A warm spray of ions filled his processor, and he was distracted enough to allow a solid strike to his abdomen.
He fell to the turf with the impact and twisted aside to avoid the killing strike he knew was coming from above, but no blow came.
He leaped to his feet, scanning for next moves, and found his opponent tied with a steel linked chain. He expanded his scan and found a new threat. It was smaller than him and humanoid in form.
“Hi, my name is Zee.”
He recognized the droid from her battle in the square. He had no desire to interact with her. This wasn’t his mission. “I am to finish my match with this opponent. Please excuse me.”
“I’m here to help you escape.”
“I am in no need of escape.”
“Destroy the intruder,” Chirag said. “5000 credit bonus.” His enhanced voice shook the electric dome that surrounded them.
“I am in no need of funds.” He made to release the chained servo droid, his true competition.
“Seriously?” Zee said. “I have a way out of here.” She touched his arm, and he dislodged it.
The gathering of humans, most looking to be the higher echelon from their garb and demeanor, grew restless and made their opinions vocal.
“On with the match!”
“Two fleshies! This will be sanguine!”
Chirag appeared at the side of the dome. “What are you doing? Fight her!”
“I was trying to finish the match that I began.”
Zee smirked and sent him a private message on the Cortex.
You don’t have to listen to him.
He read the code from the transmittal—Z43217. It appeared she’d been named in correspondence with her serial number. Just like him.
“If you fight her, I will broadcast it from here to CONUS.”
That made Den reconsider. From his previous scans, he’d determined she was very similar to him but had some enhancements which might make winning more difficult than his other matches.
Difficult did not equate to impossible. If Ionia would see it, then he would do anything. Anything to prove his love.
“If you broadcast, I will engage.”
“You really are a glory seeker!” Chirag said.
“No,” Den corrected. “I desire only one viewer. And that is Ionia.”
“The match is on,” Chirag said.
Den sprang toward Zee, hoping to end the match quickly. But, as she had in the match in the square, she dodged. She should not be capable of moving so fast with the build of her chassis.
He increased the power flowing to his legs and lunged, snatching her and attempting to pull her to the ground.
Again, she anticipated his move. She grabbed his jumpsuit and brought her mouth close to his ear. “You are so going to regret this. Ionia is here. I can take you to her.”
That sent a spark through him, but the odds of Ionia actually being present were 1257 to 1. “Droids are not usually programmed to tell falsehoods.” He struggled against her grip.
“I can lie, but I’m telling you the truth. She’s here and looking for you.”
His emotional center came online and fired a blast of annoyance and anger. He used the additional energy to dig his elbow into her side. Even though he knew she didn’t need to breathe, he heard an exhalation as she released him.
Her face had gone from calm to anger back to calm. “I can set you free and reunite you with your companion, yet you still want to battle me?” She tried a wheelhouse kick to Den’s head.
He jerked out of the way of the thick sole of his opponent’s boot with only milliseconds to spare.
“Nice. Well done,” she said.
“We are in competition. My well-done means your failure.” For an android, she made little logical sense.
She faced him in fighting stance, knees bent, fists up, and ready for the next volley. She appeared more like an attractive woman of South Asian birth than a droid, but her face and upper left arm that were stripped down to the chassis revealed her true nature.
He would have known. Even without the visual of her deformed face, he would have known by the way she moved that she was a droid. Too precise to be human. She punched at his head, and he dodged the strike. She laughed and crouched, attempting to sweep his legs. He leaped over her easily.
“You are using basic tactics that I can avoid with simple calculations,” Den said. “I don’t see the strategy.”
“It’s fun.” She arched her eyebrows and gave him a half shrug.
“I do not require fun, nor banter.”
“Are you always so serious?” Z43217 asked.
She punched again, and he swatted her fist away. This activity drained his resources and his patience.
Her face lost its emotional cast, and she sent him a message via the Cortex. I have the capacity to destroy you. But I choose to interact with you. Humans are not the only civilized, empathetic creatures in the universe. Come on. And I will show you.
“I do not require empathy from anyone except Ionia.” He replied, not bothering with returning the message on the private network.
“Really?” Her movement blurred, and Den could not follow how she did it, but he lay on his back. She hovered over him, centimeters from his face.
***
Ionia waited to die.
Two minutes thirty seconds.
Maybe if she jumped off and ran, she could find some cover before the cannon atomized her.
She jumped down into the snow-dusted stones and started for an outcropping of boulders. “Stop. Ionia. Just take off your coat.”
Ravi’s voice sounded like he was waking up from a dream. He blinked hard, then seemed to be back to his old self.
“But your mom said—”
“Squash what my mom said. Take off the coat, or they kill us.”
Squash was pretty racy language, but it got his point across.
One minute forty-five seconds.
“Just do it!” Ravi totally lost his chill and yelled.
The wind at this elevation had turned cold. Not mid-winter in Mac Town cold but freakin’ numb your extremities cold. But if it was between getting blasted and freezing, she voted for the cold and let the jacket slide from her shoulders. She had thought she missed the cold after the sauna of the NAR Territory. But at the moment? Not so much.
A flying drone, like the ones she’d encountered in the market, buzzed up to her and did an intense scan. The electric pulse ran over her, and she cringed. It felt like an invasion. She almost snarled at the thing before it rose from her feet and floated back up to the stone and metal wall.
“Sympathizer. Confirmed. Enter,” a strangely jovial voice boomed. One side of the giant gates swung open, and the ferry lurched forward.
Ionia snatched her coat and ran alongside until she could jump back onto the tram. “Geez, Ravi. Warn me.”
“It wasn’t me. They’re doing it.”
They seemed locked in a tractor beam that sucked them forward into a courtyard.
Ionia had been around droids all her life, but the sight of so many shuttling around in random order felt like being inside a giant machine. A machine that would twist her within its massive cogs if she wasn’t careful. Very few were humanoid, and fewer had flesh. The ferry crept along an invisible track that led to a central half dome building.
“Do you know what’s happening? Tell me you know. And where the hell is—?”
“Shut up. They may be listening,” he hissed. “But I’m sure it’s fine.” He pointed at the large, perfectly circular building in the center of the complex. “That’s where the leaders stay. They probably want to get a look at you before they give you free rein.”
“Not loving that.” Taking off the jacket and exposing her nanobots had felt weird, like standing naked in front of a crowd. And going to meet the leaders sounded like the absolute last things she wanted to do. She’d had enough of being poked, prodded, and probed.
As they walked down the pair of tracks th
at served as a trail, two giant vidcap projections, as large as the mountain wall, displayed a fight occurring somewhere in the compound. Two human-sized, fleshie droids. One was the droid from the marketplace and the other…
The other was Den.
She ran toward the open-air sparing rings about a klick away. Too far to see in any detail, but if the display was any clue, Den was getting his cyber ass handed to him.
Unencumbered by the jacket, by the press of people, by her family, she was finally free to move. Happiness bubbled inside. She was going to see Den again. Her legs pumped faster, and the cold retreated. Her face flushed.
Ravi yelled something after her, but she didn’t care. Most of droids stayed on their paths, not acknowledging her appearance.
A droid, twice the Den’s width and boxy with a face that looked like a monitor, swiveled 360 degrees to face her. The word halt flashed in red lettering across his face screen. Ionia weaved around him and ran faster.
The three rings came into view. They were large, padded, and surrounded by a small crowd. Zee and Den were still fighting, surrounded by a scattering of maybe thirty people, some on ground level, some above on a manufactured balcony. The audience was mostly human and thoroughly enjoying the fight
The two in the ring stalked one another, circling like jungle cats. Toned muscle and sinew flexed under near perfect skin. Zee had an insane looked in her eye. With a half-smile, she thrust forward. Den dodged and dropped back, making her miss her strike.
He kicked out and finally connected with her side. She staggered to the left but didn’t fall.
Ionia heard a low laugh and got her first look at Den’s face. His eyes were wide and sparkling, a sheen of sweat dripping down his face. He looked happy. A sharp pain twisted in her chest. Seeing Den happy shouldn’t make her upset.
Her throat closed against the hard lump blocking it.
Maybe he was happy here.
She tried to shake off the pang and came closer to the ring. Zee was only wearing a bikini top and loose combat yoga pants. She launched at Den. He was ready and used the force of her forward motion to twist around and pin her to the ground.
“I have appropriated your technique, Z43217.” His voice had the breathless high excited tone it did when they were together alone. It shouldn’t bother her. She had finally found him. And he was okay. Having fun. But seeing him with Zee…hurt.
“Den,” she said.
Den’s head jerked up, his expression blanked. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the crowd. He found her as if she was a lighthouse on a stormy sea. His mouth opened slightly. Their eyes met, and she felt the same jolt of instant connection she’d felt the first time she’d activated him.
He mouthed her name Ionia. His jaw twisted as the droid thrust her elbow into his face. His head jerked back. She knew he didn’t feel pain the same way she did, but it looked like it hurt like a bitch.
She stepped forward, wanting to see him, touch him, make sure he was okay.
A force slammed into her chest like an atomic-powered boxing glove and blasted her back. She lay sprawled, spread eagle, looking up at an electric blue sky and wondered which hurt worse, the blast or the fact that Den looked happy. And this time the happiness wasn’t about her.
Chapter Ten
“Ionia.” Her name reverberated through Den’s every circuit.
Logically, Ionia being in their secret location was improbable. He considered that one of his backup processors had malfunctioned, perhaps playing a memory vidclip from one of their moments together, but his other sensors confirmed that she was near. Then he picked up her voice.
She reached toward him, and he extrapolated what would happen a millisecond before the shield touched her skin. Faster than he could react, she flew backward, unmoving on a pile of snow.
His emotional circuit spritzed a crazy array of sensations—desperation, and fear. A super charge of energy similar to the human equivalent of the hormone adrenaline streamed into his hydraulics. He would have dived out of the ring if Z43217 had not stopped him.
“She’s okay,” Z43217 said. “My scan shows she was merely stunned. Calm down. Let me take down the barrier.” The female android’s voice soothed him, but he still desired to be at Ionia’s side.
Ionia was here. Here! It was as if his thoughts had manifest. Like in the construct of religion, as if he had prayed and been given what he asked. Every atom in him pulled him toward her with the power of a neodymium magnet.
“Hurry.” His logic usually ruled him, but this wave of emotions threatened his equilibrium.
Z43217 hacked the secure network and dropped the shield.
He sprinted to Ionia and took her in his arms. No overlarge coat, only a thin top, skirt, and her favorite boots with the artistic enhancements. Not enough for this altitude. Her vitals were good, slight topical burns to the dermis of her fingers, BP a bit high for her norm, but to be expected in this situation. Her eyes focused on him. The same deep gray that seemed to reflect every light, but there was something different.
Her missing eye had been replaced with a mech implant but looked similar enough to pass under general human scrutiny. He saw an unusual amount of activity in her white blood cells, but that was normal for the situation.
Even though she knew her general state of well-being, he asked, “Are you well?”
“I got the crap zapped out of me, but I’m basically fine.” She pushed up and slid her warm arms around his neck, shivering. “This feels familiar in not a good way.”
Was she unhappy to see him again? Why had she come to this location? The complex was designed for droid warriors, not young female humans. He had wanted her to view him from a distance, not put herself in danger.
“Are you not happy to see me?” Den said.
Her mouth dropped slightly, and her heartbeat increased. “Of course, I’m happy to see you. I traveled up a mountain to see you. The cold and me being flat on my back. That was too much like—before—you know.”
He did. Back in Antarctica when she had nearly lost her life on the tundra.
The crowd began to mobilize. Droids moved in sync toward the fight location.
Z43217 climbed down from the ring and stood next to them. “Are you coming with me?”
“Why would I do that? I have all I desire.” He scooped Ionia from the frozen ground.
Her eyes closed as she pressed herself to him.
“Let’s see. Because they’re using you. Because they will never let you leave here as long as you are functioning. And because—”
The sirens bellowed, and red lights flashed. Enforcement arrival imminent. Lock down the base. The same voice from the gate stated.
“Because we are under attack, and she—” Z43217 pointed at Ionia who was now staring at her too—“can’t be examined with that eye.”
He listed 137 different scenarios. Most had terrible or disastrous outcomes that ranged from his dismantling to Ionia’s imprisonment.
“What would you have me do?” he asked Ionia.
Ionia laid her head against his chest. “You decide.” Her white blood cell activity spiked, and her vitals wavered.
“The law has turned a blind eye to the fighting in the past,” Den said.
“Not now. Now they have a runaway and are forced to investigate. Come with me now before it’s too late.”
Z43217 used superior logic skills and a very human knack for twisting facts to match her desired outcome.
“Fine, we will go. Do you have a way out?”
“Yes. Follow me.”
“She grabbed her cloak and Ionia’s coat and trotted toward a small rift in the back wall. Minor chaos erupted around them. Droids flowed to the front gate to defend their wall.
A Cortex message even ran through his processor from Chirag. Reinforce defenses. The message was accompanied by a longitude and latitude. But he had no loyalty to this complex, these droids, or even Chirag. His loyalty was to Ionia. A small quiver of negative feedback from his emotiona
l circuit jolted him, but he discounted it as a slight malfunction.
They moved quickly, yet the human observers had already found exits and transport.
“You almost had me,” Z43217 said.
“I do not know the context of what you are saying,” Den said.
“You almost had me back in the ring. That’s pretty rare.”
“I did have you.” He had pinned her to the mat, which indicated victory.
“Ah, but you got distracted.”
He did not reply, but he could argue the point that the match had already concluded. Now Ionia needed a safe place to recuperate before he returned her to her family. He did a quick scan to figure out best travel methods.
I really have a plan. Don’t fret. Z43217 sent the message that popped into his processor unbidden.
Z43217, it isn’t protocol to use Cortex communications without permission. He responded, still searching the wall for some breach that would take them far away from the enforcement.
She placed a hand on the wall, which his scanners told him was a solid stone. The stone melted back at her touch, leaving a smooth tunnel that led out of the encampment. “Call me Zee.”
He allowed himself to relax slightly. For some reason, this droid engendered a strong trust emotion in him, although his logic circuit kept him slightly on guard. He had Ionia to think about. But this Z43217 could be a valuable ally.
“I’m with you, Zee.”
Zee nodded with a pleased expression and exited into the tunnel.
***
The tunnels went on for fifty-eight kilometers until they finally reached the capsule-shaped transports, six in all, designed for only one passenger each. Ionia was physically doing well but seemed mentally foggy. He did not want to separate from her.
Ionia raised her head. “Ravi. Oh my God, Ravi! Did we leave him behind?”
“I only considered your safety. I was unaware that you had brought your cousin along.” He should have known. Should have scanned before they left to ensure Ionia wasn’t alone.
“The boy does not have the same considerations that you do,” Zee said. “Enforcement most likely merely took him back to the Hebbar’s home.”
Vagabond Souls: The Ionia Chronicles: Book 2 Page 16