False Memory (8 page)

I unlace my shoes on my bunk. We’ve just finished a workout, a run followed by thirty minutes of sparring. A layer of chilled sweat covers me. Noah stretches on the floor in front of me, shirtless. His muscles are lean and hard, more compact than Peter’s. The ridges in his abs make sharp shadows.

I’m tugging on my laces when Noah grabs my leg and pulls me off the bunk. I catch myself with my hands before my butt hits the floor. He pulls me on top of him.

“You’re all sweaty,” I say.

He has a bruise on his cheek from where I failed to pull a punch. Peter and Olive will be back soon. Our relationship is still secret. We hide it from them because everything the four of us do, we do together. We aren’t ready to change things. Noah is patient. Tension grips both of us, because Peter and Olive could come in at any second. He pulls me down for a kiss and I taste the sweat on his upper lip.

“I wanted to tell you something,” he says.

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I’m in love with you. I love you.”

I stare at him for a moment, this boy who grew up as my brother. We watched each other grow into weapons, into something so honed we’re afraid of what our bodies can do. Every moment worth remembering was spent with him.

And now he says he loves me, and I know I love him too. So I say it.

“I love you too.”

The memory fades quicker than it comes, and we’re still under the water. Even as panic threatens to overtake me completely, I have time to feel the loss. The love I felt in the phantom stays with me. It’s real. And yet . . .

He took it away. He
threw
it away.

So why can’t I leave the feeling behind?

This is the first memory I feel like I can claim. I’ve accepted the other phantoms as true, but this is different. Heavier.

The breath is gone now, enough of it escaping that we’re left clutching at each other, on the verge of drowning. Mindless panic swoops in. I have to get free. I break away—he lets me go this time—and kick once to the surface. Cold air hits my cheeks as Noah splashes up beside me. I spin around, gasping as we float downriver, swallowing great lungfuls of air that taste so good. The banks seem clear, no black suits in sight. But no Peter and Olive, either.

I sink lower in the water, hiding the parts that don’t breathe. I taste the dirt in the water, Noah’s breath and kiss. I’m afraid to look at him.

We drift. Neither of us says a word.

We pretend it’s in case the black suits are still near.

We don’t talk after we’re out of the water, not right away. We’re on the bank, hidden by an outcropping of rock. A kind of cave that’s open to the sky. I strip off my long-sleeved T and wring it out, shivering, until the sun warms me through my armor. Water beads on the scales like glowing pearls.

Noah stands at the edge of the rock shelf, pretending to scope out the banks upriver.

Before I can stop, I say, “You know, if you hadn’t stolen everything I am, we would still be together.”

Noah stiffens but stays quiet. I watch the tendons flex in his jaw. I’m not sure why I said that; I don’t have to punish him. At the same time, it feels good to see his regret. His doubt. He can’t take back what he did. So what’s a little hurt feelings over my lost memories?

“You’re still you,” he says, now looking the opposite way down the river. “Same old Miranda. Your memories don’t make you who you are.”

I search for a comeback. Pull my knees to my chest and rest my chin on them instead. I reach behind me and squeeze water out of my hair. It feels gritty and slick with river mud.

My mind keeps going back to how familiar his lips felt, how I recognized his kiss. And I can’t help wondering exactly how familiar he is with
me
. I don’t know what it was like to be with him all the time, or what we’ve done together. The kiss didn’t stir up forgotten memories for him either; according to just about everyone, we were together a week ago. It was probably
normal
to him. I find myself jealous; he has that over me, he can know everything about our past, and I can have only glimpses.

So I ask just before I chicken out. “Did we have sex?”

I feel myself blushing as the seconds pass.

Finally he smirks. Not exactly what I want to see at the moment. “No. Phil said it was forbidden.”

Suddenly I remember the dream-memory of Noah in my bed. I told him No, but can’t remember why.

Noah looks pained for an instant, just like Peter had before digging out my tracker. Peter. Here we are trading barbs instead of searching for Peter and Olive.

He crouches, keeping his eyes on the tree line upriver. His voice is quiet.

“Phil taught us most of our hand-to-hand combat skills, some swordplay too. He said our power came from within, that sex would diminish it, and also ruin whatever relationship we had as a team. Shaolin monks figured out the power thing a long time ago. He was probably just saying that to keep us in line, but we were too competitive with each other to risk it.” A pause. He pivots on the balls of his feet, half-facing me. “Not that you didn’t want to.”

My neck prickles with sweat. I look away. “Well I don’t now.”

“You remembered,” he says. “When I kissed you under the water, you remembered a little what it was like with me. I could feel it in your lips.”

“Whatever I felt doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.”

“No, because whatever was between us is reset. I don’t know you.” I stand up, fighting to keep my voice down. “Why did you do it, Noah? Why did you think you had that right? We grew up together. You
knew
I could take care of myself. You
knew
I’d want to stand by you guys and figure things out together.” I can only assume that last part is true. If it’s how I feel now, it’s how I would’ve felt then. I would’ve wanted that chance, the choice to fight beside them.

He stares at the rock under our feet, unfocused, like he’s trying to decide something. He rises from his crouch and walks to me.

“What is it?” I finally ask.

“What if I said...what if you gave me permission? What if I’d asked you, and you’d said yes?”

“Said yes to erasing my memories?” No. No way. He’s lying.

He takes my hands and rubs his thumbs over the backs of my knuckles. I want to pull away, I even try a little, but Noah holds me fast. He’s closer now, only a foot between our faces.

“Remember?” he says. “You have to. Try to remember. We were on the train. Do you remember the train?”

I picture a train in my head, the one we surfed at night. Nothing else comes. I want him to be right, but I don’t see it.

“I asked you a question. If I had to do something, something you wouldn’t like, something you’d disagree with, but I believed would keep you safe, and me safe, so we could stay together. I asked you that, and I said,
Would you trust me
?”

Finally, falling into his eyes, the memory comes.

We’re in a train yard, on top of an old rusted car off the tracks. We snuck out again. To my right, a train rumbles past, wheels scraping down the rails. The metal vibrates under us. I’m nestled in the crook of Noah’s arm, on our backs as we look up at the stars. He’s been distant tonight, distracted.

I turn into him more, draping my arm over his chest. His hand strokes my hair, tracing a line around my ear.

“What’s wrong?” I finally say.

“Nothing.”

“Noah,” I say.

After a while, he sighs. “There’s something I have to do.”

“What is it?” My right ear is over his heart. I hear it pound a little faster.

“It’s something awful, and unfair, and selfish. But I think it might be the right thing. For us.”

“Okay. So tell me.”

“I can’t tell you. I can’t.”

I get up on one elbow, looking down at him. He tilts his head toward me. I lean down and give him three slow kisses. “You can tell me anything,” I say.

“I can’t,” he says. “But I need you to trust me. I need to know if you can trust me to make a decision. A hard one. I guess what I’m asking is, Would you trust me?”

I kiss him one more time. The train disappears down the track. The rumble fades with it.

“I trust you,” I say.

Back in the present, tears run down my cheeks. “If I’d known...” I say. The memory ended abruptly. I have no idea what happened after. If I just agreed, or if I pried for more information...

Or if I trusted him, exactly like I said.

“You trusted me,” Noah says. He wants some sign of forgiveness or understanding, I’m sure. And part of me wants to give it to him. I just don’t think I can yet, or what it’ll mean when I finally do.

I wipe the tears away. We can’t do this now. Our friends are out there, who knows where, and they need us. A trip down memory lane doesn’t make our problems go away.

“You made your choice,” I say with as much finality as I can muster. And he did. Trust or not, I never would have agreed to stripping my identity. But remembering what happened, it’s harder to be mad at him.

He looks upriver again. The banks are still clear, and I’m done waiting to be found. I run to the edge of the rock and jump onto the bank, throwing my damp shirt over my shoulder. My jeans stay on in case we make it back to civilization.

The stones shift and clap under my feet, too loud. I pick my way along the shore, hoping I can find my friends before the sun goes down.

“That’s what people do when they’re in love,” Noah calls after me. “They make crazy decisions. They do what they think is best, and sometimes it turns out to be a mistake. Miranda.” I stop. And turn. He stands on the rock above me.

“Just tell me you won’t hate me forever. Tell me it’s not over between us.”

I want to say the words. I even think them.
It’s over
. Because how could it not be? But all I can say is, “I don’t know. Please,” before starting up the bank again. The sadness is in my chest and the only thing I can do is walk. I slip into the trees for cover. Eventually Noah catches up and we walk side by side in silence.

He finds something else to talk about. Something obvious. Something that saves us from discussing any memories or declarations of trust. “You know, we don’t have much time left on those shots.”

“So I’ve heard,” I say. “You didn’t happen to snag any when you left the first time, did you? Because that would be really convenient.”

“I did...”

We make it another ten steps without him elaborating. I duck under a low branch.

“But,” I say.

“But I lost them in our escape. We had to fight one of Tycast’s security. My bag, it... Well, it spilled, and...”

My mouth falls open. “So if Peter hadn’t found you, you guys would’ve lost your memories too.”

Noah’s hand brushes mine on the forward swing, but I can’t tell if it’s intentional. “We would’ve come back before then. But the shots we brought gave us time.”

“And you didn’t invite Peter because...”

“I told you why.”

“But you trust him now?”

It feels like we’re wandering, but we’re not. We’re taking a roundabout route, back the way we came; considering how long we were in the water, we know Olive and Peter have to be in this direction. I wait for Noah to answer while my eyes flit over the trees. Dead leaves coat the forest floor, crackling underfoot. It’s hard to see footprints in the low light.

“Noah,” I say.

“Sure. I trust him.”

I look at him. He stops and I stop. The corner of his mouth turns up in a forced, uncomfortable smile. Then his eyes narrow, and I feel it too.

A fear wave. It’s weak, but with the now-familiar scent of roses. And it seems like I can feel what direction it’s coming from.

“They’re close,” I say, picking up the pace.

“How do we know it’s not the other team?”

“We don’t.”

“They could be trying to lure us,” he says.

“Then we’ll be careful.”

I take off at close to a sprint, trying not to crunch the leaves under my feet. The scent seems to grow, so either it’s getting stronger or we’re getting closer. Branches whip my exposed face, scratch at my armor and yank my hair. I know it’s Peter and Olive, I can feel it.

“Slow down!” Noah hisses behind me. A branch snaps under his foot like a gunshot. I see a break in the trees up ahead. A person with long black hair tied into a ponytail. I burst through and stop, raising my hands automatically.

Olive holds the end of her staff in my face.

Noah stomps to a halt behind me. “Olive, what are you doing?” he says. Next to Olive’s feet is Peter, still unconscious. Olive breathes heavily through clenched teeth. She doesn’t take her eyes off me except to check on Noah. The hovering wood in front of my face makes my eyes cross.

“Prove it’s you,” Olive says. I’m so confused I take a step forward, and Olive thwacks me hard in the chest. My suit absorbs most of it, but I still lose my balance. Noah steadies me with one hand.

“I said
prove it’s you
.”

“Look at our clothes,” I say. “The others didn’t have them.”

“You could’ve taken them,” Olive says, but I hear the doubt in her voice. A bright red scratch bisects the dried mud on her right cheek.

“Olive, it’s
us
,” Noah says. “What are you talking about?” I watch Olive study him as he says it. She slowly lowers the staff away from my face and holds it at her side.

“What happened?” I say.

Olive looks down at Peter, who twitches in his sleep. The tiny wound on his neck is bright red. “One of them caught up to us. She was alone, I . . . I fought her. I dropped Peter and I fought her, and I won. I knocked her out. She fell against a tree and I was going to grab Peter and run again, but I had to know who it was. They wear the same suits as us. The exact same. And I was thinking about what Tycast said...”

I swallow, tasting the river in my throat. “About the Beta team being like us.”

Olive’s eyes lock on mine, go a little wider.

“They
are
us,” she says. “The girl beneath the mask, it was me. Exactly like me, like a twin, or a clone, or whatever. It’s
us
.”

“Impossible,” Noah says. He’s standing next to me now, his shoulder to my slightly lower shoulder.

“Is it?” Olive says. Her voice cracks; she’s trying her best to stay calm, and so am I. “Because I know what I saw. I even pulled up her eyelids and she has the same eyes. Same
teeth
, Noah. God. There were four of them, right? Four of us. Two teams.”

I think about the mall again. The mayhem I caused by myself. Add seven more like me and repeat in a major city.

We cannot be caught.

I walk over to Peter slowly in case Olive gets staff-happy again, then crouch down and feel his strong pulse on my fingers. His skin is burning. Wind cuts through the trees again, thrashing the leaves. We freeze, listening. No helicopters this time.

Olive lets her staff fall to the ground.

“And then you released a wave so we could find you,” I say.

She nods at me, tries to smile. “It’s a risk I had to take. We have to stay together, like the doctor said. Like Peter said.”

Noah turns a full circle, scanning the trees. “Then we need to move. If we could track you, what’s stopping the other team?”

Olive shakes her head. “Distance. I carried him for a half mile, and Beta was sweeping the forest in the opposite direction. I could hear them moving away after I put down the... girl.”

“Wanna bet your life on it?” Noah says.

The wave
did
feel subtle. Possibly short-range. Still, we shouldn’t linger.

I stand up and put my hand on her shoulder, tentatively, as I would with a frightened animal. She relaxes under my grip. I pull her into a hug, slowly, and she wraps her arms around me. It feels strange because I don’t really know this girl. I just have to trust in my past, that we were once close. When she saw me in the hotel, Olive seemed so relieved, but that doesn’t mean we were friends growing up. Teammates, for sure, but there’s a difference.

I wish I knew you
, I think.
I wish it was like before, when we were a family and there were no outside problems, when we didn’t have to run from ourselves. Literally.
The other Miranda. The other Peter and Noah. I wonder if they have the same names. If they’re like us, or our opposites, or somewhere in between.

“I’m fine, really.” Olive pulls back with an awkward look on her face, like she’s surprised I hugged her. I admit I don’t seem like the hugging type. I nod and say nothing more.

I crouch again and sling Peter’s limp arm over my shoulder. “You guys want to help me with him?” I say, grinning up at them. I have something to grin about—we’re still alive.