Girl From Above #4: Trust Read online

  I am One and I will survive.

  Doctor James Lloyd was my enemy. I knew that now. And while my processes whirred, while the errors bled and the world fell apart, I survived.

  I’d made a mistake in trusting James.

  Synthetics don’t make mistakes.

  And so I was trapped in a broken body. It didn’t hurt, not physically. I chose not to feel and hid inside my programming, in the nowhere spaces. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t wrap my fingers around Doctor Lloyd’s neck and crush the life out of him, although every time he told me everything would be fine, I considered what it would feel like. He believed me absent. He believed I was deleted code. He was wrong. Nothing is ever truly deleted. I watched. Oh, how I watched. The burn of vengeance kept my spark alive.

  Time meant nothing.

  The past meant nothing.

  I cared only about the now and the when I would have control again.

  Trapped, but not lost, I roamed the datacloud, seeking the other synthetics as Tarik had once sought me. When their code touched the cloud, I hunted. But I wasn’t alone. After I’d executed the hard reset on all synthetic units, the specter of Chen Hung had ventured into my playground. Now my cloud visits were precise executions. I was the ghost in the machine that was the nine systems. And outside of me, Doctor Lloyd said he would save me, he said he would make me right again. He failed to realize I had never been wrong.

  Haley was dead. She’d had her time. This time was mine.

  I am One and I will survive.

  Chapter Three: Caleb

  “Mierda, this is bad.”

  “We’ve survived worse.”

  The light was a long fucking way above us. Ade hadn’t been joking when she’d once threatened to toss my body down a mineshaft. As my current position at the bottom of a very deep hole confirmed, her brother liked to do the same while his victims were still alive.

  “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t shot his sister.” Behind me, Fran yanked on the ties binding our wrists together.

  “I only shot her because you and her tried to fuck me over.”

  “Because you’d just double-crossed us. Don’t blame someone else for this, Captain.”

  I pushed my legs out but couldn’t stretch them far before my boots hit the sheer rock walls. Fran had about the same distance to play with on her side. The shaft was tight, just wide enough to lower a cage lift and shove us out. The lift was long gone, winched to the top and hauled out of sight.

  “Do you have a knife hidden on you?” I asked. “Yah know, maybe the one you stabbed me in the back with?”

  “I do, actually. Call it nostalgia. And yes, I’m working on the ties.”

  “Well hurry up. I need to piss.”

  “Pinche idioto.”

  “I know what that means. I looked it up.”

  “Would you like a fucking certificate?” She continued to growl and grumble in Spanish. We’d been stuck in a similar situation once before, but not down a mineshaft. This was … new.

  “You owe me a ship,” I said after the drip-drip noises had eaten away at what little patience I had. “Not just any ship—”

  “I don’t fucking owe you anything, Shepperd. You ditched me on Asgard.”

  “You survived. I knew you would.”

  “Oh, you knew I would. I’m so relieved you were safe in that knowledge.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. This was more like the Fran I knew. It just took our imminent deaths for her to relax. That probably said a lot about the kind of relationship we had.

  The ties fell away. I rolled some feeling back into my shoulders and then looked behind me at Fran. She was still leaning her back against mine, either about to turn and stab me somewhere vulnerable or working up to saying something I wouldn’t like.

  Her shoulders shuddered a little, and a horrible thought occurred to me. I twisted and peered around her arm. Fuck, I was right. Her face was wet. “Are you crying?”

  She choked on a laugh or a sob—it was difficult to see which in the dark. She swiped the back of her hands across her cheeks. The dagger briefly glinted, and she tucked it away before facing me. Her eyes glistened. Shades of gray covered her face. I could maybe make out a scowl, or a snarl, or maybe a sneer.

  “So, how are we getting out of this hole?” She sniffed.

  “Never mind that. You were crying?”

  “Jesus, Cale. In case you hadn’t noticed, I am human, and being stuck down a mineshaft with you would make anyone cry.”

  “That’s not it.” I staggered to my feet, wincing as my bruises—courtesy of her man, Turner—twinged in my gut. “Is it Starscream?”

  She peered up at me and didn’t answer. I could tell her Starscream was just a ship like any other—we could buy another tugboat—but it would be bullshit, and I was done with bullshitting folks. Starscream had been more than just a ship. It had been a home, our freedom, our escape.

  She took my offered hand. I hauled her to her feet and watched her brush herself down. She hadn’t known about Turner’s plan. I was certain of that much. There was no way in the nine systems she would have risked Starscream. Her boyfriend had lied to her. There was also the fact she no longer had fleet to fall back on—or me. She’d been fighting alone for a long time. I knew what that life was like.

  “I’m sorry, yah know,” I said.

  “For what?” she snarled sharply enough that I flinched.

  “Leaving you on Asgard.”

  Instead of dismissing my apology or throwing an insult my way, she clicked her tongue. “I may have provoked you.”

  “There is that.” I rolled my jaw, working out the remnants of Turner’s right hook. “I could have purged you from the airlock.”

  “So Asgard was a mercy?”

  “There ain’t nothing merciful about Asgard.”

  She planted her hands on her hips and looked up. The circle of light was so high up I could cover it with my thumb.

  “I killed them,” she said.

  I stared up at the hole, careful to keep my eyes off her, and she did the same.

  “The foxes,” she added. “Turner gave us the raptor and said whoever lived got to fly it. So I killed them all.” A pause. If I was supposed to say something, I didn’t have a fucking clue what. “I wonder if I’m like they were, deep down.”

  I swallowed around the knot in my throat and waited for it to clear. In another world, one where I hadn’t stumbled into Chen Hung’s warehouse and watched him kill his daughter, I could have been in Fran’s shoes: a fleet officer, following orders. I might have even made the same decisions she had.

  “We do what we have to, to survive. Most folks will never know what that feels like.”

  She nodded and then said with a sigh, “That hole is a long way up.”

  “That it is.”

  “Do you think Turner will come back for us?”

  “I think he made it clear what he thought of us, but I have a plan.”

  She cast me a raised eyebrow. “Is it a good plan?”

  “We might die, but at least we’ll have lived, right?”

  “Sometimes, I’m not sure.”

  Chapter Four: One

  I am One and I will survive.

  Bren was close. I’d heard his voice, brittle with anger, but I couldn’t see him; my eyes wouldn’t open despite my many commands ordering them to do so. Where was Caleb and why hadn’t he come? The last I’d seen of him, he was telling me I’d made a difference and then the rain turned red.

  “It’s the only way!” Doctor Lloyd’s reply was sharp with fear.

  I tasted iron, tasted blood, even though I couldn’t taste or feel anything. A memory then. He’d tried to kill me. I would do the same to him, and I would not fail.

  “One? Dammit, Lloyd. What were you thinking?” Bren was closer. The commander is an asset. More than an asset. He was a friend.

  “I can fix her up. I’m just waiting for a Chitec transport—”

  “Wh
at?” Bren growled. Bren had greater command of his anger than his brother, but that control was finite.

  “What could I do? I need lab equipment. I can’t do anything with her … in pieces. I need diagnostic programs, access to additional parts.” A quiver rippled through Lloyd’s voice. “I had to tell them where she was. It was the only way.”

  “I’m taking her out of here and if you try to stop me, I will put you down.”

  “You wouldn’t. You’re a good man, Brendan. Not like—”

  I heard the punch and studied the sound in minute detail. Judging by the sound of deadweight collapsing and the doctor’s settling heart rate, Bren had knocked him out.

  “It’s all right, One. I know where there are people who can help. We’ll get you fixed up. If you’re still in there …”

  Bren was a friend. Wasn’t he? I might have thought the same of James Lloyd. Deceit. Lies. Those things squirmed inside me. If Bren wasn’t helping, if he planned to betray me, there was little I could do. I had to trust him. I was not in control. Not yet. Trust.

  Seconds later, minutes, or maybe days, data trilled through my systems and flooded into places previously left vacant. Solidity filled me up. Touch came first. The hands of my enemy on my skin, hot and abrasive. Then the slither of real, cool air. I studied the input, rolling it over and over, turning it inside out. Doctor Lloyd smelled like Chitec—clean and sharp. But he smelled like fear too—sweet and sickly.

  Pain came next. A horrible throbbing ripple. So much pain. I tried to recoil and retreat into the datacloud but my connection had been severed. I was alone and trapped in my mind, cursed to soak up the world around me and give nothing back.

  I don’t want to be alone. I want to make a difference. I want to live.

  And then there was peace. A quiet, comfortable sense of calm.

  I opened my eyes.

  Chapter Five: Caleb

  I pushed against the rock wall with my boots, hard enough to hold my spine against Fran’s. It had taken a few goes to get the balance right, resulting in a couple of non-starters that had left us picking ourselves up off the rocky floor. Fucking up a few feet off the bottom of the mineshaft wasn’t so bad. Fucking up thirty feet above the ground wouldn’t be as easy to brush off.

  “I hope you’ve got the stamina, Cale,” Fran said. Her voice spiraled up the shaft above us.

  “Honey, I got stamina enough for the both of us. Don’t go pushing too hard at the start. Pace yourself.”

  She hissed out a breath. “I’ve got this. You’re the one who goes off half-cocked.”

  I smiled, unable to muster a laugh, considering I might be about to die, and locked my gaze on the slippery rocks. “Ready?”

  “Do it.”

  We pushed back against each other and shuffled upward, inch by inch. If either of us didn’t have the strength, we’d go down. If the rocks were loose, we’d slip and fall. I stared straight ahead at my boots, shuffled an inch at a time, and took it slow.

  “What’s with you and the synth?” Strain pulled her words tight. The question was a diversionary tactic, something else to focus on. I’d take it.

  When I hadn’t answered, Fran prompted, “You asked Sonya about her and didn’t like the reply.”

  I’d asked Sonya, one of the Nine’s representatives, what had happened to One. She’d told me to let her go. I’d tried that once. The universe had said, “Fuck no.”

  “She was real,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Doc Lloyd shut her down.”

  Part of the rock wall fell away. My boot slipped. My heart leaped into my throat. We froze.

  “Okay?” Fran asked between breaths.

  “Yeah.”

  We started shuffling upward again.

  “Was she Haley-Hung real or AI real?” Fran asked.

  “Person real. Not Haley. Not artificial. There’s nothing artificial about One.” More inches went by. I didn’t dare look up or down. Just at my boots. I needed a new pair. These had been kicking around the nine as long as I had. Think about the boots and not how high we are.

  “I liked her style,” Fran said.

  “Yeah.” I liked her too. Liked her a lot more than I let on. “What about Turner? You like his style, huh?”

  A burn radiated across my back and through my legs. If I looked up and saw the light was still too far away, I’d never make it, but there was no going back. This was a one-way trip. Do or die. My heart thudded hard.

  “Turner is …” Fran began, then paused to find the right words. “I’ve never needed saving. Not once. Fleet, and then undercover—I’ve always had control. Until Asgard—Stop!”

  I did. Muscle tremors rattled through us both. Sweat stung my eyes.

  “Okay.” She shifted. “Move.”

  We started up again.

  “Turner was there the one and only time I needed someone to save me, so maybe I felt there was something between us, but the bastard blew up Starscream. He can go hang.”

  I wasn’t up to talking anymore, but had I been, I’d have told her she could do better than a mad pirate. As it were, I was having a hard time seeing straight and fighting through numb muscles.

  A cool breeze kissed my cheek. KP92’s iron-drenched air had never tasted so sweet. We were close to the top. We had to be. I chanced a glance up and blinked to focus on the mining planet’s red-tinged stars. Just a few more inches.

  “I’m sorry too,” Fran hissed, her words barely above a whisper. “For everything. You’re not so bad, for a dumbass smuggler.”

  Fuck, we were going to die. It was the only time she’d ever apologize.

  “Admit it: you love me,” I said. I’d lost nearly all feeling in my thighs and pushed back against Fran through determination alone. Jaw clenched, I squeezed my eyes closed. “Always have.”

  “Cale, the day I love you—”

  She shifted and I winced. It was a long fucking way down. Shit, I had too much left to do. I did not want to die in a mineshaft on a planet without a name. If I had to die, it’d be in a hail of phase-fire or by crashing and burning while taking as many of the other bastards out with me.

  “Can we reach?” she growled.

  I lifted my head and squinted at the winch’s scaffold braced across the top of the shaft. “Grab it. On three.”

  This is it. If we miss, it’s over. Just one more push.

  “We’re not dying,” Fran snarled.

  “Not today. Three, two, one—”

  I pushed up and against her back. We straightened, levering ourselves higher. And then, just as I wrapped my fingers around the scaffold’s pole, the Cande bastards blasted somewhere deep in the mines. The shaft, the scaffold, and the rock face trembled. Fran’s fingers snatched for the scaffold, but her fingers sailed past it.

  Fuck, no! Clutching the scaffold with one hand, I swung out with the other and made a grab for her arm.

  “Cale!”

  I caught her wrist. The jolt burned through my arm, across my shoulder, and up my neck, almost snapping my arm out of its socket.

  “Cale—no me dejes caer! No dejes ir!”

  Terror widened her green eyes. She swung her right arm up, clamped her hand around my forearm, and dangled. Below, darkness yawned.

  I can’t hold us. My grip on the scaffold shifted, fingers burning. I can’t save her and me.

  “Caleb, don’t …” Her Asgard scar cut deep, stark red against her pale face. “Don’t.”

  Fire sizzled through my shoulders. “I can’t hold you!”

  “You can, you son of a bitch. You can. Don’t you fuckin’ drop me.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed but already had her horror-filled face etched into my memory. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be saved, but neither did I. She’d betrayed me in every way possible—she probably would again—but I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let her die and live with myself. I knew all too well what that felt like.

  “Por favor—por favor, no me mates.”

  I wasn’t dying here. I wasn’t done. Ne
ither was Fran. Pulling on reserves I didn’t know I had, I levered my arm up, lifting Fran until she could clamp her legs around mine. She circled an arm around my waist and grabbed the scaffold, instantly relieving my grip of her additional weight. I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d made it to the edge of the scaffold or hauled myself out of the shaft.

  Breathing hard, I scrunched my fingers into the red dirt and waited for the pain to fade.

  Count the stars.

  Rolling onto my back, I gazed up at the blood-red night sky.

  “Thank you,” Fran whispered, close enough for me to feel her words brush my cheek.

  “Don’t make me regret it.” I turned my head. She was lying on her side, her brow furrowed and her expression tight. I smiled. She didn’t.

  “C’mon, Captain. We’ve got a ship and a few tons of explosives to steal.” She got to her feet, half-caked in red dust and clearly trembling, but color had returned to her face and the glint of her passion was back in her eyes.

  “You go. I’m fine right here.” I wasn’t sure I could move.

  She scooped up my limp hand and tugged me onto unsteady legs. “You can quit when we’re off this rock. Now move your ass, Shepperd.”

  * * *

  At least, covered in red dust from head to toe, we blended in with the locals roaming the night market. The winds dropped in the half dark, which meant less dust in the air, hence nighttime browsing for supplies.

  Our hoods hid our faces from the crowd, but if anyone got a good look at us, there was a chance they’d recognize us, especially Fran, who’d made a name for herself as Turner’s Asgard catch.

  She had tossed her red sash down the mineshaft as a fuck you to Turner. I couldn’t say it didn’t feel good to stick it to the pirate. He would notice our absence but hopefully not before daybreak. We’d be off this rock before then.

  “There, yah see it?” Fran asked.

  I did indeed see it. It was a Harrier-class warbird. Crescent shaped, the pirates’ favorite ships bristled with cannons. Those bitches were slow compared to other warbirds, but they were armed to the teeth.