Exist Once More Page 6

  The brilliance of Sarah’s skills weren’t in question, but I worried that the Elders knew exactly how clever she was and had put blocks—or, at the very least, alerts—in place to try to circumvent any breaches like there were last semester.

  It helped, probably, that the three of us remained estranged as far as they knew. The Elders were so exasperated with our inability to work together, even on assignments, that they hopefully thought there was no reason to worry about her helping us or vice versa. It made sense, but only if they thought we’d forget about Analeigh.

  My heart raced, my mouth dry as the three of us swiped our tats on the Archives during our two hours of downtime before supper on a Thursday evening. We wanted to do it tonight, because tomorrow most people had passes out of the Academy for the night and if Hannah, Yumi, or Kellen logged into a comp while they were supposed to be at Stars in My Pies, that would definitely raise a few red flags.

  Tonight, everyone should be here. None of the kids in our class or the one below us were out on Observations and all of the Reflection classes were finished for the day.

  Nerves strung between the three of us like tight wires, connecting us in a way that we hadn’t been since before everything started to unravel last semester. Oz and I had witnessed death together, had almost changed history and destroyed the future, and no matter my feelings or frustrations, those facts had knitted a series of unbreakable threads between us.

  I may have been pissed about him ruining my friendship with Sarah, but there was no denying that somewhere along the way, Oz’s presence in my life had become essential, too. He was the only person who knew what I’d been through—all of it, in great detail. He was the only person who understood what that machine the Elders built was capable of, and the only person who had been willing to fight them with me.

  Now, the three of us stood in the room and took a collective, deep breath. No alarms had sounded—not that they would have even if we’d swiped our own wrist tattoos at the door to the lab. I didn’t think. We were still not only allowed, but required, to work on our assignments both independently and in groups.

  Sarah and I sat together at one comp, figuring that it would make more sense for people from the same class to be researching identical topics. Oz perched alone at a comp two tables over, out in the open instead of in the private booth he typically preferred.

  On the walls around us, human history played out—major events that had affected us in good ways and in bad, and had therefore allowed or caused us to end up in Genesis in the first place. Under our feet was a map of Earth Before dotted with colored-coded circles that each corresponded to a Historian out in the field. The familiarity of the scene should have calmed me but it did nothing of the sort.

  We weren’t doing anything wrong, exactly, but I still swallowed nausea as my fingers swiped the cold, dark screen to life. All apprentices were allowed to research on our own time, and surely there had been those who looked up their own family histories before me. Of course, not everyone’s family included a traitor and a wanted space pirate, so maybe I should have known that snooping into Jonah’s time at the Academy would get me into trouble.

  “I’m looking up Yumi’s family. You two are going to check out the Observations we did last year with Analeigh,” Oz reminded us, even though we’d been over this several times already.

  The apprentices below us would be making the same visits that we did last year. That worked in our favor, since it definitely made sense that at least a few of them would try to get a head start by reading previous Reflections. No one knew that better than Oz, since he made it his business to be over-prepared whenever possible.

  I blew out a breath, dug Jonah’s familiar brown sweater from my pack, and wrapped it around me as I got to work. Sarah and I scrolled back through the assignments we completed last year—the assassination of Julius Caesar, the coronation of Marie Antoinette, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and our last trip together to the Maldives to witness the death of a famous young surfer. On each one, we saw the expected number of recordings from the appropriate people—Analeigh, Sarah, Oz, Jessica, Levi, or Peyton.

  Nothing from Yumi, which all but confirmed our theory that she hadn’t been a part of our class last year. My heart hurt at the proof that we would be faced, at some point, with the question of what to do with her and others like her.

  It could be that if we searched the Archives differently, for recordings that Yumi had contributed, that we would find them there. Ones that corresponded with our memories of her life at the Academy.

  But she wasn’t on the trips with us, and she should have been. That fact couldn’t be changed, since once the files were uploaded from our glasses and stored, they couldn’t be altered. No one knew that better than me, since I had found conflicting files on my brother’s True—what had been recorded at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and the later proof that she had survived due to his interference.

  I sat back, hugging my waist and facing the truth: at this time last year, Yumi Phan hadn’t been a member of our class. Even though Oz, Sarah, and me—and everyone else, it seemed—assumed that she had been.

  We had guessed as much, and the weird way my memories of her felt had told me we were right, but confirming it was a different story.

  “Okay, I think we’ve been here long enough,” Oz said, the way he licked his lips betraying his nerves. It was probably the first time he’d ever felt that way about the Archives.

  But he wasn’t wrong. We’d tested the tech and it seemed to work, but we didn’t know about the files and whether they would be flagged. Better safe than sorry.

  We closed out the files before Sarah got up and stretched, then wandered over to the door. The plan was for the three of us to avoid discussing what we’d learned until we got back to our room and could activate the noise-canceling software, but the silent walk down the hall nearly killed me. If us girls had confirmed that Yumi hadn’t existed until a little bit ago, then what had Oz managed to find out about her family? Anything?

  All thoughts of Yumi and the consequences of her arrival tumbled right out of my head when we turned a corner and ran smack into Elder Truman.

  Like his son, Oz’s father wasn’t very tall but he was broad, and they shared gray eyes that could be as cold as steel when they wanted to keep the world from seeing behind them. Which wasn’t the case at the moment, as they filled to the brim with intense suspicion.

  “What are the three of you doing out together?” The chill in his voice dumped a cold bucket of ice water down my spine.

  “Sarah and I were in the gym,” Oz lied smoothly. “And Kaia came looking for her to ask if she was going to Stars tomorrow night or staying home. We were just headed back to their room to hang out before dinner.”

  “Hang out?” Elder Truman looked as if he knew his son was lying—and he probably had good reason to believe that, given the way we’d been operating. “Don’t you have studying to do? I know your friends here aren’t graduating in a few months, but the Elders decided that you would still be able to. Do not disappoint them.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll just walk Sarah back and then head straight to the study carrels.”

  “See that you do.” He switched his glare to me. “And Kaia, do you really think it’s fair to ask your friend, who you’ve already hurt so much, to stay in with you because you’re not allowed passes out? Something to think about, I believe.”

  He swept past us without giving me a chance to respond, which honestly was probably for the best. My blood was boiling to the point where I couldn’t see straight, so there was no telling what might have come out of my mouth had the chance presented itself. The look Oz shot me said he agreed.

  I sucked in a deep breath, blew it out, and glared at him. “That was a horrible excuse.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t see either of you coming up with anything. The longer we stared at him like a blinking cursor with no one at the keyboard, the more suspicious he was going to get.”


  “I think he was there the moment he saw the three of us together and no one was fighting,” I grumbled, even though Oz was right. We had to say something.

  “Would the two of you stop fighting like you’re dying to go kiss and make up?” Sarah’s face and neck were blotchy, her jaw set in a hard line as she avoided both of our gazes. “Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

  Neither Oz nor I protested her assessment of our spat. It wouldn’t have done any good to tell her she was being silly—Sarah saw what she wanted when she looked at the two of us, not reality. We needed to stay focused on the reason we’d come together—to find a way to save Analeigh, and my parents. To figure out how to stop the Elders from screwing up the very good thing we had going here in Genesis.

  Sarah’s complexion was back to normal by the time we were back in our room. She said nothing more about Oz and me as she hunched over her comp, then looked up and gave us a nod. “We can talk, now.”

  “Perfect. So, what did you find out?” Oz asked, his tone business-like. No attempt at intimacy or apology.

  Based on all of the arguments I’d overheard it wouldn’t have gotten him anything except attacked. Maybe he was tired of being her punching bag.

  A twinge in my chest suggested I almost felt sorry for Oz. I certainly felt kinship with him, since she’d been treating me the same way.

  Sarah gestured toward me, still focused on her tablet. I wasn’t sure she had anything to monitor or whether she was avoiding us. Not knowing tugged at my heart—it never would have been that way before Analeigh left. The three of us didn’t have any secrets, not about important things.

  I cleared my throat, determined to buck up and do what needed doing, despite the rift between us. If we could get Analeigh back and return things at the Academy to normal, that would fix everything else, too. I was sure of it.

  “None of the trip recordings from anyone else in our class included Yumi.” I met Oz’s eyes, making sure he understood what that meant. “She wasn’t here.”

  He nodded, resignation drawn on his strong cheekbones. “Okay. Good. Well, now we’re sure. That’s a good thing.”

  “How do you think we could find out when she showed up?” I mused, surprised none of us had thought to go down that road before now. “That could help us figure out when the Elders changed something big, at least.”

  “It would be good to know,” Oz replied, his lips pursed. “But there’s no way anyone could check into the Elders’ travels without getting hauled up for questioning. So even if we knew about when something changed there wouldn’t be any way to try to find out what without getting busted.”

  We both cast a glance at Sarah, who appeared to only be marginally interested in our conversation. There was no point in pushing her on a possible solution when we didn’t know yet when Yumi had first appeared at the Academy.

  She sighed and looked up, probably feeling the weight of our collective gazes, and shrugged. “We can hope that the Elders will eventually tell us what events have been altered, but I’m not sure that’s a very good plan.”

  “If members of the Genesis Council do show up and start asking questions, they might not have a choice,” I suggested. The idea that we had to wait on others to share information with us to get anywhere chafed, but I didn’t know how to change it. “What did you find out about Yumi’s family? Anything?”

  “Her paternal founder lived in Hiroshima, Japan, in the mid-nineteen forties. I did a quick search of relevant events but couldn’t find anything. Does that place and time ring a bell for either one of you?”

  Sarah and I made eye contact for a split-second before she looked away. “No.”

  Oz looked toward me, and I bit my lower lip. “Yumi said that’s where her grandmother lived, too—Hiroshima. She was a climate scientist of some kind working on nutrition alternatives when she was chosen to leave on the ships.”

  “That’s not all that odd.” He dismissed the observation, making me feel like the entire chat had been a waste of time. “Plenty of families lived in the same place for generations.”

  He was right, of course, but something about the name of that city bugged me. Like the memories of Yumi, the reason behind my uncertainty slipped farther away the more closely I examined them. Then again, we studied so much, and the history of Earth Before was so vast and far-reaching. Even if I had heard of Hiroshima before, that didn’t mean the reason was important. Or related.

  We needed to focus on what we knew, and we had a start. We could use Sarah’s tech sparingly to keep looking, and both Sarah and I agreed to do our best to keep casually questioning our new roommate.

  As nice as Yumi was, it still completely skeeved me out to think that we hadn’t noticed when Analeigh’s part of the room went from empty to decorated in the space of a breath.

  Or a dizzy spell.

  My fingers curled around the back of my chair, holding on tight. “Wait. I know when Yumi appeared.”

  “What?” Oz’s gray eyes glittered with excitement. “How?”

  “I remember…it was a few nights ago, when I ran into you leaving our room. I went into the bathroom and had this lightheaded moment—almost blacked out. When I came back out, Sarah was in bed and Yumi was there like she always had been.” I paused, still trying to understand it was possible. “I thought she had always been.”

  “I don’t remember anything strange about that night,” Oz commented after thinking about it. He glanced toward Sarah. “You?”

  She shook her head, her gaze still full of resentment. “No. But Kaia said I was asleep when it happened.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from telling her that I’d assumed she’d been pretending. The last thing we needed was more contention.

  “It’s a place to start,” Oz said in a way that made it sound like a summary of our night. “We can keep looking, but I think we should wait a few days just to make sure they’re not keeping track of comp logs.”

  We all nodded our agreement before heading for dinner—separately, in case Elder Truman was lurking in the hallways.

  Helping Analeigh, and figuring out what exactly was going on at the Academy, was important. And we couldn’t do either if we were wasting away on Cryon with my parents.

  Or worse.

  Another few days passed without incident. Oz, Sarah, and I couldn’t figure out how to explore what might have happened the night Yumi appeared without tracking the movements of the Elders through the past—though since it happened the night before the meeting where they’d informed us of the Council’s involvement, we assumed we were on the right track.

  For the first time in months, the numbness of everything that had happened started to wear off and sitting still, putting one foot in front of the other, felt like doing something wrong instead of right. I talked to Yumi as often as I could. The conversations were fun, and passed the time, but were too lighthearted to be of much help. She talked more about her family but nothing that seemed to be able to tell us what event might have been changed in order to bring them here.

  All I knew was that I was running out of patience. Toeing the line hadn’t helped my parents. It hadn’t brought Analeigh back, and the Elders intent on altering the past—and our present, in the process—had only grown bolder. The time to move, to take chances and to live up to Caesarion’s expectations, had come. I wouldn’t let it pass me by.

  Oz planned to come to our room for a “study session” after dinner, while everyone else who was allowed out of the Academy had taken a pass for the evening. I had an idea about how we could find out for ourselves what had changed, among other things, but nerves thrummed in my limbs at presenting it to them. We would need Sarah’s help, again, and even though she’d gone along with everything the other day, she hadn’t changed her attitude toward the two of us.

  As Oz arrived, my anxiety tripled. It pulsed between us, growing as mine banged into Sarah’s, hers into Oz’s, and all of it crashed back into me. It made me feel better, slightly, to know that the
y felt the growing urgency of uncovering the truth about the Elders, too. But it also made me want to barf.

  “So, the sky didn’t fall after we were in the Archives a few nights ago. That’s something.” Oz sounded tired, his voice scratchy. His eyes were bloodshot and he ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up. “The question is, what do we do next?”

  I waited for him to make a suggestion or for Sarah to say something before taking a deep breath and getting ready to spew my own. “I was thinking…we would have a lot more options if we had another cuff.”

  Analeigh had needed mine to escape the Elders last semester, and the fact that she’d used it to visit me once meant there couldn’t be any regret about letting her keep it. But that didn’t change the fact that losing it had severely cramped our style here at the Academy. And our ability to track the Elders’ movements.

  Oz frowned. “I don’t know how we would manage to use the portals again without getting caught even if we had one. They’ve basically instituted a bio-log on all of the doors.”

  The portals used to require a cuff and that was it—they scanned our bio-tat information but no one reviewed it. All of that had changed, now. The Elders had installed upgraded bio-scans on all of the portals, requiring not only tat but retina scans to access them.

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted. “But a cuff would give us options, if we could figure out how to use it to get in and out of the Academy. We could check in with Analeigh and Jonah. Find out what they know, if anything. We could go back to Hiroshima in nineteen forty-five and find out what we’re missing about Yumi. We could follow the Elders the way I followed you in England, Oz.”

  Sarah’s eyes lit up for the first time since we’d sat down. “That’s it. That’s how we find out what they’ve been tampering with without digging through the Archives. We go back to the other night, when Kaia almost passed out, and follow them into the past ourselves.”