Program 13 Book One (21 page)

“Now see, that’s where you’re wrong.” McVeigh was laughing, making his way around the desk so that he was now standing in front of
Sterling
. “She has everything to do with this.” Nina looked over at me from across the
room; her face was half human and
made up of flesh, the other half made up of metal. There was no way
Sterling
could save her now. There was no way she’d ever truly be his daughter again.

I could feel my body being dragged, my hard drive clicking into place. When I opened my eyes, I was expecting to see
Colton
. But it was
Sterling
. Where was
Colton
? How did he get out? I started to panic until I heard his voice.

“She does this a lot.”

“It has to be because she has two Programs installed – one human and one computer. They don’t fuse well together.”
Sterling
was shaking his head, his hand brushing the Pod window. “The only way to stop it is to allow the fusion to complete, which unfortunately, would allow McVeigh to locate the two of you. I’m sure that isn’t what you want.”

“No, that isn’t what we want.”
Colton
approached the Pod, his eyes focused on me. He was worried, but trying his best not to show it. “What we want is to know more about you. What could have made you go from wanting to help her to wanting to destroy her?”

The silence was overwhelming. There was a reason
Sterling
didn’t want to talk about himself. And I knew why. He watched as his daughter’s life was taken away after he tried to help me. Because of me, his daughter was now a Program. Because of me, his daughter no longer had a future. He had every reason to want m
e dead. He los
t
t
he
one thing he
loved more than life, and there was nothing I could do to fix that.
Sterling
looked at me, curious to see if I knew,
to see if I understood why he hated me. I wanted to tell him that I did,
but I wanted – needed – to hear it from him.

“
Colton
, there’s a lot you need to understand.” He stood there waiting for
Sterling
to continue. “I was brought to work at Vesta Corp against my will. I was working at
Virginia
Mason
Medical
Center
when I met McVeigh. He came in complaining of a pinched nerve. He was a friendly patient. I never would’ve thought that he could be the monster that he is today.”

Sterling
paused to take a deep breath before continuing. “I treated him and figured I’d never see him again. But I was wrong. He came to my house, two of his guards following closely behind him, and placed a bag over my head, dragging me out of my home. He threatened my daughter and my wife if I tried to escape. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted absolutely no part in his vision of a perfect society. It was nothing more than a deranged cause. But then I saw her…I saw Emile.” He looked back at me, his hands pressing against the Pod window. “She was so young, so full of life, and he was going to take all of that away for what? For absolutely nothing!”

Tears began to stream down his cheeks. “I’ve lived a life. No matter how much I may miss my family at least I know that I lived my life. Em
ile hadn’t. S
he was a teenager with
the
future
still ahead of her, a whole lif
e she had yet to live, and I was supposed to take it away from her?”

“You ha
d no choice,
”
Colton
whispered.

“No, I didn’t. McVeigh was the one who cut the life out of her, but I had to reconstruct her into what she is now. He didn’t enjoy my protesting. He made me pay for it later that night.” And I knew what was coming. I knew he would tell
Colton
about his daughter, Nina. About how I was the reason he’d lost her. About how I was the reason she was gone.

“My daughter was ten years old, even younger than Emile.”
Sterling
was choking back tears. “McVeigh felt that if I couldn’t obey orders, that I needed discipline. His way of disciplining me was to turn my Nina into one of his Programs. She’s not my Nina anymore.”

“And you blame Emile for that?”

Sterling
looked at
Colton
and smirked. “No, I don’t actually, although it would make sense if I did.”

How couldn’t he blame me for his daughter? If it wasn’t for me - if he didn’t try to save me -  his daughter would still be human. He’d still have his little girl.

“If you don’t blame Emile, then why would you want to kill her?”
Colton
asked which I was incredibly thankful for. It just didn’t make sense as to why he’d want me dead if he didn’t blame me. “If I didn’t try to kill her, he was going to deactivate my daughter. I didn’t want to kill her. I honestly didn’t. But if I don’t kill her, he will kill my daughter all over again. I barely have anything left of her now.”

McVeigh had control of our lives, and there was nothing we could to change that, especially now. He wanted me, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got me. He knew that
Colton
was with me, and now that he knew, McVeigh would have to kill him. And since
Sterling
hadn’t killed me like McVeigh ordered, his daughter would be deactivated. No matter how hard we fought, there was no way we’d ever win. We all had already lost so much that we’d come out as losers no matter what.

“How would they know she’s still alive?”

“As long as Thirteen still registers on her hard drive, they are able to tell if Emile is alive.”

Colton
ran to grab the backpacks Hayden left for us when we felt we needed to escape. “I have access to their system. Can you help me read through her folders, both Emile and Thirteen?”

Sterling
’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “How did you manage to hack into their system?”

“I didn’t, Hayden did.”

Sterling
was smiling at the mention of Hayden’s name. “Yes, Hayden, of course.” He walked over to where
Colton
was sitting and grabbed the NetBook from his lap. He was typing away, mumbling words here and there. “Look, come here boy.”

“It’s
Colton
, not boy.”

Sterling
laughed, pulling
Colton
’s arm towards him. “This is what they are seeing back at Vesta Corp. It’s her computer stats. McVeigh knows when she has one of her daydreams - he triggers those. You see here?” His finger tapped against the screen softly. “You’ll notice an increase in her RAM. She remembers what he has stored in her memory. And if you look over here, you’ll notice a line that lets them know if she’s in standby mode, if she’s powered up, or if she’s been shut down. If she was dead, then she’d be considered shut down.”

“It says standby mode, so they know she’s in the Pod,
then?”
Colton
asked him, clearly frustrated that they had access to all of this.

“Yes,”
Sterling
replied. “It also means they’ll be sending a new group of men out here soon because they know that I failed.”

“Your daughter’s deactivated.”

Sterling
nodded.
“Knowing McVeigh, he probably deactivated her the second I left the building.”

I knew that the time to run would be coming soon. He was just going to keep sending men until they managed to beat us. Why should we stay here like sitting ducks? Why should we make it easy for them?

“You
’re going to want to leave soon,
”
Sterling
suggested as if reading my mind. “If it’s her Pod you’re worried about, I have an idea. You already have the NetBooks, as long as you bring the other laptop it should work.”

“What is it?”

“All you should need to d
o is connect her to that laptop.” H
e pointed
at
the one sitting beside the Pod. “If you connect her hard drive, she should be able to enter standby mode, and they shouldn’t be able to track you.”

“
H
ow long do we have until they get here?”
Colton
was pacing the room, his arms pressed against his chest. “Shouldn’t we bring her out of standby mode?”

“It probably would be best to unplug the Pod. We’re going to need her. She’s much stronger than the two of us.”
Sterling
pulled the plug from the wall and unlatched the door to let me out. “They’ll be here in no more than an hour.”

I stepped out of the Pod slowly, one foot after the other. They’d be here soon. It was beginning t
o feel like a daily occurrence, h
aving to fight McVeigh’s men in order to live. “Would you happen to know how many are coming?” I asked, curious as to whether he’d be increasing his attack after failing numerous times.

“I wish I knew.”
Sterling
let out a stifled sigh, taking a seat on the couch. “He’s good at hiding that
kind of information. The last thing he wa
nts is for you to be prepared.”

“
Sterling
,” I whispered. “You should go. You and
Colton
should both go. Go out there and live what’s left of your lives. I can handle this.”

I didn’t want them to leave. I didn’t want to lose the only human connections I had left. But I knew that keeping them here solely because I wanted them around was only hurting them. I needed to at least give them the chance to leave. I needed to give them a chance at survival.

Colton
looked at me as though I’d lost it. “I’m not entirely sure what brought this on, but there is no way I’m leaving. I can’t say the same about him.” He pointed at
Sterling
, his brows creasing in curiosity. “But I have every intention of seeing this through with you.”
Sterling
jumped up from the couch as if in a hurry to leave. “If he’s in, I’m in. I can’t let you down again, kid. Plus, I have nothing left. My
wife,
my daughter
, they are both
gone. I have nothing to go back to.”

“Just remember, you can leave at any time.” As the words came through my lips, McVeigh’s men came bursting into the house. There were five of them: one White Coat and four guards. None of them were recognizable. “At least I know he can’t use my memories against me,” I whispered, hoping no one would hear.

One of the guards ran up to me, a replacement hard drive in his grasp. If he managed to get near my back, near where my hard drive was, he’d be able to wipe away my existence. I couldn’t let that happen. He tried to wrap his arm around my waist, but I fought back, throwing him to the ground, my foot on his chest to ensure he wouldn’t get up.

The hard drive in his hand was labeled “Thirteen.” Why would it be labeled “Thirteen” when she still existed on my core, although hidden? There would be no reason to re-install a program if it had already been installed. I reached down and took the drive from the man’s hand, trying to figure out what they were planning.

“Here, I’ll take that, Emile.”
Colton
reached his hand down to me. There were two guards about to grab him, so I pulled him down towards me and handed him the drive. “Go find out what’s on here,” I whispered. “I’ll take care of the rest of them.”

Colton
ran over to the computers while I took to my feet, anticipating the attack headed my way. The two guards were armed with guns, both of which were locked on
Colton
. My eyes zeroed in on the men, refusing to let either of them pull the trigger. I threw up my arms; the two guards fell to the ground with their weapons pointed up at me now. I should be alarmed, the human inside of me should feel worried, but I wasn’t. Their bullets couldn’t kill me, they could pierce my skin, but I wouldn’t bleed out. There was no blood in my body to allow for that.

“You better move
,
sweetheart. Unless you want this bullet to go through your chest,” The guard was smiling, his finger
on
the trigger. I looked down at him and laughed. Using my left foot, I kicked the gun from his grasp. “
Colton
, grab it. It looks as though you may need it.”

Click. Clank. A bullet fell from against my right arm. The other guard fired his weapon while I was busy dealing with his friend. Flinching would be ordinary. Bleeding would be ordinary. But I wasn’t ordinary. The bullet tore the tiniest bit of flesh, nothing some thread and a needle couldn’t fix.

“Are you okay, Emile?”
Colton
was panicking.

“Bullets can’t hurt her.”
Sterling
was limping towards me – the wound in his leg was now inflamed and oozing puss. If he came any closer, the guards would kill him. I couldn’t let that happen. “
Sterling
, go help
Colton
, please.” I was pleading, hoping that he’d listen to me.