Chasing Mayhem (11 page)

She didn’t want to think about the lives she’d traded for that reward.

“Can I view that footage?”

She hesitated. The footage was rare, hard-fought for, and she feared if she shared it with others, it might vanish.

That concern was irrational and Mayhem sounded genuinely interested. He’d understand why she had to return him to the clutches of the Humanoid Alliance, their mutual enemy.

“I’ll bring it up.” Imee searched through her hoarded files.

“There’s no need. I have it.” Mayhem’s lips quirked upward. “I’m a cyborg, remember?”

Being half machine, he’d have the ability to access every file in the system. His request for permission had been a courtesy. The lack of privacy, of control, irked her.

“Then watch it.” She didn’t care. Imee turned her back slightly to him.

Mayhem chuckled. “We’ll watch it together, female.” He scooped her out of her seat and set her on his lap.

“I have to other tasks to perform.” She slapped his hands, not appreciating his handling of her. “There are communications to read.” The indicator light on the control panel flashed. “One of them could be urgent.”

“We’ll read the communications first and then watch the footage of your mom.” He brought the first written communication up on a corner of the main viewscreen, against the backdrop of stars, the unknown vastness of open space.

“Take that down.” She reached for the control panel. He caught her hands, stopping her. “The communications are confidential, for Retrievers only.” She didn’t want to lose credits or become a target herself for revealing the information.

“I’ve already scanned them, my female.” The cables at his wrists pressed against hers. He was a cyborg, had likely read all of her files.

“I don’t like you,” she grumbled.

He laughed.

He was an impossible male. Imee shook her head and read the first communication. It was a reminder to not dispose of dead targets at the retrieval battle station.

She discarded it, scanned the second communication. That information was more administrative refuse. She moved to the second, the third, the fourth.

Imee read the fifth communication once, twice, three times, unable to absorb the words. A Retriever, having fewer solar cycles than she did, had lost control of her targets. They had escaped from their holding chambers and had tried to take over her ship. The ship had blown up, killing every being inside it.

“She made one foolish mistake and she died.” Imee leaned forward, covering her face with her hands, trying to hide from the horror that message invoked.

“Was she a friend?”

“No.” Imee had no friends.

Was that still true? She peeked through her fingers at Mayhem. She’d told him about her family, her role, her fears, and he’d listened, understood. Wasn’t that what a friendship was?

“Do you grieve every loss of life?”

“I’m not grieving her death.” She wouldn’t have him thinking good of her. “My reaction is purely selfish. That Retriever could have been me.”

Mayhem had escaped from his holding chamber, as those other targets had. He had control of her ship. If he had meant her harm, she’d be dead.

“It won’t be you.” He tightened his grip on her.

“It can’t be me.” Her concern wasn’t for her own lifespan. “If I die, I won’t meet quota. If I don’t meet quota, the Humanoid Alliance will torture and kill my mom, my sister, my brother. They’ll inflict the most pain possible before they do that.” Because they were cruel bastards.

“If you continue to capture rebels for the Humanoid Alliance, you
will
die.” Mayhem was blunt.

And truthful. She would die. She’d thought if she were careful, if Kralj vetted her targets, if she adhered to the rules, trained, planned, she would be safe.

Mayhem had shown her that wasn’t true. Kralj had vetted him yet the male behind her could easily kill her, could end her life in a heartbeat.

There were targets like Kralj, like Mayhem, with powers and skills she could never match. It wasn’t a matter of if she’d die but when.

“All I’m giving my family is time.” She exhaled raggedly. “I’m not trading my targets’ lives for their lives. I’m trading lives for planet rotations.”

“You did what you deemed necessary.”

“I did horrible things.” Memories ravaged Imee, of young kids begging her for mercy, to be set free, to return to their parents, of the lifeless baby still pressed against her dead mother’s chest, of an elderly, white-haired female who had looked at her with such disappointment, as though she’d broken the female’s heart by retrieving her. “All I earned my family was moments.”

“Those moments give us an opportunity to save them, my female.” Mayhem kissed the top of her head. “You’re the best Retriever in the galaxy. Your final targets will be your family. We’ll retrieve them, take them to a planet where they’ll be safe.”

“It’s too risky. If I fail, they’ll die.” She’d be responsible for their deaths also.

“
We
won’t fail.”

There shouldn’t be any ‘we.’ The Humanoid Alliance would reward her generously for retrieving one of their cyborg warriors. She might earn the right to see her family, giving her the perfect opportunity to rescue them.

Her mom, sister, brother would be safe but she’d be dead inside. Losing Mayhem would rip her heart out.

Could she do that? She’d sacrificed everything else for her family. To give up all hope of future happiness shouldn’t be that difficult.

“How would you rescue them?” She gazed at him, willing him to give her a viable alternative.

“I require more inputs before determining that plan.” He placed the footage of her mom on the main viewscreen. Her face was paused in time, had a few more wrinkles than the image displayed on the wall.

The footage had been recorded in the interior of her family’s chambers. Objects were neatly arranged on horizontal supports behind her. Her sister’s attempt at fabricating a container, a lopsided visual mess, was prominent. Her brother’s seedlings, fragile and new, were set under special growing lights. Her mom’s collection of green stones, one for every solar cycle Imee had been parted from them, lined the horizontal surfaces.

They remembered her as she remembered them.

“I will be the envy of my brethren.” Mayhem’s lips curved. “I have found my female. She’s the strongest and most beautiful of all the females.” He pulled her closer to him. “And she has a family, a mother with lines upon her face.”

“That’s a good thing?”

“Cyborgs and their females don’t age.” He brushed a strand of her hair away from her scarred cheek. “They also don’t scar.” He followed the jagged white mark with his laughing lips. “You’re rare, special.”

How can she deliver him to his death after he’d called her special, strong, beautiful? “Play the footage.” Her voice was gruff.

“Hi, small bits.” That was her mom’s unique name for her. “I don’t know how long I can talk to you.” Her gaze moved to the right and she nodded. “But I wanted you to know I miss you. Jae and Geo miss you too. They’re getting so big. You might not recognize them.”

“I would,” she whispered. They were a part of her.

“Jae is training to be a medic. She cares for the others here.” Her mom’s eyes shone with a pride Imee shared. Her sister was such a good, kind, giving being, worthy of being saved, being protected. “Geo wants to be an agri lot worker.” She swallowed hard. “He’s like your dad in that way.” Emotion weighted her words. Her mom missed her mate, Imee’s dad, even more than Imee did. “They say if…if things go well, they’ll give Geo more containers of plants.”

If things go well…if Imee continued to make quota.

The feed scrambled for a moment and then stabilized.

“Already?” her mom asked the being to the right. “Give me a few more moments. I haven’t spoken to her for solar cycles.” The answer must have been ‘no’ because she made a distressed sound. “I love you, Imee.” Her mom reached out.

Imee did the same. She knew her mom couldn’t see her, that the footage was almost a solar cycle old, that Mayhem was watching her, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“And I’m proud of you. Your dad would have been--”

The footage stopped. The screen went black.

Imee gulped air, trying to control her emotions. She missed her mom so blasted much, the loneliness clawing at her heart.

Mayhem pressed her cheek against his body armor and stroked her hair, silently soothing her. She took his comfort, drawing on his strength and savoring his touch, his warmth, the solidness of his big form.

Moments passed.

“I have to keep them safe, Mayhem.” She willed him to understand. “Whatever that requires, I’ll do it. I’m all they have and they’re counting on me.”

“
We’re
all they have,” he corrected. “If your family lives, we’ll rescue them, my female.”

“My family lives.” She frowned. How could he question that? “They’re the Humanoid Alliance’s only leverage over me. They won’t be harmed, not as long as I make quota.”

Mayhem said nothing.

Her concern increased. He’d been manufactured by the Humanoid Alliance, knew them better than she did. “That footage is less than a solar cycle old. You saw my mom.”

“Images can be fabricated, my female.” His voice was soft.

“That’s my mom, Mayhem. She’s older but, other than that, she’s exactly how I remembered her.” How Imee saw her in her dreams.

“You were an offspring when you last saw her, not fully developed. The Humanoid Alliance has been feeding you images, messages. That would alter your memories.”

“But she’s my
mom
.” She’d recognize her own mom, wouldn’t she? Blast it. Now, he had her doubting herself and she couldn’t, because if her mom wasn’t alive, if she’d done all of those horrible things for nothing…no, her mom had to be alive. “My family is alive. I would be able to tell if they weren’t.”

Mayhem didn’t offer her any words of reassurance.

“Do you
know
they’re not alive?” she pressed.

“No,” he admitted.

Imee exhaled, her shoulders lowering with relief. He was a cyborg. He couldn’t lie. “My family
is
alive and we’ll rescue them.”

Chapter Nine

Imee’s mom might be alive. Mayhem had no proof she wasn’t.

But the being in the footage they watched had been fabricated.

The image designer was good, good enough to fool a tender-hearted human female who yearned to believe her loved ones were safe.

Mayhem wasn’t human or tender-hearted. He noticed the errors.

They were small. The fabricated female blinked less often than a normal human female would. When she turned her head toward a light source, her pupils didn’t always contract. The flaring of her nostrils was slightly out of sync with her breathing. There were other tiny mistakes.

One inconsistency might be explained. The eleven inconsistencies he’d spotted couldn’t be abnormalities.

He reviewed the data around the footage. “It was sent from a station positioned far from the coordinates you inputted.”

“The retrieval battle station is in the midst of the fighting.” Imee slipped off his lap, returning to her own chair. He immediately missed the connection between them. “The Humanoid Alliance wouldn’t endanger our family members.”

“It’s an administrative station.” The Humanoid Alliance wouldn’t assign clerks to guard captives.

“That designation ensures the rebels won’t target it.” She recited that answer as though it had been relayed to her by the Humanoid Alliance. “It’s much more than that. There are guards, levels of security.”

Mayhem hacked into the administrative station’s system. The virtual walls around the system were high but he was a cyborg, half machine, able to access it.

“Those guards are older.” He looked into the backgrounds of the top officials.

They were all former warriors. The Commander of the station had been an integral part of two invasions, had engineered the deaths of thousands of rebels.

“But they have extensive experience in battle,” he conceded. And they were well versed in cruelty. That seemed to be a requirement for placement on the station. It was a reward for enforcing the Humanoid Alliance’s brutal policies.

“They’re keeping our families safe.” Imee nodded.

Mayhem displayed the schematics of the administrative station on the main viewscreen. There was a huge undesignated chamber in the center, multiple levels of security needed to enter it.

“That’s where they’re keeping them,” his female confirmed.

The space wasn’t large enough to contain all of the families. According to the records, there were thousands of Retrievers. But it could hold Imee’s family.

“A code is needed to land a ship on the station.” She made a face.

Mayhem searched his databases. Crash’s female, Safyre, had delivered items for the Humanoid Alliance in the past. She had shared access information with the E model. He’d relayed it to all of their brethren. “They only change that code every solar cycle.”

That didn’t denote a high security station.

Her frown deepened. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

“I can’t run a remote lifeform scan.” That irked him. The station was so old; it didn’t have that capability.

“That’s not worth the risk.” Her forehead furrowed with worry lines. “I’m not the first Retriever to try to free my loved ones. If the Humanoid Alliance knows we’re making an attempt, they’ll send warriors after us.”

Had they sent his cyborg brethren after Imee’s fellow Retrievers, forced them to kill the precious females? “They’ll know if you make an attempt. You’re fitted with a tracking device.” He stood, extracting his makeshift energy tubes. “We have to remove it.”

“That’s too risky also.” She shook her head. “They’ll detect that and--”

“They won’t detect it.” Mayhem had scanned her. Her tracking device was even older than his had been. The Humanoid Alliance couldn’t determine if it were removed. They could only pinpoint its location. “We’ll send a capsule containing your tracking device to the retrieval battle station. They’ll believe you’re transporting a target.”