Tim

  The Past. A few minutes ago…

  I step out of sight. And I Fade.

  I don’t know how it started. Maybe an unconscious sense that in this place, I am always beneath notice, even with the experimenters staring right at me, parsing every scrap of my data.

  But at some point I recognized my true Gift, my true power, and that was being ignored.

  When no one knows you’re around… Well, let’s just say it’s what people do when they think no one’s watching that really tells you who they are.

  Just like what I do when I Fade tells you almost everything you need to know about me.

  And while I’m not creeping into everyone’s personal life, you’d better believe being beneath notice never needs justification when you’re a detective… or a spy.

  Not sure what I am, exactly, but one thing I’m definitely not is getting caught. Not if I can help it.

  So I Fade and I flow through the halls in my shield of irrelevance and anonymity, with no one to see me, and no one to remember if they did. I stay out of the line of sight of the video cameras, but I know where all of those are. Better than the back of my hand.

  I search around for a few minutes, looking for anyone or anything of interest, and finally I find them.

  Sitting beside a duckpond, tossing bread to the ducks.

  The ‘Aspect Student Council’ is in session, I can see, or at least two out of three. Both of the A’s.

  I move closer to Andrea and Anton, but not too close. They’re both way too sharp to assume I’m truly invisible. Andrea in particular.

  I get as close as I can, lean casually against the rough bark of a tree, and listen.

  “They don’t remember us, Andi,” Anton says, his voice thick. “Or any of it. At all. Kei at least has amnesia, but what did they do to Dante? What else did they take?”

  “I know.” Andreas’s voice is subdued.

  “Then you know we don’t know what else they might have taken from us. Or from anyone else here, or anyone we know. Or don’t know.”

  I feel a chill settle over me as I listen, and a slow churning in my guts. This sounds like my worst nightmares. And worse still, even people as connected as the Aspects don’t have a clue how it’s happening. Or who it’s being done to.

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  I clench my hands into tight fists, nails gouging my palms, then deliberately relax them as Chris approaches his cousins.

  “What’s up, Anton?” Chris asks as he settles down next to his cousin.

  Anton is perched on a rounded boulder next to the duckpond, tossing croutons out across the waters. They land with tiny splashes, followed by ducks pedaling up smoothly to gobble up the tossed food. Appreciative quacks, or competitive ones, echo up from the rippling pool.

  “Just trying to follow the trail of breadcrumbs,” he says. “Tricky, when we don’t know what our prime witnesses have already forgotten.” He flipped a few more croutons, casting his bread upon the waters, a breeze blowing the scent of spices and starch back at them. And me. “Including us.”

  “At least we know it’s an issue, now,” Chris observes. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t panic.”

  Anton looks over at him, waggling his eyebrows and looking profoundly unpanicked. He rustles his small paper bag of croutons, then tosses another dozen into the quacking melee before them. The ducks provide cover noise, as well as entertainment.

  “Panic? They’re First Echelon,” Andrea snaps, sounding incensed more than frightened. “Like us. If it was done to them, it could be done to any of us. And Dante and Kei were two of the top students. We need to know what happened, and if their minds were permanently compromised.”

  “Or if ours were,” Chris adds, shifting on his rock to turn towards her. “Kei and Yoshi ran, after all. And Dante’s family pulled him from the Program. Keiron did the same with Lyra and Kerry. We’re as likely a set of targets as anyone.”

  Anton glanced from him to Andrea. Their faces were set, and no one was arguing. “I think we’ve all thought about that.”

  “How could they be editing our memories?” Anton shakes his head, looking out across the duckpond.

  Chris spread his hands. “Could be anything. Epigenetics to flip the Arc gene on and off for selective editing. If they could find and target the specific memory. Deep hypnosis. Amnesia, like whatever Kei’s got. Or something we’ve never heard of, like nanobots releasing microdoses of drugs in our brains or directly tampering with our neurons.” He shrugs. “Interesting stuff, anyway.”

  Anton raises his eyebrows. “Interesting? You know what I find interesting? Wondering what they might have taken away,” he taps his temple, “and what they might have added. How much of our past is real? Even the things we all remember?” He starts to laugh, then just shakes his head wryly. “What if our time on the island is just a bunch of home movies taken from someone else’s brains? Or whipped up by AIs?”

  Andi glares at him, but Chris just shakes his head.

  “Nostalgia by Sora,” Anton concludes. “Maybe they’re generating this scene, too.”

  “Targeting specific memories is hard enough,” Chris disagrees, “but making us forget the last hour yesterday is one thing. Implanting memories, and even a coherent history into one mind? Much less three? That’s light years beyond anything we’ve seen so far.”

  He shakes his head again, as a few of the ducks flap loudly across the pond to a quieter edge of the waters.

  Anton smiles at them. “So… nothing to worry about then? Just a memory like Swiss cheese? With holes in my past where I can’t imagine any exist?”

  “Again, I doubt they’ve had too many chances. I’m more concerned about people like Dante and Kei. Their issues seem more… extensive.”

  Andrea draws in a breath, and finally drops down next to them on the boulder with a whisper of elegant fabrics and the sigh of a much put-upon sister.

  “Kei’s a concern,” she admits. “We still know next to nothing about her. But the trauma she went through would explain her amnesia, according to her doctors, and her ability to recover from physical injuries is unmatched. At least for people who don’t regenerate.”

  Chris nods along. “Which means she might not be mindwiped at all. Unlike us and Dante.”

  “And is Dante wiped?” Andi asks. “Aside from that one night, obviously.” She shifts towards Anton. “I know it’s hard to think of us as forgotten, but what happened at the end on the Island was traumatic, and he was only twelve. And he was closer to Kei than we ever were. Closer to her than anyone but Yoshi. And then he lost them both.”

  “And the rest of us, too, in a way, when the Program ended,” Chris adds.

  Anton nods, dejected. “I know. I wanted to help, or at least talk. But he didn’t remember us at all. He’s definitely wiped,” he says to Andi, “unless there’s another way to make him forget that completely, that fast.”

  “Let’s not talk about it here,” Andi says finally, looking around, though fortunately not at me. I freeze, and stay very still as she rises. “Our friend may have a few ideas to help them both. Aside from pure shock therapy, of course.”

  Friend? I wonder. What friend?

  “Good,” Anton says, rising. “We still don’t know what that would do to them. Especially if this springs from buried hypnotic suggestions or something.”

  Chris rises to join them and they slip away quickly. I let them go, watching them warily watch in every direction but mine.

  That was… interesting. More grist for my notebook. Speaking of which, I don’t find it my knapsack , but that leaves my locker.

  My fingers itch to write down everything the Aspects said before there’s even a chance of forgetting it. I trot back to my locker, still under my veil of irrelevance, practically speedwalking as I round the final corner and spot my destination.

  And half-stumble as I’m caught between stopping and sprinting off, and settle on striding serenely forward.

  Haley and Kei are there. Haley’s hands are on her hips as she takes an uncompromising stance in the hallway. Kei, by contrast, leans against my locker, seemingly nonchalant. She’s always the one to watch.

  And always the one watching.

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