Chapter 30
"All right, Lily, just calm down," I said as soothingly as I could. "Tell me, why do you have to kill me? I haven't done anything to you, have I?"
"I . . . look, Blue, you seem like you're a nice guy, and -- and maybe you don't deserve this, but . . ." Her mouth worked for several seconds, but no sound came out. She was starting to tremble, but I noticed that the blaster remained rock-steady. Finally, she blurted out, "It's the voices. I have to kill you to get rid of the voices!"
"Voices? What voices? What are you talking about?"
She was really shaking by now. "Ever since I can remember, there have been . . . these voices . . . that speak to me in my head. They talk to me almost all the time, ever since that first day I woke up in the tub of water. They used to talk to me about Uncle Oswald, but -- but now they talk to me about you! They never stop!"
I felt a chill run down my spine. Was Lily psychotic? Had whatever JB Swift did to her driven her insane? "What do the voices say about me?" I asked cautiously.
She swallowed. "It's always the same thing. 'Make sure he's happy with you. What can you do to make him happy? Make sure he's not angry with you. What can you do to keep him from being angry?' They say it over and over and over. They're not as loud if you're not around, but if you're where I can see you, it's hard to think about anything else."
A light dawned, and suddenly I thought I understood. "Do they say these things to you because I'm a completely trusted user?" I asked. "Is that why you're always so anxious to please me?"
"Uh huh." She removed one hand from my blaster and swiped at her eyes where tears had begun to well up. "Sometimes, if I've been really good, they'll be quiet for a little while, but they always come back. And if I'm bad, they get really loud and really angry."
All of a sudden, I was glad Lily couldn't see my face and the thundercloud that must have formed upon it. She wasn't psychotic at all. No, this was something JB Swift had done to her; there was no other explanation. And suddenly, a whole lot of things made sense.
It was no wonder that she was focused completely on me whenever I was around her, no wonder she had begged Shelley to keep me away from her. And it was no wonder she was so frightened all the time. I imagine I would be pretty messed up, too, if I had voices screaming in my ear every minute of every day.
And it was JB Swift who had made her that way; he had sentenced her to a lifetime of continual psychological torment just so that he could have a willing, reliable slave. Funny, towards the end, I had almost begun to like JB Swift. Now, though, I wished the little red bastard were alive and in front of me so that I could do to him what I had done to Bat-ears.
"It didn't use to bother me so much," she was saying. "At first I just accepted them; I thought everybody heard voices. But then I met Lin-fa, and she -- her memories -- they showed me what it was like to be free. Now, I . . . I just can't live like this any more! I can't!"
I shook my head sympathetically. "Oh, Lily, I'm so sorry. I had no idea," I murmured. "I don't want you to live this way, either. I don't want you to have to hear those voices all the time. Is there any way I can help you?"
Her eyes widened briefly, as if it surprised her that I would want to do anything for her. Then she shook her head. "I have tried to find out whether there's a way," she said, "but it's something I'm not allowed to think about. Whenever I do, the voices keep getting louder and angrier until I have to stop."
Then she tried to smile at me, a ghastly-looking thing. "But I found a way!" she stage-whispered to me. "When I heard that Uncle Oswald was dead, the voices stopped talking to me about him. So as soon as I know you're dead, they'll stop talking to me about you, too. They'll have to!"
I felt my heart sink when I saw the excitement in her face. A thought occurred to me. "I imagine those voices are getting pretty loud right now, aren't they, what with you pointing a blaster at me and everything?"
She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. "They're making it hard for me to -- to think, to concentrate. My sister-self is helping me keep them quiet, but it won't be long before they --"
"Wait a second," I interrupted. "You said that Li Lin-fa is helping you?"
"She is, but don't blame her; it's not her fault! She doesn't know what I'm doing. She loves you! If she had any idea . . ." She drew in a shaky breath and extended the blaster towards me, and I could see her finger tightening on the trigger. "That's why I have to kill you now, while I still can. I'm sorry, Blue!"
"You do realize that you can't kill me with that blaster, right?" I said, playing for time. "It's not powerful enough to kill anyone. And it probably won't even fire for you."
"Oh, it'll fire," she assured me. "They trained me to use a Unity device; I know how to steal enough energy from you to make it work. And I know it won't kill you outright, but it will hurt an awful lot." She lowered the muzzle of the blaster until it was pointed at my left arm, which I still cradled against my stomach. "I'll shoot your broken hand. It shouldn't take long before you pass out from the pain, and then . . ." She shook her head.
"You could have killed me before," I pointed out quietly. "In the other room. I was pretty incapacitated with pain then. Why didn't you?"
She didn't seem to want to answer me at first. Then, as if I were somehow forcing the words from her, she said "I was weak! I saw you lying there, and . . . and you just seemed so helpless. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And I was grateful to you for destroying Lars, I really was! Killing you then just didn't seem right." She bit her lip; tears were filling her eyes. "I'll make it quick, I promise! I don't want you to have to suffer."
"You just want me dead so the voices will stop."
"Yes!" The tears spilled down her cheeks. "I'm sorry! But after you're dead, they'll have to stop talking about you, and then I'll be free, because you're the only person left who can command me."
That struck a chord somewhere in my brain. We had talked about this before, she and Shelley and I, and I realized that Lily had forgotten something. Sure, I was her only completely trusted user, but . . . "What about the earrings?"
I must have caught her by surprise, because she drew back the blaster ever so slightly. "The what?"
"The earrings," I insisted. "The ones that they use to control you. If they catch you here, you know they're going to put those earrings on you again. And I'm the only one who can override them, right?"
All the color drained from her face as she realized what I was talking about. She nodded jerkily. "I . . . I hadn't thought about that." She licked her lips nervously. "I can't let them put those earrings on me again. I can't! What am I going to do? Help me, Blue! Please!"
"All right, take it easy," I said. I decided it would be pointless to mention the irony of her begging the man she was intending to kill for help. "Is there any way I can turn off the earrings? Any command I can give you to make you immune to them?"
"I don't know!" She was getting close to panic now. Her eyes were wide and her breath was coming fast and ragged. "I don't know! I -- I can't think! The voices are too loud!"
"Lily!" I snapped. "Tell me how to free you from the influence of the earrings!"
She gasped as if I had slapped her. Her eyes unfocused for a minute, and when she spoke again, it was with the flat, toneless voice of operator mode, "To revoke all access from user Earrings, say 'Revoke all access from user Earrings.' Note: This is an operator-mode-only command. To issue it while I am in commander mode, you must prefix the command with 'Operator mode override'."
Her eyes came back into focus, and she gave an anxious start. She checked her grip on the blaster, as if to make sure I hadn't taken it from her. "You did that on purpose!" she said accusingly.
"Of course I did," I answered, unabashed. "It was the only way to get you to give me an answer. Now, do you want me to help you or not?"
Her face
fell. Truly, she looked miserable. "Yes," she said in a broken voice. "Yes, please. Give me the command."
I took a breath. "Lily, operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Earrings."
"Please confirm."
I repeated, "Lily, operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Earrings."
Her eyes lost their focus again. "Revoking . . ."
I waited patiently for the minute or two it took for her to process the command. When her eyes refocused this time, she again seemed surprised to discover that she was still holding the blaster. "You could have disarmed me," she said softly.
"I know," I replied, "but I decided not to. I trust you, Lily. I know you're not going to hurt me."
"I . . ." She slowly lowered the blaster, dropping her gaze to the floor. She heaved a long, slow, resigned sigh. Then, without warning, she raised the muzzle of the blaster and squeezed the trigger.
Of course, we all know what happened next, don't we? Or rather, what didn't happen. I looked down at where the blaster beam was striking me. Her aim had been perfect; the beam was centered square on my shattered left hand, and if I had been surrounded by a force shield, I'm sure it would have hurt like hell. But I was Junior Prime Blue now and the beam didn't affect me at all, as I had known all along it wouldn't.
I returned my attention to Lily. A look of horror was growing on her face as she realized that I was unaffected by the beam. She released the trigger and let blaster drop from her nerveless fingers. Then she collapsed slowly to her knees and covered her face with her hands. She sobbed, "No, no, no!"
I moved over to kneel beside her as quickly as I could. "It's all right, Lily," I crooned. She was crying uncontrollably now, her face pressed against her knees in a fetal position. I reached down with my good hand and stroked her hair gently as she rocked back and forth. "Everything's going to be okay."
She flinched at my touch. "I'm sorry!" she cried out in an anguished voice. "I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me! I swear I'll never do it again! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
She was sobbing so hard that I could barely make out what she was saying. "It's all right, Lily," I said again, continuing to caress her. "I'm not angry with you. I'm not going to hurt you. Everything's okay."
It took several minutes before she was calm enough to understand what I was telling her. Eventually, though, she raised her head and stared at me as if she couldn't believe my words. "You're n-not angry?" she stammered. "Even though I tried to kill you?"
"I knew it wouldn't work," I said as gently as I could. And then, before it occurred to her that there were other ways to kill me besides blastering me into unconsciousness and then breaking my neck or something, I went on hastily, "That command you told me about, the one about revoking all access, would it work for me? What would happen if I ordered you to revoke all access from user Trevor?"
"If you did that, then . . ." She stared off into the distance, her eyes flicking back and forth as if she were reading something a mile away. ". . . then you would no longer be a completely trusted user."
"Would it make the voices go away? Would you be free?"
She nodded slowly. "Yes," she said in an awed voice. She looked up at me with an expression that was so pathetically hopeful, it nearly broke my heart. "Yes! Would . . . would you do that for me? Please? Please? I'd do anything you want -- anything!"
"Of course!" I grinned at her, even though she couldn't see it beneath my Junior Prime Blue mist. "I never wanted to own you, Lily," I said. "All this time, I just wanted to be your friend. Now, make yourself comfortable and listen close, because I want to say this only once. Are you ready?"
She sat up straighter, brushed her hair back, and swiped at her eyes. "I'm ready," she announced.
"Lily," I said, "operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Trevor."
"Please confirm."
"Lily, operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Trevor."
Her eyes lost their focus. "Revoking . . ."
Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee Page 31