A SOUND WOKE ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
I blinked my eyes until the dream I'd been lost in faded, loosening the death grip I had on the sheets.
I'd been in the corner of a tiny apartment, watching my parents yell at the people in the living room. In the
dream, they were yelling about me. In reality, I'm not sure they had cared about me enough for that sort of
attention.
I rolled over to see Ever crouching on her bed, her teeth bared as she let out a low growl. The noise
grew louder as she rocked back and forth on the mattress.
"Ever," I said, sitting up. Violation of the rules, but surely they would want someone to wake her up
and stop the racket.
She turned to me. Her bright eyes showed no sign that she recognized me. In fact, she snarled.
"Ever," I said again, tossing off my covers and placing my feet on the cold floor. I reached for her
shoulder and her head whipped to me. She opened her mouth and her teeth scraped across the skin of my
hand.
I snatched it away. What the hell was that?
I held my hand to my chest, my heart beating oddly. I was nervous, I think. I was rarely nervous.
My eyes darted to the hallway. Through the glass wall at the front of our cell I could see a guard
approaching, his flashlight aimed in our direction. He stopped in front of our room and peered inside,
reaching for his com. He turned away as he spoke into it and I looked back down at Ever, rocking on her
bed and growling from deep within her throat. I wanted to press my hand to her mouth to stop the noise, to
make the guard go away before Ever got into trouble.
I heard the pounding of footsteps and turned to see a scientist in a white lab coat running down the
hall. I took in a sharp breath as I watched the scientist talk frantically to the guard, his bushy eyebrows
lowered in worry as he watched Ever.
Humans didn't worry about Reboots. They didn't run to help them.
The scientist pulled a syringe from his pocket and my stomach turned over as I pieced together what
was happening.
They'd done something to her, and now they'd realized they'd messed up. Messed her up.
Ever pounced out of bed with a height and speed I had never seen before, smashing her body against
the wall. I gasped, stumbling back until my legs hit the bed.
She head butted the glass, a line of blood trickling down her face when she straightened. She bared
her teeth at the humans and they both jumped away, the scientist almost dropping his syringe.
"One-seventy-eight."
I turned my eyes to the guard yelling from the other side of the wall.
"Subdue her."
Ever began pounding her hand against the wall, a slow, rhythmic hammering.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Her face determined, she looked at the humans like she would rip their faces off if given half a
second.
"I said subdue her, One-seventy-eight. Get her down on the ground." The guard glared at me.
I slowly rose from my bed, clenching my hands into fists when I realized I was shaking.
I'm not scared.
I repeated it in my head. There was no reason to be scared of a Fifty-six. She couldn't hurt me.
Or could she? I'd never seen a Reboot act this way. There wasn't a hint of the Ever I knew in her.
I'm not scared.
I reached for her arm but she was too fast, darting across the room and jumping on top of her bed. She
bounced from foot to foot on the mattress, looking at me as if she accepted my challenge.
"Ever, it's fine," I said.
What was wrong with her?
She launched herself off the bed and landed on me. I hit the ground hard, the back of my head knocking
against the concrete. I blinked the dots of white out of my eyes as she slammed my wrists to the floor
above my head and opened her mouth, bending low as though she wanted to take a chunk out of my neck.
I kicked my legs, knocking her off me, and she flew into the bed with a grunt. I leaped on top of her,
pressing my body into her back as she thrashed and snarled.
The door unlocked with a click and slid open, the footsteps of the two humans echoing across the
room.
"Keep her down," the guard ordered.
I locked my teeth together, lowering my face closer to Ever's shoulder so he couldn't see the
disgusted look I wanted to aim at him.
The scientist knelt down and plunged the syringe into her arm. His fingers shook.
What was that idiot doing? We didn't need medicine.
"It will help her sleep," he said, glancing at me. "She's just having a nightmare."
It wouldn't help her sleep at all. Reboots processed everything too quickly. Her body would
metabolize it before it even had a chance to work.
Ever went limp beneath me and I looked down at her in surprise. When I turned to the humans they
both gave me their hard expressions, the ones that were supposed to scare me.
Hard to be scared of them when I could break their necks before they realized I was on my feet.
"You're not to tell anyone about this," the scientist said sternly. "Understand?"
No. I didn't understand. What did they just give her?
What had they given her before?
What had they done to her?
The humans looked down at me for confirmation that I believed this ridiculous explanation.
Dumb Reboot—her brain doesn't work right.
A guard said that to me once.
I nodded. "I understand."
They left the room and the door closed behind them. I slid off Ever, studying her face. Her eyes were
closed, her breathing deep and even.
Asleep. I'd rarely seen her sleep lately.
I gently rolled her over and picked her up under the arms, hauling her onto the bed. I scooted her legs
under the comforter and pulled it over her body.
I climbed into my own bed, unable to stop staring at her.
I didn't sleep. Instead I spent the night alternating between gazing at Ever and the ceiling. When she
began to stir I rushed to get into my running clothes and bolted out the door, hiding my face when I thought
I saw her roll over to look at me.
Twenty-two was waiting for me at the indoor track, his eyes on the other Reboots speeding around the
room.
"Good morning," he said brightly.
I just nodded, because it was not a good morning. I could think of nothing but Ever and her angry,
vacant eyes. Would she be back to normal now? Would she even remember?
I was ordered not to say anything.
I had never disobeyed an order.
"Let's go," I said, stepping onto the black rubber. The indoor track was one of my least favorite parts
of the HARC facility. It was a 400-meter ring with a guard in the middle, encased in a bulletproof plastic
box. The windows could lower quickly to stop a fight with a bullet to the brain.
Destroy the brain. The only way to kill a Reboot.
The ugly lighting gave my pale skin a puke-green hue. Twenty-two's olive skin looked mostly the
same, almost nice, under the glow. I looked away, pushing aside thoughts of what my blond hair must look
like in here.
Twenty-two could barely run a quarter mile without stopping, which did not bode well for him
escaping angry humans chasing after him. Hopefully we'd avoid those for a while.
A few other Reboots were on the track with us, including Marie One-thirty-five, who looked over her
shoulder with a laugh as she blew past us, her dark hair swinging. She was one of the fastest trainees I'd
ever had.
"Let's do two minutes of walking and one of running," I said with a sigh as Twenty-two's pace
stuttered to an impossibly slow jog.
He nodded, taking in gulps of air. I had to admit, I wasn't in the mood to run this morning. The break
was welcome.
"Were you a good runner when you came here?" he asked when he'd caught his breath.
"I was fine. Better than you."
"Well, that's not difficult." He smiled at me. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"Me too. How long do we stay here? Is there an adult facility somewhere? I haven't seen any older
Reboots."
"I don't know." I doubted it. As Reboots approached their twenties they stopped coming back from
missions. Maybe they did transfer them to some other facility.
Maybe they didn't.
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"Austin."
"Me too." He smiled like we had something in common.
"We're not from the same Austin," I said tightly.
He frowned. "Sorry?"
"You're from the rico. I'm from the slums. We're not from the same Austin." I had never seen the
Austin rico beyond the lights I glimpsed over the wall that divided us from them, but I'd seen some of the
other United Cities of Texas. New Dallas. Richards. Bonito (someone was being funny—it was anything
but). A few hundred miles in the middle of Texas was all that was left of the large country my parents
knew as children. HARC managed to save only Texas from the virus and the Reboot attacks that followed.
"Oh. I've never been to the Austin slums," Twenty-two said. "I mean, except when my parents took
me to the hospital. But I was too delusional at that point to remember. Do you think they'll send me on an
assignment there? I'd like to see my parents. And my brother. Have you seen your parents since you
Rebooted?"
"My parents died when I did."
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, his face turning serious. "They . . . they got shot, too?"
"Yes," I said tightly, not interested in discussing my parents. "And you don't want to see your parents.
They don't send Reboots to their hometown. It confuses people."
"Do Reboots ever take off and go anyway?"
I frowned at him. "Of course not. Even if they wanted to, you're outfitted with a tracker at the holding
facility. They always know where you are."
He held his arms out in front of him. "Where? I don't remember that."
"That's the point. We don't know where it is."
"Oh," he said, a hint of sadness in his voice. "But have you seen the other cities?"
"Yes."
"That's good, right? We'd never get to see anything outside of Austin if we hadn't Rebooted."
"You'll be working," I said. Newbies always had questions about traveling to other cities. It was one
of the only perks of becoming a Reboot—the occasional trips elsewhere for special assignments. HARC
instituted a "no travel" policy years ago to stop the spread of the KDH virus, and it was still in place
today. But his questions were too much this morning. They were making my head spin. "Pick up the pace,"
I said, breaking into a jog.
He couldn't talk while running, but when we slowed to a walk he opened his mouth with yet more
questions.
"Do you believe in the evolution theory?"
Maybe. I gave him a sharp look. "No."
"But it sort of makes sense, doesn't it? That Reboots are just evolved humans? We found an immunity
to the virus. A way not to die. I've heard theories the KDH virus is man-made and I think—"
"Twenty-two!" I snapped. HARC was wall-to-wall cameras. They heard and saw everything we did,
and they didn't tolerate that sort of talk. "Enough."
"But—"
"Can you please save the questions?" It came out more tired and sad than I had intended, and he
looked at me in concern.
"Oh. Yeah, sure. I'm sorry."
"I'm just tired," I said. I didn't owe him an explanation. I shouldn't have said that.
"Sorry. I'll be quiet." His smile was small and sympathetic and something I couldn't identify tickled
my chest. Guilt? Is that what that was?
He was quiet the rest of the run, the only sounds his gasping for air. When we finished I nodded at him
and walked away, to my quarters for clothes and then to the showers.
I pressed my clothes and towel to my chest as I shuffled into the steamy room, the sounds of laughter
and grunting filling my ears. The showers were often rowdier after the arrival of a new batch of Reboots,
and the party was in full swing this morning. Two female Reboots darted past me, one barely holding on
to her towel as she screeched in excitement. A male Reboot held open a shower curtain and one of the
girls slipped behind it with him.
The showers were for sex first. Bathing second.
They were not technically coed, but the boys' shower was directly next door, and there was nothing
but a curtain to separate the two rooms. Occasionally the guards came in and ushered all the boys out, but
mostly they didn't care. Reboots did almost everything they were told, except for this.
For a human, sex was connected to love. My mom wasn't much for talking about anything that
mattered, but I vaguely remembered the conversation. Sex and love went together.
Not here. The teenage hormones were still there, but the emotions were gone. The general attitude was
that none of it mattered anymore. We weren't even human.
The tile was slippery beneath my shoes, and I shuffled carefully past the closed curtains and ducked
behind one at the end of the row, still fully clothed. That used to get weird looks, but now everyone knew.
I didn't flit around in a towel. I didn't have any interest in sex. I certainly didn't want to be gawked at like
some freak.
A few of the girls had scars from their human death, but not like mine. I was dead for so long that by
the time they got around to sewing up my three bullet holes, my body thought that's what my skin was
supposed to look like. The result was four permanent ugly silver staples holding my skin together in the
middle of my chest, and two ragged scars shooting out in either direction. One stretched oddly over my
left breast and had become even more misshapen as my breasts grew.
No one needed to see my horribly mangled chest. Not that anyone had ever approached me for sex
anyway.
No one wanted to touch a One-seventy-eight. Mangled or not