"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.

I can barely see anything in the dark hallway, but we follow the glow from beneath the dining room door ahead, until I jump ahead of Mom and Declan to reach for the door handle. As I wrap my fingers around the rope beneath the lion's mane, I make out the sound of a hushed voice spitting my name. I stop myself and lift my arm to block Mom and Declan from reaching the door.

"What?" Declan whispers as quietly as he can.

"I just heard my name," I whisper. I lean my ear to the door and listen.

"As long as Isla doesn't see this list, she should stay focused on the plan," Phoebe says.

"Isla, don't be rude," Mom scolds me in hushed tones.

I lean away to whisper to Mom. "They're hiding something from me. There's a list Phoebe doesn't want me to see, she just said so."

"Let's listen," Declan says.

He and I press our ears to the door, and Mom reluctantly joins us.

"You know what's funny, Win?" I hear Phoebe ask, matter-of-factly. "She's actually a bit like Gunther."

Winston laughs.

"What? She is," Phoebe continues. "She's not as ruthless, but she's just as determined. Why else would she volunteer to experience the knock out compound? That was a very Gunther thing to do."

"True, but she seems too wrapped up in all her family drama, you know? Not to mention whatever was happening between her and Nate."

I feel my stomach drop. I had no idea that's how others perceived me.

"What was between you and Nate?" Mom whispers, but I don't answer. There was nothing between me and Nate, and especially after today, I don't want to think about him.

Winston continues, "That's where they're polar opposites: Gunther doesn't care about anything but himself."

Phoebe scoffs. "Not according to Alexander."

"Alex is delusional when it comes to Gunther. He's still clinging to our Harvard days. He'll come around though."

"I hope so. We really need him for the mission." She says something else, but it's too quiet to hear.

"C'mon, let's go to the chamber," Winston says, a smile audible in his voice.

The chamber? What is the chamber?

Something scrapes against the floor, shaking it at a different frequency than the Immortal's wheels. Are they moving stones? I can't tell. I drop to the floor and peer through the small gap between cement and the wooden door to see, nearly tripping Mom.

"Isla," she hisses, "what has gotten into you?"

From beneath the door, I see Phoebe turn back to the entrance. She stands in front of an opening in the wall that wasn't there before. The brick has moved, like a jigsaw piece taken from the center of a puzzle, and Winston walks into the blue light emanating from the opening.

"I heard something," Phoebe says, squinting at the door, so I lift myself up and gesture for everyone to move back from the door. We press our bodies against the dark cement wall and I hold my breath, waiting for our capture, when I hear the wall sliding against the floor again.

"What did you see, Isla?" Declan asks once I exhale.

"There's a secret room or something in there. Phoebe and Winston were going inside."

"I feel really uncomfortable spying on them," Mom says. "I'd rather confront Mitchell himself."

"What about the list Phoebe was talking about?" I ask her.

"We can confront them about that as well," she says.

"Well then let's go in there and see what they're doing," I say, but Mom shakes her head.

"It can wait until morning. For all we know that's their bedroom."

I think about the blue light and how strange it seemed. That's not a bedroom. Besides, no one calls their bedroom a chamber anymore. "It didn't seem like a bedroom, Mom."

She rests her hands on her hips and sighs. "It's getting late. I will find the leaders at breakfast and talk to them about all of this then. I'm sure it's harmless, like a list of weapons they want you to use or something."

I cross my arms over my chest.

"What?" she asks.

"Nothing I just... I want you to trust me on this. There is something weird going on in there. There's something weird happening everywhere. First with the Immersion codes then with this, and earlier with Nate."

"What happened with Nate?" she asks, her tone slightly accusatory.

"Nothing, he was upset, so...." I stop myself halfway through the lie. Here I am, sick of the games and the tests, just wanting to be trusted, and I'm lying to Mom. I take a deep breath. "I followed him into the lab and he started saying all this weird stuff. He was worried about not being able to protect me in the attack."

"He's not even part of our team for the attack. He is focused on the secondary exit," Mom says, trying to work through what I'm telling her.

"I know. It was really weird. And then he told me a code. A set of numbers in case anything should happen to him. Could that have to do with the program, Declan?"

"I don't know, what were the numbers?"

"358."

"No... that doesn't sound like code."

"Was that all that happened?" Mom asks. She knows me too well, and I can't lie to her.

"No...," I trail off. Declan's eyes widen with curiosity. "Something else happened, too," I say. "He injected me with a grouping of enzymes he developed. It changed my DNA so that now my body can metabolize drugs, and I won't be affected in case someone tries to drug us during the attack."

Her eyebrows raise. "Are you serious?"

I nod. Thank goodness I left out the part about him kissing me.

Before I can stop her, Mom takes off down the hallway, so Declan and I run after her. "Where are you going?" I whisper into the empty hall, and my words echo off the smooth concrete.

"I need to talk to this boy." She turns back to Declan. "His is one of these rooms, right?"

"Yeah, the second one down on your right." I look at him with pleading eyes. "What?" he whispers. "I know you don't expect me to get in your mom's way."

She stops in front of Nate's door, but before I can get there, she has already begun knocking, and he has already begun to open the door.

I get to the door just in time to see his tired face peek out of the darkness. "Beatrice? Isla? What's going on?"

"It's my understanding," Mom begins in her sternest tone, "that you injected Isla with some DNA changing enzymes. Is that correct?"

His face goes pale, and he pauses a moment, probably calculating the risk of telling the truth versus lying. "Yes?"

"Have you tested it?"

"On a few of Kunkle's rats, yeah."

"Hey, you didn't ask," Declan protests, but Mom barrels through with her questioning.

"And it's been proven effective? With no side effects?"

"Yeah?"

"So then here's how this is going to play out," she says, pointing a finger at him. "You're going to inject me with it too, because if something happens to my daughter, it happens to me too, do you get that? And when you're done, you're never going to touch her or mess with her DNA again. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he says tiredly.

"And in exchange, I won't throw you off this tank." He nods. "Do you have any idea how irresponsible you were in doing that? You could have hurt my daughter, and all she ever did was trust you. You Nomads make me sick."

"Hey," he says, raising his hands, "she could have moved or something. If she hadn't let me kiss her, I wouldn't have been able to inject her."

"What?" Mom nearly yells.

"You know that's not what happened, Nate," I argue over Mom, and I hear Declan squeal under his breath, "What?"

All sounds fade away to static, and now all I'm aware of is the aching cocktail of embarrassment, guilt, and disgust swirling in my stomach. It doesn't help that Mom holds her head like she's about to have an aneurysm, and refuses to look at me.

"I thought she told you. I thought that's why you were mad. My injection will work. I'm the best trainee Dr. Patel has ever worked with."

"Shut up, Nate, just shut up," Mom says, and Declan laughs. She shoots him a look, so Declan apologizes and stutters, "I should really be getting to bed now." I can't tell if he thinks it's hysterical that Nate tried kissing me or if he is too ashamed of me to say anything else. I wish he'd stay by my side, but he's right: He would never stand a chance getting in Mom's way.

"Just... give me the enzymes, Nate."

"I would if I could, but I only made enough for one injection. There isn't any more."

Mom seems to collect herself—she takes a deep breath, she straightens her clothes—but then she grabs him by his shirt collar and presses her forearm across his collarbone. "If you're lying to me...."

"I'm not, I swear. You can even check the lab."

Mom pushes him back into his room and storms back down the hall. I chase after her, and hear Nate's door slam shut behind me.

"Mom, please. Wait!"

She doesn't stop. She just opens her door before quickly slamming it shut.

Two doors slammed in one night. That's a first for me. I turn to retreat back to my room, but there's no way I'm sleeping now. Not with this hot coal of guilt at the pit of my stomach, and not with Mom so angry with me. I can't even imagine what she must be thinking, and I don't want to.

I need a distraction.

Just then a door creaks open, so I shift my focus to the sound. Declan pokes his head out of his bedroom. Even in the darkness, I can tell it's him by his unruly hair. It's now so quiet in the hall that I can hear him whisper, "Still curious about the list?"

I brush the hair from my face and nod. If Mom is mad at me anyway, I might as well get some answers.

Declan and I meet each other halfway between our rooms, right in front of the Captain's dining room, and together we open the door.