The Complication (The Program #6)(103)

“You’re so cute,” I murmur, smiling.

“God,” he says, dramatically. “We’re like obsessed with each other or something.”

I laugh, and he reaches to pull my chair closer to his. He flinches a little, overextending himself because of the haze of medication. “Speaking of obsession,” he says. “My phone rang about eighty times, and eventually I answered it.”

“I swear, if this is another conversation about your mother—”

“It was my mother,” he says, talking over me. “And she apologized and asked me to come home.”

The joking stops, and a spike of fear plunges into me. “You didn’t agree, did you?” I ask.

“Uh, no. I’m not stupid,” Wes says. “But I also told her I didn’t know where you were. I thought it was better that way. I told her I needed a night away to think. Do you hate me for lying?”

“To her? No. Just don’t lie to me.”

“Okay,” Wes says, leaning to kiss me, lingering there. “We’re full-on honesty here,” he murmurs, his lips grazing mine. “Unfiltered, naked honesty. Completely—”

“I get it,” I say with a laugh, pushing him back down in his chair. “So,” I say. “What kind of equipment was in that box you brought in?” I ask.

“Not much, actually. Some computer equipment, a bunch of vials of the truth serum. A metal-looking crown with wires. We talked a bit in the car, and from what I can gather, she has a theory that if she can synthesize your memory patterns, the way your mind lays them out, she can apply it to others. She says as long as you’re healthy, you have a unique connection—a bond—between memories.” Wes shrugs, like he can’t confirm if it’s true. “She said you and Nicole have similar patterns, but you’re the glue. Your patterns can make the transitions seamless because you also went through The Program—you’re like, extra special.” He smiles.

When Arthur Pritchard turned me into Tatum Masterson, he had to erase or rewrite who I was. I’d only been a child, but even children have lasting memories. As Marie describes it, memory patterns are unique pulses, creating images. In the Adjustment, to add memories, they re-created those pulses in a patient’s brain, letting it build a memory from the ground up. It was never exact; things like hair color, anything on the periphery, would be up to the individual brain to fill in. The core of the memory stayed mostly the same.

Marie and Dr. McKee thought this would be enough to cure what The Program had done. They were wrong. The Adjustment failed miserably, and as a result, people died. What if this cure has the same problems?

“Tatum?” Marie says, appearing in the doorway of the bedroom. I gasp in a breath, not sure how long she’s been standing there. “We’re ready,” she adds.

I exchange a nervous look with Wes, scared of what’s about to happen. Marie comes closer to the table when I don’t move right away, and she rests her hands on the back of a chair.

“I assume Wes told you about our conversation?” she asks.

“I was hoping you’d want to explain it,” I say. “What exactly are you going to do to me?” I tell her what I already know, and I find Sloane watching us, listening in from the other room.

“The Adjustment did fail,” Marie admits. “You’re right. But what The Program did is having a worse effect. When the doctors extracted a memory, it left a crack”—she runs a finger down the side of her head—“a crevice between events. The Program sought to fix this by overlaying a false memory, a bandage over a gaping wound.

“Returners have hundreds of these cracks,” she continues. “And Treatment patients have thousands. Over time, as memory continues to grow and expand, those cracks also expand. And when a former patient has a crashback, they fall in, sometimes getting lost entirely in their own head. They shut down. They die.”

I swallow hard. Wes had one of those crashbacks, and it nearly killed him. He takes my hand under the table and holds it.

“So what we’ll do,” Marie says, steadying her gaze on me, “is find the moment where Arthur Pritchard stitched together your brain pattern. Whatever he did all those years ago, it was more intricate than anything we’ve ever seen. And it’s different from Nicole, probably because she was reset multiple times. Re-created.”

The words make me sick, and I let go of Wes’s hand and lower my eyes. I haven’t had time to fully grasp what it means to have lived my life as someone else. I’m not sure when it’ll actually hit me, but I don’t have time for it now.

“We need to find that pattern,” Marie continues. “And once we do, we’ll mimic it over the breaks in the memory of returners. We can bond their reality, like a computer getting an upgrade. We won’t add any new memories. Won’t take any out. Instead, this new pattern will make them process things differently, glide over cracks without a hitch. If nothing else, Arthur Pritchard was a brilliant man. No one could have created a system as sophisticated as his. We need his original work. You”—she smiles—“you are the only one I’ve seen with this pattern. You survived the grief department. The Program. And the Adjustment. Each manipulation changing you, perfecting you, in a way. For this. Tatum, you are the cure.”

I shudder at the thought, like I’m some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. “And once you find this pattern, then what?” I ask.