Girl From Above #4: Trust (4 page)

“One, listen.” I cleared my throat. “The people here, they’re trying to help.”

She slid her analytical gaze to the window. “Is this Chitec?”

“Chitec?”
Shit, no wonder she lashed out.
“No. It’s a sanctuary. But they need to know you’re stable. That you won’t kill anyone.”
Anyone else.

She stared through the window at Bren and Sonya. “I broke Bren’s arm.”

“He has another one.”

“I do not trust these people.”

“Did anyone ever tell you the quickest way to get yourself killed is by trusting someone in the black?” I straightened, strode to the window, plastered a grin on my face for Sonya and Bren to see, and snapped the blinds closed.

“I am learning that, Captain.”

I turned to find her smiling her typical One smile. She still looked unsettlingly vulnerable, but the glimmer of real personality was back in her eyes.

“It’s good to have you back, One.”

“Is it?” Her brow furrowed and her focus wavered.

“Sure it is. I missed your constant updates about my fucked-up state of mind.”

She didn’t respond but looked down and away. Her frown darkened. I struggled to read her at the best of times, and failed now. She’d always walked the line between terrifying and tantalizing. I could understand why the Nine, and Bren, might be concerned. But in the war against Chitec, she was their—
our
best asset.

A knock on the door drew our gazes.

“Brendan,” One said. “He’s alone.”

When I opened the door, Bren held out an armful of clothes. He looked as though he had something to say. Whatever it was, he hesitated too long, and I closed the door on him before shit got awkward.

“Hey, One.” I tossed the clothes onto the bed and shrugged off as much of the pirate gear as I could without stripping down entirely. “What d’yah say to a little excursion?”

“An excursion where, Caleb?” She stood and joined me beside the bed, and before I could answer with “anywhere,” she discarded Bren’s jacket and cocked her head at the pile of clothes.

I made a brave and concerted effort not to look at her body; there were a lot of places to look, lots of tantalizingly smooth curves and—
stop there.

I gathered up my change of clothes and headed for the bathroom. “Get dressed. I’m taking you out.”

“I do not believe the Fenrir Nine will approve.”

“The Fenrir Nine can fuck off. You’ve earned it.”

B
eing put back together didn’t
mean I wasn’t still in pieces. I’d seen the strangers—those who collectively called themselves the Fenrir Nine, although there were many, many more of them—and told them the truth, seen the look of horror on their faces, and then watched them leave my allocated room.
Chen Hung is a synthetic.
The truth was out. I no longer warred with myself. And yet, unease and suspicion undermined my hard processes.

I didn’t trust these people to do what was necessary. I didn’t trust anyone.

And then Caleb was there, dressed head to toe in a hood and cloak, caked with mud and dust, smelling of blood, sweat, and sex. He was real, unlike those who looked at me as though I were empty. Caleb looked at me and saw me. And in return, I saw the man he was: torn, confused, angry, but underneath all of that, hopeful. He had hope and trust for me.

While the shower hissed in the adjacent room, I shrugged on a tank top and stepped into a pair of sweatpants and then cracked open the bathroom door a few inches. I’d watched him like this before. Some of the times he’d known, but most times he hadn’t. Inside the steam-filled shower cubicle, water pummeled his upturned face and washed the red dust down his back and over his childhood scars in rivulets of red, like blood. I had scars too, inside as well as outside. Did everyone have scars, some more visible than others?

His eyes flicked to mine and held my gaze for a few pertinent moments, and then he continued to lather soap over his shoulders and down his back. He’d gained a few angry red wounds, one on his thigh that wept a little blood as he dragged his fingers across his skin.

His body displayed signs of arousal. Was it from being watched, or because
I
was watching him? A skitter of curiosity urged me forward, but I locked it down.
Count the stars.

I’d been betrayed. That sting still burned. I had no intention of opening myself up to that attack again. What I felt for Caleb—those curious needs and redundant urges—were distractions, and distractions were dangerous.

He turned off the shower, ran his fingers through his hair, and flicked water from their tips before sliding open the door and stepping out. Steam rolled off his skin and water droplets glistened on the ripples of his abdominal muscles. He reached for a towel, allowing me to observe every inch of him. He had no fear. No anger. While his body clearly communicated arousal, his expression was one of mild amusement. His eyes appeared to ask: Do you want something?

Do I?

My need, it wasn’t sexual. I had no evolutionary protocol to reproduce, and if I did, it wouldn’t be via a method as inefficient as copulation. But to connect with someone beyond the apparent, on a level that required mutual need—for someone to see me as a living entity, as real? That was a human desire, and I owned that feeling, or it owned me. What would it be like for his hands to touch my skin? The few times he had—the touches fleeting—data had sparked alive, flooding my processes with delicious sensations. For him to
want
to touch me—the same as I ached to touch him, feel him, and willingly drown myself in those sensations—that was what I needed. It wasn’t Haley’s memories of the young Caleb Shepperd she’d loved; this curious and fascinating need for the older, harder Caleb Shepperd was all mine.

“Keep staring, One, and you’ll make me blush.”

He roughly dried his hair with the towel, dragged the damp fabric over his shoulders, and then tied it around his waist. I could have watched him for hours. Something in the architecture of his movements, in the unpredictable play of muscle and flesh, fascinated me.

He gathered up his clothes and moved as if to slip by me. I blocked his exit, still reliving the evocative images so I could file them away and keep them close. Life was fleeting in the nine systems. I didn’t intend to miss a second of it.

His eyes narrowed, just a fraction. He didn’t like to be trapped. “You goin’ to move or do I have to say the magic word?”

I swallowed and stayed rigid, deliberately pushing—challenging—testing him.

He stepped in closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off him. I considered placing my hands on his chest, and my breath snagged in anticipation. These responses weren’t logical, yet that didn’t make my feelings any less real.

He tipped my chin up, his fingers hot against my skin, and said, “All you gotta do is ask.”

But I wouldn’t use him like that, like so many others had. I turned my face away and stepped aside. His brow furrowed slightly, from disappointment, regret? I recalled the last few moments, going over them again. I’d wanted to protect him from my selfish desires, but my denial had somehow had the opposite effect.

He brushed by me, sending a cascade of data spilling through my internal processes.

His forlorn expression was gone by the time I joined him in the main room. He quickly dressed in plain black pants and a gray sweatshirt and headed for the door.

“I brought a new toy back to the Island. A ship. I’d like you to run your analytical eyes over her.”

An alarm sounded, shrill and persistent. Caleb’s wrist comms buzzed. He tapped open the link and opened the door.

Bren’s tinny voice sounded via Caleb’s comms. “They’re summoning us to the assembly room,” Bren said, then added, “All of us. Including One.”

“Do you know why?” Caleb asked as we strode into the corridor.

“There’s a Chitec-designated ship approaching Mimir airspace. Looks like we have some oncoming orders, Brother.”

T
he captain
and I entered the assembly room. Filtered windows stretched along one wall, framing a fantastic panoramic view of the permanent lightning storm raging outside. I might have enjoyed it more had Doctor Lloyd not been present.

Caleb’s vitals spiked. My hard processes quieted and my sights targeted Doctor Lloyd. He sprang to his feet and glanced toward the exits, but Bren carefully inserted himself between Caleb and me and the doctor.

“We need him,” Bren said.

We?
I didn’t need him, and Caleb’s glare confirmed the same for himself.

If Caleb lunged, however, I’d stop him. James Lloyd’s death would be mine.

“Sit down,” Bren snapped at James.

The doctor jolted and eased himself into a chair as far away from us as possible. He watched us from the edge of his seat, eyes darting.

“Why the fuck is he here?” Caleb demanded, veering toward his brother.

I moved to the windows and admired both the storm and the brothers’ reflections. Silent lightning snapped, streaking great fissures through the churning mix of grays and blacks.

“Because he notified Chitec of One’s presence on Mimir.”

As soon as the words had left Bren’s mouth, Caleb stilled. He was reining himself in and doing a far better job of it than I had. He turned away from Bren and James and prowled around the room. His heart raced, his body flushed with a different kind of desire, one I coveted: the desire for vengeance.

The door behind Lloyd opened and Fran sauntered in. She pulled out a chair, slumped into it, and kicked her boots up onto the table. Whether she knew she’d strategically placed herself in a chair between Caleb and me, I couldn’t be sure, but her green eyes slid questioningly to me. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been begging Caleb not to leave her on the prison planet. She’d gained a scar since then and looked at me with lean fierceness. She’d once accused me of being a threat to Caleb and
Starscream.
She was a liar and a traitor, but I could appreciate Fran’s methods, from one killer to another.

Every member of the
Starscream
crew was here. Bedraggled and exhausted to the point of breaking, but together nonetheless.

“Chen Hung is a synthetic,” I said. Now was the perfect time to lay the truth out for all to hear.

Caleb stopped his pacing, surprise apparent on his face. “How long?”

What he’d really asked was, “Who killed Haley?” He already knew the answer.

“Chen Hung made the first synthetic in his own image. That synthetic killed its maker, stole Chen Hung’s identity, and killed the man’s daughter—the only person who could expose him as a fraud. He then proceeded to build one thousand elite soldiers under the guise of the
life-ever-after
program, selling them to unsuspecting high society people, using the promise of immortality as incentive.”

Silence fell over the assembly room. Caleb sat and slumped forward. He sank his hands into his damp hair, hiding his face from the crew. A fragile quiet settled. Fran and Bren were watching Caleb, while Lloyd gazed out of the window, chewing on his thumbnail.

Everything Caleb thought he’d known about that night at the Chitec warehouse had changed. A synthetic had killed Haley Hung. A synthetic had sent him to Asgard, where he’d been expected to die. To know it wasn’t a man who had done those things, but a machine? I tried to conclude what that must feel like and failed, but all I had to do was look at him, hunched in the chair, his fingers fisted in his hair, to know how it must hurt.

I blinked and found Doctor Lloyd watching me. He shifted in his seat, swallowed, and looked away.

“This is what I learned when I faced Chen Hung on Janus. This is the secret that almost tore me apart.”

“Why didn’t you destroy him?” Caleb fell back in the chair, but he stared ahead at nothing.

“The synthetic Chen Hung also created me—One Thousand and One—and in doing so, prohibited me from ever directly attacking him.”
I tried … I tried to end it, but I am not as free as I was led to believe.

The same machine that had inflicted such cruelty upon Caleb had also created me. I thought of Caleb’s earlier smile, the gentle understanding on his face and in his touch. Would that change? Would the truth eat away at his trust in me? I almost wished I could take the words back and hold the secret close if it meant sparing him more pain.

The quiet stretched on, interrupted only by the low background hum of the ship.

“Why would the synthetic Chen Hung make you, One?” Fran enquired in that razor-sharp way she used to cut to the truth. An accusation hid inside her words. Her concerns were justified.

“There are elements of the man inside the synthetic, in the same way there are elements of Haley Hung threading through my processes. He said I was a mistake.”

Caleb flinched as though my words had wounded him and mumbled, “Synthetics don’t make mistakes.”

Fran planted her boots on the floor, leaned forward, and looked to the others. “How do we know she’s not some walking, talking conduit that leads straight back to Hung?”

“I think she’s proven herself,” Caleb replied, aiming something of a sneer at Fran.

“By butchering the entire cadre of active Nine?”

Caleb’s fingers drummed on the arm of his chair. “That wasn’t her.”

Why is the rain red?

Part of it was me,
I thought.
The part designed to kill. The part hungry for Doctor Lloyd’s death.

“But she could do it again?” Fran asked. “Whatever went wrong with her could happen again?”

“No,” I said calmly. “Doctor Lloyd attempted to rewrite my internal processes and in doing so unlocked my default waking state, leaving my systems open to the synthetic group commands and Chen Hung’s orders.” An odd little smile tugged playfully at my lips as I considered my next words. “Doctor Lloyd will not be permitted to do the same again.”

Fran arched an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that nervous wreck over there turned you into a killer? That’s bullshit, synth. You always had it in you—”

“Throw one more fucking stone, Fran, and I’ll tell the Nine you’re the reason I lost the freighter they had their hearts set on not so long ago,” Caleb said, his voice as cool and hard as steel.

Fran pressed her lips together, clearly contemplating her next words. “It takes a liar to know a liar, Captain. One can lie so smoothly you’d never see her endgame coming—until it was too late. Isn’t that right, synth?”

“You don’t need to answer that,” Caleb snapped.

“If I’m a liar,” I said, “my answer is irrelevant. As is the deviation in this conversation.”

Caleb’s lips twitched. He appeared confident in my loyalty, perhaps more so than I was. Chen Hung had crafted me with his synthetic hands and his coding had recently hijacked my processes. Every member of the crew knew I had been compromised. They shouldn’t trust me.

“She’s different,” Lloyd said. He swallowed so hard his tongue clicked. “When I was er … When I was rebuilding her, I discovered many, many anomalies. She’s not like the other synthetics I’ve worked on. There were physical differences as well as some quite marvelous coding intricacies that I’ve never seen before. The work I had to do to repair her—it was quite remarkable, really. I mean, had I—”

Caleb pointed a finger-gun at the doctor. “You need to stop talking before I yank out your tongue and shove it up your ass.”

Doctor Lloyd paled.

Fran gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “The synth is Hung’s killer-puppet, Caleb’s a loose cannon, I’m fleet, Brendan’s dead, the doc is Chitec … I’m surprised the Nine allowed any of us to come within ten klicks of this place.”

She wasn’t wrong. The Nine did seem incredibly trusting, considering the combined past of Caleb’s crew.

One of the exit doors opened and a man I had not seen before gestured for Brendan to go with him. I reached for the cloud to identify him, but my link bounced back. I hadn’t been able to connect with the datacloud since Doctor Lloyd brought me back. A permanent change, a way to limit my resources, to weaken me? I would need Doctor Lloyd to rectify that oversight.

Bren left, and the door clicked closed. Lloyd tapped his foot and shifted again. Sweat glistened on the doctor’s face. Caleb and I wanted him dead. Fran was unlikely to get between us, and if she did, she couldn’t stop me. Brendan had said we might need James. I needed my cloud connection restored. I couldn’t kill him. Not yet.

Caleb watched the closed door, his expression pensive. He bounced his left knee and frowned at Fran. “We are a bunch of reprobates. You’re right.”