The Deathless Trilogy

1.20. Secrets at Night

"Something weird is going on with the program," Declan says as he sits at the foot of my bed. We've gathered for a meeting to talk about what Declan found in the code.

"It could just be a programming error," Mom suggests.

"No, I talked to Mitchell, and he said it was fine. He actually got really defensive about it, and kind of got up in my face. He told me to stop trying to fix his program, because—and I quote—I'm 'just a bio nerd' and I 'don't know anything about programming.' Which obviously, I do if I can run the program without his intern's help, but whatever."

"Wow, I didn't expect that from Mitchell. He seemed so nice," Mom says.

"Right? I thought he was too, but I guess not."

"What's wrong with the program?" I ask.

"Well, first of all, Nate kept glitching out. It was totally weird, so, like I told you earlier, I kept trying to adjust the memory space, but it kept happening. He would be killing all these soldiers, and then he'd disappear for a second or two, and when he'd come back he would be in the middle of everything and one of the soldiers would shoot him. He died every time, but not because he was bad or anything, he was actually really great in there. He just kept glitching out and reappearing in random places."

"Could it have been his plug or something?" Mom asks.

"That's what I thought, so I switched his and Gabriela's stations after lunch, but it kept happening only to him. Now, what I'm thinking is that either Mitchell is trying to sabotage him or there's something wrong with Nathan that doesn't allow his consciousness to remain in play, and I don't know why either of those things would be true."

"What could be wrong with him?" I ask. Maybe this is why he told me the mystery numbers, I think. Maybe he already knows there is something wrong with his brain.

"Maybe his neurons are misfiring somehow, so he can't connect to the program through our portal. I don't know, that would be very strange. I think it's more likely that Mitchell is trying to sabotage him, so I'm going to keep an extra close eye on Mitchell tomorrow during the immersions."

"Especially considering how he behaved toward you earlier," Mom adds.

"Yeah, but that's not all," Declan says. "There was something else with the program, something I think you should know, Bea."

"What?" she asks, and my heart beats faster in anticipation.

"I found a line of code hidden in the program that causes you... to be exterminated each run."

Mom's mouth hangs open in shock, and it takes me a second to process what he's just said. Mom was programmed to die? Why?

"What are you trying to say Declan?" Mom asks. "That Mitchell wrote a code that ensures my death each time?"

He nods.

"Why? Why would Mitchell do that?"

"I don't know."

"This has gone far enough. First with Nathan, and now with me? This has got to stop. I'm going to confront that weasel right now!"

"He's not going to listen," Declan sighs. "You need to go to the leaders if you want anything done. Winston or Alexander will be more likely to listen."

"Then that's what we'll do," I say. "We're going to go to Winston and Alexander right now and we're going to let them know what this 'bio nerd' found in Mitchell's code."

Declan smiles as if a bit of his stolen confidence is returning, so I yank him from the bed and the three of us march into the dark hallway.

My feet press silently against the cool concrete toward the Captain's dining room, but Declan's shoes mark our steps. It's not an official rule to stay in our rooms after lights out, but it's assumed, so he begins to tiptoe. We don't need to attract any extra attention while we turn Mitchell in.