Several months ago, she’d sipped the Waters. The hallucinogenic trip was impressive, but so were those reported by users of DMT and LSD. The experiment hardly constituted a declaration of the existence of divinity. And the repercussions of the experiment were dire. Whatever immunity Tamas had to the effects of the alien liquid, Blake did not share them. So, now this. A gradual but irrefutable deterioration of her cells. A decline only slowed by a minimal but regular intake of the very Water that had impaired them to begin with. Cym, the only one who knew of the situation, was doing what he could to find a solution. In the interim, Blake was a dying addict.
She tossed the vial into a nearby trash can, making sure the evidence of her incapacity fell beneath the rest of the rubbish. Hidden. Her hands already steady. The irony didn’t escape her. She’d lectured Kira for years about her addictions, the drink, the drugs, the sex. The media had been merciless about pointing out what a fuck-up Kira was compared to her, and how Blake’s brains had funded Kira’s veins – one of the cleverer headlines – for years. Yet, here Blake was. The furtive junkie, struggling not to think about the next time she could take a sip, one eye constantly on her watch. If Kira was in remotely anywhere near this much pain, then she was even stronger than Blake had accounted for. A good thing, considering what she was going to ask of her.
Blake shifted her newly arrived clarity to the control panel in front of her. From the moment Tamas had left, she’d been slowly dropping the inhibitor levels on the carapace. She glanced at the body. Azrael. Eron might have been unimpressed with the naming, but the Syranians could not dictate everything Blake did. She would have this, at least. Pride swelled, as it did every time she glanced at the perfectly formed humanoid. The machines surrounding him emitted cautioning beeps. A message flashed on the small screen, advising that containment dosage was low, asking if she wished to continue. She pressed in an affirmative.
The tech room door slid open and Kira stalked in.
‘Surprise,’ she declared. ‘All your dreams have come true, I decided to stay. Holy shitballs! Blake made herself a boyfriend.’ Clapping her hands, Kira danced up to the table where the carapace lay. ‘That is the prettiest robot I’ve ever seen.’
‘Move back, Kira. And stop talking bullshit.’
The girl had no capacity to take anything seriously. Pretty? No one called Michelangelo’s David or the Artemision Bronze ‘pretty’. They were works of art, superb in their perfection.
And, like Azrael, they were not robots.
For ease of access to his chest cavity, Blake had dressed Azrael only in a pair of pale-green linen pants, doctors’ scrubs she’d taken from the medical ward up on ground level. Very little of his slender, muscular body was hidden. Each swell of muscle and curve of bone was exquisite. Every strand of his black hair, caught in a loose ponytail at the nape, had a manufactured medulla, cortex, and cuticle. Fine vellus hair covered his skin, just as it would have if he were a living, breathing man. His skin itself was a carefully constructed shade, olive with a rich golden undertone, as though the sun touched him, even down here in the bowels of the Earth.
Eron entered the room, bending forward through the doorway to accommodate his height. He stopped just inside the door, and his eyes fixed on Azrael, the muscles in his sharp jaw working.
‘Is something wrong, Eron?’ Blake asked, fingers hovering over the control panel. The inhibitor gases that turned the carapace from a functioning work of art to a solid, immovable lump of Telteriun had dropped to a level that the machine deemed unwise.
The Syranian did not answer her. He seemed incapable of doing so. Eron shook his head side to side slowly. She’d seen similar expressions on the faces of his colleagues last night. Shock and awe. She liked to think it was for her design prowess. It wasn’t of course. She might be ill, but she was not stupid.
‘What are these guys for?’ Kira had not stepped away as she’d been instructed. And she poked her finger into Azrael’s shoulder. ‘Are they like sex toys or something? About time there was one for girls. Good for you, sis. This will bring in billions –’
‘For god’s sake, K. Grow up.’ Blake scowled. Her sister’s well-documented sexual appetite was voracious. Yet another trait they did not share.
An automated voice from the machine notified Blake of what she already saw: movement in Azrael’s right foot.
Kira shrieked. ‘Shit, it’s a real dude? You could have warned me.’ She wiped her hands against her jacket, finally stepping away from the bench.
‘It is not a human. And I did not give you permission to touch it.’ Cuffs held Azrael’s wrists in place, retarding any violent movement of his arms, but she’d not locked the restraints at his ankles. Blake tapped in a command to halt the withdrawal of the inhibitors any further.
‘He’s warm and soft, Blake. I know you probably don’t know it, but that’s how humans feel. What kind of fucking shit are you doing down here, anyway? Human experimentation is so not cool.’
It had been long enough since she’d spent any reasonable time with Kira that she’d forgotten how much her sister’s sarcasm affected her. Like nails on chalkboard. ‘I’ve told you, it is not human.’
Kira snapped her flesh fingers. ‘Pretty robot, nailed it the first time. And, I have to say, I would nail this. He is fine. B, you’ve outdone yourself. I totally get
