MILA 2.0: Renegade

by Driza, Debra

  The photograph flashed before my eyes—Mom, Jensen, and the girl who looked just like me.

  “The photograph on the fridge, the one of you, Mom, and a girl who looks like me. Who is she? An earlier version of me?”

  He made a choking sound, deep in his throat. When he met my eyes, his own were haunted. “The girl in the photo is Sarah, but she’s not an earlier version, not in the way that you mean. She was human.”

  Real? The girl in the photo was real? The truth seemed to hinge on the mystery of a girl named Sarah. A girl who looked just like me—a girl who inspired profound emotion, in both my mom and this man who had once masqueraded for a short while as my dad.

  “Who is Sarah?” I whispered, as a horrible suspicion took root and sprouted, embedding my body in a mass of thorny doubts. My fake heart pounded, then slowed.

  “Sarah was my daughter. Mine and Nicole’s.”

  His voice was rough and raw, like the answer had been ripped from somewhere deep inside him.

  Thump. Thump.

  Thump.

  I staggered to my feet. Terror. Need. Terror. They fought for supremacy as I groped for the courage to ask another question. Daughter. That girl who looked exactly like me was their daughter. Human. Blood and bones and all the things that made someone real. But if Mom had a real daughter out there, why had she been hiding out with me?

  But I knew. After all, Jensen didn’t say “is” my daughter. He said was. “Where is she now?”

  “She’s dead.” A shuddering exhale, and then, “You, the rest of the Milas—you were all made in her image.”

  Thump.

  My pseudo heart froze in place with a painful shudder. A bubble of hysteria rose in my throat, choking me, drenching my tongue with a bitterness I’d never experienced before. But maybe Sarah had.

  Nicole Laurent/Daily. Closer to being my mom than I’d ever realized. And yet further, too. Because, once upon a time, the woman I’d thought of as Mom had a real daughter. But she’d died and somehow, someway, Mom had recreated a machine in her image.

  Or more precisely, she’d created me. In that crazy, overwhelming instant, I felt a terrible, hateful jealousy. I was jealous of a dead girl—the human version that I’d so longed to be.

  I bolted out of the chair. “What—what kind of people would do that? I can’t believe Mom would be so cold—”

  His hand shot out to grab my wrist. “Don’t talk about Nicole that way,” he growled.

  I yanked my arm free. “Oh, I’m sorry, that’s right—Nicole. Not Mom. Not Dad. Silly me—I’m just the freakish machine you two created to look like a dead girl!”

  “Goddamn—” He smashed his fist into the table, causing the computer and everything on it to jump. So the opposite of Mom. Her voice had barely ever risen, and taking her anger out on inanimate objects? Not likely.

  So the opposite of Mom . . . but so like me. A creature of my emotions, though I hoped to remedy that.

  I bit my lip, to keep it from trembling. Or maybe it wasn’t really going to tremble, but just felt that way—an emotional programming system gone haywire.

  His cheeks lost some of their reddish hue. “You don’t understand. We thought we were doing the right thing.”

  “And now?”

  Painful silence, which told me all I needed to know. A mistake. A billion-dollar mistake, that’s what the man who was almost—but not quite—my dad thought. And I shouldn’t care, but I did. The rejection crushed me until I wanted to collapse in a ruined heap.

  “You’re not a complete machine. Not all of you.”

  “What do you mean?” But I was afraid I knew.

  “Sarah was a very special girl. She was brilliant, not just normal brilliance, but brilliant in a unique way. Almost like a savant, but not, because she didn’t have any of the disorders that sometimes accompany that. Because of our positions, and because of what she was, we had people clamoring to study her. To keep her out of the limelight, we agreed to do it ourselves.”

  He hesitated, then continued. He clutched his thighs, as if bracing himself. “When she died, unexpectedly in a fire from smoke inhalation, we recovered her body. The MILA project had always called for human brain tissue, and we just . . . knew.”

  “I don’t—I don’t—” I tried to speak, but couldn’t force my tongue to function.

  “They used parts of Sarah’s brain in all three versions of you.”

  I sat there, stunned, unable to move and unable to feel anything beyond my own fake pulse, enveloping me with staccato accusation.

  All three versions.

  Subject died.

  Fire.

  Three.

  No! I shrieked. Or thought I did. It must have been silent, because no sound erupted from my throat. I bowed my head into my hands, trying to shut out everything I’d just heard. But I couldn’t. I could no more forget than I could summon Mom from the dead. A piece of Sarah’s brain, inside my head. A piece of Sarah’s brain, in Three.

  Not sisters, like Three had claimed. But part of the same whole.

  Three’s head, melting until it was nothing. With part of Sarah inside.

  Inconceivably horrifying, and yet, based on the sadness pulling at Jensen’s features, incontrovertible. Finally, I had the truth I’d been so desperately seeking. But living with it—how, how?

  Sarah. Sarah. Sarah.

  The memory rushed me. Waves crashing, Dad’s rumbling laugh. Mom and Dad, twirling in the sand. A seagull crying. Feeling warm, so warm, and then suddenly, smothered.

  Trapped inside my bedroom, the doorknob hot to the touch. Escaping out a window, gasping for fresh air, relief flooding me—then spotting Mom and Dad’s car, in the driveway.

  Memory banks compromised . . . defragment.

  The words pulsed into my head, trying to obliterate the images. No. Mine.

  With a surge of energy, I grabbed them, crushed the words into a fine powder, shoved them away. No. They would not steal this from me. I grasped for the images, a fist clutching my throat when I couldn’t find them at first. Then, in a shadowy pathway, I found them hidden in the darkness, and gently coaxed them out.

  A desperate scramble over the roof, fighting my way back into the house. Falling, falling, down to the first floor. Dad’s face, there in the flames. His voice, calling for me.

  “Sarah!”

  “Dad?” I whispered, just before the pain struck, burning red hot through my skin. Then . . . nothing.

  I opened my eyes, and the images faded. But there, before me, sat Jensen. “The truth is complicated,” he said softly. “But I can tell you this—Nicole never regretted a thing. Not when it came to you.”

  Tears burned in my eyes, and in my heart, a bittersweet ache. Mom hadn’t regretted my existence. Deep down, I’d known that all along.

  What I hadn’t known was that inside me, I housed a piece of a girl I’d never met. A girl who’d been stolen from this world far too quickly.

  A girl who had been Mom’s true daughter.

  I traced my fingers over my scalp, through my hair. As though maybe I could find the parts of Sarah that lay underneath.

  I wasn’t fully a machine, but I also wasn’t fully human.

  I was something in between. A hybrid.

  Bitterness sucked me down into a deep, dark abyss. I’d just been coming to accept myself as an android, and now . . . after all this, I really was some kind of freak.

  I gave us both time to gather ourselves before asking a question that had bubbled to the surface. “Do I remind you of Sarah? I mean, apart from how I look?”

  He flinched, like just her name held a power over him. Such a large man, so strong, and yet so easily wounded. He was turning out to be nothing like Holland at all.

  “Why don’t you ask Nicole?”

  An agonizing lurch in my chest; a sharp ache beneath my ribs. My pseudo heart, about to burst from sorrow. He didn’t know. He was looking at me, those expectant brown eyes from my memories demanding an answer, and he didn’t kn
ow.

  “Don’t you watch the news?” I said, trying to buy myself some time.

  His eyes narrowed. “Usually, but I’ve been busy with a . . . project. What is it? Is it Holland? Did he catch her?”

  I braced my hands on my thighs and drew in a deep, shaky breath. There was no easy way to say this. There was nothing easy about this at all.

  I forced myself to meet his eyes. “She’s dead,” I said, simply.

  For an instant, the expressionless mask remained in place on Jensen’s face, and I wondered if I’d somehow miscalculated. Maybe he didn’t care about Mom at all—maybe I’d been projecting. Or hoping.

  But then it cracked—no, exploded—shattered by a whirlwind of emotions. Wide eyes and parted lips, followed by his entire body sagging. As if someone had sucked every bit of energy from him. He turned away, ducking his head, his hand covering his eyes. Then, I saw his shoulders shake.

  I felt helpless—even more so because his sadness spurred my own. Reminded me that Mom was gone. Forever.

  Watching him felt a little too invasive, so I turned to check on Hunter. His chest rose and fell in a steady, easy pattern, and while the bandage showed a few signs of seepage, overall it remained clean.

  I turned back to check on Jensen. His body had stilled and he’d dropped his hand. “What happened?” he whispered, unashamed tears streaming down his face.

  And so I told him the whole story. The ranch in Clearwater, the V.O. attack, our escape to Canada—and our subsequent capture. Holland’s compound, the tests, Lucas helping us escape. And finally, haltingly, Mom getting shot—bleeding out before I could do a damn thing to help her.

  After I finished, a strange sense of relief poured through me. Like by finally spewing all the details to someone, I’d relieved a toxic pressure I hadn’t known was building. But when I looked up at Jensen, that pleasant sensation abruptly fled. Because all signs of grief had been stripped from his face and his mouth had taken on a grim twist.

  I prepared myself for a verbal attack, but all he said was, “I need to get some antibiotics for Hunter from the house.” And then he spun and covered the short path to the garage door with long strides.

  Alarmed, I stared after him for a moment, debating whether or not I should follow. Just in case.

  Then I heard a faint voice behind me.

  “Mila?”

  I whirled—in time to watch Hunter open his eyes.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  SEVENTEEN

  “Hunter? Are you feeling okay?” I rushed to his side and clasped his hand in mine. My other hand went to his cheek. Pale, but still warm, and grazed with just the slightest hint of stubble.

  “Mmmm,” he mumbled, but at least now his blue eyes were open. Well, more at half-mast, and even that appeared to be a struggle. He only managed to hold them open for a few seconds at a time, before they’d dip shut again.

  “Shhh, it’s okay. Just go back to sleep,” I soothed, stroking my fingers down his cheek.

  His eyes stayed shut this time, and his breathing once again deepened, which made it easier for me to relax. So I jumped when his hand shot out and grabbed my arm.

  “Got to tell you something . . .”

  I waited, buzzing with anticipation, but it was like the words zapped all of his strength. His grip weakened, his fingers slid. For a second, I was certain his arm would crash back to the table, and I made a move to grab it. But his hand tightened and caught hold of my sleeve. He opened his eyes, really opened them this time, so I was bombarded with a full dose of that faded blue.

  For someone so sleepy just a moment ago, his gaze was oddly intent.

  “When I wake up, less run away together, kay?” he slurred. “Jus you an me.”

  My phantom pulse leaped. Underneath it all, Hunter couldn’t deny his feelings.

  But then I realized that his mind was foggy, from the anesthetic. I just stood there, speechless, trying to stamp out the hope that was steadily rising with each passing second. There was no way he meant it, I warned myself. He couldn’t. Not after everything that had happened.

  Then I felt an insistent pressure on my arm. “Hey, I asked a quession,” he said. Frown lines appeared on his forehead, like my failure to snap out an affirmative answer was causing him massive amounts of stress.

  “Maybe we should talk about this later—”

  He gave a violent shake of his head and immediately groaned.

  I winced. “Sorry! I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean—”

  He held up his hand and I let the sentence die. I waited until he recovered. Then, smiling ever-so-faintly, he placed his hand on my face and gently cupped my cheek. “The two of us, together. Okay?”

  And then his lips touched mine, and all I could think of was him.

  Warmth. Joy. A feeling of pure bliss, like every single part of my body was alive and aware. Like I was suddenly comprised of millions more nerve cells than before. His kiss took me beyond the garage, and for those few tiny moments, we were connected in a way that I’d never experienced before. His heartbeat, his scent, his body heat—they all wrapped around me, enveloping me in a sense of belonging.

  So, this was what it felt like to truly be alive.

  I pulled away, reluctantly, realizing that he was still groggy from the drugs. All the fight had drained out of me, leaving only contentment behind.

  “Okay,” I agreed. And somehow, just the act of agreeing freed the chains that had caged the hope inside me. Reminding myself that hallucinations were one of the side effects of the drugs couldn’t catch the hope either.

  A faint smile curved his amazing lips, even as the rest of his body went slack. His fingers slipped from my arm, and I gently captured his hand and laid it across his chest. But even as the drug dragged him under, the faint smile lingered, and somewhere, deep inside, my all-too-human android heart responded.

  He was in and out for the next ten minutes and by the time he’d freed himself from the drug’s influence, Jensen still hadn’t returned. I decided he must’ve gotten sidetracked, because how hard was it to find antibiotics in a house as barren and neat as his?

  Unease flickered through me.

  Track subject?

  I stood. “I’ll be right back.”

  I’d only taken four steps toward the door that led into the house when the garage plunged into darkness.

  “What’s going on?” Hunter asked, sounding curious rather than concerned. Not me. I’d started spinning in a slow circle.

  Night vision activated.

  No human threat detected.

  For once, the lack of a discernible threat did little to soothe my growing fear. A loud metallic click yanked my attention to the door.

  Neither did that.

  “Jensen!” I yelled. Where was he? I hadn’t picked up on any threats while waiting for him to return, but what if I’d been so involved with Hunter that I’d missed something? When my hand found the doorknob, the damn thing wouldn’t budge.

  The fear that had been a slow trickle until now turned full blast. That click had been someone locking the door. Hunter and I were trapped in here.

  I cursed under my breath, but apparently not low enough.

  “You okay?” Hunter asked.

  “Fine. The door’s just sticking,” I lied. No need to alarm him yet. My hand tightened on the knob, and I pushed, harder and harder, with every bit of strength I had. With growing shock, I realized the knob wasn’t going to give. It didn’t budge, not even a little.

  Keeping as quiet as possible, I planted my hands shoulder-width apart on the door and pushed. But the second my skin touched the surface, I knew. This door wasn’t made from wood, and it wasn’t some flimsy sheet metal. This was an industrial-strength monster, the kind they probably used in bank vaults.

  Counterpressure: 1105 lbs. per square inch.

  I finally had to conce
de defeat. For a second I let my forehead fall forward and rest against the chilly, slick surface of my nemesis. This was not your typical homeowner’s garage. Which I guess made sense, since Jensen wasn’t your typical homeowner.

  I clenched my teeth. Then again, I wasn’t your typical houseguest, and there was no way I was letting a simple door defeat me—metal or not. I flexed my hands. I’d rip that thing right off the hinges if I had to. But before I could try again, a flash of red light flickered, once, twice. Then, red lines pulsed into existence between me and the door, accompanied by an increase in the soft hum. The one I’d picked up on earlier. I craned my head back, and what I saw wasn’t comforting. Not at all. The lines extended from the ceiling all the way down to the floor.

  As I watched, the light emitting from them brightened and faded, in a strange, coordinated rhythm. Almost like they had a heartbeat all their own. They pulsed. The hum also ebbed and waned, like a solitary bee flitting from flower to flower. The hum of electricity.

  Laser beams.

  What the . . . ?

  I took a step back to get a better feel for whatever was going on, and got another gut punch of dread. The beams didn’t just cover the door, or the surrounding wall. I spun slowly. They covered the entire perimeter of the garage. Just a centimeter or so from the walls.

  Now I knew the reason for the odd spacing issues. All the better to imprison Hunter and me in a glowing red cage.

  “Mila? What are those for?”

  I hesitated, partly because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what was going on yet. But mostly because the theory I did have was beyond disturbing. Amid the fear circulating an icy-cold river through my system, I approached the lasers. I stopped less than six inches from the beams, taking a moment to watch the barest flicker of their light. I lifted my hand, slowly, slowly.

  Warning: High voltage.

  Damage likely.

  I froze, my hand hovering midair. An electric fence. Jensen had the entire garage wired with some kind of high-tech electric fence.

  I turned a slow pirouette, but just as I suspected, there was no escape.