That doesn’t help, then.
When Lavinia’s phone chimes, she pulls it out and glances at the screen. “Berg,” she says, without answering. She glances toward me. “Shall I answer?”
I hesitate, then shake my head. Even after the chime ends, my nerves still feel shrill. “Does he know I’m with you?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she says. She weighs her phone and looks like she has something to add, but then she doesn’t.
I don’t want to call him back. He can’t know for certain I’m with Lavinia. But I also don’t want to be guided only by my fear of him. I glance at Linus, who briefly shakes his head.
“You can’t trust anything Berg says,” Linus says.
“I know.” I grip my hands together and discover they’re cold. “Every time I talk to Berg, he finds some way to mess with my mind. He knows exactly what to say to frighten me most, and now he has my parents.”
“Monsters can’t be bargained with,” Burnham says.
“There. Exactly,” I say. “It’s completely possible that he’ll torture them to get me to help him. They might even be better off if I don’t talk to him.”
Lavinia tilts her head and slides her phone next to her drink. “I was thinking the same thing,” she says. “We have what he wants, not the other way around. He can just wait.”
I look again from Burnham to Linus, wondering if I’ve made a mistake, but they don’t argue.
Lavinia sets the 3-D map turning again, and as the different lands come into view, a slow, spiraling sensation starts in my gut and rises to my lungs, like tiny birds circling in a blue cave inside my rib cage.
Let us use your voice, Arself says.
I told you to stay away.
But we can help. We’re curious. We want to talk.
What if you take over again?
We won’t. We gave you the choice, remember?
She did go silent before. I glance over at Linus, who’s watching me closely. Without a word, he reaches over and turns on the camp light, and I blink against the brightness. The projection from the puck is dimmed to faint outlines.
“Is she back?” he asks.
I nod.
“Who?” Burnham says.
Lavinia collapses the projection from her puck to give me her full attention.
I flick my gaze to Linus again before speaking. “When I was down in the vault, the doctors mined me again. I think, while they were doing it, a consciousness crossed over to me.”
Yes, she says. We invaded. We were very excited. We didn’t know how it would be.
Be quiet.
“You mean a dream seed?” Burnham asks.
“No. This is different,” I say, pulling my knees up to my chest and hugging my arms around them. “She’s a whole new consciousness. I hear her as a voice in my head. She says she’s all the dreamers.”
Burnham and Lavinia stare. Then Burnham lets out a laugh.
“Are you serious? Is she like an artificial intelligence?” Burnham says.
“I suppose so,” I say. “I don’t really understand how she came about. Her name’s Arself. She spells it with an ‘A.’”
Lavinia turns to Linus. “You believe this?” she asks.
“I always believe Rosie,” he says.
I smile at Linus, and he smiles gravely back.
“Sure you do,” Lavinia mutters. She reaches for her drink again and takes a deep swallow.
“Okay, supposing this is real. Do the doctors in the vault know about Arself?” Burnham asks.
“Whistler and Kiri suspect,” I say. “I heard them talking about a dragon in the machine—” I stop as a jolt of recognition goes through me. Arself could have controlled the dragon. She could have shorted out the security cameras so the doctors in the vault didn’t see that I was in the park. Kiri said that the dragon could have brought me to the vault, and in a bizarre way, it could be true.
Is this right? I ask.
We controlled the dragon, yes.
“What were you saying?” Lavinia asks me.
“It’s just coming all together,” I say, amazed. “The dreamers have been taking over at Grisly. They’ve been making the security cameras go on and off, and that’s why the doctors didn’t see me when I arrived at the park. Arself controlled the special effects around the keep, too. She was controlling everything.”
“It’s a hive mind,” Burnham says. “I’ve heard about these things, in theory. The dreamers and the computers are a quantum computer biointerface, right? Put enough brainpower in the same place, and there’s bound to be some sort of leap.”
“Then Arself knows all about the dreamers?” Lavinia asks me.
“She is the dreamers,” I say. “Or she’s from them. And she’s in my head now.”
“Ask her about my daughter,” Lavinia says. “See what she knows about Pam Greineder and Louellen Mustafa.”
You heard her? I ask Arself. They were in the vault back at the very beginning.
Arself starts a rapid flipping, as if in a Rolodex, and then stops abruptly. We can’t reach our files.
Are you sure? You’re not still connected to the dreamers?
No. How could we be? We’re in you now.
What did you leave behind? Are the dreamers still conscious, back in the vault?
She makes a laughing, gurgling noise. We don’t know. Curious. She starts a sorting sensation again, deeper, like she’s trying to discover how much she knows. We only have our recent working memory.
Though she speaks dispassionately, I sense this is a major blow to her.
“She says she can’t access her history,” I say.
“So she doesn’t know,” Lavinia says flatly.
“Does she know about your parents?” Burnham asks me.
“I already asked about them,” I say. “She says she doesn’t know where they are.”
“Because you don’t, either,” Lavinia says. “This consciousness you’re experiencing—I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but it could be your mind playing tricks on you. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Hey. Take it easy,” Linus says.
I let out a laugh, but it’s not at all funny. Lavinia’s insinuation stings. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t question myself all the time?” I run my fingers along my scalp and grip my hair. “It’s not exactly a party in here, but one thing I’ve learned is I have to trust how my mind works. When I don’t, that’s when I really feel crazy.”
Lavinia takes off her big round glasses and rubs the lenses on the corner of the bedspread. “All right,” she says. “You trust your mind. I’ll trust mine. We’ll see where it gets us.”
We want to use your voice, Arself says again. It’ll be so much easier. Put us through.
You won’t take over? Are you sure?
We promise. We want to talk to Linus.
I glance over at him.
“She wants to talk to you,” I say.
His eyebrows lift. “How does that work?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I say. But I gesture him toward one of the chairs, and I shift on the bed until I’m facing him. I reach for his hands. “Try saying her name. Arself. She likes that.”
He frowns at me a long moment, and I can feel doubt in the light grip of his fingers. Then he tightens his hold.