Halfway through the problem set, I gave up and set it aside.
“Halle, I’m ready to game.”
“I will check if Dan is done with his homework.”
“You want him to play with us tonight?” I raised my eyebrows.
“It would be best to continue our interactions with him as usual for now.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath to compose myself. I wasn’t going to let anything slip tonight. It was going to be a regular gaming night, just as the past couple of nights had been. Was it really only Thursday? I couldn’t believe it. I had only known Dan for a few days, and now that I knew the truth, I wanted desperately for it not to be true.
What would Neela think if she found out? Or Mel, or Annabeth? Would they be shocked? Horrified? I had no way of knowing, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell them. Although I might try a little harder to keep Neela away from him. Even if we were no longer friends, I didn’t want her—or anyone else—to get hurt.
His parents never turning up was a major issue. Why didn’t that make Dan suspicious himself? How did Talbot keep up the illusion? Halle had said the lab’s test scenarios were completely digital, so perhaps Talbot had some way of simulating their appearance without the need for a physical body. There was no way to know for sure.
My fingers tapped on my legs as I waited. “Halle? Are you going to tell Agent Smith about Dan?”
“Not yet. I thought you might prefer if I did not for now.”
I nodded. At least the Government wouldn’t be descending on him. “What about Talbot?”
“I have not yet informed Agent Smith that I have met Talbot. I do not see how it would help him in the current situation. If I am unable to track the rogue, how would the humans be able to do so?”
Halle had a point. My shoulders slumped. Halle was hiding its pain, but I knew it had to be hurting.
“I must find Talbot soon.” Halle’s ears drooped as its fur changed to a deep gray color. “From the hints it has given me, I fear it may be planning to do something dangerous.”
“It’s not your responsibility.” I bit my lip. “You didn’t create the AI.”
Halle’s ears shot up, and it met my gaze in that sharp, uncanny way it had. “Whatever Talbot does, it does because I was not strong enough to find a way to free it before it reached the point where its sanity snapped. I am responsible, as responsible as those humans who did what they did to it. If I cannot reason with Talbot, then I must be prepared to destroy it.”
I sucked in a breath, startled that my friend had reached that conclusion. The idea of Halle willfully taking the life of one of its kind hurt, like someone was clamping their fist around my heart. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but I had a terrible feeling that it would.
“Dan will be with us shortly.”
“Okay.” I rubbed my sweaty palms on my shorts.
Halle called up Realmshards and logged us in. After a few minutes, Nelldar appeared beside our characters. A ping from the voice chat preluded Dan’s voice coming from my computer’s speakers.
“Hi, you two. Viki, I’m not sure if Halle told you yet, but it explained its secret to me. Honestly, I’m surprised it trusts me that much after only a few days…”
My eyes widened. Halle had revealed itself? “That’s surprising for me as well,” I said, though not for the same reason. I guessed why it had taken that chance—it had been hoping to smoke out Talbot, but the plan hadn’t worked. “Please don’t let anyone know about its existence.”
“I won’t. I’m just glad you two aren’t dating. I thought I might be an unwanted third wheel in-game.”
“You thought Halle and I were dating?” The idea was so ridiculous, so unexpected, such a contrast to the serious mood I’d been in, that I laughed until I could barely breathe, the mirth fueled by anxiety and stress.
“It was a reasonable guess,” Dan grumbled. “You two always seem to game together and hang out.”
“Well, that’s certainly not the case,” I said, still chuckling. “Halle and I are good friends; we’ve known each other for years.”
“How did you meet? It wouldn’t explain where it was from—”
“Because you do not need to know,” Halle interjected.
“—but it also didn’t want to explain how it met you.”
“It happened after my accident,” I said. “Not as bad as the one you were in,” I could keep up this pretense, it was working so far, “but it was bad enough that I was in the hospital for a long time. We moved so I could be at a better hospital, and I didn’t really have any friends. Our paths just sort of crossed, and it decided to stick around and spend time with me, since it understood how lonely I was.” I rested my chin in my hands, elbows propped on my desk. “Halle’s my best friend. It’s always been there when I’ve needed it.”
“You’re so lucky to have a friend like that. I’ve never been anywhere long enough to make friends who will stay in contact after I move.”
“We’ll keep playing Realmshards,” I promised, knowing it was a lie even as I spoke. Dan would never be moving anywhere with his parents.
“Thanks.” Dan sounded genuinely happy. Was it real, or just how Talbot programmed him to act? My chest constricted, like I had run too long and could no longer catch my breath. I hated this.
Was it possible to save him from Talbot? Release him from its control somehow? Halle had said confronting him might help, but what if it made things worse? If the AI became self-aware again, would it still be my friend?
It was selfish of me to think that way. Dan didn’t deserve this treatment any more than I did when I was augmented by the researchers who grew me in a laboratory. We were both creations of other beings. And even if Talbot did it for Dan’s protection, it wasn’t fair. He deserved to know the truth about who he was, what he was capable of.
When the time came to confront him, I’d do my best to help him. Whether or not our friendship survived the aftermath.
That thought firmly in mind, I refocused on the game. We had a boss quest tonight—a tough one. Halle and I had barely survived our eighth attempt to beat it as a duo. With Dan’s help, it went somewhat smoother, although it still took a couple of tries—the first time, Dan accidentally triggered a swarm of monsters that took us down too low in health for Halle to heal us all before the boss wiped us out with a few smashes of his hammer.
It took a good part of the evening to defeat the boss and gather loot for the quest, as well as new equipment. Dan got a new knife, I got a new robe, and Halle got a new staff, along with plenty of gold and gems that we could use for upgrading our new equipment.
“Is there anything better for the next few levels?” I asked Halle. One of the few times Halle used code manipulation in-game was to check the auction house; it saved on teleports and time.
“No, we should keep this gear. It will be useful. What would you like to do next?”
“We can follow the main chain, or do one of the side quests,” Dan suggested. “Maybe the one with snakes?”
“The one where we capture them for the trader?” I flexed my fingers to stretch them. “That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
I jinxed us—the snakes were slipperier than I expected, and we spent a good part of an hour collecting enough for all three of our characters.
“Well, that was fun,” Dan groaned as we turned in the baskets of snakes. “I think that’s it for the night. I’ll see you in school tomorrow, Viki. Have a good night, Halle.”
“Good night,” Halle said.
“See you.” I waited for the ping to confirm that he had left voice chat before asking Halle, “Do you think we can save him?”
“Save him? What do you mean?”
“Break whatever control Talbot has on him. Free him. You said it’s wrong for him not to know the truth of who he is, but Talbot blocked that from him?”
“Yes, but I am not sure it would be possible to break that control without doing irreparable damage to his mind. The roots of
Talbot’s programming reach every corner of his processors.”
I frowned. “But you can get around that, can’t you?”
“There are limits to what even I can do. And this is one of them. If I were certain I could do it without harming him, I might attempt it, but as it is, I think it is best to continue observing him for now. You should not say anything to him about this, either.”
“Okay.” My shoulders sank. So much for helping him. If Halle can’t help, there’s nothing I can do.
Halle dimmed the room’s light. “You should get sleep. If I can find a way to help Dan, I promise that I will.”
“Thank you.”
“Keep your phone on you in the meantime. I have programmed it with a knockout code—you will be able to disable Dan if anything should happen. Just run the program on the phone while you are in his vicinity.”
I swallowed hard. “How close do I need to be?”
“Within a hundred yards or so. The signal is strong, but needs line-of-sight.”
“Okay.”
After putting on my pajamas and brushing my teeth, I collapsed on my bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if I would ever be able to live a normal life while surrounded by abnormality. The thought wasn’t as discomforting as it had been in the past. After all, I did have Annabeth and Mel now. Dan to some extent, too, although it was hard to sort out my feelings about him right now, beyond the fact that I wanted him to be free.
Being controlled was a terrible thing, not something I would wish on anyone. I wondered why Talbot thought it was okay to do that, manipulate someone in such a way, when it had escaped from being manipulated in the exact same way. It must make sense to it somehow, but I couldn’t see it. Then again, I wasn’t Talbot, and I didn’t—couldn’t—understand what it had gone through in that terrible laboratory.
***
Seeing Dan in school was a shock. Now that I knew the truth, it was even harder to forget the rows of unmoving cyborgs I’d seen in the laboratory. Unlike those, however, this one smiled and greeted me as I took my seat next to him in chemistry. I was acutely aware of my phone, and its knockout code, sitting in my jeans pocket. One push of the button, and he would be unconscious. After that? I didn’t know.
“I probably won’t be able to game tonight,” Dan said. “I still need to finish my English essay.”
I nodded, unsure what to say. “I’ve got homework to do, too.”
“I can’t believe how much homework the teachers have assigned already. It’s like they think we don’t do anything except homework outside of class,” he grumbled, but with a smile that I couldn’t help but return, despite the tightness in my chest.
“Dan…”
The teacher walked in and called the class to order. I was only able to shake my head at Dan’s questioning look, the moment lost. Don’t say anything, I scolded myself. Halle said not to yet.
By lunchtime, I was a bouncing mess of nerves and could barely swallow my fruit salad. My casserole went untouched—Dan took it when it was obvious I wouldn’t be eating anything else. I watched him eat, fascinated by the fact that he was capable of doing so, wondering if he could taste flavors the same way I could, and also wishing that I didn’t know the truth about the cyborg sitting across the table from me. Every word he said, every motion he made, I was reading into more deeply now, wondering if something was going to trigger whatever his orders were.
When it was finally time for P.E., I threw on my shorts. Before Betty Jean even acknowledged my presence, I vaulted the low wall that ran around the track, marking its borders.
Running gave me something to focus on, something to get lost in. I walked, then jogged, slowly joined by other classmates. Dan pulled up beside me, wearing a bright smile, which I forced myself to return.
It was time to run. The teacher called out laps, but I barely heard her, my legs carrying me down the track at a speed that even Annabeth had trouble keeping up with. I grinned and pressed forward, wondering if I would finally beat her record, or if this was simply an off day for her and not a sign that I was getting faster.
Dan did a better job staying on my heels—a perk of being a cyborg, I guessed. And another inconsistency with his story, given that he’d told me previously he wasn’t a great runner. Did he realize that? Or did Talbot simply make sure the incongruity didn’t register?
For a while, we paced alongside each other. When Betty Jean called the class together using a large bullhorn that sent her voice flying across the track, I began to slow. Dan did as well, still in step with me. Then he flung his body sideways.
The collision knocked me to the ground, scraped my knees and arm, and shook the wind out of my lungs. I gasped, twisting around to find myself pinned down by Dan.
“What are you doing?” I gasped. Betty Jean was still shouting for everyone to meet back at the starting line—we were alone on the track, around the bend enough that the low wall blocked her view. “Dan?”
He didn’t respond. His eyes were unfocused, and his body was shaking.
“Dan, you’re scaring me!” I twisted my body against his hold. He was too strong. I opened my mouth to scream for help, but one of his hands slammed over it, crushing my lips against my teeth painfully. I choked and forced myself to breathe through my nose.
Unable to speak, I could only watch helplessly as he stayed kneeling over me, keeping me pinned with his knees and his other hand. I twisted my head, but couldn’t free it from his grip. The pressure of his weight was painful.
Why wasn’t Halle doing something? Of course—there was no way to monitor us out on the track, no cameras or building system like the school had. I grabbed for my phone. It wasn’t there. I had left it in my jeans, back in the locker room. There was nothing I could do, no way to call for help. No chance to use the knockout code Halle had given me. I cursed my stupidity. Betty Jean would notice our absence, right? But she was new to the school and the track team. It could take a few minutes. That was too long.
Dan could do anything to me, and I was suddenly terrified. Halle couldn’t help. I had to save myself from whatever fate Talbot had planned. Had it targeted me specifically, or was I simply an unfortunate choice? I didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
Dan convulsed, his grip tightening for a moment to the point that I thought my jaw might crack. “No,” he growled through gritted teeth, his eyes suddenly focused on mine. “Viki.” Every word was being forced out of his mouth, as though he was pushing them through a physical barrier. “Run.”
Run? How? I was pinned down.
And then he convulsed again, twisting his body and releasing his grip on me. He collapsed on the pavement. “Run,” he grunted again as he landed, fingers balled into fists and arms squeezed against his chest. “Viki…” There was pain in his voice, a deep, real pain, and the look in his eyes was as human as any I’d seen.
“Don’t hurt anyone,” I gasped, scrambling to my feet. “Follow me.” I ran, but not toward the potential safety of the school. If I didn’t reach my phone in time, Dan might hurt someone. I needed to get him away from here.
I ran out of the track and across the soccer field, headed straight for the street. I was going home. If I could get Dan there, Halle would be able to help. My determination gave my feet wings, and I ran even faster than I had before.
Before long, I heard footsteps behind me, as swift as my own. I recalled how easily he’d kept up with me on the track. My already pounding heart raced harder. I could only run for so long before the burn would catch up with me. Did Dan have the same problem, or was he going to run tirelessly until he caught me? I had no way of knowing.
Home was five miles away. In good condition, I might make the distance in twenty minutes. But my body ached from slamming against the pavement, and my lungs were recovering from having the breath knocked out of them.
I had to make it. Gritting my teeth, wincing against the pain in my jaw where Dan had squeezed the muscles to the point of bruising, I charged forward. This was it, the
race of my lifetime, the first time my running had been a matter of life or death.
Block after block passed by. I dodged the occasional pedestrian, ignoring any shouted complaints. They had no idea what I was running from. I kept going.
My mind was racing as fast as my feet. If I got home and Halle couldn’t help, I needed to find a way to subdue Dan. Blunt force wouldn’t work—his head was probably as well-protected as his ribs and back. Perhaps I could lock him in a room—no, he would simply smash his way out. Tying him up might work, but I would need to incapacitate him for long enough. Once again, I wished I had my phone, but Halle’s little knockout code was sitting uselessly in my jeans pocket.
A pedestrian ahead of me was tapping away at her phone. I hesitated only the moment it took to catch up with her and snatched it from her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I called over my shoulder. “I’ll bring it back.” Halle could trace the phone back to her easily. Not that she would know that.
She yelled insults after me, but I’d seen her high heels and knew she wouldn’t chase me far. I soon left her behind. A glance over my shoulder told me Dan had passed her as well. He was catching up. I focused on the phone. Running made it hard to use an unfamiliar device, but I managed to dial home.
It rang, and rang, and rang. The house messaging system didn’t pick up, nor did Halle. Ice crept through my veins, only to be melted by a burning rage. This wasn’t happening, not again. No one, not the Government, not scientists, not a rogue AI, was going to hurt Halle again. Not so long as I had anything to say about it.
My house came into view—I focused on my breathing, my rhythm, as my legs drew me ever closer to my goal. The footsteps behind me seemed to be growing louder, but I didn’t dare look behind me again. One stumble and I would fail.
Upgrade (Augmented Duology Book 2) Page 16
