The Phoenix Code (26 page)

Megan tugged him into a kiss. He finally stopped teasing her and folded his hand around her breast, rubbing his thumb over her nipple. She sighed, leaning into his hand. A bathtub was hardly her first choice for a tryst, but it was better than the floor, which had even less room.

Raj moved around until he was half lying on his back, lengthwise in the tub, with her on top of him and his knees drawn to help him fit. He let one of his long legs hang out the side. She couldn't help but laugh as they shifted around, trying to find a less awkward arrangement. He worked her nightshirt off her shoulders and down her body, until it bunched around her hips.

His jumpsuit scratched her bare skin.

Megan froze, remembering the jumpsuit from that night in the Solarium. Then she thought:
I refuse to believe it was Raj.

"Meg?" He brushed his lips over her ear, then tickled the ridges inside with his tongue.

"No one calls me Meg..." Her concentration drifted as his tongue did its magic.

"I could call you Red."

Caught between his legs, she pressed against him. "You can call me anything you want ... as long as you keep doing that."

So he did, for a while. Then he kissed her again, coaxing her lips apart to let his tongue come inside. He held her with a sense of freshness, as if she were a delight he had discovered. It was far more erotic than any practiced techniques.

When she began to move her pelvis, Raj drew in a breath. "If you keep that up, we're going to be done any moment now."

"No..." Megan pulled at the zippers on his jumpsuit.

With his help, she undressed him, losing her nightshirt in the process. He dropped their garments on the floor, then pulled her into his arms. After several heroic attempts to make them comfortable, he gave an exasperated laugh. "This isn't working."

"How about this?" She sat up and slid against the faucet, making room for him to sit. As he lifted her into his lap, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He felt solid in her arms, and tantalizing too, as he caressed her in that maddening way that didn't quite reach the places she wanted touched. Stretching his arms around her, he turned on the faucet. Icy water splashed across her bottom. Startled, she sat up straighter in his lap—and he slid inside her.

"Oh!" A flush spread in Megan's body. Then she sighed and leaned forward. "Oh, yes."

He stroked his hands over her behind. In a husky voice he said, "Glad you approve."
They moved together, rocking their hips in the slowly rising water, which soon turned as warm as the whisper of bare skin against bare skin, its liquid touch playing over their bodies.

She didn't notice the water again until it had risen to her waist, and their steady rhythm began to splash it out of the tub. Trying to catch her breath, she managed to say, "We better turn it off."

Raj said something, soft sounds without words. Then he stopped the water. He readjusted her weight and continued to rock with her, his eyes closed.

Megan started to lose her train of thought, then recalled what she still needed to ask. Lifting her head, she said, "Can you pull out when—you know. When it's time." She had no worries about his health; she had seen his medical records, as he had seen hers. However, he was perfectly capable of impregnating her. Pulling out wasn't the best protection, but it was better than none.

"All right." He drew her close again and bit at her neck, leading her thoughts astray again. Astray, askew, astir...

They were quieter after that, though not silent. Water lapped around them and spilled out of the tub every now and then. She kissed his neck, mouth, and closed eyes. Raj explored her body, caressing her breasts or moving his hands on her hips. He slid one hand over her bottom and down under, tickling her hidden places until she moaned.

Finally it was too much. With a cry, she began to climax, her muscles clenching around him. He tried to lift her off his lap but she resisted, losing control as sensations rolled over her. He groaned, then tried to lift her again. When she pushed back down on him, he gave up. His hips jerked against her and he pulled her even closer, as if he could take her inside himself.

Megan heard another cry and barely knew it as her own. She let the orgasm take her away, swells of pleasure spreading through her body.

Gradually her contractions eased. She sagged in Raj's arms, becoming aware again of the water. He leaned against the wall and held her to him as his own breaths slowed. So they sat, sated, their arms relaxed around each other.

Eventually Megan lifted her head. In a masterpiece of understatement, she said, "That was nice."

"Hmmm ... yes." He opened his eyes. "I tried to pull out."

She winced, embarrassed by her ardor. "But I overcame your resistance and had my way with you."

A smile tugged his lips. "I guess so."

"One time doesn't usually make a baby."

He spoke awkwardly. "If it happens, I won't run out on you. Or the child."

She ran her fingertips along his jaw. "You're a good person, you know that?"

"You think so, after all the things Ander claims I've done?"

"Have you?"

"I
didn't
attack you in the Solarium."

"And the others?"

After a pause, he said, "He's lying."

She waited. "But?"

It was another moment before he answered. "I know almost nothing about the Phoenix Project. But something did go wrong. That's why I didn't go to work for them." He brushed a damp curl out of his eyes. "What I don't understand is why he needed me for LLCL if he had already cracked the Pentagon."

"He says you did that."

"He says a lot of things."

"He's doing strange things with his neural nets." Megan thought back to her conversations with the android. "It's almost as if he's repressing memories."

"Maybe it's the only way he can stay in control."

She laid her hand against his cheek. "I am glad about one part of this mess, though."

Tenderness showed on his face. "I also." He turned his head so he could kiss the palm of her hand. "I wish I had fresh clothes, though. I've worn that jumpsuit for two days."

Taking his face in her hands, she kissed his lips. Then she drew back. "Maybe Ander has one in his valise. Whoever knocked me out was wearing one."

"If we get a chance, we can look." He regarded her steadily. "If he
didn't
bring it, that doesn't mean he never had one."

"I know. But if it's there..." That, at least, would give more evidence to support Raj than just her wish to believe him. Hormones wouldn't make much of a defense in court.

Raj leaned against the wall behind them. She lay in his arms, curled sideways, sitting between his thighs, her legs bent to fit in the tub, her head against his chest.

The water lapped around them, lulling in its warmth.
 

Megan drifted in warm sunshine, dozing. She ran her palm along Raj's muscled leg—

"Oh, get up." The irritated voice broke into her reverie. "You two just couldn't wait, could you?"

Confused, she opened her eyes. Ander was glaring at them, the rifle down by his side.

"Ander, go away," Raj said, his voice thick with sleep.

Megan lifted her head. She was still lying with Raj in the tub. He had let out the water and covered their hips with towels, the closest they had to blankets. As she moved, Raj shifted his position to cover her, blocking Ander's view. "Get out," he repeated to the android.

Ander glared at them. Then he spun around and stalked out of the room, leaving the door open.

"That was embarrassing," Raj muttered.

Megan yawned. "Well, we wanted him to let us out."

He pretended to pinch her arm, as if trying to wake up. "Good morning, Nutmeg." When she laughed, he kissed her.

They dressed without speaking, moving stiffly after sleeping in such cramped quarters. She knew they were both listening to Ander. His silence in the other room worried her.

Raj's watch said six in the morning. Ander had worked all night. When they walked out into the main room, he was standing by the glass doors with the curtains open, looking at the desert.

Raj didn't hesitate; he went straight to the valise Ander had left on the bed. As he opened it, Megan tensed. What if it had no jumpsuit? That didn't make Raj guilty. Ander could have left it at NEV-5. But the doubt would gnaw at her.

"So." Grim satisfaction shaded Raj's voice. He pulled a fresh jumpsuit out of the valise.

The relief that hit Megan was so strong it felt physical. She turned to Ander. He must have realized what Raj had just done, yet he had neither moved nor looked at them.

Raj changed into the second jumpsuit, leaving his torn clothes on the bed. Then he started across the room toward Ander.

"Stay there." The android still didn't turn. In a deadened voice he added, "It's on the bed."

Raj stopped. "The valise?"

"No. On the pillow."

Looking, Megan saw a stack of printer paper. She took a breath.
Phoenix?

Together with Raj, she sat on the bed and picked up the papers. Then they began to read.

And read.

Megan wanted to stop. She wanted to throw the papers across the room, rip them to shreds, burn them in the sink. But she made herself keep going. They had to know the truth.

Finally Raj spoke in a low voice. "God Almighty."

Ander still wouldn't look at them. "So now we know." His voice sounded hollow.

Raj set the papers on the bed. "Ander, it doesn't have to be you."

"No?" He turned to them. "What do you call what I've been doing?"

Megan spoke quietly. "No comparison exists between your behavior and the acts committed by the Phoenix android."

"He has a name," Ander said. "Grayton. His behavior may be unspeakably animal, but his name is
human
."

"He's only one," Raj said.

Ander's voice cracked. "Look at the RS androids. They all went crazy. Who do I call sibling? Grayton? 'Here, meet my brother. He's an impressive fellow, tall, strong, intelligent. Oh, by the way, he's also a murderous psychopath who likes to slaughter people after he tortures them. So sorry.' "

"You aren't Grayton," Megan said.

"Yet." He was gripping the gun so hard, his knuckles had turned white.

"Let us take you back to NEV-5," Raj said. "We can prevent it from happening."

"No." He spoke in a flat voice. "I have one more chance. If it fails me, I don't want to exist."

"Ander, no," Megan said. "Don't say that."

"I can't live this way." He sounded as if he hurt inside. "I don't want this life you gave me, not if I have to spend it alone, stranded among alien beings who want me to be like them."

"We didn't mean for it to be that way," Raj said.

"No? You wanted tame, obsequious machines. You got Grayton and me." He took one step toward them. "I want to find the other Phoenix androids."

Megan ached for him, wishing she knew how to fix the impossible. "None of them survived the explosion Grayton set. He is the only one still alive."

"So where are their bodies?" Ander demanded. "Arizonix should have found more traces. They did for the sixteen
people
who died in that blast, just like they found the remains of everyone Grayton tortured. Why would so little remain of the androids? Just a few parts? Those could have been
machine
parts."

"Microfusion reactors?" Megan asked. "Their shielding?"

"No." Ander wouldn't look at her.

"I'm sorry." She had never seen an AI go into denial before.

"Ander, work it out," Raj said. "Calculate the odds that any of the other four Arizonix androids survived."

"I did. It's not zero."

"What is it?" Megan asked.

"It doesn't
matter
that it's tiny.
It's not zero
."

Raj set down the papers. "Where would they go? They couldn't hide long, certainly not the entire month since the explosion."

"Why not?" Ander asked. "I could do it. Hell, even if I did set off something like an airport alarm, I could just say I've bioengineered implants for medical reasons. What would they do? Accuse me of being an android?" His arm jerked at his side. "And Arizonix was ahead of NEV-5 in designing our bodies. Blood, organs, skin, and all the rest; according to those reports, all of that is more convincing for the Phoenix androids. They could pass much closer examination without revealing themselves." His voice shook with a blend of anger, sorrow, and resentment. "They're so much more
human
."

A tear ran down his cheek. Before Megan realized what she was doing, she had stood up, intending to go to him. In the same instant that Raj caught her arm, holding her back, Ander held up his hand, palm out, to warn her away.

"Don't touch me," Ander whispered. "Don't pity me."

Seeing him made her hurt, as if she were watching her own child drown in a guilt that wasn't his. For someone who claimed to feel no emotions, he did a wrenchingly believable job of showing them.

"It's not pity." She spoke gently. "If you truly were like Grayton, you wouldn't care this way."

"It doesn't matter," he said in a brittle voice. "Both of you, out to the car. We're leaving."
 

Rocky hills rose in the southern California desert like the shoulders of giant skeletons jutting out of the ground, white bone under the sun. Gray-green bush mottled a land strewn with red rocks, and gnarled trees gathered in clumps. Fences lined the road, their lines regularly broken by traffic-control grid boxes.

The hovercar hummed along Highway 8, driven by its internal guidance system. Raj kept his hands on the wheel anyway, as if he could override Ander's control by sheer force of will.

Megan sat in the back, in her jeans, sweater, and tennis shoes, her hands bound to the roof hook. Ander had opaqued all the back windows so no one could see her. He sat in front, his attention never wavering, the rifle resting across his knees, aimed at Raj. She wasn't sure what would happen if he fired in a car and she didn't want to find out.

The car spoke in its rich tones. "We are twenty miles from the Kitchen Creek Road exit."

The announcement felt like a welcome breath of air to Megan. They had driven almost four hundred miles, using the "back way" through California, roads that hugged the state's eastern and southern border. It took them through sparsely settled mountains and desert, avoiding the heavily traveled routes that converged on Los Angeles and San Diego. She had gleaned no more from Ander than their goal, a farm some miles north of the Mexican border. What he wanted there, or how he even knew it existed, she had no idea.

He always kept one of them tied up, but he let them switch every hour or so. Although Megan's arms throbbed, she was glad Raj didn't have to endure it all himself this time. Ander let them out once, in an isolated region of San Bernardino County west of the Turtle Mountains. The clear, parched air had almost no dust or humidity.

Ander hardly spoke. He listened to the news and used the car's computer to stalk the Web, searching for clues to the elusive siblings that he refused to admit had died. The rest of the time he brooded, if that term could be applied to whatever calculations he was carrying out in his mind.

Megan stared out the front window at the rocky beauty of the desert. They were south of the urban sprawl that stretched from above Los Angeles to below San Diego in a vista of shopping malls, suburbs, and housing tracts. The days of sleepy haciendas and Spanish missions had faded into the past. At least the voracious metropolis hadn't yet absorbed the state this far south. But the twenty-first century had brought ever greater water shortages, and a blistering heat stoked by global warming.

"Car," Ander said.

"What can I do for you?" it asked.

"How far to our destination?"

"Six point three miles."

"Are you going tell us what we're doing?" Raj asked.

"No," Ander said.

Megan leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, wishing this would all be over.

A few minutes later they pulled off the highway. No holos lit the roads here, just a dusty metal street sign that said Old Hwy. 80. Low mountains rose around them, with a cover of green that looked soft from far away but resolved into prickly bushes up close.

They drove past a weathered sign that read Restaurant, La Posta Diner, then past the La Posta Mini-Mart. After another few miles, they turned off the highway and delved deep into the heat-baked hills. Cows grazed in nubbly fields and fences sagged along the road. They passed a gray sign that had been weathered until its words were no longer readable. Whitish gravel bordered the road and led off into dry creekbeds. When the road dipped, a yellow sign informed them the route was subject to flooding.

Eventually they came to a farmstead with a few assorted buildings and a trailer behind it. A rutted dirt road sloped down from the road. The car pulled up to a ramshackle house with a sagging porch, sun-faded walls, and a satellite dish on its roof. Scraggly bushes grew in the front garden. Ander released control of the car to Raj and had him park in a gravel driveway.

"What is this place?" Megan asked.

Ander turned to her. "Listen, both of you. Don't upset these people. We want to leave here healthy."

Raj frowned. "What have you gotten into?"

"Just do what I tell you," Ander said. "I'm the one with the combat training, remember? You two are civilians."

"Great," Megan muttered.

The door of the house banged open and three men came out, dressed in jeans and old shirts. The one in the lead was built like a tank, with muscled biceps, his hair razed to a blond stubble and an assault rifle in his hands. The second man was tall and thin. His long brown hair swung as he walked. The third was shorter and overweight, with wire-rimmed glasses and pens in the front pocket of his white shirt.

Ander left his Winchester in the hovercar, but brought the valise. Megan wondered what he wanted with the bag; he had dumped its contents last night, then done something in the back of the car, she didn't know what.

He had Raj untie her. The three men stood back, watching, the blond one covering them with the assault rifle. Megan didn't see how Ander knew these people. Given all the time he had spent on the Web these past few days, though, she had no idea who he might have met.

The heat pressed down, sharp in the dry air. As Megan pulled herself out of the car, Raj spoke with concern. "Can you walk?"

"I'm all right." She rubbed her arms, conscious of the strangers watching them. "Just a little sore."

The man with the rifle spoke. "Turn around and put your hands on the car with your legs spread."

Moving stiffly, Megan did as he ordered and faced the car, aware of Raj and Ander on either side doing the same. The long-haired man searched them. He spent longer on Megan than the others, running his hands along her sides. When his fingers brushed her breasts, she gritted her teeth, holding back the urge to sock him, knowing it could get them killed. Raj stiffened and started to turn toward him.

"Don't move," a voice behind them said.

For a terrible moment, Megan thought Raj would defy him. Then he took a breath and stopped, like a pacing animal trapped into stillness. She could almost feel his anger seethe. She wasn't sure who was more dangerous: Ander, who had no inclination to kill but could probably do so with cool analysis if he felt it necessary; or Raj, who would be consumed with guilt by such an act but whose simmering capacity for violence could be fanned into flame.

"Are they carrying anything?" someone asked.

The man who had searched them answered. "Nothing."

"All right. Turn around, all of you."

Turning, Megan saw the long-haired man a few paces away. He was taking the valise from Ander. The man with the glasses motioned to the house as if he were inviting them all to a barbecue. "Come on in."

"Real hospitality," Raj said under his breath.

Megan glanced at him, alarmed, but he said no more. As they walked to the house, the man with the assault rifle kept pace. She wondered what danger he thought computer nerds like she and Raj posed. She had no idea what these people knew about them, though. If Ander was the one they feared, they had sense.
Inside the house, old furniture and dusty rugs filled the living room. They descended a staircase into a cooler room—and a new century. Equipment crammed the basement: consoles, screens, holo supplies, cell phones, printers, memory towers, a satellite link. Cubes, DVDs, CDs, disks, e-books, holosheets, and paper overflowed wooden tables scarred with years of usage.

The long-haired man opened Ander's valise, revealing stacks of cash. After checking the money, he left the room. Megan stood with Raj, trying not to look as scared as she felt. What on Earth had Ander been doing that he "met" these people?

The man returned without the valise. He gestured to Ander and the man with glasses. The three of them moved a few paces away, speaking in low voices. Ander remained standing, but the others sat down at their consoles, taking their places with the ease of long familiarity. They interacted with their computers using gestures, a light pen, or words, their low voices an overtone to the hum of machines.

The guard with the rifle stayed near the back wall, choosing a vantage point where he could see everyone. Glancing at Raj and Megan, he indicated two old armchairs in one corner. "You can sit there while they work."

Raj just nodded, saying nothing, and Megan was too tense to answer. As she and Raj sat in the chairs, Ander glanced at them from across the room. His look disquieted her, as if he were checking his two prized possessions to assure himself they were all right.

Then he turned back to the hackers and continued their discussion, voices murmuring in the muted atmosphere. The basement had a muffled quality, as if the room absorbed noise. It didn't take a genius to figure out he had hired these people, using his Las Vegas money, to help him search for the Phoenix androids he believed still lived. She didn't want to know how many laws they were breaking in the process.

She spoke to Raj in a low voice. "Sooner or later Ander will have to admit they're dead. Then what?"

"He might snap." Raj glanced at the guard with the rifle. "I hope they know what they're doing with that guy. If Ander loses control, he won't be easy to stop."

"I don't see why Ander came here. He could have done this over the Web with less risk."

"This is like paying in cash. No trail."

Megan thought of her contact in Las Vegas. She had never had a chance to call. Ander's uncanny vigilance unsettled her. He never rested, never tired, never flagged.

Despite the situation, she began to grow bored after a while. Watching people mumble at consoles ranked about as high as eating liver on her list of engaging pastimes. Eventually she dozed. She awoke when the man with the long hair swiveled his chair around with such a jerk that it clacked. He frowned at them, then turned back to his console.

Raj yawned. "Wonder what that was about."

The long-haired man suddenly spoke. "Karl, look at this."

The man with glasses glanced up. "What?"

"Come here."

Karl went to the console, followed by Ander. As soon as Megan saw Ander stiffen, she knew they had trouble. The android was already stepping away from the console when Karl spun around to him. "You fucking
bastard
."

The man with the rifle came even more alert if that was possible, his weapon poised, his posture wary. Ander moved to keep both him and the hackers in sight. A normal man couldn't have simultaneously concentrated on all three, but Megan had no doubt Ander managed with ease.

Staring at Ander with undisguised hostility, Karl pointed at Raj. "What the hell were you thinking, bringing
him
here?"