MILA 2.0

by Debra Driza

  Ultimately, the one thing that had made her more human had actually sealed her “death,” had led to her being recycled like a bit of aluminum foil, with just as little concern.

  If I could puke, I would have done it now. My stomach burned, and the force of the nausea made my head spin. Lucky for me, that seemed to be one biological function they’d skipped.

  The last thing I needed to do was let Holland guess my reaction.

  “I . . . I was already created by then, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes. Mostly,” Holland said.

  So they must have made me watch, that much was clear. But why were my memories of that so uncertain? Why hadn’t I been able to recall all of this on my own?

  The answer was simple. Mom. To spare me.

  “Thankfully, we’d already made adjustments. Fewer pain receptors, just enough to alert you to when a real person would feel pain.”

  I peeked at Three, to see if she had any response to the implication that she wasn’t real. Nothing. Not a flicker of her eyes, not a twitch of her mouth. She just stood there, studying my face silently. And looking so eerily like me.

  No, not studied, I decided. Studied implied genuine curiosity. And while her gaze remained focused on my face, behind her eyes lurked a disinterest. Like without a mission from Holland, she didn’t really exist.

  Well, at least now I had a logical answer for what had happened when I’d been pitched out of Kaylee’s truck. The scream, but with hardly any pain behind it. I’d never been able to figure that out before.

  “What do you plan to do with me?”

  “Originally? We planned to terminate you. I’m assuming that’s why Nicole took you. You were supposed to mimic human emotions, not actually experience them, and definitely not so completely. Your system refused every attempt to override them, so we decided to terminate you and try again.”

  Terminate me. Terminate.

  It felt like everything inside me had frozen solid, trapping me in an inadvertent lockdown mode as I stared at Holland’s impassive face. He wanted to get rid of me entirely. To erase me from existence like I was nothing more than a flawed computer program. Since he truly believed I was no more or no less alive than that, he’d have no qualms about it. Of that I was sure.

  The trapped feeling vanished, replaced by an overpowering compulsion to flee. I had to get out of here. Now. My frantic gaze found the door—the one potential source of freedom—and I was already readying myself for the inevitable battle to get there when reality halted me in my tracks.

  Nothing had changed. Holland still had Mom. My mom, who hadn’t stolen me from the development site because she worried I was too human to perform as an android. She’d stolen me because she thought I was so human that, to her, the idea of termination Holland tossed so casually around equaled murder.

  My murder.

  I felt a single tear well up in my right eye, poised to release from my manufactured duct. I commanded it to stay there. To Holland, emotions were a liability. A weakness worth destroying me over.

  Holland was angled away from me, making eye contact with the spectators in the window. He nodded at some signal I’d missed, then turned around with another crack of his gum. “I do have some good news for you, Mila. The powers that be want me to test you again, to see if you might have some value we missed. A reprieve of sorts.”

  “And if I say no?”

  I knew the answer before he responded. Mom. He’d use Mom as insurance.

  “Pass these tests, and you prove Nicole didn’t totally screw up. We’ll reconsider both of your outcomes. Don’t pass, and she’s facing a life sentence. So, instead of good-bye, I’ll say . . . good luck.” He pushed up his sleeve, glanced at the wide-faced watch nestled in brown arm hair. “Test number two dash one five to commence shortly. Oh, I almost forgot. Don’t move this time, Mila.” His drawl was laced with warning.

  The knowledge of Mom’s precarious position was the only thing keeping me still when his hand shot out. I caught a flash of silver before he grabbed my right ear. He shoved something cold and foreign deep inside, propelled by a thin sticklike object.

  I heard a faint click, and then:

  Security Chip: Activated.

  The probe withdrew, but Holland’s chubby finger returned to my ear’s outer shell. The feeling of his damp flesh, pressing hard against my cartilage, brought back the horror of the memory from the lab, but no, no, no, I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—flinch.

  Wireless Receiver: Activated.

  “That ought to do it,” he said, releasing me. “Now we won’t have to worry about you trying to escape. That chip will send the compound into lockdown mode if you come within ten feet of the entrance.”

  Holland patted Three on the back and said, “Give her hell, okay?” Then he executed a brisk about-face and strode for the door. It whirred quietly closed behind him. Sealing me in for some kind of test.

  My gaze shifted to my look-alike, standing in the same spot where Holland had left her.

  Correction—sealing us in.

  Twenty-Four

  Here I was, in this barren room, fluorescent lights glaring overhead and cold concrete floor beneath me, miles away from Clearwater in every sense of the word. Alone for the very first time with the twin I hadn’t known existed.

  Our identical gazes connected. Well, almost identical. Once again, I noted a striking difference between us: the lack of warmth in Three’s green eyes. Instead of the dis-interest from before, now Holland’s other creation watched me like she was performing a visual dissection. Limb by limb.

  Once she completed her inspection, Three shrugged.

  “What?” I demanded when she didn’t say anything.

  “You can’t tell by looking at you that you’re flawed, that’s all,” she said, in that voice that was so disconcertingly similar to mine. No, not similar—the same. And, given her casual tone, she might as well have been discussing a new computer program.

  Come to think of it, that was more accurate than I cared to admit. “Not that it matters,” she continued. “I have my orders.” She paused, smiling. “No hard feelings.”

  No hard feelings. Like it wasn’t my life on the line here.

  Without any discernible cue, Three’s attention shifted to the window above us. My gaze followed, and I felt a jolt. Standing close to the glass was a boy, maybe eighteen or nineteen—he looked way too young to be up there. To be part of . . . this. His dark hair was flat on one side yet bristled up on the other, like he’d slept on it funny and hadn’t taken the time to brush it. Rangy and awkward in his wrinkled white collar and loosened tie, his shoulders slumped as if trying to escape the confines of the tight collar. Yet his gaze was anything but casual as it focused unwaveringly on me.

  Two . . . can you hear me?

  The raspy voice echoed directly inside my head.

  What the hell? I lurched backward, my hands flying to my ears, while my eyes darted toward Three. No reaction there. She stood patiently, staring up at the boy like an obedient dog.

  The boy. He had to be the one who’d talked.

  I shook my head a few times, as if the repeated motion could expel the nuisance. Of course that didn’t happen.

  I take it by your reaction that I’m coming in loud and clear?

  I nodded cautiously.

  Good. My name is Lucas Webb, and I’m going to be the proctor for your upcoming tests.

  Tests again, just like Holland had mentioned. But what tests? And . . . could this guy hear my thoughts the way I could hear his voice?

  I watched him, thinking, Can you hear me? in his direction, but there was no change in his expression and no response. At least, not until a slight smile appeared three seconds later.

  You have to speak out loud if you want me to hear you. You can only hear me because General Holland activated your wireless receiver.

  Okay, so that made Holland wafting his peppermint breath in my face while stuffing a finger down my ear a little less creepy. But only just
.

  A few feet away, Three finished performing a strange ritual, using her left hand to rotate the joints on her right arm through their complete range of motion.

  “What tests?” I said, watching her with growing unease as she switched, now using her right hand to move her left. Each finger was bent and extended, followed by the wrist. If she followed the same pattern as the other side, next would come the elbow, and then the shoulder. Like one of the runners at school, warming up for a competition.

  An icy fist squeezed my heart. Just an echo, I reminded myself, in an attempt to shake it off. A phantom sensation. You don’t have a heart.

  The reminder didn’t help.

  The tests that will decide your . . . ultimate outcome.

  There was a slight hesitation to Lucas’s words, though his expression remained neutral.

  The tests are designed to showcase your abilities as well as your deficiencies. Once you’ve completed all three, your actions will be evaluated and scored, and that will determine your future with us.

  The voice stopped, but Lucas continued his impassive stare through the glass.

  My deficiencies, meaning . . . my emotions? Was this strange, disheveled guy telling me that any show of emotion would be counted against me?

  I didn’t have long to ponder it, because three seconds later, he uttered his next words:

  The first test starts . . . in three minutes.

  Twenty-Five

  “Are you prepared?” I heard my voice ask. Not my voice. Her voice. Three watched me, head cocked.

  “Prepared?”

  She nodded. “To test your fighting skills, to ensure Dr. Laurent didn’t tamper with them too much when she made unauthorized adjustments. We all get tested on our physical combat prowess.”

  Fighting skills? Queasiness rolled through my stomach.

  I glanced up at the spectators’ window, where another six faces pushed close to the glass next to Lucas Webb’s, one of them Holland’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started placing bets.

  I shook my head and gestured to her. “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want them to make me into”—I swallowed the “you” at the last second, realizing how awful that might sound—“into something I’m not.”

  She tilted her head again, brown hair sliding over her right shoulder. If I touched it, would it have the exact same silky texture as mine? “I know what you were going to say,” she said, echoing my hand motion in an uncannily identical wave. “You don’t want them to make you into me. Don’t worry—you’re not hurting my feelings. It’s a pretty illogical thought, though. You are me, just with more emotions. And our wants are irrelevant here.”

  You are me. . . .

  The idea ripped at the thin fabric holding me together, tried to release every bit of fear I’d been stuffing back, hiding from view. That’s what they wanted . . . Holland, this creature, all the curious eyes up in the window. They wanted to turn me into a true clone of the creature standing across from me. For me to give up my feelings and give in. Three had said our wants were irrelevant, but I wouldn’t, couldn’t believe that. No matter what, I wouldn’t let them make me into her.

  Without warning, Three took a graceful step toward me, and I lurched a corresponding step back. A waltz of sorts. “You should make sure you follow directions while you’re here.”

  “Why? You can’t possibly care what happens to me.” Or could she? After all, Holland had mentioned fixing my emotional flaws, not getting rid of emotions altogether.

  She did that one slow blink again, which I was starting to figure out meant she was puzzled. “We come from the same building materials, share the same technology. If we were human, we’d be sisters. We understand each other.”

  Sisters.

  I wanted to cover my eyes, to turn away, to wish this entire scenario out of existence. This . . . distortion of me actually felt a connection between us. She thought we were the same. Which, if it was true, meant either she was more human than they gave her credit for, or . . . I was less human.

  My head whipped back and forth, faster and faster. “No, we don’t understand each other. I have feelings. While you . . .”

  That slow blink again. “I have feelings. But mine function properly, as behavior guides. Whereas General Holland says you actually experience emotions, similar to a human.” She frowned. “Hopefully they can fix that.”

  Fix that. As if erasing my emotions would be as easy as changing a dead car battery. A shudder tore through me. That couldn’t be the case.

  Until this moment, I hadn’t realized what a service Mom had actually done for me. Even though she’d lied in the process, at least by making me think I was her daughter, that I had a father, she’d taught me how to love, how to experience a full spectrum of feelings, the highs and lows and everything in between. Having that snatched away with a simple procedure . . . surely that wasn’t possible?

  Before I could freak out completely, Lucas’s voice rang in my ears.

  The purpose of this first exercise is to test your defense skills. It’s crucial that you not be taken down and captured in hand-to-hand combat.

  His voice sounded smooth, detached. Like he was talking to a machine instead of a person.

  I glanced up at the window again and glared, pouring out every bit of anger and hatred for this place, Holland, the creature next to me who hadn’t asked to be created but disgusted me nevertheless because she reminded me how far from human I truly was, and him. The young man who’d administered these tests, who was ordering me to fight without a single thought for how that might affect me.

  Through the glass, our gazes connected. The intensity of mine must have startled him, because his lips parted in surprise. After a couple of seconds he broke contact, looking down like my stare was burning a hole right through him. Both hands raked through his hair, mussing it even more. He was suddenly looking extremely uncomfortable up there.

  I squashed the pang I felt. After all, he’d administered this test. If he felt bad enough, he was more than welcome to trade places with me.

  When he finally straightened and reestablished eye contact, I lifted my hands, palms out, and shrugged my shoulders. “And?” I mouthed.

  . . . and we really want to compare your capabilities to those of Three.

  His tone was softer this time.

  Ready?

  All the warmth rushed from my body, leaving me cold, so cold. My hand flew to my mouth to mask a panicked giggle. Ready? Hardly.

  My fists balled just as I heard Mom’s voice.

  “Whatever you do, don’t lose control. Your feelings are a detriment there.”

  I drew in a deep breath and relaxed my hands. “Do I have a choice?” I asked in a steady voice.

  His thick eyebrows shot up his forehead before his lips twitched. My fists balled again. So glad I could amuse him.

  No.

  “Then don’t ask.” At that, I turned away, disgusted.

  A brief pause, and then Lucas’s voice boomed into the room, this time via a hidden speaker.

  “The test will commence in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

  Three lunged before the “one” could even finish leaving Lucas’s lips. I feinted back, placing myself out of reach just in time. She frowned and blinked. Puzzled again.

  “You’re not scared, are you? Because they’ll deduct points for that.”

  She was right—I knew that. While I might not have any desire to fight, my less emotional sister had a point. Right now, my desires were irrelevant. Especially if I wanted a chance to see Mom again.

  Alive.

  I nodded, opening my mouth to say “Oka—”

  Three’s foot whipped into my face with a deafening smack.

  Contact made.

  Thanks for nothing. That was my dazed mental response to the internal voice as I flew backward and landed hard on my right side, my hip striking the ground first, followed by my cheek. Hard enough that the force of impact reminded me of
my fall from Kaylee’s truck. I didn’t have time to check for potential injuries, though, because Three followed the kick by lunging forward, so quick she was almost a blur. I rolled to the left, missing her pounce by a millisecond.

  I barely had time to regain my feet when crunch! Her hand caught me in the left shoulder, with even more force than the kick.

  I stumbled, went down, once again barely rolling out of the range of the kick that followed. At this rate, I was going to lose within two minutes. They’d terminate me, and who knew what’d happen to Mom.

  As I scrambled away, I frantically wondered how I could prevent any of that from happening. Maybe it was because I was out of practice, maybe they’d upgraded Three’s training programming, maybe Mom had erased something crucial when she’d hidden my past. Whatever the cause, my twin was kicking my butt and then some. The structure forming my hip felt like it needed an extra-long session with Mom’s special toolkit.

  If I kept this up for long, there wouldn’t be anything left of me to dismantle.

  Just then, a noise blasted into my ear. Like maybe Lucas had coughed. It shifted my attention back onto Three, but not quite quickly enough. Her foot stomped into the ground, scraping against my ear with enough force to send even my meager pain receptors shrieking.

  That would have been my face if it hadn’t been for Lucas.

  And she was still coming.

  I threw myself into one more desperate roll, needing to buy myself even a fraction of a second to regain my feet—before my better-equipped counterpart crushed me like a tin can.

  A counterpart who was only two steps away. And who’d be anticipating another roll by now.

  Backflip.

  I didn’t question the voice this time. Didn’t stop to consider that I’d never performed a backflip in my entire life—at least, not in my admittedly patchy memory. I just latched onto the idea, and before I could blink, my body flew into action, like it had done this one hundred times before. I slammed my palms into the ground, kicked my feet over my head, and pushed. Hard. For a second I revolved in the air with nothing to anchor me, face rotating toward the ground, and fear punched me in the gut. The next instant, I was grabbing the floor with my toes.