Deadlocked 8 by A.R. Wise Page A

sick like me. Think about
it.”
    “Celeste, I…”
    I interrupted her, “Just promise me, mother.
Promise me you’ll consider it.”
    She paused, which I thought was a good sign.
After a long sigh, she asked as if pondering to herself, “What
happened to you out there?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “On the surface. You went through so much. I
can’t even imagine.”
    I didn’t dare respond. Was she hoping I
regretted my escape? Certainly my actions after being returned here
ensured that she didn’t mistake my current docility with any sort
of relief at having been captured.
    “Did you love her?” asked my mother, and I
knew exactly who she was talking about.
    I considered saying that I wasn’t sure,
because I’d never loved anyone before and that it was impossible
for me to understand such a deep emotion. I thought that was what
she wanted to hear, but I knew that I couldn’t express that with
enough honesty to convince her I wasn’t lying. She needed to trust
me.
    “Yes.”
    My mother stared out at me, studying me. Then
she looked away, as if focusing on something else that I couldn’t
see. “She was quite pretty.”
    I nodded, and the emotions that threatened to
surge through me caused my hands to tremble.
    “Would you like to see her again?” asked my
mother.
    My lungs momentarily lost their ability to
draw in breath. I seized up, as if time itself had halted.
“What?”
    “Not her, exactly,” said my mother,
recognizing in my reaction that I’d misinterpreted her. “We have
the video from your escape. Some of it is rather unsettling.” She
cringed as she stared down at something I wasn’t privy to. “Most of
it is unsettling, but I could find a moment in this somewhere that
I could capture for you. Something free of violence. Would you like
that?”
    I needed to stick to my plan. I’d been
practicing this for several days, planning my response to each
rebuke she might offer. Nothing was supposed to matter to me other
than convincing her to let me meet with another Dawn. Yet now, I
was all but speechless. I uttered a weak response, “Yes.”
    She was still looking down, and I took the
opportunity to wipe away the tears that glassed my vision. “Is
there any particular moment you can think of that you’d like to
have? Something that would help you remember her. Something that
will help soothe you.”
    There was, but I hesitated to tell her. I
knew that seeing Hailey again wouldn’t help me get over her loss,
but all I had left of her were memories. Mother was offering me the
chance to see her again, and I couldn’t refuse.
    “Outside.” My voice escaped as little more
than a whisper. I cleared my throat and spoke louder, “When we got
outside. When she walked out into the sunshine.”
    I knew there had been a camera there to see
us. I remembered the guard that Hero had shot talking with someone
else on his radio. The voice on the radio had spotted Hailey and me
trying to escape.
    My doppelganger was staring down again as she
watched the video I desperately wanted to see. It must’ve been the
first time she’d seen it, because she became momentarily startled
and I guessed it was from when the guard had been shot. A moment
later it looked as if she was about to say something, but then her
attention was grabbed and she watched the video intently. A smile
crept across her face and she snickered when she said, “Well what
do you know about that.”
    “What?” I asked.
    “I’d heard you met Levon,” she said with a
coy grin.
    “His friends call him Hero,” I said and she
nodded.
    “Give me a moment,” said my digital
representation before the screen went dark.
    My heart raced, and I cursed myself for not
sticking with the plan. Her diversion had been too powerful to
ignore. The hope of seeing Hailey again was almost physically
debilitating. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to see her.
    The screen came alive again and mother walked
into view. I stood straighter in