BOOK OF MIA: 2081

Chapter 23: Ambush

"Mia!"

Nate's voice is hollow and distant, as if he is miles away, or air fills my ears.

"Mia!" It gets louder.

My eyes snap open in the dark. For a moment, I do not understand where I am, or even why. My hands smooth over the occasional grass and twigs and dirt, and I wonder where my bed has gone, or why my room no longer has walls. Why is it that I can feel the sticky but oh-so-good cool summer breeze caressing my face? Or even why Nate is there, hovering over me with eyes so wide I think I see the fear in them.

I close my eyes at the absurdity of it. Nate and fear? Ha! Get out! That ain't ever happening. The guy is a total babe and made of steel and hard muscles. Long, lean — touchable.

I turn on my bed, trying to get comfortable, making a mental note that the mattress may have died and gone to mattress heaven, for it's all pokey and hurts. I need sleep, and this weird-ass dream is not helping. Tomorrow is Camp Sweep. Ugh! I still don't want to go, but apparently, I can't officially graduate high school without 'surviving it' as mum keeps hammering at me. Whatever the fudge that means!

"Mia, wake up!" Nate screams at me again, nudging me. There's a heaviness to his voice I can't place. He sounds rather convincing on that fear front. Nudging me?

I nuzzle my pillow, wanting to go back to admiring him instead when something sharp pokes my ear. "Ow—bloody pen." I open my eyes again, thinking I have left a book open near my pillow again, trying to cram for the paper I need to hand in soon. Instead of my bed, my room, my pen, I see my Nate — hang on, why is Nate here? And that thing that poked me? A twig.

I look around again. I'm on the floor of some forest and the smell of eucalyptus is in the air. The soil is damp below me. Nate hunches over me, wide-eyed and fuming, though a cloud of relief passes over his face.

He heaves a sigh, his eyebrows knit in tension. His eyes fleetingly scan the surrounding gloom, as if he is trying to signal me. Signal me to what? I don't understand...

"Nate? What are you doing here?" my voice cracks like a corrupted voice file.

"Hands where we can see them!" a voice booms nearby, from the shadows. Shadows I can't make out.

Nate does as he is told. He spreads out his hands on either side of his head, his eyes glancing back and forth from me to the shadows. "I'm sorry, Mia," he whispers as he goes to stand.

Sorry about what? I look around. Part of me still thinks I'm in my room, trying to get to sleep while banishing thoughts of seeing Nate at the camp. But another part of me, the small voice in the back of my head part, is telling me to get it together, and escape.

"You, too. UP." The voice barks again, too loud for my ears, and I obey. I still don't understand what is going on, but if Nate is fearful, I better keep my guard up and think. Such an odd dream to be having...

"It's not a dream, you fool. Snap out of it!" a man's voice sneers in my head, as crystal as a bell.

"Who said that?" I look around me, still not seeing much more than the immediate grounds, and Nate, eyeing me with more nerves than a batch of nervous high schoolers about to sit their last exams.

Nate's eyes go wide in alarm. "Just do as they say, Mia!" he hisses at me.

"Up, now!" A sharp nudge on my shoulder makes me turn to see the long, pitch-black barrel of a gun. I follow the barrel until I spy the black-gloved hands twice the size of mine. I follow the hand, up the arms, the shoulder, and happen upon a peculiar face, skin as black as night. Not balaclava, or covers, but skin. Black like the paint or the colour of my hair...

"Nightshade!" the word escapes my lips in a hush, involuntary. Then memories flood back in a tsunami of bytes. Bytes, my mind processes fast. It only takes a second or less for me to remember waking up to sirens in Camp Sweep, all the way until, riddled by bullets, I fell to my knees.

"Oh, shit!" I say before I can help myself.

I hear the soldier snort. "No, shit. Now up." He nudges me with his gun again.

I look at Nate as I push up from the wet ground, only to realise the wetness is distinctly red. Blood, my blood, though given the severity of my injuries, it's minimal. I can still feel a bit of a stinging sensation on my back as I get up to my feet. But I feel calm. Perhaps it is the knowledge that we tried to escape at least once before we gave up.

Before me, Nate mumbles, "I'm sorry. I tried to get us as far away as possible, but—" the unspoken words linger in the air.

"Not your fault if we can't..." Survive—the word barges into my mind as I eye the soldiers moving around in their Nightshade. They are a little deeper than the night, but visible.

Survive? How? My mind ticks over. There are too many of them for Nate and me to take. And this time, they are closer and closing in than the time before.

"Would you like to turn on Survival Mode?" an odd computerized female voice asks me suddenly. Code floats in front of my eyes, jarring me to the realization that I am not a normal human being anymore, if I ever was. My thoughts go back to Camp Sweep and how the Sentry's bullet had hit me without a mark left...

I eye Nate, realising that I was already this way — bulletproof — and the upgrade was only to kick things into gear, to optimize my system. I turn to the group of Elites surrounding us. They are almost upon us. If we lunge, I can put one in a chokehold. But then what?

"Would you like to turn on Survival Mode?" she asks again, and I see the code behind my eyes. 'Yes' or 'No' input required, says the little window that's popped to the forefront. How, without giving myself away?

"Nod head once for 'Yes', shake head left to right for 'No'."

"Get ready!" I mouth to Nate.

He shakes his head, either unable to read my lips or he's asking me 'get ready for what?'

I shrug ever-so-slightly as I hear a handcuff being released by one of the Elites. In a matter of moment, they will slap some tech-heavy cuffs around our wrists and drag us back to the facility, back to Hill and her scalpel. I don't doubt that.

"How the hell are you still alive, little girl?" The alpha Elite steps in front of me, his Nightshade rippling back to reveal his gleeful face. He eyes me from head to toes. He is but mere meters out of my reach. It is now or never. I need to nod. "You're something special, aye? Is that why Hill wants you?"

This is my moment. I nod. The moron thinks I'm nodding 'yes' to his stupid question, but I'm nodding a 'yes' to my system. The system Hill no doubt wants more than ever.

He steps closer to me, and I can see the black embossed name on his dark suit, Evergreen. An ironic name for the times we are in.

While he does a slow walk around me, no doubt relaying my 'condition' to Hill on a radio somewhere, possibly even watching us via a link, I stare ahead, watching the code flicker through the front of my eyes. I don't know how long it takes 'Survival Mode' — whatever that is — to kick in, but I feel our window for a fight to the death or flee, is narrowing dramatically with each of his steps around me.

"Survival Mode armed. Would you like to run it in Manual mode or Pilot mode?"

For heaven's sake, Granddad, really? Trying to get me killed, are you? How do I even answer that?

"Nod for manual, shake head for pilot mode," she instructs.

"What do you have that we don't have?" the Alpha asks me.

Sweet mother in heaven, this guy has great timing. I shake my head. To him, it's a 'no', as in 'I don't know,' but to my system, it's a 'yes' for pilot mode.

"Pilot mode turned on. Stand by."

Stand by for what?

Then I hear a scream, a yell, a spray of bullets, but all I see is a blur. Everything around me looks smeared, as if a toddler took her hands to paint and smeared paint on the paper, carpet, walls, everywhere.

"Catch her!"

"What the hell is she?"

"Shoot, dammit. SHOOT!"

More whizzing of bullets. More shouts, more orders. None that they can complete.

At one point, I see Nate's face. His eyes meet mine, and I register the shock and fear in him. His jaw falls in awe, or a soundless scream. There is an Elite behind him, his one arm around Nate's neck, the other holding a handgun to Nate's temple. "Don't come near me or I swear I'll shoot him!"

My head cocks at an angle, and then I descend upon him in a blur. I know I did something. A moment later, Nate's perched high on a tree, and I hear myself telling him, "Refrain from moving until the coast is clear. Copy?" I wait for a nanosecond to see Nate nodding. Then a blur, a smear... all in the hues of the night, dark... with a splash of occasional red—blood.

Moments. It feels like a surreal few moments. Then silence. Not even the wind whispers through the trees.

I glance down at my feet. A soldier, hurt, but still alive, wriggles to get free.

"Please... please don't kill me..." he begs, but I don't move my feet.

Around us, the others are all dead. My system scans over the area, registering all bodies as "All threats neutralised, except one. The mark is still secure."

I kick the soldier on the side of his head, and he ceases to wriggle, passed out, just as a bullet rings out from the gun I hold. A gun that was aimed at the guy's head a nanosecond ago.

"One threat remaining." My system reminds me again.

I fight the pilot mode and scavenge the electro-magnetic cuff a soldier had prepped for my hands moments earlier from beneath a body. A body I don't want to look at. Hill has sent her formidable Elite soldiers after us, no doubt thinking capturing two clueless teens would be super easy.

"Are you wanting to save a hostage for information?" my system asks as I walk over to the lone surviving soldier, cuff in hand.

"Yes!" I clasp the cuffs on the injured man's hands and touch his skin where his Nightshade shimmers. The following words flow out of me, "Turn bioconservation mode on. Evaluate injuries and report." To my ears, I sound like the computerized voice in my head.

"Area secured. Bioconservation mode on. Evaluating injuries on the hostage now. Would you like to revert the control to manual mode?"

I look around at the wreckage — by my hands... "Where is Nate?"

"Mark is still secure and alive."

"Where is Nate?" I demand.

"Nate is approximately sixty meters up a tree, forty-nine degrees and fifty steps to your left, on a tree marked with an X. Would you like me to retrieve him?"

I groan. "Yes."

"Stand by."

And again, my vision blurs. A tree, the X that marks the spot — how clichéd — Nate's surprised and horrified face. Air rushes past us, then we land on the solid ground, with an audible THUD.

As soon as his feet touch the ground, Nate hunches over and empties his stomach. He glances at the bodies, holding himself up on shaky legs. He throws up more before he turns to me, hesitation written all over his face, and takes a step or two back from me, stepping in his own chuck.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

He shakes his head. His hands tremble as he wipes his mouth. "What was that?" He glances around the forest floor, at the damage, at the bodies. I see him swallow in fear. The lub-dub, lub-dub, booms his terrified heart. He fears me.

"Injury report ready!" An electronic voice breaks the charged air between us. It's coming off the soldier.

I turn to the soldier, slouched on the ground, secured by cuffs. I hold my empty hands to show Nate and walk over, bending to touch the Elite's skin again.

"What did you do to him?" Nate asks, peering at me, eyes brimming with fear and questions. "Is he dead? Did you kill all these men?"

I finish scanning the report. The man sustained two broken ribs, a fractured forearm, a bruised kidney, and a nasty gash on his thigh when I threw him against a tree, but overall, he survived the onslaught. "He'll live," I say, pulling the guy up and propping him against a tree. He'll wake up soon enough.

I take a step towards Nate, only to see him scamper away from me.

"Area secured. Would you like to revert the control to manual mode?" She interrupts me.

"How?" I screech, annoyed that the woman, or thing, has no sensibility or sensitivity. I must give Nate all my attention and explain to him what just happened, even though I am not sure what just happened, either.

"Nod head once for 'Yes', shake head left to right for 'No'."

I groan and nod briskly, wanting my head all to myself for once.

"Survival Mode is now on standby. Would you like to exit the program?"

"No," I say, looking at Nate. He doesn't know what's going on in my head. I must look like I've lost my mind. "Nate, just wait a moment, okay, I'll explain."

I shake my head to prompt the system to stay on standby. I don't know what Hill has learned about us, but the report from the soldier revealed all his systems, including his audio-visual feed and GPS are still transmitting. More Elites could be on their way to us. Survival mode needed to stay on standby, just in case.

I approach Nate again with palms up in the air, to say I come in peace. "Are you okay, Nate?"

He shakes his head, looking past me at the bodies. I wish he wouldn't. I wish he would look at me, the same way he used to look at me, always, with a bit of love. I sense nothing from him now. My heart breaks a little and tears sting my eyes.

"I just need to know you're okay. That you're not hurt," I beg.

He nods. It's an enormous relief. He leans against the tree, still trembling. "How did you... do all this?" His eyes meet mine again, and this time, they are a little more trusting.

I lean against Nate's tree. Exhausted. "Survival Mode."

I eye the scene ahead of us, a bit of disbelief in myself as I do. I did all this? They were well over a dozen deadly, armed, trained men, and I took down each one? Within what?

"Survival Mode has been running for twenty-three minutes and sixteen seconds. Would you like to exit the program?"

I shake my head again. No, no, I do not want to exit the damn program yet, even if it scares the shit out of me, or us... Nate and I.

"Survival mode?" he asks.

I almost nod, but I hold off, worried that the nod will trigger another frenzy, a frenzy I cannot, or know not how to control. Yet. "Yes," I reply, "It's apparently part of the program I have now."

I look up to see Nate's face, to see him shaking his head left to right and a slight chuckle escapes me when I hear him utter, "No, I do not want Survival Mode on!"

You too? I look at him and weave my hand through his as we both push off the tree.

"Is this what happened?" he asks, looking like the old Nate, the Nate who isn't afraid tiny, mostly incompetent me.

I smile or try to. "Yes. It was the only way."

"What now?" He rests his arm on top of mine on his arm as he looks at the surrounding horror.

"Now, we find out what she knows, and we lose our tail." I look towards the soldier stirring back to life.