Eleven years earlier ...

I pull the lever of the cage, switching the tunnel onto a different track, trying to confuse the mice.

I know exactly how the future will play out, of course. I know which mice will fall down the trap and which ones will smack into the see-through glass wall. I know which mice will get hopelessly lost. I even know which ones will run the maze correctly on the very first try.

I like watching them anyway. They wriggle over one another like worms, and their whiskers twitch when they're at a corner between two paths. But what I like most is how they come to me when I call.

Picking up a mouse, I run my fingers over its soft fur and warm body. It looks at me with unblinking pink eyes, and I think it could be my friend.

Of course, I can see which mice will come, so I know which ones to call. Rodents are predictable like that. Humans, not so much. They have too many wants, too many feelings. I don't see any one future for people. Rather, I see them all — every single pathway their futures might take, flickering before my eyes.

So I have to guess which of my human classmates will want to play with me. Most of the time, I guess wrong.

"Are you bothering my mice again?" a little boy's voice says. "Fates, Livvy. How many times do I have to tell you? Leave them alone!"

Startled, I let go of the mouse and look up at Tanner Callahan, the other six-year-old who hangs around the scientists' labs. I'm here because my mom's the head of the Future Memory Agency, or FuMA, and he's here ... I guess 'cause he has nowhere else to be.

He's got black hair that pokes up in the back, and his skin sticks too closely to his bones. I thought this meant he wasn't eating enough, but MK, our child-minder, said that grief over his parents' deaths had burrowed holes through his resources.

This makes me think of the mice digging through the straw, and my chest aches. I flash forward to his futures. He still has hundreds of branches remaining, but in most of them, one thing is the same: he will be sad and lonely until he kisses our classmate Jessa ten years in the future.

I don't know why kissing should change anything. But I do know how it feels to be lonely and sad.

We don't have to be like this. I could be his friend. I just have to figure out the right thing to say.

"Jessa and I are going to rule the world one day." It can't hurt to bring up the girl he smushes lips with. Maybe if he thinks she and I are friends, he'll like me, too. "You know Jessa, right? The girl with the teardrop eyes? She's my best friend." Not true. I think Jessa only talks to me because she's nice. But he doesn't have to know that.

"Oh yeah? Well someday, I'm going to be the inventor of future memory," he shoots back. "And then we'll see who's more important."

I bite my lip. That wasn't what I meant. I wasn't trying to brag or compare or compete. The futures containing our friendship begin to fall away, one by one. I guessed wrong once again.

My thoughts whirl as I search for something else to say, but then I hear a pair of heels clicking against the tile outside the lab. My stomach drops. The door swishes open, and there stands my mother, Chairwoman Dresden herself.

Her hands go to her hips. Her short hair looks like icicles; her eyes are lumps of hail. "Tanner, what are you doing here? Get back to work before another one of my self-driving pods malfunctions." Tanner suddenly looks like the tuft of hair on his head — all quivering and out-of-place. His parents died in a freak pod accident. That's probably what's gotten him so upset. "Th-this is where I work, Ch-chairwoman —"

She swishes her fingers through the air. "Does it look like I care? Be gone!"

Without another word, Tanner tucks his head down and scampers out of the room.

The door seals shut, and her shoulders droop. "I've had a rough day," she moans, covering her eyes. "I think we've found our key to future memory, but she won't cooperate. She won't send a simple memory to her sister. They say I'm so cruel. They think I'm a monster who tortures children. But what else am I supposed to do? How else can I make her comply?"

The words ring through the room and fall to the carpet. She's not expecting an answer, and I don't dare offer one.

She peeks at me through her fingers. "Come give Mommy a kiss, Olivia. You love me, don't you? You don't think I'm a bad person, do you?"

Obediently, I cross the floor and press my mouth against her cheek. A bit of powder comes off on my lips. It tastes bitter. I hold my face tight, but the grimace sneaks out anyway.

She goes perfectly still. "Did you make a face after kissing me?"

My blood runs cold. Colder than my feet when they stick out under the covers. Colder than the breath that puffs out in the winter air. All her futures flip through my mind, and over ninety percent of them end in the exact same way.

Still, I try.

"No, ma'am," I say haltingly. "I didn't mean to make a face. Your powder came off on my lips, and it tasted bad. Stale and bitter, like poison."

"I taste like poison?"

I wince. Clearly I'm not any better at guessing when it comes to my mother.

"No, ma'am. Not you. The powder —"

"Why must you look at me with those solemn eyes, Olivia? Children are supposed to be carefree and innocent. They're supposed to love you unconditionally. Just once, I'd like to come home from a hard day at work and take comfort in my flesh and blood. Instead, I'm greeted, night after night, by a daughter who stares at me like she sees every single one of my sins."

I do see all her future sins. And all her potential goodness, too. Which path she takes is up to her.

But if I say that, she'll just get mad at me for being precocious.

"I don't mean to look at you." Maybe she'll calm down if I change the subject to something more childlike. If I act more like the daughter she wants. "I had one of those visions again. You know, the ones you call nightmares? It was awful. People were dying. Everywhere I looked, people were confused and disappearing and dying."

A sharp glint leaps into her eyes. "Did you tell anybody? Did you tell Tanner?"

I shake my head. "Not yet. But maybe I should. Maybe, if he knows that I've seen horrible things, too, he'll want to be my friend —"

Her hand slashes across the air and lands squarely against my cheek.

Ow. The futures blow up, and stars blink in front of my eyes. I stumble, trying to find my feet.

"How can I get through to you? How do I make you understand? Nobody can know about your nightmares. You have no idea what will happen if the wrong person hears." She slaps me again. More explosions. More stars.

I cry out, even though I know it will only make her madder. The blows rain down on me. I scream, kicking out my legs, punching forward with my arms. Not because I'm trying to fight her. Not because I'll ever win. But because. It. Hurts. So. Much.

And then, all of a sudden, the walloping stops. Her heels click-click-click out of the room, and the door swishes shut. I collapse to the floor. My body aches in places I didn't know could ache. The skin between my toes. The muscles behind my knees.

My heart.

My mind, however, is not still. It races ahead, sifting, sifting, sifting through my futures until I find the one I want. The only one that will make this pain go away.

Closing my...