Program 13 (The Emile Reed Chronicles)

by Nicole Sobon

  Tommy was still struggling to get up; his hard drive had loosened and was hanging. His program was not functionally properly, something I could use to my advantage. I watched as the others locked their gazes on Colton.

  “Think again,” I walked up behind one of them and threw him into the wall.

  “Why do you want to protect him so much? He’s useless!” The man was smiling, his gun pointed at my right temple.

  “Have you not learned?” I lifted his hand, the glock still in his grasp. Placing it against his shoulder, I pulled the trigger. “Bullets don’t hurt me.”

  The man was screaming in pain. He dropped the gun and moved his hand up to his shoulder, examining the blood that was flowing freely down his shirt. “What did you do to me?” Tears were streaming down his face. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  “You came after me.” I looked at Colton and noticed the other two men were inching closer towards him. “I got this, Emile. Don’t worry about it. Go take care of Tommy.”

  Listen to him, I told myself. He was capable of fighting. He wanted to fight. When I heard the gun fire and saw one of the men fall to the ground, I knew he could do it.

  “Okay,” I whispered, almost inaudible.

  Tommy was crawling on the ground, trying to reach his weapon. He was going to try and shot Colton, and I just couldn’t let that happen. I walked over to where his gun was and kicked it behind me before kneeling down and lifting Tommy by the neck.

  “Mister McVeigh wants you. I will destroy you,” he said, struggling to get free.

  “Well, it looks like both you and McVeigh are going to lose this time.” I reached around his back and yanked the hard drive from its slot, causing his body to fall limp to the ground. He looked so innocent and happy. He almost looked like my Tommy – the Tommy I once loved.

  “Emile,” Colton called me. There was another gunshot, bringing the last man to his knees. “Maybe I should take care of that. You can take care of them?”

  “No, I think I need to do this one.” I smiled. “But thanks, Colton.” I knew he meant well, but I needed to see Tommy like this. I needed to see him for what he was turned into because I needed to let myself know that Tommy’s death wasn’t my fault. This body that lay before me? It wasn’t Tommy. It was an extension of Charles McVeigh. My Tommy was murdered by McVeigh and turned into a shell, a host. My Tommy was long gone.

  I sat down beside his lifeless body, the shell that hosted McVeigh’s vision. Colton kept a close eye on me as he dragged the other bodies into a backroom. McVeigh had bigger plans for me, plans that involved both Thirteen and myself, but what were they? What could he possibly want with us both?

  As I looked over his men, the idea frightened me a bit. He had used them as bait, he treated them like trash, yet he valued them. What the hell did he have in store for me, then? Why was I considered to be so remarkable?

  There was the sound of a phone ringing, a cell phone. It was coming from the backroom where Colton had disposed of the men. “I’ll get it.” I struggled to get to my feet, my balance was starting to falter, I was in need of my Pod, of a charge. “Do you think you could set up the NetBooks?” I asked Colton as I walked to the backroom.

  The cell phone was inside one of the guys’ cell phone pockets. Unlisted. My guess was McVeigh. I hit accept call, not bothering to say a word. “Ah, Emile,” he said with joy in his voice, as if he was happy to see I’d defeated his men. “I see you survived, again.”

  “What do you want, Charles?” I was becoming frustrated.

  “You know what I want, dear. I want you.” He was laughing now. “Why don’t you just come back to Vesta Corp? We can end all of this now. What do you say?”

  “Except we all know it isn’t that easy, now is it?” I replied bitterly.

  “You do say.” He was trying to act surprised. “And why is that?”

  “Whether I come back or not, it won’t change anything.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” And then the other end went silent. He was gone.

  He was up to something, something bigger than we could imagine.

  My body was starting to feel weak, the power slowly draining from within. I needed to hook up to the NetBook, but I didn’t have enough strength to make it back into the living room. “Colton,” I whispered knowing it was useless. There was no way he’d hear me.

  I could feel myself falling, my body slamming against a concrete floor. Standing above me were Charles McVeigh and Douglas Todd. They were discussing their father’s will after his death. He’d left them the company, but nothing else. Something McVeigh wasn’t thrilled about.

  “How dare that bastard?” He threw a metal can against the wall, the lid breaking off. Ashes fell to the ground - the urn containing his father’s remains. “He left us a dying company, that’s it?”

  Todd stood by quietly, watching as McVeigh started to break.

  “He’ll pay for this. They’ll all pay for this.”

  33 HOSTAGES

  When Colton returned to the room with Nadine’s body dragging behind him, he seemed surprised to find me lying on the floor. “It was as though someone had shut your program down,” he explained. “How are we supposed to run if your system can’t last nearly as long as it needs to?"

  I moved onto the bed, listening to every word he spoke, unable to respond. But he was right, I was slowing us down. I was becoming a handicap for him. Those might not have been his words, but it was the truth. Colton didn’t need to be plugged into a machine daily, I did. Why should he be responsible for me when it was my fault he was in this mess to begin with? Why did I have to drag him into this?

  “I’m sorry.” He took a seat beside me on the bed and held his face in his hands. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, how am I supposed to keep us safe? I’m not as strong as you, Emile. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  I wanted to scream at him, don’t let McVeigh break you. But the words wouldn’t find their way out. Colton was strong, much stronger than any human I’d ever known – even Hayden. I couldn’t stand to see him give up now, not when we had come this far.

  His voice faded until it became inaudible.

  I wanted to wake up, knowing very well that I couldn’t, because I knew what would happen next. The images began to fill my mind, but they weren’t of me. This time they were of Colton. It was the night I’d almost hit him with my car, the night he had stood there in the middle of the street waiting for an oncoming car to strike him. But this wasn’t my car. It was a black sedan with tinted windows, ones too dark for any person to see through.

  It was Charles McVeigh and Douglas Todd.

  The car sped up as Colton came into view. They were going to give him what he wanted: death. I tried to run in front, hoping to knock him out of the way, but I was unable to move. No matter how much I tried, pulling every inch of energy from the inside of my body, I couldn’t find enough strength to fight back. I was forced to watch as they killed him and stuffed his lifeless body into the trunk of their car.

  “What’s so special about this one?” Todd asked his brother. “Why would you want this child?” He sounded disgusted, turning to light a cigarette.

  “He wanted to die, and I needed another teenage Program. Why wouldn’t I pick this one? It worked out for the both of us.” He smirked, adjusting his tie before slamming the trunk shut.

  Even if I didn’t save Colton that day, he still would have become a part of this. They’d been watching him long before I found him. There was nothing I could’ve done to protect him. He was never safe.

  There was the sound of a cell phone ringing. The noise flooded through the house from the living room. “I’ll be right back.” Colton ran to locate the phone. It was one of the phones that Hayden had left with us, but it wasn’t Hayden calling. An Unknown caller. No, not again.

  “Hello?” he asked, talking as he walked down the hall and back to the room. I could hear Colton gasp as he realized who it was. “What the hell
do you want?” His voice swelled with anger. “Well, too bad, you’re not getting her.” He threw the phone against a wall with such force he shattered into pieces.

  McVeigh had called us on one of the cells Hayden left for us. The cell phones that only Hayden knew about. The cell phones that only Hayden had the numbers to. When the realization hit me, I wanted to scream: He had Hayden. Somehow I managed to pull myself out of standby mode, even with the wires still connected. I’d mustered up enough rage to fight against my body’s computer.

  “Emile?” Colton ran over to me and started to disconnect the wires. “How the hell?”

  I looked him in the eye, my hands grabbing his wrists. “He has Hayden.”

  But there was no shock, McVeigh had told him already. “I know.” He fell to the bed and covered his face with his hands. “He has them all,” he mumbled, as if he was trying to avoid telling me the truth.

  He has them all. Them. Who? No. No. He couldn’t have. He’d taken my entire family!

  “What am I supposed to do?” Everything around me was beginning to crumble. It was as if everything that I touched was breaking into a million little pieces, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My family was trying to protect me and look where that got them. If only Hayden had left me as Thirteen. “I have to go back,” I whispered.

  Colton shot up and looked at me like I was nuts.

  “We can’t go back there, Emile.”

  “I didn’t say we.” I looked at Colton and lowered my head. “I meant me.”

  “You’ve lost it!” He was screaming now. “There is no way I’m going to let you waltz into Vesta Corp alone. What good could possibly come of that?”

  The truth was that I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I had to try. If there was a chance that I could stop this, I needed to at least put forth some sort of effort. I couldn’t stand by and watch as everyone around me crumbled. “How am I any better than McVeigh if I don’t try to do something, Colton?”

  “Did you honestly just compare yourself to that monster?” He was upset with me, and he had every reason to be. But at the same time, I wished that he would at least try to see things my way.

  “McVeigh is killing innocent people for no real reason. How am I any different than him, Colton? My friends and family are dying because I won’t turn myself in. There’s no reason I should be alive. I’m dead. I died, remember? People are not supposed to have a second chance at life, especially not like this.”

  He was shaking his head. Tears were beginning to fill his eyes.

  “I can’t let you go on a suicide mission, Emile. Not alone.” Colton shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at me. “I’m going with you. I need to go with you.”

  There was no use in arguing. Neither of us was going to give up anytime soon. I decided to head back into the living room to grab the other NetBook. I needed to see their files on my family. I needed to make sure they were still alive. Please be alive, I thought.

  Once the system was up and running I was surprised to find a message pop up on the screen. New mission, it read. But it wasn’t a new mission. It was a message to me stating that they would find me.

  I have your family, Emile. If you want to see them again, you’ll come back home.

  See you soon,

  Charles McVeigh

  Home. Vesta Corp wasn’t home. It was hell. It was the root of all evil, the reason for all of my problems. There was no safety at Vesta Corp. I would no longer exist upon my return. I’d be giving him everything he wanted, while giving up everything I was.

  “There has to be a reason he wants you back, Emile.” Colton came creeping out of the hallway. “You may be an important Program, but I don’t think it’s because you were their first teen conversion. There’s something bigger at play here. There’s something you have that he needs.”

  “I know.” But what was it? There was nothing remarkable about me.

  Thirteen was starting to force herself back in. I could hear her voice echoing in my mind. He wants me. You have to let me go. I was trying my best to push her out, but she was overpowering me. No matter how hard I tried, she pushed back harder.

  “Emile!” Colton was pulling on my wrists. “You have to fight back. You can beat her. You’re much stronger.” And I was. It took everything in me, but I managed to keep Thirteen from taking control of my body. I could feel myself falling, but Colton managed to catch me before I hit the floor, propping my body up against the wall.

  “She kept repeating ‘he wants me’ but why?” I was struggling to speak.

  “That’s what we need to find out. I’m going to go set up the NetBook for you and then I’m going to go through Program Thirteen’s files. Just stay here, okay?”

  I nodded, lowering my head to the floor. He picked up the NetBook and brought it to the back bedroom to set it up near the bed.

  My family was being held hostage, Thirteen was trying to reclaim my body, and yet here I was laying on the floor – useless. How the hell was I supposed to help them now when I couldn’t even help myself?

  “Come on.” Colton stood over me with his hands pulling on my wrists. He lifted me gently and then helped me walk to the back bedroom where he set me down on the bed. “I think we need to keep you on here for a while. You haven’t been completing your daily sessions.” He was fiddling with the wires. “If anything happens, I’ll wake you of course. Otherwise, I’ll see you in eight hours.” And there was a click as my hard drive snapped into place.

  He walked to the living room to fetch the other NetBook, I assumed. McVeigh knew we had access to Vesta Corp’s system, but he hadn’t bothered to block it. Why was that? There was something he wanted us to find, something we hadn’t yet thought of. It was the missing piece of this puzzle, the meaning behind everything. It was staring us in the face; we just didn’t realize what it was yet.

  When he walked back into the room, Colton plopped onto the bed beside me, the NetBook sitting in his lap. “Is it just me or is it a bit strange that every file except for Thirteen’s is displayed?” He looked over at me and laughed. “Her file has to be a hidden file.”

  I watched as Colton navigated his way through Vesta Corp’s system. “Bingo!” he said cheerfully, but that happiness was quickly replaced. “I think we have something here, Emile.” The color began to drain from his face, and I could hear him struggling to swallow. His eyes never left the screen, afraid to meet the curiosity in mine. “I’m reading Thirteen’s file and according to their report, you didn’t die when you were run over. You died in the operating room.”

  Colton turned to stare at me and cleared his throat. “That’s not it, though. When they installed Thirteen on your core, they were unable to completely erase you from her system. Your body died, but you never actually died. That’s why she’s so important to McVeigh. Thirteen embraced her human counterpart and she wasn’t supposed to. The two of you had already begun to merge before Hayden brought you back. He wants to destroy the both of you.”

  A mistake. The Program that he was supposed to hold near and dear to him was a mistake, and he needed to get rid of her before she caused any more trouble. But he couldn’t just get rid of her. He needed to get rid of me, too. I was a part of the mistake. I needed to protect her just as much as I needed to protect my family.

  34 FAMILY

  Colton spent the night hovering over the NetBook, trying to find out whatever he could concerning Thirteen and my family. I knew that he wanted to check on his parents, but I knew that if he did, it would kill him. He was still reeling over the fact that they weren’t dead. They were still out there, lost underneath a computer program. Accepting me was one thing. Accepting his parents, that was more difficult. He’d have to let go of the past, the memories he had left of them, and I didn’t think he was quite ready for that. And I couldn’t blame him.

  When he looked out the window and saw that the sun was starting to rise, Colton ran around the other side of the bed and started to disconnect the wires plug
ged into my hard drive.

  “Rise and shine.” He smiled, extending me his left hand.

  “Someone’s cheerful,” I mumbled. This was not a time to be smiling. Not when everything was falling apart.

  “I wish. I’m just trying to lighten the mood. Things can’t get much worse at this point, but I want to be there for you. I know what it’s like to lose everything you care about.” He turned to look down the hallway, avoiding eye contact. “I’m going to go raid her kitchen. If you need anything, let me know.” He shot me a sly smile and walked out of the room without saying another word.

  It was wrong of me to want to leave Colton behind. I knew bringing him with me to Vesta Corp would be dangerous, but I had to remember that he had lost his parents to McVeigh. He knew what it felt like to be helpless. The pain that came with losing those you cared about. He wanted to help me because he didn’t want to see me like that.

  I understood now.

  “Colton,” I called out. “We’ll need to head out soon. He’s waiting.” Part of me wanted to let the bastard wait, but this wasn’t about him anymore. This was about my family. They needed me now more than ever.

  He came running into the room with a bag of Lay’s potato chips in his hands. “We can leave whenever you want. There’s no reason for us to stay here anymore.” He threw the bag of chips on the floor and wiped his hands on his shirt. “Should I start packing?”

  I nodded and proceeded to head into the living room. Everything was in disarray. Besides the bodies, neither of us had bothered to clean up. What was the point? When the next set of men came, the house would just get destroyed again. And there was always another set of men waiting to attack. I noticed two guns lying on the ground and decided to stuff them into Colton’s backpack. There was no way we could honestly be prepared for what we’d be walking into, but the guns offered some sort of safety. At least Colton would have something to use against McVeigh and his men.