Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(60)

A Tare model, head badly damaged, somehow operational as it rounds the curve of the balcony: One shot from his blaster and it goes down in a spray of sparks and blood.

A Charlie, completely intact but unarmed, running with great speed and direction—but not toward a door: Abel fires, takes that one down, too.

“What’s going on?” Riko demands from her place below.

“I have no more data than you do.”

“Is that robot for ‘how would I know’?”

“No, although that question is entirely valid.” Abel focuses his main attention on the jumble of mechs in the darkness beneath, whose movements make no sense but are too controlled to be random.

They’re not yet trying to get through to Remedy territory. These mechs have some other target.

Keeping his blaster ready, he swings the crosshairs forward to the very front of the group, past the far end of the spiral of mechs, all the way to their target.

The human backlit by the distant emergency beacon glow is approximately five feet six inches in height, female-presenting, with chin-length black hair. Her build—her movements—even the way she runs—

Abel goes through all the measurements, because he must be sure. He can’t trust his own sensory input; surely it’s only showing him what he wants so badly to see.

But every detail lines up.

Identification confirmed.

Abel leans through the door and shouts, “Noemi!”

She pauses for one instant, her expression unreadable. That moment is almost enough for the other mechs to catch her, but she begins running again even as she yells back, “Abel?”

Within 0.72 seconds, he’s assessed every possible means of rescue and made his decision. He leaps from his vantage point at the stage, plummeting at such an angle that he’s able to grab one of the golden curtain ropes on his way down, tugging the end down after him.

His feet land on the curved surface beneath as silently and gracefully as a cat. Immediately Abel vaults up to the next level, his path intersecting with Noemi’s. She’s running toward him, a shadow and then herself. When she flings herself into his arms, they collide so hard he nearly loses his footing.

She’s here. She’s with me. It is the simplest, most basic of facts, and yet Abel has to register it over and over. His consciousness can’t fully process her presence after so many months of longing; he should run a diagnostic later. For now he can only hold on to her.

Noemi gasps so sharply that he first thinks she’s in pain—but she swings up her blaster and fires behind him. When Abel turns he sees a King mech within two meters of them smoldering and stumbling backward. She destroyed it only a second before it would have destroyed them. His reaction to seeing Noemi again has overridden his most basic safety protocols. They must leave the area of immediate risk before his malfunction endangers them further.

“Hold on to me,” he says. She does. He jumps back down to the rope and grabs it; Noemi doesn’t have to be told to hang on to his back. They’ve been here before. As fast as possible, he climbs hand over hand, lifting them both up and away from the strange broken mechs below.

When at last they reach the top, Abel swings them onto a small balcony, only a few feet below the Remedy members. At first Noemi falls to her knees, breathing hard, as if unable to believe her own perceptions either. When he stoops beside her, though, she clutches him close—and finally, finally, he’s in Noemi’s arms again.

She buries her face in the curve of his neck, a sensation so trusting and tender that he can think of nothing else. He hugs her tighter and revels in the sight and sound and shape of her. This one moment is more joy than he ever thought to have again.

“Abel,” Noemi whispers, and she pulls back. Their faces are close in the darkness, and he remembers their one kiss with fresh vividness. “What are you doing here?”

“Retrieving you, of course.”

“You shouldn’t have come after me. Mansfield—when he realizes you’re here—” She pauses. “He’s about to die. Any day. Any hour. He’s completely desperate.”

Directive One throbs like pain within him, commanding him to save his creator, but Abel ignores it. “Whatever risk I faced couldn’t compare to the danger you were in. I had to find you.”

Noemi laughs once, though tears are filling her eyes. “So you just found a hidden spaceship and a hidden Gate and a hidden planet? No big deal?”

“I had to come,” he says. For him, it’s that simple.

This time her laugh sounds more like a sob, and she hugs him even more tightly than before.

Abel wonders again if he was damaged in the fight, because his thinking remains disordered. Her embrace overrides his ability to concentrate on anything else.

Or maybe this is simply an effect of extreme happiness. Maybe this is what humans experience as joy.

“What’s going on down there?” yells Riko. The bubble of unreality around them pops, reminding him of the many dangers of their situation. Normal function must return.

“I’ve retrieved Noemi,” Abel calls back. “We’ll need to take another path back to the bridge, but we’ll rejoin you shortly.”

“Noemi? Hi!”

“Riko?” Noemi laughs brokenly, in disbelief. “We’ll be right there.”

Together they get to their feet. She’s breathing hard, clearly taxed to human limits of endurance. A wave of protectiveness sweeps over him. “We need to get off this planet,” Abel says.