Пинтип Данн - Remember Yesterday

I think about denying it, but there’s no point. The problem with Tanner Callahan is that he thinks he’s always right. The bigger problem is that he usually is.

“How did you know?” I look at the computer-embedded tiles, unable to meet his gaze.

“It was when you did the heel-flip trick. Something about the arch of your body felt so familiar. I went back and re-watched the vids. Sure, your hair was hidden and your face was covered. But you can’t change the shape of your body. You can’t disguise the way you move. It was you.”

My face burns. He knows the shape of my body. What does this mean, exactly? Is he talking about my overall height and form? Or, um, something more specific? Something…having to do with my curves? “I thought you didn’t see my heel-flip trick,” I manage to say.

He smiles smugly. “And I thought you weren’t attracted to scientists.”

I try to speak, but my voice is lost somewhere in the recesses of my heart. When I find it, I can’t be sure it’s the right one. “If you knew it was me, why didn’t you turn me in? Dresden would’ve rewarded you handsomely. Forget the mice. She would’ve gotten you into any uni you wanted.”

He blinks. “If I turned you in, you would’ve been stuck in a lab chair for the next decade. The treaty doesn’t cover lawbreakers.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t have to like you to care, Jessa.”

A laugh rattles out my throat, but it tastes like the tears on my lips—hot and aching. “I can’t stand you, either.”

Shakily, I lower the weapon to my side. I haven’t given up on saving Olivia. But I can’t tort Tanner, not now.

Doesn’t matter. I have something else he wants and needs. Something he won’t be able to turn down.

I let the breath flow out of my lungs. What I’m about to offer him crosses a line I never thought I’d approach. I hold up my arm, the inside of my elbow out, so that he can see the purple-blue veins through my skin. “If you get me into that room, I’ll give you my blood.”

His brows crease together. “Why would I want your blood?”

“Your mouse bit me. You saw that on the vids. What you don’t know is I was infected. I developed the same powers as your mice. Someone sent me a vision of a maze, a path I was compelled to run, and I was led here.” My breath hitches. “So it seems you haven’t lost the fifth-generation strand of your virus after all. It’s flowing through my blood. A sample should give the lost data back to you.”

His jaw works, gnawing on nothing. “You destroyed an entire year’s worth of my work. You jeopardized my entrance into uni. And you don’t tell me about the virus in your blood until just now ?”

I wince. Of course he’s pissed. I’d be steaming, too. “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know if you would turn me in.”

“You’re not the girl I thought,” he says, his voice hard.

“And who was that?” I shoot back. “All you’ve done since we talked at the hoverpark is order me around and insult my intelligence.” I take a deep breath. It sucks that I didn’t tell him. Agreed. But it’s done. Fighting about it isn’t going to help either of us. “It’s a good trade. We both get what we want. The virus worked. I was able to get the vision, even though I’m not a Receiver. Like your mice, I ran the maze. Are you going to walk away from your experiment, just as you’re about to get it back?”

He smiles wryly. “So I guess we’ve finally discovered what we are to each other. Just a means to an end. Is that right, Jessa?”

“We can help each other.” I lick my lips. “That’s better than being enemies.”

“You might change your mind when you go inside that room.”

A chill snakes up my spine. “Why?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he steps forward to have his eyes scanned, which is all the answer I need.

Whatever is inside that room, I’ll find out soon enough.

Insects flit around my stomach. Not just annoying gnats, either, but giant moths that fly around, crash into one another, and rip up their own wings.

Tanner presses his palm against the sensor and sticks his finger into a machine that takes a prick of his blood. Once his biometrics are verified, the door clicks open.

He steps aside to let me go first, but not out of politeness. Oh, no. His stiff jaw tells me he’s still angry. But there’s something else, too. An alertness to his stance, a readiness in his eyes. As though he wants me to go first so that he can catch me if I fall.

Ridiculous. The only feeling Tanner Callahan has toward me is disgust.

I lift my chin and try to channel Callie. Try to be as brave as she was. As brave as a girl worthy of her sacrifice.

I walk into the room.

The space is dark, with low lights set into the ceiling. I can’t see much at first, but I have the sense of being in a vast room, a massive underground cavern whose walls disappear into the shadows. A slight wind blows against me—an oscillating fan, perhaps, to keep the air moving. I shiver and rub my arms.

And then, my eyes adjust. I see row after row of rectangular pods rising out of the ground. There’s a stretcher in each pod, surrounded by blinking machines. A person lies on each stretcher, but unlike the bodies in the hallway, each chest rises up and down. These people are alive.

I swallow hard. “What is this place?”

“TechRA’s best-kept secret. The hot spot of our scientific innovation. We call it ‘the dream lab.’” He places his hand lightly on a bed rail. “This is the place in between, where the people are neither dead nor alive. Their bodies are in a coma, but in this suspended state, their minds work. They dream, floating through an endless, dark night. You wouldn’t believe the number of breakthroughs that have come from studying their minds.”

His words are a sledgehammer to my knees. I stumble forward, my mind shooting in so many directions it can’t form a coherent thought. “These people—oh Fates—trapped here—forever— The mice—fike—this is so much worse than the mice—”

“They volunteered.” He pulls back his hand. “Once it became clear the end was imminent, they signed a directive donating their brains to science. They knew exactly what would happen to their bodies, and they chose to benefit science rather than let their brains go to waste.”

“So who are the people in the hallway?” I whisper.

“TechRA no longer has use for them. Their bodies are in the hallway waiting to be transported to another sector of the building. And then they’ll be…disposed of.”

My eyebrows climb toward the ceiling. “Disposed of? You mean killed.”

“I suppose,” he says. “But I repeat: For the most part, they donated their bodies to science. What else are we supposed to do with them when we’re finished?”

“For the most part? That means at least some of them didn’t have a choice.”

The pause is so long you could stack a row of pods inside.

“Yes,” he finally says.

My nerves turn to rage. Olivia. The only true precog of our generation. Her brain is a gold mine. Rather than letting her live, her mother’s trapped her here this last decade, so that the scientists can excavate her mind, day after day. And when they’re done with her, they’ll dispose of her like last week’s garbage.

Well, not anymore. Not if I have anything to do with it.

“Where is she?” I ask.

He grimaces. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”

I round on him. The stun gun’s still in my hand, and I point it at him, as though shooting him is a possibility. The way the anger pulses inside me, maybe it is. “She sent me a message, Tanner. A vision that led me down a purple and green rabbit hole to get me here. That means she’s not dreaming in there. That means, to some extent, she wants out. So tell me now. Where is she?”