Forged(23)

Any hope I was clinging to disintegrates.

Harvey makes a note of my chest scar, then moves to inspect the burn scars on my left forearm.

“What’s this for?” I ask.

“A security measure. So that when we’re done with you, ours will match.”

“You’ll mark the Forgery? Reproduce every scar?”

Harvey’s pencil scratches over paper.

“And then what? Send him back in my place? Why would I give you any information now that I know this?”

“You gave me a name to save a finger,” he says quietly. “Imagine what I’ll get in exchange for your brother’s life.”

I pull at the restraints over my wrists, my ankles. I could claw his eyes out for that threat.

“This will be easier if you don’t struggle,” he says, but I go right on thrashing, creating as much of a disturbance as possible.

Harvey sighs and moves away from the table. A moment later music engulfs the room—sweeping chords and crying strings. The melody is layered and complex, so rich I feel it in my bones. I’ve heard music like this before, when Harvey was still Harvey. Mozart, he called it. A composer he’d always been fond of. Frank had outlawed such art in AmEast, but Harvey was granted the privilege of listening because it helped him focus while working on the Forgeries. Old habits, old ways, now both alive in his Forgery.

When he reenters my vision, his arms are extended, swaying like tree limbs in a breeze. The butt of the pencil arches as the music swells and lulls. His wrists elegantly mirror each motion. If it were the real Harvey, this dance would be something beautiful, but knowing those hands put a blade to my finger changes everything. You can’t unsee a truth. Not even if you want to.

The song ends and a new one surges to life. Not just any piece, but the same music we used to stage a diversion in Union Central. Clipper helped Harvey select it.

“Do you remember what you said when we met?”

Harvey raises an eyebrow, bored.

“You told me you hoped joining the Rebels was a step in the right direction. You said you hoped that someone like me, a victim of the Laicos Project, might be thankful for at least some of your work.

“Well, I’m not thankful for this. This is so opposite what the real you would want. The real you was willing to die so that I could live. The real you hated the work he did for Frank and he spent the last days of his life trying to undo the damage.”

“The Harvey you remember was a criminal and a traitor.” He says this like he’s reciting it from a book. “And it doesn’t matter what I wanted in the past. I know what I want now.”

He’s still conducting the music, an eerie smile on his lips as the notes build to the finale.

“I hope Clipper never sees you like this,” I say. “That kid loved you, and this would kill him.”

“Clipper?” He drops his arms to his sides and backs away from me, head shaking. He trips over a chair and ends up on the floor. The music continues to swell around us, and now Harvey’s cringing at the staccato beats, flinching as though the horns and strings are causing him physical pain. He scrambles to his feet, rushes to turn off the music. As the room is thrown into silence he gasps like it’s his first breath of air in ages.

His gaze drifts back to me, wide and fearful. For the briefest moment I think he heard me, that something about the music or my mention of Clipper resonated. But then his eyes narrow.

“You,” he says, looking like he wants to slit my throat. “We’ll finish this later.”


I’m brought back to my cell because Harvey has other work to do, or so the guard says. Tomorrow I’ll be questioned again.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

I’m only focused on today, the first Wednesday of March, and how it’s nearly over. Today shouldn’t end without them arriving, because that was the plan: two days early, disguised as the Order inspection team, with key cards from September and uniforms made by Mercy.

But the hours pass.

The day ends.

And they don’t come.





ELEVEN


MY BREAKFAST ARRIVES BEARING A gift. It is unintentional, I’m sure. Someone very foolish didn’t think of the sort of damage that can be done with something so small.

I pull the toothpick out of the fruit and hide it in the palm of my hand. I need the wood dry, sharp. I eat my breakfast with my fingers.

When a guard finally comes for me, I have to fight the urge to spring into action. Unless I somehow manage to get my hands on his gun, I’m doomed, and my arms are still bound. The odds wouldn’t be good. I’ve never been a patient person, but I force myself to cooperate, letting the guard blindfold me and drag me into the hall.

Once again, I lose myself in the turns. We go up two flights of stairs. More dizzying direction changes. I’m handed off to my Forged counterpart. I know it’s him because our gaits match perfectly.

When the blindfold is ripped off, I find myself back in Harvey’s interrogation room. The tools are laid out, waiting beside my chair, but no one else is present.

“Are you doing the honors today?”

“Harvey is preoccupied.”

The toothpick feels like even more of a blessing now. I’m not sure what it says about me when I know my own Forgery will be more ruthless than any other interrogator.