Someone to Remember Me: The Anniversary Edition (29 page)

Clambering back to his feet, gasping for air, he grabbed his injured side as he searched for a wound that turned out to be no larger than a needle. Several more of the golden machines were marching towards them, their old pedestals empty, now that each of the statues had been summoned to life by an unseen force.

“Biological identification complete,” chirped the statue that had dropped him.

A synthetic female voice boomed across the Second Core. Twenty’s stomach churned but his resolve strengthened.

“Welcome back, Two-Five-Two-Zero. Please do not resist. If you cooperate, I will not disrupt the reactivation of the Second Core,” the AdvISOR assured Twenty. Even if Twenty wanted to resist, he wasn’t sure that he could. His surroundings began to spin, his knees were buckling, and he hit the floor. The machine hadn’t just taken blood. No, it had drugged him as well.

Twenty glared at the single orb, now radiating a bright blue, in the face of the nearest machine. He knew that the AdvISOR was there in that machine—or at least speaking through it—and he used his last few seconds to send a warning.

“If you hurt them—”

The AdvISOR interrupted him and its synthetic voice tried to reassure him before he slipped into unconsciousness.

“Do not be afraid. That is not the plan.”

Chapter Ten:

Love and Reconciliation

All I wanted—

Don’t you remember—

Again and again and again—

Seven’s eyes snapped open.

Painfully aware that he’d fallen onto the bed, but not sure how, he shoved the sheets and blankets away from him. He sat upright, his back aching from the fall and the strain, before giving the room a quick check to confirm that he was safe for now. Seven rubbed his eyes, wondering what he had dreamed of before waking.

Even though he didn’t actually recognize the room it radiated familiarity. Plain and unassuming, Seven’s brain qualified the dresser as
his
dresser. He saw the unmade bed as
his
bed and the mess of clothes on the floor
as
his mess. A peculiar smell greeted his nostrils, his mind screeching to a halt, as it pieced the clues together.

Seven lifted his pillow, gingerly placing it against his nose, afraid to scare the smell away. Inhaling, he closed his eyes and let the picture coalesce in his mind. Grateful, he set it down and stood up.

An unpleasant tightness afflicted his movements. Everything from his skin to his muscles and the simple act of movement felt like stretching an already tautly pulled surface. Seven struggled to find the right word and in the end his mind settled on
new
.

Catching sight of himself in the mirror atop the dresser Seven saw that he wore a new set of clothing. Identical to the ones that he had traveled across Haven in, this set was clean and had no tears or stains to speak of.

He assumed, by looking around the room, that this must be Rose Garden. The new clothes must have come with the territory. Seven abandoned his room for the hallway. It was empty. Checking both directions he picked one and hoped that he had chosen wisely. Nothing about his surroundings struck him as strongly as the room had.

For the present Seven kept his usual questions of how and why in quiet abeyance, temporarily accepting that he might not like the answer. Especially because he distinctly remembered dying.

“Seven,” a stranger’s voice said, echoing along the length of the empty hall.

“Yes? Who is that?” Seven asked.

“I have orders to deliver the following message to you. Standby,” the voice warned him.

Blue light gathered into a cloud in front of him, shimmering and swirling as it fought to gain a form. Seconds later the image of Eight solidified. She held her hands at her stomach and nervously twiddled her fingers.

Seven detected noticeable differences between the woman in front of him and the woman he knew. With an empty expression, hollow eyes, and slumped shoulders the holographic Eight appeared to be a woman defeated by unbeatable odds. Nothing like the proud, smart, energetic scientist that Seven knew.

She spoke.

“Seven. By the time you see this, I’m sure you’ll have already figured out the nature of our existence. We are clones, fashioned in the image of the Founders, and we failed in our mission to save Haven.

It’s hard for me to record this message, knowing the risk that it poses to this plan that I’ve so meticulously concocted. I don’t want you to remember the War of the Begotten. I don’t want you to remember who I was. I don’t want you to remember what I did.

But the fact is that you will. You’re able to remember your previous lives without the help of science or technology. It’s in your blood, it’s your gift. So, before that happens, there are a few things that I want to say to you. 

For the longest time, I mistakenly believed that my purpose was to help Tobias clone the Founders so that we could end the War of the Begotten. It was inside of me. It was part of my identity and I was possessed by it. Together, Tobias and I created clone after clone until there were eleven. It made a deadlock impossible, he said, but against his wishes I created a twelfth clone from the last remaining sample of DNA.

On that day, when you opened your eyes for the first time since the War Against the Builders, I realized that my purpose had been achieved. My purpose had never been to help create the Rose Twelve, that was merely a side effect. You were my purpose. Your creation was my reason for existing. Why? I don’t know. I never experienced memories of my past life in the way that you did, but my longing to bring you back—it had to come from somewhere, right?

With my purpose achieved, I became afraid. I didn’t want to be a slave to the past. I didn’t want to act out a destiny that wasn’t of my own making. I ignored what I felt. How could I possibly love you, when I didn’t trust my emotions? I called you a liar. I called you weak. You—the creator of miracles, the man who brought about the truce, who commanded the respect of the Descendants and the Rebel Clones. While I was ignoring the past, you harnessed it to build a new future even as it slowly destroyed you.

After Haven’s fall, you were finished. I had snapped you right in half and nobody could save you. I couldn’t save my Seven and neither could he forgive his Eight. Knowing that, I decided that the technology that enslaved us would become the means of our emancipation. I freed us from our memories, freed us from ourselves, so that we could finally have our chance. That’s all this was, in the end. One last chance. I’ve been a coward in this life, to the point that I ruined my Seven. I hope that you and I will be brave enough to finish what we started so many lifetimes ago.

You’ll find the rest of the Rose Twelve in stasis aboard a yacht behind Rose Garden and the rest of the truth is asleep with them. I hope that, afterwards, you’ll be able to forgive me for what I’ve done. I never understood, until now, what a mistake it was not to cherish having someone to remember me.”

The image of Eight vanished.

Shocked by the revelation, Seven tried to make his mind accept what had been thrust upon it.

“You’re not a coward,” Seven croaked, trying to find closure. “You’re the smartest person I know.” A simple truth stretched across time: how disgustingly pointless it was to run away from his own heart. Eventually, love caught up with him.

It stretched across a civilization’s rise and decline. Love outlasted the apocalypse. It struggled through the politics of survival and found voice in the erasure of memories. Love defined identity and restored faith. Love was the incarnation of destiny’s hand.

Movement disturbed Seven. At the end of the hall, two silver doors slid apart and the lone occupant stepped through the portal. Their eyes met and Seven’s heart cried out in joy.

He whispered Eight’s name in disbelief. Her eyes widened at the sight of him and she studied Seven for the longest second of his many existences. Seven took one step towards Eight and her restraint disappeared. She ran towards him, desperate in her bid to reach him.

With the distance between them gone, Eight flung her body against his, trembling through the collision. “Seven!” she tried to shout, becoming a muffled gasp instead. “I thought you were gone,” she admitted, pulling her head away from his. “I thought you were dead.” She checked to make sure he was real, examining him with a steadily growing joy.

“Only for a little while…” he replied quietly, observing her as well. Seven wiped a strand of hair out of Eight’s face. “…but not for long,” he winked. He observed her studying his mouth, his eyes, his nose, and his ears and he reciprocated the survey in kind, letting his gaze catalog her every feature.

“There’s something that I need to tell you,” she began, her voice trembling as her eyes focused on his. “All these memories…all these lifetimes…you and I...we’ve done this before, haven’t we? We’re going to keep repeating this cycle until we confess.”

Seven’s smile, as wide as he could make it, threatened to split his face in half. Instead of letting Eight continue, he kissed her. An eternity’s second passed between them. It flew by, sped along by an ecstatic joy; the realization of a dream perpetuated by immortality.

Kissing Eight, holding her more tightly than before, Seven felt a drug-like euphoria inebriate his senses. Reason knelt before the might of his emotions. If the cost of being happy and in love with Eight was the nightmare in Haven, then Seven would endure it a thousand more times for this moment.

“I love you,” he whispered the words into her ear. “A lot.”

Her entire body shook as she nodded and kissed him again. “Together?”

“Together,” he agreed, kissing her neck. If happiness were a tangible entity, then they were both wrapped within its hold. Laughing as Seven’s fingers traveled her sides, Eight’s hands wandered through Seven’s hair. Was cloning advanced enough that it could make new bodies as perfect as this?

It didn’t matter. The idea to stop never occurred to them. To stop kissing, to stop touching. To stop reveling in the power of their reunion was a repugnant suggestion.

Blissfully entwined in an ancient energy that ran deeper than any word or sensation, they were finally reunited.

As they kissed, vestiges of memories danced through Seven’s head. Seeing her for the first time in the depths of Rose Garden; gawking at her as the first tugs of destiny played with his heart. She was more beautiful today, in this moment, when she was his at last.

Eight ran her hand over Seven’s face, feeling the warmth of his skin against hers. In her ears rang the tune of the song he’d written all those years ago to celebrate the triumph of the Founders. Her mind slipped through its own remnants of the past, recalling the night when Seven, newly created, rediscovered the song in the field of roses. Back then Seven alone understood the greater story of Haven, the only one who knew how it might end.

Lost in its rhythm, that familiar old energy isolated them from the hallway. It severed them from Rose Garden. It took Haven and its troubles and barricaded them behind an impenetrable wall of happiness. The energy left Seven and Eight alone, letting them hold each other.

“We should...” Eight began, unable to finish because Seven kissed her again.

“…stay,” Seven murmured, sweeping Eight off of her feet. Holding her in his arms, he started down the hallway. She was laughing, her arms linked around his neck. Her eyes shone and her cheeks flushed but she didn’t argue. As Seven retraced his steps, looking for the door with his number on it, Eight laid her head against his shoulder. Listening to his heartbeat, she closed her eyes, humming a familiar tune.

At the door marked with his number, Seven’s heart raced. Eight’s eyes flitted open, the mischievous smile on her face fading away. Seven noticed her listening to his heart, listening to the sound of something that went deeper than biology. Something that reached beyond the physical realm. She understood it, at last.

“Thanks for coming back,” she said quietly.

“Thanks for bringing me back,” he answered. Freeing one of her hands Eight opened the door to Seven’s room. Inside, Seven set Eight down on her feet. They were kissing again before the door slid shut.

Part Three: Eternal Recurrence

Chapter Eleven: