It's a struggle to appear unfazed as I make my farewells to Hautey and Jenna and exit the Chrysalis from a set of doors on the first floor. Jo follows me, and Leo trails behind us. Jo drags me to a bench in front of a broken-down hotel across the street and forces me to sit down.
"Joan, talk to me. I can tell that you had another vision back there. Your face went totally blank."
Leo's gaze sharpens. "What's this about visions?"
Jo quickly fills him in on my experiences over the past two days, and his eyes flick between her and me as he absorbs my situation.
While Jo talks, I struggle with feeling disconnected from reality, as if I'm a passive observer hovering above my own body. My mind is rational, considering how I can use the knowledge of my own death to somehow help my friends. But no feelings accompany these thoughts, other than a vague desire to keep anyone from knowing what I saw, even Jo.
"It was a vision of the Chrysalis," I say, settling for a partial truth so she'll stop looking at me like I'm about to break into a million pieces. "We had turned it into some kind of command central again, but this time for our own uses."
"If that's all you saw, then why does your voice sound so flat? And your eyes—it's like you can't fully focus on me. You forget, Joan, that though we are two very different people, we share DNA. I recognize the look on your face. You're going to do something reckless."
Jo's words snap me back into my own body, and a complex mix of fear, dread and worry floods my mind. But threaded through all those murky feelings is a pure ribbon of determination to keep fighting, to truly live for as long as I have left. It's like the hope and purpose that ignited in me when Lexi activated the H2IV has gone from an ember to a full blaze. It's easier to fight when I can see the end on the horizon.
"It's okay, Jo. The vision came with a weight of responsibility. Whether I want to or not, I'm going to play a role in rebuilding our rebellion, and ensuring that we spark real change. I never wanted to have that kind of power again, because it comes with the chance of getting people hurt because of my decisions."
"Are you sure these visions of yours are even real?" Jo asks. "We are built from the same genetic code and I've never had an experience like that."
Leo speaks up, and he sounds sharp and sure, like he used to when he was my teacher. "This is real. Strand has spent decades seeking DNA of individuals they think have expanded mental capacity. Their hypothesis was that putting someone's physical body under extreme stress would activate latent abilities."
Jo's face drains of color and her gaze goes faraway. I know she's remembering the years of torture Strand subjected her to. Was that their way of trying to awaken visions in her?
Leo's face is equally grim. "They tortured all of us Beakers, and never achieved the results they were looking for. But it seems that a virus could do what torture could not."
Before I can question Leo further, my phone pings with a message from Harriet asking me to meet her in the little room in the Lab that she shares with Mason.
"I need to go."
Jo nods, and then she and Leo continue a whispered conversation as I hurry away.
When I reach Harriet's room, I find her lighting a bunch of old-school candles.
"Before our big team meeting tonight, we need to talk, Joan," Harriet says when she notices me hovering by the entrance.
I step inside, grateful for the shadows. "If it's about the fact that we need a larger meeting room with all the new kids at Seattle Secondary starting to show up, I might have an idea about that."
YOU ARE READING
Joan Ascends
Fiksi IlmiahSeason 3 of The Throwbacks The outlook for Throwbacks in Seattle - and across America - has never been bleaker. If Joan and her friends want to have any chance at building a more just future, they will have to expose the inhumanity of their enemies...
