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I smiled.

“So you do know where they are,” the voice said.

“I assume they escaped,” I answered. “Good for them.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I’m going to make a slight concession,” he said. “And pay close attention, because this is the only one I’m going to make. And it’s what you call a limited-time offer.”

I waited. I knew he wasn’t going to offer anything I’d accept. I hadn’t come this far to not finish.

“You and Ms. Allred are protected,” he said. “You do not have to stay in the town. I’ll have a small house built for you elsewhere on the property. You won’t have to worry about the other students—the gangs and the fighting. You can live your lives there and be happy.”

I could see it, and for an instant it sounded perfect. It wasn’t freedom, but it was comfort. And I’d be with her.

He continued before I could answer. “I want you to know that she’s listening. She’s here with me.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“A negotiation is based on trust,” he said with a chuckle.

“The answer is no,” I said. “If she is there with you, and if you’d let her talk, she’d say the same thing.”

“Mr. Fisher—”

“You can go to hell, you son of a bitch.”

There was silence. For a moment I thought he was gone, but I could hear faint breathing.

“I’ll give you some time to think,” he said. “The offer is still on the table. For a limited time.”

The voice was gone. An instant later, the lights went out, leaving me in the dark. Something behind me glowed faintly blue, reflecting on the glassy tile.

I wondered whether she really had been listening. It didn’t matter. Neither of us could have agreed to that. It wasn’t about freedom anymore. For her it was about saving the others. For me it was knowing I’d have a lifetime of guilt. Maybe there was some nobility trapped in there somewhere. I didn’t know.

The voice didn’t come back for a long time. I fell asleep again, and I woke up to the sharp stick of a needle.

Ms. Vaughn stood beside my bed, a dimly lit shadow, injecting something into my arm.

“Truth serum?” I asked.

“Breakfast,” she answered.

And then she was gone. I didn’t know whether that was truth or a mind game.

I slept again.

I dreamed about the first time I’d seen Becky, stepping out the front door of the school and welcoming me with a warm, optimistic grin. She’d dressed like the Society then, with too much makeup and her brown hair molded with finger waves. She was beautiful.

I reached for her, but as I stretched out my arm she got farther and farther away, the stairs of the school multiplying into a mountain between us. As she got smaller, more distant, an arm—a tentacle—snaked out of the door, pulling her back inside. She screamed, and I screamed.

Suddenly I was awake, shaking in my bed and fighting the restraints.

The lights came on, and they felt like floodlights. I smashed my eyes shut and turned my head away.

“Good evening, Benson,” the voice said. “Have you thought about my offer?”

“The answer is still no.”

“They can’t have disabled the implants,” the voice said. “Do I need to raze the entire town?”

“Maybe they escaped while I was distracting you.”

“Impossible.”

“Maybe we’re smarter than you think we are.”

“You’re smart, Benson, but you’re not that smart.”

“If I tell you—” I stopped myself. I was going to say that if I told him then I’d have no more leverage—that as soon as I told him, he had no reason to keep his promises.

I couldn’t believe I’d almost said it.

“If you tell me what?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not looking well, Benson,” he said.

“You’re trying to wear me down.”

He laughed. “I am wearing you down.”

“The answer is still no,” I repeated.

“Then make a counter! I’m here to negotiate. What will it take?”

“Let everyone go. Shut down the school.”

He guffawed—a loud, long belly laugh. “I don’t want to know that much.”

“No,” I said. “I think you want to know. The longer you wait, the closer they get to civilization and rescue. Time’s ticking for you.”

“I repeat,” he said, his voice perfectly calm, “you can’t have disabled the implants.”

“Why are the president’s daughters in the school?” I asked, trying to put him on the defensive.

“That should be the least of your concerns.”

“Who are you?”

The lights went out, but an image appeared on the wall in front of me, projected from somewhere over my head.

Becky.

I could feel panic rising in my chest, and I fought against the restraints.

She sat alone in her cell, her hands behind her back, her legs tied to the chair. Her face and T-shirt were wet with sweat.

“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” the voice said. Becky’s head popped up at the sound of the voice.

“We’re all on a party line,” he said. “So maybe you ought to say hello.”

“Becky?”

“Bense?”

“We’re going to get out of here,” I told her, and felt tears coming down my face.

The voice cut in. “You certainly are. Becky, Benson here hasn’t been telling me what I want to know.”

She was looking up, toward the sound. It didn’t look like she was seeing an image of me.

“Maybe you should tell Benson to spill the beans.”

“Benson,” she called, “where are you?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “We’re going to get out of here.”

“I don’t even know what he’s talking about,” she said. “What secret?”

I didn’t answer—I couldn’t.

“He won’t free everyone,” I said.

She nodded.

My words hung there. She wasn’t arguing, but she didn’t have to, because I was arguing with myself now. Of course he wouldn’t free anyone. He was right—he knew the students couldn’t have left the perimeter. I didn’t have bargaining power.

“Benson,” the voice said. “You can put a stop to this.”

I was about to ask what, but another person appeared in the projection. Iceman, walking up behind her.

Becky saw him, too, and squirmed in her chair.

Iceman flipped open a knife—short and curved and vicious.

“Stop!” I yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I tried to offer you the carrot,” the voice said. “This is the stick.”

As he said the last word, Iceman jabbed the knife into her hand.

She screamed—high and terrified and desperate.

The projection disappeared and the lights came back up.

“Let her go,” I yelled, flailing in the bed. “Leave her alone.”

“You intrigue me,” he said calmly.

“What’s going on? What’s he doing to her?”

“I’m going to have to revise my assessment of you, Benson. The last time we talked, I’d guessed you cared the most about her, but now I don’t know what to think.”

“Of course I do,” I blurted, fire raging throughout my body. “I just don’t trust you.”

“You’re afraid I won’t follow through on my promise?”

“No.”

“What do you want? Shall I drive you and Becky to the little house in the forest and leave you there, and you can mail me the information I want?”

“I don’t even think that was the real Becky,” I said, gesturing to the wall with my head.

He paused. “What do you mean?”

“You’re torturing her,” I said, “but what if you’re torturing a robot? How am I supposed to know? I saw that Becky already has the implant.”

He paused again, and his voice was more thoughtful now. “If you’d like, I can fillet her arm, like all you barbarians did at the fort.”

“That can be faked,” I said. He was showing me a projection. It could all be computers. It could be a newer model of android.

“It can?”

“Go to hell.”

The lights went out.

It was happening too fast, too out of control. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. Was I protecting her more by being quiet or talking?

I shouldn’t be forced to make this decision. Why did I have to choose? What made me responsible for getting everyone in that town to safety? Because I was the only one without an implant in my head? That didn’t make me a leader—it just made me slightly luckier.

But that knife in Becky’s hand. Her scream. It pushed everything else out of my mind, and in the darkness I couldn’t see anything on that wall but her. In pain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I
woke up, so I must have been asleep.

An alarm sounded, and a light somewhere behind me flashed. It lasted for minutes. Hours. I didn’t know. And then it turned off.

I’d been in that bed for days—maybe weeks. I couldn’t tell.

I listened for the voice, but heard only the whir of some distant fan.

And a scratch. Something scratched something.

I turned my head.

Was it a mouse? Was it Ms. Vaughn?

Was I going crazy?

There it was again, only it wasn’t a scratch. It was a scrape. It was something moving, sliding, brushing on the floor.

Was someone sneaking up behind me?

The bed vibrated—hardly noticeable, but I knew something had bumped it.

“Who’s there?”

“Shh.”

I turned to the noise, and saw Becky’s face at the side of the bed. She was grinning, her finger to her lips.

I felt like I was melting, like water had crashed over me and swept every other thought from my head. She was here, next to me. She was undoing the restraint on my arm.

“How did you …?”

She looked awful—hair wet and matted, and her face streaked with dried tears. I wanted to kiss her. Wanted to hug her and never let go.

“I told you,” she whispered. “I grew up on a ranch. I made a rabbit trap.”

She undid the first strap, and I pulled my hand free. Every muscle in my arm felt weak and sore. I grabbed her hand and looked at it. No scar.

“You weren’t hurt?”

Becky’s face went dark, and she kind of bobbed her head. I didn’t know what that meant, but the smooth skin on the back of her hand didn’t lie. The girl in the projection wasn’t her. I’d been right.

She moved to my foot, and I used my free hand to pry the leather off my left. It was almost impossible—it needed two hands, and my one was too cramped and aching to be much good anyway.

“What were they doing to you?” she whispered, unlatching my right foot and moving to my left. I pulled up my leg, flexing the unused muscles.

“Trying to get me to talk. Are there guards in the halls?”

She shook her head. “Talk about what?”

She unlatched the left foot.

“I’m so glad to see you,” I said. As she came to my left side and bent by my arm, I touched her face. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Becky smiled, tilting her face into my hand for a moment before mouthing a quick, happy,
Wait
, and focusing again on the restraint.

“Were they asking about the weapons?” she whispered. “Where we got the bullets?”

“No.”

She squeezed the latch out and released the leather strap. “Then what?”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. My legs wobbled, and Becky reached to steady me.

I didn’t want to wait any longer. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close against me.

This wasn’t how I had pictured our first real kiss. But I needed to do it.

I cupped her face in my hands, our lips meeting softly, but then she pressed into me and I pulled her even closer.

I needed her to know how I felt, how I missed her. How I loved her.

Her fingers tugged at my hair as she kissed my lips, my face, my neck.

I held her, my hands running up her sides. Feeling her ribs, her armpit. The small, unnatural knot under the skin.

“Becky,” I said, grabbing her face and looking into her eyes. “I love you.”

She giggled and said something, but I didn’t care what it was. She wasn’t Becky. She was a camera.

“I love you,” I said. “You’re going to be okay. The code for the keypad is six-five-six-three-eight.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Go for the control room,” I said, staring into her eyes. “I’ll meet you there.”

She froze.

We stared at each other for just an instant, and then her hands—which had been running through my hair—jumped to my throat.

But she didn’t have time. There wasn’t much strength left in me, but I smashed my fist into her armpit. The system sheared, her artificial heart too close to the power supply.

She dropped like a stone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I
ran down the stark white halls, trying to orient myself. I hadn’t seen them take me to this room, so I had no real idea where I was.

An alarm was sounding again, small red bulbs flashing on and off about every fifty feet, but I had yet to see anyone.

I turned a corner, and then another. Every hallway looked the same.

I flung a door open, hoping to find something I recognized, but it was just full of boxes. The next one had dozens of what looked like computer servers, a million flashing lights and glowing cables, but I didn’t know enough about technology to be sure.

Someone was at the end of the hallway, and for a moment I thought it was Becky, but no—it was a Ms. Vaughn. I turned and ran the other way.

Nothing was familiar—or, rather, everything was familiar. It all looked the same, every hall and every door.

I turned a corner and was almost bowled over by Becky.

“Bense!” She grabbed me in a bear hug, and I pushed her back, pointing down the hall at Ms. Vaughn.

“It’ll have to wait,” I said, holding her hand as we ran.

“It’ll be worth it.”

She steered me through the halls—the maps had shown us how to get to the control room from the cell block, so she knew where she was.

I had bare feet—so did she—and pain shot up my heels and calves as I pounded down the hard tile floors. I hurt everywhere; even holding Becky’s hand was difficult. I was in no condition for another fight.

“Up here,” Becky shouted, and she led me down a long hall, narrow enough that we had to run single file. Becky was in front, and I ran behind her, glancing over my shoulder at the fast-approaching Ms. Vaughn.