MILA 2.0: Redemption (18 page)

“Is that what Sharon says?” Celia sighed as she opened the door, revealing a room so pristine, it looked it had been arranged by a professional. A blue-and-yellow comforter was folded symmetrically, without a single wrinkle. The pillow on top looked plumped. The items on her dresser were neatly lined up, and her desk was bare except for a shiny laptop. Two framed original art pieces hung on the wall: a vibrant seascape that matched the comforter, and a charcoal sketch of a shaggy dog. Not a stray sock or hat in sight.

My gaze lingered on the dog sketch, and again, I felt that odd tug of familiarity.

“Who’s Sharon?”

Celia shrugged. “Another overachiever who happens to have the single next door. Her practice is over—she should be back here any minute. Just in time for classes to start.”

I knew Abby was trying to catch my eye, but I deliberately avoided her gaze. I knew what she was thinking. Was this Sharon our Watson kid, Sharon Alexander? From the research we’d gathered, the personality could fit.

Celia motioned us inside. “Come on, Abby. You can leave your stuff right here. . . .” She indicated a square inch of space on the spare bed. It looked like I was going to have an easier time here than Abby. Or, hopefully, than Sarah.

Hannah’s room was next. “We’re room two hundred twenty-two,” Hannah said, leading the way.

Hannah’s door was covered in black letters and symbols on white paper. Code. “Told you I liked computers,” she said.

So, you must really like me, then.

Funny thing about computers . . . I kind of am one.

Did you know some computers walked and talked?

Response after ridiculous response popped into my head, but of course I didn’t say any of them out loud.

Hannah’s room was outfitted like Celia’s, yet nothing like it. There were two beds opposite each other, and I
could tell which one was hers right away, by the half-made covers and half-buried throw pillows. The second bed was bare, with folded blankets and a pillow on top, awaiting me.

On Hannah’s desk was an open laptop and a tangle of papers. A lone white sock with blue bunnies sprawled across a chair roller. Straight ahead, a minifridge hummed. The second, unoccupied desk held a few papers too. Hannah grabbed them to make space for my stuff.

“You have a single, too, like Sharon?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. All the grant kids do. All the better for late-night studying,” she added.

Things were set up pretty well for them, I had to admit. And if Holland himself wasn’t behind it, I wondered what role his wife had to play here. Did she pick the Watson Grant recipients by hand? On what basis? I wondered. Hannah hadn’t been any help, but surely someone had to know. “Celia thinks I’m a slob,” said Hannah. She walked to the dresser at the foot of her bed, rummaging through the bottom drawer.

A quick scan of her dresser didn’t reveal much that screamed, “Huge conspiracy, look here.” One bottle of vanilla body spray, seventy-seven cents in change, a small red carry basket holding shampoo, conditioner, a loofah, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, and in the corner, tucked behind the basket and against the mirror, a small rock, painted red and with googly stick-on eyes.

She pulled out some clothes while I took a quick inventory of her desk. Ten books, eight of them thick programming manuals. A copy of
Ender’s Game
, and a history textbook.

Hannah walked over to her single-serving coffeemaker and grabbed an insulated cup. She pushed a button and there was a fresh cup of coffee in seconds. Hannah emptied a packet into it, then put the lid on top to keep the coffee hot.

She stepped away, then frowned. “Oh, sorry. Did you want some? I’ve probably got another cup somewhere,” she said, doing a quick survey of her room as though one might appear out of nowhere.

“No thanks.”

“All right then, we’d better get going. Classes start any minute!” It sounded like she’d already done plenty of studying, but she was ready to start another long day.

The hallway was mostly empty when we emerged from her room. Hannah picked up her pace. “We’d better hurry. Mr. Tasher does this thing where he stops the entire class and has everyone stare at you when you’re late. It’s creepy.”

I remembered the staring, back at Clearwater. I hadn’t loved it much either. Once again, my mind roamed to Sarah. How would she have handled that kind of negative attention? I despised it. But was that simply because I had things to hide?

Ben LaCosta was in our English class, sitting in the center of the middle row. He didn’t say much. Didn’t appear
to take notes, either. Just kicked up his legs and leaned back in his chair, his eyes fluttering closed several times before the motion of his head falling forward jerked him back awake.

Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t his thing. He wasn’t the only one nodding off. But I wasn’t about to dismiss it.

J.D. and Hannah were here, too, and Hunter was sitting right in front of me. As the teacher read with great animation from a tattered paperback, I had a rare chance to watch Hunter without him watching me back.

How could things change so much, so quickly?

His legs were sprawled out under his desk, one arm draped over the back of his chair. Not that different from the way he’d been back in Clearwater. If I squinted, I could almost pretend that I didn’t see the hint of shadows beneath his eyes, too. Or the new caution that gave him a closed-off vibe he’d never had before.

I couldn’t even be angry. I understood. He was hurting, lashing out. If he had his way, I wouldn’t even be here. He thought that my absence was the best way to ensure the safety of these students. That he could save them where he had failed to save his stepdad.

For a moment, I entertained the notion myself. What if I just walked away, for good? Would everyone be safer that way? After everything was said and done, was I still the biggest risk?

From the depths of my android heart, denial surged. Swift and fierce. In the form of Sarah’s image.

No.

Walking away meant no justice for Sarah, for Nicole, or even for Daniel. It meant more families ripped apart by grief and despair.

Walking away meant giving up. And I wasn’t going to do that. Not for Hunter; not for any boy.

At that point, Hunter looked at me, trapping me in the pale blue intensity of his stare. Almost unconsciously, I braced myself for the burst of longing, of love.

As our gazes tangled, I felt an initial flutter in my chest, along with the desire to beg forgiveness. But the love, the need . . . it wasn’t there. Gone.

I shifted in the chair and moved my hands restlessly along the desk. My feelings for Hunter had been one of my only constants.

Constant in that no matter what, he seemed to reduce me to my most base insecurities—that I wasn’t good enough.

That thought came out of nowhere. But as the notion settled, the truth of it seeped in, along with a growing sense of peace. Hunter didn’t make me feel inferior on purpose. I knew that. He’d tried to accept me as I was. But I didn’t want someone who had to try. For some reason, a part of my mind drifted to Lucas. We had a check-in scheduled at seven tonight, with both him and Daniel. At the moment,
that seemed like a lifetime away.

The morning passed without much to note, and lunch was a noisy distraction. The food court hosted way more students than it had during breakfast, and all of them seemed keen on shouting. Hannah piled two grilled-cheese sandwiches on her tray—I was glad to see that she was eating, even if she wasn’t sleeping. When I finally got through the line, I saw Celia waving in the crowd for us. “Over here!” she called. “I saved you a seat!”

I tried to keep the conversation all about her. Celia was in the school musical. She was thinking of playing the clarinet. She couldn’t wait to go home for break. Luckily, she loved to talk. Whenever she asked me a question about myself, I steered the conversation in another direction.

Finally, she put her glass of water down firmly on the table. “That’s it,” she said. “You are the second-most-private girl I’ve ever met!”

I had to smile. “Who was the first?” I asked. But I already had a guess.

A shadow passed over Celia’s face for a fraction of a second. “This girl who was here last year,” she said. “Sarah. You totally remind me of her. She was such a nice person, so polite. Much more of a listener than a talker. Never said much about herself, until you realized you’d told her your whole life story.”

I looked around the cafeteria, as if I expected to find her
sitting here. “Where is she now?” I asked. “I’d love to meet her.”

Celia looked past my eyes. “The thing is, I’m not really sure. She was only here for a little while, and I never heard from her again.”

Then she looked right at me, with such intensity that I cringed. Could she tell? I panicked. Did she know? I had no idea what to say now, but luckily I was saved by the bell. “Follow me!” Celia said to Hannah and me as she rushed to put her tray on a conveyor belt. “If we hurry, we’ll get good seats in Computer Science.”

I
wasn’t sure I’d want to go to Montford if I were a normal girl. The campus was stunning, but otherwise it seemed just like a regular school, with regular classes. Computer Science was a different kind of class, and it was where I began to see beneath the shining surface of the place.

Mr. Grassi—or Professor Grassi, as most of the students called him—was pretty cool. He looked ordinary in every way, except for the missing thumb on his left hand.

His classroom was not ordinary at all, though. Video cameras and screens hung at varying intervals around the room. And tucked into the corner . . . no way.

“Is that what I think it is?” I whispered to Hannah, pointing at the oversized machine.

“Yup. A 3D printer. Insane, right? I guess the alumni
here have some big bucks.”

I whistled under my breath. Too bad Lucas wasn’t here. This class would be right up his alley.

I felt a pang, just beneath my ribs. Yes. I wished Lucas were here. It was time to admit it.

“Put away your textbooks,” Professor Grassi said. “That means you too, Ms. Peckles.”

Hannah’s cheeks flushed red as the class tittered. She shoved the book into her backpack.

“We’re going to do one of my rap sessions today.”

Good-natured groans filled the room, while one student launched into the chorus of a popular rap song. “I keep telling you people, not that kind of rap,” Grassi said, throwing his hands up in mock annoyance. But it was obvious he enjoyed the exchange.

“Today we’re going to talk a little more about virtual reality. So far, we’ve covered what’s available right now, in the present. But what might virtual reality look like in the future?”

He perched on the edge of his desk and folded his arms. “Let’s start with this—what kinds of experiences would you all most like to have? Right now, or at least in your lifetime? Supposing that anything was on the table?”

“Play on a pro football team!”

“Be president for a day!”

“Go on tour as a rap star!” the singer shouted.

“Sex!” a boy in the back row blurted.

Everyone laughed, even Grassi. He rubbed his hands together. “Perfect. You don’t know it yet, but you’re all falling right into my nefarious plans.”

“Nefarious? Wasn’t she a queen of Egypt?” The singer tossed that one out there, but his grin suggested he knew better. Grassi gave a theatrical sigh.

“Owens, Owens . . . do I need to have another word with your history teacher? You can redeem yourself by telling me this—what do most of those suggestions have in common?”

Owens’s brow creased as he tried to find the common thread. “They’re all about being famous? Well, except for sex.”

“Close, but not quite what I was looking for. What about you, Ms. Peckles? What do you think?”

Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know, because I wouldn’t pick any of those. I’d rather have a vacation experience. With a nice, comfy bed.”

He tapped a finger to his lips. “I see.” He grabbed some kind of tablet off his desk and typed in a note, before moving on. “Anyone else?”

In the front row, Claude raised his hand hesitantly. “Power? The first three are all about feeling powerful.”

“Yes. Exactly. Because the average American wants that kind of experience. And at some time, in the not-too-distant
future, they might be able to get it. In fact, they might be able to get that experience all day, and all night. Virtually. Several prominent computer geniuses speculate that by the year 2028, we’ll all be living like those folks in the movie
WALL-E
. Shopping? Sex? Food? No need to leave home. You can experience it all from the safety of your own bedroom.”

Behind me, two girls gave high-pitched giggles. Meanwhile, other students looked at one another and began to whisper. “But that’s not really the same as experiencing it, right? You just think you’re doing those things,” said a girl from the middle row.

“Ahhh, but aren’t you? What is an experience, after all, but a series of brain synapses and neurotransmitters? If your brain tells you it happens, who are you to disagree?”

I digested that along with the rest of the class. Was that true? And, if it was, what did it mean for me? Because, of course, the thing I wanted most had nothing to do with power. It had to do with life itself—and not the virtual kind. I wanted my life to be normal. Fully human. Not enhanced by my android abilities, or wrecked by the bomb that was always right there, lodged in my gut, waiting to blow everything to pieces.

My brain told me I was living this life already. I did everything a human could, right? I knew more about virtual reality than any of these kids, I thought. My whole life
was one extended virtual-reality experience.

That’s how I knew that Professor Grassi didn’t fully understand. The brain could deliver the data, show that you were having one kind of experience. You were a rap star, or a queen. The brain could say anything it wanted, but the heart would always know the truth. My heart knew the machine part of me couldn’t “live” on its own. It was the other side of me, the human side, that made my virtual reality something different. The heart gave meaning to my experiences. It let me feel loss, and love.

I’d never thought about it quite that way before, I realized. Who would have thought I’d actually learn something as a prospective student at Montford? Sarah had endured something awful here, something we would need to figure out before we left this campus. But she could have learned here, too, I thought. She could have had an education. Just another thing she lost, because of Holland.

Professor Grassi was giving his class an assignment. “Now, I want you to come up with an original idea for a virtual-reality experience, why it would be of benefit to society, and discuss the fundamentals of coding for that VR.”

As the class continued its excited chatter, and Grassi took more notes, something odd happened.

A security prompt flashed behind my eyes, vanishing before I could make sense of it. I ran the security scan Lucas had installed. The one that alerted me if I was being hijacked again.

Clear.

Clear.

Clear.

Everything checked out. Holland hadn’t found me . . . yet. Air left my lungs in one relieved gush. Until I saw Hannah. I didn’t need my android capabilities to tell me something was wrong. My heart took over as I saw her, seemingly out of her mind.

While everyone else discussed virtual-reality scenarios, she’d pulled a multi-tool out of her backpack, flipped open the scissors, and without a word to anyone, started cutting her hair.

“Hannah,” I said, half rising. Did she even know what she was doing? Her neighbor to the left had noticed, too.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he said. Loud enough that the rest of the class craned their necks to see.

“Felt like a haircut. Since there’s no virtual-reality app for that yet,” she said. I frowned at the lack of inflection in her voice.

Grassi looked up from his tablet, saw what was happening, and tossed it aside. “Hannah, I know I’m a little unorthodox, but that’s unacceptable behavior in my classroom. Put the scissors away and pay attention, before I have to write you up.”

She blinked up at him, then down at the scissors in her hand. They clattered to the desk while her hand flew to her hair. Her lips parted in horror.

“Are you feeling okay?” he said, frowning down at her. “Maybe you should go to the nurse’s office.”

Hannah nodded, grabbed her backpack, and bolted.

A worry line crossed his forehead. Once the door shut, he turned back to us. He scoured the waiting faces before settling on one. “Celia, could you come here, please?”

As Celia walked up to his desk, the whispers started up again. So much that it was hard to hear their conversation.

Using my audio enhancement, I deleted the interference so I could focus on what they were saying.

“I know the two of you are friends,” Grassi said. “Do you know if Hannah is taking anything that could be harmful or potentially dangerous? Remember, it’s your obligation to speak up if you have concerns.”

Celia was shaking her head. “Sorry, not that I know of. I mean, she seems tired lately . . . but that’s how she always is.” She bit her lip and looked at the door.

Grassi studied her expression before nodding. “Okay. Will you go check on her, please?”

In a flash, Celia slung her backpack over her shoulder and rushed out of the room.

Grassi sat at his desk and leaned back, arms crossed. “That’s why I always tell you guys to make sure to get enough sleep. Lay off the caffeine and hydrate, and for god’s sakes, none of those Monster drinks. There’s a reason they call them that. Anyway, tomorrow we’ll discuss your ideas.
Make sure you have them ready. Class dismissed.”

As the students filed out, I saw something small and metal gleaming near the chair Hannah had vacated. Her multi-tool, amid a clump of blond hair.

I took the tool so I could return it, then hurried away to find her.

By the time I found the nurse’s office, Hannah had already left. Maybe because whatever was wrong with her, the nurse couldn’t fix it. I looked everywhere for her, until I finally decided to try the dorm. She was right there inside our room, typing away on her computer as if nothing had happened. Only now, her hair was all the same length.

I eyed the scissors on the desk, and the blond hair that littered the trash can. “You okay?”

She glanced at me like this was perfectly normal. “I’m fine,” she said with little emotion. “I’d been meaning to cut my hair for a while now.”

She stated it like she made all the sense in the world. And if something was wrong, she wasn’t likely to tell a girl she’d just met and who’d be leaving soon.

I put the offer out there anyway. “Okay. But if you need to talk . . .”

Was Hannah frightened of something, too scared to talk? Was she going crazy here at Montford? Had something like this happened to Sarah? If only I could remember.

I settled onto my own bed, pretending to read. I hoped
maybe she’d leave at some point, so I could inspect her room. Professor Grassi suspected drugs were behind Hannah’s weird behavior, and I had to admit that fit. A lot of illicit drugs caused insomnia too, which could explain her fatigue. Drugs could even explain Hannah’s occasional changes in speech and heart rates.

Was it really that simple, though? Holland was involved here somehow, I was sure. Was he using teenage subjects to see how drugs affected them? That didn’t really fit in with his android project, but maybe this was step one in some larger scheme. Maybe he needed drugs to make them compliant first, and then went from there.

Something pinged on Hannah’s desk. She fumbled in her bag and withdrew a cell phone, then read a text.

A room search would have to wait for when she left. In the meantime, I’d take a stab at hacking into her cell phone.

First step—identifying the server.

I reached out to tap in to her connection. Like an invisible stranger grabbing a free ride from an unsuspecting train.

The rebuff was instant: a flash of notification, before equally invisible walls sprang up to stop me.

Private network: CRA.

I tried again, with the same result.

Private network: CRA.

I leaned back against my pillow. Well, that was odd. Instead of Sprint or Verizon or some smaller cell carrier, Hannah’s service was linked to her own private network.

What if the other grant kids’ phones were linked to the same one?

I’d have to try to log in to Hannah’s phone the old-fashioned way. Via manual connection.

But for the next two hours, she never budged. Not even to use the bathroom. It wasn’t until dinner came that she got up to leave, but I had to go too. Meals were my best—and only—opportunities to see all the grant kids together in one room.

If Hannah noticed any of the strange looks and whispers, they didn’t faze her. She was back to her usual self, with her ever-present cup of black coffee. After pumping Hannah for information on why she’d freaked out and cut her hair, Celia kept up a constant stream of meaningless chatter. Hunter and Samuel sat a few tables away with J.D. and his gang. Claude and Ben were one table over, telling jokes in a foreign language that my android brain translated automatically: Mandarin.

There was a ping, and Hannah dipped her head to check her phone. I saw J.D. dig his phone out of his bag.

Ben and Claude were bent over theirs a moment later.

Here was my chance.

I followed the signals in the room as they looped and
twisted into an intricate tangle of networks. Again, my feed filled with all the usual suspects: AT&T, T-Mobile.

But as I traced the networks to the grant kids’ phones, they all shared one trait that none of the other students did.

Their phones were all part of the same VPN.

One private, secure network, for four kids. Five, if you counted Sharon, who wasn’t here.

Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to ensure their communications were secure.

Maybe if we figured out who was texting them, and what, we’d be a step closer to solving this mystery. But the VPN made things that much more challenging. No chance at remote access. I still had to get my hands on Hannah’s phone.

When Hannah was completely engaged in a conversation with Celia, Abby leaned close to my ear. “Samuel found a spot for us to meet tonight. Meet downstairs, seven p.m. sharp, boys’ common room.”

Our check-in meeting. If only I had something to report.

After dinner, I walked back to the dorm with Hannah.

She resumed her position at the desk and didn’t budge. She didn’t respond to my efforts to strike up a conversation, either. Maybe she really was on drugs, I thought. At five to seven, I gave up and headed out. “Going to meet with my friends for a bit . . . I won’t be late.”

She mumbled in response.

I located the boys’ common room and found my group standing by the door, waiting. The space was lively at this time of night, crowded with girls and boys. They looked happy. At ease. And when Samuel motioned toward the hall, a part of me wanted to wave him off, plunk myself down on one of the comfy couches, and try to feel what they felt. A different kind of virtual reality.