"I thought you might say that, but someone showed up on my doorstep about an hour ago who I think will change your mind." He presses a button on his watch. "Come on in, Remi."
Remi?
The door slides open and a thin boy with long blonde hair steps inside. On his back are large crystalline wings. He smiles at Doss. "Hi, Uriel."
It has been so long since Doss has heard his true name. It sounds foreign to him now. "Remiel, what are you doing here? Are the others with you?"
"They're at Clark's moon base. They're mad at you." Remiel says as he sits next to Doss.
"I know. So I guess Gabriel sent you here to kill me?"
"Gabriel and Michael want you to surrender and let them kill you, but I don't want you to die. I want to help you. I know you're not bad."
"That's very kind of you, Remi, but I'm afraid my time is running out. I'm beyond help." Doss says.
Remiel places his hand on Doss's shoulder. "Don't say that, Uriel. I believe in you."
He pushes his hand away. "My name is Doss. I never want to hear Uriel again. I've fallen and I don't deserve that name. I'm no angel so I shouldn't have the name of one."
"Okay, Doss." Remiel gets down on his knees in front of Doss and holds up his hands pleadingly. "Please! We can save Paradise."
"From what?" Doss asks.
"From the other archons. They're trying to destroy it."
"Why would they do that?"
"They joined the IGR." Remiel says.
Really? Are they that desperate? "And they call me the fallen one. How did you get into the city, anyway?"
"I helped him." Zach says. "Isidore may be the president, but he isn't the one really running this country. He'll do whatever Kazimir says. Plus, don't forget about Blice. He may be an arrogant ass, but he's on our side."
"Not now that everyone thinks I tried to rape Katarina."
"Then I guess we'll have to make her tell the truth." Zach says. His watch beeps loudly and he answers the call. "Zach Montgomery, android hunter."
"Zach, it's Kazimir. Tell me you were able to get Doss."
"That depends. Whose side are you on?" Zach asks.
"Isidore just issued a pardon." Kazimir says. "I guess you missed the press conference."
Zach turns back to the television and turns the volume up. "Oh. I see. So, any word on why?"
"Katarina admitted that she lied to cover her own actions."
"I see. What about the murders?" Zach asks.
"Isidore placed the blame on some criminals already in prison so as to not incite riots from either the humans or the androids."
"Smart move."
"Isidore is by no means stupid." Kazimir says. "People underestimate him, but he is very intelligent. I made him, after all."
"So what happens now?" Doss asks.
"Hey, Doss." Kazimir says. "Good to know you didn't go do something you'd regret or not be alive to regret. Anyway, you've been summoned back to the Presidential Palace. Isidore wants to speak with you in private."
"I don't really want to talk to him right now."
"You don't have a choice." Kazimir says sternly. "It's an order, not an invitation."
* * *
Doss takes a deep breath before stepping into the Oval Office. There's no way to tell what is waiting for him in here. The man he used to know as Isidore Williams is so much different now than the friend he had at one point in time. They had been close, but recently, Isidore has been strangely detached from life.
"Have a seat, Doss." Isidore says as he shuts the door behind him and sits at his desk.
Doss obeys and sits across the desk from him. He remains silent, not that he has anything to say. What could he want? To hand down a lesser punishment? Doss already knows the penalty for kissing a married woman: ten lashes with a cat o' nine tails and for inquisitors, one petal is removed from their rank as well. Did Isidore summon him here to be flogged? Two days ago, Doss would never have thought that his friend would treat him like this, but now . . . anything is possible. As he studies Isidore, he notices the marks on the inside of his arms. That's a bit alarming, actually. That would explain so much, like why he has been so quick to anger and not thinking clearly. Doss knows the dangers of nanochems from seeing so many T.I.M.E.s come into the science lab asking for help from Kazimir or who were brought in unconscious and near death from an overdose. He makes a mental note to check into it later.
"Doss, while I do not condone your behavior with my daughter, I realize that you have been treated unfairly and unjustly." Isidore says. "Katarina came forward and admitted to lying about what happened between the two of you. As president, I must enforce the laws of this country, but as your friend, I must apologize. Looking back, I should have listened to your side as well. It's painful for me to know that I can't trust my daughter as I thought I could. In normal circumstances, I would have to have you receive ten lashes, but I think you have suffered enough. As you know, I can't reinstate you into the Inquisition. However, I would like to employ you as a guardian."
"With all due respect, I don't know how to guard a president."
"You wouldn't be my guardian. You'd be Dmitri's."
At this moment, something triggers in Doss's mind and all the suppressed memories reawaken and flood into his thoughts. He bits his lip to keep from crying.
"Doss? Are you okay?" Isidore asks.
He shakes his head and hides his face in his hands. Come on, Doss. Get it together. He has to forget before it completely consumes him and drags him down into a darkness that he can't climb back out of. What should he do? If he agrees to this, then he will be forced to relive the horrors of his past, maybe on a daily basis. That alone is enough to make him want to simply run out of the room. However, if he does this, then maybe he can do it right this time and make up for his failures. Seeing Remi today and knowing that he is still doing well actually helped him a bit. So, it's decided. He looks up at Isidore and calms himself enough to be able to speak. "I'll do it. I'll be Dmitri's guardian."
"I'm glad to hear that. Well, let's make it official." He picks up the phone. "Dmitri, come into the office for a minute, please." He hangs up and turns to Doss. "I take it that you've never been a guardian archon before?"
"No, I haven't."
"Even better."
Dmitri steps into the room and smiles at Doss. "Hey, Doss!"
"Hey, buddy."
Isidore takes out a pocket knife and hands it to Doss. "You know how to do this, right?"
Doss opens the knife, spreads his wings, and kneels down in front of Dmitri. "Dmitri Antonio Williams, I swear with blood that I will be bound to you and only you as your protector, defender, and stalwart defense that will stand strong against your enemies. My life is yours to command. Will you accept me as your guardian archon?"
Dmitri wraps his thin arms around Doss's neck. "Really? You'd be all mine?"
"Yes. Archons can only be bound to one human at a time and I have chosen you. Allow me to serve you and keep you safe. Will you accept my offer and my blood?"
He looks at him with his dark green eyes. "Yes."
Doss hands him the knife and holds out his wrists to the boy. "Cut my wrists then yours. We will join blood and become bound until one of us dies."
As Dmitri drags the blade across Doss's wrists, the blood begins to flow. Dmitri closes his eyes and winces as he quickly makes an incision on his own and presses his wounds against Doss's. They look at each other and smile.
Doss knows he made the right decision now. A wave of calmness sweeps over him and he takes Dmitri in his arms then surrounds him with his wings. "Wanna go for a ride?"
Dmitri jumps up and down as he wraps some gauze around his wrists and Doss's. "Really? You'll take me flying?"
"It will be short because I'm still sore, but yes. Get on my back. Don't worry, Isidore. I'll have him home in time for dinner."
13
Katarina wakes up in the middle of the night beside her husband as the vibrant neon lights
fill the dark room with dancing colors on the walls. She silently slips out of bed and tiptoes into the bathroom so as to not wake him. Once she shuts the door and turns the lights on, she pulls off her nightgown. With trembling fingers, she gingerly touches the red welts on her lower back and legs. She runs her hands up the inside of her legs, but stops when she touches the bruises. At first, her instinct is to hate Byron, but her reflection in the mirror reveals the slave collar around her neck and the black streaks on her cheeks where her mascara ran from her crying. Maybe it was her own fault. Byron could have done a lot worse if he had truly wanted to hurt her.
After Byron had calmed down and they made what some could call love, all Katarina could think about was Doss. Is he okay? Surely Isidore wouldn't have him killed. She realizes now how serious her accusations were. If she knew that Byron wouldn't wake up, she would get dressed and go look for Doss and apologize. At this point, that is the one thing she wants to do more than anything. Looking back, she doesn't even know how she could have been so cruel. Doss has been nothing but nice and supportive of her.
The door to the bathroom opens and Byron steps inside. "What are you doing up? Come back to bed, Kat."
Katarina reaches for her clothes, but she finds herself instead wrapped tightly in Byron's strong arms.
"Are you okay?"
"I guess." Katarina says.
Byron takes her arm and leads her back to the bed then wraps a robe around her body. "Sit down and talk with me. Let me tend to those welts."
"Why do you want to help me now?"
"Well, I have to make sure you're in top fighting shape for the plasma match tonight, partner."
What is he going on about? "Partner?"
"We got paired up. Because the championship game will be next month, the game coordinators thought it would be good to get teams sorted out and have the competitors get used to working with a partner. I'm not in the condition to do this anymore. The doctors want me to take it easy while they are administering some new drugs that are supposed to slow the nanobots in my body. You'll be going on this one alone."
"No problem." Katarina says with a tiny smile. "You know I can handle myself."
Byron pulls down the robe in the back and gently dabs ointment on the red marks. "I'm sorry for last night. I know you didn't want to be intimate with me."
"No, I didn't. Where do you think those bruises are from? You're so much stronger than me, Byron."
"I know."
"I was bleeding." Katarina says.
"Kat . . ."
The last thing she wants is for Byron to view her as weak. "I'm fine. I know why you had to do that, but I just never pictured you being able to actually do it."
Something taps on the door and Byron answers it. Blice flutters into the room and lands on Katarina's knee. "Hey, happy people."
"Hi, Blice." Katarina says as she brushes her purple hair.
"I actually came here to talk with Byron."
"What's up?" Byron asks as he sits next to Katarina.
"How did you punish her?" Blice asks.
Byron doesn't look proud of his actions. He hides his eyes with his hand. "I whipped her."
"Anything else?"
"I might have . . . made her be intimate with me."
"Oh." Blice turns back to Katarina. "Is that true?"
"Kind of. Don't be mad at him."
"Byron, that is never the way to train an android." Blice says. "You should know that from being around Isidore for so long."
"I know, but she's my wife and I wasn't thinking."
Katarina tries to laugh it off as if it doesn't matter. "Guys, stop. I'm fine. I can take a little roughing up here and there. You know I can hold my own in a fight. Besides, I've gotta be tough for the plasma match tonight. Don't go treating me like a princess that needs to be protected. Now, let's either go back to sleep or fix some breakfast. I need to go over the replay from last week's match again. Neither one of you are to mention any of what's happened to my father. Is that okay? I don't need to give him more ammo to use against me."
* * *
Doss stands next to the bed as Dmitri sleeps, ready with his sword in case something happens. He will remain ever-vigilant, always at his side. He can't mess it up this time. If he slips up here, Doss doubts he will ever be able to recover from it. The past times have been sheer agony and each time it happens threatens to drag him under the darkness of his memories. Not this time. He will do the right thing and be strong enough. If only the other archons could see that humans aren't all evil.
The others. Doss sighs as he thinks of them. Gabriel had been his closest friend and like a brother for close to a hundred years. They were inseparable until Doss did the forbidden act. It was all his fault and they never forgave him. Then just before Paradise was moved underground, Doss did it again. He doesn't even like to think about it. There is so much from his past that he wishes he could simply erase. A long time ago, he swore that he would live his life with no regrets . . . but now he regrets nearly everything. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but sometimes the correct things aren't necessarily the best. Even as he did it, he knew the consequences and the potential risk he was taking, but he had to get involved before more people were hurt. What happened fifteen years ago was just the final crack that sent his entire world crumbling down around him. No. He has to stop thinking about it all. Thoughts like this are only going to take him to places he shouldn't go.
Doss smoothes Dmitri's messy red hair and watches his shallow breathing below the blankets as he whispers to him. "I swear that I'll do this the right way, even if it kills me. You will never have to suffer like the others."
He examines the thin cuts on his wrists from his bond with Dmitri. They are still swollen and bloody. Then below those are four more sets. They all bear the heavy memory of a broken bond.
Doss lied. He lied to Isidore. The painful truth is that Doss has been a guardian to four boys before Dmitri. There would have been a fifth, but Doss fell. Each set of scars reminds him that he is a failure. That's all he's ever been. Archons were never meant to get involved in any way with humans. They were created to be unfeeling sentinels, but Kazimir made a mistake by installing a program in them that allowed them to learn and adapt their behaviors to what they saw. And Doss saw a lot. He watched the earth with a dedication that none of the others shared. He never left his post above North America. The more humans he observed, the more he came to feel emotions as they did. While the other archons eventually grew tired and abandoned their duties, Doss remained to guard humanity alone. Now he knows where they went: to the IGR, the very entity they were trying to fend off. After that and a series of poor choices on Doss's part, the only friend he still vaguely had was Remiel.
None of that matters now, though. Now Doss has a purpose again, one that he prays won't lead to another apocalypse. If he stays as far away from technology as he can, then maybe he won't overload his system and mess with the nanobots again. He never meant to. Really, he didn't. If he hadn't bonded with that one kid whose father was a nuclear physicist, then the first apocalypse could have been avoided. Then the second one . . . that one might have actually been on purpose. Not that Doss actively wanted to cause a war that nearly wiped out humanity, but he needed to stop the country known as Common Ground from manipulating Isidore to fire missiles with destructive nanobots that devoured humans. It was all a muddled mess. At least Doss was able to erase the launch code numbers from Isidore's arms so there won't be any more accidents there. Every time something goes wrong on Earth, it is a direct result of Doss's caring for human kind and it hurts him more than almost anything else.
"Doss?"
He looks down at the boy. "What's wrong, Dmitri?"
"I'm scared."
"What could you possibly be scared of?" Doss asks as he sits on the bed and takes Dmitri in his arms.
"Dying." Dmitri whispers.
"You're far too young to be worried about that." He spreads his wings and
encases Dmitri in them. "I swear that nothing will happen to you as long as I am breathing. You need to be focused on school and building those robots you love so much."
"I don't need to build them anymore." Dmitri says.
"Why not?"
"Because now I have you."
14
The other competitors are all making their last minute preparations outside the metro station, below the bright holographic screens showing the pairings and current standings for the year. Some are loading the cartridges into their plasma pistols, others are altering their clothes or programming their GPS systems. Katarina leans up against the wall and watches them all, picking out her competition. They are all going into this with a partner. She'll be the lone wolf, not depending on anyone else or having to protect someone. Truth be told, it's just the way she likes it.
She gathers her long purple hair up and secures it with a clip on her head before slipping her goggles around her neck. She then goes over her mental checklist. Plasma pistol in its holster on her thigh, combat vest with extra cartridges and water, goggles synced to the Paradise network, and fingerless gloves. As she tightens down the buckles on her combat boots one last time, she spots her father surrounded by a group of crazed fans asking for his autograph and taking pictures. Disgusting.
Someone taps her on the shoulder. "Katarina, I got you something."
She turns around and smiles at Doss who is holding out a folded piece of paper. "Doss . . ."
"Don't open it until the match starts. I don't want any of the others to see it. It's kind of a personal thing. I'm cheering for you. Shoot straight."
"I will." She takes the paper and slips it in her pocket. "Are you going to be watching with Dmitri?"
"I do everything with Dmitri. He's over there with your father."
"Everything?"
"I'm his guardian archon." Doss says. "It's what I do."
"That's nice of you."
"Well . . . I hope so."
"What do you mean?" Katarina asks.
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