Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(33)

“See?” she said, turning to Kellen. “She likes me. She won’t cram me back into a vat. We’re good.”

“Ang, why don’t we leave these two to work things out?” Daniel asked, extending his hand to Angela.

She shivered and did not take his hand. She would never feel comfortable hearing that nickname. If she didn’t know essentially how mechs worked, she would never believe, mere hours ago, this creature had been her way-too-thoughtful and puppy-loyal assistant. That he had talked her through a stressful in-person event. That he had saved her life when her world fell apart.

All traces of that programming were gone, wiped. She had done that. She had broken him. God. How many ways could she fuck stuff up? And she was supposed to be able to handle power.

“Nah, she don’t need to leave.” Almost as if he couldn’t help himself, Kellen settled a hand on her shoulder. Possessively. The gesture halted the dark path her thoughts were taking, brought her back to the present, focused her. Kellen went on, facing the mech-clone, “But you can make yourself useful. I need you to get to a terminal and plug your head in, find out if the attack on Senator Neko’s hotel was a contract. If a government or a megacorp was behind it, chances are they would have hired somebody else for their dirty work. Plausible deniability and all that bullshit. You do know how to access the darknet, right? Most freelancers scout jobs there.”

“I’m sorry,” mech-Daniel said, “but my protocol prohibits me from following instructions from anyone—”

“Do it.” Angela hadn’t meant to snap, but she was at the end of her emotional tether. Shit was coming at her too fast now, and not even academic, geopolitical shit her brain was conditioned to process at speed. Feelings shit. Which took more out of her, required more focus. She didn’t want to focus. She wanted to loll right here, press herself back up against this man, and pretend the last decade of her life hadn’t happened. “You do whatever he tells you to, Dan-Dan.”

The machine stared back at her. Orbs grown and shaped to look like eyes. Like her husband’s eyes. Cold and empty and cruel. The artificants had done too good a job. “All right.”

Not what Dan-Dan would have said, but she had no one but herself to blame. She had reset the programming. She kept staring, steady, until he turned and stepped back onto the elevator.

As the doors closed, Chloe emitted a low whistle. “The Vallejo runs strong in that one. Tell me he isn’t the scariest robot in ever.”

“Speaking of,” Kellen said, “exactly how long have you been spying on us?”

Chloe apparently lacked programming for shame. “Not long enough. I was about to go make some popcorn.”

“You don’t eat,” he reminded her.

“So what? I can still make popcorn. It smells good.”

“You don’t smell, either.”

“I mean, other people tell me it smells good. Like Garrett. He likes it.” Her edges fuzzed again, and just like that, she was gone. Only not. Her hologram was gone, but she could still somehow invade their in-ear communications devices at will. How mobile were her composite nanos? Did those little fuckers fly?

“He likes you even better,” Kellen said. “Now scat.”

“Okay, fine. Later, Senator!”

Trilling laughter faded, which was the only clue that Angela and Kellen were now alone on the rooftop. Well, alone except for the animals, but even Azul had long since given up staring. Some movement at the far side of the pens might have been more goats or even smaller animals. A squirrel maybe, or a rabbit.

“She’s a rascal.”

“Who is?” Angela turned and looked up at him innocently. Unfortunately, the movement shrugged his hand off her shoulder. She missed the contact.

“The scamp you just now swore to forget,” he said, but he was smiling.

A breeze ruffled his hair. Evening advanced over the desert, but the air was still breath-hot.

“Thanks for trusting me,” she told him solemnly. “And as for the rest of it, do we really need to talk about it?” Or we could just skip the talking. I’m okay with that.

The shadows that enveloped him had lengthened.

“Right. Our personal history. Talking it out.” He swiped a hand through his errant hair, shoving it out of his face. “You know what, I shouldn’t have brought it up. You came here for a serious reason—shit don’t get much more serious than an attempt on your life—and I treated you to an emo-soup pity party. Now I’m the one embarrassed. Would kinda like to drop it.”

Angela wouldn’t. She wanted to talk all the way through it. She wanted to relive every second, pick it apart, put it back together again. Rebuild that thing they had, the thing that had sustained her through some pretty rotten years. The thing that still throbbed like a new wound. But she held her wishes safe in her mouth, didn’t dare loose them into the air where they could dissolve to nothing.

“Fine,” she said instead. “So now what? Now that I know all about Chloe, do you have to lock me in my room again?”

He studied her face for a while. Then he swiped his cuff com in front of the elevator. The metal doors slid open. “Nah. Fan and Adele are settin’ out supper in an hour, but I need to check in on something before we go back down. Figure you’ll want to see this, too.”