“Of all the reasons to get us terminated—” Doug jerked Rust around so they were nose-to-nose. He hadn’t wanted to physically hurt someone this much since his days in the cartel—now he’d felt this way twice in a matter of hours, both times because of this cyborg. “I ought to rip your cybernetic spine right out of your body.”
Rust lifted his chin, features reflecting back the green glow from Doug’s eye, and pointed one meaty finger toward the tech. “He tried to lock me down, probably to do more experiments.”
A chill filled Doug’s chest. Rust thinks the tech locked him down. Which made sense; there was no reason for Rust to suspect anyone else, let alone a fellow cyborg.
Doug’s anger didn’t cool, exactly, but it eased a fraction. He released Rust with a shove. How Rust had broken free of the lockdown was a question for later. Right now, Doug needed damage control.
The tech was crawling across the floor and toward a panic button attached to one of the lab tables. Emilryde moved out of the shadows to step on the man’s back, once more pinning him down. “What do we do now?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Doug sidestepped the other cyborg, moving toward the Consort chamber. He had to finish this business with Attie and the AI before Dollard was forced to end the program and the cyborgs with it. “This was exactly why I didn’t share my algorithms in the first place.”
Emilryde thrust out a hand to intercept him, dust tattoos shimmering across his features in the glow from a nearby monitor. “We should try to escape. You can hack the feeds. Bypass the doors.” He looked at the others. “One of you can pilot a shuttle, right?”
“That won’t do any good. Dollard will just activate the nanite detonation program,” Doug snarled. “We’re all as good as dead.”
“There has to be something we can do,” Emilryde argued. “We just need time to make a plan. Let’s kill the tech and hide the body.”
The tech bucked against Emilryde’s booted foot and rasped, “No, please! I won’t tell.”
“I have enough blood on my hands,” Twobit interrupted, crossing his arms. “I’m not adding more, not even for a bastard like him.”
“We can’t just let him go,” Emilryde said.
“Well, I’m not a murderer,” said Brix, rising to his feet.
“I am,” Rust growled. “Let me do it.”
Doug glared at Rust until he dropped his gaze. While the cyborgs had been arguing, he’d come up with a plan. It wouldn’t save them, but it might give him enough time to convince Attie to destroy the AI herself. He pointed to a nearby cryopod. “Put the tech in there for now.”
“Alive?” asked Brix.
Emilryde said, “No, or Dollard will notice it’s active.”
“Not if we disable the external interface.” Doug moved forward and hauled the tech out from under Emilryde’s foot. Not killing the tech was a risk, but if Doug had learned anything growing up as a slum rat, it was never to waste resources. The tech might prove useful later.
Gasping for breath, the man choked out the word “please” over and over. The stink of fear permeated the guy’s clothes, and Doug was fairly certain the man had wet himself. Sighing, Doug glanced toward the Consort Chamber. He’d cut off his conversation with Attie midway and wanted to get back to her as soon as possible. But taking care of this problem first would give him more time in the long run, and he’d need all the time he could get to convince her to help him.
Brix mopped up the floor where he’d dripped blood. “Won’t Dollard tear this lab apart once he realizes the guy is missing?”
“We’re going to plant evidence that makes this tech look like a corporate spy.” Doug shoved the struggling tech inside the cryopod.
The man gaped. “No! Dr. Dollard will—”
Slamming the pod door on the man’s words, Doug watched the lights on the interface cycle amber then green. Inside the small window, pale blue light illuminated the tech’s features frozen mid-sentence.
Twobit was already at work, palm against the interface to short out the control panel and interior lights. He slanted a look at Doug and grinned. “Good idea. Sure am glad we’re on the same side.”
Rust glared at the cryopod. “I still think we should kill him.”
Doug speared him with a look. “Shut up, or I’ll find a way to pin this entire thing on you and be done with it.”
Rust pursed his lips and dropped his chin grudgingly. “Fair enough.”
Satisfied Rust didn’t pose an immediate problem, Doug turned to the others, looking pointedly at Emilryde. “Unless someone knows how to disable Dollard’s nanite detonation program, we can’t escape the lab. But if this ruse works, at least we should avoid getting shut down immediately. It gives you time to come up with a plan.”
The cyborgs nodded in agreement.
Interfacing with the lab computers, Doug showed the cyborgs how to falsify evidence against the tech and cover their trails. There were a lot of details to cover if they were going to convince Dollard one of his most trusted men had turned on him. Even with all of them working on it, hours passed as they parsed and altered data. As the night cycle ticked by, Doug itched to get back to Attie, but wasn’t comfortable leaving the men to handle the cover-up on their own. One minor mistake and all this effort would be for nothing.
To be fair, they were likely all dead, anyway; he was only buying them time. But the others were convinced they were going to find a way off the ship. Let them believe what they want. As long as he returned Attie to safety and destroyed the AI before it betrayed his sister, he could die without remorse.
Finally, they were finished. The
