Nerves threaten to overwhelm me. The little food I’m given tastes like ash because my mouth is so dry. Any water I drink rolls in my stomach, waves on a stormy ocean.
There was a time when I thought I hated the sea. It made me feel trapped. But now I am trapped on an island in the middle of the sea, truly without hope. At least on the Catherine there was the illusion of escape, a possibility to flee and reset our course.
I trace the burn scars on my left forearm, thinking of Bree, who traced them first. I hope she’s okay. That they’re all okay.
The room is completely silent, and it’s deafening.
A few hours later, I’m brought back to the interrogation room, only this time for an examination. I’m strapped down to a table, and Harvey inspects me from head to toe, the butt of a pencil tracing the scars on my body before he flips it nimbly in his fingers to record his findings.
As he moves to a puckered scar on my chest that I’ve had since I was a kid, I’m hit with a crushing realization. Harvey—not Emma—is probably the reason Crevice Valley was compromised. A Forgery retains all memories of their source; it’s the programming that forces them to ignore certain details. Frank would want Harvey to forget why he helped the Rebels, but not where he helped us from. But then why did it take so long for the bombs to drop?
My Forgery’s earlier comment echoes in my mind: And to think you were having issues with orders in December.
Frank didn’t pluck Harvey from one world and insert his Forgery into another. He re-created Harvey, put him back to work doing the same tasks, and hoped the programming was strong enough to sort out the rest. Maybe Harvey’s life now is so similar—the labs, the code, the research—that it took him weeks to settle into his Forged skin. He might have even fought giving up Headquarters, or at the very least, his memories could have been so rattled that the location was temporarily clouded. It would explain why the Forged spies sent after our team in December were still trying to get Headquarters’ location.
If Harvey had trouble adjusting to his Forged state, maybe his mind-set can be shifted again. Jackson helped us, after all. Climbing the Wall into Burg had been too personal, too closely tied to his childhood in Dextern, and it caused something in his programming to flicker. But Emma’s Forgery was a Gen5, and she joined our group the same night Harvey left it. If he was created in the following days, it’s likely he’s a five as well.
Any hope I was clinging to disintegrates.
Harvey makes a note of my chest scar, then moves to inspect the burn scars on my left forearm.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“A security measure. So that when we’re done with you, ours will match.”
“You’ll mark the Forgery? Reproduce every scar?”
Harvey’s pencil scratches over paper.
“And then what? Send him back in my place? Why would I give you any information now that I know this?”
“You gave me a name to save a finger,” he says quietly. “Imagine what I’ll get in exchange for your brother’s life.”
I pull at the restraints over my wrists, my ankles. I could claw his eyes out for that threat.
“This will be easier if you don’t struggle,” he says, but I go right on thrashing, creating as much of a disturbance as possible.
Harvey sighs and moves away from the table. A moment later music engulfs the room—sweeping chords and crying strings. The melody is layered and complex, so rich I feel it in my bones. I’ve heard music like this before, when Harvey was still Harvey. Mozart, he called it. A composer he’d always been fond of. Frank had outlawed such art in AmEast, but Harvey was granted the privilege of listening because it helped him focus while working on the Forgeries. Old habits, old ways, now both alive in his Forgery.
When he reenters my vision, his arms are extended, swaying like tree limbs in a breeze. The butt of the pencil arches as the music swells and lulls. His wrists elegantly mirror each motion. If it were the real Harvey, this dance would be something beautiful, but knowing those hands put a blade to my finger changes everything. You can’t unsee a truth. Not even if you want to.
The song ends and a new one surges to life. Not just any piece, but the same music we used to stage a diversion in Union Central. Clipper helped Harvey select it.
“Do you remember what you said when we met?”
Harvey raises an eyebrow, bored.
“You told me you hoped joining the Rebels was a step in the right direction. You said you hoped that someone like me, a victim of the Laicos Project, might be thankful for at least some of your work.
“Well, I’m not thankful for this. This is so opposite what the real you would want. The real you was willing to die so that I could live. The real you hated the work he did for Frank and he spent the last days of his life trying to undo the damage.”
“The Harvey you remember was a criminal and a traitor.” He says this like he’s reciting it from a book. “And it doesn’t matter what I wanted in the past. I know what I want now.”
He’s still conducting the music, an eerie smile on his lips as the notes build to the finale.
“I hope Clipper never sees you like this,” I say. “That kid loved you, and this would kill him.”
“Clipper?” He drops his arms to his sides and backs away from me, head shaking. He trips over a chair and ends up on the floor. The music continues to swell around us, and now Harvey’s cringing at the staccato beats, flinching as though the horns and strings are causing him physical pain. He scrambles to his feet, rushes to turn off the music. As the room is thrown into silence he gasps like it’s his first breath of air in ages.
His gaze drifts back to me, wide and fearful. For the briefest moment I think he heard me, that something about the music or my mention of Clipper resonated. But then his eyes narrow.
“You,” he says, looking like he wants to slit my throat. “We’ll finish this later.”
I’m brought back to my cell because Harvey has other work to do, or so the guard says. Tomorrow I’ll be questioned again.