“Thank God I kept Jamie out of those places,” I say fervently.
She nods, but she still looks bleakly unhappy.
“How’s your work going?” I ask.
She shakes her head and closes her laptop. “I still can’t find anything that doesn’t just point right back at me. I can’t tell you how weird and frustrating that is.”
She looks at me, and I wish I knew what to say. But I know so little about any of this.
Then, suddenly, the way she’s looking at me changes, and she lunges toward me, her eyes wide. “You!” she exclaims.
I pull back. “What?”
“Sorry—but your Navi! You‘ve been disconnected from the network since Thursday, when we went to jail. That was… that was before the third wave. You have the original programming in your brain. Don‘t move!” She flips open her laptop and starts typing furiously.
I don’t move. I suddenly have a very valuable brain, and it feels very strange.
After I start to get a cramp in my right foot, I ask if I’m allowed to adjust my position. She barely glances at me. “Yes, of course. Sorry. You can move a little. Just don’t leave the room until I’ve copied down your programming.”
Mila to Slava Knyazev:
Give me until tomorrow.
I ask the Friesens to set us up with two cots down in the basement and to tell my parents that we need to lay low. They bring us down trays for dinner, which I appreciate immensely.
Mila works hard into the early morning hours, her brow permanently furrowed, before I insist on interrupting her. “You can hardly keep your eyes open,” I say. “Listen, your brain will work better if you let it rest for a while.”
“Almost out of time,” she mumbles in protest, but she lets me take the laptop off her knees and close it.
We slip into pajamas and brush our teeth and push the two cots together so that we can at least put our arms around each other. But with Jamie nearby—even if he’s asleep—and with Mila exhausted, we don’t make out this time. She closes her eyes and snuggles up against me with a tired grin.
I gaze at her and stroke her hair. As I do, it amazes me that I’m so privileged as to touch this beautiful woman. Who am I to deserve this? To be worthy of her attention? She’s like a goddess. I’d be lucky to be her handmaiden, let alone her lover.
I take in her beauty for a long while, savoring each detail from the way her long eyelashes curve to the pale freckles barely visible on her cheeks. I’m captivated. And when her eyes suddenly open and she whispers, “I don’t want to lose you,” my heart skips a beat.
I smile at her—a huge, stupid smile. And then I say, “Then don’t. Solve this thing.” My voice turns wry. “After all, what are the odds that they’ll let us share a cell in federal prison?”
She grins slightly. Then her face grows serious again. “I will. I am. That’s for sure. But… I mean, I don’t want to lose you like this. Like we are right now.” She seems to hunt for the right words. “You’re present. You’re here with me, not off in”—she grimaces—“Naviland. I don’t want you to go back.” It sounds like a plea.
I gaze into her ice-blue eyes and I don’t want to refuse her anything, ever.
I speak cautiously, as if she might be a wild animal I could enrage by accident. “I noticed when we were on the run that since I didn’t have a Navi, it was like I didn’t even exist. It must be hard for you, not to be… seen. I would think that, when everyone else got Navis when we were teenagers, it must have felt like you were being left behind.”
Her eyes well with tears, and when she speaks, her tone is harsh and bitter. “I was left behind.” She blinks back the tears. “But here… with you… it’s like I exist again. Like I’ve… become visible again.”
“Mila made visible,” I say thoughtfully. “I like that.” I slide my top leg over hers, craving that extra bit of closeness. “Okay. But… I can’t promise not to have my Navi turned back on at all… I need it, you know?”
She looks unhappy. “You really want it back, given everything we know now?”
I sigh. “Not right now, not immediately. The thought terrifies me, actually. But…”
“Human nature being what it is,” Mila supplies, “once the immediate danger has passed, people will want them back.”
I nod. “Nothing like Eve has ever happened before, and people will implement safeguards against it happening again. The response will be better and faster next time. And let’s face it—Navis are unbelievably useful.”
Mila shrugs sleepily. “The only time in history that humans have ever stopped using a new technology because it was too dangerous was after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Otherwise, we adopt¬ it and forge ahead. Every time. No matter the cost. It’s how we operate. Like manual-drive cars. I only feel safe driving mine because I’m almost the only one on the road. But people drove their own vehicles for decades, and millions of people died—more than from any plague or war in history. And yet we didn’t stop.”
She looks unhappy, and I nod, thinking about everything she’s said. She’s not wrong. “Mila, I’ll never ignore you for my Navi when we’re together, okay? I promise. I’ll turn it off entirely when you want my attention.”
She looks thoughtful, and I worry.
“Is that enough?” I ask hesitantly. I’m trying to imagine life without a Navi compared to life without Mila, and if I have to—have to—I think…
She smiles and kisses me. An errant curl of blonde hair falls in front of her eyes, and I sweep it back for her.
“That’s enough,” she says.
I let out a breath in relief. I was about willing to do it, but I’m so glad I don’t have to.
“You might have to remind me sometimes,” I admit. “Early on, especially. Until I get used to it.”
“It’s a deal,” she says.
She strokes the back of my shoulder down to the curve of my waist and hip and then back up, her eyes closed again. I close my eyes, too, lost in the sensation, savoring it. I listen to the sound of our breath and of Mila’s fingertips along the cotton sheet.
“Do you wish I could have a Navi?” she asks. “Do you wish you could talk to me inside your head like you do with everyone else?”
I furrow my brow while she continues to slowly stroke my side.
“I don’t know,” I say at last. “I can see pros and cons. I guess I would have the same fear you do, of losing you to Naviland. But being more-or-less telepathic with each other, that’s pretty cool, too. I guess I don’t know.”
She nods, her expression grave, and then grins slightly. “I thought I didn’t even… like people,” she says. “You know, in that way. I guess I just don’t like men.”
I chuckle quietly. “I do like men. So I guess I like both.” I shake my head. “But, honestly, no other woman has ever turned my head like you have. I’ve never even thought about… this… with any other girl.”
“Really?” She looks pleased.
“Really.”
She seems to think on that for a bit. “Does your family approve of same-sex relationships?”
I roll over and look at the ceiling, my smile gone. “No,” I admit. “Not at all. Actually, it’s one of the greatest sins you can commit. I mean, they already think I’m going to hell, but if they knew about this… about us… I don’t think they would even let me visit anymore.”
Mila rolls over, too, looking up at the ceiling.
“I wish I could make them understand,” I say. “That they don’t have to be afraid about my soul. I don’t know what I think about God, but I am sure that he doesn’t care about who we have sex with.” I rub my eyes. “You know, my mother told me once that God hates low necklines. I don’t think God gives a crap about low necklines or anything else like that. If He even exists and if He’s good and if we’re His children, then He ought to want us to be happy.”
“So you don’t believe in hell?” she asks.
I make a restless motion. “No. I don’t think I do. It’s just one
story out of one old book. And it doesn’t make sense. I wish I could make them understand that. It’s like… it’s like they’re little kids who are afraid there’s a monster in the closet because someone told them there was one in there. I wish I could make them understand that there’s no monster there to be afraid of, but I can’t. I can’t help them stop being afraid.”
“Mmm,” Mila says.
“It’s the worst part of my leaving home. They have to be afraid for all of us.”
Mila turns over to face me again. “You know, when Jerry Armstead brought my mom here, he offered to stay and help get her settled in and such. Your parents weren’t friendly toward him. They acted like they couldn’t wait for him to leave. But they didn’t react that way toward me.”
I turn toward her, resettling myself on my pillow. “How do you know all that? Oh, I guess you’ve messaged him on your laptop.”
She nods, and I pick back up the thread of the conversation. “That’s weird, that they treated him that way. Well, not that weird. I mean, I told you they were insular. They seem to like you quite a bit more than they like most people.”
Her eyebrows go up and then back down as she considers this. “He’s black,” she says. “Do you think that could have anything to do with it?”
My heart sinks. “Oh. Yes. It could.” I hate to admit it. “Plain people are not always super accepting of people who aren’t white. They aren’t used to it. It’s not their culture. They descended from white Europeans, and they’ve kept to their own for centuries.”
Mila turns over restlessly. “I was disappointed for him. That he was made to… feel like that.”
“Please convey my apologies when you get a chance,” I say. “My utmost apologies. They’re ignorant people.” I’m mad now.
Mila stretches and seems to consider the ceiling. “I like them, actually,” she says. “Despite everything. I like it here.”
“No Navis,” I comment.
“No Navis. And my mother is happy here—much happier than in the Lovely Pines rest home. Do you…”
She trails off, and I cock my head to prompt her to go on.
“Do you suppose she could stay here? When all this is over”
It’s my turn to raise my eyebrows. I have to think about it for a moment. “Usually, I would say no. But they do like you a lot—a surprising amount, given all the trouble that’s come along with your visit. I think that maybe, when all this is over, you could ask. There’s no harm in asking.”
“I’d pay them, of course,” she says.
I nod.
“It wouldn’t be for the rest of her life,” she goes on. “She’s been stable at this level of senility for some time, but she will deteriorate. Once she becomes too difficult, she’ll have to go back to a nursing facility. But she might get a few happy years here.”
I look over at her to make sure she’s okay, but as usual, her face is inscrutable. I squeeze her hand in sympathy.
As I lay there in the Friesens’ basement, Jamie’s faint snoring a few feet away, I feel like I ought to be overwhelmed, that I should have a hundred things swimming through my mind, but Mila’s presence is so soothing that it clears everything else away.
Soon, we’re both asleep.
Fourteen
We stay down in the basement all the next day, making me restless and sleepy at the same time. Sister Friesen brings us our meals on trays again, even including an afternoon snack.
I continue to nurse Jamie, who’s shown no improvement at all. When he fails to eat more than a few bites of the afternoon snack of apples and crackers, I decide that he’s not eating enough. We can’t keep him here for more than a few more days.
As I’m staring at him in misery, Mila stops her work and performs one of her catlike stretches. I’ve learned that these often precede an announcement, so I turn to her. She has a Cheshire-cat grin.
“Do you have it?” I ask.
“Yes.” She puts down her laptop and comes over to me to kiss me.
I return it eagerly. “Thank God,” I say. “So what’s the story?”
She hops up, goes to her canvas backpack, and takes out two silver thumb drives.
“I’m going to save the files down to these drives so that we each have a copy.”
She puts in the first thumb drive as she talks. “I was able to trace the logs that were stored in your Navi back to the original command-and-control servers and then find who was in control of those IP addresses. We were lucky that you had untouched, original code in your brain. Yours may be the only Navi in the world that still has it.”
“So who’s behind it?” I demand impatiently.
“ENI is involved, as I suspected. So are at least four other large corporations—conglomerates, I should say. Peake International, Big Wave, Kimberley Corp, and AmeriTaste—fast foods, convenience foods, cigarettes, Navi entertainment apps, casinos, toys… A lot of what they used to call vice stocks.”
I try to put two and two together. “Why would vice-stock companies shred people’s brains? What do they have to gain?”
Mila half-shrugs as she hands me the first thumb drive and inserts the second one. “I can only tell you that the command and control servers are at those companies.”
“Could someone have created Eve somewhere else and made it look like it was coming from there?”
She shakes her head and takes out the second thumb drive. “No. It’s definite. I’m following a trail, and the trail stops there.” She gestures at the thumb drive I’m holding. “Put it somewhere you won’t lose it. If I somehow lose mine, our freedom could depend on that.”
I tuck it into my bra.
“As soon as I finish saving this down, I’m going to release the files to the net. Once it’s public knowledge, our attorney can use it in court to exonerate us and get the right people charged.”
“How come we can’t send it directly to Mr. Pataky?”
“I’m no attorney, but from what I could research, the fact that we got this data illegally means they can’t use it in court unless it becomes public knowledge first. Once it’s out there, they can use it.”
“You don’t think we should go straight to the media? Give a journalist our side of things?”
“No time. That can be the next step, but we need to get this out there now. Okay, look, let me show you how we know where Eve started from.” She waves me over to the computer.
She points out various files and folders and then runs commands in a black text box and points out the results, but I don’t fully understand what she’s showing me.
In a window that’s open behind the black text box, among many other folders, a folder titled ‘MBremer’ catches my eye. I point to it. “What’s that?”
She looks at it for only an instant. “I’m not sure,” she says casually. She hesitates an instant too long before saying, “Probably my personnel file. These are ENI files.”
That doesn’t sound right. The other filenames aren’t people’s names.
She starts closing windows. Her voice is pitched high as she says, “So, the next thing we need to do is release the files. I’m trying to decide the best place. I’m thinking that probably we ought to go with Wikileaks…”
She stops and looks at me, because I’m staring at her, my forehead wrinkled. Something is wrong. She’s hiding something from me.
She goes back to her computer, turning her face away. “I’ll publish these files on Wikileaks, I think. That’s the easiest thing to do, and probably…”
I swallow down a sick feeling in my stomach. “Mila. What’s in that folder?”
She looks at me, and, from her expression, as blank as it is, I know that she’s trying to keep something from me.
“I don’t know, actually,” she says. “It’s probably nothing.”
“So let’s find out,” I say. It comes out cold and harsh, because I don’t know what she would want to hide from me, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.
She clicks on the folder. The
re are video files. Lots of them. Two of the file names have a “!!!” prefix.
She hesitates, looking at me.
I stare back at her. Waiting. And trying to ignore that fact that my heart is pounding and my stomach feels sick.
She clicks on the first “!!!” video.
It shows Mila opening the door of her apartment to three visitors in suits.
“We need you to play bit dumb for us,” one of them says. “Stop being quite so effective at figuring out what’s going on. And at some point, we may need you to pass some misinformation to Ms. Bernhart.”
She refuses, but not because she doesn’t want to lie to me—not because she has any moral objection. In fact, when they ask, “Why are you objecting to our request? Do you care about this woman, this Phoebe Bernhart?” she says, “Of course not.”
No, she refuses only because “I don’t feel like doing you any favors.”
They hit her under the jaw with a jet injector, have a short but fierce argument over what to do, tell her that her mother has already been taken away, and then extract whatever they injected through the corner of her eye. Then one of them says, “One more thing. We may need you to exert some influence on Ms. Bernhart. So we suggest you get close to her, just in case you need to be able to persuade her.”
One of the other men says, “See if you can get her… interest.” He leers at her.
Then the video ends.
I can’t think. I can’t even tell what I’m feeling. It’s as if lightning has struck me, and I’m already dead. I’m just waiting to realize it.
I reach over Mila, who has gone still, to click the link to play the other “!!!” video. It’s dated a week or so before the first one. In this one, Mila sits at a table in a nondescript, corporate-looking conference room. The cameraman and another man watch her.
“So, yes, I know what you’re doing,” Mila says. She’s cold and distant. “But I would like to point out that I don’t care, so this is a waste of everyone’s time.”
Absence of Mind Page 26
