Quanta Reset Page 7

Another notification pinged on-screen. I ignored it, slumping until my elbows rested on my knees. We could develop serums to help stabilize her. All I had to do was keep her safe and secure until we figured out what was pushing her toward the edge.

  Her condition wasn’t a death sentence. Not yet.

  The notification pinged again, and I finally swiped at the screen. “What?”

  “Um.” A girl’s face popped up. “Altair?”

  “What do you need, Sam?” I’d expected Eva directly—not her com commander.

  “Just wondering why Quanta and Cipher broke into the barracks.”

  “They—” I snapped. “What?”

  “You didn’t know?” Sam peered at me through the screen.

  “Have you told Eva?” I jammed on my glasses as I headed for the door.

  “Not yet, but…”

  I turned back to the screen. Sam clutched her hands to her chin, transmitting guilt like a beacon. “What did you do?”

  “I already messaged Knight.”

  If he found Cipher and Quanta together, he’d ask questions second.

  I sprinted out of the lab.

  I had to get to them first.

  Chapter Nine

  QUANTA

  While I reeled and tried to keep breathing through the ghosts of Tompkins’ past, Cipher set up her gadgets at his desk. “You sure you’re fine?”

  “Can I just give you the address?” I needed to focus, and the ocean of guilt wasn’t helping.

  Cipher opened a blank screen for me. “Put it here.”

  I shuffled over to the keyboard that projected onto the metal desk. Touching the letters one by one, I carefully typed out the address.

  Cipher drummed her fingers on her leg. “Didn’t you say we had to hurry?”

  “Never learned to type.” Plus at least five hundred ghostly versions of the same keys layered on top of the present. I had to squint through them all to hit the right letters. When the address was all there, I stepped back and drew my arms back into my sleeves. “There.”

  She let out a deep breath and scooted the stool up before cracking her knuckles. “If this goes to shit—”

  “I’ll tell you before it gets that far.” Probably. If I could see the future before it slapped me in the face. My focus wasn’t the greatest today.

  “Just to be safe…” She hit a key, and the screen went black. Then her fingers started to fly across the keyboard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure we don’t get caught.”

  Good idea. I still wanted to know what she was doing, but then again, I probably wouldn’t understand the explanation. Cipher could do her safety routine. I had my own.

  I focused on hazy futures, looking for any signs that we were about to get ambushed—either by Eva’s people or Green Helixes teching around somewhere on the other side of the world. The future was still chaos. No specifics. Just a general sense of danger coming at us from every direction.

  So not helpful.

  Cipher paused on a login screen. “What’s the password?”

  “Dunno.” I hadn’t seen it in the original glimpse of Tompkins, and when I tried to look at the monitor now, thousands of past screens bled together in a glowing blob. “Can’t you…” I wiggled my fingers, mimicking her superfast typing hands.

  “Seriously?” She shot me a glare. “You think it’s that easy?”

  I got the attitude, but I could give it right back to her. “You think it’s that easy to dig it out of the past?”

  “Are we in some sort of pissing contest now?”

  I lifted my hands before she could get zappy. “Race you? You try to hack it. I’ll try to find it. Loser treats the winner to soggy dining hall pizza?”

  “Worst prize ever.” Cipher sighed as she put her hands to the keyboard. “But go for it.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Cipher was way more marshmallowy than I’d imagined her. The tattoos and piercings and hard edges were supposed to keep people away, but as much as she put up the front that she was this lone wolf girl, Cipher was always going to help a fellow Red in need.

  And I was super in need.

  Her fingers flew, and I tuned out, trying to pick up any hint I could find in the past. A password. Maybe a whispered conversation. His lucky numbers. I’d take whatever I could get.

  But the more I looked, the more the bluish shapes lumped together. All the tracing-paper layers of the past merged until I could see Tompkins everywhere, but nothing specific. For every obviously useless timeghost I managed to banish, a few more fuzzed into its place.

  My head ached, and I wobbled a little, starting to get dizzy in the flurry of images. I had to keep trying. Had Tompkins told the Seligo where we were? Was Nagi already on the way to attack? And he’d slipped that little tidbit about “other girls”… If he meant other Red Helixes, we had to know who and where, because they were definitely in danger, too.

  “Got it.” Cipher’s words sucked me back to the present.

  I blinked through leftover timeghosts, trying to focus on the screen. It was white. And blank. “What is it?”

  “An FTP.”

  “Which is…?”

  “Nothing much.” She let out a frustrated breath. “A place to exchange files.”

  “So shouldn’t there be files?” I balled my fists in the sleeves of my sweater. I’d seen Tompkins typing into this screen. Definitely. If he’d been in contact with the Seligo, he’d been contacting them from right here.

  Cipher did some clicking. “Anything that was uploaded was deleted.”

  “That can’t be it.” My shoulders knotted. Maybe I’d been following a bad lead all along, but I wanted to see it through to the end. Otherwise, I’d keep worrying that avoiding one disaster had set us up for a different one.

  “Maybe not.” Cipher cracked her knuckles again. “I can check the local logs. There might be a file history.”

  “Anything’s worth a try.” Local logs. Local twigs. Local branches. I didn’t care what she shook as long as we figured out who Tompkins was talking to and what he’d already ratted out about us and the compound.

  I tried not to hover while Cipher worked. Her eyes glazed as she stared at the screen and typed at crazy speeds. I paced behind her, doing my best to concentrate on the futures that spun out from here. People had definitely seen us coming into the barracks, and it might not get back to Eva right away, but it was only a matter of time before Tair and Knight started looking for us.

  Not that we weren’t allowed to be here. Eva would’ve given us access if we’d gone the long way and asked her about it. But Knight…

  My control wasn’t certified rock solid, and I doubted he’d like finding me this close to Cipher without supervision. But really. If powers accidentally slipped, it was clear who had the edge as long as we were holed up in a big metal box.

  “The security’s legit,” Cipher said. “Logs were encrypted, but not cleared.”

  A thrill of hope shot through me. “That’s good?”

  She chewed at her lip ring as she worked, ignoring me. Finally she pushed her chair back. “There was a file uploaded to him ten hours ago.”

  The file name was a long string of numbers and letters that meant zip to me. “So…?”

  “Hold on.” Cipher’s fingers flew again, and I bounced on my toes behind her, hoping she could whip us up a miracle. “There. Salvaged it.”

  My heart thumped as the file opened.

  Item by item, a list generated. Names and photos.

  “It’s a list of all the Reds at large.” Cipher scrolled down. Her voice tightened. “I’ve seen the names before, but now there’s a shit-ton of new data on all of us…”

  My stomach churned. “He didn’t send it to anyone else?”

  “Not that I can see.” Her shoulders scrunched as she leaned in. “The text note says he’s supposed to flag which Reds are Shadow Ravens and send current or last known locations, if he knows them.” She froze on her own entry—a
pic of her younger self with no tattoos and her hair its natural strawberry blonde. “Why not update my photo? Assholes.”

  “That must be part of the test Tompkins was rambling about.” It looked like the Seligo had sent only sort of accurate info. Tompkins could’ve easily proved he was serious—and had the info they wanted—just by sending a few pics of Cipher and me on the compound. Then he could’ve negotiated whatever prizes he wanted. “So he was innocent.”

  The edges of my vision fuzzed. Had I ended a life based on something that was never going to happen?

  “Innocent? Are you fucking kidding me?” Cipher waved at the screen. “He had access to a Seligo FTP site, and he logged into it on the compound. That was plenty betrayal to get us all killed. And maybe the bastard didn’t send the file, but guess whose location coordinates he updated?”

  My breath came back as I stared down the list. The updated latitudes and longitudes next to Cipher and Quanta did wonders for the guilt that had started creeping in. Tompkins hadn’t returned the file yet, but why write down coordinates at all if he didn’t plan on going through with it?

  And Cipher was right. He could’ve screwed us all over just by getting sloppy. “Can we pull anything else useful from the file?”

  She clicked around. “I’m positive he didn’t upload anything. The only thing he downloaded was a video.”

  “A video of what?” It had to be something good or he wouldn’t have bothered.

  “Here.” She pulled up the video and hit play.

  It looked like a security cam feed, and the camera was mounted high above a skate park. Kids laughed, and their rolling boards made a constant background roar. The footage zoomed in on a dark-haired girl who stood just past the biggest bowl in the ground. She looked the same as everyone else—wearing a baggy T-shirt and jeans—but I was guessing she was a Red Helix, or she wouldn’t be on camera.

  Goons in black body armor crashed the play day. The skate park kids scattered. The girl tried to run, too, and a wave of energy blurred the air around her, but tasers buzzed to life before her powers kicked in. She fell limp to the concrete.

  As my gut clenched, the men dragged a second girl into the frame. She was a tall blonde, but the camera started panning before I could see much more than the smudge of blood growing at her temple.

  Another group of people strode into the frame, and every hair on my body rose. A crowd of hulking Black Helixes moved in formation around whoever they were guarding.

  The video cut to black before I could get more than the vaguest impression of a girl in a dress. “Can you pull up the last frame?” But something about that figure…

  I rubbed my eyes. It had to be timeghosts blurring over the comp.

  “Here.” Cipher queued the vid up again and advanced it frame by frame until. “Why? What’s—”

  She froze.

  A figure stood at the edge of the frame. A broad hat covered most of the girl’s face, but even with the camera so far away I could see enough to dry my throat to chalk. “This isn’t my imagination, right?”

  It was my face. From the slope of the nose to the cheekbones.

  Everything.

  “Is that you?” Cipher’s gaze flicked between the screen and me. “When was this?”

  I swallowed once. Twice. My voice still wouldn’t come out right. “That’s not me.”

  I’d spent ten years underground. No one had ever let me visit a skate park. I’d never owned a hat.

  That wasn’t me.

  “You want to explain?”

  “A clone.” My stomach bottomed out, and shock brought me fully into the present.

  Cipher whirled. “Of you? With your powers?”

  “Of me.” The information sank in slowly as I stared at the screen. Tair and I had destroyed them, unplugging their life support before we blew up Nagi’s lab and escaped.

  We hadn’t missed any.

  Could one have survived? Or had there been more all along? Horror rolled inside me.

  The video was grainy zoomed in, but the more I looked… The clone was smiling.

  Somehow, Nagi had gotten what he always wanted. Me, but actually cooperative. And if this clone could do what I could do…

  Little white points that had nothing to do with timeghosts fuzzed in front of my eyes. My knees collapsed as I gasped for breaths that didn’t want to come.

  “Hey.” Cipher knelt next to me, reaching out. “Are you o—”

  The door burst open. Tair and Knight bottlenecked at the entrance, and it was a toss-up who was more furious. Knight’s eyes blazed at the sight of Cipher’s outstretched hand, and Tair’s jaw clenched as he found me gasping on the floor.

  Defuse. I had to defuse this, but my brain was stuck on the clone.

  I tried to send Tair a mental message. I’m okay.

  Before I could tell if Tair was receiving, Cipher shifted. “We’re fine. She’s—”

  Her fingers touched my arm.

  Timeghosts exploded, flowing from my mind to hers before I could choke them off. She gasped, and blinding blue-white lightning exploded with a crack of thunder.

  Knight dove for her, but I was the one flying.

  And something smelled singed.

  Then pain flashed, and blackness crushed in before I could see if I was going to survive.

  Chapter Ten

  ALTAIR

  Lightning knocked Quanta flying across the room. My heart stopped.

  Marquez dove at the same time as me. He grabbed Cipher, cutting off the flow of voltage, but I was too far away to get to Quanta.

  She crashed, her back smashing into the locker. The metal screamed louder than Cipher’s lightning.

  I was too late.

  Quanta’s head lolled as she slumped to the ground.

  Momentum took me the rest of the way to her. I skidded, scrabbled onto my knees, and scooped her up. Her body was limp in my arms.

  My hands trembled, but I couldn’t seem to take action.

  Shock. I’m going into shock.

  Too late I remembered I shouldn’t move her. If her spine were injured…

  But as I held onto her, numb, no other thoughts came to me. Just facts.

  Her complexion had paled, too white. None of its usual golden undertones. The fabric of her sweater was singed, and a hint of charred flesh twisted in my nostrils.

  But her chest moved. Breathing.

  She was breathing.

  “Orpheus.” Marquez leaned in. “Is she…?”

  “She’s okay, right?” Cipher’s voice quavered.

  “I don’t know.” I had to get her to Eva. To someone. Somewhere.

  Fast.

  I started moving, but Quanta moaned.

  “Quanta?” I tried not to shake her. To hold her stable.

  “Ow.” She gripped her upper arm, but her eyes didn’t open all the way.

  Relief burst over me. She could speak. She could move.

  My mind finally started tracking again, though my hands still shook. She needed medical attention, and I needed to stop standing around, helpless. “How hurt are you?”

  “Arm.” Quanta’s face scrunched, but she opened her eyes a bit more. “Looked worse than it was.”

  “I didn’t mean…” Cipher gripped Marquez’s arm.

  Marquez hugged her tight to his side. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “It was my fault,” Quanta said. “She did the right thing.”

  “The right—” Cipher’s voice choked off.

  I had questions for all of them. How could aggressive electrocution be the right thing?

  But it wasn’t the time. I gently tilted Quanta to check her arm. An angry burn was reddening underneath the charred hole in her sleeve. “We’re going to medical. Now.”

  “Let’s do that.” Quanta drooped against me. Her voice was weak.

  Adrenaline spiked through the last of my numbness. I kept my questions to myself as I hurried out of the barracks. The Ravens in the hallways jumped out of my way. />
  Trying not to jostle her, I dashed across the lawn. The medical offices were close. Just at the front of the mazelike main complex.

  An attendant hopped to attention as soon as I shouldered through the door. “She’s been electrocuted.”

  “And thrown across a room.” Quanta’s voice was still rough, but a bit of humor rang in her tone. “Don’t forget that part.”

  “As if I could.” I eased her onto the closest exam table. I wouldn’t be forgetting that image anytime soon.

  “It was my fault.” Quanta’s features tightened, all traces of good humor draining away. “If Cipher hadn’t defended herself, I would’ve killed her.”

  I rested my hand on her temple, trying to transmit calm reassurance, but my chest ached. I had to tell her the truth. “You’re…” Destabilizing. The word stuck in my throat. How I wanted to spare her from this.

  “I’m a time bomb.” She covered my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I know. I saw what’s coming.”

  And she was trying to reassure me about it? I studied her features. Was her courage real, or was she hiding her fear? Hollows darkened underneath her eyes, and she tilted her head away from her injured arm. If anything, she looked too exhausted to feel afraid right now.

  The med tech pushed a cart of supplies to Quanta’s table. “If you’ll step back, I’ll examine the patient.”

  Before I could waver, Quanta clutched my hand tighter. “You can’t. Tair will bandage me.”

  The woman drew herself up. “My policy—”

  “My policy is to not kill people. I don’t want to hurt you.” Quanta’s voice quavered. “Please.”

  The flash of Quanta’s vulnerability shot a pang through my heart. I tucked back her hair and then moved to roll the cart away from the floored med tech. “I’ll handle it. You can report to Eva.”

  “I’m following Lady Eva’s protocols.” The woman stood her ground. “If you’d just let me—”

  “Go away.” Quanta shut her eyes. “Unless you want me spouting off your life story. Your brother was a piece of work, huh? He—”

  “I’ll leave!” The woman jumped back from the table. She avoided Quanta’s gaze to find mine. “But I’ll be outside if you need anything.”