Burn (21 page)

“Tell me what I just saw,” Lona demanded, when Anders had led Katie away, when Harm had seated Lona at a table in the break room and given her a ginger ale. “I thought you said this was the first trial? Trial of what? What did you do to her?”

“I said it was the first trial of the new phase. We've done it before. In hospitals. We knew she was going to be fine. She volunteered. Lots of people have volunteered.”

“Why would anyone volunteer for that?”

“Because, Lona,” he said testily, “some people believe in causes that are bigger then themselves. Some people have a sense of duty.”

“You said before – the documents that you showed me before – they were about a Path that could be injected. Whatever you did to that girl, it didn't look like she was on Path. She was having a nightmare. She would have hurt herself if it didn't stop when it did, and neither of you helped her.”

“But she didn't get hurt. And we had to. The whole point of the Julian Compact is that it has to be able to function anywhere. Soldiers in a battlefield, or stock traders on a floor. If we didn't test it outside of a hospital setting, we wouldn't know whether it would be safe when we released it.”

Released it?
Of course. Test subjects were just test subjects. The whole point of this technology would be to sell it, to expand it, to put other people through what she'd just witnessed.

“Someone's going to find out,” she said. “Someone's going to find out that you're doing this.”

He looked puzzled, tilting his head to the side. He was so beautiful. “I don't understand what you mean. Of course people are going to find out. That's the point. It's – what's the word? Quaint. It's quaint for you to be worried about what the authorities are going to do when they learn about these experiments. Don't you remember how the Julian Path functioned, Lona? The authorities are the ones funding this.”

“Who?”

“Government. Military. Lots of people are excited about this.”

“This isn't like the Julian Path,” she said weakly.

“Are you defending the Julian Path?
You?
”

Was she? She didn't know. She was the one who convinced all of the Strays that the Julian Path was wrong. She was the one whose brain refused to kneel to its will. “The Julian Path was about providing perfect lives for children, at least,” she said. “It wasn't monstrous.”

“This isn't monstrous.” His voice had risen, but he sounded excited, not angry. “The Julian Path was about improving childhood; this is about improving all of society. If we're going to send people into war, shouldn't they be as prepared as possible? Shouldn't we arm them not only with weapons, but with experiences?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because—”
Why not?
Because she'd spent sixteen years of her life hooked up to a pod, and when she saw a roomful of them down here, she felt like her head had been shoved underwater, like she was clawing for oxygen. “Because it's wrong to make people live their lives as other people.”

“We're
not
making them live their lives as other people. Just a few weeks of their lives. In some cases, a few days. Katie did less than five minutes.”

Harm didn't seem to understand that five minutes of memory could feel like a year. “Why do you have to inject it, then?” She couldn't stop thinking of the way the needle had looked going into Katie's arm. “Why couldn't you just put them in regular pods? Why couldn't you just give them visioneers? They sell them everywhere now.”

“Why do you think, Lona? What did your experiences with the Julian Compact feel like? Were they the same as visioneers? Were they the same as the Julian Path? Think about it.”

She thought. The Julian Path had been like – what was the best way to describe it? – like a three-dimensional movie, maybe. Like the most realistic movie ever made, with tastes, textures and characters that viewers would grow to love deeply over the course of many years. But still just a movie. No matter how long Lona was Julian, she could never feel exactly what he felt. She could only witness him feeling, wondering if she was experiencing the right companion emotions.

Zinedine's memories – the Julian Compact – were different. She didn't have to imagine what Zinedine was feeling. She knew it, because she felt it herself.

Maybe a movie hadn't been the right analogy. Living on the Julian Path had been like going through life coated in plastic wrap. She could experience everything, but slightly dulled. Nothing was dulled in Zinedine's dream. It ran through her blood.

“What were you showing Katie?” she asked. “It obviously wasn't anything from Julian's life.”

“We were showing her what it feels like to win.”

An involuntary shudder ran through her body. “That's not what it feels like to win, Harm. She was scared to death.”

He pushed the already-opened soda can across the table. It scraped along the laminate in a way that reminded her of the girl's teeth gnashing together. She grabbed the drink only so she wouldn't have to hear it anymore. It wasn't ginger ale, she saw when she pulled it closer. She had assumed it was because that's what the vending machine was stocked with: ginger ale in green cans, cola in red cans, orange soda in orange cans. Harm must have brought this from somewhere else. It was apple-flavored – a brand that wasn't sold at regular supermarkets. Julian and his best friend Nick used to ride their bicycles to the bodega by Nick's house to buy it specially. This was Julian's favorite soda. Harm had brought it for her so she would have something comforting to drink after he showed her something terrifying. She picked it up and took a sip. It tasted sharper than she remembered, and slightly sour.

“Sometimes what it feels like to win isn't what you would think it would feel like.”

“Can I leave now?” she begged.

“No,” he said. “I'm afraid you can't. You're going to feel dizzy soon,” he said. “You'll want to lie down for a while and you might fall asleep.”

As soon as he said that, she noticed the table seemed wobbly – it looked like there were two tables. She had to reach out and touch to see which was the real one, but when she did, there were two right hands floating in front of her. “What did you give me?”

“Just something to calm you down. I knew you'd be upset. Lona, I'm sorry. They told me I had to.”

His words were blurry. She couldn't tell if he was really saying them, or if she only thought he was. “You said I could leave. You told me I could see my mother or I could leave.”

He looked sad now, but that must have been her imagination. Harm didn't look sad. That was emotion he wasn't supposed to have. “I know,” he said. “I wish I could have told the truth.”

Everything was swirly, like a kaleidoscope. Faces floated in front of her, in pieces – eyes and noses and flaming red hair. Zinedine was there, putting her cool hand against Lona's sticky cheek, and Fenn was there too, stroking her wrist. Except Fenn couldn't have been there, so that made her wonder if Zinedine was there either, or if she'd concocted everything.

“She has a fever
,” Zinedine said sharply
. “If it lasts much longer, she needs to see a doctor.”

“Anders is a doctor.”

“Anders is not going to lay a hand on her.”

“You sound like you're starting to care about her. Are you starting to remember?”

“Is that why you kept her here? As a ploy to make me remember something? Harm? Harm, answer me.”

“Make sure she's okay.”

“Now you sound like you're starting to care about her.”

“Make sure she's okay, and I'll make you a deal.”

A deal? Don't
, she wanted to say, but her voice came out twisted and tongue-tied when she tried to talk.
Don't make a deal with him. You don't know what I just saw.

She thought she heard other things, too. Her mother talking to someone else. She kept saying a name that wasn't Lona's, but when Lona would open her fever-heavy eyes, she didn't see anybody else there.

Sometimes, in the middle of her delirium, she felt things she was sure were real: the scratch of a cool wash cloth wiping the backs of her knees where sweat had pooled. Or lullabies. She could swear that the lullabies were real. There was an Irish one, with a high note at the end, and the voice that sang it cracked when it tried to hit it.
Was Zinedine singing to her?

She didn't know how much time had passed. A lot, it felt like. She could sense the room getting darker and then light again; she could hear the door open and close. A tray of food was brought in; she could smell warm bread and potatoes – but later someone returned – “
You haven't touched a thing”
– and the smell disappeared.

Gradually, things slid back in focus. Objects stopped floating in front of her; the headache that had built itself up behind her eyes from the strain of trying to distinguish between reality and fiction began to subside, cell by cell.

The first clear thing she saw was a glass of apple juice, looming large in front of her lips. A hand under her neck lifted her enough to take a drink. Once she realized it tasted normal – none of the sourness of the soda – she gulped it down, managing to sit up and grasp the glass with both hands.

“There you go.” Zinedine let go of the glass, but kept her hands cupped a few inches underneath Lona's chin, ready to catch the container if Lona dropped it. When she finished, Zinedine used a cloth to catch a dribble of juice that had run down the side of her mouth. It was an intimate gesture, especially coming from a woman who didn't remember her.

“You had a bad reaction to what he put in your soda,” Zinedine explained. “It was supposed to help you sleep for a few hours, not put you out for almost a day. Plus, you probably didn't have enough food in your system. Listen to me – I sound like my mother. She always blamed any illness – cold, flu, sprained ankles – on young girls not getting enough food.”

Lona coughed; she'd gulped down the last dregs of the juice too fast. “I know she did. She still does. I met her.”

Was it her imagination, or did Zinedine recoil, just the slightest bit at the idea of Lona spending time with Maggie?

“How long have I been out of it? How much time has passed?”

“About fifteen hours.”

Her heart leapt and then sank. Fifteen hours would have been more than enough time for someone to contact the police – if anyone even realized she was missing. Ilyf and Gamb would have left for New York and Fenn – she brushed the idea out of her mind. Fenn wouldn't be trying to contact her. Julian would eventually realize something had happened to her, but even when he did, what good would it do? She'd left no evidence behind for where to go looking.

“Thank you for taking care of me.” She allowed enough gratitude in her voice to be polite, but no more.

“You were sick,” Zinedine said simply, and she hesitated, just a stutterstep, before asking her next question. “What did he show you downstairs? When you went down with him, what did Harm show you?”

She didn't want to think about the girl with the braid. Instead of answering, she held the glass toward Zinedine for another refill, drinking slowly to buy some time.

“Was it part of the Julian Compact?” Zinedine pressed on. “Please, it's important. I've been waiting to ask you for hours.”

The juice suddenly felt slimy in her throat. That's why Zinedine had been such a dutiful nursemaid – not because she was worried about Lona. Because she was worried about the information Lona had.

“I apologize that my long sleep inconvenienced you,” Lona said stiffly. “That must have been difficult for you to have to wait until I regained consciousness.”

Zinedine looked at the floor. “I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this yet.”

At mothering? At talking to other humans? Lona didn't care what Zinedine was or was not good at. She was thinking about Katie again. She was thinking about how the last time she'd ended up in a Path-related lab, she'd watched someone die. Katie reminded her of herself, six months ago, when she was someone else's plaything. She couldn't go through that again. She had to get out. The room had stopped swirling in front of her, but when she swung her legs over the side of the bed, the floor rocked.

“I don't think you should get up yet,” Zinedine cautioned. Lona ignored her, holding the nightstand for balance. “What are you doing, Lona? If you want something I can bring it to you. You don't need to get up. At least keep your eyes on something that's not moving – it will help with the dizziness.”

She didn't want to admit Zinedine was right, but the headspinning did subside when she fixed her eyes on the soccer ball in the poster across the room. She removed her weight from the nightstand one ounce at a time, until she was sure she could support herself standing. Then she tried to envision the room as if it weren't composed of furniture, but of tools. There were the right tools in here to help her escape. She just needed to think.

The sheets? The sheets. She could strip the sheets from the bed, and she could knot them together like in old prison movies and she could
– but as soon as she looked at the window, she knew she couldn't. The bars on the window were far too narrow for anyone to fit through.
The chair?
Could she swing the chair at something? At the door, or at whomever came through the door next? But when she tried to lift the chair, she saw it was bolted to the floor. Of course it was.
The spoon on the tray left over from Zinedine's last meal. She could use the spoon to loosen the bolts, and then she could
–

She took the spoon from the desk and, ignoring Zinedine's raised eyebrows, kneeled on the ground. The chair was affixed with a bolt on each leg; she could barely wedge the spoon under one. It dug into her palm, bending uselessly into an L-shape. What she needed was a wrench, to loosen the bolts, or the claw end of a hammer. But as long as she was wishing for something it might as well be a key. She took mental inventory of the items still in her possession. Her coat was gone, left in the apartment downstairs, which meant her phone was gone too. She was still wearing Fenn's shirt, which meant she still had a birthday candle. She could sing her way out. She could light it and wish her way out.

Maybe the bowl end of the spoon would be stronger than the handle. Or maybe if she threw her weight against the chair, she could loosen it from its bolts.

“Stop,” Zinedine said quietly. Lona felt pressure on her wrist – Zinedine, kneeling beside her, her chapped hand clasped over Lona's. “It won't work. I tried that. I tried all of that when I first got here.”

Lona shook her off and braced her shoulder harder. Throwing the chair at the door would be stupid – she saw that now. But maybe, if she could fit a leg of it between the window pane and the bars, if she could use it like a crow bar to pry the bars off. The building was old. The bars looked rusty. It might work.

“Whatever you're thinking, it won't work,” Zinedine said again. “Even if you could get the chair off the ground. It wasn't bolted when I got here. They bolted it after I tried to throw it at a guard. I've tried everything. I used to get forks, too. I don't get those anymore.”

Zinedine's tone was reasonable, but it only made Lona angry. Zinedine had tried everything to get out of this room, she said.
Why hadn't she tried everything to find Lona?

No forks. No weapons. No hope. She thought of Warren, in his soft room with his soft clothes. She looked down at Zinedine's feet. Tennis shoes with laces. So they hadn't removed that way out for Zinedine. Did they not think she would try it? Or did they simply not care?

“Lona?”

Lona ignored her, all of her muscles straining against the chair.
Did it move? Did she just feel it give, the slightest bit?

“
Lona.
” This time, Zinedine tried touching her shoulder, and Lona wrenched her body away so quickly that she nearly fell over, and Zinedine's hand was left suspended in the air. “Lona, I have to tell you something. About Harm.”

“I know. He's sick. I knew him before.”

“Not that.” She shook her head. “He made me promise. He said if I could mimic my research on the Julian Compact – if I could help them figure out what they're doing wrong – then he would let us go. Both of us.”

A deal. That was the deal he'd made. Aspirin and freedom for evil work.

“You can't.” For a minute she forgot that she was angry at Zinedine. “Zinedine, you can't – you don't know what they're using it for. It's horrible. It's—”

“I know,” Zinedine said. “I know it is. I don't have any other options. I have to try, if I can. The memories of my research are dim, but if I dedicate all of my energy to remembering—”

“Why don't you remember
me
?”

Zinedine stared at her. The words had erupted before she could think about them. She didn't even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Whatever tests they did on you, or however long you've been here, or whatever else – I'm your
daughter.
How can you not remember
me
?”

Zinedine swallowed. “It's not that simple, Lona.”

“It seems pretty simple for most mothers.” Anger built in her blood, and she welcomed it. Anger was better than what she felt running below the surface, like water below a thin pane of ice. Feeling angry was better than feeling abandoned. She had run all over the state, all to find a person she didn't even have proof existed. She had put Fenn in harm's way, and then she had lost him in the name of this quest. She had followed the breadcrumbs like a good little Gretel. And her mother didn't even remember laying them out.

Zinedine backed away, sitting down on the single bed. Since Lona didn't know what else to do, she sat on the chair, the one that was still bolted to the floor, the immovable force that would keep her in this room.

“How did you find me?” Zinedine asked. “I didn't ask you that before.”

“I had your memories,” Lona responded dully. “I saw you in your lab, the night that I was born. I saw you stab a syringe into your stomach, and I saw them put you in an ambulance to take you to the hospital. You used my birthday as a password. That's how I found you.”

“In my lab?” Zinedine repeated. “You dreamed of my lab?”

“Mostly. Your lab and then this apartment building. That's how I found you.”

“What did you see, when you dreamed of this building? This room?”

“No.” Lona was irritated by the quizzing, by the fact that Zinedine still seemed more interested in her research than in Lona. “Not the apartment itself. The courtyard. You were playing soccer with your dad, and there was a big dog. A German Shepherd.”

“Daisy,” Zinedine whispered.

“Yes. Your dad was mad because she was in the way.”

“I don't think you're looking at this the right way,” Zinedine said. She was beginning to smile. Why was she beginning to smile?

“The
right way
?”

“No. You're focusing on the wrong things.”

“You're telling
me
I'm focusing on the wrong things?” Now she really needed to get out of this room. Not even to escape from Harm. Just to escape from Zinedine.

“I think the important thing is that I remembered I would forget you.”

The statement was ludicrous. “You remembered you would forget me. I don't know what that even means.”

“It means I must have known my memories would be erased. So I gave you a way to find me. I gave you a way to find me that was time-released for seventeen years, so that by the time you left the Julian Path at eighteen, you would have been dreaming of me for a year. I must have wanted you to have enough memories that you could identify who I was and come find me.”

“Congratulations to me. I did find you. And you didn't remember me.”

“Lona, you can't blame me. My memory is like a piece of paper that someone punched a bunch of holes through and then lit on fire. It's not my fault that I don't remember everything. I remember
pieces.
I'm remembering more every hour that you're here. I'm remembering everything that I can.”

Lona snorted. Zinedine was acting like she'd done a selfless, thoughtful thing by giving Lona her memories. She hadn't considered that it could be dangerous for Lona. She hadn't thought about how Lona would feel, haunted by the past of someone she'd never met and couldn't find. The act was selfishness disguised as selflessness. “
Pieces
. Which pieces do you remember?”