by Megan Hart
Very quickly, I realized I had no choice. The ping of the door to the garden caught my attention, and I opened my eyes. In came Declan.
“What are you doing here?” My voice was cold, and it didn’t shake. I was glad for that. I stiffened on the bench, then got to my feet when he began to come closer.
“I need to talk to you.”
His tawny skin was pale, the lines around his mouth deep. He clenched his fists as he moved toward me, and my own went up in response.
Like unenhanced humans, I don’t have much control over my body’s instinctive reactions. Unlike them, however, I do have exaggerated responses. My body’s flight or fight mechanism had been triggered by his aggressive stance, and unless he seriously backed off, I would do whatever I must to protect myself. I’d killed men who came at me with less animosity on their features.
I’ve said before that men aren’t always swift on the uptake. Declan apparently didn’t notice my stance or my expression. He kept coming at me with his hands outstretched, and eyes and mouth grim.
I didn’t want to believe he meant to hurt me, and I didn’t want to hurt him, but my muscles tensed and I reacted. Just before he reached me, my leg lifted out from my hip and twisted. My foot missed his face by an inch—and it had taken an extreme effort to miss him.
My heart pounded, but I managed to spit out, “Don’t come any closer.”
He frowned, which actually made his mouth look softer instead of angrier. “Gemma, I don’t blame you for being pissed…”
But he hadn’t dropped his hands, and I was still in hyperdrive. He took one more step and this time, my foot didn’t miss. It connected squarely with his jaw. Declan dropped like a stone.
With my foe felled, my body relaxed a bit. Instantly, I went to my knees beside him. The sight of blood on his mouth, blood I had put there, made me bite my own lip in response. I smoothed his hair back from his forehead, and the feeling of it under my fingers made my already clattering heart skip a beat.
He opened his eyes, and in the next moment, his hands were around my throat. The adrenaline rush that hadn’t had time to fade returned in double strength. Inside, I knew I should have been more careful. Declan was a mecho too. His body would react as mine did, to protect itself. He didn’t have my Op training and background, but he did have enhancements.
My mind knew this, but couldn’t override my body, which now began fighting to protect itself. My hands grasped his wrists and tried to tear them from my throat, but Declan was a man, and mecho, and he had the advantage of superior muscle strength. My lungs expanded to better process the minimal air I was now bringing in. I straightened my legs and used the force of my weight to bring us both to our feet. With a swift, sweeping arm motion that had nothing to do with being mecho and everything to do with martial arts training, I disengaged from Declan by knocking his arms away from my throat.
At the sudden release of his hands from my throat, Declan stumbled back with an appalled cry. He held up his hands as if they were alien things.
“Gemma, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
“I know.” I regarded him warily. “Back off for a few minutes. Let us both calm down.”
He turned his back on me and paced. He ran his hands through his hair. With the threat gone, my breathing slowed and my muscles no longer trembled with tension. I sat back on my bench and propped up my carrybag while I waited for him to talk to me again.
After what had happened between us, I should not have wanted to go to my knees before him, but I did. I shuddered and hid the motion by bending to push my carrybag against the bench.
When at last he faced me, he had the good sense to do it from a distance away. His posture still indicated tension, but he forcibly opened his fists to let his hands dangle at his sides.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.
“You didn’t scare me.” I took a deep breath. “It’s an automatic reaction, based on signals you sent with your expression and your stance. My body registered you as a threat, and I got kicked into defensive mode.”
“Because you’re an Op.” He narrowed his eyes to look at me, but in his gaze I caught a glimmer of comprehension. “It’s your training, right?”
I stood and moved closer to him. I turned my head to show him the thin, nearly invisible scar snaking down my neck and across my chest. “I was in a very bad hoverbike accident during vacay on Solaria eight years ago.”
He stared at me without speaking for a long time. Neither of us moved. He was smart enough to figure things out. I didn’t have to spell it out for him. I waited to see his reaction, and the thought he’d at least know my truth sent a bubble of relief to lift my heart.
“You’re mecho.” He didn’t stumble on the word, or look embarrassed by it, and why should he? He shared the same stigma.
“They replaced ninety-eight bones, my kidneys, my spleen and my spinal column. I have an enhanced circulatory and immune systems, and they put an internal hard drive partition in my brain.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What is there to understand, Declan? I’m mecho. Same as you.”
“Why did you send that holonote then?” He’d advanced on me again, a little, but when he saw me tense he backed off.
I sighed, frustrated. “I didn’t. I told you I didn’t. I was late because of work. That’s all.”
“And I was so sure you wouldn’t want to be with me if you knew the truth, I was ready to believe the note without question.” He punched his fist into his palm. “I’m an idiot!”
I didn’t want to be the one to tell him his father had been interfering with his life. I didn’t have to. Declan, despite our misunderstandings, was smart.
“What happened to your face, Gemma?”
I touched my cheek, surprised. I’d forgotten about the bruises. No wonder the man I’d traded with in the distribution center had looked at me so strangely.
“I had a problem with some secbots.”
“My father’s secbots?”
I hesitated, then nodded. There was no point in lying about it. Declan swore.
I bent and gathered my carrybag. “I have to go. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”
I meant to brush past him, but he reached out and grabbed my arm. His touch was soft enough not to trigger a response, unless you counted the way my heart trip-trapped.
“I owe you an apology.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” I felt my back as stiff as an iron rod, and I didn’t turn to face him. “We fucked a couple times. It’s not like we were in love.”
My voice caught and broke on the last word like a glass dropped on the floor. I pulled out of his grasp and headed for the garden gate. His words stopped me.
“Gemma, I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” But that couldn’t change things between us, and I kept walking.
“Wait!”
I was almost to the gate, but I paused again anyway. This time, I turned. The weight of the carrybag dug into my fingers and I shrugged it around until it went over my shoulders again. Grief and anger warred within me, and anger won.
“Wait for what?” My voice was sharp and cold. “You made your feelings clear the other night.”
“That was before I knew the truth about you.”
I set my jaw and glared at him. “That I’m mecho too makes everything all right?”
He shook his head. “No, but—”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. You were so ready to believe the worst of me, you never even gave me a chance to explain myself. You ran away, knowing I wouldn’t be able to find you! You didn’t trust me enough to talk to me!”
“But you did find me,” he replied and gave me his damn cocky grin.
I wasn’t going to fall for it. Not this time. “And I paid for that, believe me.”
His gaze went to the fading bruises on my face. “I never meant for that to happen.”
“But it did. And there’s more, Declan. I was demoted in m
y job. I lost rank. I’ve lost delivery privileges and God-of-choice only knows what else I haven’t discovered yet, because your father wants to scare me into keeping my mouth shut! I guess I’m just lucky he didn’t have me killed!” I jabbed a finger in his direction. “And for what? Nothing! I thought we might have something together, but I was wrong. You don’t care about me. You couldn’t possibly, or else you wouldn’t have believed I could’ve written that note.”
“My father again.”
“Who else but the great and mighty Howard Adar has so much to lose if the public discovers his only son and heir is mecho?” I spat to clear the foul taste of fury from my mouth. “Keep your apologies, Declan. They’re worthless to me.”
I turned again to go.
“Gemma, I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t want to be away from you anymore.”
He spoke quietly, without shouting, and so it was easy for me to pretend I hadn’t heard. I kept going, pushed through the gate and came out onto the sidewalk. After the silence of the garden, the bustle and noise of the traffic outside seemed magnified tenfold. It hurt my head.
Anger welled inside me again. Easy enough for him to say, but not to mean. I thought of his face when I’d found him at the Adar complex, and of the cruel things he’d said. No. If Declan truly cared for me, he would’ve trusted me enough to tell me the truth about himself.
I stopped so suddenly several people on the pedtread turned their heads to stare. Trust. It was easy for me to accuse him of not trusting me, when I’d been just as guilty. I hadn’t told him I was mecho.
“But I was going to,” I muttered. Thankfully my voice didn’t carry to the pedtread, or I’d have earned another few strange looks. “I was going there to tell him.”
I held fast to the loose threads of my anger, but they slipped from my grasp and left me with nothing. He’d opened his heart to me, and I’d walked away. Now who was being unforgiving and distrusting?
Maybe he was still in the garden. I had to check. I’d just turned around to go back, when two huge forms loomed out of an alleyway and blocked my passage.
I hit the ground without even time to cry out, and then they were upon me.
Chapter Eleven
There was nothing subtle about Adar’s goon-bots. They hammered me with metal fists and rammed me with the metal treads of their feet. The pain was so intense I couldn’t even shame myself into silence. I covered my head with my hands to protect it. I couldn’t afford scrambled brains. The rest of my body could withstand an awful lot of abuse, but not my head.
They’d had enough sense to pull me back far enough in the alley so there was less chance of any Newcitizen coming to investigate the scuffling and the grunts. Though if anyone did come to see what was going on, I was sure that once they saw it wasn’t a mènage but a beating, they’d disappear pretty fast.
The internal hard drive partition I’d told Declan about was worthless, most of the time. Now it allowed me to separate my mind from the pain being inflicted on me, so I could think. Secbots are big, and they’re strong, but they’re not smart. They rely on causing so much immediate and encompassing pain their victim is unable to respond. I had an advantage over them, and I was going to use it.
I curled into a ball, knees tucked to my chest, arms curled around my head, hands splayed over my arms. As I figured, they concentrated their blows on my back, trying to get my kidneys. I rolled over onto my knees so I was crouched on the dirty pavement. My cheek scraped the rough concrete. I waited for a pause in the beating, took my hands from my head and pushed off from the ground. I straightened my knees and got to my feet in a smooth, fluid motion that belied my aches and pains. At least they couldn’t actually break most of my bones.
Without a pause, I kicked up and out. My foot hit the descending hand of one of the secbots, and it wobbled off balance. Saved by its solid treads, it didn’t fall. It knocked against the building behind us hard enough to scratch the plazbrick wall. The other secbot swung at me, but I ducked beneath the swing and kicked out again. This kick took out one of its glaring red optic beams. The secbot let out a muffled grinding sound of surprise and put its hands to its optic center.
Now the first bot came back for me. I flexed my fingers and jumped a little to loosen my bruised muscles. It swung at me, and I deflected its arm with a nifty little martial arts move that I learned from watching Britney’s favorite movie. The Matrix might look dated now in terms of special effects, but it had some kick ass moves in it.
I can’t hover in the air like Neo and Agent Smith, but I could jump high enough to kick the secbot squarely in the metal grill that served as its mouthpiece. The heel of my boot bent and broke the grill, and the force of the kick knocked the secbot backwards. Its partner, weaving a little because of its vision problem, came back at me, and I kicked out its other eye. Even though I was sure Adar had paid for subsonic navigation and radar, blinding the bot would buy me a little time.
I landed from the kick with my feet spread apart and my hands raised. Both bots whirred and churned, chattering to each other in their private language of clicks and beeps. My guess was they were deciding what to do next, since I’d certainly surprised them.
What they did next surprised the hell out of me. Both of them slid their pincer grip hands into small openings that appeared in their torsos, and both pulled out identical silver cylinders. To any Newcitizen eye, they’d appear to be stunners similar to what I carried as part of my own uniform, but I knew better. These bots carried real weapons, the sort that have been illegal in Newcity for half a century. Laserguns, the kind that could kill.
Why should I have doubted that Howard Adar would consider himself above the law? I didn’t recognize the type of weapons, but then I hadn’t been Offworld in eight years. I didn’t need to know the make or model to figure out pretty damn quick that they were going to make my aching and bruised flesh the least of my worries in about two seconds if I didn’t react fast.
I ducked. The white hot glare of the laser hit the wall of the building behind me and scorched the plazbrick. The burn area was as large as my head.
They were quicker with their weapons than they’d been with their self-defense. The next shot came within seconds of the first. I avoided it, barely, by throwing myself to the side. I hit the concrete but didn’t pause, just kept rolling. I rolled toward the secbots, aiming for their treads. The one whose optic center I’d destroyed aimed at me, but I rolled away as it shot. The laser struck its own tread and blasted the metal to bits. With a strangled roar, the secbot toppled over.
Its partner focused its red optic beams on me as I crouched at its feet. It didn’t shoot. Instead, it reached down with its free hand and grabbed for me. It got lucky, and grabbed a handful of my hair. Its height allowed it to pull me right off my feet. I dangled only for a moment, then swung my legs until I hooked them over the secbot’s shoulders. Its arm bent, and I bit my tongue to keep the scream of pain from my ravaged head inside.
The bot tried in vain to aim the laser at me in a way that wouldn’t also injure itself. Weapons like that aren’t made for close combat. I still had the advantage. I reached up and jerked my hair from the bot’s grasp, and left a handful of violet strands behind. Using the strength of my stomach muscles, I held myself upright while still gripping the bot’s shoulders with my legs. It twisted and turned on its treads, but it couldn’t shake me off.
The downed bot didn’t seem to have any qualms about making sure it hit only its intended target. It sent off a shot that skimmed my shoulder. The heat was enough to scorch my jumpsuit. The next shot came lower and also missed me. It hit the other secbot square in the chest. The sizzle of scorching metal and stench of frying circuits were music and perfume to my senses. The bot twitched and jerked, and I lost my grip. I hit the pavement again, this time hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
I scrabbled at the concrete to get to my feet before the downed bot could re-aim. My
luck had run out, though, because I found myself staring into the black end of the lasergun with no place to go.
“Terminate destruction sequence!”
The shout echoed through the alley. I didn’t dare turn my head to see who it was, but I recognized the voice with no problem. The secbot holding the weapon pointed it farther in my direction, using its radar to detect me since it couldn’t use its visual circuits.
“Command number 2411690264, terminate destruction sequence!”
The secbot didn’t lower the weapon. “Termination command not recognized.”
“Shit!” Declan came into view and stood between me and the bot. “Override previous command, override code 99710561, terminate destruction sequence!”
The bot lowered its weapon at last. “Command recognized. Awaiting further instructions.”
Declan turned and held out a hand. I took it. I got to my feet, and we stared at each other for a long, long moment.
“I’m sorry, Gemma,” he said at last.
I looked at the secbots that had very nearly just killed me. “Thank you.”
He looked over at the metal thugs too. “What do we do now?”
The bot with the broken tread managed to push itself upright. Its partner lifted its weapon. Both spoke simultaneously, though the one whose grill had been bent was incomprehensible. We heard the other one just fine.
“Instructions received. Termination sequence reactivated.”
“Your father must have them on remote,” I said as the secbot steadied the lasergun.
Declan stepped more firmly in front of me. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Target blocked by Newcitizen 906264,” said the bot with the weapon.
“Declan, that bot’s aim isn’t very good.” I watched the other secbot trying to reach the weapon it had dropped when it fell to the ground. “I’d get out of the way.”
“Instructions received. Termination sequence expanded to include Newcitizen 906264.”