“Yeah, that about sums it up,” said Jack from where he still rested his head against mine. But then he raised his head and turned to Zero. “The effect was vital enough to put the mission on hold and report our findings to HQ. Just like that, our orders were changed.”
“You were no longer charged with disposing of Miss Hart and Prometheus’s other key members,” said Zero, who’d either already put the pieces of the puzzle together or was doing it now at break neck speed. I was betting on the former. “You were commanded instead to study her. And then bring her in. Either by inducement, or if necessary by force.”
Jack stared at Zero for several beats in silence, his eyes steely, his expression hard. “Kudos, I guess. Not only is Sam here an unprecedented genius, she possesses something my superiors liken to magic,” Jack explained, his tone the kind a man takes when he realizes there’ll be no changing things and one might as well get everything out in the open now – before what has to be done is done. “To them it’s right up there with telekinesis and other psychic mumbo jumbo. They want to know how she works. So far, Sam’s the only one with her ability.”
He was monologuing, something I had noticed bad guys do in movies from time to time, or at least in the older films. But in this case, that bullet was so close to entering my brain, there was nothing anyone could do about the chance he would otherwise have unwittingly been giving his enemies to trip him up.
“Not that it matters,” he continued, “because after the two of you were designed and locked away by Byron, androids came off the lot already possessing emotions or capable of developing them the first time their sensate chips were activated.”
Sensate chips were the devices that activated an android’s neurological functions – their nervous system, in other words. They were an android’s pain and pleasure receptors. And Jack was right; as soon as they were switched on, androids not only physically felt, but emotionally as well. The two were inextricably linked and utterly inseparable – just like they were for humans and non-human animals.
“The proof is in the fucking design,” Jack continued. “All anyone ever had to do was look. They just chose not to see it.”
I was pretty sure it was the fact that the sensate chips could be activated and deactivated themselves that made many humans doubt an android’s humanity. After all, humans couldn’t be turned off and on in that manner. At least, this was their reasoning.
When in fact, humans very much could be turned off and on, both emotionally and physically. Emotionally, they could get drunk or take drugs or even suffer concussions that damaged parts of their brain. They could burn out or suffer PTSD or be born without ever having had their emotions turned on in the first place. And physically… they could be killed.
I swallowed hard and closed my eyes as Jack gave a dark chuckle, and the gun pressed harder. “Kinda the way I choose not to see a pig’s emotions before I down half a pound of real bacon.”
“So that’s why your blood pressure’s always high,” I said softly.
Jack laughed again. “I’m surprised you never caught on. You know I’m a foodie.” He looked back at Zero and Luke and shook his head. “No, it’s just you two who came out emotionless. And that wasn’t all that was different about you. You’re definitely special, in more ways than I’m guessing even you know… and so is Sam.” He gave me another long look, though I still refused to meet his gaze.
Then he addressed Lucas alone. “For what it’s worth Luke, if it hadn’t been for you reacting to Sam the way you did, we never would have known she had this ability.” He glanced sidelong at me and added, “Or any of the others she’s got.”
Others? I wondered silently.
“And she’d be dead right now,” said Jack.
Luke’s hands flexed and unflexed. “Jack, please put down the gun.”
“No can do, son.” I felt Jack’s free hand grip the back of my neck as if he expected something to go down any second now, and he was planning ahead. “I told you. We can’t let her be taken by Vector Fifteen. Not again. Orders are orders.”
“What is it exactly that you want, Captain?”
I was surprised by the question Zero asked, as well as by the calm resolution in his voice. It would seem he was the only one among us capable of seeing the situation logically, accepting it for what it was. He was the only one capable of cautiously attempting to move things forward.
Jack motioned his chin at the transporter beacons. “Can you get that working again real damn fast?”
Zero looked from Jack to the beacons. “If you’re asking me to leave here by means of transport, the beacons are unnecessary. I am already capable of a solo transport without them.”
Ummm…. “You’re what?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“What she said,” added Jack curtly.
Zero addressed me. “I am capable of transporting alone without the beacons,” he more or less repeated as if I hadn’t actually heard him the first time. But I’d heard him. I just couldn’t believe him.
If he was telling the truth, then that was what he’d actually meant when he’d said that he was working on adjusting the encompassing field. He’d meant “encompassing” as in encompassing more than one being at the same time. Because he already had the one being thing figured out.
“I see,” said Jack softly.
No way in hell, I thought. But I was already looking for it, my eyes scouring Zero’s tall form for the wearable device that must have been his personal transporter.
I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. The suit was normal for him; he always wore a suit. The color was different this time, though. He usually wore white…. He’s wearing real clothes this time. When I’d been out cold from shock, he’d taken off his jacket and wrapped it around me. I was still wearing it, in fact. It was as warm and protective as a heated veritable tent made of fine material, scented with expensive cologne.
Which meant the device could have been in any one of his pockets. It was as simple as that. I was assuming it wasn’t in the jacket pocket because he wouldn’t be that careless. Probably it was in one of his pants pockets. My eyes moved to those.
So this is what it takes to win your eye... If I’d known, I would have divulged the information sooner.
I actually gasped at Zero’s sudden telepathic communication. It came through quite loud and clear, his voice smooth and strong as if he were standing right behind me with his lips at my ear. He was right; I was lost in scientific curiosity, slipping dangerously outside the box of the reality that had a gun cocked and pointed at my gray matter.
My eyes moved to his face. At once they were captured by his, like a bug in a web.
Platinum. His eyes were platinum. Irises of the rarest precious metal gazed back at me, tinged the slightest amount with purple the way silver was tinted faintly with gold. They were stunning. For an indeterminate amount of time, I was lost in them.
Eventually however, I realized no one had said anything more in response to Zero’s confession about having personal transport capabilities, and neither Zero nor Lucas had budged from where they stood. They weren’t even bothering to fake breathe.
I chanced a very slow, careful sideways glance at Jack and felt the gun move smoothly across my temple as I did.
He lessened his grip on my neck instinctively, allowing me to turn. But the gun remained aimed at me, and his eyes remained glued to Zero. Jack was thinking, figuring things out. No doubt he was weighing options and mapping out the best route to take from here. He would want Zero out of the way, but he would want that transporter for his superiors. He had to decide what was most important in the heat of the moment, the way he’d done for years on the force.
I had a jarring thought, and it slapped down on top of all the other jarring eye-openers of the last five minutes like the latest fluffy addition to a stack of pancakes. “Jack, are you even really a cop?”
Jack finally tore his eyes from Zero and looked down at me. He squinted a little and frowned. �
��You’re handling this real well suddenly, Sam. You’ve even stopped trembling.” His wheels were still turning; I could practically hear them. “This is your doing, isn’t it Zero?” he asked while he still carefully studied me. “You stuck around after healing her and now you’re messing around in her head again.”
But Zero didn’t respond.
“No matter,” Jack sighed. “Yes Virginia, there is a badge,” he told me with a slightly weary smile.
“Now then,” he continued, moving the gun barrel beneath my chin and pressing hard before turning back to the android in black. “I think it’s time you get the fuck out of here. Please don’t make me destroy one of the most promising minds this world will ever know.”
Most people probably would have thought something along the lines of, Oh no, please God no, please I don’t want to die right about then, and I admit there was definitely a small part of me I could vaguely hear mumbling hasty pleas to Master Yoda. But the rest of me was thinking… Why doesn’t he shoot Zero instead?
Because frankly, that’s what I would have done. None of this made any sense. If they didn’t want my ideas to fall into IRM-1000’s grasp then why not kill IRM-1000 here and now, once and for all? Jack had a clear shot for once. Rather than take on Luke’s persona in order to confuse us as he had in the past, Zero had kept his own visage during this tousle with Lucas. The twin androids were even separate at the moment, with several feet of distance between them.
But I had my answer to that question right after I pondered it. Zero lifted his chin, nodded once in quiet compliance, and pulled down on the open collar of his black button-up dress shirt, exposing the muscular curve of his shoulder and chest. Holy shit, Nicholas didn’t skimp on gorgeousness with that android, did he? I recklessly thought.
But along with a nice bit of sculpted chest, the movement also exposed the small, triangular, portable transporter that Zero had embedded in his otherwise smooth skin.
I blinked. Whoa - that’s why he wore black! The dark device would have been visible through any lighter material, especially if the energy that activated it also lit it up prior to use.
“Luke!” Jack commanded immediately, but Lucas was already rushing Zero, clearly intent on taking the transporting device from him.
I understood then. Jack wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He hadn’t wanted to destroy Zero if there was a chance at all that any important tech would be destroyed along with him. If he’d aimed for the android’s thorium pump regulator, for instance, the transporter device would have been struck. It had been placed almost directly over the android’s heart.
I was willing to wager Zero had done this on purpose, for just that reason as an extra precautionary measure.
But Jack also definitely didn’t want Zero escaping with it. So Luke’s body blurred to attack the other android, intent on taking the tech. But IRM-1000 must have been waiting for this to happen. He side-stepped Luke, reached out lightning-fast, and grasped his attacker by the forearm as he passed by.
Electricity sizzled to sudden, inexplicable life, centered on the contact point between the two androids. Both men came to a stand-still, their EED’s went white, and their eyes glowed like pulsars. The electricity spread, moving along their skin to leave it android-gray in its wake.
It’s just like my dream.
Zero was connecting to him, taking from him. “They’re sharing information,” I thought to myself. It wasn’t until I heard the words out loud that I realized I’d said it rather than just thought it.
“Ah, fuck,” Jack hissed, lunging to his feet. He took the gun off me, aimed it at Zero, and pulled the trigger over and over again in rapid succession. I pressed my hands to my ears and bent low in the wake of the massive noise. The gun was extra loud in the garage, something about the hollow metal and concrete around us causing the sound to echo and amplify.
No, no, no, no. I found myself thinking that word again. Why did the most useless of syllables always come around when situations became intolerable and most needed changing?
There was not a single person in that garage I could trust, bullets were flying, I was unarmed myself, the chance of ricochet was high, and I was already low on blood. The last thing I needed was another gunshot wound. But did Jack Hugo care? Apparently not!
Now I was mad.
Without seconding the thought, I rose up, pulled back hard on my elbows for leverage, and focused all my strength into a Tae Kwon Do front kick aimed at Jack’s shooting arm.
My boot struck the outside of his elbow dead on the mark, and I was at once rewarded with the nauseating sound of dry twigs snapping. I watched his arm bend the way it wasn’t supposed to bend just before the gun went sailing across the garage.
Jack roared in anger and pain and doubled over, grasping at his broken arm with the hand he could still control. I was pretty sure he started howling some obscenities at me, but they were drowned out by another strong zap of electricity between Lucas and Zero, and also by the sound of my boots hitting the pavement. Because for once in my life, I was taking matters into my own hands. For once, I was taking control of the situation.
In other words, I was running.
Chapter Forty-Two
I managed to get as far as the door before I slammed full throttle into something hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I let out an oof of surprise, then fell directly backward, landing solidly on my ass. The impact was jarring, and I felt my spine get just a tad bit shorter. But my attention was sixty-forty on the figure that had just filled the garage’s doorway.
Daniel! I thought, and then cried out. “Daniel! Jack and Luke are –”
“We know everything, Sam,” said Daniel as he did several things at once. He gracefully overstepped me to enter the garage, offered me a passing hand up, raised his other hand and the gun in its grasp, and took aim. Then he fired.
I skidded across the ground to get behind him as the other members of Prometheus piled in through the door. Across the room, Zero and Lucas both ducked bullets as Daniel’s rounds struck machinery and wall around them. It wasn’t like Daniel to miss when he aimed at a target. In fact, it was pretty much impossible, given who and what he was. Which could only mean he was missing on purpose.
Or… he wasn’t missing – and Zero had absorbed Luke’s bullet-proofing! That was why Zero hadn’t been injured when Jack drew and fired on him earlier. IRM-1000 had wasted absolutely no time taking what he must have known he would need right away. And likewise, Jack must have known that’s what he would do, so he’d turned his weapon on him and gotten trigger happy.
Of course Zero was faster. He was as efficient as a computer. Well, as a computer on a good day. Like, when there were no solar flares and shit.
Now Zero acted with brutal speed, switching the hold he had on Luke’s arm so that he was suddenly behind Luke. He gave a hard pull, yanking Luke’s back against his chest. Again, just as he had in my dream.
Like this, Lucas acted as an unwitting shield to the gunfire, though it was obviously unnecessary with the bullet-proofing and was probably just instinct for IRM-1000 to place another body between himself and his enemy. Zero kept a strong hold on Luke while he placed his free hand over the transporting device on his chest. It lit up with activation.
I understood in that moment that the device would work the same as the one he’d previously held in his hand, and since he was holding Lucas and standing inside the beacons, he would be transporting with the other android in tow. Zero had assessed the situation, calculated the outcomes, and had decided on a tactical retreat in which he maintained collateral.
The beacons around the androids responded to their triggering, lighting up with galvanizing power. One was blinking a power shortage warning, having been severely damaged by Jack’s bullets. It was dangerous to use it at this juncture; if it crapped out half-way through the transport, any number of nasty things could happen to the teleport’s travelers. But Zero clearly felt he had no choice.
Over Luke’s s
houlder, Zero’s gaze locked on mine. In the space of a severed second, the blazing red of his irises darkened to purple, his pupils expanded, his EED matched in pace and color, and I heard something deep inside myself make a sound like two gears notching into place.
Sudden movement ripped our gazes apart as Jack’s larger body slammed into Lucas from the side. He impacted with IRM-900 with such desperate strength, it ripped the android free from Zero’s grasp just as the transport Zero had activated flashed to chaotic commencement like a condensed Tesla Coil.
I watched, stunned, as the brightness of lightning engulfed all three bodies within the triangular space dictated by the three grounding beacons. The light intensified, I covered my face with my arms, and when I lowered them again a beat later, all three bodies within the beacon range were gone.
I realized what was coming a split-second too late, and hurried to cover my ears as the thunder of the transporter’s use simultaneously rocked the garage – and my eardrums. I cringed, collapsing forward under the weight of several discomforts at once. They piled up on me – a layer of nausea, then a splitting headache, a third layer of intense cold, topped by overwhelming weakness. I fell inward, curling like an infant on my side.
“Pull in and head back!” I heard a deep voice command. Arms scooped beneath me and lifted me, but their very touch upon my skin was like sandpaper on a sunburn. I hissed, trying not to cry out, trying not to vomit.
Zero was obviously gone, no longer inside me to set things right or alleviate the pain. “Daniel,” I croaked. I felt him moving against me, the pounding of each of his running steps like a jolt down to my very soul.
I, Android: A Different Model Page 42