Interlocking Hearts (21 page)

He reached for the screen and let the love of his entire existence know, “I love you too, Coral. I’m coming there. If I don’t get there in time—”

Coral’s feed blurred and shook. “You can’t come here. I need you to live. Please.”

Quinn crawled toward the screen so he could stay at eye level with the data feed. “Can you see me?”

“Yes.”

Paisley backed off. This was a personal moment, and although she heard the king rise behind her to leave, she couldn’t miss the possible last moments her friend had. She was eavesdropping, but someone needed to know Coral. She and Quinn knew Coral was important. They’d have to tell everyone in case…

“I loved you from the moment you opened the windows in the west wing. The light hit your hair, and shined off your eyelashes. I saw you. I didn’t know you, but I knew that there was more to you than what everyone else said there was.” He took a deep breath. “You can never be recreated. And I am the luckiest man on the planet because I can say that I was with you as you discovered how amazing you are.”

Paisley wiped her eyes. Love existed. They loved each other. She loved Coral. And these bastards were trying to destroy it. She practically ran to the display unit. It was an independent transmitter and it was fully charged.

Stealing things from the palace was a felony. Losing her friend was worse than any prison sentence. Paisley pulled the small screen from the dock, and when Coral’s view of the world moved from Quinn’s immediate vision, he stood.

“Are we going?”

Quinn’s eyes brightened and Paisley saw his whole body tic when he realized he needed to get his ass moving.

He reached for the screen. “I’m faster.”

Paisley hopped on his back and tucked the screen into his shirt enough to keep it stable. “I can hold on.”

He was faster than she thought, but he didn’t seem to mind the blood she drew as she dug her nails in. There was a good chance the strain on her muscles would hurt, but not nearly as much as the bullets they would likely be pelted with.

Coral kept transmitting. The off-site storage ensured the images would last forever. So would her account, her view and her words. If Paisley turned this over to the press, it would get air time. If they didn’t make it in time, they would be Coral’s last moments.

They didn’t have a chance to admire the perfectly kept landscaping as Quinn forced them through the gardens in seconds. It was only minutes before the green grass and trees were replaced by the blurs of sleek metal and glass. Her stomach turned, the speed and jostling she took from Quinn made it worse.

She gritted her teeth and yelled, “Faster.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The scene was out of a horror movie. No, not a horror movie. It was out of a documentary. Reality was comprised of images that weren’t supposed to happen anywhere other than on a screen. The noise was so loud it hurt her ears.

There was smoke in the air. Cars had been rolled upside down in the street. The people around them took the stakes from their signs to beat the already crumpled metal that used to be a roof. How did destroying property do anything to emphasize their point?

How did their anger at someone else’s rights manifest into a full-blown riot?

Paisley hopped off Quinn’s back and tried to feel her legs beneath her body. She looked to the front of the line. There was a solid hundred-foot-long shoulder to shoulder group up against the police. In the middle stood the magistrate.

Unlike all the other protestors, he was a hologram. It was easy to be a fearmonger when you weren’t really there. Guess there was at least one person in the City County Building today.

Quinn pulled her down as the tear gas shot over head.

Paisley pointed to the building towering high above the police lines. “We need to get into that building and get to the projection system. The holographic transmitter is in the magistrate’s office. He’s hyping these people up and they aren’t going to be happy until they get to the robotics…”

Paisley let her voice trail off as she spotted the camera person she had been watching on the news.

“I’m going to get to Coral.” Quinn flicked out a blade. “Then I’m getting that piece of shit out from under her skin.”

Paisley stopped. “No. It’s going to look to the crowd like you’re attacking them.”

Quinn pushed both of them out of the way as a rock smashed through a window behind them. “Then they might not try and kill me for a few minutes.”

The wall of militia looked like it was only interested in shooting the mechanics, but the fear in their eyes made it clear that even though their guns were aimed away from this side of the barricade, they would have no qualms about spinning their position around if their vehicles became compromised.

The bullhorns shouted in both directions now.

Quinn disappeared among the smoke. Paisley hoped he had some kind of mechanical upgrade that protected him from the tear gas.

Luckily, smoking cans flew in the opposite direction she was going. The media tent was emptying fast, but the woman had grabbed her cameraman by the collar, refusing to let him leave.

“This is history. No matter what happens I’m staying. If you are going to bolt, leave the fucking backup camera.”

“I’m still rolling.”

“Then you’re doing your job. If you have any passion for your work, you would be running toward this.”

The woman was yelling at her cameraman to go into the danger. That was the woman who would air Coral’s story. Paisley made sure she had the SD card inside the device with the auto backup of what had already happened. She tucked it in her pocket and rushed into the media tent.

The woman caught the movement and turned, ready to fight. She’d either had some kind of personal defense training or schooling in martial arts by her stance. Whatever it was, Paisley held up her arms.

“I just wanted to get you behind the militia line.”

The woman practically drooled. “You’ve got access?”

Paisley handed over the tablet. “Coral, can you say hello to the reporter? She’s going to need convincing if she’s going to air your feed.”

Coral began to talk. The camera trained on the tablet for at least five minutes before anyone even breathed loudly.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Paisley knew she’d gotten her information where it needed to go. This woman would have told anyone who asked what Coral had to say. She’d tell them even if they didn’t ask.

Touching the tiny piece of plastic in her pocket, Paisley took off. She didn’t know where Quinn had gone, but she knew the general direction. She ran sideways. The wall of militia in front of the City County Building was thick, but there was a break in the lines if she could make it to the back.

It took her a whole five minutes of running, and without Coral’s voice in her hands, it was the longest five minutes of her life.

Luckily, she discovered as she circled back to the employee-only entrance, she still had her badge in her wallet.

Swiping the card down the reader, Paisley was in. If the magistrate had any sense, he would have triggered the lockdown protocol, but he
didn’t
have any sense. This mess with the scramblers wouldn’t work now that they were letting androids without skin apply. The Anti-Mech supporters had to rally now, or his plan to control the outcome wouldn’t work.

Green papers floated around her as she opened the door. Paisley was pretty sure her hatred for the green paper would make next St. Patrick’s Day awful. She grabbed one from the ground and it said, “The time is now.” Paisley would bet good money these were all over the city. It would make sense to communicate through paper when what they fought were the very machines some used for their answering services.

But it wouldn’t work. Even if it was the last thing she did, Paisley wanted to make sure Coral and everyone like her would be the ones who had a say. Robotic citizens didn’t care about the politics. They cared about the facts, and they could mine the data necessary to see through all of the bullshit.

For those who had been in power for so long based on their bullshit, it was probably damn scary. For Paisley, who was sick to death of the lies, the image and the petty crap, it was like a dream.

If she hadn’t lost herself… If she hadn’t met Coral…
No
. She couldn’t even go there. She’d still want everyone to have a say in their lives. She’d still want people to have a voice. And everyone with those stupid chips in their arms were people. It was ridiculous they had to prove it. Once a person knew they were a person, they deserved to be treated like one. Sometimes they deserved it even when they didn’t know.

It had taken Paisley a long time to realize she had value. Now she knew that people who didn’t have those rights were being manipulated. There was a pissant asshole who thought he could control people who didn’t meet his standards.

Paisley wanted to be the one to teach him a thing or two about standards.

She crumpled up the paper and tossed it to the ground. The noise outside was cut off as the door closed behind her. It was just Paisley and the man who had started a war, placing her best and only friend on the front lines. It had to be the magistrate doing this. He was the one in front of the protestors in holographic form. He was the one who had access to the data. He was the one who had helped implant the chips.

It felt like wasting time to press the up button at the elevator, but it would be quicker to take the elevator than trying to huff it on the stairs. It wasn’t like she could sneak up on the bastard with all the cameras in this place.

If he was using the holographic projection from inside the building, he’d be transmitting from his office. Those big windows he enjoyed judging people out of faced the riots. Once inside a holographic projector, you could experience what was around you, but knowing when to begin transmission was just as important as a stable connection when stoking a fire like this.

Paisley pressed the button for the fourth floor and felt her body become still. All the chaos. All the fear. Everything she had experienced in her life wasn’t important, because it wasn’t now. She’d learned to push everything about her past, her future and her emotions away. Before it had been for self-preservation, but now it would be the only way she’d make it through. She focused on getting to the office and cutting off the holographic feed. It would slow down the rioters if the man giving them justification wasn’t in their ears.

She walked off the elevator in slow motion. Because this man wasn’t just the end—he was the beginning of everything that happened from this point on.

Paisley was the woman who understood mechanics better than humans, and Coral had told her it was an important viewpoint. She had to get in there and make the magistrate understand. She’d rip his balls off later. Right now she had to defuse the situation, or at the very least, convince him to stop throwing gas on the fire.

The hallway lights stayed steady despite the drain the holographic projector must be causing. She’d expected the door to be locked. She hadn’t expected to have company. She had pushed it all away. She had accepted she needed to fight, and knew it was her battle.

So why was it she was relieved to see that, in these defining moments of her life, she wasn’t alone?

Jon knelt beside the numerical touchpad that led into the magistrate’s office.

Ben was watching his back, and judging from his expression, didn’t know what to make of Paisley’s presence.

She couldn’t be concerned with her feelings for these men. She couldn’t
have
feelings right now. She was here to stop someone who needed to be stopped before he flipped the fucking switch. The magistrate was encouraging a riot that was going to kill a whole lot of people, including her best friend.

“I’m in,” Jon said as he stood. He didn’t startle at her presence. He walked to her and looked down into her eyes. “I get to take out the asshole, if it comes to it.”

“As long as Coral is safe, I don’t care who pulls the trigger.”

“I don’t need a gun.”

With how angry I am, neither do I.
But she didn’t say it out loud. She nodded.

Ben looked like he wanted to argue, but these men were the professionals she knew she had to be. This wasn’t playful. There wasn’t any seduction anymore. Whether they liked it or not, she was here with them. They were trusting her to help. The world had to rethink humanity, but the Anti-Mech movement wasn’t interested in that. Coral was a threat for the very reason that she wasn’t one. She could prove the reality. She could prove that she was real. She could prove that
she
could love.

But then they’d have to kill Paisley too. The problem with love was it didn’t end with death.

Even if they killed Coral, Paisley wouldn’t stop. When the door opened, she didn’t hide behind the two men. She pushed forward. She led them in. If she’d been alone she might have tried to sneak up on the magistrate.

Now…now, she’d strike. Her way.

Really though. She shouldn’t have expected anything to go her way. It wasn’t the magistrate.

It was Darius. Her ex-husband was adjusting the projection nodes in the holographic device. He made sure the magistrate’s transmission was pushed through.

Suddenly it was ten years ago. Paisley nearly dropped to her knees. Facing her past was not what she’d planned. Her body betrayed her mind as she couldn’t make herself take another step. His voice was loud in the sound-proofed office.

“You always could lead men around by their dicks. I figured you’d be used up by this point, but considering you’re a mech-loving traitor to the human race, you’ve probably been tainted by some of that crap.” Darius stood up straight. He had a stun baton in his hand. It would do well at taking out the men behind her, but she might survive.

Ben called out, “I get that you’re an idiot. You released a fantastic woman like Paisley. But this seems extreme.” Ben tried to push Paisley back, but she scooted around him and approached the man she used to think she loved.

Dodged a bullet with this one.
Paisley realized how short she’d sold herself by trying to keep him in her heart for so long.

“Are you the one who started this?”

“I lost my job to a fucking machine who gained its CoH. I lost my girlfriend, my apartment, and then I found an opening at the DMA. So why the hell not. But no, I didn’t start anything. There are lots of people who are sick of sharing what should be ours with our tools.”

The magistrate was still being transmitted. Wherever he was, it wasn’t here. Why all these people decided to follow a man who wouldn’t even come near the danger zone was beyond Paisley. His lies were shouted loudly to be heard among the chaos. Paisley felt the chill at his hatred for the people he was supposed to be helping. She felt the blood draining from her extremities and her fingers tingled. Everything pounded into her heart and her pulse was whooshing in her ears.

The magistrate’s form held strong inside the holographic projector. He’d needed Darius to run the connection through the DMA. Wherever the magistrate was, he didn’t have the amps to get his body projected on the street. She could only hope that meant the scrambler trigger was out of range as well.

His voice was loud and clear as he said, “I’m being held in place by these robots. They’ve surrounded the building. This is what I feared when the very first robot was granted rights. We have been playing God and are paying the price. Officers, you need to let us correct the problem. Those stun guns have proven ineffective against some of the very documented cases that began the process.” He was riding high on his righteousness. It was a shame he wasn’t here to watch them pull the plug. “I made a mistake when I granted the first certificate of humanity. Please let me fix it.”

Jon and Ben circled Paisley. Darius stood between them and the cable feeding the com unit into the holographic transmitter. The magistrate was still talking while they had a very different confrontation.

Darius addressed Ben. “So, I assume by how protective you are of her, you’re the one she’s fucking?”

Jon and Ben both took a step forward.

Ben let the bastard know in no uncertain terms, “She’s working to save her friend right now, but when she’s done, she will be fucking me.” He pointed to Jon. “Him too.”

Darius leaned around the men to get a look at Paisley. “You really are a freak, you know. I planted that bug on these sickos when I heard them say your name in the bathroom. I never knew how low you sank.”

Jon and Ben turned to her. They were ready to breathe fire after that speech. She realized she’d had more than a few orgasms with them. She had a connection. Looking at them both, suddenly everything was clear.

They let her lead them in. They supported her in her mission. And they were willing to fight beside her.

She didn’t have to push everyone away anymore. She could pull these two toward her heart.

“This freak has two hot military men who can do more in bed with their little fingers than you could do with the pinkie between your legs.”

Paisley smiled at Jon and saw his eyes light up.

Bzzzzt.

Ralph Winters’s hologram turned around, and suddenly there was another person getting the low down on Paisley’s sex life. “You idiot. Stop being worried about the slut you used to be married to. Someone has damaged the projection receptor.”

Sure enough, the magistrate was no longer able to hype up the crowd. Some of the insanity he was stoking had resulted in a bottle hitting his receptor.

“I’ll reset it.” Darius jumped to the ground and tapped a series of buttons.

The magistrate flickered as the device rebooted. A quick off and on was still the most effective fix for tech. Go figure.

Back on his high horse, the magistrate began shouting to anyone he could get to listen for thirty seconds or more. “They’re messing with the feed. You have to take control. If the military won’t stop them, you have to.”

Paisley saw two things in the span of a half second. One, there was a com-link set up on the desk next to the projector. Two, that same fearless reporter she’d seen earlier was dragging her cameraman into the midst of everything.

The news team had their shirts over their nose and mouth to avoid any possible smoke, but they were headed straight for the projector. Without even thinking, Paisley grabbed the com-link and goggles and jumped feet first into the green glow of the projector’s ring.

Paisley had something to say, but suddenly when she stepped into the projector, it wasn’t her usual vulgar language. She hoped this time people might actually listen. She put the goggles over her eyes to get a better view of what was around her projection.

The virtual reality around her made her stomach turn as her brain tried to reconcile two realities simultaneously. The office and the grounds in front of the City County Building blended together. Layers pressed into each other and she had to let her eyes lose focus to pull the pictures into a solid image.

When she flipped the switch and merged her image transmission with the magistrate’s, his image spun around to face hers.

His shock was eradicated with his rage. “Sluts have no place here. You should get back on your knees where you belong, and away from things you don’t understand.”

“Care to repeat that for our viewers?”

The reporter’s voice was muffled, through the fabric she had around her face, but the magistrate definitely didn’t miss the little red light blinking on the camera.

“You need to tell people to get down here. We need all the help we can get to take back control from these machines!”

Politicians were great at pretending they didn’t fuck up, but Paisley hoped the public would see the hate in his eyes instead of their own misguided fears this time. She had to hope.

The noise behind her made her turn for a moment. Letting her eyes unfocus, she could see the noise was coming from inside the office.

Darius was trying to move the feed source. He was trying to shut her up. Normally two specially trained agents would have been able to dispatch him quickly, but both her men had mechanics and the stun baton in Darius’s hand arced high with blue electricity and kept them at bay. With how bright the sizzles of blue were, he had that thing way past stun and on to a total malfunction setting.