Chapter Eighteen In Which, Defying Reason, Things Get Worse
That can’t be right,” said Daphne quietly. “There must have been some sort of mistake.”
Zada shut her eyes and opened them again, as if hoping to restart reality itself.
Nothing had changed. She was still living in this world, in a universe where the most powerful program in New Ionia had unfailingly and without intrusion from anyone else declared that her destined match was Buford Arnoth and not—not anyone else.
All this time they’d wasted on this wild goose chase, only to discover that she’d been fighting against her own fate. And to make matters worse, nothing else in her life could be trusted again, not if that wall of red altered code was any indication.
“Gem, when was this file created?” Zada said.
Another chime. “This file was created on the twenty-third of January, year 100.”
Zada shook her head. It was the day of her eighteenth birthday.
The Heartsong algorithm had matched her with Buford within seconds—and nothing at all, no interference or outside intervention, had happened since.
She sunk down and pressed her knees to her chest, waiting for the urge to cry or scream or even break something to well up within her.
What she felt instead was nothing, beyond a sense of churning dread.
She’d been so sure.
She’d been so sure.
Well, so had Marianne Erskine at Flora’s wedding.
Zada squeezed her knees. As if through a thick wall, she could hear Daphne say, “Gem, open file Baker comma Iphigenia.”
Zada looked up. She only knew of one Iphigenia, and that was Daphne’s mother.
“Gem,” said Daphne, “when was this file created?”
The SmartGem chimed yet again. “This file was created on the ninth of May, year 80.”
Daphne took a deep breath, the only sound in the empty library. “Gem, when was this file last modified?”
Yet another cheerful little chime. It sounded almost ghoulish. “This file was last modified on the eleventh of August, year 80.” Three months after Iphigenia had received her first match, it had been altered to Isaac Fallow, Daphne’s father.
A shudder ran through Zada’s body. This was definitive proof that Heartsong, like the rest of the Core, could be altered, and had been.
Definitive proof that Daphne had been right.
About everything but Zada’s future, which stretched before her into infinity.
Buford was not so bad, she told herself, but after having tasted a reality where Daphne wanted to kiss her, she could not bear to think of it.
She could not bear to think of going back to her old life, of following every strict rule and convention that society had laid upon her shoulders, heavy enough to crush her.
She’d seen the manipulation to the code, those damning red alterations. She knew too much now. Just like the book in the secret library had said, she’d woken up. And she could not go back to sleep.
“Gem,” Daphne was saying, “restore original version.”
Zada stared at her. “Daphne, what are you doing?”
But Daphne didn’t seem to hear her. She gestured, skipping to the bottom of the file, and inhaled sharply. “It’s the wrong name.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the wrong name,” Daphne repeated. “The man my mom had an affair with was named Nigel Roberts.” She gestured at the bright lines of code before them, which ended with “match=Everett,Septimus.”
Nothing was making sense. “How do you even know his name?”
Daphne was in her own world still. “Maybe I’ve got the wrong file,” she muttered.
“It’s not,” said Zada.
“Or we have the wrong version,” said Daphne in a rush.
Zada shook her head. Soon, she would become Mrs. Arnoth, a rising politician’s wife.
She would have children with Buford, and she would need to pretend for their sake.
A lifetime of faking smiles for Buford Arnoth.
A lifetime of faking that she didn’t know the truth about the Core. A lifetime of faking everything.
“I knew,” said Daphne. “I always knew my father wasn’t her soulmate.
And he wasn’t. He’s not. But why—” She sank to the floor beside Zada.
“How could she cheat on him with someone who wasn’t even her destined match?
Why would she risk everything like that for someone who wasn’t—” She groaned, burying her face in her hands. “Shit. It was all for nothing.”
“It was—” Zada turned to face Daphne, tried to make out her face in the library’s dim light. “I thought you were helping me. But were you really just after your mother’s Heartsong match?”
Daphne glanced up. “Zada,” she said, “no, I did want to help you. It’s just—”
“This was your true aim from the very beginning, wasn’t it?” Zada said in a low voice. “You told me you’d lend a hand because you needed me to get you into the Heartsong program.”
“I—”
“You had a grand plan, and you wanted me to execute it for you. Just like old times,” Zada said bitterly.
“No, I wanted to help you, truly,” Daphne said. She closed her eyes. “But I wanted to uncover the truth about my mother, too. You know how it’s always eaten at me.”
“Oh,” said Zada. It stung to hear that Daphne hadn’t been helping her out of renewed friendship—or love. That Daphne had her own motives this whole time.
She felt so foolish. The signs had all been there. Daphne had been openly skeptical of Heartsong from the start. Of course she hadn’t been helping Zada out of some pure-hearted belief that Zada deserved a grand and passionate love story.
But it hardly mattered anymore, did it? She knew the truth of it. She didn’t deserve that kind of romance. The algorithm had weighed her and found her wanting.
“Well,” Zada heard herself say, “we have our answers. I should get back. My wedding is in two weeks. I’ll need to prepare.”
Daphne’s eyes snapped open. “That’s it? You’re not going to fight it?”
“There’s nothing to fight,” Zada said, suddenly and completely depleted. “And please don’t pretend to care. I was just your pawn.”
“I had to know,” said Daphne. “Can you really blame me? I had to know, and anyway, why would you trust me, the friend you cut off without a thought? I had no reason to want to help you, and you knew it!”
“I trusted you because I had nowhere else to go,” hissed Zada. “I was scared and desperate—”
“You’re still scared and desperate,” said Daphne. “You don’t have to go through with this. We can still—”
“It’s over, Daphne!” Zada had to fight to keep her voice from climbing. “This is the end. There’s nothing I can do but marry my match, and there’s nothing you can do but accept that your mother ended her marriage for someone else, someone who wasn’t even her soulmate. We have to face reality—”
Another chime, but this time the note was higher, more shrill. The SmartGem intoned, “Location trace incoming.”
“Shit! Zada, we have to go.” Daphne reached for Zada, then maybe thought better of it. “They’ll be here any moment.”
From outside the door came the thunder of heavy footsteps. The library was enormous, with tall looming shelves, but they were out in the open, still lit by the glow of the Core navigation menu.
“Gem, shut—” Zada said, but it was too late.
The door crashed opened and in the doorway stood a guard in full livery, his dematerializer raised. Several more guards joined him. One was holding a SmartGem aloft, likely the source of the location trace.
“I’d like you to come with me, please,” the guard told her.
Zada got to her feet. Her disguise did her no good now. There was no need to search her. She was surrounded by a damning ring of code. The cloned ring still sat heavy upon her finger. And any biometric scan would instantly reveal who they were.
“I’m sorry,” said Daphne, low and urgent. “Just play along, okay. I’ll get us out of this.”
The guard wrenched them apart.
Daphne raised her hands in the air. “I confess!” she shouted.
“Me, Daphne Fallow, I confess. I made my friend doubt her match because I wanted a chance to break into the program and change her intended to me. Her only crime was listening to me. Take me instead, I’ll tell you everything.
You won’t even have to—it was my fault, okay? All of this was all my fault.”
The guard looked from Daphne to Zada, as if hesitant to touch a Fallow.
“It was my fault,” said Daphne again. “I’m so sorry.” She fixed Zada with a searching look. “I love you.”
Daphne wanted her to play along, Zada realized.
She wanted Zada to act the part of an innocent, and Daphne would act the part of a woman in love, figuring that with her connections, she could avoid an Extrication—and divert suspicion from her true purposes long enough to find out more about her mother.
“I love you,” Daphne said again. More guards streamed into the room. One grabbed Zada’s elbows, wrenching them behind her back.
“Nothing a little Counseling won’t fix,” he said.
Shit. Whatever that entailed, she got the feeling she was about to have no other option.
Another guard grabbed at Daphne, who kicked and swore and reached out toward Zada again.
“I love you!” Daphne half yelled.
As the guards marched Zada out of the room, she twisted around to look at Daphne one last time, forcing herself to meet those beautiful brown eyes.
Zada had read love in those eyes. She had read concern, and love, and friendship, and Daphne had looked at Zada and seen only a means to an end, the dupe who could get her a little closer to her goal.
Daphne was watching her. Daphne was pulling hard against her own guard to keep a firm, steady stare leveled straight at Zada.
Of course she was. Because Daphne was pretending to care. Just like always.
Seconds before the guard dragged Zada through the door, Zada managed to turn to Daphne one last time and, in a voice several shades calmer than she felt, say, “You’re right. This is all your fault.”
Then she was gone.