MILA 2.0: Redemption (5 page)

M
y hand went limp; my legs buckled. My knees hit the ground. I didn’t move, even as an icy-wet chill seeped through my jeans and dampened my skin. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. There was no way I could have done such a thing.

The gunshot reverberated through my mind, loud and irrefutable.

“What is it? Are you okay?” Lucas dropped down beside me.

I couldn’t form words, or look him in the eye. I couldn’t even blink.

All I could do was absorb the impossible ache in my chest, the truth of what I’d done to Peyton. To Hunter. Meeting me had unleashed an avalanche of terror, and one thing was
perfectly, utterly clear—the safest place for Hunter was as far away from me as possible.

“Peyton’s dead. I shot him,” I eventually murmured, with no idea how much time had passed.

I’d taken an innocent, unarmed life—something I never thought I was capable of doing. Yes, I had destroyed Three, my android counterpart, but that was different. She would have killed me first. Hunter’s stepfather had been tied up, defenseless. He’d been at my mercy.

My mercy. Right. On that day, my supply had clearly run dry.

“You’re going to be all right, Mila. Just breathe,” I heard Lucas say.

I could tell by the way he said it. He knew. Maybe not every detail of my missing memories, but he’d known that I’d killed someone. Of course he had. He’d been in my head, communicating remotely through some kind of special transmitter. It was Lucas who had kept me from shooting again. He’d stopped me from murdering Daniel. My own—Sarah’s own—father.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lucas’s fingers slipped from my shoulder. “Damn,” he muttered.

Even though he looked so vulnerable with that gash on his forehead, rage flared within my synthetic heart. The feeling was a welcome respite, a chance to push away the
helpless gut twist of guilt and replace it with something powerful.

“I trusted you! I thought you were different, but you’re just like everyone else. How could you hide that from me?”

Lucas backed away to give me some space. “I understand why you feel betrayed, and I’m sorry. I didn’t withhold any information to upset you, I promise. It’s just the opposite.” He dragged his hands down his face while he gathered his thoughts. “Look, there was so much I didn’t know, and it didn’t feel right, sharing details with you that weren’t fully connected or in a context I could understand. I was afraid letting you in on the fragments I did know would be too confusing.”

I didn’t need my android features to know he was being honest. And everything he said fit. Lucas evaluated, assessed, but he never intentionally inflicted pain. Every risk he’d taken had been prompted by his desire to help me.

Anger. I’d allowed Quinn to persuade me that other feelings equaled powerlessness, while anger meant control. I’d played right into her trap. Or was it fair to call it a trap?

She’d offered me an opportunity to be just like Three and I’d jumped at the chance. I’d been too wrapped up in my own pain to consider the consequences. In my attempt to escape the role of victim, I’d stepped into the role of monster.

My chin fell to my chest and tears trickled down my
cheeks, one after the other. A saline solution, manufactured to appear human. Which clearly I wasn’t. No amount of organic material or borrowed emotion could change the fact that I had lived up to Holland’s prime directive.

I was a weapon already—pure and simple.

“Why did you help me? Knowing what I’d done . . .”

“Hey. Hey,” Lucas repeated, more firmly the second time. “Look at me.”

He waited while I got myself under control. I swallowed a jagged sob and lifted my face. He peered into my eyes, focusing on my anguish.

“Even in the best of situations, good people sometimes make bad choices. Life-altering ones that you can’t take back,” he began. “In the worst of situations . . . well, you can imagine. Quinn saw a way to exploit your weaknesses.”

“So what? I’m not responsible? This is all her fault and I’m off the hook?”

“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say,” Lucas replied, hands up. He hesitated. “Okay, be honest. Do you blame me for Nicole’s death?”

I let out a surprised gasp. “No, of course not. You tried to save us.”

“Later, though. Not right away,” he countered. “I was the one who helped proctor the tests, right? What if I’d tried to get you two out sooner? What if I’d never agreed to the assignment? Maybe Holland would have had a hard
time finding someone else, and that could have bought you time? What if I’m guilty, merely by giving in to him?”

“But you did the best you could,” I said. “Holland leveraged your family against you. He didn’t leave you much choice.”

He studied me intently for a moment, as if waiting. “Exactly.”

I glanced away, my eyes damp once again.

“We do the best that we can, Mila. If our choices turn out to have unintended consequences, then next time, we choose better. We grow and learn from our mistakes. And try to treat ourselves kindly along the way. That’s what people do.”

People. Not machines.

My situation wasn’t like his at all. I had known Peyton would die when I pointed the gun at him and released the trigger. I just didn’t—or couldn’t—care.

My mouth filled with an acrid taste and the ache in my chest expanded. Still, I managed to rise to my feet. The scenery remained the same—snow-covered trees, blue sky peppered with clouds, harsh slices of rock reaching upward. Yet somehow, the serenity had been stripped away.

“Ready to go back?”

Lucas blotted his forehead with his coat sleeve and nodded. I didn’t want to keep him from the cabin any longer; he needed to get that cut examined.

It was only a short walk, but when we reached the cabin I felt like we’d been on foot for days. I couldn’t stop the stream of memories.

My arm lifting at Quinn’s command.

A frightened woman, begging me to stop.

My finger pulling the trigger anyway. Immune to any of the horror reflected at me from the eyes of the captives.

Peyton’s head jerking backward before he slumped in his chair.

Hunter’s traumatized expression . . .

As Lucas opened the front door, my heart felt like it might explode from the pressure. While before I’d possessed too few emotions, too many flooded me now.

Without a word to Lucas, I spun on my heel and sprinted away from him and the cabin, my arms pumping so hard I feared they might snap off. Lucas’s voice called after me, but I tuned it out, focusing instead on how the brisk air smelled of sap and rain.

My boots pounded through the snow as my legs steered me toward the cliffs. The stark, jagged rocks and steep hills would provide my body with distraction. Or punishment.

I pushed myself as hard as I could as I approached the first incline, my sensors warning me of the treacherous terrain ahead. But it was easy to block them out, given the images that kept flashing in front of my eyes.

The higher I ascended, the more the landscape seemed to drift away until nothing remained except me and the
stone mountains the glaciers had left behind. Damaged, but seemingly indestructible.

Altitude level: 9000 ft.

Oxygen levels: Dropping.

I could almost taste the thinness of the air up here. I had to press on, keep moving, because if I stopped, I might collapse. I propelled myself upward, savagely clawing my way up through the mountains until an alert triggered my arms and feet to slow.

Warning: Canyon ahead.

Drop-off 5 ft. from current location.

I was close to the edge. The wind was forceful and choppy up here, blowing my hair away from my face. I closed my eyes and just stood there, knowing that there was one thing I could do to redeem myself for what I’d done.

Jump.

My death wouldn’t bring Peyton back, of course, but it would be justice, wouldn’t it? And a solution to a problem that Lucas was no closer to solving than he was yesterday. If I launched myself off this precipice, the bomb that was inside me would detonate here, far away from civilization.

I wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

My feet scooted forward, the tips of my boots just clearing the rock. The wind beat harder against my cheeks. Around me, other cliffs rose toward the sky like aging monoliths,
watching silently. A strange melodic hum surrounded me as the air whipped through a stony path.

Another step and there would be nothing. Just air and a feeling of weightlessness until my body hit the bottom of the canyon, thousands of feet below. No worries about the damage I could do. No worries at all.

I thought about Daniel’s first email to Nicole. Maybe his instincts were right and I should never have existed in the first place. I pulled out the memory stick that Lucas had given me. Even though I knew there was more vital information on it, something compelled me to chuck it into the vast space below.

The object flew through the air in this beautiful, big arc, and then pitched downward, fluttering on the wind until it was out of sight. My sensors caught on to my intentions.

Distance: 9105 ft.

Chance of mechanical failure on impact: 92%.

Undecided, my arms slowly rose out to my sides, like I was a bird spreading out my wings. In the back of my head, I heard my mom’s voice.

If you want to help me, you know what you can do? Live.

A single tear slid down my cheek.

. . . the next time, we choose better . . .

Lucas’s words, from not more than an hour ago. Another tear joined the first.

And then my sensors triggered an alert, just a fraction of a second too late.

Environment unstable.

Imminent ground erosion.

The section of rock beneath my feet began to crumble and plummet into the ravine. Survival instinct, programming, something had me shoot out my arm and hook my fingers into a large crack in the cliff. Everything beneath my armpits dangled over the edge.

I could still let go. It would be all over if I just eased my elbow joints and lost my grip.

But my muscles tensed and flexed as my boots scrambled against the cliff, trying to find a slot for better leverage.

I was fighting to stay alive. And it wasn’t just some automatic response.

Every awful memory I’d just recalled vanished like the rocks into the ravine, and all I could think about was saving Lucas from that bear. Someone I cared about was in danger and I was able to protect him. That meant something. I meant something. I was capable of horrible things, but I also had the power to do some good in this world. I could still serve a purpose, and that purpose could be to help others. To protect them from people like Holland and even Quinn.

I wouldn’t be able to do that if I was splattered all over kingdom come.

My feet found a small pocket of space and my legs were able to push up enough to take some of the pressure off my arms. As my sensors provided me with data, I followed every directive to the letter. Eventually I was flat on my
stomach on top of the rock, my fake pulse tearing through my artificial veins.

Recommendation: Seek more stable surroundings.

Return to ground elevation.

As I stood up and brushed myself off, I whispered a good-bye to the mountain and began my descent. My steps became steadier, my footing sturdier, and my mind focused on something besides my past transgressions.

Holland.

He’d convinced Nicole that giving up Sarah to the MILA project was an altruistic act. He’d made her think that it would be saving others.

I knew him well enough to know he was lying. Now, I needed to find out what he was lying about.

In order to protect people from Holland, I needed to go back to the beginning.

To Sarah.

And since I’d thrown away the memory stick, I’d have to retrace her history myself. I owed that much to her. To Daniel and Nicole. I owed that much to whomever else might become a victim of Holland.

And if the bomb triggered somewhere along the way? Well, at least I would go out fighting.

Lucas was waiting outside when I emerged from the trees and into the small clearing. Even from this distance, I could
see his shoulders hunched against the cold while he paced back and forth. He checked his watch, raked a hand through his hair, then stared off in the direction of the snares.

My skin prickled with remorse. He’d obviously been very worried, and with good reason. I didn’t want to think about what I’d almost done.

“Hey,” I called out, breaking into a small jog. When he heard and saw me, his eyes closed and he mouthed something that looked like
“thank god.”

He watched my approach without saying anything, the bandage on his forehead applied so sloppily that it was almost sticking to his eyelid. He must have slapped it on and then come back out here to wait for me until I returned. I was about to apologize, but he didn’t give me the chance. He just motioned toward the door and said, “Let’s go inside.”

We took our boots off and set them along the wall. He pulled his fleece jacket over his head and hung it on the hook before leading me into the sitting room.

And then he let me have it.

“What gives you the right to just run away like that?” he snapped. “I had no idea where you were going or if you were okay. The way you took off, it was like . . .” He stopped, exasperated, and then he flopped down on a chair, putting his head in his hands. “It looked like you weren’t planning on coming back,” he finally muttered.

Lucas had never been angry with me before and I had no idea what to do or say. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he said, sighing. “But you can’t disappear like that. Ever again. We have to stick together. It’s the only way . . .”

His voice trailed off and he sighed again, heavier and longer this time. The depth of his concern touched something, deep in my heart.

“The only way to what?”

His hands fell into his lap and he finally looked up at me. “Something happened while you were gone.”

“Did you get in a fight with Tim? Is he onto me?”

“No, he went on a supply run after he saw my cut. We’re out of iodine,” he explained.