6 Digit Passcode (29 page)

Without warning, the band begins to hum, but it’s less intense and more soothing than the ones in Division 6. I can feel it generating heat against my head, but otherwise it has no physical effect on me. There is no discomfort, no hallucinations, no pain or bad memories or dark thoughts. I feel like I could almost fall asleep here like this – warm and safe in this comfortable bed with my father back at my side.

But almost as soon as it beings, the humming stops, and the headband cools against my skin. I blink my eyes open blearily – I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them.

“That’s it; we’re done,” Flynn tells me as she slides the band up and off of my forehead. “Your brain is in perfect condition.”

I sit up, leaning my weight against the back of the bed-frame. My head feels foggy, and I’m tired even though I spent most of the day yesterday sleeping. It takes me a moment to process Flynn’s words, and by the time I do, she has already crossed the room and is putting the band back in the top drawer of the metal dresser.

She sounds almost
surprised
that my brain is healthy. I know she wanted to make sure that Division 6 didn’t leave any trackers or technology inside of my body, but for her to seem so shocked that my
brain
is working like it’s
supposed
to…

“…Why
wouldn’t
it be?” I ask, smoothing my hair back into place over my forehead.

“Your mother was the subject of more than a few experiments during her stay here. For some of them, she was pregnant. We weren’t sure what sort of effects these experiments would have had on an unborn child later in life, especially now that your brain is fully developed.”

I sit up so quickly the room spins. “My mother was
experimented
on? Rin told me she was just staying here for a while! It’s no wonder she ran away, if that’s what you were doing to – ”

“It wasn’t our choice,” Flynn says, cutting me off. “She volunteered for it. Everyone who stays here knows what they’re agreeing to, and they all find that the rewards far outweigh the risk.”

“So the people who live in this building are your human
lab rats
? Why would my mother agree to something like that?”

Flynn looks insulted for a moment, but I can tell by looking in her eyes that she’s faking it.

“You make it sound like I’m talking about
torture
, but it’s nothing like that at all. We’re trying to
help
people.”

I want to tell her that’s what the Digits convinced Holden they were going to do for him just before they killed him, but I hold my tongue. Whether I like it or not, I’m staying here – at least for the time being. It’s either this or getting captured by Division 6 and turning into a monster, and if my father says it’s not a bad place, I have to believe him.

“Why?” I ask instead.

“Because they need us,” she says. She makes a move to sit next to me, but thinks better of it and pulls a second chair out from under the table instead. “They come to us with broken hearts and no other place to go, and we give them shelter. And in return, they help us with our research.”

“Research on what?”

“Perfection.” She smiles and clasps her hands together in her lap. “Immortality. Can you imagine what it would be like? To live forever without any sickness, or pain, or loneliness?”

There’s a twist in my gut that makes me feel nauseous; something about this sounds all too familiar.

“But you’re basically immortal already, aren’t you?” I shift myself towards the front of the bed, as far away from Flynn as possible, but my father puts his hand on my wrist and keeps me still. “Your bodies are machines. You can be destroyed, sure, but you can’t
die
. Not really.”

“Part of us can.”

Then it all clicks, like another puzzle piece sliding into place. Only a few more and I’ll have all the answers I need.

“Your brains,” I say slowly as I realize it. “Your brains are human.”

“That’s right,” my father says from somewhere to my right. “But yours isn’t.”

***

I am not human – at least, part of me isn’t. I’ve been growing an artificial brain inside of my body for sixteen years, and I didn’t even know it.

Every part of a Digit’s body besides their brain is artificial. Since the Digital War, they have been conducting research on how to make their mechanical bodies last longer. They’ve learned how to synthesize life by replacing oxygen and blood with batteries and electricity, but their attempts at creating a brain that can think and reason like a human’s and survive indefinitely have been thus far unsuccessful. Until now.

I sit, still and silent, as Flynn explains all of this to me. I try to keep my face expressionless, but my hunched shoulders and shaking hands give me away. My father tries to put his arm around me in comfort, but I lean away; he’s just as guilty of keeping secrets from me as they are.

I debate trying to run away, but I’m stuck in the same situation I was in when I was at the camp; even if I made it out of the building without being caught, I have no idea where I am or what to do once I’m free. I don’t know how to get home from here. I don’t even know if I still have a home to go back to. 

Flynn escorts me back to my room, clearly trying to make me feel better by telling me about all of the advancements and cures my body will bring to the world. But when she talks all I can picture is Tetra slicing into my neck to get at my brain and the prickling scars his wounds have left on my body.

Once I am brought back to my room, I am given a meal that look delicious but makes my stomach churn so badly I have to swallow down bile just to get near enough to cover it and throw it away.

Rin visits me while I’m lying in my bed, fighting to sleep against the buzzing thoughts in my head. She sits on the edge of the mattress and pulls her legs up underneath her, but she doesn’t look at me.

“I am sorry that you had to find out about your past this way,” she says quietly. “I truly did have the best intentions in bringing you here; I never meant to cause you any harm.”

She takes a deep breath – even though I know that she has no lungs and no need for air – and she looks like she’s having trouble figuring out what to say.

“I am not a young girl,” Rin explains after a moment. “I was once, a long time ago – or, at least, my brain was that of a child.” She stops to smooth out her dress and run a hand through her hair, even though neither is the least bit tousled. “You see, I was a failed result of the same experiment that you were a success in; I was born with an artificial brain, just the same as you. But when I was a young child, my body began to reject the cells inside of me that were not human. A Digit’s body was created for me, but my brain had already suffered too much damage – it lasted less than a year after I received my new body.”

“So, then, your brain now – ”

“Is human, yes,” she finishes, grimacing as though the thought is painful to her. “It came from the body of a 45-year-old widower with an incurable bone disease. My body was dying, and so was the girl’s brain, so we did what we believed was best.”

“You killed her, you mean.”

“She was already dead. It would have been a waste not to salvage what we could from her, and
I
was given a new life as a result.”

“But she wouldn’t have been dying in the first place if you hadn’t been experimenting on her brain! She was just a
child
!”

“So are you. So is your brother. Can you honestly say that you would give up the chance to live forever? For you – and everyone you love – to never have to suffer again? You can help make that happen, you know. If your mother had done her part, she would still be alive, and – ”

“ – and being taken advantage of by you!
That’s
why she ran away, isn’t it? Because she didn’t really want to be a part of your experiments after all.”

“No.” Rin finally looks at me, her eyes colder than I’ve ever seen them. “Her parents died when she was young, and she promised herself that she would never let her own children go through that same experience. She feared death almost as much as she craved immortality, and she knew that the only way that she could achieve it was if we were able to create a self-sustaining artificial brain – with human thoughts, emotions, and logic. Once we had one we could run tests on, we could determine a way to synthesize them in our labs. We wouldn’t even need to experiment on humans anymore.”

“You mean you wouldn’t even
need
humans anymore. Your race would become immortal while ours died out.”

“Yes, but the new race we create
together
will contain the best traits of each of ours. We will be capable of every emotion
you
are, because our brains will be like yours. And you still believe
you’re
human, don’t you?”

“Of course I do!” I spit, then bite my tongue to stop myself before I can continue. I am in Rin’s territory right now, and it would be unwise of me to make her angry.

“Your brain is a machine. Every emotion you have ever felt has been programmed inside of you since before you were born. Your mother allowed us to remove your human brain and replace it with a collection of artificial cells while you were still inside of her.”

I clench my hands and press my fingernails into my palms hard enough to distract myself from my own racing heart. At least
that
part of me is real, isn’t it? My heart is beating, and my body still feels pain. My skin can still be cut, and I can still bleed. My body is human. I repeat those words a thousand times in my head, but my brain still doesn’t want to believe them.

“My mother
loved
me. She would never do something like that to me.”

Rin sighs and her voice softens. “You’re right; she really did love you. She loved you enough to want you to have the opportunity to live forever – to never have to feel the pain she felt all her life. She may have become pregnant with you for the sake of an experiment, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t grow to love you.”

“My mother…
wanted
this for me?”

Rin’s entire demeanor changes, her expression more sympathetic and weary. The way she’s holding herself right now, I have no trouble believing that she was once a middle-aged woman, and I wonder how it must have felt for her to take the body of a young girl and use it as a mask for so many years. Seeing it from her perspective, I can almost understand why she did it, and the empathy I feel for her frightens me.

“Your mother let herself
die
to keep you safe. She only ever had your best interests at heart.” She smiles at me, but there’s a hint of sadness behind her eyes. “You are very important, Everly. You could even change the world, if you wanted to.”

Yes
, I think,
but I could also destroy it
. And I’m not sure which path I’m on right now.

Chapter thirty

The next three days are filled with tests and scans, each pinpointing specific pieces of my brain to make sure they’re working like they should. I am pinned down while a machine buzzes around my head, sending volts of electricity through my skin that sting for hours after it’s over. I am put in another simulation chamber and my brain is monitored as I am faced with visions of the most basic human emotions – fear, love, hatred, desire, joy, and sadness; my brother dies, my mother is alive again, Tesla is screaming insults in one ear while Roma whispers encouragements into the other. A computer measures how my brain reacts to each of these things, and compares them to the results of several subjects in the building with human brains.

They run every test on me that they can, except for one. I know what is coming, and I know that Rin is putting it off until I’ve made up my mind. But how can I, when I know that the result of choosing the side of Division 4 will be my own death?

Rin tells me that I won’t really
die
, so much as lose consciousness for a few hours and wake up inside of a body that is not my own. To properly examine my brain, she says, it has to be removed from my body. Everything inside of me that is human will die without it, and I will have no choice but to become one of them – a Digit, just like Dori. Just like the monsters that killed my mother and threatened my little brother.