Another crash echoes through the room. Above me, the ceiling is spinning, thick with drones, zooming in and out of focus as the pain thunders through me. I look down in time to see Leoben fighting Cole, their fists blurs in the strobe-like, flashing lights. They topple backwards, sending another lab counter to the floor, and I slump into the liquid.
The pain has a voice, and a scent, and a mind. It’s racing through my nerves, leaving nothing but smoke and ash behind it. I scrunch my eyes shut, and in the darkness behind my eyelids I see the towering silhouette of the three jagged mountains. The image warps and bubbles like a photograph in flames, growing brighter until it’s blinding, then the pain surges into the base of my skull.
My mind is suddenly rising, jettisoned from my body atop a blistering plume of heat that feels like death itself. The world seems to shrink below me, fading to a speck, taking my body and my screams with it.
Then it’s over.
The pain drops away as sharply as it started, and I sink into the liquid, drifting beneath the surface. The strength is gone from my limbs. The image of the mountains still hovers in my vision, tugging at my memory like a long-forgotten song.
‘Get her out, now!’
Gloved hands drag me back above the surface. I choke up a mouthful of sour liquid, my throat raw from screaming. Voices rise through the room, and the drones swarm around me like birds of prey circling a dying animal.
‘Get her some tech!’ one of the nurses shouts.
My head rolls to the side. Cole is straining against Leoben on the floor, and Dax is standing beside me, his emerald gaze locked on me.
This is it. I can see it in his eyes, and I can feel it. The lights are dimming, the frantic voices around me falling silent. Across the room, Cole kicks Leoben away and races to me, his eyes black and frightened.
But he won’t make it. There’s no stopping this. I know there’s no escape. If the pain is ebbing now, it’s because most of my nerves are already dead. I try to yield to it, but my heart rate hitches higher. Maybe this would be easier if I truly believed that there was something waiting beyond this world. But I don’t, and that terrifies me. The world was here before I was born, and it will keep spinning after I am dead. The universe is continuous; I am the anomaly. I am the thread that begins and ends, the flame that sputters out. A chance collection of proteins and molecules that perpetuates itself, bound by the electric fire of my mind.
That fire is fading now. The knitted proteins of my body are unravelling, and I will soon be gone. I’ve known this for days; I stepped into this room knowing it.
But I’m still not ready.
‘Tech boost!’ a nurse shouts, plunging a syringe into my chest, sending a fresh burst of pain jolting through me. My limbs straighten instantly, smacking against the glass.
So much for most of my nerves already being dead.
I choke, writhing in the liquid as Cole shoves the nurse aside and wraps his arms around me, keeping my face above the surface.
‘Cat,’ he breathes through the walls of pain toppling down on me. ‘Stay with me. Just hold on – you’re going to be OK.’
I blink, my vision shuddering, my limbs thrashing against him, sending glowing droplets of the liquid flying across his face. The silhouette of the mountains flashes back into my mind, then vanishes like smoke in the wind.
‘Cole,’ I breathe. ‘I remember … I remember something. I don’t understand.’
But he isn’t listening. His eyes are glazed over, his arms still locked around me. A look of amazement is spreading across his face, and the room has fallen quiet.
‘Fully decrypted,’ Novak announces on a speaker, breaking the silence. A hum of voices begins to rise. ‘First batch test … complete. Second batch test … complete. Tests from Europe and Asia coming through now. They’re complete too. Four hundred and ninety-three permutations tested, with zero trigger penetration. It’s official, everyone. We have a vaccine!’
The room erupts into a roar. The drones scatter into frantic spirals, circling the crowd, capturing the moment.
‘That … that’s it?’ I whisper. Nobody listens. The nurses are laughing and crying, hugging one another. I want to tell Cole that this is wrong, that they need to check again, but he suddenly pulls me from the vat, holding my dripping body to his chest. He crushes me to him and kisses me while the crowd circles around us, raising a cheer.
‘You’ve done it,’ he whispers, his lips on my ear. ‘It’s over, you did it.’
My body is shaking, but it’s just exhaustion – my vision is clear, and my heart is pounding, but it’s steady and strong.
Dax stares at me through the crowd with a haunted look in his eyes. He knows what I know, but I’m too weak to say it.
There’s no way I should have survived that kind of procedure.
It’s impossible. It’s insane.
I should have died in that vat.
CHAPTER 38
The nurses unscrew the cable from my spine, then rub me down with a sponge that soaks the blue liquid away. Novak disappears with Dax to launch a broadcast announcing their success to the world.
That isn’t all they’re broadcasting. The code I wrote is now running from the new joint network of satellites, installing the vaccine on the panels of everyone on the planet. The people in the bunkers will be expecting it, and most people on the surface will download it willingly. Those who refuse to download it will still have it running secretly in the background of their panel’s operating system. We’re violating their rights, but at least they’ll be protected from the plague.
A cheer rises from the corner of the room, where some people are lifting their panel arms in celebration as the vaccine installs. The movement catches on, and the drone cameras circle the crowd, capturing the rising sea of cobalt light. The cheer spreads like a wave until the gymnasium is a pandemonium of tears and laughter. People drop their arms, hugging one another, crying.
It’s over. The vaccine is released. It’s done.
It’s too much for me to take in. I stand mutely, my fists bunched in the bathrobe’s fabric. The crowd around me is starting to sing, but I don’t raise my voice to join them. My thoughts are turning in on themselves like paper curling as it burns.
I’m alive.
It makes no sense. It should be impossible; my body should have crumbled into a slick, watery mess. Instead, I’m merely tired, my muscles humming with the healing tech the nurses plunged into my chest.
Cole stands watching me, his eyes wide with wonder, as though I’m glowing in a wavelength known only to him.
‘You saved the world,’ he says. His hand slides to the small of my back, and he leans in to kiss my temple. I don’t know how to react, so I just close my eyes. I should be happy, but all I can think about are the flashes I saw during the procedure. The three mountains. The conversation with my father. They must be memories, and they must explain how I survived, but trying to remember them now is like grasping at handfuls of smoke.
I want to tell Cole, but I don’t know how to say it.
Sorry I didn’t tell you, but I was supposed to die today?
When I open my eyes, Leoben is pushing through the crowd, holding a foaming bottle of champagne. He thrusts a glass into my hand and tilts the bottle to fill it.