Mindwalker (26 page)

“What are you talking about? Didn't we already decide we're heading for the border?”

“I mean … if you're having second thoughts.”

“I'm not. Are you?”

He looks at me from the corner of his eye. “Only if you are.”

I sigh, leaning back. “Don't confuse me.” Whatever he says, it's already too late to turn around. We made our choice.

Our headlights slice through the darkness. Before us, the road unspools toward the horizon like a gray ribbon. The roads aren't used much, but they're still maintained, mostly for the work vehicles involved in food harvesting. Occasional streetlights stand along the highway like lonely sentinels.

It hits me hard in that moment. We're alone. From this point on, Steven and I have only each other. Yet even now, I've told him so little about myself, my past. Maybe this isn't the proper time for a personal revelation. But if not now, when?

My hands curl into fists. In my head, I can still hear my
psych-ethics professor nagging, telling me not to get emotionally involved with a client. But it's hard to follow the instruction manual once you've thrown it out the window. “You remember me telling you that I lost my father? I never told you how. He took his own life when I was thirteen.”

Steven's breathing hitches. There's a long pause. The car sails down the road, and it feels like we're flying, hurtling through empty space. “And your mom?” he asks, very softly.

“I don't have one.”

“She died?”

“No.” My teeth catch on my lower lip, tugging. “I just don't have one.”

His brow furrows. I watch the wheels turning in his head. Then his eyes widen, and there's an almost audible click as the light goes on. “Oh.”

I smile weakly. “My father never married. He was married to his work, you could say. He planned to adopt at first, but there are so many legal restrictions these days, it's almost impossible. Cloning is the easiest way for a single person to have a child.”

The muscles of his throat constrict as he swallows. “God, Lain, I'm sorry. All that stuff I said before about NewVitro …”

“You didn't know.” I hesitate. “Does it bother you? Me being … what I am?”

“No. Why? Has it bothered other people?”

I lean my forehead against the window. The glass is cool. Soothing. “I remember, when I was little, a boy at school told me that I didn't have a soul. That I wouldn't go to heaven when I died. I'd just disappear.” I close my eyes. “My father always said that those people were simply unenlightened and that
I shouldn't pay attention to anything they said, but I—” My voice cracks. I cover my mouth with one hand, embarrassed. I've managed to sound almost indifferent until now. And still, the words keep spilling out of me. “I know it's not that uncommon. It's not even that controversial, not anymore. They have special private schools for kids like me so we don't have to feel like outsiders. But I didn't want that. It didn't seem right to hide away from the rest of the world in some privileged little bubble. I wanted to show the world that I was just like everyone else. But no matter what I did, what I said, I was always an outsider. When I came to Greenborough, I thought it would be like a fresh start, because no one knew me, but still, everyone except Ian only ignored me. Like they could
feel
that I was different. And I started to wonder if that boy was right and I was an abomination, nothing more than a blob of chemicals created in a laboratory, and I—”

Steven hugs me, suddenly and fiercely. “You have a soul,” he whispers against my hair.

I sit shock-frozen. I've hugged Steven before, but this is the first time he's initiated it. It takes me a few seconds to find my voice. It's difficult to speak through the lump filling my throat. “You think so?”

“You have feelings, don't you?”

“Feelings are just chemicals.” I close my eyes. “So are memories. Maybe that's all
I
am.” Why am I saying this now, to him? I don't even believe those words, do I? “Maybe I'm nothing but a biological machine.”

He touches a thin finger to my lips, stopping me. My breath catches. “That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” he says,
echoing my earlier words to him. His voice is low and rough, but his eyes are gentle. “You're too smart for that.” He holds his finger against my lips for a moment—it's firm, warm—then lowers his hand.

My heart is beating very fast.

“The way you were born doesn't matter,” he says. “You're here
now.
You're just as real and just as human as anyone else. Those assholes don't get to decide what kind of person you are or whether you're worthy.
You
decide that.”

I try to speak, but the lump in my throat swells, cutting off air and voice. “Thank you,” I finally manage to whisper.

He holds me a few minutes longer. At last, I pull back and draw in a shaky breath. “Sorry,” I murmur, wiping the corners of my eyes with my thumb.

“Don't apologize,” he says gruffly.

A tiny smile tugs at my lips. “Okay.” The smile fades.

I want to believe that he's right, that my choices matter. But there's a reason only Type Ones are allowed to clone themselves. Science has shown that genetics have a strong influence over our decisions. My father was a great man, but in the end, he collapsed in on himself like a dying star. Aside from my sex chromosomes, I have his DNA, down to the last gene.

I find myself considering, again, the eyes in Steven's memory. I don't
want
to dwell on that. Yet now that Steven knows the truth about me, I'm sure it will occur to him as well, if it hasn't already.

“I want you to understand,” I say softly, “that Father was the kindest person I ever knew. He wouldn't harm a fly. Literally—if there was a bug in the house, he would go out of his way to
catch it so he could let it go instead of killing it.” I stop and take a deep breath. “I don't believe—I
know
those weren't his eyes.”

The moon peeks out from behind a cloud, washing the fields with silver light.

“You really loved him,” Steven says.

“Well, of course. He's my father.” But then, Steven never knew his parents. I look at his profile, his faraway expression, and feel a soft ache deep inside me. “Did you have anyone you were close to, growing up?”

“I don't actually remember my childhood. Before the kidnapping, I mean.”

“Nothing at all?” I ask, surprised.

He shrugs. “I know that I grew up in a state home with other orphans, but I don't remember it. I don't remember what I was like as a kid, or what I enjoyed doing. There are little flickers here and there, but mostly it's all a haze.” His voice is low, pensive. His eyes have lost focus, as if he's looking deep inside himself. “The doctors told me it was because of what Pike did. Because of the trauma. But that always seemed weird to me. Why would I block the memories of what came
before
that?”

I think about the scars in his brain, all those decimated neural pathways. No wonder he's lost so much. What is it like for him living with so many blank spaces in his head?

“Did we bring any food?” he asks suddenly. “I'm starving.”

I nod. While the car drives itself, I lean over and grab a bag from the backseat. I toss an apple and a cereal bar to Steven, then take an apple for myself. “There's more, but we've got to make it last awhile,” I remark through a mouthful of fruit. “You can't count on finding places to eat between cities.”

“We could barbecue some roadkill.”

I wrinkle my nose, and he grins. It's wide and cocky, and it makes me feel pleasantly, oddly warm. As we drive, I remember the gentle pressure of his finger against my lips. Lightly, I touch them. They're unusually sensitive, almost ticklish. What would it be like to—

I quickly slam the door on that thought.

We pass the ruins of an abandoned gas station. Despite the adrenaline tingling through my bloodstream, it's late and my body is leaden with fatigue. My eyelids gradually grow heavier. I surrender to the exhaustion and wander through dreams of gray halls filled with doors. Voices whisper behind the doors, but I'm afraid to open them.

When I wake, the sky is a pale dead white, the cool air tinged with the smoky smell of burning plant matter, probably coming from some agricultural center. I straighten and see a small spot of moisture on Steven's shirt. A flush rises into my cheeks as realization dawns. I dozed off with my head on his shoulder and drooled on him.

“Morning,” he says. He looks wide awake, and I wonder if he slept at all.

“Good morning.” I wipe my mouth, glance into the rearview mirror, and smooth errant strands of my hair into place. I swallow and grimace at the stale, warm taste on my tongue. A toothbrush and a sink sound really appealing right now. “How far did we drive?”

“We just passed into the Northeast Quadrant,” he says.

“We're making excellent time.” I muffle a yawn against one hand and peer out the window. Vast fields wave in the breeze. It's easy to imagine, out here, that society has collapsed,
humans have gone extinct, and we're the last two people on the earth, travelers in an empty world.

I glance at Steven's face, then away. My cheeks burn. I still can't believe I fell asleep using him as a pillow, though if it bothers him, he doesn't show it.

After a few minutes, he breaks the silence: “Look in the rearview mirror.”

When I do, I see a sleek gray car about a quarter mile behind us.

“We're being followed,” he says.

At first, I'm too startled to respond. I watch the car, which continues to follow us at a discreet distance. It doesn't
look
like an IFEN vehicle.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “Maybe they're just headed in the same direction.”

Before Steven can reply, red and blue LED lights flash atop the gray car, and the wail of a siren cuts through the still morning air.

Steven tenses.

My first thought is that Dr. Swan sent them after us. But surely, he doesn't control the police. “It might be a broken taillight,” I say.

“I wouldn't bet on that,” Steven says.

The vehicle behind us is accelerating. It zooms past us and swerves across the road, blocking our path.

“Shit!” he hisses.

I slam the heel of my hand against the emergency brake
button. The car screeches to a halt, and the acrid smell of burning rubber stings my nostrils.

The police car's front door opens, and a uniformed woman with short blond hair steps out. A badge glints in the sunlight.

Steven's fingers tighten on my bicep, digging in like claws. “Let's go.
Now.
”

I struggle to control my breathing. My mind races. Even if we swerve past her, there's no way we can lose her out here in the middle of nowhere. If we try to flee, it will just confirm that we're guilty of something. It's possible that she doesn't know who we are, that she's not looking for
us
specifically. Maybe she's on her way to investigate something else and just stopped us for a minor infraction. Not likely. But possible. “Stay calm,” I say. “I might be able to talk our way out of this.”

His ragged breathing fills the car.

“Don't worry,” I say, trying to conceal the nervousness in my voice. “All right, so we drove through a checkpoint and destroyed a gate, but that's a trivial offense. I think. Maybe she'll just write us a ticket.”

“Are you kidding? Don't they have a Special Alert or something on you?”

There is that. And come to think of it, is transporting a Type Four out of the city illegal? This is very bad. “Well, what should we do?” I hear the panic rising in my voice. “It's too late to drive away.”

The woman steps up to the driver's-side window and peers in. She's wearing a pair of reflective shades, and my own face stares back at me, mirrored in duplicate.

I roll down the window. “Is everything all right?”

She adjusts her shades. “Are you aware that your registration tags are expired?”

I exhale a quiet breath of relief. My heart is still pounding, but I feel silly for assuming the worst. I give Steven a smile, as if to say,
See?
“No, I wasn't aware.”

“License and registration.”

I fish my wallet from my coat pocket and start to pull out my license.

“Lain!” Steven shouts.

I look up. The woman thrusts something through the half-open window and shoves it against my temple. There's a deafening electric buzz, a jolt of pain, and then blackness.