The school kitchen was a forest of cold stainless steel. The blue moonlight cutting through the
high windows made everything look frozen.
Jax was still staring at the cricket ball in his hand. He wasn't tossing it anymore. He was holding
it like it was a strange, smooth stone he'd found on a beach.
"Jax, put the ball away. We have to move,
" Sloane said, her voice sharp but her eyes full of fear.
"What is it for?" Jax asked. His voice was flat, devoid of the usual energy that made him the star
of every game. "It's red. It's hard. But... what do I do with it?"
Sloane grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his varsity jacket. "You're the captain, Jax!
You've spent ten years of your life with that ball! Don't you dare forget it now!"
Jax just looked at her. He didn't pull away. He didn't even blink. "I remember the word 'captain.' I
don't remember being one."
21.
I looked at Julian. He was watching them, his eyes darting back and forth like he was
reading a code.
"The motor cortex is failing,
" Julian whispered. It was the first time he'd spoken since we
hit the basement. "Archer isn't just deleting memories of people. He's deleting 'procedural
memory'—the stuff our bodies know how to do without thinking."
"Can you fix him?" I asked, grabbing Julian's hand. The ink I'd written on his skin—JULIAN
—was slightly smudged from the sweat of the lift ride.
Julian looked at his own hand, then at me. A flash of pain crossed his face. "I can't even
fix myself, Callie. I just forgot the value of Pi. I know it's a circle... but the numbers are
just... falling out of my head like sand."
The Genius was fading. The boy who was a human calculator was becoming a blank slate.
22.
Clang.
A heavy metal tray fell off a counter at the far end of the kitchen.
We all spun around. Out of the darkness of the walk-in freezer, a figure emerged. It wasn't an
"Assigned" puppet with blue eyes. It was a student—a younger boy, maybe a freshman. He was
shivering, his uniform torn.
"Help,
" he wheezed. "The mist... it's in the vents."
As he spoke, a thin, sickly grey vapor began to pour out of the industrial kitchen vents above
us. It didn't rise like smoke. It sank, crawling across the floor like a living thing.
"Don't breathe it in!" Sloane yelled, pulling her blazer over her nose. "That's the delivery
system! That's how the virus spreads!"
23.
The freshman boy inhaled a single breath of the mist.
His shivering stopped instantly. His eyes went wide, then glazed over into that
terrifying, vacant stare. He dropped to his knees, his hands hanging limp at
his sides. He didn't scream. He didn't move. He just... went silent.
"We have to seal the room!" I shouted, looking around.
But the kitchen was massive. Too many vents. Too many openings.
"Julian, think!" I grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at me. "The
ventilation system. You studied the blueprints for the Science Fair! How do we
shut it down from here?"
Julian squeezed his eyes shut. He was pressing his palms against his temples
so hard his face was turning red. "I... I can't. The diagram... it's dissolving. I
see the pipes, but the labels are gone! I don't know which valve is which!"
24.
Julian, look at me!" I screamed over the hiss of the vents. "Forget the labels.
Use your logic. If you were Archer, where would you put the override?"
Julian opened his eyes. They were unfocused. For a second, I thought he was
gone too.
Then, he looked at a large, red pipe running along the ceiling. "Pressure,
" he
whispered. "The gas is pressurized. If we increase the heat in the boiler room
next door, the back-pressure will force the mist back into the vents."
"How do we get to the boiler room?" Sloane asked, already pushing Jax toward
the back exit.
"Through the service hatch,
" Julian said, his voice gaining a tiny bit of
strength. "But someone has to stay here to hold the manual lever, or the
pressure will drop again."
25.
"I'll stay,
" Jax said suddenly.
He stepped toward a heavy iron lever near the freezer. He didn't know why he
was doing it. He didn't remember being a hero. But some part of his soul—the
part that made him a "Shield"—was still there.
"Jax, no,
" Sloane said, her voice breaking. "If you stay, you'll be breathing in
the mist for five minutes straight. You'll lose everything."
Jax looked at Sloane. For a brief second, his eyes softened. "I've already
forgotten how to play, Sloane. I've already forgotten my house. If I forget
you... at least you'll be alive to remember me."
He slammed the lever down and locked his arms around it. "Go! Now!"
26.
Sloane didn't want to leave, but Julian and I pulled her toward the service
hatch.
The crawlspace was tight and smelled of grease. We scrambled through, the
sounds of the kitchen fading behind us. We burst into the boiler room—a redlit chamber filled with the roar of fire and the hiss of steam.
"The thermostat!" Julian pointed to a dial behind a glass case. "Turn it to 400
degrees! Now!"
Sloane smashed the glass with her shoe and cranked the dial. The boilers
groaned. The pipes above us began to shake violently.
"It's working!" I yelled.
But Julian wasn't looking at the boilers. He was staring at a chalkboard on the
wall where a janitor had written some basic maintenance numbers. He was
staring at them like they were ancient, cursed runes.
27.
"Nine... plus... seven..." Julian whispered.
He was counting on his fingers. The boy who could do calculus in his head was
struggling with basic addition.
"Julian?" I walked over to him, my heart breaking.
He looked at me, a single tear rolling down his cheek. "Callie... I just forgot
what a triangle is. I know it has three sides, but I can't... I can't see the shape
in my head anymore."
I grabbed his face in my hands. "It doesn't matter, Julian. You're still you.
You're still the person who just saved us."
"Am I?" he asked. "If I lose my mind, Callie, what's left? I'm just a body. I'm
just another 'Blank' waiting to happen."
28.
Suddenly, the roar of the boilers stopped. A green light flickered on the wall.
Pressure Stabilized.
We ran back to the service hatch and scrambled back into the kitchen. The
grey mist was gone, sucked back into the vents.
Jax was still at the lever. He was slumped over, his eyes closed. Sloane ran to
him, screaming his name.
He opened his eyes slowly. He looked at Sloane. He looked at me. Then he
looked at Julian.
"Who are you guys?" he asked quietly.
Sloane let out a sob that echoed through the empty kitchen. Jax was still
physically there, but the "Shield" had been emptied. He didn't even recognize
his best friend.
29.
Julian stood in the center of the kitchen, his shadow long against the floor.
He looked at the ink on his hand: JULIAN.
He took my pen out of my pocket. With a shaking hand, he wrote something
else under his name.
I looked down. Under his name, he had written: TRUST CALLIE.
"In case I forget why I'm following you,
" he whispered.
I took the pen from him and took his other hand. On his left palm, I wrote: I
LOVE YOU.
He looked at the words. He didn't say it back. He couldn't. He had probably
forgotten what the word "love" felt like. But he closed his hand into a fist,
squeezing the words tight.
"The South Wing is next,
" Sloane said, wiping her eyes and standing up. She
grabbed Jax's hand. He followed her like a shadow, silent and obedient.
"Archer is waiting. And I'm going to kill him for what he did to my best friend."
30.