Rebound Read Free Page B

for this moment.”
    “I didn’t ask for it.”
    “She banked on the notion that you’re sick of the system that pulls you down.”
    “I’m overwhelmed.”
    “They have locked on to our coordinates so you will have to make a choice. You can walk away in which case BC will come and retrieve you. They have legal papers; you are their property. Or you can help me.”
    “Whose Sofia?
    “A sentient machine.”
    Ryan still did not look convinced.
    “You’ve always been intrigued with two things. Artificial intelligence and bending time. Follow me and you will be part of the process.”
    “I can’t still get over the clone thing. I remember everything about my life.”
    “I checked through your memory bank. It has all kinds of detailed records of your foster home, kindy, mid school, high school. It also shows you’re horny. Since high school you’ve had eight flings. They fell madly in love with you but you hated yourself because you wanted to move on.”
    “You hacked my records.”
    Stella went on as if she had not heard him, “You tattooed the initials of Girls 3 and 7 on the back of your right lower leg. I think it is one of those frivolous things that guys do when they are bored.”
    “I don’t want to hear it!”
    “Your biggest dream now is meet your ideal one who would be number 9.”
    “You’re dreaming.”
    “All those memories were implanted to make you look as humanly normal as possible in case people became suspicious. You spent all your life in a clone lab at Babylon Corp and three years ago, almost at the time you started receiving those communications, you were embedded into society.”
    “But I did tattoo their initials more than three years ago.”
    “They are not there. Don’t check now, we don’t have time. By the way your friend is also a sleeper. Embedded almost at the same time as you.”
    “Beckett? Won’t he be in danger?”
    “We’ll get to him soon. He’s up for harvesting.”
    “This is crazy and to think he wanted a regenerated organ.”
    “Sleeper cells like him are supposed to provide them. Like you they don’t have families and won’t be missed.”
    “How about the foster home?”
    “A shell holding run by Babylon. Observe that you all live, study or work in places owned by Babylon. Even the places you hang out in or the things you like to watch or play are owned by the company.”
    “That’s sick.”
    “They prefer to use the term efficient . Notice that you have never been sick in your life.”
    “It’s kind of weird hearing my whole history being aired in public.”
    She ignored the comment. “They want to silence all of you. I shouldn’t have said all this in one sitting but thought you might be interested. We don’t have time. A BC security hovercraft is closing in. You can stay here where they will retrieve you or come with me.”
    “How are you leaving?”
    “By jumping of course,” she said casually.
    “Out of a 25 storey building?”
    “It’s not as hard as it looks,” she said blithely.
    “I’ll come. I still haven’t heard your story. Besides, you’d probably be number 9 on my ideal list.”
    “I don’t think we planted that memory,” she smiled.
    There was a loud whirring sound of a military grade hovercraft getting closer and the windows shattered.
    She dived at Ryan and in the same movement shot at three of the SWAT team who had coming crashing in with a weapon he didn’t realize she had all the time. “You must trust me,” she said looking into his eyes. She held his reluctant hand and jumped with him into the air just as the room exploded into a fireball from a rocket propelled laser device. They landed unceremoniously on top of each other on the back seat of an open-air mini hovercraft. The elderly couple were too surprised to say anything. How did she know that it would be stationed at exactly that point?
    Before they (and Ryan) could react, she held his hand again and they jumped to another vehicle below them driven by a