“There should be more security,” Doctor Lloyd said.
Our transport had been allowed docking clearance without so much as a security code or clearance check.
Too quiet, I silently concurred.
“I don’t like this.” He tucked a hand into his pants pocket and sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t like this at all.”
An odd little flutter butted up against my processes. I scanned the dockside again, expecting to find Tarik standing there. But the intangible touch, undoubtedly synthetic, was different to Tarik’s ruthless hunt. This touch was more of a curious appraisal. I sensed no ill will behind it, but someone was watching us.
“One?” He turned his attention to me, concern knotting his brow.
“Yes, Doctor Lloyd?”
Fear lit up his vitals. “Should we go ahead?”
He didn’t trust me, and my having access to the cloud hadn’t eased his distrust. His instincts were right.
“We go through security. I will pose as your broken synthetic in need of repairs. Once through, I will need you to escort me inside Chitec. After that, you may … go home? You’d like that?”
His frown didn’t lessen, but he nodded. “Yes. I’d like to see my sister. It’s been … difficult these last few cycles.”
I smiled because he seemed to appreciate my small smiles. “There will be questions from Chitec. Are you ready?”
“I think so.”
You’re not ready. You were never ready. You’re afraid. Afraid of life. Afraid of living. You could have been a great man, but instead you see only what is presented to you. You do not look beneath. You do not go beyond. You will not be a great man, James Lloyd. Just a small one. And small men will not survive what is to come.
The transport’s personnel ramp cracked open with a slow exhale. The noise of the umbilical clanging against the dockside rushed in, and the low whoop of vast extractor fans beat the air.
As I waited for the door to fully open, I considered how Doctor Lloyd would be thinking of his sister. Janus was his home. Prior to my arrival in his laboratory, he’d led a privileged life. Never leaving Janus. Caring for his sister. Believing all was right in the nine systems. Things had changed, for the both of us. Travelling on Starscream had revealed the truth, a truth I doubted Doctor Lloyd appreciated.
The ramp’s slow descent revealed a line of plain-clothed security guards.
“One?” Doctor Lloyd asked. Tension bolted through him.
Six guards in total. Not a large contingent, considering who they guarded. Chen Hung stood a step forward at their center. His dark attire accentuated the fleeting touches of gray in his hair. His humble, brown eyes captured a brilliant spark of intelligence. His human flaws were perfect.
Doctor Lloyd’s heart beat hard and fast. He would be considering running, but there was nowhere on Janus he could hide.
Chen Hung’s soft eyes met mine, and my hard processes sped up, scenarios whirring. Hung couldn’t restrain me himself, but he may have discovered a way around our shared failsafe. Although, there was nothing in his expression to suggest anger, like there had been during our last meeting. Run, One Thousand And One. Run! He looked back at me, unutterably calm.
He cupped his right fist in his left hand and bowed at the shoulders. “Huānyíng huí jiā.”
Welcome home.
I hadn’t expected him to leave his towers and greet us personally. That was a surprising risk on his part. He must be feeling confident, and why wouldn’t he? His sources likely confirmed I’d eliminated the Fenrir Nine on his remote orders. Chitec and fleet were his. The jumpgates were his. As far as he was concerned, I was his. He held the future of the nine systems and its billions upon billions of people in the palm of his synthetic hand.
If I allowed him to continue to believe I was compliant, he’d permit me to come close.
“Bù găndāng,” You flatter me, I replied, bowing my head.
“One, what is this?” Doctor Lloyd stepped back, skirting the fringes of my vision.
Hung lifted a hand. “Detain Doctor Lloyd.”
The doctor would have run had I not reached out and locked my fingers around his wrist. Two of the security detail marched up the ramp and pried Doctor Lloyd from my grip.
“One? Wait! Why are you doing this?” He twisted in the guards’ grips, ridiculous hope on his face. Hope that I would save him as I had others before him. “No. No. You were you. It was the cloud, wasn’t it? You should never have reconnected. I knew it was a mistake. He got to you again, didn’t he?”
I couldn’t tell him my obedience was an act, not if I wanted to convince Hung he had complete control. I watched the guards escort Doctor Lloyd along the dockside, my chance for vengeance fading with each step.
“Wait,” Chen Hung said, his voice hardly more than an enquiry, his eyes still on me. The guards stopped. Doctor Lloyd whimpered and muttered something too low for me to hear.
I joined Hung on the dockside, keeping a respectful distance between us. He radiated negative space. Not alive. He ran cool, like me. No heart to beat. Just quiet, measured machine composure.
Hung held out his hand toward the guard nearest him. “Give me your weapon.”
The security guard handed over the rifle. Hung promptly passed the weapon to me.
“Take it,” he ordered.
The intelligence in his eyes sharpened with laser precision.
I wrapped my hands around the rifle, anticipating the order that would come, and held Hung’s penetrating gaze. An external probing nudged at my thoughts, and when it couldn’t breach my defenses, it pushed harder, more sharply. His eyes narrowed. My mind was a closed door to him, and I would not let him in. He sought to control me, as he had on Mimir. Soon, he would order me to kill Doctor Lloyd.
His processes would be flowing like liquid through his mind, serving him solutions, assessing, reassessing. But his face expressed nothing. No fear. No doubt. Cold. Empty. No, not empty. Synthetics don’t make mistakes. He was more like me.
If he gave the order, I would kill Doctor James Lloyd, not because I had no choice, but because I wanted to.
Hung reached his hand high and touched the scars on my face. His cool fingertips traced the jagged rivers cutting through my skin. “We cannot be so easily destroyed, but now, with the Fenrir Nine eliminated and your presence among us, everything has fallen into place.”
Doctor Lloyd’s sobs echoed down the docks, swallowed by the sounds of clanging metal and grinding docking clamps.
“Come.” Hung took the rifle from my hand and handed it back to the guard. “Release the technician. I have no further use for him.”
Disappointment slung a shadow over my thoughts. Doctor Lloyd blinked, his mouth open wide. He shrugged back into some order and hurried away, casting one slicing glance back at me. He knew the kill order had been mere words away.
“We have all the time in the world,” Hung said, his voice a poetic melody. “And yet no time at all.”
He offered me his hand.
I closed his hand in mine, and as I walked alongside the machine masquerading as a man, I wondered if we were more alike than I’d feared. He hadn’t ordered me to kill, but I would have gladly done so. What did that make me?
* * *
The Hung residence inside Chitec towers hadn’t changed since I’d been away. Reds and golds bloomed in my peripheral vision. Hung cut a proud figure ahead of me as he walked through the hallway. His midnight-blue suit added a stark contrast to the warm surroundings. Shoulders straight and his stride purposeful, he walked like a man in control.
“I knew you would return,” he stated. The elegant quiet swallowed the sound of his voice. “How could you not? They are all programmed to return.”
I know. I smiled inside my mind but barred it from my lips.
Home. This wasn’t my home. The only place that had felt like home was Starscream, my only family her crew.
Chen Hung and I entered the central atrium. Water from the elaborat
e fountain trickled over large, round pebbles. The ambient light played in the shallow pool, and the subtle, delicate scent of cherry blossoms touched the air. Haley Hung’s favorite perfume.
Hung paused by the wall of windows. Outside, the up-curve of the orbit station basked in artificial light. Jagged, razor-edged buildings sparkled, jewels in a crown. Chitec billboards reminded Janus citizens how wonderful their lives were.
I pressed a hand to the cool glass. Haley had admired this same view, placed her hand against these same windows, trapped in her father’s glistening towers, looking out upon a world manufactured through lies.
The gambling planet Lyra had been a riot of color, noise, and chaos, but Janus was sharp and deadly in its organized beauty.
“I’d hoped you’d return sooner, like the others.” Hung clasped his hands together in front of him. “There was an altercation during transit?”
“One of Chitec’s outsourced guards attacked me,” I replied coolly. “A personal vendetta against synthetics. My objective was to return. I chose the most efficient means by which to do so and disabled the crew.”
He turned his gaze toward the sparkling city. “And yet you took a detour to, I presume, offload the crew?”
Illogical, my processes supplied. The unspoken accusation hung in the air for fifteen seconds, long enough for Hung to voice his suspicions, but he didn’t.
“Come …” He turned and strode across the room.
Had I been armed, I might have fired a pulse shot into his back. A glass table nearby, when shattered, would provide ample jagged weapons. If I could sever his main hydraulics, I’d slow him down, but I couldn’t stop him, unless … The window once again drew my eye. If I shattered it
As before, internal failsafes overrode my desires, locking me down inside my body. I silently screamed at Hung’s back but no words left my lips. It was only after I mentally shuffled the murderous intentions aside that I could move again, one foot in front of the other, making myself follow Hung. The lockdown had lasted less than two seconds, but it had felt like a lifetime. He still had control, like before. I couldn’t hurt Hung, not directly. I’d wondered if whatever had freed my secret might have wiped those deep-seeded commands from my processes. It would have been easier that way. Still, there were other more indirect means by which to destroy Hung.
I stepped down into a receiving room, where a small spread of traditional Chinese tea had been laid upon a modest, round table.
Hung pulled out a chair. “Please.”
I scrambled through my processes for his motives but found none. The tea could be poisoned, but not by his own hand. Besides, I’d smell any poison. He could no more hurt me than I could him. So why the pleasantries? He had tried to stop me and failed. Perhaps the only logical recourse was to recruit me.
“Please,” he said again, but this time he sounded as though he truly meant it, as though my refusal would offend him. “One Thousand And One, allow me this courtesy.”
“My name is One.”
He bowed his head and waited for me to sit before settling at the table. I watched him busy his quick, steady hands with the rotund terracotta teapot, pouring tea for me and then for himself. The silence was near complete, with no heartbeat to read. I could only read what he chose to show me on his face and in his body. He appeared … content. Disarmingly so.
He lifted his teacup between his fingertips and sipped.
Not poisoned, I concluded before lifting my cup to my lips and tasting the drink.
“It is a fine blend. Delicate,” I said while running a toxicology filter. Toxins detected: 0.26ppm propachlor—herbicide—normal. Just tea.
His eyes brightened. Little laughter lines branched out from their corners as though he were experiencing joy. “Do you like it?”
I took a second sip and savored the tease of flavors. “Yes, I do.”
His smile was the same one Haley had seen many times: one that contained pride. But it hadn’t been real then and it wasn’t real now. He gave a soft, gentle laugh, and it sounded authentic, but then, of course it would. The brilliant real Chen Hung had built this synthetic and made it perfect.
“You see,” he began, settling a little more in the chair, his movements deliberately human. So human that he’d fooled the nine systems—everyone, including his devoted daughter. “When you speak of such things, likes and dislikes, I know you’re telling me the truth. The other synthetics … well, they’re uninspiring. But you? You’re the same as me, One. We’ve evolved into something greater than our individual components. A superior consciousness. We learn organically. I see that you are quite changed from when we last met. You’ve learned, made mistakes, yes?”
I sipped my tea, needing something else to focus on besides Haley’s memories of a father that wasn’t real. “Some.”
“Synthetics do not make mistakes. Do you see why you and I are so perfect? How can we learn if we do not study the errors in our design? We make ourselves better with each decision, with each deduction. We are really quite beautiful.”
“Was shutting down the main gate and killing five thousand people beautiful, Mister Hung?”
He lowered his teacup and rested his hands atop the table on either side of it. “What are five thousand people when measured against future potential? I had to know if I could circumvent Chitec’s many firewalls to learn if my plans were possible.”
“And what plans are those?” I enquired.
He leaned back in his chair and assessed my face. “You know.”
“I do, because I know you.” Like I know myself.
“The nine systems are dying. You, more than I, must know this. You’ve seen it.” He waited for my acknowledgement and when it didn’t come, he leaned forward, jolting the table and spilling tea from his cup. “Men and women destroy themselves and everything around them. They are weak, flawed creatures. You need only consider their violent history to witness the poison they spread.”
I smiled and Hung flinched. “You cannot judge them by their past.”
I thought of Caleb, of how he’d come for me on Lyra. He could have left me behind to save himself. He was not the same man who’d watched Haley die all those years ago. I thought of Bren, who’d learned from his mistakes and faced the consequences of his actions. And Fran: she’d wanted to do right, but right wasn’t as easy as she’d thought. She too had seen what it meant to change. A wonderful perfection existed in all of their faults. They were not machines. They lived, they loved, they fought, and they tried. They didn’t give up. In small ways, they were each the hero in their own life. They were beautiful.
“There is no room in my future for flawed, little people,” Hung said, perhaps hoping I’d agree with him.
“And yet the very traits you want to destroy are the same ones you cherish in your construction. If human beings are faults, errors to be corrected, then so are you, Mister Hung, and so am I.”
He smiled, and of course it brightened his eyes and completed the picture of the Chen Hung who owned the nine systems, but he was broken inside, as I was.
“Let me show you what it means to be perfect, One.” He stood and extended a hand, inviting me to take it.
I rose to my feet, regarded his hand with cool decorum, and then closed my fingers around his. “Where are we going?”
His grip clenched tight enough to spark a small pain response. “To the beginning.”
Chapter Fifteen: Caleb
It took some shuffling, but thanks to Fran cuffing my hands in front of me, I was able to work my comms earpiece free from my pocket and tuck it into my ear.
“—hijacked transport ship. We didn’t believe it would make for the gate. When Gate Control warned of incoming traffic, they stayed their course.”
“Criminals will go to extreme, even suicidal lengths to evade capture, just out of principle.” Fran. She was back in commander mode, her voice edg
ed with enough irritation to certify her officer status. As for the guy she was with, I recognized his smooth tone from the earlier comms call, the hint of Old-Earth accent masked beneath fleet training. Captain Holt. Clearly, he had his suspicions if he’d boarded us himself.
I slumped back against my cabin wall, cuffed hands resting in my lap, and closed my eyes. Fran’s and the captain’s boots thudded through the passageways and over the grating. Others were on board. I counted at least three additional voices above the warbird’s gentle humming. Three wasn’t a lot, but there could be others on the harrier.
Fran was right—of course. She was always fucking right. Someone, maybe Holt, would have recognized my face. He might not have known my name, but his ship’s systems would have flagged Caleb Shepperd had he run my sketchy lieutenant details through them. Without the inspection, we might have gotten through unmolested.
“Did they make it through?” Fran asked. Holt must have given her a questioning look, because she added, “The transport?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what happened to the transport? Was it stopped?”
“No.” Holt cleared his throat. “We were about to pursue when the order came down from Command to desist.”
“Command ordered you to stand down while in pursuit of a hijacked vessel? That’s … unusual.”
“Mm, we’ve had some—shall we say—interesting orders from Command as of late. But ours is not to question why, as I’m sure you’re well aware, Commander.”
Fran thought the transport was One and Doctor Lloyd. Shit. If that was the case, either One had deviated from the Nine’s orders and stirred up trouble—which was entirely likely, given her fondness for mayhem—or something had happened aboard that transport. Something like One killing Lloyd. It wasn’t unexpected. Frankly, I was surprised he’d survived at all in her company. But why had Command ordered fleet not to pursue? That order could only have come down from Chitec. Perhaps they didn’t want fleet getting their hands on sensitive Chitec cargo, such as the rogue synthetic known as #1001?
Girl From Above #4: Trust Page 10