Chapter Five

Heather had to focus on not squeezing his hand too tightly while trying to suppress the knowledge that they were probably walking into their deaths. She wasn’t certain how else they would get out of this synthetic base, so she hoped their deaths would mean something. Hopefully, they could find information that would help the others, and find a way to transmit it to them before being caught and executed.

She was under no illusion that they would survive, especially if the synthetics caught them. They would simply eliminate Heather and MX before moving on with their synthetic tasks. They wouldn’t feel hesitation or remorse, because they couldn’t feel anything. That was what made them such a dangerous enemy.

It felt like forever, but was probably no more than three minutes, before they reached the end of the long hallway, and MX led her left. She hoped he knew where he was going. There was an air of calm assurance about him that suggested he did, and she chose to trust that as she followed behind him.

At one point, she was tempted to step up beside him, but knew he would gently push her back to her current position. He was trying to be protective. She wasn’t entirely certain how she knew that, but she sensed it on an instinctive level. MX was practically humming with emotions, and of course she couldn’t read them, but she was fairly certain they mirrored her own—fear, uncertainty, and some fizzing excitement remaining from the shared kiss that hinted at all the possibilities they had likely missed out on, since neither of them had acknowledged the simmering attraction brewing between them over the ensuing three weeks once they had started working together.

It was probably too late now, since they weren’t likely to escape this place. It was a bad place and time, but she stopped him in the middle of the corridor and pulled him over against the wall.

“Is something wrong?”

She shook her head. “I just might not have another chance to tell you that I’m sorry.” At his frown, she pressed on before he could challenge her words. “I’m sorry I was too afraid to say something to you sooner about this connection with you. I’m sorry we missed our chance.”

His lips tightened. “We haven’t missed anything yet. There’s still a way out. There just has to be, and we will find it.”

She nodded, trying to hide her skepticism in the face of his determination. “Let’s keep looking then.”

So far, they hadn’t run into any further synthetic storage facilities in this corridor, but as they approached the doorway at the end of the hall, she braced herself to discover more of the synthetics. It would be far worse if they were already activated, and she tried to prepare herself for the possibility.

The door opened as soon as they stopped in front of it, leading her to assume it was an automated system and not protected by security protocols. That seemed odd to her, especially when she got a glimpse of the contents, until she realized the synthetics had no fear of outsiders penetrating their base. Why would they, since it was so well camouflaged, and undetectable to cyborg or human sensors from the surface? No wonder they had gone underground in spite of their resiliency to the elements above.

“This is it.” MX sounded excited when he said those words.

She cocked a brow as she moved around to stand in front of him, rather than behind. “This is what?” To her, it was a large room filled with unfamiliar equipment.

“This is the central processing unit. I’m sure of it. I think the synthetics work like a hive mind, and this is the brain. If we destroy this, it might render all the synthetics useless.”

“You think they’ll just stop right where they are, in the middle of whatever they’re doing?” At his nod, excitement bubbled inside her. “We have to destroy it then.”

He looked disgusted, but obviously not with her. “We don’t have the supplies we need to do that. We need to send the transmission and try to find a way out of here so we can come back prepared.

“How will we transmit?” She had barely finished uttering the last word when the door slid open again, and a pair of synthetics entered the room. MX moved quickly, grabbing his pulser, and she reached for hers. She felt like she was trapped in molasses compared to the speed of her companion, but even he wasn’t quick enough to stop one of them, or perhaps both, from triggering an alarm system.

It must have been linked directly to the CPU, because neither one of them pressed a button or did anything obvious. Even as MX fired on one, and she shot the other, a loud blaring klaxon reverberated around them. With the acoustics in the cave, it created a shrill, echo effect that made her want to clamp her hands over her ears, curl into a ball, and scream for them to shut it off.

As the sound of running feet reached them, she reached for MX’s hand as he did the same. His fingers curled around hers, and the sadness in his eyes tore through her. There was so much to say, but no time to say it. She’d have to be content with what she’d already managed to tell him, and she was bitterly regretful at the time they had wasted with both being stubborn and refusing to admit to the attraction between them.

She braced herself as an overwhelming wave of synthetics poured into the CPU room. They were all armed with the weapons that dissolved ionic bonds, which was ironically similar to the one human ancestors of hers had unleashed on the planet in an albeit vain and last-ditch effort to rid the earth of the cyborgs when they had still been at war.

“Get behind me.”

She shook her head as she gripped her weapon, having already slipped the pulser back into her belt before taking his hand. It wasn’t going to work against the sheer numbers they were facing anyway. “I’d rather die beside you than behind you.”

He cursed and shook his head. “You’re so stubborn.”

She managed a slightly flirtatious smile, though she felt nauseated. “So are you. Maybe that’s why we like each other?”

He didn’t have an opportunity to offer an answer as the first wave of synthetics reached them, and multiple guns pointed at them. She closed her eyes, bracing for the pain, and waited for the synthetics to end them.

A weird sensation filled her, but it didn’t hurt. That surprised her, because she’d assumed the weapon that destroyed all organic matter would be intensely painful. She opened her eyes, though she had been certain she didn’t want to see the end coming, and blinked when she discovered she was standing on the surface with MX right beside her, his hand still clutching hers tightly.

She blinked at the rapid shift of environment, struggling to process it all for a moment. A second later, a gelatinous peach blob appeared in her peripheral vision, and she turned her head to look at it. She opened her mouth to ask for an explanation, but MX spoke first.

“Freydon Rote, what are you doing here?”