Auxem: A Science Fiction Alien Romance (TerraMates Book 13)

by Lisa Lace

  With nothing to do but wait, AD-214 turned off the light and made himself comfortable.

  CHAPTER 21

  Amanda couldn’t remember a riot that had ever been good for the people involved. She avoided watching the news because she didn’t want to see a conflict. It was hard for her to see people arguing and fighting, and Amanda thought there were better things on which for her to concentrate. But now, as the cloned cyborgs pulled her toward the entrance of the hospital, she exulted in the chaos she had caused.

  The crowd that came to hear her speak was in a frenzy. There were moving bodies everywhere trying to follow her up the stairs, work their way to their vehicles, and running into each other in the middle. They hadn’t all appreciated the words that came out of her mouth, but they had listened to her. The resulting disorder would ensure that reporters gave the press conference a prominent place on the evening news.

  Once inside, Amanda shook off the grip of the soldiers and headed back for her room. She was familiar with the routine. This time, they demanded that she turn right on the first floor instead of going up the elevator. They led her into a luxurious office and closed the door.

  “That was a curious thing you did, Ms. Conrad,” Dr. Feldman remarked. He steepled his fingers on the large desk in front of him and looked at her with mild interest, as though she was barely a living creature. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything less from you.”

  Amanda shrugged, trying to stay calm even though she hadn’t expected to see him here. She knew she would have to talk to him about her behavior sooner or later, but she wasn’t sure what Dr. Feldman intended for her. “I don’t have anything better to do while I’m here. Maybe if you let me go home, I could occupy myself with a different activity.”

  Dr. Feldman shook his blonde head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, especially after your press conference. I explained I was keeping you here for your protection, but the danger has doubled now that everyone is touting you as queen of the cyborgs. You’re safest here.” His smile looked thin and cruel despite his words.

  Amanda looked around at the plush office with her brows drawn together. “You have an office here, too?”

  “Of course not,” Dr. Feldman scoffed. “But they let me borrow it whenever I have some business that needs to be taken care of.” He flicked his hand toward the door. “You can go now, unless you’ve changed your mind about my proposition. I’m sure you’re getting tired of the hospital room.”

  Amanda put her hand on her hip. Dr. Feldman still couldn’t get over it. He had her trapped and was trying to convince her his penthouse would be a better place to stay. “Sorry, but no dice.” She turned and walked out the office door, scurrying past the guards and escorting herself to her hospital room.

  The guards caught up with her easily, but she still refused to look at them. The cyborgs, even the clones, reminded her too much of AD-214 and Blue Squad. Amanda thought about them constantly, worrying about what they were doing and how long they would survive. The scientist knew they had plenty of survival skills programmed into their systems, but would they be able to apply them now that they were fully self-aware?

  When Amanda and the clones reached her room, she entered without protest. As much as the depressing place was wearing on her, she was not about to let Dr. Feldman entertain the notion of changing her mind.

  A guard took his place outside her door, just to the left. There was always someone in the vicinity of her room. Amanda usually kept her eyes focused on the floor or down the hallway to avoid looking at him, but today something made her glance at the guard as she crossed the threshold.

  She whirled around, certain that there was something different about that particular cyborg. Though she couldn’t put her finger on it, the fact that she could detect anything different about a clone was alarming. The door slammed in her face, and the electronic lock gave a sharp click as it engaged. Amanda didn’t have the chance to see him again.

  The scientist paced around in front of her door, trying to think of a way she could persuade the guard to open it. She wanted to look at his face. There was something about the way he stood and the shadows in his cheekbones. Since there was a bathroom already attached to her room, she couldn’t claim that she needed to use the facilities. A complaint that she was ill would make the doctors give her another round of uncomfortable and unnecessary testing. Could she say she had left something behind at the press conference? She hadn’t brought anything with her, and they knew that.

  Amanda shook her head. How could she think the guard was different when she refused to look at them? Her time in this hospital had been a little over a week now, and Amanda hadn’t looked at the clones once since she arrived. She was beginning to lose her mind or see things...maybe a little of both.

  Feeling impatient, Amanda strode across the room and yanked open the curtains. Her window faced east, and she usually kept the draperies shut against the morning sun that burned through the glass. Now, however, she wanted to see if there was still anything happening in the parking lot below her.

  Most of the crowd had scattered. The front stairs where the conference had taken place were almost directly underneath Amanda’s room, hidden from her perspective, but she imagined the stage hands had quickly dismantled the podium and taken it back into the building. Battered signs lay crumpled on the asphalt, trampled by hundreds of feet. The news crews were loading their equipment back into their vans and heading toward the offices of Internet news and television stations to assemble their click-worthy articles. A remarkable amount of trash skittered across the lot in the breeze, and a fat man in a blue uniform chased them with a dirty street sweeper.

  Though most of the cyborgs had come into the building when they had dragged her inside, a few remained out in the parking lot to supervise the clean-up and make sure none of the rioters stuck around. Amanda zeroed in on them, trying to match them with the guard in the hall. But from her standpoint three stories up, the cyborgs looked the same as they always had: tall, intimidating figures that watched their surroundings with eagle eyes. Not one of them appeared different from the others.

  Amanda’s heart sank as she turned away from the window. She had been hoping it would be otherwise. Though she didn’t expect any members of Blue Squad to know that she was here or be able to rescue her, she couldn’t let go of the idea that she needed to be with them. It was ridiculous to think they would come to fetch her. How would they get away? Where would they go after Amanda reunited with them?

  Feeling adrift in a sea of politics and lies, Amanda flopped on the bed and stared up at the ceiling tiles.

  CHAPTER 22

  AD-214 had spent a long afternoon waiting in the janitor’s closet. The thick scent of heavy-duty cleaners assaulted his nose, and his stomach rumbled noisily. For a cyborg, such things were minor inconveniences. But he longed to come out into the hospital corridor, march down it like a captain, and rescue Amanda. Instead, he watched the time slowly tick by on his interface as he scanned through the same files over and over, wondering if there was a change in the data.

  One maintenance man had come into the closet. AD-214 didn’t want to kill an innocent man, but he was prepared to do what was necessary. Hidden in the farthest corner from the door, he tensed up when the knob rattled. He would have to make sure he eliminated the janitor before he screamed or called out. Otherwise, everything he and Blue Squad had worked for would be wasted.

  When the scruffy old man entered the closet, he didn’t bother reaching for the light. He swung the door open far enough to let in light from the hallway, reached for a roll of paper towels, and left just as quickly.

  AD-214 relaxed after that. When he had studied the blueprints for the hospital, he had no way of knowing what parts of the building were more commonly used than others. Apparently, he had luckily chosen a maintenance closet that was out of the way and rarely visited.

  Now it was time to get out. The guards were about to change their shifts. If everything had gon
e as planned with the rest of Blue Squad, PD-67 had been stationed outside Amanda’s room for the last several hours. The navigation specialist’s job was to keep anyone else from removing Amanda until AD-214 came to retrieve her. As much as he had wanted to rescue her immediately, he knew he needed to wait. He had to let the excitement from the press conference die down and get the cyborgs back into their routine.

  His task now was to move from the maintenance closet to the third floor without being noticed. It shouldn’t be difficult, but his heart pounded in his chest as he quietly turned the doorknob. AD-214 opened the door slightly, just enough so he could see into the hallway and make sure no one was looking in his direction. The fluorescent lights gave a sickly glow to the pale linoleum and pea-green walls that hadn’t been touched for decades. The single beep of a heart monitor sounded from further down the hallway. No humans or cyborgs were present.

  The captain slipped into the hallway and silently shut the door behind him. His next goal was getting to the stairs at the end of the hall. Focusing on the dark brown door, he confidently marched like he belonged there.

  AD-214 heard a noise to his left. The cyborg continued his path, but he heard the sound again, more clearly this time. It was asking for something.

  “Water.”

  The voice was barely a whisper, like the rustle of dry paper being blown about by the wind. AD-214’s feet halted, waiting to see if the other part would continue speaking.

  “Please.”

  A door stood ajar a few feet down the hall on the left. A small tag next to the door indicated it was room 158. The light wasn’t on, but it was the only possible source of the whisper. AD-214 knew he had things to do. His prime directive was to complete his missions without letting anything else interfere, yet he found himself wandering to the door and pushing it completely open. He groped blindly on the wall and turned on the light switch.

  The room was small and smelled of rancid sweat. The light pulsed and flickered, as though it couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to be on or off. The light revealed a man lying in a hospital bed. He lay on his back, reaching out blindly around him. His lips were parched and cracked. Numerous tubes ran from his arm into a machine by the side of the bed.

  “Water, please,” he repeated.

  AD-214 stepped closer. The man was ancient, the skin on his face loose and wrinkled. Most of the hair on his head had vanished along with his youth, leaving behind dark blotches on his exposed scalp. The patient was withered, as though someone had left him out in the sun too long.

  At first, the cyborg wasn’t certain what to do. AD-214 had never encountered an old cyborg before, and the only things in his medical files were instructions on applying first aid in the battlefield. He supposed the shriveled man was telling AD-214 what he needed. The pitcher of water on a nearby table was the solution.

  Without a word, the cyborg poured water into a small plastic cup and handed it to the old man. The patient gratefully gasped as he poured it down his throat. He guzzled it with more strength than AD-214 would have thought possible, then removed the cup from his lips with a satisfied sigh.

  “Thank you.” The elderly patient’s voice was stronger now as he focused his cloudy eyes on his new nurse. “A soldier, eh? I was a soldier once.”

  AD-214 didn’t respond but stared down at the crumpled figure on the bed. He didn’t look anything like a soldier. His arms jutted awkwardly out of his paper gown and what little flesh he had remaining seemed to hang off his bones. The old man didn’t look like he could sit up in bed on his own, much less fight a battle.

  “Will you stay here and talk to me?” the old man asked feebly. “I’ve been here forever, and nobody comes to visit me. I want to hear about what it’s like to be a soldier these days.”

  AD-214 frowned. He couldn’t reveal anything about himself to the man. “I am on a mission.”

  The old soldier smiled and nodded, head bobbing on a skinny neck. “I understand. Well, good luck to you, son. And thank you again.”

  The cyborg turned on his heel, left the room, and headed once more for the staircase. The patient had disturbed him. He should never have deviated from the path that would complete his mission, and he had wasted valuable time talking to the man. Still, he didn’t regret it. There was something about the elderly man that didn’t fit into his operating parameters.

  The stairwell was unoccupied for the moment. AD-214 and his other soldiers had assumed that most of the staff and patients would be using the elevators. The stairs would keep them away from people more than any other route. The captain reached the third floor with ease. His body had fully adjusted to life without the support system of Cyborg Sector.

  This section of the hospital was as busy as the first floor was deserted. Nurses checked charts on the doors of patient rooms and consulted with doctors. Several patients shuffled slowly down the hall in sock-clad feet, clinging to their IV poles for support and not paying attention to hospital gowns which flapped open in the back. AD-214 held his breath as he studied the activity, but he let it go in a rush of relief as he saw that the only soldier on the floor was a member of Blue Squad.

  PD-67 stood in his place next to a patient door down at the opposite end of the hall. He stood at parade rest with his hands clasped behind his back and feet placed shoulder’s width apart. His gaze rested on the wall opposite him.

  AD-214 headed through the door and into the hallway. Since it was right before the time for a scheduled shift change, nobody bothered to acknowledge the presence of a second soldier. He marched up to the navigation specialist, and they quickly saluted each other.

  Before he let PD-67 go on his way, he touched the inferior officer’s arm and whispered in his ear. “There’s an elderly man in room 158. He can’t leave, but make sure you trigger the alarms on his life support system on your way out.”

  The younger officer nodded and headed in the direction of the patient’s room.

  AD-214 took up the post at Amanda’s door with tense muscles. He couldn’t enter the room too early. Each stage of their rescue mission brought him closer to her, but the wait made it seem like she was farther away than ever. It was tempting to go in now, but the third-floor hallway was full of people. It was wiser to bide his time and wait until the floor was less crowded.

  After what seemed like an eternity of watching the other occupants of the building out of the corner of his eye, AD-214 saw his opportunity. The patients had returned to their rooms, and most of the nurses had followed them or disappeared to other parts of the hospital. Nobody was paying attention to an insignificant soldier at the end of the hallway.

  Reaching behind him to release the electronic lock on the door, AD-214 slipped inside. The patient room was much larger than the male patient’s. The light fixture worked, but a long curtain blocked his view of the room. The only thing he could see was an open door to the private bathroom off to the left.

  “Is someone there?” Amanda’s voice called from the other side of the curtain.

  The cyborg didn’t answer. AD-214 had planned every step and prepared for every possibility, yet he didn’t know what to say to Amanda now that he was finally in the same room with her.

  “Yes?” She sounded a little more impatient this time. The curtain whisked aside to reveal the blonde scientist. Tousled hair hung about her shoulders. The slightest remains of mascara clung to her eyes, giving her a smoky appearance that set AD-214 smoldering deep inside. She had been in the process of changing into her night clothes and hadn’t had the chance to button up her shirt all the way. Round breasts peeked at him from between the placket, tempting him to rip the clothing off and carry out the fantasies he had in the cave. The nightshirt hung down to her bare thighs. AD-214’s breath caught in his throat, and his tongue went dry in his mouth.

  As soon as she saw him, the hand that had yanked back the curtain immediately went to her mouth. Her feet padded softly on the linoleum as she took two steps back, and her eyes flicked to the door behind him. H
e knew it was locked. He had secured it personally.

  “AD-214?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Amanda blinked warily, expecting the vision of AD-214 before her to disappear. She had imagined this, fantasized about it, and hoped for it, but had never believed it would come true. She reached out an arm to touch his sleeve, just to be sure.

  “How are you here?” she asked. “How did you get in?”

  The cyborg captain shook his head impatiently. “There’s no time to explain. Get dressed.”

  Amanda nodded as she reached behind her to retrieve some pants from the bed. She pulled them on without taking her eyes off AD-214, too caught up in the moment to worry about modesty in front of him. “I’m ready. What’s the plan?”

  The soldier produced a sheaf of papers from a pocket. “I have forged orders to transport you to Cyborg Sector. They should get us where we need to go, or close enough.”

  “Okay.” Amanda pulled her shoes on as she tried to wrap her head around the situation. It seemed impossible, yet it was happening. Her brain didn’t want to cooperate, however, refusing to think of what she should be doing beyond following AD-214’s orders.

  The big cyborg stood before her with broad shoulders and a look in his eyes that meant business. Amanda felt a tingling sensation deep inside her, as though she were coming back to life. She wondered for a moment if this was how the cyborgs felt once they had gained sentience. It felt incredible as the numbness and disconnectedness fell away from her body. During her stay in the hospital, she had been the helpless Amanda Conrad, subject to the whims of Dr. Feldman and the media. But now that AD-214 was back, she was strong and could get through anything.

  “I think I’m ready,” she said, taking a final look around the room. There was nothing here for her. She didn’t want to take a single thing with her.

  “Good. We spent a lot of cycles coming up with this escape plan. We have to act like we are supposed to be here. Pretend I have authentic orders to bring you with me. Do you think you can do that?”