Final Protocol (7 page)

Chapter Seven

The aqueducts, as it turned out, weren’t necessary.

The remainder of my trek, including a brutal seventy-two minutes in which I had to bury myself in the sand and shudder as mites and other nasty things crawled inside my suit, was spent educating myself more on Hsainien culture.

Specifically, how they dealt with offworlders. They wouldn’t tolerate anybody who wasn’t necessary, but since they didn’t want to be cut off the trade routes entirely, they’d decided this
diplomatic
visit was necessary. The residences for any and all diplomatic personages weren’t kept inside the city, but just outside, within their own fortified keep.

Once I could come out of the sand, the first thing I did was a quick cleansing cycle on the suit. It wasn’t the same as stripping out of it and scrubbing the sand from my skin, but it was better than wearing it—and whatever creepy, crawling inhabitants wanted to come along for the ride.

The caravan that had sent me digging into the coarse, gritty mess in the first place had long since passed me by, but I wouldn’t risk them coming back, or that there was a second party. The scanner would alert me, but I didn’t believe in taking chances.

Raking my hand through my hair, I dislodged the sand, grimacing as a small, scorpion-like thing came out on my hand and tried to bite my gloved fingers. I flicked it aside and watched as it went flying through the air.

The cloaking mechanism was still active and I checked the power levels, sighed as I did another check to calculate the distance.
“From here to the diplomatic bastion, you have approximately one hour if you maintain your previous speed.”

One hour. My legs felt like lead, but it wasn’t going to get any better until I had a chance to rest and refuel. Real rest, on a bed. Real food, not the energy and vitamin substitutes I used for space travel. If I survived this, I’d treat myself. One of the tropical worlds, maybe. Warm beaches, frothy, fizzy drinks and a ridiculously handsome sex droid. Or I could go for a mountain resort on Beliem. Someplace quiet, where I was snowed in and could just sit by a fire and dream about how I never had to lift my finger for Gold again.

Except to kill him.

That was my fantasy.

A soft voice interrupted my fantasy. I never got to see those fantasies play out the way I liked, not even in my mind. The data-sys tugged my thoughts completely back to reality and I looked at the bracer as the readout flashed through the air, displaying a projected image of the terrain around me.

“Unknown humanoid male approaching. Using a sol-glider. Has no companions. He is armed.”

I narrowed my eyes on the little red speck that indicated his position. Close to me, closer than I liked, although I had time to react, time to maneuver.

“Silent mode,” I said. I felt a buzz against my arm as the data system acknowledged the order.

My hands clenched convulsively and then I drew a blaster. The closer I’d gotten to Jiral, the more terrain had started to change. Those changes were drastic. Dunes turned to hills and those hills went from sandy and barren to rocky and craggy.

It was almost like I’d stepped into a different world. The altitude was higher. I could see the sunlight glinting off the body of water in the distance. The sea up ahead and the shift in altitude could certainly cause the changes, I supposed, and those rocks jutting out from the ground provided cover.

There was another buzz against my arm and I moved, placing myself behind one of the huge, jagged stones. The low whine of the engine became audible.

My heart thudded, all but leaping out of my chest.

Something buzzed against my arm and I looked down. The words hovered just above it.
Transmission received. Order from G.

Now
.

Of all the times to send his orders?

I strained my ears. Whoever it was, he’d slowed.

I ignored the transmission.

There was another buzz.

Transmission labeled urgent and I am ordered to comply
.

I curled my lip in a snarl. I could ignore it or, if I had the time, rewire the system on my arm. Unlike everything on the transport, this system had been designed to operate independently, and it wouldn’t cease to function if it wasn’t connected to the mainframe.

Sadly, I didn’t have time and it wasn’t like I planned on paying attention to the orders. I had bigger problems to deal with. Like being discovered.

Gold’s data could be retrieved at a later time.

Everything had gotten so quiet.

He
was so quiet, this unknown male, drawing ever so close.

There was another buzz, indicating that my attention was
requested
.

Requested, my ass.

I finally looked down at the bracer, just a quick look—that was all I intended. But then I saw the face.

Everything inside me went cold.

This is your target. It shouldn’t hard, since I believe you’ve wanted him dead for years.

My gut cramped.

My hands were slick with sweat.

My head threatened to explode, the pressure inside was so great.

Then I dragged my head up and looked around.

Just in time to see him come around one of the huge stony outcroppings.

That face.

The memory of a hundred, a thousand forgotten dreams rushed up at me.

It was
him
.

In case you don’t remember, this is the man responsible for the debts, Silence. Kill him and you’re free.

My heart thudded hard and fast in my ears. My gut twisted. Adrenaline coursed through me. With every erratic heartbeat, those forgotten dreams became clearer and bits and pieces of fragmented memories began to work free.

That face.

That
man
.

I knew him. I didn’t know
how
but I knew him. All those dreams seemed to mock me now, because in those dreams, I’d be rushing to him, believing I was safe, believing I was loved.

This is the man responsible
…

As Gold’s message flashed through my mind again, I closed my eyes against the broken, mocking dreams.

If he was the one responsible for me being with Gold, then I’d done nothing but fool myself.

He wasn’t the man behind my dreams. He was the man behind my nightmares.

The man responsible for my enslavement to Gold.

The man I’d been sent to kill.

“We can’t run. He’ll find us. He always does.”

I stared up at him as he cupped my face. His eyes, a warm, gentle shade of green, held mine. He was so much bigger than I was and I should have hated it. But he made me feel safe. Loved. Needed.

“We run, and maybe die, or stay here as his toys.” He stroked my lower lip with his thumb, his expression troubled. “He’ll use me,
me estril
. He’ll do to others what he did to us. I cannot bear it. Can you?”

Me estril.
My star. His star. My heart. Leaning against him, I whispered, “I cannot. But I’m afraid.”

“Yes. So I am.” He eased me in closer.

I was afraid—
terrified
—but in that moment, I felt warm and happy and loved.

If only it could last
.

“We’ll run, then.”

I didn’t look up as he spoke, simply nodded. I felt cold inside.

We’ll run, then
. He made it so simple. But what choice did we have? I knew too much of the men chasing us.

My lover—my heart—was right. Our pursuers had found us, just as he’d feared. He had been hired to make something for them. That’s what he’d told me. But he wouldn’t do it. He’d taken the money when he first signed on, thinking it was one project. It turned out it was another and he couldn’t do it.

He was a scientist. He couldn’t contribute to something so destructive.

I shivered in his arms, icy despite the heat of his body.

He stroked a hand down my back. “It will work out. You just have to trust me.”

“You know I trust you.” I made myself smile as I looked into his eyes. Those eyes, his face, he was my very existence. It seemed there wasn’t a time when he
didn’t
exist for me. It was like I’d come into this world just for him. Lifting a hand to touch his face, I said, “It’s not about trusting you. It’s about him.”

Fear grabbed me. Cold and tight. “I’m afraid of him. He terrifies me.”

Something shifted in his eyes and then he lowered his head, pressed his lips to my knee. “You don’t need to be afraid.” He rested his hands on my thighs, slid them up. I gasped as he boosted me up onto the edge of the table just behind me. “Not of him. Not of anybody. I’ll take care of you. I’ll figure out a way to either pay him back or just get us away. I need you to trust me.”

He lifted his head and I stared into his eyes, gone dark now with hunger. A ruddy flush had settled on his cheeks and need panged low down inside me. I loved this, this way he made me feel, with just a look. Just a touch. He moved in closer and I gasped when I felt him, already hard, under the material of his trousers. “Take me out,” he ordered.

And I did. Wrapping my hand around him, I stroked him, felt the thick column of his cock jerk in my hand. Our clothes fell around us in a tangle, both of us impatient, eager for the other.

“Ride me,” he said, reaching up to tangle a hand in my hair. “Ride me,
me estril.
”

I bit my lip as I tucked him against me, as I slid down on him. He was thick and it was almost too tight with him inside me but I loved the feel of him. He touched me like I mattered. Like he cared—

Something dark flashed through the back of my mind and he caught my face, forced me to look at him. “No. Look at me…stay here,” he crooned, rubbing his lips against mine. “That’s it. Feel me. Just me. Think of me…just me. Remember only me…”

He arched his hips, driving deep. I felt him, only him…and as I cried out his name, I could remember only him.

I didn’t even remember me.

Sweat slicked my hands, dripped in an icy trickle down my spine. He was there.

Right there.

Remember only me
.

All this time, so much of my life had seemed a blurry, vague expanse of nothingness, right up until Gold stole my life away.

I hadn’t thought I remembered anything else—especially not
him
, that man moving across the uneven terrain toward me. But I
had
remembered him. In my dreams, at first.

And now all of those memories clamored for attention as I stood there under the hot Hsainien suns.

I could remember all of it, from how we’d met to how I’d lost him.

Or rather—how he had just
walked away
from me.

Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself.

Gold had laughed. I’d come out of a dark fog and found myself on the floor of his club, the music a pulse around me and inside me. I’d called for the man I loved and Gold had been the one to answer.

“Go ahead and call for him, pet
,” Gold had said, fisting a free hand in my hair as he knelt in front of me.
“Call for him. Call as much as you wish…”

Then he’d raped me the first time.

For months, I’d waited, told myself my lover would come back. He’d find me. Rescue me. I’d made every escape attempt possible and each one resulted in more and more pain.

How had I forgotten? Had it been the sheer heartbreak? Had it been the drugs Gold had pumped down my throat during his years of crafting me into his own personal weapon? The brutality he’d called training had nearly broken me, but I’d emerged a weapon, a finely honed blade.

Maybe it was shame, brought on by Gold’s other brutalities as he made me into his personal toy. His unwilling whore. He’d taken pain and made it into an art form until I craved it as much as I hated it. He’d taken pleasure and made it a torment.

All because of this man.

Orion.

The man who’d left me to pay for his crimes.

Slowly, I rose, uncurling my body from the crouch where I’d frozen against a massive stone outcropping. My knotted muscles protested but I ignored them. I knew how to fight under almost any condition and I could do it now.

Leveling the blaster at him, I deactivated the cloaking and watched as his gaze swung around to face me.

Chapter Eight

A muscle pulsed in his cheek. “That’s a cruel trick,” he murmured. “Very cruel.”

He took a step toward me, shaking his head, a look of incredulity drifting across his face. Then his face went coldly, carefully blank.

There I was, rocked to my very core, and he stared at me like I was a stranger. But then again, I kept a blank mask on my own face, so it didn’t mean anything.

“So they send you to me with her face this time,” he mused, taking another step.

I lifted the blaster. “You don’t want to come closer.”

“Of course I do. I can’t wring your neck from over here,” he said calmly. “I was satisfied with just killing the others, but they dare to send you to me with her face. That’s just not acceptable.”

Narrowing my eyes, I studied his face. He didn’t
look
like he’d gone mad. But over the years, I’d gone through ten different levels of hell. It was possible
I
had gone mad. Or maybe my memories of him weren’t accurate. Maybe he’d always been insane. “I don’t think I’m going to let you kill me. You see, I’ve planned to kill you for years.”

I stopped speaking. He hadn’t moved, but everything about him had changed.

His face had changed.

His eyes went from cold and blank to stark, the fires of hell burning in the depths of that black gaze. “What did you say?” he asked, his voice throbbing.

“I think you heard well enough.” The blaster in my hand had gotten heavy, but I didn’t let it waver. “Are you going to wring my neck or not, you worthless sack of dung?”

A taut moment of silence passed and then he whispered, “Caz.”

I stiffened. I didn’t know that word. Cocking my head, I studied him, unsure what he wanted.

He took a step toward me, his brows lowering. His eyes, though, a weird light lit them, that smoldering fire changing in a way that had my skin going hot and tight. I’d seen that look before. So many times. In my dreams. In my memories. “Caz, is that…?”

Applying light pressure to the blaster, I listened to the familiar whine. It didn’t need to power up, but this particular model did that when somebody pressed oh so lightly. I liked it for that reason. It gave a subtle warning and he heeded it well, stopping in his tracks.

That burning look died and his lids drooped over his eyes. “It isn’t then. You’re just another one of his toys, but I have to give him credit. He spent more time on you. What are you? Designate one hundred or some such rot? How many years since you sprang from his labs, two? Three? You realize you probably only have a few decent years of life, although you’re put together better than the rest of them.”

“A few years?” I laughed cynically. “A few
decent
years? And when do I get those few decent years? I’ve been somebody’s pawn for the past decade. I think I’d
like
a few decent years.” Even the sound of his voice sliced at my heart and I had to lash down every emotion I had to keep my inner turmoil from showing. “When do I
get
these few decent years?”

The expression on his face flickered and he said it again. Softly.

“Caz…”

Caz…
Was…was that a name?
My
name? I’d never even known it.

My name. I’d never known it. I’d chosen to go by Silence, because that was what I wanted—what I needed. Silence from the voices in my head, the screams. The memories.

But…my name. “Who is Caz?”

“I’m not telling you anything, spawn,” he said, looking away.

If his muscles hadn’t tensed, I never would have known to brace myself.

Except…I almost
felt
it. Sensed it somehow. And I caught my breath, sprang to the side and backward until I was crouched on the pile of rocks where I’d taken shelter.

His lids flickered.

“I know you killed some of the others. Reshel. She was my friend,” I said softly. “But I’ve been dancing with death for going on a decade now. I won’t go down easily. Who is Caz?”

The ice in his eyes was a dagger into the heart I’d tried to cut out of myself. It hurt, more than I could imagine. More than the beatings I’d suffered at the hands of Gold. More than the rapes. More, even, than the years of imprisonment. Those years I’d lost of myself. All because of this man.

Still reeling from that unexpected cut, I wasn’t prepared when he came at me again.
Allow no distractions—they will get you killed.
I’d had that lesson drilled into my head until I bled. And then bled more.

I should have been bled dry, though, because the lessons weren’t serving me well now. I moved, but it was clumsy and awkward. Ending up on my backside some distance down, my chest aching as the wind was knocked out of me, I stared upward, dazed.

His shadow loomed over me, blocking out the brilliant blue bowl of the sky.

Without giving myself time to think, I rolled to my feet, but he was already there. He struck out and I blocked, barely, catching him in the throat, and I put distance between us, going for the knife I had strapped to my thigh.

In the back of my head, in some part of my heart that wasn’t frozen, I heard a whisper.
This is wrong. This is wrong. No…

Instinct demanded I throw myself at him. Wrap myself around him and beg.

But memories of my years under Gold’s hand, the beatings, the pain, of Gold’s fingers digging in my flesh, the whip cutting through my clothes, those memories drove me.

Remember only me
…

He lunged and I shoved the blade out, but he caught my wrist, disarming me. The man moved like no diplomat I’d ever known. My breath gusted out of me as he took me down, crashing me into the rocky ground. “You lose,” he whispered against my ear. “Poor little lab rat. You did better than most. I’ll have to be careful if he’s getting this good.”

Then he lifted his head to stare down at me.

I swung out, popping him in the nose.

Blood spurted but I didn’t care as I took advantage of the moment to hit the bracer. As he snarled and went to grab my arm just as the electric discharge hit him.

His lids flickered, mouth going slack, and then, slowly, he went limp, dropping against me, a deadweight. He damn near drove the breath from me and I had to squirm and wiggle my way out from under his broad, heavy body. Once I’d managed, I shoved him onto his back and stood over him.

I had a few choices—a very few choices—and very little time to make them. The discharge would affect his muscles for three to eight minutes, no more.

Reaching behind me, I snagged a pair of neural restraints from my belt and looped them over his wrists. They hummed and I watched him flinch as they sent a pulse through his neural pathways. That bought me more time.

I should kill him. Here and now. He’d do the same to me. He’d just
tried
. And he spoke no sense. It was like he didn’t even remember me. I had to understand, had to know. And who was this
Caz
? Was she
me
?

Crouching by his head, I peered into his eyes, waiting until I saw the cloud fade.

The neural restraints would keep him from moving his body but they wouldn’t affect his speech the way the discharge had. I had questions for him.

“Who is Caz?” I asked again.

Heavy lashes flickered over eyes the color of moss.

Sighing, I rose and walked over to grab the blaster. I returned to his side and pressed it to his cheek. “You can choose how easy or hard this is. I don’t really…”

“You…”

His voice came out in a slow, sluggish slur.

I frowned at him.

“What?”

“You…why do you ask? The others…never…cared.” The words came slowly, haltingly. But his voice was steadier and his gaze was piercing.

“The others.”

“Mordecai Golden has sent seven assassins after me and they were little more than automatons.” His strength had returned. I could see the struggle in his eyes as he mentally fought the prison I’d made of his own body. It was a special kind of hell, something I knew from experience. “Twisted creations, all of them. But they had no soul, no life.”

“Reshel had a soul. A life.” I knelt down and drew a blade from my boot, pressed the tip against his throat. “Until you took that life.”

His gaze cut into mine. “Perhaps near the end of their existence, it is harder to maintain that veneer of normalcy. By the time they reach me, nothing exists except his will.”

“His. You mean Gold.”

“His name is Mordecai Goldman.” Orion’s eyes were seething pools of hate. “Your creator is a wanted felon in more systems than I can name. I’m surprised you don’t recognize the name. He’s on every scanner, fed into every transport, and there are regularly bounties posted for his sorry hide.”

A tangle twisted inside me as I slowly straightened over him. “Mordecai,” I said slowly. “Why do you call him my creator?”

“Because, precious.” He curled his lip and raked me over with a mocking glance. “You aren’t
real
. You are a clone, made in a lab from the blood and bone of a murdered girl—you’ve only been alive a few years and you’re likely as unstable as all the rest. You’ll be dead in a few years—well, no. If you make it off this
planet
, you’ll be dead within a few years.”

Snarling, I swooped down with the blade and drove it into his shoulder, driving deep, deep, deep, until I driven it through to the hilt. “I’m not
real
, Orion?”

Something rippled across his face, but I was too lost in my own fury to recognize it. Bending down, I caught his chin and sneered at him. “I’m not
real
? Pray tell…how does that work, exactly? I felt quite real when I woke up in a tiny box of a room ten years ago to feel his hands on me. I felt
quite
real when he tore my clothes from me and raped me.”

He opened his mouth and I jerked the knife out of him. He barely even gasped.

Drops of blood flew across the stones as I buried the blade into the earth near his head and caught the front of his tunic, jerking him up. “I felt real as he threw me into the care of a fightmaster from Luivant, forced me to learn not just how to fight, but how to kill. When I refused, it was another beating. Another rape.” I dropped him and straightened. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m
not
real. I stopped feeling
real
after a while. I don’t even feel real
now
.”

“Stop.”

I shoved upright and kicked him, driving my boot into his unprotected side, blind in my fury. It shifted him on the thin grass and I stumbled away, my head spinning. “Stop, he says.” I shook my head. “Stop. Just like that I should stop. I begged for him to stop too. Do you think he ever did?”

I turned and looked at him, and the blood in my veins froze when I saw that he was upright, the neural bonds hanging from one massive wrist. But he just stood there, his gaze fixed on my face.

I stroked my hand down the bracer.
Final protocol
, I thought. So easy. It would be so easy. But I wanted him to know. He thought I wasn’t
real
.

“The real horror started when he made me
want
it,” I murmured. “When he found me and took me and made it to where I all but craved it, even if I refused to speak his name, refused to acknowledge what he had made of me.”

He moved toward me and I backed away. That small action made him still and I stared at his feet, braced there on the rocky ground. “He made me into his whore, his hired killer, his toy, his tool.” I dragged my head upward and met Orion’s brutal gaze. “And each time I fought him, he reminded me. It was all because of you—
you
.
You said we’d run. You said you’d take care of me. But you left me to
him
…and you have the balls to tell me I’m not real.”

The blaster hung useless in my hand.

I didn’t even want to use it on him now.

I just wanted to say those words.
Final protocol
. It would end in a moment and I’d know peace.

Lifting my arm, I looked down, opened my mouth.

“Caz…”

I looked at him through my lashes. “Who is Caz?”

One big hand closed into a fist at his side and he looked away. “What is your name?”

“I don’t know. I woke in a cage, bleeding and unable to walk, ten years ago. I remembered only
your
face…and how you told me that I just needed to trust you.”

The noise that escaped him was unlike anything I’d ever heard in my life.

Then, as I stared at him, he went to his knees, staring at me.

“Caz…” He shuddered. “Son of a bitch. It’s
you
.”