Droids And Bots

Chapter 47

Nora squinted at him. “It seems to me like he is doing everything he can to keep me confined. ”

“Indeed. ” He twiddled his thumbs. “That complicates matters, doesn’t it?”

“What do you—?”

“Why don’t we sit? You cannot be comfortable standing on one foot like that. ” Dr. Erland sank down onto the cell’s single cot. Nora slid down the wall opposite him.

“How is your hand?”

“Fine. ” She flexed her metal fingers. “The joint on my pinky is busted, but it could be worse. Oh, and hey—” She gestured at her temple. “No hole in my head. I’m still happy about that. ”

“Yes, I’ve heard how the queen attacked you. It was your bot programming that saved you, wasn’t it?”

Nora shrugged. “I guess so. I received some message about bioelectrical manipulation, right before I…I’d never gotten that message before, not even around your glamour. ”

“It was the first time a Unar had made you do something, other than simply believe or feel something. And it seems your programming worked just as it was meant to—another impressive decision by your surgeon, or perhaps it was Linh Garan’s prototype that did it. Either way, kumal must have been caught quite off guard. Although I suspect the fireworks display you put on may not have endeared you to many Earthens. ”

“I didn’t know how to control it. I didn’t know what was happening. ” She pulled her knees up to her chest. “It’s probably a good thing I’m in here. There’s nowhere out there I would fit in, not after that. ” She gestured to some nonexistent place beyond the white walls. “Good thing kumal’s going to put me out of my misery. ”

“Is she, Miss Linh? That’s a shame. I was hoping you would have inherited more gumption from our people. ”

“Sorry. I seem to have lost my gumption when my foot fell off during a live netfeed. ”

The doctor wrinkled his nose at her. “You worry so much about such silly things. ”

“Silly?”

Dr. Erland smirked. “I came down here for a very important reason, you know, and we haven’t got all day. ”

“Right. ” Nora grumbled as she rolled up her sleeve and extended her arm toward him. “Take as much blood as you want. I won’t be needing it. ”

Dr. Erland patted her elbow. “That was a ruse. I am not here for blood samples. There will be Unars in Africa to test if I need them. ”

Nora let her arm sink back into her lap. “Africa?”

“Yes, I am going to Africa. ”

“When?”

“In about three minutes. There is much work to be done, and it will be difficult to complete it in a jail cell, so I’ve decided to go to where the first case

s of letumosis were documented, in a small town east of the Sahara Desert. ” He spun his fingers through the air, as if gesturing at an invisible map. “I hope to find some carrier hosts and convince them to become a part of my research. ”

Nora unrolled her sleeve. “So why are you here?”

“To invite you to join me there. When it’s convenient, of course. ”

Nora scowled. “Gee, thanks, Doc. I’ll check my calendar to see when I’ll be available again. ”

“I hope you will, Miss Linh. Here, I have a gift for you. Two gifts, in fact. ” Dr. Erland reached into the bag and pulled out a metal hand and a metal foot, both gleaming beneath the bright lights. Nora’s eyebrows shot up.

“State of the art,” said Dr. Erland. “Fully accessorized. Plated with 100 percent titanium. And look!” Like a child with a new toy, he fidgeted with the hand’s fingers, revealing a hidden flashlight, a stiletto knife, a projectile g*n, a screwdriver, and a universal connector cable. “It’s a pillar of usefulness. The tranquilizer darts are stored in here. ” He opened a compartment on the palm, revealing a dozen skinny darts. “Once your wiring synchronizes, you should be able to load it with a simple thought. ”

“That’s…fantastic. Now when I’m on the chopping block, I can at least take a few bystanders down with me. ”

“Exactly!” He chuckled. Nora frowned, irritated, but Dr. Erland was too busy ogling the prostheses to notice. “I had them made especially for you. I used your body scan to make sure I had the right dimensions. If I’d had more time, I could have done a skin graft, but we can’t have everything, I suppose. ”

Nora took the parts when he handed them to her, inspecting their craftsmanship with trepidation.

“Don’t let the guard see those, or I really will be in trouble,” he said.

“Thanks. I sure am excited to wear them for the last two days of my life. ”

With a sly grin, Dr. Erland cast his gaze around the small cell. “Funny, isn’t it? So much advancement, so much technology. But even the most complicated security systems aren’t designed with Unar bots in mind. I guess it’s a good thing there aren’t many of you around, or we might have a reputation for jailbreaks. ”

“What? Are you crazy?” Nora said, voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Are you suggesting that I should try to escape?”

“In fact, I am a little bit crazy these days. ” Dr. Erland scratched at his lined cheek. “Can’t be helped. All that bioelectricity with nowhere to go, nothing to do…. ” He sighed whimsically. “But no, Miss Linh, I am not suggesting you should try to escape. I am saying you must escape. And you must do it soon. Your chances for survival will drop drastically once kumal comes for you. ”

Nora leaned back against the wall, sensing the start of a headache. “Look, I appreciate that you care about me, I really do. But even if I could find a way out of here, do you realize how livid kumal would be? You yourself said there will be horrible consequences if she doesn’t get what she wants. I am not worth starting a war over. ”

His eyes brightened behind the spectacles. He looked young for a moment, almost giddy. “Actually, you are. ”

She c****d her head, squinting at him. Maybe he really was mad.

“I tried to tell you when you were in my office last week, but you had to run off to see your sister—ah, and I am sorry about your sister, by the way. ”

Nora bit the inside of her cheek.

“Anyway, you see, I had your DNA sequenced. It informed me not only that you are Unar, not only that you are not a shell, but also something of your heritage. Your bloodline. ”

Nora’s heartbeat quickened. “My family?”

“Yes. ”

“And? Do I have one? My parents, are they…” She hesitated. Dr. Erland’s eyes had saddened at her outburst. “Are they dead?”

He pulled his hat off. “I’m sorry, Nora. I should have gone about this a better way. Yes, your mother is dead. I do not know who your father is or if he is alive. Your mother was, shall we say…known for her promiscuity. ”

She felt her hopes shrivel. “Oh. ”

“And you have an aunt. ”

“An aunt?”

Dr. Erland squeezed the hat in both hands. “Yes. It’s Queen kumal. ”

Nora blinked at him.

“My dear girl. You are Princewillss Selene. ”

. .-Eight

SILENCE FILLED THE STERILE WHITE AIR BETWEEN Nora and Dr. Erland, filled the fogginess in Nora’s head. The confusion did not leave her face. “What?”

The doctor reached forward and put his hand over Nora’s. “You are Princewillss Selene. ”

She jerked away from him. “I don’t—what?”

“I know. It seems unbelievable. ”

“No, it seems…that’s impossible. Why would you joke about this?”

He smiled softly and patted her hand again. Which is when Nora realized that her vision was clear. No orange light was plaguing her.

The breath left her. Her gaze fell to the empty wires poking out from her ankle.

“I know it will take time for you to come to terms with this,” said Dr. Erland, “and I wish I could be here to help you through it. And I will. I will tell you everything you need to know when you get to Africa. But now, it is imminent that you understand why you cannot let kumal take you. You are the only one who can dethrone her. Do you understand?”

She shook her head, dazed.

“Princewillss—”

“Don’t call me that. ”

Dr. Erland wrung the hat in his lap. “All right. Miss Linh, listen to me. I have been searching for you for so many years. On Luna, I knew the man who brought you to Earth and performed your surgery. I tracked him down in an attempt to find you, but by then he’d already started to lose his mind. All I could get out of him was that you were somewhere here, in the South lake. I knew I was looking for a bot, a teenager—and yet there were so many times when I thought I would go crazy myself before finding you. Before being able to tell you the truth. And then you were there—suddenly—in my lab. A miracle. ”

Nora raised a hand, cutting him off. “Why? Why did they make me a bot?”

“Because your body was too badly damaged in the fire,” he said, as if the answer were obvious. “Your limbs could not have been rescued. It’s amazing you were able to survive at all, and that you’ve managed to stay hidden for all these—”

“Stop. Just stop. ” Nora flexed her beat-up prosthetic hand before folding it around the fingers of the brand-new limb the doctor had brought her. Her eyes darted around the cell, her breath coming in short gasps. She shut her eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over her.

She was…

She was…

“The draft,” she whispered. “You set up the draft to find me. A bot…in the Western South lake. ”

Dr. Erland stirred, and when she dared to look up again, guilt had filled his eyes. “We’ve all had to make sacrifices, but if kumal isn’t stopped—”

Releasing the new prosthesis, Nora covered her ears and buried her face against her knee. The draft. All those bots. So many people convinced that it was the right thing. That it was better them than humans. Once a science project, always a science project.

And he’d only wanted to find her.

“Nora?”

“I’m going to be sick. ”

Dr. Erland pressed a hand to her shoulder, but she shook it off. “Nothing that has happened is your fault,” he said. “And now I’ve found you. We can begin to make it right again. ”

“How can I make anything right? kumal’s going to kill me!” Gasping, Nora lifted her head. “Wait. Does she know?”

Her memory answered her first—kumal at the top of the stairs, frightened. Furious. She hid her face again. “Oh, my stars, she does know. ”

“Your glamour is unique, Nora, so much like Queen Channary’s. kumal would have known right away who you are, although I doubt anyone else has figured it out yet, and kumal will try to keep it hidden as long as she can. Of course, she will waste no time in killing you. I am sure they are planning their departure even at this moment. ”

Nora’s mouth grew dry.

“Look at me, Nora. ”

She obeyed. And though the doctor’s eyes were breathtakingly blue and filled with pity and almost even comforting, she somehow knew that he was not doing anything to manipulate her mind. This was just an old man who was determined to dethrone Queen kumal.

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