Пинтип Данн - Remember Yesterday

“Go sit down,” he orders in a tone that suggests he’s the game master and I’m one of his carved pawns. “Over there on the bleachers, where it’s quieter.”

My mouth drops open. Maybe not. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“I do when you’re acting like an idiot. You had a bad fall. You need to sit down.”

“ You’re the one acting like an idiot. Tell me, does that actually work for you? Bossing people around like you’re a ComA official?”

He smiles, slow and wolfish. “It’s been working so far.” His tone is so silky it reaches out and caresses me. “Maybe the fall is an excuse. Maybe I just want to spend more time with you.” He looks at me, his gaze long and liquid, and my stomach executes a slow ollie. I will my body to behave. He might be attractive if you were looking at a frozen still of him. But once he opens his mouth, all those good looks slide down the ramp. All the turtle-shell abs in the world can’t make up for his typical scientist arrogance.

He takes my uninjured elbow, his grip firm and strong, and I let him lead me to one of the long rows of metal bleachers. I’m not stupid. I don’t buy his act for a nanosecond, but this is Plan B. I need to ask him about the mice.

We sit, and I find my voice. “Why would you want to spend more time with me? We don’t even know each other.”

He looks out at the hoverpark, at the boarders zipping past, a blur of speed and color. He stares so long I think he might be timing wind sprints, but then he turns to me. For the first time in this conversation, his expression is uncertain. “I know this is going to sound strange. But do you get the feeling we know each other? From before, I mean.”

“Like from when we were kids?”

“I was thinking more like a past life.” He leans forward, his tone urgent. “I can’t shake the feeling we’re meant to be in each other’s lives.”

I burst out laughing, partly because he’s so hokey and partly because I’m relieved. I wasn’t sure what to do with this earnest side of him. “That’s the worst line I’ve ever heard. Maybe someone might’ve fallen for it, back in the pre-Boom era. But these days? You’re better off telling me you saw your future, and I was in it.”

An expression I can’t read crosses his face. “I’m not hitting on you, Jessa. Trust me, you’d know it if I were.” He leans his elbows against the bleachers. “You’re not exactly my type.”

“Oh, really?” I bristle. I shouldn’t. This guy means less than nothing to me, and I don’t need anybody to make me feel okay about my looks. Why should I care if he’s not attracted to me? And yet, in some tiny, bruised corner of my mind, I do. Pathetic, but there it is. “Well, that makes two of us, then, because you’re the opposite of my type.”

“How so?”

“First of all, you’re a scientist. I don’t date scientists. I don’t even like them.”

“One of your arbitrary rules?” His tone is mocking.

I give him a steely look. “More like a life lesson I had to learn the hard way.”

“I feel sorry for you.” He lifts his hand and grazes his fingers against my cheek. “You have no idea what you’re missing.”

I slap away his hand and then have to sit on my own so I don’t do something worse. Fates, this guy is something else. His ego is so large I’m surprised the hoverpark’s magnets can hold him up.

But I have to play nice. I take a deep breath. As much as I can’t stand the guy, he still has information I need. So I push down my irritation and paste a bright smile on my face. “Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy hearing about your experiments. So tell me, Tanner. What kind of projects are you doing at TechRA?”

“I’m not.” He tilts his head, as though considering me in a new light. “Three days ago, someone broke into my lab and set my mice free. Would you know anything about that?”

My heart grows wheels and about rolls out of my chest. Clack-clack-clack . He can’t possibly know it was me. Right?

“Why would I know anything about that?” I ask faintly.

He shrugs. “No reason. It feels like a prank, and I thought you might’ve overheard one of our classmates talking, that’s all.”

I relax. “Oh. I haven’t heard anything.” Which is technically true. “If I do, you’ll be the first to know.” Which is blatantly not true.

“I also found a mouse’s leg stuck in the cage,” he says. “One of them must’ve severed its leg escaping. Seeing that…it messed me up a little.”

I blink. Why is he talking about this? Admitting any kind of vulnerability? It doesn’t fit with my image of him. “Why do you care?” I struggle to keep my breathing even. “TechRA will just get you new mice.”

“That’s not in question. TechRA would do anything for me. I’m their one bright hope for the future. Everyone’s hope for the future, really.” His tone is even, matter-of-fact. No surprise there. But for the first time, I catch a hint of sarcasm in his voice, too.

“But aside from the fact that I’m not a total monster, I care because even TechRA can’t breed my mice any faster. It’ll take me a year to recreate five generations of mice with the proper genetic enhancement. Which means I won’t be able to go to uni next year. No program in the country would accept me without a completed core thesis these days. Another fallout from a world with no future memory. No one’s willing to take a risk on anything.”

Wait…what?

In spite of the late-afternoon sun, in spite of my fingerless gloves, my hands turn ice-bucket cold. I didn’t know. I thought I was freeing the mice. I thought I was getting back at the scientists. I didn’t know I was jeopardizing Tanner’s future.

What does it matter? a voice inside me grates. He’s one of them. He’s your enemy.

But it does matter. Tanner might grow up to be the cruelest scientist who ever lived—but right now, he’s just a guy with goals and aspirations. And I’m not in the habit of destroying other people’s dreams.

“I’m sorry,” I say, even though I know the words are inadequate.

He shrugs. “Their loss. The world will just have to wait another year to be graced with my brilliance.”

I take a shaky breath. His arrogance gives me an easy out. No need to feel guilty when he deserves to be cut down a few billion molecules. The world will thank me for it. But there’s something else here, too. Something below his breezy words.

Not your concern, Jessa. Get on with it.

I clear my throat. “What exactly are you breeding the mice to do?”

“To run the maze.”

I wrinkle my forehead. “Haven’t they been running mazes for centuries?”

He looks at me like I’m a small child inquiring into grown-up matters. “Do you think you’ll be able to understand the explanation?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say drily. “If you use itty-bitty words no bigger than two syllables, I just might.”

His lips quirk. “I did give a presentation to a group of five-year-olds the other day.”

“You’re a big jerk, you know that?”

“I’ve been called ‘big’ by lots of other girls.” He lowers his voice silkily. “But I don’t think they were talking about my personality.”

“Um, that’s gross.”

He shrugs. “It’s the truth.”

“Truth is relative. You should know. You’re in the business of manipulating other people’s truths.” The words slip out. I don’t know if he knows that a select few scientists used to torture kids by making them live through horrific memories. All I know is that it was a condition of the treaty that I never go public with it.