MILA 2.0

by Debra Driza

  Flesh. Rotting flesh.

  I shook my head, as if that could banish the terrifying thoughts of what might be lurking ahead.

  Don’t think. Just move.

  I rounded a corner, and what little light penetrated the narrow hole vanished. The air inside was chilly, the metal slightly damp under my hands. In here, it was like I was sealed away from the rest of the world. Just the dark and the sound of my own breathing and the rhythmic strike of my hands and knees. But I knew somehow, somewhere, Holland was watching, just waiting for me to falter.

  I turned another corner, and it was like the floor fell out from under me. I was sliding, sliding, my hands scrabbling for something to slow me down, but the walls were too slick. I landed with a thud.

  As if pressure-sensitive, a tiny, dim light flickered on in the middle of the tube. The space narrowed ahead, so much so that I could no longer crawl on my hands and knees. Without pausing, I plopped my forearms down, gritted my teeth, and moved as quickly as possible.

  The stench grew stronger.

  Ahead, the tunnel curved sharply to the left. I rounded the turn, hoping the end would appear. Instead, I saw feet. Bare feet, attached to a body—a body that reeked of death. I wasted precious seconds staring at those soles, the same size as mine, and breathed through my mouth to lessen the stench.

  Had Holland planted a dead person as part of the challenge?

  Don’t think about it. Just go.

  My head swam with borrowed dizziness as I pushed forward. I reached the body’s feet, realizing with dawning horror that the tunnel was so narrow here, there was no way to pass without touching it. My chest dragged across the unmoving legs, the T-shirted torso. She was a girl, with a tangle of long brown hair. And then I reached her face, and my entire body went rigid.

  This girl was my age, my height, my complexion. And her eyes, which were wide open, were startling green.

  Three. Had she gotten ahead of me somehow to trap me? But wait—that was impossible. Then my gaze fell to the side of her head, where a wicked incision traveled the entire length of her hairline. That, and a bullet hole.

  Oh my god. Not Three. One. Only not the version from my shattered memory. That girl had been vibrant, alive, whereas this girl . . . she was an empty shell. Vacant. And in her terminated state, so obviously not human.

  A buzzing filled my ears, so loud at first I thought it was emitting from a speaker. But no, it was coming from inside my head—a phantom emotional reaction. I choked back the scream barreling up my throat at the last second.

  Regret, sadness, and anger: they swelled into a bitter symphony in my chest as I left my predecessor behind like a discarded toy. I hurried past the slaughtered rat a few feet later—the source of the stench. Another one of Holland’s tricks.

  The tunnel curved again, and finally a circle of light showed.

  When I neared the exit, the lights vanished, but I couldn’t let that slow me down. I surged forward and plunged into empty space, but I didn’t land on the dirt floor.

  No, I landed in a pile of lumpy, loose parts—firm and awkward, but not too hard. And as the lights flickered back on, I knew.

  Body parts, everywhere I looked—android, not human. Holland’s pile of junk.

  For a second, disbelief held me in place, sprawled belly down on top. Then I pushed to my feet and jumped, wobbling on the uneven surface. I barely cleared a haphazard cluster of arms.

  If only I could vomit. Maybe then this sickening twisting of my stomach, this unrelenting nausea that made my mouth fill with unnecessary saliva, would finally cease.

  But I couldn’t vomit. I couldn’t run. The simulator was here, somewhere—buried in a sea of discarded limbs. Limbs just like mine.

  “Three minutes remaining.”

  The computerized reminder jolted me into action. I leaned over, grabbed an arm. Forced myself to glance inside. Hollow, except for a few left-over wires. I shuddered at the shell and tossed it aside, grabbing an abandoned lower leg next. The skin felt artificial, desiccated, as if separating the leg from the rest of the body had dried up any residual traces of humanity.

  I dropped it and grabbed a torso. A thin incision split the body into two halves, and with grim determination I separated then, scanning the contents as fast as possible. Wires, and metal plates, plastic. But the thing that captured my attention was the small, fist-sized object. Not the simulator, but a pump. Black, smooth. Mechanical. A fake heart for a fake person. And nothing at all inside that resembled a soul.

  I drew in a harsh breath. I might not have a soul, but if they existed, then Mom surely did.

  Fueled by renewed determination, I became a parts-screening machine. Beyond the pile, I heard a whisper of a noise, then banging. The other tunnel. Three.

  I had to find that simulator, fast.

  The sea of parts grew shallower and shallower as I discarded hands, feet, arms, and legs, even as the banging grew louder. Despair clenched me in an unyielding grip. I wasn’t going to find it in time. Three would get here, and then—

  I moved yet another useless limb and saw it—a small, round, red device, about the circumference of the coffee mug Mom used to guzzle from each morning. A picture of a dynamite stick was etched into the top.

  Above me, I heard Three reach the end of the tunnel. My fingers curled around the sphere at the same instant Three hit the ground, sending parts smashing into my legs when she landed. I gripped the simulator protectively, Holland’s warning all too clear.

  If I dropped it, I lost everything.

  I whirled and pushed forward onto my right foot, ready to sprint my way to the finish.

  A viselike grip on my arm yanked me back.

  Thirty-Two

  I lurched backward, my thoughts pounding a frantic beat through my head. No time for a scuffle with Three. Maybe I could reason with her.

  “Please—I have to save my mom.”

  I whirled to face her while my pulse thundered. Running. Out. Of. Time.

  She tilted her head to the left in that puppylike way of hers. “You don’t have a mom.”

  Something pained must have flashed across my face, because a small frown creased her brow. “It’s not that I’m unsympathetic—they programmed me for that. But I’m required to obey orders.”

  “Orders? Don’t you want to do more than that? Be more than an android?” As I said the words, I gave a surprise jerk of my arm. Nothing doing. She wouldn’t let go.

  How much time was left now? Two minutes? One?

  “That’s the difference between us. I’m content with what I am, and you’re . . . not. It’s a shame. There’s nothing wrong with being an android.”

  I tightened my hand on the device, a desperate, insane plan beginning to form. “Unless at one time you thought you were human.” As she mulled that over, I relaxed my arm. “You want the simulator? Then here, catch.” In the next instant, I chucked the round device straight up over our heads, as high as I could.

  I caught the brief widening of Three’s eyes—shock that I’d do such an illogical thing—before she looked up. She didn’t see my fist coming for her face until it was too late.

  I put everything I had into that punch. My knuckles cracked across her familiar nose, and then she was flying back, airbound, toward the far wall.

  The explosive!

  I dived low and caught it, mere inches from the ground. And then I was on my feet and running. I knew I’d have only a short lead on Three, but it’d have to be enough.

  At the end of the tunnel, I saw a circle of light, and beyond that, the glorious sight of a red stripe—the finish line.

  “One minute remaining.”

  Three’s footsteps pounded somewhere behind me, but I was almost there. I was going to win, and then they’d free Mom and—

  Wait a minute. Why was this stretch of obstacle course completely clear?

  The thought hit a millisecond too late. My foot struck the ground, and the resulting explosion blasted my ears. At the same time, a pe
rfect circle dropped out from under me and I was falling. I hit the ground with a thud, just in time to hear:

  “Land mine triggered. Minus ten points.”

  At least I hadn’t dropped the simulator. I braced my hands and feet on opposite sides of the narrow hole and climbed my way out. From behind, Three was barreling down on me. I glanced the other way, toward the finish. Only one chance to do this right. If I fell again . . .

  Tucking the device to my chest like a football, I sprinted forward, propelling my legs as fast as possible. I had to build up speed, as quickly as possible, so that—

  Another explosion cracked: the ground rumbled. Desperately, I ran harder, felt my left foot try to push off a dirt floor that was no longer there. But my right foot landed on solid ground, so I kept on going. I ran straight for the horseshoe of light that marked the tunnel’s end.

  “Land mine triggered. Minus ten points.”

  A few feet from the opening, I hit one last land mine. The simulator slipped in my hand. For a terrifying moment, I juggled the simulator while I lurched forward.

  Don’t let go.

  My fingers reached, curling around the slick surface before it fell. I craned my head over my shoulder, saw Three saving time by leaping the exposed holes I’d left behind. Cheater. But she wouldn’t catch me. I was going to win.

  “Ten seconds remaining.”

  Keep running. Just a few more steps.

  I burst through the tunnel and into the light.

  “Six seconds.”

  And then I looked to the left, and my remaining hope fell into a bottomless chasm. Somehow, the obstacle course had horseshoed and brought us out on the far side of the glass room. And there was Mom. A hungry trail of fire, taller than me, was now only a foot away, inching toward her and slowly picking up speed.

  No! I looked at the finish line, some thirty yards ahead.

  “Three seconds.”

  I wasn’t going to make it.

  I wanted to break down, right then and there. This entire test for nothing.

  Mom.

  With a howl I barely recognized as my own, I veered left, then dived. As my outstretched hands smacked the glass, the wall shuddered, then shattered, the sharp fragments scraping at my skin and yanking at my clothes. I hit the floor, rolled, and lunged to my feet, all in one fluid motion.

  The flames were only inches away from Mom’s feet when I reached her. With two vicious yanks, I freed her from the tape.

  “Mila, no!” Mom coughed, half deliriously, while the fire’s heat seared us from behind.

  I picked Mom up, backed away from the flames, throwing a desperate glance over my shoulder. Was there a door back there? I could tolerate the broken glass, but Mom . . .

  She moaned again, and to my surprise, tears slipped from under her eyelids.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I’ve got you.”

  Her eyes opened, but their blue irises looked glazed. “You always were so brave, Sarah. So brave,” she murmured.

  Sarah?

  “Look,” she said, pointing behind me—just before she passed out.

  I felt the heat dissipate before I ever turned. The flames were gone. Vanished completely, without a trace, though the faint smell of smoke lingered. Just behind where the fire had raged, six soldiers waited—Haynes, the blond, two from the hallway earlier, and one I’d never seen, along with Lucas. Holland wasn’t with them, and for that I was thankful.

  Trusting Lucas’s softly spoken promise that they would take Mom to the infirmary, I handed her over to the soldiers. I didn’t know why she’d passed out, but if it was smoke inhalation, it could be bad.

  My muscles tensed, readied. At this point, I had nothing to lose.

  “Dr. Laurent will be fine. I promise you,” Lucas said.

  Maybe she’d be fine from this, but for how long? My last chance, my last test . . . and once again, I’d failed.

  If Mom died—if I died—it was all my fault.

  The urge to run after Mom, to tear apart anyone who stood in my way, was almost irresistible.

  Maybe I shouldn’t resist.

  “If you fight, it will go badly for her. For both of you. The second you attack, the men with Dr. Laurent will be alerted. They have orders to eliminate her if you resist.” The harshness in Lucas’s voice left me no doubt that he was serious.

  Hot fury erupted inside me. Eliminate? How could he so callously dismiss Mom’s life? In that instant, every bit of past kindness he’d shown me was swept away. I wanted to lash out, hurt him. But I couldn’t move. I was too terrified that if I took even a step in the wrong direction, Mom would die.

  The inescapable logic in my head materialized. She might die anyway.

  Overhead, the lights glared down on us, casting everything in a harsh glow. The unnatural brightness gave Lucas’s skin an unhealthy pallor. “Look, come with me. Before General Holland comes back to fetch you personally.”

  The remaining soldiers held their ground. Their guns remained poised for action.

  I lifted my arms, palms up. “You’d better be telling the truth about Mom being okay.”

  When the soldiers stepped forward, Lucas surprised me by shaking his head. “No, I don’t need her restrained. You two are dismissed.”

  The two men exchanged a glance. The shorter one shrugged. They turned and preceded us into the street, the door swinging shut behind them.

  Lucas motioned me to follow him. As I watched his back, one word kept slithering through my head.

  Eliminate. Eliminate.

  Eliminate.

  Thirty-Three

  Lucas’s lopsided gait was more noticeable than usual in the empty hallway; his left foot struck harder than before, with a slight scrape of shoe on concrete. I focused on that detail in an effort to regain control.

  The elevator ride was silent, as was our exit into the hall.

  A sudden thought snaked into my brain as I took in the stiff set of his shoulders, the hand-raked hair that stubbornly refused to lie flat. What if he wasn’t talking because he was distancing himself? I mean, it wasn’t like he needed to stretch that MIT brain far to realize I’d failed. So maybe he was just preparing himself for when I was gone.

  Gone. A harsh laugh pulsed up my throat. I guess I’d resorted to euphemisms. By “gone,” I meant “reprogrammed,” or even worse, “terminated.”

  Either way, with the flip of a few switches, the me I knew now would disappear forever.

  If they reprogrammed me, would I still remember Mom afterward? No, she’d mean nothing. Just another face in a sea of them. I wrapped my arms around my waist and shivered. Worse—she’d be punished for my failure; Holland had said as much. Stealing from the U.S. military—she’d be jailed for life. If only I’d aced all the tests . . . I’d been so close, so close to saving her. . . .

  I stopped, stared at the ground, tried to calm myself even though I wondered why. It was over. Hiding my emotions now would do nothing to save us.

  In a rising panic, I lurched closer to Lucas and grabbed the front of his shirt. His heart beat strongly beneath the fabric, as if testifying to his humanity, his inner decency.

  But I knew all too well how that steady rhythm could lie.

  “I know that last test was like signing my death war-rant . . . although I guess you can’t really kill what was never alive, right?”

  A sound suspiciously like a sob escaped my mouth. And then my throat constricted. No matter what they said, I was alive. I had to be. At least in part. Because the one clear thought screaming through me right now was: I don’t want to die.

  I didn’t want to die. Not when I’d barely had a chance to live.

  I clenched my fists, waited for the feeling that clutched at my chest to ease a little, until I could talk without completely losing it. “Look, I know there’s nothing you can do for me,” I finally said, “but can you please try to keep my mom safe? If I’m gone, she won’t cause you any more grief. There won’t be any reason to.”

  Lucas stared int
o my eyes so directly, so intensely, it was like he was seeing beyond them, searching for something deep inside. Like he could see past my exterior to what lay underneath. I wanted to tell him that if he found anything unexpected, he should let me know. Because despite the undeniable knowledge that I wasn’t human—or mostly human, anyway—despite the proof the computer screen had shown in the repair room, I still pictured my interior just the same as any other sixteen-year-old girl’s. Blood and guts and bones. A brain, and a functioning heart. Hopes and dreams, fears and sorrow. They could tell me the truth, but they couldn’t force me to accept it.

  Lucas lifted his hand, let his fingers hover in midair before shoving them into his pocket. “I need to take you to your holding cell so I can get to my computer,” he said, staring blankly at a point just over my head. “General Holland will be expecting a report soon.”

  I nodded numbly.

  “You . . . you’ll have to let go of my shirt first.”

  An awkward moment hit when I realized that I still clutched his shirt like it was a life raft. With a mumbled “Sorry,” I hastily released the starchy fabric and stepped back, and saw the nasty brown streaks I’d left all over it. I’d forgotten. Somehow in all the chaos I’d forgotten that I was covered in mud.

  “Your shirt,” I said, inadequately.

  He looked down like he hadn’t noticed either. “It’ll wash,” he murmured.

  Lucas led me down two corridors, the second full of doorways. My feet slowed, my attention captured by that first steel rectangle. Could Mom be on the other side of that door? Or the next one? Or the one after that?

  “She’s not here,” Lucas said softly, slowing his pace to match mine. “The infirmary’s in a different part of the building.”

  My gaze slid from the door in defeat. He could be lying, but somehow I didn’t doubt him.

  We passed five more identical doors on the right before he halted to push a narrow door open.

  “Shower,” he said. “Take your time.”

  I emerged about fifteen minutes of harsh scrubbing later, finally clean and wearing my old clothes again, which had been neatly piled on a tiny stool in the corner.