Chapter 102
Everything had backfired, and it was because Milo was such a pure fucking person.
He’d tried to save me from my father’s sadistic plans at the demonstration in the Cortex, and now everything was fucked.
This sweet, kind, wholesome man had tried to help me, and I’d repaid him by restraining him and dragging him into The Cave to basically be enslaved.
I wasn’t strong enough to fight the pain of the new chip I’d been implanted with, and I’d wanted to scream and cry and rage right along with Milo when my father had threatened to shoot Jay.
I’d done everything I possibly could to protect him, and I’d still failed.
After Milo erased his own memories right in front of us, I truly thought I would never see Jay smile again.
The thought of that made me so furious and sad.
Sun-soaked memories of the giant smiles Jay used to bless me with all those summers playing in his dad’s pond swam across my mind, and they hurt so bad I didn’t know what to do with myself.
To make things worse, Jay fucking hated me now. He thought I’d betrayed him. He didn’t know that I was forced to endure regular brain scans so Luke could use me to spy on his employees.
I’d gotten pretty good at keeping most of the important stuff away from my father, but some things often slipped through, especially if they were emotionally charged.
When Jay told me he thought he might have found a way to remove the chips, I couldn’t keep that memory hidden, and it ruined us all.
My fault.
It was my fault Jay was locked in a cage like an animal.
It was my fault that Luke and Dr. Grey were testing underdeveloped biotech on him like a fucking lab rat.
There wasn’t much I could do to help him while I was chipped. I couldn’t leave campus, and I couldn’t go against a direct order from Luke.
It took me ages to figure out how I was going to get Jay out of this mess.
The idea had come to me one day, when I had been wishing I still had NOVA to talk to.
Suddenly, it hit me.
I didn’t have any direct orders regarding operating the campus AI. Luke didn’t think I was smart enough to be a threat to any sort of infrastructure… but before she’d been eliminated, NOVA and I had spent long nights together trying to untangle how the chips worked.
I wasn’t a tech wiz by any means, but I knew more than I let on.
I knew that NOVA’s servers operated off campus somewhere, and I knew if I could knock out the power on campus, TECHA would go down, and the doors would be open for NOVA to get back in.
So that’s just what I did.
Letting myself into The Cave one night, I dismissed the guard on duty, telling him to take a short break.
After the man left, I wandered deeper into The Cave and found Jay unconscious in his cell.
He’d had a particularly rough day in Dr. Grey’s chair, and as much as I hated what they were doing to him, it was better he was unconscious for what I was about to do.
I didn’t have many strict rules around visiting Jay or entering his cell. I’d managed to do a pretty good job of convincing my father that I was on his side, and he sometimes had me help get Jay strapped into the surgical chair.
He liked that it clearly hurt Jay to think I’d betrayed him, so when he was feeling particularly vicious, he loved rubbing it in.
Seeing how thin and broken Jay was lying on the dirty cot in his shitty cell, the familiar feelings of helplessness and rage began to build in me.
I ordered TECHA to cut the cameras to The Cave, and raided Dr. Grey’s bio-chem fridge until I found several vials of adrenaline. I’d seen him use these on Jay countless times before to wake him back up after the testing became too much for him, and he finally passed out.
Gritting my teeth, I snatched one up and stalked back to Jay’s cell.
I needed to hurry. The longer the cameras were out in here, the larger the risk someone would come to see why they’d gone dark.
It was late, so security was at its lightest, but I only had one chance for this and didn’t want to fuck it up.
Taking advantage of the fact that he was out cold, I cut Jay’s chip out of his arm as quickly as I could so he could have a real chance of escape.
I did my best to keep it clean and stitched him up as quickly as possible, but it was definitely a hack job, and I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in that I hadn’t done any permanent damage to his arm in my rush.
Then, finally, I ripped the power cables out of TECHA’s stack and shot Jay up with the boost of adrenaline.
He was feral as he came to, and I don’t think he recognized me, or was even able to properly register that I was there at all.
“Run, Jay! Get to the cabin your dad used to take you to when you were a kid,” I barked at him.
“Wh-what? I can’t… leave… trapped…” His eyes were glazed, and he was glancing around the lab wildly, clearly dazed and confused.
“NOVA cut the power and took out TECHA; she came back to save you,” I lied. This way, if he got caught and they ripped back into his head, they hopefully would just see fuzzy memories of NOVA instead of me.
“This is your only chance, Jay! Kill anyone who gets in your way. Go! Now!”
With wide, trusting eyes, he nodded, his pupils still much too large from the shot of adrenaline I’d given him, and he leapt to his feet, just as the guard returned in a panic to see what had happened to plunge the campus into a blackout.
Jay killed the guard with surprisingly little effort, then fled.
For the first time in years, I had hope that he might finally be safe.
Once he was gone, I slipped out my N-phone and redownloaded the now very out-of-date Nexus app, hoping it would still work.
I tapped the icon that employees used to use to ask NOVA for things, and fired off a message to her.
Sebastian:
NOVA? Wake up. I took out the power at Neurovance. Jay is free. I told him to run to the cabin. That’s where your servers are, aren’t they?
NOVA:
Seb!? I’ve been so worried. Are you coming too?
Sebastian:
No. I’m still chipped, but Jay’s not. I told him you managed to hack back in and cause a blackout.
NOVA:
Sebastian! You need to stop this! Let me tell him the truth when he gets here!
Sebastian:
No. If you tell him, he’ll come back for me, and this will all be for nothing. Just… keep him safe, okay? Make sure he’s happy.
NOVA:
Seb, if I could cry, I would be sobbing right now. I hate this.
Sebastian:
I know. But it’ll all be worth it in the end.
Deleting the app, I powered off my phone, then got up and slowly made my way to the elevator.
I knew Luke was going to be furious. There was more than likely several hours of invasive brain scans in my future, so I spent the walk from NeuroWell to my condo in the Annex, burying the feelings of relief and joy that were rushing through me at the thought that Jay was really finally free, and replaced them with long, complicated details of the new brand campaign I’d been working on.
My father never looked too closely at memories and thoughts around things like brand guidelines and color palettes.
I just needed to continue to play this part until I was sure Jay had truly made it somewhere safe, then I could be finished.
There would be no one left to care about what happened to me, so I could finally end it and just rest.
Wandering into the cold, ostentatious lobby of the Annex, I wondered if maybe Heaven was real.
If it were, would Mr. Reynolds be there waiting for me?
What would Heaven be like?
I imagined it would be warm and peaceful and quiet.
Maybe… Maybe Heaven was a tiny overgrown pond filled with croaking frogs, lazy turtles, and smiles so bright they put the fireflies to shame.
I grinned, my eyes filling with tears at the thought.
If that was what Heaven was, then maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad.