“And now, I wish to speak only to Mako, Emery. Please board the Ramm again.”
“What?” Mouth open, rocking back on her heels, she looked from JI to him, then to JI again. “You don’t mean that.”
“He does. Back inside, please.” He thumbed toward the Ramm’s door. Once he’d boosted her aboard, he followed and made her sit where he could lock the chain to a hard point. “Not that I don’t trust you.” Then he kissed her on the lips. “Stay.”
His leap to the ground and saunter beneath JI’s surveillance was meant to look confident. Perhaps he succeeded. JI folded up his legs and squatted, crushing a small tree under what might be called his butt.
“I watch. I listen, Mister Laste. I see in Emery...” His giant head swiveled, his optical sensors glowed blue, and he turned to look toward the Ramm. “Someone who likes you yet also fears you, hates some of you, perhaps. Yet she also lusts after you. It is hard for one like myself to understand.”
Me too, he thought. The like and the lust though was a big help. Now he knew for sure.
Within such a short amount of time, he was settling into liking this mech. Maybe he was insane.
“I cannot see in your head, Mako, but from your actions I deduce a great liking for Emery. I see a need to care for her... I think. Probability of seventy-five percent. For this reason and because I can see the world out here will never let her be what she wants to be, I am denying some of her requests.”
Oh shit. What had she asked for?
“I am leaving her with you because I cannot care for her as she needs to be cared for. She is my first friend and my only friend.
“She taught me about drama and tragedy, and about sin. No matter her sins, Emery is worth your efforts. However...” He rose again, to his full and impressive height and his voice took on extra volume, extra menace. “If I find out she rues this day, I will return to the Swathe and turn you into dust and blood.”
“Whoah. Such words. Thought you couldn’t kill?” Mako put his hands on his hips. “Has she been feeding you Shakespeare too?”
“She has, sir. She has.” JI struck a pose, somehow, staring up at the clouds. “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks!”
“Very good.” He clapped.
“And now I must depart. The mechlings are altered.”
They ran past Mako and began to climb to the top of the Ramm where they normally plastered themselves, recharging and acting as a primary shield.
“But this one that Emery loves.” JI nodded at Mammoth as it stopped beside Mako’s feet. “It belongs to House Oren, and so I have altered far more inside it so it will register as your property now. Once it is self-aware, which will be soon, you will need to talk to it properly. The dangers are terrible if Mammoth does not hide its nature well on the Swathe.”
“This is getting far ahead of any plan I have. The Governance already suspected it. You want me to hide a sun-mad mechling on the Swathe?”
Suicidal.
“I do. What I gave it will help it to act normal. This mechling will let you see many things. With it, you can destroy the political lives of many on the Governance. I have seen the things that they do. Traitorous things. I tapped the system. Mammoth is the key.”
He blinked at the disclosure. This JI may just have exploded his brain.
“Use him wisely. I am done here. I go to the aux-mech to find my own destiny. Take care in your travels and in life, Mako Laste. Take care of Emery, my little friend from Earth. Or else.”
“Uh-huh. I will. I get it – blood and dust. One last thing.” He held up a finger. He might regret this, but for some odd reason he empathized with this mechanical creature. “Your power’s low?”
JI nodded.
“You’re lacking in mechlings. I can give you two. I’ll say they fell off in flight. It happens.”
Around them grew so quiet he could hear the scratch as the mechlings climbed the hull behind him and the small noises from the Ramm’s engines and JI’s. A flock of birds hooted as they flew overhead.
“Thank you, Mako. That you would do this casts the Mekkers in a new light for me. I will remember you and your generosity.”
“You do that, and make for that direction.” He pointed. “A town called Traggo. I once encountered a Scav near there who was flexible enough in his mind-set to maybe appreciate you. Take care yourself.”
“Thank you again. Traggo, noted.”
After the aux-mech slid from beneath JI, connected only by a data transfer cable, Mako arranged for two of his mechlings to go to it. The light in JI’s main optics died. This was a rebirth of sorts. The aux-mech purred to life, saluted him then trekked away toward the sunset.
The main mech body, which now held the aux-mech brain, straightened and set off in the opposite direction. The ground shook with each of its steps.
“Holy Arrak.” He sucked in a breath, let it out in a whoosh. “Never thought I’d ever...”
What had he done?
He looked down at Mammoth.
“And you? I just cannot... I cannot fathom...”
It squeaked at him and trundled toward the Ramm. All that politics stuff at which JI had hinted sounded as complex and gruesome as a bowl of worms. Nevertheless, no matter what other complications were in store for him, the agreement was solid. He got to pseudo-kill the JI-mech, and he got to keep Emery.
JI could have squashed him.
Win.
All he needed was to convince Emery that he was her best and only option. Challenges made him smile and want to whip somebody.
Like her.
She’d betrayed him after he rescued her and, even if he understood why, he intended to mark her for it, eventually.
Absolute win.
Chapter 38
Mako was prepping the missile for launch. Whatever they used for propulsion here must not have a lot of backwash. He planned to fire it from within the Ramm, with the side door open. If he was wrong they’d both be toast.
Far away and several miles below, on a patch of grassy plain, the big mech trudged on, parting a herd of some land animal. Through the cockpit glass they all appeared tiny, unless the magnification was turned up higher. Since Mako was still keeping her bound, turning anything on was impossible. This whole dashboard and cockpit, whatever they called it, was so different in appearance to JI’s, as if they’d regressed a thousand years. Instead of flat-screen touch controls, the Ramm was ninety percent bright metal and bright-colored dials, buttons, and levers, and even a freaking steering wheel, though she’d not seen him use it. World War One tech crossed with Doctor Who – a puzzle she’d likely never solve.
She veered back to what mattered as of now, because things were going to get explosion-y soon.
Having been with JI for so long, having lived inside his mech body, it bothered her to see it targeted so she switched her mind to the true JI where he walked almost directly below the Ramm, inside the body of the aux-mech.
The death zone for them, and JI was a mile away. They were safe.
Unless the DRAC did a loop and came back at them.
At her back, she twined her fingers through a stray thread and occupied herself twisting it.
Safe but JI had deserted her, left her with Mako without a word to say if he’d done what she’d asked him to. What they’d discussed. To make Mammoth into her spy on the ship and perhaps bring her a weapon. To devise a way to meet again.
Did he not want this?
The only hope for her was to do something to Mako she felt increasingly sure she would regret. Escaping would mean being lonely and alone, on a world full of people she didn’t understand. Unless she could find JI again.
Mako flopped into the pilot’s seat and tapped some buttons. Behind her the missile roared. The Ramm shook. “It’s away. I’m shielding the cockpit.”
The glass went black; the side door ground shut.
“Shockwave coming.” As he slotted together the clasp on his seat strap, he glanced over as if to check on
her. “We’re good, Emery.”
“Okay.” She held her breath, closed her eyes.
We will be fine, JI said from inside her mind. Goodbye, baby mech.
Funny how he called it a baby.
Thank you for the pink polka dots before.
Of course. It was a fun color. Emery, I have something important to say.
Yes?
Trust him. I think he could be your friend.
Him, as in Mako? The last person she’d ever think of as a friend. In the middle of puzzling through why JI would say that, a flash shimmied into her head and everything began to shut down in a tide of fluttering, buzzing darkness. She felt herself slumping, the side of her face dragging down the seat...
Chapter 39
Memories piled up like snow, in levels and levels. A stranger peering down at her – a middle-aged woman with her hair in a bun and hands that warmed her as they felt her everywhere – head, wrists, ankles, stomach. Mako was there too – wiping her face with a wet cloth that came away red. His face was intense and serious, making her fear for herself – a fear that knifed deep before she tumbled back into sleep.
She found herself waking more, drifting higher, aware of sunlight in the cracks in the roof.
Her fingers could move, her legs could too, though her head seemed stuffed with pins and moving it made her groan.
“Where are we?” Her throat felt weird, her voice rusty with disuse.
Was anyone here with her?
Footsteps came closer, shod ones...heavy boots. Then Mako leaned in. “In the town of Gert. Some Grounders helped me bring you to a physician, a doctor. How are you feeling?”
“I can’t move much.” Unwanted tears welled. “My head hurts. What happened? Last I remember JI was –”
The missile had been launched and JI had spoken to her then...nothing.
“Is he okay?”
Mako wrapped his hand over her wrist – a reassuring gesture she figured, since he stroked her there with his thumb.
“He’s okay. He recovered quickly. The missile released some energy when it blew that affected JI, and since you and he were talking – yes, he told me that – you were affected too.”
“Oh.” What was it JI had said? She needed to remember. Important, maybe. “Am I going to get better?”
“A few more days, the physician said. You’ll be fine. Just moving you is going to be painful for a couple more, but we’re getting you up on your feet now. No more lazy lying about in bed.”
A young woman in a dark dress and tights walked up from behind Mako. “Hi. I’m going to help you.”
The two of them made her sit on the edge of her rough bed.
Her legs were like lumps and her head on fire, and he wanted this? Glancing around showed her this bed was in a barn of sorts. Two of the eight-legged riding creatures were in a stall nearby. In fact, this bed was in a stall. Straw was strewn over the dirt floor.
Primitive and not a place that’d have an MRI machine.
“Was there not blood coming from my eyes?”
Mako cocked an eyebrow. “Now that was disturbing.”
“I bet.” She nodded and regretted it as the pain spiked up a level. “So how does this physician know I’m healing? Or what happened to me? Xrays? MRIs? Voodoo?”
The frown creeping over Mako seemed a perplexed one more than anything. “We don’t have those. Mechling doctors have some abilities, but she did what people doctors do – laid on her hands and divined your health.”
Oh fuck. Voodoo then.
Sliding to the floor, she found her legs were remembering what to do. Though wobbly, she could walk.
“I’ll leave you and Raye to your exercise.”
“Sure,” Raye said brightly. “I’m to show you the lavatory. Which really is just a bucket over there in the next stall.”
“The Hilton Hotel then,” she muttered.
“They don’t have much here. I’m grateful they dared to take us in. We have to depart soon, though. The Aerthe stirs, as she always does.”
“The Aerthe is what?” Emery looked from one to the other.
The girl shot him a pensive look. “She does. Pa wants you gone and there are others who do too.”
Mako turned to leave, his boots jangling with some newly attached silver trinkets that bounced where they ringed the top edges.
The man did have a nice tight ass and muscles to sigh over, and what a time to be thinking that.
Now she recalled JI’s words: Trust him.
Trust the devil. Here he was caring for her and all her preconceptions were being distorted. How much could JI, a mech, know about trust? Maybe he could cut though all the crap that people fabricated to make their world go round?
Maybe he was wrong too.
Whatever the story was about the Aerthe stirring, she wasn’t told the answer, though she tried to question Mako. Secrets were being kept from her.
The next day her legs were far stronger and her head hurt less, but exercising left her weak and flaked out on the bed. Judging by the sun coming in through the part-open barn doors and the roof cracks, it must be past midday, or mid-morning?
Little memories kept intruding.
The one where he wiped away blood from her eyes was there, but there were others. Those were mere glimpses, as if her eyes had opened and then shut.
Him pacing the room. Talking. Angry voices at the door and Mako standing there, a hand on his gun. He’d lain beside her and talked, and she couldn’t recall what he’d said, though it’d seemed desperately important at the time. She hated that, when a memory was just out of reach. Flowers, he’d brought blue flowers and laid them on the bed.
Delicate ones so blue they startled her.
She turned her head to find a vase with fresh yellow-and-blue flowers – tiny ones just as she’d dreamed. The wind was high and made the buds and petals nod and flutter in the breeze sneaking through the walls. Gusts made doors and shutters bang.
Her neck felt strangely cool and she discovered it was bare, collarless. She remembered waking up without it though not how it’d been removed.
He’d lain beside her on the bed, a warm, comforting presence that’d bent the mattress like a black hole sucking in gravity. He’d placed his hand on her stomach. That had called to her, drawn her from unconsciousness with the heaviness in her groin of burgeoning arousal. She’d woken and blinked up at him.
Memories...
If she’d woken at other times, she couldn’t recall. Those few were enough. Was this some façade he’d adopted to sucker her into liking him? His other actions were opposites. Grabbing her throat and pushing her to the wall. Threats. Fucking her how he had, in that matter of fact way. As if she really was his. It angered her even now.
And it aroused her.
For the first time, she reminisced about all he’d done to her, as well as everything he’d done for her. Such a deplorable man. Such a sadist. He’d put his life on the line to rescue her. And he brought flowers. Emery sighed. Fucking conundrum.
Lying on the bed in a thin nightdress, minus underwear, and thinking though all of those past events, especially that time...that most perverted time...at the Hall of Lawgivers...she found she wished to sneak her hand below and do exactly what he’d forbidden.
If she shut her eyes, she could imagine all manner of things.
Her right hand was already on her belly, above her mound. She opened her hand, aware of how close those fingers were to her clit. Simply placing it there wouldn’t matter, so she put her open hand over herself and let the fingers curl and fall naturally between her legs where her cleft began. Her already swollen cleft.
Such torment, to not move those fingers... She pulled them higher into a relaxed fist, curling two of them over her clit in an infinitesimal tease. An accidental tease.
The tap of boots across the floor of the stall froze her.
Amusing, how guilty she felt.
Of course, he would be here and watching. The slam of shutters and
doors had not been simply from the wind. The possibility had occurred to her but, truthfully, the chance of being discovered in flagrante had been a part of the excitement.
She’d known he must sleep somewhere in the barn.
His scent arrived, along with the jangle of those boot trinkets. Then she heard him lean over her and his lips touched hers, washing her in his presence. The shifting pressure as he parted her mouth with his tongue and tasted her while she tasted him, it made her mind go where it shouldn’t. He wasn’t a lover or a friend.
Trying to be discreet, she let her offending hand shift to her hip.
“What were you doing with that hand, Emery?”
Suddenly it wasn’t so laughable.
She opened her eyes and through the slits studied this man who wasn’t quite who she’d decided he should be. He had an arm propped to either side of her and she couldn’t avoid this interrogation.
The truth might be interesting. She’d lied to him so many times.
“I was thinking about doing something.”
“Touching yourself?” He picked up her hand and turned it over so it was palm uppermost.
“I find I often touch myself. A hazard of having hands and skin.”
“This is sounding more and more like your Shakespeare and though I loved your stories, I’m not looking for word-games. Were you touching your cunt?”
She bit her lip.
Cunt, or rather the Mekker equivalent of the word, was an ugly word, but Mako saying it intrigued her.
The truth was her game.
“Yes. Just a little. I was only thinking about it...”
“You’re answering me properly. I like that.” Mako sat on the edge of the bed, making the straw of the mattress crunch. “I like that a lot and that you’re well enough to think about masturbating. Pull your dress above your breasts. Roll it up so I can see all of you.”
She glanced at the barn entrance.
“No one is coming in. The doors are barred – though if they weren’t, that would be my concern, not yours.”
That he’d given her an order then waited made possibilities blossom.
Obey him and it might just be her being willing, as she’d agreed to do, but so much had happened since she’d made that agreement. So much had been torn up. New facts had come to light. Today, it meant more than simply willing to her, and she thought he’d intuited that.
Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1) Page 20
