“You still want me to stay here?” Two scavs were to remain to guard the vehicles also. Though two of the trucks carried heavy guns on their roofs, they’d be far too easy for an enemy scout to spot.
“Yes.” He pointed left and right of where they were heading. “Get the mechlings to search out there first. Then we go.”
“Done.” She shut her eyes. “Skunk, Hachi, Domino? Can you scout the edges of the meeting co-ordinates?”
Their acknowledgements came quickly. She’d let them sort out who went left or right.
In a few minutes she had a visual of the areas they scouted.
“Nothing bad found. No soldiers, JI. Aunt M isn’t there either.”
“Okay. We’ll go look, sneak to the edge and check the valley then return. Stay.” He patted her head and advanced, raising his arm above his head and waving forward.
Soon she was being passed by the waves of warriors, and she nodded to a few who looked her in the eye. Fern found the hood of a truck and sat on it in the shadows, to concentrate on what the mechlings fed back to her. The clear area was too far for her to see well, unless she went to the end of the forest. JI would tsk at that.
Crouching, vigilant, the men fanned out and settled into concealed positions, waiting to see if Aunt M would find them. JI was in the center. Nervously, she took to running her fingernails into and over the decorative grooves on her gray gun. An hour or so passed.
What if M never saw them?
The problem with this was the fuzziness of the arrangement. No way to signal Aunt M at all. They had to hope he found them, despite them trying to hide.
JI crept forward, hunched over with a few others flanking him, seemed to study whatever lay below then he turned to creep back to his position. Fern yawned, wondered if it’d be okay to find a snack.
Skunk sent her a breathtaking view of a hazy blue mountaintop, past a curtain of hanging vines with purple flowers – which meant he’d strayed from his mission guidelines, just like a toddler. She grinned, then remembered she had a stick of dried meat in one pocket and fished it out, nearly knocked her gun to the ground from where she’d laid it on the hood.
Skunk must’ve gone farther to the left than the others, maybe down a slope even.
From the other two mechlings’ vision feed, there were very few animals in the vicinity, only some birds flying high over the valley. Something flashed in the feeds on one and looked like a foreign mechling, then in the other feed…came a rain of snow.
Then blackness.
Their feeds were dead. They were sending nothing.
*Domino? Hachi?*
Heart thudding louder by the second, she sat straighter then turned and slid off the hood.
She’d intended to wave at the two scavs with her, but found them gone. Or out of sight?
Shit.
Frantic, she searched the shadows nearby with her own eyes while telling Skunk to be super careful and go get his eyes on JI and the others.
*Super careful!* She hefted her long gun into alert position, finger near the trigger.
How did she warn JI? Fuck, this was not good.
The truck. Something real bad was wrong.
She spun and leaped for the door, grabbed the handle, turned it and yanked. At least it had some armor, and a lock on the door.
A twig cracked to her left and she swung and flung herself backward into the seat of the truck.
Close it, close it, close it!
Chapter 30
On the way back to the line of his men, with the valley behind him, JI caught a flurry of movement to the left. Aunt M barreled over the edge, knocking down shrubs. Weapons were raised, he barked out a no, then the crack of projectiles rattled the air.
Rapid fire. A heavy gun somewhere left. More fire from the right. Men were slumping in place then firing back but getting hit almost immediately.
They were being sniped from everywhere, and whoever it was had their range, had elevation on them somehow. There were only a few ridges. He threw himself down until Aunt M reached him, noting with a wrench that both the scavs who’d followed him to the edge had been shot.
If Aunt M would get to those snipers…
She tumbled closer, quivering to a shaky halt, limbs higher than his head like some predatory enormous insect. One with brains.
“Aunt! Get out there and take out the –”
She grabbed his shirt, then his neck, shoved him face-first into the ground.
Saving him from the bullets? He struggled to rise, yelling into the grass for her to let him up, screamed himself almost hoarse before figured it out, despair sinking in as he heard the cries of the men, the desultory shots they were firing back waning, then they ceased altogether.
“M! Let me up!” He couldn’t move, not against this multi-tonned weight.
“Very well, JI. I am sorry.” With the weight mostly removed, he pushed to his knees then she plucked him upright, set him on his feet, with her hold still on his neck.
His weapon lay below, on the grass, until M flicked it away. The grip at the back of JI’s neck remained, no matter how he pulled at the pincers.
She’d betrayed him, all of them. He’d been unable to believe until now. Useless hands falling to his sides, he watched as mekker soldiers in tattered uniforms walked among the fallen, firing shots into the heads of those still showing signs of life.
A raised hand – blam. A cry for help – blam. A woman crawling toward the forest – blam. They even shot the two women. No one was spared except him.
An ache possessed his forehead and eyes, sparking deeper with every beat of blood. His eyes must be ready to bleed they hurt so much.
And Fern? He tried again to pull at M’s grip. Intractable. Rigid. Flesh pulling on metal. “You gave us up, M. Why? Let me go to Fern at least!”
A man in a long dark coat with pressed pants and a white shirt picked his way through the strewn bodies and the hummocks of grass toward JI. White hair in a pony tail. Broad face. He matched the face with his memories. Judge Ormrad.
“Why?”
“I…am sorry JI. He found a way. Unlocked a priority override. I am loyal to the king and to the King’s Own Lawgiver. I am sorry for the deaths.”
Sorry? He shook his head, spat a sour taste from his mouth. “The judge is not the KOL.”
“He is. The sigil on his palm says this is true. Fact. I must obey him.”
“He gained that falsely. He’s not been elected to the post, M.”
“I see no facts proving what you say. The sigil is only given to the KOL.”
The last seconds were pouring away. Soon this would be near irrevocable. They were coming for him. He couldn’t live without a neck or head, couldn’t rip loose. And he wouldn’t get M on his side without something he did not have.
“And Fern?” Never, in his long life as JI mech and humanoid, had he ever felt this powerless. No strength, no armaments he could bring to bear. No way to force his way out of this trap.
Nothing but bravado. Words.
“She is there.” Aunt M pointed. “Unharmed.”
“Thank, Aerthe,” he muttered the religious-type prayer he’d heard scavs say. He’d grasp at anything that might help.
Eight or so mekkers were bringing her from the forest, hands tied at her back, disarmed, but unhurt as far as he could tell.
The judge arrived. He pressed down a patch of tall grass that bothered him, a bleak smile gracing his long, ugly mouth. “Greetings, JI, or is that Osta? Which do you go by today? Aunt M has told me all about you and the human girl, Fern.”
Answering him would be pitiful.
Despair, was that what this mix of hate and anger and helplessness was?
Lips cold, he looked to where she stumbled across the mini battlefield. Everything he thought of as good out there was dead, except for Aunt M – scratch him from that list – and Fern.
“Isn’t she a pretty one? I know this because I’ve fucked her of course,” the judge said dryly. “But you two
, I’m told, are like… What’s a good comparison? Like Romeo and Juliet?”
JI swore, lurched forward only to be pulled back, choking. He clawed his nails at the metal about his neck.
“Yes. I know of your past, in detail, courtesy of Aunt M. Shakespeare? From the human world? How novel that you’ve come so far, become so…” He looked JI up and down. “So much like us.”
They brought Fern to within arm’s length of the judge though she dragged her feet. Her glare had him hoping, for some absurd reason. Hoping she would be okay?
That was a poor assumption. He knew her history with the judge. Beneath that façade, she was terrified.
Wait. He raised his head. The mechling echo? Did one of her scouts live?
“I’m almost ready to use my KI-mech. I don’t exactly need you any more JI, or her, because you are now disposable. I have a brain for it. So, I’ve been wondering why I should keep you.”
“So I can kill you?”
Fern seemed to go into shock at his words, her face draining to a paleness he’d not seen before. He regretted his words. Making her hurt more was stupid. Though, did it mean she cared what happened to him?
It did.
“You made a funny comment. Well now.” The judge kinked up an eyebrow. “Promising. Let me think on a way for you to amuse me while the KI-mech is finished. I hear you like cocks and sex. I think I might like to watch a mech fucking her. It’d need to be good though because you know…” He gripped Fern’s jaw, squashed a gloved thumb across her lips, provoking a snarl of mouth from her. “I like seeing her bleed.”
And now he understood the meaning of leverage, of blackmail, and how hatred and vengeance could consume a man. How much he wished he could put his hands around this man’s neck and squeeze until his fingers popped through the surface, sank into his flesh, and turned it to mush that squeezed out around his fingers and made him BLEED.
Chapter 31
Blindfolded and bound, Fern could do nothing as they were hustled along a path that obviously descended into the valley. Branches and grass brushed at her, and she stumbled many times. The hands grabbing her arm were all that saved her from crashing face-first into the ground. At some point, they went through a door. The atmosphere inside was different, and she was certain they’d entered a tunnel as less light sneaked past the edges of the blindfold. Sounds echoed. The air felt damper. The path was smooth and a manufactured floor. They continued downward, with the tramp of soldier’s boots and the click-clack of Aunt M around her, then an elevator carried them further underground.
She’d been shivering now and then. Shock, she supposed. It was impossible not to be overcome by the sadness and tragedy of her situation, their situation. JI too was somewhere in this group, also a captive, also bound.
And everyone else was dead, dead, dead. Everyone. The brutality of that killing…
The tangled, flaccid limbs, the faces and bodies with holes in them, and the blood. So much blood.
The woman crawling toward her and being shot.
Her convulsion then stillness.
She felt bile in her throat and swallowed it.
Aunt M had for some reason let them walk into this trap.
No, worse, she’d lured them in. Why?
She ignored that question as much as possible. It dragged her down into despair. Aunt M had turned against them, and that was it. They had no allies except themselves. She prayed they’d not take JI somewhere else, even if the judge had plans to make him do something terrible to her. Something involving blood.
At that her poor mangled hand shook. Pain memories ran fathoms deep.
Keep hoping. That was the only way, despite the dreadful weight of this, the impossibility of escaping. Hope.
They were halted, her hands were chained, she heard the clink as JI was attached to something as she had been, and the blindfolds were removed.
Blinking, Fern swayed but studied this room. Bare walls and one door. The judge was not here. Just soldiers. JI standing a few feet away, looking at her, his hands cuffed in metal and at the front same as her, a chain leading to the wall. The anchoring bolt looked built to restrain a rhino.
She grimaced.
After a few disgusting comments to her and JI, the soldiers left. They closed and locked the door.
Silence except for her breathing and the sounds of chain knocking on chain.
She walked to JI and laid her head against his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh? Why sorry? Sad, surely? Angry, yes.” He brought his hands above her then stroked her hair, though the chain bumped her face.
“I’m angry and sad. I’m sorry because you were trying to do something good, and because of Aunt M.” Her words came out soft and tired, because she was so very tired of everything.
“Yes, that I am sorry for also. I thought he’d forgotten what a friend is. Then I found out the judge exploited a hard programming code, locked in despite his sun madness. He must obey the king and also the King’s Own Lawgiver. The judge has the KOL sigil implanted into his palm. Stolen, but it makes no difference when I cannot prove that.”
“Oh. I see.” She inhaled and straightened. “Can we sit?”
They sat against the wall, shoulder to shoulder. Her forearm felt the hardness of the staples in her stomach, where the mechlings had repaired her, where the judge had stabbed her – the last time he had her.
Concentrate on the now.
As if that helped, much.
“What are we going to do, JI?”
“I’m not sure. I am troubled that I cannot protect you, pet-girl.” He shook his head. “Which is odd to me. I don’t quite understand my impulse.”
“It’s nice.” Her smile trembled. Almost too nice. Selflessness from a man who was once a mech.
Her determination strengthened with that thought. They would get out of this.
“No matter what, we will get away, somehow. We must.”
“Hmmm.” JI seemed to stare at the opposite wall for a long time. “A good sentiment but I have no weapons, no strength that can destroy stone or bend metal. No –”
“Fuck that. What do we have? Your mind and mine.”
“We do, yes. You want me to think. Then…where is the last mechling? I saw two brought in, dead.”
Skunk? She concentrated and tried to reach him, found a faint awareness that seemed to block her, something frightened. It was somewhere out there, probably far above.
“I feel… Wait. You don’t suppose he is listening to us talk? You know?”
“The judge?” His shoulders shifted. “No. Unlikely. Why would he have such a room set up when his main plan is to revive this KI-mech?”
“Then, yes, I felt something out there, but I think Skunk is avoiding talking to me. He’s scared.”
“Yes. Smart to be. He needs to stay away from here. Though perhaps he could help us escape? No…no. Aunt M will have other mechlings waiting for such an attempt. He pinpointed the other two. He has a good strategic brain and a century of knowledge more than us.”
The quietness from JI after that worried her. “Our brains are just as good.”
Without the mechlings talking to her and helping, she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything unless they could get free from this room and the chains. The locks used on her manacles were nothing like Earth locks. No keyholes. She peered at where the chain joined on.
“You won’t undo that. It’s mech coded. They have mechlings here of their own. I felt one at my wrists. So. I know you speak to them, Fern, but have you ever thought to try controlling the ones that are not sun mad. Emery could do it.”
She sat forward. “Wow.”
“Yes.” His brow furrowed. “Manage that and you can get these unlocked and the door. Use them to scout our way out.”
“Brilliant,” she whispered.
If only. There were many here, yes. She could hear them ticking over with their little orders, their thoughts. They never exactly spoke like the aware sun-mad ones, but she felt
where each was located.
JI seemed to stare at his toes. “There’s something related to this that I need to tell you A secret.” He met her gaze. “Maybe two secrets. I should have told you already.”
“Go on.” Boots were sounding out there, tramping closer, and she had a sudden sureness they were coming for her or JI. Panic ramped up again.
Hurry, JI, she wanted to say, but she waited, anxiety peaking.
He laid his chained hands on hers. “I know you’ve grown worried suddenly. I feel it.”
“Ah. I think I already get this. I sort of figured this out? You empathize with me. It’s why I like you so much.”
“That is a part of this secret. It’s an artificial empathy. I can feel the mechlings, though not as well as you do. I know where some of them are. And through them, I feel an echo of what you feel. You broadcast, and I receive.”
Well fuck. Was this bad, good? So confusing.
“JI. I really don’t quite understand this.” She thought back to that first day, the first time he pinned her to that wall. “You…took advantage of this, didn’t you? Knowing I didn’t know?” He didn’t answer. She guessed it was a yes.
She felt betrayed again, twice in one day – a record. Wow. And yet still as if he were her long-lost lover. How more perfect could you be than to understand the other person and deliver what they wanted?
They might die together in here. Would he feel her agony if the judge hurt her badly? Maybe that’d be karma? She didn’t want that. No. Why should he have to feel her pain.
However. “The second secret?”
Would this break her? She bit her bottom lip, waited.
“I killed Osta. I did not merely take over a dying man’s body and brain. I killed him because he’d fired a DRAC missile at the landship knowing it would likely kill hundreds of them in a horrible way. He killed families, children, babies. I saw it. And he lied. So I killed him with a metal stake here.” JI tapped his ear.
Oh boy.
Murder, after this day of violence and murder. It was too much. Feeling herself pale, she shrank away.
She needed to think this through, carefully. Osta had been evil in his own way though. Genocide. Hella evil really. JI was surely right, morally? Or not.
Exquisite Possession: A Dark Scifi Romance (The Machinery of Desire Book 4) Page 17
