‘Installation starting in three … two … one.’
CHAPTER 36
The laboratory disappears. The vat, the drones and Novak’s synthetic eye blink out, replaced by an infinite stretch of black. I spin round in the darkness, searching for a light, and find myself standing on a tiled floor beside a floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside, three mountains rise like sentries, shrouded in fog, their jagged peaks tumbling down into thick, verdant forest. The sky is slate grey, and fingers of frost lace the edges of the window. I feel the cold right down to my bones. I turn, scanning the room, but all I see are bare walls stretching into shadow. The window is unmarked, and a single triangular fluorescent light glows on the ceiling above me.
‘OK, darling,’ my father says. I spin round to find him behind me, dressed in a white lab coat, his dark hair combed and parted on the side. He has a white, gleaming genkit on a trolley beside him, with a cable curling out of it and into my arm.
‘Let’s try this again,’ he says.
I look down. A cobalt bar of light shines from my forearm – a full panel with thousands of apps. It’s blinking a Morse signal, telling me it’s accepting a new app from the genkit’s cable. I look back up at my father, smiling.
‘Remember to focus on your breathing,’ he says. ‘I won’t let you get sick. I’ll be listening closely.’
‘But when it hurts too much, I can’t talk.’ My voice is younger, frightened.
He smiles. ‘I won’t be listening to your voice, darling. I’ve had your heartbeat patched into my feed since you were a little girl.’
He points above him. A chart appears, hovering in the air. A jagged green line, matching the beats of my heart. They are strong and steady, quickened by fear.
‘Are you ready?’ he asks.
I nod, my hands in fists. My fingernails are bitten down to stubs. ‘I’m ready.’
My father turns a dial on the genkit, and the cable jutting into my panel vibrates. Pain bleeds up my arm to my shoulder and across my back. I swallow down a gulp of air, biting back my fear, trying to focus on my breathing …
But this isn’t right.
I’m not here. I’m in a laboratory at Sunnyvale with a cable jacked into my spine. Is this the memory my father suppressed with the ERO-86? Dax cleared my system, so maybe it’s coming back. My head snaps up, searching the room for something familiar.
But I don’t remember this place – I don’t remember any of this. The panel in my arm, the genkit, the code my father was running. I scan the room but see nothing except the jagged, three-peaked mountains looming outside the window.
‘Catarina?’
Cole’s voice. I spin round, but all I can see is my father, coding with his eyes glazed.
‘Cat, are you OK?’
‘Cole?’ The room is growing blurry. The memory is fading, but I still don’t know what it means. I don’t know what my father did to me.
And if I don’t remember it now, I won’t get another chance.
‘What the hell is going on? Can’t you see that she’s in pain?’
The scene wavers. Cole’s voice is dragging me back to him. I fight the pull of it, searching for a clue, something to help me remember what happened here.
‘Cat, talk to me!’
The mountains rumble, and the memory flickers in and out.
‘Cat!’
I close my eyes and blink into a world of bright, sparkling pain.
CHAPTER 37
My body thrashes in the glass vat. Dax is next to me with Novak, each holding one of my arms, keeping my head above the surface. I gasp, kicking out, my feet sliding over the bottom. Jolts of pain race down my spine like sparks along a fuse.
This is the decryption. I don’t know why I’m still alive, but judging by the pain, I won’t be for very much longer.
‘What about a sedative?’ Novak asks.
‘N-no,’ I gasp. I don’t want to be sedated. If this is the end, I want to see it.
Dax’s eyes snap to me. ‘You’re back.’ He sounds surprised. ‘What do you need, Princess? Painkillers?’
‘I need …’ I gulp. ‘I need to stop talking.’
He nods. ‘Fair enough.’
Novak turns to shout over her shoulder. ‘Let’s dim the lights, people! Get some tech syringes out. And stand down, Lieutenant. Nobody’s hurting your girl.’
My head snaps up. Cole is standing behind Dax, his eyes black, the cable to the clonebox still jutting from his arm.
‘C-Cole,’ I whisper. He shouldn’t be up. He should be strapped down in that chair. If he breaks off the decryption, we won’t get another chance.
Cole’s eyes fade to blue as I speak. He steps closer. ‘Catarina, are you OK? What’s happening?’
‘I-I’m just … uncomfortable.’
‘It’s OK,’ Dax says. ‘I’ll adjust the nanites.’ The vat’s liquid glows brighter, and the pain ebbs away.
‘Something’s still wrong,’ Cole says. ‘Her heartbeat is too high. It’s hurting her.’
‘I’m fine,’ I manage to choke out, my legs kicking out involuntarily. But I’m not – the pain is back already, and I can barely focus enough to speak. It laps at me like the sloshing liquid in the vat, drenching my senses, taking my breath away.
I try to crawl inside myself and block it out, but it’s like forcing water back through floodgates, and it just rushes over me.
‘Forty per cent decrypted,’ a voice says.
‘What?’ I gasp. That can’t be right. I should have died by now. Something sparks in my neck, and my head flies back, my body shuddering.
‘Hold her still!’ Novak yells.
Gloved hands grab my head and arms. My chest thumps against the glass. The liquid splashes out in glowing waves that shatter into droplets when they hit the floor.
‘Her blood pressure is rising!’ Cole shouts, pushing his way to me. ‘Dammit, Crick, we have to stop!’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Dax snaps. ‘It’s working, we’re sixty per cent decrypted.’
‘Novak!’ Cole roars. ‘She’s dying, kill the code!’
I want to reply, but I can’t form the words. My jaw is clenched tight, my ocular implant cycling through random filters.
‘Seventy per cent!’
The world blinks to blue, then green, then black and white as my head slams against the glass, my lips parting in a scream.
‘Get off her!’
A shriek cuts the air, and one of the lab counters crashes to the floor. The crowd around me scatters as the room bursts into motion.
The lights flicker on and off. Cole is at my side, his eyes black, reaching into the liquid to haul me up. I jerk back in a spasm, trying to tell him not to touch the cable, that it’s too late, but he disappears again.