Girl From Above #3: Trapped (12 page)

Mister Speaker offered me his hand. “We’ve been waiting for you to step up, Shepperd.”

I took it carefully and gave it a firm shake, not entirely sure if that meant I was in, but it was definitely a start.

“I’ll be in touch.” He faced #1001 and ordered her to follow. She did, but not before lifting her face to the drizzle and sliding her cool gaze back to me. Hope clutched my heart—until she faced ahead again and trailed behind the hooded Nine, leaving me alone in the warehouse, drenched and shivering.

<
N
ew instructions
received from remote source. Failsafe disabled. Protocols breached. Override confirmed. Warning: illegal operation in progress. Data recall initiated. Data recall failed. Default files not found.
I like the rain
>

“
I
’m
in with the Nine.”

“Really?” Bren leaned back in one of the bar’s wicker chairs, beer bottle resting on his thigh. “We’re all doomed.”

He’d changed out of his flight gear into a ribbed roll-neck sweater. He still looked like fleet, but a few girls at the bar had noticed him for other reasons.

Two empty beer bottles on the table told me he’d made an effort to make himself at home. He rarely drank anything with a hint of alcohol, but we’d all been through enough shit in the past few weeks to deserve a night off, or three.

I pulled out a chair and sat. “The Nine pulled their spooky bullshit, but I talked to one guy. They acted like they knew One Thousand and One had Haley’s memories, but they didn’t know the rest. Reckon they’ve gotta give me some better runs. Something … important.”

“Did they think you were the older, more handsome, intelligent brother?” Bren asked.

I gave him the finger, took a swig of beer, and discreetly checked the smattering of customers who’d spilled onto the bar’s deck. I knew a few faces, though most were strangers. Mimir had always been a magnet for the more organized type of criminal, those who liked their hotel sheets folded at right angles and their exits visible at all times.

“They took the synth?” Bren asked, careful to avoid her name. He lifted his drink and hesitated, like he had more to say.

“Yeah. She’s probably already on an off-world transport.”

He nodded, but his gaze drifted toward Mimir’s ocean horizon. Behind us, the bar’s music thudded into the quiet night.

“When did she stop being the machine?” This time he took a drink, using the movement as an excuse not to meet my gaze.

Shit, this was going to be one of
those
conversations. I focused on my beer and picked at the label. “Fran saw it in her from the beginning.”

“You remember that story Mom used to read to us?”

My mood rapidly soured. “Not really.” I didn’t remember much about Mom, just the part where she wouldn’t wake up. Bren got to remember all the fun shit.

“Some kind of fairytale. Something about witches and lions. I’m not sure what the point of it was, but anyway, there was a tin man in the story. You must remember? Mom read it to us on those long haul trips to Calisto.”

I did remember but wasn’t going to admit it. Mom had tried to get us away, but Calisto was always where the authorities would catch up with her, and us. Shit, I wasn’t drunk enough to be reminiscing about our fucked-up childhood. “Fuck, Bren. How much have you had to drink?”

Bren looked at his beer but his gaze slid off its edges. “The tin man spent the whole book looking for a heart he already had.”

Yeah, okay. I didn’t need any more fucking analogies. Jesus, what I needed was something stronger than beer. “It was just a book.”

“What if she was something special?” He showed me his left hand, palm up. “What if she had a heart and Lloyd, this screwed up life, us,
you
—crushed it?” He curled his fingers closed and squeezed. “When did
you
know she was real?”

I’d first known her as a synthetic sent to kill me, then as Haley bent on revenge, and then—right after she’d missed the headshot—as the real #1001. “On Lyra, after the synth killed Jesse, One held my hand.” A smile slipped free, one meant to deflect. “Sounds crazy, but I knew then. There were earlier signs, but they could’ve been Haley’s memories. Lyra was when I knew for sure.” She’d laced her fingers with mine. Through everything, every mistake, every moment of doubt, every wrong decision, she’d been real and right there, and I’d let her go. Fuck.

“She saved my life.” My brother dragged a hand down his face and sucked in a deep breath.

“Mine too.”

Very little frightened Bren—besides flying and our father’s belt—but there was fear in his eyes now. I figured I knew why. It was the same reason guilt twisted my guts in knots.

We hadn’t done enough. One had been part of my crew. She’d stuck by me through the shitstorm that had been the last few weeks. I’d watched her count bubbles in the cargo hold and told her to count the stars. Never mind one more than a thousand; she was one in a million. She was One.

Bren thought he’d failed her. I knew I had. But what could I have done? I wasn’t a technician. I didn’t know anything about how #1001 functioned. She’d died, and I’d never felt so helpless. All I could do was threaten Lloyd, but no amount of threatening could make him perform miracles. Life is life, and #1001’s was gone. The secrets she’d fought for had died with her.

“I wish we’d had more time,” I whispered quietly enough that Bren wouldn’t hear.

“No more deaths, Caleb-Joe. Please. Just … just do right by the Nine.”

I could’ve argued that none of the deaths had been my fault, but the words died behind hollow denials.

“You’ve got a chance here. A way to make it right.” He leaned forward, resting an arm on the table. “A way to make up for the past. Don’t fuck it up, little brother.”

I offered my beer bottle. He chinked his against mine, smiling his Bren smile, the one that told me everything was gonna be okay. That it would stop hurting, eventually. It always did. “Deal.”

A chair scraping and the sounds of scuffing feet drew my attention toward the back of the bar. Creet came through the doorway and headed straight for our table.

The look on Creet’s face clearly signaled the end of my uncomfortable bonding session with my brother. I downed a few more gulps of beer and got to my feet, ready just in case Creet had any ideas about tossing a bag over my head.

“The kid—James Lloyd—the tech guy? He’s with you, right?”

Shit, what had Lloyd stuck his nose in now? “Depends. What’s he done?”

“He’s down at the warehouses demanding to talk to the Nine.”

Maybe I could climb back into
Starscream’s
flight chair and boost the hell off of Mimir. Just me and my brother in the black. I might have too, if I didn’t need the Nine to keep the pirates, drug lords, Chen Hung, and fleet off my back.

Bren and me followed Creet from the bar and jogged along Mimir’s boardwalks to the beachfront warehouses. The late hour meant the beachfront was quiet—or would have been if a Chitec technician hadn’t been mouthing off to an armed muscle-bound guard. We approached in time to see the guard shrug his rifle off his shoulder and crack the butt under Lloyd’s jaw. I heard the crack, winced, and figured he’d earned it, but the doc wasn’t giving up. He sprang back in and got himself punched into the sand, but the guard wasn’t done.

I palmed my pistol, mostly as a show of force. I had no intention of using it on a guy just doing his job. Lloyd, on the other hand—I might use it on him. “Hey, back off. He’s with me.”

Creet took the guard aside while Bren and me scooped up Lloyd. He staggered into Bren and dabbed at the bleeding cut over his right eye. “I know they’re here. I need to see them. I need to see her.”

Bren wisely guided Lloyd toward the surf, where the small Mimir waves might muffle the doctor’s rants. I tossed a salute back to Creet, but he was deep in conversation with the guard. Fuck. I hoped word didn’t get back to the Nine that my Chitec doctor had been yelling about the Fenrir Nine for the entire Mimir population to hear.

Jogging alongside Bren and Lloyd, I slapped the doc round the back of his head. “I knew there was a reason I never let you off of
Starscream.
”

“I have to get her back …” he mumbled. “I have to. You don’t understand.” He dug his feet in the sand and tried to struggle out of Bren’s grip. My brother was easily a few feet taller and broarder than him; Lloyd wasn’t going anywhere. “Where is she?!”

Lloyd had run on an even keel the entire time he’d been aboard my ship. Sure, he’d maybe stammered a few times when he didn’t like my methods, but he’d never flared up, never ranted, never took a swing at me. In fact, he’d been too damn level-headed. Maybe this was the result of keeping it all inside? Hey, we all dealt with trauma in different ways. He’d had more than a passing interest in One. We each had our limits, and he’d reached his. I was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.

“Doc, kill the attitude before we attract the wrong kind of attention.”

Lloyd reeled back. “You’re pathetic. A small-minded, petty criminal—”

“Hey, I got it where it counts.”

Lloyd spluttered, and Bren shot me a look that told me not to rile the kid. It was good advice, which I ignored because a part of me was glad he was suffering. The bastard hadn’t fixed her, and he should have.

“She’s gone. You’re gonna have to get your kicks elsewhere.”

“My kicks?” His eyes widened. He stopped fighting and looked around at us like he suddenly realized where he was. “I’m good,” he said to Bren, who still had him by the arms. “I’m good. I er … I’m just— I’m sorry. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. Stress. It’s stress. I’m all right. You can let me go.”

Bren arched his brow at me in question. I nodded, and fuck me if Lloyd didn’t move like he was spring-loaded. He clocked me in the face with the kind of swing I would’ve expected from a seasoned fighter, not a lab-bound number junkie.

I reeled but didn’t go down. Blood pooled in my mouth. I spat it onto the wet sand. Gentle waves washed it away. “Y’know, Doc. I’m gonna let you have that.” Working my jaw around the spasm of pain, my fingers twitched, itching to curl into a fist, but I resisted the urge to return his swing, mostly because mine would put him down for the count.

Bren grappled with Lloyd again, dragging him farther into the surf. He snagged the doctor’s clothes and managed to get his arms around him, pinning him still.

“Let it go!” my brother hissed.

“Don’t you see? Oh God … what have I done? She’s not gone!” Those last three words barreled down the beach.

“What?” I’d heard him, but I needed to hear it again. If I was going to shoot a man, I had to be sure.

Lloyd’s eyes blinked skyward, perhaps looking for divine intervention. I’d happily oblige. I clutched his shirt and thrust the pistol under his chin.

“Say that again, Lloyd. And think carefully about what you mean.”

“She’s not gone,” he breathed.

“Who?”

“Haley.”

Haley. Wait, what? “For fuck’s sake, we’ve been through this.”

“No … no … you don’t get it. I was going to bring her back. I can do it. I’ve been working on the recovery code, but I couldn’t do anything while One was in control. I had to wait—to wait for her processes to weaken. Otherwise she would have been able to stop me.”

My gaze flicked over Lloyd’s shoulder to Bren’s scowl. All the color had drained from my brother’s face.

“S-she’s Haley,” Lloyd stammered.

My trigger finger twitched. “She’s not Haley. I knew Haley, Lloyd. One Thousand And One wasn’t her. Haley’s dead.”

“No, yes. I mean, Haley is One. Now that One is gone, I can bring Haley back.”

I yanked on Lloyd’s shirt, bringing him close enough that I smelled the fear on him. “You said you couldn’t do anything.”

“Why should I tell you? You used her. She was sweet, and bright, and funny, and you used her because you’re a horrible person. You watched Haley die.” His lips curled in disgust. “I was going to get her away from all of you—save her from you,
Captain
—and I was going to bring her back.”

My vision frayed at the edges. All the fight, the anger, and the fear drained away, leaving me hollow.

I relaxed my grip on his shirt, shoving him into Bren’s grip, and splashed back through the surf. “You killed One.”

“S-she was never alive,” he spluttered. “She’s just code.”

No, no, no … He was wrong, so wrong. I closed my eyes, feeling them sting.

“You didn’t know,” I said quietly, opening my eyes to see Lloyd’s disbelief, “because she never showed you the real her, or you didn’t want to see.” All those times he’d look at her with love in his eyes, it hadn’t been for One. He’d wanted Haley. Fuck, maybe he’d wanted Haley since high school.

Bren relaxed his grip on Lloyd and gave the doctor a brisk shove in my direction. Lloyd stumbled forward and quickly glanced between Bren and me.

“One was just programming,” he said. “She was doing what she’d been designed to do. It’s Haley that makes her different. Don’t you see? I can bring Haley back. Haley deserves to live.”

“And One didn’t?”

Lloyd’s gaze dropped to my pistol then returned to my face. “You don’t understand. How could you?
Haley
is real. She has a God-given soul.” He clenched his hands into fists. “She’s real! And I can save her.”

I had him by the throat and had forced him to his knees before he could whimper another word. Surf washed around his waist. Distantly, my brother was telling me not to do something stupid, not to hurt Lloyd. He was our chance to get One back, our only chance.

I rammed the pistol against Lloyd’s temple, twisting it hard enough to start him blubbering. A twitch, that was all it would take. He’d killed One. She’d trusted him. He didn’t even believe she had a right to live.
She’s just code.
I pushed harder. I’d told Fran once that you couldn’t manufacture a human soul. I’d been wrong. One had had a soul—probably more of one than I did—and this selfish Chitec product had killed her before she’d had a chance to know she was real. Maybe that was all she’d needed to hear. Now she never would.

“If you so much as look at me wrong, I’ll pull the trigger and blow your brains all over this beach. I’ll dump the rest of your body in Mimir’s endless sea. You’ll be joining the last fucker who tried to kill one of my crew, so don’t think for one second I won’t do it.”

He was crying, begging, saying something about his sister on Janus needing him. I didn’t give a fuck. He should’ve thought about that before he killed someone who hadn’t yet had a chance to live.

Bren’s cool fingers slipped around my hand and lifted, pulling the gun away from Lloyd’s head. Sobs bubbled out of him. I heard the hiss of the waves, felt them lap around my knees, and breathed Mimir’s cool air deep into my lungs.

My brother’s warm hands eased the gun from my fingers. He didn’t say a damn thing. There was nothing left to say.