Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Try anything, anything at all,” warned the armed soldier, “and I will rearrange the good captain’s brain.”

There was no emotion on the soldier’s face as he doled out his warning. But he did cock his gun. The action was as ever unnecessary and only done to imply a sense of urgency. I had no doubts whatsoever that he would pull the trigger. And I was also certain there were actual killing rounds in that chamber rather than tranq bullets.

Luke’s arms around me tightened, his fingers curling in so hard they almost hurt. I watched his sensor flash and spin with mounting, bright red resentment.

And there it was again. That strange light in his eyes. But this time, it came and stayed… and as I watched, the light shifted spectrums, rapidly turning as red as the alarming shade of his EED. The cosmic indigo light those normally charcoal colored eyes had taken on was admittedly beautiful, even if it had only lasted seconds.

But this was unsettling in the extreme.

Zero’s men were loyal to the end it seemed, and they’d been well programmed. I could see that much with one glance over Luke’s shoulder.

“Lucas, just put me down. I’m okay enough to stand.” I was in pain; my attack on Zero’s guard had further torn my wound; I could feel it. The truth was I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold out. But desperate times….

However, Lucas didn’t even look back down at me. Instead, he said, “Haven’t you learned by now that it’s useless to lie to an android, Samantha?”

I went still.

“I can hear it in the tone of your voice,” he informed me coolly, every ounce the interrogator in that moment. “You are not okay.” Finally, he looked down. The features of his perfect face were lined with stark hard emotion. “And you can not stand.”

But he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. In fact, I’d told him the lie to get his attention focused on me like it was now. It would help immensely in accomplishing what I needed to do.

While I looked up into my android’s handsome face, I tried for all I was worth to reach him telepathically. It was much more difficult than speaking with Zero, especially with that wall up in my head and Lucas without a co-crest. But Nick had managed to strengthen the telepathic channels between myself and the android members of Prometheus using the same scrambler technology I’d incorporated into their armor.

It took a good deal of effort. But likely in no small part due to his concentrated attention on me as well, I managed to get a single message across. The only message that mattered.

They’re coming up behind you.

Lucas didn’t outwardly react, but I knew he’d heard me when his EED briefly flashed and settled down again. That was a machine for you; processing information at light speed.

He slowly, carefully leaned his strong body down to set me gently on my feet. Maintaining a calm and steady pace in order to refrain from letting on that he knew there were more soldiers behind him, he steadied me and shifted his weight.

I caught sight of bright red and took in the pattern staining Luke’s shirt. That’s my blood, I mused dumbly. There sure is a lot of it.

Then my eyes flew to his. Luke’s now all-red irises held mine for the briefest slice of time, yet long enough to leave me uneasy in their new, crimson fire. Then he let me go completely and spun.

Two of Zero’s men attacked, as usual with so much speed they appeared to blur around their edges. But Lucas blurred too. Or maybe it was me; maybe it was the cold, the wound, and me being suddenly vertical. That was entirely possible.

I pressed my palm to my side, then looked down at my hand. All I saw was red. The color was filling my world. My once light-gray shirt was stained too. More red, tons of it. Red has a volatile effect on the human psyche. Dizziness swept over me, a violent shiver chasing its heels.

All around me struggles took place. Slowly, I turned and took them all in. Daniel and Zero duked it out like expert martial artists, Sonia and one of Zero’s men played hard to get with each other, Shawn and two more of Zero’s men fought an unfair match… and on and on and on it went. All of Prometheus seemed to be embroiled in battles in the small snow-covered square. More than four dozen graceful machines danced around me, their programs locked in kill mode, their capable bodies intent on destruction.

One detonation, I thought. Right here, right now… and all Prometheus’s problems would be solved.

It was an alarming thought to experience so loud and clear at that pain-addled moment in time. Amidst the blur and confusion, that single, solid realization remained steady. Like a port in a storm.

One well-placed bomb.

Yeah but any old bomb would take out androids, Sam. A bomb is a bomb is a bomb, and plain old bombs take out everything. That’s the problem. You have better ideas than that.

Do I?

You know you do.

I did. It was true.

I thought about it fleetingly every once in a while. In moments like this, when the misery outweighed the hope. I buried it rapidly every time.

And that’s what I did this time too. I buried it in the snow.

A gust of wind tore through the square, picking up snow and tossing it like a hundred children on a snow day. I looked back down, shivered again, and swayed.

Well, so much for that, said the voice. Can’t cover it up this time, can you? Maybe you should actually give it some real thought.

No.

I didn’t realize I’d fallen in that wayward snow until I felt the denim over my knees soaked through. I also didn’t realize I was continuing to fall, hugging myself wretchedly, until I blinked to find the snow-covered ground a few short inches away.

I was sinking into it like a corpse in a grave.

Think about it, Sam. No more revolution, no more destruction, no more fighting and death. Either way you build it, this would all be over.

Either way I build it. What my inner voice was referring to was that I could in fact build a bomb. A very powerful bomb. And I possessed the additional knowledge – the vital, imperative, absolutely top-secret knowledge – that would allow me to build it one of two ways. I had my choice. I could build it in a manner that would destroy every android on the continent and slowly spread to the rest. Or I could build it so that it only destroyed the humans in much the same manner.

Sam, the voice said admonishingly. All this rather superfluous and compounded discomfort you seem to invite?

Oh, the voice was getting precocious now. I imagined it looking like a psychotic child with ringlets and a bloody axe, arguing with utter calm and indissoluble reasoning the apt logic of committing bloody murder.

The pain of you being shot or poisoned or having your bones broken? She shook her head at that one. Well, you would never have to feel that pain again. No more fighting, Sam. Is that such an insane thing to want? reasoned the crazy child.

Who was maybe not so crazy after all.

But who was definitely short-sighted and definitely carrying a bloody axe.

How am I being short-sighted? the child asked wide-eyed. Extinct is forever, Sam. And whether due to a lack of humans or androids, the revolution between them would be over. The fighting would be over!

That’s where you’re wrong.

The child fell silent and cocked her head to one side while I distantly noticed all of my clothing was now wet. People will always find a reason to fight, I asserted softly. Softly, because I had no energy for anything stronger. Always. Android or human. It doesn’t matter. The child seemed to have forgotten that humans had been fighting amongst themselves for millennia before androids had come along.

And androids were no better. The treatment afforded to Ben by his fellow androids out on the streets had been proof enough of that. We were all the same now. We were all human. And humans were animals.

Fine, crazy kid said with a nonchalant shrug. But you know… you can always tone the bomb down a little. Give your side an edge at least.

Then, No. I blinked. Horror rolled through me right along with the next hard shiver. This wasn’t me talking to myself like some B-rated villain. I could not become this.

I would rather die, I told the other voice firmly.

The child was finally quiet. And when I looked up, I realized my vantage point was one of a wounded rebel unwittingly making a snow angel. Inches of white surrounded my head on either side. I was laying face up in the drift, and snow was falling heavily again. When several flakes landed on my eyelashes, they didn’t even melt.

The forecasted blizzard, right on time. Let it bury me.

“Jack…” I heard myself mumble. “Daniel….” I closed my eyes. I wasn’t actually sure whether I’d said the names or just thought them. “Nicholas?” I tried, with even less strength. “Cole…” I whispered.

“Samantha.” A deep voice sliced cleanly through my white-out. “I’m here.”

Lucas?

In the distance, the world moved away as my now numb body was lifted. The white-out turned to gray behind my lids. Then even that faded to black.