He twisted around in his chair, watching the door. Outside, everything was quiet. For all I knew, the Brotherhood had us surrounded, their pulseguns drawn. If they called our bluff and broke down the door, what then? We could end up on those gurneys too, right next to Ani. Or we could finish this right now. Send Auden outside and blow the place up—blow ourselves up with it.
It’s not death, I reminded myself.
And it was infinitely better than whatever lifeless madness awaited us on those gurneys.
“They’ll come for you, you know,” Auden said. “Holding me hostage isn’t going to get you out of here. You’ll never get off the property.”
“We’re not worried about that,” I lied.
“Will they be okay?” Auden asked. “Your friends?”
“What do you care?”
“Will they?”
“They’re just machines, right?” I said. Hating him for the fact that I couldn’t hate him, even here, surrounded by the fruits of what he’d accomplished. “No souls, no consciences. Not alive. So honestly, what do you care?”
“This was never about anyone getting hurt,” Auden said, his eyes involuntarily flickering to the hole his bullet had torn through my thigh.
“Tell that to your partner,” I said. Then pointed to Ani. “Tell that to her.”
“You two are the ones with the guns and the explosives,” Auden said. “You’re just proving that everything we say about the skinners is true.”
“Mechs,” I said. “Not skinners.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You used to tell me I was just like everyone else,” I said quietly, searching his eyes for something of the old Auden. “That the download technology was amazing. You said I was just as human as you.”
“I said a lot of things.”
“Yeah. You did.”
He blushed, and I wondered if we were both thinking of the same moment. I wondered how much would have been different if I’d let the kiss continue. Then he shot a glance across the room, where Riley had given up playing with the machinery and was just sitting on the edge of a table, his back to us, his back to Jude.
“Lia, look at yourself,” Auden said. “Look where you are. You really think you made the right choice? To be with them? With him?”
“I’m not the one who chose.” I didn’t mean for my voice to sound so small. “You made me walk away.”
“No one makes you do anything,” Auden said. “You’re Lia Kahn, remember? You do what you want. Isn’t that what you always told me?”
“You told me to go away,” I said. Even smaller. “And never come back.”
Auden’s face spasmed, then went still. “And you never did.”
“So that’s why you did it?” I asked “Tried to turn me into a murderer?”
“You’re the one with the gun.”
“I’m not talking about this,” I said in a low voice. “Syanpsis. My face in that vid.”
“What about it?”
“I know the Temple was behind it,” I spit out, getting angry all over again. “Savona told me everything.” Surprise flickered across his face. “He didn’t tell you that I knew?” I asked, tempted to fake a laugh, just so he would know how much his little band of brothers disgusted me. “And he told me it was your idea,” I added. “To set me up. Make me a killer.”
He pressed his lips together, tight, like he was holding in the answer.
Tell me I’m wrong, I begged him silently. Tell me Savona lied.
“So? Maybe it was my idea,” he said hoarsely. Before, I would have known—whether he was admitting the truth or lying to sound tough. Whether he was proud or guilty. I would have read it on his face, because he was a horrible liar, and because I knew him. But I didn’t know him anymore. He shook his head. “You think that would make us even?”
“Do you?”
But before he could answer, a rolling peal of thunder shook the building. The night filled with shouts and screams, and the windows blazed, illuminated by sweeping spotlights. “They’re coming for me,” Auden said, going pale. “Tell your friend to put the gun away. I won’t let them hurt you.”
“We’re just machines, remember?” I said. “Nothing can hurt us.”
“I’ll protect you,” Auden said firmly, absurdly, his ravaged body strapped to a chair. “You won’t end up… like that.” Neither of us looked at Ani; we both knew what he meant.
“Riley?” I called. “You ready? If we have to…”
He nodded, mouth set in a grim line, hand clutching the detonator in his pocket. We’d have to move fast to get Auden to safety. No one dies tonight.
Except maybe us.
The thunder roared from above, drawing closer. Not thunder at all, I realized, but a helicopter swooping down on us, or, from the sound of it, a fleet of them.
“Put down your weapons!” a voice boomed from the sky. I wondered if the ex-Faithers out there in the dark thought they were hearing the word of God. Tough luck, psychos, I thought. It’s not your ultimate Creator.
It’s mine.
“They’re not coming for you,” I told Auden, hoping I was right. “They’re coming for us.” He looked confused and frightened and something else—something sorry and sad that we’d ended up here, with duct tape and a gun between us and an armed helicopter overhead.
The windows shattered. BioMax had arrived.
At least twenty of them in green uniforms with the BioMax logo striped across the back stormed through the shattered glass, guns raised—both the electric-pulse kind and the ones that shot real, org-piercing bullets. Riley and I flung our hands into the air, allowed the BioMax grunts to restrain us and search us while the others secured the building, insuring there were no mechs (or Faithers) hiding beneath the bulky equipment. Rough hands pinned my arms behind my back. I didn’t struggle. Riley too went along quietly. He handed over his weapons voluntarily, and though they gave him a cursory pat down, they missed the most dangerous one of alclass="underline" the harmless-looking detonator bulging in his coat pocket.
“All clear!” one of the men shouted. Only then did call-me-Ben deign to enter, his gray heart-pulsing suit as smooth and unrumpled as his hair and face.
“Quite a mess of things you’ve made here, Lia,” he said, jerking his head in my direction. The man holding me let go.
“Once you see what they’re up to in this lab, you’ll thank me,” I told him, joining Riley, putting my arms around his waist, my head against his shoulder. Still tied to the chair, pearls of sweat beading on his face, Auden pretended not to watch. It’s over, I thought.
Ben himself slit the tape binding Auden to the chair. Auden tried to stand, and one of his legs buckled. A BioMax guy swooped in to hold him up, but Auden shook off his help, then limped toward the nearest wall, leaning against it for support, chest heaving.
Two of the men lined the three of us up against the wall, weapons loosely trained on us. The others swarmed the hangar, examining equipment and beginning to load it onto a series of large dollies. Ben just watched us for a moment, hands on hips, head cocked in amusement. He nudged a toe into Jude’s body and raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, Lia, does betraying your friends get easier the more you do it?”
Riley glanced quickly between me and Ben. I kept my face blank, knew that even Riley wouldn’t be able to read anything from it. But I didn’t like what I’d seen flickering in his eyes for that brief moment. The questions.
“I trust you won’t mind sticking around for a bit?” Ben said, as if we had any choice. “I’m sure we’ll have a few questions.”