BOOK OF MIA: 2081

Chapter 24: Thirst

I drag the dead weight of the man who was refusing to walk anymore. The Elite soldier we decided to bring with us — or I decided. The decision wasn't taken lightly. Somehow, I could hack into his system and disable his outgoing signals so Hill could no longer track him, and track us by default. I say 'hack' in a loose sense of the term. I know little about hacking and coding. It was never my field of interest nor strength, but just after slapping the cuffs on the guy, I remembered I had an updated program with the ability of a genius coder or programmer. Upon contact, I upgraded Nate's system, overtaking and rewriting it like a virus, hadn't I? Perhaps I could do it again?

So, earlier, as we sat on a dead log on that forest floor, trying to ignore the pile of bodies we'd set to the side so we didn't have to look at it, I had toyed with the idea — of hacking Hill's soldier.

Why was there a pile of bodies we were trying not to look at? Well, it came from me not wanting to help Nate cope. So he didn't have to look at the grotesque field, and look pretty green. He'd looked greener still when I asked him to help me pile them to the side. In fact, it was the still lingering terror behind his gorgeous eyes — terror I had inflicted — that I couldn't take any longer. Waiting for those brown eyes to flicker over to the bodies dotting the area and a silent scream sounding in his head.

All that condemning. I couldn't take it, so I'd suggested, "We should keep moving," trying to pull Nate's attention back to me. To my face. Eyes on me! But they could only linger on mine momentarily before darting away. Like he wanted to look at me, but he couldn't, which hurt — a lot. But I suppose I can't think about that now. Nate and I can never be more than friends. Especially now. One, I was his sister — though that woman could have lied — and worse yet, I was this dangerous little murderer in his eyes. I did it in self defence, for survival — OMG! I get why it's called survival mode now — but none of that mattered.

Nate saw red every time his eyes flickered over to the one soldier still alive. The guy who watched us, unwavering, ever since he woke a few minutes earlier. His eyes, too, darted over to his colleagues' bodies, and back to mine, laced with fear of a man who knew what I could do, and it freaked him out. Which freaked me out. I was still the same Mia — wasn't I?

"What about him?" Nate had whispered, sitting there on that log beside me, looking like all he wanted to do was scoot away from me. I could sense what he had wanted to say, but couldn't: 'Are you going to kill him too?'

No, Nate. No. I wasn't going to kill him too, or anyone. In fact, the killing hadn't ever been part of my plan. But, regret, I couldn't say what I had wanted to either — because he had never asked out loud, had he?

"We can't take him with us..." he had mumbled then. "She will be watching. Listening."

She. Dr Hill.

No. We couldn't take the soldier with us, not the way he was. We couldn't risk Hill setting up another ambush, with twice the number of soldiers next time. But I really didn't have the heart to turn survival mode back on and let her, the scary me, if it's even me, eliminate the last remaining threat.

"Maybe I can—" I had stepped in front of the soldier, giving him a full view of me. He stared, his eye contact strong. I wanted to look away, so I did. At the bodies. "Granddad?" I whispered, not wanting to take the chance that Hill could be listening. I did not want her to know he was home in my head. His entire working mind, his genius, his research — in my head.

"Yes, shorty," he replied.

Excuse me, who are you calling shorty? I had turned away from the soldier. The conversation I was about to have with the old man wasn't something I wanted an Elite to be privy to, and not just because he was Hill's lackey.

"Keep an eye on him," I had told Nate as I walked away from the area. I had needed to get away to a safe distance because, to an unknowing eye, I'd be talking to myself, like a certifiable looney.

"Where are you going? Mia?" Nate had yelled behind me but could not follow. He was a good soldier too, and I had ordered him to stay put.

So, I had waltzed myself at least a few hundred meters from the boys, enough distance to still be close enough to get there within seconds, but private enough to have that chat with the old man.

"Who are you calling an old man?" he chided. There was that mirthful voice I was getting used to.

I'm pretty sure I had rolled my eyes. "Oh, yeah, old man isn't apt. Shall I call you deadman?"

If AIs could sigh, I'm pretty sure the silence that followed was him sighing.

"What do you want?" he asked, curt.

I eyed the trees, where I could see Nate pacing nearby. "Is there a way I can turn off his communication with Hill?"

"Nate's?"

"No, not Nate's. The other guy. Hill's soldier."

"You want to kill his signal?"

I had nodded. "Yes, I want to kill the signal going out, but keep the line open to hear her plans, if we can. I don't want us getting ambushed again. I don't want to go through that again."

"It's doable. Just establish contact and I'll do the rest."

An odd sensation had crawled over my skin then. It was the first time I'd realised that he was separate from me. Granddad was his own entity, and he could still get things done beyond the grave in a creepy way — through me.

I went back to the men, asking, "Establish contact, meaning, touch the guy?"

"Yes, what else does 'establish contact' mean in your world?" There was that sigh again... that weird AI sigh.

Well, I can think of a few things my friends and I could coin that phrase into.

"Dirty mind."

"You started it!"

"Started what?" Nate had turned to me, jittery. He had that wired look about him, like someone who was on too much juice and not the good kind.

I had shaken my head, given his biceps a reassuring brush with my hand, and stomped towards the soldier, who squirmed a little, trying to get to his feet, perhaps. Only if I hadn't bound them.

Before I had 'established contact' with his system, I had left a farewell message for Hill.

"Hey there, Dr Hill!" I had waved at the soldier's chest, at the camera mounted on his vest. "It's me, Mia Love. I just wanted to let you know that both Nate and I are fine. We ARE dandy, and still alive, despite your wonderful efforts to maim, kill or capture us. And I just wanted to say, leave us the fudge alone! Okay? Thanks, ta. Bye-bye!"

Yeah, it was slightly over the top, now that I think about it, but what can I say, I was a little pissed off. Okay, a lot pissed off. I mean, the woman had sent soldiers to hunt us down, as if we were some animals to be hunted.

After that, Deadman, also known as granddad-who-resides-in-my-head, had gotten to working his mojo — or whatever it went to work, since it's not really grandad, grandad. All I know is that it somehow involved my nanites, my system, my body.

"I resent that!" he'd fired at the reference to deadman as he hacked into the soldier's bio-communications line.

Minutes later, he was also trying to watch his tongue around me. His grandchild.

"For fu — God's sake, which genius integrated nanites into biotic subjects? And wiring communications using implants in the head?"

"Uh... hey Nate, who invented the first integrated bionanite that led to CodeTech being formed? You know, the company that now has a piece of itself in every human alive?" I'd asked, loud.

Nate had looked confused, scratching his face. "Well, ac-ac-according to history, and assuming every-everything is accurate... Doctor... Doctor Amour... or your," — he'd hesitated as he pointed to my head — "your granddad, who used the last name Love instead for reasons we don't know yet."

"Smartass!" was Grandad once Nate had put him in his place.

"Apparently, it runs in the family!" I had snorted.

Poor Nate, he had no clue what I was on about, for he did not know I was conversing with the resident in my head. Boy, does that sound like I need therapy — lots of it.

I had suspected then that Nate needed a quiet place to himself for a moment. To process everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Alas, Nate would have to wait, as did I. For peace, I mean.

"Done," Grandad had declared.

Moments after that, I had tied the climbing rope that was part of the soldier's own outfit around the cuff on his hands. Then I'd freed his legs and pulled him to his feet with surprising ease so he could walk with us. He was weirdly compliant.

So there I was, hours later, dragging the soldier by his feet. All three of us, dying from the heat and thirst, the soldier more than Nate, and Nate more than I. Guess 'mum' — whoever she was, the voice in our heads — had said we were now more protected against radiation, but not entirely immune, I suppose.

Dying, and burnt, we stumble upon a long deserted beach. A fading, half-buried, and peeling sign by the sand reads Resolute Beach in full apocalyptic vibe. It almost makes me laugh. Here we are, resolute in trying to get away from Hill, but dying of hunger, thirst, and radiation. Nothing about it feels resolute other than needing water to quench our thirst. 'Where are the zombies?' I half want to cry out in the silent wind. Is that ocean breeze cooling my red fiery face?

"Water!" the soldier mumbles the same thing he's been mumbling for the past hour. His lips' cracked and peeling, his eyes half rolls in his head. I feel sorry for the guy, and wish I had the water he needs. We need.

Ahead of us, Nate tumbles on the sand, his legs unable to stay straight. "The sand is hot, Mia," he says as he falls on the gleaming white beach.

I leave the soldier in the shades of the trees and hurtle like a drunk towards Nate, to retrieve him before he melts his handsome face off. I pull him to his feet, struggling myself, and I bring him back to the shade where I left the soldier.

"Now what?" Nate's not looking good, but in typical Nate-style, he's thinking what next.

I shrug. "I don't know. She said she'd send us coordinates. Right?"

Nate nods, exhausted.

I wonder then if all this had been a futile exercise. What if the voice, whoever she is, is another pre-recorded AI that had somehow discovered my signal and latched on after I was tased? What if this was the dumbest thing we could have done — walking towards nothing? And now we are going to die from eventual exposure and our insides getting nicely roasted by the radiation. I suppose there are worse ways to go, like the way Granddad did, melting in a house fire.

That I might have led Nate to our inevitable deaths, and that Hill in her own kookie way was trying to save us — despite wanting to cut me into pieces for her study — is an uneasy thought to settle down beside a tree with.

The mid-day sun is glaring down on the sand. I barely keep my eyes open, exhausted from heat and thirst.

I peek at the vast ocean dazzling under the sun in awe. Yes, we're exhausted, but that view is something we have never seen in our lives. That's gotta be worth something.

"So that's what an ocean looks like!" I mumble, grabbing Nate's hand. I need to feel something more than the nylon rope I have been dragging since dawn.

"You think we can drink that water?" Nate mumbles beside me, his voice sounding like sandpaper has roughed his throat.

"It's salty, remember?" I shake my head. The wetness of the ocean is inviting, though. "We could go for a swim?" I suggest.

Nate doesn't respond.

"Nate?" I turn, only to see he is fast asleep beside me, leaning against a tree, his hand slack in mine. I feel for his pulse. Just in case. It thrums under my finger and I ease back. He is alive, for now.

I look at the soldier, who looks a little more like life than he did when we arrived. He watches me.

"What?" I ask. I can tell he was itching to ask me something, the way he was looking at me. No longer fearful, but in awe.

"Why didn't you kill me?"

I shake my head. "That wasn't me."

I squirm under his studious gaze. It's not the same discomfort I used to feel when Hill studied me, but still. I've learned from my time with her that I dislike being studied.

"It wasn't you?" he asks, eyeing Nate, sleeping. "You and I both know that's not true."

I swallow in fear. Memories of last night flash in my mind. It is by my hands those men died. Mine. "I wasn't in control," I concede, shuddering.

"I think you were!"

Such a simple, obnoxious statement. I glare at him. "How would you know?"

"Is it safe for me to talk?" he asks suddenly. The question gets my attention for sure. "Freely, I mean."

I nod. "Yes. I..." What did I do to his system? Short it out? mute it? I don't even know the language I should use in explaining whatever I did to his system, so I decide to go with 'mute'. "I muted your communications to Hill if that's what you mean." And it sounds silly in my head.

"You were about to kill me," he starts, then pauses a moment. "Then I said something, and you stopped, mid-choking."

I don't remember this. "What did you say to make me stop?"

"That's the thing..." He stares at me a while, getting a little more comfortable on the tree he's leaning against. "I don't know either."

"Mia, stop. I'm not going to hurt you."

Nate's voice startles both of us and we turn to see him sitting upright against his tree, a little more alert after his power nap.

"What?" I ask.

He looks at me, then at the soldier. "You said, Mia, stop. I'm not going to hurt you."

"And that made her stop?" the soldier asks. Clearly, as confused as I am. "I knew her name?"

I can't help but look from the soldier to Nate. Their resemblance is striking. Similar built, similar violet-dark hair, eyes that drill down to your soul.

A snippet of memory, grainy and pixelated, fleets across my mind once more just like it had done that night at the waterfall. I see a young man sitting across from me at a dining table, eating his food, throwing a smile at me as a woman, the mother I assume, reprimands me — whoever the memory belongs to. An echo of a voice says, 'Now say grace!'

The soldier has an uncanny resemblance to the boy in the memory as I look at him with fresh eyes. And I wonder if I am some sort of psychic, seeing images from other people's lives. "What's your name?" I ask him.

"Devendra Quinton Shah." He responds, resolute as the beach. Something passes between us as if I know him. And an echo of a voice still rings in my mind: 'Write horror, Dev, people eat that shit up!'

"Dev?" I mumble absently, only to hear, "How do you know that?" in return.

I don't frigging know, now do I? I get to my feet, suddenly realising he was helping me last night. That was the reason I stopped when he'd asked.

"What's going on, Mia?" Nate asks beside me. "You are starting to freak me out!"

Heck, I'm starting to freak myself out. I need to get to the bottom of this, and something tells me all I have to do is ask.

"Hey, granddad?" I ask, meeting Nate's eyes.

Nate bristles in anticipation. His eyes dart back to Dev, the Soldier, on the ground, basically asking me if I should do this openly, in front of our guest, but something tells me he is not a random guest.

"Yeah, sweety, what is it?" Granddad pipes in.

Imagine hearing that in a monotone. No emotions in the word sweety. Maybe it's his way of sounding more human than machine. I push past the feeling.

"Can you replay something for me?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"Whether it was recorded."

"Is Survival Mode, recorded?"

"Yes, it is part of your program, where your system learns patterns and improves service, subsequently. Any other time, you will need to enter the command to 'record' manually or put it on auto. Mind you, auto overwrites every seven-day cycle unless you save data off-site such as..."

He drones on in my head and I can't help but watch the soldier. My palms get clammy, and I'm afraid, this time, I'm the one who is fearful of what I might see.

"Play the last five minutes of Survival mode," I interrupt, mirroring Granddad's monotone.

"As you wish," he perks like a genie about to grant me a wish, and I can't help but think, be careful what you wish for.