Free The Torrent (The New Agenda Series Book 4) by Simone Pond Page B

her side.
    “Promise me, daughter, that you’ll at least try to appear agreeable,” Joseph whispered in her ear.
    She gave a slight nod, letting him know they were on the same page. The tough part would be convincing the council that she was sorry for her behavior. The worst part would be giving up Christian to the care of the Seattle City Center. But it wouldn’t be forever, not if she could help it.
     

12
    U nder ordinary circumstances, Ava wouldn’t have agreed to hold Morray’s hand. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances. They were about to walk through a portal into an unknown section of the mainframe. It was either a trap, sending them deeper into the network, or a breadcrumb trail, leading them closer to the surface. Either way, she couldn’t leave Morray behind unattended. Somehow it had become her responsibility to make sure he didn’t find a way out of the mainframe.
    Ava was grateful to be leaving the holding pattern––anything to get out of limbo. Maybe it would be easier for someone on the outside to track their digital footprints? She wondered who was conducting the mainframe searches, and hoped Grace wasn’t involved. Her daughter had already risked her life once before looking for Ava.
    “You ready?” Morray asked.
    He reached for Ava’s hand with a veneer of confidence, but a childlike fear flickered in his eyes. She took his hand, praying she would be protected from Morray and whatever they were walking into.
    “On three,” she said.
    “On three,” he agreed.
    “One, two …” She paused. “Are you sure about this?”
    “Not entirely. But I trust your instincts. If you think this is the right thing to do, I’m following your lead. I don’t like to admit it, but you do make the right choices.” He seemed sincere, but what did it matter? Morray wasn’t to be trusted ever again.
    But Ava trusted her instincts and something told her that walking through that door would eventually lead her to freedom. “Okay, ready? One, two, three––”
    Into the silver door they walked, one step at a time. The tip of Morray’s black shoe immersed with the silver door, creating vibrations and waves like a rippling lake. She stepped forward, her boot merged, sending harsh electrical pulses through her body, causing her to freeze as if being electrocuted. Morray forged ahead into the painful electricity, pulling Ava along. After they passed through the door, they funneled into a twisting spiral of light. Bright colors filled the tunnel and streamed like glowing ribbons of fire. Morray clung tightly to Ava’s arm as they whipped through the continuum.
    “Take us home!” she yelled, trying to control the mainframe by using voice command. But she wasn’t sure where that would take them. Morray didn’t have a home in which to return.
    They continued speeding through the tunnel.
    “Destination: HOME!” She tried again.
    The light began to shift into images of trees. Enormous green pines surrounded by bodies of water. Woods … Dirt … Mud … Rain … Sheets of it falling from the sky … A fire pit with flames growing up toward the clouds … These images quickly morphed into rows and rows of incubators in an inception lab. Ava couldn’t make sense of anything. Flashes of light danced through the tunnel, and then everything slowed down, as if the ride had reached its end. The tunnel shifted to black and they were suspended in darkness. A far worse fate. Fear and panic crept in.
    “What the hell is this, Dickson?” Morray shouted.
    “We just want to go home. Have mercy. Destination: HOME!” she yelled one last time.
    Speckles of light began to spread across the blackness like millions of stars. From each one came a ray of light. The stars began to attach to one another like a spider’s web. The connecting webs of light transformed into a room, a room that Ava knew very well.
    “Oh, this is perfect.” Ava sighed.
    Morray released his death grip from Ava’s hand and walked