Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(103)
“Ana!”
Ezekiel fell to his knees beside her body. Cricket charged across the bridge, his voice only a whisper as he saw his mistress lying dead on the bloodstained ground.
“Oh, no, no …”
Lemon dropped the pistol, sank down beside Ana like a flower wilting in the sun. Tears were streaming down her face, hand hovering over the girl’s broken body. Grief hollowed Lemon’s insides out, stole her voice, her whole body trembling. Looking down at her bestest’s sightless eyes, her grandpa lying dead and still just a few meters away.
Ana had taken a bullet for her. The girl who’d been more than her friend. More than her bestest. She’d been family. Lemon hadn’t been straight with her, and now she’d never have a chance to make it up. Never know if she’d have been forgiven. It seemed so unfair to have fought all the way here, only to lose Silas and Ana both.
What had it all been for? What had it all meant?
“It can’t end like this,” Ezekiel said. “It can’t… .”
Lemon saw tears shining in his eyes. What must it be like for him? To search two years for the girl he loved, only to lose her forever a few days after finding her again?
“Lemon,” Cricket said softly. “We have to go.”
“… What?”
“Gabriel wrecked your rad-suit.” The big bot pointed to the gaping rend in the plastic torn by the lifelike’s hands. “The ambient radiation in here will kill you.”
Lemon shook her head in disbelief. “We can’t just leave her like this… .”
“I’m sorry,” the big bot said. “I really am. She was my mistress. I was made to protect her. But I can’t let you stay here, Lemon. The First Law won’t let me. We have to go.” He held out one massive metal hand. “Now.”
Lemon glanced from Cricket to Ezekiel. The lifelike simply shook his head. She looked back at her bestest, all the world blurred and shapeless. It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair.
“I’m sorry, Riotgrrl,” she whispered, almost choking on her tears. She could taste the salt in them, the hurt, the miles and the dust and the blood.
She reached out with trembling fingers, pressed her friend’s eyes closed.
“I’m so sorry… .”
And Ana’s eyes opened again.
Lemon shrieked, scrambling away. Her scream rang on bloodstained walls, Ezekiel watching with widening eyes as Ana struggled upright. Cricket stared in amazement as Ana staggered to her feet, hands pressed to her bloody chest. Lemon could see the bullet wounds. See the terror in Ana’s eyes as she looked from Lemon to Ezekiel to Cricket, each of them just as astonished as she was.
“Ana?” Ezekiel breathed.
The girl stared at the blood on her hands. She tore aside the remnants of her rad-suit, looking down at the holes that had been blown through her heart. The wounds were ragged, star-shaped, glistening. But ever so slowly …
They were healing.
1.31
BECOMING
“What’s happening to me?” Ana croaked.
The world was spinning all around her. Blood, warm and thick, pulsing from her wounds. She should be dead. She’d felt the shots; she’d felt them kill her. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. But with three bullets in her chest, she shouldn’t be feeling anything at all.
Oh god …
“Ana?” Cricket asked.
She looked at her friends. At her love. Praying this was just a dream. Another nightmare, the gunsmoke and the blood and the five of them in their perfect, pretty row.
“Better to rule in hell …”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Ezekiel?”
“Ana …”
She backed away, limping, her face pale. Horror and anguish in her eyes as she looked at the blood on her hands and screamed.
“WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?”
“YOU ARE AWAKENING FROM AN OLD MAN’S DREAM.”
It was Myriad who spoke. The computer within that chrome sphere, covered in bloody scrawl and knuckle dents. It was speaking now, that luminous angel flickering back into being, its systems limping online after Lemon’s psychic barrage.
Ana turned to face it, eyes bright and wide.
“What?”
“YOU ARE LEARNING WHO YOU TRULY ARE,” Myriad said.
“I’m Ana Monrova … ,” she whispered.
“ANA MONROVA DIED.”
“No,” Ana said.
“YES. SHE DIED IN THE R & D BAY. IN THE EXPLOSION THAT DESTROYED GRACE. HER FATHER INSISTED SHE BE KEPT ON LIFE SUPPORT. HE HID THE TRUTH FROM HIS WIFE, HIS OTHER CHILDREN. BUT HER BRAIN WAS DEAD. AND IN EVERY REAL SENSE, SHE REMAINS SO.”
“My beautiful girl.” His eyes fill with tears and he’s on his knees beside the bed, pressing my knuckles to his lips as he echoes Ezekiel. “I thought I lost you.”
“No.” Ana shook her head. “I am Ana Monrova… .”
“NO. YOU ARE A REPLICA. A COPY CREATED BY A MAN WHO COULD NOT PROCESS THE DEATH OF HIS FAVORITE CHILD. NICHOLAS MONROVA ALREADY HAD AN IMPRESSION OF ANA’S PERSONALITY—IT HAD BEEN THE MODEL FOR FAITH’S, AFTER ALL. ALL HER MEMORIES. ALL HER FEELINGS. AND FACED WITH THE AGONY OF HIS DAUGHTER’S BRAIN DEATH, MONROVA MAPPED THEM INTO A NEW BODY. A LIFELIKE BODY, CONSTRUCTED BY SILAS CARPENTER.”