Khim did not wait to be asked. He rushed forward to deposit Trev on the bed.
“Renn, get towels,” the man ordered.
A whisper of slippered footsteps, a hush of rain against curtained windowpanes.
Khim grabbed Trev’s limp, cold hands in his, rubbing them. “Trev? It’s okay. You’ll be warm and dry in a second.”
“Khim. Are you okay? Are you safe?” Trev’s voice was slurred.
Overwhelmed that Trev’s foremost thought was for him, Khim said, “Yes.” Then, to reassure him, he said again, “Yes.” And he began to gently remove Trev’s torn shirt.
Trev was like a baby, allowing himself to be undressed. Khim threw the wet clothing on the floor. Trev shivered, trying to fold his body inward, curl up. His skin was clammy everywhere Khim’s hands brushed it. Khim grabbed a folded blanket at the foot of the bed and wrapped Trev in it as Renn came forward with a stack of neatly folded towels.
Khim took one of the towels and mopped at Trev’s hair. He took another and wiped himself down as well. Renn approached a second time with two clean robes, long, soft, and black.
“Thank you,” Khim said to him.
One never said thank you to a robot, or any vat-grown slave for that matter. But this was clearly a man.
“Of course,” the android replied.
The white-haired man said, “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Arch. Archer Archimedes. Trev and I have met on two occasions. And you are?”
“Khim.”
“Yes. I see. Khim, if you are running from authorities and they track you here, I can hold them off for a while. If they have a warrant to search the premises, then you understand there is nothing I can do.”
“Understood,” Khim said.
“I have no medic here. But I have a kit. Renn is fetching it now. If, in the morning, Trev is not improved, I know someone discreet whom I can call.”
“What time is it?” Khim asked.
“Nine twenty. We’re on minor continent time here. You are fortunate we were still up. We retire early in this household.”
“Yes,” Khim said. “A lot of things have been lucky for us today.”
Arch came forward, blue eyes glittering. “It is also true that Trevor Damico did me a favor. But the favor backfired. He was to take a fall for me. That didn’t happen. I am under house arrest. This, all you see around you, including my—my—Renn, is to be auctioned next week to pay my firm’s investors.” The glittering in the eyes turned to dim withdrawal. “So I don’t owe him. Not one bloody thing.”
Khim stared at him, gaze unwavering. “Understood.”
Just then, Renn arrived with the medical kit. Khim took it and turned his back on the two of them. He did not hear them leave but assumed they did.
He pulled the blanket away from Trev’s shoulder and opened the kit, finding ample supplies. He was familiar with first aid from the battlefields, so he set about cleaning the wound and administering a syringe of pain medication.
Trev was awake but distant. He had stopped shivering, so that was good. He said, “I won’t forget this, Khim. I won’t.”
“You’re the one who saved me.”
Trev’s eyelashes were dark lace, setting patterns dancing across his cheeks. “Is Mr. Archimedes here?”
“He was.” Khim sprayed synthiskin about the cauterized wound. It foamed.
Trev gave a little hiss, nothing more. “I’m feeling sleepy. Is that right?”
“It’s quite right. You just need rest.”
“Will you be here?”
“Of course.”
Trev reached out. His hand closed on air. Khim saw and put his own hand there for support. Trev grasped it. “I want you to survive, Khim. I want you to live.”
“I’m here.”
“I know, but if you could get away. If you could find a life, I think that would make me feel like—like it was all worth it. Worlds dissolve. But sometimes we can escape them, find new paths, new worlds leading us toward a universe that is so vast. All possibility, Khim. All of it exists. Right now. Right now.”
Khim said, “The shot I gave you seems to be working.”
“No. I mean it. There are places, worlds, where things are different. Where you can live. Promise me you’ll find them. Promise me you’ll live, Khim.”
Khim squeezed his hand. “You’ve done enough for one day.”
“Promise me. Please,” Trev said, tone low, commanding.
Khim, feeling neither obedient nor free of that beautiful voice, said, “I will fight to survive until the day I can no longer stand.”
“That’s who you are. That’s who you need to remember to be.”
Khim finished patching the hole in Trev’s arm and secured the bandage. He patted his shoulder. “There.”
“I don’t feel the pain anymore. Just sleepy.”
“Would you like to get under the covers?”
“Yes.”
Khim helped him scoot to one side and pulled back the brocade spread, the fleece blanket, and a soft cotton sheet. “Better than the bunk beds,” Khim said softly. “Better than prison.”
Trev sat up with Khim’s help, bent his knees, shifted. The blanket fell away. For a moment he was naked under the soft white light, eyes seeking Khim’s. “I am really glad we met.”
Khim felt a wave of helplessness, a kind of fervor at the vulnerable sight of him that both confused and amazed him. He helped him scoot under the covers, pulling them up, covering him. But not before he glimpsed the unchecked beauty of the man who’d saved his life, the man who had somehow hooked him into thinking he could be somebody beyond the constrained and proper laws of vat-born humans.
Chapter Twenty-one
TREV WOKE to the scent of fresh sheets and a clean pillowcase. A thin light leaked around a pair of heavy, dark pink curtains. He heard the faint and airy singing of birds. A man sat in a straight-backed chair by the side of the bed, chin low on his chest, eyes closed, gold falls of hair on either side of his face. He wore a torn white T-shirt and gray prison trousers.
Khim.
Trev sat up, feeling a twinge in the side of his shoulder. The heavy covers fell from his chest, and he realized he was naked. The shadows of the room rested upon each other and on the walls in pink-brown layers.
Trev saw two black robes lying across the foot of the bed along with a rumpled, discarded blanket. He wondered why Khim had not changed yet out of his soiled, hated prison clothes.
Trev pulled the robe to him and shrugged into it, favoring his shoulder, then slid from the bed. As his bare feet hit the floor with a soft sound, Khim woke.
“You’re up.”
“You got us here. Thank you,” Trev said, looking at him. “Did you sleep in that chair all night?”
Khim shrugged. “I believe I did.”
“Mr. Archimedes let you in when you gave him my name. I knew he would. He owes me.”
Khim’s dark blue gaze roved over his body, focusing on the shoulder.
“How do you feel?” Khim asked.
“Much better. I remember you patching the hole. I don’t remember a lot, but I do remember being wet. And rain. Lots of rain. Did you carry me in here? I remember you carrying me.”
Khim glanced at the curtains for a moment, then said in a careful tone, “All of about thirty pounds, soaking wet.”
Trev felt his mouth curve up. Voice low, “Thank you, Khim.”
“The storm lasted all night. It stopped raining about two hours ago.” Khim moved to stretch, the tight muscles of his upper arms flexing, his metal hand glimmering. He stood. His clothing drooped. He looked like someone who had just been through a battle, like the soldier he’d been trained to be.
“We made it. We’re out. Can you believe it?” Trev asked. Khim nodded. “What about the flier?”
“It’s been taken care of. No one will track us here. At least for the moment.”
Trev glanced about the room, then back at Khim. “You look like you need rest. Or at least a shower a
nd some food.”
“We can’t stay here. I don’t trust this man. He says he does not owe you anything. He says his house will be auctioned next week. Along with his android.”
“He has an android?”
“His name is Renn, and he’s been quite helpful.”
“What else did he say to you?”
“Not much. He wasn’t hostile. But he’s in a desperate situation. Men in desperate situations are capable of, well, anything.”
“He embezzled from his company and his shareholders. For years and years. Billions, maybe more. If he’s losing everything now because of me, he might turn us in for a deal—”
“He won’t turn you in,” said a voice at the door.
Khim and Trev turned. Trev had not heard the man come in. He looked impeccable in a long blue coat and white shirt. His purple hair fell in soft waves about his shoulders.
“That’s Renn,” Khim said under his breath.
The android at the door said, “If he admitted to your presence here to any authority, he would further implicate himself. I came to invite you to breakfast. He’ll explain things to you then. You will find clean towels and anything else you need in the bathroom. I have brought clothing I think might fit you.”
Renn entered the room and set a folded pile of clothing at the foot of the bed. Trev and Khim watched him leave and close the door, then glanced at each other.
“Wow. Mr. Archimedes has an android,” Trev said.
Khim raised an eyebrow.
Trev looked at him closely—the softened features, the very different way Khim held himself now that he was not on guard, in prison, or being imminently threatened with death. “What are the odds?”
“Astronomical. You can shower first.”
Trev nodded and entered the bathroom; Khim liked to do things second, always following behind him.
THE KITCHEN swirled with a mix of aromas. Pancakes, fried eggs, sizzling bacon. All the curtains were drawn back, and the view fell on vistas of green lawn, trees whose coin-shaped leaves sparkled in the wind, and a blue sky decorated with white clouds—all that were left of the storm.
Khim looked startlingly handsome in black trousers and a starched white button-up shirt.
Trev also wore black pants, which dragged the floor, but his shirt was dark blue.
Both remained barefoot.
The kitchen had an orange-brown polished-tile floor and a large island in the middle with stove, sink, and all the appliances a person could want if they cooked a lot of meals.
Renn was depositing eggs onto a silver tray.
Mr. Archimedes sat by the counter in a tall chair, leaning forward, reading a digital screen that lay flat before him on the dark marble counter. He looked up. “Welcome.”
“Mr. Archimedes—” Trev began.
“Arch. Call me Arch.”
“Arch,” Trev said. “Thank you for receiving us. We had nowhere else to go.”
“I see that,” he said. “Even now the officials are searching for you two. It’s right here in the current newsfeed. Apparently there was a fire at Steering Star, an escape, a stolen flier.”
“A fire? At the prison?” Trev frowned.
Arch nodded.
“Jay,” said Khim, confirming that the distraction Jay had promised had actually occurred.
“We didn’t have anything to do with that,” Trev said.
“They say someone made all the robot guards sing every verse of every song in that infernal musical The Phantom of the Centauri Listening Station. It took them hours to program them back into working mode. In the meantime, two prisoners escaped out of the maximum-security institution in a stolen flier. And no one died. You two are very good at what you do.”
Khim and Trev both remained silent.
Arch waved them over. “Come here. Sit down. Do you like coffee? Orange juice? Renn, get them something to drink.”
“It’s all right here, sir.” Renn poured fresh juice and coffee into waiting glasses and cups, sliding them in front of the two men.
Trev’s stomach rumbled. The coffee smelled so good he wanted to gulp it, but he went for the orange juice first, letting the coffee cool.
As Trev watched, Khim stirred cream and sugar into his coffee and took a sip, the steam rising into his eyes. After everything they’d gone through the day before, and Khim sleeping sitting up in a hard chair, he looked immaculate, as if fresh from a vacation in paradise. His golden hair shone.
Trev lowered his eyes to the heaping plate of hot food Renn set before him. “Thank you.” His stomach clawed with hunger. The last meal he’d eaten was yesterday’s lunch in the prison cafeteria.
He lifted the fork he found by his plate, its handle twisted into a sculpture of a seahorse, the tail coiled into a spiral that fit perfectly against the webbing of his thumb and forefinger. He was used to fancy, but he’d never seen a fork like that one before.
Both he and Khim ate hungrily. They scooped the breakfast into their mouths until they were satisfied, sitting back and sipping coffee, eyeing each other once in a while as if neither of them knew what to say.
Renn had sat for only a few minutes to eat, and he was now clearing away pans and utensils, setting them into an automatic washer.
Arch said, after many silent minutes, “Ah, the appetites of the young. And the lawless.”
Trev wondered if he detected a small amount of envy in that tone.
After breakfast they walked into the front room with the huge, glowing hearth. Trev saw a grand piano in one corner and went straight to it. As a child of privilege, he had learned to play, of course. He placed his fingers on the center keys, pressed down to hear a dulcet tone come from the depths of the instrument.
“Do you play?” Arch asked.
“Somewhat.” Trev was aware that Khim was watching him. Waiting, perhaps, to follow Trev’s lead.
Trev sighed, moving away from the piano and toward the hearth. The room was as ostentatious as Dante’s front room, filled with art and furniture and ornate rugs, the support beams in the ceiling all intricately carved with scenes of animals and humans entwined.
Arch had already taken a seat in a plush, dark leather chair. Trev sat opposite him on a white couch, sinking into the cushions.
Khim stayed standing for a moment longer, then approached the couch and sat. Not too close to Trev, but not at the opposite end either. His muscles were tense.
Trev could feel the mistrust in him for their new surroundings, a trait Khim clung to with the casualness of a man always on edge.
Arch’s eyes followed Khim’s every move. Assessing. Trev wondered what his opinion of androids might be, since he actually owned one. Did he see Khim as merely an object? Or more? He could not tell from the small interaction he’d seen between Arch and Renn if their relationship was master and slave, or something more.
He realized that Khim’s proprietary attitude with Trev did not go unnoticed by Archimedes.
Trev spoke first. “Khim told me you will not be here much longer.”
“The house will be on auction next Friday,” Arch answered. “To help pay my debts.”
“And Renn as well,” Khim inserted.
Both men looked at him.
Trev raised an eyebrow, turning back to Arch. “Renn too?”
“Yes.” Arch’s smile looked pained. “Do not worry on my account, Trevor Damico. I am perhaps not as smart as your father, but I am much older, and I have a far reach too, and long-time loyalty bases. Your father exposed our deal, even shattered my quiet life here. My house will be taken, and my lover. But I will not go to prison, after all. You, however, he left to rot there.”
Trev’s face heated as he tried to process everything from those last few sentences.
Arch continued. “At first no one believed it. Dante Damico’s beloved son imprisoned? You probably never saw the headlines. It’s a sheer horror. For weeks he’s been gaining the sympathy of the masses. More and more each day. Poor Dante. That’s the surface pic
ture, at least. None but a scant few know he engineered it all. Underneath all that, the word beloved takes on a different connotation, does it not, Trevor?”
Trev realized he was gripping his hands tightly together in his lap. Khim’s presence beside him was anything but calm.
“You tried to escape his influence,” Arch said. “A near impossible feat. And he abandoned you, all the while still keeping you on his gilded leash and gaining more power for himself both privately and professionally.”
Trev leaned back on the couch now, staring at his lap. What could he say? He knew his father too well. He’d been an idiot, of course. He should get the word idiot emblazoned on a T-shirt. Nothing Dante did surprised him. Much of what he did amazed him. A carefully sectioned-off space inside him, protected and set apart, still held his father in a kind of awe.
He lifted his face, still hot, his insides unsteady. “I have nothing I can really say to you about my father, except you knew what you were getting into when you and I made our deal.”
Khim flinched at the word deal.
“You knew my name. My predicament. And the risks,” Trev added.
“I did.” Arch leaned forward.
Trev said, “So now here we are.” He held the older man’s gaze for just long enough to feel uncomfortable, then said with an underlying and truly felt pain, “I’m sorry about Renn.”
Arch’s eyes flicked to Khim. He said nothing.
Trev said, “My father forbade me to embezzle. Said it wasn’t safe enough not to leave tracks. He didn’t fully understand my expertise. Give me a computer attached to the wave, and I can at least steal what you need to maybe keep Renn.”
“No. They’ll just take that money too. Perhaps inflate the charges. All my computers are tapped right now. There is no move I can make that is not seen. But I have no need of funds. I have extra liquid funds everywhere. Hidden for a later date, when the heat is off. It is only that which is under my name which is being taken.” He held out his hand, waving it in the air. “This beautiful place. And Renn. That’s the price I pay. I have gambled, I got caught. You and I made a deal. Your father has won. It’s a simple game, really. One I’ve played my whole life.”
The Android and the Thief Page 20