CHAPTER 22

Earth

2027

 

Cold from the tile floor cooled Rory's palms.

"I know." Theo clutched the phone tight enough that the veins popped in his hands. "I understand, but we need time."

Rory felt as if she couldn't breathe still. The leaders of the free world waited to speak with her, but she couldn't move off the floor. Crumpled in the corner of the bathroom where Theo had taken her for refuge, Rory helplessly watched the images play through her mind over and over.

The baby's tiny fingers curling around her pinky.

"Twenty minutes, please. You have to make that work. She can't talk right now. You saw her." He sighed. "Thank you. We'll make it be enough."

He hung up and turned to face her, quiet for a moment.

"It was Price," Theo said. "He's buying us some time."

The energy had fled her body. Rory couldn't even nod. She felt so weak and hollow.

Theo slowly sat down beside her, as if jostling her could break her. "No matter what it is, you can tell me." He tucked her hair behind her ear. Brushed his knuckles along her jaw. "We'll handle it together."

Rory lifted her swollen eyes to look into his. "I…" Her voice failed her. She was so tired.

He took her face in his hands and she let herself lean against him, eyes closing against warm tears. "Rory," he said. "I will love you no matter what you tell me."

They had been through so much together. Theo had been there for her from the beginning, through the early days of testing, her recovery from the gunshot, social upheaval, and countless controversies. They'd celebrated the hope of new life with positive pregnancy tests together and held one another once it was gone. Laughing together, crying together, everything together. Night after night for year after year, Theo had slid his arm over her waist in bed and had drawn her against himself. He had faithfully loved her and supported her no matter what came their way.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered in a cracking voice.

"No." He shook his head and tilted her face up to his. "Whatever you're remembering, it's nothing you should apologize for. Who you are today matters. What you decide today. If you did something back then–"

"I have a son." The words croaked from her throat. She looked into Theo's warm eyes and watched understanding sharpen into pain. "I can't remember his name, but I can see his little hands." A sob broke free but she didn't avert her eyes. "I have a son and I Ioved his father."

Theo nodded and blinked. "We considered this–" He cleared his throat and looked down. "It makes sense. It…" He sniffed. "A son? You have a son?"

"Theo." Rory wound her fingers through his. "I love you."

This time when they looked into one another's eyes neither of them spoke or moved or breathed. They stared with the life they'd lived crumbling between them, because no matter what happened now, it was all different. Rory was different. With one memory, life had once again been given to her and taken away before she ever knew it.

"Oh, Rory. My god." Tears flooded Theo's eyes and he dragged her onto his lap to hold her tightly. He clasped her head against his chest. "We'll find them. I don't know how but we will."

The words broke something within her and she began to weep in his arms. "Them?"

"If you lost me, you'd come for me, no matter where life took you." He ran his fingers through her hair, rocking her gently. Crying with her. "So we have to find them."

Didn't he want to know what it meant for them? Or worry that if Rory found the man she'd had a child with, the man she used to love, that he could lose her? Wasn't there any part of Theo that wanted to take their life together and run? "Theo, you do not have to–"

"I love you." Theo pulled back to look at her. His voice was desperate and his eyes streaked red. "You hear me, Rory?" Heavy breath fell against her lips. "I love you more than life itself. I've watched you lose piece after piece of yourself. You think for a moment I could sit by and do nothing?" He searched her face and then kissed her cheek, her temple. "I love you," he whispered against her skin. "Nothing matters more to me. All this time of wanting a child you were looking for him and you didn't know it."

The sharp pain of loss collided with the fullness of being loved by Theo. Rory drew his lips to hers and kissed him softly, the salt of their tears sharp on her tongue.

"I promise," he whispered and kissed her again. "We'll find them."

From the first day Rory had met Theo, his kindness and trust had soothed the deepest hurts within her. She treasured the goodness in him so dearly. But his love for her was cruel to him, because he'd promised to just find her family for her when they had a family of their own. Rory didn't know how to reconcile these two lives. It was as if two hearts beat within her body. It wasn't fair to Theo. He was a good man. Look at all the pain she'd brought to his life.

If he had never met her, his life would be so different.

This was all too much. How much harder would it be once she remembered everything? Or if she saw their faces again?

"I'll never leave you, Theo." Rory breathed the words against him. "Never."

"I know. I just don't know what life will look like at the end of this."

Neither did she.

But she did know deep within a place she could not remember that she must have said those same words before–to never leave–and meant them with the same conviction. That this was a promise she may have been powerless to keep.

"Vehru is coming." Rory settled against Theo's familiar chest. Familiar warmth. "She knows where they are. She knows what she did to us and what she plans to do next."

Rory wanted to believe she could save Earth from the danger coming. It seemed foolish to even hope such a thing. But in that moment she decided that no matter what happened the last time Vehru entered her life, things would be different now. Because she was different now.

Rory would stop Vehru this time. She would not steal away her family again.

 

#

 

Of the few things Rory could control, the response of world leaders to her memories was not one of them. She did not try. In the coming days as the world prepared for an unprecedented and largely unknown threat, Rory focused on her mind.

She had to remember.

Only nothing anyone did helped. They'd tried ketamine, TMS–transcranial magnetic stimulation–and psychedelic assisted hypnosis.

The knowledge and memories that did return to her came unbridled and randomly. Far more slowly than they needed.

Rory sat with General Price as they spoke with President Saito over a secure connection from a bunker in a location they had not even shared with her. Theo sat beside her, as always, holding her hand through it all.

"I haven't had anymore significant flashbacks. It's a trickle of memory. Like a dripping faucet. And the impression of things I cannot remember but feel like may be true."

"What are these impressions?" Saito asked.

"I feel like I trained for a long time before coming to Earth. And that they control this amnesia." It felt as if something scratched beneath her skull. A creeping chill within her mind. "They've done something to my brain."

"If they are controlling her memories," Theo said, "it seems likely they'd be doing it from Earth or within the solar system. We don't know what they're capable of. Maybe they're on the other side of the galaxy. But someone, or something, may be close."

"They're already here," Saito said.

"Or they've always been here." General Price lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Rory thinks more are coming, either way."

"We've searched for a decade," Saito said. "The entire world has searched. There's a damn hundred million dollar reward out there for anyone who can definitively identify any source of intelligence that is not from our species. Nothing."

"Because we won't find them until they want us to." Rory settled her hands on the table and lifted her chin. "I know Vehru. I don't remember her, but I knew her before I came to Earth. I have to trust my gut."

Her heart pounded steadily inside of her as she rose from the table.

"If she's controlling aspects of my neurology, then we're connected in some way. I can feel it."

"What does that mean?" Saito asked.

"It means I'm not waiting around for her to show herself."

"Wait," Price lifted his hand, but it was too late.

Rory had already spoken.

"Vehru." She dug her nails into the grain of the table. "Where are you?" Her hands curled into fists. "I know you can hear me. Veh–"

"Rory." A voice that did not belong to President Saito came out from the speaker on the table. A smooth, calm, almost humored voice. "I wondered when you would call."

An icy chill sparked at the base of Rory's neck and wove down her spine. Every muscle in her body tightened. Theo sat up straight as a board, eyes wide. Price stared blankly for several seconds before standing and walking briskly to the door. One tug. Nothing. He swiped his ID. Still nothing.

The ice from the chill froze Rory's voice. Cold anger hardened in her veins. "Is it you?"

"Not quite," the voice said. "But close enough."

"Enough." Rory slammed her fist against the table. "This isn't a game. Explain who you are."

"My phone isn't working," Price said. "We're locked in. Is the President on the line? Madam President."

Theo breathed hard beside her. "Rory–"

"You could have spoken up any time, couldn't you?" Rory could hardly hear anything except for the rush of her heart. "For ten years you've been silent."

"Much longer than that if you want to know the truth." The stranger's voice slithered through the air. Or was it her mind?

"Can you all hear her?" Rory asked.

"Yes." Theo grabbed Rory's arm, standing close now. "Are you human?" he asked.

"Clever, Theo. I enjoyed the theoretical paper you wrote hypothesizing that Rory's people had gained their information about Earth from an autonomous AI monitoring system. That's not quite what I am, but I appreciated your discussion of the technology that could enable this."

As deep as the sorrow that had ruled her life the past few days ran, it all coalesced into pure rage. Rory's voice trembled with it so she hardly recognized herself. "Say what you came to say."

"You called on me," the voice responded.

"And you answered for a reason."

"Commander Vehru instructed me to do so once your memories had been activated. It's only a matter of time before you have full access. The human mind is fragile. We cannot overwhelm you."

She couldn't breathe. "Why was I sent to Earth?"

"That isn't what you really want to ask me."

Tears nipped her eyes. But she was done crying. Refused to let one more drop spill. That was the question that had plagued her for years, but another mattered to her much more than that. Only she was afraid of the answer. "Are they alive?"

The beat of silence that followed sucked her heart out of her body. She wouldn't survive if she heard no. She swore she wouldn't.

"They're alive."

Her knees buckled. It wasn't something she'd expected or had warning for. Theo caught her and she grabbed his arms, faint. Pain snapped along the sides of her head.

"This is what I wanted to tell you."

Rory squeezed her eyes shut as bright light snapped over her vision. The memory took over all of her senses so viscerally that she felt the heat of a summer day baking into her skin.

"The AI integration is seamless because it's a replica of her. It's nothing like mine. They work in perfect sync."

That voice. Rory couldn't place it. She pressed her palms to her temple and tried to recall more but the door had been shut.

"You can control which memories I have?" She felt like a puppet on strings. "Give me the rest."

"In time. It's a traumatic process. Memories we take are not meant to be returned normally."

Rory needed to explain to Theo and General Price what she had just seen, but she couldn't take her focus off this woman. The replicated mind of Commander Vehru.

"What happens next?" Rory asked.

"You remember. The world prepares. We wait."

"You're everywhere, aren't you? Running through every vein of this world."

"This is enough for one day. You're not the only one trying to take this all in."

General Price spoke in a loud voice. "We can take it all in. Tell us how you've infiltrated our systems and taken control of our network."

Vehru's replica chuckled. "You wouldn't understand, General. But I do hope you enjoy speculating. I will return and when I do, important decisions must be made."

"Don't leave," Rory said.

Silence met her.

The door to the room swung open.

Theo reached back for his chair and sat down. "Holy shit."

"How are we supposed to fight them?" Rory whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

Beneath the desperation, though, relief swept through her. Because the man standing in the shadows of the bedroom window and their son were alive.

Rory reached for Theo and held onto him. "She's a replica of Vehru's consciousness. They can work in perfect tandem."

The General cast Rory a long look.

"She's everywhere."