False Sight by Dan Krokos Read Free Book Online Page B

much it hurt.
    I blink.
The room is cold and dead. Noah is cold and dead. It’s time to do my job. At Noah’s gurney, I crouch and unzip the duffel and pull the memory band out.
My hand hovers over the sheet. I don’t want to touch it. I don’t want to pull it back and see his bloodless face. I close my eyes and breathe through my mouth, tasting the tang of antiseptic and the sweet smell of the newly dead. So strange, that cloying scent.
I stop stalling and pull the sheet off Noah. I crease it at the bottom of his ribs and force myself to look at his face. It’s the way I remember it on the floor in the lab—cold and white and lifeless, with open eyes that will never see anything again. It’s easy to see how deep the wound is now, the layers of skin and muscle Nina’s sword cut through.
I grip the railing on his gurney and close my eyes.
Everyone is on a collision course with whatever is destined to kill them. Something will kill me one day, and it’s out there now. Someone forged the blade that killed Noah. The edge met the soft flesh of Noah’s neck, met the thin tubes that carried his blood underneath, all because I let him go first.
The tears on my cheeks are chilled, like my heart. I harden
DA N K ROKOS
myself to this and everything that comes next. Noah would want that.
I open my eyes and go to work, in the hopes that this is just one more step to making it all go away.
    I have to lift his head up to secure the band. His hair is soft, and the dead weight of his head is the worst part. I close my eyes and slide it on by feel.
    A small voice tells me this might not work, but I ignore it. I stomp the small voice under my armored feet. It has to work, or everything is for naught. I’ll die before I let Nina win.
    The memory band hums to life. I set the machine to start with Noah’s newest memories; any clues to Nina’s plans or whereabouts will be there.
    The band purrs and clicks softly. My fingers trail down his forearm, grazing his wrist, then his palm. I almost hold his hand. Like that would make it easier for him. In truth, I can’t stand the clammy feel of his skin.
    Time passes too slowly, and the machine beeps now and again. Then the tiny readout on the side of his head says scan complete with four options underneath.
sCan again | save all | wipe | new sUbjeCt
     
I press save all .
    Thebandhums,savingwhatevermemorieswerestillintact in Noah’s brain. Then it clicks and shuts down, the noise dying away like it’s exhausted. I ease the band off Noah’s face and settle it into the duffel.
    Then I look at his eyes.
The irises are still brown, but a little pink, on their way to red, like mine. I use my fingers to close his eyes, but they ease open again. Staring. I try again and hold the lids down, and this time they stay closed enough. Cracked, but barely.
The sum of his life experience hangs off my shoulder, the heaviest weight I’ve ever carried.
I lay the sheet over him and turn around.
The door opens, but it’s not Peter or Rhys. A woman in a white lab coat stands with a clipboard in both hands.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says. Her mouth opens and closes, brow crinkled as she takes in my armor. She’s right. I’m not supposed to be here. Noah isn’t supposed to be here, either.
She sees my eyes and visibly shrinks. I’m not wearing my contacts.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
I look at Noah one more time. The last time I’ll ever see him. But I’m about to get closer to him than I ever was in life.
“Leaving,” I say.

I
    tell the woman to stand in the cooler for five minutes, and the look on her face tells me she’ll comply. I shut the door on her, then turn around to find Peter and Rhys standing
    in front of me.
“Sorry, we thought it was better to hide,” Rhys says. “How’d it go?” Peter says as we start walking. “Just wait,” I say. The duffel is hot against my leg, and
    I start worrying about stupid things. The machine could be broken; he might