Twist (28 page)

Now to find Finn and get the blark out of this place.

I turned to face the wall of bubbles. My heart sank. They were nearly full now. I raced along the row of lit cases where the bodies were stored, looking for a description that might match Finn, but they were just strings of letters and numbers, like the ones that Lafferty had rattled off when she'd examined the person who was in the main tank.

Alpha-Lima-Oscar-16-6-6

Kilo-Yankee-Alpha-17-3-1

All the same. Three letters. Four numbers.

16-6-6. 1666. The year of the Great Fire of London.

I came to one that wasn't lit.

Foxtrot-Juliet-Mike-20-1-6

FJM.

Finnigan Jonathan Masterson. 2016. A year I'd just come from.

I yanked out my Com and pulled up the snatch of conversation I'd managed to capture the last time I was here.

“-ess code L5N21KRA983FJ.” Lafferty's recorded voice filled the room.

The door to the unit opened. The slab inside emerged.

It was empty.

But if he wasn't in this drawer, he must be …

I turned slowly to face the center of the room. A dark mass slammed against the inner wall of the tank's glass.

Finn.

I rushed over to the tank and beat against the edge, unsure if Finn was conscious and if he could hear me even if he was. I couldn't see the details of his facial features, but now that I knew what to look for, I could tell it was him floating in there. I pressed my palm against the glass, willing his pain to ease. He stopped thrashing, and the fluid from the tubes lining the walls reversed direction and now flowed back toward him. At first, I wondered if I had somehow done something to cause it, but then I noticed that a warning panel had popped up in front of the tank. Words scrolled through the air as red lights flashed.

“Hippocampal deterioration accelerated to 7.2 percent. Upper limit exceeded. Additional overrides not advisable.”

As the blue matter flowed backward, the dark liquid inside the tank started to clear. Finn's eyelids drifted open, and he lifted his head, zeroing in on my profile. I tried to smile, webbing my fingers against the glass, wishing beyond all wishes that I could press them straight through, grab onto him, and pull him out.

His eyes drifted open and fought to focus. If he knew me, he didn't show it. But as the fluid grew lighter and lighter, I could tell that he began to recognize me. I guess I had expected relief on his part or even happiness. But, no. Pure terror. He pointed toward the entrance and pushed his head from side to side in the viscous fluid.

He mouthed,
“Go!”

Oh, like blark I was going anywhere without him.

I had to get him out of there. There had to be some kind of escape hatch or lever. Oh, who was I kidding? These people had stripped Shifters of their family, their friends, their very existence. They wouldn't give a flying hoot about taking their lives as well.

I scanned the shadows of the room looking for something, anything, with some heft to it. I'd bust him out of there. I was about to give up and run out into the hall, when my eyes fell on the pile of era clothing in the corner, sitting next to an incinerator, likely awaiting destruction for contamination.

If I was from the 1600s and needed to stop a fire from spreading, I'd probably use an—I dove into the pile, flinging corsets and breeches left and right, ah ha!—axe. The rough-hewn wooden handle was charred on the ends, and the entire pile smelled of stale wood smoke. A fresh wave of anger gripped me by the throat as I clutched the handle of the hatchet.

I went back to the center of the room, pulled back my arm, and swung the dull blade of the axe at the tank. A tremendous crack ricocheted around the room, but when I looked down at the glass, only a fleck of a chip appeared. Dang it. I needed more force. I backed up and came at it running, swinging the axe with my final stride. The chip deepened, but this would take forever.

I looked at Finn, who was still twitching from whatever they'd done to him. I had to hurry. I twisted the axe handle around, thinking. Ahh. Turn the axe around. The glass would be weakened where I'd already hit it. Now, I needed to finish it off with more blunt force.

I pulled back a few feet and came at it in a run again. This time, the tool felt awkward in my hand as the weight shifted forward and slammed the glass with a thunk. But when I looked down at the chip, it had turned to a crack, spreading in a spider web. Again. Again. I came at it until my arms could barely lift.

The liquid oozed out the crack. Instead of dribbling down the side of the tank as I expected, though, it floated off as it met the air. Some kind of gaseous plasma. I got close and swished my finger through it. It was like a vapor, only thicker. My finger left a path behind it that didn't knit back together. I lifted my fingers to my nostrils and sniffed. It didn't smell noxious. It smelled like …

Sea salt.

I pressed my nose directly to the crack in the glass. Chocolate chip waffles. And … floor cleaner? The scents were coming at me faster than I could sift through them. Spun sugar. Sunscreen. Hot tar. Cinnamon rolls. Horse manure.

I gagged. It was overwhelming. And it wasn't just the smells. Each scent elicited a powerful feeling. Joy, fear, excitement and on and on, mixed and melded into one giant ball of unprocessable emotion. And with each feeling came an equally powerful visual in my mind.

Memories.

A zap that felt similar to electricity zipped down my spine, as if my body were revving up for a Shift even though my tendrils weren't pulling me anywhere. Whoa. It was as if the onslaught of memories had short-circuited my hippocampus somehow. I shook my head to clear it and backed away from the glass.

The warning message still flashed in front of the cracking tank. Finn's whole body lolled from side to side.

“What have they done to you?” I whispered.

No wonder his hippocampus had deteriorated. He was trapped in a huge vat of that blue matter. It would be like experiencing every embrace, every fight, every smile, every tear—every moment of his life—all at once.

I had to get him out of there.

I slammed the axe against the side again. A good-sized fissure formed in the middle. I squared off my shoulders and rammed my body against the hole, taking gasps of air as I backed away each time, so that I didn't get lost in his memories. Some so pleasant I wanted to stop and bask in them. Others so painful they threatened to send me crashing to the floor. I backed up to get another running start at it when I looked back at Finn. His bare chest rose and fell. The wisps of plasma surrounding him had grown sparse.

That was when I realized with a dawning horror that he was actually breathing the blue matter in. He
needed
to breathe it in. A steady stream of vapor puffed out of the tank where the crack now seemed like a canyon. There was no way to retrieve it, no way to get it back into him.

What had I done?

I held my breath and pressed my whole body against the gap as he continued to suck more and more of those memories back in. What all had he lost? Had he lost Charlotte's red velvet cupcakes? Georgie's snorting laughter? Shifts with his dad that saved so many lives and made Finn who he was? Compassionate and strong and funny and kind.

Had he lost us?

I sobbed as I fought to keep every bit of plasmic vapor contained within the chamber, but it still seeped past me in a steady flow. I watched it float away and dissipate across the ceiling. Once the air inside the tank was clear, Finn appeared to be bobbing up and down in weightless gel similar to the type in the transport tube chambers. I backed away, and stared into his eyes, fearing a new vacancy, but instead I found recognition.

He was still Finn.

He nodded his head slowly and curled into a defensive ball. Whatever they were doing to him, it was done for now. I backed away and squared my shoulders again. This was going to hurt something fierce. I braced my body for the impact just as I heard a shrill whistle coming from the doorway.

They'd discovered me.

I couldn't stop my momentum, not that I wanted to.

When my torso slammed into the glass, it caved in with an ear-splitting crunch. I kicked the hole larger, grabbed Finn's arm, and pulled him out.

The entrance to the room flew open.

“Halt!” yelled a red scrub across the room, Baldy. Why was it always Baldy? I didn't bother even pretending to cooperate. No one would mistake me for an innocent victim now.

Finn and I ran to the far exit. Locked. I tried Wyck's hair. Nothing.

There had to be another way out. I looked all around the walls for more security doors like there were in the hallways, but there were none. Then I looked straight up. The air grate I'd come in through. I clicked the float button on my grav-belt and pushed off as hard as I could from the floor, my arms entwined around Finn's chest. We didn't make it far, only fifteen feet or so. Gravbelts weren't designed to support two people. We started to drift down as I fumbled through my pockets for my grappling hook. It was an awkward angle even without having to keep my arms around Finn.

“Front right pocket,” I said to him, not bothering to tell him what it was I was trying to reach. He'd know.

He kept one arm slung around my neck but groped through my pocket with the other.

Ten feet. Nine. The red scrub below us jumped up and his fingertips grazed Finn's foot.

“Hurry,” I whispered.

Eight feet. The Shavie swung and hit my shin like a pi
ñ
ata.

“Come on,” I begged Finn. We weren't going to make it.

I glanced down and saw that one of the idiots had finally thought to stand on something to reach me. I curled into a ball to keep out of their full grasp. Finn did the same, but too late. One of them latched onto his ankle. Finn kicked until he finally managed to free himself and push off from them in the same movement, giving us a few extra feet to spare while he wrenched the grappling hook out of my pocket.

“Got it!” Finn clenched one side, and I barely had my palm around the other end of the handle when he tapped the button to lock us both in place. He curled around me tight as we flew to the ceiling.

I twisted my body around so that I could ram my one booted foot through the air grate as we approached it. Finn hoisted me up, and I had to fight the urge to look down and yell, “Suckers!”

Finn pulled himself up behind me. I looked down the hollow airshaft. It was darker now, the residual blue matter fading as it flowed down the tubes that lined the cold tunnel. It was so narrow, we had to crawl along one at a time.

“Any urge to synch?” I asked. That would be the easiest escape route. Obviously.

“No.” Finn paused behind me. “Nothing.”

“Me either.”

I tapped him when I realized he hadn't started moving yet. “Just let me know if you start to feel a pull.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

I had no idea where we were going. The black transport tube that led here sucked you this way and that so it was hard to tell if you were headed up or down. I got the feeling that was intentional. Still, I kept moving forward, the only thing we could do, following that eerie blue essence. Finn lagged again, and when I peeked back, he had an odd look on his face.

“Did they hurt you?” I asked. “Are you in pain?”

“Huh?” He picked up his pace. “I mean, it hurt, but I'm okay now. Stiff, but okay.”

“What exactly were they doing to you in that tank?”

“I don't know. I was unconscious except for when they took me out of the freezer and put me in the tank, and even then it was … hazy. It was like being dunked in a vat of memories over and over. Like someone holding you underwater until you think you're about to drown, then pulling you up for a gasp of air before they shove you back under.”

I shivered.

“How many times did they put you in the tank?”

“I lost count.”

“How long did they have you frozen?” I asked.

“No clue.”

“But what do you think? Hours? Months? Years? Did you notice if the workers were aging when they took you to the tank?”

“Bree, it was really fast each time they took me out of that bubble. And so overwhelming every time they did. You probably know more than I do.”

“We'll get it pieced together,” I said. “Don't worry. And once you're back in Chincoteague, your dad can hire security guards.”

“Bree…” He had that tone. That Bree-is-delusional-and-I'm-humoring-her-so-she-doesn't-stab-someone tone.

“Raspy may be an unchipped Shifter, but he's human,” I said. “It's not like he could survive a gun blast. Oh!” Why didn't I think of this before? “Or we could send some weapons from this time back with you.”

“I'm not taking any weapons back with me.”

“Even a … lasersword?”

He'd been obsessed with getting his hands on one since the first time he'd encountered one in Bergin's office last year. Said they looked exactly like lightsabers.

“Bree, I'm not taking anything back with me. Something's wrong.”

I stopped and wriggled around to face him.

“Finn, you can't go back to Chincoteague empty-handed. You're going to have to protect yourself and your family.”

“What I'm saying is I'm not going back to Chincoteague, period.”

“We're not starting this again,” I said.

“You don't understand.” He gripped me by the shoulders. “I think they chipped me or something.”

“What?”

“I can't feel any pull.”

I felt along the nape of his neck. “No scar. They didn't chip you.”

He rubbed his fingers all over his scalp to double-check.

“Maybe you're just not being called anywhere yet,” I said.

“No. It's not like that. I don't feel anything. I feel numb.”

“But—”

“You don't notice it,” he said. “You don't notice it until it's gone. My tendrils are … it's like they're…”