Twist (38 page)

“I don't know what you hope to accomplish,” he said as he almost managed to grab me by the wrist. I wrenched it free and shoved him off with a boot to the head. “But it's not going to work. ICE wins.”

His voice dropped an octave. “ICE always wins.” He sounded disgusted with himself, but I didn't have a chance to feel any pity. He yanked my arm so hard it almost went out of the socket. “Let's get this over with,” he said.

“You don't have to do this!” I scrambled away, grabbed onto the console, and tried to shake myself out of his grip.

“Stop being na
ï
ve!”

“Stop being evil!”

His right hand strained into a claw, but instead of grabbing me, he grabbed his left hand, and tried to tug it off me. But then he let go of both himself and me, and instead wrenched a coolant bar off the wall.

“You can't live like this, Wyck!” It was like I had a battleside view of an inner civil war. I had no idea which side would win, but I knew either way, Wyck would lose. Leto already had. No matter what ICE claimed, NeoShifting wasn't safe. Those transplanted tendrils would eventually kill him just as they had Leto.

“Let me help you,” I said.

The clue popped back into my mind.
To save his, destroy yours
. Jafney had said that Finn wasn't the only one who needed saving. She was talking about Wyck. Maybe I could still help him.

But to do that, I'd need to neutralize him. I whirled around and delivered a nice bootslap to his ear. As I backed up to land another blow, he caught my leg and twisted it. I tumbled to the side, and he slammed his foot into my ribcage. I gasped in pain and only a smidge of air went in. My breath turned shallow and rapid. The blow had punctured my lung. Just like Wyck had said would happen.

“Why didn't you listen to me, Bree?” He wiped a smear of blood from his nose. “I told you. You're going to fail. And you're going to wreck your life trying.”

“No,” I said. “You may have your sources, but I … I have better ones.”

“Your future self?” said Wyck. “She was wrong this time.”

“She wouldn't lead me here if I was going to fail. She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't—”

But as I looked around, with three tanks and one of me, with Wyck calling my every move, I realized he was right.

I was going to fail.

A cold rage built within me. ICE had stripped me of everything. Everything! Even faith in my future self. Well, guess what? I might fail, but I was going to go down fighting.

I swept Wyck's leg out from under him and grabbed the coolant bar out of his hand as he fell.

“Bree! What are you doing?” He looked up at me, and for a split moment, I could tell he wasn't Evil Wyck. He wasn't Wyck at all. He was channeling one of Finn's memories.

“I'm sorry.” This was going to hurt me worse than it hurt him.

I clubbed him over the head.

Wyck slumped to the side. Okay, that probably actually hurt him worse. I nudged his foot, but he was out cold. When I tried to sigh in relief, pain radiated out from my ribs. I swiveled to face the reservoirs. The blue matter had made another foot of progress toward its destination. I pulled out the reverter.

Lafferty had been so intense about the timing when they inserted the IcePicks into these things. If I inserted the reverter in the same slot at the exact moment that Finn's tendrils reached the reservoir, maybe it would reverse the flow or something like that. Send the memories back into him in that tank, unused.

Maybe that's what I was supposed to do.

I had that fleeting wish again, that I'd admitted to Quigley before. I wished I could change the past. Like a Neo. But, no. Wyck was the Neo. He was the only one here who could change the past.

I turned around to check on him.

He wasn't in the spot where I'd left him.
Blark
.

“Wyck?” I looked up at the spot on the wall where the blue matter crept down. It was right at the point where Wyck had said he'd stop me. “Where are you?”

“Drop it.” He jabbed the tip of his stunner into my neck. The energy of the maximum setting vibrated against my bare flesh, like a cobra set to strike. I let go of the pipe, and it fell to the floor with a clang. Wyck pressed his face right up against my ear. “I told you that you'd fail. I told you … What the blark are you doing here?”

Wyck loosened his hold on the stunner pressed to my neck. I slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. He doubled over, and I shoved him away.

That's when I realized what he had seen. Or rather who.

My future self was standing on the far side of the control console. She'd lost ten pounds. A scar ran down her cheek. Her hair was grown out and pulled back into a messy braid.

“ICE didn't say there were going to be two of you,” Wyck said. “What's going on?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Don't ask me. Ask … me.”

My future self looked haggard, yes. But she also had a smile on her face that could only be described as triumphant.

“Actually,” she said, “I think I'll let Wyck explain.”

I turned to Wyck. What the blarkiest of blarks was going on?

“Not that Wyck,” she said and stepped to the side. “This one.”

Another Wyck stood behind her. His hair was shaved down to a buzz. Like Future Me, he was gaunt and haggard—didn't appear to have slept in ages. But he also had the same celebratory grin as Future Me as well as a non-murdery look.

Non-murdery was good.

“They said it was only going to be Bree.” Evil Wyck shook his head in disbelief. “They said I'd beat her without much of a fight.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Future Wyck. “Big man. You did it. You beat her. She failed.”

I felt the place on my neck where the stunner had been pressed. If Future Me and Future Wyck hadn't shown up, I'd be knocked out by now. I really had failed. In exactly the way Evil Wyck had predicted, with a punctured lung and a broken rib.

“So why do you look happy?” Evil Wyck asked his future self.

“Glad you asked.” Future Me was the one who answered him. She pointed at Evil Wyck. “Because
you
were the reason I failed. Well, you and complete lack of planning. But mostly you.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Evil Wyck asked.

She pointed to my pocket—the reverter was whirring merrily and glowing a bright and dazzling green. I hadn't even noticed in all the tumult going on around me.

Future Wyck was in the process of changing his own past.

“Thought it was about time to rectify some mistakes,” Future Wyck said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“This.” He stepped around me and, without a word, jabbed a stunner right in the center of his past self's forehead.
Berzap
. Evil Wyck collapsed—unconscious for real this time.

“Did you
kill
him?” I dropped to my knees to check his breathing.

“Nah. Jafney's been practicing on me to find a level that would knock me out without permanently messing me up.”

That's what Den had overheard.

“Not that it matters.” Future Wyck shot Future Me a knowing look. “Permanent is a relative word in a few minutes.”

“Can one of you please explain what's going on?” I said.

“Sure,” said Future Bree, “but like Wyck said, it won't matter in a few minutes. Oh”—she made a grabby hand at Future Wyck—“I need his Pick.”

Future Wyck wrestled the IcePick out of Evil Wyck's clenched fist and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said then turned back to me. “Where were we? Ahh, yes. Wyck was about to knock you out and drag you back to your time. That was a year ago for me.”

I looked at his lifeless form.

“But I was just with him twenty minutes ago,” I said. “At the Institute. He was helping me.”

“Oh, that's not that Wyck,” she said. “This one's further up the line.”

“Honestly,” said Apparently-No-Longer-Evil-Future-Wyck, “we still haven't figured out what timeline that version is on. Apparently, each change hits me differently. Sometimes, I'm cooperative. Sometimes, I'm … not.”

Bree pulled a tool from her pocket and took off the cover of the Pick. Wyck leaned over her shoulder.

“Make sure you don't damage the quandragulation coil or the—”

“Wyck.” She let out a sigh of exasperation, like they'd already discussed this ad nauseum. “I can do this with my eyes closed now. Jafney's made me practice a hundred times.”

“Fine.” He backed away.

“Oh.” Bree looked up at me. “I need the spare, too.”

“The spare?”

“Bergin's Pick. In your pocket. The one that you got out of the Mastersons' safe.”

I'd forgotten it was in there.

“What is going on?” I asked as I handed it over.

“Past Wyck was telling you the truth,” she said, continuing with her task. “He did stop me. I failed. Plus, no offense, but even if you'd succeeded in preventing this one Shift, it would have just been knocking an ice cube off the glacier.” She glanced up at the blue matter trickling through the tubes, only a few feet away from the reservoirs now. She turned her attention back to whatever she was doing to Wyck's IcePick and sped up.

“ICE took the reverter,” she said. “They've been making changes to the timeline unchecked for the last year.”

“That's why we don't know what timeline he's on.” Future Wyck pointed to his past body lying on the ground.

“Most of the changes haven't involved me or Wyck or Jafney directly, but a few have.”

“Jafney's helping you?” I said. “She wasn't lying?”

“She's a blarking tech whiz.” Bree finished messing with Wyck's reverter. She pulled her bracelet off, kissed it, and snapped it in half. She fit the broken locket into the end like a key, just like with my reverter. “She's the one who's been working out how to reverse the Pick this whole time and turn it into the reverter. So basically the Pick transplants the hyperstimulated tendrils into them, and the reverter inactivates those tendrils.

“When a Neo's on a Shift, using the reverter on them just disables the transplanted tendrils, and the nonShifter's tendrils will snap back to the timeline they were on. But I realized if I was able to inactivate all the hyperstimulated tendrils at the same time, on the very first Neo's Shift—”

“There would only be one timeline left to cling to,” I said.

“The True one,” we said together.

“This could work,” I said.

“This
will
work.”

“So is that why Jafney took the codes from me?” I asked.

Bree nodded. “We needed you to keep them safe for us.”

“Why didn't you just tell me what they were?”

“Because you would have destroyed them if you knew that they were the changes to your timeline.”

The changes that had ripped apart my life.

“How do you know I would have destroyed them?” I said.

“Because I would have destroyed them.” She didn't meet my eyes. “I need your bracelet.”

“Finn's locket?” I clutched it to my heart.

She stuck her hand out but still didn't look at me. I unclasped it, and as I did, I
knew
.

“He's dead, isn't he?” I didn't have to say his name.

Wyck stared at his shoes.

It was like a fog of grief filled the room. Future Bree didn't turn from her work, but she stopped moving. Wyck opened his mouth like he was going to say something but then closed it again.

“How long did you have with him?” I asked. “When you got back?”

“Not long,” Bree said softly. “But I got to say good-bye. Quigley took his body back. I couldn't.”

“No
.
”
I'd just … I'd just touched him. Just kissed him. Where the rage and sadness and fear had been earlier, I was completely numb.

“And … and Mom?” I said. There was so much packed into even saying her name. I watched my future self for a reaction, but she betrayed no emotion.

“Some timelines, she's a Shavie. Others, not. But she'll never be Mom again. Not like she was.” There was a hardness to this Bree that I never would have imagined in myself.

“What about Granderson?” I asked, my voice flat and lifeless.

“I haven't seen him since I was captured here.” Bree had almost finished putting together the reverter made from Bergin's IcePick. “Nava died about six months ago. He'd already done all the damage, though. I figured he found a new synch point, some other time when she was living.”

“Then why are we doing this?” I said. “I thought I was saving Finn's memories.
To save his, destroy yours
. To save his memories. Destroy my memories.”

I ran my palm down the tube of blue matter.

“Why are you even here?” I asked.

“You know why,” she said. “This is bigger than Finn. Bigger than his memories. Bigger than yours.”

“I didn't even get to say good-bye.”

“I know,” she said. “That's the one thing that made me realize I still had a job to finish.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven't taken that last Shift back to see Finn. Your tendrils are calling you back even now. But you haven't gone yet. And I never did.”

As she said it, I felt it again, the steady hum of a Shift building within me. Not strong enough to pull me anywhere just yet, but the urge was there.

“At the Institute,” I said, “I heard that version of Wyck say that he was following your orders in making those changes. Why would you do that?”

She broke my locket in two and inserted the key onto the end of the newly converted reverter.

“When Finn was crashing out,” she said, “at Granderson's house, do you remember thinking that hope is the most dangerous thing to lose?”