The Phoenix Code (28 page)

Raj kissed her ear. "How are you doing?"

"Okay."

He tightened his arms around her. "Good."

After they had sat that way for some time, bored stiff, with nothing to do, she lifted her head. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"I don't know. It depends."

"Why didn't you ever marry?"

"Jaguars don't make good companions, Megan."

"Did your lovers tell you that?"

"What lovers?"

She made a
humph
sound. "No guy could look as good as you and not have had women throwing themselves at him."

"Sure," he drawled. "They just sailed in the window."

Megan smiled. "Trying to derail me won't work."

"Marriage is not one of my favorite topics."

She rested her hand against his chest. "I'm not proposing. I'm just curious."

After a moment he said, "Let me put it this way: yes, my being an angry kid with a brooding stare, foul mouth, tight jeans, and leather jacket attracted some girls. So what? I always picked a female version of myself. That didn't make for the most functional relationships."

"Maybe when you were young. But you're forty-two now. You've had plenty of time."

It was a while before he answered. "In my twenties, I didn't see much of anyone. I had enough to deal with, straightening out my own problems."

"And later?"

He scowled. "Why do women always want to know this stuff?"

She shifted in his arms. "To understand a lover better? Because if you open up, it means you trust me? I don't know. Maybe we just want to know what we're in for."

A smile quirked his lips. "That answer would have sent me running for the hills when I was younger."

"And now?"

"Ander won't let me run anywhere."

"I guess you're stuck, then."

He gave a quiet laugh. "All right. In my thirties, I had two girlfriends." His smile faded into a complicated expression, anger mixed with loss. "The first one walked out because she said I only cared about my computers."

Megan winced. She had heard similar. "It must have been difficult for both of you."

"She thought I loved my work more than her. I didn't. But I don't say emotion things well." Dryly he said, "To put it mildly." He readjusted her weight. "This must be boring you."

"Not at all. What was the second one like?"

He grinned. "Drop-dead gorgeous."

That wasn't what she wanted to hear. "Did she criticize your work too?"

"She loved it. The more money I made, the more things she could buy. I stopped seeing her, though."

"Because she spent all your money?"

"No, I didn't mind that. I wasn't using it."

Megan wondered if he had any idea how naive that sounded. "I hope she didn't take advantage of you."

"Well, no. The problem was, she was rather ... prosaic."

"Prosaic?"

He winced. "She spent all her time watching those talk shows where people throw things at each other. We had these long dinner conversations about what shade of yellow she should make her hair." Then he muttered, "It was incredible. She could talk about
nail polish
for an hour."

Megan struggled not to laugh. "Oh, Raj. I can't imagine you with someone like that."

"Yeah, well, you never saw her in a miniskirt." He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling.

"Stop thinking about the miniskirt," she growled.

"You're jealous."

"I am not."

He smirked. "You are. I like it."

"Fine. Go kiss prosaic blond bimbos."

"I'd rather kiss you. I should have met you first, Nutmeg. Then I would never have wasted my time with them." He looked a bit disconcerted. "You would've scared the hell out of me back then, though."

She hadn't expected that. "Why?"

"Your self-confidence. That you treat people with respect. That we
are
so compatible."

"Why would that scare you?"

"It took me decades to believe I deserved to be treated well." Before she could ask more, he headed her off at the pass. "And you?"

"Me?" She tensed. "What about me?"

"Same question."

She shifted her weight. "I haven't met the right person."

"Yeah. Right. How many men have asked you to marry them? Five? Twenty? A hundred? And
none
were right?"

"Oh, Raj. It was two."

"What, that's not a good enough sample size?"

"I won't hitch up just to be hitched." She wasn't the least bit sleepy anymore. "I'm not a baby machine. And I can support myself, thank you very much."

"I don't doubt it."

"Good."

After a moment he said, "But don't you get lonely?"

He would have to ask that. "I'd rather be lonely than be with the wrong person. Besides, I don't have much time to look."

He spoke quietly. "In other words, you're so wrapped up in work, you rarely go out, and if you do, you don't like being with strangers."

"Would you please stop being so perceptive?"

"I know because I'm the same way."

She tapped her finger on his chest. "I'll tell you the problem. I hadn't met anyone anywhere near as interesting as you."

He closed his fingers around her hand and touched her hair with his other hand. Gentleness showed on his face, no strain now, but an echo instead, the memory of the love a child had once had to offer, before his ability to trust had been beaten out of him.
 

"Wake up," Ander said. "We have to go."

Megan peered blearily around the room. She had slid partway off Raj's lap and was curled next to him in the armchair. Karl sat slumped in another armchair, eating a bag of chips. The other two men were still asleep.

Ander was leaning over, shaking Raj's shoulder. When he saw that they were waking up, he straightened and turned to Karl. "You can untie your friends after we leave."

Karl just nodded. He looked exhausted.

Ander kept the assault rifle. He took Raj and Megan upstairs and out of the house, not even giving them a chance to come fully awake. They stumbled along, almost running to keep up with him. Outside, the sky was turning blue in a crystalline desert dawn.

At the car, Ander said, "Megan, get in back. Raj, tie her."

Raj gave him an implacable look. "No."

"Ander, don't tie us up," she said.

"I haven't time for this." Ander yanked open the back door and grabbed the Winchester off the seat. "Get in." Holding both guns, he motioned at Raj. "You drive. Don't argue."

With his shoulders rigid, Raj got into the driver's seat. Ander pushed Megan into the back, then slammed both doors. The locks snapped into place; apparently his wireless capability wasn't completely gone. Although she was relieved he didn't bind her, his behavior was anything but reassuring. With the computer protected by a password only he knew, neither Megan nor Raj could unlock the doors. She had no doubt Ander was also scanning the car for any tracking devices or rogue code that the trio in the house might have planted.

He got in the passenger's side and leaned over to shove the magkeys in the ignition. Holos on the dash glittered as his "mind" talked to the car. Then it backed up the driveway. Within seconds, they were out on the road.

Ander took a breath, rattling the filaments that straggled out of his torso. Sagging in his seat, he held both the Winchester and assault rifle on his knees. So much heat radiated off his body, Megan felt it in the back. His reactor was running hard, producing more energy than he could dump, his version of a fever.

She leaned forward. "You have to let us work on you."

"We can't—go to a motel—with me like—this." His voice was eerily disjointed, the first sign he had shown of the strain he had to be suffering.

"If we don't work on you soon," Raj said, "you'll break down."

"I won't let you turn me off."

"We have to do something," Megan said.

"I have to—to confine you, Megan." Now he was talking too fast. "To make sure you can't escape while Raj repairs me. Raj, I'll have the guns on you the whole time, so no tricks."

"I need her help," Raj said.

Megan motioned at Ander's injured chest. "We don't have the materials we need."

"You'll manage," Ander told her.

"How?"
Raj asked. A bead of sweat ran down his temple.

"You can work in the back seat." Ander's arm spasmed, almost throwing the guns out of his lap. He sounded desperate. "We'll drive into the desert. I'll tie Megan up in the front and opaque the windows."

"This is ridiculous," Raj said. "You're asking me to do major surgery in a car, with no equipment and a patient who not only refuses to let me put him under, he insists on holding a gun on me while I'm operating. I can't work under those conditions."

"You can," Ander said. "And you will."

"We shouldn't stop," Megan said. "Karl and his people might catch up to us."

Raj frowned at Ander. "They know you're an android. Do you have any idea how valuable you would be on the black market?"

"They won't come after us," Ander said, to himself as much as to them. "They're into major shit there. If we reveal them to the feds, they're fucked."

Raj shook his head. "Don't count on that stopping them. They may decide it's worth the risk."

"That guard scared the daylights out of me," Megan said.

"What do you know about him?" Raj asked Ander.

"Nothing I'm going to tell you."

"Why not?" Megan asked.

Ander's leg twitched. He grabbed it with his hand, holding it in place. "Why should I? I don't care if they jigger the law. That's like asking money if it cares who steals it."

"Oh, come on. You're being obtuse on purpose." Megan thought it remarkable, actually. But it was the last thing they needed right now.

"I don't know about the guard," Ander admitted. "He wasn't part of the negotiations."

"What about the Phoenix androids?" Raj asked. "Anything?"

"Two leads," Ander said. "Louisiana and Baltimore."

"I thought Louisiana was a college kid," Megan said.

"His records may be fake," Ander said. "Same for the guy in Baltimore. He's into some bizarre business on the stock market."

"And if neither is a Phoenix android?" Raj asked.

Ander answered in jolting bursts. "I won't. Let them.
Be dead.
"
 

With all the windows opaqued, no sunlight penetrated the car's shadowed interior. The vehicle had driven them far out into the desert and parked in the shadow of a hill.

Ander climbed in the back, still holding both guns. "Megan, move up front."

She stayed put. "This won't work."

"How will you cover me while I operate?" Raj asked from the driver's seat. "I'll be close enough to pull those guns out of your hands."

"You'll do what I tell you," Ander said. "Or take the consequences."

"What consequences? You keep threatening, but you've never shot anyone. It's all bluff."

"Besides," Megan said. "If you shoot him, who will fix you?"

Ander scowled. "Quit arguing with me."

"Let us do our job right," Raj said.

"I
can't
let you turn me off." Ander's arm snapped out and hit the door. He pulled it back with a snap, holding it tight against his ravaged torso. "You'll take me back to NEV-5."

"Would that be so terrible?" Megan asked.

"Yes! I don't want MindSim to make me a fake human." Ander took a breath and air crackled through his chest. Bitterly he said, "After seeing what my kind can do, I'm not sure I want to be an android either."

"Grayton doesn't define you," she said.

He leaned against the door. "How did Homer put it? 'Shower down into my life from on high your soft radiance and warlike strength, that I may drive bitter evil away from my head ... Give me the courage to live in the safe ways of peace, shunning strife and ill will and the violent fiends of destruction.' "

"That's beautiful," Megan said, astounded. She didn't remember any module or section of Ander's code devoted to poetry.

"What is it from?" Raj asked.

"The
Homeric Hymns
," Ander said. "To Ares, the god of war."

"You never stop surprising me." Megan studied his injuries. "Raj and I can probably fix enough here so that you can manage until we do a full repair."

"What full repair?" Ander closed his eyes. "If we go back, MindSim will destroy me. Oh, maybe they won't take me apart. But they'll make me docile and subservient. After Grayton, I can't even blame them."

"We'll refuse to do it," Raj told him.

"Then they'll find someone who will."

"Ander, we won't let it happen," Megan said. "Let us help."

Ander opened his eyes and looked at her for a long moment. Then he gave a tired smile. "It must be your red hair. Arick Bjornsson had a thing about that color." With a sigh, he dropped the guns on the floor.

Megan reached out with care, not ready to believe he meant it. But he didn't try to stop her when she picked up the guns. Relief surged through her, so intense it hurt. She gave the weapons to Raj and he set them on the front seat, out of Ander's reach.

"So." Ander simply sat, as if waiting for them to betray his immense act of trust.

"Can you stretch out back there?" Raj's voice had a kinder quality now, an implicit acknowledgment of the risk Ander had just taken. "The work will be easier if you're lying down."

"I think so." As Ander maneuvered around, Megan slid out of his way, wedging herself into the area behind the driver's seat. Ander lay on his back, bending his legs so he fit in the limited space. Then he stared at the roof of the car, meeting neither of their gazes.

Raj climbed into the back and sat on the armrest between the two front seats. As he set his hands on Ander's chest, the android's lashes dropped closed. "Don't turn me off."

"I won't." With a surgeon's touch, Raj began to open the devastated remains of the android's torso.

Ander swallowed. "I wonder if they've taken Grayton apart yet."

"Try not to think about it." Megan grimaced as she examined his torso. The bullets had done even more damage than she realized, tearing apart his internal organs.