Chapter Ten

The door slid open automatically as we approached, and I had my first look at what waited in the space beyond.

The pyramid structure jutting out from the snow like a wayward and lost monument of Giza was actually the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. And what looked metal and stone from the outside was actually glass. From the inside, it was plain the ceiling was a darkly tinted sun roof that stretched overhead from the ground on one side to the ground on the other side. Panel by panel, it revealed the vast, snowy landscape beyond. Under the ceiling, the ground-level room opened up to a wrap-around balcony that broke into winding stairs going down. They were also made of metal and glass. The structure was replete with nothing but clean lines.

It all frankly looked cold, and I had the sensation that the outdoors had simply been brought in along with me. However, Zero hadn’t lied when he’d said the temperature had been adjusted. I knew it wasn’t actually freezing in here. My goosebumps were emotional.

The door slid shut behind us and we stepped through a small foyer before entering the main area. That foyer was equipped with a single piece of furniture – a kind of “rug.” I would have loved to study the rug more closely, but from the cursory inspection I was able to give it on our way through, the square fragment of carpet had been designed with pile composed of both tiny vacuums and heated air vents. The two circulated heat outward and then instantly sucked it back in, first melting any snow on our shoes, and then drawing that moisture away with surprising speed and efficiency. By the time we stepped off the “rug,” my shoes were completely dry and it had only been a few steps.

We moved onto the glass flooring of the walkway, and I glanced down in time to see movement below me, which caused a jolt of vertigo. I slowed to keep from stumbling. The glass was not quite opaque enough to hide the levels below, and it was disorienting. But I stifled my reaction and hid it as best I could; I didn’t want Zero to have any more ammunition against me.

He gently released my arm as we moved toward the stairs, then stepped ahead of me, gesturing for me to follow. I noticed he’d finally changed clothes. Somewhere between the helicopter and here, he’d shifted his uniform to its original make, a tailored white suit. With the blue eyes, he was once more the photo negative of IRM-900.

I preferred this, of course. But I did wonder why he’d bothered.

The stairs we approached led down from the walkway all along one side of the wall. The wall itself was roughly-hewn stone, but it was stylishly done. I knew it was all part of the modern – and again, cold – décor. It was meant to be tasteful, no doubt. But tasteful or not, I froze on the first step when I realized the stairs were nothing but simple, perfectly clear rectangular pieces of glass that jutted out from the stone wall, and there was no hand rail.

The vacuuming rug made perfect sense now. Wet shoes on this staircase would mean treachery. As to the missing hand rails, I supposed androids wouldn’t need them. They never lost their balance. But I was sure as hell feeling increasingly unbalanced with each passing second, and in more ways than one.

So I couldn’t help pausing there to collect my courage, all pretense of my composure gone. IRM-1000 stopped two steps down from me, and turned to glance over his shoulder, pinning me with those glacial eyes. However, he smiled patiently and said nothing. I was pretty sure he could either tell with his android readings how unsettled I was, or he simply wasn’t stupid. Of course I was unsettled. This architecture was fucking nuts.

I was about to tell him as much, when a sudden shriek of pain pierced the silence like a soul of the damned.

I jerked in surprise on the step and bumped into the wall beside me, my hands reaching out to brace it palms-down. My heart hammered painfully. Distorted as it was, I knew that voice.

“Lucas!” I screamed. I couldn’t help it. My mouth went dry, and my automatic response was to shove away from the wall next and attempt to make it down the stairs. Of course, Zero was a mere two steps down, and when I reached him, he simply blocked my path, his blue eyes nearly white, his lips smirking.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” I told him.

The bellow of agony came once more, and Zero’s lips twitched. “But you needn’t rush, Samantha. We’re on our way to meet with him right now. After all, that’s why I changed,” he said, gesturing to his impeccable, perfect attire. “I wouldn’t want you to confuse us for one another once we meet him.”

He turned and took a few steps, but then stopped and glanced back over his broad shoulder. “Then again, I highly doubt that will be an issue.” He grinned. “Not in IRM-900’s current state.”

From a distance, I heard someone begin to hyperventilate, but I couldn’t be bothered to try to calm her down, I had bigger fish to fry. I was having a hard enough time stumbling after the bastard android who’d imprisoned the man I loved. I had to concentrate very hard to neither fall off the side to the level three stories down or give Zero a hard shove to see if he would fall to his death instead.

The man I love. Yeah… not that I would ever tell Lucas that, my freaking-out brain babbled. But maybe I should! I thought. Life is short, and ours are probably going to be shorter than usual even, and who knows whether we even have a Prometheus to return to or if we will even get out of here to return to it, and seriously Sam you should just jump that step between the two of you, it’s a mere sixteen inches at most, and you can lean heavily to the left and strike him at the waist with your right shoulder and he’ll be forced to pivot, but there’s not enough room so he’ll go down –

A third scream pierced the hollow sounds of our shoes on the glass and my heart in my head, and I swallowed hard to keep the bile from making it past the midway point in my esophagus. No way in hell was I throwing up in front of IRM-1000.

Unless you throw up on him, my inner voice suggested gleefully. It was beginning to sound more and more like the Joker’s voice. That was worrisome. You could really mess up that pristine white jacket of his. That would show him!

Nah, just push him off. Better hurry though, because we’re getting too close to the bottom for it to do much damage. And – oh, never mind. We’re here.

Fuck, I thought suddenly and quite somberly. I’m not handling this well.

Zero moved away from the stairs ahead of me and turned to wait for me to take the final steps. I did, quelling my panic with all my might. My android captor’s gaze narrowed on me thoughtfully. I had no idea what he could be thinking. Surely he knew what this would all do to me. Surely it couldn’t have been much of a surprise. So why did he look so brooding?

The EED around his left eye shifted across the color spectrum from ice blue to yellow and flashed a few times. For a second, I thought I saw the rings of his wintery blue irises spinning. But it was probably my imagination, and the fact that my head was spinning instead.

I took the brief pause to focus on my breathing. But I knew in my heart that if I heard Lucas cry out in pain one more time, I was going to lose it. I didn’t know how I was going to lose it exactly, or even what “it” was. I just knew it would be lost. Like the Alamo.

Strangely enough, there were no more heart-rending shrieks or gut-wrenching sounds. All fell silent as Zero stepped closer to offer me his hand. “Given your current state, I would prefer to save this reunion for another time, Samantha. However, I don’t believe it would be in IRM-900’s best interest, and therefore neither in yours – nor mine.”

That bile crept right back up my throat. I prepared to let it loose all over Zero’s fancy attire.

But then he said, “So take my hand, and I will lend you any support you may need on the way.”

And instead of throwing up on him, I balled up my fist and punched him in the face.

I hadn’t even realized I was going to do it. I just did it. Which was probably why it was as much a surprise to Zero as it was to me. There’d been no warning for either of us.

Zero’s head snapped cleanly to the side, but the rest of his body stayed perfectly still. He stood tall, strong, and utterly unaffected. I watched his EED switch between yellow and red a few times before settling once again into blue. And then it slipped further into white. He slowly turned back to face me, the expression on his handsome features serene but for his eyes, which were flashing with something I couldn’t interpret.

He cocked his head a little to the side, gestured to my hand, and in a calm and quiet voice asked, “Are you injured?”

I blinked, swaying a little on my feet. I glanced down at my hand. The knuckles were red and might bruise, but I was fairly sure I was fine. It wasn’t my first rodeo, after all. I’d been so suddenly enraged that I’d been completely tensed up, so there were no loose joints or errant parts to sprain or break.

Plus, androids may have been composed of metal and plastic on the inside, but their outer layers were varying degrees of silicon and protective coatings, constructed in a manner that gave those layers the feel and function of human muscle and flesh. It wasn’t as if I had punched a wall.

Well, not physically anyway. Figuratively, I might as well have. Because when I shook my head just once, Zero only gave me a genuinely pleased smile. “Good,” he said. “Then I hope you are feeling better.”

He turned and strode to a hallway that led off from the main room. I knew he wanted me to follow him, but I stood there and took in my surroundings instead. Whereas the upper levels, walkway, and staircase seemed to be built with androids in mind, the ground level was clearly designed with regard to human tastes.

Plush leather couches, coffee tables, side tables, floor lamps, a massive hearth with a fire crackling merrily from its depths, and even a fully loaded bar against one wall were the very image of refined human style and comfort.

But what I was looking for was a way out. We were deep underground here; there were no windows. Instead, tapestries lined the walls, vividly depicting scenes of autumn sunshine landscapes and other meaningless if pleasing subject matter. There was no way out from down here, at least not that I could see.

When I finally looked back at Zero, I found him waiting by the hall. His hands were down at his sides. His expression was enigmatic.

I glanced at his men – there were roughly half a dozen visible around me in the facility. Three were downstairs with us, and three were on the glass walkway three stories up. They were armed and they watched diligently. The walkway had not only been built with androids in mind, but with guards in mind.

In short, this was a military facility. A fort, even. Hell, it was a bastion.

I took a therapeutic breath and turned back to Zero, making my feet move so I could join him at the hallway junction. He nodded at me and continued down the hall. I followed closely on his heels and didn’t fail to notice how the three soldiers on the same level in turn followed directly behind me, caging me in.

The hall was long and undecorated, its walls hewn from the same dense limestone as the walls in the main area. Electric lights had been recessed neatly, giving off a glow that softened the edges of the hallway’s appearance. But the sound of our shoes on the stone beneath us was hollow and loud, and Zero’s decorating touch did nothing to tamp my fear as we approached a single door at the end of the hall.

Zero placed his hand against it.

The reader within the metal door must have been invisible, hidden within the metal as if the metal itself were a touch screen. A light scanned his palm, up then down, and a lock inside slid open with finality.

I found myself swallowing very hard to make it past the growing lump. It was when I bumped into Zero’s soldier behind me that I realized I’d taken an involuntary step back. Zero cut his gaze to me, but said nothing.

I hugged myself.

The door slid open, recessing into the wall just as the main door had done upstairs. The technology in Zero’s home was beginning to remind me of Star Trek. But when Zero then reached back and took me by the elbow to pull me firmly into the room, what I found was anything but the utopian future of Roddenberry’s imagination.

Rather, it bore a striking resemblance to the basement nightmares of Stephen King. And it literally took my breath away.

Zero let me go when my legs gave out and I crashed to my knees. Twenty feet away, at the center of the room, a bright hanging lamp illuminated a single crude and uncomfortable table. Upon that table lay the android male I had admittedly lost my heart to. The android I would have given anything for. The android I had come to love.

In pieces.

His eyes were black from corner to corner, as if unfiltered thorium had built up behind them, thick and dark with depth. I knew he was blinded, but as though he could sense my presence in the room, he turned his head.

“S-Sammmmantha?”

My name hung in the silence and mingled like wet paint with the black that was invading my soul.