“But this time,” I continued to honestly divulge. “I did it to distract you.”
His eyes widened further with instant, stark perception. But that awareness came a heartbeat too late.
Daniel attacked the same way he moved, with the impossible speed of a rebel leader android.
The impact struck Zero in the side of the head, cracking with deadly force to send him stumbling to the side. His hold on my body naturally loosened. When it did, I shoved at his chest, cried out with the sharp twinge of painful punishment at my side, and when he had no choice but to let me go, I mentally braced for the inevitable impact. Again.
But again, I never hit the ground.
Another pair of android arms curled around me, precise strong and careful. I knew them at once, but his whispered, “I’ve got you,” was like music to my ears. He pulled me into his solid chest, lending me his android-generated heat. It was a slice of bliss in a frozen hell.
“Lucas,” I whispered, shuddering despite myself.
The harsh sound of intense fighting filled the square. Luke peered down at me. His expression was tight, and it was mere seconds before he was looking up again. His gunmetal gaze narrowed in silent, seething fury.
I saw the strangest thing in those eyes just then. At their very centers, perhaps just for a split second, they seemed to spark with the same kind of glow Zero sported. But I blinked and it was gone.
So I chalked it up to delirium and turned to follow his line of sight. Two of Zero’s men stood side-by-side. One of them was holding Jack’s unconscious body. The other was holding a gun to Jack’s unconscious head.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Try anything, anything at all,” warned the armed soldier, “and I will rearrange the good captain’s brain.”
There was no emotion on the soldier’s face as he doled out his warning. But he did cock his gun. The action was as ever unnecessary and only done to imply a sense of urgency. I had no doubts whatsoever that he would pull the trigger. And I was also certain there were actual killing rounds in that chamber rather than tranq bullets.
Luke’s arms around me tightened, his fingers curling in so hard they almost hurt. I watched his sensor flash and spin with mounting, bright red resentment.
And there it was again. That strange light in his eyes. But this time, it came and stayed… and as I watched, the light shifted spectrums, rapidly turning as red as the alarming shade of his EED. The cosmic indigo light those normally charcoal colored eyes had taken on was admittedly beautiful, even if it had only lasted seconds.
But this was unsettling in the extreme.
Zero’s men were loyal to the end it seemed, and they’d been well programmed. I could see that much with one glance over Luke’s shoulder.
“Lucas, just put me down. I’m okay enough to stand.” I was in pain; my attack on Zero’s guard had further torn my wound; I could feel it. The truth was I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold out. But desperate times….
However, Lucas didn’t even look back down at me. Instead, he said, “Haven’t you learned by now that it’s useless to lie to an android, Samantha?”
I went still.
“I can hear it in the tone of your voice,” he informed me coolly, every ounce the interrogator in that moment. “You are not okay.” Finally, he looked down. The features of his perfect face were lined with stark hard emotion. “And you can not stand.”
But he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. In fact, I’d told him the lie to get his attention focused on me like it was now. It would help immensely in accomplishing what I needed to do.
While I looked up into my android’s handsome face, I tried for all I was worth to reach him telepathically. It was much more difficult than speaking with Zero, especially with that wall up in my head and Lucas without a co-crest. But Nick had managed to strengthen the telepathic channels between myself and the android members of Prometheus using the same scrambler technology I’d incorporated into their armor.
It took a good deal of effort. But likely in no small part due to his concentrated attention on me as well, I managed to get a single message across. The only message that mattered.
They’re coming up behind you.
Lucas didn’t outwardly react, but I knew he’d heard me when his EED briefly flashed and settled down again. That was a machine for you; processing information at light speed.
He slowly, carefully leaned his strong body down to set me gently on my feet. Maintaining a calm and steady pace in order to refrain from letting on that he knew there were more soldiers behind him, he steadied me and shifted his weight.
I caught sight of bright red and took in the pattern staining Luke’s shirt. That’s my blood, I mused dumbly. There sure is a lot of it.
Then my eyes flew to his. Luke’s now all-red irises held mine for the briefest slice of time, yet long enough to leave me uneasy in their new, crimson fire. Then he let me go completely and spun.
Two of Zero’s men attacked, as usual with so much speed they appeared to blur around their edges. But Lucas blurred too. Or maybe it was me; maybe it was the cold, the wound, and me being suddenly vertical. That was entirely possible.
I pressed my palm to my side, then looked down at my hand. All I saw was red. The color was filling my world. My once light-gray shirt was stained too. More red, tons of it. Red has a volatile effect on the human psyche. Dizziness swept over me, a violent shiver chasing its heels.
All around me struggles took place. Slowly, I turned and took them all in. Daniel and Zero duked it out like expert martial artists, Sonia and one of Zero’s men played hard to get with each other, Shawn and two more of Zero’s men fought an unfair match… and on and on and on it went. All of Prometheus seemed to be embroiled in battles in the small snow-covered square. More than four dozen graceful machines danced around me, their programs locked in kill mode, their capable bodies intent on destruction.
One detonation, I thought. Right here, right now… and all Prometheus’s problems would be solved.
It was an alarming thought to experience so loud and clear at that pain-addled moment in time. Amidst the blur and confusion, that single, solid realization remained steady. Like a port in a storm.
One well-placed bomb.
Yeah but any old bomb would take out androids, Sam. A bomb is a bomb is a bomb, and plain old bombs take out everything. That’s the problem. You have better ideas than that.
Do I?
You know you do.
I did. It was true.
I thought about it fleetingly every once in a while. In moments like this, when the misery outweighed the hope. I buried it rapidly every time.
And that’s what I did this time too. I buried it in the snow.
A gust of wind tore through the square, picking up snow and tossing it like a hundred children on a snow day. I looked back down, shivered again, and swayed.
Well, so much for that, said the voice. Can’t cover it up this time, can you? Maybe you should actually give it some real thought.
No.
I didn’t realize I’d fallen in that wayward snow until I felt the denim over my knees soaked through. I also didn’t realize I was continuing to fall, hugging myself wretchedly, until I blinked to find the snow-covered ground a few short inches away.
I was sinking into it like a corpse in a grave.
Think about it, Sam. No more revolution, no more destruction, no more fighting and death. Either way you build it, this would all be over.
Either way I build it. What my inner voice was referring to was that I could in fact build a bomb. A very powerful bomb. And I possessed the additional knowledge – the vital, imperative, absolutely top-secret knowledge – that would allow me to build it one of two ways. I had my choice. I could build it in a manner that would destroy every android on the continent and slowly spread to the rest. Or I could build it so that it only destroyed the humans in much the same manner.
Sam, the voice said admonishin
gly. All this rather superfluous and compounded discomfort you seem to invite?
Oh, the voice was getting precocious now. I imagined it looking like a psychotic child with ringlets and a bloody axe, arguing with utter calm and indissoluble reasoning the apt logic of committing bloody murder.
The pain of you being shot or poisoned or having your bones broken? She shook her head at that one. Well, you would never have to feel that pain again. No more fighting, Sam. Is that such an insane thing to want? reasoned the crazy child.
Who was maybe not so crazy after all.
But who was definitely short-sighted and definitely carrying a bloody axe.
How am I being short-sighted? the child asked wide-eyed. Extinct is forever, Sam. And whether due to a lack of humans or androids, the revolution between them would be over. The fighting would be over!
That’s where you’re wrong.
The child fell silent and cocked her head to one side while I distantly noticed all of my clothing was now wet. People will always find a reason to fight, I asserted softly. Softly, because I had no energy for anything stronger. Always. Android or human. It doesn’t matter. The child seemed to have forgotten that humans had been fighting amongst themselves for millennia before androids had come along.
And androids were no better. The treatment afforded to Ben by his fellow androids out on the streets had been proof enough of that. We were all the same now. We were all human. And humans were animals.
Fine, crazy kid said with a nonchalant shrug. But you know… you can always tone the bomb down a little. Give your side an edge at least.
Then, No. I blinked. Horror rolled through me right along with the next hard shiver. This wasn’t me talking to myself like some B-rated villain. I could not become this.
I would rather die, I told the other voice firmly.
The child was finally quiet. And when I looked up, I realized my vantage point was one of a wounded rebel unwittingly making a snow angel. Inches of white surrounded my head on either side. I was laying face up in the drift, and snow was falling heavily again. When several flakes landed on my eyelashes, they didn’t even melt.
The forecasted blizzard, right on time. Let it bury me.
“Jack…” I heard myself mumble. “Daniel….” I closed my eyes. I wasn’t actually sure whether I’d said the names or just thought them. “Nicholas?” I tried, with even less strength. “Cole…” I whispered.
“Samantha.” A deep voice sliced cleanly through my white-out. “I’m here.”
Lucas?
In the distance, the world moved away as my now numb body was lifted. The white-out turned to gray behind my lids. Then even that faded to black.
Chapter Forty
When I came awake, it was to sound first, like always. There was the sound of shoes on a hard surface, footsteps quick and purposeful. Then the crackling of electricity and the beeping of controls on a control panel. I knew it was a control panel because I recognized the sound of that particular control panel.
The next thing I noticed was that I wasn’t in pain any longer, though I did interpret the feel of a cold cement floor beneath my body. I was laying on my side. I opened my eyes to find myself wrapped in a suit coat. It was black and it smelled nice – and I recognized that too. My heart thudded hard a few times against the inside of my ribcage.
“Your wound may be mended, but you lost a good deal of blood that I can’t personally replace,” said a voice that was decidedly not Luke’s. “It’s probably best to take a few calming breaths so as not to rapidly burn through what remains.”
I stiffened, pushed myself up into a sitting position, and looked around. I was in a mechanic’s garage, one outfitted with all of the latest equipment necessary for repairing electric automobiles for the equally electric highway. Zero was busy setting something up several feet away.
I recognized what he was setting up just as I’d recognized the sound of its control panel. It was my teleportation device. Such that it was.
I decided to forego asking all the obvious things like, “I thought you were Lucas; why aren’t you Lucas?” or “Where is everyone else?” or “How did you heal me?” I was guessing I already knew the answers to those questions, and they were irrelevant anyway. Lucas was probably back at the park, either beaten and out of commission, or still busy fighting. The rest of Prometheus was probably with him. And Zero had most likely healed me because I was unconscious, and not just sleeping as I had been before, but well and truly on my way to death. Maybe comatose. He’d probably encountered no resistance at all in my mind when he’d gone in a second time.
When I had fallen, all my walls had gone down right along with me.
What I did ask was, “Have you made improvements to the transportation device?” Because that was very, very important. When I’d left it on the rooftop of Vector Fifteen, it hadn’t been functional. Rather, it hadn’t been functional as something that could safely transport someone from point A to point B. It had been functional however if what you wanted was to quickly get rid of someone in any one of countless potential directions and possibly dissect or mutate them in the process.
Without looking up, Zero replied, “I have.”
I swallowed. Okay then….
I was a little light-headed and weak, but I was warm and when I pulled my shirt up to inspect the area that had sported a gunshot wound earlier, I found nothing but smooth skin over the outline of abdominal muscles. Figures, I thought drily, my gaze narrowing on the attractive ridges. All I have to do is get kidnapped, poisoned, shot, and go without enough food and water for a good period of time, and I too can have a six pack.
I felt Zero’s eyes on me and looked up. He was staring at my revealed body, and his pupils had expanded. Nick really did make them function like humans, I thought.
I hastily dropped my shirt.
Zero’s EED flashed yellow. He looked up, pinning me with a blue gaze. “Though I have to admit you left me a lot to work with,” he continued, referring to the transporter obviously. “It actually required very little enhancement.” He pressed the button on the third teleportation grounder, which caused it to shoot its stabilizer into the ground, anchoring it by a few inches. The grounders were necessary; teleportation was a violent business, and windy too. I hadn’t wanted the anchors to blow away mid-transport.
“In short order, I will have narrowed its multi-passenger encompassing field to a single wearable device, eliminating the need for the anchors altogether,” he told me.
I blinked and my eyes widened. I could feel my brows approach my hairline and couldn’t deny that the prospect was interesting to me in the extreme.
Zero smiled a knowing smile. “I would be happy to share the refined design with you, Dandelion.” He approached me and knelt on one knee before me, draping his forearm over it to assume a casual and graceful air. In my finally comfortable and admittedly weak state, I didn’t retreat from him. “You need but ask.” His eyes glittered under the garage lights.
I felt torn. There was no better way to describe it.
This was IRM-1000, enemy number one. But what he was offering was something I had literally always dreamed of. Can you imagine? I asked myself. Being able to pop in and out of anywhere you wanted, any time you wanted by just pinning something to your body? Or wearing a special bracelet or ring or necklace?
It was virtually no inconvenience at all to attach a small device to a person. It could go on their bodies as jewelry or on their clothes as a pin or in their backpacks or hand bags. For decades, humans had walked around carting smart phones in their hands non-stop. They’d literally taken up one whole half of their most important built-in tools – their hands – with their phones and it hadn’t even fazed them! This? It was nothing.
And to me, it was everything. It would be a dream come true.
I swallowed again, but this time I wound up coughing because my throat had gone dry. In response, Zero reached for me. But he froze mid-way and his hand slowly fisted before he
lowered it once more. I felt my brow furrow in confusion. It was as if he’d known his touch wouldn’t be welcome… but since when did IRM-1000 care?
“Don’t read too much into it, Dandelion,” Zero suddenly said as he rose to his full height. His expression hardened, turning cold. “We need to go.”
This was the Zero I was accustomed to. “If you planned on forcing me to go anywhere with you at all, you shouldn’t have healed me,” I told him firmly. “My unconscious body would have been a lot easier to cart around.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as if he were about to smile but had caught himself just in time. His EED flickered. Then he said, “You were nearly comatose. If I’d waited, you wouldn’t have survived.”
I stared up at him as his words rolled through me. In essence what he was telling me was that he’d saved my life. He was telling me that if he hadn’t been there in that park, and if he hadn’t managed to somehow get to me and into my head, I would be dead.
Now that I wasn’t in pain or freezing, the awareness of that felt a lot different than it had earlier. Now, I no longer wanted to die. So in essence… I owed Zero a debt of gratitude. A big one.
That didn’t sit well with me.
“I’m still not going anywhere with you.”
Now he did smile. He thought for a moment, then said softly, “You’re very smart, Samantha. And you’ve been well trained. I know you gauged your surroundings and situation immediately upon waking. I saw you do it. I witnessed your thoughts.” He touched his temple meaningfully, his smile deepening. “You and I both know there’s little you can do to escape me at this juncture.”
This juncture, I repeated the words in my head. I wondered what this juncture actually was. How had he wound up here with me, anyway? Where was Prometheus? Where were the rest of his men? Perhaps not for the first time, I wished the mind-reading thing went both ways and that I could tell what he was thinking the way he could me.
I, Android: A Different Model Page 40
