Rachel Caine - Terminated

“It’s probably time to get some answers,” Patrick said, and shook Reynolds by the shoulder. The man was dozing. He didn’t look any better than before; in fact, he looked worse, which didn’t surprise Bryn in the least. When the nanites started dying, there was no recovery without more Returné, and it wasn’t exactly going to appear on a convenience store shelf.

Reynolds was going to suffer, and he was going to rot, slowly. Bryn supposed she ought to feel worse than she did about that, but honestly, she didn’t really care. Fuck him. Fuck him and his feverish, dishonest greed. He hadn’t cared about how many died in horrible agony; he ought to have a chance to live through it himself.

But first, he needed to talk . He’d been stubborn so far, but with the right pressure . . . the right tools . . .

You’re becoming her, a still voice inside her whispered. You’re becoming Jane. Listen to yourself.

She pushed it aside, because another thought struck, one that rang inside her head like a tuning fork. Returné. He was on Returné , not on the upgrades.

She didn’t think there was a chance in hell that it would work, but on the off chance that hell had rolled snake eyes just this once, she said, “Condition sapphire.”

Patrick sat bolt upright, as if she’d hit him with a cattle prod. “Can’t be,” he said. “Didn’t they factor the command sequences out of the batch of drugs they gave their executives?”

“They lost their best scientists,” she pointed out. “Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe they didn’t bother, because these men—these men would believe they were invincible, wouldn’t they?”

He shook his head. “I think you’re dreaming.”

“We’ll see. Hand me a Slim Jim, Reynolds.”

Reynolds, without hesitation, reached for the jar wedged into the narrow opening between his feet and Patrick’s, and took one out. He extended it to her.

“Unwrap it,” she said. He did, and held out the raw jerky stick. “Now eat it.”

He did, expressionless, chewing like a machine and swallowing until it was all gone.

“Good. Now eat the wrapper,” she said.

He raised it to his mouth. His dulled eyes looked terrified, but he was doing it. He was really doing it. The wrapper crinkled and buckled as it hit his lips, but his fingers continued their relentless progress to shove it in.

“Bryn,” Patrick snapped. “Stop him.”

Reynolds had jammed most of the plastic into his mouth. She was tempted to tell him to swallow, just for the hell of it, just to watch him choke, but the anger in Patrick’s voice penetrated the lazy fog of cruelty. It was misty red, that fog. Like an aerosolized spray of blood.

“Stop,” she said. “Take the plastic out of your mouth and drop it on the floor, Reynolds.”

He did, and, lacking instructions, folded his hands and just sat. Waiting.

Waiting for her orders.

It had worked. Condition Sapphire, the hidden feature that made Returné victims into slaves . . . it was still encoded in the nanites. Into these nanites, at least. It rendered Dr. Reynolds completely, utterly helpless and at her mercy.

She thought about what she was going to do with him. All the terrible and wonderful and horrifying things.

And then it all collapsed inside her into a black hole of pain and anguish and horror.

Bryn pulled over to the side of the road with a sudden jerk of the wheel, spewing gravel and bringing the truck to a juddering halt. She bent forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel, gasping for breath, gagging for it. The wheel was gritty on her skin, coated with the sweaty, oily deposits of those who’d driven it before. It stank of strangers, and she thought of her own skin rubbing off, joining this horrible anonymous mixture of castoff. Thought about rolling down that hillside, ripping into the flesh of a man she’d never seen before. Thought of snapping necks and slicing flesh and the joy, the unclean joy of it made her stomach suddenly twist and try to escape.

“Drink.”

Patrick’s hand on the back of her head, gentle and steady. His other holding the gallon of water, uncapped and ready. She took it and gulped, gulped, trying to wash the taste of all of that away.

All of her away.

The water tasted like tears.

She sat back, taking deep breaths, and said, “Dr. Reynolds, we need to know where to find the rest of the Fountain Group. Please tell us where they are.”

He turned that terribly dull look to her, and she saw him in there, trapped. Maybe not a good man. Maybe a man who deserved every wretched and awful thing that was going to happen to him. But, like Thorpe, she couldn’t look into his eyes and not see herself . . . not understand that human spirit, however twisted, however flawed. He was staring into eternity, and she knew how that felt.

She knew how it would feel, when she arrived there. It was something every single human, even those like her, would eventually face.

She couldn’t look at eternity and not feel small, and frail, and alone. She had to reach out.

“I’m sorry, Martin,” she said, and took his hand. His fingers were limp and cool against hers. Not damp quite yet. The skin still felt firm. A near-perfect simulation of life. “I’m so very sorry. Please. Please tell us before it’s too late. You know what’s going to happen to you. You know how horrible it is. You don’t want that for your children, too. The Fountain Group—what they’re doing is evil. You know that. Somewhere deep inside, you know. Listen to it.”

“Bryn,” Patrick said, and his warm hand cupped the back of her neck for a moment. “He’s conditioned to respond. You don’t have to convince him.”

“I know,” she whispered. Tears blurred her vision. “I want to convince him.”

Reynolds let his breath out in a slow, rattling breath. It smelled of slow death and sickness. “I don’t know where they all are,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you know where any of them are?”

“Yes,” Reynolds said. And that was the moment when she knew she’d reached him, because even as she started to ask for the necessary clarification the conditioning required . . . he went on. “Most of them are going to be gathering in the Trigon offices in San Francisco in a few days. All the ones that matter will be there. The others—the others are like Thorpe. They don’t agree with the program. They were outvoted.” He swallowed. She heard the wet, thick sound, and she remembered how that felt, dissolving inside. Coming to pieces in slow, dreadful motion. “If you want to stop it, stop them. They can give you everything.”

She nodded. “We will.”

He held her gaze very steadily, and said, “Will you kill me now?”

The awful thing was, some part of her was still eager for it. Still hungry for pain and blood and flesh and screaming.

“Do you want me to?”

“No,” he said. “I’d rather live.”

Still. Even now.

How very . . . human.

“Then we’ll find a way to keep you alive,” she told him, and locked gazes with Patrick on his other side. “Somehow.”

She put the truck in gear and sprayed gravel again merging back into the sparse traffic. It was colder up here, and the skies were gloomier. Thick silver-edged clouds threatened rain, or snow, or worse.

“Bryn?” Patrick said. “San Francisco is the other way.”

“I know,” she said. “But we have to go somewhere else first.”

“Where?”

“Alaska.”

He didn’t even ask if she was crazy.

The perfect definition of love.

They traded the truck for tickets aboard a sightseeing vessel from Seattle to Anchorage. Reynolds’ deteriorating condition was disguised by use of a wheelchair, oxygen tank, and blanket over his lap. Bryn was surprised to see how many similarly impaired people were traveling by water. . . . It didn’t seem like a great idea for people who, by definition, couldn’t swim worth a damn. Still, Bryn had to admit, the cabin they shared wasn’t bad, and neither was the food—open buffet, and she went back for about five helpings of the rare roast beef, every meal. The ship’s store took care of her clothing and toiletry needs, and by the time they disembarked in Anchorage, she looked and felt . . . normal. Patrick looked stronger, too. By avoiding the Canadian borders, they hadn’t had to produce passports, which would have been . . . well, impossible. Patrick’s contacts had gotten them past the necessary ID checkpoints for the ship, on and off—but that was all they could promise.