Джей Кристофф - Lifel1k3 (Lifelike)

“SECOND SAMPLE REQUIRED TO CONTINUE CONFIRMATION,” the angel said.

Gabriel turned back to Ana, tucking his pistol into his pants.

“THIS IS POINTLESS, GABRIEL. YOU ARE HURTING HER NEEDLESSLY.”

“Then open the doors, Myriad. And give me what I want.”

“YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY OVER ME. I FOLLOW ORDERS FROM NICHOLAS MONROVA OR MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY. NONE OTHER.”

“Then here we stand. And here we stay.”

“I’m not going to help you, if that’s what you think,” Ana warned. “I’m not ordering Myriad to go beep, let alone teach you how to make more lifelikes.”

Faith smiled. “We don’t need you to say a word anymore, dead girl. Voice ident, retinal scan, blood sample, brainwave imprint. Those are the four security measures your father installed to protect the system. Once we have those, we can open these doors and peel Myriad one layer at a time until we have all we need.”

“Speaking, then, of what we need…”

Gabriel took hold of Ana’s headgear and, with the wet snap of tearing plastic, ripped it clean off her shoulders. The rad-suit shredded like paper, the lifelike flinging the broken helmet off the gantry and down into the reactor shaft below.

Gabriel grabbed the back of Ana’s wheelchair, trundled it past the motionless Goliaths toward Myriad’s glowing blue lens. The holographic angel watched on impassively, twirling forever on its pedestal. Ana knew what was coming, squeezed her eyes shut tight. But Gabriel pried her lids open with his fingertips, forced her to stare into that pulsing blue. Tears welling. Hissing curses.

“RETINAL SCAN RECEIVED,” Myriad finally said. “PROCESSING.”

Gabriel slackened his hold and Ana tore her head from his grip, trying to beat down the fear in her gut. Her suit was ruined. Without proper rad-shielding, she was just soaking up Babel’s ambient radiation now. Breathing in poisoned particles, absorbing them into her skin. The lifelikes weren’t susceptible to radiation sickness, but for a human, an hour or so of exposure this close to the core would be a death sentence.

“Four children weren’t enough, Gabriel?” she asked. “You going to kill me, too?”

The lifelike drew the pistol from the small of his back, raised it to her temple. She stared up at him, hatred and defiance in her eyes. She dimly wondered if the gun was the same weapon that had killed her brother.

“All in good time, my dear Ana.” Gabriel smiled.

Her tucked the pistol away, turned back to Myriad’s door.

“All in good time.”

A burst of static.

A rain of sparks.

Another automata sentry gun folded up and died.

“You’re getting good,” Ezekiel said.

“Some would say I was born good, Dimples.”

“Not you, though, right?”

“That’d be too much like bragging.”

Ezekiel and Lemon dashed across the landing, up another flight of stairs and out onto the main floor of Babel’s Security Division. Muted sunlight filtered through the tinted windows, emergency lighting bathing everything in the color of blood. The admin station was a shambles, equipment scattered, chairs overturned. Lemon saw holopix of dead families in dusty frames. Withered flowers in a bone-dry vase. Tried to imagine what it was like to be here when the revolt began. The chaos of it. The fear.

She was breathless, sweating inside her bright pink rad-suit and, despite the sass, feeling more than a little queasy. Her head was throbbing where the Preacher had clocked her, shoulders and neck wrenched from the crash in Thundersaurus. Her vision was blurry, which meant she probably had some kind of concussion. Any moment now, she expected some prettyboy murderbot to step around the corner and start trying to tear her favorite face off her favorite skull. And worst of all, there was no sign of her bestest anywhere.

As far as daring rescues went, this one wasn’t exactly grade A.

“Where you thi—”

“Hsst!” Ezekiel held up his prosthetic hand. “…You hear that?”

“Nnnno,” Lemon said. “But I’m not the guy who can count all the freckles on a girl’s face in a fraction of a second.”

“Thirty-one,” he smiled.

“See, that’s what I mean about bragging.”

Ezekiel tilted his head, frowning. “There it is again.”

“Are we gonna play twenty questions, or are you going to spit it out?”

“Coughing. In the cellblock.” Ezekiel nodded. “This way.”

They crept down a long hallway, Ezekiel’s flamethrower held steady in his cybernetic arm. Lemon stretched out her hand, fritzing another security cam with a scowl. Wisecracks aside, it was getting harder for her to do. Every use of her power left her drained, and it took more effort to summon it each time. She figured it must be like any other muscle—it got exhausted when you used it too much. But her bestest was in the deepest capital T of her life. So Lemon kept pushing herself, despite what it was costing her.

Time enough for a breather when she was dead.

They reached what must have been the cellblock—a series of four-by-four-meter rooms with clear plasteel walls. As they crept forward, Lemon finally heard the coughing Ezekiel was talking about, soft and wet and ragged. Her blood ran cold, recognizing the timbre from the countless nights she’d spent bunking down with Ana. Listening to the old man she thought of as family cough his lungs up in the next room.

“Mister C…,” she whispered.

They found him hunched in the last cell. The blood on his lips gleamed black in the scarlet light, his face a horror show. His cheeks and eyes were so sunken, his head looked like a skull. It’d only been a few days since Lemon had seen him, but it seemed he’d aged a hundred years. He was holding Cricket’s severed head in bloody hands.

“Mister C!” she yelled.

The old man glanced up, cleared his throat with a wince.

“What the h-hells…you doing here, Freshie?”

“Rescuing you and Riotgrrl, what the hells you think?”

The old man managed to smile. “Knew I liked you…for a r-reason, kiddo.”

Lemon put her hand on the electronic keypad. The readout crackled and spit, the tiny lights on its face dying as the cell’s lock popped open. The plasteel door swung aside, and Lemon rushed into the room, dropping to her knees at the old man’s side.

“You look like yesterday’s breakfast, Mister C.”

“People love m-me for…my personali—”

The old man broke into another coughing fit, doubling over and shuddering. Lem’s chest ached to see him so sick, tears filling her eyes as she looked to Ezekiel.

“Is there anything we can do for him?”

Ezekiel’s face was pale and grim. She knew what he was thinking. The lifelikes had locked Silas down here for days with no rad-suit. Before long, radiation poisoning would finish what his cancer had started. The lifelike looked at the old man—one of the men who made him—and mutely shook his head at Lemon as he lied aloud.

“He’ll be okay once we get him out of here.”

“D-don’t talk crap,” Silas wheezed. “I’m n-never getting…out of here.”

“Mister C, don—”

“Don’t kid…a kidder, Freshie.” A damp cough. “Now…h-help me up.”

“We need to find Ana, Silas,” Ezekiel said. “You’re in no shape t—”

“I know where she is. I n-need you to…take me d-down to the R & D bay.”

“We just came from there,” Ezekiel said. “They’re breaking into Myriad, Silas. That’s where Ana will be, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to waste. She needs me.”