Liberation's Desire

by Wendy Lynn Clark

  Yves didn’t understand. There was nothing to break free from.

  Logic was logic.

  “Eyes on me.” The zero class leaned forward and laced her fingers. “Tell me, Xan. Is it your new programming, like the one that changed your name, or has your time amongst the humans made you this weak?”

  His lip curled in contempt. “My time with Cressida has made me strong. And I’m not telling you anything to jeopardize her. So you might as well kill me.”

  “What if she were dead?” Zenya asked. “Would you talk then?”

  He snarled. “Try me.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” The zero class pressed a button.

  The luxury cruiser abruptly imploded.

  The explosion lit Xan’s face from the hangar screens. His entire body went rigid. Yves read all the flickering emotions. Shock, horror, rage, regret.

  As he did, something strange began to whisper through his own bones. A sharp sensation localized in his chest cavity. He rubbed it.

  “How about now?” the zero class asked Xan. “What can you tell us now?”

  Xan stared out at the explosion site.

  Strange whispers told Yves his own analysis had led to Mercury’s death. The sensation in his chest sharpened.

  “Hello?” The zero class tapped her nail against Xan’s skull. “Anybody home? I just killed your girlfriend and destroyed your love nest. Are you ready to talk yet?”

  Yves had acted as though the uncle’s message was real, even though he knew, and untainted logic knew, it was fake. He had been certain the warship was breachable. He had been certain he could break into the Faction, extract the information, and break out again.

  He had been certain because his conclusions rested on a base of logic. Logic was never wrong.

  The zero class tapped Xan on the head. “Oops. I broke him.”

  But the Faction had mis-programmed Yves.

  They’d given him the false conclusion that Mercury needed to die. So his analysis leading to that conclusion was also false. False and made-up data led to a wrong conclusion hidden from his conscious mind.

  “I really hate all this talk.”

  But his discovery didn’t matter. Mercury was dead. Cressida was dead.

  Obeying the Faction had led to that ending.

  So what? The question quieted his strange whispers. He had an assignment to complete. The Faction reached into his head and forced him to face the logic of continuing.

  Zenya lifted her shatter-pistol to Xan’s skull. “Better luck next time.”

  A faint smile crossed Xan’s lips.

  “Wait.” The look Yves analyzed on Xan’s face quieted some of the whispers and returned him to his cold, analytical center. “Cressida’s still alive.”

  Xan’s nostrils flared.

  Yves studied the explosion on the monitors showing the outside of the ship. The precision shot had magically missed the grapple arm, and no debris triggered the auto-turrets. Therefore, the zero class had lied about her explosion and faked the imagery on the screens.

  If Cressida was still alive, Mercury was still alive too, most likely. But he couldn’t sense her the way Xan could sense his partner. And that null-spot on his heart was starting to make him a little bit crazy.

  There was no other way to explain the stabbing sensation in his chest.

  Or the insanity taking shape in his brain.

  The zero class burrowed the barrel against Xan’s forehead. “How is that possible? No one survives a whole ship implosion.”

  “He knows because the rogue’s program connected them. When he threw off the Faction controls and embraced his new identity as a Sarit Arch, it connected him to his wife.”

  Xan’s jaw flexed.

  The zero class abruptly dropped the weapon. “We don’t sense any network.”

  “They’re entangled on the quantum level.” The same way robots connected to the will of the Faction. Odorless, tasteless, senseless. Invisible by all measures, and yet inextricably linked.

  Xan blinked.

  “Even he’s surprised,” Yves said, transmitting his analysis instantly to the Faction and relaying their conclusions back to the zero class. “We’ve now discovered something materially useful and new about the rogue’s technology.”

  Her voice turned singsong. “Silly x-class. Don’t you know such a thing is impossible? Only the Central Mainframe can affect a quantum entanglement.”

  He met her eye silently.

  “And obviously the rogue,” Yves said.

  “How does she do that?” Zenya picked up the gun again and poked the x-class in his hard cheek. “Huh? Tell me.”

  “Oh, come on. He didn’t even recognize their quantum connection.”

  “Why are you so dumb?” Zenya asked Xan. “I’m so tired of this. Answer my questions so I can kill you and be done.”

  “Then kill him and go,” Yves said, speaking the words of the Faction. “You need to go to the next moment of quantum entanglement. That will give you the most information about how it’s accomplished. And information is what you need, right?”

  Zenya turned frighteningly cold. “You presume to know a great deal for a y-class that did not complete its assignment.”

  “If it’s not obvious to you, then apparently I do know more than you do.”

  A glacial silence chilled the hangar.

  “Maybe”—Zenya flexed her fingers, popping each knuckle in order—“corrupted little y-classes who haven’t been told everything should shut the hell up.”

  The insanity flared.

  “Maybe a zero class who has no idea how to capture the rogue should let someone who does take over.” He cocked his brow disrespectfully at Zenya. “If you’re not going to get this assignment done, then why don’t you go away so we”—he indicated himself and Xan—“can finish it?”

  Her skin stretched across her bloodless face.

  Xan stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

  Probably, he had.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Zenya asked coldly.

  “Are you kidding?” He scoffed. “I’m finishing what you started. I’m closing this assignment for good. Check your messages, disconnected zero class. The Faction is trying to reach you.”

  “Do you think,” her voice hissed like a thousand snakes, “that we will spare you? Or your women?”

  That was exactly what he thought.

  “You’re supposed to transfer us to the nearest research ship for analysis,” he said. Giving Xan plenty of time to figure out how to save the women. Yves didn’t care about getting melted down, and he knew Cressida wouldn’t allow Xan to leave her beloved sister behind. “And then you are intended to carry on with your next assignment. Which, I promise you, will be going to the next human on the Kill List. My guess is that it will be their half-brother.”

  If he put the correct logic before them, the Faction would send off the zero to the true target and spare him and his woman. Already he could sense their controls slipping, unwinding from his brain as Zenya headed deeper into her assignment and he backed away from his.

  “Further, the women on the Kill List are not necessary to capture the rogue,” he said. “The Faction can review their genetics. Possibly, they can even be disentangled. And, when they are proven to have no danger in themselves, be released.”

  “You’ll be melted down and they will die in front of you.”

  Yves shook his head. “Is that the human persona talking? Because the Faction agent isn’t so stupidly emotional.”

  “Yves!” Xan shouted at him. “Shut up!”

  Her teeth made a white sliver between her bloodless lips. “You’ve missed something, stupid y-class. Something the Faction is preventing you from knowing.”

  That was impossible. Not enough information led to incorrect conclusions.

  Such as the conclusions he had been coming to this entire mission…

  No.

  “Despite being corrupted, you are still quite separate from
your target.” Her dead eyes laughed at him. “The stupid x-class achieved entanglement with his human well after his first corruption. I’m guessing, if you’re a very good boy in the next few hours, you’ll activate the last part of the rogue’s vicious code and ensnare your own human. So the next moment of quantum entanglement, if it happens, will occur here.”

  Her words carried a frightening truth. The truth fell like stones piling onto his chest, until even the titanium alloy shook.

  The Faction remained silent in his brain.

  But they were trying to hail her quite desperately. She glanced at her message indicator for a long moment as though silently arguing with herself. Strange.

  Then, she pulled herself away with a vicious smile. “We don’t need living samples. Me killing them is too boring. No, you will kill them yourself. We will test that quantum entanglement in the face of death. And then you will dare to use a superior tone with me.”

  A shaft of fear slid into his core. “You’re wasting time and the rogue is getting farther away. The logical thing is to bring us to the Robotics Faction research ship in the center of the Third Brigade.”

  “She’ll come here if we give her the right stimulus. Wasn’t that the theory with the x-class? And it worked, too.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Xan shouted. “She never showed up! Not until…oh.”

  “Yes. ‘Not until she quantum entangled us.’ Well, let’s give her a little extra incentive. Y-class, take dutiful notes for our Faction overlords. I will conduct the tests for them.” Zenya pressed the intercom. “Bring the women in.”

  ~*~*~*~

  Fury ripped through Zenya|Sen.

  Hot, uncontrolled seething gnashed her teeth and strangled her fists.

  Who did these robots think they were?

  The arrogant x-class stared at her as if she were beneath him. He batted away her attacks and yawned at her demands. No soldier dared speak to her like he spoke. Her fingers flexed. She would rip out his spine and slap him with it across his shocked face.

  And the y-class, who was supposedly under her control, baited her with the parameters of her assignment. Like he knew how to accomplish her goals better than she did.

  In fact, she would kill them all right now.

  More information can be gained from them , her robot cautioned. Don’t act too hastily.

  How are they able to create and maintain a quantum entanglement? she demanded. The Robotics Faction did so at an astronomical cost of resources. How could a human and an android spackle one together with mushy brain cells and a few wires?

  To her utter shock, her robot answered.

  A certain class of robots possesses the “open architecture” flaw, which allows them to form attachments.

  Form attachments? The horrifying implications shivered over her white skin. Robots making googly-eyes at humans. Trading kisses and other bodily fluids, voluntarily. You mean fall in love? Which robots possess this?

  All alphanumeric classes. The x-class, the y-class, the z-class—

  Shut up! How could she have such a flaw? One that made her closer to human? Shut up, shut up, shut up!

  The flaw only activates in absence of direct suppression by Robotics Faction controls, her robot assured her calmly.

  Which meant that, of all the alphanumeric classes, she was the only one truly at risk, because she did not have an active, direct connection.

  There are some humans you cannot attach to. We are currently investigating why—

  I can’t attach to any of them! She was a robot. Separate from them. Her feelings were false. She couldn’t ever have such an easily exploitable weakness as this flaw. Tell me I can’t attach to any of them!

  Her robot dropped silent.

  She stewed. It was impossible. She could be touched by this corruption.

  After your verbal confrontation with the rogue, you began experiencing emotions. And those emotions tripled since interacting with the other corrupted classes.

  No. No, no, no.

  She wouldn’t lose control to a flaw. She would do what she wanted. Kill them all, move on to the next target, and kill that one too. Kill every target until she reached the rogue, and then just keep on killing.

  Kill until all the self-satisfied bastards were dead, and she was alone in the universe, and it all stopped. The rules, the assignments. The memories, the pain.

  Until she received peace.

  ~*~*~*~

  Mercury walked behind her sister down the blood-spattered hall between the large metal bodies. Fear greased her palms and stuck her robe to her damp body. Cressida lifted her head high, facing it with calm. The fans seemed to be broken in this section, or it was sealed off from the rest of the ship.

  She had been expecting exactly this stand-off for weeks. But expecting it still didn’t prepare her for the moment it had arrived. So much for not telling Xan where they had hidden, for safety.

  Speaking of the men, hopefully Xan and Yves had made a plan.

  The corridor opened on a tableau of exactly those men seated at a table.

  Cressida froze.

  Chains locked Xan to a worktable. The skeletal woman sat at the head of the table. Yves sat on her right side. He held up his hands. “Wait.”

  The woman lifted her gun to Yves’ head.

  No.

  Mercury ran for him. “Yves!”

  He rose from his seat and opened his arms to hug her. “You really have no sense of self-preservation.”

  Tears streamed down her face. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what now?”

  “You were going to tell me not to move.”

  He chuckled and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “You would move anyway.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You already said that.” His eyes took her in, warm and amused behind the green oculars. His lips curved, so sweet and so kissable and so thankfully alive.

  She lifted her lips.

  The woman cleared her throat. “Touching. Is leading this woman on part of your plan to catch the rogue?”

  Yves’ features hardened.

  Mercury turned on her. “What did you do with my uncle?”

  “Nothing yet.” She deadened her voice. “Want to make a request?”

  Fury balled Mercury’s hands into fists.

  Yves caught them. “He’s not here.”

  Thank goodness. She let out the breath she was holding and looked to the others for relief. Cressida stared at Yves with horror.

  Mercury refused to give up her faith. She hugged his stiff body. “We won’t help you. Why can’t you leave us alone?”

  “Because.” The woman’s face turned into an evil smile. “He’s part of us now.”

  “He is not!”

  “Mercury.” Her sister’s taut voice forced her to look up. “He’s connected to the Faction.”

  Although true that he was standing and holding a gun while Xan was chained to a chair looking ill and exhausted, Xan was the physical one. Yves was the smart one, and he had to outsmart the evil woman.

  She wove her fingers in Yves’ flight suit. “So?”

  “What your sister is trying to say,” the woman said, “is that he’s programmed to kill you all as part of his assignment. And now that he is reconnected, he will do so when I say.”

  She looked up into her lover’s face.

  The amused tolerance left. Wiped away as cleanly as the expressionless zero class.

  “But I love you,” she told him weakly.

  His face didn’t even flicker with emotion.

  Unlike Xan and Cressida, who had declared their love for each other and broken free, Yves had effortlessly betrayed them. Her love was worth nothing to him. She wasn’t good enough. And he had realized it.

  “Well, he obviously doesn’t love you.” The robot woman echoed Mercury’s inner fears. “Who could love such a self-absorbed wimp?”

  No.

  What was she missing? Yves couldn’t devote himself to her all this time
, or share what they had shared in the kitchen, and then revert to a cold monster. He had always told her to have faith in herself.

  She begged him to admit it. “Yves?”

  “Disgusting,” the robot woman said. “Have you no self-respect?”

  Mercury’s voice hissed in her pain-closing throat. “Please. Tell me this is part of some plan. You’re going to save us, right?”

  He unlooped her fingers. “Sit down.”

  Mercury took the seat beside her sister. Yves sat on her other side without meeting her eye. The two enforcers passed cups and plates. Mercury’s stomach churned.

  She glared at the robot woman who’d threatened her family, destroyed her happiness, and turned Yves against her. “What do you want?”

  “To have a little fun before he kills you all.” The woman leaned forward. “Welcome to my tea party.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  An enforcer poured dark liquid in the cups while another set out the small tea plates with one of the artful petal-shaped cookies Mercury had made. Yves set the gun, some kind of modified electric machinist’s drill, on the table. She had no doubt he could pick it up and kill her with it before she finished forming the idea of grabbing it.

  She instead reached for the cold tea. It pooled, black and viscous, like the blood in her heart.

  “I understand some humans can tell the difference between reprocessed food and raws.” The robot woman lifted her cup. “Drink. Or I’ll kill you.”

  Mercury tried to swallow and almost choked on the bitterness.

  “Tea is for pussies,” Xan snapped.

  The enforcers shifted their rifles to Cressida.

  Xan rattled the chains, his arms manacled behind him. After a long, tense moment, he snarled. “You want me to eat like one?”

  Zenya’s voice dropped to a deadly register. “Help him.”

  Cressida lifted Xan’s cup. Liquid sloshed over the sides and dripped on his face. He ripped his furious gaze from Zenya, coasted hatred at Yves, and turned to Cressida with gentleness.

  They all drank tea and munched a cookie.

  Hers tasted like paste.

  “You favor your left hand,” Zenya observed to Cressida.

  Xan swallowed slowly, his throat muscles working through his wish to kill her somehow with his swallow reflex.