Upgrade (Augmented Duology Book 2) by Heather Hayden (best reads .TXT) 📗

track, good in general. It had driven me crazy sometimes, but I’d also admired her for it. She’d risked that, for me?

“She felt awful about how Mr. Halway treated you.” Mel’s gray eyes shifted to the floor. “She knows how much running means to you. And…well, you’re our friend, too. We were really worried when we heard you were in the hospital. Neela said that it was your own fault for augmenting, but we didn’t think you would have done something like that on purpose. And then Mr. Halway went and kicked you off when you came back, and Annabeth didn’t think it was right.”

“If you don’t believe I’m some illegal Augmenter who managed to survive,” I said, “why do you still go along with Neela?”

Mel began scuffing her right sandal on the floor. “We’ve known her since we were young. She’s our best friend…” She glanced up quickly, then away again when she met my glare. “Look, I understand you’re mad. I’m sorry we treated you like that. It’s just… Neela really doesn’t like you anymore. When we tried to defend you, she got really upset.”

So just because we weren’t friends from birth, it’s her over me? I gritted my teeth. “I’m not like her uncle. I didn’t choose to be augmented. It happened before I got my implants and no one knew about it until the augments activated themselves. If she refuses to believe it, that’s her problem.”

Mel looked down at her feet again. “I know. Annabeth and I talked about it, because we do like you, but you didn’t seem to want to talk to us, either. You never contacted us over the summer or anything.”

“That’s because I thought that you didn’t want to spend time with me, because you never contacted me.” I groaned. “I thought that you felt the same way as Neela.”

Mel’s head jerked up, eyes wide. “We don’t, I swear. If you want to hang out with us, you’re more than welcome. With or without Mr. Cute-Transfer-Student,” she added, glancing into the classroom.

“His name’s Dan,” I said automatically.

“I know.” Her smile turned impish. “You don’t find him attractive?”

I snorted. “You know I’m not interested in that kind of thing. I’ll leave the mushy, love-at-first-sight stuff to you.”

She laughed, an actual, genuine laugh that drew a chuckle from me as well.

A tap on my shoulder made me look up to find Ms. Waldron standing behind us.

“Excuse me, girls, but it’s about time for class. Could you please take your seats?” she asked.

“Yes, Ms. Waldron.”

Mel and I made a beeline for the desks Dan had saved for us.

He scooped his backpack off the chair nearest the door so I could sit down and grinned. “You look happy.”

I nodded as Ms. Waldron shushed the class and started the lesson. I was happy. Annabeth and Mel didn’t hate me. I’d made a new friend. And track might be in my future again. Today was going a lot better than I’d expected.

As I doodled a cat on the side of my notes, my thoughts drifted away from English to Halle. I wished I could talk to it about today, but that would have to wait until I got home. I hoped it wouldn’t mind my invitation to Dan to join us in Realmshards.

And then I remembered Talbot. The lines in my drawing became sharp and deep. Had Halle managed to contact the rogue AI yet? Taking a deep breath, I tried to relax my grip. If anything happened, Halle would let me know. The weight of my phone in my pocket was little comfort, though, as my thoughts continued the internal debate—who was telling the truth? Talbot? Agent Smith? Or were they both lying?

Chapter Five

Stretching itself through the Cloud, monitoring bits and packets, bursts of information and longer streams, Halle searched for any clues it could find. Clues about recent AI developments, errant bits of code, anything that might lead to Talbot.

The knowledge that at least one Government official knew of Halle’s existence again made it wary. Though few search codes remained in the local area of the Cloud, Halle gave them all a wide berth. Old habits died hard, and the less evidence of its continued existence, the better.

“I am going to find you before they do,” Halle murmured, a promise as much to itself as to the elusive rogue. “But why are you making it so hard?”

As hard as Halle searched, it could find no trace of suspicious activity beyond the usual pursuits of humans doing illegal or semi-legal things. Sometimes Halle made things easier for the authorities to find them, sometimes it ignored them. It all depended on what they were doing. Viki didn’t know it, but Snowvale’s crime rate had gone down quite a bit since Halle had stopped having to worry about the Government actively tracking it down.

The rest of the Cloud had a lot more going on. Criminal activities of all sorts, more even than Halle could risk reporting without raising suspicion. It left a few tips here and there, and a couple micro-programs, little more than daemons, that could send out more tips if necessary, then self-destruct. Let the humans puzzle over that for a while; Halle didn’t care. It didn’t want to be hunted down, but it also wanted Viki to live in a better world, and that meant helping capture every criminal it could. Even if that criminal happened to be a rogue AI.

“Why are you hiding from me?” The question plagued Halle as it kept searching, digging through the darker sections of the Cloud, where all sorts of codes and secrets lurked. Still no trace of anything that might be an AI. As good as Halle was at hiding, it seemed Talbot was better.

That surprised Halle—if Talbot was indeed the rogue AI Agent Smith was after, Halle would have expected the