Blice looks out through the now curtainless window to the glittering lights of Paradise where the city never sleeps. "I can't tell you yet. In time, I will. I have to figure out the best way to tell you. If I do this the wrong way, you will hurt yourself." He lights a cigarette and his breath fogs on the window.
"You're smoking?"
"If I don't, I'll fall apart completely."
This isn't how Blice normally handles a tragedy. That's the only word Isidore can think of to call this mysterious event, even though he has no clue what has happened. "At least tell me something. Please."
Blice closes his eyes and his breathing is ragged. "I've issued another code black."
"Another? Who this time?"
Blice doesn't answer.
"As a friend, please tell me. I swear I won't do anything stupid."
"She's gone, Isidore."
A knot grows in his chest as he gathers the courage to ask another question. "She?"
Blice nods his head as the tears glisten in his eyes. "Clara's dead. A group of inquisitors at the outpost saw her leave last night. Then early this morning, Alexi and some Rubble Rebels found her truck burning and they tried to put out the fire, but it was too far gone. There wasn't anything they could do. Here." He tosses Clara's insignia on the bed.
Isidore doesn't cry. He doesn't feel anything, actually. "I see. Can I have my clothes back now?"
"No."
"Damn it, Blice. I'm not playing around. I won't kill myself. Or you. It's cold in here."
"I'll be back later. You need to clear your mind then deal with your emotions. You're scaring me. Do you not have any reaction? This isn't natural." Blice says.
Isidore shrugs his shoulders. "I'm an android computer. Nothing about me is natural."
Blice turns to him and starts shouting. "I programmed you to feel empathy and sorrow. The woman you loved and lost your virginity to just died two days after you proposed to her. Now you shrug off her death and all you can say is that it's cold in here?"
"I don't have anything to say. If she's gone, she's gone and there's no reason to be crushed over it."
"You're in denial. Give it two hours and you'll feel differently." Blice leaves and the door locks behind him.
As much as he wants to pretend that he's not falling apart inside, Isidore breaks. As the tears burn in his eyes, he has to walk. He has to move or he will die. He stands and paces around the room. No. They're wrong. Clara's not dead. She can't be dead. He screams out her name in the shadows, but no one answers back. Something catches his attention and he goes to it.
Isidore looks at his tear-stained face in the mirror on the wall until he can't stand to see the reflection any more. His fist collides with it and the slivers shower down onto the carpet and glisten in the lights from the window. He cries out and falls to his knees. Picking up a shard of the razor sharp glass, he drags it down his arms and feels the blood pouring from him. He drops it to the carpet and shakily picks up a larger one in his hand that is slippery and red with blood. Isidore closes his eyes and with one quick yet powerful slice, sends it through the side of his neck. As his vision begins to blur and he grows weaker, he scoops up a handful of the tiny glass shards then places them in his mouth and swallows.
Isidore crawls to the window as the blood smears on the floor and the glass cuts into his throat. He coughs which causes him to tremble in pain and he spits out dark blood. With his last remaining energy, he smashes the window and drags himself to his feet. Peering down from the third story window, he watches the colorful lights on the buildings and the ones from the vehicles filled with people living their lives, all going somewhere with someone to love them. This life isn't for him. He was never meant to be in a place like this. An android's soul will never be at home in a paradise of any kind.
* * *
Four days. For four long days, Blice has held Isidore's hand. He hasn't left his side for more than five minutes at time. Hospitals creep Blice out normally, but now he is here out of sheer desperation. He can't go back to their room alone. He refuses to leave Isidore here. He needs his Niko.
When they first found him, he was immediately rushed here and operations began. Blice had put him in the T.I.M.E. control stasis from the program he found in Styx in hope that it would help somehow. The problem now? No matter how many times Blice speaks the password to shut it down and give control back to him, Isidore doesn't wake up. His wounds have been healing quickly as always and after two blood transfusions, he should be back to normal soon. If Isidore was human, he wouldn't have made it.
The guards who were stationed outside of their room were exiled two days ago. They knew that Isidore was mutilating himself like this, but they didn't stop it. They let him. Then after they found him unconscious below the window and in a pool of his own blood, they didn't call for help for half an hour.
Guilt tears at Blice. He should have been there to stop it. He should have stayed in their room with him and held him to keep him calm like Isidore has done for Blice countless times. Blice could always count on him to carry him through the difficult times. Now that Isidore needed him, Blice failed and abandoned him.
Blice drifts to sleep holding onto Isidore's hand where the rust colored blood has long dried and the slivers of glass have been removed. The course sheets of the bed offer little comfort, but they do help to dry the constant stream of tears that Blice cries. The ticking of the clock on the wall behind him plays faster than Isidore's gradually slowing heartbeat. "Come on, Niko. You've come back from worse than this. Just open your eyes, buddy."
The steady rhythm of Isidore's heart stops. Blice looks up at the monitor. No pulse. Nothing. The room is silent and Blice feels unfathomably alone.
31
Blice is alone. Even the bright and active streets of Paradise are dull and empty to him as he meanders past laughing couples and playing children. An inquisitor passes by and waves at Blice, but he ignores him. Just when he thinks it can't be more depressing, the inquisitor's partner joins him and they joke around like Blice and Isidore used to do.
For the first time since he was a teenager, he has no one. The haunting memories of his childhood spent crying himself to sleep creep into his mind. The other children would bully him and push him down in the back alleys where they would beat him with sticks and branches all because of his purple eyes. He would stay secluded in the Presidential Palace where his father would be fighting with his wife.
Blice was pushed to the breaking point and was one crisis away from ending it all when he got Isidore for his birthday. After that, he had the one thing he couldn't buy: a friend. Isidore looked up to him. They would stay up all night long when Blice was supposed to be studying to join the Inquisition and play video games instead. When Blice would inevitably pass out, he would wake up to his best friend asleep in his arms. In town, Isidore would follow him everywhere and there wasn't a cranny of Paradise they didn't explore or cause mischief in. They were brothers in all ways but blood relation. If Blice was invited to go someplace, the invitation was for both of them. They shared their clothes, their food, their stories, and their darkest fears.
Looking back on it all, Blice would give anything to go back to those happy times before it all fell apart and took a terrible turn. What would have been one of the greatest friendships in history morphed into a nightmare for them both. It wouldn't have happened if Blice had taken responsibility for stealing those apples. He had stolen for Isidore but when the owners of the trees complained to Blice's father, Isidore stepped up and took the blame so that Blice wouldn't be suspended from inquisitor training. From that night on, Blice's father had it out for Isidore. Nothing was ever good enough, nothing was enough to save him from the abuse that Evans dealt out. Then Blice made the worst mistake of his life. He took the belt from his father and beat his best friend who was completely innocent. A violent hatred was born in that decisive moment that would change the lives of Isidore and Blice indefinitely.
Isidore has always bee
n there and now that he's not, Blice has lost his compass. There's no place for him to go. Where can he go? Does anyone even care about Isidore? It is true, then. No one cares about the life of an android . . . except for Blice. He cares, maybe too much. The loneliness is unbearable so he thinks of the one person on this planet who will still talk to him. His brother. Blice dials the number for Byron's cell phone.
The ringing continues then the call ends.
He tries again. "Come on, Byron. I need to talk to you . . . or anyone."
No answer.
That's odd. It's not like Byron to ignore calls. Blice looks through the data on his watch until he finds the number for Byron's communication sensor. Surely he'll answer that. He must have left his phone somewhere.
Nothing.
His desperation changes to anger. Isidore must have been right. What if Damien has been behind everything and now he's gotten rid of Byron as well? This ends now.
Blice pulls up his GPS and follows it to Damien's house. He goes up to the door as he bites his lip to keep from shouting and kicking down the door. When Damien opens the door, Blice pushes him back and storms inside. The door shuts and Blice pins Damien against the wall. "If Byron isn't in this house, you're a dead man."
"I guess I'm dead."
Blice's grip tightens around Damien's arms. "You killed him and Maria. Where's Byron?"
"Byron isn't here. I haven't seen him in a couple of days. He went gambling. You haven't heard from him either?" Damien asks with a dark grin.
Blice screams at him. "You're a goddamn liar. I know you killed him."
"Whoa now. Killed him? Now why would I do a horrible thing like that?"
The door opens. "Hey guys." Byron tosses a bottle of soda on his makeshift bed then walks past them and up the stairs.
"Told you." Damien snarls.
Blice's mouth falls open. Well, that was unexpected. He lets go of Damien.
"And I didn't have anything to do with Clara's death, either."
Oh? "What did you just say? No one other than Isidore and I know about that."
"Where is Isidore, anyway?" Damien asks as he leads Blice into the living room and they sit on the floor.
"In surgery."
"Surgery? What did you do?"
"I didn't. He did."
Byron joins them. "What's up, Blice? You look terrible."
"I've been at the hospital for the past four days with Isidore. I haven't slept." Blice says as he rubs his face in an attempt to stay awake now that his anger is dwindling.
"What happened?" Byron asks.
"When Isidore found out about Clara, he snapped and went insane."
Byron looks confused. "What happened to Clara?"
Blice looks down at his watch, futilely searching for any sign of her. "She's dead."
"Oh no. Poor Isidore."
"Anyway, Isidore cut his wrists and neck with broken glass then swallowed the shards. They sliced open his esophagus and stomach. We found him unconscious in blood and vomit."
"Damn."
"So, he's in surgery again." Blice says. "This is his fourth artificial heart. The others didn't work right with his brain and they stopped working. They say they're doing all they can to keep him alive and working properly."
"I hope he's okay. I got your money, Damien." Byron says.
"Thanks."
"Money for what?" Blice asks.
"Oh, some furniture and paying for damages to the virtual combat simulator. Apparently bullet holes are an issue."
"Been training? Isidore told me about you two being partners now."
"Yep. Byron passed his first test."
"What happened to the combat simulator?" Blice asks, afraid to know the answer.
"Damien and I were . . . training."
"Don't cover it up. Call it what it was." Damien says with a smile. "We were wasting time and screwing around like idiots."
Byron slides a bottle of tequila out from under his blanket. "I was fun, though."
"Let me get this straight. Instead of using the virtual guns, you used an actual gun?"
"Yep."
Blice sighs and grabs the bottle away from Byron. "May I?"
Damien waves his hand. "Go ahead. You need it more than Byron does. So, is Isidore gonna be okay? You guys can repair him again, right?"
Blice takes a drink and a few of his assorted pills. "Do you want the truth or a disillusioned denial-fueled alternate reality truth?"
Damien isn't smiling anymore. "That bad?"
"His wounds healed quickly and aside from the issues with the new hearts, he should have been better by now. He won't wake up. No matter what we try, he just lies there."
"Did you reboot him?" Damien asks.
"Yes. Six times."
"It's dangerous to do it that much."
"I know, but what other choice do I have? I'm out of options. I will try anything."
"Have you narrowed down the issue to either his body or his hardware?" Damien asks.
"We're not sure."
"So you say his heart has stopped. What about his mind?"
Where is he going with this? "No. It will kill him."
"Hold on." Damien taps on his sensor. "Hear me out. If his heart stopped and the other hearts didn't work, then the issue is with the connection, not the parts."
"So what do I need to do?"
"Turn him off. Shut down everything including his backup battery."
Blice's heat leaps in his chest. "He'll die!"
Damien shrugs his shoulders and continues to scroll through his sensor. "Then don't do it. I'm telling you this. No matter how many times you replace his heart, he will stay there lifeless. This is the only chance you have to do this. Yes, it's risky, but is Isidore worth risking it for?" "I can't do it. Shutting him and his backup battery down is instant death. He'll go into cardiac arrest."
"His heart can't stop if he doesn't have one."
What? "That makes no sense. This entire plan is ludicrous."
"Calm down. If you want to save Isidore, you have to follow my instructions. Don't let the medics try to talk you out of it. The process I'm about to tell you of is extremely classified."
"Then why do you know about it and I don't?" Blice asks.
"Don't question me. Okay. Once you get back to the hospital and Isidore is out of surgery, you need to place your insignia against his head. Then put this into his USB port." He hands Blice a small silver sphere with a cable attached. "This is a neutralizer. It will instantly shut down any computer it is connected to. After that, immediately open Isidore's programs from your watch and access the parameters of his backup battery. Transfer the code from this sphere to that folder. At that point he will be nothing but scrap electronics and genetically engineered android flesh."
Byron laughs. "Gross."
Blice glares at him. "It's not funny, Byron. This is my friend and my life."
Damien continues. "If you care for Isidore like you say, then you have to do this. After two minutes, take your Inquisition insignia away from his head and put his in its place."
So that's what is going on here. "What? Oh no. No. I see what you're trying to do and I won't be a part of it. That will give him full control of his mind and body. I won't be able to control him anymore."
"Is that truly such a bad thing?" Damien asks. "He has proven many times that he has evolved to the point of being capable of caring for himself. He's not a child anymore and those programs you are using will never teach him anything. He's an adult now and deserves to be trusted. Let go of the leash. It's time to give Isidore his freedom. If you two are as close as you claim to be, then he will still be at your side and want to serve you as a friend and equal rather than a slave."
"He's not a slave."
"Then give him freedom."
32
"You'd better be sober. We have a mission to do."
Byron rolls over and hides back under the blanket. "Go away."
Damien nudges him with the toe of his boot.
"Get up, take some ibuprofen, drink a glass of orange juice, then put your big boy boots on. We'll find you some espresso. I received a strange signal from the Paradise computer network."
"What is it?"
"Someone used Clara Lifestone's password to gain access to the network."
Byron sits up and squints in the morning light. "How did they do that?"
"Don't know. That's what we're going to figure out. I managed to trace the signal to a computer in the wasteland about five hundred miles north of Rubble City."
"Near Eden?"
"Yes. I don't know what will be waiting for us so get sober and be prepared for anything. Oh, and take a coat."
"A coat?"
"It's November and in some parts of this country, it isn't a hundred degrees year round."
* * *
Blice enters the hospital room and waves at Isidore who is finally awake and sitting up. He looks a bit ragged, but who wouldn't? At least he's alive. Blice goes to the bed where Isidore is pouting in his blue hospital gown. "Hey."
Isidore's voice is hoarse, but he gives a tiny smile. "Hey."
"How are you feeling?"
"Hungry."
Well, it has been a week. Blice laughs as he pushes Isidore's silver bangs out of his face. "You are almost fully healed. Your skin is amazing."
Isidore rubs his eyes and groans.
"Are you hurting?"
"Not really. I just feel weak and a bit dizzy."
"That will go away soon." Blice sits on the bed and takes Isidore in his arms. "I thought I'd lost you. Never do that to yourself again. Promise me."
"I promise." Isidore squirms in Blice's arms. "I can't breathe."
"Sorry, sorry." He sits back and looks Isidore over. "Do you feel any different than you did before?"
"Not as devastated. The medics have been giving me some kind of medication and it helps. Other than that, not really. Why?"
"Call me Owner. Just once. I want to hear you say it."
Isidore's smile fades as he looks down at his hands. "You're my owner."
Okay. Good. Blice is still in control. "Thank you."
"Is that how you want me to address you now, Owner?"
Paradise of Lead Trilogy Page 50