Deadly Betrayal (18 page)

I said, “I don’t think we need to see any more of this. Or, you guys can, but I don’t want to.”

John stopped the recording. He would probably watch the rest later and I hoped it would give him some closure, but I did not want to see how Cheryl’s head ended up in a jar.

John said, “Sounds like she was in contact with someone on the Bell.”

“Maybe. Plenty of people hold grudges with us. What’s-his-name Martinez. Enoch. We’ve met many people during the years.”

“True, but it would take a lot for her to cooperate with a human.”

Adam said, “I will search the computer records later. Maybe I can find clues to who and why.”

I chewed my lip. The Bell had problems with nanites once before, courtesy of Eve. Could she still be causing trouble, even though she was dead?

Eli whispered, “Poor Samuel. I miss him.”

Good change of subject.

“We have his head. We found it the first time we were here.”

“She destroyed his circuits.”

“Adam has worked on repairing him. I don’t know if it’s possible or not, but if anyone can do it, it’s him.”

My husband looked at me with a smile tugging at his lips.

“What?”

“Nothing. You’re just so cute.”

I was? Because I had faith in him?

John glanced back at us. “I need to see the rest. Go on, I’ll catch up with you.”

I wanted to reach out for him and offer comfort, but my hands were already occupied by androids.

He met my eyes. “It will be okay. I just need to see it.”

Adam tugged both me and Eli towards the corridor and I didn’t object when he turned away from the kitchen. We could go all the way around just to see what was there. The bad feeling I had about the place disappeared with the Eve clone.

“Stay behind me, just in case.”

I obeyed and waited while he looked behind every door. There were no more spectacular surprises, just regular rooms. Some were empty, some held equipment, and some were used for storage. None held a severed head or anything nasty.

When we came back around, John waited in the kitchen. He looked almost unfazed.

“You okay?”

He nodded. “You know how it is. Closure and shit.”

The words were intended to make me smile and it succeeded.

Adam said, “Have we decided? Are we staying here? Eli, do you want us here?”

His words brought a glint of panic to the other android’s eyes. “Please don’t go.”

John said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

I sank down on a chair. “Eli, if and when the day comes when we need to go somewhere, you will have the option to come with us. Adam asked because you live here and we came barging in. No matter what happens, you’re a part of this family now.”

Adam leaned against the wall. “Staying?”

John gave a slight shrug. “Let’s stay the night and see how we feel about it. I don’t think we have a better option.”

My husband looked at me.

“I don’t… I go where you guys go. We’re here…”

It didn’t make sense even to me, but he nodded. “I want to go get Samuel’s head. Do you need anything from the ship for tonight?”

John said, “Whiskey.”

I filled in, “Clothes, toothbrush, dinner.”

He nodded, but I doubted John would get the one item on his list.

Eli looked at his hands for a long moment before lifting his head and glancing over at Adam. “Do you require company?”

Adam smiled. “You can come if you want a fieldtrip, but I will be fine on my own if you want to stay here with them.”

“I will keep Alex and father company.”

“Alright. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He winked at me and left, making me bounce off the chair to run after him. I didn’t even realize I went into the scary corridor on my own. Clearly not as eerie as it had been.

He stopped to wait for me but didn’t say anything. I tucked my hand in his and followed him to the elevator, interpreting his silence as whether I was there to kiss him goodbye or intended to go with him, it was okay.

I stopped by the lift door and he met my eyes.

“Coming? Staying?”

“Staying. I wanted to ask you to bring something. You know those colored pencils and sketchpad we found?”

His eyes smiled and he looked proud of me. “You want them for Eli.”

“Can’t hurt. He seems to be an artistic soul, maybe he’ll love drawing. If he doesn’t, no biggy.”

“Alright. But it’ll cost you.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the price?”

He grabbed me with his arms around my waist and lifted me so my feet hovered above the floor. I giggled and held on to him.

“First of all, I won’t let you down until you kiss me. The price for the art stuff… Surprise me.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be let down.”

“I can hold you like this for a very long time.”

Good point. I’d tire of it before he did. I still waited and pretended to think about it.

To me it seemed to take forever before Adam returned.

He was quite able to take care of himself, but I still didn’t like being separated. I knew he had to go all the way to the moon and back, but with the technology of this era I expected everything to be instantaneous.

When he finally entered the kitchen, he put a big box on the counter and pulled out a beer and a sandwich for John.

“Does this look like whiskey to you, son?”

“Sorry, I get these beverages mixed up. Have your sandwich.”

John rolled his eyes, but smiled too.

Adam handed me a sandwich and sparkling water, and put the art supplies on the table in front of Eli. “Alex thought you might enjoy these.”

Eli picked up a green pencil. “What are they?”

I opened the sketchpad. “Back in the day, these things were really popular. I guess people don’t use them all that much anymore, but they’re fun.”

I drew a flower. It was the outmost reach of my sketching abilities.

“Ooh.” He tried the pencils and was soon drawing so quickly his hands blurred.

Adam said, “I picked tortellini for dinner. Hope that’s okay for both of you.”

Eli pulled a paper from the sketchpad and pushed it over to me, face down.

“Is that for me?”

My new brother nodded. “I’ve never done this before. It might not be any good.”

“You’re kidding, right? Didn’t you see my attempt at a flower?”

I could feel Adam’s gaze on me. I glanced over and he smiled.

John said, “Quit stalling. Turn it over.”

I did, and the picture took my breath away. The pencil drawing was of me, on the beach. Eli had probably never seen an ocean in real life, but his capture was perfect and the image so detailed it could have been a photo.

“It’s fantastic.”

*****

Late at night, Adam sat staring at the connections in the robot hand that crawled around the floor on our last visit. He had been doing so for the past twenty minutes.

I couldn’t stop yawning. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I poked his shoulder.

“Husband.”

“What is it, sweetheart?”

Eli answered in my place. “Your wife requires sleep.”

Adam put the hand down. I thought he wouldn’t let it go even if I tried to take it, but maybe I still held more allure than a severed limb.

“You should go to bed. I will keep working on this and keep an eye on things.”

“What things?” Eli sounded curious.

“All of them. Our ship, the entrances, the mainframe.” Adam stared into nothingness for a moment. “I still don’t trust you. It’s not personal.”

I thought he spoke to Eli, but the computer’s faceless voice answered. “I understand. Given time I will prove my allegiance.”

Right.

All this was great, but didn’t solve my immediate problem.

Adam kissed my hand. “Want me to follow you to the bedroom and tuck you in?”

Was something amiss with his logic circuits?

“I’m not sleeping in Cheryl’s bedroom.”

Not tonight, and not any night. Last time I was there it had a dead body and a head in a jar.

“Of course you’re not. I think I went machine on you, I’m sorry. We will clean out that room, get rid of her bed, and switch everything around.”

“I was thinking maybe you can follow me to the shuttle. Or John could, but I don’t know where he is.”

“I have a better idea.”

He scooped me up, making me yelp and laugh, and carried me along the corridor, past the kitchen. This was further into the complex than I cared to be, but I needed to overcome my senseless fear of it.

Adam turned to the right, into a living room area. The white walls held art, the furniture looked comfortable, and to make things even better, John was there.

“Perfect. Maybe you two can sleep in here tonight. We’ll think of something more permanent later.” Adam sounded more content than I would have expected.

Eli stood on the threshold, eyeing everything in the room. I looked at him over Adam’s shoulder, and he said, “I’m not allowed in here.”

Adam put me down on the sofa. “Rubbish. Don’t walk in on our humans while they sleep unless you have to, because it will startle them. Other than that, of course you can come in here.”

I didn’t let go of his neck, making him sit next to me. “You’re making it sound like we’re pets.”

John laughed and Adam’s mouth twitched. “You’re so silly.”

Maybe, but sometimes I
felt
like a pet.

Eli finally gathered courage to follow us. I expected him to look at the paintings, but he watched me and Adam with an attentive look on his face.

“Having a wife seems great. Do you think I could have one? In the future?”

Adam smiled. “I’m sure you can. You just have to find the right person. That can take time, but it’s worth the wait.” He kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you two in the morning. Try to get some sleep.”

Knowing he watched over me made me feel safe, but I would have felt even better if he stayed. And if I had a fluffy pillow and clean sheets.

Eli looked at me and lifted his eyebrows in an endearing gesture that made me think he could see into my mind.

“I will be right back.”

He winked at me, eyes filled with fresh self-confidence, and jogged away.

Adam said, “I have no idea,” clearly guessing what I wanted to ask even though I didn’t say it.

Eli returned minutes later, carrying vacuum packed pillows and sheets. “Maybe this will help.”

Once the android brothers left, John sank down next to me and ran his hands over his face. “I’m getting too old for all this.”

“Are you okay?”

He shrugged and waved to me to get up, giving him room to stretch out on the side before patting the sofa next to him.

Good idea.

Sleeping on my own would be impossible, but with him
that
close there was at least a chance of rest. Staying in the bunker was tough for me, but probably much worse for him.

John draped an arm over me. “I want a drink. I can’t believe they threw
everything
out.”

“I know you do. If we have to stay here for a long time I think I’ll take up drinking too.”

“Don’t. It’s a bad habit.”

I nudged myself closer. “I worry for you.”

“Don’t. It’s sweet that you do, but you don’t have to.” He sounded amused. “I’ll be around a while longer. You’ll have plenty of time to get tired of me.”

He fell silent and I thought the discussion was over, until he gave me a gentle squeeze. “Cheryl and I lived at the lab for a few years. We had employees, it was a good crew. As her… disease progressed she thought they were stealing her ideas, and when she started talking about a place like this it didn’t seem like a bad idea. It was out of the way with few people to aggravate her, we could keep working, and I went to the village when I wanted company. They were far enough to not annoy her, but close enough to reach.”

It sounded like he’d been happy.

I wanted to think there had been a period in his life when he was truly happy, without being drunk and without having to worry about holograms or a girl lost in time.

The rooms used for living area were friendly and it had probably been a pretty nice place to live. I just found it spooky because of the size, and because I knew too much about it.

I felt John sigh. “She was getting worse, I knew she was, but I didn’t do anything about it. I could have sedated her and taken her to a medical station, done
something
, but I kept telling myself she’d snap out of it. One day the intruder alarms went off, and I went topside to check it out. It was this cute little girl from the village, maybe five or six years old. She was lost.”

I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear the rest, but he probably needed to talk about it. He had alluded to what happened many times, but never really
talked
about it. Probably not to anyone.

He said, “I always wanted kids. Bet you didn’t know that.”

“You still can. You’d be a great dad.”

He laughed, but there was no joy in it. “No, I really can’t. Cheryl made sure of that. She didn’t want to risk any screaming little brats disrupting her work.”

She
what
?

John must have felt me tense; he brushed his fingers over my hair. “It’s a long time ago. I got over it.”

I doubted the truth in his statement, but whatever she did to him, I couldn’t undo it. I forced myself to exhale and relax.

“Anyway, Cheryl killed the girl. I couldn’t stop her, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This beautiful little person had life ahead of her, and her family didn’t know what happened to her. Up until then I drank too much, but that was the first day I passed out in here. I should have gone to talk to the family, at that point I should have done
something,
but I didn’t. This sofa and I are old friends.”

I wanted to turn around and hug him, but there wasn’t enough room, and moving would make me fall over the edge. I hugged his arm instead.

“After that the days blurred. I remember the villagers coming here to look for her. I know they did, because I remember throwing up in the trashcan over there before talking to them. I don’t know how long I stayed, but one day I had a sober enough moment to realize I had to leave. So I left.”

Hopefully, he couldn’t see my tears. I needed to make sure I didn’t sob, because he’d feel
that,
but he couldn’t see the tears that trickled over my cheeks.

“I’m so sorry.” My voice was steadier than I expected.

“It is what it is. I should have left or acted long before all this happened. I stayed alive, and one day when I was in a bar waiting for a holographic woman of all things, you and Adam stepped into my life. You have to know I couldn’t love you more if you were my own… whatever you are.”

His words made me smile. It was complicated, and I wouldn’t be able to figure it out.

“I love you too. Adam does too.”

“I know.”

He had stayed remarkably sober both on the Bell until Adam died and again when we left on our own. I just hadn’t made the connection to
me
.