As he continues, I picture Owen Chris Clarke, eyes blazing on the Coronado roof as he spoke of monsters and freedom and betrayal. Of tearing down the Archive, one branch at a time.
“But the mark of a revolutionary,” continues Lowell, “is the fact that cause comes first. No matter how elevated the revolutionary becomes in the eyes of others—and in his own eyes—his life will always matter less than the cause. It is expendable.”
Owen jumped off a roof. Took his own life to make sure the Archive couldn’t take his mind, his memories. To make sure that if—when—his History woke, he would remember everything. I have no doubt that Owen would have given or taken his life a hundred times to see the Archive burn.
“Sadly,” adds Lowell, “revolutionaries often find the lives of others equally expendable.”
Expendable. I write the word in my notebook.
Owen definitely saw the lives of others as expendable. From those he murdered to keep his sister a secret, to those he tried to murder—Wesley bleeding out so Owen could make a point—to me. Owen gave me the chance to come with him instead of standing in his way. As soon as I refused, I was worthless to him. Nothing more than another obstacle.
If Owen was a revolutionary, then what does that make me? Part of the machine? The world isn’t that black-and-white, is it? It doesn’t all boil down to with or against. Some of us just want to stay alive.
TEN
AMBER’S LATE TO PHYSIOLOGY, so she has to snag a seat in the back and I have to spend the period studying the nervous system and trying to stay awake. As soon as the bell rings, I’m out of my chair and standing by hers.
“That eager to get to gym?” she asks, packing up her bag.
“Question,” I say casually. “Is your dad a cop?”
“Huh?” Amber’s strawberry eyebrows go up. “Oh, yeah. Detective.” She hoists the bag onto her shoulder and we head into the fray. “Why?”
“I just saw him on the news this morning.”
“Kind of sad, isn’t it?” she says. “I didn’t get to see my dad this morning.”
Treading dangerous waters, then. “He works a lot?”
Amber sighs. “On a light day. And the Phillip case is killing him.” She almost smiles. “My mom hates it when I use words like killing in casual conversation. She thinks I’m becoming desensitized to death. I hate to tell her she’s too late.”
“My grandfather was a detective, too.” Well, a private eye, and mostly under the table work at that, but close enough.
Her eyes light up. “Really?”
“Yeah. I grew up around it. Bound to make you a little morbid.” Amber smiles, and I take my shot. “Do they have any idea what happened to that guy, Mr. Phillip?”
Amber shakes her head and pushes the door open. “Dad won’t talk about it around me.” She squints into the late morning light. “But the walls in our house are pretty thin. From what I’ve heard him say, none of it adds up. You’ve got this one room, and it’s trashed, and the rest of the house is spotless. Nothing missing.”
“Except for Mr. Phillip.”
“Exactly,” she says, kicking a loose pebble down the path, “but nobody can figure out why. He was apparently one of the nicest guys around, and he was retired.”
“A judge, right? Do they think someone might have been angry with a sentence or something?”
“Then why not kill him?” says Amber, pushing open the gym doors. “I know that’s cold, but if you have a vendetta, you usually have a body. They don’t have one. They don’t have anything. He just vanished. So my question is, who would go to all the trouble to make someone disappear and then leave a mess like that? Why not make it look like he just walked away?”
She has a point. She has a lot of points.
“You’re really good at this,” I say, following her into the locker room.
She beams. “Crime dramas and years of eavesdropping.”
“What are you two going on about?” asks Safia, dropping her bag on the bench. I hesitate, but Amber surprises me by giving a nonchalant shrug and lying through her teeth. “Arteries and veins, mostly.”
Saf screws up her nose. “Ewww.” She keys in her locker code and starts to change, but Amber smiles and keeps going. “Did you know that veins move around beneath your skin?”
“Stop,” says Saf, paling.
“And did you know—” Amber continues.
“Amber, stop,” says Saf, tugging on her workout clothes.
“—that the brachial artery,” she says, poking Saf’s arm for emphasis, “is the first place blood goes after being pumped through your heart, so if you sever it, you could conceivably lose all five liters of blood in your body? Your heart would just pump it right out onto the floor—”
“Gross, gross, stop,” snaps Saf, slamming her locker and storming away toward the gym doors.
Amber looks back at me with a smile after Safia has stormed out. “She gets squeamish,” she says cheerfully.
“I can see that.” I’d be lying if I said it didn’t lighten my mood. “Hey, will you let me know if they find anything?”
She nods a little reluctantly. “Why so interested in the case?”
I flash a smile. “You’re not the only one who grew up on crime shows.”
Amber smiles back, and I make a mental note to spend more time watching television.
There’s a nervous energy in my bones. I want to run—want to sprint until it dissipates—but I’m terrified of triggering another tunnel moment, so I spend the first half of gym walking on the track, trying to clear my head. Amber and Gavin are “stretching” on a mat across the room, trying to hide a magazine on the floor between them. Safia is fencing—she’s actually good, in an obnoxious way—and Cash is on the weight machines with a few other guys. And Wesley is…right beside me. One moment I’m alone, and the next he’s fallen casually into step next to me. I count the number of strides we walk in silence—eleven—before Wesley feels the need to break it.
“Did you know,” he asks, affecting an accent that I think is supposed to be Cash’s, “that the hawk, which is Hyde’s mascot, is known for performing dazzling aerobatic feats to impress prospective mates?”
I can’t help but laugh. Wes smiles, and slips back into his own voice. “What’s on your mind?”
“Crime scenes,” I say absently.
“Never a dull answer, I’ll give you that. Care to be more specific?”
I shake my head.
“Bishop! Ayers!” shouts the gym teacher near the sparring platform. “Come show these idiots how to fight.”
Wesley knocks his shoulder against mine—a ripple of bass through two thin layers of fabric—and we make our way to the mat and suit up. I roll my wrist, testing.
“Do you really have a Ferrari?” I ask as I cinch my gloves.
He gives me a withering look. “For your information, Miss Bishop,” he says, pulling on his helmet, “I don’t own a car.”
We go to the center of the platform.