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The sky started changing from black to a pinkish gray. Soon the sun would come up. Ava kept her blanket wrapped around her shoulders and boiled water for tea, hoping the scent of cardamom would wake up Laura, the deep sleeper.

Laura began to rustle around under the blanket and reluctantly sat up, rubbing her pretty almond-shaped eyes. “Mornin’,” she said, reaching for the steaming cup of tea.

“Sleep well?” Ava asked, already knowing the answer.

“Always do.”

Ava pulled out the hand-drawn map and pointed to the campsite. “This is my final destination. You know it?”

“Heard of it, but never actually been there. Gonna be tough getting in. They have soldiers scattered throughout the woods. Their defense is solid.”

“I figured. Any suggestions?”

“We’ll get as close as we can and see what happens,” Laura said with a fearless smile.

“What if they shoot us down?”

“If that’s what is meant to be, so be it.”

Ava didn’t agree with Laura’s serene sentiment, but she smiled and nodded. Under normal circumstances, maybe Ava could let life unfold in its natural progression. If she ever got back to the real world, she might make an effort to lighten up. To let go. Maybe start enjoying her own life instead of living in the mainframe. But these circumstances were far from normal. What was meant to be was getting to the camp, finding Sarah, and sending a message to Grace before she made the unfortunate mistake of stepping into Morray’s trap.

They finished the hot tea, ate some nuts and dried fruit, and packed up their gear. It was time to hit the trail. They repelled down the side of the mountain, Ava following Laura’s lead, and went to the spot where the powder-blue scooter was hidden in the bushes. Laura fastened on her powder-blue helmet and tossed Ava the silver one. And off they went, weaving in and out through the trees to get back on the main path.

The path grew rockier and more challenging to navigate, but Laura stayed focused and kept moving along without any accidents. At one point she was zipping around boulders and obstacles as if she had put them there herself. Confidence exuded from Laura. Until something along the trail peeled them off the back of the scooter and they went smashing to the ground. The scooter propelled forward a bit, then rolled off to one side, the wheels still spinning.

Laura held her chest, coughing. She ripped open her jacket to see if there was any blood. “What was that?” she yelled, looking around to the trees.

“Seemed like you hit an invisible wall,” Ava said, rubbing her right leg where she had crash-landed and skidded out on the dirt. For a program, the pain was insanely real. Her thigh was on fire. Her silver helmet had been knocked off and was lying next to a tree. Good thing she had it on, or that would’ve been her head lying next to the tree.

“It was a rope or something. Dug right into my skin.” Laura pulled herself up and straightened her powder-blue helmet. Once she got her footing she started toward her scooter, ready to continue down the path.

That’s when Ava heard the familiar sound of shotguns being cocked.

“Don’t move,” a male’s voice came from behind.

Ava remained still, but Laura kept walking toward her scooter. Either she didn’t hear the warning or she didn’t care. Ava thought about going for the revolver in the pack, but she didn’t want to risk getting blown to bits. No rash decisions. She only had one chance to get this right.

Footsteps came up from behind. It sounded like there were two people. A gunshot fired into the sky, which got Laura’s attention. She had already lifted her scooter and was sitting down, ready to keep moving forward. Ava noticed a flash in Laura’s eyes—
I should get the hell out of here and leave Ava behind.
In her hesitation, the portal of opportunity closed. Ava felt responsible. Had Laura been alone, she would have jetted.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Cool out.” She stepped off the scooter and lifted her hands in surrender, still wearing her powder-blue helmet.

Both men stepped around and stood in front of Ava. They had a similar appearance to the soldiers in her village: scruffy hair and beards, head-to-toe camo, but underneath their threatening glares Ava detected a hint of warmth in their eyes. They had to be Outsiders. One of the men held his shotgun toward Ava and the other aimed his 9mm at Laura, motioning for her to come over.

“We’re harmless. I assure you,” Ava said.

“Two women on this trail? You gotta death wish?” the man with the shotgun asked.

Ava didn’t have time for a discussion. “I’m looking for Lillian.”

“Is that right?”

“I’m here to warn her.”

“Warn her about what?” he asked.

Now Ava had confirmation they were Outsiders. They knew Lillian.

“It’s hard to explain. I need to see her in person. It’s about Chief Morray. He’s going to inflict great harm on your camp.”

The men had a nonverbal conversation with their face gestures alone. They were sizing up Ava to figure out if she was a threat or a ruse to get close to Lillian and take her out.

“How did you get this information? You workin’ for him?” The man with the 9mm stepped over to Ava. “You trying to feed us bad intel?”

“I’m not working for him, but I’ve been sent by him.”

Laura stepped up to Ava, daggers shooting from her almond-shaped eyes. The man with the shotgun shoved the barrel into Laura’s chest.

“First off, let her go. She’s not with me. You let her go, I’ll talk.”

“How do we know you ain’t lyin’?”

“I’ve got one chance to do what I came to do. Either you kill me, or Morray does. I’ve got nothing to lose. But you have to let her go. She’s a traveler who accidentally ran into me. She was just helping me out.” Ava drew the final line in the dirt. “Or you can just shoot us, and the message dies with me.”

The men went over to a nearby tree and exchanged a few words. Ava didn’t bother listening; she already knew they’d take her to Lillian. She coughed to get Laura’s attention and mouthed the word
sorry
but Laura looked away.

The men came back and the one with the 9mm nudged Laura forward toward her scooter.

“Wait!” Ava yelled. “She needs her gun out there.”

“Bullets out,” he ordered.

Ava pulled the revolver from the pack and opened the chamber, letting the bullets drop to the dirt. She tossed the gun over to Laura, who nodded and got on her powder-blue scooter. Without glancing back, she drove off down the path.

“We got some miles to go before we get to camp. That should give you enough time to convince us.” He lowered his shotgun, but kept it close at his side.

Ava knew just where to start. She had Lillian’s story memorized.

*

Ava and the two men walked for miles through the roughest parts of the forest. Her face got scratched up and her hands were chafed and bleeding, but she kept up with the soldiers. They ducked, crawled, and climbed their way through the dense woods while she told them every detail of Lillian’s story, down to the first time she kissed Aaron. The men kept quiet and listened. By the time they reached the clearing in the woods, they were convinced she knew Lillian. But they weren’t convinced she wasn’t working for Morray.

The camp was about a fourth of the size of the current-day village, and this portion of settlement was a little more south and closer to the lake. The cabins sat close to each other and the workmanship was amateurish, as if they had been slapped together by people who were just learning how to build them. There was a medical cabin and an area for communal gathering similar to the cantina, only much smaller in scale. Some of the cabins looked like the humble beginnings of trading storefronts. These were the seeds that would one day yield Ojai Village. An overwhelming sense of familiarity sank into Ava’s skin. Though she was three hundred years before her time, she felt as if she were home. She longed for Joseph and Grace and wondered if she’d ever see her real home again—not some programmed version of it. A tear rolled down her cheek, stinging her scratches.

“I need to clean up these wounds,” she told the man with the shotgun, whose name was Al.

“You can get fixed up in the medical hall, but I’m keepin’ someone on you, in case you try to pull anything,” Al said.

“You’re going to get Lillian, right?” she asked.

“She’ll come when I know it’s clear.” Al motioned for his buddy to take Ava to the medical hall while he tracked down Lillian.

She thought she’d try her luck and asked if she could see Sarah in the meantime, but Al shook his head and walked off.

Inside the cabin, Ava sat down on a cot while a woman with long gray hair cleaned the dirt out of her cuts.

“I’m Catherine. What’s your name?”

“Ava.”

“Let’s get you fixed up.” She smiled, humming a soft tune as she applied aloe.

Ava remembered how Rebecca had cared for her when she first arrived at the village after trekking through the tunnels with Joseph. Like Rebecca, Catherine’s kindness wasn’t out of obligation, but out of an innate desire to help. There was a healing spirit that existed in the village, in this time and the ones to come. This made Ava more homesick. She had to get out of the program before it became her only reality. She looked back to her past and how she had escaped the city center with everything stacked against her. She’d get out of this prison, too.

24

GRACE STARED AT Sam. He looked different, more confident or something. Maybe it was the suit or that annoying know-it-all smirk on his lips. The last few years came together like a string of perfect coding, and she could see the truth. The whole time Sam was assisting Ava, he had actually been gathering information. Information he could use to ambush Grace and her mother. Only one man would go through that much trouble to plot his revenge: Morray. The digital footprints were real. Morray was back. But he wasn’t nearly as threatening as her mother made him out to be. Every molecule in her body itched, wanting to thrust forward with her sword and take him out, but she forced herself to remain calm to see where things were going. At the current moment, he had the advantage. She still needed to find her mother.

“I always knew you were an asshole,” she said, lifting her sword.

“Easy, Grace.” He held up his hand. “You kill me, you’ll never get your mother back.”

“Where is she, you troll?” Her voice bounced off the marble walls.

“She’s safe.”

“If you don’t take me to her, I’m gonna start chopping off body parts.”

Blythe stepped up, aiming one of her arrows. “Yeah, Watchdog. And while she’s doing that, I’ll be plugging you with holes.”

“Without me, you get nowhere. You need to calm down.”

Grace pressed the sharp point of her sword into Sam’s cheek. “You need to quit playing games, Morray.”

Sam laughed and shook his head. “Morray?” He laughed some more, stepping away from the sword and straightening his suit. “I’m flattered, but I’m not Morray.”

“Who the hell are you, then? Because I know you’re not Sam, an innocent refugee from the southwestern region who wanted to learn about technology.”

“Clever girl,” he said.

The lobby grew quiet. Grace felt the energy shifting, as though a storm cloud had moved in. Sensing another presence, she spun around, but no one was there. She heard a bead of sweat smack against the marble floor. Then the click-clack of heels echoed through the lobby as the presence emerged from the shadows.

“Hello, Grace.”

“Ms. Atwood?” Grace sounded as if she had a rubber band wrapped around her larynx.

“Well, not exactly, my dear,” she said, smiling so fiendishly Grace stepped back a few inches. “I think it’s best if you refer to me as Chief Morray from here on out.”

Grace had gotten it all wrong. Morray had been using Ms. Atwood’s body.

“Let’s put down the sword and talk like rational adults, shall we?” Ms. Atwood put her arm around Grace’s shoulder. From within the woman’s body, Morray’s powerful essence rose up like a baleful gust of wind. Grace had become paralyzed under his palpable evilness. Her sword clanged to the floor.

“What’s going on?” Blythe pointed her arrow at Ms. Atwood.

“Do something about that, Dickson,” she motioned toward Blythe.

Sam (Dickson) nodded to Ms. Atwood (Morray). And while Blythe was still trying to figure out what was going on, Sam shot her. Blythe dropped to the floor like a sack of grains.

“What the hell?” Grace jumped back, lifting her hands in surrender. She stared at Blythe, spread out on the tiles, a pool of blood encircling her body. She wanted to run over to her, but she couldn’t risk getting shot. She needed to keep it together. She could mourn Blythe when this was over.

“Come along, dear. Let’s get you cleaned up and out of those rancid clothes.” Ms. Atwood held open her arms, escorting Grace forward.

Grace walked through the lobby toward the transporter with Ms. Atwood and Sam a few footsteps behind. She didn’t say another word. She knew better than to strike from a place of disadvantage. If she was going to get to her mother, she’d have to play nice. Morray must have been using Ms. Atwood’s body for a while—did he purposely rig the academy tryouts so Grace would track his digital footprints? Or was that an accident? Maybe he and Dickson weren’t counting on Grace being able to manipulate the coding? Whatever the details were, the plan had worked—Morray had both Grace and Ava under his iron fist.

They arrived at Room 4011.

“Get cleaned up. Dickson will come for back for you.” Ms. Atwood gently stroked Grace’s cheek.

Grace pulled away, disgusted. “Where’s my mother?”

“She’s on a little journey right now. Safe inside the mainframe, where she belongs.”

The door slid shut, sealing Grace inside the room.

She flittered around like a hummingbird, landing on one thought, then shooting off to the next. She needed to pull herself together and come up with a strategy. Things she knew for certain: she was locked inside a room with no exits, her sword was in the lobby next to Blythe’s dead body, and her mother was stuck inside the mainframe. Things weren’t looking so good. She knew her mother’s body was somewhere in the Administrative building, but she couldn’t break free and start searching the rooms. But she could track her down inside the mainframe and help pull her out. Then the two of them could take down Morray and Dickson together. She needed to get Dickson to connect her to the mainframe before Morray got to her. That would involve some hardcore manipulation. But she had a pretty good idea what his greatest weakness was . . . He was always someone’s subordinate.