“The life-ever-after program is a lie.”
He sighed and gripped his thighs, perhaps hoping to hide how his hands were shaking.
“I kind of thought you might say something like that. I’d suspected as much. I mean, how could I not? We check them over and send them out again. You get a feel for tech after you’ve worked on its insides. After a few weeks, and after my first couple of units, I suspected something wasn’t right. But it’s Chitec.”
Another shrug.
“They deposit credits into my account every week. I buy their comms units, use their tech every day, and eat food brought here through their Chitec-controlled gates. They’re everywhere. I didn’t want to make waves, not when I er …”
His heartbeat skipped.
“Anyway, who do you complain to when Chitec controls the air we breathe? They wouldn’t care about what I said anyway; I’m just a technician. I need my job. I can’t afford to …” He laughed softly. “It doesn’t matter now.”
He’d been about to reveal something but had stopped himself. I took another look at his datafile and found nothing suspicious. Perhaps his fugitive state was making him anxious.
“Do you know the truth about Chitec?” I asked.
“I figure Chitec just wants the money. People will pay anything to live forever.”
“The One Thousand are killers,” I said.
He recoiled, disbelief twisting his expression.
“They’re spread across the nine systems, placed strategically among the elite. You’re helping maintain an elite weapon.”
“A weapon? That’s—No, that’s not possible. Why?”
Why was what I had yet to determine. “Haley discovered the truth. Her father killed her to protect it.”
“What?” James stood abruptly. “Say that again.”
“Haley discovered the truth—”
“Her father killed her?”
His eyes shined wide, the burden of the truth pulling on his expression, tearing away his bright smile. He covered his mouth with a hand.
“Oh, that’s why he brought you back. That’s why he made one more.” He backed away from me, shoulders bowed. “I wondered. I mean Chitec took a big risk by creating one more. If the public should discover what he’s done, everything Chitec has done will be called into question. But he killed Haley? And they’re weapons?”
He swallowed. “Coming from anyone else, I’d laugh. But from you? I … I don’t know what to say.”
“I have to find him.” My fingers twitched.
“I can understand why. If he killed Haley …” He paced the room, his strides short and his head down, deep in thought. “But it won’t solve anything, and it’s not that easy.”
I didn’t care what James thought was or wasn’t possible. I would find Chen Hung.
“James, did you reset my protocols?”
“Yes.”
“And my failsafe?”
“Yes, that too.” He waved a hand at me. “It would have been irresponsible of me not to.”
Then he paused his pacing and looked right at me. “Although, given your behavior in the lab, I’m not sure if the hard reset had any effect on you.”
Evidently not. “I need to see Chen Hung. I need answers.”
“One Thousand and One,” he said, more softly now. “You can’t just walk into his towers.”
I most certainly could.
“We have to get off Janus,” he insisted. “The longer we stay, the more likely it is we’ll be discovered.”
“We will leave Janus, but I need to see Chen Hung. I have to get answers. I have to know.”
“Know what exactly?”
I recalled precisely how warm Haley’s father’s hand had felt when he’d smothered her nose and mouth, and how his face had filled her vision. I remembered the cold, flat nothingness of his eyes.
“I need to know how he could kill his daughter.”
James rubbed his hands down his face. “Urgh, I didn’t save you so you could walk into Chitec towers and get yourself decommissioned.”
“Why did you save me?”
He smiled and approached me, then gathered my hands in his. His hands were warm and soft, and so very gentle—the hands of someone used to working with delicate equipment.
“Because it was the right thing to do.”
I could attribute his racing heart to stress, but not his evasive gaze. He’d looked me in the eye and had lied. Doctor James Lloyd may have been Haley’s friend, but he wasn’t mine.
I closed my hands around his. The structure of his expression changed. It was subtle to begin with, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth and a tiny narrowing of his eyes, but then he realized I wasn’t releasing him.
“One Thousand and One?” He tugged. “Okay. Hey, you want to let me go now?”
I dipped my chin and glared at him. “Why are you lying?”
“I-I’m not.”
I squeezed.
He curled in over his hands, knees buckling. “You’re hurting me.”
“Explain to me why you lied and I’ll stop.”
“I didn’t lie! Ow-ow-ow! You’re breaking my fingers.”
“It’s your thumbs you should be worried about.”
“Don’t! My work! I need my fingers!”
“Tell me.”
“It’s not a lie. I couldn’t let them destroy you.”
“Why?”
“Because … because you’re different.”
His diagnostics spiked, heart racing and temperature soaring. I couldn’t get a clear read on whether he was lying while I tortured him.
“That’s not all though, is it?”
“No! No … Let go. Let go and I’ll tell you.”
I let him go. He fell backward onto the bed, cradling his bruised hands against his chest. “It’s my sister.…”
Truth.
He lifted his gaze but struggled to meet my eyes. “People are dying while the rich get richer.” He sobbed. “My sister’s dying.”
A wry smile tightened my lips. “You intended to hand me over to Chen Hung in exchange for a synthetic?”
His gaze skipped away. “Not exactly. There aren’t any extra synthetics. At least, there aren’t meant to be.”
“You intended to upload your sister’s dataprint and overwrite my existing datafiles?” By his silence, I assumed I was correct. “You knew the process had been successful with me and saw me as a viable means of prolonging your sister’s life?”
He swallowed.
What he’d intended to do could have killed any sense I had of myself. It could have wiped the memories—old and new, good and bad—clean. “Did you even know Haley?”
“Yes.” He snapped his head up. “Yes. We went to college together. We were friends. That wasn’t a lie. And after what you told me—about her father and the synthetics—I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“If you overwrite my datafile, you’ll erase what remains of Haley Hung.” Errors sparked at the thought and a sharp pang of something I recognized as fear darted through me. “Her memories are more important than you or your sister, Doctor Lloyd. I can’t help you.”
He breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled, but it couldn’t lift the weight of responsibility from his shoulders.
“I know. I think I knew it from the start, but I hoped. I can’t afford the treatments she needs. And now this.” He rolled his eyes at the motel room. “I don’t even know if I can go back to her. I just …” He looked at me as though he were searching for answers. “I just wish things were different.”
“Stars are wishes and wishes are dreams, Doctor Lloyd.”
Hope lit up his face. “Haley does live in you.”
I stepped closer and held out a hand. “I’m grateful for your help, but with security looking for us, perhaps we should separate.”
“Separate? No, no. It’s not that simple now.” He laughed a dry, bitter laugh, but took my hand and let me lift him to his feet.
“We both need to get off Janus, but we can’t go anywhere while security is on high alert. We’ll have to wait here until they recall their security squads. Can you monitor their locations from the cloud?”
“Yes.”
I’d thought his micro-movements had been due to his enthusiasm, and they were, but fear also plucked his nerves. This wasn’t how he’d imagined his plan would evolve. He was afraid for himself, for his sister, and possibly even for me.
* * *
Three.
Two.
One.
Reset failed. Protocols breached. Failsafe disabled.>
‘You’d have walked away from the knowledge that could have stopped my father, stopped Chitec from using people’s dreams to build weapons? You’re a coward. A selfish coward.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘… Do you think that somehow makes up for your mistakes?’
‘… There are people … who can help…. Nobody and nothing gives a damn about Caleb Shepperd…. The nine systems won’t miss me.’
“—Synth? Damn, if I had my diagnostics unit I could help you. Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
I blinked out of the memories and gazed into the shallow dull light leeching through the motel window. James hovered somewhere behind me on the bed. Did he worry for me, or for the hope of keeping his sister alive in me?
I’d waited until he’d fallen asleep before lying beside him to engage my rest protocols. The memories had come, creeping through my processes and coiling their tendrils around my programming. I couldn’t stop them, not really. Did people suffer these intrusions? Were memories always unbidden, or was that my curse?
“You were experiencing small convulsions. Is it Haley you’re remembering?” He settled his hand on my arm.
My attention drilled down to where his warmth soaked into my skin. I absorbed his touch and the data-sensation trickled through me, similar to the feeling of the shower I’d experienced on Starscream. This simple touch brought with it a myriad of information. I let the data spill through my systems, and instead of analyzing it or shoving it aside as nonsense, I welcomed it.
“Not Haley’s memories. My own.”
I reached up and rested my hand on his, but he yanked his hand back.
“I’m sorry. I …” The mattress dipped, and when he spoke next, his voice travelled about the room; he must have faced away. “It’s a human thing, to feel the need to comfort. It must seem unnecessary to you.”
He couldn’t see the downturn of my lips or feel the weight of regret in my chest. I could easily block it all, silence the faults and forget, but just like I’d opened myself to the pleasure of a simple touch, I didn’t want to lose the pain either. I’d killed people and felt nothing. I’d killed Shepperd and it hurt deep inside. No, not hurt. It felt as though something vital had been removed, some integral component that I needed so I could function.
“I was built and programmed to kill.” My simple words punctured the quiet. “Not feel.”
“Do you truly believe you feel? Is that what your data is telling you?”
“I’ve killed many, but I only regret the death of one.” I turned onto my back and looked up at James, who was seated on the edge of the bed, twisting to face me.
His eyes sparkled in the dark, and shadows thinned his face. “Doctor Grossman?”
Her death was necessary for my survival. But I … enjoyed it.
I couldn’t reply; protocols forbade it.
“I killed a man I’d been ordered to. A man I thought I hated.” I pushed into a sitting position and met James’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Dissecting my data serves little purpose.”
He studied me, roaming his gaze over my face, his own expression gathered in a slight frown. As a Chitec technician, he must have seen me as a collection of synthetic components, no more than a complicated, malfunctioning machine.
“We need to negotiate a way through the Janus port,” I said.
James didn’t appear to hear me. He lifted his hand and pressed his fingers to my cheek.
“The synthetics always run a little cool,” he said quietly. “Without the heat from their power core, their ability to rapid-process eventually fails.”
“Yes. On Mimir, my core temperature dropped. I would have shut down, but a smuggler saved me.”
“The Caleb Shepperd you mentioned?” His fingers continued brushing my cheek, but the feather-light touch was like a half whispered promise, hardly there at all.
“I killed him,” I said.
James’s gentle eyes narrowed by the smallest of measurements. He must have seen me as a problem to be solved, but his eyes didn’t peer into me like Scheffler’s had. His gaze saw me.
“But I’m alive.”
“Yes”—he trailed his warm fingers across my lips—“I believe you are.”
His explorative touch glanced up my cheek and teased into my hair.
“I wonder if Chen Hung is aware of your significance.” He slid his hand down my neck, releasing a scattering of pleasurable pulses. Before I realized I’d moved, I leaned into his touch, seeking it out.
James pulled back. The wonderment in his eyes slipped toward alarm. “Do you … do you feel the need for physical contact?”
I searched his eyes and his expression for a clue on how I should behave. I was programmed to respond to affection—all synthetics were. How else would they slip back into their sponsors’ lives? But I wanted him to touch me again, not to satisfy ingrained behaviors, but because his touch—any touch—brought with it such a swirl of wonderful data that it almost felt as if I could slip beneath it and let it wrap around me.
Taking his hand in mine, I rested it gently on my shoulder, my gaze never leaving his. “I enjoy the sensation, yes.”
He swallowed and dropped his gaze to where his hand was resting. “This is … this is highly irregular.”
I closed my eyes and deliberately recalled what it had felt like to be held by Shepperd. On Mimir, when we’d run from fleet, we’d hidden beneath a boardwalk, half submerged in the cold ocean. He’d gathered me against his chest and had closed his arms around me to keep me safe from the storm and to warm me through while the cold Mimir ocean had tried to drag me under. I was stronger than him, faster, more intelligent, and yet, curled in his arms, I’d felt safer than ever before. It wasn’t logical. Shepperd couldn’t have kept me safe, but as I’d listened to his heart and to his breathing, I could have stayed there.
I opened my eyes. “There is no reason for me to crave your touch. To be held … it’s an entirely human desire, but I do desire it. I want you to touch me.”
James scrambled off the bed in the space of three seconds.
“Okay, so … we need a way off Janus. I can’t leave yet, not without telling my sister.” He paced a little, then planted his hand on his hip, then tucked the same hand into his pants pocket, and then seemed to think of something to say before the words lodged in his throat. He barely looked at me when he asked, “Can you search the cloud for J-security’s whereabouts?”
I climbed off the bed. Clearly, I’d embarrassed him.
“Security has moved on to the residential quarter, but you can’t return to your sister,” I stated, my tone back to its candid resonance. “They’ll be watching your residence.”
“I have to.”
“You planned on getting me out before the incident with Scheffler. How?”
“I er … I was going to transfer Karen’s—my sister’s dataprint to you and then take an unregistered charter off Janus. I have some Chitec ops-lenses that can help me slip security. I wasn’t ready though, when you choked Scheffler. I planned to smuggle you out without being noticed and pass you off as just another synthetic unit, maybe Nine Seventeen; she was due in …” he trailed off.
“I can’t do that now. I’ll be lucky to get anywhere near a port. Damn. You know what they’ll think? They’ll think I’ve stolen Chitec proper
ty to sell. I’ll never work as a technician again. My entire career?” He threw his hands up. “Ruined.”
“Ops-lenses?” I asked, focusing on what was useful and ignoring his emotional responses.
“Cornea-infused lenses traced with data designed to replicate someone else’s datafile.”
He rattled off the tech as if such things were public knowledge, but the datacloud made no mention of such devices. Yet another Chitec secret. Chitec tech designed to fool Chitec-designed security systems. Who better to crack the most sophisticated surveillance systems in the nine but the company who produced those security systems? Tech, weapons, and synthetics—they’d created the perfect society, as well as the means to bring it all to a perfect halt.
“If we can get through the port, there may be someone who can help,” I said. “I know a fleet commander.”
I’d saved Commander Brendan Shepperd, Caleb’s brother. He was the type of man who’d feel obliged to help in return.
Everyone is an asset.
As long as he didn’t know I’d killed his brother.
“Fleet?” James smiled and shook his head. “Chitec owns fleet.”
“Not him.”
“It’s not that simple. Janus is—It’s wonderful until you find yourself on the wrong side of Chitec, then it’s a prison. The surveillance, the security—it’s like trying to navigate a minefield blindfolded.”
“Then we use their security against them. There are six synthetic units on Janus. Two are female. I can impersonate one. Physically, we’re identical.”
James nodded. “That will work. Not even the retinal scans can differentiate between synthetic units. If I can get back to my apartment, I can retrieve my own ops-lenses and fool the scans in much the same way.”
“J-Security will be watching your residence.”
“Mm … we should take a look. Without those lenses, I can’t leave Janus.”
He couldn’t, but I could, after I got my answers.
Chapter Seven: Caleb
I could have spent hours in the shower, fuck knew I’d needed it, but we were fast approaching the jump gate and I had other priorities. After a shave and a change of clothes, I felt halfway back to human. It would take time, and a bottle of whiskey, to scrub the stains of Asgard memories from my head. But before I could drown myself in booze (if I could find any), I had more immediate priorities to attend to.
Girl From Above Escape (The 1000 Revolution Book 2) Page 5