by Tara Brown
The bots hold his stories and before I know it, I’m taking a journey I couldn't have expected.
There’s mist and a long driveway lined with enormous trees. He’s there, he’s with me. But he’s little, a small boy in the driveway of a mansion. It’s one of those houses where you’re sure you see ghosts in the windows staring down at you. There one minute and gone the next.
I walk, noting the crispy leaves on the ground and a hint of autumn in the air. The sky is cloudy as though it just rained, and there’s a man. He makes my stomach ache and my chest pound and leaves my mouth completely dry. He’s a shadow man, that’s what Liam—small, fragile, and sweet Liam—calls him. He tells us to follow him. He has a treat.
I’m terrified regardless of the bots inside me, as the shadow man leads Liam down some stairs. There’s a room. It’s dark and the door locks, the treats mentioned again if Liam will play again. I want to block it out. A tear slips from my eyes as I force myself to look away, but the picture keeps playing. I’m screaming for it to stop and it does, or rather it fades away.
The scene changes. I’m still at the mansion, I feel trapped here. Liam is a little older. He’s aged in way you can’t see. He feels different. Broken and pieced back together the wrong way. That's how he describes it. He’s been fitted into a body that isn’t his. But he can’t find his body. He’s lost.
We’re with his family. I feel something for each of them and know them better than they know themselves. I hate them in a way I have never experienced before. Even the creeps back in Laurel, I didn't hate them the way I hate this group of wealthy people. I want these people to die screaming. They all know and they look the other way.
Liam’s in the hall, he’s watching them eat. He refuses to eat. It’s one of the things he’s done to protest. He’s so hungry and so small but it’s all he can control.
His mother’s eyes don't meet his anymore. They dart to the shadow man and she lowers her head. She obeys. Liam, though still a little boy, is aware that she knows about the shadow man. She always did.
Liam makes a choice then and there.
He forms a plan.
He’s not going to starve himself anymore.
He begins to execute it, execute them.
He kills them in brilliant accidents, and with him, I want the bloodshed. I want them dead. I want his face to be the last thing they see.
There are funerals and his mother is screaming. She hits him. She knows.
Men come and take him away.
He’s in the mental institute. They hurt him. The electricity burns. The medication numbs. He’s still not in his body.
He’s alone and cold and when he’s old enough to fight back, he rages. He has become a shadow man too, just not the same kind. What he does in the shadows is driven by vengeance. Payment for sins. He escapes and kills more of them. Always letting himself be caught and dragged back.
He carves the wall with seven marks, one for each of them.
He has been alone his whole life. Completely alone.
Until them, the bots.
He’s attacked and bitten and left for dead.
But when he wakes, a miracle has occurred.
He’s himself.
For the first time in as long as he can remember, he’s in his body. The right one.
Then there’s Grace.
She becomes the only thing in his life that makes sense. Her and the bots. The bots heal him, they make him better and she loves him back. They make him loveable.
And in return he trusts them completely.
He loves them in a way I don’t understand and yet I am beginning to. I see why he’s loyal to them and not humans. Why he loves and needs and respects the bots. Why he wants them to be part of the future. It’s cleaner. The bots fill in the cracks and light up the shadows and cleanse the world. The programming to judge the soul, the religious connotations that were added by Dr. Arsenault, makes sense to Liam. And the bots understand him the same way he understands them. Why he believes my father was a hero.
This is a world Liam can control.
We are a people he can protect.
All his drive comes from a place of love, twisted and messed up and disturbing love.
The very end of this journey is my face.
The first time he sees me, he makes a silent wish. He wishes I could see him. Instead, I see myself the way he does. My eyes glowing with ferocity as I fight for things, people I love.
When he looks at me, he feels something again for the first time in a long time. There’s a connection he’s wants me to see, wants me to feel, but I couldn't. I fought too hard against the bots to ever see it or let them and him in.
But here, his blood swirling and mixing with mine, I see it for the first time. He sees me for me. For my potential. For my love and devotion. He sees me as strength.
I gasp as my eyes open like I am breathing air for the first time in too long and my body is desperate for some. The room is dark and the shadow man in front of me becomes a small boy in my eyes. He’s not creepy. He’s a survivor and what he lived through has changed him. His mother turning a blind eye destroyed him. Of course he had to destroy them. It all makes sense. All his behavior does.
My plans fall away.
My judgments die.
We lock eyes. His glisten like perhaps he cried a little. Maybe he took the journey with me. Maybe he was the guide. Or maybe, for a second time, he was a hostage in those terrible events.
We don't speak.
I don't honestly know what to say.
Except maybe that he’s right. Maybe the world shouldn't be left to the humans. Maybe we are the intended evolution. I open my arms and he crawls across the bed to me. I lie back and he rests his head on my shoulder and I stroke his hair. He smells like home.
For the first time regarding him, I agree with the bots. I let them have something they want. The connection of our skin, the warmth of his hand over my ribs, is electric.
We don't speak.
I hold him, he clings to me, and I feel my heart open. I am open. The bots pulsate through me. My heartbeat matches his. He lifts his face and even in the darkness I see something in his eyes, something I mistook for cold cruelty. It’s desperation. He’s desperate for me. He moves so he’s on all fours, over top of me. His face hovers above mine. His lips part and I am filled with a need I have never felt before.
He lowers, about to press his mouth to mine when—
“Lou?”
I blink, my mouth is moving like maybe I’m kissing, but nothing is there. Just air.
“Lou!”
I blink again and it’s bright, as if someone turned on the lights. But it’s the sun coming in the window and I’m alone.
Whose voice was that? Mom?
I sit up, noticing the fire still writhing inside me.
Was that real?
Did that happen?
There’s no indent on the pillow next to me. I’m lying on the bed, alone in the room where I’ve been since he put me here.
No Liam.
No darkness.
No kiss.
“What the hell?” I whisper and stare at the empty space. Why did I hear my mom’s voice?
My body is on fire, desperate from his touch. His imaginary touch.
“That asshole,” I say to no one in particular. “How did he do it?” I scan the floor for bloody snail trails where his dirty little bots might have snuck in but there’s nothing. Was it a lie or did that all happen to him?
I’m silently cursing his name when I’ve searched the entire room and found absolutely nothing. There is no evidence that his bots came into this room.
Did he sneak in and did that all actually happen?
My cheeks flush at the thought. Him in my bed, hovering over me like that, smelling like—well—sex. He smelled like attraction and desire and everything I had only smelled on Kyle.
My entire body blushes at the realization there’s a chance it was all a dream, based on the fa
ct that I find Liam unbearably attractive. But how could I have known about his childhood? Would I have made that up? Am I making up causes for his craziness?
I’m like some Stockholm victim.
I bite my lip, contemplating all of it as I sink down the wall and sit on the floor, far from the bed.
Dr. Jacquard’s common sense flutters in with a small dose of what-if.
What if Liam and I are so meshed and so meant to be, so compatible, that I am picking up what he is giving off? I’m able to read him?
What if our bots are communicating without contact? Is that possible? I have to admit it might be. The reaction of humans and nanobots varies according to the receptors in each subject.
I wave my hand at my own thoughts. “Too much nerdy talk, Dr. Jacquard.”
A knock at the door interrupts my discussion with my multiple personalities. I stand from where I’m sitting against the wall under one of the windows and walk over, wondering if I have to answer the knock or if it’s a warning someone is coming in.
The door opens, answering my question.
It’s him.
I inhale sharply, bothered by just the sight of him.
“Morning, Lou.” He smiles, sounding normal, innocent. His eyes dart around the room, maybe checking to see if I’m alone, as if anyone else would be here.
His cheeks are flushed, suggesting he’s recently exerted himself. His hair is a bit messy in a boy band sort of way. His eyes are dark and consuming. My gaze lowers to his hands, and I can’t help but wonder how they feel. In my dream, they were warm and enticing and—
What the hell is happening to me?
I take a step back, trying to gather my senses.
“We brought you something to eat.” He steps to the side and Lester enters with a tray.
“Good morning, Miss Stoddard. How are you today? I hope you slept well.” Lester is cheerful, as always. He places the tray on the bed and bows to Liam. “My king.” He offers me a grin full of spit before leaving quickly. He closes the door and we are alone. In my room. Where I had a dirty sex dream. About us.
I gulp.
“You look tense. Are you still angry with me for yesterday?”
“Yesterday?” Does he mean the dream or the weird water cistern or locking me in here? “Which part of yesterday?” I’m genuinely confused about everything. He’s being so normal and I’m lost in a storm of emotions.
“I suppose all of it.” He scowls and walks to the window, turning his back to me. “Sometimes I can’t help my reactions. When I first was bitten and changed, the bots helped me control my temper better.” His eyes are a storm. “When she”—he takes a deep breath—“Grace, when Grace died, something changed in me. I lost a measure of my control. But I’m hoping to regain it. I’m working on it.”
“You hung me in a water cistern.” I take a step back, trying to ignore the gorgeous tray of food. Of course, Lester made it look stunning. “Clearly, it’s not going well.”
“I was testing you, not torturing you. I knew you would heal. And even if it was cruel, let’s not forget you killed Dr. Jacquard. Did you really think I wouldn’t react to that?” He turns and faces me, and I take a journey through my mind, recalling how it felt to have him so close that I could taste him in the air.
My breath is ragged as I step away from him once more.
“You don’t need to be afraid. I understand what you were doing. Dr. Jacquard was a friend of your father’s and a colleague. He wanted to ensure your usefulness to me would never end.” He shrugs. “Which it won’t. I was never going to kill you anyway.” The statement is matter-of-fact.
His honesty makes the lie between us regarding Dr. Jacquard feel heavy and dirty. I want to tell Liam that I wasn’t being honest, but I don’t. I press my lips shut and realize this conflict inside me is a war with the bots. They want me to be with Liam.
That makes me curious about something.
“How do you feel about me?” I ask.
“What?” he questions with a margin of humor in his tone.
“Feelings, what are your feelings for me?” I should be more cautious with him, but I suspect a direct approach is probably better.
“I don’t know.” He furrows his brow, making a face that suggests he’s pondering that. “Why?”
“We don’t know each other. We’ve met a couple of times, but we speak to one another like we’ve been friends our whole lives. My comfort level with you is weird. Like super weird. There’s something there.” I offer the very least I can and his eyes light up. “And I’m wondering if you feel it too.”
“You mean an unexplainable connection and an attraction you don’t understand?” He walks toward me, his voice lowering as he speaks, “Like how when you’re alone my face pops into your thoughts for no reason at all?” When he’s right in front of me, my entire body tenses but I don’t move. I wait for the impact. “And for some reason I smell like home and comfort and passion?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I think about you all the time,” he confesses quickly, moving close enough that I have to step back. He’s too tall and the line of sight is awkward. He lifts his hand, it trembles almost as though he’s fighting what he’s doing, cupping my cheek. “I imagine touching you and it feels just like this.”
Involuntarily, I close my eyes and lean into the embrace. The spark and electricity are just as I recall from the dream, as is the soothing warmth.
“What is this?” Liam asks, answering the question of whether he has something to do with it or it’s all in my mind. Satisfying the part of me that is Dr. Jacquard. “Why do you do this to me?”
“I don’t know.” I lie and open my eyes, gazing up into his. I’m lost in him.
“Don’t lie.”
“The bots want us to be together. Dr. Jacquard thinks they’re trying to make us fall in love. They’re forcing endorphins and pheromones and creating heart palpations and other physical reactions, so we find each other unbearably attractive.” The words are forced from me. They’re not mine.
“He thinks that?” His eyes narrow and I lose him. “Thinks?” He steps away from me, and even with the coldness in him, I am unable to be afraid.
“They want us to love each other.”
“Why?” He’s fighting this too.
“That we don’t know.”
“We?” he asks and I realize what I’ve done. My back straightens and my stomach tightens. “Dr. Jacquard is alive inside you? You can hear him?”
“No.” I shake my head quickly. “His bots answer me. They think with his rationale, but it’s me. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Surely, Dr. Jacquard can,” he snarls and I realize he’s closing off to me. I take a cautionary step back.
“His knowledge and memory and core data stores were transferred to me. His bots contain the information. They also analyzed his rational brain and his problem-solving and intelligence and have started to transform my brain so it thinks as he did, using the information he had. The bots recognize that his mind was far superior to mine, and they’re adjusting me so I am a better version of myself, with his knowledge and brainpower as their baseline. All of this is done to help you.”
We both pause, him no doubt shocked at what I’ve just said, and me shocked at all the information. The bots are changing me. The knowledge, opinions, experience, and foundation are no longer mine. My mind is changing, adapting. Did Dr. Jacquard want this or is it a glitch?
How long before I’m not me anymore?
“How is this possible?” I ask Liam, scared of what I’ve revealed.
“What do you mean, how is this possible?” He is angry with me.
“I mean, why are they doing this to me?” I drop to my knees on the hard wood floor and stare at my hands, my arms, my skin. It’s the same as it was before, but is it? “Every time they fix something, a spot, a mark, a wound, they’re changing it. Renew and refresh and repair. I think it’s altering who I am.”
“You
didn’t know this was happening to you?” He sits on the bed and stares at me.
“No,” I admit, keeping the fact the bots tricked me to myself. The idea of it all is scaring the hell out of me. “Of course not. I came here to stop you.” It accidentally slips out. I cover my lips with my trembling hand.
“Did you ingest his bots?” he asks, the anger is gone from his tone although I’ve revealed a horrible truth.
“I did.” My voice wavers, “And not just his.” I can’t fight my want to tell him everything.
He reaches a hand out. I stare at it for a moment before I lift my hand into his and let him pull me up. He slides his butt along the bed and pulls me with him, turning on his back and dragging me farther up the bed with him. He puts my head on his shoulder and we lie as we did in my dream, only reversed.
“I don’t care about anything but you and me. I don’t care how you came to be here. Just that you are.” He strokes my hair, leaning his face into me. He inhales and I suspect he’s breathing me in. “I want to love you, Lou. And I don’t know why. But I trust the bots. I know they’re doing what’s best for us. They want us to succeed. So if you and me loving each other is the way they see us succeeding, I’m in.” He presses his lips against my head and holds them there. “And I count myself lucky that someone so beautiful and strong and intelligent could love me back.”
I know what’s about to happen next. I’m going to roll onto all fours and hover over him. I’ll kiss him and he’ll kiss me back. And it’s going to escalate from there. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
I’m a hostage in my own body.
But not for long.
Because he’s right, the bots know what’s best.
Chapter 22
A month later
“The queen, the princess, and I all want to congratulate you on our first harvest!” Liam shouts at the crowd below us, and a burst of pride floods me.
I still tingle when I hear the word “queen.”
I’m his.
He’s mine.
Memories of the moments we have spent proving our love to one another flood my mind and make me blush everywhere. I love him—no, more than that—I adore him. I can’t breathe or eat or drink or sleep without thinking about him.