity, before even that pathetic excuse for a life was taken away.
I got up quietly and began to leave.
“Tori!” Dad sounded hoarse, and his voice broke on the second syllable. He heaved himself up from the sofa to intercept me. “Don’t. Don’t you go anywhere.”
And with that he threw his arms around me and hugged me so hard I felt like my heart would crack. I stood wooden in his embrace, too stunned to speak—and then I felt Mom reaching around me from the other side, stroking back my hair and pressing a kiss to my temple.
“You’re our daughter,” she whispered. “Always. No matter where you came from. Don’t leave us, sweetheart.”
I bowed my head against Dad’s chest, swallowing tears. I felt ashamed of myself for not giving them more credit, for not realizing that their love for me really was as deep and lasting as it seemed. That it had never been about me being Their Kind, only about me being theirs.
But knowing that only sharpened the pain inside me. Because it reminded me how much I depended on my parents and how much it would hurt to lose them.
And now, even worse, I knew how much it was going to hurt them to lose me.
Eight
Neither of my parents wanted to leave me alone that night, for fear that I’d be gone when they woke up in the morning. So we dragged pillows and blankets into the living room and made ourselves as comfortable as we could. None of us slept. We all knew that every hour we spent together could be the last.
Dad kept quizzing me about the relay, unable to believe there wasn’t some way of avoiding it, or stopping it from getting to me. I had to explain that the device flew too rapidly for me to outrun it and that it could scan through solid walls, so there was nowhere I could hide. Especially now I had this chip in my arm, telling the relay my exact coordinates at any given moment.
“And you know what happened when Dr. Bowman tried to remove the chip last time,” I said. “The seizures nearly killed me. If we try anything like that again, they probably will.”
Dad scratched his beard, mouth twisting with frustration. “Then we need to go on the offensive. Track down the relay before it can get to you, and destroy it somehow—”
“We already tried that,” I said. “It didn’t work. Just leave it, Dad. Please.”
I knew he was trying to give me a challenge, so I wouldn’t feel so helpless. I knew he thought I was giving up too easily, and it worried him. But my last hope had died with Sebastian’s inexplicable betrayal, and when I reached into the part of my mind that fixed things, I found nothing but a dull grey fog. Even the thought of working on a new project felt like a colossal burden, too miserable to even contemplate.
Maybe I’d feel better once I’d slept. But I doubted it.
By dawn we were all cross-eyed with exhaustion, but the relay hadn’t come. So Dad took the day off work, and he and Mom spent the morning sleeping in shifts. Once we were all awake again we played board games, watched a movie, and ordered in pizza for dinner. But it was all wrong—we were trying too hard to make every moment count, and that just made everything stiff and awkward and horrible. And by nightfall it was obvious that we couldn’t keep on like this much longer, or we’d all go crazy.
So at eleven o’clock I announced that I was going to bed and that I’d leave my door open and yell if anything happened. Then I turned off my light and pretended to be asleep until my parents stopped hovering and whispering to each other, and went off to sleep as well.
In the quietness of the night, I was aware of every sound. Even the
background noises I usually ignored—the creaks as the floor settled, the rustling of branches outside, the soft click of Crackers’s nails as he waddled over the kitchen tile—made my nerves stand on end. Sleep was impossible and my thoughts were a tangled mess anyway, so I dragged my laptop out of its case and flipped it open. I’d never get the chance to pay Sebastian back for what he’d done to me, but it might make me feel better to demand an explanation and tell him exactly what I thought of him…
Except, I realized as I stared at the blank screen, I didn’t have the heart even for that. Partly because I felt like someone had run over my emotions with a steamroller, and anger took more energy than I had left to give. But also because the shock of Sebastian’s betrayal had been such a shock, which made me realize how much I’d trusted him, even liked him, in spite of everything. I’d pestered him about Alison not because I really believed he was being cowardly or cruel but because I’d felt sure there must be some good explanation, and I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell me. And even though I’d tested his patience any number of times, challenged him and insulted him and demanded answers he obviously wasn’t ready to give, I’d never imagined he would sell me out to Mathis because of it…
A soft chime sounded from the speakers, and a message flashed up on my screen. MILO HWANG is ONLINE.
Pride told me to ignore it. But I was so relieved to see his name that my fingers moved before I could hold them back.
–Glad you got home OK. Can we talk?
Seconds passed, as I waited for his reply. Then came the sound of a door slamming and another message: MILO HWANG is OFFLINE.
Despair roared through me like a tornado, hollowing me out inside. I shoved the laptop away, not even caring if it fell, and curled up in the deep, smothering darkness beneath the blankets.
Seven
The next morning I got up early—which wasn’t hard, since I hadn’t slept all night anyway. Mom and Dad were still in bed and showed no signs of stirring. I dressed with mechanical efficiency, not bothering to brush my hair or put on makeup. I boiled some water and made myself a packet of instant oatmeal, which tasted like glue and weighed in my stomach like cement. I scrawled a note on the whiteboard telling my parents I’d gone for a walk and would be back around seven. Then I clipped Crackers’s leash onto his collar and took him outside.
The morning sky looked like a nursery ceiling, baby blue with scattered puffs of cloud. A few maple seeds helicoptered down to land on the sidewalk at my feet. As Crackers trotted happily beside me, pausing at intervals to lift a leg or sniff a fire hydrant, I tipped my head back to the sunlight and drew a slow, deliberate breath of fresh air. Relax, I told myself. Enjoy this while you can.
But it was no use. I felt estranged from the world around me, as though the flowers and the birdsong and the smell of wet grass were meant for someone else and there was no point in me even noticing them. Exhaustion pressed down on me like a giant, invisible hand, and every time I inhaled my ribs felt tighter. Soon every breath was an effort, and my feet dragged. I wasn’t walking Crackers; he was walking me.
I barely noticed when we turned away from the road and into the quiet, tree-lined paths of the cemetery. We passed the maple where Sebastian had betrayed me two nights ago, and I didn’t even break stride. I was sleepwalking through a dream that could turn in to a nightmare at any moment, and if I stopped moving, I’d fall down and never get up again.
But it wasn’t like I had anywhere to go, either. I was simply waiting for the moment when I’d be ripped apart at the subatomic level, reduced to a few quintillion bits of information, and fired back through the wormhole to Mathis. And when that agony was over, I’d have nothing but more torment and humiliation to look forward to. So what was the point of walking or breathing or even living now?
A black squirrel bounded across our path, and Crackers yipped and started pulling at his leash. I stumbled after him while he chased the squirrel up a tree. Then I leaned against the trunk and closed my eyes. Pull yourself together, I told myself. Stop being so pathetic and whiny and useless, and do something.
But what? Sebastian had put a chip in my arm, and the relay was coming. There was nothing I could do to change my fate, except—
A mournful whistle sounded in the distance. I turned my head toward the railroad tracks, running straight along the edge of the cemetery, and my stomach clenched hard, then unfolded like a flower.
Do something.
All my life I’d been fixing problems. Well, this time I was the problem. So why not fix myself? Why wait for Mathis and his fellow scientists to end my life, when I could take myself out of the equation right now?
It would take courage—all the courage I had. I’d have to measure the distance with my eyes and time my movements precisely, and then I’d have to repress every instinct that told me to run away. But my body was a machine, and I was a technician. I could do this.
The train howled again, louder now. I could hear the screech of its wheels as it braked, slowing down to prepare for the gateless road crossing at the cemetery’s far side. Down the ditch, up the gravel, and onto the rails; a moment of terror, an instant of blinding pain, and then oblivion. Even if the driver spotted me, I’d be dead long before he could stop or the relay could interfere. Let Mathis beam my body back and pick over the bones if he wanted, or leave it for Deckard and Dr. Gervais to play with. Either way, I wouldn’t be around to see it.
But first, I’d need to do something with Crackers. I led him to a nearby pine and looped his leash around one of the lower branches. Then I knelt down and tousled his soft ears one last time.
“Good doggie,” I told him. “Sit.”
He plopped down obligingly at the foot of the tree, watching me with innocent, liquid eyes. I kissed his nose, gave him a reassuring pat, and walked away.
The train’s wheels were a heavy clack in the near distance. I thrust my way into the underbrush by the edge of the cemetery, keeping low so I wouldn’t be seen. The driver would be looking ahead to the crossing, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.
And now I could see the engine emerging from beneath the Second Street bridge, the north entrance into the cemetery. My legs felt rubbery and my head thick, but I crept down into the ditch and crouched there, counting seconds and measuring speed as the long chain of boxcars and tanker cars approached. Thirty kilometers per hour. Five hundred meters per minute. Eight point three meters per second.
Three hundred meters away.
Fear not, for I am with you, Mrs. Park’s text had told me. Did that apply to someone who was committing suicide? Did it even count as suicide if you knew you were going to die anyway?
Two hundred and fifty.
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I wanted to believe that, but how could I? Whoever that verse had been written for, whatever had made Mrs. Park write it out so painstakingly and surround it with handmade flowers, it had nothing to do with me. I was a freak from another planet, a genetic mistake, and when I died that would be the end of it.
Or at least I hoped so. Because after all the lies I’d told and the people I’d hurt with them—people like Milo and Alison and Lara and even Jon—I didn’t feel ready to face any kind of judgment right now.
“Forgive me,” I whispered, to all of them. To my parents. To the universe, if anyone out there was listening.
Two hundred.
I will strengthen you.
A hundred and fifty. Eighteen seconds left.
Yes, I will help you.
“Help me,” I breathed, as my trembling hands knotted into fists. “Help me do this.”
Fifteen seconds.
Adrenaline sizzled into me. I kicked off the bottom of the ditch, flung myself onto the tracks and rolled over. The rail felt like ice on the back of my neck.
Ten seconds.
Crackers started keening, a high-pitched whine of distress. The pine branch rustled—he must be struggling with all the strength in his little sausage body.
But I’d knotted his leash tight. It would hold.
The engine sounded a deafening blast, and the brakes let out another shriek. The rail was vibrating so hard my teeth rattled. I shut my eyes and tilted my head back, baring my throat to the wheels.
Seven. Six. Five—
Then came a loud crack, and my eyes snapped open. Crackers came pelting into the culvert with the snapped pine branch bouncing in his wake and launched himself at me like a caramel-colored rocket. He leaped onto my chest and began licking my face, deaf and blind to the train pounding toward us—
And with a scream of despair I grabbed Crackers, jackknifed upright, and threw myself off the rails.
We crashed into the ditch together, Crackers squirming in my too-tight grip. The engine thundered past, showering us with bits of gravel, and as dampness seeped into my sock I was dimly aware I’d lost a shoe. But the boxcars were still grinding and rattling by above me, and I didn’t dare move.
Crackers wriggled out of my arms and I cried out, afraid he’d bolt under the train. But he leapt in the opposite direction, the pine branch whipping across my body as he galloped away. He barked at me from the top of the ditch, urging me to follow, but I didn’t have the strength. I could only lie there, stunned and spent, until the last whistle sounded and the end of the train clacked away into the distance. Then I crawled up the slope, floundered through the bushes, and collapsed onto the cemetery lawn.
Only a few minutes ago I’d felt cut off from the world. Now it all came rushing in on me, sights and sounds and smells all demanding my attention. The scent of crushed grass in my nostrils, salty blood on my lips. Crackers yipping excitedly, thrilled with himself for rescuing his pet human. The shudder of footfalls on the turf as Milo raced toward me, shouting my name.