Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(3)
She lay down on the bed and motioned for Swails to fulfill his duties. He obediently stripped and performed the Slave’s Prayer to request permission for the honor of joining a master’s bed.
Grace studied Swails’s movements; she had seen him perform the ritual dozens of times before. The gestures were correct, but he was missing his usual grace. As he finished the prayer, Swails fell to his knees at the corner of the bed, spread his arms out, and looked up at the ceiling.
Instead of giving permission, Grace crawled seductively to him and placed her palm on his hard, toned chest. She ran her hand down his stomach, feeling all the familiar grooves and bumps of his muscles. Then her fingers wandered up to his heart. She closed her eyes and listened. The beats; impossibly fast for a clone. She cupped his chin with her other hand and lowered his face toward her.
“Who are you, stranger?” she asked.
Swails hesitated for an instant. “You know?”
“I’ve suspected since this morning. You haven’t been Swails all day.”
A smile broke out on his face. “You’re a rare woman, Grace Priestly. It’s an honor.” Swails left her bed. He walked to her desk at the other end of the room and began rummaging through her belongings.
“What are you doing?” She stood up and retreated to the corner of the room, alarmed.
Swails ignored her as he picked out papers, scans, and datachips. He tossed aside several rare books and sorted through her personal tab files, generally making a mess. Grace hated messes. Then he pulled out the recently engraved Time Law Charter and lingered on it, his fingers brushing the inscriptions. He had found what he was looking for.
The charter was the culmination and moral principle of the past ten years of her research. The technology was ready. All humanity needed was a force that could responsibly wield this new power. If her new agency was successful, Grace Priestly would be credited with not only saving mankind, but propelling the Technology Isolationists to new heights. That allorium-engraved charter he held in his hands was the guiding law of this new agency, Chronological Regulatory Command, and it would lead them out of humanity’s self-inflicted starvation.
“Put that back!” she yelled. “Kau, Trau! To me!”
Her two kill mutes burst into the room with their blindfolds lifted, exposing their glowing cybernetic red eyes. It grated on her sensibilities to resort to violence right before her end. Grace was never one to favor such heavy-handedness, but this thing wasn’t her treasured pet. In fact, she was sure he had killed Swails. Now, she wanted answers.
“Capture. No kill. No kill.” She enunciated the words carefully. The kill mutes were of low intelligence, and every command other than “kill” had to be communicated clearly.
Trau leapt into action, a dozen small blades extending out of his arms and legs. He charged the impostor, slashing with his limbs, while Kau moved into a defensive position between her and Swails, his own blades exposed.
“Alive!” Grace barked.
It seemed she had given those orders to the wrong person. Trau reached Swails faster than any human could and raked the impostor across the chest with enough force to split an unenhanced in two. Instead, a faint yellow shield surrounding Swails appeared and burst into sparks, creating an electrical backlash that bounced Trau’s blades harmlessly to the side.
The impostor retaliated, moving so quickly his body blurred. The two whirled around each other in a deadly dance, Trau’s blades and the strange yellow sparks flashing in the air. Just as quickly as the melee had begun, it was over.
One moment, the impostor was next to Trau, the next, he was standing behind the kill mute. With a flick of the stranger’s wrist, Trau went flying across the room and slammed into the wall so hard the blast shields on the portholes lowered from the force of the impact. Trau’s steel-infused back snapped with a loud crack against one of the structural beams jutting out of the wall. He emitted a mechanical wail and went limp, the red glow in his eyes fading.
Grace gaped at the fallen kill mute. This was impossible. These were class-six cyborgs! They were each designed to defeat a platoon of armored marines. Panic seized her as her gaze went back to Swails, or whatever the thing was that looked like her pet.
Kau continued to keep his body in between her and this impostor. He would attack on her command and most likely die just as quickly. Swails eyed Kau with unworried interest, as if just waiting for this fight to finish so he could continue with whatever task he was here for. Looking closely, she could see a soft, translucent yellow glimmer hugging his skin, and then her eyes trailed to the allorium charter the impostor had left on the desk during the melee.
Then it all made sense.
“Kau,” she said, pointing at the door. “Leave the room. Make sure I’m not disturbed.”
The kill mute looked at her hesitantly. These cyborgs were not completely stupid after all. They recognized a strange order when they heard one.
“Go!” she repeated.
Eyeing Swails warily, Kau stepped over Trau’s body and shuffled out of the room. The impostor ignored the deadly kill mute, seemingly unconcerned. Kau paused just as he was about to leave the room. He looked at the impostor, then, with a grunt, left. Grace noted that pause. Apparently, there were still some kinks in these level sixes that needed ironing out.
“Close the door,” Grace ordered.
The impostor raised an eyebrow, no doubt either surprised that she was willing to remain alone with him or that she was still ordering him around. Nevertheless, he complied, closing the double sliding doors. Their eyes met, and for the first time, Grace saw depth in Swails’s eyes: awe, sadness, regret, pain. These were all emotions the real Swails should not have been able to feel.