With him were a couple of chain-breakers, two male members of the Consortium I vaguely recognized as having arrived on The Martian Princess, another handful of black leather military types, and Brody—who took looking furious to a level I’d rarely witnessed. Betrayal lanced through me. He’d said only he could save me, but now he was there working for the enemy. There could be no doubt of his connection to Belikov, even if I didn’t know how it all fit together.
“She was supposed to be intact,” Belikov said, throwing an annoyed look to one of the mercenaries—dark-skinned, close-cropped black hair, imposing build, lots of weapons.
“We know our job. We get results. If she’s hurt, she brought it on herself,” came the answer in a rough, gravelly voice.
“She was mouthy.” This from Novi.
“You haven’t even heard mouthy yet,” I muttered, wiping at my face with my sleeve again. Still bloody, though it seemed to be just a trickle from my upper lip.
“You should have tortured her. Torture recordings have a guaranteed success rate,” the man in black advised. “I don’t care who they are or how many t-mods they have, there isn’t a person alive who can stand by when they see a loved one being hurt.”
“While I don’t disagree, I need her intact,” Belikov repeated. “That was my only stipulation. If this damages the negotiations and the experiments fail, your people will pay for it.”
“Someone should pay,” Brody said, staring daggers at Belikov.
“That’s enough from you, Brody,” Belikov said. “Your actions are becoming a hindrance. It would be a shame if everything fell apart when you’re so close to achieving what you wanted.” I didn’t like the sound of that. I hauled myself to my feet. Now wasn’t the time for lying on the floor when I needed to get ahold of my fear and get out of this mess.
“What does he get out of this? What the hell is even going on?” I demanded. “You kidnap me and bring me to Phobos and…Whoa.”
I stopped talking. Now that I stood, the view had suddenly become much more interesting.
We were in a large industrial space, full of machinery. I could see robotics and what looked like an assembly line, filled with thin metal frames hanging upright on a relay track, being fed into a series of machines. The frames looked human sized, but from my vantage point, I couldn’t see what happened once they disappeared into the machines. Whatever the Consortium was building, they were making a lot of them. A lot of people-sized lightweight metal frames that needed nothing more than a coating of skin and hair to make them more…human. I gasped, putting the pieces together. A factory on Phobos where the rest of the tri-system couldn’t see, with a pool of unmonitored labor—or raw material, depending on how you looked at it—to draw from. Human-sized machines. And since I was summing up the equation, for good measure I added in Alexei’s programming subroutine that could connect a human mind to an AI and download it into another body.
I was looking at a damned homunculus assembly line.
Then I saw the black box, the one I’d watched the chain-breakers unload from the space elevator. Except now, the lid was off.
To be honest, I expected to see Mr. Pennyworth with his bowl-shaped haircut, sexless features, gray-black hair, and the all-purpose pantsuit. Not so. This homunculus was quite obviously male, naked with genitals fully intact, a muscular build, and short blond hair. Apparently some significant upgrades had been made, but it was no less horrifying.
I shot a look to Belikov. “I’m guessing you decided to renovate your new home.”
“The homunculus you interacted with was a prototype,” he said stiffly. “This is closer to the ideal we originally envisioned.”
“Good enough for you to dump the dying human body you have now and live in it full-time?” I asked.
He gave a sharp, angry bark of a laugh. “Didn’t your cards show you that?”
“They show me a lot of interesting things. You think I got this bloody lip from telling her everything would work out all sunshine and rainbows in the end?” I jerked my head in Novi’s direction.
Belikov laughed again, a real one this time that ended in a cough before he settled. “It’s such a shame Brody wasn’t able to recruit you for the Consortium when he was given the task. As for occupying the homunculus on a full-time basis, we’ll know better once Alexei conducts the appropriate field tests. I’ve grown tired of his delaying tactics. With you here on Phobos, I think he’ll be properly motivated to perform.”
He floated away on his mobile-assist chair while I stood rooted to the spot. I had no idea whether I was meant to follow. Instead, my mind kept looping back to what he’d said, trying to reconcile the words in a way that made sense. Brody was supposed to recruit me for the Consortium? Recruit me? My eyes flew to Brody, who was looking at me so hard, it was a wonder his words didn’t project actual thoughts into my head.
Brody was a member of the Consortium? Had always been a member? But Felipe had said he was a rising star in One Gov.
“Is it sinking in yet?” Belikov asked in a tone of long-suffering patience from where he floated by the homunculus. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Felicia?”
The anticipatory look on his face sickened me, like he was enjoying smashing his favorite toy. The meaning in his words was clear, even if Brody’s eyes said otherwise.
“Brody tried to recruit me for the Consortium in Nairobi?” I asked. But there had never been any mention of that between us.
“Yes, Nairobi. Don’t forget: Your mother came to us first. She wanted the Consortium to support her research. We turned her away, but when the time was right, one of our operatives approached you. It was thought your luck gene might prove useful. Obviously he failed. In fact, it seems everyone I send after you fails. It’s also shown me the luck gene can’t be trusted. Its inherent selfishness and desire for self-preservation override everything else. And that’s why, when this is done, you need to die. It infuriates me to no end that a woman as insignificant as you constantly ruins plans that have taken centuries to implement and finalize.”
He waved one of the men forward and said something in Russian, too fast for me to catch. The man nodded, looked in my direction, and snapped his fingers. I was pushed to my knees in an unshakable grip.
“Years of bioengineering and genetic research all wasted because of you,” Belikov continued, warming to his theme. “First Brody. Then Alexei. Then the homunculus project. The quantum teleporting. Everything that came near you was sucked into your orbit until it failed. It was as if you were One Gov’s greatest weapon against us and they didn’t even know it.”
I looked at Brody, stricken. I’d always thought he’d been the one to help me get over Dante’s rejection. And now to learn he’d been using me? That recruiting me had been his test to assuming the Consortium leadership just as Alexei’s had been to win the Mars transit bid? Was it once again all lies? Gods, was there a man in the tri-system who wasn’t lying to me?
“When he failed with you, he thought he could leave this behind. What he forgot is no one walks away from the Consortium,” Belikov chided, throwing a glance in Brody’s direction. “He may call himself Brody Williams and not bear the Consortium’s markings as Alexei does, but inside, he’s the same. He just happens to come from an earlier genetic stock.”
I gasped softly. How was this even possible? Brody and Alexei were both experiments bred by the Consortium? And I’d been thrown into each of their paths. Suddenly I had to ask even if I dreaded the answer: “Vieira said Brody had three years of time unaccounted for. Where has he been?”
Brody’s lips pressed together in a thin, hard line and he said nothing. Not that it mattered because Belikov was more than willing to share. “Why, here on Phobos, locked in a cell. As I said, no one walks away from the Consortium. Punishment was required for his failure. Since Siberia disappeared under the waters on Earth, we don’t have gulags anymore. This penal colony was the best I could arrange under the circumstances, until I had Alexei break him out wh
en I needed him again.”
And now I had the answer to the question I’d forgotten I asked: Alexei had been on Phobos the night I’d witnessed the explosion in the sky. He’d been breaking Brody out of prison at Belikov’s request.
“Why would Alexei agree to that?”
“Even I concede I created a tangled web for myself,” Belikov lamented. “Sometimes my ideas don’t always bear the fruit I anticipate so I thought it best to revert to the original plan. Alexei was taking the Consortium down a path I didn’t want it to travel. I couldn’t control him any longer nor stop where all this was heading. Brody convinced me he regretted his past failures, so I decided a second chance was in order and brought back the only credible threat to Alexei’s hold.” He gestured to Brody. “Alexei may have suspected there were others out there like him, but he couldn’t know for certain. I worked hard to keep them unaware of each other.”
“So you told him some bullshit story that the Consortium needed Brody and Alexei broke him out of prison for you?”
Belikov looked impressed. “Despite your uselessness, you really do have flashes of surprising insight. You must get that from your mother.”
“Except with less crazy,” I said between gritted teeth.
“But more annoyance,” he added, laughing as if he’d just told the most hilarious joke. “Of course, Alexei mightn’t have been so willing if he’d known he was freeing his rival. But after it was done, it was easy to keep him occupied. The threats to you, the unrest with the mining unions, and off-world tunnels collapsing—all carried out by mercenaries Alexei couldn’t link back to the Consortium.” He gestured to Novi and all the others dressed in their black leather and loaded down with more weapons than seemed necessary. Then he made another gesture to the factory and the machines with the half-assembled homunculi. “I couldn’t have put this together if he was watching, could I?”
“And if Alexei is out of the way, does Brody know he’s only holding the reins until you get your robot body and can take over the Consortium?” I asked, loading the statement with all the sarcasm I could muster.
Belikov looked thoughtful. “You’re better at this game than I gave you credit. There may be something salvageable in you after all. We’ll see in the next round of breeding templates.” Then he sighed and murmured, “I’m tired of explaining myself to children. Someone silence her before her nattering kills me.”
My nattering? I was immediately gagged by either Novi or one of the two men with her. My gold notes were on Novi.
With the bloody lip, pain throbbing through my cheek, and my fear cresting hard, it was nearly impossible not to hyperventilate. Looking at Brody hurt. I thought our time together had meant something. And now to realize how big and twisted this game was and how high the stakes were—it was frightening.
“Why isn’t this working? Does Alexei need more incentive, or was I wrong about her importance to him?” Belikov mused, sounding frustrated.
“We could try it my way.” That, from the leader of the mercenaries.
“Fine. See what your people can do.”
A hand grabbed my hair, using it to yank my head up. My pained scream was muffled by the gag, but it didn’t stop the hot, prickly tears from rolling down my cheeks. I was dragged face-to-face with the asshole who’d recorded me earlier. Only now, I understood the purpose: I was being recorded in all my pitiful misery as a personal invitation to the only person in the entire tri-system who could pilot the homunculus but, so far, much to Belikov’s annoyance, had refused to do so.
The other two Consortium members were muttering softly with Belikov while they stood over the black box. Abruptly, they jumped back. It didn’t take long to figure out why.
The homunculus had opened its eyes and was slowly rising out of the box.
Everyone watched with a muted awe as the thing rose from its coffin. I know I was mesmerized as it pulled itself up on two feet. It stretched, as if its muscles were cramped from lying in the same position too long. Then it shook itself the way I’d seen dogs do when they were wet, before settling to stare passively at all of us.
It…He? I wasn’t sure what to call it. I knew Alexei piloted the body and the body was obviously male, but it was still an it to me. It was tall—not as tall as the chain-breakers, but certainly tall enough. The skin was a smooth, golden color, and I could see the eyes were deep blue. It was decently muscled throughout and almost too well endowed. Definitely a step up from the Pennyworth model; Belikov had certainly gone for flashy the second time around.
“You took your time,” Belikov murmured.
“There were issues with the connectors,” was the answer, said in a low, deep voice.
“How do you feel?”
“Tolerable.”
“Does it feel as if you could pass for human?”
It looked down at its hands, legs, and whatever else it could see of itself. “Perhaps. I can’t be certain yet.”
Belikov nodded with approval. “The key at this stage is to make the homunculus as human as possible, or the mind won’t accept the transition. That was the problem with the previous model—it wasn’t human enough. And of course, the toxin buildup from the energy source,” he said, giving us all a science lecture nobody wanted. “Both are overcome this time. The energy source is self-contained and rechargeable, with built-in power nodes that link directly to the Consortium’s net-interface. This model also has biological imperatives that give the pilot a sense of its own humanity. It will still feel hungry, though there is no need to eat. Food will be consumed and the by-products voided. Some energy will be gained, but it won’t be the primary source.”
As he spoke, the homunculus examined its surrounding. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, unable to reconcile that this…thing was Alexei. I was having Pennyworth flashbacks, sickened by the wrongness of it. If I lived through this, I was going to put myself into the best therapy I could afford.
When it spotted me, it fixed me with a look so penetrating, I felt it creep along my skin. It made its way toward me, the gait unsteady, then moving with increasing confidence and speed until it stood in front of me. I shrank back into the hands holding me captive. The fist in my hair tightened and I felt a metal tube pressed to the base of my skull. Great, if I moved, Novi would blow my brains out.
I tried not to flinch as the thing touched me, moving a hand over my hair, along my skin, carefully grazing the tender area around my cheek. Fingers went under my chin, lifting my face. Its own face was expressionless, as if it hadn’t figured out how to move the muscles. Even though the hand didn’t feel like Alexei’s, the way it tilted my head and the tenderness as the fingers trailed over me were the same.
I heard rather than saw Belikov float up beside us. “Do you want her?” he asked. “Physically? Emotionally?”
“Yes,” it said honestly. “I want her very much.” And it seemed to be the case too because at my eye level, I caught twitching in the genitals. Wonderful. I was giving it a hard-on.
Belikov clapped his hands, thrilled. “Then we were successful in replicating the human sex drive. This is excellent news,” he said to anyone who cared to listen. I personally wasn’t one of them and would have said so if I wasn’t gagged.
As if reading my mind, the homunculus removed my gag, carefully lowering the cloth until it fell around my neck. When the hand pulled away, I saw my blood on its fingertips. The homunculus looked at it too, staring hard.
“I said she was to be unharmed,” it said.
“So you did, but you can’t anticipate every detail.”
“No, you can’t,” it agreed.
As it spoke, it brought its other hand up to touch me, as if it couldn’t leave me alone. This was familiar behavior—these constant touches and little strokes along my skin. Alexei did that when we were in public, silently communicating that he wanted me and planned on having me at the soonest opportunity. That the homunculus did it now freaked me out, yet it also reassured me Alexei was in there somewhere.
> “Don’t touch me like that,” I whispered, trying not to flinch from its fingers as I gazed up at it.
“I’m sorry. The synthetic hormones running through this body amplify its responses so they’re stronger than anticipated. Every urge and emotion feels magnified.”
I nodded as if that actually made sense. “Don’t let them turn what we have into a field test they can analyze after they kill me.”
That stopped the touching. It nodded, then caught my hands and scowled, the facial muscles finally working as it gazed down at the carbon ties binding my wrists.
It turned to Belikov. “So this is the direction you’ve chosen?”
“I will do whatever is necessary to ensure this project succeeds. Prosti, but it means using whatever resources are available.”
“Then we have a problem, Konstantin. I was unanimously appointed head of the Tsarist Consortium. That means all issues are brought to me first. All projects come to me for approval. You have input, as do all members, but the final decision is mine.”
The homunculus snapped my carbon ties as if they were nothing. Circulation resumed as blood rushed back into my hands, the tingling almost painful. I flexed my numb fingers, trying to shake off the sharp, itchy ache.
“Do you believe your decisions outweigh the wisdom of nearly five centuries?” Belikov scoffed. “An organization as old as ours shouldn’t be led by one so easily manipulated by a pretty face. There are billions of others like her who would willingly spread their legs for you. When you realize where your real responsibilities lie, maybe you’ll be ready to truly lead the Consortium.”
The homunculus shook its head, a scolding look on its face. “You may not be aware of this, but I cracked your memory blocks a week ago. I also spent considerable time sifting through the data.”
The Chaos of Luck Page 31