The Phoenix Code

by Catherine Asaro

  "I ran tests on Ander earlier tonight." He sounded dis­tracted, as if he were talking to fill the silence. "Maybe it caused some problem." He moved closer, the denim of his jeans brushing against her bare legs.

  Megan was poised to go for the flashlight, but she stayed put. Raj slid his hand to her chin and tilted her face upward. She still couldn't see him. She had never realized before how total the darkness became here with no lights.

  Raj slid his other hand around her back, pressing her closer while he held her chin. His clothes rustled—and then his lips touched hers.

  Megan froze. She hadn't expected him to kiss her. Nor would she have thought he would be so rough. He pressed his mouth hard against hers, mauling her lips. His clumsiness so distracted her, she didn't respond.

  Raj drew back his head. "I hope I didn't offend you."

  Do I want this? If she didn't answer soon, he would let her go. Given what she had seen of him, she doubted he would try again if she rejected him. Maybe his graceless approach came from the awkward situation. Suddenly glad for the darkness, she reached up, meaning to touch his cheek. Her fingertips brushed his jaw instead. Just one moment can't hurt, she thought.

  Raj gathered her into his embrace. Relaxing against him, she slid her arms around his waist. Then, with no warning, he put his hand over her breast and squeezed.

  Megan winced. "Don't."

  He rolled her nipple between his fingers. "Hmmm?"

  "Slow down." She pushed at his hand, her ardor cool­ing. "We really do need to go check the power."

  "Later."

  "What about Ander? He—"

  "He's fine. Forget about him."

  This didn't sound like Raj. "Where is he?"

  "In the lab. I turned him off." He rubbed her breast again. Hard. Then he pressed her against the wall. "We can leave him. Hell, he sleeps in that chair."

  This was a new side of Raj, one she didn't like. Megan pushed against his shoulders. "Why is he turned off? We can't leave him pinned there."

  "He'll be fine." Raj pulled her nightshirt to her waist, leaving her lower body bare.

  "Stop it!" She shoved at his hand.

  "Why?" Bending his head, he spoke near her ear. "We work like maniacs all the time. It's time we played."

  "What's wrong with you?" She tried again to push him away.

  Raj slid his hand along her thigh. "Come on, Megan. You know you want it."

  "Let go of me!"

  He was silent for so long, she feared he would refuse. Then he let go and spoke tightly. "I'll check the power room."

  She slid along the wall. "I'll be in the lab."

  "Fine." Anger edged his voice—and something else. Apprehension?

  After he left, she sagged against the wall. For a mo­ment she had thought he meant to force her. Could she have been that mistaken about Raj? She had thought Richard Kenrock misjudged him, but now she wondered. What had just happened would make it hard for them to work together. They had no choice, however. She should have been more careful about what she wished for; at­tracting his interest had caused a mess.

  Megan found her flashlight, then made her way to the lab, lighting her path with a sphere of light. It took only minutes to reach the catwalk above the bay. She opened the emergency panel and pressed several switches. To her surprise, it took no more than that; lights flashed on in the lab with jarring brightness, along with the returning hum of the air-conditioning.

  She squinted against the glare, trying to make out Ander in the lab below. When her vision adapted, she saw that a man was indeed trapped in the chair.

  Raj.

  *8*

  Rapscallion

  Nylon ropes bound Raj to the chair, and the cloth belt from an orange coverall gagged his mouth. His hair curled in even more disarray than usual, as if he had been struggling. He had on Ander's coverall, wrinkled and off kilter, zipped halfway up his chest. It looked as if someone had put it on him in a rush. A robot arm hung above him, its lights blinking. As he stared up at her, his face flushed, the arm began to descend.

  "God Almighty." Megan ran along the catwalk. "Arm Two, stop program!"

  The arm continued on, probing Raj's shoulder with its multijointed fingers.

  What had happened to the lab sensors that were sup­posed to pick up her voice? Without her palmtop, she had no other way to communicate with the robot arm until she reached the consoles. What if it tried to run diagnos­tics on Raj? Its safeties should keep it from tearing apart a human, but they should have also kept it from coming at him at all.

  At the elevator, she threw open the gate and ran inside. As the car descended, Raj made a muffled protest. With dismay, Megan saw the robot arm probing the back of his neck. Had Ander been in the chair, it would have already jacked into him.

  The elevator descended with maddening slowness. The entire time, Megan had to watch while the robot searched for a way to open Raj. He struggled with his bonds, fight­ing to free himself.

  As the elevator neared the ground, Megan slammed open the gate and jumped to the floor. "Stop!" she shouted as she ran. "End diagnostic!" She passed an LP, but it made no move to help.

  With a chilling snick, the robot arm extended the blade it used to cut cables. Cold light glinted off the honed metal.

  "Stop program." Damn Ander! Had he done this on purpose, knowing the robot would finish its diagnostics when the power came back on?

  Raj continued to struggle, his hair falling into his face. He pulled his head away from the robot, but it moved after him with the blade, chasing its target. Then it set its knife against his skin.

  Megan lunged into an even faster sprint. She jolted to a stop at the chair and grabbed the robot's jointed fingers. Then she yanked the arm away from Raj's neck. Clench­ing it in one hand, she stretched out her other arm and stabbed a panel on the console. One of its status lights turned from red to green.

  "Stop program!" she said. "End the damn test!"

  "Program stopped," BioSyn answered.

  The robot in her hand jerked. She barely jumped back in time as it swung away. Its safeties should have stopped it from swinging at her. She scowled. Ander had been a busy android, figuring out ways to confound NEV-5 secu­rity systems.

  Raj made a muffled sound, his gaze furious. She reached behind his head and fumbled with the gag. When she couldn't undo the knots, she pulled the cloth down around his neck. He took a breath. "Hell and damnation."

  "Are you all right?"

  "No." His gaze swept her body. She suddenly realized how she must look, with her disarrayed hair falling to her hips and nothing on but her nightshirt.

  "Did he hurt you?" Raj asked.

  She shook her head, a flush warming her face. "He tried to make me think he was you. But I knew something was wrong."

  "He's acting like a blasted juvenile delinquent. Where did he go?"

  "He said the power room." Megan logged onto BioSyn at the console and brought up the Emergency Alert Sys­tem. "Pah. This is a mess. He linked the LPs to a fake EAS Web page. That's why they didn't respond." She reset the links, then started a tracking program to find Ander.

  A ping came from the console.

  "Got him!" she said. "In the Solarium." A holo of Ander formed above the console. He was standing with his arms crossed, glaring at the camera, which had to be mounted in an LP. The edge of another LP showed in the image. The two robots had trapped the sulky android in a corner of the atrium.

  "That had better keep him out of trouble," Raj said, his deep voice almost a growl.

  Megan came over and helped him undo his bonds. "I can't believe he wanted to hurt you."

  "He's a damn cyberthug." Then he added, "But no, I don't think he meant to hurt me."

  "The robot arm could have killed you."

  Raj grimaced. "That's one diagnostic I hope never gets run." He turned his wrist back and forth, helping her loosen a knot. "I saw him playing with the system, after he tied me up. It looked like he only intended the arm to guard me. I
don't think he realized it would try to take me apart."

  "We'll have to keep him guarded."

  "I don't want to push him, though. I'd rather that he came back here of his own free will."

  "Free will." Megan's hands stilled as she stared at Raj. "It's come to that, hasn't it? He's becoming self-aware."

  He paused, looking up at her. "I think so."

  "He could do it with a little less aggravation," she said dryly.

  Raj gave a slight laugh. "No kidding." He went back to work on the ropes. "How we respond to his behavior now will impact how he views moral responsibility. I want to see what choices he makes."

  She scraped her fingers over a knot. "I'll bet he comes here, to see what we thought of his shenanigans."

  "Let's try this," Raj said. "Tell the LPs to let him leave the Solarium, but to keep a guard on him."

  "Okay." She finally undid the knot. As the rope slipped, Raj pulled his arm free. He blew out a gust of air, stirring the hair that had fallen into his eyes. With obvi­ous relief, he pushed it out of his face.

  Megan wished she could brush aside those curls or touch him as she had in the hallway. Except that it hadn't been him, and besides, that incident had given her a taste of how awkward it could be if they mixed their personal and professional lives.

  As she knelt to work on his ankles, he tackled the ropes on his other arm. "Did Ander give you any idea of what he wants?" Raj asked.

  "Me, I think." She didn't know which was going to embarrass her more: telling him she had kissed an an­droid or that she thought it was him.

  Raj went still. "What did he do to you?"

  She looked up, surprised by his tone. "What's wrong?"

  "He told me something while he was sabotaging the LPs." Raj concentrated on freeing his arm, avoiding her gaze. "He said he had the guts to do what I feared, be­cause he didn't care if you rejected him." He yanked at the ropes. "So did he do anything?"

  "He made his voice sound like yours."

  Raj finally looked at her. "And?"

  She flushed. "He, uh ... he kissed me."

  "Megan, I'm sorry."

  "It's not your fault."

  Raj seemed at a loss for a response. She couldn't think of any that wouldn't make them self-conscious. They paused, awkward. Then he went back to work on his arm and she redoubled her efforts on his ankles.

  Finally the knot gave. "Got it!" she said, relieved to change the subject. As he pulled his legs free, she rose to her feet and saw he had freed his other arm.

  As Raj stood up, it made her aware of how close they were standing. In her bare feet, she came just to his shoul­der. Dressed only in her nightshirt, she felt suddenly ex­posed.

  Raj's face gentled as his gaze skimmed over her body. Then he seemed to give himself a mental shake. "Ander could go either way now—become self-aware or turn un­stable."

  She tried to be less aware of Raj's physical presence. "He might be dangerous."

  "Or he may just want to go off on his own. He should have the right to choose."

  Although Megan agreed, she doubted MindSim would appreciate their ten-billion-dollar android walking off into the sunset. The holo on the console showed a glower­ing Ander pacing back and forth. His image blurred at the edges; even BioSyn couldn't make perfect high-resolution holos of moving objects in real time.

  Raj was watching her. "Did you really think he was me?"

  "At first."

  "How did you figure out something was wrong?"

  "He was rude. Clumsy."

  He gave her an incredulous look. "And that made you think it wasn't me?"

  Gently, she said, "Yes."

  "Well, hell." Then he winced. "I don't usually swear so much." After a pause, he added, "Yeah, okay, I do. But I try to clean it up around you."

  Although Megan didn't mind his language, it touched her that he cared what she thought. "I appreciate the in­tent. But you don't need to worry."

  "Megan."

  "Yes?"

  "When you thought Ander was me..."

  "Yes?"

  "You kissed him back?"

  "Well, uh, yes, I did."

  He glanced at her body again, then reddened and flicked his gaze back to her face as if he hadn't meant for her to see him look. Suddenly conscious of her skimpy clothes, she wanted to fold her arms across her torso and hide herself, but she suspected it would only draw more attention to her half-dressed state.

  "Ah, Megan." His voice was low and deep. "You truly are a beautiful woman."

  She didn't know how to accept his compliment. In her youth, she had been too tall, all elbows and sharp corners, with frizzy red hair and Coke-bottle glasses. In her teens, her body rounded out, laser surgery fixed her eyes, and her hair grew into long, full curls. But her self-image had already been set. Now her old insecurities jumped in, in­sisting Raj would lose interest when he realized she was just a gawky nerd. So instead of a simple "thank you," she said, "Have you had your sanity checked?"

  His laugh crinkled the lines around his eyes. "There's no need, my tactful swan."

  Real swift. Megan thought. "Sorry. I bumble when I'm nervous."

  "So do we all." He put his hands on her waist, then paused, giving her a chance to say no. She remembered her misgivings. Logic told her to stop; her emotions urged her on. What happened with Ander had been false. This was real. Then again, maybe she was making excuses be­cause she wanted Raj.

  He's worth the risk. She slid her palm along his chest as an invitation and he drew her into his arms. Hugging him, she inhaled his scent, a mixture of spices and the crisp smell of his jumpsuit. When she turned up her face, he bent his head. His kiss was tender, completely unlike the way Ander had mauled her. Sliding her hands up his back, she traced the planes and ridges of his muscles. This was much better than logic.

  Raj raised his head. "Sweet Megan."

  "Beautiful Raj." As soon as the words escaped, she wanted to kick herself. What a stupid thing to say. For all she knew, a man would consider "beautiful" an insult.

  Instead he grinned. "Have you had your sanity checked lately?" When she thumped his chest, he laughed and pulled her close. "It's hard to believe you thought he was even clumsier than me."

  "You aren't clumsy."

  "Ah, Megan, I can't talk well even when I want to. As soon as I tense up, I stop making sense." He shook his head. "Do you know what idiot savant means? I gradu­ated summa cum laude from Harvard when I was seven­teen and had my doctorate from MIT by twenty. But socially I'm a half-wit."

  "That's not true." Yes, he was eccentric and intro­verted, and many people considered those character flaws. On his behalf, she resented that attitude. Why should Raj be like everyone else? "You're fine just the way you are."

  "For that, the jaguar promises not to devour you." In a low voice he added, "At least not until later."

  She grinned. "I'll hold you to that." With a sigh, she added, "But we better deal with Ander now."

  They went to the console and told the LPs to let Ander leave the Solarium. A moment later he stopped pacing and gave the camera a wary look. Then he walked for­ward. The view changed, backing up as he came toward the camera, probably because the LP was rolling back­ward. He left the Solarium and stalked through Level Two. He seemed to choose his direction at random, like an angry young man unsure where he wanted to take his anger.

  Raj paced into the middle of the lab, then stood, lost in thought. He reminded her of a Greek statue that cele­brated both the intellect and body. But she enjoyed watch­ing him because she liked Raj himself; with his remarkable mind, he would have drawn her regardless of his appearance or what he considered his social flaws.

  He came back to the chair. "We need to defuse his re­sentment. The problem is, we expect human reactions. And he's not human."

  "I don't—Raj, look out!"

  He didn't ask questions, just dropped into a crouch with her—barely in time to avoid a robot arm swinging down from the ceiling. Huge and jointed, brist
ling with equipment, it passed through the area where Raj had been standing. Megan glanced up—

  And saw Ander.

  He was standing on the catwalk, speaking into a palm­top. Dressed in Raj's blue jeans and sweater, with gold curls falling into his face, he looked absurdly innocent. He must have programmed the robot arms to respond to some signal. Somehow he had also jimmied the door be­hind him, making it close on his harried LP guard. It hadn't hurt the LP, which was already working free, but it added to Megan's annoyance with the android's misbe­havior.

  "Ander, stop it!" she called. "You'll hurt someone."

  "That's the point," Raj said. "Me, specifically."

  "At least we got him here."

  Raj dodged to avoid being swiped by a second robot arm, a small one. It thunked into the console and came to a vibrating stop, its clawed hand broken at the joint. An alarm blared and red lights flared along the arm.

  "Ander!" Megan stood up. "I want you to stop."

  "What are you two saying about me?" Ander de­manded.

  Raj rose to his feet. "Come down and we'll talk."

  "No!"

  "Fine," Megan said. "We'll take care of it without you." She tried to enter a command at the console, but BioSyn refused her input. Undeterred, she logged onto BioShadow, a hidden server she had set up to deal with anomalous situations, which certainly included rapscal­lion androids.

  Raj went to work on the other end of the console. Up on the catwalk, Ander frowned, then spoke into his palm­top. Megan soon figured out why; he was trying to use BioSyn to keep them out of BioShadow. They easily evaded his attempts. Then she sent the LPs after him. Two rolled under the catwalk and a third boarded the elevator. With a hum, the car started to rise.

  "Wait." Raj glanced up. "Have them hold off."

  "Why?"

  "They're stronger than Ander. If they force him down here, it could damage him. Even if they don't, it would humiliate him to have his first jab at independence quashed that way." Dryly he added, "Though he does make it tempting."

  "I'll tell them to play nice." Megan directed the LPs to guard Ander but otherwise leave him alone, unless he en­dangered anyone or tried to damage more equipment—in which case they were welcome to haul him down.