6 Digit Passcode (6 page)

A shock flows through my arm as our hands touch, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the connection. His hand is cold and smooth, and it feels just like human skin, except a little bit tougher. I didn’t expect him to have a name. The only other Digits I know are my teachers, and they’re only referred to by letters of the alphabet. And
Cyrus
is such a normal name. It’s so… human.

I don’t like this feeling. I don’t want to get to know him. I don’t want to like him. His kind is responsible for tearing apart my family; I don’t care if he wasn’t the one who did it personally. I’m starting to believe him when he says that he means me no harm, that he’s trying to help me. No, I can’t. He’s lying to me. He has to be.

“You too,” I manage after a moment’s contemplation. It’s hard to stop myself from saying anything more.

Cyrus leaves, and another Digit – this one a woman – approaches me. There are two more people in the room; both, I assume, are Digits, and both are men. They are seated in chairs near the corners of the room, typing so quickly I get a headache just looking at their hands.

The woman is at least a head taller than I am, with long, curly brown hair and dull green eyes. Like most Digits, she’s thin, but she’s got the curves of a human female, with broad hips and a bust that puts mine to shame. Next to her, I feel like a little girl. I wonder how old she is. She could be twenty, or fifty, or one hundred, and there’s no way to tell just by looking at her.

“Hello,” she says to me, her voice so sweet it irritates me. She smiles. “My name is Tesla. Oh! Are you surprised that we have names? There’s a lot more to us than you know. You’ll learn soon enough.”

Tesla leads me to one of the desks and tells me to sit down. I do, even though all I really want to do is run out the door and keep going until I disappear. Instead, I scoot my chair forward and settle into it as comfortably as I can.

She sits across from me and leans one arm against the computer desk beside us. There are small divots in her skin on either side of her elbow, and again at her wrists. She’s made of machinery, at least on the outside. But what about
inside
?

“You look confused,” Tesla says, clearly amused. “Did Cyrus not tell you why you’re here?”

I shake my head, and the woman laughs. As much as Cyrus tried to sway me in the direction of liking Digits, she’s doing just enough to push me in exactly the opposite direction. I glare at her, but she doesn’t seem fazed by it at all.

“It’s about your parents, of course. Even
you
must have been able to figure out that much.”

I bite my tongue and sit on my hands to keep myself from reacting to her words. I know that’s what she wants from me. And there’s no way I’m going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she got to me so quickly.

When I don’t reply, she continues, with more seriousness in her tone this time.

“I need you to tell me about the night your mother died.”

I can think of more than a few things I would like to say to her, questions of my own and angry retorts that I have to fight to swallow down. But one thought bubbles up first, and I can’t help myself from answering her question with one of my own.

“What about my father? He died too. I… I saw it happen.”

Tesla taps her index finger against the desk. “We have inconclusive evidence on that matter. When we arrived on the scene, there was only one body to be found. Now, the amount of blood he lost is
certainly
more than enough to have killed him, but without a body – ”

“Stop,” I interrupt her. I try to keep my tone level, but the curl of her lips suggests that some of my frustration has seeped through. “I already know. I – I’ve seen it. You don’t need to remind me.”

“You asked.”

I incline my head and look away. Maybe if I slouch back far enough, I will shrink into my chair and disappear.

I can feel Tesla’s eyes watching me, and I desperately wish she would speak again and scatter the jumble of thoughts building in my head and on my tongue. The more she talks, the less I have to. But I’m having trouble holding myself back now that I’ve already started.

“Hold on,” I say, sitting up again. “You’re talking about how much blood my father lost. That means you’ve been inside of my
house
.”

I shudder and hope Tesla doesn’t notice. The monsters that murdered my family came back into our home afterwards to document the success of their crime. There’s no other explanation. I don’t care if Cyrus or Tesla or any of the other Digits I’ve encountered weren’t directly involved in my parents’ deaths. The things they’ve done are just as bad.

Tesla sits up straighter and rolls her shoulders. “Not me, personally. But yes, Cyrus and a few others did a little investigating a couple of days after it happened.” I open my mouth to interrupt her again, but she holds up an index finger and speaks over me. “And before you say anything, they didn’t go because they’re responsible. Your neighbor called us. She said she saw two young children walking out of the house covered in
blood
and carrying suitcases.”

I balk, feeling a little guilty. It was – sort of – my fault, then, for taking Fray outside with our clothes still filthy and expecting that no one would notice. And, of course, anyone who sees something as strange as blood-soaked children is going to call the Council, which I’m sure Cyrus is connected to in some way. An investigation is a
good
thing, really, if it means that the
creatures
that killed Mama and Papa are caught and punished.

Tesla nods and continues like the flow of conversation hasn’t faltered. “So, then, your mother. You were with her, is that correct? You and your little brother?”

“Yes. Mama – our mother was helping us with our homework.”

One of the Digits behind Tesla is typing quickly on his keyboard. I can’t see what he’s writing, but every so often one of the strange electronic devices in the middle of the room lights up blue and beeps a couple of times.

“I see,” Tesla hums. “So your father was at work? Tell me what happened after he came home.”

“He, um…” My face heats up and my voice breaks. “He tried to warn us. He knew they were coming. My mother… She took Fray and I upstairs and told us to hide, but I saw them come in and I
heard
…”

I try to finish my sentence but I can’t. The words get stuck in my throat and the more I think about that day the more vivid the memories are that are fleshed out as I describe them.

“So you heard what you thought was your father dying?” Tesla asks bluntly, and I nod. “I see. Then I suppose we’ll have to do a little more digging to find out what happened to him after that. And what about when you came out of hiding? Did you see your father’s body before you left the house?”

I hate the way she talks about death, like it means absolutely nothing to her. I wonder if all Digits are this way. Since they themselves don’t die, maybe they don’t feel the same way about it that those of us facing it every day have to. They have no
empathy
. There’s no way they have emotions.

“No. I took Fray out the back door. I didn’t want him to see… more than he needed to.”

“And the people who killed your mother? Did you see them?”

“They weren’t
people
, they – ” I begin before I can stop myself. I bite my tongue and backtrack quickly, hoping Tesla didn’t hear what I was about to say. “They were wearing masks, black ones with slits in the eyes. I couldn’t see anything. Even their hair was tucked in.”

Tesla blinks slowly and narrows her eyes. “So you don’t know who they were? Or why they came? Your mother didn’t tell you anything?”

There it is again.
My mother
. Sometimes I get the feeling that there’s a part of her that everyone else knows about but me. And even though she was trying to protect me, I also feel like it’s that part that’s going to get me into trouble soon. Or maybe it has already.

“N-no. Why? Did my mother have something she needed to tell me? Do you know something I don’t?”

I’m pushing too much, too far, and I know I shouldn’t. But I’m
so close
, I can feel it.

Tesla leans forward, digging her fingernails into the arms of her chair and pressing her knees against mine. “Now,” she says, her tone mildly threatening, “would I have called you here, let Cyrus boss me around and put up with
your
attitude – which has tested my willpower
to its limits
since you arrived – if I knew how your mother got herself killed?”

My blood is boiling, and I have to clasp my hands together in my lap to keep them still. I debate just standing up and walking out, but with the mood Tesla is in right now, I don’t want to risk the consequences.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I try to think of what my mother would do in this situation – how she would talk to someone like Tesla. She was always calm, collected, and steady. Fray is a lot like her, but I think I’m becoming less and less like the two of them every day.

“I’m sorry,” I force myself to say, even though I’m not. “I don’t know anything. As far as I know, my parents were murdered for no reason. My mother never told me anything.”

That’s right
, I find myself thinking, and immediately feel a surge of guilt in my chest for it.
My mother never told me anything.

Chapter six

“Are you lying?”

Her question takes me by surprise, and it takes me a moment to process before I shake my head quickly.

I hear the clicking of footsteps on the floor and Cyrus reenters the room. His expression is bright, but his left leg still falters a little when he walks too fast on it. The knowledge that there is a flaw in his design comforts me somehow.

“Great!” he chimes in, coming to a stop beside Tesla. “Then you don’t mind if we just
check
really quick, do you?”

“I…” I am tempted to refuse him, because I have no idea what he intends to do to prove whether I’m telling the truth or not, but I decide not to. I am both curious and frightened of these people, and I don’t know which sensation is worse. “I guess not.”

Cyrus smiles and leads me to the center of the room. He tells me to stand in the middle of the circle painted on the floor and I obey silently, too curious to fight. From where I’m standing, the blue circle around my feet looks like it’s glowing.

“Great,” Cyrus says again, pulling what looks like a metal circlet off of a hook beside him and holding it out to me. “Now, put this on around your forehead. There you go; perfect.”

The metal feels cold against my skin. There are wires coming out of the sides of the headband that are only a couple of inches long, with rubber nubs on the ends that are glowing like the circle on the floor. I assume they’re transmitting something from one to the other, but I don’t know much about technology, and even if I did I wouldn’t know nearly as much as the Digits do. They’re basically
made
of technology.

I get the feeling that they’re made of something
else
, too, but I have no idea what that could possibly be.

“Just stand there, okay?” Tesla tells me, and I nod. I notice that only one of the two Digits that were sitting behind the computers yesterday is here today. He’s alternating between typing out short strings of letters on his keyboard and watching me, which kind of creeps me out, to be honest.

The room is silent for a moment, save for the clicking of the keys as the seated Digit types. I’m just about to say something – ask what I should do next, how much longer this is going to take, what I’m even
doing
here – when the band around my head starts buzzing.

I can feel the vibrations through my forehead, and though they don’t hurt, they’re uncomfortable and make the band feel tighter. The sound is like a dozen bees flying around my head, though it’s muted enough that it’s more annoying than painful. I shake my head and unconsciously attempt to take a step forward, but Cyrus holds up a hand just as my foot reaches the edge of the circle.

“Stay still. This won’t take long; I promise. But in order for it to work as planned, it is imperative that you remain as still as possible. Don’t worry; that buzzing noise is all that’s going to occur. You won’t feel any pain at all.”

I’m starting to get a headache, but I don’t think that’s the kind of pain he meant. I want to argue, mostly because my forehead is sweating, the noise is annoying, and I don’t like having something this close to my brain without knowing what it’s doing, but I don’t say anything.

Normally, I would have stormed out of this place before Tesla had even asked me her first question, if I’d even let Cyrus lead me here at all. But my parents dying changed something in me. It’s not that I’m not as strong-willed as I used to be – I am, perhaps even more so. But it’s because of my determination that I’m so set on finding out who killed them and why. All I know is that their murderers were both Digits. And the only way to find out their identities is to learn as much about their race as possible.