6 Digit Passcode (35 page)

“You wouldn’t
dare
…” I begin, trying and failing to sound braver than I feel. Rin arches her eyebrows and gives me a look I’ve only ever seen her wear once before – when I first met her, and she stared at me like I was something special, like a puzzle with a missing piece. Back then, I didn’t understand why, but now I do.

“Oh, really?” she taunts, and for a moment she smirks at my father like they’re sharing a silent joke, before pulling, fast and hard, on the trigger and sending a single bullet straight through his skull.

Chapter thirty-five

The aftermath plays out like it’s in slow-motion. The smile slowly fades off of my father’s face and an expression of complete shock replaces it. He reels backwards, a jet of blood spraying out of the entrance wound in his forehead. When the bullet exits through the other side of his skull, it pulls with it bits of flesh and splinters of bone, and ricochets into the wall of the building behind him.

Rin stands still with her hand gripping her gun in the same exact position until my father’s body falls to the ground; blood is splattered across her arm and the front of her dress, with a few drops like freckles on her cheeks.

I watch in silence as my father’s face freezes, as his head hits the ground and echoes a resounding
crack
, as a pool of blood wells up around him. His eyes are blank and glassy, and his mouth still quirked up in the remnants of a smile.

The sounds of the war raging in the background and Dori pounding his fists behind me fade away, and all I can hear is the streak of a bullet, replaying itself over and over in my head.

And all I can think of is that he spent his last moments betraying me. He fought for a cause that killed him, just like my mother did. Just like Holden did. Just like all of the humans of Division 4 are doing right now.

I can’t let that happen again. I
won’t
.

I raise my gun and grasp it between both of my shaking hands. A look of mute surprise crosses Rin’s face, but it doesn’t last long; she doesn’t think I’m cruel enough to pull the trigger. She expects me to break like Dori, to make it that much easier for her to control me, and I almost do.

My arms are trembling so badly I can barely take aim. I try to think about my simulations, and how easy it became for me to shoot my imaginary enemies over time. This should be no different than that. I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to steady my nerves. Rin could kill me if she wanted to – or at the very least, incapacitate me so that she can keep me alive as another one of her experiments – but she doesn’t. I think she’s waiting to see how I react. Humans are nothing more than science projects to her, and everything I’ve done up until this moment has served only as her
entertainment
.

Anger boils underneath my skin. If she wants a reaction out of me, then
fine
, she’ll get one – and it’ll be the last one she ever sees. I put my finger on the trigger and will myself to pull back on it, but before I can fire, someone else does.

A bullet buzzes right through Rin’s ear before she even realizes she’s been shot at, and as she turns her head to look at her attacker, two more shots hit her – one grazing her cheek, and the other landing right in the middle of the chip in her forehead, shattering it.

She crumples to the ground, bits of machinery falling around her like the flesh and bone surrounding my father’s body; blood oozes steadily out of her wounds, and I remember with a twist in my gut that there is still a part of her that is human.

Flynn’s gun clatters to the ground and she sinks to her knees, her face expressionless.

I give myself only a moment to process all of what I’ve just seen before I walk to Flynn’s side and put my hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t react, and again I am left wondering how a Digit’s body works – if she can’t feel the weight of my hand on her, or if she’s just too shocked by her own actions to respond. I don’t know how many feelings she programmed herself with, but I do know that she’s feeling the worst of them right now.

“I’m sorry, Flynn. We should… we should go.” I remove my hand from her shoulder and hold it out for her to take. “Rin… She probably has backup coming. And I’m not sure how much longer Dori can…”

I turn to look at him, and I can’t finish my sentence. His arms – from his elbows to his fingertips – are so badly mangled they’re nearly unrecognizable; each time he pounds them on the ground another piece of him is torn off and goes flying the next time he raises his arms. He’s stopped screaming, but the hoarse whimpering sound he’s making is almost worse.

“Dori!” I call out to him, hoping he can hear me from wherever he is inside of his own mind. “It’s over; we can leave now. Rin and my… They’re gone. If we leave now we can get out of here before Division 6 comes.
Please
, Dori, you’ve got to get up.”

Flynn shakes her head like she’s coming out of a dream and looks confused for a moment before accepting my outstretched hand. She takes a deep breath and hauls herself to her feet, and I can almost feel her exhaustion roll from her body through my arm. She leaves her gun on the ground, but I holster my own; even though I’m useless with weapons, at least one of us needs to be armed just in case any of Rin’s stray soldiers arrives.

We walk to Dori and squat down on either side of him; he doesn’t look up to acknowledge our presence, but he stops slamming his hands down, so I know he can see us. I just have to hope he can hear us, too.

“Dori? We have to go now. Do you think you can walk?”

On his other side, Flynn says, “Before the Digits took control, the humans who created them built an underground safe-house, nicknamed the Divide, just in case their ‘experiments’ got too out of hand. It’s guarded, and the only Digits who know about it are those of us who’ve made pacts with the humans. Division 6 can’t get in, and we have tools there that can fix you – we can even help you make your own chip, so that you’ll never have to worry about losing control again.”

Dori is still for a moment, his eyes fixed on the ground, before he whispers, “…I can’t,” and the desperation in his voice makes my heart ache. I think he would be crying right now, if he were able to. Instead, he’s taking his negative emotions out on himself – destroying his own hands so that they can’t be used to hurt anyone else, and trying to gouge his chip out of his forehead instead of asking for the help he needed. I think he still blames himself for Holden’s death, and I don’t think that anything Flynn does to fix his body will ever be enough to mend his mind.

“Eve, I… I can’t come with you. I can’t risk… hurting someone I care about again.”

“But Flynn said – ”

“She doesn’t
know
,” he interrupts quickly. “Ask her. She doesn’t… She can’t know for sure if she can fix me. Bringing me along is risking the exposure of the Divide. I can’t let more people die. Not because of me.”

“Dori…”

My heart aches for him, because I know he’s right. I would say the same thing if I were in his situation, and logically, it doesn’t make sense putting so many human lives on the line just for the
chance
to save Dori. But admitting that aloud feels like giving up on him. We’ve been through so much together, and he’s done so much for me – I feel like I’m looking down at Fray and being forced to make the decision to let him die.

“Flynn, is it true?” I ask. “Is there really a chance you might
not
be able to fix him?”

I can tell from the expression on her face what her answer will be, but she says it anyway, and it hurts twice as much to have to hear it.

“Yes… I’m sorry. But with the damage he’s already done to his chip… I don’t know if it can be taken out without damaging his brain. I don’t know how Division 6 implants them, but it’s obvious that his is more than… skin deep.”

She gestures to his forehead, where the fringe of his hair has fallen to one side, revealing just a few of the numerous gashes crisscrossing his flesh. From this close, I can see clearly just how deep they run; I don’t know how Dori did it, but he managed to cut through so many layers of his own body that I’m surprised his skull didn’t crack. If the chip is wired even
deeper
than these cuts… then Flynn is right. It’s probably embedded so far in his brain that pulling it out is nearly impossible.

But we won’t know for sure unless we
try
. I don’t think I can live with myself if I just let him go without even attempting to do something to help him. But, then, if it doesn’t work…

I realize in that moment that I don’t have an answer – I can’t be the one to make this decision. Maybe it’s because I’m a coward, or maybe it’s just because I’m
human
, but I’ve already got enough guilt on my shoulders without adding Dori’s weight to the burden.

“I can’t come with you,” Dori repeats, softer this time. “I’m sorry. I wish I could, but I can
feel
them trying to get inside of my head. I don’t think I can fight them off. I’m sorry…”

“I…” I open my mouth, but I can’t find the right words to say. Instead, I remain silent, but I’m not the only one – the entire Division seems to have gone quiet. Flynn and I realize what’s happening at the same time, because we make eye contact, and even Dori lifts his head marginally.

“The shooting has stopped,” Flynn confirms; I look around, but we’re still too far away to see anything but the buildings around us. “They’re not fighting anymore. I don’t know who won, but we should get out of here before we have the chance to find out.”

Flynn stands, and I am about to follow suit when I feel a gentle pull on the hem of my shirt; I look down, and I see that Dori has somehow held out one of his hands and wrapped the remains of his fingers around it, keeping me still. I could easily pull away if I wanted to, but my curiosity stops me.

“Wait,” he says, letting me go but still keeping his hand held out. “You can’t just leave me here for
them
to find, especially now that I’m a traitor. Please.”

“But I thought you said…” I begin, and then I realize that he isn’t talking about wanting to come with us. “Oh.
Oh
. Dori, no… I can’t…”

“
Please
, Eve. I would do it myself, but I… I can’t. My chip won’t let me and I don’t even think I can hold a gun anymore…”

He lets his mangled hand fall back to the ground. My heart is pounding, and every word he says feels like a needle in my chest. Suddenly, the gun at my waist seems infinitely heavier.

Dori wants me to shoot him. No, he’s
begging
me to do it. He wants me to end his life, and with reasons like his… it would almost be crueler of me to
refuse
.

“You can’t… You can’t just ask me to do something like that!” I say loudly. “You of all people should know how it feels to have that kind of guilt on your conscience!”

I regret my choice of words as soon as they’ve left my mouth, but Dori doesn’t look upset about them; if anything, he looks defeated. I can’t see a single trace of the spark that drew me to him when we first met – all that’s left of him now is a mannequin with his face on it.

“Yes,” he says after a pause. “I know exactly how it feels. That’s why I need you to do this for me.
Please
. I can’t live with this weight on my shoulders anymore. I want to be with Holden, Eve. Please,
help me
.”

The bare sadness in his voice is almost more than I can handle. I turn my back on him and look at Flynn, who’s still standing a few paces away with her hands held tightly at her sides. I want to ask her to do this in my place, but I know that I can’t. She’s already felt enough grief today; I don’t know if she can take any more.

We make eye contact and she nods. Without speaking, she tells me what I need to do.

I try my best to shut my emotions down like some of the Digits can. I imagine that I’m in a simulation, and that Dori isn’t really here – that if I shoot him, he won’t really die. And it’s true, in a way; the thing curled up on the ground in front of me is not the same friend I used to have. He can never become that person again, and if Division 6 finds him, they’ll either change him into an emotionless monster or kill him in far more painful way than I ever could.

My hands are trembling as I pull out my gun; it’s the same gun that Dori gave to me because he couldn’t trust himself with it. I grip it tightly and try to picture an enemy from one of my sims; I imagine him leering down at me with a gun raised, or killing my little brother without a moment’s thought. But all I can see in front of me is Dori.

Then the scene changes, and I see Holden pleading for his life and an expressionless Dori taking it from him. I hear a gunshot, see a spray of blood, and feel hot tears streaming down my face.