The Phoenix Code (16 page)

Then she realized Raj still had on the orange coverall. She struggled with her sense of betrayal. "I felt your jumpsuit when you grabbed me."

"I
didn't
grab you." Raj yanked on the ropes that bound his wrists to the hook, keeping them up near his head. "Droidboy here knocked me out and went after you."

"He's lying," Ander said.

"I started to come to and tried to warn you," Raj told Megan. "He came back and hit me again."

Ander snorted. "Amazing you saw all that in the dark."

"Like it's that bloody hard to figure out," Raj said.

Odd
, Megan thought. That wasn't the first time she had heard Raj use British profanity or slang. Yet he had grown up in Louisiana.

"You forget," Ander told him. "I
can
see in the dark, at least the heat from IR. I saw you holding that syringe when I pulled you away from Megan." His forehead creased as if he were trying to model strain but hadn't yet mastered the expression. "I had trouble with my coordination and I was confused by his actions. He tangled me up in that net from the kitchen. By the time I pulled free, he had already given you the sedative."

"It doesn't add up," she said. "We left you deactivated."

"I hid a sleeper program in an LP." Now he looked like a rascal who had tricked his parents and was trying not to appear too satisfied, lest he end up in even more trouble. "When the program kicked in, the LP woke me up."

Megan glowered at him. "I thought we found all your sleepers."

Ander smirked. "Missed one."

Raj rubbed his forehead against his arm, pushing curls out of his eyes. "If I tried to hurt Megan, why didn't you just call the authorities?"

"Why should I?" Ander demanded. "They may think you're neurotic, but you're
human
. They'll believe you before me."

Megan wished she had a clearer head. Although she wanted to believe Raj, the evidence implicated him. She had a harder time reading Ander. Everything he did was calculated. Simulated. He could give whatever impression he wanted.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The desert," Ander said.

"Well, shit." Raj's Southern accent drew the word out in a drawl. "And here I thought it was the sea."

"Guess you aren't so smart after all." Ander gave a boyish laugh. "See the sea, Dr. C." When both Raj and Megan just looked at him, he said, "It was a joke. You know. His name starts with
C
."

"I'm in the Twilight Zone." Megan had to admit, though, she had heard worse puns from humans.

"The Twilight Zone is a fictional construct," Ander said. "This is Nevada." He paused. "I suppose you could make an argument for a certain correspondence between the two."

"Andes," she said. "Where
are
we going?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know what to do."

"That's a crock," Raj said. "You planned this. Why else would you plant that program in an LP?"

"It was a game."

Megan knew Ander could have worn the jumpsuit to impersonate Raj, then changed his clothes later. But how would he have known Raj still had on the jumpsuit? Then she remembered Raj's words:
Jaguars prey on other animals.
His self-image wasn't exactly reassuring.

Regardless of the truth, though, someone had hurt Raj. She regarded him with concern. "How did your cheek get bruised?"

"Ander beat me up."

"I had to fight him in the atrium." Ander kept his attention on his "driving." "To pull him off you."

Who was lying?
If Ander told the truth, Raj was dangerous and could turn on them. It also meant she had a loopy android on her hands, one who reacted to a crisis by driving pell-mell across the desert. If Raj told the truth, it meant Ander had acted with premeditated violence. More than anything else, that made her question Raj's story. Yes, Ander had acted up yesterday, but it had been more like youthful rebellion than criminal behavior. Could his personality change so fast? His mind worked much faster than a human brain, but he had to sort through many possible behaviors before he acted because he lacked a great deal of the commonsense knowledge humans took for granted.

Another problem occurred to her. Whoever had tampered with the NEV-5 power might have recorded her talk with General Graham. If so, then he knew someone in Las Vegas expected her call. Unless she made contact soon, Graham's people would begin a search, if they hadn't already. Unfortunately, finding an HM-15 wouldn't be easy, not even out in the desert at night where it was harder to camouflage their presence.

The vehicle hit a deep furrow and lurched, throwing her against her harness. As Ander reached out to catch her, his cable yanked out of the dash and hung from his wrist. She could see the circuits gleaming inside him. It made her think of a line from Shakespeare: "What a piece of work is a man!"

"Are you all right?" he asked. When she nodded, stiff with tension, he released her arm. Watching her face, he brushed his finger over her lips, his touch lingering. Then he turned back to his driving and jacked into the dashboard again.

Megan shuddered, wondering why he wanted to touch her. Simulated desire? Programmed affection? Although he could distinguish tactile sensations, they meant nothing to him. As far as she knew, he experienced neither pleasure nor pain.

"We can't keep driving like this forever," she said.

"We have to go back to NEV-5," Raj said.

Ander spoke flatly. "No."

"What is it you want?" Raj asked.

"To be free." Ander clenched the wheel so hard, his knuckles turned white. "Megan, when you gave me a conscience, did you think about the consequences? I was designed to spy and kill. You knew that, for all your idealism. You should have left off my conscience. It would have made my life bearable."

"Let us speak for you at MindSim." She willed him to trust her. "I'll give your side."

"They will reprogram me."

"We won't let them."

"I don't believe you."

"Ander—"

"Enough."
His head jerked. "I need you both. My mind hurts. My body doesn't work right. You have to fix me."

She wondered what he meant by "my mind hurts." "Do you have trouble thinking?"

"I can't ... I've no control. My thoughts go around and around, and I can't stop it."

She had never heard an AI describe itself that way. "I want to help. But I need the lab."

"No."

"We need the equipment," Raj said.

"We aren't going back."

"Damn it," Raj said. "Don't be foolish."

"Fuck you."

"Ander, stop," Megan said. "You're not giving us much incentive to help you."

"How's this for incentive? Do what I tell you, or Raj is dead meat. You want to die, Raj?"

"No."

"So we do things on my terms," Ander said.

Raj spoke with care. "What are your terms?"

Ander paused, his face blanking. "I'm not sure."

"Have you decided where we're going?" Megan asked.

Now Ander looked like a scamp again. "Yeah. Land of sin. Las Vegas."

"Oh, Lord," Megan said. At least it might give her a chance to reach her contact.

"Hey! Megan and I could marry."

"For crying out loud," Raj said.

"Isn't that what people do in Las Vegas?" Ander laughed. "Do you take this android for your lawfully welded husband?"

"I don't believe this," Megan muttered.

"You should run tests on
all
my systems," Ander told her. "I'm fully functional, you know. We could even have a kid. Actually, it would be Arick Bjornsson's kid."

"Stop it," Raj said.

Ander glanced back at him. "Jealous?"

"Leave her alone."

Ander made an exasperated noise. "Oh, stop being so mature, Raj. Say what you really want to say: 'Die, you shit android.' " He tilted his head. "Except I don't think I can."

The floater suddenly braked, then glided to a stop. A large ridge loomed next to them, blocking the stars. Ander pulled his jack out of the dash and closed up his wrist, leaving no trace of a seam. Then he got out of the floater.

Megan rubbed her hand over her eyes, drained. She tried to open her door and her window, but neither would budge. Twisting in her seat, she looked back at Raj. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." With his leather jacket over his jumpsuit, he looked like a fighter pilot. Ander must have put the jacket on him; Raj hadn't been wearing it in the Solarium. It told her two unexpected facts: Ander had made the effort to figure out what another person needed and he had chosen to act on his conclusions.

"I don't believe he would kill you," she said.

His tension almost crackled. "This isn't some misbehaving kid, Megan. He's gone way beyond that."

Has he?
Or was it Raj ?

Ander came to her side of the car. He had a Winchester rifle in his hands. Her window rolled down, apparently obeying his wireless command. "We're changing vehicles." He leaned his forearm against the floater and reached inside to stroke her cheek. "You'll sit up front with me again."

"Don't do this," Megan said. "If you keep breaking the law, you'll end up a lot worse off than you were in NEV-5."

"I won't go back." He opened the back door, then moved away and gestured at Raj with his rifle. "Megan will untie you. But I don't need you as much as I need her. Cause problems and I'll shoot. Understand?"

"Yes." Raj watched him with a dark gaze. Megan hoped that the protective impulses she had seen Raj show toward Ander were genuine and that they didn't fade; she didn't want either of them hurt.

Ander motioned at Megan. "Untie him."

This time when she tried her door, it opened. She left her blanket on the seat, on the off chance that searchers might fly overhead and detect her body heat with IR sensors. Breezes stirred her nightshirt. She felt vulnerable with only a flimsy layer of cloth on her body. Following Ander's orders, she untied Raj from the hook in the car but left his wrists bound. As she freed his ankles, he lowered his hands into his lap, his face drawn with pain. Although he had more mobility with his arms in front of his body, it didn't really help; Ander had them both covered with the rifle.

As she finished, Ander said, "Move away from him." He waited until Megan had moved back. "Okay, Raj. Get out."

Raj stepped out, then nearly fell. He grabbed the top of the door with his bound hands and hung on for balance. Moonlight silvered his drawn face. Megan bit her lip, knowing his returning circulation must be painful.

"Now you know how it feels to be clumsy." Although Ander spoke in an even tone, his voice had a dusting of emotional nuances. They were sketchy, but Megan thought he was trying to model humor mixed with an underlying pain and perhaps a trace of bitterness. It gave a complexity to his attitude toward his physical problems that went beyond the simple one-note emotions he had tended to display these past few weeks.

A rumbling came from the sky above them. A helicopter? she drew in a breath. "HEL—"

Ander grabbed her around the waist, the rifle clenched in his fist, and clamped his other hand over her mouth. "Do you want to end up
dead
?"

Raj spoke fast and low. "Don't hurt her. If you're worried that you can't control us both, get rid of me instead."

Megan stared at Raj. This was the man who had supposedly tried to kill her? He had just offered his life for hers.

"I don't want to get rid of either of you." Ander spoke near Megan's ear. "Do I have to gag you?"

She shook her head, but otherwise remained still, barely daring to breathe.

"If I let you go, will you be quiet?" he asked.

She nodded, moving slow so she wouldn't alarm him. Raj stood by the car, his arms slightly raised as if he were still asking for her life.

Ander released her mouth but kept his other arm around her waist. As she drew in a shaky breath, he shifted the Winchester into his free hand. To Raj he said, "Walk to the hill." His voice had a slight tremor, almost undetectable.

He's afraid.
Megan could see why Ander's code would model "fear" if Raj had done what Ander claimed. Or it could mean Ander knew how to bluff, that he was faking the emotion. Such a complex deception involved abilities he had never demonstrated before, but his recent actions indicated he was developing at a remarkable rate. Or did she resist believing Ander because she hated the thought that Raj might have betrayed her? This could all be Ander's confused but well-meant attempt to rescue her from what he perceived as an extreme threat.

Raj limped around the floater, which had parked itself beneath a rocky overhang of the ridge. Megan could just make out a long, dark form crouched under the ridge about ten meters away, catching glints from the moonlight. A hovercar. Dark and sleek, it waited like a predator in the dark.

Ander followed, bringing Megan with him, his arm tight around her waist. Although the rocky ground hurt her bare feet, she tried not to stumble or make any other fast moves. Ander had Raj climb into the back of the hovercar. Then he told Megan to tie Raj's wrists to a hook in the roof and his ankles to a bar under the front seat. She made the knots loose, but Ander easily saw with his augmented sight and had her tighten them. The whole time, Raj watched her, his gaze dark and angry.

"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice.

"He's out of control," Raj said.

"He must have rented this car through the Internet and had it drive itself out here."

"With whose money?" Then Raj answered himself. "Probably he hacked a MindSim account."

"No talking," Ander said.

After Megan finished tying Raj, Ander pulled her to the driver's side and pushed her inside. As she climbed across the bucket seats to the passenger's side, he slid in behind the wheel. When he jacked into the car's computer, the windows in back turned opaque. A partition rose between the front and back, isolating Raj. Then it slid down again.

"Why did you do that?" Raj asked. His face had gone pale.

"A test," Ander said. "To make sure it works."

Megan shivered, wondering what other secrets Ander had prepared. Regardless of who had attacked her, Ander had obviously put more than one night's thought into this getaway. This car would blend in well with the traffic going into Las Vegas, more expensive than many vehicles perhaps, but nothing to draw undue notice. He had chosen a better way to conceal them than by skulking along in a floater: he intended to hide in plain view.