BOOK OF MIA: 2081
Chapter 22: Shield
The door thuds close behind us as soon as we step out into the tall, unkempt, wild grass surrounding the bunker. Nate and I glance at one another as if to say 'where do we go now?' We look around, only to see grassland, trees, and the tiny mound where the hatch to the outside is. Other than that, there are no traces of Hill's compound to be seen.
"You think we are still near Camp Sweep?" Nate asks me, though he averts his eyes, awkward and aware of the little nugget of truth we must now digest. Brother and sister... who would have thought it. Though, looking at Nate now, I can see a slight resemblance, and it makes me feel sicker.
I shrug, avoiding his gaze as much as he is avoiding mine. "We could be anywhere. We were both passed out when they moved us, remember?"
I pout. This would be a brilliant time for the resident in my head to pipe in and help us out, but it seems the man has left the building as we stepped out. I wonder if he's — grandad's AI — tethered to his lab, his building. Hence the quiet tundra in my head right now.
"She said she would send us the coordinates when we were away from the facility," I utter, eyeing the dense tree line. "So maybe we just have to get away from it a bit."
Nate glances at the sealed door behind us, serious. "She said, Hill and her men."
"How are you feeling?" I take a peek at him from the corner of my eyes, still trying to boot out the thought I had wanted to kiss him several times since we fled the school camp. The thought of which makes me shudder.
He grabs my wrist absently and ploughs ahead, treading the tall grass as he'd done often in the past. My skin burns beneath his, aware of the touch. I pull my wrist out and trudge along beside him, my shorter legs disappearing deeper in the greens than his. I'm acutely aware this is Australia, the land of deadly snakes and spiders galore.
"You don't think they are still around?" I feel my chest constrict at the mere thought.
"Who are still around?" He takes a glimpse at me before facing our heading.
"That there are—" I take a step and something leaps up at me. I scream, throwing myself at Nate in hysterics, for all I see is a slim shape flying towards me. "Snakes!"
Nate grips my shoulders and gives me a dirty look. "It's a branch, Mia." In his grip is the said 'snake' and it definitely resembles a branch now that I'm not so focused on snakes. He throws the branch back into the grass and carries on, forever the leader he was born to be.
"How far do you think we have to get before we 'get away from Hill and her men'?" He wonders out loud, eyeing the sky that was moments ago dazzling bright. "It will get dark soon and I'd like us to put some distance between wherever that was and us."
I nod. I am up for putting some distance between the woman who wants to carve me open. She had wanted to study me prior to my 'upgrade'. I shiver to think what she'll give to get her hands on me now — once she discovers what I have become. I don't even know what I've become.
"What did she do to you?" I ask Nate, careful of each step in the grass.
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"She did something to you that almost killed you." My voice catches in my throat and I struggle to shake the image of his blue lips. Lips I had wanted to kiss. Yuck! Not that Nate is yuck.
"I don't remember a lot. I just remember coming in and out of it in that room." A darkness of sorts veils his face and I wonder what it is he's not telling me. "She wanted to know things, things I didn't know. Like why we were fleeing Camp Sweep. Why us?"
I grab Nate's wrist and hold him back. We are about three hundred meters from the tree line when I hear it. A snap of a twig, faint, but I hear it.
"What?"
I put a finger to my lips to shush him, still holding him back. "There's someone out there," I whisper, eyes scanning the trees and the shadows beyond.
Nate pulls me down until the tall grass hides us both. "Hill's men?"
I nod. It has to be. How dumb were we to take a leisurely stroll after escaping capture by a murderous scientist? I glance back in the direction we came from. The hatch is a pinprick in the dying light. "They are elite soldiers," I whisper. I can't see them yet, but I just know it.
"I thought Hill wasn't government." Nate shakes his head, confused.
"She's not, not as far as I could tell. But she is CodeTech. Old CodeTech — the original."
Nate gives me the blandest of looks. "CodeTech? As in the same tech we all use and have in our bodies? That CodeTech?"
No, smartass, is what I want to say, but I say, "All I know is she is not government, and she is not the same tech. Not anymore." A thought niggles at the back of my mind, a thought that this is all linked to something big, something too big for two teens hiding in the grass to handle, praying a mad scientist won't find us, but handle we must, if we mean to survive.
"That was the original CodeTech lab Dr Amour built," I whisper, recalling snippets of information I had heard in the two weeks we were there. "The guy in the lab, the hologram," I add.
"But that was Dr Love." Nate shakes his head in disbelief. "Your grand—"
"Dad?" I finish. "I was wondering who Amour was too for a long time. They kept mentioning his name there. That the lab was his and how he sealed it before he died. And then we see him, my mum's father, when we get in as a hologram? It can't be a coincidence, Nate."
I duck lower and pull him down further till we are arm-in-arm holding each other, our faces inches away from one another, as if we're about to kiss. We're not!
Nate clears his throat and lets go of me, but I continue anchoring him down despite the close quarters. I point in the tree's direction.
"I think there are several of them out there," I say, wishing and hoping we could know how many for sure.
"Why don't you use your infrared vision like that night, Mia?" The voice barges in my head, making me jump. Granddad. So he is in the house.
"Jesus!" I hiss and may have twitched in fright. Is it bad that I want to make a joke right now? We have a doctor in the house! Oh, I sigh. Perhaps this isn't the best time.
We hear the rustle in the grass and hold our position.
"And how do I use infrared?" I ask in an angry hiss.
"Why, just command infrared vision."
I roll my eyes. All that genius and his commands are simple. Command infrared vision? Really?
Infrared vision, at least I think I thought it, and my vision twists and morphs into something that can detect body heat. Suddenly, Nate is glowing like the biggest glowworm. It's cool that a mere thought gives me the ability to see like this, but I will not admit it to him — the man in my head.
"I already know it, girly!" He laughs. It's the first time I have heard the old man's laugh. Its guttural mirth seeps into my soul, warm and fuzzy, like I am home.
I turn to the tree line and shrink a little deeper into the grass. There are well over a dozen of Hill's men crawling toward us. They know where we are.
Damn it. They too have infrared sensors, as my system detects. So much for hiding in the bushes. We are two juicy, idle glowworms to them.
"We gotta move, Nate. Follow me and stay down."
I inch away towards the thinnest huddle of men. "Hey Granddad, am I bulletproof?" I ask, recalling the night of the massacre and the bullet that had grazed my thigh.
"Depends on how many you're wanting to test," comes the reply.
I glance back at Nate. "And him?"
"Is he bulletproof, you mean?"
I nod.
"Somewhat. Depends on how many you're willing to take," comes the reply. "Shields up, my darling. Shields up!"
I grab Nate's shoulder and pull him to match my strides and whisper, "Shields up."
I feel the rumbling and reassembling of a nanite barrier on both our skin. Did I just trigger the system in his body when I said the command out loud? For a moment, I wonder what else I can command out of Nate, but my mind — rendered prude and prim by the sibling talk — shakes a phantom head at me.
Nate gasps as his skin hardens with the nanite barrier — as does mine. "What the—?"
"Shush. I'll explain later." I eye the horizon beyond the slight gap between the two soldiers. Their bad formation is our best chance to escape.
"It works. It's in your touch!" Granddad whispers, almost with a tone of a smile on this voice, like he is making a joke.
You shush, too. I groan at him, if that's even possible, and I squeeze Nate's hand, fear leaping to my throat. Could Grandad be referencing my earlier feelings for Nate...? I try to focus on what's in front of us. I know what is about to come. I expect it already. This is what they made me for. I know that now. Whatever this was. Whatever I was. I was ready.
"Shall we run for it?" I ask Nate, squeezing his hand.
He returns my squeeze and nods.
"You stay behind me!" I order as we leap to our feet, running faster than we have ever run in our lives. Until we reach the soldiers, remembering Granddad's words — 'depends how many you're willing to take,' — I lead.
I am the shield and I hurtle past the soldiers, throwing them in the air in a blur they never saw coming.
Bullets once again sing in the surrounding air. As we leave the soldiers behind us, I fall back behind Nate immediately, shadowing him — taking the hits his system can't.
'Yet,' Grandad says, as if that will help us out right now.
My voice rings out towards Nate. "Run and don't look back!"
"Where?" Nate yells, fear poisoning his calm voice.
"Away!" I yell, gritting my teeth when I get hit. Ow — "Just run!"
I do not want him seeing me, not now. A distant buried thought niggles at me again. This is bigger than you, Mia. This is bigger than you and Nate, but you're both needed. Survive!
I run harder than I thought possible. Survive, that's what we want, I'm sure, and not because I am needed. Why and for what purpose I'm not sure, but all this pain had better be worth it.
Each hit knocks the wind out of me a little more, but they fade. They fade until it's just the dark and the surrounding silence rings in my ears. We are pulling ahead because we are faster than the Elites. We are faster than the Elites?
After a while, I stop running and fall to my knees. My back aches, riddled; my lungs sear from breathlessness, and I taste of iron in my mouth. "Stop, Nate. Stop. I can't anymore. I can't."
Nate, a blur before me, fades and returns as I close my tired eyes and let the cool night air kiss my burning hot skin.
"What the hell did you do?" His horrified face looms over me somewhere in an unknown eucalyptus forest.
"I just need to catch my breath." I spit the blood from my mouth. "I just need a moment."
"How many hits did you take? For me?" Nate looks as if I've kicked him where it hurts.
Spitting another mouthful of blood, I shake my head. I don't know how many hits I took. Not since I stopped counting after a dozen or two.
Nate walks behind me despite me trying to stop him. I don't want him to see it. My back.
I feel his gaze rove over my back before he drops to his knees behind me. His body heat radiates towards mine, giving me some comfort. I'm freezing cold and the shakes have nothing to do with exertion. I try not to think about his hand hovering over the many bullets in my back. It's not a pretty sight, I bet.
"Mia? Why did you do this?" he asks, sounding pained.
"Cause I can..." I welcome the darkness taking over me. I just need a moment... to catch my breath... cause I can.