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  “Right. Professional,” he said, setting his face in a mock serious expression. “I almost forgot we’re on the clock.”

  Brynn smiled at the strange boy’s antics in spite of herself, not sure if it was her or Rachel who was actually amused by him.

  “Have you heard from your parents lately?” he asked Brynn, making her wonder when the last time she had spoken to Orson and Lia was. They were probably worried about her.

  “They sent a message last week,” she told the boy, bound by Rachel’s memory to repeat whatever she had said on this day. “They’re thinking of moving to Washington.”

  Though it was difficult to have her own thoughts when trapped inside of Rachel’s memory, Brynn did have a fleeting moment of curiosity, wondering which continent Washington was on. If Rachel knew about the imminent destruction of the continents how could she let her parents live there?

  “You know I went to school in Washington?” Maxwell asked her, a playful glint in his eye.

  “Must be why I’m so much smarter than you,” Rachel replied, equally as playful as him. “You went to a West Coast school.”

  “Says the girl who got her PhD at a party school,” he shot back.

  The conversation happening right before Brynn’s eyes was utterly baffling to her. The terms Maxwell and Rachel used were foreign to her and she tried desperately to keep up.

  The boy who stood before her gave a short laugh at his own joke before becoming inexplicably serious once more.

  “Have you looked anymore into what we talked about yesterday?”

  “I don’t need to,” Rachel said. “I know Eris hijacked the main computer. She’s about to overthrow the whole program, I just have to figure out the best way to stop her before--.”

  “There you are,” said a smooth voice that sent a wave of panic through Brynn. “I was beginning to think I’d lost you, Maxwell.”

  Like the awful reoccurring nightmare that she was, Eris appeared a ways down the hallway, swiftly approaching the two.

  “I guess they can always hear us,” Maxwell muttered to Brynn before turning to greet Eris. “Hello doctor,” he said in a voice so comfortable, Brynn couldn’t believe that he really understood how deeply disturbed the woman he addressed was.

  “Maxwell, I’ll ask you to please meet me in my office in a moment or two. I’ve got some research to discuss with you,” she said calmly, her eyes still locked on Brynn.

  “Of course,” he answered, giving Brynn one last nod before walking away.

  Eris turned to watch him go with a smile creeping up the side of her face, accentuating her sharp cheek bones.

  “He’s a very nice boy, Rachel,” she said slowly, giving Brynn a sick feeling in her stomach.

  She could only imagine what Eris did to Maxwell and had to wonder if Rachel knew what his fate was before reaching her own.

  “I usually only see him in a work environment but yes, I suppose he is,” she answered, speaking to Eris for the first time in any dream Brynn had ever had.

  The walls around Eris shifted for a moment, as they had been lately in her dreams before coming back into focus.

  “And how is your work coming along? I hear your efforts to streamline the human creation process have proved very effective.”

  It was odd, listening to someone as terrifying and powerful as Eris making small talk, though some small part of Brynn couldn’t help but find the whole situation slightly amusing.

  “I have a lot of work to do, so did you need me for something specific, or were you just hoping for an opportunity to chat?” Rachel asked, instantly showing Brynn how someone who was physically no stronger than her could be tortured for weeks by this terrifying woman without talking.

  She was strong; much stronger than Brynn had ever been.

  Eris’s smile faltered for a moment at this response and she could see the Angel exercising all of her will power to not kill Rachel right then and there.

  “I’ll leave you to your research then,” she said simply, her purple eyes narrowing. “Oh and don’t forget about the meeting later. My department has even offered to bring refreshments.”

  “Great,” Rachel said dryly, obviously desperate to get away from Eris.

  “I hope you like sugar cookies.”

  “Brynn?” Ty said quietly, bringing her back to reality in the dark, quiet hotel room.

  She could feel the moisture on her cheeks from involuntary tears and wiped them away quickly, hoping Ty hadn’t seen. She closed her eyes again wishing that, for once, she could forget the problems in her real life by falling asleep like everyone else.

  “I really can’t escape,” she whispered into the darkness.

  Ty lay down next to her and comfortingly rubbed her back while she buried her face into the pillow.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t ever get away, Ty,” she said again, her eyes closed so tightly that it hurt. “I have to worry about Eris and everything going on every second that I’m awake, but when I sleep, it’s almost worse because I’m living it all out again.”

  She turned her head to look into his concerned eyes, almost glad for once that he worried so much about her. It felt nice to have someone more concerned about her than about what they were trying to accomplish. Ty used his free hand to prop up his head as he watched her, obviously unsure of what to say.

  “I don’t know how to make things better for you, Brynn,” he answered finally. “I honestly don’t. I wish that I could but the only solution I can see is going through with this crazy plan to bring Eris down, and it kills me.”

  “Ty you care about me,” she answered. “That’s all I need from you. You worry about me and you keep me safe. Do you know how comforting it is to know that you’ll always be one step behind me, making sure I don’t fall?”

  “It’s still not as much as I want to do for you. I just wish I could make it all go away,” he said with a sigh.

  Brynn scooted over to him and laid her head on his chest, wrapping one arm around him and breathing in his comforting scent.

  “I wish you could too,” she told him.

  Brynn thought back to her nightmare and the feelings she had that were indiscernible from Rachel’s. The more she had these dreams, the more she came to realize that Rachel’s feelings really were the same as hers, not just because they had to be by the confines of the dream, but because they were the same person. Though she didn’t know who Maxwell was, she mourned for him the same way she had mourned for Jonah when he had been missing. Losing her friends was not something Brynn was prepared to do and she hoped desperately that her path wouldn’t follow Rachel’s quite that accurately.

  Ty made little circles on the back of Brynn’s neck with his thumb, relaxing her as much as he could after such a terrible nightmare. She snuggled closer to him in the darkness and wished for a moment that everything wasn’t so complicated; that her mind didn’t constantly compare Ty and Jonah to each other. Though she knew such a petty problem wasn’t even worth examining when the world as they knew it could end if they didn’t act quickly, she couldn’t push the questions from her mind.

  On the beach only hours before, she knew she wanted Jonah. She would have run away with him had they not been interrupted. But laying there with Ty in the darkness and listening to him say all the right things to calm her down from his years of experience doing just that, she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever want to be with anyone else.

  “Do you want to talk about your dream?” Ty asked her, interrupting the internal dispute she knew she wouldn’t be able to solve any time soon.

  “Rachel wasn’t alone, Ty,” she said simply.

  “In A1?”

  “I mean we know she worked with a team but there was this boy in my dream; Maxwell” she began, not sure why this particular dream had bothered her so much when it was the least brutal she’d had. “Rachel loved him, I know she did.”

  “What happened to him?” Ty asked, still tracing circles on Brynn’s neck and
speaking carefully.

  “What happened to everyone? Eris killed him, and Rachel couldn’t do anything to save him.” Brynn’s voice broke as she said this, causing Ty to pull her closer until she was entirely engulfed in him, her muffled crying almost inaudible in his shirt. “Ty I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said brokenly.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me, Brynn,” he reassured her, now stroking her hair and making shushing noises to calm her down. “I’m always going to be right next to you.”

  “What if she gets you?” she asked, turning her tear streaked face up to look at him, her blue eyes fearful.

  It always amazed her how the mere thought of Eris could reduce her to nothing more than a crying child in only seconds.

  “She won’t get me, I promise,” he said.

  Ty kissed her forehead gently and brought her head back to his chest, keeping his strong arms wrapped securely around her.

  “I bet Rachel was glad to die after seeing all of her friends get killed because of her actions.”

  “Brynn, you’re not Rachel. Not in this situation. Your friends chose to follow you and you aren’t working alone. She may have had Maxwell, but you have a whole team of people who understand the situation,” he told her, silencing the dark path her thoughts were taking.

  They stayed like that for a long time, Brynn’s tears gradually lessening and her breathing returning to a slow pace. She took one deep shuddering breath before wiping the itchy salt water from her cheeks and tilting her head up to face Ty once more.

  “Where is everyone else?” she asked, her voice hoarse from crying and disuse.

  “I got tired of following Amber and Bennett to every store in Eastern Metropolis, so I just told them how to get to the hotel and came back here,” he said. “Not sure where Jonah is though.”

  “He must still be at the library.”

  “Sounds about right,” Ty answered with a laugh before sitting up, causing Brynn to follow suit. “Feeling better?”

  “Much,” she responded, giving a weary smile. “I hate to whine but it just takes its toll sometimes. It helps having you here.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, lingering there for a moment longer than she had intended then clearing her throat as she pulled away.

  She had to keep reminding herself that saving the world was definitely first on the list of things to do; sorting out her boy issues could come later, no matter how much she wanted to kiss Ty and no matter how horrible of a person that made her. Ty’s cheeks were slightly pink when she pulled away and he cleared his throat as well, making her laugh.

  “So what’s the plan once we’re all here,” he asked, clearly trying to dispel the tension in the air.

  “We turn into Workers.”

  Chapter 7: Puzzled

  The once dark and quiet hotel room was instantly transformed the moment Amber and Bennett set foot in it. Not only did the twenty plus shopping bags they’d brought with them create a very cluttered interior, but the level of gossip and excited storytelling had taken a dramatic rise.

  Brynn loved her boys, but there was a definite difference in topics of conversation and after weeks of wondering if Eris would show up at the least expected moment to kill her, she found this to be a welcome distraction.

  “The second we got here I knew I had to change my hair,” Amber stated with so much authority it was impossible not to agree with her. “People here really get fashion don’t they?”

  “Oh yeah,” Bennett agreed with a somber nod, very serious in her reasoning. “This place makes Seaside look ridiculous.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Brynn agreed with a laugh, knowing that their definitions of ‘ridiculous’ were very different.

  “Just because you don’t care about fashion doesn’t make our statement untrue,” Bennett said as she launched a pillow over to where Brynn sat on the bed next to Ty.

  “Well, either way, I like the new look on both of you,” she told them.

  Amber and Bennett had arrived at their hotel room dramatically transformed from the girls Brynn had left behind in Seaside. Amber’s normally sunny blonde hair was now a cotton candy pink that she had cropped to her chin and curled into big fluffy ringlets. Her default pink sundress had been replaced with a grey, tight-fitting, mini dress with light pink diagonal stripes and matching heels.

  Bennett sported her normal long, dark brown hair though it now slowly faded halfway down from a dark forest green that lightened gradually until it reached bright lime green tips. The effect was stunning when matched with her long black T-shirt and tight emerald green pants. The two girls had definitely embraced the feel of the city.

  “Please don’t get face tattoos or anything like that,” Ty begged with a shake of his head. “I can deal with your head looking like a lollipop, but I just couldn’t take you seriously with little stars and hearts all over your cheeks.”

  “Actually,” Bennett began before a sharp look from Amber silenced her.

  “You’re kidding me,” Ty said in exasperation, always playing the role of ‘responsible adult’ in their group of friends.

  Bennett put her pointer finger and thumb together to indicate that the tattoo would be a small one, causing Ty to sigh deeply.

  “You’re such a buzz kill,” Amber informed him casually as she pulled her tablet from her purse.

  “I’m just trying to keep you from doing something like that on a whim,” he countered.

  “Well assuming everything you’ve told us is true, we don’t have much longer to live anyway right?” Bennett asked, silencing the room with that one innocent question.

  Amber shrugged her shoulders at the obviousness of Bennett’s statement while Ty just looked at the ground, not answering her.

  “Well, that very awkward moment was a perfect segue into our next topic of conversation,” Jonah piped up from the armchair by the window. “What brilliant disguises have you girls come up with for us?”

  Bennett blushed profusely at this praise from Jonah, never trying very hard to hide her opinion of him while Amber hid a small smile at the compliment before turning her tablet to face them.

  “Ty, we’ll start with you.” Amber swiped her finger over the smooth screen to reveal a digitally created image of Ty that made Brynn’s stomach drop.

  His normally tan skin was whiter than snow, making him look like his body had just been recovered from the bottom of the ocean. His sandy blonde hair was dark brown and his warm brown eyes were a light purple.

  “We thought we’d shade your cheekbones to make them a bit more dramatic,” Amber added, pointing out his very sharp cheekbones in the picture she held.

  “Well, I definitely don’t think anyone will recognize me,” he offered. “You guys really are amazing.”

  “We know,” both girls said in unison.

  “Do I even want to see my picture?” Brynn asked. “I mean this whole thing is pretty eerie,” she corrected, seeing the hurt on Amber’s face.

  “We can look at Jonah’s sketch next if you want,” Amber offered.

  “Or mine!” Bennett chirped.

  “Wait, yours?” Brynn asked, not quite following the conversation.

  “You didn’t really think we were going to let you go alone, did you?” Amber asked her incredulously.

  “But you guys don’t even believe us,” Brynn responded.

  “Sure we don’t believe you now, but what if it turns out you’re right and there’s this whole new place for us to explore? We aren’t going to miss out on that,” Amber said matter-of-factly.

  Brynn raised her eyebrows at the statement, wondering if somehow Amber and Bennett’s suppressed curiosity was starting to falter. Ty’s curiosity certainly seemed greater now than it had at the beginning of their adventure.

  The only information learned in A1 that Brynn had withheld from the group was the fact that Eris had found some way to suppress curiosity in people, making Halcyon a continent full of complacent lazy airheads. She didn’t want to bring this l
ittle fact up because of the questions she was scared it would raise.

  She still couldn’t understand the link between her and Jonah that made them naturally curious, unless he was the third thing Rachel had secreted away.

  Brynn had been toying with the idea for some time, that Rachel’s third transgression was another sample of human DNA placed in the human creation bay. She knew the odds of another person like her were almost nonexistent, and it was even less likely that they would be born in the same time frame and on the same continent, but it would explain an awful lot.

  She stared at Jonah as he sat in the overstuffed armchair. His intelligent blue eyes scanned the faces in the room; always thinking, always curious. If anything, Brynn thought, he was more curious than her. She wondered if it had something to do with who Jonah was created after back in A1 before she reminded herself that until she had proof, this crazy idea was just a theory.

  Still, she couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the two of them. It would make perfect sense that Jonah had been created from genuine human DNA just like Brynn.

  “Brynn?” Jonah said suddenly, pulling her from her reverie. He had been watching her watch him for quite some time, a dazed look on her face.

  “What?” she asked, unsure of how long the group had been trying to get her attention.

  “Amber asked if you’ve been in a maze yet?” Ty clarified, looking a little worried. “Did you get another headache?”

  “I didn’t,” she replied honestly. “I promise. I was just thinking.”

  “So, have you been in one yet?” Amber asked her, apparently not for the first time.

  “I really wish I knew what you were talking about since it sounds really exciting, but I don’t,” Brynn replied.

  “You guys seriously haven’t done one yet?” Bennett asked, appropriately shocked by this revelation.

  “What maze are you guys talking about?” Ty asked, fed up with being out of the loop.

  “You know how we make movies in Seaside?” Amber began, a chorus of ‘yeses’ prompting her to continue. “Well in Eastern Metropolis they create interactive mazes for people to go into.”