“We had a special connection, didn’t we?” As his voice trailed off, his eyes registered recognition of the truth, even if he couldn’t remember it. “That’s why Renee had been bringing up final links so often lately.”
“Yes,” Liv acknowledged.
A small croaking sound escaped his throat, and he looked out over the water again. “Bradan,” he whispered.
“The last time I saw you right before the AIs attacked, you’d promised to take me to the lake to see them up close. I’ve still never seen one.”
“You’re aware that I cut out all memories of you after the attack. I know data points, events, details of the battle. But I no longer know you,” he said. “I’m over three thousand years old. I’ve lost many people I’ve cared for in that time. But your death was different. I think I came very close to self-terminating. Now, I want to remember it—to remember you.”
“I’m not Hayley anymore, Ven. I’m not sure forcing yourself to remember that girl would be a good idea. I can’t ever be her again.”
“You don’t want me to remember because you don’t want to be my link,” he said.
“It takes so much trust. And I do trust you, I just—”
Ven pulled her hand to his chest and stopped her. “No. I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. I’m simply telling you I understand. You don’t have to become my link or anyone else’s. Just stay here and work as an engineer. You seem to enjoy it. I won’t even make you play chess anymore.”
A sad, sobbing kind of laugh unexpectedly burst from her, and, just as unexpectedly, she threw her other arm around his neck, hugging him and crying into his shoulder. Renee’s inevitable death, the loss of her former friend, the revelation of her secret, and Ven’s acceptance of her—she’d been emotionally emptied, and all she wanted now was to sleep until somehow, the universe had magically righted itself again.
He wrapped his arm around her, and he ran his fingers through her hair in a comforting gesture as his own breaths became more ragged. “Basilisk has stolen everything from us,” he murmured. “I have only one thing left.”
“Your life?” Liv guessed.
“No,” he answered. “Revenge.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
With nothing else to do, Liv had thrown herself into her work, which was how she ended up wading hip deep in a tank of neural fluids that normally flowed throughout Ven’s conduits like blood in a vein. It fed nutrients and oxygen to his bio-organic parts, but could also be re-tasked to helped speed hull regeneration during times of sudden unexpected damage, which it was doing now. But the increase in waste byproducts also clogged the filter assemblies faster than normal.
“You know, as much as this shit smells like caramel, it feels like pond slime,” she said as she waded deeper. The mainline filter housing was just a few feet ahead.
“Noted,” Ven said. The sentinel tasked with guarding her was standing at the tank’s edge, but wouldn’t come in to help her only because it would interfere with his ability to protect her. Or so he claimed. She was pretty sure he actually enjoyed watching her work, and he probably didn’t want to wade through pond slime either.
This was the third filter unit she’d serviced in the last hour. Since she was already coated in Vengeance slime, she didn’t see why anyone else needed to get coated as well. She uncoiled the filter from where it had attached itself to her back like a cape. The soft feather tendrils kept fluttering back toward her as they sought something to hold on to.
“Couldn’t you breed or bioengineer these things to be more intelligent?” Liv muttered. At least she’d bit off her quip about filing a harassment report against overly friendly filter media. She dragged a tendril out from between her cleavage then swiftly stuffed the wiggling mass into its housing where it happily attached itself in place.
After hoisting the old waste laden filter into a holding container with several of its buddies, where they’d stay until she later released them into a cleaning vat, she waded back to the tank edge and asked, “What’s next on the list?”
The sentinel scooped her up and lifted her out of the tank and set her next to him before answering. “For you, a shower, a change of clothing, food, and if you’re willing, my drone could use help with some blown relays in my starboard fusion cannon.”
Liv paused in her attempt to scrape slime off her overalls and looked up at the sentinel.
Like the rest of the crew, she’d only slept a total of six hours over the last three days, which was only possible due to their liberal use of stimulant patches. But she, and all the crew, had worked miracles and Ven was nearly transit worthy again. She could reward herself with a little time off this evening.
Pulling off her boots, she upended them, pouring the caramel-scented neural fluids onto the floor. A drudge could clean it up later. Now that she knew what task Ven needed help with, she was looking forward to her next assignment because it meant getting to talk to Ven’s drone again. “Relays, you say,” she replied with a grin. “Relays are fun.”
His sentinel was silent as he led her out into the corridor but paused on the threshold and looked back at her. “Thank you.”
“Like I said,” she teased. “Relays are fun.”
Even though sentinels couldn’t smile, she could have sworn he smiled back at her as he said, “I have a feeling you could make anything fun, Olivia Hawthorne.”
“When we reach Teutorigos, I’d like to leave the capital for a few days,” Ven said. “Renee always wanted her body released into the Caratacus Sea.”
Liv pushed the relay panel she’d been checking back into the main control station and sighed. “Are you sure she’s brain dead?”
Ven occupied himself by pulling out another relay panel for Liv to check. “I’m sure. Every doctor aboard agrees with me. I’ve been preparing myself to say goodbye to her for two decades, but I thought we still had so much time.”
He didn’t add that he’d been clinging to some hope Renee would change her mind and allow him to reverse her aging so she could live longer. Being linked to a powerful telepath meant he could control every cell in their body, but with his link to Renee severed, he was powerless. He’d never felt powerless before, so helpless.
But knowing how easily AIs could manipulate signals in a telepath’s brain, Liv’s escape from Basilisk was all the more impressive and fascinating. He hadn’t asked her yet how she’d escaped, because he didn’t need to be linked to her to understand how painful those memories were. And the last thing he ever wanted to do was be responsible for causing her any kind of pain.
Liv sighed and put a hand on his arm. “This is a dangerous job, Ven. Maybe rogue AIs are uncommon, but there are always threats to the Spire’s safety that you’ve spent millennia combatting. Anyone who works for you knows the risks we’re taking. You can’t feel guilty about her death. She wouldn’t want you to.”
“I know,” he agreed. “But it would have been better, easier, if she’d actually died rather than this.”
Seven days had passed since Basilisk’s attack at the spaceport, and little had changed in Renee’s mind or body. And the few changes that had occurred were the result of more autonomic systems shutting down. Liv’s friendship and companionship had helped him cope with his grief and even accept Renee’s death, but Renee had been the closest friend he’d ever had. She was like the sister, the family he’d always wanted, and the void in his life her death had created couldn’t be filled.
As usual, Liv seemed to sense his thoughts, and she put a hand on his arm and offered him a sad smile. “Nobody is ever replaced, Ven. About half the girls who were kidnapped with me died, and I still feel every single one of their losses.”
Ven took a deep breath and tucked some of her hair behind an ear. The roots had begun to grow in a different shade, a warm blond rather than the ashy brown she’d been using to dye her hair. He was so conflicted all the time now: heartbroken over Renee’s impending death, worried about finding a replacement for her and finding one as
soon as they reached Teutorigos since not having a link-level telepath risked not only his own life but his entire crews’, exhilarated by his new friendship with Liv, and aroused, always so aroused, by her touch and smell.
He’d had many lovers in his long life, but no one had ever turned him on the way Liv’s simple presence did. He thought about making love to her far more often than he should have, especially considering all the problems they faced. Even now, standing before a damaged neural conduit that was leaking bio-gel onto other delicate components, he couldn’t focus on the repair. Liv continued her routine checks, discussing the inevitable loss of his best friend and link, but he couldn’t stop replaying the way her hand had felt on his arm, the smell of her hair, the proximity of her body, and ultimately, all the wrong body systems activated. Given the standard uniform he wore, there was no hiding his reaction either.
Ven cleared his throat and sealed the leak, hoping to distract himself. This drone only functioned because his sentience could control it… so why couldn’t he control its physical reactions now?
“I finished my panel already. Do you need help with that?” Liv asked him.
His cheeks warmed, and he flashed her a sheepish grin. “No, I’m almost finished.”
She arched an eyebrow at him and reached across him to pull a different panel from the wall, her body briefly pressing against his before she pulled back to focus on her work again.
He quickly ran the probability of her physical contact being intentional, and therefore seductive, before reluctantly admitting his own desire was likely interfering in his objectivity. “Um, Liv? Would you like to visit me after your shift?”
“I visit you after all my work shifts, Ven.”
“No, I mean… well, yeah, but we walk around the lake and talk or something. We don’t have much privacy.”
Liv put a hand on her hip and tilted her head at him, her smile turning mischievous as she teased him. “And why do we need so much privacy, Vengeance?”
“To talk!” he insisted. “It’s not… Renee and I often…” Ven groaned and shook his head. “Forget it.”
Liv laughed and shrugged a shoulder at him. “Yeah, of course I’ll come by when I’m finished.” Her eyes quickly raked over his body then she faced the panel she was checking again, but he thought she blushed. And he found himself wishing a black hole would just swallow his entire ship to spare him from the humiliation he admittedly deserved.
Captain Welner’s voice interrupted his obsessive waffling between wishing Liv would reach across him again and wishing he could disappear into some wormhole where he’d even risk sensory disconnect if it meant no more humiliating moments like this one.
“Vengeance, I require an update on the progress of all ship-wide repairs. Have them delivered to my energy webs on the bridge. Welner out.”
Ven could have relayed his response to the captain a number of ways, but his request provided the excuse he needed to get out of an embarrassing situation. He cleared his throat and shot her a quick smile he hoped came across as unaffected. “Duty calls.”
“So it seems,” she agreed, but her voice hinted at amusement.
He took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets before walking out of the weapons’ systems control room. Instead of going up three decks to the command station, he returned to his own room and simply compiled what Captain Welner needed and sent it to the requested location.
The rather simple transfer certainly hadn’t required him to isolate his drone within his room, but he needed to calm down, to focus on his responsibilities rather than the beautiful young woman he spent far too much time thinking about. He was an old, stubborn AI, and he’d been highly selective in his link replacements, but now, he’d have to settle. He’d have to take whomever was available and willing with little regard for compatibility of personalities.
The alternative was to risk losing his own connections to the hive-mind during transit. And without a link, he’d be in full sensory deprivation, which could lead an AI to madness.
Without a new link, he could turn into Basilisk.
Ven watched the clock in his room as it tracked the minutes and hours on Teutorigos. Measuring time in such a way was really pointless in space, but he liked the familiarity of using minutes and hours and even days. One Teutorigos day had twenty-seven hours in it, and according to the clock, Liv had several more hours before her shift ended.
One of his many problems with having such an expansive intellect was that he could go about his normal routine—send drudges to complete menial tasks, analyze flight data, compile reports for Welner—and still find himself obsessing over something. And he was definitely obsessing over Liv and her promise to visit him when her work shift ended.
He hadn’t meant for his invitation to imply he was asking for sex, only a date like normal people enjoyed when they weren’t in space and surrounded by crewmembers whose cure for their own boredom was gossip and the invention of titillating stories to go with the grains of truth. But Liv had undoubtedly assumed he was looking for sex, and while it had definitely been on his mind since he first met her, he’d never do anything to make her uncomfortable.
And now, he had to find a way to either force time to pass faster or distract himself for the next few hours.
He failed at both.
By the time Liv knocked on his door, he’d rearranged all the furniture in his room six times and still thought it looked too crowded or too empty or maybe both. He ran his fingers through his hair nervously, still baffled that this woman had so much control over him, and opened the door. Liv had changed out of her standard uniform and wore the same light pink tank top with roses scattered over her breasts, her shorts revealing her pale but toned legs, and her hair swept up into a messy, sexy bun.
Somehow, the ship managed to keep its trajectory even though it seemed as if all his awareness was centered on this beautiful vision before him. He was vaguely aware that his drudges had shut down, awaiting his commands, but at that moment, all he wanted was her.
Liv snickered and asked, “Did you invite me over to keep me in the hallway? Because I’m giving up my personal time for this, and I could stand in my own hallway.”
“Liv,” he breathed. “You’re…”
“Still in the hallway,” she teased.
Ven stepped aside and shot her a sheepish smile. “The rest of your shift wasn’t too much trouble?”
Liv lifted a shoulder at him, and he counted the freckles scattered across the softness of her skin. Five. He had the sudden urge to touch them. He clasped his hands together so he wouldn’t act on impulse, something he’d never worried about in his long life.
“More of the same,” Liv admitted. “But I like the work. I just wish it weren’t taking so long to make these repairs. It must be frustrating for you.”
Ven shook his head because he was not-so-secretly glad the repairs were taking a while. It gave him an excuse to keep his drone near her. He already had an excuse for his sentinels to remain stationed around her at all times—as his Acting Telepath, her safety was his biggest priority. But there was a huge difference between keeping a sentinel by her side and keeping his drone by her side, and of course he knew why.
His drone allowed him to live the life of a human, which meant he could pretend he was a man and maybe even human enough for a woman like Olivia Hawthorne.
“Ven?” Liv said quietly. “You’ve got that look on your face like you’d rather be babysitting Captain Welner.”
Ven loosened his grip on his hands. “I’m pretty sure I never have that look.”
Liv stepped closer to him, one hand on her hip, and his eyes trailed down her body until they rested on that delicate curvature where her hand rested. Part of him realized he was staring and likely moments away from being called on it, but a bigger part of him didn’t care. Apparently, he couldn’t control this drone or his own thoughts nearly as well as he’d always believed, because he felt completely out of control now.
&
nbsp; “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Maybe it’s better to leave me in the Archives where I belong. I’m not Hayley anymore, and the way you felt about that little girl… well, things are different now, aren’t they?”
Ven’s eyes finally lifted and met hers. They had the same remarkable blue shade of the Nuallan lake no one would ever swim in again. “I don’t know,” he told her. “I don’t remember you, but obviously, there would have been a different dynamic in our relationship.”
“So it’s not just me,” she prodded. “There is something going on between us.”
“Liv, you’re…” She was what? Everything he never even knew he wanted? Everything he would want for the rest of his life? Ven let out an exasperated breath and raked his fingers through his hair again.
“I’m not human,” he spit out, immediately regretting his choice of words.
“No shit,” she laughed.
Ven offered her a crooked grin and shrugged. “Sometimes, I apparently fail at acting like one too.”
Another step. She was within arm’s reach now. “You’re more human than most humans I know.”
Ven lifted his hand and shot a disgusted look at it. “Maybe if I upgraded to a completely organic body.”
Liv put her hand over his and sighed heavily at him. “Do you really think it’s your body that makes you who you are? Would you feel differently about me if I had to live in another body?”
“No,” he answered immediately. “I’d love you no matter what body you had.”
Ven pressed his lips together and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t entirely regret blurting out his declaration of love. She’d reject him, she’d reject his love for her, but he’d been expecting her to leave him for some time now, and he wanted her to leave with the knowledge that she’d completely captured this old AI’s heart… something he thought he’d safeguarded himself against.
“You love me?” Liv whispered.
Vengeance (Warships of the Spire Book 1) Page 18
