Nova by Margaret Fortune Read Free Book Online

ends into a messy bun.
    My ablutions finished as much as they can be, I reluctantly turn toward the door. My fingers hover over the latch. It’s locked: another thing I don’t remember doing, though it’s lucky I did or I would have been found passed out on the floor and hauled to the infirmary—and then to security. There’s no way I could pass a medical examination without being discovered for what I am.
    For some reason, I expect everyone to be staring at me when I emerge from the unit, as though they will see me and immediately realize what I’ve been through, but I garner surprisingly little interest. Even the complaining female from earlier doesn’t seem to be around, probably already having snagged another unit.
    The cots near mine are mercifully empty, their occupants already up and about. I sink down onto my bed and stare dully at the wall. What does a genetically engineered human bomb do once she discovers she’s a dud? Will someone come looking for me when they realize the station didn’t blow? Or will they simply wash their hands of me, write me off as dead or as good as?
    I search my mind, trying to recall what they told me to do if anything went wrong. I find nothing. No troubleshooting techniques, no contingency plans, no instructions on how to reach them. I cannot even remember who “they” are. No names, no faces, no voices. Fear courses through me, and I struggle to recall one—just
one!
—memory from before I boarded the transport here.
    I can’t think of a single thing.
    Impossible! I didn’t spring to life on the ship; I must have come from somewhere. The internment camp? No, that’s Lia’s past, not mine. The few memories I bore of that place were all hers, and now that she’s gone from my head I don’t even have those. Even my name—Lia. I do not ever remember having another, and yet how could I have passed sixteen years without one? It’s as though my past has been completely wiped from my memory. But how?
Why?
Is this a symptom of my malfunction, or have I never known the answers? I’d like to believe it’s the former, but in my gut I can’t help fearing it’s the latter. That they sent me in here with nothing but a mission and a head full of some dead girl’s memories, and now that both have failed me, I really am nothing.
    I really am no one.
    I laugh. Why should I be someone? I was meant to die seven hours ago—dead girls don’t need names. Dead girls don’t need pasts. Every minute I live now is a minute I was never meant to exist. So many minutes. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with them.
Supposed
to do! I was
supposed
to go Nova! And now that I haven’t, there’s nothing I’m meant to do. Nothing at all.
    So nothing is what I do.
    Lying down on my cot, I curl up in a ball and pull my blanket up over my head. I stare into the darkness—not resting, not sleeping, just . . . lying.
    Before I close my eyes, I check my clock one last time.
    *00:02:33*
    Still unmoving.
    I do not get up again for a long time.

6 EYES OPEN.
    *00:02:33*
    Eyes closed.

7 EYES OPEN.
    *00:02:33*
    Eyes closed.

8 EYES OPEN.
    *00:02:33*
    Eyes closed.

9 “LIA? ARE YOU AWAKE?”
    Eyes open.
    *00:02:33*
    Eyes closed.
    “Lia?”
    I open my eyes again. No, I am not dreaming. Michael really is here, standing over my cot, an uncertain expression on his face.
    “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
    Yes. No. I don’t know. Go away.
    The words don’t seem to make it from my brain to my mouth, for he continues to stand there, staring at me expectantly. Maybe the defect has spread; maybe I can’t actually speak anymore. I
am
a dud, after all. For that matter, maybe my entire body is shutting down, piece by piece, and one day I won’t be able to move at all.
    Can
I move?
    Reflexively, I try to sit up. My torso swings upright, the muscles stiff but still functional. My voice dribbles out in a croak. “How did you find me?”
    Michael immediately plops down on the cot next to my legs, “How