as if I’m in a condition to be a threat to anyone.
I twist around, even though my body screams, and give him my biggest smile. “I hope I didn’t make you look bad. Wouldn’t want anyone to think it was easy to get away from you, especially when you have that big, scary whip.”
His lips press together, as if he would like to hurt me for such comments. But he can’t because the Chairwoman is coming. “Face forward. Now.”
“I’ll be sure to warn you if I make another break for it. That’s why you had to whip me so many times, huh? Because you were afraid you wouldn’t be able to catch me if I crawled away.”
In response, he shoves the handle deeper into my back.
The door opens and Chairwoman Dresden, head of the Future Memory Agency, strides into the room. Even though this is exactly what I wanted¸ I’m not sure why they sent the most important person in the agency to meet me. Aren’t there plenty of cases like mine?
She looks like she did on the morning of my birthday. Silver hair cut closely to her head. Impeccable navy uniform. Her features as cold and beautiful as an ice sculpture.
She nods dismissively at the guard. “You can wait outside. I’ll take it from here.”
The pressure of the handle eases off my back, and he leaves the room.
She turns to me. “Lovely to see you again, October Twenty-eight,” she says, as if she knows me. “I regret it’s not under more pleasant circumstances.”
I rack my mind for something biting to say, but my bravado seems to have fled with the guard.
“You’ve made my life difficult, October Twenty-eight. Very difficult.” She taps her fingernails on the table. They’re long and narrow, polished translucent silver so they resemble ice picks. One wrong word and she may stab one of those nails into my eye.
“You’re not convinced,” she says. “I see the incredulity written all over your face. But you have no idea what your little show of defiance may have cost us.”
Standing, she stalks around the room in her five-inch heels. If her nails fail to do the trick, those heels can always double as a weapon. “I was ready to write you off. We have your administering guard’s account of what happened in your memory. I was ready to let you languish away in Limbo for the rest of your life. Just another screw-up in the system. But your little stunt today changes things.”
She stops in front of me, and I tuck my bare feet underneath my chair, away from her heels. “We’ve built our society around a system of future memories. This system is efficient, productive, and very, very prosperous. But it is also delicate. It depends entirely on the assumption that the memories come true. The slightest change in a person’s life may cause ripples that spread throughout the rest of society—ripples which we cannot predict and for which we cannot prepare.”
She places her palms on the desk. “You grasp, then, the dilemma we face when we encounter the future memory of a crime. While we have an interest in protecting society, we also have a very strong interest in making sure these memories cause as few ripples as possible.”
I nod, unable to say a word.
She settles back in her chair, crossing her ankles to the side. “Most of the ripples are meaningless. They affect only a small circle of lives. But once in a while we get a future criminal whose personality is so aggressive, we can tell her ripples will be stronger than most. They may even have an overarching impact on society.”
“I’m not aggressive,” I burst out. “I haven’t said a word since you came in here.”
“You’re playing meek. I like that. I appreciate intelligence as much as the next person. But it’s no use, October Twenty-eight.” She leans forward, her eyes glistening. “We scanned your brain when we first arrested you, and our computers have been busy analyzing the videos of your behavior. I saw the way you raised your hands and marched straight to our officers. The uproar you created in the detainment cells. But the clincher was how you risked—and received—multiple lashes of the electro-whip just to run down a single hallway. You weren’t going to escape. You must have known that. But you still tried. That’s the mark of a girl who will stop at nothing to win. Our computers have given us a definitive answer. You, my dear, qualify as