MILA 2.0: Redemption

by Debra Driza

  Initiating scan . . .

  Hue in orbital socket, 2x darker than average.

  My vision zoomed until I had a close-up view of the skin beneath her eyes. I could make out the thick, uneven application of pale beige makeup. Hannah’s failed attempt to hide the blue shadows.

  Chemical compound consistent with cosmetic concealer, approximately 1 mm. thick.

  Assessment: Combined with 3 yawns in 78.2 seconds, irritability, and signs of mental confusion, symptoms indicate probable sleep deprivation.

  Interesting. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at J.D. Despite his freshly washed and groomed appearance, there were faint smudges under his eyes, too.

  I filed that information away, just in case. Hannah had mentioned studying, and these kids were grant recipients. Not unusual for them to work hard, especially if they had to maintain some kind of baseline GPA.

  Fingerprint scan match.

  Targets approaching.

  Claude Parsons.

  Ben LaCosta.

  They appeared in the doorway, heads down, shuffle-stepping past the first few tables. Claude had a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and his black hair was just as shocking against his pale skin in person as online. Beside him, Ben looked unnaturally tan for a redhead. And tall. He was even lankier than his photos suggested, all gawky limbs that moved in jerky, still-growing-into-themselves ways.

  But it was Claude who tripped, righting himself by catching the back of a girl’s chair.

  He shook his head, as if in a daze. He rubbed his eyes and widened them. Forced alertness: that thing people did when they were trying to wake up. Both of their shirts were wrinkled, and I noticed that Ben had on two slightly different brown shoes.

  “Hey, guys,” Hannah called after them. Ben glanced at our table and lifted his hand in acknowledgment, but Claude kept his eyes on the kitchen.

  “Coffee,” he mumbled, and merged into the crowd.

  Samuel studied their backs for a moment before turning back to the group. “Test week? Or too many unsanctioned, you-didn’t-hear-it-from-me parties?” he wondered aloud.

  J.D. dropped his fork. He shot a sour look in Claude and Ben’s direction. “Yeah. Tests.”

  Celia and John were talking to Hunter and Abby, and it didn’t seem like they heard him. But Hannah did.

  She froze with her coffee cup halfway to her lips, her eyes narrowing at J.D.

  Initiating scan:

  Heart rate: Increase from 75 to 120 bpm.

  Five beats later, and:

  Heart rate: Decrease back to 78 bmp.

  Sudden, transient spike, indicative of brief cardiovascular activity or sudden emotional lability, typically anger, stress, or fear.

  Either J.D. was lying about the tests . . . or Hannah thought he should be.

  We didn’t get a chance to talk to Claude or Ben, or wait for Sharon to show. Hannah glanced at her phone and grabbed her tray.

  “We should head up to the dorm, if we want to have time to stash your stuff before class.” She hoisted her backpack and stood.

  The rest of us followed suit, while I evaluated what we’d learned.

  So far, we’d met four out of five Watson Grant recipients. All four of them showed signs of fatigue, which, while not uncommon at a prestigious prep school, seemed like a high ratio for our sample size. Probably most intriguing was that one of them may have lied about the reason for the fatigue. And if so, why?

  Maybe the sleep deprivation related to something more sinister than studying. What if, say, Holland was deliberately limiting their sleep to make them more malleable? Prisoners of war were often kept awake for days on end in order to make them more open to the demands of their captors. I wouldn’t put it past Holland to implement this technique on his test subjects. The man had an unsavory history when it came to teens and experiments.

  As we made our way out of the cafeteria and toward the dorms, I realized it was a good thing I didn’t need sleep myself. I probably wouldn’t be getting much these next few days.

  J.D. paused. “This is where we part ways. No coed dorms at this stodgy place. Though there are ways to get around that rule. . . .”

  An oversized set of doors guarded a hallway to the right, and an identical set guarded a hallway to the left. One door on each side was open now, but a shiny metal box adorned the walls on both sides. A card reader, for after-hours access.

  Hannah let J.D.’s comment slide, but her eyes flashed. Hannah tolerated J.D., but only barely.

  I couldn’t say I blamed her.

  Why, then, spend any time in his company at all? If a guy was an ass and did nothing but annoy you, the obvious solution was to avoid him.

  Unless, of course, you were forced to spend time together by an external force.

  Like, say, a madman.

  Hannah and Celia filled in me and Abby on some of the girls in their grade (someone named Becky was trying a juice cleanse that made her cranky, and Jordan played her techno music way too loud at night), the rules (no smoking, no drinking, no smuggling in boys, no skipping classes without a note, and no leaving the campus during the week), and helpful hints for dorm survival (get to breakfast early if you wanted a blueberry muffin, plug your door latch with silly putty so that you wouldn’t get locked out if you forgot your key).

  The double doors opened to a spacious living area, dominated by a flat-screen TV. In a back corner on the far side was a window seat decorated in cheerful red and yellow stripes. Next to that, a counter was laid out with baskets of fruit and snacks.

  I glanced back at the striped couch, feeling a whisper of recognition. Had Sarah sat there, during her numbered days here?

  “We need another TV. Too much reality crap,” Hannah said.

  “Who are you kidding? You barely ever hang out here anyway. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you had a boy tucked away in your room,” Celia teased.

  I wondered which of these girls could have been Sarah’s friends. Who would she have bonded with, if she’d been able to stay? The seniors she’d met had graduated, but the new class of seniors—she would have met them. Did any of them remember her? Miss her? Or had she faded into oblivion? A girl who’d left Montford almost as soon as she’d arrived?

  We headed down a wide hallway, passing rooms with numbered doors. Some were decorated with collages, mostly of girls taking selfies or making silly faces, while others were bare. A few had dry-erase boards hanging from them.

  Hannah pushed open a door at the very end. “Celia thinks the elevator smells like cat pee, so we take the stairs.” She said it without a hint of criticism.

  Celia wrinkled her elfin nose. “I don’t think it smells like cat pee—it does smell like cat pee. I swear, Jayden must have snuck her cat in here again over the weekend.”

  Abby and I exchanged a look. Since everyone was being so amiable . . .

  “So, are any of you here on scholarship?” Abby asked, in a casual tone. “My mom is really hoping I can get a partial, at least, if I go to prep school.”

  “I’m not, but brainiac here is,” Celia said.

  Hannah shrugged. “Yeah, I’m on a full ride. Watson Grant.”

  “Cool. How did you apply?” Abby said.

  Hannah looked startled. “I didn’t—not really. I mean, they approached me, last year. I didn’t even know it existed, but I’d been eying this school already, so it was a real godsend.”

  Speech rate: Accelerated.

  Average words per minute for this subject: 142.

  Increased to 190 words per minute.

  Without prompting, my android sensors had kicked in.

  Combined with hunched shoulders, signifies probable discomfort with topic.

  “Do you know who contacted you? Maybe I could hunt them down and see if they’d take my application—oof!”

  My foot swept accidentally-on-purpose right in Abby’s way, and she tripped.

  Hannah showed her discomfort by changing the subject.

  “Cel
ia’s room is here,” she said, pointing. “That’s where you’ll be staying, Annie,” she said to Abby.

  Celia’s door was so plain, it almost looked forlorn.

  “Clean freak,” Hannah said. “I mean, she’s a person who likes things tidy.”

  “Is that what Sharon says?” Celia sighed as she opened the door, revealing a room so pristine, it looked it had been arranged by a professional. A blue-and-yellow comforter was folded symmetrically, without a single wrinkle. The pillow on top looked plumped. The items on her dresser were neatly lined up, and her desk was bare except for a shiny laptop. Two framed original art pieces hung on the wall: a vibrant seascape that matched the comforter, and a charcoal sketch of a shaggy dog. Not a stray sock or hat in sight.

  My gaze lingered on the dog sketch, and again, I felt that odd tug of familiarity.

  “Who’s Sharon?”

  Celia shrugged. “Another overachiever who happens to have the single next door. Her practice is over—she should be back here any minute. Just in time for classes to start.”

  I knew Abby was trying to catch my eye, but I deliberately avoided her gaze. I knew what she was thinking. Was this Sharon our Watson kid, Sharon Alexander? From the research we’d gathered, the personality could fit.

  Celia motioned us inside. “Come on, Abby. You can leave your stuff right here. . . .” She indicated a square inch of space on the spare bed. It looked like I was going to have an easier time here than Abby. Or, hopefully, than Sarah.

  Hannah’s room was next. “We’re room two hundred twenty-two,” Hannah said, leading the way.

  Hannah’s door was covered in black letters and symbols on white paper. Code. “Told you I liked computers,” she said.

  So, you must really like me, then.

  Funny thing about computers . . . I kind of am one.

  Did you know some computers walked and talked?

  Response after ridiculous response popped into my head, but of course I didn’t say any of them out loud.

  Hannah’s room was outfitted like Celia’s, yet nothing like it. There were two beds opposite each other, and I could tell which one was hers right away, by the half-made covers and half-buried throw pillows. The second bed was bare, with folded blankets and a pillow on top, awaiting me.

  On Hannah’s desk was an open laptop and a tangle of papers. A lone white sock with blue bunnies sprawled across a chair roller. Straight ahead, a minifridge hummed. The second, unoccupied desk held a few papers too. Hannah grabbed them to make space for my stuff.

  “You have a single, too, like Sharon?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah. All the grant kids do. All the better for late-night studying,” she added.

  Things were set up pretty well for them, I had to admit. And if Holland himself wasn’t behind it, I wondered what role his wife had to play here. Did she pick the Watson Grant recipients by hand? On what basis? I wondered. Hannah hadn’t been any help, but surely someone had to know. “Celia thinks I’m a slob,” said Hannah. She walked to the dresser at the foot of her bed, rummaging through the bottom drawer.

  A quick scan of her dresser didn’t reveal much that screamed, “Huge conspiracy, look here.” One bottle of vanilla body spray, seventy-seven cents in change, a small red carry basket holding shampoo, conditioner, a loofah, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, and in the corner, tucked behind the basket and against the mirror, a small rock, painted red and with googly stick-on eyes.

  She pulled out some clothes while I took a quick inventory of her desk. Ten books, eight of them thick programming manuals. A copy of Ender’s Game, and a history textbook.

  Hannah walked over to her single-serving coffeemaker and grabbed an insulated cup. She pushed a button and there was a fresh cup of coffee in seconds. Hannah emptied a packet into it, then put the lid on top to keep the coffee hot.

  She stepped away, then frowned. “Oh, sorry. Did you want some? I’ve probably got another cup somewhere,” she said, doing a quick survey of her room as though one might appear out of nowhere.

  “No thanks.”

  “All right then, we’d better get going. Classes start any minute!” It sounded like she’d already done plenty of studying, but she was ready to start another long day.

  The hallway was mostly empty when we emerged from her room. Hannah picked up her pace. “We’d better hurry. Mr. Tasher does this thing where he stops the entire class and has everyone stare at you when you’re late. It’s creepy.”

  I remembered the staring, back at Clearwater. I hadn’t loved it much either. Once again, my mind roamed to Sarah. How would she have handled that kind of negative attention? I despised it. But was that simply because I had things to hide?

  Ben LaCosta was in our English class, sitting in the center of the middle row. He didn’t say much. Didn’t appear to take notes, either. Just kicked up his legs and leaned back in his chair, his eyes fluttering closed several times before the motion of his head falling forward jerked him back awake.

  Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t his thing. He wasn’t the only one nodding off. But I wasn’t about to dismiss it.

  J.D. and Hannah were here, too, and Hunter was sitting right in front of me. As the teacher read with great animation from a tattered paperback, I had a rare chance to watch Hunter without him watching me back.

  How could things change so much, so quickly?

  His legs were sprawled out under his desk, one arm draped over the back of his chair. Not that different from the way he’d been back in Clearwater. If I squinted, I could almost pretend that I didn’t see the hint of shadows beneath his eyes, too. Or the new caution that gave him a closed-off vibe he’d never had before.

  I couldn’t even be angry. I understood. He was hurting, lashing out. If he had his way, I wouldn’t even be here. He thought that my absence was the best way to ensure the safety of these students. That he could save them where he had failed to save his stepdad.

  For a moment, I entertained the notion myself. What if I just walked away, for good? Would everyone be safer that way? After everything was said and done, was I still the biggest risk?

  From the depths of my android heart, denial surged. Swift and fierce. In the form of Sarah’s image.

  No.

  Walking away meant no justice for Sarah, for Nicole, or even for Daniel. It meant more families ripped apart by grief and despair.

  Walking away meant giving up. And I wasn’t going to do that. Not for Hunter; not for any boy.

  At that point, Hunter looked at me, trapping me in the pale blue intensity of his stare. Almost unconsciously, I braced myself for the burst of longing, of love.

  As our gazes tangled, I felt an initial flutter in my chest, along with the desire to beg forgiveness. But the love, the need . . . it wasn’t there. Gone.

  I shifted in the chair and moved my hands restlessly along the desk. My feelings for Hunter had been one of my only constants.

  Constant in that no matter what, he seemed to reduce me to my most base insecurities—that I wasn’t good enough.

  That thought came out of nowhere. But as the notion settled, the truth of it seeped in, along with a growing sense of peace. Hunter didn’t make me feel inferior on purpose. I knew that. He’d tried to accept me as I was. But I didn’t want someone who had to try. For some reason, a part of my mind drifted to Lucas. We had a check-in scheduled at seven tonight, with both him and Daniel. At the moment, that seemed like a lifetime away.

  The morning passed without much to note, and lunch was a noisy distraction. The food court hosted way more students than it had during breakfast, and all of them seemed keen on shouting. Hannah piled two grilled-cheese sandwiches on her tray—I was glad to see that she was eating, even if she wasn’t sleeping. When I finally got through the line, I saw Celia waving in the crowd for us. “Over here!” she called. “I saved you a seat!”

  I tried to keep the conversation all about her. Celia was in the school musical. She was thinking of playing the clarinet. She couldn’t wait to go h
ome for break. Luckily, she loved to talk. Whenever she asked me a question about myself, I steered the conversation in another direction.

  Finally, she put her glass of water down firmly on the table. “That’s it,” she said. “You are the second-most-private girl I’ve ever met!”

  I had to smile. “Who was the first?” I asked. But I already had a guess.

  A shadow passed over Celia’s face for a fraction of a second. “This girl who was here last year,” she said. “Sarah. You totally remind me of her. She was such a nice person, so polite. Much more of a listener than a talker. Never said much about herself, until you realized you’d told her your whole life story.”

  I looked around the cafeteria, as if I expected to find her sitting here. “Where is she now?” I asked. “I’d love to meet her.”

  Celia looked past my eyes. “The thing is, I’m not really sure. She was only here for a little while, and I never heard from her again.”

  Then she looked right at me, with such intensity that I cringed. Could she tell? I panicked. Did she know? I had no idea what to say now, but luckily I was saved by the bell. “Follow me!” Celia said to Hannah and me as she rushed to put her tray on a conveyor belt. “If we hurry, we’ll get good seats in Computer Science.”

  SIXTEEN

  I wasn’t sure I’d want to go to Montford if I were a normal girl. The campus was stunning, but otherwise it seemed just like a regular school, with regular classes. Computer Science was a different kind of class, and it was where I began to see beneath the shining surface of the place.

  Mr. Grassi—or Professor Grassi, as most of the students called him—was pretty cool. He looked ordinary in every way, except for the missing thumb on his left hand.

  His classroom was not ordinary at all, though. Video cameras and screens hung at varying intervals around the room. And tucked into the corner . . . no way.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I whispered to Hannah, pointing at the oversized machine.

  “Yup. A 3D printer. Insane, right? I guess the alumni here have some big bucks.”

  I whistled under my breath. Too bad Lucas wasn’t here. This class would be right up his alley.