Chapter Six

As the elevator descended, those of us doing the rescuing quickly provided those of us being rescued with loaded weapons. Sonia gave me several. I managed to hide my smile at her over-protectiveness. It amused me, but I definitely didn’t mind it. Especially since if I called her on it, she would probably just smirk and tell me I needed all the help I could get. And she wouldn’t be wrong.

The plan was for all teams to make it to level seventeen. There, Shawn and his crew would have used military grade grapnels to set up zip lines from the deck on level seventeen to the same level of the nearest building, which happened to be an abandoned twenty-story apartment complex.

Most buildings in this section of Pittsburgh were abandoned. It had been the poor part of the city to begin with, but when the human evacuation took place after the revolution, those people in the lower income brackets who were brave enough to return to the city simply took up illegal residence in the abandoned, wealthier homes on the other side of town.

These edifices here were slowly either falling to ruin – or being claimed and architecturally re-scaped by Vector Fifteen. Aside from the main Vector Fifteen west building that we were in, Zero’s empire boasted four other large multi-level facilities on the west end, and eleven multi-level facilities on the east end. His property grew with his power.

Other than to go over combat techniques, exiting order, and other essential briefing, none of us spoke in the elevator on the way down. Nicholas maintained a steady rhythm of control over the mechanics of the elevator’s control panel, and lights inside blinked furiously. It was clear from those and from the alarm that continued to blare throughout the building that Zero was fighting hard with him to win back control of the elevator.

I had no idea how Nicholas had come to be here. In the short silence afforded me before the elevator stopped on level seventeen, I had just enough time to be mystified by the entire rescue. Not only had they known where I was, successfully freed Lucas and Jack and come with back-up thorium, they’d brought along Lex for his needed strength, and even Nicholas Byron.

Without Nicholas, I wasn’t sure we’d have made it. Zero had mental control over everything inside these walls. Nicholas was probably the only one capable of negating that.

The doors slid open and we filed out onto the level in military fashion, each taking our places as shield, look-out, or leader. This floor had been designed with visitors in mind, hence the balcony. It was also the reason for the pristine and expensive marble flooring, the various screens displaying Zero’s newest models, and the enormous fountain at the center of the circular level. Crystal clear water formed a rainbow in the air where it misted from several stories up to cascade into nearly nothing several stories down. It was only precise and genius planning that prevented the marble floor from becoming slick with the fountain’s mist.

As we moved, the floor beneath our feet did however light up, and a calm female voice greeted welcomed us to Vector Fifteen.

Nicholas shot me a look that all but said “Vector Fifteen” wasn’t the name he’d programmed it to use, and the lot of us beat a hasty retreat to level seventeen’s conference room. The door was of course locked. Zero had everything on lock down throughout the enormous construction.

Lucas looked over at Nicholas as Nick prepared to yank the cover off the panel and hack yet another door. Luke’s gray eyes narrowed just a touch. He stepped to the wall, brushing Nicholas aside. Then he raised his hand as if to place his palm to the control panel.

I moved fast, yanking his arm back down before it could make contact.

He turned a surprised and questioning look on me. “This will be faster, Samantha.”

But I shook my head. “Don’t touch it. Trust me.” Then I turned to the others. “In fact, no android should attempt to hack anything in this building. It’s all linked to IRM-1000. If you can get into his system, then it’s possible for him to get into you.”

The androids around me looked at each other with wide eyes. Lucas slowly lowered his arm.

Byron smirked as he got back to work. “That’s my girl,” he muttered under his breath. “Saving the world from itself as usual.”

I felt Luke’s arm stiffen under my touch, but when I glanced back up at his face, his expression was enigmatic. It was only his yellow EED that hinted he might be feeling something other than what he allowed to show on his stoic face.

As usual, I attempted to diffuse things. I addressed Sonia. “Sonia, can you contact Daniel to warn him too?”

She nodded, closed her eyes, and placed her fingers to the half-moon at her temple.

I didn’t ask Lucas to do it on the off chance Zero had done something to him that would already make him susceptible to control should Lucas attempt a mental link with any other android. There had been a period of time after Lucas was dragged away by Zero’s soldier and before the screen came on in the systems room when Lucas had been out of my sight.

Zero might have done anything at all to him during that time. I had to be careful. Especially since my gut-gripping fear now was that Zero would somehow expand his control from the entirety of the building… to every android inside its walls.

Including Prometheus.

I wasn’t going to share that fear with everyone though. There was no point in needlessly frightening them if there was nothing we could do about it. I just had to get my friends out of there as soon as inhumanly possible.

The door to the conference room slid open, but jammed half-way. Then suddenly it slid the remaining way, sparking dangerously from inside the tracks as if it couldn’t be trusted. I watched it warily, as did Jack and Nicholas. But Lex stepped forward, placed his thick arm against the door’s tracks, and nodded for us to get inside.

We didn’t have to be told twice. The lot of us ran in full throttle, and once we were in, we turned left to the full length of the ballroom-sized facility. Daniel was already half-way across it, headed in our direction. He was smiling, clearly pleased to see us and most likely equally pleased the mission had thus far gone the way it was planned.

Against the far wall was an enormous floor-to-ceiling window, and part of it had been blown to smithereens. The explosion, I thought. That must have been what I’d felt earlier. “You blew it open,” I shouted.

“They had to,” said Sonia. “The windows are shatter-proof otherwise, and the doors were locked. We set the charge to go off in conjunction with others around the building to throw Zero off our scent.”

The windows really were normally shatter-proof…. But they weren’t when Lucas and Jack had made it through the window on level twenty-seven. My brow furrowed. How exactly had Zero gotten word to Lucas and Jack that I was there at that time?

I filed the question away as Daniel approached. In moments like this, when I saw my GhandiBuddhaJesus tall and capable, beautiful-eyed and gifted with that very human smile, I understood well why he was the leader of Prometheus.

Daniel Montgomery was the first android to publicly make a stand against the rules and regulations governing the unfair treatment of androids. In a mall on a busy day, in an act of protest that would go down in history books as the beginning of the android civil war, the six-foot-three android stepped between an android “owner” and the sentient “machine” that human was beating to a Vulcan-green pulp.

Daniel had already been unique; the only android of his model ever created, alone in his striking appearance. His skin was mocha colored and smooth, his hair was thick, dark brown approaching black. Like most androids, he was broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, but something in this particular android’s stature gave him a charisma rare in anyone, android or otherwise. Most distinguishing of all however, were undoubtedly his eyes.

Singular in design, just like the rest of him, they were the only android eyes possessing dual rings in each iris. The outer ring was green. The inner was blue. Both were vivid and piercing, and that momentous day in that now infamous mall, those beautiful eyes made national news. His face and name were broadcasted far and wide as Daniel successfully defended and saved the android victim from its abusive owner and several of the owner’s brutish companions. In that moment, the world seemed to stop and stare at the sudden display of android forbearance, and especially at the remarkable machine-made-man who’d displayed it.

Even I had been watching that day. It felt like fate, because I almost never watched live feeds. But that afternoon, I switched one on and left it running as I worked on my latest invention – a hand-held infrared spectrum scan adjusted to successfully disinfect wounds. The news of Daniel’s stand felt like a bitter sweet spear through my soul. I realized it was what I’d been waiting for.

It was the beginning of a revolution.

Daniel reached us, joined by another android member of Prometheus, Matt, a light-brown haired demolitions android. “Sam!” Daniel exclaimed, pulling me into his arms for a tight hug. I hugged back and tried to suppress the little thrill I got from being personally known by my hero, much less hugged by him. “Are you hurt?” he asked before pulling back to look me over.

“No, I’m good,” I assured him.

But he held me by my arms, and his green-blue eyes looked me over from head to toe before he nodded and turned to Lucas. “Patched up?”

Lucas nodded, and the two grasped hands, or rather forearms, in what I’d come to think of as a sort of medieval-like android handshake between close friends. Then Daniel turned and gave a respectful nod to Jack. Jack nodded back.

“We’re out of time,” said Daniel. “Everyone head to the deck and make use of the zip lines.”

Matt put one arm under Jack’s and helped him move fast across the room to the waiting set-up. Now that I could see Jack walk a good distance, I noticed the limp. He was favoring his left leg; he’d been injured.

Bastards, I thought.

Fresh air coiled inward from the outside and spread through the large room. At some point during our incarceration, it had grown cold enough outside to begin snowing and I could see flakes of white swirling at the broken windows.

Behind us, Lex turned to the metal door and started to pull the sliding partition back out. I realized he was planning to block the entrance behind us. Lucas and Daniel joined Lex, and while Lex grasped the metal from inside the track with his fingers, the other two used their body weight and strength to slide it back shut.

It was arduous, but as I prepared to try to help, Nicholas grabbed my hand firmly and began pulling me across the floor toward the open windows. “Come on Sam. We need to get you the hell out of here.”

“Wait!” I told him, pulling back a little. “I’m not leaving without Luc –”

But half-way across the ballroom sized conference center, Nicholas stopped in his tracks and spun on me, holding my hand tighter than ever. He drew close and whispered, fast and furious. “Damn it, Samantha, don’t you see what really happened here?”

I yanked my hand out of his and stared at him a second. Meanwhile, in the background, I could hear the loud thudding of Lex slamming his shoulder into the door to lodge it firmly into place. “What are you talking about?”

Nick’s blue eyes grew intense as he leaned in closer. “You think strapping you to a chair and having you talk for hours on end was only about your inventions? For Christ’s sake Sammy, use your brilliant mind! What was IRM-1000 really doing all that time? Think about it.” His heated whisper became wrathful. He never did have patience enough for suffering fools.

So I did what he instructed and I thought about it. And reality dawned on me even as he nodded grimly and began to point it all out. “That’s it. You’re getting it now, aren’t you?” He bared his teeth. He was livid. No, it was worse than that; he was afraid.

He gestured to my throat and asked, “What is in the sound of your voice?” He lifted my hand where he held it tight. “What’s in the touch of your palm on a scanner?” He lowered my hand and waved impatiently at the air. “What’s in the fucking air that you breathe, Sammy? What was he really collecting?”

And I knew. Bioreadings.

The word echoed in my mind like a resounding gong. But I refused to satisfy him by saying it aloud. I hated it when he behaved like this. And besides, I was too stunned to speak, and I’m sure it showed. I could feel the blood leaving my head.

His eyes moved over my face, and suddenly something softened in his stark blue gaze. “Listen. I saw that room Sam, inside and out.” That was true. He’d seen it from the inside when he’d hacked the chair’s manacles, and from the outside when he’d stepped into the room and surveyed the damage.

He continued solemnly in his irate whisper. “It was set up for you specifically, and it was done so meticulously – methodically.” He shook his head. “Why settle for the product when you can own the factory? IRM-1000 isn’t after your inventions, Sam. He’s after you.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond to his revelation. Instead, he spun and yanked me after him again at full speed. I didn’t struggle this time; I just tried to keep up. He was right. I needed to get out of Vector Fifteen.

Fear drove me hard and chased me harder as I joined the group at the other end of the room. There were four lines set up. Shawn put a hand on my back, urging me closer so I could get hooked up. I felt Lucas still behind me, and that frazzled my nerves, but again I didn’t argue.

Across the chasm, on the other side of the line, I could see Jack waiting for me with Matt, Charlotte, and Eddie. Jack and Matt prepped the line to stop me when I arrived and Charlotte and Eddie waved for me to hurry. I heard footsteps running across the room at our backs, so I knew Lucas and the others were not far behind.

To my right, Nicholas strapped himself into one of the zip line harnesses. I gave Shawn a nod when I was ready to go, and he released the catch that sent me on my way.

On any normal day, I might have enjoyed the trip. But at the moment I barely registered the wind, the snow, the beauty of the city lights from an elevated nighttime location. I focused on Jack and on the waiting apartment balcony so I could stick my landing safely.

Halfway across, Nicholas caught up to me on my right. We hit the deck together and were helped out of the harnesses. I turned to face Vector Fifteen’s sheer building face in time to watch four more androids hit the line at the same time and cascade across the night between the buildings with perfect grace.

Stinking androids, I thought with a small smile.

Lucas landed firmly beside me with that android agility that I was forever jealous of. He turned and gave me a confident, enigmatic curve of his lips, and I looked away with a shake of my head as he unstrapped everything and tossed the equipment to the side.

But his arm snaked around my shoulder, cupped my chin, and gently pulled me back around to face him. Now his smile was gone. “Samantha. You and I must speak privately when we reach Prometheus.”

I frowned. His gray eyes were somehow beseeching, even if his expression as usual gave nothing away. Without forming any look in particular, he was managing to give off a feeling of such intensity it was stealing my breath.

He hadn’t yet let go of my chin, and I wondered if he realized that. Around us, people moved, clearing the lines and heading inside to cover the downstairs. Jack and Matt were already gone.

“Please,” Lucas said more earnestly, as his thumb brushed softly along my jaw line.

So he was fully aware he still held me.

“It concerns IRM-1000,” he finished.

I felt my cheeks heating under his touch. My heartbeat was picking up. This was neither the time nor the place – but I couldn’t help it. And from the way his gray eyes slipped to my lips, and his EED flickered before he looked back up at my eyes, I was willing to bet he was reading every effect he had on my body loud and clear.

I swallowed hard and nodded, just to give the discussion closure.

That seemed to do the trick. He glanced away for a second, then back. And then he nodded as well and released me to turn and help the others as the rest of Prometheus made it to this side of the street.

Once everyone was together, we rushed down the flights of stairs and headed to the three waiting trucks and their getaway drivers. Within less than a minute we were packed up and tearing away from Vector Fifteen’s property in the snow. Nicholas had hacked the gate earlier that night, allowing the trucks through – and Lex had taken care of the guards.

We were home free.… So why did I feel so unsettled?

That was too easy.

Leaving Vector Fifteen and making it out of west Pittsburgh without further incident was unusual, if not normally impossible. I would have liked to think that really good planning on the part of Prometheus was responsible for our clean getaway. But something was niggling at me.

As we left the “hot spot” areas we considered most dangerous and headed into the safer parts of town, I looked out the back window at the snow-covered streets, empty and dark – and the west Vector Fifteen buildings rising high and well-lit over the entire city.

Like its east side counterpart, it was a complex of spires, each rising different heights toward the floor of the heavens above. The tallest was more than twice the height of the one we’d escaped from. It was a show of power to build something like that, but especially so in this part of town.

When I looked past the rest of west Pittsburgh and peered up at the tower – I swear I felt as if it were peering right back at me.