Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(81)

“What was that?” Reykin asks with a shocked frown.

“I have this predictive element developing right now. I’m aware of subtle cues in my environment that give me a sense of what might happen. I could hear the man’s shoes didn’t have much of a tread, and based on the way he shuffled toward the door, there was a high probability that he was going to slip on the damp sidewalk.”

“You heard his tread? While you were talking to me?”

“I can multitask.”

He leans his face near to me and presses his lips against my temple. The scent of him and the exquisiteness of his lips turn my insides to butter.

“I have a plan,” I whisper.

I link my arm in Reykin’s and tug him gently. We walk in the rain past the closing shop fronts.

“What’s your plan?” Reykin asks.

“I have to find Hawthorne.”

His shoulders stiffen. “Why?”

“He’s alive.”

“What do you mean? You said you accidently killed him.”

“I’m talking about the Hawthorne from your theory. The one in a different world from ours. You were right. He exists, and if I know him, he’s with me.” I tip my head to the side. “The old version of me. They’re technically dead here, but they’re alive if you think about it. Spectrum’s world exists, so they do, too—unless Crow has killed them, but I don’t think he’d willingly give them up. He enjoys hurting them too much.”

“They’re programmed for pain?”

“Reykin, it isn’t programming anymore. Wherever Hawthorne is, he’s real in that world. He feels love, horror, desire . . . The most tragic aspect of his predicament is his endless potential for pain. Crow can make Hawthorne’s life a torment that never ends.”

“What do you mean by ‘wherever he is’? He’s inside Spectrum, right?”

“Like I said, it’s not an elaborate computer anymore. It’s like it punched a hole in our world and leaked out.”

His brow furrows. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s creating a new world—an alternate universe. It’s stealing pieces from this world to do it. Ransom has been there. He knows. He killed his copy there, and when I say ‘killed,’ I mean it’s not how you think about erasing a program. The other Ransom existed. He was alive in that world. Destroying him was like murder. Do you understand?”

“How can a copy be real? By definition, it’s a reproduction—a fake.”

“Let’s call the other world Spectrum. As I said, it’s not a computer or a sophisticated program like I once thought. It’s an alternate universe, a new world with similar properties, but with its own unique features. It won’t always conform to the laws of nature we expect.”

I know this is distressing for Reykin, but he’s shoving aside his fear and trying to grasp what I’m telling him.

“You’ve seen glimpses of Hawthorne here in our world,” he says. “On the Sozo One.”

“Yes. He’s trying to break through to me. He’s using quantum physics. Whether he knows that or not is a different matter. He’s probably using the other Roselle and doing it through—”

“I don’t need to know how. What I want to know is, does he look like he’s in control, in this other world?”

“He’s using Roselle to see—to witness his message—and then they’re communicating that visual image to me, through her, because of our connection to each other.”

“Because she’s your copy?”

“Yes. She’s me. The old me. Our paths deviated the moment I awoke in my capsule on the way to the Sword Palace to join Crow, but she’s still me.”

“Couldn’t it just be Crow using a likeness of Hawthorne to get to you?”

“It could, only Ransom’s memories tell me otherwise. He’s been there. He’s the one who lifted Roselle out of the collective and made her self-aware there. He’s given her knowledge she needs to make others like her self-aware, too.”

“They can rebel?”

I make a face. “They can resist, but their whole world is Spectrum, so the only ways they win are by annihilating their world, which means they cease to exist, or a hostile takeover—a transition to a state like Crow’s, merging with Spectrum, or . . .”

“Or?”

“Or, they do what Crow did and get a new body in this world to inhabit.”

“If Roselle gets a new body here, then . . .”

“Then there’s two of us in this world. We’ll have the same mind up until a point, but some of her memories have been purged, and I have a RW1 implant, so we’re different in a lot of ways. She’s more like the old me.”

The one you love, I think with a stabbing ache in my chest.

“How do you feel about that?” he asks.

I’d like to ask him the same question. If he could choose between us, who would he pick? The old Roselle, or me? Emotions flash through my mind at light speed. Integrating with my alternate could be an option, but she’d lose her autonomy. She’ll never go for it. If I destroy Spectrum, I destroy her and Hawthorne. If I somehow rescue them both, then there will be another me around. She won’t know who Reykin is, because Ransom erased all those memories in her to protect Reykin, but she will have a raging “heart-on” for Hawthorne, who may or may not be in love with his former girlfriend.