The dark-haired boy and I do not speak as he pushes the button for the fifty-third floor. Before the elevator moves the light dims, and a red beam sweeps from the ceiling to our feet, covering our entire bodies. It is scanning for weapons, for tracking chips, and using facial recognition software to confirm our identities. When we are clear, the elevator jolts, moving so quickly that my stomach turns over.
On the fifty-third floor, the door opens, and a guard in a black uniform gestures me forward. The dark-haired boy does not leave the elevator as I follow the guard into a long, mirrored hallway. Every surface is reflective, and the white lights in the floor bounce off the walls and ceilings, making it feel as though I am in the TM again, waiting for the moment that my body disintegrates.
We pass through two hallways before the guard opens a door on the right and shoves me inside. The room is small with a desk in the middle and curved metal chairs on either side. One wall is a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out over the city. I see the rise and fall of the buildings—the skyscrapers downtown, the Empire State Building not far from here. The traffic on the grid looks like a choreographed ballet, cars starting and stopping in neat lines. Down by the water, a thick wall stretches along the shore, and I watch the waves crash against the opposite side, the sea spray dark and foaming as it coats the top of the concrete structure.
When hurricanes tore through New York in the late 2020s, all of downtown was flooded, and thousands of people were forced to evacuate. But instead of abandoning the city, the mayor decided to build an eighteen-foot seawall around all of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens. He implemented a wall tax that drove out the poorer residents, closed the ferries, and in 2032 dug up Battery Park and knocked down structures closest to the water’s edge, making the beaches deeper and higher.
I learned about the new wall in training, but seeing it in person is like looking at an ancient moat that encloses the city, as though we are always awaiting an attack by sea.
The door opens again and another black-uniformed guard moves to stand near the far wall. I take a step toward the desk as an officer walks in, his salt-and-pepper hair familiar in a way that makes my heart start to pound. General Walker.
But then a woman with dark-red hair enters, and I fall back against the cool glass of the window, my hand coming up to clutch at my throat.
She’s older, with faint lines around her green eyes, but this woman is the future version of me.
Chapter 13
“Seventeen,” the older man says.
My mouth is open, but nothing comes out.
“We are aware that this may be a shock.” Future me’s voice sounds familiar, but it is deeper than mine. Colder. She continues, “Regardless, you’ll need to debrief both of us on the events of the mission.”
“You’re . . .”
“You. Yes.” She wears a slim beige dress that clings to her thin frame, and her dark-red hair is pulled back in a tight bun. Her skin is as pale as mine. She looks like she’s in her late thirties, but I wonder how old she really is, in this age of stem-cell technology. Fifty? Sixty?
She crosses the room and sits down at the desk, her movements quick and efficient, with a grace I’ve never been able to possess.
The older man moves to sit next to her.
“General Walker?” I whisper.
“Colonel Walker. General Walker was my father.”
The two men look startlingly similar, with the same graying hair, square jaw, and straight nose.
“You can call me Agent Bentley.” This future version watches me closely as she speaks. Her voice isn’t as cold as the colonel’s, but it’s not exactly warm either. She seems . . . blank. Like a recruit.
“Agent Bentley?” I glance between her and Walker. She’s not just a recruit—they’re using my last name, with a title I’ve never heard before in the Project. “What does that mean?”
“Agent Bentley is here as a consultant. The mission you were on was significant. Since Bentley lived through it, she came back here as a favor to help us out. Now we’re especially thankful she did, since something in the time line was altered.” Colonel Walker gestures at the chair across from the desk. “Sit down, Seventeen.”
But I cannot move away from the window, my muscles locked tight. “I would never help—”
“Things change.” Colonel Walker raises his thick brows. “Sit, Seventeen.”
This time it is a command, and I automatically cross the room and sink down into one of the sleek chrome chairs.
“Tell us what happened in the woods,” Walker says.
“Don’t you know already?” I glance at the future version of me—Agent Bentley. While Colonel Walker slouches, she sits perfectly still, her back straight. He isn’t treating her like a subordinate, which means she must have some power here.
“The time line has changed,” she says. “You were supposed to be found in Times Square with Recruit Eleven, but this time you’re alone. Colonel Walker and I want to know why that shift occurred.” Her voice stays cool, but as she says Wes’s number, a muscle twitches in her cheek.
“I . . . I don’t know.” I have a hard time looking into her—my—face, and I stare down at the silver metal desk as I answer. “This is my first time in the future. I didn’t even know something was different. Eleven . . . he couldn’t come with me.”
“The president is dead, which means the mission was a success.” Colonel Walker reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. They are the new nontoxic, non-tar kind that burn clean. He lights one, blowing the smoke out into the room. “But we’re concerned about what this shift means. Eleven isn’t our priority,
