Someone to Remember Me: The Anniversary Edition (26 page)

“I agree but our leadership is...indisposed at the moment,” Null said. Twenty followed her gaze to watch Seven, Eight, and Ninety-Nine go down the sloping hill to the shoreline. “I mean, Eight is our default leader with Tobias gone.”

“Eight has always been our leader. Who here took Tobias seriously?” Twenty snorted, surveying the rest of the Rose Twelve. Tobias Clay, in his wisdom, had summoned back into existence twelve clones of the Founders—twelve disagreeable, uncooperative, independent minds that hadn’t the first clue about how to resolve the War of the Begotten. Twenty despised them, and himself he realized, for their pacification.

Only by splintering into two groups, the five dictating terms and directions to the seven, were the Rose Twelve even remotely functional. Even at that extreme, it had always been Seven and Eight who generated traction. Eight buying political goodwill while Seven successfully negotiated with the Rebel Clones.

“How impotent we were…” Twenty muttered, Haven’s judgmental cityscape still presiding over him. In the end, the conclusion to the War of the Begotten had fallen to the AdvISOR and its biological weapon rather than any of the Rose Twelve, but Twenty couldn’t understand
why
. For the artificial intelligence to exterminate its masters, the people it relied on for meaning and purpose, made no sense. What reason could the AdvISOR have for killing everything?

He stared at the spot where Seven and the others had disappeared. This was their shared punishment for ignoring the warnings. For ignoring Seven’s memories, for turning a blind eye to the deterioration of Seven’s mental state.

Twenty made a confession to Null and Nine.

“Seven told me that I was…his first real friend. Not in this life, but during the War Against the Builders.” Twenty wasn’t sure what he felt but he knew it approximated something akin to remorse. “I always wondered why he would say something like that.”

“He’s been wasting away for weeks,” Null consoled him. “Maybe his memories were real? Maybe they weren’t? Either way, it didn’t stop what happened.”

“We could have listened.
I
could have listened,” Twenty replied bitterly. “Seven ditched the gallery last night…or however long ago it was…after talking to Eight. She said something to him.” Twenty remembered how Eight appeared long enough to have a blowout fight with Seven because he had watched it happen from the Imperial Galleria’s fourth floor.

“Fitting,” Null remarked.

“How so?” Nine asked her.

“Eight was the first person Seven saw after he was created. Unless Seven spoke to any of us before the city was purged, she must have been the last one he saw before we all died,” her voice bore a grim poeticism.

“Before everything died,” Twenty added, the last words he would speak until he was back at Rose Garden. On that first night after they awoke, after five centuries had passed in the purge’s wake, a festering distrust had overcome the cloning facility’s halls.

More divided than ever, the Rose Twelve were in chaos; undecided on where to go, how to get there, or who to appoint as their leader in the meantime. Seven vanished into his room behind a door that wouldn’t open for Twenty. That night there was no meeting. There was no debate. The Rose Twelve were tired and angry and grieving. Twenty knew he would lie awake for hours if he tried to go to sleep, so he perched himself outside of Seven’s door instead.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you,” Twenty said after a long time, apologizing to the steel that separated him from Seven. “I didn’t want to interrupt my stupid, shallow life. I didn’t want to do anything…worthwhile.” He sighed, expelling the sarcasm and the apathy that shielded him from the horrors outside. “If I had listened…we might have saved people.”

Seven’s response came later. “It wouldn’t have mattered. War. Death. Rebirth. It’ll just keep happening again and again and again…”

“Don’t say that,” Twenty warned him.

“Why not? Tobias is dead. Ilana is dead. The Eight in this lifetime isn’t the Eight that I remember and I’ll never be the Seven that she wants. I can finally be honest. There’s no reason for me to not say the things I want to say.”

Twenty’s brow furrowed when he asked, “Then what do you want to say to me? What is it that I deserve to hear?”

Seven was silent for another, longer period. His deliberation worried Twenty.

“You disappoint yourself.” Twenty’s body went still as Seven’s declaration made contact. “Once upon a time, you helped me defeat the Builders. You helped me set a generation of slaves free. That’s your legacy. Or it was.” Twenty heard Seven sigh loudly. He chaffed at the accusation. Seven couldn’t see himself as anything but a soldier, a glorified security guard, and for what? To perpetuate a society whose ruling class were as brutal and ruthless as the Builders? Twenty tamped down his rebelliousness and, in doing so, understood that Seven’s words were the truth. Twenty had his own truths to share with Seven but, he hoped, there would be a time for that. “Who we are is not who we were,” Seven finished. Twenty closed his eyes, knowing that their conversation was over, knowing that his last attempt to reach his friend had failed.

Twenty hauled himself upright. Where was Eight? He would make her fix this. He would make Eight deal with Seven and, for once, she would have to clean up her mess. It was by chance, as he made his way to the elevator, that her voice clicked through the local intercom and summoned him up to Command. To get to the elevator he first passed through the common area of the dormitories, where he encountered Null.

“You too?” she asked, both of them headed for the elevator.

“Our illustrious leader beckons,” Twenty drawled.

“I don’t remember voting for her,” was Null’s quick response.

Voting.

How quaint their traditions were.

“Where’s Nine?” Twenty inquired. Nine and Null were usually inseparable, unless Null was headed for a clandestine meeting that had become commonplace before the purge of Haven. Her darkened expression confirmed that this would be one of those meetings; one of those conventions where Twenty, Eight, Null, and Ninety-Nine would decide a course of action on behalf of the larger group.

“Great,” Twenty grunted.

“Any idea what this is about?” Null probed

An unruly smirk graced Twenty’s expression as he replied, “Since when am I in the loop about anything?”

“I know you and Eight don’t get along but it was worth a try,” she shrugged. “Millions of people die, everyone we know gone, and all I want is to crawl into bed and fall asleep next to Nine,” Null yawned loudly.

“Instead you’re attending a secretive late night meeting. Lucky you. Guess things never really change,” Twenty’s unsympathetic voice droned. He couldn’t make himself confront the magnitude of the disaster because when his mind wandered to the lives lost and the time passed it threatened to crack.

“Rose Garden has changed,” Null countered. “Haven’t you noticed? It feels empty now. I know that five centuries went by but there aren’t any signs that the station’s staff tried to use this place as a shelter. It’s like they abandoned it for the mainland.”

“Can you blame them? Everyone they knew or loved was on the main island. Who would sit here and watch their friends and family die?” Twenty wondered what he would have done if he had been one of the scientists instead of one of the Rose Twelve. Would he have gone back to try and save the lives of his loved ones? Would he even have had loved ones to begin with?

“I guess I’d try to save my home rather than live out a life of exile underground,” Null conceded.

Command sat in a moody, darkened state when they arrived. Soft blue light emanated from the translucent keyboards and displays at the twelve separate alcoves that monitored each of the Rose Twelve. None of the alcoves were particularly interesting since the twelve were alive at well, at last, after five centuries.

It seemed appropriate, as if the station was mourning for the millions of dead in its own way.

Seated at the alcove that corresponded to her was Eight. She stood to greet Twenty and Null when they arrived. Whatever she was working on blinked out of existence at her command, and that alone ignited Twenty’s suspicions. Likewise, Ninety-Nine rose from her own workstation but kept her silence and only nodded in their direction. For the first time since his revival, Twenty had an uninterrupted view of Eight.

Eight’s expression was grave and pale, utterly robbed of color. Ninety-Nine wasn’t faring any better. She was always pale but she appeared particularly exhausted. Eight noticed Twenty’s studious gaze and wasted no time in briefing them on the reason for their meeting.

“Seven wants to die a permanent death.”

For the first time in hours, Twenty felt something besides depression rear its head.

“That’s absurd,” Twenty snarled. Anger flushed each of Twenty’s words, specifically directed at Eight’s ludicrous accusations.  He was outright accusing Eight of lying and he was adamant that she deserved it.

“Really? I can think of nine million reasons for wanting to end everything,” Eight replied condescendingly.

“What does that have anything to do with Seven?” Twenty challenged her.

“It’s the reason for his psychological breakdown,” Ninety-Nine intervened, her mediation introducing a badly needly element of calm into the discussion. “Not the only reason, clearly,” she directed a lingering gaze at Eight before continuing, “Seven was already contending with his memories—”

Twenty restrained his desire to start throwing things across the room. He didn’t need to hear Eight and Ninety-Nine start demeaning Seven again.

“Liars. None of you believed him!” he rebelled. “None of you believed for a second that what he was saying was real!”

“And you did?” Null asked, entirely skeptical.

“I trust Seven,” Twenty answered vehemently.

“That’s not a yes,” Null observed.

“I’ve never said no, either. I have the assurance of never having called him a liar. Only Seven can see what happens in his head,” Twenty defended himself.

“That’s exactly the problem. Seven doesn’t want to see anything in his head. He wants darkness. He wants a void to smother the feelings he can’t process anymore,” Eight warned him. “I thought you would want to prevent that. It sounds like you want to give in and let him die forever.”

“No!” Twenty shouted.

“Then, at any rate, the validity of Seven’s memories is tangential compared to what I asked everyone here to discuss,” she warned him to be quiet long enough for her to explain her plan. “Seven is experiencing a mental breakdown that none of us are qualified to treat.” Eight paused and steadied herself for what she had to say next. “I admit to my responsibility. I...said and did things that I knew were hurtful...”

“Nobody is interested in hearing your confession. What will it change?” Twenty scoffed. “Besides, the time to ask for forgiveness was five hundred years ago!”

“I can still try,” Eight insisted, ignoring the insult.

“Try? What do you think you can do? Do you have a cure to suicidal tendencies? At one point or another each person in this station called him a liar. What would any of us do if we were subjected to that? I wouldn’t keep playing the game. I’d use my first opportunity to tell you all to go to hell and die a last death,” Twenty raged, his fury crashing over his audience.

It bothered him that they cared
now
, only when the population of the human race had deflated to a meager twelve. Their desires were greedy and hypocritical: save Seven to save themselves, to save their numbers. Twenty was not a mathematician but he felt confident in saying that twelve people could not repopulate a race.

“Those memories of his were a warning. We ignored them and everyone died,” he slowed his rant to a stop. He, Null, and Ninety-Nine awaited Eight’s calculated retaliation.

“You’re right, Twenty. Absolutely right. I ignored his warnings and now Seven’s desires are the wishes of a depressed, unhinged, suicidal mind that is trashed beyond repair. He has reached an unreachable place where what he wants most is what nobody wants to give him: everlasting death.”

“But what can be done about it?” Null asked once she’d swallowed the shock of Eight admitting her mistake. “When we leave, Seven will be here alone. He can tell Provence not to wake him up and kill himself. Nine says that the others are already restless and want to leave. I agree with them: staying here means a half-existence. Out in the world we have a chance at a real life.”

“And so we leave Seven here?” Twenty challenged her.

“If he wants to die where he was created then that’s his choice!”

“It’s a dumb choice!” Twenty argued.

“Seven doesn’t seem to think so! And if we force Seven to think otherwise, are we any better than the people who created us?” Null argued Twenty to a draw. From the corner of his eye he saw Eight and Ninety-Nine share a hasty glance. Obviously, this meeting was to discuss a plan of action, not debate the problem.

“Null, we can’t let that happen to Seven. We can’t let him lay down and die,” Eight warned her.

Null closed her eyes. “I know. I know. I was...just my thoughts...said them without thinking...”

“It’s okay,” Eight assured her.

“Then what do we do? Do we hit him over the head and drag him away with us? Do we put him through some homemade therapy?” Null asked.