Revived

eighteen

“Uh…” Matt says, looking around Mason’s office a few minutes later. “What are we doing in here?”

“Sit down,” I say, gesturing to the chairs across from the massive desk. “Please,” I add, not wanting to sound bossy.

As I ease into the desk chair, I swallow down my anxiety and breathe deeply to calm myself. I try to focus on the positive side of the situation—that I feel so safe with Matt that I’m willing to risk everything—but the negatives muscle their way into my brain, too. I’m about to reveal a government secret that could have implications for nearly everyone I know. I’m getting ready to tell the guy I like that I’ve been lying to him. And finally, I’m about to tell the brother of a dying girl that there’s a drug that saves people… oh, but that his sister can’t have it.

It feels so overwhelming that for the blink of an eye, I consider backing out. But then I remember what Matt said:

Carefree, peaceful… those words remind me of you.

He has the right to know who I really am.

“Matt, there’s something I want to tell you,” I begin. “It’s about me. About my life.”

“Okay,” he says, eyeing me curiously. “And it’s something we have to talk about in your dad’s office?” he jokes, gesturing around at the stale white walls and brown furniture.

“Sort of,” I say. “Yes. But I’ll get to that part in a minute.”

“Okay.”

Pause.

“I’m not sure where to start.”

“The beginning?” Matt suggests, still smiling.

I exhale loudly, then decide to go for it. “I’m sworn not to tell you what I’m about to say,” I begin. Matt sits up a little straighter in his chair, his interest piqued. He nods, as if agreeing not to share my secret. “So, before a drug gets approved and can be sold to people, it goes through a bunch of testing. A lot of the time, the public knows about the drug while it’s being tested, but sometimes, with really controversial drugs, the tests are done secretly. They can take years, often decades.” I pause, giving myself one final out. Then I just say it: “I’m part of one of those programs.”

“Cool. What’s it for?” Matt asks without skipping a beat. The look on his face is so… excited. I wait a moment before continuing, holding on to that look for as long as I can. I feel like I’m about to crush him, but how can I keep hanging out with him if he doesn’t know the real me?

“It’s a drug called Revive,” I say finally. “It brings people back from the dead.” Matt’s brows pinch together in confusion. “I died when I was four years old,” I clarify. “The drug brought me back to life.”

“That’s… Are you messing with me?” Matt asks.

“No,” I say seriously.

Matt’s eyes look playful as they search mine for a trace of teasing. When he finds none, his expression becomes somber.

“How did you die?” he asks, concerned.

“I was in a school-bus crash in Iowa,” I say. “The bus skidded off a bridge into a lake.”

I can practically see the wheels turning in Matt’s brain.

“Not the one they made the miniseries about?” he asks, taking it in.

I nod.

“So…” he begins, the pieces clicking together for him. His eyebrows knit tighter and he shifts in his chair a little. After a few moments of puzzling, Matt asks what I’ve been waiting for him to ask: “Audrey?”

He says only her name, not daring to speak the rest.

I shake my head, not wanting to go there at all. But I realize that I have to.

“It’s not…” I say, my voice trailing off. I regroup and try again. “It doesn’t work on people with diseases or really serious injuries. It can’t regrow damaged tissue. It’s more like an electric pulse to your entire system at once. It shocks you back to life from the inside out. Revive can’t help bodies that weren’t healthy when the person died.”

Visibly processing the information, Matt says, “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.” He’s borderline monotone, distracted, looking from me to the desk to the walls and back, searching for answers. He swallows hard; I think he’s shell-shocked.

“I know.”

“And… I don’t… I mean, I’m not sure if I even want to know about this,” he admits. He fidgets, then wipes his palms on his pants. “I mean, what am I supposed to do with this stuff? If it can’t do anything for Audrey, I mean, what good is me knowing about it? It’s not really fair.” Matt stops talking and looks down at his hands. The sadness in his eyes makes me wonder if I’ve done the right thing.

“I’m sorry for telling you,” I say, a little hurt that he doesn’t understand why I did it. “I just thought… Well, I wanted to give you something. Like a part of me. I felt like I wanted you to know the real me. But I understand why you don’t want to know about Revive.”

“No, I get that,” Matt says, his eyes softening when he looks up and meets my gaze. “It’s just that I’m conflicted, you know? I want to get to know you, but it’s hard hearing about something like this without thinking about Audrey. Without feeling like crap because it can’t help her, too.”

“I understand,” I reiterate. “Believe me, I agree with you,” I say, standing. “Let’s just go hang out in my room some more. I’m really sorry for bringing it up.”

Matt watches me stand but stays in his seat.

“Daisy?”

“Yeah?”

He pauses, then forces a half smile that makes my chest feel like it’s caving in.

“I want to hear it,” he says. “Tell me about your life.”

Thoughts jumbled, I’m all over the place in the beginning, jumping from our move to Omaha to the fact that the program is managed by the Food and Drug Administration to the rigorous annual tests and back again. I know from the look on Matt’s face that he’s having a hard time following the story, but when I start to describe the agents and their function, the wall crumbles and it seems like he’s not only getting it, but he’s genuinely interested, too.

“The program was formed about a year before the bus crash,” I say. “Basically, they were waiting for something to happen so they’d have human test subjects. The agents were handpicked across industries for their specialties, and I’m sure they were anxious to get going.”

“Where did they come from?” Matt asks.

“Other branches of the government,” I say, shrugging. “Or civilian jobs. Some were recruited out of school,” I say, thinking of Cassie.

“What do they do?” Matt asks. “Now, I mean.”

“Some are scientists in the main lab in Virginia,” I say. “All those guys do is death science. Others are like bodyguards—watchers for the kids in the program. My friend Megan’s watcher is also a computer expert. He trolls the Internet for any flags about the program. He’s got the personality of a computer on a slow connection, but he’s a genius. He hacked the FBI mainframe as a teenager and once sent an email from a former president’s account, just because he could. I swear, if he wasn’t part of the Revive program, he’d probably be in prison—”

“Wait,” Matt interrupts. “Your friend Megan… you mean Fabulous? From the blog? She died in that crash, too?”

“Yep.”

He shakes his head. “This is insane.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “It must seem so strange to you. But this is me. I’m only being honest.”

“I’m glad you are,” he says, but his expression is uneasy. He takes a deep breath. “Keep going.”

“Okay. So, like I said, the agents all have jobs,” I say. “Mason and Cassie both have medical backgrounds, so their job is monitoring the health and well-being of the bus kids—”

“Mason and Cassie?” he interrupts. “As in your parents? Your parents are government agents?”

I frown. “Sorry,” I say. “I skipped that part.”

Matt shakes his head again, then runs a hand through his hair. I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t, so I go on. I tell him about being adopted, which he says he knew from Audrey, and about living with nuns before the crash. I explain that no other bus kids live with agents, but since there was no family to relocate with me, they had to assign me to someone.

“Wait, they told nuns you were dead?” he interrupts again. I don’t mind; I like that he’s paying attention.

“They told the whole town of Bern that everyone on the bus was dead. The program is totally confidential.”

“But nuns? That feels especially wrong.”

“I guess lying to nuns is bad,” I say. “The funny thing is that God lied to them.”

Matt looks at me blankly until I remember that I haven’t shared that part yet, either.

“Oh, sorry,” I say. “I forgot about the nicknames. Because Revive brings you back from the dead, and that’s a God-like ability, the core group of agents started calling the program the God Project. They secretly dubbed the guy in charge God; they called themselves Disciples; and eventually, when they had human test subjects, they named us Converts. The nicknames stuck.”

“That is totally messed up.”

“I guess,” I say, shrugging. “Are you religious?”

“I believe in a higher power, if that’s what you mean,” he says. “But not necessarily religion.”

I nod but don’t comment. So much of religion seems to revolve around death and what happens when you die that being part of a program like Revive has made religion seem unnecessary to me. And come to think of it, not a lot of the science-possessed agents in the program are religious. But I still have faith. In that way, Matt and I are the same.

“Okay, enough God talk,” I say, sensing that I’m losing Matt. “I brought you in here in the first place to show you some of the program’s secret documents and stuff. To give you a better picture of what it’s like. To be honest, I thought maybe you wouldn’t believe me unless I showed you proof.”

He looks at me, surprised. “You thought I wouldn’t believe you?” he asks.

“I… I guess so,” I say, slightly embarrassed.

“Of course I believe you,” he says with a quiet intensity, holding my stare for a few moments. Electric currents seem to pass between us as we survey each other, and somehow the warmth I get from them makes this whole situation seem okay.

“But I still want to see the cool stuff,” Matt says finally, breaking the tension and with an easy smile. I laugh a little, then wave him closer.

“Drag that chair over here behind the computer. I’m about to blow your mind.”