Liberation's Vow (Robotics Faction #3)

by Wendy Lynn Clark

  “Go on. I have more important guests to greet,” Darvin growled. “Take your insane paranoia with you and choke on it.”

  Resa analyzed Darvin’s voice imprint as Aris lead her between dripping grottoes and bubbling brooks.

  “He knows something,” she concluded.

  “About what?” Aris greeted the Hyeon upper class from the other six planets.

  They regarded her with disinterest. Her public identification chip told them her first name only, implying she was either a fabulous celebrity or an orphan of zero worth. A single glance made the truth obvious.

  “He shares your concern about the trustworthiness of the Robotics Faction.”

  Aris paused and fixed his eyes on her. Piercing, beautiful, startled. “He thinks I’m crazy.”

  “Something has changed.”

  Aris glanced at the nearby statuary, releasing her.

  She took a deep breath, feeling her chest rise against the shimmering dress, the delicate beads sliding against her skin.

  He tugged her against him. His lips brushed his ear, his voice low to conceal it from any speakers. “What changed?”

  Feather light breath against her ear uncurled streamers of desire in her veins. She took another, deeper breath, but the dress contained her like his arms. Strong, gentle, exquisite. “I don’t know. Only that he believes the Robotics Faction is more dangerous today than he did yesterday.”

  He swore softly. “It proves he’s working with the Faction.”

  “Working with them how?”

  “To alter the census data.”

  Wait. Aris believed the Faction had altered the census data? “I assumed your cousins invented fake people.”

  “We were unable to prove that,” he said. “It would be obvious, wouldn’t it? If someone has a suspect record, you check their identification chip. But everyone we investigated showed up as if they were a real person, moving to and from jobs or locations on our satellites, showing up on other sensors. They have transactions.”

  “Then you saw them on your satellite cameras?”

  “No, and that’s the suspicious part again. They were never captured on film. That’s when I realized he must have gotten identifications for our dumb robots. Like street sweepers.”

  A chill shivered across her veins. “Street sweepers don’t have identification chips. They have serial numbers and small processors. And they would certainly appear on cameras.”

  “I have the data,” he insisted.

  “I will review it at home,” she said.

  So long as her robot would let her. She knew now if the Faction wished her not to speak, they would hold her tongue in her mouth.

  The knowledge of her slavery burned hot, furious, and she vowed to fight. Fight until she regained her freedom.

  “If not street sweepers, then how—” Aris broke off and raised his voice to a harsh, fake whisper. “Please smile. My father will love you if you smile, and then we can marry with his blessing.”

  A cloud of important relatives passed, nearly brushing her elbow.

  He nodded to them. Several eyed her with more interested speculation as they passed.

  She fell into his ruse. “I won’t become a more important person if I smile.”

  “There are other endearments besides importance.”

  “You think I’d be pretty?” she asked. Even though they were performing, her question edged too close to her feelings, and her cheeks heated. “My face is dragging down the quality of your dress?”

  “You’re already gorgeous,” he put his arm around her shoulders and led her onto the ramp outside the palazzo, winding up the dome to the upper echelons, “and my dress simply highlights the natural beauty already there, in you.”

  Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.

  “I think you’d be more approachable if you smiled.”

  He snagged her a drink en flambé. “Your serious face is too real. Better to wear a ditzy or vapid mask in a place like this, and never show your true self.”

  “Someone might think that was me,” she said absently. Blue flames danced across the surface of the alcohol, carefully controlled by nanobots at the rim of the glass. Magic.

  Creepy.

  “Never show your true self. It keeps the enemy from guessing and protects the real you from harm.”

  A slender group of relatives squealed and threw themselves at him. He grinned hugely and returned their hugs, and then moved on as they shrieked and cried over the person behind him with just as much enthusiasm. Not all of his relatives gave him a headache, clearly.

  But to the point of his conversation, which had veered from ruse to real, there was no her, exactly. She shared a human persona over a robotic mind. Both belonged to the Robotics Faction, as had been shockingly demonstrated the other day. She rubbed her arms, willing the goose bumps away.

  “I have nothing to protect,” she said. She had no real self. Not anymore.

  “Lucky.” He waited in an inspection line and stroked her back, lightly tracing the sensitive vertebrae of her spine. “Then you, my lovely partner, will have nothing to regret if you fail to save it.”

  Silly, meaningless, and somehow dear murmurs feathered along her body like his fingers, sweet and gentle and meaningless, and burning preciously.

  His touches were dangerous. His tender words, deadly.

  She was starting to crave both of them.

  They passed through an inner layer of security into a quieter, more solemn den of importance overlooking the gorgeous palazzo. Brilliant sprays of flowers changed arrangements before him, overflowing food and drink dripped from pedestals, and real flames burned in wall sconces, matching the walls’ brilliant reds and purples.

  Small groups of elders spanned all generations, some identifying as their true ages and others disguising their centuries in a cloak of improbable youth. She compared biometrics and identified his father.

  The most likely candidate, a man in his third century, shared Aris’ determined forehead and powerful build. The slight blue tint to the steel, similar also to Aris’ coloration, cemented her choice.

  “You must tell him the truth,” Aris said, his voice strained with emotion. “He will believe you.”

  But the assignment forbade it. And therefore, her robot forbade her from speaking. “The words cannot pass my lips.”

  His arm tightened. “You could demonstrate—ah, he might know the location of the rogue, or…”

  “I can bleed real blood.”

  He searched her face. Fear for his father in the coming showdown, whatever it might be, overshadowed any concern for himself. Pain squeezed in her chest. His selflessness was admirable. Admirable as her brother.

  “It’s not my choice,” she said softly.

  His expression loosened to acceptance. “I’m on my own with this, huh? Okay. Here we go.”

  “Here we go?” she repeated.

  “I must talk my father into doing something that no Hyeon would ever naturally do.” He squared his powerful shoulders. “Ask for help.”

  A window overlooked the inner dome of the palazzo spread out fifty feet below, framing Aris’s father as a visiting emperor distanced from and respected by all who crossed his domain.

  “Father.” Aris clasped his father’s wrist and shook, his other hand guiding the shake on his father’s elbow.

  The great silver man smiled. “Son.”

  Three of the seven planets were directly governed by him while the other four fell under the jurisdiction of cousins who engaged in bloody battles for dominance than existed between Aris and his cousins, or his father and uncle. Seeing his father healthy and whole in the face of so much danger filled Aris with guilt and relief.

  Instead of releasing his father’s hand at the appropriate time, he pulled his father in for a hug and patted his back.

  The huge shoulder blades flexed beneath his pat, and his father’s voice rumbled. “You are too demonstrative. It’s disrespectful.”

  “I love and honor y
ou.”

  His father grumbled, but when Aris pulled back, his father couldn’t fully disguise the indulgent smile tugging at his lips. He enjoyed receiving the exuberance of his son, improper as it was, as a shot of color in a too dark, lonely existence.

  Still, he smoothed Aris’s loose hair and adjusted the seat of his collar. “You must train yourself not to express it in that manner.”

  Aris accepted his sartorial assistance. “Blame my mother.”

  “I do.” He shrugged against the strictures of his own intricately constructed, perfectly proper robes. “For the first two decades, it was far safer to have you under the protection of the Chen Antiatas—as your mother was, when I met her, before she lowered herself in her marriage to the unimportant Sarits.”

  The quick flare of anger on behalf of his stepfather, the man who had taught him kindness, disappeared under the smothering blanket of his love for his father. “They exposed me to a variety of cultural and intellectual ideas.”

  “Variety is fine, so long as you know which are true.” He waved his hand. “Enough about your past. You must always, always concentrate on your future.”

  Aris steeled himself. “I am, father. Let me tell you how.”

  Chapter Ten

  But Aris never got the chance to tell him the future.

  His father focused squarely on the past. The past few days, anyway.

  “And the promotions were stalled for what?” his father asked. “Because of your obsession with the Robotics Faction.”

  “Your nephews,” Aris lowered his voice and couldn’t help his surreptitious glance around, “are the ones using the Robotics Faction to promote their own people.”

  “So what?” His father, a great lion of a man, shook his head at his cub’s idealism. “Once they are promoted, they’ll see your cousins can no longer benefit them, and they will flock to your leadership. Loyalties are sold so easily in our position.”

  A muscle in Aris’s jaw twitched. “I really think—”

  “Shush, shush.” His father put a hand on his shoulder—a lot for him—and drew Aris to the window, overlooking the vast palazzo fountains. “We both agree it was unfortunate that you couldn’t spend the entire indecisive age of your first century gallivanting about, trying on this hobby or that one, the way that you were so attached to your clothing design.”

  “Father, I—”

  “When you reach your second and third century, you’ll learn to appreciate the sacrifices you’ve made here, this day.”

  “Father.” Aris’s jaw flexed as he struggled for the words. “I appreciate everything you’ve done to put me here. I do.”

  His father laughed, shaking his head. “You don’t. That’s okay, and I don’t want you to. By the time you know… well….” He laughed again, without mirth.

  “There is a larger threat, Father—”

  His eyes flashed. “Damn right. This delay has weakened us in front of the rest of the galaxy. Weakness leads to vulnerability, which leads to attack, and who will fend them off? The Hyeon defensive forces. And they have an entire galaxy to defend, not just one little planet.”

  Ah. An opening. “We should call the Antiata fleet.”

  “Deterrence must investigate any threats before they will send a unit.”

  “The head CEO can override Deterrence. We are under attack.” Or, they were about to be. “He sent out memos about the Robotics Faction weeks ago.”

  His father pshawed him. “Worry about what is in front of you.”

  He leaned in. “There’s a larger threat against the entire Hyeon and Antiata families. Against this planet. Against all of humanity.”

  His father’s brow furrowed.

  “The Robotics Faction is hunting us. Hunting us down and killing us.”

  “Your mother’s lies—”

  “They’re not lies! My half sisters aren’t the only victims. Anyone could be at risk. Poyo, any of our cousins, the Antiata CEO.” He straightened subtly. “You.”

  Denial crossed his father’s face, but he still listened to his son respectfully. “Why?”

  “We have a gene. The Robotics Faction is trying to eliminate it—”

  “No, I mean, why are they hunting us down ‘one by one’?” His father gestured at the fountains, the guests, his brethren in the luxurious den. “Why don’t they pull up alongside the planet and melt a hole through the atmosphere bubble? Boom. No more threat.”

  Aris glanced past his father to Resa, who was ignoring him over by the fireplace. He hadn’t gone over widespread disaster scenarios with the rogue. “Someone would notice if we disappeared from the sky.”

  “Why do they care? But okay, suppose they are trying to hide a murderous face and keep up their reputation as a safe, neutral, non-competitive facade. We’re living in flying domes. A few lines of corrupt code, pinned on a human patsy, and everyone abruptly falls a mile to their deaths. Untraceable, invisible, and utterly effective.”

  His father sweated a little in the blue flame of the wall sconces; he had gone over numerous disaster scenarios over the years in Aris’s position.

  “Or, turn our nanobots on us. ‘Where did the residents of Seven Stars go?’” He role-played. “‘I don’t know. Let’s go down to the empty planet and find out. What’s this weird-looking paste on the ground and where did my hand go?’”

  “That’s impossible,” Aris said. “They’re sealed away forever.”

  “What about the ones that aren’t?” He gestured at the atmosphere-creating nanobots constantly working all around them. “Think how easy it would be to activate a malicious switch and turn us into a carbon slurry.”

  “The atmosphere nanobots can’t be turned on solid matter—”

  “Why not? Their creators are planning some sort of apocalypse, according to you. What more dastardly efficient plot than to sell your victims the future instruments of their own deaths?”

  The question made sense, and he applauded his father for asking it, even as he cursed the difficulty in convincing him of the truth. In all his conversations with Resa and the lady rogue, he’d received the certain impression that the Robotics Faction had only recently come to the conclusion that certain humans meant danger.

  “They aren’t planning to kill everyone, because it’s unnecessary,” he said slowly. “They don’t spend time on things that are unnecessary.”

  His father studied his guess with a practiced, but saddened eye. “This obsession has created an unhealthy fantasy. One that I am not going to bring before the head CEO of the Antiata conglomerate in a misguided request for his main fleet.”

  The dismissal punched him in the gut. “No, look. I don’t know the answer to your questions. But I do know if you ask, the CEO is aware of the Faction threat and he will send the fleet.”

  His father squinted. “He’s aware?”

  “He promised to be ready for their attack.”

  “He promised you personally?”

  Ah. Shit.

  “It takes me a week just to receive a receipt of contact,” his father said, skepticism pulling his lips to the side. “How nice you receive a response in person.”

  “I had help.” Now, Aris was grasping. “A lady—a person working against the Faction gave me a, ah, piece of technology that allowed me to reach out to him directly. A sort of holographic projector that, well, bypassed his usual security.”

  Skepticism painted his father’s face a darker gray than usual. “How convenient. Does this woman have a name?”

  “The point is, he is aware of our situation.”

  “And if so, he has apparently elected not to inform me.”

  “Our networks are compromised.”

  “I see. And you received this direct conversation from a woman working against the Faction.” His gaze crossed the den to Resa, by the fireplace. “Is it that young lady? The one without a last name?”

  “No. She’s…” Fucking hell. “I know you don’t believe me. But after my half sister Cressida disappeared, a lady
gave me a transmitter, which I used to contact the head priest. We were too late to stop the attack on Mercury, but he does believe us now. The Antiata main force will come if we call them.” His voice rose like a child. “You have to call them.”

  “We help ourselves or nobody does,” his father said absently. “So that mystery lady, she’s telling you things? This fantasy is being fed by a woman?”

  “There is no woman,” he snapped. “Listen—”

  “A new girlfriend? A potential wife?”

  “I have no one.”

  His father rolled his lips in. “If you hadn’t delayed the promotions, I’d take you away with me right now. Review our plans. Spend time together.”

  “This isn’t a plea for attention. I’m trying to make you see the truth.”

  “I’ll ask your mother to visit. I believe she’s on a cruise not far from here. She’ll tell you some of the crazy things she got up to in her first seventeen decades.”

  His father’s head secretary gestured. Other family members wished to meet with him.

  He placed his hand on Aris’s shoulder. “Try to get along with your cousins.”

  “I’m telling the truth.” But the words sounded plaintiff, even to him.

  “Yes, I’m sure you think so. Don’t stay too late,” his father advised, as though sleep would change his son’s psychosis into good sense. He dismissed Aris and moved deeper into the room to socialize with the others he was required to see.

  Aris stood, bereft and alone. The others in the room eyed him. Only Resa kept her gaze averted, studying something in the fireplace as though shamed on his behalf. He turned his back on them, using his privilege as governor and son, ignoring the shocked whispers. He went to the window and rested his fists on the sill.

  Fuck. There had to be a way to convince his father of the true danger. The Robotics Faction would come. The lady rogue’s gambit with his restore point only pushed back the doom clock. It didn’t destroy it.