Free to Fall

28

THERE WAS A DULL ACHING in my throat. Fighting for consciousness, I tried to swallow and immediately gagged. Someone was trying to choke me. I went to react, to push whoever it was away, but my hands were strapped to something hard.

My feet were free and so I kicked them, thrashing with all the energy I could muster, which wasn’t much. I felt as if I were underwater, swimming for the surface.

I forced open my eyes. I was lying on my back, strapped to a table, or was it a bed? There was a bright fluorescent light above me, so bright it was blinding. Oh, God. Where had she taken me? I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing through my nose, trying not to panic. I realized now there was something in my throat. I had to get it out. Where was I? Where was Tarsus?

Stupid, Rory. As soon as I put the pieces together, that Gnosis and the Few were one and the same, I should’ve realized that Dr. Tarsus would be in that room. Of course she was one of the society’s leaders. She’d been part of the machine from the very beginning. But if she was so high up in the organization, how had I made it as far as I had? Shouldn’t she have been able to keep me out? There was still so much I didn’t know. Things I’d never know unless I made it out of here alive.

It was quiet except for the hum of machines. I did a mental scan of my body. Other than my throat, nothing hurt. I blinked my eyes open again. My vision adjusted to the light now, and I looked around.

It was a hospital room. Through a pale flowered curtain I saw doctors and nurses with tablets. One made eye contact with me and smiled. Her pink scrubs were printed with the words THEDEN HEALTH CENTER. She’s awake, I saw her mouth. A moment later she was sliding the curtain to the side.

My brain was struggling to keep up. I wasn’t in the society’s tomb. I was at the health center. Dr. Tarsus wasn’t torturing me. Inexplicably, she’d saved my life.

“Hi there,” the nurse said kindly. “You scared us. Let’s get that tube out of your throat.” She gently reached into my mouth to dislodge it. Seconds later it was out. I immediately started coughing. “Your throat will be sore for a few days,” she said, unstrapping the bands around my wrists. “Sorry about these. We couldn’t risk you pulling at the tube.” She went to the sink and filled a cup with water.

“Small sips,” she instructed, and handed the cup to me.

I gulped the water. It burned my throat.

“Small sips,” she said again, and smiled.

I drank the rest slowly then set the empty cup on the tray beside my bed. “How’d I get here?” I asked her hoarsely.

“Your boyfriend brought you in,” she replied. “I’m just glad you had that EpiPen, and that he knew how to use it. It saved your life.”

“My boyfriend?”

The nurse winked at me. “Don’t worry, we won’t report that you were together after curfew,” she said conspiratorially. She went to the sink to refill my water cup. “Any idea what you ate that triggered the reaction? I imagine you’re pretty careful with peanuts. Says in your file you were hospitalized the first time you were exposed.” She handed me the cup and I took another tiny sip.

“A granola bar,” I lied. “I forgot to scan it with Lux.”

I heard a tsk, but it hadn’t come from the nurse. She looked past me toward the door and smiled. “Couldn’t stay away for long, could you?”

“From this girl? Nah.” It was Liam, dressed for class, his hair wet from the shower. He put his hand on my forearm, his lambda tattoo peeking out from the webbing of his fingers. “How are you feeling, babe?”

“Better,” I said, managing a smile. It took effort not to snatch my arm back. It’s just Liam, I told myself. But now that I knew what the society really stood for, even he creeped me out. I saw his eyes drop to my collarbone. Out of habit, I felt for my necklace.

It was gone.

Tarsus must’ve taken it while I was unconscious. But why? Did she know what it really was? I swallowed my panic. There were no files on the pendant anymore. North had taken them off. Still, my heart was pounding. It didn’t help that Liam was staring at me.

“Well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” the nurse said. “Just press the button on your armrest if you need me.” She stepped outside the curtain and slid it closed behind her.

“Why would you eat a peanut granola bar?” Liam asked when she was gone.

“It wasn’t a peanut granola bar,” I told him, my voice still raspy. “It was chocolate chip. Must’ve been made on shared equipment.”

“Why didn’t you scan it with Lux?”

“I don’t know. I forgot.” I stared at the Gold on Liam’s wrist. Were there nanobots in his brain right now? Or were society members excluded from that? What about the people like me who’d forgotten to get their flu spray this year, or the ones like North, who always opted out? Then again, with hundreds of millions of people vaccinated and strapped to the Gold, a couple of thousand outliers hardly mattered.

“So you brought me here?” I asked Liam, changing the subject. “I thought I heard Dr. Tarsus’s voice before I passed out.”

He gave me a wary look, as if I knew something I wasn’t supposed to. “She thought it’d be less suspicious if I brought you.”

“And the EpiPen?”

“She carries one.”

“Why? What’s she allergic to?”

“So many questions,” Liam said, not answering me. “I’ve got some for you. Why were you wearing her necklace yesterday?”

I stared at him. “What?”

“She was Upsilon ’13,” he said, watching me closely. “Not your mom. Your mom wasn’t even one of the Few. I checked the roster in the tomb, and her name isn’t on it.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out.

“Look, Rory,” Liam said, “whatever you’re playing at—”

“I’m not playing at anything, Liam,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “My mom left me that necklace. You don’t know for sure that it belongs to Tarsus. Just because it’s her society name doesn’t mean it’s her necklace.” But it was hers. I had no doubt. That whole bit about Pythagoras’s letter, virtue and vice. She knew I had it, and she wanted me to know it. But why? And why did she wait until now to take it back?

“Okay, so what about the pattern on your blanket? What’s that about?”

I shifted in my bed. “It’s probably just a coincidence,” I said weakly. “The Few didn’t invent the Fibonacci sequence.”

“Class starts in three minutes,” Lux announced from Liam’s wrist.

“I can’t be late,” Liam said. “But, Rory, I’m serious. I’d be careful if I were you. Tarsus is not someone you want to piss off, believe me. She has the power to keep you out of the Few.”

As if that was my fear.

“Well, thank you,” I said, attempting a smile. My heart was pounding like a drum. “For the advice. And for saving my life. I’m just bummed I missed out on initiation.” I tried to sound disappointed.

“Oh, don’t worry. You’re getting a do-over.”

“That’s great,” I managed, my stomach churning at the thought. “When?”

“Tomorrow night.”

They kept me at the hospital for observation until early evening. By the time I left, I had eleven missed calls and three cryptic but frantic texts from Kate’s phone. North was clearly worried. I didn’t blame him. My line had gone dead last night and he hadn’t heard from me since.

I couldn’t tell him about the Few over the phone. It had to be in person. But as much as I wanted to see him, and more than that to unload everything I’d been holding back, something told me I should play my next moves carefully. If I wanted last night’s hospital visit to seem like an accident, I couldn’t raise any suspicions. I needed to act naturally. Go to dinner in the dining hall. Spend some time with my Theden friends. Be seen by whoever else had been in that room last night. So I sent Kate a talk later text and headed back to the dorm to change.

The sun had dropped behind the trees by the time I made it back to Athenian Hall. Izzy was sitting on the bench by the main door, scrolling through her newsfeed on her new Gold, which she was wearing on a studded band. “Hey,” she said when she saw me, glancing up from her screen. “Where have you been all day?”

“I had a weird allergy thing,” I told her, downplaying it. “How are you?”

“Starving,” she replied.

“If you can wait twenty minutes, I’ll go with you to dinner,” I said. “I just want to take a shower first.”

“That’s perfect,” Izzy replied. “Lux says the optimal time to eat isn’t until six anyway. I’ll wait for you here.” She smiled and went back to her Gold.

I felt a wave of nausea. Lux says.

“Hey, did you get a flu spray this year?” I asked.

She nodded without looking up from her screen. “Yep. Why?”

“No reason,” I said, and walked off.

I let Lux decide what I ate for dinner that night, in part because I was too revved up over my discovery to make my own food choices, but mostly because I knew everyone was wondering how those peanuts had gotten in my system. No one had near-death scares like that anymore. Not with Lux. So I made a show of using the app, for whoever was watching. I needed to look like a girl who was paranoid now, overly cautious about every bite. For all I knew, the person behind the serpent mask was sitting at the faculty table, eyeing me. A plan was forming in my head, and if it had any chance of working, the society had to believe my accident was just an accident, and that I was as eager as ever to take my vows.

Preoccupied with my performance, I nearly choked on my risotto when Tarsus approached our table. “I imagine it’s been quite a day for you,” she said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “No simulation can prepare you for an experience like that.”

An experience like what? The allergic reaction or the creepy ritual in which my classmates pledged their allegiance to a group of people who believe they’re wiser than God, people who were using technology to manipulate free will?

“It was . . . instructive” was my reply. My eyes went to her collar. No pendant, only a single strand of pearls.

Dr. Tarsus smiled. “Let’s be careful going forward, shall we?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“We need to schedule a make-up session,” she said then, her eyes boring into mine. “For the simulation you missed this morning. Will you be ready tomorrow night?”

I knew instantly that she wasn’t really talking about practicum. The make-up session she was referring to was the society’s initiation ritual, and the implied offer for more time was a test to see if I would try to get out of it.

“Definitely,” I said, and smiled. No hesitation. Surprise flickered in her eyes.

Dr. Tarsus held my gaze for a moment then returned the smile. “Excellent,” she said. “Tomorrow night it is.”

“She creeps me out,” Izzy said when she was gone. “I’m so glad I don’t have her.”

“Really? I think she’s badass,” Rachel said, and turned to me. “Don’t you?” I’d forgotten until that moment that she was in the room last night. She was one of the Few now. She had to know that I’d been there too. I imagined they’d pulled back my hood as soon as I’d passed out.

“Yeah,” I said vacantly, distracted by what Tarsus had just said. Let’s be careful going forward. It was impossible to decipher what she meant. Had she seen me eat that peanut? Maybe I hadn’t fooled anyone. Maybe the society leaders knew all about my stunt. I shivered at the prospect. Now they were expecting me in the tomb the next night, and I had no way of knowing what lay in store. I felt a flutter of fear in my chest. What had I gotten myself into? Better question: How was I going to get out of it?

“Earth to Rory,” I heard Izzy say.

My eyes refocused. “What?”

“I asked when you were planning to leave the dark ages,” she said, pointing at my Gemini. The three of them were wearing Golds.

“Oh. I kind of like the old one,” I said, averting Rachel’s gaze.

“Yeah, but do you like it better than Lux?”

“Huh?”

“Gnosis is discontinuing the old version of Lux,” Izzy said. “And you can only get the new version on the Gold. So if you want to keep using Lux, you’ll have to say good-bye to the clunker.” The clunker. Two days ago it was the smallest handheld on the market. Now it was obsolete.

Just then, my phone rang.

KATE—CELL

“Yep. I guess I will,” I told Rachel, already standing up. “Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys later.” I answered the call as soon as I stepped away from the table, keeping my voice low as I passed a group of faculty members by the frozen-yogurt machine.

“Where have you been?” North demanded as soon as the call connected. “I’ve been calling you all day. When I lost you last night, I called right back, but it went straight to voicemail.”

“A lot has happened,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Can I meet you at your place in ten minutes?”

“Of course. I’m there now. Are you okay?”

“I will be,” I told him, and hung up. Then I slipped my Gemini under the napkin on my tray and dumped both into the trash.

“They think they’re gods?” North’s voice was incredulous. “Actual deities?”

“‘Gods among men’ was what the serpent said. He didn’t get into technicalities.”

“And they think they’re re-creating Eden?”

“Their version of it, anyway. A society where they decide what’s best for everyone. The Eden. A.k.a. Theden. This didn’t start with SynOx, North. They’ve been at this for centuries. Hyperion is just their endgame.”

North rubbed at his eyes. “This is seriously messed up, Rory. And your mom was one of these people?”

I shook my head. “I thought she was, but Liam checked their roster and her name’s not on it.”

“So she was trying to expose them.”

I nodded. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Those files on the necklace were her evidence. But someone found out what she was doing and she got scared. I think that’s why she left Theden.”

“But why not tell Griffin? If she needed to disappear, he could’ve gone with her.”

“Maybe she was protecting him. If the Few are as powerful as I think they are, the less he knew, the better.”

“The Few. Is that what they call themselves?”

I nodded. “Short for ‘The Wise Few.’ The official name is Greek.”

“Because the rest of us are imbeciles,” North spat. He shook his head in disgust. “And until last night, you wanted to be one of them?”

“I thought they were the good guys,” I said, defensive.

North gave me a reproving look. “Good guys don’t wear masks and hooded robes and do things in the dark, Rory.”

My eyes dropped to my hands. He was right. But I’d felt so honored to have been chosen. I had gotten caught up in it. North tapped his tablet screen, where he’d pulled up the list of names he’d retrieved from the thumb drive. “So all these people are members?”

I nodded. “That’s what the Greek letter/number combinations mean. It’s their society name and the year they were initiated.”

Instinctively, my hand went to my clavicle, but of course the pendant wasn’t there. “Where is it?” North asked.

“Tarsus took it,” I told him. “Last night, while I was passed out. I think it’s actually hers,” I said. “Or was at some point. Upsilon is her society name.”

“Could she have given it to your mom?” North asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess.” It was hard to fathom that Tarsus could’ve been helping my mom. But someone had to have given her those files. “Hey, you said there was a third file,” I said, remembering. “What was it?”

“A wedding photo,” North said gently. “Your mom and Griffin.”

Something inside me hardened, bracing against the flood of emotion I was barely holding back. No. I couldn’t let myself feel this. Not until I’d done what I was planning to do. So I pressed my lips together and gave my head a firm shake. I didn’t want to see it. The look in North’s eyes told me he understood. I reached for his hand and squeezed it.

North took my hand and gently tugged it, pulling me forward so our bodies were almost touching, and then he cupped my face in his hands. They smelled like espresso and nutmeg. “I could’ve lost you last night,” he said softly.

“I know. But you didn’t.”

“You took such a risk.” He traced the line of my jaw with his thumbs.

“I had to,” I said. “I couldn’t take their oath. Pledging my life to their vision. Renouncing the Doubt.” I shook my head slightly. “I couldn’t do it. But I couldn’t just refuse, either. I knew they wouldn’t let me walk out of there knowing what I know.”

“So now what?” he asked. “You tell them you don’t want to join and hope they’re cool with it?”

“No.” I lifted my chin from his hands and leaned back. “They have to believe that I still want in. It’s the only way they’ll let me back into the tomb.”

“Back into the tomb?” North was apoplectic. “Rory, you just said you think these people are dangerous. Why would you go back?”

My response was matter-of-fact. “If we want to expose them, we need more than a couple of documents. We need video proof.” This was my plan. It terrified me, especially since there was no way to live-stream the initiation—the tomb was a dead zone. I’d have to make it out with the footage to have anything at all.

North started to shake his head. “Rory, no. It’s too—”

“North. I think these people killed my mom.” It was the first time I’d said it out loud. I hadn’t really let myself think it, really think it, until right that second.

“And what do you think is going to happen to you if they find out you’re recording them?”

“They won’t find out.” I sounded certain, but I wasn’t. Even if I managed to get the footage, how would I get out of the tomb without taking their vows a second time?

“Okay, so let’s say you get them on tape. What does it prove? You said everyone is wearing masks, so you can’t see their faces.”

“At least people will know the Few exist.”

“Rory, you post a video like that and one of two things will happen. Either Gnosis will get rid of it as soon as it goes live, or someone will take ownership of it and say it was a fake. We’re talking about the company that controls virtually all the technology we use. From GoSearch to Forum to Lux. They control the medium, so they control the message.”

“So we attack the technology, then,” I argued. “Forget exposing the Few. We’ll dismantle Project Hyperion. Shut down Lux.”

“And how are we going to do that?”

“I dunno. A virus or something.”

“A virus like that would take weeks to build. And even if I could miraculously write some supervirus overnight, there’s no way we could get it through Gnosis’s firewall.”

“Okay, so we’ll turn off the nanobots, then.”

North shook his head. “I’ve studied every word of that memo. There’s only one mention of how to deactivate ‘ferrous nanobots,’ the kind they used, and that’s with a cerebral MRI. So unless we can come up with a way to convince half a billion people to go get their brains magnetized, I think we’re out of luck on that front.”

I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration. “So we’ll think of something else. People are literally addicted to their handhelds, North. As long as they’ve got a Gold on their wrists, they’ll trust whatever that little box says. Who knows what the Few are planning to do with these people’s lives!”

“I know,” North said with a sigh. “And I’m with you. I’m just trying to be realistic here.”

“Ugh!” Tears sprung to my eyes as I plopped down on the couch. “I feel so powerless.”

“But you’re not powerless,” North said. “You know the truth. There’s power in that. And you’ve got something else, too.”

“You?”

He laughed. “Yes. But I was going to say wisdom. The real kind.” He pulled me to my feet. “You see things other people don’t.”

“I don’t see anything,” I told him. “It’s all the Doubt.”

“So ask the voice for help. It’s given you insight before.”

“I need more than insight, North. I need an actual plan.”

“Why not go to Griffin for help?” he suggested. “He’s CEO of the company behind this. He has to be able to do something.”

“The man just had major brain surgery.”

“He just woke up this afternoon,” North replied.

“What?”

North picked up the remote from the coffee table and turned on his clunky TV. A local news reporter was standing outside of Massachusetts General Hospital. The banner at the bottom of the screen was GNOSIS CEO GRIFFIN PAYNE WAKES UP.

I took the remote from North to turn up the volume.

“Mr. Payne is being moved early tomorrow morning to an undisclosed private facility to focus on his recovery,” the reporter was saying. “In a recorded statement to Gnosis’s board of directors released about an hour ago, Griffin resigned as CEO, citing his desire to ‘dedicate full attention to his recovery’ in the coming months. No word yet on who will replace him at the helm of the 750 billion dollar company.” The camera cut away from the reporter and back to the news desk.

The female anchor launched into the next story as an ominous-looking photo of the sun appeared next to her head. “A large, irregularly shaped sunspot group has solar physicists concerned that a geomagnetic superstorm may be in the forecast. If the active region bursts—”

“Great,” I muttered, clicking off the TV. “On top of everything, the world is coming to an end.” I tossed the remote onto the couch, reaching for my bag. “I need you to take me to the train station.”

“Rory, it’s past eight already. It’ll be eleven before you get to Boston. No way they’ll let you see him tonight.”

“Then I have to find out where they’re taking him.” I looked at North. “Can you do that?”

He was already heading toward his closet. “There should be a transfer directive in the hospital’s system,” he called over his shoulder.

“Hey, where’s Hershey?” I asked, following him.

“I dunno. She left about an hour ago. Told me not to wait up.” North slid the poster back and pushed the secret door open.

“Do you know who the mystery guy is?” I asked.

“Nope,” North replied. “If I did, I’d thank him for the privacy.” He grinned as he pulled me into the tiny room and wrapped his arms around my waist. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him, and for a few seconds I wasn’t thinking about anything except the way his lips felt on mine.

“Okay,” I said, putting my hand over his mouth as I pulled away. “Hold that thought.” I pointed at his computer screen. “Transfer notice.”

It only took him a few minutes to get into Massachusetts General Hospital’s patient records database. “Griffin Payne,” North said, typing in the name.

“Please let it be somewhere close,” I murmured.

“There he is,” North said. “Now let’s see where he’s—”

He stopped.

“No.” His voice sounded funny.

“What is it? Where are they taking him?”

“Maybe this isn’t— No, that’s when he checked into the hospital. Do you know when his birthday is?”

It was on his Panopticon page, but I couldn’t remember the date. “In November, I think? Why? What is it?” I took a step closer to the screen, not sure what I was supposed to be looking for.

North turned around in his chair. His face was ashen.

“Rory, Griffin died on Friday night.”