Fade Away and Radiate (4 page)

By this time tomorrow, if Annie had her
way, Billy would be safely gone. Her desire pulled hard, deep in
the base of her belly. Annie licked her lips, and tasted the sweat
and tears mixed together. And she was surprised to find the taste
sweet.

They turned off the lights. Instead of
lying in the cot, Billy insisted they sleep behind the bed, pressed
up together on the floor against the flimsy back wall of the
hut.

“
Trust me,” he said. “Sweet
dreams.”

His voice, so everyday and cordial,
such a contrast to the raw passion they had just shared.

“
But what about Violet?” she
asked.

“
I’ll take care of that
little bitch.”

She got that he didn’t trust Violet.
But how could a little, unarmed lab AI do her any harm?

Annie soon found out.

#

Somehow Annie fell into sleep, tucked
inside Billy’s sheltering arms. He smelled like cinnamon and musk.
She dreamed of far-off gardens filled with spices and wild
creatures, fierce and beautiful.

Billy’s face hovered over hers in her
dream, open, finally at peace. The war was over…

Annie awoke to furious buzzing and
violent curses, flailing arms, and the hoarse cries of a man
fighting for his life.

She rolled under the cot to get out of
the way, and the battle royal raged above. She heard the crash of
furniture, the desk smashing to the ground, Billy’s angry roar, the
whine of Violet’s wings.

She reached up and felt for the blaster
still hidden under her pillow.

No! Annie!

And she drew her hand back just as
fast. As if Billy had smacked her.

A second later silence thundered down
over them, as if the battle had never happened.

“
Billy?” she whispered,
suddenly full of a terrible foreboding. “Billy!”

No answer, and after another minute
Annie decided she was done with hiding.

She hesitated, waiting for Billy to
yell into her mind again.

Nothing.

She crawled out from under the cot and
flicked on the bare bulb that hung over the smashed remains of her
desk.

Billy lay sprawled across the floor,
utterly still. With a cry, she rushed forward and rolled him over
with an adrenaline-fueled strength, searching his body for
wounds.

Violet buzzed up into her face, like a
fat, lost cicada in Forest Hills in August.

She slapped the insectoid AI away from
her. “Stand down!” she ordered. But instead of responding, Violet
buzzed away from her, drunkenly banging into the flimsy synthwood
door over and over again.

As Annie watched in horrified
fascination, Violet fell to the ground and crawled away through the
crack between the door and the threshold.

“
Billy.” She turned back to
him, racking her brain, trying to figure out how a tiny AI could
fell a big lug like Murphy. How could Violet have killed him
without any firepower at all?

She checked for a heartbeat and found
it, faint but steady. She let her hand rest against his chest. She
listened to his breathing, so tentative that it seemed he might
stop again at any moment.

Come back to
me
, she whispered inside his mind, not
realizing she’d done it until he stirred under her, responding to
her words with movement.

She stretched out next to him, warmed
his cold body with her own, restraining her panic like a ravening
dog on a leash.

“
Back,” Billy said aloud a
minute later, words slurring. “It was poison. Little
viper.”

He opened his eyes, and Annie looked
into him, disappeared into him. If he lived, she had to get him out
of here.

She blinked hard to break their
connection, and looked around the ruined hut. She could see beyond
the circle of light shed by the bare bulb overhead.

Daylight. They’d survived the
night.

“
Do you…do you need an
antidote?” Annie stuttered, though she didn’t have one, nor any
knowledge of how to concoct one.

“
Nah. The genmod. Comes
in…handy.” With a groan, Billy sat up, his sides heaving. “That
poison though…it woulda worked on you. Easy.”

Poison. Annie shuddered.
“Violet.”

“
Hells yeah, Violet. She
didn’t have bullets or lasers inside her. I knew to check for that,
before. But they stored poison in her. I’m not a drone specialist
or I woulda known.”

With growing amazement, Annie realized
he was apologizing to her. “You saved my life. You realize that, I
hope.”

He shrugged. “She never woulda come
after you if I hadn't showed up. Violet’s here to make sure you
stay here, working. But now she realizes I'm taking you away from
here, away from FortuneCorp. And her real job is to kill you rather
than allow you to get offworld with that Bowman drive. If they
can’t have your genius, nobody can.”

Annie's stomach did a slow flip. She'd
always thought Violet worked for her.

Annie was wrong. Annie worked for
Violet, and if she messed up, she'd be terminated.

For good.

“
She used up her first
strike on your pillow because your face wasn’t there,” Billy said.
“She had to strike fast to get past me, she knew that. Didn’t have
the time to register you weren’t sleeping in your usual place. But
man, her reserve dose was enough to do the job, too.
Ow.”

Annie stared and stared at her pillow.
The cover was shredded apart, and a thick, brown liquid puddled on
the synth-foam padding.

She tore her gaze away and turned her
attention to Billy’s wounds. Annie could see the vicious punctures
slashed into Billy’s palm.

“
She got away,” Annie said
and pointed to the door.

“
She probably got an
emergency beacon signal programmed in ‘er,” Billy said. “Time for
us to get out of here, wicked fast. I hear FortuneCorp is working
on a wormhole drive. If they’ve perfected it, then they can get
here in two hours, not two days. Gotta go.”

A sick dismay settled over Annie like a
thundercloud, a terrible certainty of doom.

The room did a slow spin, and she felt
like she was going to puke. “But go where? FortuneCorp owns this
whole sector. I can’t hide from them, Billy. You came all the way
out here to find me, but it’s too late, no matter what Roberto told
you. I think you can save yourself if you get out of here fast
enough.”

Billy’s laugh shattered her. He drew to
his full height, magnificent, alive, and unbroken, and she looked
up from the floor at him in wonder.

“
I don’t work for
FortuneCorp. I don’t belong to them. Never did. The US Army broke
me down and built me over as a genmod freakazoid. But FortuneCorp
can go suck it.”

He reached down for her with his
bitten, bloody hand. Annie held on and pulled herself to her
feet.

“
Remember those brothers I
told you about? The ones that helped me find you? They got free of
FortuneCorp, just like you’re gonna. They set up their own planet,
with their own ways and their own freedom. And I’m taking you
there.”

“
But…” Annie’s resolve to
sacrifice herself faded in the blaze of Billy’s furious
stare.

“
No buts. I know, I know,
you want me to go and save myself. I ain’t built that way, and you
know it. You wanna save me? Then come with me. Because if you’re
not leaving, then I’m staying, and we’ll deal with FortuneCorp
here, together.”

He pulled her to the door, and this
time Annie didn’t hesitate. She left her past, her fear and her
determination to hide, lying on the floor behind them.

“
Sully’s on the way to pick
us up,” Billy said. “We could use a gardener out there where we’re
going, on that new planet. You’re just the woman we
need.”

They walked away from the trashed hut
and into the jungle that had grown out of Annie’s vision, through
her patient fingers and over time, with careful tending.

After a moment’s hesitation, Annie
decided to speak her last misgiving. “How is it you can talk inside
my soul?” she asked. “Roberto never could do it. He tried. It seems
like, I don’t know, cheating somehow. Like it wasn’t right I
couldn’t commune with him like that. And here we are, you and
me…”

Billy stopped walking and turned to
face her. “Yeah, my bro Roberto was possessed of many gifts,” Billy
said with a sigh. “You guys were good together. But, Annie girl,
Roberto’s gone. And he left your protection to me.”

They stood in a clearing surrounded by
gently drooping vines, along a pathway of soft moss. The sun
filtered weakly through the dome, arching high above both their
heads.

“
I was the team leader you
know, and Roberto worked under me,” Billy continued. “I called my
brothers into union. That was my strength. Roberto could see ahead.
But I could speak into his heart. And you can speak into mine,
Annie. You know what that means.”

She did know. It meant that despite
Billy’s physical strength, his horse-sense – as he called it – and
his ability to survive anything, his love for Annie ruled
him.

The jungle grew up around them, rich
and green and fragrant.

When Annie looked around, she saw only
the two of them walking alone in the garden. But she knew, despite
all appearances to the contrary, they didn’t walk alone. For one
thing, Violet, the killer, still hunted them out there.

But Annie reached for Billy’s hand and
squeezed, and despite the terrible urgency that they get off
AlphaZed3 now, he waited for her, the way he always had.

Annie closed her eyes, took a deep
breath, and saw with her inner sight the place where Billy spoke to
her. And she saw that in truth three of them walked in the jungle
at dawn.

Goodbye,
Roberto
, she said inside of her, knowing
that Billy could hear her too.
I will love
you forever.

Adios, mi
corazon
, Roberto replied.
Anika will stay with me, Annie goes with Billy.
You go on, and I will too. We will meet again, in that place beyond
the edge of forever.

Annie kissed Roberto in her mind, and
finally let him go. The whisper of his goodbye echoed over her as
he faded away, speaking into her for the first time, and the
last.

She watched him go, blinked the vision
away, and took a look around. Only a moment had passed, but all had
changed.

She was still in the clearing. Billy
still waited for her. For the first time, Annie believed she could
be free. Free of FortuneCorp, free of the past, free of herself and
her fears.

“
I never spoke with Roberto
like that, you know, in the soul,” she whispered. “I don’t know if
I really want to say goodbye to him.”

She waited for the faithful tears to
appear, but for the first time, they didn’t come.

Billy spoke out loud, gently, with a
sort of reverence. “Aw, you spoke to him without words, always,
Annie. You have the soul of a healer. A grower of seeds, right?
Anybody who could grow a world like this has the power to whisper
into a heart. And what I heard was Roberto saying goodbye to you.
He let you go, he wants you to go, you’re free. He still loves
you.”

He took her hand and quietly pulled her
forward through the little Eden she had cultivated. And she only
paused to pull the Bowman eco-drive out of the ground. To take it
with them, to grow a new world.

And they came to the perimeter, behind
the research hut, where Billy had moved through the barrier between
her fledgling paradise and the ice.

“
I don’t have a cold weather
suit for you,” Billy said. “You can’t go out there yet.”

They stared beyond the clear barrier
between Annie’s warm, unfurling garden and the frozen hell howling
outside. Dimly, she could see the landing pod Billy had used to
come down to her. It was already half-buried in the swirling snow
and clouded ice of the native world.

And then she saw it. The rebel ship
breaking through the ice planet’s orbit, hovering over the frozen
surface. She read the words painted crudely on the battered
hull:

The Sullivan.

A warm cascade of light shot from the
belly of the ship to Billy’s landing pod, then travelled along the
ice to the permeable plexisurface of the geodome, seeking
Billy.

His soul.

The light poured through the clear
membrane, warming her like the sun of her childhood. Annie put her
hands up against the plexi, feeling the cool membrane yielding to
the pressure of her fingertips.

And then right before Annie walked
through into the protective light of the Sullivan’s waybeam, Violet
rose up from underfoot. Beating her wings into the ground, like a
homicidal mechanical hummingbird with a hypodermic needle for a
beak, stabbing Annie’s shoe again and again and again.

Her poison vial, now empty.