Get out. Run!
She huddled deeper in the strut, wedged in tight.
The exoskeleton growled at the outside. “Come out.”
She held her breath.
Its sensors peered in. Floodlights blinded her. Her eyes flipped to alternate inputs, forcing her to see the hideous emptiness.
“Come out.” Its pinchers smacked the outside of the strut, unable to enter. It gripped the strut, unable to pinch it. “How did you get away from us?”
The ghost sensation of something cold felt so wonderfully familiar. Her human persona ran towards the sensation, chasing it without making contact. Yet she became clearer in her head.
The CXA-17 kicked its torch. The metal behind her head warmed.
It was going to cut its way in.
Fine. Cool logic calmed the wordless fears. That was fine. You can handle a little heat.
Ah, her robot had returned. The farther Aris’s silencer got from her, the more calm control returned to her body. Her robot had to call off the monster.
They won’t listen.
What?
I tried to tell them that you are undergoing this ultimate separation to trick Aris, lure out the rogue, and complete the assignment. The Faction agent who controls the construction bot doesn’t believe it. It is going to try to take you over.
Was it possible? Another intelligence outside her robot could take over her body?
Yes.
But finally, she felt a little give. Her robot had no desire to be taken over either.
Very well. She would work with her robot to destroy the intelligence controlling the construction bot before it destroyed her.
With calm, options spread out before her on a vast map. The CXA-17 was slow and heavy. The noise of the shuttle breaking below was the thing she had to be careful about. She had to get back to Aris before the shuttle broke free of its belts and fell to the deadly earth.
She scooted forward.
The CXA-17’s torch cut through where she had been sitting and sliced out the other side. Wind whistled through the inch-wide cut. Her skin charred. She flexed it pure.
“Come out,” the CXA-17 growled.
Fear shot through her, followed by dampening calm.
“Come and get me,” she goaded.
The malevolence piloting the CXA-17 paused.
Hot torch cut deeper through the back, slicing into the strut. She scooted away from it, toward the opening. Its pincers waited to crunch her, clicking and clacking. It thought that it had her trapped.
It thought wrong.
The torch cut through directly for her head.
She caught the white-hot burning in one hand. Char burned up her arm and crackled across her cheeks. But she felt calm. Controlled.
She jammed the torch down into the floor and cut through the strut.
The weight of the construction bot snapped the strut in half.
She fell through first. The CXA-17 groaned, fell, and slipped off. The strut dropped. One half flew free of the structure; the other smashed into a second belt, severing it. The belt halves zipped apart, flying away under the force of the shuttle’s weight.
She flew for the shuttle. Plots zipped through her mind. Get inside, check Aris, force-start the engines, fly to freedom.
The CXA-17 jerked in midair and then deactivated.
Almost the same instant, a strange new malevolence pushed at her mind.
You must obey, crushed her skull like thin aluminum.
Agony overwhelmed thought. The malevolence threatened to end her. Wires sizzled in her brain where it attacked her robot. She grabbed her head and arched. Everything fell away.
Resa fell into the shuttle.
The agony shut off as if it never existed.
Her mind became her own again; conscious control flowed back into her shaking body. The dead exoskeleton slammed into the shuttle, knocking it against its final restraint, and continued down, dead.
Aris helped her up. She shook everywhere.
He held her. “You came back.”
She grabbed him with the force of her life. Only he mattered. Only he could keep her safe.
The shuttle whined. Its last cable creaked to the snapping point.
She reached for the coolness she needed. Her robot was silent once again.
No.
Aris stroked her shoulder.
She needed to be strong for him.
Resa pushed herself back. He looked at her with an expression her brain told her was caution. Fear and hurt fought to the surface. Why caution? No, she needed to focus. The malevolence was gone, but its legacy was going to end them if it could, via the shuttle.
“They know we’re here.” She strapped into the shuttle and overrode the controls to manual. “They’ll be coming.”
He stroked her from the pilot’s chair. “Are you okay?”
No. No, she wasn’t okay.
“Hold on!”
Blasts crumbled the elevator struts, melting it in the middle. Overhead, the anchor of the morning district groaned horribly. Then, only shrieking as it seesawed over and fell, thousands of feet, for the planetoid’s barren surface.
Domes bobbed around its hole, unmoored. Luckily, they had already managed to detach the new governor’s mansion and descended along the long-dormant escape routes hidden behind the most shielded struts of the pressurized domes.
From the twilight district and night also, distant domes descended. Some floated sideways. Others drifted, on fire.
The falling elevator knocked out the remaining struts and spun them out. Emergency blasters fired, cushioning them upright. Their shuttle ripped free, coughed, and listed.
“Where are we going?” she cried, fighting the ancient controls.
Distrust flashed across Aris’s features.
Gone so quickly even he might not have realized he felt it, it poured into her heart and, like the cut from before, made a jagged incision. Tears burned to the surface. Emotions completely out of control.
She sniffed them back. No time for this now! But her emotions didn’t obey. They spilled out, overwhelming logic, ripping away her fragile control.
Her hands shook. “Where?”
He pointed into the maw of the rock below. “There. Behind all that stone.”
She shook her head. “We’re going too fast. Out of control. I’m going to miss.”
“You’re a robot—”
“I’m a fragment of a human memory locked in a metal box! And she was never a good pilot.”
His jaw flexed.
The atmosphere shook with their descent. The landscape loomed.
“I’ve lost it. I’ve lost everything.” She took her hands off the controls and covered her eyes. “We are going to die.”
“We’re not going to die.” He jammed the thrusters forward.
They flew for the small opening, unlike the gaping maw of the mines.
From above, shooting blasted into the rock, tumbling it over the entrance.
Fear shot through her again. A scream stuck in the back of her throat. “Get away from me.”
“What?” he shouted.
She forced her hands to curl around the shuddering controls. “Turn it off! The jammer, the silencer! Now!”
He stared at her—again, mistrusting her.
She mistrusted herself. “Get to the back of the shuttle! Go!”
“Fuck.” He covered his head and ran.
The silencer raced with him.
She called for her robot. Please. To save them.
From somewhere deep within, she saw the way through. Her hands steadied on the controls. She navigated for the tiny tunnel entrance.
Rocks tumbled around them, bouncing in the open shuttle. Weight gyros screamed as they rapidly over-weighted. She skidded along the surface, coasting on the gyros, veered away from the wall and careened into the mines.
Darkness rapidly swallowed sight; the lasers from their nemeses boiled the sky overhead.
She bumped ove
r the rough rock, scraping the bottom.
The rock tumbled behind them and closed them off.
Chapter Sixteen
Aris crawled out of the shuttle with a groan. “Resa?”
“I’m here.” Her faint voice guided him.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
His head hurt. His eyes gritted with dust. A knot the size of his fist rose up on his temple and this old bucket didn’t have any kind of first aid kit.
Resa had already emerged. She silhouetted against the darker blackness of the tunnels, a murky gray figure against an unknown pit. “I’m not injured.”
The mines boomed and shook. Dust fell from the roof, coating them in magnetized gold.
Resa turned and strode for him, shaking the shimmery flecks from her flight suit. Light bathed her from beneath. She was okay.
Relief almost crushed him.
He pulled her against him hard. Her muffled greeting mashed into his shoulder and he confirmed with his hands the fears that ripped into him as he thought about their final out-of-control descent.
She resisted. “I’m hurting you.”
He released her. Those bruises were nothing in comparison to what he had feared. “You’re too soft to hurt me.”
She blinked. “I’m made of metal.”
“The softest metal.” He found the subtle curve of her round, feminine ass and cupped the sweet flesh. “I feel better already.”
A breathy sound tickled his cheek. Was that her laugh? He delighted in the sound and pressed her against his fresh bruises, never minding the small shrieks. They were worth it. She was worth it. First, her smile, and now he’d gotten her to laugh. A guy could fall in love with a smart, tough, hard woman who made herself a little vulnerable for him like that.
A shaft of fear slid into his chest.
He set her back on her feet. “We should get out of here.”
She dropped to the ground. “Where are we going?”
“That depends on where we are.”
He cupped the back of his neck. Black singed ends puffed around his nose, smelling acrid like burned hair, and soot grimed his hands.
She walked past him, deeper into the mine. “We’re thirty meters south and east of the North Frontier Outpost. These tunnels will take us there, assuming they still go through.”
Her odd name stopped him. “Most know this area only as the Frontier Memorial.”
She made a surprised noise.
He faced her. “What?”
She shook her head as though trying to tap out some knowledge that refused to be dislodged. “I must have read it.”
“Must have?”
“That’s the only possibility.”
He wondered. The shaft of fear slid deeper. She had always saved his life, and she swore that she didn’t want to do the assignment, but she also kept reminding him that she didn’t have control. Wouldn’t he be an asshole for bringing this disaster to his planet, trusting in her to the end, only to find out it was all a program?
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t know how to answer. “You’re not usually ‘unsure’ about how you know things.”
Tears sprang to her eyes.
What the fuck?
She quickly turned away, dashing her tears and hiding her face.
No way. He had to enfold her in his arms. “Where are you hurt?”
She dodged. “I’m fine.”
“Look at me.”
“I’m uninjured!”
“Then what’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer.
“Resa?” He grabbed her shoulder, spinning her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing. I—”
She was supposed to be silenced. She couldn’t possibly be using him to betray the location of the lady rogue. Or worse, expect that he would lead her to his half sisters.
The same fear slid deeper, a knife of ice in his chest. He couldn’t believe it, and he also couldn’t stop his terrified, icy question. “Are you just using me to get to the lady rogue?”
“No!” She rubbed her elbows. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“Then what are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“Dammit, Resa.”
In the bioluminescence of the cave, her slender frame seemed more fragile. “I am a robot, yet I have some feelings. I can’t handle this see-saw of distrust.”
“And I can’t bury my feelings behind a metal shell.”
She hugged her elbows. “Neither can I.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He tugged her into his arms, fitting her where he needed her. Close, nestled up against his heart. Only her body heat could melt away the ice of betrayals that had lasted his entire life. “You won’t gain my hatred by accident. If you betray me, I know it’s not your true desire.”
“Everyone betrays you.”
He held her. That wound had healed over long ago. “And I betrayed my half sisters. I’ve even betrayed myself. I got over it.”
“Did you? Don’t you still hate yourself?”
He mused on her question. Not sure, exactly, how to answer. “We are just two people trying to save the ones we care about.”
“Am I one of the ones you care about?”
He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I care about you even though I have every reason not to. Even though the lady rogue told me not to.”
She curled her fingers over his wide palm. “That is an odd thing.”
Mirth moved his chest. “You do something to me.”
“I mean your rogue’s warning.” She sucked in a breath and stepped back. “The Faction urged me over and over again to throw myself at you.”
What the fuck?
“The Faction wanted you to fall in love with me? To what, weasel out information via pillow talk?”
“I explained how you are more adept at that form of espionage than I could hope to be.”
Yes, that struck him as true.
“The other odd thing is how familiar everything is.” She spread her arms to the sparkling ceiling. “It’s my first assignment. So why does it feel like I’ve seen these skies and walked these tunnels before? Why do I know how to pilot an ancient shuttle? How did I know the entrance here would lead to the North Frontier Outpost?”
“Why do you know that name?”
She dropped her arms. Questions with no answers.
The mine shuddered, dusting them with gold flecks. She sparkled, so lonely, so beautiful. He made the split-second decision that could change all of their lives… or end them.
“If we stand here long enough, your Faction’s going to end our inquiry.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her deeper into the old mines. “All is about to be revealed.”
“We are meeting the rogue after all?”
“Not exactly.”
Her voice took on sharp fear. “Who else could escape the Robotics Faction and keep us both alive?”
“The others who have done it.”
He tugged her eagerly to the hiding spot of his restore point. He was trusting Resa—no, excited to show her off—to the siblings who he had missed for over half their lives.
“Humans and androids who have escaped the Robotics Faction and survived.”
Miles passed in claustrophobic dimness as Resa led Aris deeper into the oddly familiar mines.
The familiarity of the caves struck her like a gut punch. Visceral dampness, every footstep eased into a river of footsteps leading her to exactly where she expected to go. She kept imagining that she heard the distant clang of machinery, the friendly shout, the spooky greeting of a ghost never properly laid to rest. Like a waking dream. Her feet knew where this path led, and she dreaded its conclusion, even though her brain didn’t know why.
Rumbles punctuated her questions overhead.
Her robot wasn’t around to promise it would be okay. All the times she had told it to shut up and go away now lashed her with regret. She wanted it back. Not
because she wanted it to order her around or betray her to the malevolence of the Robotics Faction, but because she felt like a scared little girl without it.
Her robot contained her clarity.
Her human was simply a memory around which she tried to construct herself. She needed both to be whole, and she couldn’t face Aris as a complete person missing one.
When she got too far away from Aris, something stirred inside her brain. Something familiar, and reassuring, and welcome.
And deadly.
She tried to grasp onto it.
Aris caught up to her.
It slipped through her fingers. Hidden away, silenced by a force outside both of their controls.
Again, her fear spiked. She clutched Aris’s hand.
He squeezed her and urged her on. Eagerness coated his grins, his joviality, his everything. He was so eager to meet his siblings.
She was terrified.
“If you turn evil, can you make your eyes go red?” Aris joked on their long walk through the winding tunnels to the North Frontier Outpost mine and former habitat dome. “That’s how it works in all the old movies.”
“I don’t have that level of control in my chromatics,” she said, only half distracted. “I could burst a blood vessel.”
“Do not do that.” He bumped her with his shoulder, teasing her from her melancholy. “If we’re going to give you red eyes, at least let’s make it after we fill you up with the most incredible liquors. I know exactly how much you must drink to give yourself the reddest eyes and the most painful hangovers.”
His teasing, joking, ballsy arrogance eased the slow-boiling dread erupting from the pit of her stomach, souring her mouth and darkening her vision.
They reached the mine control dome.
Broken and caved-in, it was half buried from ancient disrepair. Dust swirled in pockets within the old building.
She pushed piles of dust off dead control panels. “What happened to this place?”
“The motion failed.”
“Motion?”
“To turn this into a museum.” He went to a newer control panel, brushed off the sand, and initiated start-up. “No one comes here and it’s off-network. It’s the perfect place to leave a message.”
She simulated sitting where a chair would have rested. Empty husks of machinery lay cold and dead beneath her fingers. At her movement, a memorial plaque jumped to life at eye level celebrating the Founder’s Day Triumph.
Liberation's Vow (Robotics Faction #3) Page 21
