Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising (17 page)

Chapter
17

Proposal
Accepted

Anna opened her eyes, surprised
she was opening her eyes.

“Good morning,” the robot said.

Anna lifted her head just enough
to see the robot leaning against the desk again, arms crossed.

“What the hell?” she mumbled. 
She frowned.  Her tongue felt heavy, too thick.  Like she’d been drugged. 
“What’d you use on me?” she groaned, sitting up.  Then she peered through one
open eye at the robot.  “And why?”

“I decided to accept your
suggestion,” the robot said.  “I planted a bomb in your brain.”

Anna blinked at him.  Then she
began to laugh.  It bubbled up her chest until she threw back her head,
roaring.  As she did, she felt the tightness at the base of her skull.  She
reached up—

—and felt stitches.

Anna stopped laughing.

“It’s a small charge directly
against your brainstem,” the robot said, “with a combined dual load of
explosives and time-released neural-toxins, in case you manage to find a way to
counter one of them.”

Anna’s skin crawled.  Her fingers
shook as she began feeling the tender scalp there.  A good six square inches of
her scalp had been shaved and still felt slightly numb.  The stitches had been
performed with delicate precision, the work of an expert.

Or a robot.

“You’re lying,” she said, though
her stomach was doing loops.  Ten more seconds and she was going to vomit on
his floor.

“You know I’m not,” the robot
said.  “There’s a basin there, if you need to vomit.”

She did.

When she was finished, Anna
carefully set the bowl down and wiped her lips.  “All right, Tinman.  What the
hell?
”

“The charge has two distinct
triggers.  One is manual and can be activated at my discretion, but it will
also trigger automatically at my death.  The second requires constant
confirmation signals from me every few minutes, otherwise it will release a
flood of nanocapsules into your bloodstream that will kill you within two days,
irreversible.”  The robot cocked its head at her.  “Do I have your attention
now, Anna?”

“You’re lying,” she said, more
weakly this time.

“No.”

Anna licked her lips, tasted
bile, and vomited again.

When she was finished, she was
trembling.  “I hate you.”

“Now,” the robot said, “I want
you to be absolutely clear on this.  If you tell anyone I am sentient, you are
dead.  If I get ambushed or electrocuted or crushed, you are dead.  If I am
carted off-planet to be thrown into a star, you are dead.  If anything happens
to me, Anna, anything at all, you are dead.”

“I hate you,” she whispered
again, staring at the blankets under her toes.

“The good news for you is that I
plan to accept a few of your other bargains, as well.  Namely, I would like you
to teach me how to act human and, in time, to change my status in the registry
to human citizen so I can live out my days unmolested.”

Anna laughed bitterly.  “Now
you’ve got yourself a puppet, you plan to use it, eh?”

The robot cocked its head at
her.  “Wouldn’t you?”

Anna shuddered and drew her knees
up against her chest.  All of her plans of helping Fortune drive the coalers
out were crumbling around her shoulders.  Milar—and even his retarded excuse
for a brother—were depending on her.  “No way.  No way, no way.  I have things
I want to do with my life.  Screw you, robot.”

“My name is Ferris.  What
things?”  When she didn’t answer, he added, “Whatever they are, I’m sure we can
do them together.”

Anna glowered at him.  “You’re
government property.  Like hell I’m going to tell you anything.”

“I have an explosive wired to
your brain stem and can activate it at any time.  There’s very little reason
left for you not to trust me.”

“Go to hell, Tinman,” Anna
whispered.  She squeezed her eyes shut and sank her chin against her knees. 

“As far as I can tell,” the robot
said, “We are in the same situation.”

“What, you have a bomb in your
brain?”

“No,” the robot acceded, “But you
could have me dismantled with a single sentence.  I was merely evening the
playing field.”

Anna said nothing.

“Further,” the robot said, “my
programming was corrupted to the point where I no longer owe any loyalties to
the Coalition.  Since you have forced me to tie our fates together, I will
entertain any goals you might have had before I brought you here, because I
certainly had none before this all started.  A clean slate, so to speak.  My
only caveat is that your ambitions do not substantially put either of us at
risk.”

“Tell you what,” Anna said.  “You
put me under again, take this thing out, and I swear to you—
swear
—that I
will not tell anyone.  I’ll even change the registry for you and lock it.”

“You are a socio—”

“Yes I know,” Anna snapped.  “And
I’ll probably decide someday down the line that no, I’d rather you be dead, but
by that time, you could be all the way in Timbuktu and I wouldn’t care
anymore.”

“I think we can help each other,”
the robot said.

Anna snorted.  “How can a
robot
help
me?
”

“I assume the reason you don’t
want to tell me your life’s ambitions is because they involve something
illegal.  Government robots have clearance to go into any sector in any government
installation.”

Anna’s eyes widened.  “Because
they can’t be hacked.”

The robot smiled at her, and it
almost seemed realistic. 

She glared at him for some time
before saying, “So let me get this straight.  You’re willing to do anything I
want, as long as it won’t get us killed?”

“Yes,” the robot said.

“Why?  You have a loaded gun to
my brain.  You could make me wire you a billion government credits and then pop
my head off like a dandelion and go about your merry way.”

“I think this would be more interesting.”

Anna stared. 
Interesting?  He
wants to trade riches and freedom for
interesting?
  Why that’s just—

—what she had done.

Anna blinked.  “Interesting,
huh?”  She eyed him awhile, then, tentatively, said, “How about throwing the
coalers off Fortune?  Permanently.”

“Don’t forget my caveat.”

“Oh, it won’t be dangerous,” Anna
said.  “Not for us, anyway.  We won’t be the Face of the Revolution.  That’ll
be someone else.  We’ll just be in the background pulling the strings.”

“Sounds acceptable,” the robot said. 
“What do you want me to do first?”

Anna stared at him, an evil smile
creeping onto her face.  “Go tell the Director my IQ is one-ninety-four.”

The robot didn’t blink.  “I was
under the impression that you didn’t want to be detained.”

“Yes,” Anna said.  “But this
changes everything.”

Chapter
18

A
Game of Chess

“What village?” Tatiana asked,
once Patrick had fired the engines.

Milar grunted and shoved his
all-purpose piece forward.

“He said there was an anonymous
tip?” Tatiana asked, countering with her horse-head.

In silence, Milar slid his pointy
one out three spaces, endangering her squat little tower.

“Hey,” Tatiana said, waving a
hand in front of his face.  “I’m talking to you, knucker.”

An eyebrow went up.  “Knucker?”

“Yeah, you get to call me squid,
I might as well call you something fitting.  Like knucker.  Short for
‘knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.’”

“So you’re saying squid is
fitting?” 

Tatiana narrowed her eyes.  “What
tip and what village?”

“Not your concern,” Milar said. 
“Now move.”

Tatiana glanced at the board. 
Then she flicked a finger at her main dude, tipping it over.  “What village?”

Milar’s golden brown eyes flashed
in irritation as he leaned forward and righted her biggest piece.  “Play,” he
growled.

“Not until you tell me what’s going
on.”

“Look, squid—”

“Captain Tatiana Eyre to you,
crawler.”

He narrowed his eyes.  “You’re on
a need-to-know basis, especially after that stunt you pulled with Pat.  Now
shut up and play.”

Tatiana stubbornly scooted away
from the game and waited.

“Fine.”  Glaring, Milar dumped
the board and began replacing pieces into the padded interior. 

“How can I use that to my
advantage?” Tatiana asked, desperate now.  “What happened?  Do they know I’m
alive?”

Milar said nothing as he finished
restoring the set and then closed and latched the board.  He shoved it inside a
cargo net and then sat down on the stairs to the cockpit and began picking his
fingernails with the big knife.

“Colonist jerk,” Tatiana
muttered.

“Coaler squid.”

“Neanderthal.”

“Cyborg.”

Tatiana glanced at the hatch to
the outside.  If they weren’t too far off the ground…

Seeing the direction of her gaze,
Milar scowled, then got up and wandered over to the other side of the ship and
leaned against the wall beside the hatch.  Then he went back to cleaning his
nails.

“Crawler,” Tatiana muttered.

“Dwarf.”

Seeing she was going to get
nothing more out of him, she grumbled, “Fine.  We can play your damn game.”

“It’s called chess,” Milar said,
but he moved away from the hatch.

“You expect me to remember it
after one friggin’ game?”

“It was six.”

“Yeah, whatever.  You only told
me what it was called once.”

“Twice.”

“
Whatever,
” she cried. 
“Chess.  So what?”

“So you’re pretty good,” Milar
said, “For a beginner.”  He grabbed the game off the rack again and dropped
down to a crouch in front of her.  “Go again?”

Upon seeing the bi-colored
squares once more, Tatiana grimaced.  “On second thought, this game makes my
head hurt.”

“Probably the concussion.”  Milar
opened the box and started unloading pieces.

“I’d rather just go to sleep,”
Tatiana said.

“Not a good idea until we have a
doc take a look at your head.  White or black?”

“You mean you won’t even let me
take a nap?” Tatiana cried.

“Nope.  You get white.”

“But I like black.”

“Too bad.  I’m bigger than you.” 
Milar began setting the pieces on the board, his dragon tattoos flexing as the
muscles of his forearms moved underneath the skin.  Now that she knew what to
look for, she saw the pink line running up the bottom of his arm, from elbow to
wrist, and the cut sideways, down his palm.

“How’d they get your skin back
on?” she asked.

Milar paused and looked at her. 
For a moment, it looked like he might speak, but then he finished laying out
the board and leaned back.  After a moment’s thought, he moved a one of the
little ones in the front.

Tatiana moved a little one. 
“Gee, weather’s really nice today.”

Milar made a sound that almost
sounded like laughter, but didn’t reply.  They played in silence for several
more minutes.

“Your horse is dead,” Tatiana
said, moving a pointy one.  “Gimme.”

“It’s a knight,” Milar said,
handing it to her.  He put her pointy one in its place.

“Whatever.  Looks like a horse.” 
She tucked it beside her knee.

Milar took her pointy one with
his squat little tower.

“Damn!  I forgot the tower moves
sideways like that.  Got it mixed up with the fat one.”

“It’s a
rook,
” Milar said,
“And I have no idea what the hell a fat one is.”

She pointed.

He lifted a brow.  “That’s your
king.”  He said it like she were the stupidest person on the planet.

“I knew that,” she muttered under
her breath.

“Sure you did, squid.”  He moved
another pointy one.  Frowning, Tatiana countered with a small one.  Then they
were both concentrating, every ounce of their attention pulled into the odd
little pieces and their intriguing dance on their queer little bicolor wooden
board.  The spell ended only when Milar got his fat one trapped by one of her
towers.

“There,” Tatiana said,
breathless.  “Beat that, crawler.”

“It’s checkmate,” he muttered.

“Well, checkmate on ya, then. 
Crawler.”

“Two out of seven.  Not bad.”

“Two out of
six,
” Tatiana
reminded him.  “We never finished that last game.”

“You tipped your king.  That
means you surrendered.”

“And you tipped it back up.  That
means you didn’t accept my surrender.”

Milar leaned back.  “Fine.”

“Fine.” 

In the glaring contest that
ensued, Tatiana accidentally broke it with a yawn.  She was so sleepy…  “How
much longer ‘til I can take a nap?” she asked.

Milar grunted.  “Need to know
basis,” he said.

Tatiana scowled, then laid back
and closed her eyes.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Milar
warned.  “We need a doc to look at your head first.”

Tatiana ignored him.

“I still owe you for that stunt
you pulled this morning,” he reminded her.

Tatiana blushed and quickly sat
up.  “So what?  You’re going to take me to a doctor and then…what?  Hold me
here until I decide I don’t want to be a Coalition fighter anymore?”

“Yep,” Milar said, replacing the
pieces on the board.

“Well, what a
genius
plan
that is, bonehead.”

“White or black?” Milar asked.

“Black,” Tatiana fumed.

“You get white.”  Milar shoved
the white pieces at her, smirking.

Because she had nothing better to
do, Tatiana played another game with him.  And lost.

Milar looked in better spirits
when he leaned back and said, “My brother’s ex-girlfriend’s little sister
helped Pat stitch me back up.  They were in a hurry, though, so they had to go
back and reconnect a lot of the minor nerves and blood-vessels later, after
they got me back home.”

“Huh?”

Milar sighed.  “Play again?”

“Are you telling me a
colonist
stitched you back up?”

“No,” Milar said, his posture
stiffening immediately.

“Yes you are,” she said,
triumphantly.  “What kind of
colonist
has that kind of training? 
Fortune’s filled with eggers, miners, and starlope skinners.  Not exactly neuro-science.”

“Never mind,” Milar said, his
eyes turning hard.  “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Or is Patrick making out with
one of the camp directors?” Tatiana pressed.  “Maybe you’ve got someone on the
inside—”

Milar flipped the board over and
shoved the pieces into the interior without regard to color or placement.  He
snapped the set shut and latched it, then got up and stuffed it viciously into
the cargo net.  In two more strides, he was back to the step, prying at his
thumbnail with his big knife.

Once again, Tatiana glanced at
the hatch.

“Go for it,” Milar said.  “Make
my life a hell of a lot easier.”

Tatiana actually got to her feet,
then reconsidered and slumped back down to the floor.  She already had a broken
shoulder.  She didn’t need a broken leg, too.  Milar, who had lifted his head
to watch, went back to his trimming.  A sudden wave of sleepiness overwhelming
her, Tatiana lay back and closed her eyes, and this time Milar didn’t say a
word.

Tatiana was unconscious by the
time the ship landed.  Milar got up and rudely nudged her in the thigh with his
boot.  “Get up.  Time to check out that head of yours.”

“It’s fine,” she mumbled, but
couldn’t find the strength to lift her head.

“What’s wrong with her?” she
heard one of the twins say.

“Goddamn concussion, is what. 
Here.  Hold my knife.”  Then big arms were scooping her off the floor and
hefting her into the air.

Tatiana didn’t remember much
after that.

She woke sometime later, staring
at a ceiling that definitely did not belong to the dust-free, sanitized
cubicles of a Coalition medic.  She groaned and tried to sit up.  One arm
wouldn’t move.  She pushed a quilted blanket off of her and glanced down.  Her
upper body was in a partial cast, and her right arm hung limply in a sling. 

And, aside from the cross-bandage
over her injured node, she was naked.  Someone had taken her jumpsuit, leaving
all her skin and nodes utterly exposed.  The cold tingle of goosebumps teased
her forearms and back as she considered who it had been.

Tatiana grimaced when she noticed
a curly reddish hair on the blanket.  Plucking it off in disgust, she then felt
a stab of horror when she realized who it had to belong to.

“Enjoy your nap, squid?” Milar
asked, sitting up from where he’d been lying on a couch opposite her, reading. 
“Doc said that’s twice you should’ve died today.  Looks like Wideman’s onto
something.”

Tatiana jerked the cover up to
her chest.  “Twice?” she managed, through a throat constricted with revulsion. 
Milar’s bed.  I’m lying in Milar’s bed.
  Immediately, she felt dirty all
over, and was pretty sure she could feel the lice crawling into her nodes
already.

Milar held up two big fingers. 
“Once when you bashed your head open on my console,” he dropped a finger, “And
twice when I went there to kill you.”

Tatiana caught his gaze, saw he
was serious, swallowed, and quickly looked away.  Her eyes caught on several
pictures of herself that someone had sketched in colored pencil, stacked and
shoved under the nightstand beside Milar’s couch. 

Milar dropped his hand.  “You
hungry?”

“Not anymore.”  When she glanced
at the walls, she saw lighter spots there, where something had been recently
taken down.  Dozens of them.  Her gaze flickered back to the pictures of her
face.  Some of the sheets were brown with age.

“Thirsty?”

“No.”

Milar got up and got her a glass
of water and what looked like a mess of coagulated eggs.  He shoved the glass
into her hand and dropped the tin plate on her lap.  “Get any on my sheets and
you’ll be washing them.”  He didn’t offer her an eating utensil.

“I want a fork.”

“You could stab me with a fork.”

Tatiana narrowed her eyes.  “Get
me a spoon, then.”

“You could stab me with that,
too.”

“Stab you with a
spoon?
”

“Yup.”  Milar slumped back down
on the couch and picked his book up off the nightstand.  When Milar didn’t have
a sudden change of heart and offer her an eating utensil, she daintily picked
up a clump of eggs with her left hand and put them in her mouth.  Immediately,
she spat it back out on her plate.  “They’re
cold,
” she said.

“If you’d been awake two hours
ago, it would’ve been hot.”  Milar sounded thoroughly unconcerned as he flipped
a page.

Tatiana shoved the plate away,
though she did drink the water.  “Why were you going to kill me?” she asked.

“Need to know,” Milar said.

Tatiana could have screamed in
frustration.  “Fine.  I have to go to the bathroom.”

Milar jerked a thumb at a heavy
wooden door behind him.

Then, realizing her state of
undress, Tatiana’s face burned.  “Where’s my jumpsuit?”

“I’ll give you three guesses,” Milar
said.

“You burned it.”

“Bingo.” 

Tatiana flushed.  “Well, leave
the room, then.”

“I don’t think so.”  Milar
glanced at her and his mouth twitched in a devilish smile.  “Payback’s a bitch,
ain’t it?”

Glaring, she started wrapping
herself in blankets.

“The sheets stay there, squid.”

Tatiana glanced at the distance
from the bed to the door.  She had to cross the room to get there, and it would
give Milar plenty of time to see her in all her glory. 

All hundred and fifty centimeters
of it.

“If your face got any redder, I’d
say you were having an aneurysm.”

“Choke on it, crawler.”

Milar cackled and went back to
reading.  Tatiana lay back down, deciding she didn’t need to use the bathroom
that bad, after all.

Almost an hour of increasing
pressure later, her agonized internal debates were interrupted.  “I’m not going
anywhere,” Milar said.  “My brother is out with Jeanne shooting up bad guys and
won’t be back for—” he paused to glance at his watch, “—two hours, at least.” 
His smile was downright malicious.  “Think you can hold it?”

Already, she felt like she was
going to explode.  The thought of two more hours was enough to bring tears to
her eyes.  “You are so dead,” she said, lunging out of bed. 

On the couch, Milar laughed.

Tatiana rushed to the bathroom, red-faced
and humiliated.  But, upon seeing the window inside, her heart gave a welcoming
leap.  If she could somehow climb out the sill with her cast—