by Cara Bristol
Gripping the tool, he dug at the entry/exit access chip until it popped loose. “Try it now!”
A click and then a roar of air indicated the hatch had been sprung.
“It worked!” Amanda said.
He scrambled out from under the dash. In the time it had taken to force open the doors, the PeeVee had traveled halfway back to the residence. Buildings zoomed by. They were cyborgs, but leaping from a speeding, airborne PeeVee was going to hurt.
“Jump,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Chapter Twelve
Amanda leaped and tucked her arms and legs tight. Pain ricocheted when she hit the ground, bounced over compacted sand and gravel. Gasping, she came to rest on her back, staring at a bloody sky. Diagnostic nanocytes fed data to her cyberbrain. Cuts, bruises. The skin of her knees was scraped and bloodied, but, thanks to Cybermed, her titanium bones had withstood the jump. No serious injury.
She rolled to a sitting position and swiveled her head. “Sonny? Sonny!” She got to her feet and scanned the passage. There! A hundred meters along the avenue.
Unmoving.
Please be all right. Please. Her heart contracted. Not him. Please, not him. His death would be more than she could bear. Taking the PeeVee had been a horrible idea. She’d screwed up again. It wasn’t enough she’d accidentally assassinated Kilead, now she may have killed Sonny, too.
Don’t let him be dead. No. No. She sprinted to his side.
He groaned. Alive. She exhaled in relief. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Then she saw the break. Below his knee, the jagged white edge of his tibia protruded through the torn fabric of his pants. A compound fracture.
Nanos could heal a simple break, but not one in which the bone had snapped in two. Only a doctor or a robotic med tech could guide the two edges together. Seeking medical help would deliver them right back into harm’s way.
“It was a longer way down than I thought,” he joked, but squinted with pain. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Blood soaked the leg of his torn uniform. The limb had to be immobilized but how? She eyed the clean-swept street, devoid of anything she could use as a splint. Even if she could stabilize him—he couldn’t travel! After what had happened, hijacking another PeeVee was out of the question, hoofing it, impossible.
Sonny met her gaze. “It’s a bad break.”
“It’s not good,” she agreed. “How are you otherwise?”
He twisted his mouth. “Tip-top shape.”
“We have to get you out of here.”
“You need to go on without me.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He lifted his head to assess his leg. “This won’t heal on its own. If you stay with me, we’ll both be arrested.”
“I won’t leave you behind. If we both can’t move forward, then we’ll both go back.” Interplanetary treaty required injured prisoners of war to receive medical treatment. Except the terrorists hadn’t signed any treaties. They’d use his injury to torture him.
“And maybe the moon is made of green cheese. And maybe their god exists. You have to leave me here and complete the mission. Get off the planet and transmit the intel.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
His eyes darkened with a pain that was more than physical. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”
“And I can’t stand to leave you here.”
“I’m a liability.”
“You’re not a liability, you’re my partner, you stupid cyborg!” Don’t cry. Don’t cry. She sniffed tears, hoping he hadn’t noticed. She’d as good as killed them both. “I won’t leave you.”
“You’re a stubborn woman.” Pain bracketed his mouth in deep grooves, but he managed to glare at her. He raised up on his elbows and rolled onto his good leg.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. He could hurt himself worse.
“Getting up,” he replied grimly.
“Let me help you.” She slipped her arm under his on the bad side. “Lean on me.”
He exhaled. “On the count of three.”
“Got it.”
“One…two…three.” A mangled groan escaped his throat as he pushed up on his good leg while she lifted. His weight slumped on top of her. If she hadn’t been a cyborg, they both would have collapsed. His heart pounded against his ribs. Perspiration dripped down his temples.
“Okay.” He panted. “Let’s hit it.”
“Where?” How far could he go in his condition?
“Off to the side, to start. I’ll hop. Can you bear my weight?”
“Yes.” She’d hold him up or die trying.
He gave a small hop. He muffled his groan, but she still heard it. Veins bulged in his face, which was paler than his scar. “Again,” he said.
“Sonny…” What the hell were they going to do? He might succeed in crossing the street, but then what?
“Don’t stop,” he said through gritted teeth.
Three piercing blasts split the air. They both jumped. What the hell? She cocked her head, listening. Silence for a count of two then three more blasts pierced the quiet. “I have a bad feeling.”
The sequence repeated. “Me, too. Hurry!” He hopped.
They’d almost reached the other side of the street when a PeeVee roared around the corner and veered toward them. Was it manned, or programmed to ram them, like the other? Would they be taken into custody or killed?
She’d never surrender. Amanda lunged for her photon blaster but groped empty space. Her cyberbrain flashed to the vision of the weapon resting on the console—right before they’d jumped from the PeeVee.
Could they get anymore screwed?
The PeeVee swerved to a stop and lowered to the ground. Tinted windows did not allow her to see inside.
Go! You still have a chance, he said. I’ll hold them off.
I won’t leave you. They might die, but she’d go down fighting and would take a piece of their enemies with her.
The hatch hissed open.
* * * *
“Hurry! Get in!” Garvit, their escort from the shuttleport, motioned.
Friend? Or foe? Had he been sent to lure them in?
If not for his damn leg, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. Nanos dialed back the pain a notch, but agony still ricocheted through Sonny’s body at the slightest jarring. He could suck up the discomfort, but hobbling on one leg severely curtailed mobility. He couldn’t outrun a slime crawler.
He’d failed his sister and now Amanda. She’d be captured, tortured, and killed because he’d jumped from the PeeVee and landed wrong.
“What are you waiting for? Get in!” Garvit beckoned with a frantic wave.
I don’t know…Amanda said.
“Sorviq’s forces are minutes behind me!”
As I see it, we’re out of options. Sonny hated to admit the truth. They either took a chance on Garvit or they waited for the soldiers to come.
“He’s been injured,” Amanda said.
Garvit jumped out of the PeeVee. “Come on.”
“You support his good side, I’ll take the left. I’m going raise his thigh,” Amanda instructed.
Their escort moved to his right, and the two of them lifted him. Sonny gritted his teeth. He almost blacked out from the pain as they loaded him into the PeeVee, settling him across the passenger bench. Shards of agony shot from his leg into his spine. Amanda climbed into the Nav cab with Garvit.
“Computer, take us to the warehouse in the southeast quadrant. Upon arrival, erase the destination from your memory.”
The southeast quadrant wasn’t near the residence, but they couldn’t assume they were safe. “Warehouse” could mean an interrogation center or a prison.
The PeeVee zipped away.
Amanda peered at him, her face crinkled with worry. How are you doing?
Fine. But I’m not sure about our escort.
“What’s at the warehouse?” she asked Garvit.
“The safe house. We’ve been wa
iting a long time for you,” Garvit said.
“Safe house? We? What do you mean you’ve been waiting for us? Who’s ‘we’”
“Hold your questions until we arrive. I promise they’ll be answered to the best of our ability.
Plural again. Garvit wasn’t acting alone. How would they answer their questions? By breaking his other leg? Call him wary, but trust didn’t come easily. In covert Ops, the only one you could trust was your partner. Period. Everyone else had to prove themselves. If other options had been available, he wouldn’t have gotten into the vehicle. His injury had forced them to gamble on a variable.
Their dubious rescuer jutted his chin at the dash. “The less said in the PeeVee, the less that will have to be erased. There’s always a chance a blip of conversation could be missed. Computer, delete conversation from point of entry to the present in your database.”
“Conversation deleted.”
A minute later, the PeeVee deposited them outside a windowless building spanning half a block. Garvit and Amanda attempted to help him out, but Sonny rejected their assistance. He’d travel under his own steam, or he wouldn’t go at all. Gritting his teeth, he scooted, dragging his bad leg. Grabbing the roof edge, he hoisted himself out. The world went black for an instant. Amanda grabbed him before he toppled.
“Inside, quickly!” Garvit checked left and right down the street.
They entered the warehouse. The door shut out fresh air, pink light, and the whooshing of PeeVees and sirens wailing in their honor. In the dark, Sonny sensed Garvit moving, and then lamps flickered on to reveal an empty cavern coated in layers and layers of dust. Particles floated on musty, stale air. No one had used this building in a long time. Garvit gestured, indicating they should follow him across the room.
Amanda braced her shoulder under his left, like he was some decrepit old man.
I’ve got it. He might not be fast, but he’d do it.
Don’t be so stubborn. Let me help you.
She refused to accept no for an answer, so he accepted her assistance, rather than arguing. Pain had made him a little woozy, and he needed to stay alert. After an agonizing eternity, they reached the other side. Cyber senses registered the temperature as cool, but sweat soaked his shirt, plastering it to his skin. Buzzing nanos congregated at the injury site, trying to heal the wound. The tiny robotic cells couldn’t mesh the broken ends together, but they would heal the flesh around it. If he didn’t get medical attention, the nanos would seal the muscle and skin around the protruding bones, and he’d be in for some serious surgery to undo it. Assuming they survived. It didn’t matter how his leg healed if they got themselves killed.
He peered at their tracks. Anyone entering would have no difficulty following. It couldn’t have been more obvious which way they’d gone, if holograms in their likenesses had stood at the entrance and pointed the way.
Garvit palmed a screen to open a portal to a narrow passage. As soon as they cleared the warehouse floor, he tapped a code into an inside panel. Whirring emanated over the warehouse and, moments later, particulate matter rained from the ceiling, misting the room, and beginning to erase their footsteps. Before the spray could drift into the passageway, the door closed on a vacant, seemingly unused storage area.
Who do you think Garvit really is? Amanda asked.
Not a clue. If he wasn’t friendly, they were so screwed.
“This way,” said the subject of their conversation.
At the end of the hall, they boarded a transporter, and, once again, their footprints were dusted away. A lot of trouble had gone into ensuring the building appeared vacant.
“Enough already,” Sonny said. “Who are you and what the hell is this place?”
The ascender bumped to a stop. The panel slid back. White light spilled into the transporter.
The cyborg guard they’d left undressed on the bed stepped forward to meet them.
Chapter Thirteen
“You got farther than we thought you would, but you never would have made it out of the city,” said the guard. Behind him, around a large table in the dust-free, pristine white room sat four men and two women.
Fucked up again, Amanda said.
They shared blame, but this time he had to agree.
“I expect Sorviq will be arriving soon?” Sonny asked.
“Glory to the Great One, we hope not!” the guard said. “My name is Mortin. I, and the others, belong to the Resistance.”
“What Resistance?” Amanda asked.
“The Resistance against Lamani,” Mortin replied.
Cy-Opshasno intelligence on any opposition, she said.
The guard eyed the fracture. “We’ll talk. Medical attention first.” He motioned to one of the males at the table. “Cornar! Stat.”
The one called Cornar got to his feet and approached. Sonny considered bashing some heads together, beginning with Mortin, Garvit, and Cornar, but the guard was a cyborg, too, and with others piling on, they would be outnumbered by a tad. But he wasn’t buying their Resistance movement story—not without some solid evidence.
“Get a stretcher,” Cornar ordered. “Take him to the med bay.”
Call him suspicious, but being worked on by alien doctors with alien technology and possibly alien intentions made him more than a bit nervous. Even if they did turn out to be friendly. What did the isolationist, xenophobic Lamis-Odg know about human physiology anyway? He’d seen the effects the human drug Loquitol had had on them. What was nontoxic to one species could be fatal to another.
A stretcher appeared, and Cornar and the man who’d brought it helped him onto it. He hated being helpless, not having choices. Hated that Amanda would be out of his sight. Hated that he needed her protection when he was supposed to be defending her.
“I want to go with him,” she said.
“Your presence is not necessary,” Mortin replied.
Her expression hardened. It wasn’t the glare of a kick-ass cyborg, but worse. It was the scowl of a pissed-off woman.
“As you wish.” Mortin caved.
As Cornar and the other male moved him, she grabbed his hand and squeezed. Men are such babies when they go to the doctor.
Had she guessed his secret fear? He hated doctors. The two months he’d been at Cybermed undergoing the transformation had been hell. He’d chosen it, but he’d hated every second. Couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Until now.
He deployed his nanos to calm his racing pulse.
They carried him to a suite smelling as sterile as it looked, and moved him onto an examination table. Amanda crowded close.
“You must give me room to work,” Cornar said, and waited until she’d inched away to his satisfaction.
Eyes on her, Sonny wasn’t prepared for Cornar to press an injector under his jaw. Pain jabbed into his neck.
“What the hell did you do to him?” She leaped forward, glowering.
A soothing glow of heat radiated out from the injection site until it numbed his broken leg. His body relaxed, but his mind remained sharp. It wasn’t a knockout drug, at least. He analyzed himself for an inclination for loquaciousness. Nope. He had no desire to tell them anything. So, not a truth serum, either.
“Pain block,” Cornar answered. “I must realign the bones manually. Normally, we would use robotics, but our equipment at the safe house is a bit primitive.”
Primitive equipment. Yeah, that’s what you want to hear from your doctor. Your enemy alien doctor. Except whatever he’d given him for the pain had worked like a charm. Sonny squeezed his fist and moved his good foot. The doctor hadn’t paralyzed him, another good sign.
Cornar gripped the tibia above and below the break and manipulated the ends into place. Sonny could feel and hear grinding as the bones shifted, but the doc’s drug did the trick. He was pain-free.
“Please remain still now,” Cornar said, and ran a handheld osteoknitter over the fracture. Light flashed from white to pink.
Cornar released him. “Done.
You’ll have to baby the leg for a while, but with your nanos, you’ll be good as new by tomorrow.”
Nanos? He knows we’re cyborgs!
Maybe they’re guessing.
Maybe the osteoknitter is more than a bone repairer.
“You may return to the other room. Mortin is anxious for the briefing.”
Mortin and Sonny both. He wanted some answers.
* * * *
Sonny tallied the positives and negatives. On the plus side, his leg had been healed, and they were alive. On the minus side, they couldn’t trust these people. Freedom fighters—or captors? Resistance? Since when? If there’d been an organized opposition, wouldn’t Cy-Ops have had an inkling? He couldn’t forget how Mortin had shot him, ground his boot on his hand, and kicked him in the ribs.
He and Amanda took seats at the table, joined by their gracious hosts.
“You’re wondering who we are,” Mortin said.
“That’s the least of it.” Amanda folded her arms.
“Lomar, who brought the stretcher, and Borqit”—he nodded at two of the men—“work at Kilead’s residence. You’ve already met Garvit and become acquainted with Cornar. He gestured to the women. “Tannah, on the left, is Garvit’s mate. Hala is Cornar’s. We belong to a secret group opposing Lamani on grounds he is a false prophet.”
False prophet. A tautology if he ever heard one. Did such a thing as a real prophet exist? “How can we trust you?” Sonny asked.
“Would I have fixed your leg?” Cornar countered.
Sonny glowered at Mortin. “You shot me!”
“Unavoidable. I had to do my job—or I would have been reported by the other guard. I could have killed you. However, at the time, we hadn’t yet figured out who you were.”
“And who do you think we are?” Sonny asked.
“You are not Lamis-Odg.”
