Chapter 17

They must have dozed for a little bit.

Luke woke with a pain in his shoulder—not his human one, but the cybernetic one. A bit unusual, since it was mechanical and all, but it wasn’t the first time his body insisted there was still living tissue where there wasn’t.

This wasn’t the same, but really, was pain ever exactly the same?

He rubbed his arm and glanced around. Morrigan was no longer in bed with him but dressed, her hair tied up in a knot, and she was tense.

“What’s going on?” he asked, ignoring the pain that kept firing through his arm.

Damn! He was going to have to get someone to look at the wires. It had almost felt like a short that time.

“I don’t think we can stay here much longer,” she said.

“Why?”

“Beings outside. They’re looking for us.”

“Why do you think that?”

She raised her eyebrow. “I can smell it.”

“Smell it? What the hell does people looking for us smell like?”

“Fire and hate and fury rolled into this aroma that radiates when someone is about to kill. I am almost sure Dumol is one of them.”

“You know this scent?”

“Of course I do. It is part of war.”

He nodded. While he wasn’t thrilled to learn that she can smell aggression, right now, he needed all the advantages he could get. “How far off?”

In his head, he started going through the map of this underground, determining the best escape routes. He’d made a point as soon as he arrived at The Colony to know the underground, just in case he ever needed to hide. He could get them outside of The Colony if he had to, but what would be the point? They wouldn’t last long on the planet’s surface without a ride, and getting away without being noticed would be hard if it wasn’t planned ahead.

So, hiding in plain sight was probably his only option. What the hell he was going to do when they got back into The Colony proper, he wasn’t sure, but he had to do something.

He wasn’t working for Dumol anymore. He was making his own decisions.

He’d fooled himself into thinking he’d come here because he wanted to when in truth, he had still been following orders.

Human First’s orders this time, but orders, nonetheless.

No more.

This wasn’t just about him anymore.

It was about Morrigan. He had to make sure she was okay.

Morrigan kept closing her eyes like she was looking for something, but unable to see it. “I cannot be sure. I don’t know the layout. But it seems to be shifting, moving systematically toward us.”

He rubbed his arm again. Damn, it hurt. Great, the last thing he needed was his parts acting up. “How long do we have?”

“Not very long. Ten minutes maybe.” She glanced around his little safe house. “Is there a back exit?”

He shook his head.

“So, what are we going to do?”

“I have a couple of exit plans, but I need to know where they’re coming from.” He took a step toward her. “Can you show me?”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Look, somehow, we have this connection. I don’t know what it is.”

“I do.”

“Wonderful,” he said dryly. “Let’s use it. Can you see where they are?”

“No. I can’t.” She rubbed her face. “Not anymore.”

“Well, where were they?”

She shook her head. “I mean I can’t do that anymore even if I wanted to.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’ve reverted to a human with a good sense of smell.”

He nodded. “Can you give me a—damn.” His arm fired again, a painful sensation, like his entire cyborg parts were electrocuting him.

“What is wrong?”

“My arm’s shorting out or something,” he said as he tried to shake his arm, but it was going stiff, the joints and pistons not working.

“Has this happened before?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Never. These parts are never supposed to go bad.” And then he started feeling the same kinds of jolts in his leg, and he shook. “What the fuck is going on?”

She took a step toward him.

All of a sudden, everything started to shift, and he started seeing a heads-up display in his eyes.

“Um...” This is not good. This is really not good. He hadn’t seen a heads-up display in his eyes since the war.

“What?” she asked and put her hand on his arm.

“Get away from me,” he said.

“Cadell? Luke?” she whispered.

His cyborg arm shot up. He had no control over its movement, and before he realized what was going on, he had his hand pinched around her throat.

Morrigan twisted and jerked in his grip. “Luke!” she cried out as she tried to pull away.

“I don’t know....” He spat, but even his throat felt constricted. “I don’t... This is...”

She pulled out a small spray bottle and fired it at his arm.

Immediately, the joints started to seize up, frozen in place, the fake skin turning black as it froze. She twisted out of the grip, his arm hard in the air as if he could still squeeze her throat.

She shot it at his shoulder, and more of the gas came out.

He blinked. “Freezing gas,” he whispered and was impressed that she’d thought ahead. Disappointed that she hadn’t trusted him, but, well, how many weapons were stashed in here?

She sat the can down, and unwrapped the sticks in her hair. This time, when she held them aloft, one was a katana, the other a sai. And she pointed the sai at his shoulder, right where the joint was for his cyborg arm.

“Talk,” she said.

The heads up display was still flashing, and it zeroed in on Morrigan, with kill orders repeating in his eyes.

“Dumol has accessed my cybernetic systems,” he said. “She’s running my body remotely.”

His arm was still frozen in the air, and his fingers were itching to get back around her throat.

“How does she have access?”

“She was my commander in Nova Wars. She had access to my systems in the war. She had all the codes and she programmed my missions.”

“She used you.”

He nodded, trying to ignore the flashing behind his eyes. Already, the freezing gas was starting to melt, the cybernetic parts attempting to fight back. “She’s going to again. This time to kill you.” And behind that, a secondary plan of action.

Kill orders for a particular Novian female. One that once had an ambassador’s status during Nova Wars.

Fuck.

This was not good.

Morrigan swung the katana as she took a few steps. “It’s the programming that’s causing this.”

He nodded.

“Then you need a new programmer.”