Defy the Worlds (Constellation #2)(21)
This must have been where Abel was born. Where Mansfield attempted to make so many other versions of Abel, and failed every time. “How many of your creations did you kill here?”
“‘Kill’ isn’t the right word, my dear.”
“Isn’t it? They live. They breathe. They bleed. Abel wants and thinks and hopes and—” The word loves won’t come out of her mouth. “How is destroying one of them less a murder than it would be if you destroyed your own child, or grandchild?”
“Stop.” Mansfield’s tone could turn this room to ice.
Noemi realizes she’s hit a sensitive subject. She’s not sure what it is, but it’s a vulnerable spot, so she keeps pressing. “Abel deserves better from you.”
“I gave him his life. I’m trusting him with my soul. And you’re not the one in charge of deciding who deserves what.”
Noemi tries to move within her force field, and with difficulty she reaches her hand to the metal frame—and encounters sharpness. It’s covered with long metal points, ensuring no prisoners will be able to tamper with their newfound jail.
Taking no notice of her futile movements, Mansfield continues, “Now, Miss Vidal, there’s nothing much left for us to do but wait. I can find Abel wherever in the Loop he may be, but it could take a little time, so I’ve given him a generous deadline. We’ve already dosed you with a few things that will keep you from needing the facilities anytime soon, which means we need just one more—damn it, left it in the tank. My memory’s going.”
He falters on the last words. The image of invulnerability he has tried to project shatters. Noemi sees a little old man, scared of his body’s breakdown, more fragile than ever before.
Mansfield carefully goes to a tank filled with some kind of coolant and removes something from a canister inside. Only when he totters back to the Tare does Noemi see that he’s holding a tiny golden pellet. The Tare loads it into a syringe, then pushes her hand through the force field—sparks flying off her skin—to capture Noemi’s wrist in her vise-like grip. Before Noemi can even try to pull back, the Tare presses the device to Noemi’s inner arm and a jolt of pain spears through her flesh.
“That little ampule won’t do you any harm,” Mansfield says. She can feel the knot inside, uncomfortably wedged in next to a nerve. “Unless I trigger it to release, that is. Which I won’t do, assuming Abel arrives on time. So no need to worry, right?”
Will she finally see Abel again, only to watch him die for her?
8
ABEL’S INTERNAL CLOCK IS AS FINELY CALIBRATED AS any atomic clock. He knows down to the fraction of a second how much time he has left to save Noemi.
Forty-seven hours, three minutes, twenty seconds.
“So he wants you to go to his house in London,” Virginia says as she and Abel huddle together in the Razer hideout to plan. “But you think he’ll be holding Noemi there, too? Not at, you know, a second, undisclosed location?”
“I approximate the probability of Noemi’s imprisonment in Mansfield’s home at 88.82 percent.”
Virginia’s nose wrinkles in confusion. “That can’t be the most secure place.”
“Mansfield can control virtually every mech in existence,” Abel replies. “He can secure any location he wishes. His health wouldn’t permit him to move around very much.”
He remembers the last time they were together, how fragile Mansfield was, how Abel had felt so protective of his elderly creator. All that time, Mansfield had planned to kill him that very night.
Virginia leans close. “Cray to Abel. Cray calling Abel. Come in.”
As though he hadn’t stopped speaking, he continues, “The house is the most logical base of operations. What we must determine is the exact nature of the threat to Noemi, so that I can arrive prepared to counteract it.”
Forty-five hours, two minutes, twenty-eight seconds.
“If you screw up my ride,” Virginia says, one finger in Abel’s face, “and fail to bring it back to Cray in one piece, there won’t be anywhere in this entire galaxy far enough away for you to hide from my vengeance.”
He nods, glancing across the docking bay to see Zayan securing Virginia’s flashy red corsair in the Persephone’s bay; his movements on Earth can only remain undetected if he’s traveling in a ship that wasn’t previously owned by Burton Mansfield, one Mansfield would know how to track. Virginia’s generosity means he can dock the Persephone elsewhere but remain mobile. “Understood. If I damage the corsair, I’ll need to find a wormhole to another galaxy.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
Twenty-three hours, thirty-seven seconds.
A landing dock in Namibia provides as good a hiding place for the Persephone as any. Long-term storage fees are reasonable, and security is tight. Abel pays Harriet and Zayan their advances and tells them farewell.
“It may be some time before I can return,” Abel says. “If the two of you find other work that interests you, I’ll understand if you choose to take it. But I hope you’ll decide to stay.”
They look at each other in mutual, almost comic disbelief before Zayan says, “Abel, do you really not get it? We’d never make this much doing anything but radium mining.” The radium mines on Stronghold’s largest moon are notorious for paying well but providing inadequate radiation shielding. Miners regularly die within five years of taking the job. Some people take it anyway. “Besides, we like you.”