MILA 2.0: Redemption (6 page)

“Then what is it?” I asked, a little relieved.

Lucas got up and walked toward his room, nodding for me to follow. Once we got there, he collapsed in front of his computer desk. I sat on the cot where he slept and waited for him to speak.

He cleared his throat, fidgeted with his monitor, and pulled a few screens up. “It’s about the explosive device,” he said bluntly.

He scrutinized all the open search windows, every one of them filled with information related to bombs.

“Okay, go on.”

He slowly turned around, his lips forming a tight, thin
line. “I was able to come up with an algorithm, based on all the research I’ve done, and was able to use it to analyze fragments of your device’s mechanism.”

“That’s good, though, right?” I said hopefully. “Maybe now we’ll be able to figure out how to defuse it.”

“I don’t know, Mila,” Lucas said, his tone grim. “Bombs like these are very hard to defuse.”

“How do you know that?”

Lucas spun around and pulled up a rough sketch of the device on one of the monitors, which my sensors were able to translate in seconds.

Object of interest: Destination-locked explosive.

Description: Utilizes sophisticated GPS software and sensors to detonate once in close proximity with a preprogrammed target.

Level of destruction: Anywhere from large-scale to small radiuses, depending on the explosive size.

My hands covered my stomach as it began to knot. “So I’m basically a heat-seeking missile, is that it?”

“No, the bomb is much smarter than that,” Lucas said. “It’s designed to activate once it reaches a specific area or coordinates. Heat-seeking missiles have guidance systems, sure, but they can go off course, hit things they’re not supposed to. The kind you have is mistake-proof.”

I got up and stared over Lucas’s shoulder, cursing Holland under my breath. “So what’s the intended target, then?”

Lucas kicked the leg of the coffee table. “That’s just it. The coding on this thing is mystifying. I haven’t been able to crack anything that has to do with the destination lock. It could be anything. Or anyone.”

Anything. Anyone.

He stood up, his hands placed firmly on his hips. “We know you’re safe right here, since you haven’t detonated yet. But we have no way of knowing what might happen if you leave the mountain.”

“God, Lucas. How about some happy news?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood a little.

He smiled a little. “There is some, actually. The algorithm was able to decipher the device’s intensity level, and it looks somewhat localized.”

“Meaning I won’t take out a whole city if it detonates?”

“More like a few city blocks.”

A few city blocks. Enough to kill scores of people. And yet there was this mysterious window of time—a two-hour countdown once the bomb was set to explode. Why the hell had Holland put that fail-safe in place if he’d wanted to do as much damage as possible? And what kind of target was he out to obliterate?

Lucas had done what he could, but the answers were out in the real world, and it was time for me to find them. What was Holland after? If I figured it out, I’d see where this bomb fit in to his plans.

If I stumbled upon the bomb’s target, I’d find a way to disappear before it could hurt anyone but me.

“I know you’ve helped so much already, but I need to ask you one more favor,” I said.

“Sure. What is it?”

“Can you help me steal a car?”

Lucas opened his mouth—to say “hell no,” I’m sure—but I shut him down before he could go on.

“Look, I can’t stay here anymore,” I said.

I told him about the things Nicole said in her email to Daniel, how suspicious it sounded to me. Holland was concealing something, but she hadn’t realized it. Holland had tricked her.

Lucas listened without interruption, even when I admitted to losing the memory stick in the mountains, which I wasn’t entirely sure he believed.

“It’s clear that Holland had other people involved with the MILA program, or at least he wanted Nicole to think that,” I continued. “Either way, there’s something bigger in play here. We both know it, and I have to find out what it is, before Holland makes another move. Or . . .” I couldn’t say the alternative out loud, but we both knew: before I blew up.

He looked at the floor. “I get it, I do. But if you give me some more time—”

“No, Lucas,” I said firmly. “You don’t understand. I
need to do this. I have to do something to make up for . . . everything. It’s not about saving me. It’s about saving other people. And it can’t wait.”

Silence. Five seconds, then ten, as he assessed me, his restless fingers rolling at his shirt fabric. “So where do you plan on going?”

An image popped into my head. Nicole and Daniel, sitting around a dinner table in a well-maintained but modest tri-level house. Their daughter cooking something in the kitchen, a surprise for her parents.

“Philadelphia. Where Sarah lived, before all of this happened.”

It seemed like as a good a place as any to start.

I waited for Lucas to use his logic or psych-class prowess to talk me out of this, but instead he just went to his closet and grabbed a large duffel bag. “We better get packing, then.”

It had never occurred to me that Lucas would want to come along. Having him as my partner made me feel more secure, but I knew I’d also be putting him at risk.

Just like I had with Hunter.

“Lucas, wait. I don’t think—”

“You’re right, you don’t think sometimes,” he said, tossing his bag onto the cot. “Mila, you’re going to need a backup tech person out there. If you want to remain undetected by Holland, you’ll have to disable your GPS settings
and probably some other features that might give you away. I can make up the difference with my laptop. And don’t forget the cops are still out there on a manhunt, looking for a girl that fits your description. You can’t do this alone.”

Then he cleared his throat and spoke again.

“I won’t let you down like I did in the woods, I promise.”

Something tore at my chest. He didn’t really think I expected him to protect me from wild animals, did he?

“You could never let me down. Not in a million years.”

“So . . . we’re doing this together?”

“Together,” I said, feeling the warmth of his skin on mine—

And remembering the sound of Hunter’s soft breathing as he slept, his body curled up behind me in the still of the night.

I
had been on the lam with Lucas for no more than two hours, and he was already full of surprises. Before we’d left the cabin, he’d snuck into Tim’s room and “borrowed” some things we might need on the road. Tim had only taken cash with him on his supply run, his wallet still stashed in a top dresser drawer. So Lucas nabbed Tim’s ID and credit card, putting a wrinkled Post-it on the inside leather flap, with a message.

  
Sorry. Will explain later. Thanks for letting us stay.

While petty and identity theft had been acceptable to Lucas, he didn’t take kindly to my idea of grand theft auto. But thanks to his insanely good bargaining skills, we hadn’t
needed to commit another crime. As soon as we’d hiked down to the flatlands and reached the first small village, Lucas had found a pawn shop and sold some of his high-tech equipment. Then he’d located a sketchy used-car lot and haggled with a rugged old salesman about the price of a black ’92 Chevy Caprice. Within twenty minutes, Lucas had gotten him to agree to a solid grand in exchange for a cash payment. After Lucas had forged Tim’s signature to all the paperwork, we were on our way.

I didn’t have to lift a finger. In fact, Lucas had advised me to avoid surveillance cameras for now, so I was forced to lurk around street corners and act like a creepy stalker to avoid being seen. But he said it was only temporary. With a few adjustments to my programming, he promised, soon I could go in public with no worries.

I felt reassured by his confidence, and we zoomed onto the Montana highway without incident, but both of us had nerves as taut as guitar strings. My hand was almost plastered to my stomach as I watched the odometer on the Caprice click away. My chest constricted with each fabricated android breath.

“You feeling okay?” asked Lucas.

“Yeah. I’m just . . . I’ll be fine.”

“Wish I could say the same,” he replied, making a nauseated-looking face. “The shocks on this car are terrible. I think I’m getting motion sickness.”

I knew he was just trying to distract me. “I have to ask, Mr. Mustang. Why the Caprice? Out of all the crappy cars on the lot?”

“You’re going to laugh if I tell you.”

“No, I won’t.”

Lucas shot me a sideways glance. “It’s because of psych class.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” I said, smiling but not laughing, like I promised.

“For almost a decade, the Caprice was utilized by the police nationwide,” he said, his gaze flicking to a sign that placed us near the border of Wyoming. “I figure most state troopers will recognize the make of this vehicle and have a positive psychological response. Thereby becoming less likely to pull us over for speeding. Which we currently are. By a lot.”

I sat there, stunned by his brilliance. “Wow. I don’t think I ever would have thought of that.”

“Don’t worry. You’re still superior to me, in many ways,” Lucas said.

“Well, I am currently at a disadvantage, without my full range of powers. . . .”

“Not for long. Could you check the GPS and see where the next rest stop is?”

Lucas had convinced the car salesman to throw in an ancient TomTom on our sale, since we couldn’t use my
internal one or Lucas’s phone. Too much of a risk of being traced.

I reached over to the dashboard and picked up the GPS, but the screen instantly froze and a mechanical voice repeated a phrase that we’d heard several times already:
“GPS signal lost.”

Dual groans filled the inside of the Caprice. I opened the glove box and reached inside, pulling out a road atlas that Lucas had brought from the cabin. From the driver’s seat, Lucas sighed.

“Quit it,” I warned, unfolding one of the built-in maps. “I just flipped to the wrong page last time, that’s all.”

A mistake that had cost us twenty minutes before we’d realized my error.

Once I landed on the correct page, I double-checked our route for any markers indicating interstate rest areas. No wonder everyone had switched to GPS.

“This is so archaic,” I muttered, moving my finger along until I found a rest-stop symbol. Using my internal GPS was as easy as breathing for me. I would summon the connection, and just like that, a map unfurled behind my eyes, complete with my own little homing device to lead the way.

“Once I find a way to cloak you, I can normalize all your systems,” Lucas said. “You just have to be patient.”

“Oh boy.”

“What?”

“Patience isn’t exactly one of my best qualities,” I said.

“Funny, I hadn’t noticed that at all,” Lucas deadpanned.

I nudged him with my elbow. “There’s a rest stop about two miles ahead, Smart Guy.”

“Great,” he said.

A few minutes later we pulled off the highway and drove down a stretch of road that led to a building that looked like a log cabin. There were two signs out front: one read
RESTROOMS
and the other read
VENDING MACHINES
. Once Lucas parked the Caprice in the lot and shut off the car’s engine, he got out and went into the backseat, digging into his duffel bag. He returned with a pair of red-handled scissors.

I said, “Let me guess. I’m about to change my hairstyle?”

“It’s the first thing that’s about to change,” was his cryptic reply.

“Okay, so should I just do it here and use the rearview mirror?” I asked.

Lucas peered around to see how many people were close by. We spied a family in a minivan a few spaces away.

“Let’s go inside and see if we can find one of those family bathrooms,” he suggested.

I nodded, pulling up the hood of Tim’s dirty college sweatshirt and tightening it so that my face wouldn’t be visible to any hidden security cameras. We walked swiftly into the building, which was practically empty. To the left of the vending machines, I spotted a family bathroom and
we quickly ducked inside.

“I don’t mean to rush you, but we should probably—”

“Do this in a hurry? I know. I’ve been a fugitive for a while, remember?”

Lucas frowned a little as he handed me the scissors, but he didn’t say anything else.

I set the scissors on the calcium-stained sink and positioned myself in front of the bathroom mirror, yanking off my sweatshirt. A clog suddenly formed in my throat. Not over the prospective loss of hair. I couldn’t care less about that. But over my last haircut, back in a motel room, with Nicole—Mom—wielding the scissors, trying to protect me. That mad race to keep me out of Holland’s hands had basically signed her death sentence.

Lucas studied my expression while I gazed in the mirror.

“Want me to give it a try? I gave my mom a haircut a few times,” he said.

I glanced at him over my shoulder curiously.

“Agoraphobia,” he said simply. “By the time I was thirteen, she could barely leave the house.”

“Wow.”

I remembered the caged feeling I had at Holland’s compound, where I was essentially imprisoned. I wondered if Lucas’s mother had felt like that—except, instead of being held captive by another person, she’d been trapped by her own fear. Either way, it couldn’t have been an easy
experience—for her or Lucas.

“That had to be hard on you,” I said, turning back to the mirror. I wished I wasn’t so preoccupied with my own problems.

The fact that Lucas had a troubled past only made my admiration grow.

“It was harder on her. I just did what I could to help,” he said.

My fingers curled around the scissors, determined to help myself the way Lucas was always helping everyone else.

“We’re all flawed, Mila. All of us,” Lucas said, his voice so calm and certain. “We muddle through life the best we can, and hopefully learn something about ourselves along the way. Maybe even become better people, if we’re lucky.”

“I can’t imagine you getting any better, though.”

Lucas approached me slowly, his image captured in the mirror, right beside mine. His green-gold eyes were bloodshot, but they were still warm. The stubble on his jawline made the angles of his face seem sharper.

“I was about to say the same thing about you.”

I stared, transfixed at his reflection, caught up in the ragged pitch of his voice, the raw emotion. The bathroom fan hummed, and beyond that, a stir of voices from behind the door. I wasn’t learning anything new about Lucas. I’d known almost from the start what kind of human he was: strong, ethical, compassionate. Why, then, did my artificial
heart feel as though it was swelling?

This was Lucas. My friend. But being on the road with him was reminding me of my time with Hunter. Was my memory just playing tricks on me, because I was missing the boy I’d fallen so hard for such a short while ago?

Trusting Lucas was easy. Trusting my own feelings? Not so much.

“So, you ready for this?” he said, breaking the tension.

I nodded and focused on my reflection in the mirror, steeling myself as I held the scissors up. My hair couldn’t grow back, so this cut was it. If I made a mistake and left a bald spot, I’d be living with that hint of scalp forever.

Or as long as I survived, anyway.

My fingers closed confidently around the scissors, and I started snipping, locks of hair drifting to the floor in puffy bunches. Lucas grabbed some paper towels and began cleaning up all the trimmings, and once it was all over my neck felt naked. I gazed in the mirror and checked out the results. Tiny wisps framed my face like ebony feathers. My eyes looked huge, my cheekbones defined. The overall effect was pretty waifish, I decided.

Good. Let any foot soldiers that Holland had sent after me, or anyone else who was on my trail, think I was some delicate creature that needed protection. Soon they’d be surprised.

Lucas cleared his throat. His cheeks took on a pink tint.
“You look good,” he said finally. Then he checked his watch, his face getting serious. “Now on to phase two.”

“Phase two?”

He reached into his pocket and held up a small external drive. “Back at the cabin, I was able to construct some programming software that would manipulate your hardware and help you . . . adapt to your environment.”

He paused, like he was unsure of how I’d react.

“Adapt?” I prompted. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the program on this drive can adjust your appearance settings, to whatever suits you,” he revealed.

That took a second to sink in. “Appearance settings?” I repeated, thinking about how useful it would be to alter my physical features right now. “So you can change how I look? Beyond my hair, I mean?”

“Not your weight or height or anything, but little modifications, yes,” he said, grinning. His hazel eyes went sparkly, and his hands all wavy, the way they did when some techy feat excited him. “We can alter your skin tone, your eye color. Change the shape and contours of your lips, or the shading on your face, which can help alter the look of bone structure.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Yes. Tie my shoelaces without using the bunny-ear method.”

“So. You can still tie your shoes, you just have to cheat a little.”

“I’m not a big fan of shortcuts.”

I smiled, reaching out for the external drive. “How does it work?”

“Plug it into the port in your finger and then run the app once it loads,” he instructed.

I did as he said, and just as I hooked up to the drive, Lucas went to the door to listen for anyone who might be outside. He nodded when the coast was clear.

Once the program loaded, I studied my reflection in the mirror, taking in one last look at my familiar features.

Open Camo App.

A string of code filled my head and I scrolled through it carefully.

Eyes, lips, skin, contours. It was all there.

“Eyes first,” I said aloud, so Lucas could follow along. He took a few steps until he stood behind me. Studying my reflection seriously.

More code, prompting me to alter the color, along a spectrum.

Without thinking, I chose brown first. Five seconds later, my eyes had darkened, going from the color of grass to a deep mahogany. I felt a sharp twinge in my rib cage. Subconsciously, I’d changed my eyes to the exact color of Sarah’s.

And of my archrival/android twin, Three.

My reflection was still clear before me, but another image joined it, released from some shadowy corner of my mind.

“You’re my, my brown-eyed girl.”

“Oh my gosh, Dad, seriously? Not again,” I shrieked, swatting at the imaginary microphone he wielded in his hand. I shot Mom an imploring look. “Can’t you do something?”

Mom shook her hand, her face stuck in that pretend frown that didn’t fool any of us. “I’m sorry, Sarah, but you know how he gets when he watches those reality singing shows.” She tsked, but ruined it when her lips twitched.

“Stop that! You’re egging him on!” I said, trying to contain my own giggle. Everyone said smart people were the weirdest. Guess my family proved that. Still, I wouldn’t change a thing. Most days.

I blinked, and the memory stopped, leaving me shaken. “Brown-Eyed Girl.” Once, in a tight spot during one of Holland’s tests, I’d been pitted against Three. Seemingly out of nowhere, I’d sung that song.

Now I knew that wasn’t exactly true.

“What’s wrong?” Lucas asked.

“Another Sarah memory,” I said. “I don’t think I’m feeling all that brown right now.”

After an internal command, my eyes changed pigment again. This time to a dark sapphire blue.

“There. That works. Now, let’s see what else we can do.”

Another few minutes later, I was still inspecting the results of my pseudo-face-lift. Paler lips changed the entire appearance of my mouth, making it look thinner and less
full. My skin tone was now an olive color, my smattering of freckles nowhere to be found. I’d used the contour feature of the program to accentuate cheekbones, elongate my nose, and make my eyes appear a little wider set.

Between that and the new haircut, the results were startling.

“I don’t look like me,” I said in wonder, tracing my finger along my new cheeks and the flattened curve of my mouth.

Lucas frowned, which worried me.

“What? You don’t think it’s enough?” I asked him.