MILA 2.0: Redemption

For my mom, who never had a chance to read this book . . .
though I like to think she would have approved

T
he mountains, with their soaring peaks and yawning valleys, gave off the illusion of safety. A no-man’s-land, blanketed with a layer of white.

I trudged through the snow and wove through the pine trees, which hung the air with their brisk, pungent scent. In the distance, the mountains towered over me; immovable, watchful sentries. By comparison, I felt so small.

I clung to that feeling as tightly as the unlit torch that I clutched in my hand. Insignificant. Unimportant. Unknown. In my mind, those three words translated into one delicious thing: freedom.

I inhaled deeply, embracing the pleasant burn of crisp air and the serenity of untouched scenery. The tiny patches of blue that peeked out behind clouds were translucent and
pale. Not a deep blue, but worn.

Faded, like a pair of eyes; full of humor, almost covered by a sweep of messy brown hair.

My synthetic heart accelerated in a combination of yearning and fear.

The wilderness could trick you into thinking you didn’t have a past. But even though certain pieces of my recent history were inaccessible for now, some would always stay with me, no matter what.

Like kind, caring, funny Hunter.

Crash.

My head jerked to the right, but I relaxed on the next breath. The noise didn’t signify a threat. It was a different, yet equally kind boy, tripping over a snow-covered branch and performing a hop-skip to regain his balance.

“Just pitched my last torch. That’ll keep the bears away from the cabin at night,” he said, giving his short, sandy hair a shake. His constantly rumpled shirt collar was at odds with his steady, even presence.

Lucas Webb. The reason I was safely hidden away in these mountains.

For the time being, at least.

“I’m still looking for a good place for this one,” I said, holding up the top end of my torch.

“What about over there?” Lucas pointed to a patch of ground just a few feet south of us.

“Looks good to me.”

As we walked under the outstretched pine branches, a fresh clump of snow shook free, landing on my nose. I brushed it away with my hand. The icy sensation sparked something in a far corner of my mind, like springing a hidden door to a secret compartment.

Without thinking, I set the torch on the ground and squatted, curling my fingers around a handful of snow. It compacted into a tight, frigid ball.

“Sarah! You wouldn’t dare. . . . I’m barely hanging on to this thing as it is—AHHH!”

A girl squealed, her long brown hair streaming out of a teal beanie embellished with a leering monster face. Her gloved hands windmilled, and then she toppled backward into a giant heap of snow. Her feet were still connected to the crimson-and-black snowboard.

She sat up on her elbows, laughing. “You’d better run,” she warned. “You are so dead.”

My hand fluttered to my chest in mock horror.

“Wow, Chloe, violent much? I was just testing out the laws of physics. You know, schoolwork.”

“What’s wrong?” Lucas’s concerned voice snapped me back into the present, and the scene vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

I peered down at my hand and unclenched my knuckles. No snow remained, just a watery mess that oozed down the side of my wrist.

I rose. “Nothing. Just another fragment. From Sarah,” I
added when I saw his lips about to form another question.

The irony almost made me laugh. Portions of my recent memory were missing, segments that I was desperate to retrieve. No progress on that front. Meanwhile, my mind had no problem spewing forth old memories from the dead girl whose brain matter I shared.

Welcome to the life of a teenage android.

We walked to the edge of the clearing, where we paused to stake my torch and admire the view. But I couldn’t quite find the level of peace I’d had moments before.

Not when Lucas was staring at me again.

He’d been shooting me these long, penetrating glances when he didn’t think I’d notice.

Lucas knew better. Noticing was kind of my thing. A little bonus of being a walking, talking computer.

“Everything okay?” I asked, turning to face him.

He gave an awkward shrug and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Oh, yeah. Very convincing.” My tone was teasing, but a chill began to form in my chest.

We were tucked away in the wilderness. No one knew we were here. But that didn’t stop me from fretting that our every move was being watched. Somewhere beyond these mountains, General Holland—my sadistic creator—was hunting me down, and he wouldn’t stop until I was “terminated.” Quinn, Holland’s old coworker—who had
kidnapped me for her own purposes, held me captive, and then abandoned my unconscious body in the desert—was still out there too. What if she was hoping to finish whatever ill-conceived plan she’d started?

And then there was the person I loved. The person who had forgiven me when I’d lied to him, over and over again. The person who’d given me a second chance, only to find out I wasn’t the girl he thought I was. Only to find out I wasn’t a real girl at all.

The chill in my chest spread its icy tentacles. I had no idea where Hunter Lowe was right now, or whether or not he was okay. He was fine when I last saw him with his parents at Quinn’s secret techno-lair. He was maybe a little shocked to discover they were working with her vigilante group, the Vita Obscura, but still safe. . . .

Except—what if Lucas knew something to the contrary and was scared to tell me?

I stared at the tree line, not bothering to huddle into my jacket. Jackets offered no protection from a chill that was generated by fear. I tried to clear my head, but my sensors kept firing, flooding me with useless information.

Temperature: 37 degrees F.

Windchill: 35 degrees F.

Nearest human threat: 153 ft.

I sighed, unfazed by this so-called threat. Lucas’s older brother, Tim, who was probably drinking himself into a
stupor in the cabin, was more of a danger to himself than to anyone else.

Lucas watched me from the corner of his eye. “I still haven’t figured out where or when the device will detonate, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Device. Detonate.

My hands flew down to press against my suddenly clenched stomach. To the same spot I’d been examining in disbelief since Lucas had revealed that planted inside of me was a masterfully built, virtually undetectable bomb. No matter how many times I gripped my skin, probed and prodded with my fingers, I couldn’t discern anything underneath. Not the ropy twist of wires, not the hard edges of building materials that nature had never intended.

General Holland had done a brilliant job of hiding the fact that I was a disaster waiting to happen. He’d even hidden it from me.

I’d just begun to accept myself as I really was—not really human, but not just a machine either. I might have lacked the typical features associated with living beings, but I still had thoughts, and I could still feel. I could experience shattering sorrow. And love. I’d begun to embrace every strange yet amazing notion of what I was and how I was made, only to have the universe chuck a cosmic wrench at me.

I wasn’t just a machine. I was a weapon.

Lucas took one look at my face and flinched. “Sorry to bring it up,” he said. “I don’t want you to worry. I’m making some headway. I’ve been logging in remotely to Holland’s computer—incognito, of course—to see if I can find anything in his files. I’m researching everything I can about timers on explosives. Some pieces are falling into place.”

He hesitated with his hand midway between us before curving it around my shoulder and squeezing. “I won’t stop until I find what we need. Okay?”

I wanted his words and touch to reassure me, but neither cracked the surface of my anxiety. Not this time. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t know how to repay you, or Tim. It’s just . . . if anyone gets hurt because of me, I—”

He bent down so that we were eye to eye. “Remember, there’s a two-hour window once it’s set to detonate. That is more than enough time to ensure my safety, or anyone else’s. Got it?”

I scanned his expression, searching for any evidence he was just saying that to make me feel better.

Direct eye contact: No averting gaze to the left.

Hand position: Not touching own face.

Heart rate: 68 bpm, steady.

Blood pressure: 108/64.

Assessment: Body language and physical measurements inconsistent with lying.

As usual, Lucas was telling the truth. Which meant accepting that he was okay with the risk—even if I wasn’t. Logically, I knew he was right. A two-hour window would be plenty of time. But the emotional part of me couldn’t be swayed. Deep down, I lived in terror that somehow, I might harm Lucas.

And I’d caused so much collateral damage already.

In my mind, I saw Quinn talking to me about the procedure that would limit my emotions. I saw myself agreeing—anything to shield me from all of my internal pain. Next I was up on the table, waiting for Quinn and Samuel to begin the process. And then, the images stopped. Just like an old movie reel that kept getting stuck in the same exact spot. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push past the snag, couldn’t see how the movie ended.

“What’s wrong?” Lucas asked.

I relaxed my muscles into a natural expression, but not quickly enough.

“Thinking about Quinn?” he pressed. Ugh. Sometimes, he was way too astute for his own good.

“Yes. But everything’s still a void after the procedure. Any progress on your end?”

Lucas’s eyes lit up. He flexed his fingers in the space between us, as if getting ready to conduct an orchestra. I knew what that meant—I’d seen it before. He performed that funny hand maneuver whenever he was excited about
some prospective technological breakthrough.

“What? Did you figure out how to restore the data she erased?”

He grinned. “Not completely, not yet. But I’m close.”

My shoulders sagged.

“But soon we can connect your system to my restoration program and give it a try,” he said, attuned to my subtle changes in posture.

“Really? When?”

“Maybe tomorrow morning. Can you wait that long?”

“Why can’t you just tell me what you do know? We can try and fill in the blanks together,” I suggested, hoping that Lucas would agree to play detective with me.

“I don’t think it’s prudent,” he said softly. “I only know bits and pieces from picking up your thoughts and talking to you via remote. I don’t have the entire picture, and I don’t want to give you misleading information. It will be better if we restore your drive.”

It was the same line he’d fed me every time I’d pressed him for more details.

The problem was, I read between the lines. The only reason misleading information would be problematic was if something terrible went down after Quinn and Samuel had hacked into me back at her lab.

“We’ll get your memory back. One way or another.”

The quiet reassurance in Lucas’s voice soothed me. I
might not have fully agreed with his decision, but one thing was for sure—I trusted him completely.

Even though my memory would be useless once the bomb went off.

I fell into step beside him as we headed back to his brother’s cabin. My measured, even steps were a contrast to his awkward limp, the result of a congenital foot anomaly that no amount of surgery could completely fix. Not that Lucas was weakened by it at all. He was lean but wiry, stronger than he looked. And mentally, he was about as fierce as they came. Without him, I never would have made it out of General Holland’s compound alive, and he’d risked everything to come and rescue me in the desert. Even now, he was here with me at great personal risk. He’d taken medical leave from his job at SMART Ops, but he could only be gone for so long without arousing suspicion.

Any day now, he might have to go back and leave me behind. And if I was being honest with myself, the thought of that terrified me.

“Come on, let’s get you where it’s warm,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow. “Like that really matters.”

“Fine, I’m freezing out here. Can we go now?”

I grinned and nudged him with my elbow. As we walked, the brown horizontal lines of a rustic cabin peeked through the trees on our left.

Actual distance: 26.25 ft.

As usual, my android sensors required that I had the precise measurements. Because that information was so crucial when you housed an explosive device inside your body.

We passed the trees and entered the small clearing. The A-frame log cabin sat in the rear, ugly and squat like a beehive that had been smashed by an angry fist into half its normal size. Nothing adorned the walls or windows. The rooftop slouched well below the tree line, and the only way to get here by car was via a precarious, off-road path that you had to search forever to find. The walkway that led to the front of the cabin had been shoveled recently, leaving two short snow walls on either side.

The main door creaked open. A scrawny, pale man stumbled out onto the porch, rubbing his eyes like he’d just woken up. When he saw his little brother coming toward him, his body tensed and his eyes narrowed.

“Jesus, Lucas, make sure the door latches when you go outside. And wear your damn jacket if you don’t want to catch pneumonia and die!”

Tim Webb followed that proclamation by chucking a navy blue coat out the door and onto the damp walkway. As usual, his gaze completely avoided me. He rarely spoke to me in more than monosyllables or grunts, making it clear that helping Lucas give me asylum didn’t exactly thrill him. But I was fine with him keeping his distance. With his
bloodshot eyes, unwashed body, and constant reek of alcohol, Tim was one person I wasn’t too eager to get to know.

After a particularly loud grunt, Tim slammed the door behind him. The glass in the windows rattled. Lucas stared at the discarded jacket but didn’t move.

“Is there ever a day when he wakes up on the right side of the bed? Just wondering,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

Lucas’s attempt at a smile failed, strained creases settling around his eyes. “No. At least, not in all the years I remember living with him in the same house. Not a morning person.”