“I don’t know if I can be the good guy,” he said.
“There’s only one way to find out,” McCoy said.
Seeley took a deep breath and considered what they were asking. If they failed, they would all die. Lucy would die, and Cami wouldn’t have a father at all. Not that she had much of one now.
Maybe if he could do this, help them, he could redeem some of his darkness and be the father Cami deserved. Maybe Zoe was right. Could he be better for his daughter?
He looked up at Zoe and then at McCoy.
Only one way to find out.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I LOST TRACK of how long I’d been in solitary confinement. No one came to see me. No food was provided. There was a jug of dirty water in the corner, a wastebasket for emptying my bladder, a thin, dusty mattress, and a single light hanging from the center of the ceiling.
I’d exhausted all possible escape options, which was quick and easy because after an hour I knew there weren’t any. My captors knew better than to leave anything I could use against them. So I didn’t waste my energy on things I knew wouldn’t manifest. Instead I spent the time reorganizing my memories.
The suddenness of them all had been overwhelming at first. Thousands of childhood moments to reconcile, everything from moments of pleasure and pain to great victories and terrible failures. I relived each one I logged, sitting there cross-legged on the stone floor, meditating on them all. I escaped into myself and let them come at me hard and fast. That was the only way to digest them.
They stirred complex emotions about who I was. Who was I meant to be? On one hand, the voice of reason said I was designed, trained, manipulated to be a product for progress. An instrument wrapped up in flesh. On the other hand, the mothering voice of Olivia said I was more human than tool, that I had the capacity to choose what to do with the abilities I’d been given. The two ideas warred with one another.
Was I Lucy, or was I Number Nine? The question started off simple and became weighted as the time passed. In the moments when my mind wasn’t wrapped up in the war of identity, I thought of Zoe. The part of me that was Lucy cared for her deeply, was afraid that she was hurt or dead. The part of me that was a number saw her only as a distraction from purpose. So more conflict gathered in my psyche.
At some point the door to my prison opened, and Director Hammon entered with his flock of armed agents. I could smell their fear, read it on their faces. All except Hammon. He was confident and steady. I looked up from my seated place in the middle of the room.
“Number Nine,” Hammon said. He used a long black cane, and I wondered if the bullet I’d placed deep in his leg had gone clean through or if they’d had to dig it out. “Leave us,” he said to the galley of men.
They looked at one another. “Sir?” one of them questioned.
“Leave us,” he repeated more firmly. They did as they were told, and the door shut behind them.
Very confident, I thought.
“You aren’t afraid to be alone with me?” I asked.
“No,” he answered.
“Why? The others are.”
“Because I know you, Number Nine. The others just know of you.”
“And knowing me keeps you safe?”
“I’m your commander. You wouldn’t harm me.”
“I shot you.”
He smiled. “That was unintentional. If it had been purposeful, you wouldn’t have missed my femoral artery by millimeters.”
I said nothing. He was right.
“We need to talk about Olivia, Number Nine,” Hammon said.
“You want to know where the hidden files are,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I should tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s my only leverage for staying alive. There’s no reason you wouldn’t kill me once you have what you want.”
“What if I promise that won’t be the outcome?”
“Then you would be lying.”
Hammon huffed in amusement. “I will resort to much crueler measures if my hand is forced.”
“You can try,” I said.
He knew how fortified I was against torture. That approach would take some time, if it could succeed at all. Anger flashed across his face.
“That makes you upset?” I asked.
“Well, Number Nine, I have pressure coming down from up top to get this job done. And you are currently the only thing standing in my way, so yes, it makes me frustrated.”
“Pressure from the leader of the free world.” I remembered him now. The different versions of him that had come through over the years.
“He is very powerful and impatient,” Hammon said.
“I am very powerful, and patient,” I replied.
He forced an uncomfortable smile. He was losing his temper. I remembered that about him. He didn’t hold his rage well.
“This is not a game.”
“Is it not? It feels like a game to me.”
“If you had any idea what was actually at stake here, you wouldn’t be toying with this information like a child. But you don’t understand. You were created with a flaw. You are broken, so all that power you believe you possess does you no good, because you don’t understand the way the world functions.”
Anger twitched inside my chest.
“That was the part we never could master. Making you human enough to exist outside these walls. Humanity can’t be taught. It either is or isn’t. Something we now know for the future.”
I looked at him with curiosity. Some part of me understood the baiting, but Lucy was ignoring Number Nine’s warning about chomping down.
“You look surprised,” Hammon teased. “Surely with the level of intelligence you possess, you had to assume we would try again. Next time we’ll develop a newer, better version, one that will actually succeed. Without the . . .” He tilted his head, seeming to ponder how to put it, then smiled. “Mistakes.”
That hurt my feelings. The ones I struggled to control. The ones that belonged to the part of me that felt like Lucy. I was still a girl, after all. Wasn’t I?
“That’s why recovering the files is so important. This is greater than you or me. We are talking about creating a safer America, maybe even a better world. And you are standing in the way of a greater version, for what? Your life? Seems selfish.”
I pondered what he was saying. “Don’t I deserve to live?”
“Over progress?” Hammon asked, his eyes drilling into mine. His face turned cold. “No.”
The tick of rage pulsed and spread. He believed his progress was more valuable than my existence. Maybe he’s right, Number Nine thought. Of course he isn’t right, Lucy argued. I was teetering on the edge, sure to fall one way or the other, but unsure which way it would be.
“Tell me where the files are hidden, Number Nine,” Hammon said.
Sweat beads trickled down the left side of his forehead. I could hear his heart rate increasing.
“I will get what I want from you one way or another,” he said.
Still I said nothing, and his breathing increased.
“Olivia told me not to tell you,” I finally replied. “No matter the cost.”
A moment of silence engulfed the room, and again Hammon’s pulse spiked. Then he took a deep breath and regained control of his temper. “I don’t want to have to do this the hard way, but you seem stubbornly resolved.”