Final Protocol

by J. C. Daniels

  I had a few choices—a very few choices—and very little time to make them. The discharge would affect his muscles for three to eight minutes, no more.

  Reaching behind me, I snagged a pair of neural restraints from my belt and looped them over his wrists. They hummed and I watched him flinch as they sent a pulse through his neural pathways. That bought me more time.

  I should kill him. Here and now. He’d do the same to me. He’d just tried. And he spoke no sense. It was like he didn’t even remember me. I had to understand, had to know. And who was this Caz? Was she me?

  Crouching by his head, I peered into his eyes, waiting until I saw the cloud fade.

  The neural restraints would keep him from moving his body but they wouldn’t affect his speech the way the discharge had. I had questions for him.

  “Who is Caz?” I asked again.

  Heavy lashes flickered over eyes the color of moss.

  Sighing, I rose and walked over to grab the blaster. I returned to his side and pressed it to his cheek. “You can choose how easy or hard this is. I don’t really…”

  “You…”

  His voice came out in a slow, sluggish slur.

  I frowned at him.

  “What?”

  “You…why do you ask? The others…never…cared.” The words came slowly, haltingly. But his voice was steadier and his gaze was piercing.

  “The others.”

  “Mordecai Golden has sent seven assassins after me and they were little more than automatons.” His strength had returned. I could see the struggle in his eyes as he mentally fought the prison I’d made of his own body. It was a special kind of hell, something I knew from experience. “Twisted creations, all of them. But they had no soul, no life.”

  “Reshel had a soul. A life.” I knelt down and drew a blade from my boot, pressed the tip against his throat. “Until you took that life.”

  His gaze cut into mine. “Perhaps near the end of their existence, it is harder to maintain that veneer of normalcy. By the time they reach me, nothing exists except his will.”

  “His. You mean Gold.”

  “His name is Mordecai Goldman.” Orion’s eyes were seething pools of hate. “Your creator is a wanted felon in more systems than I can name. I’m surprised you don’t recognize the name. He’s on every scanner, fed into every transport, and there are regularly bounties posted for his sorry hide.”

  A tangle twisted inside me as I slowly straightened over him. “Mordecai,” I said slowly. “Why do you call him my creator?”

  “Because, precious.” He curled his lip and raked me over with a mocking glance. “You aren’t real. You are a clone, made in a lab from the blood and bone of a murdered girl—you’ve only been alive a few years and you’re likely as unstable as all the rest. You’ll be dead in a few years—well, no. If you make it off this planet, you’ll be dead within a few years.”

  Snarling, I swooped down with the blade and drove it into his shoulder, driving deep, deep, deep, until I driven it through to the hilt. “I’m not real, Orion?”

  Something rippled across his face, but I was too lost in my own fury to recognize it. Bending down, I caught his chin and sneered at him. “I’m not real? Pray tell…how does that work, exactly? I felt quite real when I woke up in a tiny box of a room ten years ago to feel his hands on me. I felt quite real when he tore my clothes from me and raped me.”

  He opened his mouth and I jerked the knife out of him. He barely even gasped.

  Drops of blood flew across the stones as I buried the blade into the earth near his head and caught the front of his tunic, jerking him up. “I felt real as he threw me into the care of a fightmaster from Luivant, forced me to learn not just how to fight, but how to kill. When I refused, it was another beating. Another rape.” I dropped him and straightened. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not real. I stopped feeling real after a while. I don’t even feel real now.”

  “Stop.”

  I shoved upright and kicked him, driving my boot into his unprotected side, blind in my fury. It shifted him on the thin grass and I stumbled away, my head spinning. “Stop, he says.” I shook my head. “Stop. Just like that I should stop. I begged for him to stop too. Do you think he ever did?”

  I turned and looked at him, and the blood in my veins froze when I saw that he was upright, the neural bonds hanging from one massive wrist. But he just stood there, his gaze fixed on my face.

  I stroked my hand down the bracer. Final protocol, I thought. So easy. It would be so easy. But I wanted him to know. He thought I wasn’t real.

  “The real horror started when he made me want it,” I murmured. “When he found me and took me and made it to where I all but craved it, even if I refused to speak his name, refused to acknowledge what he had made of me.”

  He moved toward me and I backed away. That small action made him still and I stared at his feet, braced there on the rocky ground. “He made me into his whore, his hired killer, his toy, his tool.” I dragged my head upward and met Orion’s brutal gaze. “And each time I fought him, he reminded me. It was all because of you—you. You said we’d run. You said you’d take care of me. But you left me to him…and you have the balls to tell me I’m not real.”

  The blaster hung useless in my hand.

  I didn’t even want to use it on him now.

  I just wanted to say those words. Final protocol. It would end in a moment and I’d know peace.

  Lifting my arm, I looked down, opened my mouth.

  “Caz…”

  I looked at him through my lashes. “Who is Caz?”

  One big hand closed into a fist at his side and he looked away. “What is your name?”

  “I don’t know. I woke in a cage, bleeding and unable to walk, ten years ago. I remembered only your face…and how you told me that I just needed to trust you.”

  The noise that escaped him was unlike anything I’d ever heard in my life.

  Then, as I stared at him, he went to his knees, staring at me.

  “Caz…” He shuddered. “Son of a bitch. It’s you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Caz. It’s you…

  Me. I swallowed around the ache in my chest. Yes. It was. My name was—or it had been—Caz.

  Everything slowed around me.

  “Caz,” he said, his voice soft, almost reverent.

  My blood thundered in my ears.

  He said it again and I spun away. “Stop saying that,” I said, shoving the blaster into place at my hip. Blood roared inside my head, a whirl of confusion and noise. I didn’t know what to do, but one thing was certain. The longer I stood there, the clearer it was that I couldn’t just kill him.

  I don’t know why. Perhaps it was the voice in my head, in the hollow pit in my chest where my heart should be. I kept feeling…No…echo through me.

  Perhaps if he had attacked, I could have fought, but he hadn’t.

  He just stayed there, on his knees, staring at me.

  Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck Gold. All of them can just fall into a frozen hell. I was panting and an icy sweat broke free all over me. There was too much going on inside my head and things I couldn’t even make sense of.

  I had to get away.

  Reflexively, I touched the blaster at my hip. I had my weapons. All I had to do was walk away.

  “If you’re going to do it, you need to do it fast, before the Hsainiens follow the trail. If you do it fast enough, you can take my transport and get offplanet and out of the system.”

  “Do what?” I demanded. My voice shook as I spoke. I shook.

  “Kill me.” Orion cocked his head, staring at me. His gaze was no longer cold or furious.

  The expression in his eyes made me want to weep. Made me want to sob.

  “Do it,” he said, his voice all but throbbing with intensity. “Do it and ge
t out of here!”

  “Shut up.” I backpedaled and ended up on my ass in the dirt. I should kill him. It was the only thing between me and freedom.

  Except…

  I swallowed as I let myself accept the truth of it. Killing Orion wouldn’t set me free. It would just cast me into a different sort of hell.

  I’d never again be me—Caz. The longer I stared at him, the more I remembered her…the innocent girl I’d once been. She was gone and there was no getting her back.

  She’d died so long ago. Maybe not the minute Gold had stolen me from my home, and maybe not the first time Gold had raped me, maybe not even the second time, or third. But somewhere along the way, Caz had died, and she’d taken the very essence of the woman I’d once been into her cold, miserable grave.

  “You deserve to die,” I said thickly.

  A sad smile curved his lips and he rose.

  I tensed as he knelt in front of me. His hand moved toward me and I couldn’t even retreat. He took the knife from the sheath on my thigh and put it in my hand. He lifted it to his neck and pushed, the tip of the knife actually piercing the golden skin of his neck. “I do. So do it. Then get away.”

  Get away…

  I jerked back, breaking free of his grasp and scuttling backward. A few feet from him, I shoved myself up onto unsteady legs. My throat felt like it narrowed down to nothing. I couldn’t get enough air in. “You just let him take me.”

  There was a soft, tired sigh behind me. “Just get this done. Do whatever you need to do and leave here. Kill me or don’t. But get free of him.”

  “I can’t!” I shot him a dark look and then turned, catching a fistful of my hair in my hand. The mark was faint, mostly hidden by my hair. But by the sound of his harshly indrawn breath, he knew what I was showing him. “He’s got a bioseal in my brain—I’m a walking time bomb and he can kill me in a blink, turn me into a mute, mindless shell with just a wish. My only chance to be free of him is to kill you.”

  There was a whisper of sound behind me and then he touched me. I tensed, ready to bolt, ready to attack. I didn’t know which one sounded more pleasant. But before I could do either, his hand closed around the back of my neck and I could feel his eyes, all but cutting into me as he studied me. “He finally figured it out,” he murmured.

  …What?

  His hand probed the area where the seal was and I flinched, half expecting it to explode inside my head. It would solve so many problems. No more worrying. No more deaths. But Gold would still live. That didn’t seem tolerable at all.

  “You know what this is,” I said woodenly.

  “I should. It’s my design.”

  Bile churned up in my gut and I laughed sourly, the sound so broken and brittle I was surprised it didn’t cut the air. “Cheers to you—it works spectacularly.”

  “No,” he said softly. “It doesn’t. It wasn’t intended to be a tool used against people—but to help them.” He paused and then asked, “Gold used this on all of his people?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged and pulled free of his grasp, turning to look at him. “You designed this device.”

  “Not that one, no.” He inclined his head. “I was…”

  He hesitated and then continued. “Gold’s men hired me to research the various uses for the bioseal. I wanted to continue my research. But the idea they had in mind wasn’t intended for healing. It was built solely for harm. I never finished the project. What…how much do you remember?”

  Curling my lip, I said, “Being his weapon. His whore. Having this time bomb in my head. Do you know…he always told me he took me because you owed him.” Fury flared to life inside me. Taking a step toward him, I demanded, “What did you owe him?”

  Orion half-turned. I caught his arm, my nails cutting into his skin as the rage exploded. “I’ve spent ten years in hell because of you. I deserve to know why.”

  He caught my upper arms in his hands, jerked me onto my toes. “Because I wouldn’t finish the design!” he shouted at me. His breath was a heated rush over my skin.

  Sensory memory rolled over me. I had memories of him against me, moving over me, under me. Memories so powerful, I almost shuddered. Some of it must have shown on my face because he let me go like I had scalded him, moving away as though he couldn’t get enough distance between us.

  “Explain that.” More memories twisted, shifted and solidified in my head and I had a bad, bad feeling I understood.

  “Even if you don’t remember, surely you can figure it out.” He shook his head. “Once I knew what they were wanting from me, I stopped my work. I…I thought I’d destroyed all of the research, all of the prototypes. But he had been watching—somehow sharing my designs with another specialist. He started trying to make his own bioseals.”

  “Then what?”

  “If you haven’t remembered, then I shouldn’t tell you,” he said softly. “It’s a knowledge I don’t want.”

  He moved to his transport. I grabbed the blaster at my hip and leveled it at his head. It emitted a low, distinctive hum and he paused to look back at me. A faint smile curved his lips. “Put it down. I’m not going to try to…escape. I have a peace offering.”

  “You have nothing I could possibly want.”

  “Yes, I do.” He laid his palm on the side of the sleek, long-distance transport. There was a low hiss and then a panel slid up. He reached inside and pulled out a long, narrow bag, followed by another. It took him roughly ten minutes to set everything up, and when he was done, I saw what looked to be an emergency medi-station. “Lie down on your belly.”

  I eyed him with acute distrust. “Not on your life.”

  “I designed the seal he put in your brain. To be honest, I designed a better seal.”

  “How do you know?” I curled my lip. “You didn’t even know about it.”

  In response, he tapped something, and I watched as a holo came speeding at me. I gaped, seeing the brain readout in front of me. I knew what I was looking at. More than once, I’d hunted down a few off-the-grid specialists, hoping to find somebody who had the experience and knowledge to remove the seal without killing me. It hadn’t happened. The brain pulsed, red where the vessels fed blood, the brain matter itself pink. The seal, roughly the size of the nail on my smallest finger, was located just above the medulla oblongata, a strange, dull shade of brown. It also looked different than the last time I’d seen it. “It’s corroding in your brain,” Orion said. “He used cheap materials and, if I’m right, you have maybe one or two years before it kills you. Even if he deactivates it, you’ll be dead soon enough. Or you can let me deactivate it here and then we can move you to the embassy starship and I’ll take it out in the medical bay.”

  “I’m going to die.”

  Somehow, saying it out loud left a hollow ache inside me. Swallowing, I looked over at him. “Does he know this?”

  “If he is keeping track of you and the state of the seal, then yes. He knows. The feedback from the seal is likely becoming erratic as it deteriorates. He’s too smart not realize there’s a problem.” An icy smile curled his lips. “He had a plan in mind when he decided to make…a tool out of you. He wanted to make sure he got the full use of you before he no longer could. That’s why you’re here, I imagine.”

  I believed him. Maybe I was a fool, but I believed him.

  Despite the skin-melting heat of this horrid planet, I was cold. Wrapping my arms around myself, I stared out over the drifting sands away from the capitol city tucked up against the sea. The jagged collection of rocks and small copse of stunted trees seemed galaxies away from the hell I’d known at Gold’s hands—it was, but I wasn’t talking distance.

  “He likely expected me to die at the hands of the Hsainiens anyway.”

  “No.” Orion’s voice was soft. “He knew you’d at least find your way to me. The rest would take care of itself.”

>   I wondered what that meant, but when I went to ask him, he gestured to the table. “If I’m going to deactivate the seal, we need to move now. I have only a small window to get you to the starship and then return to the scheduled meetings. Those cannot be delayed.” His brow arched and he added, “I saw you racing across the sands, you know. You knew there were refugees in the caravans. You know why the embassy sent me here. Would you truly throw those meetings into jeopardy? Throw away your chance to be free of him? Over a personal vendetta?”

  “Over the chance to kill you?” I tightened my grip on the blaster, bombarded by memories of a decade of abuse. “I don’t know. Revenge is such a temptation.”

  “Killing me isn’t much of a revenge,” he said, looking away. His voice was hollow. “I’ve longed for death for longer than you can imagine and it eludes me. You’d end a pain. Seeing your face after ten years…”

  He let the words trail away as he turned, presenting me with his back. “I’m scrubbing. If you aren’t on the table when I’m done, I’ll assume you want to kill me. Be prepared to do it quickly.”

  As he turned, I lowered the blaster. Shooting a man in the back was something even I didn’t have a taste for. “What happens to the negotiations without you?”

  For a long moment, I didn’t think he’d answer.

  Finally, he spoke, without looking back at me. “They stop.”

  I don’t know what drove me to the table, that flat answer or the promise of a life free of Gold.

  I didn’t trust Orion. How could I trust the man responsible for putting me in the hands of the monster who’d destroyed me and remade me into a killer?

  But it was more than clear that I couldn’t trust Gold, either.

  Gnari told me once of a saying they had on his home planet—It is better to confront the known evil than the unknown. I wasn’t so certain of that.

  If I knew that Gold would honor his promise, that I would live long enough to go back and kill him, exact a bloody revenge for what he’d done to me, then perhaps I would have chanced trusting him.