Unchanged (44 page)

“Dead,” he announces into his earplant. “Both of them.”

He transmits the orders for the bodies to be retrieved and relocated to a nearby army hospital where the state can decide what's to become of them.

As he places the girl onto the ground and steps away, he feels a hardening in his heart that can't be stopped. And probably won't be thawed for a long time.

“Glitching bastards,” he mumbles under his breath.

Then, through his plant, someone shouts so loudly it makes him cringe and press a finger to his ear. “Captain, I think you better get over here!”

The coordinates are transmitted and the captain moves quickly, tearing off his suit as he leaves the area marked on his Slate map as residential sector and enters the one labeled medical sector.

He follows the signal of his subordinate until it leads him into a dark, vast lab, lit only by the glowing orange, liquid-filled sphere in the center. Despite his high rank and the fact that he's seen just about everything there is to see in the world, he can't help the gasp that escapes his lips.

“Holy flux,” he swears under his breath.

“We were able to hack into the security system and shut down the power grid,” the sergeant informs his boss. “It was the only way we could get into this fortress.”

The captain just nods, unable to take his eyes off the remarkable sight in front of him. Through the thick, gelatinous orange fluid, he can just make out a hand, an arm, the side of a face.

“Do you know how much longer it has to be in there?”

The sergeant points to a screen fastened to the side of the giant contraption. On it is an active countdown.

35 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes, 9 seconds remaining

“Oh,” the sergeant adds, “and we found this.” He yanks at the shirt collar of a tall, slender young man huddled behind the incandescent machine and drags him into the captain's line of sight. “He was clearly affected by the Neutralizers because he's mumbling nonsense. But he won't leave the room. We tried to escort him out and put him with the others, but he lost it. Started screaming and kicking and flailing. Landed a punch right in Private Lanster's face.”

The captain hides a smirk as he eyes the private, standing off to the side, scowling from behind a pink, swollen nose.

“Can we transport this thing?” the captain wonders aloud. “I mean, without disturbing it?”

The sergeant nods. “I think so. I called in a technician from the base. He's on his way here to check it out. It's still running even after we cut the grid. I think it has its own independent power source. Which means we should be able to simply load it onto a hover and get it out of here.”

Just then, an animalistic, primal scream resonates through the lab, startling the captain. The young man who was huddled behind the sphere comes charging toward him, hands outstretched. “NO! Don't you take her away from me! I won't let you take her away!”

Three privates are required to restrain him.

The captain chuckles. “So much for Neutralizers. You better let him come along. He may be our only hope in figuring out what the glitch this is.”

*   *   *

THIRTY-FIVE DAYS LATER …

The young man sleeping in the lobby of the army hospital snaps awake as the doors to the intensive care unit unseal and a pair of shiny black shoes
click
-
clack
their way down the synthotile floors.

He looks eagerly and anxiously into the eyes of the doctor, who comes to a halt in front of him.

“She's awake,” the doctor says.

The young man leaps to his feet, feeling the sway of the earth beneath him, as he struggles to walk a straight line behind the billowing white coat. This is the moment he's been waiting for ever since he woke up to find that tiny cube tucked in his hand. Ever since he connected the drive to his best friend's Slate and watched the downloaded memory file she had stored there. Ever since he realized what she had done.

She had created a life in the very lab that once created her.

Or rather, she had
returned
a life.

To its rightful owner.

Her words echo hauntingly in his brain.

“Fall in love with me in a different world.”

He heard them in the memory, but they felt eerily familiar. Like she'd whispered them right into his ear as well. Somewhere between sleep and dreams and the cold harsh reality of daylight.

He can't undo what she's done. He knows that. Some things simply can't be reversed.

All he can do is live with her decision.

Live with it, try to understand it … and wait.

But now, the waiting is over.

The doctor veers left down a hallway and right down another until they reach a section of the hospital that's guarded by a synthosteel door and two men in uniform, holding the kind of weapons the young man has only seen on Feed shows. He doesn't even want to know what they're capable of doing in real life.

They pass into another corridor and the doctor stops in front of a room. The young man can hear his own heart pounding in his ears. He waits for the door to be opened, but instead, the doctor turns to face him, trepidation etched into his old, wrinkled face.

“I should probably warn you, Zen,” he says, his voice grave, sending chills down the young man's spine. “She doesn't remember anything. She hasn't spoken. She barely knows the letters of the alphabet. In many ways, she's like a newborn baby.”

He nods, understanding.

“But she'll learn. It will just take time. Her brain functionality is normal. Her vitals are all normal. Apart from the mental and speech impediments, she's just a normal eighteen-year-old girl.”

He turns and scans his fingerprint against the panel on the wall. The young man captures a breath in his lungs as the door glides open.

The girl lying in the bed looks smaller than he imagined. Then again, he's spent the last thirty-five days building her up in his mind. If she had any hope of matching the vast array of fantasies he concocted while daydreaming about this moment, she'd have to be twenty feet tall.

But it's her beauty that surprises him most.

He honestly wasn't sure what to expect.

Her skin is the same shade of honey, but with a sprinkling of faint freckles. Her hair is the same golden brown. It just doesn't sparkle. A pink birthmark, in the shape of a maple leaf, sits just under her chin.

But the moment he gazes upon her, he knows. Without a shadow of a doubt, he knows.

It's the face of the girl he loves.

Because he understands what lies beneath it. He always has.

“Sariana.” He tests out the name from the memory file, saying it aloud for the first time. The
S
is familiar to him, an intimate sound on his tongue. The rest will have to come with time.

She opens her eyes at the sound of his voice. Blinks. Two brilliant chestnut gems—so richly brown they're almost purple—stare back at him, stealing his breath away. She looks him up and down with subtle fascination, as though she's memorizing him for the very first time.

“Do you think she recognizes you?” the doctor asks from the doorway, remarking upon the strange, almost whimsical look on the girl's face.

Yes … always
yes
.

“No,” the young man answers quietly. “She's never met me before.”

But as he turns back to the girl and allows their eyes to lock again, a faint, lopsided smile finds its way to his lips.

She doesn't know him. She doesn't remember him.

But she will.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ideas may come from a single spark of inspiration. But ideas don't equal finished books. Ideas don't put stories in the hands of readers. They don't edit, market, hand-hold, support, love, encourage, critique, or make you laugh when all seems lost. You need people for that. Brilliant, funny, supportive,
extraordinary
people.

Thank you to the unparalleled team of
superhumans
at Macmillan Children's Publishing Group: Simon Boughton, Joy Peskin, Allison Verost, Caitlin Sweeny, Kathryn Little, Angus Killick, Molly Brouillette, Lauren Burniac, Jon Yaged, Lucy Del Priore, Katie Halata, Jean Feiwel, Liz Fithian, Courtney Griffin, Holly Hunnicutt, Kate Lied, Ksenia Winnicki, Mark Von Bargen, and Nicole Banholzer. A super-bubbly, jazz-hands thank-you to Janine O'Malley and Angie Chen for pushing me to make these books the best they could be and for always saying “yes!” when I asked for more time. To Stephanie McKinley for being a fangirl, friend, and beta reader! Elizabeth Clark for designing the three best glitching covers ever. And Chandra Wohleber for copyediting the crap out of this beast and for calling the ending “perfect” when I needed to hear it most.

Mary Van Akin, you deserve your own line. Your own paragraph. Your own book. You make being awesome look easy. But you make finding the words to express my gratitude so very hard. Thank you for being my champion, friend, travel buddy, confidante, master strategist, and, oh yeah, publicist.

Thank you to my incredible agents, Bill Contardi and Jim McCarthy, for your never-ending wisdom, enthusiasm, encouragement, and patience (it requires a bold and courageous spirit to undertake a career working with writers). Thank you to Marianne Merola and Lauren Abramo, the queens of foreign rights! Also thanks to my amazing film agent, Dana Spector, and super-savvy entertainment lawyer, Mark Stankevich.

Thank you to Soumya Sundaresh, Deepak Nayar, Tabrez Noorani, and the amazing people at Kintop Pictures and Reliance Entertainment for bringing Sera's story to sparkly Hollywood. And especially to Soumya for holding my hand through this exciting yet scary yet remarkable process.

Across the pond, thank you to Claire Creek and everyone at Macmillan Children's UK for your amazing support and kick-arse covers!

No matter what we authors do to perfect our characters, the booksellers, librarians, and teachers are the real heroes of any young adult story. Thank you to every single person who has placed my book in a reader's hand and who has said the magic words “I think you might like this.” Especially thanks to Cathy Berner at Blue Willow, Caitlin Ayer at Books Inc., Jade Corn and Cori Ashley at Phoenix Book Company, Carolyn Hutton and Kathleen Caldwell at A Great Good Place for Books, Crystal Perkins, Maryelizabeth Hart, Courtney Saldana, Amy Oelkers, Julie Poling, Heather Hebert, Damon Larson, Mike Bull, Sandy Novak, Dennis Jolley, Sherri Ginsberg, and Allison Tran.

Because of the sheer talent, skill, and awesomeness of Nikki Hart at Multi-Designs, Mel Jolly at Author RX, and Dan Martino and Janey Lee at Haney Designs, I am able to stay sane, organized, and appear relatively on top of things.

I am so grateful for my “tribe”—the people who actually “get” it. My Fierce Reads sisters: Emmy Laybourne, Anna Banks, Leigh Bardugo, Gennifer Albin, Ann Aguirre, Nikki Kelly, Lish McBride, Elizabeth Fama, and Marissa Meyer. My Girls Gone Sci-Fi warriors: Tamara Ireland Stone, Jessica Khoury, Lauren Miller, Melissa Landers, Sophie Jordan, Victoria Scott, Alexandra Monir, Gretchen McNeil, Beth Revis, Megan Shepherd, Meagan Spooner, Debra Driza, Amy Tintera, and Anna Carey. My Traveling Story stars: Robin Benway, Kevin Emerson, Megan Miranda, and Claudia Gray. My Steamboat Soulmates: Marie Lu, Morgan Matson, Brodi Ashton, Jenn Johansson, and Jennifer Bosworth. My dear friends Brad Gottfred, Robin Reul, Carol Tanzman, Lauren Kate, Alyson No
ë
l, Carolina Munhoz, Raphael Draccon, Nadine Nettman Semerau, Mary E. Pearson, and Joanne Rendell. And a very special thanks to Michelle Levy, who is responsible for pretty much the coolest thing to ever happen to me!

Thank you to my beautiful and supportive family: Laura and Michael Brody (a girl can't ask for better parents. Well, she could, but she'd never find them!); Terra Brody (the founding member of Team Zen); Cathy and Steve Brody, who are always genuinely excited about whatever I do (You wrote a book? Yay! You went to the dry cleaner? Yay!); and my fur-babies: Honey Pants, BooBoo-Shush, Gracie-Kins, and Baby Baby. No matter how long I disappear for, you are always happy to see me. And, of course, Charlie, my rock and my Zen. Thank you for always keeping your feet on the ground so I can fly.

At the risk of sounding completely crazy (too late!), I want to thank Seraphina and Zen. You are as real to me as anyone else on this page. I will miss you.

And now comes the hard part. How do I properly thank
you
? The person responsible for all of this. If you're holding this book right now it means you made it to the end. You took the whole journey with me. There were so many other things you could have done with your time (played Candy Crush, watched
The Mindy Project
, eaten a bagel) and yet you chose to spend it with Sera and Zen. Even though I make a living stringing words into sentences, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to effectively convey how grateful I am that you're here. That you came along for this ride. You might just have to trust me. You might just have to believe.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR