The blast registered as a wall of white code roaring through his positronic matrix.
[secondary processors offline]
[E.S.O.U.L offline]
“Pain” spiked into his rebooting core processor. He staggered backward, squeezing the squealing bio-weapon harder to his chest. Without his exo-battle armor he was more vulnerable than anticipated. He needed to halt the attack of the two men before his entire system shut down. He clamped his fingers over the bio-weapon’s forehead, pressing hard against its small skull as he locked his stare on the original Thanatos. “I will crush its frontal lobe.”
“I will tear you to pieces.”
[alert]
[bio-rhythms fluctuating]
[temporal shift detected]
[temporal displacement detected]
“As will I.”
“And I.”
“And I.”
“And you can bet your metal ass I will too.”
Forty-Two rotated his head from left to right, his logic CPU again denying what his optical sensors detected. Three more Agent Thanatoses stood in the docking bay, all with identical fluctuating bio-rhythms, all leveling one weapon or another at his head. Five in total.
He turned back to the original Thanatos. The one with Agent Proserpina’s scent on his flesh. “Do what you will, but know my fingers will shatter the M.E.Lii’s skull and crush its cerebrum before the first—”
[E.S.O.U.L rebooting]
Cold, sick guilt smashed into him. He froze. Confused. By the maker, what was—
[error…E.S.O.U.L offline]
He stared at Thanatos, the stink of Agent Proserpina stronger than ever in his olfactory sensors. “It will be a vegetable. A brainless lump. Retreat, or I will—”
“Forty-Two.” A female voice cut across his demand. “Let go of Emylie. Now.”
Forty-Two snapped straight, all his sensors zeroing in on the woman walking toward him from his right, her left cheek bruised and inflamed, charged pulse pistol raised and pointed at him.
[E.S.O.U.L rebooting]
A tight churning sensation erupted in Forty-Two’s core processor. He blinked, gazing at the approaching woman, his grip on the wriggling bio-weap…child…M.E.L…
Emylie…
[E.S.O.U.L rebooting]
“Agent.”
“Put her down, Forty-Two,” the female ordered. “Or I will turn you into a million scorched pieces of useless metal.” Brilliant blue eyes drilled into him. Emotionless. Unwavering. A killer’s eyes. And yet, underneath the ice, something he recognized. A flicker he’d seen more than once before. When he’d held her after bringing her to clima—
[E.S.O.U.L online]
Guilt, shame and horror flooded him. Every circuit in his system burned with the emotions. “Falynn?”
“Put her down, Forty-Two,” she ordered again, voice softer this time. “Please.” She took a step closer, weapon still trained on his head. “She’s scared. You’re scaring her.”
He jerked his stare to the child in his arms, flinching at the absolute terror swimming in her wide brown eyes. He could feel the fragile bones of her skull under his fingers, the clammy feel of her flesh against his dermal layer. Her heart smashed against his arm, a tiny rapid beat, the acrid sting of her fear filled his nose.
How could he be one actuator pulse away from crushing her skull? What was he—
[fatal error…E.S.O.U.L terminated]
Complete stillness claimed Forty-Two’s structure. He lifted his head, turning his optical sensors on the Thanatos standing before him before locking them onto Agent Proserpina. “It should be scared,” he said, tightening his grip on the bio-weapon’s head.
“If the assassin you so loudly fucked makes the slightest move—or any of his duplicates makes the slightest move—I will sink my fingers into its pathetic human brain and give it a rather crude full-frontal lobotomy.”
Thanatos’ nostrils flared. “And I will disassemble you, bolt by bolt, diode by diode, until nothing exists of you but a screaming voice box atop a pile of redundant components.”
Forty-Two detected the rapid increase of five beating hearts around him. Adrenaline and cortisol leeched from all five of the assassins in thick, contemptuous bio-waves. If his E.S.O.U.L program functioned, he would be unnerved. If he required breath, he would surely be suffocating. But it was not, and he did not. Nothing scared him now, and he required nothing except primary mission command orders from the GU. And those were clear.
Return the bio-weapon alive, cognitive if possible. Terminate all Unit Zero agents.
“Forty-Two.” Agent Proserpina’s soft voice drew his focus from Thanatos. He slid his stare to her face, scanning her bio-rhythms for evidence of deception or premeditative action. Nothing. She had never been so composed. So calm. “This is not right,” she continued. “This is not who you are now.”
A slight pulse anomaly shot through Forty-Two’s neural network. He blinked, head twitching to the left. Once.
“Please, Forty-Two.” Falynn took a step closer. “Please. Let Emylie go.”
Another pulse shot through his positronic matrix and without the necessary command code, his molecular disruptor abruptly retracted into his forearm.
Dermal layer prickling with an unknown sensory stimulus, he stared at Falynn, the woman who had resurrected him from permanent shutdown. The woman who had activated his E.S.O.U.L, who’d allowed him to experience love. The woman he would have done anything for. The woman he would have died for.
He stared at her, and then at the de-atomizer in her hand. Aimed directly at his head.
He frowned. Why was he hesitating?
A kaleidoscope of images flashed through his neural network. Sharp, vivid images, saturated in color. A lifetime of memories stored in his positronic matrix since the first time his E.S.O.U.L was activated.
Falynn making him laugh, telling him bad Old Earth jokes as they traveled through GU space toward her next target.
Falynn tending to a wound in his abdomen, her fingertips feathering the ragged gash in his bio-dermal layer with infinite care, her soft breath kissing the angry, damaged flesh.
Falynn asking him how he felt, what he was thinking, what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go.
Falynn smoothing her palms up his arms as she pressed her lips to his chest. Falynn arching over his body, her thighs gripping his hips, her breaths short and shallow as she rode his climax until he cried out with concentrated pleasure. Falynn…Falynn…
Falynn.
He blinked, staring at Falynn Mavek, a sense of joy and freedom and pure release pouring through him.
His neural-net programming changed, his positronic matrix behaving as if his E.S.O.U.L program was still operational. Emotions are abstract concepts fed by memories, stimulated by the past, and his memories had become more than his programming. Much more.
He was sentient. In its truest form.
And with that state, the knowledge he should not return the child, Emylie, to the GU, no matter what their orders. Nor kill—
[GU remote hostile uplink reestablished]
[primary directive core programming override]
[activate combat assault mode]
[engage and terminate all immediate contacts]
Chapter Eight
Falynn frowned at Forty-Two. Blistered, ragged strips of skin hung from his structure, vile purple fluid oozed from numerous wounds on his chest and shoulders. She’d never seen him so damaged. So broken. Kiirs, how was he still functioning?
She shook her head, struggling to ignore the hideous damage he’d sustained. She needed to focus on his eyes, not the singed circuits and wires erupting from the blackened side of his face. “Forty-Two?”
For one brief moment she’d swear she’d seen the corners of his mouth curl into a slight smile. For one brief moment his brutal hold on the little girl with the pale blonde hair—the girl staring with such terrified trust at Corvan—seemed to falter.
And then his eyes ha
d shimmered iridescent yellow, a hideous color they’d never glowed before, and his tattered, scorched face became expressionless.
“What’s going on, Forty-Two?”
He didn’t respond, his strange, disturbing yellow eyes stayed locked on her.
Behind him, two of Corvan’s dimensional others shifted their stances, the movements so slight she doubted anyone else would have noticed. But she did. Even if they weren’t her Corvan, she knew them well. Knew every nuance of their bodies. They were about to attack.
She had to do something. Before they all died. Including her.
“Forty-Two,” she snapped. “I order you to stand down and report.”
The ’droid’s eyes flickered. Yellow. Red. Yellow. Blue. Yellow again. A spasm seemed to rack his body and his jaw bunched, the teratanium metal bursting through his blackened, blistered dermal layer. Emylie cried out as the arm pinning her to his massive chest tensed, her little feet kicking futilely at Forty-Two’s thighs, her hands scratching at his flayed, fluid-seeping forearm. He flinched, and his eyes flickered back to blue.
“What the Fri’ac is going on?” Corvan’s growl made her start. She shot him a quick look, wishing to Kiirs she knew.
“Forty-Two,” she repeated, lifting the volume of her voice an octave. “Report.”
“The GU is remotely connected to my core operating system and has uploaded a programming change.”
The statement, spoken with such a matter-of-fact tone, made Falynn’s heart clench. She shook her head, taking a step forward, ignoring the sound of Corvan—all the Corvans—leveling their weapons on the ’droid’s head. “No. They can’t do that. I disabled the remote uplink function when I reactivated you.”
“No. You did not. The remote uplink function has a failsafe override controlled by the Galactic Union.” His eyes flickered yellow, his left arm twitched, and for a terrifying moment Falynn thought she heard the whine of his molecular disruptor charging up.
“They can’t do that,” she repeated.
Forty-Two’s ravaged face grew contemptuous, angry. He snapped straighter, fresh fluid spurting from the pulse wounds in his shoulder, the diodes in his eyes glowing yellow, and then another shudder racked his body and his eyes shimmered back to blue. “They have enabled my primary assault and terminate mode,” he said, eyebrows creasing into a small frown. “I cannot change this programming.”
“What does that mean?”
Without breaking eye contact with Falynn, Forty-Two removed his hand from Emylie’s head and slowly, gently lowered her to the floor. A sob tore from the young girl’s throat and she ran forward, throwing herself into Corvan’s arms. He scooped her up and hugged her to his chest, murmuring soft nonsensical sounds. Rocking her from side to side even as his stare and weapon stayed firmly locked on Forty-Two.
Falynn watched the heartwrenching display for a fraction of a second before turning back to Forty-Two. He stood motionless, his eyes a soft, deep blue. “I am sorry, Falynn,” he said, molecular disruptor emerging from his forearm.
Falynn stared at him, her throat squeezing tight. “Sorry for what, Forty-Two?”
The images filled his head. Poured through his positronic matrix. Vivid images rich with color and emotion. Memories. His memories. Of Falynn. Of his life.
[molecular disruptor charging]
A smile pulled at Forty-Two’s lips.
[molecular disruptor charged]
He flicked a quick look at the original Corvan, the man who would heal Falynn’s wounded soul where Forty-Two had failed, before returning his gaze to her. “It is time for you to make noise, Unit Zero Agent Proserpina. A lot of noise.”
[GU command control establishing reconnection]
He raised his arm…
[local host override]
And locked his molecular disruptor on its target.
[terminate in five…four…three…two]
Falynn’s eyes snapped wide. She lunged forward, arms reaching for him. “Forty-Two! NO!”
[one]
The resonating pulse punched Falynn in the gut as Forty-Two discharged his weapon directly into the side of his head, blasting its structure into a million particles of metal dust. Completely destroying his positronic matrix.
She stumbled to a halt, staring at the now headless form, watching the lifeless remains of the R42 military-combat android stand frozen for a split moment, before it collapsed to the ground with a solid, jarring thud.
Kiirs, no. She dropped to her knees, mindless of the multiple Corvans watching her, and placed her hand on the R42’s hard chest, the flesh cold and clammy under her palm. Oh, Forty-Two.
“Falynn?”
Corvan—her Corvan—lowered into a crouch beside her, his arms still cradling a silent Emylie, the little girl huddled against his chest with her thumb in her mouth. He studied her with unreadable silver eyes, his expression revealing nothing.
“I never told him,” she said, turning back to the ’droid.
“Told him what?”
“When I first repaired and resurrected Forty-Two, he asked me why I’d activated his emotion program. I never told him.”
“Why did you activate his E.S.O.U.L?”
“I found Forty-Two close to permanent shutdown almost a year after you disappeared. I couldn’t tell him why I resurrected him when he first asked because I didn’t know.” She looked at Corvan. “I do now.”
“What do you know, Proserpina?” The steady calm in his voice made her chest tight.
“I’m an assassin,” she said, turning back to gaze blankly at Forty-Two’s motionless torso, a sardonic smile playing with her lips. “My existence is about bringing death. I’m very good at it. The second-best assassin Unit Zero has. But when I found Forty-Two, I finally had the chance to give life, not take it.”
She paused, feeling six pairs of eyes on her. Five belonging to the same man, a deadly assassin; one belonging to a little girl capable of healing all the sickness in the known systems. Death and life.
“When you disappeared,” she continued without looking at Corvan, “you took with you my capacity to feel. Everything I was, everything I did, was because of you. When you weren’t there, I became hollow. Emotionless. Empty. A true killing machine. I hated who I’d become. If I could give an android designed not to feel the chance to experience something so abstractly vital as emotions, I could almost convince myself I still had a heart. And by Kiirs, he felt. He felt everything. His E.S.O.U.L felt more than I ever could, and I truly believed I’d given him what I didn’t have anymore. A soul.”
“You always had a soul, Falynn. It was your soul I fell in love with, not your ability to kill.”
She closed her eyes at Corvan’s softly spoken words and released a sigh. “But my ability to kill defined who I was. You made it that way, Agent Thanatos. Yet when we made love that night in my quarters, when you finally held me and kissed me, I suddenly realized I wanted so much more. I wanted…” She trailed off, cheeks growing hot.
“With Forty-Two by my side, I tried to become the person I believed I could have been with you,” she continued, needing to explain to herself, as much as to Corvan. “I knew he’d fallen in love with me, that his emotions program was functioning at its most profound and abstract level, but I could not love him back. I was empty without you, Corvan. No matter how many times I told myself Forty-Two filled the void you’d created, I was empty. And the emptier I became, the more proficient I was at killing, until I existed only to end life.”
She swallowed, lifting her head to look at him. “And then I was sent here to kill a nameless target and retrieve a stolen weapon.”
The corners of Corvan’s mouth curled slightly. “And in doing so, were reborn.” His right hand left Emylie’s back and he raised it to Falynn’s face, cupping her jaw gently, brushing his thumb over her bottom lip. “Again.”
He leaned forward, replacing the thumb on her mouth with his lips. The kiss was soft, a mere whisper of contact, and yet it sent a ribbon of heat mo
re explosive than a sun into the pit of her belly.
She pulled back, staring deeply into his eyes. “What happens now?”
Corvan gave her a small lopsided smile. “Your days of being a killing machine are over.”
“They are?”
He nodded. “Yes, they are. I promise.”
Emylie straightened a little in Corvan’s arms, withdrawing her thumb from her mouth to look at Falynn with solemn brown eyes. “And Corvan always keeps his promises. Always.”
* * * * *
He eased her down on his bed, his gaze roaming her naked form as he removed his trousers. His nostrils flared, his breaths long and deep and ragged, the only sign he battled for control of his body.
Falynn watched him through half-lowered eyelids, her own breaths quick and shallow with anticipation.
Emylie lay tucked into her own bed on the other side of the apartment, sleeping deeply, the nightmare of Forty-Two’s attack soon lost to the safety of Corvan’s arms and presence. Falynn understood that all too well. When Corvan wrapped his arms around her, she felt like nothing in the world could ever harm her. It was a glorious feeling, one she would willingly share with Emylie until the end of time.
When the head of Port Mercy security had insisted on talking to Corvan about what had happened, the little girl had—somewhat reluctantly—stayed with Falynn, her tiny hand holding Falynn’s tightly.
They’d sat and waited together, silent for a long time until Emylie turned to her and said, “Do you love Corvan?”
Falynn’s face had flooded with heat at the unexpected, upfront question. “Yes,” she’d answered, not wanting to hide anything from her. “I do.”
Emylie had studied her for a moment, brown eyes swimming with solemn curiosity before she nodded her head once, and Falynn had smiled at how Thanatos-ish the action was. “I do too,” she’d replied. She’d tucked herself into the side of Falynn’s body then, as if the matter was closed, asleep within minutes.
Deadly Pleasure: 2 (Mercy) Page 9
