Stolen Future Read online

  “Don't lie to me,” I said evenly.

  “I guess you're feeling better?” He wore a shaky grin.

  “Where is it?” I started toward him, and he recoiled, raised his hands. “Okay, okay. I'll explain.” I halted a foot away and waited. “I admit I peeked in your jacket pockets. Found the disc.”

  “You stole it while I slept!”

  “I know it looks bad, but I was trying to help you.”

  “Liar,” I said, swallowing past a growing lump in my throat.

  “Look, I'll give it back, just… I can help you.” He rose and reached into his jeans pocket, retrieved the device, and handed it to me. I snatched it away, then stalked to the table, grabbed my jacket, and started toward the door.

  “Wait! Please, I can explain.” He followed me to the door as I gripped the handle. Something about the desperate tone of his voice forced me to wait.

  “I’m a memory stalker,” he said.

  I took a deep breath and turned. “I don't know what that is.”

  “Come back. Sit down and I'll explain.”

  I clenched my jaw. “I don't have time for this.”

  “You want clues, right? Don't you want to find out who you are?”

  I hesitated and tried to swallow, but my throat was dry.

  His dark eyes fixed on me. “I can help you, but you have to drop the attitude and listen.” He walked into the living room and sat on a stool across from the couch.

  Every instinct shouted at me to flee. He had searched my things while I was asleep and messed with the memory device—the one thing that might tell me what had happened. Despite him saving my life, I couldn’t forgive the intrusion.

  And yet, what chance did I have on my own?

  After a minute, I walked slowly to the couch, clutching my jacket, the disc safely in my palm. Ryken gestured for to me to sit, and I chose the edge farthest from him.

  He said, “I’m more than a programmer, I'm a hacker.”

  I should've known. The shady way he’d acted in the café, this underground club, all the computers, and the hushed conversation with Kramer. It should've been glaringly obvious that he was a criminal.

  “You’re a terrorist?” I asked.

  “What?” He rocked back on his seat and scowled. “Don't believe what you see on the news. Those reporters are being paid off by elites and corps. They’re brainwashing people.”

  I opened my eyes wide, surprised by his intensity. “Go on.”

  “I hack into uploaded memories for money. Here on Luna, people can store memories from implants or recordings from devices into Cerulean. I have a way to get into those memories.”

  “Stalking people's memories. Spying on their private lives. Awesome,” I said, biting back my regret at having met him.

  “There are only a few of us. It's an art and a science.” He sounded proud. “Anyway, most of the time I work for people who are looking to catch a cheating spouse, or a company hires me to figure out who's embezzling money.”

  “What does this have to do with me?” I asked, shaking my head.

  “The retrodisc in your pocket. I scanned it. It's guarded by nanocrypt.” He paused and searched my eyes. “Where did you get it?”

  “I… It was given to me by…”

  He leaned forward, waiting for my answer, but I couldn't explain that a robot had been involved. For some reason, I didn't want to reveal Drive Nine. The whole experience had been so strange, and I felt so detached that I almost wondered if it had been real.

  “The woman in the apartment gave it to me.”

  “Interesting,” he said, scratching his chin.

  “Why? What's on it?”

  “Like I said, it's got a nanocrypt, which is a very sophisticated way to lock it down. But there's an identifier on it.” He stared at me. “It was manufactured by NeuroDyne.”

  “All I know is that it should have information about my identity. Or, at least, that it should answer my questions. What do you think is on it? Memories? My memories?”

  He sat there, thinking. “The people who smuggled you from Earth likely stole it. Maybe it has evidence about what they did to you. It could be a lot of things—data, files, or a key to access your memory storage.”

  “Great,” I said. “So how do we get into it?”

  “I’ve been racking my brain about that. NeuroDyne is known for its shady dealings, and its security is very tight. I might be able to access some of their employee memory files, but it's dangerous. They could trace me.”

  I started to speak but bit my words back. Dangerous. I didn't want to put more people in danger, yet this was my only lead. Where would I go after this? I stood and paced the floor behind the couch.

  “You get paid for your work. I have money.” I reached in the jacket pocket and found the money card. “Here.” I tossed it to him. “Check it and see how much is there. You can have it all.”

  He looked sheepish. “It's alright. I want to help you find answers.”

  “No. You'll be paid for your work—and extra pay on top of that, since this is dangerous.”

  He regarded the card in his hands silently.

  “Can you hack into their employee files and find Newt? Hell, anything you find out about him might help.”

  He nodded. “It's worth a shot.”

  Twenty

  “There's a fortune on here,” Ryken said after scanning the money card. He spun in his seat and fixed his gaze on me. “There’s 500k Lunar on here. Where did you get this?”

  I shrugged. “The woman in the apartment.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Seems like she could've told you a lot more about what's happening. You asked her, didn't you?”

  I crossed my arms, annoyed with his line of questioning. “Of course. But she didn't know anything. She was also being kept in the dark. The guy is her brother, and he wanted to keep her out of danger, so he didn’t tell her much.”

  “Why was she helping you?”

  It was a fair question. “I don't know. She spoke fondly of her brother. I'm sure she cared for him and wanted to help him. She’s a nice person, and I wish she wasn't involved. I wish there was a way to keep her safe.”

  He blinked and turned back to the computer.

  The clock read 6:15 a.m. “Where's your pal Kramer?”

  “He sent me a message. He’s staying somewhere else. Out of our way.” That was probably for the best. Better not to involve someone else in this mess.

  Ryken started working at his keyboard, pulling up a dark screen with jumbled letters and numbers, rivers of text and code that I didn't understand. Out of boredom, I pulled out the small case with the vial and jeweled accessory. I tried on the earring, then studied the liquid vial. It contained just an ounce of a clear liquid.

  Ryken glanced at me. “Is that one of the new EarthShines?”

  “I got it yesterday from a shop in the Nest.”

  “Nice,” he said. “Those are pricey.”

  “I’d hoped to find something that helped with retrieving my memories, but the guy seemed really offended when I asked about it. Called it memory jacking.”

  “Yeah.” He chewed a thumbnail. “Memory jacking, stalking. People call it different things, and it's risky. Messing with memories already uploaded to Cerulean is outlawed.”

  I twisted the top off the liquid vial and discovered it was an eyedropper. “You ever used one of these memory lenses before?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve tried it out before.”

  I turned to look at him. “Are you wearing one now?”

  He paused, then, “Yes, but it’s turned off.”

  My muscles tensed, and I felt oddly betrayed. “But you were recording before…” He had to have been. “At Sirens, in the pod, surely you were—”

  “It’s private,” he said, turning away. “I had my reasons for having it on. Don’t worry, I shut it off a long time ago.”

  Still, my chest was heavy as I realized I was now captured forever in his memories. This frant
ic night. I wondered what it was like to wear such a device, to control what I recorded and cut out the dull parts, and relive them later.

  I drew the EarthShine contents into the eyedropper, leaned my head back, and dropped the liquid into my right eye. I waited for something to happen. My eye was filled with the liquid, and slowly I sensed it move. For two seconds, it was like someone had thrown sand in my eye, but then it hardened and became normal. After tilting my head forward, I blinked once, then twice. My eye seemed normal, so I checked it out in the bathroom mirror. The same brown eyes stared back at me. Then I touched my fingertip ever so slightly to my eye and felt the hard lens. There it was.

  I relaxed and twisted the purple stone in my right ear. A soft, curved golden line appeared in the periphery of my vision, just out of my main line of sight. The guy in the store had said the light meant I was recording.

  Well then, I would get revenge on Ryken by secretly recording him.

  I wandered back into the main room of the basement apartment. “How's it going?” I moved closer to the desk near a digital photo of Ryken and two people that hung on the wall. The bartender, his friend Kramer, was in the middle, an arm slung around Ryken and a woman—the same woman I’d seen dancing in the water tank at Sirens. Ryken noticed me staring at it and glanced quickly back at his screen.

  “Your buddy Kramer. Is that your girlfriend? She was the dancer at the club, right?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “She’s… Yes, she’s the dancer you saw. She’s not my girlfriend. Not anymore,” he said in a low voice.

  I didn’t understand why, but I admit my curiosity was stoked, until I realized this wasn’t the time to find out about Ryken’s personal life and pushed the budding thoughts away. “Are you able to get into their files?”

  He sighed. “Right now, I'm in the NeuroDyne directory, searching for anyone named Newt. I tried different spellings, but I'm not finding him.” I stood beside him and looked at the list of names on the screen. Nelson, Nunez, Neiderlander.

  “Did you happen to catch the woman's last name?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Her first name is Terry.”

  Ryken punched in her name. “Terry Martin. That her?”

  I stared at the image onscreen. Her hair was dark brown in the photo instead of the blonde I knew, but she had the same delicate features. Her eyes looked down and to the side. “Yeah, that's her.”

  “Last name Martin…” he mumbled as he searched. “Nobody else with the last name Martin. Maybe they weren’t related.”

  Had Terry lied to me? She’d seemed sincere when talking about Newt. “Crap, maybe they had different last names for some reason. Different parents or—”

  “Hold on.” He started typing madly. “I’m going into Terry's file and pulling up her emergency contact… Here it is—Samuel Neubert. Could that be Newt?”

  “Let me see his photo.” I leaned down and rested my hands on the desk next to Ryken, my skin nearly touching his. The photo showed a young man around thirty years old with short dark hair, blue eyes, and a beard covering his chin. “I suppose there's a resemblance. Yeah, I think this is our guy.”

  Ryken clapped and then slapped me on the back, making me wince. “Oh, shit! Sorry.” He stood abruptly. “I’m so sorry. I should check your bandage and change it.”

  “Later,” I said. “Keep working on our friend, Sam Neubert. I need you to find out everything about him.”

  “Deal, but on one condition. You lie on the couch and rest. I can’t have you getting an infection or wimping out on me.”

  I stifled a yawn. “You're killing me. I want to see what’s going on with Newt.” But I sighed and headed for the sofa, stretching out and letting Ryken work.

  After a nap, I woke to find Ryken still at his desk, tapping lightly on the keyboard as reams of code streamed by on the screen. Sitting up, I checked the clock—3:47 p.m.

  “What on Mars? Ryken, you let me sleep too long.”

  He turned and regarded me. “You needed the sleep.”

  “No,” I said, irritated. “I shouldn't have slept that long.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You got shot last night, remember? I think you could do with some rest.”

  I moved around, testing out how sensitive my back felt. It was bruised for sure, but the stabbing pain along my spine had disappeared.

  Ryken drew near. “Here, let me check your bandage.”

  “I’m sure it's fine.” I waved him off.

  “Just cooperate,” he said firmly and plopped down on the couch just behind me, so close his breath was warm on my neck. Gently, he moved the fabric of my T-shirt out of the way. “I’m going to pull off the bandage. It's probably gonna hurt.”

  “I had to deal with a gunshot wound. Peeling off a bandage is the least of my problems.”

  “Roger that.” I barely even noticed the bandage come off, but I did feel his fingers exploring the area around the wound. He didn't say anything.

  “So, how is it?” I asked.

  “Well… I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

  I flinched. “What do you mean?”

  “It's healed up around where the bullet entered. It's like your skin has mended itself.”

  How could that be? The Scyther’s bullet entering me, ripping through my skin, and the next morning it's healed? I flushed, suddenly warm. I rose from the couch. All I wanted was to get away from Ryken. The look on his face screamed a mixture of wonder and pity and—fear?

  I wasn't normal. I was a freak—a lab rat experimented on by a corporation.

  He couldn't contain his fascination. “Do you realize how amazing this is?” He jumped to his feet. “This could revolutionize medicine for everyone! The ability to heal like that? Hawking hell, what else can you do?”

  “It's not…” I shook my head. “Shut up. This isn't fun. I’m not your science project. I'm a person with feelings, okay? So, just shut up.” I turned away, unable to look at him.

  Silence.

  And then, “Diya, I'm sorry.”

  I sighed. “I should leave.”

  “What? Don't be crazy. Where would you go? And besides, I found stuff on Newt that’s going to make you very happy.”

  Twenty-One

  I was beside Ryken at his computer in seconds. “What did you find about Newt?”

  He sat down and began typing. “I worked for a long time. The entire time you were sleeping.”

  “You must be exhausted,” I said, suddenly aware of his red, bleary eyes.

  “It's okay. I’m used to working in binges. Part of the job description.” He rubbed his hands together in thought. “So, I went through a lot of protocols and figured out a security flaw in NeuroDyne’s network. That got me deeper into their personnel records, and I found some interesting data on our man, Newt.”

  I shifted my feet where I stood, and he glanced at me, then pushed his chair away from the desk. “Why don’t you pull up a stool? You’ll be more comfortable.”

  But I couldn’t even think about sitting just then. “Don’t keep me in suspense! Just tell me what you know.”

  “Alright, suit yourself.” He plopped back down in his seat. “Apparently Newt was assigned to a project called THARP, and a few months in, he must have had a change of heart because he set up a meeting with the head of HR.”

  It made sense. “Terry said he got assigned to a secret project that he couldn't talk about.”

  “Exactly, and based on the notes I dug up, he began acting strangely and met with HR, but was very cagey. He hinted at wrongdoing by senior officials.”

  “Oh, shit. So, what did they do?”

  “That's just it. Nothing. In fact, according to this, the HR official told him there was no wrongdoing—that he was mistaken. Everything on Project THARP was above board and approved by the Board of Directors.”

  “Wow. So, it was a dead end?”

  “Yeah,” Ryken continued. “My theory is Newt tried to blow the whistle on whatever was happening. He st
arted to feel bad about whatever experiments they were doing on you and tried to alert someone to help but got shut down.”

  “And you think that led to him taking matters into his own hands to get me and Terry off Earth?”

  Ryken met my gaze and nodded. “HR kept a close eye on him after that. They recorded several occasions when Newt acted strangely and was insubordinate. And then the record on July 23rd of this year says he went missing along with something they referred to as stolen property. They called it CGU Number One.” He raised his eyebrows. “Which I can only assume means you.”

  His info matched what Drive Nine had said—that I was the first from the Cyborg Trials, which meant there were others like me.

  He paused. “There's more. I wasn't able to get into the NeuroDyne memory storage. The security is way too tight, but I had a suspicion that since Newt was trying to whistleblow he might have a dark memory drop site.”

  The term meant nothing to me, and Ryken could tell by my blank expression.

  “A company like NeuroDyne requires their employees to upload their memory files to account for all the hours they work,” he explained. “Somewhere behind their firewall is likely every memory record of every employee who ever worked on you.”

  The idea that NeuroDyne could have recorded memories of the experiments on my body made my head ache. “That's insane.” I turned away. My head swam with adrenaline, and my pulse quickened; I clutched a fistful of my tangled hair in frustration.

  “Hey.” Ryken was on his feet and coming toward me, but I held my arm out, dismissive.

  “Please, just don't come near me.” I was on the verge of tears. Then again, I wondered whether I was even capable of crying anymore.

  “Sorry, I know this is a lot to take in.” He sat back down at the computer. “I'll tell you more when you're ready.”

  I gazed up at the ceiling and breathed in deeply. Get it together. Here I was, finally finding clues—the only lead as to my identity, and like a weakling, I couldn't handle it. Finally, after another minute, I calmed myself down enough to return to his side. “I’m ready.”

  “Most people set up personal memory storage for their off hours. You store up memories of your kid’s birth, first dates, drunken nights out, whatever floats your boat.” I frowned at him, and he continued, “So, you can go back and re-experience your favorite life moments.”