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Ava noticed her bracelet, made from a dog collar. “Rags,” Ava said.

Lillian looked at the bracelet and clasped her wrist against her chest. “How do you know about Rags?” she asked.

“I read your journals.”

“That’s impossible.”

Ava knew it would be a far leap of faith to get Lillian to understand the outrageous circumstances. “Nothing is impossible.” Ava sat down and patted the mattress, inviting Lillian to sit down.

Lillian made sure her men were close and joined Ava on the cot. The two men kept their guns pointed at Ava. “My journals are always with me. Locked safely away. Only Aaron knows about them.” She spoke in a composed manner, though she was visibly shaken.

“Your journals saved my life. They saved my people. Your people.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how else to tell you this, other than the truth. As absurd as it will sound.” Ava paused a moment. She decided not to explain that they were currently inside an archive file and that none of this was real. “I’m from the future. I’ve been sent back by Morray to save his son, Phoenix, from being killed in an upcoming battle.”

Lillian’s eyes widened, and then she started laughing. The men stayed calm, keeping a steady eye on Ava.

“That sounds like a shabby attempt to get his son back. You think I don’t know that once he has Phoenix, he’ll destroy our village?” Lillian said.

“He destroys it anyway. When Phoenix is around nineteen, there will be a battle. The battle was supposed to be a simple mission to retrieve Phoenix, but instead he dies. Morray wants to get him back before that happens.”

“I have no doubt that there will be a battle, or that Morray wants his son back. What I don’t understand is how he found out about the journals. Very clever on his part. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time. And I’m also afraid you’re on enemy territory, which means you’re our prisoner.” Lillian stood up to leave.

“Wait! At least let me talk to Sarah.”

“I don’t want you poisoning her with this nonsense.” She headed toward the exit with the two men.

Ava had three seconds to convince Lillian before she left the cabin.

“I know about your baby!” Ava yelled.

Lillian turned around and walked back to Ava.

Ava continued. “You and Aaron have tried a few times now. You’ve lost each one very early in the first trimester. But you’re pregnant now. And this time, it works out.”

“I haven’t written about this in my journal. Not even Aaron knows. How could you possibly know?”

“I know because I’ve read all of your future journals, and your grandchildren’s journals, and your great-grandchildren’s journals and their great-grandchildren’s. I know everything about your village from the Repatterning all the way through to the year 2345. I’m married to one of your far-off descendants, who’s named after your first and only child, Joseph.”

Lillian remained silent for a few moments. Ava reached out and held her shoulders. “I’m not your enemy. I’m here to save Phoenix.”

“So if Morray sent you back, that means his upload process works—he never dies.”

“He hasn’t yet. But that doesn’t stop me from trying.” Ava smiled.

Gunshots rang out from the courtyard. Lillian and her men ran to the front windows to investigate.

“I told you we couldn’t trust her,” one of the men yelled.

“Are they with you?” Lillian shouted to Ava.

Ava ran over to the window to see what was going on. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, but it was happening. Her daughter was running through the middle of the camp, with Morray chasing behind. “She came for me,” she whispered, gratitude swelling in her heart. But how was Morray inside? Dickson’s program was metamorphosing by the second.

Ava barreled through the door and followed after her daughter.

“Grace!” she yelled.

Just as Grace turned around, one of the soldier’s bullets ripped into her leg. She dropped to the ground, writhing in pain. Morray caught up and began kicking her repeatedly.

Ava grabbed a gun from one of the villagers and fired it into the air. If she killed Morray now, she was sure Dickson would lock her and Grace inside the program forever.

“Stop! You animal. Stop!” Ava shouted, running toward where Grace was sprawled out on the ground.

Morray turned around to see Ava coming and pulled Grace up from the ground and grabbed her head, ready to snap her neck.

“Not another step, Miss Rhodes,” he warned.

“Let her go, Morray. I told you to keep her out of this.”

“The little bitch did this to herself.” He increased his chokehold.

“Don’t call my daughter a bitch, you asshole.” She walked closer, pointing the gun at his head. “Let her go.”

“So you can kill me. Not going to happen, Miss Rhodes.”

Ava stared at her daughter, wishing she could take away the pain in her eyes. She knew that look—it was one of failure. But Grace hadn’t failed. There was still time to negotiate.

“I give you the gun, you let her go,” Ava bargained with Morray.

“Don’t give it to him, Mom!”

Ava would do anything to protect Grace. She’d give up her own life to ensure her daughter’s safety. Grace struggled to break free, but Morray squeezed tighter. Ava walked over and offered him the gun, looking at Grace the whole time to let her know they weren’t going down without a fight. “You can have me instead. Isn’t that what you want?”

Morray grabbed the gun and released Grace from his grip, shoving her aside. Grace acknowledged what Ava was doing: She was distracting Morray so Grace could blindside him. He aimed the gun at Ava, yanking her closer to him. He glanced around at the villagers, who by this point were aiming their guns at Morray. “Where’s Phoenix?” he called out to the crowd.

A young teenager came forward. “What do you want with me?”

“Phoenix,” Morray cried out. “My son.” By this point, he was fully distracted and had let down his guard. Ava glanced at Grace and motioned back toward the gun he was holding loosely against Ava’s waist. All Grace needed to do was knock Morray to the ground, grab the gun, and hold him down before anyone got hurt. Ava winked, letting her daughter know she had complete confidence in her abilities. Grace smiled through her pain and limped stealthily toward Morray.

“What did you call me?” Phoenix asked, with obvious disgust.

“I’m your father. I’ve come here to bring you home, where you belong.”

Phoenix studied the man standing in the middle of their camp, holding Ava at gunpoint. “I don’t know you. And I belong here, with my people. With my mother.”

“Your mother is the one who took you from me. Where is she?” Morray yelled.

Sarah came forward and stood next to Phoenix. “You can’t have him, William. This is his home. I don’t want you anywhere near him. You need to leave.”

Morray’s face contorted, and the gun began to quiver in his hand. Grace moved in closer, waiting until his gun was off of Ava.

“He’s my son, Sarah. You can’t keep him from me. I won’t let you win, not this time!”

Morray fired his gun, shooting Sarah in the stomach. Grace tackled him to the ground and pinned him down while Ava pried the gun from his hand. “Hold your fire; we’ve got him!” Ava yelled to the villagers. “I have the megalomaniac bastard,” she said, pressing the gun into his cheek.

In his confusion, Phoenix fired toward them and the bullet went into Ava’s shoulder, knocking her backward into the dirt. Grace jumped off Morray to shield her mother from any more shots. “Stop! You want him, not her!” She helped her mother back to her feet. They still needed to get to Morray before Dickson ended the program, eradicating their only opportunity to take him down. The gun was on the ground a few feet away.

Phoenix approached, aiming his shotgun at Morray. “You think I’d go anywhere with you? You just shot my mother.”

Morray stood up and brushed himself off. “Phoenix, my son. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Please forgive me.”

“I’ll never forgive you.”

Ava squeezed her daughter’s hand with assurance. “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll always be with you.”

While Morray was engrossed with Phoenix, Ava ran toward him. Grace followed behind; her leg wound was slowing her down, but she was able to grab the gun from the ground. Ava pummeled into Morray, and they toppled to the dirt. Grace aimed at Morray, waiting to get a clean shot.

“Now, Grace!” Ava yelled, holding him down.

Just as Grace was about to pull the trigger, both her mother and Morray vanished.

26

GRACE SHOT UP out of the mainframe. Sam was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, with an arrow through his neck and another in his spine. Blythe was standing in front of a wall of screens, reading the hailstorm of streaming code. She had a blood-soaked towel wrapped around her shoulder.

“You’re alive?” Grace coughed.

“Good thing the jackass can’t shoot as well as he can program.”

“My mom disappeared with Morray. Where the hell did they go?”

Blythe stayed focused on the coding.

“What happened?” Grace shouted.

“I lost her. I was too late.”

“Lost her?”

“I was two seconds too late. Sam got to her and Morray before I could take him out. He sent them somewhere inside the mainframe. I can’t track either of them.”

“How’d I get out?”

“I pulled you up. I’m sorry I didn’t get your mom out.”

“But she’s still alive, right? Just somewhere inside the mainframe?”

“I think so,” Blythe said, not sounding a hundred percent sure.

“We have to find her body. If she’s still breathing, we can at least keep her safe until we track her footprints and harness her identity matrix.”

“She’s in the room next door. Ms. Atwood’s in the lounger next to her.”

“That’s not Ms. Atwood.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I plucked her.”

“You did good, Blythe. Come on; let’s go see if my mother is still alive.”

“Here, thought you’d want this back.” Blythe held out Grace’s sword.

“Thanks for saving my life,” Grace said.

Blythe grunted and opened the door to the room where Ava was still hooked into the mainframe. Grace checked her neck for a pulse and scanned the monitors. Ava’s body was still active. She was alive. Grace sank to the floor, relieved. Her mother’s consciousness might be shooting around somewhere in the vast network of the mainframe, but she was still alive. They’d have to keep her connected to the mainframe, otherwise her body would slip away and she’d have nothing to come back to.

Grace looked at Ms. Atwood’s stiff body in a nearby lounger—two arrows plunged deep into her heart. She was dead. Morray wouldn’t be coming back into that body ever again. She wondered what had happened to the real Ms. Atwood. Another one of Morray’s casualties. Grace knew he’d eventually find another shell to use. The same way he had found Ms. Atwood. Anytime someone connected to the mainframe, they were at risk of being taken over by Morray. He could possess whomever he wanted. That is, if he chose to come back. Grace wondered if he would now that he had what he always wanted—Ava.

“I didn’t save her,” Grace said.

“You’ll get another chance. That’s how life works. God gives us lots of chances.”

“When’d you get so soft?”

“Shut up, ass face.”

“I thought I could do it on my own.”

“Yeah.” Blythe patted Grace’s back. “It’s time to call in the big guns,” she said.

“You can contact my father on the East Coast with this equipment, right?”

“Just gotta break through the firewalls.”

“After you do that, you should use the hovercraft to take Marion and Missakian back down to the academy.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere just yet.” Blythe made her best effort to smile. “There’s something else you should know,” she told Grace.

“What?”

“When I was looking for you, I came across some messed up shit.”

Grace’s stomach dropped, sensing what she had originally feared months ago when she first learned about the Seattle City Center. “What, Blythe?”

“They’re growing babies in one of the rooms. Lots of them.”

“Can you show me?” Grace asked.

Blythe brought Grace to the room where Morray and Dickson had started the inception process. There were rows and rows of incubators with embryos growing inside. Their charts showed they were just beginning their third trimester. Grace walked up and down the aisles, looking at the tiny bodies. There were hundreds of them. Three hundred, to be exact.

“They’re the only life I tracked inside the center. The rest of the place is empty.”

“Looks like Morray was planning to start over. First by populating the Seattle City Center.”

“What do you think will happen to them?” Blythe asked.

“They’ll need to be monitored until full-term, then we’ll need to find them homes.”

“We? As in you and me?”

“You found them. Makes you responsible for them.”

“I don’t think so.” Blythe laughed and shoved Grace playfully.

“I can’t go back to the academy. Not with my mom stuck in this place.”

“So, you’re just gonna kiss your scholarship good-bye?”

“I don’t know. It’s always been so important, but I can’t leave my mom. I can always go back another semester. If they’ll let me back in.”

“Well, as much as I like your mom, I don’t like babies. And I wanna finish out the semester.”

“You didn’t like me at first, and now you do.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Okay, okay. You don’t have to stay. But if I don’t fix up your shoulder, you might not make it back.”

*

Blythe sent out a transmission to General Strader and another to Marion and Missakian, telling them to take the hovercraft and get back to the academy. Grace sat next to her mother, trying not to think about the vast network her consciousness was wandering around in. She hoped Morray wasn’t with her.

After a couple hours, Blythe pulled up one of the monitors. “There’s a video message,” she said, touching the screen.

General Strader’s hologram appeared. Grace was so elated to see her father’s face that she tried to touch the hologram. He stood before them in his military gear and spoke in an official manner.