Atomic Rebooted

33. Mourning

MIRA

There was no day off for the Sentinels, after one of our own was killed. Not that anyone seemed to care that night.

The energy I'd lacked came roaring back that evening, when we went through our typical training protocols. It wasn't sorrow, though—it was anger, so intense and powerful I felt it surely would shatter my body and I would die with the feeling. I threw myself at Ryder in our sparring, but I couldn't focus on his moves. I just wanted to express the inner screaming, the rage that I was certain would break me.

And I kept seeing the dummies that Verity used out of the corner of my eye. It was their lack of motion. Any moment, I expected to see Verity lift them and set them down, her form of weight-lifting for her superpowers.

I avoided the leisure room. I didn't want to see the terminal that she used before she ran away, I didn't want to see the flat-scree where we would play combat sim games together, or the couch where we would read our required materials together.

Because she wouldn't be there.

Because I had failed to save her.

I also didn't eat much, that night or the next morning. Dr. Banning and Saige tried to force me, and I choked down as much as I could manage. But eventually they left me alone.

On Sunday, we were back on duty, patrolling the city. The day passed in a blur, and I felt exhausted, having to smile and wave at the various citizens like nothing had happened. I heard their whispers, along with the rest of the Sentinels.

We really were the failures of the Sentinel program. Verity had defected, something we weren't supposed to do. We were supposed to be above that, our darker impulses checked by our handlers.

But Dr. Banning had failed us again. She hadn't spotted the warning signs and she hadn't prepared us properly.

I couldn't bring myself to defend her.

Because they were right.

I didn't understand how the others did it so easily, and they never mentioned Verity again to me, or the hole in our team.

I tried to reach out to them—but they just left me alone, and avoided the topic. The others didn't hesitate to eat, use the leisure room, put their all into their training.

Dr. Banning pulled me into her office, on Sunday night.

"It's important that we put this incident and our feelings aside, Mira," Dr. Banning said. "Otherwise, they can corrupt us, and get in the way of our mission. Surely you understand that?"

I remember how my hands curled into fists of rage, how I blinked back at her, a numb realization finally overtaking me like a tidal wave.

I was the only one who cared. And I would be another failure, if I couldn't get that under control.

But I wouldn't let this go.

Still, I nodded and agreed to whatever she wanted, just so Dr. Banning would leave me alone.

That night, I dreamed of Verity.

I don't remember a lot of my dreams, partially because of the type of sleep that the tubes force us to have, but I think I'll always remember this one.

I was in the town square again. I was running, but for some reason I ran slower rather than faster, and Verity was bleeding. Heretic wasn't there, but Verity was, everyone terrified as she was bleeding and her powers caused her to lift everything into the sky.

Except for me.

"Verity!" I cried out her name, forgetting the code.

She looked me straight in the eyes and repeated the words that haunted me: "They're lying to you."

Then she crumpled and died.

I remember waking up before I should have in my sleep cycle, an unknown event to me. I panicked, trying to hit the gorilla glass of the wall, and blinking the water out of my eyes before I recognized where I was.

In my tube, in the dark of the night.

I'd never seen the room so dark. Only the tubes glowed in eerie pale turquoise light, and the shadows seemed to move with the water we were surrounded in.

Was this was Verity saw, I numbly wondered.

Noticing that I was awake, the tube started to drain, and opened for me to get started with my activities.

If it had been an otherwise normal night, I would have just gone back into my tube and re-started the sleep cycle.

But nothing was ordinary after the death of Verity.

I pulled off the mask and stepped into the complex. I headed down the hallway, to where the leisure room was. Moonlight shone through the window, but otherwise the entire room was pitch-black.

Why would it be anything else?

We weren't supposed to get up in the night.

I stepped through the darkness, propelled by instinct and unsure of what I was doing until I booted up the computer terminal.

Then her dying words echoed in my head.

"They're lying to you."

Verity wasn't a liar herself.

Which meant that either Heretic was telling the truth— or Verity believed she was told the truth.

What could Heretic have told Verity that would have made her give up everything and switch sides after only one day?

I was going to find out.

After all, Heretic mourned Verity. For some reason, she cared just as much as I did.

That meant that Heretic wasn't using Verity for some evil plot.

There was something much bigger going on.

But I knew I would never be allowed to pursue it. It was an instinct, a creeping feeling. Yet it was present all the same, and I knew it was the truth.

Besides, the others didn't care like I did. And I knew this was just the kind of thing I had to do by myself.

I couldn't do it alone, though. I needed Warlock's help.