Extracted

EIGHTEEN

EMBER

The smell of singed hair is what wakes me. It’s too familiar, too ingrained in my mind not to startle me. I think I was dreaming of something nice and I’m tempted to close my eyes again and summon it back. I can’t remember what it was, but the general feeling of comfort from the dream has been replaced with bitter reality.

I blink up at the white ceiling, wondering how long I’ve been out. I try to swallow but it’s like trying to drink sand. Shifting to stretch, I realize I can’t move. Panic rushes in. I jerk upright, tugging against the restraints holding my arms to the gurney. They aren’t handcuffs. No, handcuffs I could deal with. Two Peacekeepers have linked around each hand, trapping me. I try to pull free but they click and gears turn, tightening their hold on me until blood trickles into my palms. Nurse lurches into the room holding a tray full of needles and glass vials. I look down, seeing a large bandage on my left shin. Nurse lifts it and begins to clean it with iodine, making it look even more gruesome. The skin has been eaten away and patched back together.

I scream, kicking out only to realize my feet are also bound. Nurse grinds to a stop, staring at me through its creepy gas mask. Its only words are the eerie hiss of steam releasing from its mechanisms.

Alexei.

My brother.

I see his face in my mind. My tenuous grasp on reality snaps like a dry twig and I scream. I scream until my voice is gone and tears run marathons down my face. Until I’m sure I will die from the pressure building inside me. The guilt and anger tear themselves out my throat.

Then, spent, I fall back onto the gurney. Trapped even as my mind unspools inside me.

Alexei is alive.

My family is dead but Alexei is a Hollow. Somehow I can’t make it feel real. But I saw him. I touched him. My little brother. He looked nothing like the boy I remember. The tattoos, the scars. I swallow again. How could I have forgotten him? Now he is gone again. Not dead, but lost to me. In league with the enemy. My stomach lurches at the thought. No, not my enemy. Alexei will never be my enemy.

The door to the hospital slides open and Flynn steps in, his heavy boots thudding across the tile floor. Nurse turns and walks away, leaving us in silence. I glare at Flynn. To think, not long ago, just seeing his face could make me feel like everything would be all right. Now the sight of him only makes me feel dead inside. The betrayal is sour in my mouth. There are so many things I want to say, but I’m afraid what will come out if I open my mouth, so I just continue to glare as he sits on the edge of my bed and speaks.

“Ember, I know what you must be thinking—”

“That’s not my name! My name is Anastasia!” I spit the words out. My decision to stay silent is abandoned in an instant.

“Your name was Anastasia. That girl died the night her family was executed. The girl you are now, her name is Ember.”

“Вы взяли мою семью от меня,” I say. You took my family from me. My voice has dropped to a whisper. Some vague, distant part of my brain realizes I’m not speaking English anymore, but Flynn still understands what I’m saying. I can tell by the way his face pales and his eyes drop to the floor. I see the Babel ring on his finger and I grunt.-

“I saved your life,” he whispers.

I take a moment to make sure the words come out in English again. “Why did you let my family die? Didn’t you want to save my family? Why let them…?”

He shakes his head. “I couldn’t.”

I am trembling now, and my voice is unsteady. “Don’t lie to me. You could do it right now. Or I could. I could go back and save them all.”

He reaches out to touch me, but I flinch away. “No, Ember. You can’t. Do you remember your Trial, what I said about Fixed Points in time?”

In my mind I replay the conversation. “Yes.”

“What happened to your family, everything from your birth to the moment we rescued you, it’s all fixed. When we failed to get you and your brother, Tesla sent Catherine back further. He wanted to take you both the week before the attack. But she couldn’t. Do you understand? She physically couldn’t. Sometimes the time stream fixes points to protect important moments in history. Altering an event like that could unravel the fabric of time itself.”

I don’t answer that. I’m too busy remembering.

Alexei’s obsession with tinkering has made us late for the family portrait. He screams. A fire has broken out in the house. The heat begins to scorch the fragile lace of my gown, burning impressions of it into my arms and chest. I push Alexei into a corner and force him to crouch out of the smoke. My mind reels, trying to think of something, anything that might save us. My mind snaps like a rubber band. There’s a dumbwaiter at the end of the hall. If we can get past the flames, I can fit him inside. It won’t hold us both. It’s too small for that. But I can get him out. And he will have to run into the forest and find a place to hide in there. Surely some of my father’s staff has fled there. They will find him. They will take care of him. I turn my back to the door, trying to explain to my crying brother what I’m going to do. A pair of arms grabs me from behind. I scream and kick. But it isn’t a soldier. It’s Flynn, taking me away. Leaving my brother alone in that room. I scream to him, telling him to run for the dumbwaiter, but I don’t think he can hear me over his own sobs. Flynn drags me from the burning house as rubble collapses around us.

I blink back tears as the memory falls away. Flynn is still talking, but I’m not listening. The memories are flowing over me like water and I can’t stop the tide.

The smoke is thick and dark. Someone else is there, rushing in behind us. The sound of breaking glass erupts around me. A piece of plaster falls from the ceiling. Everything goes dark.

I finally look at Flynn. His face is red.

“Did you hear me?” he asks.

I blink again.

“I said I was sorry, Ember. I never would have left him if…” He trails off, hesitant to speak the final words of his thought.

I’m still whispering, but my words hold a jagged edge. “No. You left him on purpose. You took me and left him. It’s all your fault. You let them take my brother.”

He balks.

“What I don’t understand,” I continue, “is why did you take me? Alexei was the important one, the one destined to be Tsar. Why did you take me and leave him to the Hollows? And why the hell am I speaking English?”

Flynn clamps his mouth shut. I glare at him until he nods.

“Do you remember when I first met you?” he asks.

“You mean when you ripped me from my brother’s arms? Yes, I remember. No thanks to you.”

Flynn shakes his head and looks deeply into my eyes. “No, Ember. That wasn’t the first time we met. Not even close.”

“What are you talking about?” I demand, turning my wrists in my restraints. For a minute I wonder why I’m strapped down, and then I remember something else. I attacked Catherine. A pang of guilt arises before I can squelch it. But she almost killed that girl. That’s why I attacked her. The guilt quickly fades.

“You don’t remember because it hasn’t happened to you yet. But you asked me to trust you once, and I did. Now I’m asking you to trust me.”

I frown, not sure I can trust anything he says right now.

“I know that, when the time comes, Ember, you’ll make the right decision. I trust you. And as for the English speaking, Tesla decided it would be best if all the recruits spoke the same language. We implanted it in your head when you got here.” He presses his hand over my wrist where the small metal creatures hold me and instantly my hand is free. “A small thing really, in the overall—”

The slap is so quick he never sees it coming. His face is streaked with my blood as he gets up and turns his back to me.

“Why did you set the Peacekeepers on us?” I demand before he can leave. “You went through such trouble to kidnap me, why try to kill me now?”

He turns and his face, while red and bloody, is unrepentant. “The Peacekeepers are programmed to detect Contra and destroy anyone with it in their system. It’s how we’ve been locating and fighting the Hollows. They detected some on your clothes. That’s the only reason they went after you. I didn’t know—I couldn’t have known—that they would attack you. I honestly thought you’d be safe.”

My mouth forms a hard line. “Are you going to wipe my mind again?”

Flynn’s face droops. He actually looks like I’ve hurt his feelings. I pretty much don’t care.

“No, Ember. Another memory wipe might do permanent damage. We won’t risk it. Unless you give us no other choice.”

Before I can say anything else, he’s gone and Nurse is moving forward again. I barely feel the prick of the needle, but as it pushes the clear liquid into my vein, the room fades to black.

When I come to again, my head is throbbing. Next to me, Ethan is sitting cross-legged on the floor. He’s reading something on his thin tech board.

“Hey,” I manage weakly.

His eyes flick up to me, and he frowns. “It’s about time. What, the world goes to crap on crackers and you decide to take a nap?”

I laugh once, and it’s dry and painful. One of my arms is free, but the other is still strapped down with a half-dozen wires and tubes plunged into my flesh.

“Your skin graft is healing well, according to Flynn,” Ethan says.

At the sound of his name, I flinch. “No offense, but I don’t trust anything Flynn says anymore. My brother…” I begin to explain what happened. How it wasn’t his fault. How Flynn had left him to the mercy of the Hollows.

Ethan takes my hand, pressing something small and round into my bandaged palm. I almost ask what it is, but the look on his face stops me, warns me to wait. I clench my fingers around it and give him a barely noticeable nod before slipping it into my pocket.

He turns the board to me, revealing a set of blueprints. “They escaped. With this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called a Dox. It’s one of Tesla’s designs. The purpose was to develop a sort of temporal Band-Aid. Something that could draw enough energy from the stream to contain a paradox.”

“In English?”

Ethan chuckles. “That is the English version. If you want the technical response, I’ll have to use words like anthropic directionality and corporeal tardyons, and let’s face it, no one wants that. The bottom line is this—if the Hollows need it badly enough to risk breaching the Institute to get it, it’s bad. Chernobyl bad. Flynn thinks they must be planning to do something that could rip a hole in the stream. Otherwise why would they need the Dox?”

I nod. The foggy edges of my brain have snapped to attention. “That would be very dangerous.”

“Always the queen of understatements, aren’t you?”

I flinch again at the word queen. “How much did Flynn tell you?”

Ethan sits on the edge of my bed. “Exactly nothing. I figured it out, though. That is, the part about you and your brother and who you were before. I sort of took the little bit of info I managed to hack from your file, and ran it through the historical database.”

I suck in a deep breath.

He reaches out and pushes a stray tangle of hair off my forehead. “Doesn’t really matter to us, you know, who you were. We know who you are. The rest is—”

I finish the thought for him. “History.”

He smiles and kisses my head before whispering, “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

I’m confused, but the look on his face as he sits up is enough to keep me from saying anything. Suddenly I realize something obvious. They are watching me. Waiting to see what I’m going to do. I smile at Ethan as I realize something else, too. Loosening my grip on the anger inside me, I let it be replaced by the peaceful feeling that comes from feeling loved.

I lie there, slipping in and out of consciousness for a few more hours before all the tubes are gone, and they release me back to my room. Flynn comes in at some point to talk to me again. I try not to be outright hostile but can’t quite manage civil. Every time his lips move I wonder how he might be trying to manipulate me. I think about the stupid, blind devotion I harbored for so long and can’t help feeling very disappointed in myself.

Sitting in my room, I absentmindedly rub the small bottle cap Ethan had pressed into my hand. It’s Alexei’s, I know it. He must have dropped it during the attack. It is my touchstone now, the only thing that feels real. My arm is healed, the broken blood vessels in my eye have cleared, and the skin where the Peacekeepers tore into me has healed, leaving only a faint pink scar. Score one for Tesla medicine. On my own, it would have taken weeks to heal. Now, it’s precious time I don’t have to waste.

Kicking off the blankets pooled around me, I throw my legs over the side of the bed and slip my feet into my boots. My body is moving before I can fully think through what I’m doing. Raking my fingers through my hair, I twist it into a messy bun at the back of my neck and wind a rubber band around it. Then I slip out the door and into the hallway.

I don’t know what time it is, but it must be late. The corridor lights have dimmed for the evening and the false windows are dark as I walk past them. No one is wandering the halls, and except for the occasional hiss of steam or sputter of oil from the gas lamps, the Institute is quiet. When I get to Ethan’s room I pause, running my fingers over the cool brass door. I can almost feel him inside. My heart stutters in my chest as I drop my hand and keep walking.

Down three flights of spiral stairs from the Dormitory Floor is Tesla’s lab. I stand at the door, wondering how I’m going to open it. Do I knock? Taking a deep breath, I raise my hand to do just that when I hear the gears inside click into place and the whole thing opens just a crack.

He knows I’m here.

Of course he does. Tesla sees everything in this place. Pulling the door open, I slip inside, and then close it behind me. As the locks click back into place, a cold spike shoots down the back of my neck. Should have left it open, I think before remembering that it’s computer-automated. Tesla would have just closed it himself, anyway. Behind me, the lights flick on to a full glow. As I make my way slowly through the workstations, I ball up my fists then relax them, over and over. My hands are cold and shaking.

When I get to the main terminal, Tesla’s hologram is already there, his flat eyes staring at me.

Part of me wants to sprint back to my room and hide under the covers. But some other part of me, a stronger, braver part, wants answers.

“I have questions,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

Tesla folds his hands in front of him but says nothing. He’s so pale. I wonder if he was that pale in life. His pallor and his hovering image make him look like a ghost. Maybe that’s what he is really—just a ghost in a machine.

“Flynn told me that my life before the Tesla Institute is a Fixed Point. Is that true?”

The grainy computer voice responds, just a second out of sync with the image’s moving lips. “That is true.”

“Is it common? I was led to believe Fixed Points are rare.”

“Five Fixed Points have been discovered in the time stream, including the one you created during your Trial.” His tone is flat, but I feel accusation in the words. “That does not mean they are rare. It means they have not been discovered yet.”

“How do you find them?”

“There is no way, at this time, to locate Fixed Points other than to accidentally stumble upon them.”

“How many Fixed Points have you created?” I ask, not sure where the question came from.

“One. It was by accident that one of my first Rifters created a Fixed Point. Once we realized what she’d done, we were able to study and record the phenomenon.”

I swallow, not sure how long he will continue to tolerate my questions.

“Why me? I mean, why did you choose me?” I ask, my voice cracking.

For a second there’s no response and I’m sure he’s going to shut down. But he finally answers. “You were chosen because of your pedigree.”

I shake my head. “I mean, why me? Not my mother or my sisters. Alexei and me. Why us?”

“A Fixed Point cannot be altered. It is a universal constant.”

“I don’t understand why,” I say, throwing my hands in the air as I pace past him.

Tesla’s image rotates in the fog, following my direction as I walk by. “Imagine, if you will, a fraying rope. To prevent the rope from falling apart, one can tie a knot in it. This is what a Fixed Point does. Should a Fixed Point be untied, for lack of a proper analogy, the time stream would unravel and be destroyed.”

“But you said a Fixed Point can’t be altered. It can’t be untied.”

“True. The alteration of a Fixed Point is not in our abilities. I only use this description so you understand how fragile time is and why it creates the Fixed Points. It is protecting itself, as any living organism does.”

I lean against the nearest wall, letting that sink in. “Tesla, why are you answering my questions? Why haven’t you just mind-wiped me again and sent me on my way?” I ask, dreading the answer. “Not that I’m ungrateful,” I add quickly.

“You are valuable to us.” His voice crackles through the overhead speakers.

That sounds like a lie, I realize. Even with no emotion on his face, no inflection in his voice, I don’t believe him.

“Why am I valuable suddenly? You’ve wiped my mind before. You sent me on my Trial. I could have died at any point before now.”

“Alexei Romanov is alive, and he will come for you,” the voice responds.

The blood in my veins turns to ice as I realize what he’s saying.

My brother will come for me, and when he does, Tesla will either take him, or kill him.

I’m only of value as bait.

I’ve been formulating a plan in my head. I haven’t spoken a word of it to anyone, but I’m sure Ethan knows what’s coming. He knows me too well not to suspect something. Outwardly I’ve been cool, if not a little detached. I overheard Flynn whispering to Mistress Catherine, something about post-traumatic stress.

Good.

Let them think that. The truth is since my chat with Tesla, I’ve never felt more focused. Every sense is on hyper-alert. I can hear footsteps as they pass outside my door. I can smell the meals being served in the cafeteria, even from my room three floors up. Of my group, only Kara seems unchanged by the attack. She’s been told about my brother, that I know. But she hasn’t said anything. I can feel her pulling away even as I do the same.

Ethan and I are playing a game of chess at my desk while Kara is painting my toenails a brilliant, crimson red. No one is talking. Kara finishes, twisting the top back on the contraband bottle of paint when I finally decide to speak up.

“Hey, Ethan, can you go do that voodoo that you do?” I ask, jerking my head toward the computer terminal next to the door.

Without a word, he gets up and walks to the panel. Pulling a pocketknife from his pants, he pops off the plate and starts fiddling with the wires inside. It sparks brightly before Ethan turns back to me with a nod.

“I need to go.”

Kara looks at me hopefully. “What? Like to the bathroom?”

I shake my head but it’s Ethan that speaks up. “To get her brother.”

His voice is calm, amused as he walks back over to the table. Like he can’t believe it’s taken me so long to say something. Kara frowns. She’s clearly disappointed, but not surprised.

“Okay. Here’s the plan. We know the Peacekeepers can locate the Hollows because of the Contra, right? Well, I’ve managed to get my hands on a couple. We’re going to use them to track your brother down. I’m thinking smash-and-grab. We go in heavy, disable their defenses, grab Alexei and—”

I cut him off. “I’m not coming back here, Ethan.” I can’t. I have no idea why Tesla wants Alexei or what he intends to do to him. We’ll have to hide, but I’ve come to accept this. We will run and hide somewhere, and Tesla will never be able to find us. We might have to run forever.

That must surprise him because he pauses, but only for a second. “Fine. Then we land someplace else. The plan is still fundamentally the same.”

Kara throws her legs over the bed and stands up. “Forget it. I have no desire to leave my home and go searching for some sketchy, drug-addled Hollow. Even if he is Ember’s brother.”

“What is your problem, Kara?” Ethan asks, his eyebrows raised.

Kara gets to her feet, lifting up the side of her shirt high enough to expose a long jagged scar across the front of her ribs.

“Your precious little brother did this to me. Let’s just say my first time out ended with a three-week stay in the hospital wing.” She drops her shirt and points at me. “He would have killed me, Ember. And he still would if he had the chance.” She hurls a bottle of nail polish so hard that it shatters, sending red liquid down my wall. “He’s our enemy and always will be, so get that through your thick skull and quit trying to plan a family reunion.”

I reach out to her but she jerks back. She’s hurt, I can see it on her face. But she must understand.

“Kara, you know I love you like a sister. I do. But Alexei is my blood. I have to find him before something terrible happens to him. He’s my responsibility.”

“Then we will help you,” Ethan offers, ignoring the nasty look Kara shoots his direction.

I hold my hands up. “No, I have to go alone. It isn’t that I don’t want you with me,” my eyes flicker to Ethan, who looks stunned and a little sad, “but I don’t know where I’m going to go or even when we are going to go once I get him out. I can’t ask you guys to risk that with me. I won’t.”

Ethan rolls his eyes. “Ember—”

I don’t let him finish. “When Tesla realizes what I’ve done, he will hunt me down. I’m going to have to run far and fast.” He opens his mouth to say something else, so I add, “It will be easier to hide out if it’s just me and my brother.”

Ethan snaps his mouth closed. I can tell he wants to argue, but he can’t find the right words. I know how he feels. I don’t want to go without him, either. There’s a pain in my chest and I really think it might be my heart breaking.

“Kara,” he whispers after a moment, “you owe me.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about, but a look crosses between them and she rolls her eyes.

“Fine. If you’re determined to do this, I’ll at least get you out of here,” Kara says, tapping her chin. “I think I can create a suitable distraction.”

“If anyone can be distracting, it’s you,” Ethan says, only half-joking.

She bows as if he has paid her a great compliment. “And Ethan, you can hot-wire the rift chamber. Ember just needs to steal a Tether. Can you handle that, Princess?”

“I think she can handle that,” Ethan says, looking at me. “But I’m going with you.”

He’s clenching his hand so hard his knuckles are white from the strain. I put my hand over his and squeeze. Kara glances between us, mutters something under her breath and steps out the door. As soon as she’s gone I feel the weight of Ethan’s stare.

“You can’t.” There are so many things I want to say. I want to tell him how much he means to me, how I would never risk him—not even for this. But it feels wrong to say those words when I know I’m about to leave him behind. “I need you to run the rift chamber.” It’s not the whole truth, but it’s what I’ll have to settle with for now.

After a few moments of reluctance waging war on his features, he sighs. “Fine. But the second you figure out where and when you are going to land, come get me, okay? Don’t make me come looking for you.”

I promise, wondering how I’m going to pull it off but determined to try, and Ethan heads back to the computer interface. He pulls a small copper disc from his pocket and presses it into a small slot.

“I’ve been saving this for a special occasion.” He winks at me. “Started working on it after the break-in. Just in case.”

I can’t help but be impressed at his forethought. “What is it?”

“It’s a virus. It’ll give us a few minutes off Tesla’s radar to get to the chamber while he tries to chase it down.”

I sweep a gaze across my room. Is there anything I want to take from this place? My hand moves to the cameo at my throat. It’s all I want, really. The only memory of this place not tainted with lies is hanging around my neck. Ethan grabs my rucksack and starts stuffing it full of clothes.

“Leave them,” I tell him. “I’ll get new stuff later.”

He doesn’t ask why or challenge me. He drops the sack like it’s full of toxic snakes and doesn’t look back. I take his hand and we slink into the hall. Lights behind us come on as lights in front of us fall dark. Every so often we enter a new section and the process repeats. “Keep in the dark,” Ethan says, pulling me behind him. “It’s where the virus is disabling the monitors.”

After what feels like forever, we reach the door to the tech locker. The door slides open and we slip in. Lights blaze to life, and for a moment I can’t breathe. Weapons, energy pulse guns, and dormant Peacekeepers line the walls. For a heartbeat, I think I can hear the mechanical creatures grinding to life. I strain to hear better, dropping into a defensive crouch. As soon as I realize they aren’t moving, I force myself to relax.

“Breathe, Ember,” Ethan says, his tone mocking.

I snort. “Says the guy who wasn’t almost eaten by the things.”

He reaches up and stuffs a Peacekeeper in his pocket. “Valid point. I will carry the very scary Tinkertoy.”

I’m looking for the drawer that holds the other tech. Finally, I graze the correct drawer and it glides open to reveal the rifting gear. “Do I need the Tether?” I ask, my fingers hovering above the shiny copper.

“I don’t know any other way.”

“The earbud?”

But even as I say it I know the answer. I look over at Ethan who has come to the same conclusion. “I think you have all you need. Let’s go.”

He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I push the drawer closed and we’re off to the rift chamber.

I half-expect to run into someone along the way. Flynn or Mistress Catherine. Mentally I prepare myself for a fight. Once, during our training, Mistress Catherine had warned us that we might someday have to face one of our own. And for me, today might be that day. She’d been talking about the Hollows, of course. I never could have expected I’d be the rogue. Could I do it? Attack one of them on purpose? As we turn the next corner, the answer is simple. Yes. To save my brother I could do just about anything. Ethan holds up his fist, motioning for me to stop. For a second, I feel guilty, but not for going rogue or even for breaking up my team. I have put them all in danger. My friends. They are risking themselves for me. Ethan waves and we continue forward until we are standing outside the rift chamber. The red light flashes and the door grinds open. Kara is already inside.

“Ember, stop!”

I turn just in time to see Flynn running for the door, but he’s too late. The door slams closed with Ethan, Kara, and I inside. Ethan turns back to the door and punches a string of numbers into the keypad.

“Locked for now. But it won’t take them long to get past it.”

Shoving the Peacekeeper in my pocket, Ethan moves, grabbing me by the arm.

“You’re going to have to take this. It’s the only way to track the Hollows. Use it like a bloodhound. It’ll lead you to them, or at least get you close.”

I open my mouth to protest but he holds up a finger.

“It’s the only way, Ember. Now get ready to go.”

Above me, I see Kara watching from the control booth. She presses a hand to the glass and mouths, “Good-bye.” Ethan pushes me onto the pad and I grab the handles. He rushes to the remote console under the large viewing window and pries it open. Pulling on wires, he manages to create a few sparks, and then the device purrs to life. He turns to look at me over his shoulder, and his expression is one of determination.

That’s when I realize how much I really love him. I almost can’t contain it, as if the words want to crawl out my body. But he just winks and turns away, saying, “Hold on tight.”

As soon as he presses the button, the room spins. I blink and find myself standing at the edge of the stream. I pull the Peacekeeper from my pocket and carefully hook it to the buckles on my vests. It springs to life. The little legs saw through the air as if it could fly. I move to swat at it, as I don’t want it anywhere near me, but I can’t bring myself to touch it. It’s tugging so hard it’s all I can do to hold my ground, but it isn’t attacking me, which allows me to let out an anxious breath.

It wriggles like a dog on a leash and as I step into the stream, letting it pull me toward what I hope is my brother. It’s already too late when I wonder, how am I going to turn this thing off when I get there? And a sense of dread turns my blood to ice.