She refused to let go. She’d dealt with Marlis’s anxiety for ages and knew when to back off and when to keep pushing. “Escape with me now.”
Chapter 12
Doug had never yearned for freedom so much in his life. He was tempted to give in to Attie and escape with her, even if it meant he only had a day with her—or an hour. But as always, he had more to consider than his own desires. If he attempted to escape, all Dollard had to do was push a button, and the nanites inside Doug would boil his blood from the inside out. And if Doug was dead, who would protect his sister?
And equally important now—who would protect Attie?
“Stop,” he said through gritted teeth. He recognized that it’d been a mistake to tell her about his past. Talking about it had humanized him in her eyes, and he was no longer human. She shouldn’t—mustn’t—care about him.
“Please, Doug.” She squeezed his fingers reassuringly. “I—”
“No!” He jerked his hand out of her grasp. She was a law-abiding Syndicorp citizen—a trooper. He was little more than a criminal—even worse, a cyborg. He refused to drag her into his sordid world. “Our sisters can never come back, and I don’t want to be saved. The best way you can help is to destroy the AI as we discussed and forget you ever met me.”
“So you just want to stay here and rust?” She crossed her arms, making her words more challenge than question.
He refused to take the bait. Syndicorp owned more of his body than he did. He could never be free. Let her think what she would of him, as long as she was safe. “Yes, I do,” he ground out, gripping her arm. “We have to go now. The security officers change shifts soon.”
He opened the door again and pulled her through the Consort Chamber, heading toward the opposite door. She stumbled behind him in the dark, passing the alcove where the other woman slept as he moved them toward the opposite exit.
“Wait,” Attie said, trying to slow their pace. “What about Claudia?”
He kept his attention on the camera feed in the hallway where the guards stood watch. “Consorts come and go all the time. She won’t question your disappearance.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Attie fought against his grip. “They’ve got her hooked on drugs and prostituting herself. We need to get her out, too.”
Doug scowled. This was no time for Attie’s idealism. “She chose to be here.”
In the camera feed, he watched the guards move away from their post. They had a few precious moments when the hall would be empty. “Come. We’re out of time.”
Releasing her arm, he opened the door and stepped through. The empty hallway stretching to his right and left made him feel like a rat scurrying for cover as he pried open an access panel directly across the way. The dark service tunnel behind it was lined with pipes and conduits, barely wide enough for a man to pass through. He turned to usher Attie inside.
She was gone.
“Fuck.”
Behind him in the Consort Chamber, she was bent over the sleeping Claudia. “Hey,” she whispered, putting a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
No! He charged in and swept Attie over one shoulder. She let out a breathy squeak, her hands clawing his waist for balance. Claudia inhaled deeply and rolled over. He didn’t have time to wait and see if she’d woken. Pivoting, he dodged toward the service tunnel just as the whoosh of the door at the end of the hall met his ears. Yanking the panel closed behind them, he commanded the Consort Chamber door to close, too.
Then he waited breathlessly, listening to the guards’ approaching footsteps. Had they noticed the open door or the panel?
Attie squirmed on his shoulder, but thankfully didn’t speak. He remained still, watching the camera feed. That had been too close for his liking. Once he felt confident the guards hadn’t noticed, he lowered Attie back to her feet and immediately pressed a finger against her lips.
She huffed, but nodded in agreement.
Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her around and nudged her forward down the tunnel. He followed close behind, turning sideways to keep from catching against pipes and conduits.
Attie stepped cautiously through the dark tunnel, one hand feeling along the wall on her right.
He clenched his fists. The other cyborgs were back in their cells, waiting for the right moment to stage their revolt. But the moment Dollard realized he was missing, not only would Doug be terminated, the entire fleet would be put on alert. Perhaps he could create a distraction, something to hold Dollard’s attention elsewhere until he sneaked back in.
As he continued following Attie, he hacked into the cloning lab’s database. He tracked down Dollard’s current experiment and put a kink in the biometric data. Hopefully, the mixed up test results would keep Dollard and his team too busy to check on the cyborgs.
Ahead, he spotted the dark abyss of the elevator shaft. It was a good thing he was here with Attie, since he hadn’t explained the route, and she obviously couldn’t see. He reached out and caught her arm to stop her from plunging to her death.
She turned to face him. Her breathing was shaky, and splotches darkened her pale skin, all tinged green by his cybernetic vision. She’s angry. Lisa used to have a similar reaction during arguments with him about escaping the cartel.
Before he realized what he was doing, he said, “After I see to your safety, I’ll devise a way to free your friend.”
It was a stupid promise—he didn’t even know if he’d be alive tomorrow, let alone live long enough to plan yet another escape. But the way Attie’s shoulders relaxed and her eyes softened increased his determination to follow through. He checked the camera in the labs, gratified to find the NIU empty as all the technicians gathered in the cloning lab.
Attie nodded. “Thank you.
