Scott Medbury - Inga

“Yes.”

“For the same reason I didn’t disarm you when you threatened Tom Redfern, these directives are no longer imperative. I’m not sure if it is because I am an Apex model or because of damage.”

Ivan digested this information. Images of the carnage she had wreaked at Molenski’s flashed through his mind. Apex predator indeed. As if reading his mind, her lethal, yet soft hand, found its way to his thigh.

“I would never hurt you, though, Myfriend. I love you.”

Ivan turned to her, stunned.

Inga was smiling, but then her head snapped to the front.

“Stop!”

Ivan slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid a collision with the car in front that had stopped for a red light. He gripped the wheel as he stared ahead.

“What did you say?” he asked, this time without taking his eyes off the road.

Surely, he had misheard.

“I love you.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I know,” she said simply.

Ivan turned into the parking lot of a closed tire store. He had many more questions, and it was perhaps better to be stationary when he asked them. He switched the car off and turned to her.

“How…”

His words were silenced when she leaned over and kissed him. Ivan was too surprised to do anything but kiss her insistent, soft lips in return. He felt strange. Emotions boiled in his mind. He couldn’t deny it. Despite knowing full well that she was a machine, he felt an emotion that he hadn’t felt since, not only before the ambush, but since he was a young man. If it wasn’t love, then it was damn close.

They kissed like that for a long time. No hands, no groping, just kissing. Was she waiting for him to take the lead? If so, while he felt emotionally bound to her, his libido was dormant. A product of post-traumatic stress, the doctors had said. It was embarrassing to think about, but at this point, Inga seemed content just to kiss. He decided he would not worry about it until necessary.

Finally, he broke away reluctantly.

“I… we have to get moving. It will be an early morning for us.”

“Yes, Myfriend,” she said, smiling, the skin around her mouth pink from their recent passion. “Let’s go.”

Ten minutes later they pulled back into the small parking lot of Mateo’s restaurant. Blissfully happy, Ivan took Inga’s hand and led her down the side of the building to the rear. They laughed and giggled like school kids. Before they stepped onto the stairs that would lead them up to the apartment, he turned around and drew her to him. He kissed her again, realizing as he did so that with each kiss, the fact that she was a synthetic human was beginning to matter less and less to him.

“Sorry, I just had to do that one more time tonight.”

“It doesn’t need to be the last time tonight, Myfriend,” she said, her words full of promise.

Ivan grinned like an idiot, turned and headed up the stairs with her at his heels. Not wanting to disturb his friend if he’d already gone to bed, he unlocked the door as quietly as he could and took a step into the small kitchenette without switching on the light. He smelled the familiar cigar smoke just before he felt a cold circle of metal pressed hard into his neck.

“Don’t fucking move,” a voice whispered harshly nearby.

Ivan froze. The voice belonged to Andre.

“Myfriend?”

“It’s alright Inga, just stay right where you are,” said Molenski’s voice in the dark.

Someone switched on the lights. Besides Andre, who had his gun pressed into Ivan’s cheek, there were three more men in the kitchenette, all with their weapons drawn and trained on the two figures in the doorway.

A sneering Molenski lounged in an armchair that had been turned to face the kitchen and now sat in the opening to the living room. He had a cigar in one hand, his Ruger in the other. Behind him stood Mateo with a resigned look on his face, and another man Ivan didn’t recognize.

Ivan stared at his former mentor, the hurt in his eyes clear.

“I’m sorry Ivan. I had no choice after Mr. Molenski explained everything.” He nodded reassuringly. “You will understand too; it’s for the best Ivan. Please, surrender your gun.”

Betrayed and confused, Ivan shook his head. Inga grasped his hand, squeezing it reassuringly. Her gesture told him she was ready to fight if he decided that’s what they should do.

Molenski chuckled.

“Oh, isn’t this sweet, the mechanical lovebirds, come home to roost,” said Molenski, each word dripping with oily scorn. His contempt was lost on Ivan, whose eyes were busily moving around the room, calculating where to begin his fight.

First Andre. He knew it would be difficult, Molenski’s lieutenant was as quick as a snake and enormously capable, then…

“ARE YOU LISTENING, YOU BIG DUMMY!”

Ivan’s eyes ceased their calculated movement and fell upon the Russian. Molenski stubbed out his cigar on the arm of the seat and stood up before stabbing his finger at his former bodyguard.

“This bullshit ends here! I didn’t pay a fucking fortune to bring you back from the dead so you could have a romance with another fucking machine!”

Ivan’s eyes widened.

“What?”

“Oh, come on! Are you telling me you really don’t know?”

Ivan’s blank face told him all he needed to know.

“You’re a fucking robot too!”

Ivan looked at the Russian with a pitying look. He had always been unhinged, but clearly Molenski had lost it completely now.

Molenski laughed and stared up at the ceiling.

“Well, fuck me. He still doesn’t believe it.”

He raised his gun and without a word shot Ivan in the chest.

There were gasps of shock from the onlookers.

Ivan was forced backward by the hammer blow of the bullet, fell against the counter, knocking off the plate he had put there earlier. Inga embraced him, her soft yet strong arms supporting him as he struggled to stay on his feet.

Molenski’s laughter echoed around the room.

He clamped his hand over the wound and felt warm blood seeping through his fingers. He looked at Inga as he leaned drunkenly against the counter, wanting her to be the last thing he saw.

Then something strange happened. The deep pain emanating from the impact of the bullet began to dissipate. The wound still burned like a bitch, but he was now able to breathe. To think.

“Get up, you big dummy. You’re not dying. You’re a fucking machine. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me,” said Molenski, clearly enjoying the show.

Ivan shook his head as if trying to shake off the Russian’s words. He looked at Inga. Her pretty face was serious.

She nodded.

Is it true then?

Ivan tilted his bloody hand down and away from the wound. The ragged hole smiled at him like a hateful mouth. The men in the room watched, like a rapt audience watching a particularly good horror movie. Ivan brought his other hand up and, using two fingers from each hand, dug into the wound and pulled it open.

The pain of his skin ripping at the top and bottom of the lesion was real… as was the confusion in his mind when he saw the red streaked metal an inch or so inside the ragged wound.

If Ivan hadn’t been in shock, he would have noticed looks of wonder and disgust on the faces around him. Only Molenski, the person he didn’t recognize, and Inga seemed unperturbed. He leaned dangerously as he suffered his most vivid episode of déjà vu ever.

When the feeling had passed his brain began to churn with denial. Even though he had survived a bullet to the chest. Even though, he had seen the metal beneath his skin.

I am me. I am Ivan Petrovic, age 36. I grew up in Moscow and came to America with Molenski when I was a young boy. But…