by Debra Driza
As I landed, a familiar rush swept though my body, like a burst of the adrenaline I didn’t have. No time to celebrate the success of my acrobatics, though. I dropped into a defensive stance the instant my feet hit the concrete. Braced myself. I couldn’t keep running—I had to hold my ground.
At least this time I was semiprepared when the blow hit.
I swerved, just enough so that her fist glanced off my cheek. Still, the force made me lurch sideways. But I didn’t go down. I recovered my balance, ducked her follow-up punch . . . then lashed out with my foot.
She dodged just in time, but finally, finally, I’d done something offensive. Rolling around on the floor might have saved my body from damage, but I sincerely doubted it was scoring me any major points with the spectators.
Even now, I felt the weight of their eyes on me. Holland’s, and Lucas’s. And despite my one nondefensive maneuver, ice prickled down my back. I was still failing.
On the plus side, Three recognized that I’d snapped out of my initial ineptitude. She pulled back and circled me slowly, those eerily familiar eyes scrutinizing my every move as I circled with her. She was just waiting for me to make a mistake.
I lashed out with my left foot—a decoy. As she feinted to the side, my right jab connected hard in her throat. She stumbled back, three steps, then four.
A human would have been incapacitated by that blow, the fragile trachea closing off momentarily. In fact, I’d used that exact move back at Clearwater. But Three recovered as soon as the backward momentum stopped.
I lashed out with my right hand. With equal swiftness, Three threw up her left forearm to block my move. And so it went as we continued circling. One of us would strike, the other block, keeping us locked in a never-ending stalemate.
But I had to win.
How on earth could I sneak past her defenses? Especially when, most likely, both of us had been uploaded with the exact same training programs, making it impossible not to predict each other’s moves?
The answer emerged like a whisper inside my head. Simple. I shouldn’t be relying on our similarities. I should be playing up our differences. If I couldn’t win on her terms, I’d have to win on mine.
“So, do they let you listen to music here?” I asked, with every sense on full alert, ready to lunge at the faintest sign of motion.
“Your distraction attempts won’t work, you know,” my counterpart said patiently.
“Who said anything about distraction? I just think we deserve a little music. In the movies, there’s always music when people fight.” Well, at least in the one action movie I’d ever seen. With Mom . . .
I pushed her image out of my head. The intent was to distract my opponent, not myself. “Here, I’ll sing you one of my friend’s favorite songs. She played it all the time back in Minnesota.” And then I launched into a semituneful rendering of “Brown Eyed Girl.” A song that Kaylee had blared every time it came on the classics station she loved.
My voice echoed in the sterile room, accompanied by our footfalls as we continued our circular dance.
I finished the first verse and launched into the chorus. Wishing I could spare a glance for the faces watching us from overhead. They had to be wondering if Nicole Laurent’s prize machine had short-circuited. Or been permanently damaged by her tampering. But I didn’t dare. The second I took my eyes off my sister, even for a second, she’d strike.
“This song isn’t even appropriate. Neither of us has brown eyes,” Three finally said. But she remained vigilant.
She sidestepped. I sidestepped. And sang. Only five feet separated us.
“We used to sing, sha la la la—”
Left roundhouse kick.
Right uppercut.
A list of potential moves paraded through my head, but I ignored them all for one I knew the android part of me would never consider. Mainly because it was asinine. No experienced fighter in her right mind would try it. The probability of serious injury was way too high.
The move’s lack of logic was exactly why it might work.
So I continued belting out the peppy chorus—even as I dived headfirst for her feet.
I realized how truly ridiculous this move was. But it was too late. Ignoring the Abort! flashing behind my eyes, I dug up my failing courage and hoped for the best.
My combatant’s reflexes were lightning quick, but that was only because her internal computer processed all the likely attacks and prepared her body to act on them. But she wasn’t prepared for this. That gave me the extra tenth of a second I needed.
She recovered fast, her right leg lashing toward me mid-dive. Not fast or forceful enough. As her foot went up, I grabbed her calf, jerking hard as I shifted all my body weight to the right.
I let go and had rolled harmlessly out of the way when she crashed to the ground. An instant later, I leaped onto her waist, pinning her arms to her sides with my hands, her torso with my knees.
“La la te da,” I finished softly.
She thrashed, but I held tight. No way was I doing this again. This test was over.
Finally she relaxed. From her supine position, she blinked at me, nose wrinkled. “Next time, can you please sing something else? I find that song . . . annoying.”
A small, slightly hysterical giggle burst from my throat. I’d won! I’d won the fight, and I’d done so by using both my android and my human sides.
My flare of elation was cut short by Lucas’s voice.
Well, that was . . . interesting.
He still watched me from the window. He wasn’t smiling, but this time, his amusement had been clear in the way he drew out “interesting.”
The burst of warmth fizzled completely, leaving behind a twisting knot in my gut. One test, that’s all I’d finished so far. I still had two more to get through, and I could only imagine they’d be even harder, perhaps impossible. “Can I see my mom now?”
Three sprang to her feet, rocking lightly back and forth from her toes to her heels. “Are we done, or do we have another round?” she asked, glancing up at the window. The eagerness in her voice told me she’d be more than happy to have another go at me.
No, you’re done for now.
From the way she cocked her head slightly toward the left, I could tell Lucas was speaking to both of us.
Three, you scored higher on the first portion of the test, by managing to put your opponent on the defensive and landing some substantial blows.
She smiled, the same way as when Holland had patted her head.
But Two ultimately scored higher by realizing that combat techniques wouldn’t be enough to win, and using . . . ingenuity . . .
He did smile this time. It was just the faintest upturning of his lips, but even so . . . I balled my fists against the urge to smack the expression right off his face. This was my life, my mom’s life, that he found so hilarious.
. . . to outmaneuver an equally skilled opponent and ultimately subdue her.
Three, please wait by the door for your escort. Two, I’ll be down in a minute.
Three immediately swiveled but paused to peer at me over her shoulder. “Perhaps General Holland won’t terminate you after all,” she said, in the pleasant tone of a cashier. Like she was thanking me for my Blizzard order, and not suggesting someone would be tinkering around with my insides.
She sauntered toward the door, which beeped and slid open just as she reached it. A twenty-something soldier, clad in the standard black T-shirt, multipocketed cargo pants uniform they favored in this place, waited on the other side.
The two of them disappeared around the corner. I waited for the door to close.
Instead, another young man appeared in the open frame, this one clad in a rumpled white-collared shirt, loose tie, and gray slacks with a sagging hem on the left.
The boy from the spectator window.
Lucas Webb.
Twenty-Six
Lucas paused in the open doorway, his hands thrust into his pockets, a picture of total nonchala
nce as he stared at me. That illusion shattered when the door began sliding closed and banged into his arm. He emitted a startled curse and stumbled into the room.
I allowed myself a tiny smile at his expense. Payback for his earlier behavior.
The red flush that surged into his otherwise pale cheeks suggested embarrassment, but he didn’t look away. Instead, he headed toward me, his forehead creased like I was a puzzle that needed solving.
He didn’t walk like the soldiers. He landed heavier on his right foot, and his left foot barely cleared the ground. His boots looked different, too, thicker soled than the rest, and the left one externally rotated just a little, like his foot wasn’t on quite straight. Based on that, I couldn’t imagine he was a soldier. He’d never make it through basic training.
But he was here, and he was monitoring these tests. To me, that was all that mattered.
As he drew closer, I lifted my chin, bracing myself for a second degrading inspection like Holland had performed. Queasiness churned in my stomach, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t mess up again, no matter how violated I felt from their prying eyes and hands.
The tightness in my chest relaxed when he stopped a respectful three feet away. “Lucas Webb, your proctor,” he announced.
He withdrew his right hand from his pocket, then froze with it extended halfway toward me, as if the movement had been reflexive, and now that he’d remembered I was something less than human, he wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. “Uh . . .”
I let my exhale hiss loudly between my teeth before extending my own hand toward his. Mere inches away, but not touching, so ultimately he’d have to choose. “Mila. And I don’t bite.”
Again, that slight parting of his lips, the minute widening to his eyes. I was about to give up when he reached out and clasped my hand, practically drowning it with his larger one.
I didn’t recall forming any expectations, but I must have, because the feel of his skin startled me. It was warm and faintly damp. Rougher than I’d expected. Small, circular abrasions rubbed my own palm like fine sandpaper as he shook my hand with a firm yet careful grip.
Careful. The way you might actually shake a regular human’s hand so as not to hurt her.
I discarded that thought the instant it registered. Ridiculous, and under the circumstances, giving Lucas the benefit of the doubt could prove downright dangerous. I couldn’t relax my guard around him, not for a second.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, releasing me to return his hand to his pocket.
“If you say so,” I said, cautious to keep my expression neutral.
Apparently my minuscule stab at defiance startled him, because his eyes widened once more. Hazel. They were a golden hazel, with little flecks of moss green and blue. The kind of eyes that would be challenging to re-create in a lab.
He cleared his throat before responding. “I’m, uh, supposed to take you in for repairs.”
I flinched, strangely disappointed that my instinct had proved correct. He didn’t think of me as human at all.
“What’s wrong?” he said, obviously tracking my reaction, however tiny.
“I’m not a bike,” I muttered before clamping my disastrously big mouth shut.
“I . . . do you always talk in metaphors?”
What? That came from so far out of nowhere that my anger dissolved. “I . . . I’ve never thought about it before,” I said slowly. Pondering. “I guess so. Why? Doesn’t Three?”
“No.” He broke off to inspect me. Fully, this time, a slow head-to-toe perusal that brought warmth rushing to my cheeks, though there was nothing sexual in the appraisal. But he didn’t perform it with the same clinical detachment as Holland had, either. It was like before. Like he was searching every inch of me for a visible solution to a problem that only he could see.
The more seconds that ticked by, the more uncomfortable I became, until I finally couldn’t restrain the urge to cross my arms.
That gesture must have snapped him out of it, because he blinked and lurched backward. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just . . . I was expecting something different.”
Something different. Which meant he must be new. Otherwise he’d have known what to expect.
My stomach sank. That meant he probably wouldn’t have much useful information for me, even if I could pry anything out of him. I glanced up at the spectator window and shivered. Still, he’d be more likely to talk anywhere but here. “You said something about repairs?” I prodded.
He blinked, making me notice how his dark lashes were tipped in gold. “Repairs, right. This way, please.”
I studied him as he led me with that offbeat gait to the door. He was tall—six foot, one inch—and lanky thin, not built at all like the firmly muscled soldiers I’d seen. Or even Hunter, for that matter. But he’d surprised me with the casual strength in his handshake. I wondered if that lean frame of his was equally deceptive.
Lucas took me down a different hallway from the one I’d arrived in, leading me deeper into the building’s interior. Quiet and dim, with no one else around but us.
GPS, I commanded. I felt a spark in my head, then . . . nothing.
Must be jammed down here, just like in the car.
After we passed five doors on the right, each one as unmarked and plain silver as the next, he finally veered toward the sixth one.
Another sliding steel door, like the one that led into the first testing room, only bigger—thirteen feet across by nine feet high. Under a large keypad built into the white door- frame on the right side sat a tall, thin silver table. The only items on it were two metal cylinders.
As I watched, Lucas reached into the cylinder on the right and withdrew a Q-tip. Then he opened his mouth and swabbed the inside of his cheek before pressing a small green button at the bottom of the keypad. A narrow tray shot out below it, the top of it covered with a shiny plastic material. He wiped the Q-tip on the plastic, then pressed the button again, and the tray slid back into the wall.
A red light on the keypad blinked to life. “Identity confirmation or denial will occur in ten seconds.”
He tossed the Q-tip into the left cylinder as the countdown commenced.
At the end of ten seconds, the red light turned green. “DNA scan verified: Lucas Webb. Please enter your pass code.”
He typed in his twelve-digit code, which I memorized, my uneasiness growing. All that extra security, in what was already a secret government facility? It didn’t bode well for whatever was on the other side of that door.
The door hitched at first before finally sliding open with a beep.
He frowned down at the track. “When are they going to fix the moisture level in here? It’s going to start damaging the equipment soon. The computers . . . ,” he muttered, breaking off as if talking to himself.
Huh. This guy had fewer social graces than I did. Which made me bold enough to ask, “What’s wrong with your leg?”
He shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by my question. “I was born with a clubfoot. After five surgeries, this is as good as it gets.” Not even a trace of bitterness in his voice.
Despite myself, I felt a flicker of admiration at his easy acceptance.
I was expecting a room full of clutter, but when I walked in, the first thing I noticed was how spotless everything was. Four industrial-grade refrigerators lined the left wall; two of them had WARNING: BIOHAZARDOUS MATERIAL INSIDE. To our right was a large desk with a computer monitor on top of it. In the middle of the room were two huge reclining chairs, one that appeared to feature the long, skinny tube of a sophisticated laser on top, the other next to a table holding an enormous toolbox.
But the room’s dominating feature was the odd device in the far back corner. It was a large, clear tube—big enough for a human—that stood upright on the floor. The clear surface had a grid of tiny lines covering its entirety, some of which flashed at random moments. The whole thing was attached to a humming machine with a display of computer monitors hanging in midair ab
ove it.
Lucas halted in front of one of the elevated gray vinyl-and-metal chairs—sort of like one I’d seen in an ad for a dentist’s office. A computer monitor hung suspended above it. Luca made an awkward waving motion at it with his hand. “Please take a seat.”
I eyed the chair warily from behind his tall frame. Wires ran underneath the bottom and plugged into a black box on the floor. A computer, I realized. Above where my head would reach, two rectangular compartments protruded on both sides.
“Can’t I sit in that one?” I said, pointing to an innocuous-looking rolling stool to the left of the chair.
His lips twitched. “No, that’s where I sit.”
I sighed. “How about I stand?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t suggest it. Not unless you want Holland to send some men in to strap you down.”
That sent me scurrying forward. “Pass,” I said. Trying not to panic as I remembered Mila One, chained to a chair during the so-called torture tests. Thrashing against her restraints while a man took a drill to her chest. That could easily be me, and even though I didn’t have the same pain reception as Mila One, the idea of a bit driving through my skin, of a bullet slamming into my skull, filled me with horror all the same.
I hopped up onto the high seat, which put my face level with Lucas’s, and took the opportunity to study him. Overall, his appearance would probably rate as rather unremarkable to the girls back in Clearwater—no super-defined cheekbones, no purposely mussed hair, no perfectly symmetrical features that bordered on the feminine. Just a slightly crooked nose and pale skin that didn’t look like it tanned easily. Nothing that stood out as unappealing, but nothing noteworthy, either.
Except his eyes. His eyes fell into an entirely different category. Not only the startling mix of colors, but the way the thick lashes changed from dark brown to gold at the ends.
“Lean back, please.”
I complied, fumbling for a way to ease him into conversation, both to distract me from whatever came next and to hopefully get him to share anything helpful. “You seem young to be working here,” I finally said, truthfully.
