My eyes dart to Fagin who offers a one-shouldered shrug, a shitty way to tell me she didn’t think she had a choice in keeping her mouth shut.
“Did you stop to consider changing history could mean your parents might never exist at all?” she asks.
“No,” I reply. Emptiness blooms in my chest like there’s a vacuum sucking the remnants of my hope into oblivion. My legs feel like rubber. I back-pedal to the bed just before they give out. “I don’t know what happened to my parents. Betty couldn’t find them.”
“In the mess you created, the odds of your parents being born, meeting and falling in love, were astronomical,” Fagin says, anger swelling in her voice. “Millions were never born because of you.”
Lingering tranquilizer aftereffects mix with stone cold reality. The sick sensation in my gut intensifies. I wrap my arms around my midsection, but it does little to calm the feeling that I could fly apart at any moment. What have I done?
“Tell her what happens next,” Fagin says, giving Carter a knowing look.
“A second chance to do the right thing,” he replies.
I search Carter’s face for signs it’s a bait-and-switch where he offers hope, but instead only wants to see my eyes as he lowers the boom. He notes my skepticism and takes it in stride.
“I’m serious. I have an offer you shouldn’t refuse,” he says.
“Do I have to sell my soul?”
“No, but you do have a choice to make: Help us fix what’s been broken and find the head of the snake. Do these two things, and you’ll win your freedom. If you refuse, your memory will be wiped and you’ll spend the rest of your life in a prison planet mineral mine.”
“It’s not just you on the line, Dodger,” Fagin says, “It’s Nico and me, too.”
“You three are a package deal,” Carter agrees. “If you say no, everyone goes to prison. You won’t remember they’re your friends.” He offers a gruesome smile and a shrug. “But, hey, misery loves company.”
“How long is the contract?” I ask.
“As long we think it necessary. Can’t give you a timetable.”
“I need to talk to Nico,” I say firmly. If anyone can cut through the bullshit, it’s him.
“We talked to him before we approached you,” Fagin says. “Garcia is already on board.”
“We?” I know we’re in a life or death situation, and Fagin needs to toe Carter’s line to avoid the government’s wrath. But Sycophant Fagin is a little unnerving. It’s not like her to give up an ounce of control and right now, she’s totally Team Carter.
Again, she shrugs.
“Fine.” I walk to the edge of my confinement and gesture at the force field. “Let me out of here and he can tell me himself.”
Carter plants his fists on his hips and chuckles. “Not so fast. I need your agreement to work with us. You refuse, the conversation ends here.”
“Like I have a choice? Just let me talk to Nico. Open the communication channel, at least.”
“There’s always a choice, Arseneau,” he says. “You have to make this one all on your own. No help from Garcia.”
I shouldn’t struggle with this decision, but I do. The only thing worse than death or having every memory I have dissolve like a sand castle in tide wash is being owned again, and that’s the whole nut in this shell: The government will own me for however long they choose.
I lock eyes with Carter. “I agree.”
Fagin closes her eyes and sighs in relief.
Carter doesn’t deactivate the force field. I’m not sure if he’s stunned that I agreed or if he’s waiting for something else.
“There is one more thing,” he says.
“What else could you possibly need that my total obedience doesn’t cover?”
He gives me what I think is a chagrined look. “Bypass the computer’s personality profile and give me full control of this ship. It’s being a pain in the ass and won’t obey commands without a fight.”
I allow myself the luxury of a chuckle. “You’ll have to ask Nico about Betty. She’s his girl.”
“Surprisingly enough, the computer refused to give full cooperation without your consent, too.” Carter folds his arms over his chest and glowers at me.
“Huh,” I say, more than a little surprised. “I thought she hated me.”
“Talk to the computer.”
“Let me out.”
He sighs and deactivates the force field, then strides off to climb the ladder to the upper deck. For a long moment, I’m rooted to the spot. I have to follow through, but somehow the act of taking this step into another indentured servant life feels huge. It feels permanent.
Fagin nods and gives me a faint smile, then strides toward the ladder, too.
I follow her.
Chapter 28
Squeamish is not a word that describes me. Life on a merchant ship with dozens of hardscrabble, seafaring men introduced me to the frailties of the human condition at a tender age. Three months into indentured service to Captain Bartholomew, I’d cleaned an incalculable number of vomit-splattered cot blankets, tended festering wounds accrued from shipboard accidents and bloody tavern fights, and sewn three disease-riddled corpses into burial shrouds.
It was enough gore to anesthetize me to all but the most putrid of bodily trauma.
Yet, watching Jackson Carter chew his food with sloppy, open-mouthed abandon disgusts me to the point that I want nothing more than to throw his dinner plate across the cabin just to stop the spectacle.
To be fair, he could sneeze too loud, cough too hard, or breathe too much, and I would hate it all the more because it’s him.
“One more time,” he says between bites of a super-size calzone dripping with stringy cheese. “We’re going to run through the plan until you can recite it in your sleep.”
“Already there,” Nico says, shoving his dinner plate into the middle of the table.
Carter looks down at the barely
