room, so it’s just my mother and Kelly. Kelly refuses to even look at me. When my mother goes to the kitchen, I turn to her, try to start a conversation. We haven’t been close since before the mind transfer, almost five years ago. I wonder if she can even remember back then, when she hated Ivan for teasing her and roughhousing with her, and seemed to adore me, her gentle older brother.
“Haven’t seen you in the tunnels,” I say. “How are things going in the Nursery?”
She is silent, slowly chewing her food and staring straight ahead. It’s hard to believe a fourteen-year-old girl could be so full of such a steely hatred.
“Kelly, I’m sorry if it’s embarrassing that I survived, that you have to explain that your loser brother has come back—”
“Ivanick told me,” she says, hissing at me suddenly. “He told me the truth about you. I know what Mom doesn’t. You’re a traitor.”
My stomach does a somersault. I feel like I could throw up my entire dinner.
“So you can pretty much stop trying to make up with me. It’s not going to happen.” She gets up from the table.
“I wish you were dead,” she says, before running up the stairs to her room and slamming the door shut.
“Good night to you too,” I say, laughing miserably to myself.
After dinner I go up to my room. One isn’t there. I haven’t seen her since last night.
Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me. The mind transfer was so fast, and so quickly aborted that I doubt it did much to reestablish her foothold in my consciousness. Perhaps that’s the thing I felt like I was on the verge of understanding—how to keep her alive inside of me.
It’s funny to think Zakos thought he was covering his ass with the General by protecting my life. If Zakos had killed me, my father probably would’ve given him a medal.
I have nothing to stay up for. I go to bed early.
Sleepless in bed, I consider the pitiful irony of my current situation. I came back here to rescue my one and only friend in the world, yet I fail to save her, just as I failed to save Hannu. If she isn’t gone for good, she will be soon enough. And now I’m stuck here, trapped.
Alone.
A desultory day at work. I’m pulling in rankings in the thirten-to-fifteen range. Pathetic.
I’ve scaled back on my “Discard” trick. Why bother trying to impress anyone with my rankings, anyway? So I actually investigate each link that’s fed to my monitor, even though it damages my productivity. At least it’s more interesting than mindlessly shuttling the leads into one folder or another.
I click on a link.
This one leads to a forum dedicated to readers of some publication called “They Walk Among Us.” The Mogadorian mainframe has isolated a thread titled “NEXT ISSUE?” posted by a user TWAUFAN182. A threaded dialogue unfolds when I click on it.
Please I’ve read TWAU no. 3 so many times. Please tell me when next ish will come out? Thanks! O—TWAUFAN182
Sorry TWAUFAN. No plans for issue #4 yet, but be assured we have plenty material for one. Thanks for reading.—admin
What? What material? U can’t leave us hanging like that! Spill it!—TWAUFAN182
Come on man, give us a hint!!!—TWAUFAN182
It’s been weeks with no updates. This forum is dead, RIP. LOL.—TWAUFAN182
That exchange was dated a year ago. Then, this morning …
Sorry. Been busy. We’ve made contact, definitely extraterrestrial. True MOG in captivity.— admin
I almost gasp. There are humans out there who have captured a Mogadorian? Or who at least
I know at once that this is the first link that’s passed through my monitor that’s truly worthy of an “EHP” ranking. I click on the hyperlink and drag it over to the “Investigate” directory … but then I stop.
Why would I alert the Mogadorians to the location of these humans? Humans the Mogs will undoubtedly capture and kill? I might get in trouble if I discard the link—surely there are failsafes built into the system for erroneous Discards—but why should I make it easier for these Mogadorian bastards? By discarding this link, I will save a human life … or at least slow down the Mogadorian hunting machine for a few minutes.
I don’t care if I live or die. If One is gone and I’m stuck in this vile society, why should I fight to live? The pleasure of outperforming Serkova has faded; besides, with rankings like my current ones, that ship has sailed.
I click Discard.
In my bones, I know I’m going to reap hell for what I’ve done. And I don’t care.
