Whoa. That thought hit him out nowhere and knocked him sideways. It was like somebody cosmic and powerful had opened up the tin of impossible fantasies and pulled that sucker right out, first try. The deepest and best one. It shone at the back of all his thoughts, making concentrating on anything right now a complete pain in his ass.
Because imagining the slip of Chloe’s sweat-damp skin against one of those smart-surface walls and his mouth all over that? Was not furthering this rescue attempt. And it sure as shit wasn’t getting her warmed up and safe.
Get it together, man.
Back up on the entrance level near the mountainside, he found a coat-closet kind of situation, and he made three trips, hauling back all the outerwear he could carry. Giant polar-bear-looking parkas and hoodies and high-tech thermal-retaining material. Basically his Vallejo-modded suit, only the mass-market design. Smartfabric with heating elements built in.
The electronics for those suits were all slagged, of course—they’d been ground zero for her blackout bomb—but at least the bulk bundled her up, warmed her. Or she swore it did, and he had to take her word for it.
He was not sticking his hand in there to test temperature.
Stupidest idea in ever but so, so tempting.
He turned his attention to the room itself, prising panels off walls, observing the electronic mess inside. And he tried not to think about her beneath that pile of cloth and fur. Shivering. Freezing. He tried to keep her talking. Don’t you fall asleep. “So what did you do to this place?”
“Oh my usual,” she said in a voice that seemed stronger already, not so tooth-chattery. “Broke things. Saved the world.”
“As per usual,” he said. “Anybody else here?”
Casual question, maybe even a security-related one, but really, if someone had kidnapped her and brought her here, it stood to reason that person would still be here. And Garrett was prepared to deal with any threats to Chloe.
On the other hand, if she had run, if she had craved solitude or just wanted to get away from her usual—get away from him?—it would make sense for her to be here alone. And even more sense for him to go, as soon as she was safe.
Her face clouded, dark eyebrows forming a vee over her nose. Her expression was one of concern, but her reply fell like ballast between them, “Not anymore.”
There was a story in those two words, but he didn’t have time to explore it. Someday, maybe, she would tell him. If she could trust him. If she could… In the meantime, though, he had work to do. He peered at the mess of wires in the wall.
“It does look like you managed to melt the systems on this station and everything electronic for miles around.”
“Ah, that would have been the self-destruct sequence I talked the station computer into running. She warned me that it was meant to be a last-ditch defense against a technological incursion—me, or something like me—but I convinced her to load it up anyway and let fly.”
“You talked the what into whatting?”
“I talked the station computer into killing itself. Basically.”
He dropped a wad of fused electricals and turned to face her. “Did it ever occur to you, even for a second, that you might also be killing you?”
Not to mention a giant part of me. Because, Jesus, Chloe.
She stared out at him from her bundle of furry arctic parkas. Her eyes were huge. Brown, now, not like her usual holoprojection. Actually, the body she inhabited wasn’t at all how he’d visualized her. It was angular, pallid, with a hook nose and a mass of fluffy, almost frizzy hair. The kind of body that probably would have been cosmetically altered a thousand ways if it had grown up organically instead of being vatted in stasis and preserved for science.
Also a perfect body. Longed for and real.
And—he didn’t even know how this was possible, though he understood it on an elemental level—she was still Chloe, no matter what she looked like, no matter what skin she wore. She was still impossible and amazing and so very, very her.
The Chloe he could not, would not, exist without.
In short, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, regardless of what body housed her.
She blinked. “I programmed the burst on a delay, so I’d be safe in my cage and my…captor would be beyond the Faraday protection. By my calculations, the risk to my continued existence was slim and worth taking. No, more than worth taking. Preferable, at that point, to surviving.”
He didn’t have a single reply to that. Not one word. She would have sacrificed herself to save humanity or the world or whatever, but he hadn’t even entered into her equation. She obviously hadn’t anticipated he’d come after her. What kind of relationship did she think they had?
Back at the pile, he’d told her she was his best friend, and what had she said in response? Dangit, he couldn’t remember exactly. Something offhand, though, not echoing it back.
Not returning his regard. And then she’d what… walked out into desert and never looked back. She had left. Abandoned him. Just like everybody else.
“What?” she prodded. “Something is bothering you.”
Not one thing. Every thing. His heart was a million miles aloft, held up by the thinnest spire of hope. She could break that spire with a word, and he would fall.
“I get it that you feel some responsibility to the world and humans in general, as your makers,” he said, “but you’re telling me there’s never anything more personal in your decision-making? I mean, saving Mama Fan, for instance, does that come before saving random folks in Tampico? When you wield this kind of power—and you do it a lot, by the way—how do you decide who lives or dies?”
She pursed her lips, eased back, pursed again. Never say Chloe was without words. That just did not happen. Not in the known universe.
“You’re talking about love,” she said at last.
Was he? Maybe. Because he thought he’d been talking about priority. But she was going somewhere with this, and all he could do at this point was follow.
She nodded, as if she were having a private conversation with herself. “I have made a study of it. Love is weighing all options at any particular decision point and choosing the one path that will result in the highest net positive outcome for the people you care about. The receptors of that love. So yes, Mama Fan’s net positive weighs more in the calculation than a random stranger’s. When I instructed the station to die, I had performed detailed modeling. The math was perfect. All danger would cease, and everyone I loved would live.”
But not you. Maybe.
And because of that, not me for sure.
Something deep inside curled into itself. Hid. Pinched the base of his esophagus until breathing hurt.
“How can you love yourself so little?”
“I am a thing, Garrett,” she said with a smile that looked forced. “A created thing, meant to serve.”
He had stolen a submarine, pissed off his family, possibly irrevocably, had sacrificed everything to get to her, to help her, and she hadn’t even wanted it. Humiliation wrapped him up and squeezed.
Oh come on, you whiny little shit. It’s not about you. It’s about getting her warm, keeping her safe. Bringing her home. You can navel-gaze later on. In private. He ducked his head and turned back to the wall, putting his hands out like he was working on something, but really he just needed time. A moment. He needed silence. He needed to get his shit together.
He needed to get her out of here. Without a working vehicle. Or supplies to care for her. Or even a plan for the next five minutes.
“I mean,” she went on, “it became clear to me that I’ve done…some very bad things. And the station computer, it wasn’t just a station computer, it was me, parts of me that Limontour—that he, my captor, had shaved off and repurposed. He and his people were trying to make more me’s, you see, only ones they could control better. I can b
e a smidge difficult—”
“You don’t say?”
“They meant to take over the world, Garrett, kill a gazillion people and use me to do it. I had to stop them. And I don’t know why this makes you so angry. If anybody on this planet ought to comprehend, it should be you. With great power must also come great responsibility, right?” Her words slammed into his back, little barbed projectiles. He couldn’t let her know how much each one stung.
“That’s not even the right line.”
“Actually it is, from the 1962 comic, not the series of film re-imaginings. I do read, you know. Things beyond you.”
Yeah. Her existence wasn’t bound to him the way his was to her. And that was her whole point, wasn’t it?
He didn’t turn, couldn’t look at her. He forced himself to focus on the puzzle. Creating warmth. He zeroed his attention to this one goal, one engineering problem, and all the other craziness of living retreated.
So what he could still feel her, hear her in this room with him. Breathing. Living.
Chloe with a life that’s finite, though, and fragile. God.
Damn it. Nothing in this wall was going to help. Like the inflatable, everything electronic here was hosed. About the only thing still working was Vallejo’s magical wonder-suit.
Of course, he could take it off, put in on her. Warm her up that way. That remained a viable solution.
And what, sacrifice your life for hers? Right after she basically told you she doesn’t give the ass-end of a fuck about either?
Yeah.
Yeah. That’s exactly what he was gonna do.
He detached the vambraces with their steady lights and lasers and set them on the floor. Stood, facing the wall still, and reached across his chest. He yanked the diagonal press-seam open all at once, like ripping off an adhesive bandage. Cold air hit him when he shrugged forward, peeling smartfabric over his shoulders and down his arms. And all the time haranguing himself internally.
Most amazing girl in the world, the impossible intelligence, the technological singularity, and you’re butt-hurt she’s not wasting all her time worrying about your feelings when she makes global life-or-death decisions. Because you matter so very goddamn much. To everybody, really, and especially to her.
He almost didn’t hear her gasp. It was such a small thing, a hiccough more than a holler. A kitten’s yawn at waking.
He turned, half-naked in the dim light.
She’d caught her lower lip between her teeth, but she let it out slowly, peering up at him from the mound of coats.
What was that look on her face? Damn it, he didn’t know this body of hers, its nuances and expressions. He couldn’t read it at all. Were her eyes big and limpid out of fever or…fear?
Because she perceived he was stripping down in front of her? But she’d seen him bare a thousand times, so that wouldn’t…
Hold on. How long had she been here, captive, in a body with no defenses? Definitely imprisoned.
Tortured? Oh no, they better not have.
“Chloe,” he said. “Are you…did somebody hurt you?”
He wasn’t ready for the white stab of fury in his gut even before she answered.
• • •
Being real, being physical, meant living in a contradiction. She was learning these things. But slowly. Too slowly.
Yes, somebody had hurt her. Limontour had. Or rather, he’d hurt a body she inhabited. A series of bodies, a series of hurts, invasions, and humiliations. But always those hurts applied to the body. To the house. Not to the her.
Limontour had meant to make her fear living. To fear touch. But she wondered if he ever realized that a Chloe was not a thing that feared. Fear was tiny compared to her primary motivator. She was a thing that wanted.
And right now, she wanted Garrett.
His naked back flexed beneath the play of shadows, every curve and plane of it limned in blue light, and fear was the last thing on her mind. Her body quivered, but not with cold.
“Don’t stop,” she said.
“What?”
“You were removing your clothes, presumably to climb in here with me. I think that’s…a really good idea.” Oh dear. That came out breathy. Needy. Too much? Voice calibration was complicated in a human body. “I mean, I’ve read the best way to generate body heat is to crawl naked beneath a blanket with someone else who is also naked.”
“No,” he said slowly, “that’s not why I was taking off the suit. And you didn’t answer my question.”
She would have thought in light like this that his eyes would be mere contrasts, dark against the slightly paler skin of his face. But even in the dimness, they shone gold. Molten.
“He only hurt the bodies,” she said, “and they were never me.”
He stared at her for a long time, an eternity, in that cramped little room. She wanted to ask for a million things, not just touches but tastes and sounds and friction and heat and forever. Or whatever length of time she could have. She wouldn’t be greedy. Only let it be with him.
He blinked.
And then he was turning, twisting inside the half-removed suit, reaching behind.
“Garrett? What’s going on?”
“Vallejo made this suit,” he said, letting the words tumble while he worked. “The dude’s amazing. Brilliant, even. Reminds me a bit of you. Anyway, it didn’t shut down when you blackout-bombed the whole area. The suit didn’t. It’s still warm, making light and heat, right? I can only figure he’s got the power connections protected somehow. Probably because there’s a micro-reactor on the back, charging the bio-batteries. Setup like that would have to be heavy-duty insulated.”
“Of course, protection against radiation.”
“And radiation is what?”
“Transferred…”
“…heat,” they said together. Two halves of the same mind, processing in concert, fusing because that was just their natural state of being.
This is what I missed. This is what I want. This is what I need.
He flashed a save-this-for-later-review grin and then bent to his work, disconnecting the containment unit from the suit, then drawing it out. He sat cross-legged on the floor and angled the lighted vambrace to better get at his mod.
She watched him tinker for a few moments and then scooted closer, pulling the coats along, staying in their protective warmth. When he looked around, she scooped the wedge of fused electrical wiring off the floor and handed it to him. He used it to work one end of the magnetic sleeve free.
It was a marginally functional screwdriver, but at least more useful than she was being at the moment. And that sucked, being compared unfavorably to a screwdriver.
The truth was he didn’t need her help, and besides she was having trouble remembering the concepts of basic nuclear engineering. So many of her information stores were missing. Pieces of her, gone.
But now this other part of her was here, the Garrett part, and she could not feel incomplete when he was here. He was the part of her that powered everything else.
If this was life, from here on out, limited and small in a body with finite edges, and yet with him, near him, touching him, tasting him, convincing him someday maybe to love her, well, she could live with that. She could stop mourning all the other lost pieces of herself. She could live a mortal life.
So long as she could live it with him.
He was so into his work that he didn’t tense at all when she moved close and drew her pile of coats to cover them both. Or when she let her knee brush his hip, and sensation flared up her body. Or when her hands flexed, aching to trace the topography of his back, his shoulders, his arms.
A sound escaped her throat, a mewl-like frustrated squeak.
He looked over. Met her eyes. Narrowed his.
“You okay?” But he didn’t wait for her to respond, just bent again,
muttering low, “Oh fuck, what am I even saying? Of course you aren’t okay. Some shithead hurt you and you’re freezing to death and… give me one more second. Almost there. Just hang on, sweetheart.”
He fiddled with the core again, bypassing the converter that changed heat to electricity, resetting the parameters on the magnetic containment sleeve.
“There.”
He sat back, bracing his hands against the floor. His movement shifted the coats, and the one covering him slipped, leaving him bare to her gaze.
So beautiful, her Garrett, not that his beauty was a particularly new revelation. It was elemental, hard coded in her awareness. Accessibility to it, to him, though? That was brand new.
She could touch him. She had touched him, when he first arrived and her new body took over and hugged the stuffing out of him and that had felt…amazing.
And now, here he was still, flush with success at his engineering mod and the steadily warming room. Warm and bare and right…here. Touchable.
Chloe couldn’t endure it even one second longer. She reached for him, drew the tip of one finger along his arm, above his elbow. The muscle there jumped, and he got very, very still. She couldn’t be certain but she thought maybe he’d stopped breathing.
Neutrons scattered, throwing heat.
“Extremities,” he said in a raspy voice as the air around them, between them, blurred with sudden energy. “When you’re hypothermic, the extremities are most vulnerable. Can you feel your toes?”
Could she? She sent signals, flexed muscles. Gathered data.
“Hmmm.”
Which apparently was not a confident enough reply, because he drew in a harsh breath bordering on annoyed-sounding, and pushed the coats aside. Or around. Or something.
She wasn’t exactly sure how he engineered their little coat-hut, but by the time he was done, he was facing her in the tiny heat-stuffed room, and the coats covered most of their bodies below the shoulders. It was kind of like an ocean, one with deep currents. All the fun stuff was going on below the surface, where no one could see.
Among the fur and synthfabric and thermal radiation, one of his hands found her leg. He grazed hot fingers below her knee, and then slid down her calf to cup her heel, trailing a sleeve of fire on her skin.
More Than Stardust Page 14