Android: Golem (The Identity Trilogy) (2 page)

The other man did the same with his hood. Both of them drew large handguns from shoulder holsters. I immediately identified them as Norinco 12.7mm Lei Gongs. The English equivalent was a Thunder God. The Lei Gongs were Chinese manufactured, hard and heavy. They were not passive weapons, not designed for non-lethal use. They were man stoppers.

“What’s wrong?” The woman peered over my shoulder. Her mismatched eyes widened in sudden understanding. “They’ve found us, haven’t they? We’ve got to get out of here.” She threw the bed clothes from her and got up, frantically searching the room for clothing and pulling it on.

Questions filled my mind, but I shoved them aside. Obviously, the woman felt threatened by the men. I had to respond to that. Preservation of human life was foremost in my programming, but there was something more added to my motivation. I
wanted
to keep the woman safe on a level I had never felt.

I rolled from the bed. I saw my body as it has always been: hard and metallic, a construction of clever joints, plates, and mechanisms. I had no qualms about my own safety. I was nearly indestructible by human standards.

I didn’t know what the woman saw when she looked at me, but she didn’t see a bioroid. That was confusing. Instead, she looked at me fearfully as she pulled on slacks and reached for a shirt.

“Why are you standing there? Get your gun.”

I started to ask her where it was, then I knew. I lifted the mattress and exposed the IMBEL M1911 Colt .45 ACP in a shoulder holster. The Brazilian-made black pistol gleamed wetly of oil and I smelled the tang.

“Hurry.” She was almost dressed.

 
I glanced at the vid cube in my hand and realized that someone—perhaps the woman—had hacked into the hotel’s sec systems, and the result of that was what I was seeing now.
 

I could only assume it had been set up to watch for the men now heading up the stairs.

The pistol pushed me into a quandary. As a bioroid, I couldn’t carry lethal weapons. I was limited in the damage I could do to a human, or to preserve myself. Humans came first.

But I
could
secure a weapon at a crime scene. I told myself this was a crime scene, and I felt only slight resistance as I picked up the weapon. Perhaps it wasn’t a crime scene at the moment, but it was definitely going to become one. My hand closed more firmly around the pistol.

“Here.”

I turned just in time to catch the clothing the woman threw at me. The khaki pants and pullover shirt weren’t mine, but they, too, seemed familiar. I pulled them on, then stepped into combat boots near the bed that I assumed were mine. Everything fit perfectly.

I was operating on instinct now. My programming would say that such a thing didn’t exist in me because everything had been overwritten, but I’d had feelings—Shelly, my partner, called them “hunches”
—
about cases and people I’d dealt with before.
Instinct
was also, at its most basic level, a template constructed of prior experiences.
 

This was instinct on some level, but I had never had any experiences like this.

The woman went toward the door.

“No.” I spoke calmly, looking at the vid cube. “They’re in the hallway.” I pulled on the shoulder holster, though I knew I’d never be able to use the weapon.

“Then what are we going to do?” Her voice was tight and I knew she was afraid.

I felt badly for her. No one should feel that afraid. I had so many questions I wanted to ask her, even as my mind raced to find a way out of our predicament, but my programming wouldn’t permit me. First, I had to save her.

“The window.” I nodded toward the curtains.

“We’re ten stories above the street.”

“There’s no other way. The sec door will only hold them for a moment.” If they didn’t have a key. I chose not to mention that. Instead, I took her by the hand and pulled her after me. “Trust me.”

That response was part of my programming, too. In dangerous situations, I was prompted to tell humans that, though I knew most of them wouldn’t. Bioroids were still too different, too easily recognized as a potential threat, because we were more fearless and more resilient than humans. Any animal tended to fear a stronger predator.

A bioroid firefighter could charge into a burning building and be able to withstand the smoke and the heat that a human couldn’t. A bioroid detective could take a bullet that would kill a flesh and blood detective, and continue to act as a shield for a potential victim. I had done that twice in my career. I had earned commendations, but those had not mattered nearly as much as the protection of the humans.
 

The woman followed me, though, and I believed most of that reason was because there was nowhere else to go. The hotel room was a suite, but there was only one way into the rooms.

On the vid cube, the men had reached our hotel door. One of them produced an e-card and slotted it through the sec lock. The admittance light blinked red, not green. The man keyed in adjustments on the e-card, then prepared to try again.

The window wouldn’t open. It was set into the wall, probably to prevent suicide jumpers.

I pulled the IMBEL from the shoulder holster and had to fight against my programming. The weapon was already secure. There was no further reason to touch it.

Except that I needed the weapon. I drew the pistol back and hammered the butt into the window. The first blow only splintered the glass. Fracture lines spread in spider webs from the point of impact. I drew back the pistol and hammered again.

This time the glass gave way. I’d expected the pieces to fall outside, but a gust of wind blew them back over me. Even with my enhanced reflexes, I was barely able to cover my face with my arm in time. The woman was safely out of the way. The shards fell like glittering rain at my feet.

I re-holstered the weapon and gazed out the window. Several skyscrapers filled the street. Most of them were taller than the hotel. Bright stars littered what I could see of the black sky. Below, neon lights filled the street and hoppers flew above the pedestrian traffic.

We were in a metropolis. My mind worked constantly, taking in facts and details as it always did. Nothing looked familiar to me, though I felt certain that I had been here before.

I shoved my head and shoulders through the window and studied the building. The structure consisted of large stones mortared in place. All of the stones were uniform in size and there was sufficient space in the cracks for me to manage purchase.

I turned to the woman.

She shook her head and tears glittered in her eyes. “I can’t. I can’t go out there.”

“You can’t stay in here. If they find you, they’re going to kill you.” I said that and I knew it was the truth, but I didn’t know where that certainty had come from. I couldn’t verify the information. In my job as a detective, every fact had to be verified. What I experienced now ran counter to that.

Something thumped against the door.

I glanced at the vid cube. The men had evidently given up trying to get in with the e-card. One of them drew back a foot to kick again.

Boom.

I looked at the woman. “That door isn’t going to hold. If there are two of them out there, you can bet there will be more.” I wasn’t certain how I knew that, but I knew what I told her was true. “Trust me.”

I wished I knew her name. Little things like that helped when dealing with humans. They put a lot of stock in their identities. So much importance is tied to a human’s name.

“Don’t let me fall.” She approached me with trepidation.

“I won’t.” I set down the vid cube. With my assistance, she climbed onto my back, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. I knew something was wrong because she felt heavy. In addition to being durable and fast, bioroids are strong. I didn’t feel as strong as I normally did. I shouldn’t have noticed her weight at all, but I did. Not only that, but I felt the warmth of her flesh against me.

I knew I could carry her, though. I threw a leg over the window and climbed out. She clung to me more fiercely and tucked her head into the back of my neck. I smelled her again in spite of the winds that whipped around the building. She was lilac and salt.

Cautiously, I climbed down the side of the building. My hands and feet moved effortlessly, finding the cracks and crevices I needed. The wind made it harder to hang on, but I managed. The stones bit into my fingertips and brought more pain that I’d ever felt before.

My body was constructed to effortlessly manage pain. Pain was an operating parameter, a built-in system of checks and balances so I would not harm humans or other property that I interacted with. I ignored the pain and kept going.

I heard the door give way in the hotel room we’d just left at the same time I reached the window of the room beneath me.

“They’re not here.” The man’s voice was muffled by the hood that he wore, but I still heard him.

“They’ve got to be here. Search the closets.”

“Look. The window’s broken.”

 
In a crab-like position, my hands dug in tightly and my left leg bent up to above my waist, barely able to maintain my grip, I drew back my right leg and kicked my foot through the window. Glass exploded and fell into the room.

I climbed down further, got a foot on the sill, and turned immediately sideways to put the woman inside the room. Above me, I saw a pair of hooded heads peer out of the room we’d just left. A fraction of a second later, they pointed their pistols down at me.

I shoved myself into the room, letting gravity do part of the work. Heavy-caliber shots blasted through the night and the muzzle flashes briefly lit up the darkness outside.

I fell and the woman fell with me. I was the first to my feet and I helped her up. The room was dark for just a moment, then someone turned on a bedside lamp.

On the bed nearby, a young couple looked at us in shock. The woman wrapped her arms around the man as he faced us. “What are you doing here?”

Both of them wore tattoos over their entire bodies. They looked like corp material, mid-level execs, with carefully colored hair and lean bodies.

I held up my hands. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

“Get out of this room! Get out of this room,
now
! I’m calling security!” The man reached for the comm-pad beside the bed.

I thought security was a good idea.

The woman didn’t. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into motion. “We’ve got to go. They’ll have paid the hotel security people off. We won’t be safe.”

I took her word for it because I didn’t know. I followed her lead and we ran for the door. I got there first. We went through the door and into the ornate hallway.

Stairwells were at either end of the hall. An elevator bank was somewhere in the middle of the floor according to the signage. I headed for the stairwell our two attackers had come up, thinking there would be no one else in there if everyone coming up that way was already here, and that there was a greater possibility of their being another team in the other stairwell.

I rushed through the door, my left hand on the woman’s arm, dragging her after me. I had to go more slowly so she could keep up. I headed down immediately, leading the way at a pace she could maintain. We managed two flights of stairs before two hooded men stepped into view from below.

Neither of them hesitated to draw their weapons and fire. The woman screamed behind me as I knocked her back on the stairwell above the men. Bullets cut the air over my head and thudded into the stairwell from below. I knew the men wouldn’t hesitate to round the stairwell to come after us and I knew we didn’t have a chance if we tried to run.

Before I knew what I was doing, I drew the pistol from the shoulder holster and leaned over the edge of the stairwell to take aim. My programming went haywire, resisting the impulse to fire the weapon, but I couldn’t stop myself and I didn’t know why.

I couldn’t take a human life.

With cold efficiency, I sighted the men’s heads as bullets continued to chip at the stairwell. Vibrations ran through the steel and cement structure. One of the steps near the woman’s head exploded as the heavy rounds shattered the cement. She screamed again.

 
I knew the powered hoods would turn a bullet. They’d been designed to deflect injury unless hit full on, and most faces have a lot of curves and planes. The hoods’ construction added to that deflection ratio. But even if the bullet didn’t penetrate, the hydrostatic shock of the round striking the armored head couldn’t prevent the brain taking damage. The injury would involve a concussion at the least, and permanent brain damage at the worst.

I fired without hesitation, two shots to each target. All four rounds found their marks. I’d never practiced with a handgun before. There was no need because my programming prevented me using one. I didn’t know if the success was attributable to my bioroid reflexes or because I was lucky. Luck was simply a mathematical progression…even the first time.

Both men fell and stayed down, their weapons dropping from lax hands.

I got the woman up and got her moving. She was barely able to stand, let alone run, because she was so scared. But she was too scared not to run, too, and I kept her moving.