Renegade (17 page)

A laptop. I lifted it out of the box and opened the black lid. I punched the start button and nothing happened.

Dead. Of course. I rifled through the box for the power cord, but none surfaced. Now what?

Of course. Who needed a cord, when I was a portable power source, all on my own?

Before I could register that part of my body housed a universal adapter, I felt something beneath the skin of my right thumb catch. With a springlike motion, a small metal tube ejected from the very tip.

Whoa.

I traced the metal rod with my index finger, entranced by its smoothness, waiting for that gut-stab of otherness to attack me. The self-hate that had traditionally accompanied such discoveries in the past. It never came. Instead, I inspected the tip with a sort of dazed wonder, all the while, a steady feed of energy blooming in my core.

I had the power to charge things. In a way, I was bringing inanimate objects to life.

Awestruck, I located the hole on the laptop, held it level with my finger, and fitted the tube inside. I expected a jolt, or a huge rush, streaming away from my head. Instead, all I felt was a gentle, steady suction. Pleasant, relaxing. Like I was feeding the machine.

It only needed a small charge to boot up. I just hoped it wouldn’t take very long—

The suction cut off, and my thumb detached from the laptop. Okay, I had to admit—that was trippy. Setting the computer back on the ground, I pushed the power button and waited. Within moments, the blue welcome screen greeted me.

I reached out with my mind and issued the familiar set of commands and smashed right into a brick wall.

The rejection felt physical, so much so that I swayed on my feet.

Password?

Of course. Someone like Jensen would keep his files protected.

But I didn’t really have time to hack my way in. Luckily I didn’t think I’d have to.

I issued the command, and the adaptor ejected out of my thumb, and I shoved it back inside the machine.

The connection was instant, complete. Now I could sense every bit of the computer, all around me. I could feel it shimmer in the air, sensing my every movement, my every breath. Bending to my will as the sole provider of its energy.

The brick wall disintegrated like it’d never even existed, and a moment later, thumb back to normal, I was in. Rows of squares shimmered before me, green and chest-high. Files. They were illuminated with the usual ethereal glow, but appeared more translucent than normal, less substantial. Tiny little boxes that I could almost see through. Something about them bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I went ahead and scrolled through them, moving them with my mind. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. A brief glance at the files yielded the same disappointing results. Only seven, and they felt . . . intentional. Like they were placed there to look pretty and tempting in order to serve as a distraction.

I mean, this last one? A child’s essay on the African cheetah.

Totally worthless.

Even as I expressed the thought, a strange flash of recognition pulsed through me as I skimmed the text. Before I scrolled to the next page, I knew what I’d see. A crude crayon drawing of a mother cheetah and her cub.

I stared at the picture as more questions pulsed through my head. How had I known? How could I have possibly seen this report before? I wondered if maybe somehow my computer brain had skimmed ahead and seen the picture before my eyes had.

But no. I didn’t believe that. And the déjà vu might be gone, but the feeling left behind an echo, a residue, an eerie, visceral clench that I had experienced that report before, someway, somehow. But . . . could androids really experience déjà vu? And if so, how?

I continued to search, to no avail, and was just about to give up when I noticed letters, floating in the bottom right corner of my field of vision.

M Drop.

M Drop, M Drop . . . what could that mean?

Probably nothing, but I checked just in case.

I frowned. Remotely. As in, files were being held at another location?

This was new and different. But then I felt the whoosh of warmth, of energy, that always preceded my connection to another machine or digital entity. The android part of me, taking over again. Before I knew it, I was leaning forward, urging the information into my head. My mind felt open, ready. Eager.

A moment later, the attic disappeared, to be replaced by shimmering red.

I blinked, entranced with spinning spheres of crimson. Like before, they encased me from all directions, but not in a square. This time, it was as if I stood in the center of a vortex, and they formed the circling tornado around me. The spheres rotated midair, moving in a chaotic pattern, from waist-high up to eye-level. This time, I could see thin, wispy multicolored threads extending away from the files, veering off in multiple directions. No, not threads. Data strings. Indicating which user had added each particular file.

I shut my eyes, momentarily disoriented by all the movement. Just when I thought I’d gotten one of my android functions under control, they had to go and change things on me. But I was mastering the other abilities. I could do this, too.

The spheres—files—obeyed instantly, freezing in space as if their batteries had suddenly run out. But I could sense the desire for motion beneath that stillness. Almost like tiny hearts pulsed under each one. I forced the command out with way more power than normal, to keep them from returning to their spinning state.

I opened the first file, scanned the contents, and discarded it as irrelevant before moving on to the next.

Faster and faster, the files rotated before me, each discarded one moving to the left as a new one filled its position from the right. They were beautiful, in their continuous dance. Graceful. And in some primal way, disconcerting and slightly sinister.

This process was starting to drain me, and a foreign chill seeped under my skin.

But the next file left me shivering, in a whole new way.

That was it, the file in its entirety. But it was enough to send me reeling back. As I moved, the red spheres followed me, and for an instant, I braced myself for an attack.

Clutching to my remaining sanity, I focused on forcing my breathing back to a slower, more sustainable rate. Daniel Lusk. Steve Jensen. The man in the photo. My fictitious dad.

All of them, one and the same.

All of them, former members of the one group that possibly made even life with Holland sound good.

The Vita Obscura.

Why on earth had Mom sent me to this man?

Confusion pounded through me, and betrayal. I tried to push them both away, to make sense of what I’d just learned. I went to rub my forehead. My arms were heavy, cumbersome. Not only had the contents sent me reeling—the act of reading the file itself had been draining.

I fought to remain calm and give myself time to recover, spinning through possibilities. There was only one reason Mom would have sent me to Jensen—he had to be good now. Obviously he’d left the V.O. if the military was courting him for information, if they needed to hide him to keep him safe. Although my experience with the military thus far had been less than stellar, I knew that most of our soldiers—outside of SMART—weren’t like Holland, sadistic and power-hungry.

As I pondered this and more, I realized that the spheres had begun pulsing in a furious manner: harder, brighter. Then, like someone had wrenched the volume up to full blast, a noxious screech pierced my ears—high-pitched and deafening. I gritted my teeth, and that’s when realization struck. My ears. They actually
hurt
. Burned, with a searing pain that felt like my flesh was being stripped from my bone.

As I tried to process that, I noticed words, hovering before my eyes. Not a prompt. Not coming from me.

Alarm. Unauthorized user.

I doubled over with my palms on my ears, fighting off the overwhelming noise. Through the chaos, I managed to issue a single command.

No response.

The crescendo rose, and the spheres grew larger, brighter, more sinister-looking. Then, in a shattering explosion of light, they disappeared. I remained hunched over for an indefinite amount of time, my ears registering a low, staticky buzz as they adjusted to the abrupt cessation of sound.

But wait. Not a cessation of sound.

Because within the quiet, I heard noises. A man’s voice. A grunt. The scuffle of shoes against a wood floor. Followed by a yell.

Hunter’s.

I went to burst into a run and—nothing. I couldn’t budge. The noise had vanished, but once again I had no ability to move. However, unlike my previous blips of paralysis, this felt different. I wasn’t void of energy and life: it was the exact opposite, like someone had tapped into my power source and created some kind of electrical surge that was rendering me immobile.

Every piece of me began to feel this kinetic burning sensation, as if I were a matchbook that had been dropped into a pool of gasoline. Petrified of what was happening downstairs, I struggled to break free. Hunter needed me. But nothing happened. Nothing.

Another crash downstairs, a man’s voice. Older, gruff. Familiar, yet not. Hunter’s voice, low and quick. I could only catch a few words.

“No, don’t move. Stay back—let me talk—wait—”

A gunshot. The sound of glass breaking. Then a cry. And then . . . silence.

Panic urged me to drink in quick, labored breaths, but I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t even pretend to breathe, and although I didn’t need to, the inability only fed the terror more.

No, no, no. Calm down. I forced myself to push away the growing whirlwind that clouded my head. This surge had to be linked to the M Cloud, to being discovered as unauthorized. Some kind of electrical current, a trap, overwhelming my power source.

My power source.

I groped inside my head, feeling my way through the darkness, through pathways, through images and visions of the past, stored data, until I found it. But what now? I felt my way around it, the tiny orange cell. Blinking faintly, like the surge had blown it out. I surrounded the cell with every bit of strength I had left, issued the command with force.

The cell blink, blink, blinked, like it had all the time in the world. Maybe it did, but Hunter didn’t.

Hurry
, I urged.

The little entity gave one big pulse, as if to acknowledge my request. Then, the orange began to brighten at a dizzying rate.

Orange exploded into brightness and I rose, stamping out the inertia that had held me hostage. I spun, raced for the opening, dropping out of the attic into a crouch. I flew down the stairs like Holland himself was on my heels, as a loud thud emitted from the kitchen—the sound a body would make, hitting the tile floor.

Less than a second later I was lunging into the room, taking everything in with a single glance.

Lusk/Jensen, still upright. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring down while wielding a bloody knife. A hole in the window above the sink, glass fragments on the countertop.

And on the floor, oh god—Hunter. Slumped on his back, eyes closed. While, over his right shoulder, a lake of vibrant red lapped away at his white shirt. A lake that grew steadily larger.

And Grady’s gun, lying near Hunter’s hand. He must have run back to his Jeep and gotten it when I was upstairs in the attic, prying information out of Jensen’s computer, or my sensors would have alerted me earlier. He’d wanted to protect us, to protect me.

Visions of my dying mom assaulted me, shattered my frantic thoughts into a kaleidoscope of chaos. All of them, threatening to tear my heart right out of my chest. Mom had died in a pool of blood, and now Hunter was bleeding.

Because of me.

A motion caught my attention, and I glanced up. I saw Jensen stepping toward me, the knife still gleaming in his hand. Blood drops marred its shiny silver surface.

I saw the knife, and all of my thoughts streamlined into one, simple purpose.

He would pay. He would pay, now.

I
n the next heartbeat, I lunged. Before Jensen could even look up, my foot whipped out, catching him the chest. He crashed into a stainless steel skillet that dangled from a shiny hook, sending the metal pan clattering to the tile floor, narrowly missing Hunter’s head. I started forward, but Jensen was already straightening, gathering himself. And then he was airborne.

I lurched back, but the kitchen was too tiny to avoid him. We collided, with his brawny hands grasping for my neck, and hit the pantry as one. My head exploded against wood with a deafening thud, but nothing could deter me, could quell the enraged thunder of my faux pulse. This man had hurt Hunter, and I would take him down.

His feet scrabbled for purchase on the tile floor, and I waited, let him get his balance. I waited while his hands circled my throat and tightened. While he lifted his head, his eyes bright with victory. He thought he’d won.

No. Way.

My lip curled and with fierce eagerness, I lifted my hands and pried his from my throat, like they were a child’s. Then, I jammed my knee hard into his gut, and as he started to double over, head-butted him. But I saw something, just before my knee connected. I saw Jensen’s victory expression morph into wide eyes, numb lips. He looked like he’d spotted a ghost, and as he fell to the floor, he mouthed a name.

“Sarah.”

A sharp twist; a flicker of memory that vanished the instant it appeared. Then, I shoved past him. I had no time for that now. Not when Hunter could be bleeding to death all over the kitchen floor.

I yanked a clean-looking dishtowel off the counter before dropping to my knees by Hunter’s side. I pressed the fabric to his shoulder. The blood seeped through the thin material almost immediately, warm and wet and oh my god, Hunter was bleeding out, just like my mom, and nothing I could do would save him. . . .

A knot formed in my throat, practically swelling it shut, while ice splintered in my chest, sending tiny shards stabbing into my heart. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. But it was. It was. It—

My robotic voice interrupted, and I latched on to it like a parachute on a crashing plane. Too much emotion, when I needed logic. Logic could help me save him. Emotion would only help me cry while he died.

A glimmering 3-D replica of Hunter appeared, midair. Green letters flashed a constant stream of information:

Conflicting thoughts bombarded me in a dizzying torrent.

Hunter’s vitals are good—he might be okay.

But he could bleed to death.

Just like Mom.

No.
NO.

I heard a scuffling on the floor behind me, followed by a low groan. I craned my head and watched Jensen stumble to his feet and grab for the counter to keep his shaky balance. He had picked up the knife, but when I met his eyes, his face drained of color again. The knife slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. His nostrils flared, his eyes widened, and he stood motionless.

Once again, his lips moved, but nothing came out.

Holding his wide-eyed gaze with mine, I pushed to my feet. A spark burst through the fear, and I stoked the flame, urged it into a full-fledged fire. Anything to keep my worry over Hunter at bay. I shot toward him while he stared, stared, stared, continuing to mouth the name like the very sight of me had snatched his vocal cords and rendered him mute.

Sarah.

I covered the distance between us swiftly as an image of my face swam before me, only with brown eyes. Just like in the photo hanging on the fridge. Again, a tingle of perception pushed around the edges of my consciousness.

Sarah. I’d heard her name before Mom had ever uttered it, I knew I had.

More visions flashed, one after another, creating a disjointed video in my head. Waves. A sandy beach. A woman’s laugh. Then, a sensation of overwhelming heat. Smoke, clogging my lungs. Pain.

I doubled over, hands going to my throat, gasping for breath. Air. My lungs burned like fire. I needed air.

Overhead, I swear I heard something crack. A man’s voice, calling my name.

“Sarah!”

I blinked, and just like that,
poof!
Everything disappeared, completely. Like the scenes had never existed in the first place. No sand. No laughter. No fire. I was in a kitchen, still clutching my throat, staring as a tear-streaked man—Jensen—lifted a hesitant hand toward me, as if to touch my cheek.

And on the floor, to my right, was Hunter. His blood splashed across the white tile floor.

My gaze returned to Jensen, and deep inside me, something dangerous burst free.

The sound that escaped my mouth was low and guttural.

Surprise yanked him upright, snapping him out of his semicatatonic state. But I was already on him. I shoved him hard in the chest. He staggered back into the cupboards and I followed, pinning him in place when my hands shot out to wrap around his throat.

My hands clamped down. Squeezing against rising resistance.

His strangled gurgle made me pause. I relaxed my grip, just enough for him to wheeze air into his trachea, and put my mouth right next to his ear.

“Listen to me,” I whispered, anger still pouring through my limbs, my head, in a smoldering, lavalike concoction. This man had hurt Hunter. This man was involved with the Vita Obscura.

This man was another Holland.

I willed my hands not to clench in response at the thought of Holland’s name, while Jensen writhed against me, gasping for air.

Control. I had to retain control.

“You will fix Hunter’s arm, and you’ll do it now. If you don’t, I’ll squeeze the life right out of you . . . and enjoy every second of it.”

And in that moment, I meant it. Jensen was going to help me save Hunter. He would help me . . . or he would die, too.

With one final, hard squeeze, I relaxed my grasp completely. Jensen was already nodding his head. He tried to respond but wheezed again, then barked a weak cough. Five seconds, that’s all I gave him to regain his breath. Then I picked up the gun on the floor and shoved it in my back waistband. As angry and homicidal as I was feeling, for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to aim it at Jensen.

Not that it would have done any good.

So all I could do was order Jensen, through gritted teeth, to “Fix. His. Arm.”

“Okay,” he finally managed. “I’ll help.”

I staggered back a step, recognition tingling along my skin like electricity. That voice. It was raspy from the number I’d done on his throat, but even so, the tone, the cadence, the deep pitch—I’d heard them all before. Many, many times. Because that same voice had played, over and over again, in my memories. That voice had soothed childhood injuries, cheered at Phillies’ games, laughed at the beach.

That voice matched the face, exactly—the face that belonged to my “dad.”

He straightened and turned to stride to a cabinet. “But I’ll have to do it here. We can’t take him to a hospital. It’d be far too risky—for you,” he added. His hands shook while he gathered some clean cloths and a bottle of alcohol. “The rest of my supplies are in the garage.”

He shoved the items he held toward me. “Hold these, and I’ll pick him up—”

“No!” I whirled and squatted beside Hunter. His eyelashes fluttered open to reveal pain-glazed eyes, and his moan made me sick to my stomach. “Mi—?” he started, but I was already shaking my head, gently touching my finger to his lips. They were uncharacteristically pale—and chilled to the touch.

“Shhhh, save your strength.”

“I’m s-sorry. He surprised me and I . . . drew the gun.”

Then Hunter shuddered, gasped, and went completely still in my arms.

“Hunter?” I cried as panic surged through me.

“He’s just passed out,” Jensen said calmly.

Even though I could read Hunter’s vitals in a split second and figure that out for myself, I was so filled with rage that my capabilities seemed completely insignificant and useless. I stood and faced Jensen. “If he dies—” I started, fury wrenching my throat closed.

“He won’t. This way.” Shaking his head slightly, with a tiny, strange, bittersweet smile on his lips as if in disbelief, Jensen walked down the stairs, toward the lower level, surprisingly quiet on his feet for such a tall man. I followed as he turned left, past another den and a bathroom, all decorated in that same minimalist style. We walked into a large laundry room, toward a door with an electrical box next to it. He yanked it open and led us into the garage.

As I entered, I realized that the three-car space held no cars, but tons and tons of equipment and boxes. A military-issue ATV sat in the corner, right next to a black Honda motorcycle. A network of three computers hummed on three interlocking desks. Towering shelves dominated the left side of the wall. Colorful bins were tucked away inside, most of them labeled.
FLASHLIGHTS. CAMPING. ELECTRONICS. EMERGENCY.
Two larger radios, assorted speakers, and walkie-talkies nestled among them. On the bottom shelf, tucked away in a corner, were four folded sets of camos, three sets of worn, military-issued combat boots beside them.

Hooks up near the front door sagged under an assortment of backpacks, sleeping bags, scanners, climbing gear, and other paraphernalia. The layout bothered me. Nothing was flush against the walls. Even the hooks were on a freestanding rack. Everything was a good seven inches away from touching the walls, and the lack of logic burrowed under my skin.

I tried to tune in, opened my mind and listened with my android sensors. A very faint hum replied, but nothing else.

I gave up and turned back to Hunter, my stomach knotting at his pallor. If Jensen wanted to plan for the apocalypse, that was his business. So long as he could fix Hunter.

Jensen paused in the process of clearing off a long, sturdy worktable. He followed my gaze. “I like to be prepared,” he said curtly, obviously noting my inspection. He finished moving a power saw and thumped the table. “Put him down here.”

I settled him as gently as I could onto the cold, hard surface. He lay as still as death.

“Here we go.” Jensen plunked a medium-sized box labeled
FIELD FIRST AID
on the edge of the computer table and popped off the lid. After pulling out a giant bandage—Tegaderm—two large sterile gauze pads, and some stretchy elastic wrap, he produced a syringe and a small vial. His sure hands worked the needle into the bottle while I shot to my feet. If he thought I was just going to sit there and smile pretty while he jabbed Hunter with some foul-looking crap, he was dead wrong.

I shoved my body between him and Hunter. “Don’t even think about it,” I snapped. “No way I’m letting you poison him.”

Jensen ignored my command and continued to fill the syringe.

“I’m warning you—”

“Oh, give me a break,” Jensen said. His tone was mild but his cheeks flushed red, and somehow I just knew that he was this close to losing his temper. “We’ve already established that you can kick my ass all over this garage, and then shoot me when you’re done. Now back up so I can help your friend.”

I stood my ground, acting like the gun was loaded when in fact it was utterly useless.

“And you expect me to trust you?”

His brown eyes drilled into mine, like he was seeking something—or someone. “I learned to ditch my expectations a long time ago,” he finally said.

A total nonanswer that made me grit my teeth in frustration.

“Did Mom really used to be friends with you? And if so—what was she thinking?”

That got a bigger reaction. I watched his hand stiffen on the syringe and squeeze it until his knuckles turned white. I was afraid the entire thing would explode and douse me with mystery fluid. He drew in an audible, shaky breath. “I’ve asked myself that same question thousands of times. Now, hold out your hand.”

“What?”

His syringe hand flicked impatiently toward me. “Your hand, hold it out,” he barked.

Some long-buried instinct urged me to obey, to the point that my traitorous hand even twitched in his direction. I recovered and in a fit of childish rebellion, shoved the offending appendage behind my back. Super mature. I might as well have stuck my tongue out while I was at it.

But instead of looking pissed off, Jensen just cast his eyes toward the ceiling, as if seeking divine intervention. Then he snapped his fingers and gestured them in a way that clearly meant
quit being a pain in the butt and give me your hand already
.

“Just as stubborn as ever. Look, you have a device, under the index finger of your left hand. If I dribble a drop of the liquid from this vial, you’ll be able to detect what the chemical components are. Then you’ll know I’m not trying to poison your friend there—I’m trying to save him from a lot of pain.”

Barely startled by his revelation, I extended my hand toward him. It wasn’t like special features hadn’t popped up out of nowhere before.

“If this is some kind of trick . . . ,” I warned, and Jensen nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve got it. You’ll choke me and feel good about it. I’m going to have to have a talk with Nicole about how she’s been teaching you. Looks like you need to cut back on the violent cartoons.”

I winced at the mention of Mom. Sympathy, unwanted as it might be. This man from Mom’s past clearly had no idea that she was gone. He’d never get a chance to talk to her about violent cartoons or me or anything, ever again. Neither of us would.