False Sight by Dan Krokos Page B

shake.
“I don’t want to fight,” she says.
“Well of course not,” Rhys says. I touch his arm after
    hearing the anger in his voice. “There are three of us, one of you.”
“Why are you here?” I ask her.
Her eyes flit between us, assessing us, identifying weak points. I know, because I’m doing the same thing to her.
“Exactly what I told Commander Gane,” she replies.
“That means nothing to me.”
“Sequel,” Peter says softly as he steps up beside me. “I know you’re in there.”
Nina spits on the floor. “Please. Save it.”
FALSE SIGHT
    Rhys steps forward, and this time I don’t touch his arm. Nina walks backward until she hits the wall, then slides down to her butt. She licks her lips. “Just stay on your side. You may be able to kill me, but not before I kill one of you.”
“She’s right,” Noah says. “Just leave her alone.”
    Quiet. His voice is like a cracked whip in my mind, shat- tering my focus.
“You think so?” Rhys says to her.
“It’s not an option,” Peter says. “Not until we know what she’s done to Sequel.”
“Sequel is dead,” Nina replies. The skin under her left eye twitches. She grabs at the black hair growing over her ear and twists it between two fingers. Sequel used to twist her hair like that when she lied. Maybe I do it too.
“If Sequel is truly gone, then why should we let you live?” I say.
Nina smiles, drawing it out. I didn’t know my face was capable of making a smile that sinister.
“Answer her,” Rhys says. “Or I’ll come over there and tear your arms off.”
“Because,” Nina says, standing up slowly. She stretches, arching her back like a cat. “Because if you come at me, I’ll have enough time to speak the words.”
Sweat breaks out all over my body. Somehow, I know exactly what words she’s talking about. A few simple words took Sequel away, and gave us this new girl.
I can’t ask her, but Peter can. “What words?”
“The words that will awaken me inside your Miranda too.”

20
“
    S
    he’s lying ,” Rhys says. His hands are fists, whiteknuckled. Peter’s fingers trail down the inside of my arm until he reaches my hand. He squeezes once. My
head swims, mouth bitter with fear. Everything that came before this doesn’t compare to the powerlessness I feel now.
    All it takes are simple words. She’ll speak a code and my consciousness will be shoved aside and North Iteration 9-A will storm in and use my body.
    Rhys is about to explode, but Peter remains calm. He steps forward without fear. This is the animal inside him, the one so confident sometimes I think it can’t be real.
“You don’t mean that,” Peter says softly. “Say them right now. I dare you.”
    My throat clenches; what is he doing? This is what he was worried about. But then I see—if I change now, they can control the situation, expecting it, but if I don’t, then Nina is lying, and we can stop worrying about it.
    He’s still ten feet from Nina, but she presses her back against the wall. Part of me wants to rush in and snap her neck. Let’s see if she can say the words with my hands around her throat.
“Don’t come any closer,” she spits.
    “Say the words,” Peter says. “You need all the help you can get.”
She shakes her head, glaring daggers. “No. Maybe I have orders to speak them at a particular moment. Now is not that moment.”
I want to say she’s bluffing, but it could be true. Yet speaking them now would grant her another ally in the room, wouldn’t it? I don’t know what to believe.
Noah stands against the bars to my left, staring at me. “Why would she say there’s a copy of Nina inside you? What am I missing?”
She ’ s lying. Please let me focus.
I feel him leave my mind. When I look to the bars again, he’s gone.
Peter is right in front of her now. He reaches out, slowly, and drops a hand on Nina’s shoulder, the way one would when conferring with a close friend. “Stay on this side of the cell, for however long