Deadly Betrayal (8 page)

My body put up a good fight against the brain, but I finally pulled back. “This is a bad idea.”

He sighed. “Alright.”

He
might think it was worth the risk, but I needed to keep a cool head and a long-term approach. Preferably in a way that put it on me and not on him, so he wouldn’t feel bad.

I needed to say something that was at least sort of the truth. His uncanny ability to sense lies probably remained.

“Adam, I love you. I just need some time. You know that, right?”

“Yes.” He didn’t sound certain.

This couldn’t be easy to understand, it wouldn’t have been even if he weren’t damaged. Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t himself. If he were, we would probably have been fighting over my many months alone with John.

I leaned on my elbow and ran my palm over his cheek. He caught my hand in his and pressed it against his chest.

“There’s so much darkness in my mind, so much I
know
I’m missing, and I feel like I’m on the edge of an abyss. My remaining memory circuits are failing. You’re the only thing keeping me from falling, but I don’t know how long you will be willing to hold me.”

There was so much pain in his voice it brought tears to my eyes, and it cooled me off better than any amount of icy water could have. I rested my head down on his shoulder again, hoping he wouldn’t see the droplets that rolled down my cheeks.

I clearly wasn’t doing a good job supporting him.

“I’m here. I love you and I will always love you. If you think I'm acting strange…” I was fairly sure he was the one out of sorts and not me, but one could never be sure. “I just need a couple of days to understand that you’re back and won’t vanish again. Can you give me that?”

“Yes, I can do that.” This time he sounded more confident. He turned his face towards mine. “Don’t cry.”

I didn’t know what to say, couldn’t tell him why tears trickled from my eyes in a way that would make sense to him, so I pressed my lips against his, hoping it would distract him. He returned the light kiss but broke free within a few moments.

“I remember the first time I kissed you. It was in a grocery store. Best thing I ever did.”

If I let him continue down this path he’d have me bawling in no time. “Let’s go do that breakfast thing.”

We were close to Adam’s birthplace and I was the only one excited about it.

On the bright side, not much happened on the way there. John checked his guns over and over again and ran tests on the ship’s shields and weapons. Adam tried to hide his malfunctions, and I pretended I didn’t notice.

One of his hands stopped obeying him and he stared at it for a long moment before it moved again. I couldn’t look away; I hugged him and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“I have worked around the malfunction.”

“That’s good.” Too scary for me to want to talk about, or even think about.

John pulled out of hyperspace well outside the planetary system. He did not look happy and when he sensed me watching him, he said, “I want a drink.”

“What’s wrong?”

He drew a deep sigh. “There’s a pretty intense defense system here.”

“Did you build it?”

“Yeah. I was a drunken and bored idiot with too many gadgets at my disposal. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You haven’t been here for over a decade. It might not be there anymore.”

“It’s there. The question is whether it’s activated or not.”

The somber look on his face sent a chill down my back. I had assumed my boys didn’t want to go because of bad memories, and I hadn’t considered the possibility of their home-world posing real danger.

“You know, if Eve was the last person here and the last one to leave, she might not have bothered with turning it on. She probably thought she wouldn’t come back.”

He nodded. “Let’s go with that. I doubt my command codes would do us any good, if anything the AI has been programmed to fire at anyone who has them. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Alright. Keep your fingers crossed.”

*****

We reached the planet without problems and the ship did not explode, not even when we left it in orbit and took a shuttle to the surface.

John had mentioned Adam came from a hot jungle hell. He wasn’t joking. The dark green foliage had large leaves and between the plants, bursts of steam rose from the ground. Actual steam. Looking at it from the shuttle window made me wish I were back on the ship. Being there alone would have been creepy, but I should still have taken the opportunity when John offered it. This wasn’t my best idea ever.

John said, “I never thought I’d return here.”

I reached out to put my hand on his.

“Thank you.”

He winked at me.

Adam said, “I remember this place. We should leave.”

John nodded. “You’re right, but we need items only available here. There are probably traps everywhere.”

He hesitated. “Son, I need you to stay close to your wife and protect her.”

“Of course.”

He wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
This
had not changed.

We landed smoothly in a clearing and I half expected the shuttle to trigger a mine or something.

Nothing happened.

John turned the engines off. “There’s an underground hangar, but I doubt we can get in there. Walking from here won’t be pleasant, but we can do it.”

*****

The planet wasn’t any better seen from the outside of the shuttle. I was used to an air-conditioned, cool, and dry atmosphere. The air in this place was so thick and humid it barely went into my lungs.

John looked around, squinting at the sun.

“There used to be a village over there.”

“Used to? What happened?”

“Cheryl happened. Come, it’s this way.”

His ex destroyed an entire village? He had said many less than flattering things about her, but I still hadn’t expected
that.

Every step was an ordeal, but walking through the dense woods still posed less of a challenge than it could have, at least for me. John and Adam cleared any obstacles, held branches to the side, and made it as easy for me as possible. Being the weakest member in the group had its perks.

I paused and both men stopped with worried looks on their faces.

Adam said, “Do you want me to take you back to the shuttle? You can wait for us there. I will carry you.”

“No. I just wanted to let the two of you know I’m the luckiest woman in the world.”

John blinked a couple of times. “What?”

It probably wasn’t what he expected after bringing me to a jungle.

“You and you. There aren’t words to describe how awesome you are.”

They exchanged a glance and shrugged, but both looked happy.

Once we reached an overgrown path, John went first and Adam made up the rear.

John said, “Keep your eyes open. Cheryl had decent security systems even in my time and that was a decade ago.”

“Eve improved them. It was never enough.”

Both John and I stopped, turned back, and stared at Adam. He blinked a couple of times. “I have no idea where that came from, but maybe I should go first.”

John shrugged and made a “help yourself” gesture. “Son, you might carry hidden code not even you know about.”

Adam tilted his head to the side and locked his gaze with mine. “Maybe, but I have left this place once and I don’t think I will pose a threat. Keep an eye on me just in case.”

*****

Adam steered us around hidden traps I would have stumbled right into, and when he stopped I had no idea of why.

“We’re here.”

Where? In the middle of nowhere?

He bent slender trees to the side and broke off thick vines, penetrating a curtain of growth that hid an entrance to a bunker. I wouldn’t have found it even if I’d known where it was.

The thick metal door looked impenetrable, but Adam traced his fingers along the upper frame. “There used to be a camera here, connected to the main computer.”

He grabbed something and pulled, and got a handful of cables.

John glanced around and bent down to free something from the tall grass. “This one?”

From the looks of it, someone tore the camera down and crushed it in a fit of rage. Someone very strong. Eve might have done it if she had a reason. Maybe their mother realized her mistake and attempted to lock the unstable android out. Or, there might be more of them out and about.

Adam’s strong hands cleared the vegetation from the door. Beneath the greenery was a keypad with weird symbols. It lit up with a faint glow.

John said, “I guess there’s still power.”

“Great.” Adam made it sound as if the topic of discussion was poison or bombs. What could be in there that was all that bad?

“Do we have a code?” For all I knew the thing might be wired to explosives that would dispose of anyone entering the wrong set of numbers.

John said, “Maybe, unless she changed them.”

He bent forward, but Adam caught his arm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” John sounded more curious than anything.

“I don’t know.”

I had a decent guess. “From what I understand, Cheryl wasn’t exactly happy with you leaving.”

It was an understatement. She allegedly altered Adam’s appearance to look like John, and attempted to reprogram him to take John’s place.

They both stared as if they’d forgotten I was there and able to speak. I cleared my throat. “Wouldn’t it make sense if she set a trap for you, in case you returned? Like you worried about with the planetary defense?”

John nodded.

Adam said, “I used to have a code, but I don’t remember it.”

Odd. I would have expected the ability to return home to be a part of his programming. Maybe he replaced it with the ability to return to me.

I reached out to touch his arm to catch his attention. “Did you get to choose the code, or did your mother give you one?”

He frowned. “I think I chose it. I remember sitting with her by the main computer.”

“Are there any numbers you like better than other numbers?”

My husband glanced into my eyes and answered without hesitation. “Three point one four one five nine two six five three five nine.”

I interrupted his recitation of the endless number. “You like Pi. Is there any chance you would have used a part of Pi for your code?”

He turned back to the lock and his fingers danced over the keypad. Moments later the door clicked open and a whiff of cool air flowed over us.

John peeked in. “Stay close to your wife.”

Adam said, “With all due respect, I am less likely to be seriously damaged by whatever security measures await. I will go first, and you will follow with Alex.”

I didn’t like being thought of as someone who couldn’t take care of herself. The humiliation didn't lessen from them being right.

John said, “Alright.”

Adam took the lead down a short staircase, through a corridor with an eerie corrugated floor, and into a lift. I expected flames to shoot up and swallow us, or the lift to fall, but it sank smoothly into the ground.

*****

The lift stopped without dropping us to our deaths. The computer they mentioned must not have found a reason to obliterate us yet, but that could change in a second.

Adam stepped out. I followed and John came right behind me. He held his right hand on the blaster on his hip and touched my shoulder with the left. “Do you want a gun?”

“No. I want you to have them, because you being armed makes me feel secure.”

“Alright. Follow him, but keep your eyes open.”

The corridor that stretched out to both sides of us was so brightly lit I needed to squint.

“This corridor is a large oval, kind of like on the Bell. On the inner side are laboratories and workshops, and on the outer side you’ll find the kitchen, living quarters, and stuff like that. There are three storage floors below us. Or at least that’s what it was like when I lived here.” John’s voice was so quiet I barely made out the words.

Adam took a few steps forward but stopped at the first open door. I peeked around him and clasped both hands over my mouth to stifle a scream.

I couldn’t see much of the room except a bright, white floor, but a man’s head was well visible on it.

John approached the doorway, motioning to us to stand back. I saw his shoulders relax so the room was probably void of obvious danger, but someone’s
head
was on the floor.

He disappeared inside and returned with the head. It looked remarkably alive for being severed from its body, and had belonged to a man with dark brown hair.

“It’s an android.”

He held the head up so we could see the face. “Adam, this is how you originally looked. This might even be one of your first heads.”

I was grateful the face didn’t resemble
them.
This was probably the appearance John originally chose for his son and I was relieved it wasn’t a carbon copy of him.

John held the head out to me. “Any chance you’d carry this?”

“No.” I imagined it opening its eyes and the mouth attempting to bite my fingers like an android zombie. Even besides my overactive imagination I didn’t want to feel its skin or hair.

Creepy.

Adam took it. “This is my brother”

“Maybe. Or an earlier version of you.”

*****

We walked past a few open doors that led to sleeping quarters or equipment, but didn’t make any more unnerving finds. The place was so big. What had it been like to live here?

John nodded to one of the rooms. “That used to be our bedroom.”

Curiosity got the better of me. I
had
to peek in.

The large room held nice-looking furniture and many features I could associate with him, like the art. Not so much the head in a jar.

There was a head in a jar.

A jar filled with liquid that bubbled slowly, making the woman’s long and blonde hair move. When I looked closer, a foot stuck out from behind the bed.

A decomposing foot, but definitely a foot.

The head opened its eyes and stared at me.

This time I couldn’t hold it back: I screamed. In my defense it wasn’t a hair-raising horror movie scream, more a yelp, but still enough to make both men appear by my side.

John looked in and said, “Damn.”

Adam said, “Mother.”

They sounded equally stunned.

I remembered Eve’s voice stating, “Cheryl is dead. She coveted a level of allegiance she didn’t deserve.”

“She can’t be alive, can she?” I didn’t like the way my voice wavered.