Time thief, p.17
Time Thief, page 17
“They get to be kids. They can enroll when they’ve proven they’re mature enough to understand. And our graduates help the world, instead of hurting it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. Why?”
“There are people with power all over the Valley and the Flatlands. Powerful ones.”
“They aren’t mine. I know who you’re talking about.”
“So you’re letting them run wild?”
“What should I do? Start a war?”
“That’s what they’re doing. Warring against people who don’t have power.”
“We don’t hold people captive here, Max. Or kill the people who can’t cut it. There’s more people with power because this school has changed.”
He was right. I wouldn’t want him to continue in the old way. “There just has to be a better way.” Piercey had always been about peace. Frustration leaked into my voice. I didn’t have time to be angry with him now, but it was there, waiting for me to let myself feel it. I remembered that he was healing and cut myself off. “Sorry. I need to let you focus.”
“No, no. We can get our fight over with,” he said. “You don’t have to wait.”
“Not while you’re healing Nash.”
“I can do both at once.”
It’d always been like this with him. No matter how upset I was, no matter how enormous our problems were, we could always put it aside.
“Why did I have to climb this nightmare of a mountain to ask for help? Why weren’t you already looking after the innocent down there?”
“I am helping. I’m training people the right way. They’re going out and doing the work.”
I could hardly keep myself standing. “You’re a few days travel from people who are really hurting. The Prophet has total control over the Valley and now he’s taken my people.”
“If I had known he had your people, I would have acted. Word hadn’t made it back to me yet. You have to know that you have never been alone down there.” Piercey’s eyes looked sad. “I’ve kept watch over you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was scared for you, and once I got some power around here, I used it to look out for you. I have no regrets.”
Was that why my people had escaped the Prophet’s grasp for so long? Not because of our skills, but because I had Piercey on this mountain watching over me? “So I’m the only one who deserves your protection?”
“It seems like swooping in to save the day will solve the problems, but there are always consequences for interfering.”
It felt like he’d slapped me across the face. “You sound like the gods.”
“I have a lot of power now, Max. But I’m still just one person. I don’t have any right to alter the course of countless lives. What if I take the wrong approach? It’s better to have a multitude. That’s why all of our graduates meet regularly and we vote.”
“Oh, so did you vote to let the Prophet capture the entire Valley?” I did stand this time, unable to sit next to him while he squandered all this power. “People are dying. And you’re just living on top of this mountain, disconnected from it all.”
“Says the woman who abandoned everything: her friends, her power, her responsibility.” Hurt blared from his eyes. “Me.”
“That’s not fair. I was banished and my power was sealed.”
“I’m talking about before that.” Piercey sat forward. “You knew when you told them that you refused to become a Prophet that it would end like this. Your rebellion was always going to end in a curse.”
“It was never about us. I’m not going to do the gods’ bidding. This power is the curse. Either we all should have it or none of us.”
“If you had stayed, it would be you in my position. You would have far more power. So judge me all you want. It is your own fault that you are now too weak to save your people. All because of a pointless rebellion that accomplished nothing. You thought my way was cowardly, but I’ve managed to actually change things.”
Fire burned in my gut. I couldn’t deny it, and that made me want to fight him even more. Piercey rarely uttered such provocative words. He’d become bolder. Maybe he believed in the words so much, it was worth hurting me.
“If I remove the Prophet from power, then what?” Piercey asked. “All the tribes in the Valley will war and kill each other like in the old days. Or someone just as bad will take his place. If I try to install some kind of government, it won’t belong to the people. It won’t work. It isn’t as simple as strong-arming everyone in your path.”
“Those are all excuses. You can’t tell me that with all this time to think, you figured doing nothing is best.”
“That’s what you’ve done. Nothing.”
I ground my teeth down. “I’ve lived. That isn’t nothing. I took my life and fought for it. Can you tell me you’ve lived your life? Can you?”
“I’m doing more than you’ll ever know. This program is unrecognizable from what it once was. While you’ve been throwing a fit for a decade, I’ve worked on the gods. Our world is changing, Max.”
I blinked. “Changing. It’s all getting worse. Don’t you see that?”
“It will get better.”
My eyes slid closed. “No, Piercey … No, no, no … What have you done? Have you made deals with her? Have you trusted Dr. Henderson?”
I sat down on the bench and let my head fall into my hands when he said nothing. Whatever good he thought he was doing, he’d only acted as that woman’s puppet. He couldn’t really believe he’d done something good with her. I didn’t need to know Dr. Henderson well to know she couldn’t be trusted.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Piercey’s confession about working with Dr. Henderson had rattled me. He put his hand on my back. I nearly knocked him away, but for all my anger, I hurt for him as well. He wanted to help so badly, and he was so good that he trusted the good he saw in others, forgetting the bad was still there.
“Did you agree to not harm the Prophet, Piercey?”
“Not exactly.”
I dug my fingers into my hair.
“After the accident—”
“Just say it. Don’t dance around it. After I lost it and killed our instructors and blew the roof off the dorms.”
He sighed. “Yes, after you killed them and ran, it shook the school. I knew that even after they settled for banishing you and sealing your power, Dr. Henderson could change her mind and have you killed. So, I sought her out. That’s how we started talking.”
“Did she make you director?”
“Eventually. I understand what she’s trying to do. I don’t agree with her, but I showed her that I can be objective and scientific. Dr. Henderson wants this program to succeed so badly that she’s hidden the negative outcomes so that we have time to fix everything and yield reliable data.” Piercey’s voice rose. “She’s given me so much information.”
“Oh, Piercey.” Pity won out over the anger. “You can’t trust Dr. Henderson.”
“I don’t trust her. That doesn’t mean I can’t work with her.”
“ ‘Work with her.’ You aren’t colleagues.”
“I’m her apprentice.” Piercey spoke the words boldly. “When I’m done with my life in our world, I’m a potential candidate for the council in the Kethios. They’ve created a whole digital universe, Max. The physical world is just one step in evolution. It took her people a long time to go completely digital. The sheer amount of energy needed to maintain it is beyond my comprehension. But it’s real.”
I shook my head. “That’s so wonderful for them. They’d abandoned us on this planet with nothing except power we don’t know how to control.”
“I know, but there’s a way to work with them. We will join them one day when we die here. Intelligent life from all over the cosmos has uploaded to a much safer digital dimension. All the physical worlds still evolving will one day join. It’s everyone’s ultimate destination. Our life here in our world is only the start.”
I listened with my mouth partially hanging open, unable to interrupt him, because I didn’t even have the words to say.
“Max, you were right before. Our life here matters. Physical worlds die eventually. The people who lived in them join the digital universe. We need to make it the best it can be for everyone. I think that if you meet with Dr. Henderson, you can convince her of more change.”
I dropped his hands then as if they’d burned me. “I’m not going to work with her. She’s been corrupted. It doesn’t matter how great her society is. There’s something wrong with her. Have you forgotten the way she talked to us? We were only children. Is that how you would have treated confused kids?”
“She’s a little on the clinical side.”
“The insane side, Piercey. You said yourself that she’s hiding things in this experiment from her council. And that one person can’t be trusted with so much power.”
“It’s different with the Kethios. Dr. Henderson had to reach enlightenment before taking over the experiment. She’s lived tons of full lives in simulations. She is wise, Max.”
“If she ever was enlightened, she’s lost it. What does she have you doing? You need to be honest.”
“Nothing. I pushed for changes in the Sacred School and she agreed to them. I said we needed quiet, inauspicious people with power who can guard the innocent and work for positive change. People who will use their power for medicine and infrastructure, not war.”
“Yes, that part sounds great. I want to know about the Dr. Henderson part.”
“She doesn’t want me to single-handedly upset the balance of the world. That’s all. My graduates and I have to agree on political movements. She hasn’t forbidden us from doing anything.”
“Only because she hasn’t had to. The moment you cross her, she’ll crush the illusion of freedom.”
Piercey shook his head and sat back against the wall. “All you want to do is fight.”
“All you want to do is force peace, even when it’s false peace.”
“Just listen to me for once, Max. Dr. Henderson has to make sure that every single intervention she takes can be replicated in physical worlds, and that it gives the people she’s helping the greatest level of self-determination. So she doesn’t remove people from the experiment. She builds profiles of who uses their power for good to better understand who it should be given to, but she doesn’t take it away from the bad. Only, if someone threatens the experiment as a whole, she will take them out. Max, do you hear me?”
My thoughts all settled. My feelings. I nodded. “Trust me, Piercey. I understand. Dr. Henderson has threatened to kill me so that you’ll be her willing servant.”
Piercey sighed at my claim. “No. She never threatened that. I just know her. If you keep crossing her, I’m afraid I won’t be able to save you. Let’s get on the same page and make our world better. Don’t be stubborn.”
“You’re a fool, Piercey. I’m going to prove it to you.”
Anger hardened his voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ll provoke her and let you see who she really is. I doubt you ever piss her off enough to see behind her mask. Her council ought to know she’s devolving as she plays god with our world. There’s no experiment anymore, Piercey. Dr. Henderson has truly become a god. Our world is for her, now.”
He groaned. “We’re just not on the same page. I need to share what I’ve learned with you. That’s the only way for us to understand each other. See, we’ve made war with these neural implants and missed their most basic functions. Things children in other worlds grow up knowing how to do are lost on us.” He reached both his hands out. “If you still trust me, I can give it all to you, right now.”
I stared at his hands. “How?”
“I have a neural link with my graduates. We can communicate with our minds any time we tap in. We don’t need computers. Our implants are linked. But I’ve never shared everything with someone before. I want you to have it, Max. I want you to have everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve learned, every ounce of wisdom I have.”
My heart started to pound. “You’ll open your soul to me.”
He laced his fingers with mine. “All of it.”
“Piercey …”
“Trust is all it takes.” His eyes lowered. Voice lowered. “It doesn’t mean anything more than that.”
The pain on his face crushed my heart. “Leif and Wren are my blood, Piercey. But you’ve never stopped being my best friend. Not for a moment.” I squeezed his hands. “Take what I have, too. Understand me and I’ll understand you.”
“If you hold nothing back, I’ll have it all. Your every memory and thought.”
I glanced at the window where Nash still slept. I couldn’t share everything.
“You don’t need to save me from the things I already know.” Piercey smiled sadly. “I know how you see him, Max. And I know how you see me. It’s okay.”
Sadness tinged my thoughts. Knowing it and experiencing it were different. “I can’t hold anything back?”
“Once you close up, it’s hard to keep the rest of yourself open. You don’t have to give. You can just receive.”
“No. We both need to know everything. Let’s do this.”
“Linking will give you a weapon I’ve been working on for a very long while.”
“What weapon?”
He lowered his voice. “It’s safer to show you.”
The look that had always stopped me in my tracks as a kid, made me retreat, burned in Piercey’s eyes, somehow brighter than ever. How could he still love me? After all these years? I’d left him behind, but he never left me. I’d had him this whole time.
The other day I’d slipped back to when I fled the Sacred School. I could feel his embrace now, as if that girl I’d been and the woman I’d grown into shared the same body. It’d been different than any other time we hugged. Didn’t feel like it was between the kids who’d survived this terrible Sacred School together anymore, but instead the people who’d been quietly growing inside of them. His hands had touched me differently that day. Touched me more like he did now. When he’d pressed his lips against mine, it was the first time I’d ever kissed someone.
It was confusing then. Such an experience, to be kissed and to kiss a boy.
But I’d quickly found it didn’t feel right to me. Not with him.
Piercey breathed out slowly and closed his eyes. “It’s as easy as opening a door. When you feel me, let me in. I’ll do the same for you.”
I didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. Not until it happened. Warmth spread from his palms into mine, tingled up my arms, flowed into heat that washed over me from head to toe. Everything we’d experienced together filled me as if I remembered every second at once. I could’ve held back. I could’ve shut down.
Instead, I opened myself to my friend and I let him in, no matter what it meant for us.
My eyes widened. Our gazes met and his life washed into me. It was the same as waking from a dream and remembering in a single moment who you were. What your life was. All of it there within you.
I didn’t have to wonder what this meant for us. I knew. Knew him fully. Somehow knew myself more fully.
“I’d forgotten.” My voice came out hoarse. “We really do need each other.”
A tear slid down his cheek. The piece of me that had missed him was healed now. The anger over our differences gone.
With our knowledge and experience combined, everything that had been unclear was now so apparent. Piercey really believed that he could work with Dr. Henderson because the influence she gave him helped him turn the Sacred School into an academy of peace and healing. But the fact that she was intervening when she claimed she wouldn’t told me everything I needed to know. I had no doubt she was taking action Piercey knew nothing about. The things Flare had said were similar to Dr. Henderson. Piercey wasn’t the only partner. Flare must have been, too.
Piercey would know that now. But when we connected, I felt his hesitance still to take action. He was so trusting in the good of others.
He breathed out slowly. “If Dr. Henderson tries to destroy you, you have to use what I’ve learned. Use the weapon I gave you. I know you’ll want to use it regardless, but you know how I feel. The risk is too great if it can be avoided.”
Piercey had never stopped trying to learn how to hack into our simulation, because he knew one day I might ask for it, and he’d been right back then. He never could deny me. More than that, he trusted me to do something he didn’t trust himself to be able to do. He trusted me to decide whether to use it. And experiencing the way he saw me made me trust myself, too. Because Piercey was the smartest person I’d ever met. If he believed in me, why shouldn’t I believe in myself?
I took my friend’s hand. “Dr. Henderson taught you how to open your soul to someone so you would do it with me. She thinks you’ll change me. She thinks when I see her next, when we see her next, that we’ll work with her together.” I shook my head. “Before I leave to battle the Prophet, I have to see her, and figure out what she’s been doing in the Valley. Otherwise, I don’t know what I’m walking into. I’ll be wise with the weapon.” Although, I could use the threat of hacking the simulation to force her to confess her actions to me.
His expression was hard. Before, Piercey had known not to trust Dr. Henderson, but now that he truly saw from my point of view and witnessed what Skia Hellig truly had been through, he must have understood how dangerous his game was. It had been a lie when she told us she didn’t intervene in our world. Even if I killed the Prophet, my people wouldn’t be free. Piercey had been right that I had the strength to fight this battle, though it wasn’t because of the energy that killed those people at the eclipse. It was because I knew the truth and I wasn’t afraid to do something about it.
Dr. Henderson was fucking with our world, and I would stop her at all costs.
“We’ll save your people, Max. And we’ll find a way to free the people from the corruption of the Prophets, and Flare’s manipulation, and the crushing power of our implants. I can’t promise I’ll kill the Prophet or fight Dr. Henderson. Only that we’ll find a way to help everyone. Just tell Dr. Henderson one thing for me. Tell her, I’m with you. No matter what.”
