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 it 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 off-world 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. She 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 move 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 synthfoam padding.
She tore her gaze away and turned her attention to Billy’s wounds. Annie could see the vicious punctures slashed into his palm.
“She got away,” Annie said, and pointed to the door.
“She’s probably got an emergency beacon signal programmed in ’er,” Billy said, getting to his feet.
“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,” he 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.