Пинтип Данн - Remember Yesterday

“Come again?”

“I’ve been working for hours. The least you can do is fetch me some refreshments.”

My jaw clenches. There’s no longer any danger of me lowering my eyes anywhere because all I can see is red. “I don’t fetch anything for anyone.”

“No?” He inclines his chin toward the hallway. “Aren’t you heading toward Ryder’s room right now? To fetch him something, I presume?”

“It’s called a favor,” I say between gritted teeth. “For a friend. Not that you would know anything about that.”

“Maybe I would.” His gaze runs over my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. “If you’ll let me be your friend.”

Could I? For a moment, I look back on the half-constructed playpen. He can’t be that bad, can he, if he’s building a maze for Remi? If he feels sorry for an amputated mouse?

But then I remember it was his fault that the mice were locked up in the first place. I remember his vow that he’ll be the person to invent future memory. He’s as egotistical as the rest of the scientists—and that’s their ultimate downfall. That’s the quality that allows them to be okay with torturing little kids. Because it’s all in the name of science.

“I told you already,” I say, spinning on my heel. “I don’t make friends with scientists.”

A few minutes later, I’m still fuming as Ryder tugs the sheet off a big, bulky machine, scattering dust motes in the air.

“You could’ve given me a warning that Tanner was in your house,” I say.

“I thought you might want to continue your riveting conversation from yesterday.” He snickers, and I realize that’s precisely why he sent me to fetch his goggles. So that I would run into Tanner.

“That’s real juvenile, Ry. If you wanted to torment me, there’re about a hundred other things you could’ve picked.”

“Hey, I was as surprised as you were to see him this morning,” he says. “And you know what? He’s not half bad. You know how much work he’s saving me by building that playpen for Remi? Mikey totally would’ve made me do it if Rat Boy hadn’t offered.”

I sigh. Thinking about Tanner makes my skin itchy. And that’s the last thing I need. “Can we not talk about Tanner anymore? We have a purple and green hallway to find.”

We’re in the storage shed behind the Russells’ house, and I crouch in front of the doughnut-shaped computer screen that Ryder has just uncovered. It’s the one that translates a memory to the viewer across five senses. I haven’t seen one of these since I was six.

No wonder. When people stopped receiving future memories, these machines became largely irrelevant. They were good for only two things. Torturing victims like me with other people’s memories. And reading the visions a precognitive received. There’s been only one real precognitive in our nation’s history—the chairwoman’s daughter, Olivia Dresden. And no one’s seen or heard from her in the last decade.

The vision in my head might not be a glimpse of the future, but Ryder had the bright idea of scanning it with the doughnut screen, so that we have a physical image with which to work.

“How in space-time did Mikey score one of these?” Just seeing the machine makes my heart race, but I’m being silly. The scientists aren’t chasing me. No one’s going to strap me down and torture me.

Ryder flips a row of switches in front of the terminal. “When FuMA shut down, these machines went to a storage room at TechRA, collecting dust. So Mikey snagged one for our house.”

“So that it can sit here, collecting dust?”

“Something like that.” He flashes a you-know-me-better-than-that grin. If this doughnut screen is like any of the other relics Mikey’s lugged home, Ryder would have taken it apart, studied it, and put it back together within the first week.

“Sit.” He gestures to a storage crate and holds up a metal contraption that looks like a cross between a helmet and a headband. “Put this on and open your mind, the way you’ve been taught.” He squints at the terminal hooked up to the doughnut. “The memory will come to you.”

“What are you talking about?” I adjust the contraption on my head. Is it supposed to feel like it’s falling off? “I haven’t been taught anything. The meditation core hasn’t been part of the curriculum for years.”

“I know.” He smirks. “I’m just reading the script they included for the administrators. Hello, my name is Ryder. How are you this fine day? Would you like a meditation aid?” He pretends to hold up a tray, Vanna-bot style. “Flickering candle? Scents to sniff? No?” He mimes throwing the entire tray over his shoulder. “Good. None of this hocus-pocus stuff works anyway.”

I giggle. “The script does not say that.”

“Okay, you’re right. But do you feel more relaxed?”

I nod.

“Good. I bet that’s part of opening your mind.” He arranges two more crates behind me. “Just be…comfortable. Maybe the vision will show up.”

He puts on a less bulky helmet and ducks into the hollow middle of the doughnut screen.

I take a deep breath and ease myself down. The second my back hits the wooden slabs, the swords are back—hundreds, no, millions of them, jabbing at every corner and seam of my brain, peeling back any layer they can grasp.

I want to give them access. I try to open my mind. We’re working toward the same thing here, the swords and I, but we…just…can’t…connect.

Panting, I sit up. Sweat plasters my hair to my forehead. “I don’t get it. Why is this so hard?”

“How did the vision come to you last time?”

“I was sleeping. There wasn’t any kind of struggle. I just fell into it, like a dream.”

He frowns. Only his head sticks up in the middle of the screens. “What else was different?”

“What I’m wearing.” As soon as I say the words, I know the answer. Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Reaching up, I grasp the black-tourmaline pendant hanging around my neck. “My necklace. My mom took it off when she changed me into pajamas.”

He shakes his head. “Most people would kill to have your powers. I don’t know why you would voluntarily stunt them.”

My fingers trembling, I take off the pendant. Back when I lived in the wilderness, I never used to bump into anyone, ever. Never lunged in the wrong direction when I was trapping a fish. Never got caught without shelter during a freak thunderstorm. My precognition didn’t extend more than a couple of minutes into the future, but I used it as unconsciously as my eyes or my ears.

Then, we moved back to Eden City, and I let my psychic muscles atrophy. I bought this tourmaline pendant, so that the stone’s natural qualities could shield my abilities.

“Why, Jessa?”

I shake my head. It’s not something I can talk about, even with him. Especially because it’s him. Ryder brings flowers to my mom as well as Angela on Caregiver’s Day. He thinks she didn’t accompany me to the wilderness because of circumstances beyond her control. I can’t bear for him to know what I suspect is the truth. That she chose not to join me. That she wishes it had been me who died instead of Callie.

When we returned to civilization and I saw how cold my mother was, I never wanted to use my psychic abilities ever again. She blames me for my sister’s death, and if I could’ve gouged out my powers with a knife, I would’ve. Wearing the tourmaline stone—and in essence shutting down my abilities—is the next best alternative.

I put the pendant down on a crate, ten feet away. “Let’s try again without the necklace.”

Ryder turns back to the screen, and I lie on the crates once more. The wood scratches my shoulders, and I shift until I find a more comfortable position. I breathe in. And out. In. And out.