He thought about last night’s dinner, how Trev’s presence had protected him. That made him pause. He’d considered for half a second that Trev did not seem like a bad man. But of course he had to be.
Trev was in prison. Maximum security. And he was a Damico.
Khim watched Trev enter their cell. Scanned the plaza again, saw Deb and his cohorts moving along one of the lines. His muscles hardened. He had the strength to take those men down in about ten seconds, twenty if they were armed. But he could not use his strength. It would be his death sentence for sure.
The best course was to avoid.
About two minutes later, Trev exited their cell and turned in Khim’s direction, moving toward him.
Khim suppressed a sigh.
As Trev passed him, he said casually, as if he were actually respecting Khim’s boundaries, “Aren’t you hungry?”
Khim didn’t answer.
Trev shrugged and moved like a panther down the stairs. At the bottom, Khim watched a robot sentry halt him, scanning his wrist. “You have a visitor,” it announced. “Door 8.”
“Thank you,” Trev said.
Khim let out a huff of air. One did not thank a robot.
Trev moved off across the plaza. He was going to miss breakfast.
When the lines shortened, Khim descended the stairs and stood at the end of the nearest one. He was one of the last to take a tray and a seat. Deb and his gang were across the room, but they saw him. He pretended to ignore them, but of course all his senses were tuned directly onto them.
When they finished, they came by his table, which was empty but for him.
“Hey, Herc,” Deb said. Khim kept eating, eyes fixed on nothing. “If I were to tell you to bend over, you’d have to obey, wouldn’t you?”
Khim chewed on a piece of buttered toast, focusing on the flavor, how the butter was actually better than the kind they’d gotten on Doom in Shadow.
“Are you one of those rape models? Inquiring minds want to know.” Khim swallowed. “You’re certainly pretty enough. But rumor says you’re military.”
Khim did wonder where rumors got started. Not from Trev, he decided. Trev didn’t seem the type to talk about others, unless he’d told Kant while they had dinner yesterday. But Khim had watched that scenario, and throughout the dinner, Trev had spoken little and eaten little.
“Well, Herc, which is it?” Deb grinned. His bald head reflected almost white in the cafeteria lighting.
Khim took a sip of water, slow and casual.
Deb said, “The sentries aren’t everywhere all at once. Be wary, Herc, or you might find yourself in a place where we can test our theory.”
Khim put his water down, looked up, and met Deb’s hard eyes. “You want to fuck me?”
Inside, he’d gone very cold. Like when he let all his senses focus on his guns, on slaughtering the enemy one after another after another, the spray of blood, red and brilliant under alien suns, rising up in perfect ruby geysers.
Deb laughed. “Fuck you? I will break you.”
Khim nodded. “In a place where no one will see. I know. And they won’t see, but you will know the wonders I can do. With my body.” He held up his right hand, the metal sparkling. “And with this hand. In secret places that are soft and yielding.”
Deb danced back, then forward again. “You think you can get the better of me, fucking asshole? Think again.”
“I am thinking about it,” Khim said. “Vividly.”
He’d never talked to humans this way before. It both terrified and exhilarated him.
“It would mean your death sentence.”
“Well,” Khim agreed, “if anyone saw. If we were caught, then yes, you are correct.”
Deb actually flushed. “You wait. You just wait. And don’t stop looking over your shoulder. Just because you have a Damico in your cell doesn’t mean he’ll always be around.”
Khim simply nodded. But what Deb said was true. Trev would not be around. Not if Khim had his way and changed cellmates. A quiver passed over him. What was he getting himself into?
KHIM WAITED at Door 7.
Trev had been gone the whole morning. Probably in meetings with high-powered lawyers, the best that rich men like him could afford. Maybe Trev would get out of here soon. But Khim couldn’t count on that. He needed—wanted—to change cells.
The robot sentry scanned his chip. The round door twisted open. A sentry on the other side waited to escort him to his advocate.
The corridor offered a familiar view of space. Khim had seen that view a thousand times and catalogued a thousand different shades of dark, depending on the proximity of suns, shiplight, planetlight, nearby auroras…. The stars had a unique ability to reach inside of him and make a fist. Then twist. He had actually liked being on a starship, despite the atrocities of war.
The sentry took Khim down the corridor and to a hall that led to offices. The first office door was open. The name on the door read “Mr. Julian Weatherford.”
The sentry announced, “Khim 18367.”
A man behind a desk looked up. He had long black hair tied into a braid. The desk was covered with little statues of animals carved from wood: wolves, bears, deer.
Khim’s footfall went from hard floor to padded carpet. On the walls of the office were paintings of woods in moonlight, of ruined cities like broken chess pieces covered in vines. The room seemed closed in but serene.
Weatherford had a bunch of digital papers lined up in front of him, as if he needed multiple readouts for his job. Maybe he did. He said, “I see you only just arrived yesterday. How was your orientation?”
Khim said, “Normal, I think. I’ve never been in a place like this before.”
Weatherford smiled. “You’re here for murder. You know that this is completely anomalous for one of your status.”
“A death sentence was narrowly avoided,” Khim stated.
“It was. Because of that, and what—who—you are, we will be monitoring you carefully. Any step out of line involving violence and it’s the end of the line for you. You’re on your last strike with the law. I’m sorry to say it, but it is the truth.”
“I know the truth.”
But he hadn’t known. This was a prison. Did they expect him not to fight, not to defend himself?
“Do you think you are a danger to others?”
“Isn’t everyone here a danger to others? Isn’t that why they’re here?”
Weatherford looked at him thoughtfully, as if assessing him. “I can see that you’re polite and well trained. The question, and the problem, seems to be how you respond when provoked.”
This was not what Khim had come here to discuss, but he was interested. He could only nod.
“I could order you placed in solitary for your own safety. But seventy years of solitary? No man would survive it. At least, not mentally.”
Khim’s eyes widened.
“Here’s the layout as I see it,” Weatherford said. “If you are provoked, if someone attacks you, you must endure it. It’s the only way. It’s wrong, I know, but you cannot be involved in altercations. I will see that the sentries keep an extra eye on you, but that’s about all I can do.”
No one Khim had yet seen among the inmate population could best him, but his status meant the opposite. He could potentially be bested by them all—if not in reality, in theory. He took a deep breath. “I understand.”
“How are your injuries?”
“Adequately healing.”
“I do see that the severity of them was what perhaps caused leniency in your sentence. And yet abuse of androids is within the law.” He sighed, looking down at his readouts. “We have had androids here before, but very, very rarely. But I can say the prison population may respond to you oddly.”
Khim nodded a second time.
“You should know you may come to me at any time with any problems.”
“To have those problems solved, or to talk?”
Weatherford smiled. “I’ll do w
hat I can.”
Silence. Khim wanted to ask to be moved to another cell, but he’d started to have second thoughts. The problems he’d already faced, which Weatherford had confirmed might worsen within the prison system, could all be curbed by the presence of Trev. He hated Trev and his family. He didn’t want anything to do with Trev, but could he use the Damico name to get by? To avoid confrontations, as his mind told him to do? To stave off provocation?
He did not want to die. Living was a struggle, but something inside him kept waking up each day, willing and ready to face that struggle.
Weatherford leaned back. His chair bounced a little, springy. “So, what did you come to see me about?”
Khim started to speak. Stopped.
Weatherford wove his hands behind his head and stretched his elbows out. “I have read all of your file. You were a decorated soldier. No insubordination, no record of trouble at all. Your battle injuries sidelined you. In all fairness, being sidelined was not a life you had ever been prepped for. To deal with that may not be in your skill set. I can get you into group counseling. You are not the only one in this prison who is a victim.” He paused, then added, “Of rape.”
Khim’s nostrils flared slightly. “The man I murdered was the victim. Not I.”
“Point taken. But experiences like these cause problems. Shock, post-traumatic stress, aggression, depression. What happened to you was legal, the murder you committed a crime. And you had no previous record in ten years of any wrong behavior. You are a victim of your situation, and it is the only reason you’re still alive.”
“You may insist upon that label of ‘victim,’ but I have never known any other way of life. I don’t need the counseling.” Then he remembered this guy was not a robot and added, “Thank you.”
Weatherford brought his arms down, leaning on his desk. “You are a trained killer. All legal. Then you killed in self-defense. For anyone else, still legal. But not for you. I don’t think that’s fair, and I don’t want to see you put down.”
Fair? This man was talking about fairness. How naive and sweetly innocent in a place such as this. Khim wanted to laugh.
“So I want you to come to me before you take problems into your own hands. Do we have an understanding?”
Khim could have broken him in half just to show him how fair life really was. How could he talk to this man honestly, openly, if he was such an idiot? Weatherford was not a problem solver. He shuffled prisoners into cubbyholes and hoped they stayed there and made no trouble.
He managed to grate out one word. “Yes.”
“Good. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?”
“About my cellmate, Trevor Damico.”
“I don’t discuss inmates with other inmates.”
“I just want to know if I should have anything to worry about from him.” Khim frowned slightly, watching the other man’s response.
Weatherford’s eyes darted about the room. “He’s not violent, if that’s what you’re asking. That’s why he’s in with you. It was not a random pairing.”
Khim nodded. His time here had been wasted, except for that one fact. Trevor Damico, he now knew, was a man he could most certainly use.
WHEN KHIM returned to his cell, Trev was there, curled on the top bunk facing the wall. Asleep. His gray pant legs rucked up about his dark slip-on shoes, showing his black socks. The trousers were loose on his small frame, bunched about his narrow hips.
Five minutes until lunch.
Maybe things had not gone well for Trev with his high-powered lawyers. Khim couldn’t make himself care.
Weatherford had promised Trev was nonviolent. Weatherford insisted they’d been deliberately placed together. Why? So Khim would not be provoked?
Khim was here for seventy years. When Trev left, who would they put in Khim’s cell then?
After five minutes, Trev still had not awakened. Khim left the cell and went to his customary position on the second-floor deck, watching the inmates line up.
Sometime later, he joined the end of one line. He ate his lunch in peace. Deb and his group had apparently already eaten and left.
Khim thought about how Trev’s status had so effortlessly protected him from harassment while Khim had to withstand the taunts of bullies. If he was going to survive, he needed to be smart.
He put an apple in his left pocket, a roll in the right. At the exit, a sentry stopped him. “You cannot take food with you outside the cafeteria.”
“I did not know.”
“The rules are posted in the exercise rooms and media rooms, and there is a posting right here in the cafeteria.”
Khim produced the roll and tossed it in a nearby trash receptacle. “I’m new. I’ll go read the rules now.”
The sentry’s red eyes pierced his gaze, and then the head swiveled away.
Khim walked out.
When he returned to the cell, Trev looked as if he had not moved. Khim set the apple on the sheet beside his pillow, then bent to get onto his own bunk, folding his long legs underneath him, and reclined against the wall.
He waited.
Chapter Eleven
TREV AWAKENED slowly, eyes swollen, stuck shut. His father’s face kept flashing across his mind. He clenched his fists hard, wanting to kick and beat at the wall.
It would do no good. Chest tight, he focused, took slow breaths, and rubbed his hand across his eyes, clearing them. He slowly turned over on the mattress. A round yellow-green object came into view.
Trev pulled his legs up, then balanced on the edge of his bunk and leaned slowly down with the grace of a dancer. He had heard Khim breathing, so he knew he was there.
The man in the lower bunk was sitting very still, legs unfolded flat in front of him, looking back at him with vivid, dark blue eyes. All upside down.
“What’s this?” Trev threw his arm over his head and waved the apple with its fluorescent green skin through the air. He was surprised he had a voice, all his emotions still sizzling too close to the surface.
“You missed lunch.”
“I have a headache.”
“I don’t know how to procure aspirin except through the infirmary.”
“Why are you suddenly talking to me?” Trev asked. It could not be that this person who’d tried to punch him yesterday had such a sudden change of heart.
“You spoke first. I answered.”
“You made it very clear you don’t like to talk.”
Khim said, “Yes. I did.”
“So what’s the apple payment for? What do you want?”
“Why do you think I want something?”
Trev was getting tired of hanging upside down. He pulled himself up and sat contemplating the apple. Every muscle in his body ached from emotional exhaustion, but his head was the worst pain of all.
There was an old myth about the apple of sin. Well, so be it. He opened his mouth and bit into it, reveling as the sweet juices dripped down his throat. Chewing, he replied, “Everyone seems to want to take something from me today, not give me things.” He didn’t want to think about the morning. His father. He clamped down the quiver of depression in his chest—he’d cried enough—and took another bite. His stomach woke, telling him he was very hungry.
“Because of your name, people here seem hesitant to provoke you.”
Trev heard a tone in the words that was like a wavering chord of gold. Khim was designer made right down to the voice. Liquid. Sibilant.
“Damico.” Trev’s breathing was easing up now that he had something else to concentrate on. “I hate that name. But it is true that it generates respect.”
Khim said from below, “I would like to purchase your—protection.”
Trev nearly choked, swallowed a piece of the fruit whole. He leaned over the edge of the bunk, perfectly balanced, to look at the android upside down again. “What?”
Khim blinked up at him. “You do look ill. Did your meeting not go well?”
Trev winced. “How intuitive. Did I hear you s
ay you want to buy my protection?”
“Correct.”
“I don’t even—but—but why?”
“I believe I’ve lost the ability for aggression control. And the rules for me, even here, are not the same as the rules for all.”
It was more information than he’d heard Khim say altogether in twenty-four hours.
Khim continued. “If I slip up and hurt another human, I will be put down because of what I am. I would very much like to survive, at least for a little while. I don’t like to be touched, and what control I have seems to dissipate when that happens. If you are there, in an intervening sense and as a Damico, events of provocation would be fewer, and I might get through at least the next few months alive.”
“Events of provocation,” Trev repeated. “You mean that asshole Deb.”
“Among others.”
Trev righted himself again, stretching his legs out and hanging them over the side of the bunk. It had never occurred to him that Khim would be under such a great threat. Of course he’d had his own problems on his mind, but this man he shared a cell with was in actual, immediate danger.
This was serious. If what Khim said was true, the man was not even allowed to defend himself. That would end quite badly for him, with his looks, in a prison for violent offenders.
“Uh, what currency do you have?”
“Currency?”
“To pay me,” Trev said. This was intriguing. And it was taking his mind off his own problems. When he thought about it, he realized he actually could help this guy.
“Well, I gave you the apple.”
“Oh yeah.” Trev felt himself smile a bit. “Thanks. It’s buying you this consult.” He flinched. He heard his father’s voice in his words and hated it, hated himself for taking that stance with a man in peril.
“What would you want that—that I could give?” Khim asked.
Trev heard a strange waver in that beautiful android voice. He had already made up his mind. “Simple.” He leapt down off the bed, turned, and faced the man in the lower bunk. “A friend.”
The look on Khim’s face turned to horror.
The Android and the Thief Page 11