Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(88)

Cricket’s mismatched eyes were on the monitors. His voice modulated to a whisper.

“Ana, I’ve got a really bad feeling. We should get out of here.”

“I heard you the first fifty times.”

“Yeah, well, this time I really mean it.”

“You want to just leave Grandpa? He’s your maker, Crick. Don’t you owe him something?”

“He made me to protect you. And that’s what I’m trying to do. Silas spent the last two years keeping you away from here. No way he’d want me to let you come back.”

She sucked her lip. Shook her head. “I owe him, Cricket. He might have steered it wrong, but he still saved my life. I can’t just leave him here to die.”

“He’d never ask you to save him.”

“I know. And that’s what makes me want to.”

Cricket fell into a sullen silence. Ana guided her Titan past the mounds of bodies, trying not to look at them. Marching slowly through the loading bay doors, her autocannon raised and ready, she clomped into the R & D storage bay. Dust was piled thick in the corners, shrouding mountains of equipment too irradiated to ever salvage. The bay was three stories tall, so wide she could barely see the edges, lit only by the sun outside and the sullen red glow of emergency lighting inside. The space was ringed with metal gantries above, loading chains suspended from the ceiling, tinkling and clanking in the breeze. Still no resistance. No guard, nothing.

This is all wrong.

Ana saw the silhouettes of dozens of logika, their cores powered down, their optics dark. The Quixote stood among them—GnosisLabs’ finest robotic gladiator, never to stride the killing floor of the WarDome again. Not for the last time, she was reminded of the day Grace died. Her little brother, Alex, with his toy replica of the big logika in his hands as he laughed and ran through this very bay. Her mother’s smile. Her father’s arm around her as the explosion bloomed bright.

Ezekiel had saved her life that day. Shielding her from the blast that should have killed her. Only to put a bullet in her head a month later.

“But when the ash rose up to choke me, it was thoughts of you that helped me breathe. When the night seemed never-ending, it was dreams of you that helped me sleep. You. And only you.”

Lies.

“I don’t know what it was for you, but for me, it was real. And you’re the girl who made me real.”

Upon lies.

Proximity alarm.

Her Titan blared a warning as a rocket-propelled grenade streaked in from a gantry above. Ana twisted her controls and lunged sideways as the projectile exploded, tearing through an abandoned troop transport beside her. Another rocket flew at her from the gloom, Ana twisting and raising her autocannon, blasting away at a figure flitting among the shadows overhead, almost too quick to track.

Her Titan wasn’t in true fighting shape, but she was a mean enough pilot to dodge three more rocket volleys, blasting away at her assailant and shredding the walkways to shrapnel. Cricket yelled in alarm as the autogun turrets around the bay opened up with a withering hail of armor-piercing rounds. Ana raised her own autocannon as another rocket roared in from the shadows and blew out her Titan’s right knee.

The machina toppled sideways, hydraulics gushing fluid. Ana reached out with one colossal hand to steady herself, crushing a metal stairwell as she fired into the auto-sentries. Spent shell casings spewed like falling stars from her guns, smoke rising from the barrels. She was a crack shot, taking down half a dozen automata in quick succession, but from her time in the Dome, she knew a bait and switch when she saw it. A humanoid figure dropped down onto the loading bay floor. Ana caught a glimpse of short dark hair cut into ragged bangs. Gray eyes, like dead vidscreens.

A thrill of recognition ran down her spine.

She hunkered her machina down behind a row of dusty logika, blasting the rest of the automata sentries to scrap. Cricket shouted another warning as another rocket hit from behind, rocking her Titan hard. Alarms were screaming inside the cockpit, damage reports scrolling down her monitors in a red waterfall. Impact-warning systems howled as yet another rocket struck her machina in the spine, shattering its gyroscope. Its internal balance systems flatlined, the Titan finally toppled forward, Ana gasping as her machina crashed onto the deck. Another explosion rocked the machina, Cricket crying out as Ana’s readouts fritzed, the Titan’s targeting systems shot, scanners OOC.

Ana’s starboard cams were still working, and through the static, she saw a slender figure step from the shadows. It wore clean white linen and soldier’s boots, hood pulled back from a perfect face. Gray, glittering eyes. An arc-sword at her back.

Faith.

Ana cracked the broken Titan’s cockpit, rolled out onto the loading bay floor, Excalibur in hand. She arced its power feed and raised the stun bat in both fists. Catching movement to her right, she spun to face it. A blur. A sharp crack. White light. Ana sailed back, weightless, the punch bringing the stars out to shine inside her skull. She didn’t even feel it when she hit the ground, her bat rolling away with a clang. Faith stood over her, a cruel smile twisting her beauty into something altogether inhuman.

The lifelike buried a boot in Ana’s ribs, sending her skidding across the floor to slam into a row of heavy metal crates. The breath left her body in a spray of spit and blood.

“Coming in here alone, little soldierboy?” Faith sneered. “Didn’t you see what we did to the last team your CorpLords sent in here?”