Revelations (The Elysium Chronicles) (21 page)

I’ll just have to take the chance and try asking a servant. They’re less likely to care that I’m an Outlander. But it’s not like I can just pick a house and ring the bell. I’ll have to wait until someone comes outside.

Even that proves to be difficult. When I get to the area where I know Asher’s house is, I manage to catch three servants on their way out of various houses, but only one even acknowledges I’m talking to him, and he just points down the street, which doesn’t help me. At all. Apparently even the servants think they’re better than Outlanders. Figures.

Evie

I don’t suppose it’s much of a surprise they decide not to let me go home. Considering what I did, I guess I should be glad they didn’t have me arrested. They still don’t know what caused it, despite all their fancy equipment. And they don’t know how I knocked out two grown men at least twice my size with my bare hands. So, now I’m stuck in yet another hospital room while they try to figure out how dangerous I am. While Asher talks with the doctor, trying to find out how long they’re going to keep me here, I let my eyelids drift closed. All the panic is making me exhausted.

After what feels like only a few minutes, Asher gently shakes me awake. When I blink my eyes open, his grandmother is there, watching me with a sad expression.

She takes the seat across from the bed, while Asher settles onto the chair to my left. I can see she’s bracing herself to tell me something. It’s quiet and I try not to fidget while I wait for her to speak. She seems lost in her thoughts and Asher and I exchange a look before he clears his throat. She startles and then her eyes focus on Asher.

She gives him a look of apology. “It’s always hard to know where to start, but as with everything it’s probably best to start with the beginning.” She moves her gaze to mine, then gives me a small smile. “You and I, my dear, have a lot more in common than you think.” She takes a deep breath and then looks into her lap. That’s when I notice her hands. She’s holding a small piece of shiny paper.

She gives Asher one more apologetic glance before handing it to me. I take it, dread curling in my stomach. Whatever this is, I don’t want to look, but I do. Then furrow my brow.

It’s just a picture of a group of six people smiling into the camera. They’re all wearing lab coats and smiles. There are six of them. Four men, a woman, and a girl about my age, maybe slightly older. All have blond hair. The four men are split, two on either side of the woman, who has her hands on the girl’s shoulders. Behind the group is what looks like the window from that creepy underground lab in the Outlands, or from the rooms in my hallucinations, only the water behind them is lit with lights and is dark blue—almost black. It’s only recognizable as water because of the colorful fish swimming in it.

It’s pretty, and … I feel like I know where it was taken. Like I’ve been there. The strangest part is that the two females and the youngest man look familiar. I’m sure I know them for some reason.

I look back up at her. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s me.” She points to the woman.

I go back to studying the picture and Asher leans against my knee to get a better look himself. And while at first I didn’t get it, I can see the resemblance now. It’s in the shape and color of the eyes—the same as Asher’s. The picture must have been taken years ago, when she was much younger, because her gray hair is blond in the picture and her face is smooth and free of wrinkles.

“You were very pretty,” I blurt out. I realize quickly that was probably very rude. As if I’m saying she’s not pretty now, which isn’t the case. She’s a very handsome woman, for someone of her—

She smiles at me, cutting off the mortified rant inside my head. “Thank you.”

Asher looks up at her. “Who are the rest of these people?”

She returns his look, then turns back to me. “Do you know? Does anyone look familiar?”

I slowly shake my head. “I feel like I should, but I can’t figure it out.”

She points to the girl. “That’s the woman you know as Mother.” Asher freezes and his eyes lock on to his grandmother, but she ignores him and continues. “And, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, this picture was taken in Elysium. It was taken right after we cracked the puzzle to the greatest scientific advancement of that time. Permanent sentient nanobots.” She looks up to meet my wide-eyed gaze. “I’m one of the scientists who invented the nanos that took away your memories, Evie.”

I can only stare at Asher’s grandmother. “
You
invented them?” I finally ask. She nods and I can’t help but blurt out, “All of this is your fault? I don’t know who or
what
I am because of
you
?”

She shakes her head, then pauses and nods. “Ultimately, I suppose this is my fault. They were never intended for what Mother eventually used them for, but … yes, I, and the others in my group, created them, and in the end that’s all that really matters.”

Asher doesn’t even look shocked.

“Did you know about this?” I demand of him.

He shakes his head. “Not until a few hours ago. I … I didn’t know how to tell you…” he trails off, looking at his hands.

My hands clench into fists as my anger turns to burn at his grandmother. “You didn’t think it was important to tell me right away when we arrived? Or when the doctors said it may be my nanos making me hallucinate?” She doesn’t answer, only looks away from me. I slam my fisted hand onto the bed. “Answer me! Why didn’t you say anything?”

She sighs. “Because I didn’t want to. That part of my life—the fragment of time I was there—is over, and I wanted to keep it that way.” She looks at Asher. “I wanted to keep that part of my life from touching you, but it seems that fate has made it your problem too. I’ve been responsible for enough people dying. I wasn’t going to let my selfishness harm an innocent girl. I couldn’t keep it a secret anymore.” She gives Asher an apologetic look, then sends me one as well.

Still furious, I shake my head and try to connect the dots. If she invented them, she knows how to fix them. I lean forward, the first flicker of hope fluttering in my heart.

“You know how to make me better.”

She shakes her head. “No, they’ve made a few improvements to the ’bots that I don’t know how to fix. I’ve already spoken to the doctor about it. But I might know someone who can help.”

“Same thing,” Asher says. He gets up and stalks toward the window.

Her eyes follow him. They’re sad when they turn back to me. “Eli and I—we were partners.” She glances over at Asher before turning back to me. “More than partners, really.” She sighs. “But that’s neither here nor there. As I said, I’ll start from the beginning.

“I was recruited to work in Elysium shortly after the War. She—Mother—hired me because of my work with the military here and my knowledge of nanite technology. Apparently there had been an outbreak of disease in Elysium and it had killed over half her people. She wanted to prevent it from happening again. She’d read of my success with sentient nanobots and had hoped by injecting nanobots, they would act like an immunization. That is to say, they would work along with the body’s immune system to get rid of germs and viruses, on a permanent basis, so she wouldn’t have to worry about something like that again.

“I took the offer almost before she stopped speaking. I saw it as a real opportunity to help people. After everything that happened during the War, I thought it would be a good way to repent for my sins.”

I frown. “Sins?”

Her chuckle is full of derision, but I’m certain it’s not directed at me. “A way to make up for things I thought I’d done wrong. And for a while, I thought I’d done it. I spent months with the others there, experimenting with the military tech I’d brought along, and finally came up with something that would keep people from being sick.

“I was so young, barely into my thirties. And stupid. But I never dreamed what happened would happen. I never realized what she really wanted the nanos for. Or what she would do. She was so young herself. A baby really. Too young, I suppose, to be running an entire city all by herself.”

“How old was she?” Asher asks.

“Seventeen, eighteen. Twenty at the most. She said she was twenty-five when I met her, but it was obvious she was lying. I suppose that should have been my first clue. But I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. If only I’d known, even though she was so young, what she was capable of.”

“What?” I ask, but I don’t think she even hears me. Her eyes are far away and I’m certain she doesn’t even see me anymore. I glance to Asher, who returns to sit next to me, his uncertain expression telling me he doesn’t know what she’s talking about either.

“Eli and I both came from the Surface, but he’d already been down there from … before. Apparently she trusted him more than anyone else. She put him with me mostly to supervise because I was a Surface Dweller.”

For the first time, she smiles at me as if we’re sharing an inside joke, but while the phrase makes me nervous, I don’t know why. When I don’t smile back, she turns her attention back to her hands. “And, for a while, it worked out well, and she began to trust me. I liked her almost from the beginning. She seemed so sweet, and she was so
young
, barely older than you and Asher. I almost saw her as a kid sister. And Eli…” Her eyes take on that faraway look again. “He was so smart. And sweet. Attractive. He had fantastic ideas. We quickly became partners.” She looks back up; her eyes darting back and forth between Asher and me. “Both inside the lab and out.”

She shakes her head as if amused when Asher makes a disgusted sound in his throat. “We continued working on our project and everything was falling into place easier than I’d hoped. I’d never been happier. I was doing something I loved, helping people, living in the prettiest place on earth, and I was falling in love with a wonderful man. Life couldn’t have been more perfect.”

My life is just about perfect.
The thought comes out of nowhere. I don’t know why I thought it, but it startles me and reminds me of the way Gavin had reacted in the village when I’d said something similar.

But before I can think further on it, Asher is talking and I lose the thought.

“So what happened?” His voice is rough, but he doesn’t seem angry anymore.

“Fate had other plans,” she says, quietly. “What neither of us knew was that Mother—we knew her as Abigail then—had fallen in love with Eli, too. And while he never did anything to encourage her, she developed an entire relationship between the two of them in her head.” She meets my eyes. “If I’d known how … not right … in the head she was, I would never have taken the job. Never.”

She pauses and seems to be waiting for me to respond. As if she needs me to believe her because maybe she doesn’t believe herself. But I nod, because I want to know the rest of the story. It’s the most information I’ve ever had about the place that was my home for sixteen years.

She lets out a breath. “Then, a few months after we found success with the nanos and finished injecting them into people, we saw they were working.
Really
working. Just like they were supposed to. Sure, all the data and tests we’d done said they would work, but we didn’t know for certain until we actually put them into people and tested them on a large scale. People weren’t getting sick, even when directly exposed to diseases that should have killed them. It was fantastic. We’d found a cure for almost any disease we’d ever faced, and with no side effects. It was a huge medical breakthrough. I couldn’t wait to share it with the rest of the world. However, one night, when Eli and I were … um … celebrating…” She blushes and I almost smile. “She caught us.”

“Then what happened?” Asher asks, without even batting an eye at his grandmother’s admission. He’s leaning forward eagerly, and I have to admit I’m dying of curiosity.

“Abby went crazy. She was sure we’d done it on purpose. That we’d known she loved him and were laughing at her behind her back, which of course we didn’t and hadn’t. But she didn’t believe us. She yelled about paying us back and then ran off.

“She was only a child, really. What was the worst she could do? We thought she’d get over it. But we should have known better. There had been rumors—that I ignored or just flat-out didn’t believe—that the people who she said had died of diseases had really died at her hand. Because they didn’t fit her ideal vision. But I blew it off as ludicrous. She’d lost her entire family in the War, but she was still only a child. And even though people always seemed especially careful not to upset her, I didn’t put much stock into any of the rumors. But she instituted a new law. Unmarried—un
Coupled
—people weren’t allowed to touch, and she was the only one who could permit people to become Coupled. It was her way of making sure Eli and I couldn’t continue our relationship.”

“UnCoupled.” The term rolls around in my head. Coupled. UnCoupled.
Touching between unCoupled people is forbidden
. I glance at Asher, wondering if that’s why I’m so nervous when anyone new touches me. But his grandmother is still talking and I force myself to listen.

“So, we just figured we’d leave. There was no reason to stay. We’d finished our task. Sure, Elysium was pretty and peaceful, but that was it. We had the nanos inside us, and we knew how we’d created them. It’d be easy to share that knowledge with the rest of the world. So we got ready to leave … except she caught us. And then we realized what
else
the nanos could be used for. Torture. Control. Not all of the military tech had been stripped from the nanos, and she used that against us. She tortured us until I agreed to let her have him.” There’s a tremor in her voice.

Asher and I exchange a glance and he squeezes my hand. I have no idea what Mother did to torture her, but if Lenore loved Eli as I love Gavin …

Asher’s grandmother takes a deep shaky breath. “The minute she left us alone, confident she’d made her point, we ran away. Eli and I snuck out using one of the submersibles. When we got back to the Surface, he told me he loved me, but he was worried about the rest of the innocent people. That he didn’t want her to use the tech we built to hurt others, but he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she killed me, which he was certain would happen if I stayed. Then he kissed me, and jumped back into the submersible before I could stop him. I never saw him again.”