Chapter Twenty-Six

Android bodies were not burned when they died, mostly because burning an android body produced too much toxic smoke. The horror of the truth was that android bodies were normally tossed out like rubbish and piled in a dump as dismantled trash.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen in Prometheus. When an android died, he or she was buried.

But Jonathan Montgomery had been human, not android. And he’d also been a big fan of pop culture. So on the night of the first year of the new century, Prometheus gave Jonathan a “Hunter’s Funeral,” the way they had on the old television series, Supernatural.

For a special send-off with a poignantly personal touch, while they burned his body and the body of his son, I sang Xena’s “Burial” song.

It was something I had learned to sing in my teens. Lucy Lawless had possessed the most beautiful voice, so the producers of Xena had often taken advantage of it and incorporated music into the show whenever possible. When someone important to the series died, Xena and her companions would do the same thing the Winchester brothers did. They would wrap the body up, lay it out atop a pyre, and set the body ablaze. Then Xena would sing.

And every single time, it was soul-searing and otherworldly.

The night of January 1^st, 2100, as the moon reflected clear on a calm lake and the flames rose high into the multiverse, I watched my dear friend and the man who’d been a father to Daniel go up in ashes. As if I’d been unknowingly preparing for this moment my entire life, I then closed my eyes in the respectfully waiting silence, and my voice poured forth with more depth and emotion than ever before.

I have to admit that despite the literal pain wrapping around me from my chest outward, the night I sang standing beside Jonathan’s funeral pyre was the most beautiful I had ever sounded. That was perhaps the most painful thing of all. Because Jonathan didn’t get to hear it.

And he would have loved it.

When the human remains were burned down to ash, we took the molts from the androids who’d died with them and lovingly, tenderly placed both the ashes and the reactors in a sealed capsule. Then each of us placed into the same capsule something meaningful, something that defined the tie we’d had with the ones we’d lost.

The capsule itself would be buried somewhere special later on. For now, we would keep it close, place our hand against it when we needed to, and mourn.

It was dark and quiet later that night after the funeral. In this dark silence, Daniel came to find me in Prometheus’s library and ask to speak with me in private.

I tensed up, lifting my face from the electronic reader in my hands. Just like that, I knew my mourning period was over. I knew he wanted to talk to me about Ben. After in effect “burying” several close friends, I had never been in less of a mood to hear a reprimand. But I nodded and followed him out of the library anyway. He was Prometheus’s leader, after all.

The private meeting room of Prometheus was designed with interrogations in mind. It was a small sound-proof room at the end of one hallway. Like the other rooms, it was all white and clean-lined, but it had a colder and more pragmatic feel to it, clearly designed with intimidation in mind. At the center of the room there was a metal table, and just as did the tables in police interrogation rooms, this one came with built-in supports for bindings or cuffs. The single chair bolted into the floor possessed the same.

It reminded me of Zero’s metal chair in that room on the twenty-seventh floor of his Vector Fifteen building. When I saw that was the room Daniel was leading me to, I dutifully stifled the urge to stop and question him. But my blood pressure spiked.

However, when I followed Daniel into the room, it was to find that several more chairs had been placed inside, along with AV equipment – and several other people were there too.

Also in the room, on a small side-table in the corner, was the canister holding Jonathan and Theo’s ashes and the molten salt reactors of the fallen androids. I guess it was included… just in case someone needed any of their old friends to be there.

Cole, Lucas, Nicholas, and Jack were already in the room. They were seated except for Cole, who was standing bent over the computer I assumed controlled the static image on a screen someone had attached to one of the walls.

I looked at each of them in turn. None of them were smiling, and that was bad enough. Worse was that there was a hollow darkness under Luke’s eyes that he rarely acquired. I’d noticed it appeared when he was deeply troubled. It was as if he were designed to reflect the harrowing effects of human emotion, regardless of whether or not he needed sleep. Maybe it was part of his diplomacy programming, additions made compliments of FutureGen or whoever it was that had awakened him.

When I met his gaze, he held it for a moment then gracefully placed his hands atop the table and stood, pushing out his chair. He walked around the table as Daniel and I entered, striding toward me.

Jack spoke up from where he reclined in his own chair. “Take a seat, Sam,” the captain said with a tone that told me something I didn’t want to hear was coming. “You’re gonna want to be sitting down when you hear this.”

Oh God, I thought. Not now. Not something horrible. Not tonight.

Not again.

Luke’s hand at the small of my back drew me out of my thoughts. I looked up; he was tall and strong, ever steady, and though he didn’t quite smile, he gave me a reassuring look and nodded as if he knew I needed that now more than ever. He was so beautiful that for a moment, he literally took my breath away. Nicholas was at fault for that; now I knew. Luke’s appearance had been designed to have this effect on me.

No fair.

Luke pulled out a chair at the table beside the one he’d evacuated. “It’s okay,” he told me softly. “Here,” he gestured to the seat he’d pulled out for me. “Sit down.” It was not only next to his, it also happened to be the one directly across the table from the viewing screen, offering me the best view.

“Oh look,” I muttered with not a little amount of sarcasm. “I’m the guest of honor.”

I glanced both angrily and nervously at Cole, who no doubt already knew what was going to appear on that screen any second now. But his face was shut down for once, utterly unreadable. Again, he was showing me a side of himself that was different than the one I’d grown up with, more mature, and frankly a little scary.

Everyone was getting scary these days.

I glanced at his older brother. Yep, I thought. Their expressions were identical.

Cole and Nicholas were “Irish twins,” babies born a mere nine months apart, indicating their mother had become pregnant immediately after having given birth to Nicholas. When they were younger, they couldn’t have been more different. And even now, most of the time Cole was a pain-in-the-butt smartass with a penchant for sex and anything even remotely related to the same.

But when I compared them just then in that room, I realized they were the exact same lofty height, had the same build, and their resemblance to one another in facial features was uncanny. They were nearly as similar as Zero and Luke. It brought a little more meaning to the second part of the term “Irish twins.” There were really only two enormous differences between them, when I thought about it. One was in the way they carried themselves. And the other was in their eyes.

Cole was a trouble maker, a smoker, a drinker, and if the scars and bruises he perpetually wore were any indication, he was a fighter. Who perhaps liked being in pain.

Nicholas, on the other hand was more refined. His clothing was expensive, he had no visible scars, and if he liked any aspect of pain, I would wager on him preferring to give it rather than receive it. It was always the quiet ones.

As far as their eyes went, Cole’s were a deep, gemstone blue like the cobalt of a troubled sea. And Nick’s were lighter, nearly as ice cold as IRM-1000’s. Of course, Nicholas had designed Zero, and knowing what I knew of that design now, I wasn’t surprised Zero possessed those eyes.

Speaking of eyes, every pair in the Prometheus interrogation room was on me. And no one was giving anything away. To make matters worse, the atmosphere was so damn thick with tension, I felt like I had to literally pull air into my lungs in order to breathe. It went sluggishly, in and out, fighting every inch of the way.

“Okay, what the hell?” I asked without sitting down. Lucas stayed beside me, one hand on the chair’s back, the other on my back. He didn’t move, but his eyes shot to Daniel. Daniel glanced at Jack. From his chair, Jack looked up at Cole.

Nicholas sighed through his nose. “You really do need to sit down, Sammy,” he said softly. But his voice was deep and his tone was that holier-than-thou tone he sometimes took when he was about to deliver an unsolicited lecture.

My gaze narrowed on him and I braced my hands on my hips. “Oh no,” I said, shaking my head resolutely. “I’m not fourteen, Nicholas. This won’t work with me anymore.”

He frowned, feigning confusion. “Anymore?” he asked incredulously. “When did it ever work with you, Sam? You’ve never listened to reason. Not now, not when you were fourteen, not ever.” His gaze narrowed to match mine and he added through clenched teeth, “If only you had.”

He was pushing my buttons, because I literally felt my blood pressure rising. “Fuck it,” I said, looking from him to the others. “If you’re all here to chew me out for bringing Ben to Prometheus, then scream at me already and get it over with. I’ve had a long day.”

The cylindrical case that held Jonathan and Theo’s ashes drew my gaze and I felt a wave of something strong move through me. It sapped my strength and lowered my voice. I swallowed hard, adding, “We all have.”

At the end of the table, in front of the computer, Lieutenant Cole Byron put all his muscled weight on one strong arm and ran his other hand through his dark hair. He looked more tired than anything just then. “For the love of God… please Sam,” he said without looking at me. “You really don’t know….” He sighed heavily. “This has nothing to do with Ben. In fact, it’s good you brought him to us when you did. It saved us at least one android we need to be worried about.”

Now… I was lost. I didn’t even know what to ask, so I just said, “What?”

Lucas pressed more insistently where his hand was on my back, and when I looked up at him, he nodded firmly at the chair. “Samantha, sit.”

I finally sat down. Lucas smoothly pushed in my chair and sat down in the seat next to me. His inner interrogator was showing.

Daniel moved around the table until both he and the screen were in front of me. “This notice went out across all android communication channels a few short minutes before you arrived here this afternoon, Sam,” said Daniel. He nodded at Cole, and Cole typed something into his keyboard.

The screen came to life with two very blue eyes. I swallowed hard when they appeared to spear right through me, pinning me to the chair as if with a rod through my heart. He didn’t move his lips at all, but the EED around his left eye pulsed slowly between blue and yellow, and a sound meter to the right of his beautiful image was moving up and down, indicating changes in audio levels. He was communicating.

“His message is inaudible to the human ear,” said Daniel. “So Nicholas made a few adjustments, and the lieutenant is looping the sound in right now.”

A heaviness settled in my gut that made me feel like I was sinking through the chair underneath me until Cole pressed a final key on the keyboard, and sound cut in half-way through IRM-1000’s sentence. I listened with mounting unease that quickly became disquiet and rapidly turned into outright dread.

“What you can’t hear,” said Daniel, “is Zero simultaneously sending out the model and bioreading information necessary to properly scan and identify all marks. Trust me, it’s there, and it was communicated clearly.”

“Oh… hell….” I didn’t even realize I was voicing my astonishment out loud, so I didn’t finish the sentiment. But there was no need anyway. It was clear now why everyone had been pale faced and serious when I’d arrived at Prometheus with Ben. It wasn’t just that they were surprised to see me with a stranger. It was that they’d just received this message.

I had to admit they’d hidden their trepidation really well, considering. I didn’t think I’d have been able to. But we were all on the same page now.

IRM-1000 had literally put bounties on all our heads.

Daniel, Shawn, Matt, Sonia, Charlotte, Lex, Lilith, Jack, Lucas, me, even Nicholas and most surprising of all, Cole, had been included in the announcement. All of Prometheus was now officially “wanted.” And the prize for turning us in was astounding.

“IRM-1000 managed to get his message across to nearly every single android on the planet earlier today,” Daniel told us as I put my face in my hands and closed my eyes. “The members of Prometheus were excluded from receiving it due to our barriers.”

He was referring to Daniel’s ability to protect the minds of the members of Prometheus with the automatic upgrade that occurred to another android any time he or she joined our group. I had personally created that upgrade for him. All it took was a touch from Daniel, and the necessary computer information was downloaded by the new member. It in turn made the changes to the android’s design, bringing them into the fold like a new Borg member, but also acted as a shield against unwanted infiltration by anyone else, such as Zero. Due to the Borg similarity, I’d teasingly named the upgrade RIF, for “Resistance is Futile.”

“Also excluded were any androids with damaged neuronet processors,” Daniel went on. “It appears you were exceedingly lucky, Sam.”

I dropped my hands and looked up. Daniel settled me with his bi-colored gaze. He went on. “Ben happens to be one such android. Whatever he endured that caused the scars on his face also blocked Zero from entering his mind. So while you were on your way here with him, he didn’t receive the message. Otherwise…” he paused for effect, though it wasn’t necessary. “I don’t want to think the worst of people I don’t yet know. But this prize is too big to ignore, Sam. If Ben had received this message while you were alone with him, I honestly don’t know whether you would have made it home at all.”

No, I thought. Maybe not. Not with what Zero was offering.

Each member of Prometheus was worth something priceless. Turn any of us in precisely as stipulated, and the android making the delivery was guaranteed what Zero termed a “human existence.” The android and his or her loved ones would be given new, thoroughly-backed human identities with home and vehicle, high paying jobs, and a brand new lease on life free of persecution, all expenses paid as if the androids were entering the witness relocation program.

There were so many androids who would have scrambled at the chance to see this messy revolution in their rearview mirrors, this offer was thoroughly chilling. The temptation would be far too great for them to ignore.

What made it even more unsettling was that most of Prometheus wasn’t even wanted alive. Dead or alive would do. The stipulations were exact and unwavering, but they were simple. Jack, Lucas, and I were to be turned in alive and unharmed. The others would be accepted either way, though a large bonus was included for anyone still breathing.

Deviate from IRM-1000’s strict instructions in any manner, and the punishment would be severe. But stick to the order, and the reward was enormous.

“Wow,” I finally said softly. “He… really pulled out all the stops.” I slowly pushed myself back from the table.

Then I stood up abruptly, and found myself fisting my own thick, white-blonde hair in my hands as I turned around to face the wall and then turned back again in agitation. “Can he even do this?” I asked, too befuddled by this distressing turn of events to properly formulate my thoughts. “I mean, he’s offering new identities! Those take social security numbers that actually work, and new names that are registered, and past lives that have paper trails going back thirty to forty years!” I threw out my hands in exasperation, completely at a loss. “Not to mention removing their EED’s so they could appear human,” which I knew wasn’t impossible but extremely risky and problematic, which was one of the reasons Prometheus still had theirs. The other reason was a mixture of stubborn, morally-based pride. “How is this possible?”

Jack sighed and leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table top. His gray hair fell over his face, so he used one hand to brush it back and fist it behind his head before he said, “That’s kind of what I was wondering, in all honesty.” His voice was low and soft, a little less filled with hope than it usually was. It reminded me too uncomfortably of his Russian Roulette days. Those had been the days when the pain of losing a child was too much for him to take and the canvas of his memories was too vivid to forget or paint over, and all he wanted to do was wipe it clean once and for all. By just setting it on fire.

He went on with another sigh. “It makes sense that if that walking trash bin can actually make this offer with full intent of following through legally, he’d have to be granted the backing of the US government. Or at least, some faction of it.”

Knowing Zero? I wouldn’t put the ability past him. He was terribly charismatic, horribly resourceful. As Nicholas had said, into Zero had gone everything a woman could want in a man. He would have had no problems romancing this kind of cooperation and backing from someone in the higher echelons of our country’s administration.

I wouldn’t have been surprised to find the president on his side. After all, she’d been less than supportive of androids during the first half of her presidential term, and it was clear that his actions were anti-android, despite the fact that he himself was an android. And then there was the fact that our current president was a healthy, unmarried heterosexual woman who was no doubt too busy and too stressed for much of a sex life – and Zero was nothing if not living, breathing sex appeal.

“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath.

Daniel, who had approached the table and leaned over it to brace himself on his strong arms, looked up at me with a slightly amused expression but one that was mostly worried. “I would have to agree,” he said.

“Ditto,” said Jack.

“Yeah, me too,” said Cole with a good deal of bitterness as he ran his hands through his thick hair again and started pacing like a caged lion. “I can’t even go back to work. That plastic ass-wipe has managed to convince my captain and the commissioner that I’ve gone rogue and am now working with terrorists. Apparently they’ve already cleaned out my locker.”

“Oh my God, Cole,” I whispered, feeling sick for him. “I’m so sorry.” I had never meant for him to get roped into this mess. Everyone I’d ever loved was being punished by this revolution. And in a way it was all my fault.

Actually, if I wanted to be technical, it was all mine and Cole’s fault. Hell, it was Nick’s too – stolen kisses and brotherly jealousy being at the core of the reason for Zero’s existence. In a way, we were like the Three Musketeers of Android Death.

But Cole stopped and put his hands on his hips, turning his head to look at me over his broad shoulder. He appeared every bit the rogue in that moment. “You are?” he asked with a glint in his eye and a twisted smile. “I hope you don’t mean that, Cookie. Because I’m not. It was seriously worth it.” He cut his gaze hard and sharp to his brother. “And I’d do it again.”

Nicholas remained stoic, but his blue gaze iced over as it met Cole’s. The friction between them just then could have started a fire. Albeit a cold fire.

“I’m sure there’s a hell of a story behind whatever it is you two are piss matching about, but I’m also sure it doesn’t matter,” said Jack. “The shit of it is, Zero has managed to have his cake and eat it too.”

“He’s right,” I said, forcing myself to focus on the issue at hand. Feeling sorry for myself or my friends wasn’t going to save any of us. “He’s turned every available hard body into a bounty hunter, and at the same time he’s furthering his agenda to keep humans and androids on unequal footing. Toting a ‘human existence’ as a highly desirable prize to be won pretty much tells the android population that any hope they have of ever being equal to humans otherwise is lost.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Lucas said, “Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t do this sooner.”

We looked at him. He was sitting straight-backed in his seat, and his gaze was steady on the picture of Zero, frozen up on the screen. But when he felt the combined weight of our stares, he looked at each of us in turn, and settled on me last. “You have to admit Samantha, it makes the most logical sense.”

Yeah, it did. What was catching me off guard was how calmly Lucas was handling it.

“He’s right,” said Nicholas frankly.

Now we all looked at him instead. He was leaning back in his own chair and his hands were steepled before him, his forefingers pressed to his lips in contemplation. But just as Lucas had, when he noticed us all staring at him, he looked up and shrugged. “What? It’s brilliant. IRM-1000 has the money, and he certainly possesses the ability to achieve the backing. And now every android that isn’t a part of Prometheus will be on the lookout for every member that is.”

“Nicholas,” said Daniel, turning to address him, “if you’re in this for the long haul, I have a job for you.”

Nick’s brows rose. “Oh?” We all stayed quiet, awaiting his response. After a while, he asked, “What kind of job, Daniel?”

The way he said Daniel’s name was familiar somehow. Then it struck me that it would be. Daniel was the first model he’d ever created. Who knew how long he’d had him before he’d given him to Jonathan?

They were old friends. I was shocked it was only hitting me then. But there it was. And the look Nick was giving his android friend was one that said Nick was expecting to be saddled with the worst. As if Daniel had done it to him a thousand times.

Maybe he had. I almost felt like laughing at that thought. Nicholas was a loner, perpetually just too damn smart to have the patience to deal with the majority of humanity. A Nicholas Byron with genuine friends was a new one for me. I liked it.

Daniel smiled a smile big enough I knew it was genuine. But his unique blue-green eyes remained hard where they were trained on Nicholas. “I basically need you to be Zero,” he said. “Tell us everything you think he would do, and try to tell us before he does it. You know him better than anyone, for obvious reasons.”

Clearly Daniel was aware that Nicholas had created Zero and Lucas. I wondered how much of that particular story Daniel knew.

Then I wondered who else knew.

I glanced at Jack and decided he definitely didn’t know. Then I looked at Lucas. Did he know? Did he know that in essence, he only existed because I had kissed Nick’s brother? Was he aware of what he represented? An afterthought to balance out the bad with some good?

Ugh, my mind thought. That was just too unpleasant. And I didn’t feel like contemplating whether anyone else in Prometheus was aware of the situation. So I forced myself to refocus again, feeling a little attention-deficit. It doesn’t matter, Sam. None of that matters right now. Reasons don’t matter. It happened. Right now what matters is figuring a way out of this.

“I have an idea,” I said aloud.

Now everyone’s eyes were on me. I stood up straighter and took a deep breath. “I say we use this against him. There’s no better defense than a good offense, right?”

Everyone nodded, especially Jack who still appreciated a good televised hockey game from time to time.

“Okay,” I reasoned, “so what if we get to the bounty hunters before they get to us? Find someone good. Make them an offer. Turn the tables?”

Their gazes intensified on me, and as a group they moved in a little. “What exactly are you thinking, Sam?” Daniel asked.

“Hear me out,” I said, leaning over the table and splaying my hands across its surface as I began to verbally formulate my thoughts. “If I were an actual bounty hunter and I’d received this message along with every other work-a-day android, I’d be a little peeved. FutureGen did create android bounty hunters, after all. They work for bail bondsmen and sometimes in cooperation with the police. They’re naturally good at their jobs, much better than humans and much better than non-bounty hunter androids.”

Bounty hunter androids were a brilliant FutureGen production, and their production was designed and enacted while Nicholas was still in charge. Bounty hunting was a dangerous job for two reasons. One, when a defendant signed the bail bond contract, they actually signed away their constitutional rights, making them easy targets for bounty hunters with a penchant for violence. Android bounty hunters were adept at bringing in fugitives without unnecessary violence, which protected the defendant. And two, unlike the police, bounty hunters were not protected by law when they injured a non-fugitive by accident. Sometimes they weren’t even protected from legal repercussions when they injured the fugitive. Hence, having a bounty hunter who was smart, fast, and strong yet almost never damaged their mark was ideal for everyone involved.

Chalk one up for Nicholas and his genius.

I went on, “But now all these other less qualified androids are going to be getting in the way of actual bounty hunting.”

Jack smiled. “I think I see where you’re going with this, kiddo.”

I gave him a thankful glance, but continued to explain anyway. “Hunters are going to be unhappy with IRM-1000’s offer in general. Which puts them on our side, in a way. And yet they’re still bounty hunters, so they have one mission: bring in the bounty. What we do is make the first move. We contact them and tell them they can take us all in alive and we won’t put up any struggle – if they agree to our terms. And then we carefully set it all up. We choreograph the entire exchange so that in the end, the prizes have already been won and – obviously – we get away. This effectively takes us off the market again.”

There was another mutual moment of silence all around as they processed this, and then I watched smiles spread. Daniel lifted off the table, Cole scratched the back of his head, Jack grinned from ear to ear, and Lucas gave me a proud look.

But it was Nicholas who spoke up. “You really want me to think like Zero, Daniel?” he asked without looking up at Prometheus’s leader. I realized he was the only one not smiling.

Daniel studied his profile. “I do.”

“Then I have to tell you – if I were Zero, this is exactly what I would expect you to do.”

I blinked. “What?”

Nicholas looked up, catching my gaze. I was hit with that ice from earlier, and it was uncanny how much it reminded me of being in IRM-1000’s sights.

“Malcom was designed to be a strategist, among other things. Tactician, diplomat, the works,” he told me, using the name he’d given Zero years ago. He put his hands down from their steepled position and leaned forward, sitting up straight. “So depending on how smart he believes the members of Prometheus to be, he’s going to plan around anything we might plan.”

I saw the others glance at one another out of the corner of my eye, but Nicholas held my gaze tight. “I think Zero is well aware of how smart you are, Samantha.” He paused, finally looked away, and sighed, leaning back in his chair again. “And with my brother and I now officially on your side, you can safely wager he’ll be thinking several steps ahead from now on.”

No one said a word for a long time after that, but we were all thinking it. The word we weren’t saying was a swear word.

“Okay then,” I finally said, looking each of them in the eye one after another. “We’re just going to have to out-plan him. We’re up against the Sicilian from The Princess Bride. Either someone needs to break out the android iocane powder, or we need to strategize like Garry Kasparov.”

I moved away from the table and walked around it to stand before the stilled image of IRM-1000 with his glowing blue eyes and his hard-set jaw. I stared right back at him for a moment before shooting him a dirty look and turning my back on the screen. “We’ve got a job to do and we can’t let Zero stop us from doing it with this little temper tantrum. So if we can’t go immediately on the offensive, then we at least need a good defense.”

I looked up at Daniel. “If Zero sent out all of our personal information so that we can be scanned and identified by any android, then that’s what we need to prevent right off the bat.”

Daniel nodded in agreement. He looked down at Nicholas. “Can you out-strategize Zero as far as that is concerned?”

Nicholas considered that. “He’ll know we’re going to try. But that’s all he’ll know.” He looked over at me intently. “But I can’t do it alone in the time allotted.”

Just like he knew I would, I said, “You won’t have to.”

Nick’s eyes glittered like the surface of a frozen lake. He studied me while cocking his head to the side. Then he leaned forward and slowly rose to his feet, gaining a good foot of height on me. “Are you telling me you’re finally willing to work with me, sunshine?” he asked with a small but very Cole-like smile and ice-blue eyes that promised frosty resolve. And now I knew where Zero got that particular look from.

But I nodded. “I am. Let’s get a boatload of coffee in us and get to work.”