Blood Crown (23 page)

“They’re coming!” I gasp, lurching to my feet. “The Mind!”

The connection between us, our symbiants, means he knows what I know at almost the same moment, so he is already with me as we bolt into the hall and to the transport.

Archibald runs past it, shouting, “This way!” and I know he is right. The support transport will let us out closer to the docking bay.

I reach out with my mind, commanding the ship to prepare the pod so we can take flight the moment we board—but there is a problem.

“There’s only one pod and it’s not responding,” he says, but we jump into the transport anyway.

We are running as soon as the transport opens, past the larger docking bay, where the kitchen staff boarded
New Oregon
, to a small access corridor and the last remaining pod. As soon as I am within reach, I stretch my arm and press my palm to the panel. The door slides open and reveals Gart.

I stagger back, stumbling against Archibald who steadies me. I don’t have to tell him who Gart is—Archibald knows everything I know.

My Servant lunges past me and grips Gart by the neck but in the shadows of the pod, two soldiers power up, their lights finally revealing their presence.

“Archibald!” I shout, but he is already backing away. He grabs my hand and pulls me down the hall, back toward the kitchen.

Access my database
, Archibald communicates through our symbiants.
Download the combat data. Do you see it?

I look into his mind and throw open the file, mentally hurrying it along until it becomes a part of me. Only 32% through the download and hot searing pain lances through my right shoulder, throwing me forward against Archibald. But he doesn’t catch me as a bolt charge slams into his back.

“Serantha, you will come with us.”

I turn toward the voice and face the soldiers. One holds a pair of cuffs in his right hand while his companion grips a long-handled bolt-gun like the one Gart favors.

Archibald launches himself at our attackers. I can’t maintain my hold on his mind, so I withdraw and hope I have enough information to fight back.

The andie with the cuffs strides forward as if he has every reason to suspect I will be easy to capture. He obviously hasn’t been briefed on me at all. When he gets close, I lift my right leg in a hard up and then downward slice, knocking the cuffs from his hand. It barely fazes him. He steps to the side. I have a moment of confusion—
what is he doing?
—before my mind recognizes the movement as one in Archibald’s database.

The soldier spins 360 degrees and clips my shoulder with his booted foot. Even though I saw the preparation for the movement, and anticipated it, the brute force of the blow still knocks the breath out of me. I stumble backward, falling into the melee behind me. The scuffle pushes me forward—and into the guard's arms.

In my mind, the warm, smooth voice of my near-father whispers his commands. His symbiants, now alive and a part of me, respond and flood my veins with intention and purpose. I lash out at the guard, kicking the cuffs out of reach, just as he lunges for them. But he isn’t human, not like the guards I’m accustomed to fighting. These soldiers simply don’t stop.

The guard produces another pair of cuffs and approaches me, his face a dark scowl. He lunges forward and I spin away—but he manages to slip one cuff onto my wrist. I immediately feel the virus enter my blood stream, shutting down the power in my left arm. My fingers go numb and won’t respond to my efforts to reawaken them. As the numbness sweeps up my arm, a kind of pain I can’t describe follows it.

“Archibald!” I cry as the sensation passes my shoulder.

“Come!” he hisses in my ear as he grabs my arm and pulls me after him. He turns and sends blast after blast from the weapons in his forearms and I understand that the shots will delay them, but the soldiers are designed to take such damage and recover at incredible speeds. We race toward the kitchen—a dead end.

“There’s a refuse chute—we can take that,” Archibald says.

“It vents into space! I can’t go out there!”
I'm still human, aren’t I?
How can I survive in space?

“I will protect you, Serantha. Trust me.”

And I do. With all my heart, I do. I know, with astounding conviction, through every nano and symbiant he Gifted me, and those that were passed down to me from my parents, that Archibald never abandoned me. He is the only one I can trust.

Ten feet from the kitchen doors, the command to
duck
shouts through my mind and I do—narrowly missing a laser blast from behind. The soldiers are near. We have even less time than I thought.

Archibald pushes me toward Cook’s area and beyond. I see the chute ahead and with my hand in Archibald’s a wave of relief rushes over me.

“There is an escape pod on this side and one level up—we’ll be there in less than a minute.”

I pull back on his arm, doubt flickering through my mind. “There isn’t! There are no more!”

“There is, Serantha.” His eyes flick to me, radiating promise. He releases the cuff from my wrist and I sigh as feeling floods back into my arm. “They are not on the ship’s specs—even she does not know they are there. They are escape pods meant for the royal family—two on each level—in case of emergency.”

“But . . . why did my parents not escape?” My feet have come to a standstill—it seems my human heart, my human brain, have the power to override the nanos that cling to my tissues.

Archibald steps toward me. He places his hands on my arms and looks deep into my eyes. “They didn’t believe the end had come. They
knew
Galen. They trusted him.”

“And he betrayed them.”

Archibald nods.

Sorrow wells up inside me. The androids were created to serve humankind—father would never have suspected they would rise up against him. He had died, my mother too, with betrayal coating their hearts like poison.

With a quick squeeze of my arm, Archibald turns away, reaching the vent in two steps. The chute has a multi-latch system. He disengages the first set and my ears pop as the door swings wide. The second barrier is inset and slides to the side.

“Come on, you first,” Archibald says.

He helps me climb into the narrow tube, but doesn’t release the outer door.

“Close your eyes and command your nanos to protect you—can you do that?”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I send the command. I feel a rush toward my extremities, feel my skin contract and harden. I open my eyes and offer Archibald a small smile. Relief and pride fill his expression and he reaches for the control panel.

“When I unlock the door, I’ll join you. I’ll hold on to you, take you to the pod. Do you trust me?”

I don’t even hesitate—of course I trust him.

A shadow falls across my vision. “Behind you!” I assume it’s a soldier, but as the figure comes into view I see I am wrong. Gart raises his arm, his titanium claws protruding from his fist.

“Archibald!” I choke, his name clogging my throat. I watch him turn—slowly, too slowly.

Watch the fist come down on my Servant, my near-father. The claws tear ragged gouges through Archibald’s face, but it doesn’t stop him. He faces Gart and thrusts him backward. He shoves his arm forward, no doubt intending to send a laser blast at Gart, but my old nemesis reaches up and slashes into Archibald’s thigh, forcing him to the ground and causing his shot to go wild. It blasts the wall above me.

I look away for an instant, and when my focus returns to Archibald, I find Gart has him on the floor, shoving and shoving his clawed fist into Archibald’s body. Clear, golden-hued liquid seeps from his wounds. Gart pulls up great handfuls of wires and I watch in horror as he hacks away at Archibald’s chest cavity.

Archibald lies there, his legs and arms spread wide, his hands open in supplication. His body twitches and I know he has lost control of his limbs or else Gart wouldn’t have stood a chance. Archibald can’t move his head, or command his lips, but his gaze fixes on me.

I can’t hear him in my mind, but I know he is telling me to go.
Go!

I can barely see him past my tears. I scream—a mistake because it draws Gart’s attention.

“It’ll be your time in just a—” Gart turns back to Archibald and thrusts both his fists inside Archibald’s body, cracking his ribs, bearing his circuitry, his power source, “second.” Gart grunts with the effort.

The light in Archibald’s eyes blinks out.

And suddenly every part of me screams for me to
move
.

I scramble forward, praying Gart takes a moment to gloat over his victory like he usually does. I lean out of the tube, slapping my hand around the wall outside of it, looking for the control panel. My fingers find the panel, and I push, but nothing happens—I am pushing all the wrong buttons.

My nanos identify one, pulsing with energy—
that’s the one
! I stretch for it, am just about to push it, when Gart grabs my wrist.

He clasps his fingers tightly, the titanium in his hand gripping me as surely as any android’s.

“You’re not going anywhere.” He thrusts his baton into my side, sending a current of volts racing through my bloodstream. I try to scream, can’t scream, as pain echoes through my mind and everything goes dark.

Dr. Maxwell is quite good at his job. By the time he is done with me I’m certain I no longer possess a single secret. To my shame and sorrow my mind was wrenched open and I gave up every detail of the rebellion—at least I assume I do.

Dr. Maxwell, or Dr. Maniacal as I have come to think of him, removes the electrodes he placed behind my ears, on my chest, my groin and behind each knee. I breathe a sigh of relief because maybe now the pain will stop.

He offers a sideways grin and when his eyes meet mine there’s a wicked gleam in them. “Thank you for your cooperation, Prince Nicolai. I think we have everything we need.”

I close my eyes because I can’t bear to see my sweat- and tear-stained face reflected in his pale eyes.

“Now for what I want.”

My eyes pop open just in time to see a small scalpel pop out of the droid’s index finger. I manage to restrain my screams while he cuts into my forehead, but when he uses both hands to peel the skin apart, I don’t bother to hold back.

I wake with a start, flailing my arms as if to push things, people—
Gart
—away. But I am alone. I am lying on pristine white sheets, an ornate, richly woven blanket on top of all the fluffy coverlets. Slowly, I slide to a sitting position, tugging the edges of the blanket up around my chin.

The bed is vast, like the one in the royal chambers on the
Capital
—but it is not mine. The room is twice as large with rugs of rich golds and deep reds scattered around the floor—a wooden floor. My nanos inform me it was created to look like a queen’s chamber in the heyday of British rule on Earth. Receiving their knowledge warms me and I stretch my awareness, hoping . . .

But Archibald is gone, the connection between us severed. I remember now.

I do feel Nic, though I skirt his awareness, refusing to acknowledge him. I hope to never see him again. If I do I’ll spit in his face and run him through with my fist.

The thought sends fire racing through my veins so I jump from the bed and stride toward the door. I’ll die killing Nic, but suddenly it’s the only thing I want, and I want it now. Vengeance and death feel like the perfect way to end the nightmare of the past two days.

Serantha
.

I stop dead in my tracks.

Be welcome
.

The ship speaks to me—not in the way my ship shared its data, its knowledge—this ship speaks with a voice of its own in my mind.

Of course
, she tells me.
I am a child of the Mind, and have been created to provide the most satisfactory living experience possible to each and every one of my charges.