MILA 2.0: Redemption (7 page)

He shook his head. “Sorry—no, you’re right. It’s a lot more drastic of a change than I’d anticipated.”

“Why the frown, then? Isn’t this a good thing?”

“It’s just—” He broke off, swallowing hard. “You’re right. It is a good thing.”

“But?” I prompted. He was holding something back. I could sense it with both sets of my instincts.

“But, nothing. I was just thinking, I wish that thing could change my looks. Holland is going to catch on to my sick leave eventually and put an APB out on me too,” he said. “We should go. We’ve been in here for close to fifteen minutes. I don’t want to get caught.”

I took the drive out of my finger port and handed it back to him. Lucas pushed open the door, allowing me to walk through first. “After you,” he said.

I had changed on the outside but I still had the opportunity to change on the inside. To learn something and become a better person, like Lucas said a few minutes ago.

Or as close to a person as I could possibly get.

Beyond the Caprice’s fly-stained windshield, the city’s outline grew more defined. Skyscrapers jutted up like giant, geometric teeth—some rectangular, some pointed. We’d made it to Philadelphia in a little under twenty-nine hours, with me driving ever since we left the rest stop (since I didn’t need the sleep), stopping now and then to fuel up. As we careened down 76, my eyes were glued to the scenery that was closing in around us. Recollections from the past were beginning to filter into my head.

“I’ve seen this before,” I murmured to Lucas, who was still half-asleep.

It was nighttime. The city lit up like a fantasyland, full of magic.

“Mommy, look at the lights! Are all cities this beautiful at night?”

From my spot in the backseat, I leaned forward eagerly, pointing at the windshield to the glowing city beyond.

My mom turned to me from the passenger seat, her profile dim in the scant light. “I think Philly is particularly beautiful, but I could be biased.”

I giggled. “You use such big words.” But even as I
laughed, I realized that she was right. Philly would always be beautiful to me, because Philly was home.

“You okay over there? Looking a little shell-shocked,” Lucas said groggily.

“I’m fine. It’s just . . . odd, seeing this,” I said. The words were completely inadequate to express my experience. How the flare of recognition felt phantom, like something I’d witnessed in a dream.

He nodded again. “Let’s talk about what we should do first. Maybe we should start by searching property records near your—near Sarah’s old house. That way we can see who’s living there now.”

Lucas had been able to obtain my parents’ old address through his SMART Ops hacking sessions. They hadn’t lived in Philly proper, but a northeast suburb called Sherman, which was right next to Bustleton.

Sherman.
The first time I’d heard him utter the name, I’d felt an electric snap of recognition. The sensation had faded immediately, but the memory lingered.

Sherman. I turned the town name over in my head. Sherman.

That was the place where Sarah had lived most of her life . . . and where it ended as well.

Mine could end here too. For all Lucas and I knew, Sherman was the target for my destination-locked bomb. But rather than stay in a constant state of panic about
where and when it would detonate, I focused on the task at hand—searching for clues that would lead us to unraveling Holland’s master plan. I knew he had created deadly weapons—like me. But why?

“That makes sense. I suppose you’ll need to research for now, since you haven’t figured out how to cloak me yet.”

I was surprised at how despondent, almost accusatory, my voice sounded. Lucas had fixed every technological problem he could think of—so why was I whining about not being able to use my android functions? Maybe it was because I’d come to embrace them, even rely on them over the last few weeks. The longer I wasn’t able to access my full functionality, the more unsettled I became. It was strange because, for a long time, all I wanted to be was fully human.

But being with Lucas . . . well, it made me think I didn’t need to be ashamed of what I truly was. He knew my android side, and he embraced it.

Something Hunter had never quite managed.

“Yes, I’ll give it a go. I’m probably faster anyway.”

The startled gasp flew out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Very funny.”

He chuckled as he pulled out his laptop and flexed his fingers theatrically over the keyboard. “I’ve upgraded this machine to the nth degree. You might be surprised.”

I gripped the steering wheel tightly. “But your method
is so unstable. Look,” I said, jerking the car just enough to jostle him and his laptop.

“Hey,” he said, clutching it against his lap. “No funny business on the road.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I said, giggling. “But you don’t seriously think you’re faster, right?”

He peered at me over his shoulder after tilting back the laptop screen. “You realize that you aren’t the newest model, right? And I bet you haven’t been keeping up with your updates?”

I blinked. “Updates? What updates?”

He tsked me. “See? Just as I suspected. A computer is only as good as its maintenance.” He managed to sound serious, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw his shoulders shake with silent mirth.

Cute.

“I’ll show you maintenance,” I mumbled, which only made his shoulders shake more. But my grumpy demeanor was contradicted by my growing sense of comfort and ease around Lucas. Us making jokes about my androidness was becoming our little thing, and it didn’t make me feel like an outsider. It did the exact opposite. I felt . . . accepted.

Hunter had tried in the end to accept and love me, but whatever chance we had at being together was ruined when I’d . . .

The sound of a gunshot echoed in my ears, threatening
to slice through this moment with Lucas. I fought it off by listening intently to the tapping of his fingers, turning them into a steady calming beat.

As he worked, Lucas would make a small sound once in a while, kind of like a
harrumph
, and when I looked at him, a furrow had formed between his eyebrows. I glanced over his shoulder briefly, keeping my attention mostly on the slowing traffic ahead of us.

Property Records: Sherman, PA

Street?

He typed more, and then a map pulled up.

Zoom.

The street expanded, numerical addresses blinking.

11589 Old Oak Lane.

Number and words. That’s all they were. Somehow, though, that particular combination of digits and letters jumped off the screen, drilled through my sternum, and pierced my pump of a heart.

Sarah’s address.

My address.

The epicenter of a past life: a normal life, filled with everyday happiness and sorrow. The place where this had all started.

“Not bad,” I said, satisfied that I sounded normal, despite the glaring reminder of everything I’d lost, right there on the screen.

He pretended to ignore me, but I caught his quick smile.

Current property value: $534,000

Lot square footage: 1950 ft.

Last sale: 119 days prior

Previous owner name: access code needed

He paused, fingers on keys, biting his lower lip.

“Do you need help accessing that?”

His lips turned up into a smile. “Think you can do this faster on the laptop than I can?”

“Of course,” I said. Sometimes it took a machine to make a machine work.

He gestured to the nearest exit sign. “Pull over and it’s all yours.”

I accepted the challenge and barreled down the ramp, taking a quick detour. I steered the Caprice toward the first Dunkin’ Donuts I saw and parked the car, grabbing the laptop from Lucas.

“Should I go inside and buy a coffee and a cruller? Kill some time while you search?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

“Stay put. This will only take me a few seconds.”

All I needed to do was override the access code. I’d just connect with the company’s computer server—

Connection. Right. Not going to happen.

I frowned at the screen. I’d always just commanded myself to interface with other computers before. Now I had to try and do this old-school.

“Don’t even,” I said to Lucas. His bark of laughter turned into a choked cough.

Okay, think. Think.
This access code, it was just a temporary stumbling block. If I could issue a data recall and pull up some kind of coding that might act as a trip wire, I could enter it into Lucas’s laptop and sidestep the network security.

Data recall

Search for programming trip wire

Request for relevant codes

Soon I had a multitude of options waiting to choose from, and once I locked on to one, I began typing furiously, cursing when I made a few errors.

“Stupid keyboard,” I said.

After a few more missteps, I had the access code overridden. But not in the split second I had been expecting, either.

“There!” I punched the air with my fist.

Lucas didn’t say a word, but the way he’d pressed his lips together to avoid laughing gave him away.

“Fine. You’re faster on the laptop. For now,” I added, handing his laptop back to him.

He graciously didn’t acknowledge my defeat. He just took the laptop and began hunting through the information, making sure I could see the screen too. The previous house owner had lived there for five years—long enough that she could have met Sarah—but she’d moved to Washington State. Not exactly easy for us to meet.

Together, we searched through the houses nearest to Sarah’s—all rentals and short-term owners until:

Current owner/resident: Margaret Applebaum

According to the records, she’d lived on Sarah’s block for thirty-plus years. “This lady seems like our best bet. Should we do a drive-by, see if she’s home, and ask her some questions?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

Finally, he straightened in his seat, stretching his arms overhead and groaning. Then he placed one hand on my knee. “All joking aside, nice bit of teamwork there.”

His short hair was flat on one side, sticking out on the other, and his shirt was rumpled. But his gaze was clear and steady as he smiled at me.

Teamwork. Team. Like he considered me an equal.

A flutter rose beneath my ribs, and the place where his hand rested on my leg felt unnaturally warm. I shifted a little behind the wheel of the car. That must have clued him in to my sudden discomfort because he jerked his hand away and cleared his throat, turning back to the laptop like it might save him.

Unsure of what to make of my own reaction, I opened the car door, letting a burst of cold air inside. “So, coffee and a cruller before we go?”

Lucas scratched the back of his head before holding up Tim’s credit card. “Sure. Why not?”

W
hite-and-gray wood. Single story. Elongated porch.

All of the house, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I plastered a moist-feeling palm against the window of the car. There should be a tree, right there. Right outside a second-story balcony. The one Sarah had contemplated using to escape the fire before she realized her parents might be trapped inside.

No mature trees on the lot, anywhere. Only freshly planted fledging ones, their trunks slender and frail.

Like a sudden power surge, reality struck.

The fire. Of course. They’d had to rebuild everything. I’d just expected the house to look the same, the way it had in Sarah’s memory . . . but just like Sarah, that house was gone.

Something sank inside of me, a weight that could pin me to the passenger seat forever. This wasn’t my home, never had been, and yet I couldn’t deny the connection I felt the moment we’d first driven the Caprice through the neighborhood.

Or the relief Lucas and I had felt when my sensors didn’t sound an alarm, warning me of a bomb detonation countdown.

“We don’t have to do this now. If it’s too much,” Lucas said, pulling the keys out of the ignition. He’d just parked the car in front of a beautifully kept Tudor a few hundred yards down, so onlookers wouldn’t remember it sitting outside Sarah’s house.

He didn’t say anything else, just sat there while I collected myself. Which was taking much longer than I anticipated. So many of Sarah’s memories were being triggered right now, I could barely think. Part of me wondered if this avalanche could be due to what Lucas suggested on the mountain—maybe there was some kind of shift going on with my cellular material.

But what did that mean for me? It would never change who I really was. And wasn’t.

“No, I’m not chickening out,” I said. “Not after everything we’ve been through.”

Lucas inclined his head. “Before we go in, I just wanted to say—I think you’re incredibly brave.”

His hand squeeze was part accolade, part encouragement. And it worked.

At least for a few seconds.

As we got out and stared up at Margaret Applebaum’s house, I remembered when Hunter and I had made a similar stop, back in Tennessee. I’d felt the same sense of anticipation, of hope, that answers might be waiting behind the closed door. Of course, that hope had been tainted by fear. The fear that Hunter would discover who—what—I really was.

This time, at least, I wasn’t worried that some skeleton would come tumbling out of the closet.

“Let’s hope Maggie doesn’t have a granddaughter living with her,” I muttered. One who knew judo.

“What’s that?”

“Um, nothing. Long story.”

No need to burden Lucas needlessly. A snippet of Hunter’s and my crazy escape from Grady’s house played in my head—just missing the armed military helicopter, headed straight for us as we raced away—and my android senses reacted to my increased tension.

High alert?

Yes.

A barrage of information streamed through my head—

Potential human threats in a 100-yard radius: 7.

Weapons analysis: 3 firearms detected.

Aircraft: Boeing 737, 1.6 mi. northwest. Commercial.

Threat level: Low.

It wasn’t as much information as I’d be able to get with my full range of capabilities, but still way more than I needed. The data was a welcome distraction from Sarah’s recollections of playing tag in the streets and riding her bike along the sidewalk.

I continued to scan our surroundings. Maggie’s yard was extremely well tended and tidy, but not that professionally landscaped kind of immaculate. A mower had obviously just hit the lawn, but a bit of brown speckled the green here and there. The white fence that surrounded the property was cheerful, but could use an extra coat of paint.

A pair of sneakers sat to the left of the blue-and-gold welcome mat. White with splashes of orange, small enough that they probably belonged to a woman.

Estimated size: Women’s US size 6.5.

A half-empty bag of potting soil was tucked into the corner, along with a small metal trowel. To the right, the porch extended, the edge bordered with a wrought-iron railing. A small metal-and-plastic table with four chairs sat there, with a blooming red plant in the middle.

Lucas was inspecting the porch as well, and nodded toward the plant. “We used to have some of those outside our house when I was growing up. They were my mom’s favorites.”

A gold Nissan Maxima was parked in the driveway, so I didn’t have any reason to believe she wasn’t home. Still, my sensors insisted on confirmation.

Human presence: Detected.

We walked up the three steps to the porch together, then I leaned forward, drew on that courage Lucas claimed I had, and rang the bell. We could hear the sound reverberate on the inside, followed by a loud bang and then silence. I sensed rather than saw someone peering at us through the peephole.

After five long, slow seconds, the door cracked open. Through the crevice, we caught a flash of black pants, a white shirt, and a narrowed brown eye beneath a sliver of a denim cap.

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying,” came the suspicious voice.

Lucas, who stood more directly in her line of sight, cleared his throat. “Hello? Mrs. Applebaum?”

The door didn’t budge.

“I knew I should have gotten one of those no soliciting signs,” she snapped. “Get off my porch, or I’m calling my neighbor. Who’s a retired police officer, by the way.”

“We’re not here to sell you anything, ma’am. We want to talk with you about Sarah Lusk.”

There was an awkward silence as we all stood there motionless. It was almost as though we were expecting Sarah’s ghost to materialize.

Then again, Sarah’s ghost had been alive from the moment I was created.

“Who are you people?” Mrs. Applebaum finally said. “Is this some kind of cruel prank? Sarah is dead!” The door started to close, but Lucas moved with more speed than I knew he possessed. He managed to stop the slam with the toe of his shoe.

“I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to startle you,” Lucas said. Then he tilted his head at me. “This is my stepsister Mona. She’s Sarah’s cousin. If you open the door, I think you’ll see the resemblance for yourself.”

At first the door didn’t move. Then it squeaked while she inched it open farther, wide enough that she could see my entire face. We could also see her for the first time. Mrs. Applebaum was a petite woman in her early seventies, wearing a pair of stretchy black yoga pants and a white zip sweatshirt. Her denim cap was embellished with sequins, a few pieces of gray-streaked brown hair dangling from beneath it. Laugh lines were etched into the skin near her mouth and eyes.

As she sized me up, I waited like a tightly coiled spring. This would be the first real test of my appearance alterations. If Mrs. Applebaum noticed something that spooked her, our conversation would be dead in the water.

Thankfully, though, she seemed to relax, her posture softening at her shoulders. “There is a similarity, yes.”

The door opened wider. “Sorry about before. If I get only two solicitors a day, it’s a blessing. And sometimes, they don’t like to take no for an answer,” she said. Then she did something surprising. She reached out and took my hand in hers, patting it gently. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Sarah was such a dear, dear girl.”

“Thank you,” I said, shifting my weight from foot to foot, hoping that she would invite us in. “We don’t want to intrude or anything, but do you think we could talk to you for a few minutes?”

A faint smile formed on her lips. “Of course. Come and have a seat on the porch.” She waved us over to the small table. “I’ll go fetch us some iced tea.”

Maybe this old woman knew something useful.

Mrs. Applebaum bustled back outside holding a tray with three large plastic cups. Ice clinked as she set them in front of us. “Sugar?” she said, nodding at two spoons and a glass container. “I don’t have any of that artificial sweetener that’s so popular these days, I’m afraid. That stuff is poison, full of toxins. What’s wrong with plain old sugar? I like to know where my food comes from, thank you very much.”

I took a sip.

Apple cinnamon.

I remembered this flavor.

“Are you trying to bamboozle an old lady?” A Mrs. Applebaum with less gray in her hair peered at me from
across this exact same table, fanning a stack of red-and-white playing cards.

I laughed, setting my own cards facedown on the table. Even beneath the shade of the porch, the sun beat down, dampening my bare legs. I took a long chug of the iced tea, the crisp hint of apple sweetened by cinnamon, before pressing the cold glass to my face.

“You like the tea? Sarah drank it when she’d stop by sometimes to play gin.”

I drained half the glass to give myself time to recover, conscious of her gaze. “It’s great.”

“Now, what brings you around these parts?” she said. “Do you live here? No, you couldn’t, or I imagine I would have seen you, hanging around with Sarah,” she said, answering her own question.

“I’m just visiting. I’m interested in a couple of colleges in the area, and I thought I should stop by Sarah’s old house.” My chest tightened as I spoke, each word becoming harder to say. “I was shocked to see how different the place is. I hadn’t been there in years, but I still remember exactly how it looked, you know?”

Mrs. Applebaum reached across the table and placed her wrinkled hand on my shoulder. “I know. It’s hard to face it every day, remembering what happened. Such a tragedy. To lose someone so young.” When her eyes began to water, she dabbed at them with a napkin. “I could barely make it
through the memorial service. Were you there?”

“We came late, our flight from Seattle was delayed,” Lucas blurted out.

My fingers gripped the cup tightly.

“Damn airlines. You can’t rely on them to get you anywhere without a big hassle,” she said, wiping at her cheeks.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Rack up another save for Lucas.

“I miss that family so much,” Mrs. Applebaum went on. “My own kids, they moved halfway across the country, but with Nicole and Dan, I almost felt like they were my own. Though, did you know, my son and his wife and my three precious grandbabies are coming for a visit this Thanksgiving? It’s about time. I can’t wait. I don’t do much cooking anymore, since cooking for yourself isn’t much fun. But I am planning a feast! Pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, creamed spinach, the works!”

Next to her, Lucas nodded, eyes sparkling with genuine interest in her holiday plans. “That sounds great, Mrs. Applebaum. I’m sure your family will have a wonderful time.”

“Call me Maggie. I never have been one much for formalities,” she said.

“Maggie, then.” Lucas smiled, easing back in his chair a bit.

Whatever comfort Lucas and I were beginning to feel here, we were on borrowed time. We had a long way to go
if we were going to find out what Holland was up to.

I had to cut to the chase.

“I was wondering, could I ask you some questions about the fire?”

Maggie’s face clouded over. “I suppose. Although I’m not sure why you’d want to discuss it now, on such a beautiful day.”

I glanced over at Lucas, who gave me an encouraging look. So I pressed on.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to dig up awful memories,” I said. “But Aunt Nicole and Uncle Daniel. They became estranged from us, once Sarah died. So I really have no clue what actually happened.”

“I know what you mean,” Maggie replied. “They just vanished from my life too. I wish they’d come by to see me one last time, but I understood. Losing a child like that . . . my word. I can’t even imagine.”

“So they never talked to you afterward?” I asked.

“Once all the hoopla died down, they were gone,” she said. “And the fire was ruled an accident. I read an article in the newspaper, some reporter said something about a lit cigarette.” Her lips pressed together tightly.

Lucas piped up. “Did Nicole or Daniel even smoke?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “And Sarah wasn’t the type to sneak around with any. She was a total good girl.”

Maggie slapped one hand on the table. “Exactly! That’s what I told the detectives, too, when they came around to investigate.”

Lucas shot me a look. “More than one detective?” That sounded unusual for investigating a fire.

“That’s right, though they didn’t come at the same time,” Maggie explained. “I liked the first one a whole lot better than that second one. He seemed, pardon my pun, like he had a fire lit under him.”

Why would two different detectives be sent to cover the same case? I wondered.

“I told the first guy that no one in that family smoked, not a day in their lives,” Maggie added. “But I’d seen a man lurking around the house the day of the fire. I figured he might have had something to do with it.”

My legs tensed. “You saw a stranger near their house? The day of the fire?”

Holland.

“Um-hum. This creep tried to look like he had business being over there, but something about him was way off.” Maggie took a sip of tea and then went on with her story. “When I called out to him and asked what he was doing, he pretended not to hear me, then drove away in a big SUV. I would have jotted down the license plate, but it didn’t have one. Just one of those temporary dealership things. Anyway. The first detective seemed very keen on that information,
and when he told me he planned to follow up, I believed him.” Maggie tried to ward off a grin, but failed. “He had one of those thick mustaches, like Tom Selleck. And when he showed me his badge, I saw photos of his two dogs in his wallet. Showed he had a heart. I liked that.”

“What about the second detective?” I asked.

She gave a disgusted snort. “Preoccupied, and disinterested. Oh, he put on a good show, but I can tell when someone is selling me a line of bull.”

Lucas stifled a cough with his hand. Like him, I was really hoping that Maggie didn’t pick up the fact that we were in the load-of-bull-selling business.

Which made me wonder. Maggie seemed to be exactly what she presented—a kind old lady who felt terrible about Sarah’s death—but how did we know that was true? Maybe Holland had told her we might be coming, and paid her handsomely to stall us.