“His parents,” I whisper. “Sasuke’s mom. Did she . . . ?”
“She never knew what happened to him. She knows he disappeared several months after she withdrew him from the program, and I know she nearly killed herself trying to find out what happened to him—but what could she do? People disappear frequently in Japan. There isn’t even a national registry that catalogues the missing. Taylor was the director of the institute. She had the power to hide whatever needed to be hidden, and an accusation this wild would’ve just made Mina look like a grieving mother gone mad.”
“And what about you?” I ask softly.
“Taylor often hired people as needed for her projects. Most who worked with us weren’t exactly upstanding citizens. So as her ambitions grew, she wanted someone like me to enforce her control and protect her. I may not have gone Sasuke’s route, but I tested very well for my reflexes. So she had me trained.” Jax smiles bitterly. There’s the fear in her eyes again. “Nothing commands authority like a professional killer, and no killer surprises someone more than a young girl.”
Even though Jax doesn’t say it, I know she still thinks of Taylor as her mother. A cruel one, one who doesn’t care about her. But family, nevertheless. It’s hard to sever the mind’s ties, no matter how painful they are.
Taylor had made me believe that she was a force of good, that her mission was still fundamentally moral, the need to rid the world of regimes and technology like Hideo’s that sought to control others.
But sometimes, the need to protect the world from being controlled translates to seizing control for yourself.
Jax pulls us out of the recordings. I glimpse the vast library again, the repository of the Blackcoats’ secrets, then at the Dark World’s Fair, and then the streets of the Dark World itself. Then, we leave the virtual space, and I return to my room, lit only by slices of moonlight and streetlamps. The virtual image of Jax is still here, standing beside me as I lean against my bed for support.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I say to her. “You’re risking your own life.”
Her expression, as always, doesn’t waver. “Because I don’t believe Sasuke’s completely gone.”
She pauses, but her eyes go straight to me. My thoughts are already racing. The specific memory that Zero had shown me when he’d taught me how to break into Hideo’s mind. Zero had said that he didn’t mean for me to see it. But what if Sasuke had, from some corner deep in Zero’s mind?
“The symbol,” I whisper to Jax. “The memory of Sasuke in that room.”
She only nods back. “I don’t think it was an accident that Zero let you into that memory. I think Sasuke did it.”
The hopeful way she says his name is a sharp contrast to her usual curt tone. To her, Sasuke is still alive. No wonder she will never try to kill Taylor—not while Sasuke might still be trapped inside Zero’s mind.
Jax suddenly looks to her side, her expression focused again. She listens for a while. I tense, wondering what it is she’s hearing and where she is in reality right now. Then she leans close to me.
“Listen carefully,” she says at a rapid clip. “Zero is fully under Taylor’s control. By nature of his programming, he must listen to her commands and obey whatever she says. You need to get access to Hideo’s algorithm. But once you do, you can’t let Taylor get hold of it. If you can use the algorithm to force Taylor to give up control of Zero’s mind, you can free Zero from her.”
I study Jax’s face as she talks. The abrupt urgency and uncertainty in her voice jar me. Right now, she doesn’t sound like a ruthless assassin, but a small girl, terrified of her keeper. “Like the rest of us, Taylor’s wearing beta lenses. They aren’t connected to the algorithm.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small box. “But they will be, for a moment, right after you get access to Hideo’s algorithm during the closing ceremony.”
She’s right. In the split second after Taylor’s beta lenses hook into the algorithm—and before her code installs her as the algorithm’s master—she’ll be vulnerable to Hideo seizing control over her mind.
“We’re going to have just one second to do this,” I tell her. Then I add to myself, And only if I can persuade Hideo to cooperate.
Jax nods. “It’ll be the most important second in history.”
If this goes wrong, my own beta lenses will be hooked up into the algorithm, too. I’ll be under Taylor’s control instead of Hideo’s. All of us will. I try not to think about what Taylor would do with that level of power. What she would turn us into.
“What happens after we free Zero from her?” I say after a while.
“That library I showed you. It contains everything, remember? Every study and experiment that Taylor has ever done. It also contains every iteration of Sasuke Tanaka’s mind, during every stage of his trial.”
At that, she holds out a compressed set of data to hover between us. I don’t need to say a word to know that this contains those records. “You need a way straight into Zero’s mind. Download all of Sasuke’s Memories back into Zero. Zero has no desire to go against Taylor . . . but Sasuke might.”
Use the algorithm to save Hideo’s brother. It’s a plan that will almost certainly go wrong.
But I still nod at Jax. “We’ll do it.”
Jax jerks her head away from me again, as if she’s heard something. In a flash, any trace of weakness vanishes from her face. “I have to go,” she whispers to me. She meets my gaze one final time. Then she disconnects, and I’m suddenly alone again in my room.
It’s dead quiet in here now. The contrast is startling.
I remain leaning against my bed in the silence. The recordings I’d seen run through my head repeatedly, refusing to disappear. I bring them up again, one by one, each file that Jax had given me. The images of Sasuke, all his Memories, circle me in a halo.
This is the key I’ve been looking for.
Slowly, a plan begins to take shape.
22
I barely sleep that night. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is Sasuke as a young boy in that room, tears running down his face. I see him kissing Jax. Screaming as he’s strapped down for his procedures. The memories fuse with each other, creating new, twisted ones. There’s Jax standing with Zero on her balcony, her face turned up to him, him leaning down to kiss her neck. Jax turns into me, Zero into Hideo. We’re back in that glass tower, lying in his bed. His head snaps back as Taylor shoots him. He transforms into Tremaine as he crumples to the floor.
Then I jolt awake crying, my body damp with sweat.
I’m too scared to go back to sleep, so instead, I sit awake in bed and fiddle with the glowing cube that Zero had given me, the hack that will get me into Hideo’s mind.
Use the algorithm to force Taylor to give up control of Zero.
Will Hideo go along with this? To allow someone else access into his algorithm? Even Zero had refused to reveal himself to his brother, knowing how unpredictable his reaction might be. There’s no guarantee that Hideo will even believe me.
But Sasuke is buried somewhere inside the monster that Taylor has created. If there’s even the slightest chance that we can rescue him . . . I have to believe that Hideo will hear me out.
And if he doesn’t . . . if he doesn’t, I’ll have to hack into his mind. Force him.
I study the data until dawn streams into my room. The instant the light shifts from blue to gold, an incoming call pings in my view. I jump, thinking it might be from Zero himself—that he or Taylor has figured out what Jax has done.
But it’s from Roshan. I accept the call, and his hoarse voice fills my ears, telling me what I already know.
“Tremaine’s in the hospital,” he says. “He’s hurt pretty bad.” His words falter a little. “Em, he’d listed me as his emergency contact. That’s why the doctor called me. I—I can’t—”
I can hardly bear the pain in his voice. My hands shake in my lap as he gives me the name of the hospital. “On my way,” I whisper, and dart out of my bed before he responds.
A half hour later, I arrive at the hospital to find Roshan and a doctor locked in conversation, the latter trying in vain to explain to Roshan that he can’t visit Tremaine yet.
“We’ve been out here for hours!” Roshan’s voice echoes down the hall. “You said we’d be able to see him over an hour ago!” He’s shouting in Japanese at a doctor, his translated words appearing in a mad dash in my view. Beside him, Hammie and Asher stay unnaturally quiet, not bothering to stop him. He must have lost his temper already earlier.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ahmadi,” the doctor explains, giving him a small bow of apology. “But you are not Mr. Blackbourne’s legal spouse; unless you have an official certificate, you will need to wait with your friends until we can allow you to visit—”
“We’re a couple,” Roshan snaps, forgetting in the heat of the moment that that’s no longer true. “Didn’t you all pass a same-sex marriage law last year?”
“But you are not currently married,” the doctor counters. “Are you? Do you have papers?”
Roshan throws his hands up and storms back toward the waiting room where I stand. Behind him, Asher and Hammie exchange a quick glance. Roshan catches sight of me as he walks, then gives me a quick nod.
My heart sits in my throat as I reach them. Roshan looks pale and haggard, and his eyes are bloodshot. “Why weren’t you with him?” he snaps at me. “They said he was dropped off at the hospital alone.”
Roshan’s anger stabs me hard through the chest. I start to offer excuses—that I couldn’t reach him, that the Blackcoats had figured out Tremaine hacked their databases. But this isn’t what Roshan needs to hear. “I should have been there,” I manage to choke out. “It’s my fault this happened to him. He should never have—”
Roshan glances over his shoulder toward Tremaine’s room, then closes his eyes and lowers his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m glad you weren’t there.”