Program 13 Book One (9 page)

The familiarity of the Pod, though reminiscent of my time at Vesta Corp, was comforting. It was something that I couldn’t run from, something that would always be there. The memories it brought out might not be the best, but it was a constant, if not the only constant in my life.

I watched as the Pod door began to slide shut, and the computer prepared standby mode.

There’s nothing worse than a wasted life.
I thought over everything I had told
Colton
earlier in the day. Here I was telling him that he couldn’t give up on life, yet here I was afraid to live my life. How was I expecting him to listen to me when I wouldn’t even listen to myself?
Great role model,
I thought.

Wanting to drain out the world, I closed my eyes
, and
prepared to enter standby mode.

But I never did.

There was a light knock on my door. “Emile, I’m sorry…I know you’re probably trying to sleep, but could I come in for a second?” His voice was low, anxious.

I tried to ignore him, in the hopes that he’d go away, but it was evident after the second knock that he wasn’t budging. Panic began to register in my Program as my programming fought to shut down. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t hide.

The knob on my bedroom door turned, and I could see the door open just a crack. He stood in the doorway hesitantly, glancing over the room. And then his eyes landed on me.

There was no escaping the truth.

Not anymore.

“Emile?”
Colton
jumped, his eyes opening wide as he took in the Pod. Slowly, he inched inside of the room. I could see the fear in his eyes, the panic forcing his body to shake. I wanted to explain, to try to make him understand, but I couldn’t. Not now.

“What are you?” he asked. Stopping in front of the Pod,
Colton
placed his hands on the window. I could read see the confusion in his expression as he glanced down at me. “What is this?”

He didn’t know, which I supposed I should’ve expected. While there were human’s who know
about Programs
, most of them turned a blind eye to our existence. Vesta Corp was smart in that they presented themselves as a donation center for those who wished to donate their bodies, and or organs, to science upon their death.

More often than not, families would believe McVeigh when he came to collect their loved ones. But there were a few who questioned the legitimacy of Vesta Corp. Of course, the others thought those who questioned McVeigh to be crazy. I, myself, wasn’t one to question. After all, curiosity killed the cat. I found it best to ignore the rumors. Until now; until I became the rumors.

I remembered there was an incident at Vesta Corp, shortly after my conversion. A family member of a newer Program walked into Vesta Corp - an older, petite woman. She came to sign over her son’s body and was horrified to see that her son wasn’t actually dead. Granted her son
was
dead and stored away on a drive. But seeing him in his body, walking around entirely unaware of who she was, the woman broke down in hysterics.

Charles McVeigh tried to calm the woman to no avail. Eventually, he had to tell her the truth. The woman threatened to tell the world, which forced McVeigh to smile. He knew that her words would, for the most part, fall on deaf ears. While some residents found truth in her words, others deemed the woman to be insane. Something McVeigh seemed to take pleasure in.

While there were humans who were aware of our existence, most of them lived among us without as much as a clue. We were trained to blend in. We tried to appear human. As far as they knew, we were actually alive.

It was clear that
Colton
hadn’t a clue who, or what, I was. And I wasn’t sure that was good. How could I explain McVeigh’s plans? Or Vesta Corp? Or me?

Colton
stared at me, waiting for me to answer. “Why won’t you say anything?”

I looked at him, desperately trying to communicate my thoughts.  I forced a whisper, trying like hell to move my mouth. I could feel a surge throughout my body the minute my lips parted. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to withstand the pain. There was nothing else I could do.

I watched as a single tear rolled down
Colton
’s cheek. He began to look around the room frantically. Looking for what? I wasn’t sure. “Hold on,” he said, slowly backing away from the Pod. “Just hang on, Emile.”

He ran behind the Pod, near the computer that the machine was connected to.

And then everything went dark.

I could feel the Pod shutting down, my body freeing of its hold.
Colton
pulled the cord, allowing my Program to function per usual.

He strolled up to the Pod window, carefully releasing the latch. As he pulled open the doors, I could feel the panic rising in my Program.

“Now,” he demanded. “What are you?

I climbed out of the Pod slowly, taking a stance beside
Colton
. He knew what he saw. Even if he wasn’t quite sure what it meant. He knew I wasn’t like him. There was no point in lying. “I’m a Program.” The words slipped from my mouth so easily, almost as if the truth were nothing in need of hiding.

12
TRUTH BE TOLD

“
A
nd what the hell does that mean?”
Colton
asked, clearly annoyed by my lack of explanation.

“It means that I’m a computer. It means that I’m human outside, but metal inside. What it means is that I am technically not a living, breathing human being,” I shouted, failing to keep a hold of my emotions.

I believed that I was alive, and that my life was given back to me by Hayden. But it was clear that was not the case. I’d never be alive again. I had no beating heart or lungs to breathe with. Everything that I had become had been carefully constructed. The human I once was, she was gone now and replaced with a computer.
I ha
d become a replica of myself.

Colton
moved towards me and placed his hand on my chest. “There’s no heartbeat. I don’t understand,” he said, his voice cracking.

“I’m not human,
Colton
.” I backed away, looking at the floor.

“If you’re not human, why do you look like one? Why are you able to talk like one, or act like one? You don’t seem like a computer to me.”  His words were everything that I wanted so desperately to hear, even if I knew they were all a lie.

“Maybe I could explain it better if I started from the beginning.” I looked up at
Colton
before continuing. “My name is Emile, as you already know. I was sixteen years old when I was killed
.”

“Killed?”
Colton
shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“Let me explain.” I held up my hand to silence him. “I was walking down an alleyway, headed home, when a car came from out of nowhere and hit me.” I froze as the memory started to play back in my mind. It was a memory I wanted to forget, a memory that forced me to remember just what I had become.

“The driver was Charles McVeigh. He had been following me for some time, though I was too blind to realize it. When he saw me alone in the alley, he stepped on the gas with every intention of killing me. You see, Charles McVeigh works for Vesta Corp – a company built on rebuilding the dead, turning them into perfect replicas of the living.”

Colton
stared at me as I uttered the words Vesta Corp, the place his parents were brought to upon their death. The place I was brought to upon my death. Yet here I was speaking to him. He had to think there was hope for his parents, too.

“Without going into specifics, Charles McVeigh planned on using my Program for his idealist society, but my brother, Hayden, found a way to import my personality and memories back onto my core. He brought me back to life, well as close to alive as he could. I’m still technically far from living.”

He reached forward, brushing his hand softly against my cheek. Shock, confusion, wonder – he wanted to know more about me. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t scared. “You say that you’re not alive, yet here you stand before me able to speak, able to move, able to care. To me, you are alive.”
Colton
smirked as he held my face between his hands. “Yes, you may be a computer, but you were able to care enough to help me. That is enough for me to trust you, to believe that you are alive even if you refuse to think so.”

Colton
was trying to help me feel alive. His words meant so much, but at the same time, I knew this wasn’t what he meant to say. What he meant to say, to ask me, was if I’d known his parents. And while I wanted to be able to say yes, I knew I wouldn’t be able to.

Program Thirteen’s memories were filed behind mine, so deeply buried that they were almost inaccessible. It was possible that I knew them, but there was no way I’d be able to tell him with complete certainty if I had. But when it came to Vesta Corp, there was a possibility that they were still alive. He had to know that. Even I knew it.

Yet, while it was possible that they were still alive, I knew that chances were
Colton
would never see them again. That was what hurt the most. Charles McVeigh and the White Coats would have known that
Colton
was still alive and living within the city. There was no way that they’d promote his parents to Level Three. Not when there was a risk of exposing the truth. My family had fled, all except Hayden. When they sent me to Level Three, they knew what they were doing.

But as long as
Colton
remained alive and the White Coats were able to track him, his parents would remain in Vesta Corp as lifeless Programs. That was if McVeigh even bothered to keep them around. How did you tell someone to give up on hope when it was all that they have left? How could you take everything away from them, again?

I didn’t want him to hurt like my family. Hayden risked everything in order to save me but even still, he wasn’t allowed near me as long as Vesta Corp remained open. Was it worth it for him? Was it living if everyone and everything you cared about was just taken away from you all over again? All for the sake of living the façade – the pain, the loneliness, the loss…it couldn’t be worth it.

None of
this
was truly worth it.

Watching
Colton
made me question Hayden’s motives. Did he bring me back because he couldn’t bare the pain of losing me? Or was it because he felt I hadn’t truly lived?

Even still, I had to remind myself that I had a purpose now.

I needed to protect
Colton
.

“Can you answer one question for me?” he asked. I nodded my head, knowing what he was going to ask me. “Will I ever see them again?”

Yes
, was what I wanted to say, but I knew that I couldn’t promise him that. “I’m not sure,
Colton
.”

He lowered his head and stuck his hands in his pockets. “You said that Hayden brought you back, that he imported your memories and personality onto your core, right?” He was pacing the room now, his eyes darting between me and the floor.

“Yes, but-” Before I could finish, he cut me off.

“No!” he yelled. “Hayden managed to save you, Emile. Why wouldn't I be able to rescue my parents?”

I’d created a sense of false hope by telling him the truth. It was the worst thing I could have done. Yet it was the only thing I could do.

“Look,
Colton
, you have to understand. My brother made it into Vesta Corp through a flaw in their system. When his name was run through the computer, it did not match mine, which allowed him to slip by security. After Charles McVeigh realized that he was my brother, being that he was my caretaker, I was taken away from him. He acted out of passion after that. He did everything and anything that he could to get me out of there. But it took months!”

Even if
Colton
was to get into Vesta Corp, I couldn’t guarantee that his parents would still be activated. I wouldn’t let him risk his life, not when there wasn't a guarantee that he would be able to save them.

13
fate

“
Y
ou just don’t understand the risk,
Colton
. It’s not as easy as simply walking in there and grabbing them.”

I couldn’t look at him, not when I had the terrible thought of him dying in my mind. The security that Vesta Corp had was nearly impossible to infiltrate. We’d need to study it, to learn it inside and out. It took Hayden months to help me escape, months which we didn’t have. And neither did his parents.

“What if you were in my shoes, Emile? Would you think any different, then? Your brother risked his life to save you. What if it was your parents? What if it was your brother?” He shook his head, running his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, but it’s well worth the risk if I can even see them again. Just for one second. To tell them how much I miss them.”