The Gardener of Man: Artilect War Book Two

by A. W. Cross

  “Ailith—”

  I waited. I will not make the first move this time.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  With a groan of something akin to pain, Tor finally reached for me.

  The first time we’d had sex, our past had been simple, and sleeping together was a surrender to desire. Now, all the bad things that had happened lay like a layer of ash between us. Ignoring the consequences, we wasted no time on coaxing pleasure. As he pushed inside me roughly, I welcomed him, welcomed the bitter-sweetness of finally being with him again, despite the desperation of his thrusts and the selfishness of my fingernails carving lines in his back.

  I wrapped my legs around his hips, driving him deeper as though I could bind us together forever. With both of us chasing a release, the end of forever came far too soon. As he pulled away from me, I smiled at him. I’m so glad we’re here again.

  He almost smiled back. His dark eyes remained haunted, though, and he buried his face in my hair, curling his body around mine with an intimacy far more real than what we’d just done.

  The minutes seemed to stretch into hours before he finally spoke. “So, we’re in the Okanagan, where you’re from. Does it feel— Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know how to feel about it. When we were farther away, I thought that one day we would come here. That I could try to find my father. I know he’s dead,” I added as Tor frowned. “I know, but—”

  “I understand,” he said. “I mean, I went searching for my mother, didn’t I? Even though I knew. Maybe we could go look for your father. Just the two of us?”

  I pressed my forehead to his. “Thank you.”

  “You know, it could always be like this,” he said, trailing his fingers down my arm.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Us, together. Trusting each other.”

  I stiffened. “I trust you.”

  “How can you?”

  “Do you still think about killing me?”

  He drew back. “No. I thought you’d know the answer to that.”

  “I didn’t, not for sure. I promised to stay out of your head if I could, and I’ve kept that promise. But I know you. What you mean is you can’t trust me.”

  “Of course I can’t, Ailith. Nothing’s changed. I’m still your puppet. If what Oliver said is even remotely true, you have to stop it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Get Oliver to shut down your ability. Cut the threads that bind us to you, Ailith. That bind me to you. Until that happens, none of us can trust you.”

  A bitter dryness filled my mouth. I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Is that why you came here tonight? To offer yourself as compensation in the hope I’d relinquish my ability?”

  Tor sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, his back to me. “No, I—I just wanted to talk. I should’ve realized what would happen if I crept into your room in the dead of night, but my intention was only to ask you to let Oliver shut that part of yourself down.”

  I pulled the bedsheet up over my bare chest, the warmth from his body already gone from the fabric. “Are you going to let him remove your power?”

  He twisted to face me. “What? No, of course not. It’s part of me now. Plus, who knows what’s going to happen to us? We may need my strength.”

  “We may need mine. In fact, I’m sure we will. You only want me to get rid of it to protect yourself. You can’t live with the fact that I have power over you.”

  He offered me his hand. I didn’t take it. “Ailith, listen to me. You will always have power over me. I love you. Whether it’s my programming or not, I loved you the first year we were together.” He gave me a gentle half-smile. “I used to make up stories about the kind of person you were. I pretended we had a life together before the war. I told you about the places we’d been, the things that had made you smile. I even introduced you to my mother.” His smile turned wistful. “I’ve loved you for so long that I’ll never stop loving you, no matter what happens. But you’re not that person, Ailith. You’re not the woman I told you you were.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said, tightening my grip on the bedsheet.

  He chuckled. “No. What you are is more, so much more. And I love the person you are even more than the person I pretended you were. But you, this person you are now, won’t survive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at what’s happened to us so far. All because of your ability. If you got rid of it, your life could be…normal. We could be normal. If you keep it…how long until your life is threatened again?”

  “But we have to do something. Pax says—”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I know what Pax says, but you have a choice. It doesn’t have to be your responsibility.”

  “But if what he says is true, whatever’s coming could be the end of everything. We can’t let that happen. It’s not right.” My fingers began to ache, but my rising dismay kept them rigidly clasped.

  “That’s arguable. But even if that’s the case, think of what we’ve already been through, Ailith. Think of the decisions you might have to make in the future. And you won’t be making them just for yourself. I’ll have to do your bidding, whether I agree with you or not.”

  “Tor, I would never force you to—”

  He gave a brittle laugh. “You would. You’ll make a decision, believing it’s the only choice. You’ll decide my fate as well as yours.”

  “Why am I suddenly the leader? We make decisions together.” I climbed out of the bed and stood facing him, still clutching the sheet.

  “I wish that were true, but our track record says otherwise. And when the time comes to make those decisions, you won’t blink. I don’t need Pax’s ability to know that. Whether it’s part of your programming or just your personality, I have no idea, but it’s the truth.” He ran his hand down the curve of my hip.

  I pushed it away. “And so you thought if you asked nicely and gave yourself as a consolation prize, I’d be so relieved to give up any responsibility for the future, I’d simply comply? Even though you’ve already made the decision when it comes to your ability?” I picked his underwear off the floor and tossed it to him.

  “I just thought if I—”

  “No.”

  “Ailith—”

  “No. I’m sorry, Tor. But I won’t. My ability might be essential to our survival.”

  “But—”

  “You should leave. Now.”

  He reached for me, and I stepped back.

  “Please, Tor. I need to think.” As he turned away, a strange prescience flooded me, like it had the day he’d taken me hunting, his dark silhouette against the gray sky, wings of dead flesh heralding his victory.

  Then he was gone, and I was truly alone.

  Mrs. Dormer insisted on sitting in the dark with the blinds drawn so all we could see were shapes rushing past. Orange lights appeared through the slits in the blind, and Mrs. Dormer said they were fires. Screams cut through the night, and large shadows worked their way through the streets, air hissing from their jointed legs. Mrs. Dormer went down to her basement and got a long-barreled gun. She got me to help her push the kitchen table across the back door, and she locked up every room in the house. Then she shoved her ratty old easy chair into the front foyer and sat in it, waiting. She wouldn’t tell me what for.

  —Love, Grace

  After Tor left, I washed every trace of him from me then lay in the dark, fuming and brooding about what I should do. After an hour of turning it over in my head, I got up and went down the hall to Oliver’s room.

  My hand was raised to knock when he opened it, saluting me and wearing a knowing smile that made me want to throttle him.

  “That took less time than I expected,” he said and glanced at my still-damp hair. “I didn’t think he’d give in so easily. Clearly, it didn’t go the way he hoped.”

  “Are we going to do this or not?”

  “Come in.” He opened the door an
d stood back.

  “What? Here? Don’t you need…I don’t know, but something more than that?” I pointed to the system on his desk. It looked a lot like a personal computer.

  “You’re not that fancy, Your Majesty. Sit down.”

  “Well, don’t you need to hook me up to stuff? How do you…connect me?”

  He snorted and waggled his fingers. “I’m the connection. How complicated do you think this is? I technically don’t even need this piece of junk, but until I get my head around all the data in my mind, this screen makes it easier to visualize.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “Shut up and sit down. This may be some sort of pivotal moment for you, but it’s merely lost wank-time for me.”

  I sat. Oliver pulled a chair up to his desk and typed in commands. Numbers and words flashed across the screen so quickly I couldn’t follow them.

  “Oliver? Could you…make it stronger?”

  He stopped typing and leaned back in his chair, considering me. “Stronger? I’m surprised. Impressed, but surprised. That’s awfully controversial for someone who’s not planning to enslave us all.” His eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you mean by stronger?”

  “Maybe stronger isn’t the right word.” I chewed my lip, trying to articulate. “Precise? Can you make it more precise? So that I can control it better? So the connections don’t just happen, or I get some sort of warning, at least? And so I can choose when and where I go?”

  He drew his hands back from the keyboard.

  “Or not,” I said hastily.

  “No, I can,” he said. “But now I owe Pax a favor.”

  “What? What do you mean? What kind of favor?”

  “He said you’d ask me to do that. I figured you wouldn’t. You couldn’t be held accountable for your…visits before, but now you will be. I was under the impression that while you’ve accepted your abilities, you were too moral to exploit them and weren’t planning to use them actively. Now you are.” He flashed me a sly smile. “Interesting.”

  “I’m not planning to do anything. It’s just a precaution, that’s all. And besides, who the hell are you to talk about exploiting your abilities? You used yours to convince an entire town you were a god.”

  “They saw what they needed to see. And they could’ve kept their faith if you hadn’t gotten involved.”

  We stared at each other, and I struggled to tamp down the animosity rising in my chest. Until we figured out what Mil and Lexa were hiding, we needed to work together. I changed the subject.

  “You bet against a guy who can see the future?”

  “Yeah, well, his futures seemed vague at best. Now I know.”

  I laughed. “What do you have to give him?”

  “I don’t know. A favor. He said ‘Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me,’ and then he laughed like hell. I have no fucking clue what he meant.”

  “You should’ve watched more movies when you had the chance,” I said. “Although the remake was terrible. But never mind that. Can you do it? Make my ability more precise?”

  “Yes and no. After Pax and I spoke about it, I had a look at your program. Whereas Cindra’s abilities just hadn’t translated over correctly, your program wasn’t finished. I think they’d planned to complete it later if you survived. But I’m not sure you’d want it to be the way they intended.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He thought for a moment. “Okay, so you know how these ‘visits’ can come sporadically, one random cyborg vision at a time? Or you can go down one—thread, do you call them?—at a time?”

  I nodded.

  “If I’m interpreting what I see in your program correctly, the original intent for your ability would’ve allowed you to be present in every connected cyborg simultaneously and receive a constant flow of information, kind of like what Pax experiences. And it seems to be mostly geared for real-time experiences.” He leaned back in his chair. “I still believe in my death-squad theory, you know. When you think of your ability that way, it makes sense. You could see what was going on with every cyborg in your army, report back, and take action accordingly.”

  “That would make more sense if I could communicate with the cyborgs, wouldn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t say my theory was perfect. Besides, communication would’ve been easy enough to set up.”

  All the visions I’d been having, but constantly, simultaneously, and increased seven-fold.

  It would cripple me. Or worse.

  Oliver must’ve seen it in my face. “I know. I can’t guarantee that your mind would be able to process it fast enough. I don’t think they expected you to live very long.” He actually looked sympathetic. “What I can do is tweak your existing program. It won’t stop the connections, but it will give you more control getting in and out. I can also give you a switch. Then if you ever change your mind, you can turn on the full extent of your ability. But I have no idea what will happen.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  He nodded. After he typed in a few more commands, he stopped, his hands hovering uncertainly. “What about the tank?”

  “The tank?”

  “Yeah, the tank. Tor? Big Daddy? Whatever disgusting pet name you call him.”

  “I call him Tor. What about him?”

  “Well, I can deactivate the part of you that controls him. Everything else would stay the same.”

  Deactivate just that part? It could be my compromise, a way to meet him halfway. And yet…the thought of breaking our bond brought a nameless, bottomless terror.

  Am I really that selfish? Am I becoming what he feared? I needed more time to think.

  “I’m surprised he hasn’t already asked you to do it, to block me from being able to get into him. Like you did with yourself,” I said.

  “He did.”

  “You mean he was here?”

  “He left just before you got here. Wanted his ability set, and more.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I couldn’t. Some things I can change, some I can’t. Only you can choose to break that bond. Unless you die.”

  “Leave it intact. No wait. Remove the code that stops him from leaving.” I could only control him if he stayed. It’s the best I can do. “But keep everything else.”

  “Are you sure? Once it’s done, it’s done. You can’t come back from this. Neither of you can.”

  “Careful, Oliver, it almost sounds like you care.”

  “Me? Hell, no. I’m with you. Keep it. Who knows when you’ll need to use the big bastard.”

  “It’s not—”

  “Like that? I get it. He’s your contingency plan. It’s smart. Cold, but smart.” He cracked his knuckles and stretched his fingers over the keys. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll even refine it, just a bit, for those times when you need to…what do you call it when you move him? Pilot? Whatever. I’ll tweak it so you can do it without leaving your own body behind. You won’t be able to move him much without going fully inside him, but you’ll be able to stop and start him, you know? For example, if he ever decides to turn on you. Or me.”

  “He would never do that. He—”

  “Look, I know you’re having all sorts of complicated feelings and emotions right now, but I don’t care. I give exactly zero fucks about the many layers of your complex and epic love story. Go have your feelings somewhere else, not all over my lovely hardwood floor. Are we doing this or not?”

  “Do it.”

  “Here we go. This might sting a little.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and waited.

  Oliver laughed. “I’m just kidding. It’s done. Now leave. Go be the best overlord you can be.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Like I said before, you’re not that fancy.”

  I stood up. “Thanks, Oliver. I appreciate you doing this. You could’ve wiped my ability out, and you didn’t. I know we—”

  “Oh my god
, could you please just fuck off? I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for my survival, first and foremost. Never forget that. There may come a day when I do take you down. Right now, keeping your ability intact is in our best interests. Now leave, or I’m going to get my knob out.”

  I returned to my room and lay awake for another hour, running through scenarios in my mind where I told Tor what I’d done. In one, I defended myself, pointed out all the ways it could come in handy. In another, I begged for forgiveness with ugly tears of regret. And in the last, I defended nothing. Apologized for nothing. I was unmoved, unyielding, looking only forward. Finally, my tired brain had had enough. I got dressed and left my room.

  Downstairs, Tor stood by the doorway that led out of the compound. His crossbow hung over his shoulder, and he nodded as he adjusted the straps on his pack. Lexa was describing something for him, drawing landmarks in the air with her hands.

  “Oh, and don’t forget to take some food and water with you. You should be able to find everything you need in the kitchen.”

  He looked up at me when I entered the room, his expression neutral. I lifted my chin and stared back at him. His nostrils flared, and he shook his head in disbelief before cutting Lexa off by turning abruptly on his heel and walking away.

  She stood there for a few seconds, gaping after him, then realized I was there and turned, plastering on a too-bright smile that lasted only until she stood before me. Then the smile, like her gaze, dropped to somewhere vaguely around my left shoulder.

  “I can’t do it to you, you know. The mind-reading thing. You can look me in the eyes,” I said.

  The sharpness of my voice spread a blush over her cheeks. “Sorry. I know, it’s just—”

  “What do you want?”

  She cleared her throat. “So, I understand you grew up on a farm?”

  “I did.”

  “Would you be interested in doing that here?”

  “Doing what? Have you been outside? I know this area used to be a veritable cornucopia, but now…unless you want to grow stuff that’s already adapted to the climate out there, I’d have very little luck.”