I scrutinized her expression, searching for even a trace of the shock I’d felt when I’d first seen my injury. The shock I still felt. But there was nothing. No exclamations of disbelief, no sobs, no cries of horror. Nothing at all to indicate that the interior makeup of my arm was news to her.
The flare of hope that maybe, somehow, Mom hadn’t known about this, known that my arm was completely freaktastic and had just failed to mention it to me, smothered to death, right there, in my chest.
Mom’s own chest rose and fell under her soft blue tee. She reached for my hands. “Mila. I know this is hard, but I need you to listen.”
I allowed her to take them. And waited. Waited for an explanation that could make sense out of this. After all, a simple, logical explanation had to exist. It had to.
Mom’s cheeks showed an uncharacteristic pallor. “How many people saw this?” she demanded. When I just stared at her, dumbfounded by her reaction, she grabbed my shoulder and actually shook me. “How many?”
“Just . . . just two. Kaylee and another friend.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! You’re starting to freak me out—please, just tell me what’s going on!”
Her grip on my shoulders eased. Resignation settled over her face. “Follow me.”
That simple command gave permission for the dam inside me to burst, unleashing wave after wave of craziness and anxiety. I followed her down the hallway, and by the time we arrived at her bedroom, it was a wonder I wasn’t shaking.
I wanted to turn and run. To tell her to forget that I’d just demanded an explanation, to forget the whole thing. We could tape some kind of permanent bandage over my arm, pretend it didn’t exist.
I wanted to run. Instead, I followed her into the master bedroom.
She headed for her antique mahogany dresser and squatted before it. The bottom drawer, always obstinate, finally popped open.
I stared blankly at the assortment of colorful folded T-shirts, wondering what on earth they had to do with my alien arm. Then Mom yanked the drawer out completely, set it aside, and peered into the dresser. I squatted next to her and immediately saw her target. In the very back corner, a bit of silver gleamed under a piece of masking tape.
A key.
Once she had the key in hand, Mom led me into the laundry room, halting just in front of the door to the garage. Finally she turned, smoothing my hair away from my cheek before dropping her hand back to her side. “Mila, before we go any further, I need you to know that I really do care. In fact, I believe now, more than ever, that you’re worth all the risks.”
Those words froze me to the core.
Inside the garage, she led me to a bunch of empty moving boxes, arranged neatly against the far back wall. Or at least I’d assumed they were empty. After dragging down the top three, she reached inside the bottom one and withdrew a shiny silver metal box by its handle. An oversized toolbox.
As she turned to carry the box into the house, I flinched away to avoid touching it. My body’s reaction to knowing, without a doubt, that whatever was locked away inside that innocuous-looking container was likely to change my life forever.
When we reached the living room, Mom set the box on the coffee table and pointed to the overstuffed green couch. “Have a seat, Mila. This is going to take a while.”
I sat. The silver key headed for the lock. Three seconds until my life exploded.
The key turned. Two seconds.
The lid opened. One second.
And . . .
Whatever crazy ideas I’d had about the contents of the box, I could say with certainty that none of them involved a silver iPod and matching earbuds. Which were exactly the items Mom withdrew.
“Here. Listen to this while I fix up your arm. It will explain everything.”
Mom looked away, her strong, capable fingers brushing quickly under her eyes. Then she extended the earbuds toward me. Two round white circles, only a quarter inch in diameter each. Nestled like tiny bombs in her upturned palm.
I hesitated. Did I really want to know? Really? Because whatever was on there was bad enough to make Nicole Daily cry.
No, the truth was, I didn’t want to know. But I had to.
My fingers curled around the earbuds. I shoved them into my ears before I could change my mind. Mom withdrew more items from the box—a pen-sized laser, a pair of crazy-looking tweezers, goggles, and a tiny screwdriver—tools that seemed perfect for servicing a broken laptop. She saw me staring and managed a faint smile. “To fix your arm,” she said, sounding like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Uh-huh, I thought as I eyed a screwdriver. Totally normal.
“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”
Then she hit play on the iPod, flooding my ears with a deep male drawl, and everything else fell away. Well, everything except the lingering thought that Mom had lied. Because while there wasn’t pain in my arm, the words spewing from the stranger were another story.
They hurt. They hurt like hell.
“MILA, or Mobile Intel Lifelike Android, is the military’s current experiment in artificial intelligence. The MILA project is cofunded by a special top-clearance segment of the CIA and the military, so as to produce a supercovert robot spy that can infiltrate sleeper cells and then record all of their movements and intelligence.”
I groped for the pause button, pushed it. Stared into space as the words penetrated. Mobile Intel Lifelike Android. Android. My name wasn’t a shortened combination of Mia and Lana, it was an acronym. And it meant . . .
No way. There was no way. That was ridiculous, un-believable. The stupidest thing I’d ever heard.
I went to yank the earbuds out, consumed by an urge to chuck the iPod at the wall, to smash it into a million pieces . . . and then my gaze fell on my mom. My mom, who was currently using a laser to seal the tube in my arm shut.
And just like that, it hit me. Destroying the messenger would do me no good. Not when I couldn’t escape the reality unfolding right in front of my eyes.
I hit play, and the voice continued its detached monologue.
“Although the MILA 2.0—” The! THE! Like I was an object, a thing! And 2.0? What did that even mean? “—is physically indistinguishable from an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl, its brain is a reverse-engineered nanocomputer, a complex mix of transistors and live cell technology that gives it unique capabilities. These include exceptional reflexes and strength, superhuman
