MEMORIAM (20 page)

Vince took my hand. “I want to help, Vi. I will not join in the escape, but I will help you.” I wanted to fight him. I wanted him to change his mind and say yes, but if I knew Vince like I thought I did, he would not sway from his decision. I stepped off my machine.

“I don’t want you to help if it doesn’t benefit you,” I said.

“Believe me, it will benefit me. So when would you like to fill me in on this great escape?”

***

It took four days to find a time to meet with Sam. It’d been hard to talk to him after our last conversation when he told me he loved me. I wanted to explain that I cared for him, but I knew he would still be hurt unless I told him I loved him back. When I told him why I hadn’t said ‘I love you,’ I made sure to wrap it around the word ‘yet.’ It mattered that it was there, because without the ‘yet’ there was no possibility of us having a future, but ‘yet’ was a promise.

Even though I continually asked Vince if he wanted to change his mind, he only shook his head. Those four days felt like an eternity. To add to that, I was anxiety-ridden after Vince’s revelation about my missing memories. I wanted to talk to Sam about it, but I wondered if there was more to us than he was letting on, and that scared me. It was as if he knew me long before my ‘accident by the tubes.’ If that was the case, I didn’t understand why he’d remained silent this long. What was he keeping from me?

This new mistrust in Sam was the biggest reason I didn’t want to tell him about Vince in public. I thought it best to wait until we were in private. Now I knew how Mary must have felt when Sam brought me along. I was going to tell Mary about Vince, but I needed Sam to be on board before I brought Mary in. Besides, Vince wasn’t escaping, so I saw no threat in bringing him into the group. Mary would know soon enough.

I chose to meet in the dome of the centicular like we had done before. It seemed safest because the laundry division was Mary’s turf. I went up the many staircases by myself, slipping around the railing encircling the dome and entering the small room. I was surprised to see Vince sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“You found it.” I was secretly hoping that Sam would show up first so I could break the news to him before Vince came walking in on us.

“I thought it was important to space out our arrival times in case the base noticed anything suspicious.”

“Right. Sam should be here any-”

The door opened and Sam stepped in. He still had his hand on the door handle when he laid eyes on Vince.

“What’s going on?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I need to talk to you for a second.”

“Who is he?” he asked. I pushed Sam back out of the room and shut the door. “Who is that, Vi?”

“He’s a friend-”

“Another hunter?”

“Yes, but why does that matter? I’m a hunter.”

“You’re different.”

“Why?”

“Just-” Sam moaned. “He’ll betray us. I’ve seen it before.”

“I’ve known him since I became a hunter. He’s kind and....just...different. He’s not like the other hunters. Trust me. I would not bring him here if I did not trust him. He can help us. We can’t risk waiting too long or it will be too late.”

“So he’s on board with escaping?”

“He claims he doesn’t want to. He only wants to help us escape.”

“How can you believe that?”

“Because I’ve seen him....” My voice faltered. “I’ve seen him at his worst, Sam. A bond is formed when you see someone at their worst. I’ve seen him hunt,” the girl’s body flashed in my mind, “and I still trust him.”

I opened the door back up and stepped inside, sitting next to Vince. He stuck out his hand to Sam.

“Vincent. Pleasure to meet you. I know you must be nervous, but trust me, I am not the one you need to be worrying about. Shall we start?”

“Well-”

“Go over the plan as if you were escaping tomorrow, Vi. I agreed to help so let me see the flaws.”

“There are a lot of loopholes we need to close, though.”

“Pretend they are closed. Tell me the plan.”

I sighed. “Okay.” I went into the process of laying out everything for Vince. “I should mention right now that it’s not just a plan to get Sam and I out, but for everyone.”

“But if worse comes to worst and the plan falls through, then we will still make a run for it,” Sam interjected.

“We’ve never talked about that,” I said to Sam. “We agreed to get everyone out.”

“We have to be realistic.”

“Sam is right,” Vince said. “I know you may not want to put yourself first, but you have to be selfish in situations like this.”

“Okay,” I said, glaring at Sam. “Anything else you want to fill me in on before I continue?”

Sam shook his head.

“As I was saying, we wanted to pick one of the busiest times of day to start the escape.”

“How will you alert everyone?”

“We were thinking of using the secretary’s system. It speaks to every room, every floor, every crevice of the base,” Sam said. “We would have to find out how to break into the secretary’s office and then work the system. At the same time, we would also disable the force field in the tunnel.”

“How would you get everyone out in time if there is only one lift?” Vince asked.

I hesitated. “That’s where we are not sure.”

“All right, so let’s say you succeed in breaking into the secretary’s office. Are you going to kill her?”

Sam glanced at me. He knew I was sensitive to the subject, but he also knew that out of the two of us, I was the trained killer. “I’ll do it,” he said.

“Sam-”

“Vi, I think it’s my turn to get some, don’t you?”

Vince nodded in agreement. “Taking down the secretary is your best bet of not having interferences, other than the skryers.”

“Doesn’t Stella have them on command? Couldn’t we order them to the simulation room and lock them in or something?” Sam asked.

“Stella does not control the skryers,” I reminded Sam.

Vince cleared his throat. “Those people who are in the prison....most of them are turned into skryers. Their memories are cleared and the Head brainwashes them to think a certain way. Even though they are, in a sense, under the control of the Head, they still act on their own accords.” It sounded a lot like what had happened to me.

“Couldn’t we fight them? I mean, how many are there?” Sam asked. I thought of the woman Sev was beating in the prison. There were so many people in the prison. It was sickening to think that most of them were being turned into skryers.

“The Head has been increasing his numbers, so I do not know,” Vince replied. “Vi, if your plan goes right, and you alert the people, how will they defend themselves against the skryers?”

“We can use the secretary's system to lead them away from the centicular.”

“Through the tracking devices?”

“Yes.” I hit my forehead. “How could I forget? Everyone has trackers. How are we supposed to remove a thousand trackers so we won’t be tracked once we escape?”

“You can’t. They have to be surgically removed or the person could die. You can deactivate them but the process is complicated and requires another person- ” Vince started.

“But how can we do that if a person can’t deactivate their own tracker?” I asked. “Sam? Any ideas?”

Sam shook his head.

Vince raised his eyebrows. “Nothing to say? I do not mean to put a damper on your spirits, but you must think of these things. They are vital to success.”

“I know, it’s just a lot to think about. Vince, how do you know so much about the trackers?”

He shrugged.

Sam continued. “Okay, so our plan has flaws.”

“You think?” I scoffed.

“We can fix those. I can search the secretary’s office and figure out how to break in and activate the system. Vince-” I was distracted by the small voice in my ear that spoke.
Your next
Memoriam
session will commence in fifteen minutes.
Both Vince and Sam stared at me.

“What is it?” Vince asked.

“I have another
Memoriam
session.”

“When?” Sam asked.

“In fifteen minutes.”

“You can work on trying to find an alternate way other than the lift to get down to the weaponry, okay?” Vince said to me.

“Okay.” My whole body seemed to go numb. I kept thinking of what Trent had said about Memoriam and how old memories weren’t supposed to seep through.

Sam reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’ll be okay.”

I wanted to say, ‘I know,’ but I had a bad feeling. If my old memories were coming back then what did that mean? I stood up shakily and went over to the door then stopped.

“Wait for me, will you?”

Vince smiled. “Of course.”

I swallowed and turned the knob, stepping out onto the balcony. People below were shuffling to their quarters. Was this plan really impossible like Vince made it sound? Was it worth risking thousands of lives for the sake of freedom?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Stella stood up from her desk, tucked a loose strand of hair back into her tight bun, and then crossed the room. Her shoes clacked against the cold tile floor. She went down the staircase and passed through the centicular, ignoring the frightened faces that watched her. She needn’t pay any attention to them.

Few knew the secrets of the base; not even the hunters knew all of them. Stella did. She smiled to herself as she thought of the control room she was headed to, where, at this very moment, thousands of Pax were being watched. Their trackers gave their exact locations and hundreds of cameras caught their every move. It empowered Stella to be in control of so many lives. The Head was right – these people thought they were peaceful and calm, when really they were the reason the Trux rebelled. After she was done with this base, she would move on to the next. She went around a corner and pressed her hand against a blank wall. The wall beeped, and a portion of it slid open. She continued through the secret door, nearing the end of the hall where a lift was waiting for her. It was the lift that led to the control room.

The lift stopped at the top floor. She stepped out with a satisfied sneer and glanced around the circular control room, where large windows let in patches of light; the light streamed across the large tablets where teams of men and women, all trusted Trux military, stood behind them, sliding and tapping through information. The images on the tablets were mirrored midair above the tablets, visible so that Stella could see them from where she stood. In the center of the room was a large screen, almost the size of a magnus.

Occasionally one of the images would fly from a small tablet to the main screen, flickering a portion of the laundry division, workers talking, then to a hunters’ eating facility. Stella smiled. Everything the Head desired was going according to plan. She made a lap around the control room, gazing from screen to screen, occasionally stopping to examine the images more closely. She kept her chin up high. No one dared meet Stella’s eyes. She made her way to the center platform where the main screen was being controlled by a larger man with a shaved head and a scar on the back of his neck.

“Plantarch, how is the Head’s new system?” Stella asked.

“Going according to plan. No flaws, loopholes, or mistakes. Indestructible.”

“Excellent.” The large screen flickered to thousands of cameras showing every corner, spare room, and private quarter of the base. “I’m here as you know, to do a routine check, at the Head’s request.”

Plantarch nodded. “I was informed of that.”

“I would like to start with the hunters. They are, of course, the key to our operation, so it is vital that there are no signs of rebellion from them.”

“
Our
operation? Don’t you mean
his
?”

“The Head’s of course, but I helped.”

“Oh, right.” Plantarch rolled his eyes. Stella looked from screen to screen throughout the room, then turned to Plantarch.

“Well?” she snapped.

“I don’t have much to tell you. We’ve kept tabs on them like you said, but no hot spots.”

“And the new ones? How are they adjusting?”

“Kalob Grene.” Plantarch pressed his control panel and the main screen switched to a magnified image of Kalob Grene. Words started popping up beside his name. Plantarch folded his arms across his chest, staring at Kalob’s image. “He’s struggling a bit.”

“Who is his trainer?”

“Skara.”

“Switch him to Trent. He seems to have success with his hunters.”

“What will happen to Skara?”

“She will be cut.”

Kalob’s face vanished from the main screen and all the hunters from the base appeared instead, lined up one by one. Next to their image was a map of the base with small dots color coded, matching the hunter with their location.

“What about the other hunter, what was her name?”

“Her?” Plantarch tapped his screen and a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair filled the main screen. Plantarch dragged the woman’s image across his screen and tapped again. Soon words popped up beside her, giving a detailed description and location.

Stella frowned. “Yes, her. She has quite the attitude.”

“Her name is Violet Hansen. She was initiated almost two months ago.”

“How is she adjusting?”

“
Leihper
, I need a background report on Violet Hansen,” Plantarch ordered one of the controllers to his left. Leihper turned to his tablet. A minute later a report was switched onto the main screen and placed next to Violet’s image.

“Well?” Stella asked.

Plantarch’s eyes widened. “Good god.”

“What?” Stella snapped.

“She’s...” He knew this would cost his life or Violet Hansen’s, no matter what he said. “She’s stolen weapons from the main weapon vault.”

Stella’s eyes flashed. “Is that all?”

He shook his head. “She’s been in the prison, unauthorized, and frequently meets up with other Pax in the base.”

“This is how it starts, Plantarch. May I remind you that your jobs,” she raised her voice, turning to face the rest of the room, “are to find rebels in the system and cut them out. It is not that difficult.”