Four—no, five—Reboots were walking toward us. Two bikes were behind them, one of them toppled over in the dirt with a busted tire.
A guy at the front of the group was walking a bit faster than the rest: the leader. His hair was longer than last time I’d seen him, almost a year ago. The thick, dark blond strands tickled at his neck. His eyes were a light, piercing blue. It was Riley One-fifty-seven.
“Hey, Micah,” he called as he got closer. “Sorry, we—”
He stopped short, his eyes widening as they met mine. “Wren?”
Micah chuckled, turning to glance at me. “Surprise.”
“Wren?” Riley said again, with a hint of laughter. I lifted my hand to wave but he was running toward me and I froze, unsure what he intended to do. He scooped me up in his arms, my feet almost leaving the ground. I stiffened. How odd. Riley never touched me. His blank, emotionless demeanor had been my favorite thing about him. We’d been the same that way.
He released me, his face more excited than I’d ever seen. He was almost as tall as Callum but wider, although he was slightly less muscular than last time I’d seen him. Working out had been the only thing Riley enjoyed at HARC.
“How are you here? What happened? Did Leb help you?” His words came in a rush, and by the time he got to the last question I wasn’t sure he wanted me to answer the first anymore.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “Leb helped me. I . . . uh, escaped.”
Riley laughed like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard and pulled me into another hug. What was happening? Since when did Riley hug? Since when did Riley laugh?
“She forgot the part where she rescued every Reboot in the Austin facility and brought them with her!” Micah called over his shoulder as he headed toward the other Reboots.
Riley frowned in confusion. “Austin? What were you doing in Austin?”
“It’s a long story,” Jules interjected, giving me a sympathetic look. She gestured to the bikes. “What’s going on there?”
“Tire busted on one of them,” Riley said. “We were trying to patch it up well enough so we could all ride back. It’s not working out.” He peered behind me. “Is that a new shuttle?”
“Wren rides in style,” Jules said with a grin.
Micah knelt down next to the busted bike. “We can put this one in the shuttle. Two of you can ride the other one back.” He straightened, scanning the area. “Hunt didn’t produce anything this time?”
“Sorry, man, we couldn’t find them,” Riley said.
Micah pointed to the east with his shotgun. “I just saw them right over there. You’re losing your touch, friend.” He nodded his head at me. “Wren, with me. Jules and Kyle, follow on the south side.” He looked at Riley. “You guys stay here and watch the shuttle. Get that bike loaded.”
I took a step toward Micah and stopped as Riley wrapped his cool fingers around my wrist. Most of the happiness drained from his face, the blank look I knew so well plastered there instead.
“Maybe Wren could stay here?” Riley asked.
Micah rolled his eyes. “You’ll have plenty of time to catch up, I promise. I told her she could hunt.”
Riley’s gaze flicked to mine as he released my wrist, and I frowned, confused. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Was he . . . worried? I hadn’t seen him worried about me since he was my trainer.
“Let’s go!” Micah said. He winked at me. “It’ll be fun.”
I cast one more glance back at Riley as I followed Micah, but he just stared at me blankly. Weird. I was going to have to ask him what that was about when we got a moment alone.
We walked through crunchy dead grass, the trees sparse around us, and Micah adjusted the shotgun strapped to his back and clicked the safety off the handgun. A handgun seemed like a weird choice for hunting, but he knew more about it than I did.
“You ever think about revenge?” he asked after we’d been walking several minutes, his voice low. “On that human who killed you and your parents?”
“No. I’m sure HARC already caught him anyway. I don’t think he was subtle about killing us.”
“But if they didn’t? Would you go back and kill him?”
I shook my head. “I really don’t care. I don’t feel anything when I think about my death. Or even my parents’ deaths.” I looked at him quickly. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that last part. That would have horrified Callum.
But Micah nodded like he understood. “Yeah, your parents would have rejected you once you Rebooted anyway.”
I thought of the look on Callum’s mother’s face as she stared at her son. Micah was right about that. My parents could barely stand me as a human.
“I admire your ability to separate out your emotions like that,” he said, carefully stepping over a rock and offering me his hand to help me. I ignored it. “I’m not always good at that.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise, but he didn’t elaborate. I thought about what Callum had said to me once, about the numbers not mattering. Was I less emotional because I was a One-seventy-eight, or because I was just me?
The prospect of it being just me was worse.
We walked into a thick patch of trees, Micah leading the way. I could see a hint of the river in front of us, and Micah took in a breath as he stopped behind a tree trunk. He reached for his com.
“In position?” he whispered into it.
“In position,” Jules replied.
He tucked the com into his pocket. “Ready?” He nodded in approval at my handgun. “Adults get one in the head. Anyone who looks young enough to Reboot gets a few in the chest. Got it?”
I froze.
Micah turned away, stepping out from behind the tree with the gun pointed straight ahead. My fingers crept to where my shirt covered my scars.
“Anyone who looks young enough to Reboot gets a few in the chest.”
We weren’t hunting animals.
The screams pierced the quiet and I jumped, almost accidentally firing a bullet into the air.
I stumbled out of the trees to see Micah taking wide strides toward a small band of humans, squeezing off shot after shot. They were running in every direction, splashing through the dirty water of the river as they tried to escape.
Jules and Kyle emerged from the trees opposite us, picking off the ones Micah missed.
There was no return fire. They weren’t armed.
My eyes flicked over the scene. Tents. A fire. Abandoned food. No sign of HARC gear. They were simply regular humans, living here.
“Wren!” Micah turned to me, a happy-crazed expression on his face. Was this the emotion he was talking about? Delight in killing people?
“Go for it!” he yelled.
I lowered my gun with a slight shake of my head. I wasn’t killing these unarmed humans.
I wasn’t that much of a monster.
Micah rolled his eyes in exasperation as he turned back toward the humans. There were only two left.
Maybe I should have saved them. Maybe I should have stepped in and attempted to take on these three Over-one-twenties by myself.
I didn’t. I stood there, frozen, as Micah shot the last two humans in the chest. The boy was so young I had to turn away. The other one, a girl, was probably about my age.
“Is there a problem?” Micah asked as he lowered his gun. He cocked an eyebrow at me. It was a challenge.
“They were unarmed,” I said, choking back the urge to yell it at him.
He walked to me. He didn’t seem mad. In fact, he looked sympathetic. He placed a hand on my arm and I shrugged it off.
“I know it’s weird at first,” he said softly. “But just because they weren’t armed right now doesn’t mean they wouldn’t kill us the first chance they got. Just because we made the first move doesn’t make it wrong.”
I wasn’t sure that logic made any sense. I’d have to run it by Callum later, because I could almost see Micah’s point.
He shoved his gun in his pocket and looked at me exp
ectantly, but I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. I wasn’t going to agree with him. I wasn’t going to argue. Silence seemed the best course of action at this point.
“Let’s pack it up,” Micah said, turning away from me and heading toward the camp.
“They don’t have much,” Jules said with a sigh, yanking one of the sticks of a tent out of the ground.
My gaze turned to the two kids. Were we waiting for them to Reboot? Then what? They were going to join us after what we’d done to them?
I cleared my throat. “Are there a lot of humans out here?” I asked.
Micah smirked. “There used to be.”
“I thought HARC got all the humans together and took them to Texas. Do they escape?”
“Rarely. HARC couldn’t possibly get them all after the war. Especially those people from that country way up north.” He glanced back at Jules and Kyle. “What was that one called?”
“Canada,” Jules said.
“Right. Canada. The humans left in Canada mostly evaded HARC and started migrating south for better weather when they thought it was safe.” Micah grinned. “It wasn’t.”
“And the ones who Reboot just come with you willingly?” I asked. “After you killed them and their families?”
“Where else are they going to go?” Micah said, shoving an animal hide under his arm. “They can either stay out here alone, go to the cities and become a slave, or join us. Not exactly a difficult decision.”
I would have picked staying out here alone, actually. Hands down.
“But, yes, there’s a transition period.” He gestured to the dead teenagers. “Grab one. It’s best we get them on the shuttle before they Reboot.”
Apparently they did not come willingly.
Kyle reached for the boy, yanking him to a standing position by one of his arms. The blood had soaked through the boy’s T-shirt and I sighed.
“Did they have a medical kit?” I asked, rubbing my fingers across my forehead.
“Yeah,” Jules said, holding out the bag she’d packed. “Why?”
“Give it to me. You should stitch them up now.”
“Why?” Micah asked with a frown. “There’s no guarantee they’ll Reboot.”
“But they might,” I said, walking closer to Jules. “If you stitch it now the wound will heal better. Especially if they’re over One-twenty.”
“Oh yeah, that’s true,” Kyle said. “The skin doesn’t always grow back together right if it’s left open too long.”
Micah’s gaze briefly moved down to my chest, a flash of sympathy crossing his face. My wounds were worse than these kids; I’d been younger and the bullet holes had been much bigger, but still, I knew what I was talking about.
“Quickly,” he said, a hint of softness in his voice. “Jules, do one of them.”
Jules handed me a needle and a length of thread. “Give me whatever you have left over. There isn’t much in here.”
I nodded as I took it and walked to the girl. Her long, dark hair covered part of her face and I left it there, glad I wasn’t able to see her eyes. I took a swift glance behind me as I grabbed the bottom of her shirt, but no one was watching us. Micah was deep in conversation with Kyle and Jules was hovering over the other dead human.
I yanked up the shirt and stitched the two bullet holes back together as best I could. I used the bottom of my own shirt to wipe away some of the blood, but there was too much to get it all. I pulled her top down and handed the thread off to Jules. When I turned around, Micah had the dead girl swung over his shoulder.
“Take those,” he said, pointing to a pile of animal hides and clothes at his feet.
I grabbed them and trailed behind Micah as we headed back toward the shuttle. The girl’s dark hair bobbed as we walked, and I didn’t know what to hope for. Was it better to die permanently, or wake up to find that you’ve become a Reboot and everyone you knew is dead?
I didn’t know what I would have picked, if someone had given me a choice.
Micah slowed, letting Jules and Kyle pull ahead of us, and I was forced to walk beside him.
“I know this isn’t ideal,” he said quietly. “But we need as many Reboots as possible.”
“Why?”
“Because right now, the humans outnumber us. If we’re going to go after HARC, we need an army.”
I looked at him quickly. “Go after HARC?”
“Sure. Don’t you want to take revenge on them?”
I paused. Sometimes I still fantasized about snapping Officer Mayer’s neck. It would make such a satisfying sound. But I mostly just wanted to get away from them.
Maybe if they’d killed Callum I’d feel differently, but they didn’t. I won, and I was fine with enjoying my victory from a distance.
“No,” I said.
“What about all those Reboots left in there?” he asked. “Do you want to save them?”
My chest tightened as I realized where this was going. Did I want to jump back into the cities of Texas and fight off HARC four times? Four facilities, four break-ins, four battles. Or five, if HARC transferred Reboots back to the Austin facility soon.
But the intensity of Micah’s stare made me hesitant to admit how little I cared what happened to the rest of the Reboots. Now wasn’t the time for outright argument. I needed to get back to the reservation first. Find Callum. Figure out what to do.
“I think it would be very hard,” I said slowly.
A grin spread across his face. “But it wouldn’t. I already have it all planned out.”
I cleared my throat, beating down the rising sense of dread. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been preparing for battle for years. I managed to get schematics to all the HARC facilities. Those rebels.” He laughed, gently punching my shoulder. “They’re such trusting souls, aren’t they?”
That sounded bad. That sounded really, really bad.
“Now that we have increased our numbers so unexpectedly, we’re going to fast-track the next phase. We’re going to release the rest of the Reboots in the facilities into the cities, starting with Rosa. Then we’ll eliminate the human population.”
I sucked in a breath. Eliminate the human population? All of them?
“You’d be a big help in Rosa,” he continued. “Riley is the only other Reboot from that facility.” He adjusted the girl on his shoulder. “I get the feeling you’d be an asset on the front lines of anything, though.”
I swallowed before I spoke, steadying myself. “Why eliminate the human population?”
“Because they enslaved us and killed us and evolution has spoken. Our turn.”
“Evolution has spoken?” I repeated.
“They treat us like we’re some sort of evil virus gone wrong, when in reality we’re the evolved ones. The human race was dying out, and the strong found a way to survive. We should be celebrated, not enslaved.”
“Why not free the remaining Reboots and leave?” I asked. “You’ll lose more Reboots fighting a war against the humans. Not to mention we lost last time.”
“Reboot numbers were smaller last time, and they didn’t have the weapons we have. Once we get all the Reboots from the four remaining facilities we’ll be three times the size we are now. And if we leave, humans will continue to Reboot and we’ll have to keep coming back to save them. It’s easier just to get rid of them all.”
The humans were screwed. Utterly, totally screwed.
Micah glanced at me again, hope lighting up his face. I tried to make my expression neutral, but he looked disappointed I didn’t seem more excited about his plan. I turned my gaze to the ground.
As we reached the shuttle, Riley rushed forward, his eyes bouncing between me and Micah. He was attempting to hide his nerves, but I could see them edging out ever so slightly.
Riley had told Micah he couldn’t find the humans. Yet they were right around the corner, less than a mile away. I seriously doubted Riley wouldn’t be able to find a target less than a mile away. Not unless he di
dn’t want to find them.
The thought comforted me only slightly as we piled into the shuttle. Riley might not be interested in killing humans, but he was still playing along.
The dead humans were placed in the middle of the shuttle with the supplies and I took a quick look at them. The boy was maybe fourteen or so, surprisingly well fed, with plump cheeks. The girl was tall and probably pretty, but it was hard to tell with her eyes all dead like that. They were still human, dull and a light shade of green.
I turned away and caught Riley staring at me as we lifted off the ground.
“How long has it been?” Micah asked.
“Fifteen or twenty minutes,” Jules replied.
I stared at the humans as we rode in silence. I’d never seen a human Reboot. The process was long over by the time a Reboot got to HARC, and I’d never been allowed to stick around a dead human long enough to see them Reboot.
I watched them out of the corner of my eye for a long time, until I heard Micah suck in a breath.
“Look at the girl.”
My gaze flew to her, but I wasn’t sure there was anything different. Her human eyes still stared at the ceiling vacantly. I leaned a bit closer.
Her hand twitched.
“What time are we at?” Micah asked.
“Fifty minutes or so?” Jules asked. “We’re going to need a death timer to tell if she’s under sixty or not.”
Her hand twitched again and I gripped the bottom of my seat, holding my breath.
Her body convulsed, a huge gasp escaping her mouth as she slammed her chest into the air, then back to the floor.
She was still again, but her eyes were closed.
Riley slowly unbuckled his seat belt and edged onto the floor between her and the boy. He sat next to her still body.
She gasped twice more, her body jerking like she was having a seizure.
“Is this normal?” I whispered.
“Yes,” Riley said without turning around.
Her eyes flew open. The dull light color was gone, replaced by bright green.
A strangled noise escaped her throat, like she was in pain. Was Rebooting painful? I frowned, trying to remember, but there was nothing to that memory but the screaming and panic.