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She entered Morray’s office, where he was sitting behind his desk observing one of his monitors. The footage showed images of Ava from her days inside the city center during one of her ballet competitions. Though she had no desire to go back to her old life, she felt a jab of remorse, seeing what she left behind to move to the village.

“Feeling more comfortable in your Outsider attire?” he asked, swiping away the monitor and peering into Ava’s eyes. A chill rippled up her neck.

“I’d like to get this over with and return to my
real
life in the
real
world.”

He smirked and leaned back in his chair. “Ava, dear, this
is
your life. This moment. The two of us, right here, right now.”

“Can we get on with it? I’m sensing there’s a ticking clock of sorts.”

“Have you always been so impatient?”

“When it comes to you, yes. I can’t stand to be in your presence. Real or programmed.”

“That hurts, Ava.”

He walked around the desk and sat next to her, pulling up another monitor. It displayed an aerial shot of a forest east of the Pacific Ocean.

“This is the area where Lillian’s people settled—the lower part of Ojai, near the lake. It won’t look the same to you, since it’s over three hundred years before your time.” He paused a moment and reflected. “I would have done anything for my son. Anything. I would have given him the world, which was free game at the time. His mother took him from me, and because of some ill-fated miscommunication he was killed. It was supposed to be a simple mission to retrieve him. In and out. But as you know, nothing is simple. Now that I understand the capacity of the mainframe, I can go back and fix this mistake.”

“I know all about your tragic life,” she said. “But those tragedies didn’t entitle you to become a tyrant. Three hundred years of oppressing humans, killing them off at the age of thirty-six, or worse—experimenting on them. You can’t go back and fix that. It all happened, whether or not you bring your son back.”

He ignored her and continued. “Once you infiltrate the camp, you must find his mother, Sarah. You’ll need to explain to her what happens when he’s older. And you need to convince her to let you remove him from the woods. At that point, Dickson will work with you to harness Phoenix’s identity matrix, bringing him back to our location. We’ll pull you up from the mainframe as well.”

“And the three of us are supposed to live unhappily ever after?”

“It is all a matter of perspective.”

Ava knew there was no reasoning with the mad man. “I’ll find a way out. I did before, I’ll do it again.”

He touched her lips. “This time, my dear, there is no escape. Let’s not forget about my insurance policy.”

“You touch Grace or involve her in any of this, and it’s over. I’ll find a way to destroy the program, your archive files, and the entire mainframe. You’ll be nothing.”

Morray was unfazed by Ava. “We know that’s not true.”

“What if I can’t convince Sarah?” she asked.

“Once you’re inside the archive file, you get one chance to make it work. One life to live, so to speak. If you fail, you die in there. Your consciousness will evaporate into the mainframe and your physical body will die. Dickson has very tight security, so I highly recommend sticking to the plan and completing the mission.”

“Let’s get this over with,” she stood up and walked over to the lounger.

Morray strapped her down and placed her hand on the connector panel.

“This will only hurt for a few seconds.” He smiled. “Maybe more.”

“Screw . . . ”

The pain jolted through her cortex like a million flames. Hot lava rushed through the lobes of her brain. She shot through beams of white light, twisting and gyrating as though she were going into cardiac arrest. The pain was unbearable, and it lasted much longer than a few seconds . . .

When Ava opened her eyes, she was sitting in the passenger seat of a Jeep that was bumping along some windy back road.

“Where are we?” she asked the driver, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. He wore a black military uniform and had a shaved head.

The kid adjusted his sunglasses and eyed himself in the rearview mirror. “Pacific Palisades. Used to be mansions. Now look at it. All gone. Rich bastards had it coming.”

“What year is it?”

The driver tipped his shades and looked at Ava, laughing. “You okay, miss?”

“Just tell me what year it is. Please.”

“It’s 2043.”

“So fifteen years after the Repatterning . . .”

“Did you hit your head or something?” he joked.

“Is Morray running the Los Angeles City Center?”

“Hell yes, he is. You handed him the note yourself.”

“What note?”

“The one saying you could get Phoenix back.”

Ava didn’t remember that interaction and assumed it was part of Dickson’s programming. She couldn’t wait to find Dickson and give him a proper slap.

“Chief Morray’s been running the show for five years now. Building up armies to fight off these outside terrorists.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Dropping you off in Temescal Canyon. From there, you move north to their camp in the Los Padres Mountains.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean, that’s it? I got my orders to take you as close to the perimeter as possible without getting spotted by the Outsiders. You having doubts?”

“No,” she said, knowing the conversation was pointless. He’d never in a million years understand he wasn’t a real human. Or that they were stuck in Morray’s memory files that Dickson had recoded. She barely understood the profundity of the circumstances herself.

The Jeep drove down a dirt path that led to a thicket of trees next to a hillside. The empty spot looked eerily familiar. Years later, it would become checkpoint one. And centuries later she and Joseph would stop there after trekking through the tunnels they used to escape the Los Angeles City Center. She remembered those early moments with Joseph—when the scruffy Outsider came from around the statue of Chief Morray after the alarms had sounded—almost more afraid of her than she was of him. As far as the city was concerned, he was a terrorist. But she saw something in Joseph’s eyes—something warm and kind. Some people dismiss the notion of love at first sight, but Ava knew she loved Joseph right from the start. She listened to her instincts and trusted him. Because of her willingness, everything changed. And for that, they were given the gift of Grace.

“This is as far as I go.” He jumped out of the Jeep and tossed her a backpack. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I will be, once this is over.”

“Whatever you say. Good luck out there,” he said, tipping his shades and winking.

Ava watched the young driver pull away, leaving her alone in the thicket of trees in the middle of nowhere. She hoped to find some additional information inside the backpack. She dumped its contents: blanket, change of socks, two full water canteens, a fire sparker, and some silver snack packets. Essential survival provisions for the seventy plus miles hike to Ojai, but no weapon of any kind. She flipped the backpack inside out to make sure there was nothing else. She found only a hand-drawn map tucked in the side pocket. Not very helpful.

“If you can hear me, Morray,” she said, looking around to the trees, not sure if he was monitoring her activity, “you’re an asshole.”

In the woods, she gathered a couple of sturdy branches to use for spears and found a rock to file down the ends into sharp points. She did the same thing with some shorter branches. The rock was turning out to be a good makeshift knife. She searched for some dead plants and cut down strips to weave into a rope. This exercise took a couple of hours, and by the time she was finished her fingers were bleeding, but she had a good amount of rope and weapons. She bundled together the shorter spears and fastened them to the backpack. She’d carry the two larger spears for a quick defense. The knife-rock, along with some companion rocks, went into her side pockets.

The sun was making its way up over the mountains in the east. She studied the map again, looking at the small dots zigzagging toward the approximate location of Lillian’s camp. First, she’d head west toward the Pacific Ocean where she’d pick up a trail through Topanga Canyon, and then she’d go north through the valley. Averaging three miles an hour, it might take about twenty-two hours to get to the camp. Her feet hurt just thinking about it. Maybe along the way she could find another mode of transportation—an abandoned car or even a rusty bike—anything would be better than going on foot.

As she hiked through the woods, she thought about her years on the Outside and how she had spent the majority of her time inside the mainframe, or teaching technology to the other villagers. She regretted not being more present for her family. Maybe she really had just exchanged one prison for another. Her relentless pursuit for maintaining freedom had kept her chained to the mainframe; she had spent too much time studying Morray’s memories instead of making her own. No wonder Grace had such strong resentments. As she walked along, breathing in the cool air coming in off the ocean, she wondered how she could have missed this simple truth. She also wondered how the air could seem so fresh. It wasn’t real. This was just a program. Nothing was real. She was just wandering around inside Morray’s world again. Was he watching her now, smiling with satisfaction as she struggled up the steep canyon trail?

The sun beat down intensely as Ava worked her way down the other side of the canyon. She found a shady spot to rest and eat whatever was in the silver packets. She tore open the bag to find mixed nuts and dried fruit. Not the most satisfying thing, but she needed the protein—though she didn’t understand why, since her body wasn’t real. She sipped from the canteen, feeling the relief of cool water going down her throat.

“Not real,” she reminded herself.

She clung to thoughts of Joseph and Grace, somehow knowing if she didn’t keep them at the top of her mind she’d end up losing them forever. Morray had waited sixteen years to seek his revenge. So far, his ploy had been executed to perfection. But Ava was too determined to let him win. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. Besides, he couldn’t keep her actual body locked away forever. Once someone from the academy discovered she was missing, they’d initiate a search and rescue . . .

She almost choked on the water, knowing exactly who would volunteer for the job. Grace may have resented her mother, but Ava was sure she’d do whatever she could to get her back. Maybe that’s what Morray wanted all along—to trap both Ava and Grace inside the mainframe together? Ava wouldn’t let that happen. She’d sacrifice herself but not her daughter. She’d have to figure out a way to transmit a message to Grace, warning her to stay put and stay out of the mainframe—no matter what. She’d have to find someone at the camp with enough technical savvy to send the message without Dickson or Morray noticing. She knew just the person.

20

GRACE HEARD SOMETHING that sounded like a broken trombone echo through the tunnel. Blythe and Missakian had returned with a vehicle. Grace and Marion ran toward the opening, grateful to be out of the stench of the tunnel.

They had returned with something, although Grace wasn’t sure what. The frame of the vehicle was still there, but the rest of it seemed to be missing. The thing consisted of a metal platform shaped like a sleigh that was rigged to eight enormous wheels, four along each side. The roof was a canopy made of solar panels that powered the vehicle. And the engine was exposed with hundreds of wires and cables jutting out in every direction, linking up to the solar panels. Blythe sat low behind the wheel and Missakian was seated next to her in a metal chair that was bolted to the floor.

“You call that a ride?” Marion yelled over the revving engine.

“What’d you expect? We had a sword and a quiver to barter,” Blythe yelled through the opening, where a front windshield should have been.

“You gave up your arrows?” Grace asked, feeling a hint of guilt.

“It’s for your mother, not you. Can you wuss nuts just shut up and get in?”

Grace climbed up one of the wheels and stood on the platform to help hoist up Marion. They strapped themselves into a couple of metal chairs situated in the back of the sleigh-like contraption. Blythe pulled down the yellow-tinted face shield, revved up the engine, and peeled away. Dust and dirt from the filthy streets billowed up all around them. The sleigh mobile had power—a lot of power—and they hurtled out of the seedy part of town toward a main road, passing a rickety hand-painted sign that read NORTH.

“You’ll need these.” Missakian tossed back a couple of face masks, then put on a pair of aviator goggles and pulled his bright orange headband over his nose and mouth to protect himself from the windowless dust-blasting machine.

“How many miles?” Grace yelled over the noise.

Missakian chose to communicate by flashing his fingers: one, seven, and five.

Grace calculated they were going about forty or fifty miles per hour, so they’d probably get to the Seattle region by early afternoon. They could set up camp and scope the area, giving them time to devise a plan to get inside the city center. As they drove through the tall pines that stretched toward the clear blue skies, Grace felt a sense of accomplishment—everything was going according to plan and in a timely manner—they might even complete this mission before classes started on Monday. The feeling of relief was ripped away when Blythe slammed on the brakes, bringing the vehicle to a screeching halt. One of the bolts on Grace’s chair came loose, and she pinballed around the back area as the straps dug into her shoulders.

Blythe shut off the engine. “Trouble,” she said, securing her face shield.

Grace undid the chair straps and stood up to get a better view. About a hundred yards ahead sat a barricade of similar makeshift vehicles. She squatted next to Missakian.

“Is there a work-around?” she asked.

“Not a safe one.”

“What do they want?”

“Their ride.”

“But they just bartered with us.”