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"The cure is not a punishment if it saves the lives of the kids born after us They should never have to experience ent through Did you ever stop and think about them before you tried to burn the research?"

"Of course I did! But this cure you keep talking about? It’s not a cure--it’s a painful, invasive procedure that only helps the kids who have gone through the change It doesn’t do a da to survive"

"Try again," I said "I’ve gotten ry hand back through his dark hair in frustration "You need to be focusing your energy on finding out the cause--it isn’t a virus, thatin the environ that was tainted"

Whether or not he realized it now, he’d walked right into the trap I’d hoped he would I needed hi about the cure It would naturally lead to thoughts of his mother--what he had done to her, where we could find her

"Now isn’t the tie yourself to fit into the world," Clancy said, his voice rahatever thoughts were stor the world to accept you To let you exist as you are, without being cut open and da in the conversation as though the air had parted around us He’d always been able to get what he wanted out ofat painful ht or emotional to ward his advances off I kneas capable of losing his temper--I’d seen it too many tier I wanted anguish, the kind I had seen on Nico’s face the instant he opened the photo of his younger self When he reconnected hat they had done to him, Clancy would be asyou say is true--that the cure is cruel and will change us--prove it"

That brought him up short "How?"

"Show me Prove it to me that it’s as terrible as you say I have absolutely zero reason to take your word for it, considering your stellar record of telling the truth"

The look of hope on his face turned sour "Years of research and infor I had"

"Yes, on Thurra his fingers along the glass wall separating us "So you want to see for yourself? If you can’t take my word, how can you trust my memory? Even those can be faked, as you yourself know"

"I can tell the difference," I said, realizing with a shock of awareness that I actually could

The memory fro into his server and pull all of those files It had felt different because it was different It was pure iination on his part That hy I’d been able to step into it, interact asrather than reenact what had happened as the person I was reading There’d been a different texture to the whole experience

"You did figure it out Well done" Clancy sounded pleased "Meination are two different beasts, processed and handled in different ways by the mind All of those times you replaced someone’s memories, planted an idea in their head--you didn’t realize you were doing several different things at once, did you?"

Was I? Until now, I’d taken everything I could do in stride, done what had felt natural Maybe it was pointless because hopefully I’d one day be rid of them and the terror they held for me, butshouldn’t I at leastand how?

"You’re stalling," I re for you," he said quietly "If you want to see it, if this is the only way to prove it to you, thenit’s fine"

I tested his defenses with a brush of , and the moment I closed my eyes and tried to touch his uide auzy layers of staineda face here, a sound there Clancy possessed a highly organizedhallway of s, each offering a tantalizing look inside Or walking down the aisle of a library, searching for the right book, and only glies began to se The colors ed and then, with the force of a blow to the chest, settled I was thrown into aatseveral tiht around my vision, I felt myself try to strain up, only to be jerked back down by the black straps pinningout ofcocoon

The men and women in white coats swar around my head They pulled wires off my skull, replaced them with new ones, touched everywhere--everywhere--forced ht there I could hear their quiet jokes and murmurs, see the outlines of their smiles behind their paper masks

He had shown me a memory like this once, back ere at East River It had been horrifying to watch, evenplace in a part of the Infirht But the sier the feelings associated with it--the clearer everything beca, felt so in a memory, it was because it had been burnt so deeply into that person’s mind, it had left a scar