MILA 2.0: Redemption (24 page)

They hurried up while overhead, the ceiling rumbled with the sound of hundreds of feet on wooden floors.

Meanwhile, the siren tore at me like sharp claws, its wail linking me to the past.
A scream from a dead girl. Telling me to run while I still could.

Thick, billowing smoke. Red and orange flames licking in every direction. Dad’s hoarse voice. Sarah on the floor . . . the acrid sweet
smell of burning flesh . . . my own . . .

I shook off the memories and the fire faded, leaving only the wail of the alarm.

Time to live in the now.

Keep track of Grassi
, I texted Samuel before returning to the search. But we were almost out of spots. In desperation, Hunter had resorted to yanking up the chair cushions. I looked for anything we might have missed. The only thing we hadn’t searched in the office was the potted plant.

The wooden platform had potential, so I rushed over and turned it upside down. No hard drive. With barely any hope left, I dug my fingers beneath the fake mulch in the brown ceramic pot.

My fingers struck something foreign. Cool, sleek, and sharp, where the pot was rough and round.

With a shaking hand, I withdrew the external hard drive.

“Got it. Grab that USB cord from the top drawer and let’s get out of here.”

Hunter did as I asked, and we raced out the office door to the stairs. Where there’d once been a thunder of footsteps, now there was unnerving quiet. Except for one lone sound. A cough at the top of the stairwell.

And then the sound of shoes hitting steps. Descending. “Anyone down here needs to evacuate immediately.”

The dean.

I snatched Hunter’s sleeve and pulled him backward.
When I knew we were out of sight I turned. “Other stairs. Quick,” I said, and bolted, with him on my heels.

Distance calculations raced through my head. The distance from us to the other stairs; the distance and length of time it would take the dean to get to the bottom.

We couldn’t be linked to that busted door.

We reached the stairs and clambered up, my heart racing. Just in time to miss the dean completing his sweep.

Upstairs, the hall was deserted.

Which way?
I texted Samuel.

Out the north exit.

We rushed for the north door and burst outside. Rain pounded onto our heads, and within seconds, streams were pouring down my cheeks. I tucked the hard drive into the waistband of my jeans and pulled my sweatshirt over for additional protection. If the thing fried now . . .

Students huddled everywhere: on the steps, in walkways, on the grass. Staff members tried to shoo them into some kind of order, but their instructions were lost in the sea of shrieking, laughing teens. Samuel’s oversized head poked out between two big clusters; he waved us over. We hurried over and let him guide us into the middle of the chaos.

“Where’s Grassi?” I asked.

“Over there.” Samuel pointed at a big navy umbrella sheltering Grassi and a trio of shivering students.

“I got the drive, but I need a safe place to plug in,” I said.
Then I realized we were down one team member. “Where’s Abby?”

“She had a few more spots to check, on the far side of campus. She should be done in a few minutes. Still no sign of Hannah.”

I nodded and perused the area around us. We needed a spot where we could watch Grassi, but stay dry enough not to damage the hard drive. I pointed to a giant tree about fifty feet away. “There.”

I zigzagged and pushed my way through the heavy crowd, relieved when it thinned out and we could jog on the open field. Once we took shelter under the tree’s massive branches, Hunter handed over the USB cord.

“Keep an eye on Grassi while I plug this in,” I said. Paranoia talking. Between the sheets of rain and mass of humanity between us and him, it would be almost impossible for him to see me. Still, I wasn’t taking unnecessary risks.

“I hope Abby gets back soon. Then we can get out of here, right?”

“That’s the plan,” I replied, hooking the cord to the drive, before connecting the other end to my port. For a split second, nothing happened. Did I need a power source?

Connection detected.

Powering up.

And then:

File system detected: Action?

Browse.

Scan.

Format.

So weird, how my two sides worked so seamlessly together. My android brain read all the data in a stream of ones and zeroes, which my human brain immediately converted to words. Once I’d hated that dichotomy. Now, I just admired the collaboration.

I issued the command to browse and waited for files to pop up. My lungs were constricted, too heavy with hope and fear to take a full breath.

A folder popped up, which opened to expose hundreds of files.

Of course all of them were encrypted.

“I’m texting Abby again,” Hunter said. “I wish she’d hurry up.” He pulled out his phone while I ground my teeth together. My fingers tightened on the wire. Of course Grassi had encrypted them. Now I just had to hope that he’d used a program that I could decrypt in a short amount of time.

“Red alert. Grassi is heading inside the building.” Samuel’s proclamation made me pause, but only for a moment. Now I just needed to work faster. Soon he would see what had happened to his office door.

The encryption would have been challenging for any
human, but Grassi hadn’t made the code android-proof. The encryption cracked, and I could decipher the code that emerged.

I processed the files in order.

The first one opened to reveal only two words. PET scans. Whatever else might have once lived in the file had been deleted long ago.

The next ones, thankfully, were more promising. Photos.

Ocean landscapes. A fluffy dog. A photo of Grassi from maybe two or three years ago, drinking a beer. Grassi holding up a big fish. Nothing relevant to my search.

I paused on an image of a shirtless man with a tattoo. The colors were faded, like the original photo had aged before being scanned. Everything was the slightest bit blurry. The man had sun-streaked brown hair and a lanky but muscular build. He was smiling into the camera, while tropical foliage loomed behind him. The tattoo was on the right side of his chest, fashioned to look like a medal. It was the colors that made me hesitate.

Blue, yellow, and green. I’d seen that combination before.

Searching database . . .

Images from my recent history flashed by as my search function pulled up anything with a combination of those colors.

Ping. 1 result.

My heart almost stopped when the image appeared. An evidence bag with a twisted, melted bit of metal. We
hadn’t been able to ID the object, but Blythe had obviously thought it was important enough to hide.

I scanned the photo into my database so I could work with it.

Resolution: Sharpen.

In the blink of an eye, the soldier’s face depixelated and then reassembled, his features coming into sharper focus.

Age progression: Activate.

Time lapse?

I recalled Grassi’s age from our research. Thirty-one years.

Weight gain or loss?

Gain
, I commanded.

Starting progression.

The image’s photo altered, adding inches and years. The image morphed and changed until I recognized Grassi’s face. He was the tattooed man in the photo, much younger then. The colors of the tattoo matched the colors of that piece of metal. Whatever that was worth, I thought. Maybe a coincidence. But I kept working with the photo.

Magnify 20x.

I’d missed it before, but clutched in his right fist was a silver necklace with two oval-shaped pendants. Dog tags. And in the bottom corner of the photo, I spotted a series of numbers.

They meant nothing to me, and I needed to get to the other files. So I sent the information to Lucas.

Can you search this marking and number? I found them both
on a photo of Grassi from years ago. Apparently he was military.

The response was instant.

Will do. You guys okay?

For now. I snagged a hard drive from Grassi’s office. We’re just waiting on Abby now.

I paused, then added,
Get ready to come grab us at any time.

Just say the word. Stay safe.

“Are you almost done scanning?” Samuel’s beefy hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. Through his fingers, I felt his mounting stress.

When I heard his words, I wanted to smack myself. Scanning. Of course. That was the most crucial step. That way, if I lost the drive, I still had the data. I’d been so caught up in my success, I’d gone about things backward.

Almost done. I should be ready in a few. Where do I meet you?
Abby texted.

I released a tense breath I hadn’t realized I was holding on her behalf, and went back to deciphering the code.

Students started drifting back into buildings. Pretty soon, we’d be noticeable in our little huddle. As I issued the command to scan, Hunter interrupted.

“What’s that blinking light?” I followed his gaze down to the drive in my right hand. To where a tiny green light flashed inside the drive.

My security alert flashed in time.

GPS signal located.

“He’s tracking it!”

“Who? Grassi? Then why are we standing here? Get rid of the damn thing!” Samuel roared.

“Hang on,” I said. I couldn’t ditch the drive until I’d finished scanning every file.

The scan initiated while Samuel paced in a circle beneath the tree limbs. Hunter kept checking his phone.

“I though yer components wur state o’ the art,” Samuel said, his Scottish brogue thickening along with his stress.

My own nerves weren’t faring any better. They vibrated, as if a giant hand plucked them in time with the download updates.

50% complete.

72% complete.

88% complete.

“Joseph and Mary, he’s going to see us!” Samuel said, just as I proclaimed, “Done!”

I snatched the cord out and shoved it at Hunter, gripping the drive firmly between my hands as I headed for the paved path.

“Here, let me chuck it,” Samuel said.

I snatched the drive away before he could make contact. “I have a better idea.”

We reached the path, and I dropped the drive to the ground. Then I lifted my foot and stomped as hard as I could.

Crunch.

I stomped again for good measure, aiming for the blinking light. Metal and plastic and computer chips crumpled
into pieces, then the light disappeared. With one epic sweep of my foot, I scattered the pieces onto the grass and watched them land in the mud. The final thought that flickered through my mind made my lips curve up.

GPS mode that, asshole.

I shot off another quick text to Lucas.

I scanned an entire hard drive’s worth of files. I’m going to send some transcriptions through to you, so we can hopefully get through them quicker. Here they come . . .

I let him know when the transfer completed.

Got them. Will get straight to work on these.

“Where the hell is Abby?” Samuel cursed. “Let’s head toward her so we’re not just standing around at the scene of the crime.”

A text popped up as we headed across the courtyard.

Guys, come quick. I found Hannah, and she’s hurt.

Where are you?
I prompted.

VR building

That didn’t make any sense.

How did you get in?

The last time I’d checked, it required a retinal scan, and I knew Abby didn’t have any stolen eyeballs.

Someone had shoved something between the door and the wall.
Hannah said she heard Grassi complaining about a security malfunction. Started last night.

My tension eased. Maybe they’d tweaked something
when overriding my forced lockdown.

Hurry.

As if to reinforce Abby’s text, an alert pinged in my head.

GPS signal located.

At first, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. Could Grassi’s GPS chip have revived? Until I realized this was Hannah’s chip. We hadn’t seen it all day.

The grid that surfaced behind my eyes confirmed Abby’s text. Hannah was in the same place where we’d spotted the kids last night, lost in their virtual-reality worlds.

We’re coming.

Together, the three of us sprinted for Grassi’s VR lab. On the way, I checked in with Lucas and Daniel.

Abby found Hannah. She’s in the VR room. Can you come to the school ASAP?

The reply was instant.

On our way.

“We go in, grab Hannah, and get out. Deal?” I said. This was almost over.

Hunter and Samuel were already panting from the exertion of keeping up with me. We angled left from the pathway, the wind whipping our faces. The rain had slowed to a faint drizzle, but the grass squished beneath our wet shoes. As we ran past the fountain, I continued to search file after file, like an oar dipping through calm water.

The first twenty or thirty files were meaningless to me.
Grassi was a data hoarder; he kept records of everything. Travel expenses, vacations. Taxes. Bank accounts and their balances, some of them overseas. More interesting was a list of foreign names, followed by seemingly random numbers. With more time to research, it would all come together, but right now, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. I was just grateful I could search and run at the same time.

I stumbled across something curious in the very next file, a saved email chain. Grassi only exchanged messages with one other person, and there was no associated name. The recipient’s address was a dead end; I recognized that immediately. But something about the other party’s writing triggered a spark of recognition. Something about the voice seemed familiar.

Behind me, I heard a gasp. Hunter had slipped on a patch of mud. I reached out and grabbed his hand while Samuel latched on to his waist. When he regained his footing, we took off again.

The VR building was one hundred feet away.

There was something about the way that one person worded things. Certain turns of phrase. They snagged at my memory, conjuring up a deep drawl and the inside of a secret military lab.