Divided (13 page)

“What I mean is … what I’m trying to say is …” I am stumbling in the face of Chord’s suspicion.

“When I said I would do anything … West, you know you can’t twist that.”

No, that’s not … you didn’t—
“You said if you knew it was meant to be, then you would do it.” I’m talking too fast now. Wanting to backtrack and unable to. Speeding ahead to get it over with.

“Do what, West?” he says. Now his voice is pure ice. “Like kill?”

“It’s not … you’re coming at this the wrong way, Chord. Just let me—”

“Wait. Don’t say it.” Chord’s words confirm my worst fears, my nightmare come to life. He’s with me still, but it’s not really him anymore. His face is … devastated. “Don’t tell me you’re striking again.”

I’m about to say no, but I stop. What I’ve done, left loose ends in the forms of non-Alts—how is that any better? Who’s to say what’s worse? I still don’t know, no matter how much I go back and forth. So I tell the truth. “Yes. I guess I am.”

He says nothing, still in shock.

I move away to sit on the side of the bed, suddenly needing space from this Chord who is not Chord. This person who can’t hide what he feels about how low I can go, who sees all too well the worst parts of me. “I’m sorry,” I say again, knowing the apology is far from enough.

Chord slowly gets off the bed and stands up. Stares at me like he’s never seen me before.

“Why?” His eyes drop to my wrists, my still-bandaged marks, and some misguided sense of defensiveness has me crossing my arms in front of me. “Dire could ask any of his other—”

“I’m not working for Dire, Chord.”

“Not Dire,” he repeats.

“It’s … they came and asked me! I didn’t—”
Shut up. You said yes. Who cares who asked who?

“You can’t even tell me who? For Christ’s sake, West!”

I shut my eyes for one long second before looking at him again. “The Board.”

“What are you talking about?”

I get to my feet, an attempt to close the gap between us, even just a little bit. “Two days ago, that night you came over in the rain … I had an order to go to headquarters in Leyton. And he made me an offer.”

“
He.
Who’s—”

“Sabian. A Level One Board Operator. He said if I work as a striker for him, any kids I’d ever have”—and here my face gets hot, though it’s the last thing I should be embarrassed about—“would be born complete. No Alternate, no assignment, just … life.”

Chord shakes his head. His eyes are bleak, his mouth a line. “He lied, West. No way can he—”

“Who runs the Alt lab, Chord?” I say to him quietly. “Who runs the whole Board, the whole filtration system?”

Level 1.
He knows the answer, but I can see him working it out now as though this is the first time he’s heard it. Flipping it, twisting it, searching for a trap. “Who are the targets?” he asks. “How many?”

“Three. The Alts of the Board’s kids. Level One Alts,” I finish, my voice sounding weak even to my own ears.

Make sure you say Alts, not idles. You can’t tell him that. Worse than a striker, you’re a mur—

“So you’re killing for a promise that won’t be kept for years,” Chord says. “For your kids to be completes from birth.”

“Ours,”
I say quietly, suddenly needing to look at anything but him. The off-white walls, the thin drapes, the dirty tops of my shoes. I never took them off, not even to sleep, I think dully. “Maybe, one day.”

Chord’s hands touch the sides of my face, tangling in my hair. His mouth comes down hard on mine. Then he ends the kiss, puts his hands on my shoulders, and takes me in with an expression close to grief. “And you really believe a top-ranking Board Operator will keep a promise to a striker?” he asks gently.

“Yes.” Tears singe my eyes, and I blink them away. “I have to believe that, Chord. That I’m not as selfish as I think I am, and that if I can give this to you, I would.”

“You don’t
have
to give me this, West.” But I hear the longing in his voice. “And you’re not selfish. Why would I think—”

“Because that’s not the only reason why I’m doing this.”

An almost imperceptible tightening of Chord’s arms around me. Not stiff like before, but a defense. “Spit it out, West.”

“Being a striker before, for Dire … I hurt Kersh, Chord. I killed without caring who was worthy. If I can do this job for the Board, by making sure those next in line survive, I’ll make up for all that.”

“Sabian told you this?”

I nod.

His hand along my cheek. “Is it that easy to make you believe you’re so evil, when everything you did you did in order to survive?”

“Evil or not, does it change the fact that some of those Alts might be alive if it weren’t for me?”

“Maybe, maybe not. It can’t matter now. It’s over.”

“Not for me, it’s not.” My hands clench into fists at my side, and I force them open. Lift one up to look at my wrist and wonder if the marks have always been so stark, so encircling. “My marks. He said …” And here I falter, stumble over the ugly nakedness of the truth. That more than any children the future might hold for us, more than any guilt I need to appease, it’s my simple wanting to start over. Pretend I’m someone I’m not.

Chord takes my hands and holds them in his. My marks against his skin, tainting the untainted. “What did he say, West?”

“He’s going to have them erased.”

Chord goes still for a second, and then he swears under his breath, presses his lips to one of my marks. “They’re nothing. They’re just … ink and chips. I don’t even see them anymore.”

“Don’t lie. You have to see them, because I can’t
not
see them.”

“I don’t—”

“For a while, I could almost do it. Be able to look at them and not think ‘striker’ or ‘assassin.’ To just try to see them as parts of the past. But it never lasted for long. The shame always came back.” I can’t stop, as though I’m seeking salvation with a confession.

“So maybe you just need more time to—”

“And now it’s too late for even that. Because it’s not just ‘striker’ I think of when I look at them. It’s ‘killer of Alts, killer of idles—’ ”

Stop.

Stop.

Shut up, West—

Too late.

Chord’s eyes, as dark and hollow as night. “You said idles. Not just Alts but
idles.
”

I hold my breath.

This is who you love, Chord.

“Idles.
West
 …” The stunned look on his face makes my chest ache, and I’m desperate now. Mistake or no, I have to tell him.

“I didn’t kill them, Chord,” I blurt out. “They’re not dead.”

At his look, full of hope, I shake my head. Misery is bitter on my tongue. “Though they’re not safe, either,” I continue. “I wanted to kill them using this gun that meant they wouldn’t feel anything. But I couldn’t do it. So I … took out their Alt code instead. Their Alts became completes, just like Sabian wanted, but the idles I was supposed to kill … they’re non-Alts now.”

“What does that mean?” Chord asks, sounding numb, defeated.

“In the system, they’re officially dead. Incompletes. But they’re really still alive, which means whoever they were before … they can’t go back to that now. They won’t be recognized as anyone, now that they have no identity. And if the Board catches them … they’ll be killed.”

Chord shakes his head. “So you left them alive … to live that kind of life?”

“
Some
kind of life at least, Chord!”

“You didn’t kill them, and that’s … that’s huge, West. But don’t you see you might as well have?”

There’s no denying it. I’ve fallen to new depths, where even he might not be able to save me. To strike down active Alts is to be a cheater; to strike down idles is to be a monster.

Chord drops my hands and runs his fingers through his hair, as though to wipe away my touch. It’s agony to think that he doesn’t want my hands touching him again.

“You weren’t ever going to tell me, were you?” Chord says. Softly, like fresh skin over a wound. And I know then that it’s not so much me doing what I did that’s driving him away, but that I’ve betrayed him again. Doubting him. Us. “Were you?”

I’m simply unable to move. Not even to shake my head. Why make him hate me that much more? My heart—each beat is like another punch of pain.

“I can’t figure out what else you need from me, West. To make you trust me the way I trust you. Isn’t it enough that I love you?”

Chord’s face blurs, and I’m suffocating beneath the weight of his hurt. The one person I hate hurting, who I hurt again and again.

“I don’t care what you did, what you can do, what you’re doing
now,
even,” he says. “If that makes me as horrible a person as you think you are, then fine. We’ll be horrible together.”

“I don’t want us to be horrible together, Chord. I just want …” And I stop. How can I tell him I want more? That I want everything when I’m the one who decided to lose it all?

Chord takes a step closer, his face a loved one’s and a stranger’s as he slides his hands around my neck and weaves them into my hair.

“Everyone
wants.
Don’t you know that?” he says quietly against my mouth. “Except how many are willing to do what you’ve done for it? Or decide that being alive just isn’t enough?”
Because you’ve decided, West. That you’re not enough. I’m not enough.

“Chord, I—”

He leans forward until our lips touch, as carefully as though it’s the first time, and we are motionless for seconds that are too long, too short. Then he breaks free. He unwinds his fingers from my hair, lingers on my neck, before letting me go.

And he’s gone, the door shutting behind him with a very final click.

And I’m alone.

My cell buzzes with an incoming text. It’s an ominous sound in the heavy silence.

Sabian, with the spec sheet for my last Alt.

I stare at the door and am torn in half.

Though I know. There is no choice, not really. I’ve gone too far to go back now, and I’m so close to being done that the end is in sight. Just one more. Then Chord will understand. He’ll
have
to. He wouldn’t—

I pull my cell from my jeans pocket so I can stop thinking. Start moving so I can finally be free of the past.

I read the details, memorizing each one as though they are the difference between life and death. For this last contract, there is no room for mistakes. Even the tiniest statistical probability of something going wrong will have to be quashed. Because this is Sabian, this is Level 1, and this final Alt is the last thing standing in my way.

I tap the room checkout code into my cell and send it to the front desk before tucking it back into my jeans pocket. My bag is still lying near the headboard. I unzip it, take out the gun, and reload it with a fresh vial of poison. The final vial—I cannot miss, will not miss. Slipping my bag on and walking out of the motel, the gun a fresh weight in my jacket pocket, I can’t help but notice just how calm my breathing is. How my hands are as steady as they’ve ever been, how my eyes are already looking for him.

The last Alt.

Inside the reception area for a public training arena for Alts, I’m restless, wanting to finish things. That the training arena’s located in Leyton Ward of all wards, and that I’m only blocks away from Board headquarters, sits easier with me than it might have if this was simply another striker contract issued by Dire. Seeing Sabian in person again would be far from fun, but it might be necessary if he needs to be reminded of his end of the deal.

Even as I’m thinking this, I’m scanning the room around me, taking everything in.

A handful of Alts, and I know without a doubt most of them will be idles and not actives. By the time an assignment is handed out, actives have to put any form of regular training behind them. Whatever they can do to keep their skills honed is squeezed between minutes of running and hiding, chasing and hunting. The Board-ordered eye scan at point of entry is another reason why actives stay away. These transactions are recorded and show up on the public Alt data log, which is made accessible to any active looking to locate their Alt during an assignment.

There’s an attendant at the front desk, but he’s busy scanning cells to reserve slots for the arena. I know the general layout of such places, even though I only ever used one a handful of times. There was never any point, when training with Aave and Luc taught me just as much. Maybe more, in fact—my brothers knew my weaknesses and called me out on them. I miss them, these brothers who weren’t the worthy ones, after all. But if not for them, would I be alive today?

There’s a laugh from somewhere, bringing me back here, reminding me to remain focused.

I recall the spec sheet. It doesn’t take long, as it’s much shorter than the previous two from Sabian. Missing addresses, gap-filled schedules. A photo that wouldn’t open properly, leaving me with only a written description of what he looks like. The uneasy feeling that what’s not on the spec sheet might be just as important as what is.

I should feel more cautious. But it’s the very opposite of caution that electrifies my nerves now, making it nearly impossible to keep still. It’s reckless and foolish, but there it is.

The front desk is free and I walk over and hold out my cell to the attendant. “How long until the next available slot?” I ask him.

“Uh, after this group goes in”—he gestures to the Alts still hanging around with a quick point of his chin—“a couple of minutes, probably. Another group is heading out now, so …” He waves the scanner over my cell that I hold out to him, and there’s a sudden spark of panic; surely a complete would draw attention for being here? But when the scan goes through without the attendant giving me another look, it’s relief that I feel instead. Sabian knew I would have to come here—he must have preapproved my entry somehow. Along with participant registration and automatic withdrawal of payment from my bank account, an entry scan also means I understand, agree, and accept the risks of being in a place like this. That accidents can still happen, no matter how unlikely.

In many ways, it can be safer in here than it is out on the streets. In the arena, no tired and half-starved actives let loose with wild, desperate shots. Here, idles are actually
more
careful with their aim, trying to improve.

But a good striker moves fast and smart. Slip in and out without a trace. A good, fast striker will take advantage of a sectioned-off training arena, full of little pockets where prey can be quickly cornered and finished off.

I tell myself this is why I’ve chosen a training arena for this last Alt. That it’s not because I have no other choice, given the spec sheet and its strange lack of info. At seventeen, he clearly understands that time is running out, and using an open study period after lunch for additional off-campus training can only help. As it is, I have little on him. His schedule reads:

12:45 Alt public training arena, Leyton Ward, arrival.

14:00 unable to verify

14:30 unable to verify

16:00 unable to verify

17:00 Alt endurance training facility,
Leyton Ward, arrival.

His arrival here is my first opportunity, one I didn’t want to pass up. I’m ready for this to be done already.

The attendant hands me a flimsy black paper vest and a white label, the kind with a peel-off back. It has a large 27 on it in thick strokes of black ink; in smaller print on the bottom is a line with the time and date. And across the top in bright red text is the word
STOP
—a warning to others that I’m not a target.

“This is your registrant tag—it has to be worn on your vest and be visible at all times. When your time is up, just deposit both in the recycling bin on the way out.” He holds out a pair of safety glasses. “These will go in the disinfection unit.”

For a second, my mind is blank as I take in the safety glasses dangling from his fingers. Because I didn’t think of that … why didn’t I think of that?

He must be aware of my surprise, because he shrugs. “You don’t have to wear them, but we’re required to ask, anyhow. Most Alts don’t want them because—well, let’s face it. Out there, who’s going to be walking around with safety glasses on? Not to mention restricted visibility as a shooter.”

“Right,” I mutter to him. “No, thanks, then.” This Alt is a Leyton Alt. He would skip the glasses, too—I hope.

With that, the attendant drops the glasses in a bin behind him and is already looking past me, already focused on the next idle in line.

I move away from the counter, vest and tag in hand, and glance up at the numbers scrolling by on the clock on the wall. Minutes until I’m cleared to go in, and minutes until he arrives—
12:45.

I decide to stand by the hall that leads down to the arena—it’s not so far that I can’t see who’s coming in or so close that I’m crowding the people signing up at the front desk. Leaning against the wall, I do a quick rundown of what he’s supposed to look like, replaying that portion of his spec sheet in my head.

Dark brown hair with a reddish tinge, medium-length on the top, shorter in the back and along the sides. Dark brown eyes. Skin, noted to have olive undertones. Height is five feet eleven inches. Weight is one hundred and seventy-eight pounds. His name is Auden Parrish.

At the sound of the front door opening, I look over, eyes narrowed, wondering if it’s finally him. But I can’t tell because the group of Alts still waiting has sidled over to fill my sightline. Talking, laughing. I walk up and stay on the fringes of the group, finding the
between
that makes me here but not here, just like in the distillery in Gaslight. I listen to the attendant and the person he’s now talking to.

“—it going today?” Definitely not the attendant’s voice. It’s faint, fading in and out because of the noise in the room. But younger, smoother … and also somehow familiar, like having something on the tip of your tongue.

“—surprisingly busy, though—”

Another burst of laughter from the group of friends waiting their turn, and I inch closer to the attendant and whoever he’s talking to.

“—you doing here, anyway?” the attendant asks. “You’re registered to use this place? It’s not nearly as good—”

A short laugh, and there’s that same twinge of familiarity. It lurks on the fringes of my mind, pulling at threads of memory—

The attendant, talking again. “—your number is thirty-four, so make sure it’s visible—”

A sudden drop in noise level as the Alts move from laughter to low chatter, so I can’t miss what’s said next.

“—lots of newbies today, Auden, so watch your—”

It’s him. Auden—the same name as on the spec sheet.

He’ll be wearing the number 34 on his back, in an arena filled with shooters—though I’m the only one shooting at a living target.

The cells of the laughing group all beep simultaneously to indicate their start time. They start to move, heading toward the inner entrance to the arena, and with my face averted, I shuffle along behind them, leaving Auden and the attendant to finish their conversation at the desk.

My own cell beeps just seconds later.

It’s my turn, too.

I enter the arena, hoping it will be the place where things will end so I can make my way home. The training arena is similar to the ones I’ve seen in the Grid—and at the same time, nothing like. I’m in Leyton, after all. And even its most practical corners have to meet aesthetic approval.

The space is huge, a rectangle that must measure at least a couple of hundred feet long by a hundred feet wide. Instead of bare plywood flooring, it has solid concrete, and its walls are covered with yellow sound-absorbent panels. Thick wood beams are set in neat parallel lines overhead instead of exposed ducts. Brightly painted lines instead of layers of cheap chalk mark out lanes and direct foot traffic. And dotted throughout, just like in the Grid arenas, just like in Baer’s classroom, are the familiar individual stations, each designated for a different weapon or skill set.

Every other one is walled off for safety. I’ll need to find my target in one of those.

As I walk onto the floor, I purposely fall back to let the group of Alts pull ahead. Reluctantly, I follow what they do, setting down my bag along the wall off to one side of the room. It feels strange to leave it behind. But no choice. I need to blend in with the others, and wearing the vest over a bag just won’t work. My jacket is pushing the limit, even, but how else to hide the Roark gun in my pocket until I need it?

I let Auden pass me, too, instinctively tilting my head so that my hair shields my face.

That faint unease stirs in my gut again as I watch him walk away. The width of his shoulders, the gait of his stride …
something
 … like trying to remember a dream upon waking.

I keep moving until I reach the middle of the arena, standing with the others and waiting to see how everyone disperses. I’m careful to keep my back to him. Slapping my 27 tag onto the back of the vest, I slip the whole thing over my head.

Idles crowd around me, still sorting themselves into position and deciding which station they want. Voices and laughter echo off the main walls and there’s the sound of clothes being adjusted as tags are smoothed and vests donned. Personal guns are loaded with clicks and snaps.

Auden breaks free of the crowd and heads off toward the stations. As a Leyton Alt, he’s quick to load his weapons; I shouldn’t be surprised by that.

I follow him, keeping just enough of a gap between us that I don’t lose sight of him and, at the same time, don’t give him reason to suspect I’m tracking him. I’m just another idle in a busy practice arena.

His thick hair is the color of chestnuts, worn smooth on the top and hanging slightly over his forehead. His skin is olive beneath the beginnings of a summer tan. The number 34 on his back has
STOP
written on it in huge letters. The warning means nothing to me.

He stops in front of two adjacent stations, deciding. Both of them are still available, the movement detectors on the floor in front of both entrances still green.

One is fully walled, the other only partially so, its cement partitions only reaching shoulder height at the most.

Choose the correct one,
I will him silently.
Let this be over.

Seconds later, he turns into the fully walled station and I can no longer see him. The station’s movement scanner switches to yellow. It’s a station meant for two Alts at a time, then.

Relief is a heady drug. Everything is close now, just a little bit farther to go. I take the same steps he did until I, too, am within the station’s walls. I don’t see it behind me, but I know the detector marking the entrance now burns a bright red, a clear warning. No one else will enter until it’s either yellow or green again.

It’s a shooting station. The two walls flanking the entrance have painted wooden spheres hanging in front of them, made of pine because it’s soft enough to give way to bullets, rather than dangerously deflecting them. Suspended by thick twists of rope from the overhead beams in random intervals, the spheres are challenging targets, given how they would sway and bobble with the passing or impact of bullets. Hitting the bull’s-eye proper cracks open the sphere and drops it to the ground.

Auden is standing at the broad painted shooting lines in the center of the station. They run parallel to the targets, the numbers painted next to them signifying the distance between shooter and target. He’s chosen to face the wall a dozen feet away, his stance perfect for the handgun he’s holding as he prepares to shoot at the row of targets lazily spinning in front of him.

He fires: one, two, three, four, five. There’s the sound of falling targets hitting the ground: one, two three, four, five. Reloading, he moves back to stand behind the next shooting distance.

I head straight toward the center of the station, where the lines for my targets are … where he is. My hand reaches into my pocket for the Roark gun. As I draw it out, the fit of it against my palm has never felt more seamless. For one second I can almost mistake it for one of my paintbrushes, how the feel is just as natural in my fingers. Is it my imagination that it actually feels hot to the touch? Will this final shot of poison destroy the gun from the inside out and me in the process?

I’m five feet away, carefully angled away from his line of sight so that he won’t know my intentions until I round upon him from his side.

This close, I’m finally able to see his profile clearly.

A chill ripples down the length of my spine.

That nose, that jaw … hold on …

He moves again to a new shooting distance from behind a different line and finally notices me—and the gun in my hand that’s pointed right at him. He goes absolutely still for a handful of seconds—one, two, three—before turning toward me.

I can see his face fully for the very first time.

And the world stops. Time stops.
I
stop.

Because it’s not Auden I’m seeing but his Alt.

My dead brother, Luc.

Shock like a live current blasts right through me. The gun tumbles from my fingers onto the ground. I stagger back a step, then two.