Chapter Thirty-Four
Hadrian
For far too long, I don’t move. My body locks, trapped by pure disbelief.
No.
How?
Not here.
Not her.
By the time my stupid, useless brain starts to work again, the timer sits at 1:58:37.
Over a minute wasted. Fuck.
I race back to the airlock corridor, but the biometric scanner doesn’t work when I slap my hand on it. I try again. Again. Nothing.
I sprint the other way, horrible certainty settling over me as I check the outside door. Same deal. It’s locked, and my hand doesn’t open it.
I pull out my phone, select Jacob’s number, and call. Out-of-service beeps blare in my ear.
No.
I’m trapped. We’re trapped.
I return to the screen. 1:56:45, and the message has changed.
NONE OF THAT WILL WORK. YOU’RE WASTING TIME.
I thought I’d known panic before, but that timer ticking down rips away everything else. My palms sweat, and the breath drags in and out of my body, painful as if my throat is red raw. My vision wobbles as I slam my hand down on the desk.
“Who the fuck are you? What do you want?”
The screen doesn’t change right away, and every second that ticks down is a knife in my heart. When it switches to a new message, I almost throw up.
WHEN THE TIMER REACHES ZERO, A LETHAL CONCENTRATION OF SARIN GAS WILL DUMP INTO JULIET’S CELL. IT’S NOT A PLEASANT WAY TO DIE.
No.
Please.
On Juliet’s screen, she’s still curled next to Charlie's tank, watching the spider. She doesn’t know what’s happening. I stare at her and can picture it. Her doubled over, convulsing, vomiting.
Glassy eyes staring at me, dead.
“What the fuck do you want?”
I scream it at the monitors, and I swear it takes even longer for the bastard to reply. He’s doing it on purpose.
A SIMPLE TRADE. YOU FOR HER. TAKE HER PLACE IN HER CELL, AND SHE’LL BE UNHARMED.
What?
No demand for money, tech secrets, or anything tangible. Just me, dead, and Juliet left alone here. What would happen to her? She’d be given away to someone else. Someone who wouldn’t understand her. Wouldn’t love her. A slave in truth, not in the way she needs.
And I’d be dead.
It’s such a blank, terrible idea that I can’t fully wrap my mind around it. Dead in less than two hours. No future. No life with Juliet. Nothing. All gone. No. It can’t happen. There has to be another way. I just need to get my shit together long enough to work out what this person really wants.
My whole body wants to shake, but I clench my fists and force myself into my seat. I can’t panic. I can’t let myself be weak. I try not to stare at the timer. Think. Talk.
“Why are you doing this?”
The words come quickly this time, as if the person responsible is glad I asked.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HAVE YOUR LIFE’S WORK RIPPED AWAY?
I stare at the words. I’d expected something concrete, not a philosophical fucking discussion. I don’t have time for this. Juliet doesn’t have time for this. “What do you mean?”
ANSWER THE QUESTION.
I make myself consider it, though every second hurts. “Yes. I do. Twice.” How much does this person know about me? I’m guessing everything, so there’s no point holding back. “I lost my research funding before I joined the Brotherhood. And I had to shut down Candice.”
THOSE WERE JUST SETBACKS. YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME. NOW I’M DOING THE SAME TO YOU.
What? What the hell? I’ve never hurt anyone. I’ve never stolen another’s work or taken credit for something I didn’t do.
“You’re wrong. I’ve never done anything to you. There’s been a misunderstanding. Please, just—”
DO YOU KNOW HOW CLOSE I WAS?
The timer says 1:53:23. Anger seeps in to replace some of the panic. I’ve never been a violent man, but the lack of a physical person to face off against is grating on me. I want someone to punch, but all I have is words on a screen.
“I don’t know who the fuck you are! Stop talking in riddles and tell me what—”
“I should have been first!”
The voice echoes through the office. He is well spoken, with a slight accent that I can’t place. I immediately think of eastern Europe, though I’m not sure why.
“Eight years of work stuck in this place, and you destroyed me in a day when you introduced that thing into the world. Candice.” He spits the word, and cogs start to turn, a trickle of memory creeping in.
My first week in the Compound. Kendrick introduces me to Brother after Brother after Brother.
A hard-faced, unsmiling man gives me a tight nod, then walks off before Kendrick can speak.
After he leaves, Kendrick tells me in a low voice, “Dimitry Blackstone. He’s been working in the AI field for years, but he’s never lived up to his potential. Give him a wide berth.”
I’m such a hermit that I only ran across him a couple of times and always took Kendrick’s advice, avoiding him. The name fits the trace of an accent. I try my luck. “Dimitry?”
There’s a long pause, punctuated only by my heart thudding in time with the numbers on the screen.
“So you do know my work.”
It is him. I was right. It’s a useless victory, however, because how does this help us? It doesn’t. And his work? I have no idea. I’ve been so focused on my own work that I haven’t bothered to look at anything the other Brothers are doing.
Saying that doesn’t feel like a good idea, though. I try to hedge my bets. “It’s valuable. I’d love to sit down and discuss it with you. Perhaps we can—”
“Don’t patronize me! Getting rid of your creation was the first step, but the real problem is you. You’ll always be one step ahead of me.”
He wants me out of the way so his work can flourish. It makes a kind of sense, but it still doesn’t feel complete. I force myself to think as the counter ticks down. He needed me to shut Candice down, and he got what he wanted. There are much easier ways than this to kill me. Why involve Juliet?
And while I’m asking questions, why not just sarin gas us both when we were in the cell together? This theatrical performance means my death isn't all he wants. Can I bargain?
Christ. I’m the worst possible person to be managing a hostage situation.
“You don’t need to do this. Please. I’ll give you all my research and step away from AI altogether. I just want Juliet back. She’s all I care about.”
As I say the words, I understand the truth of them. I’d give anything up for her. Everything.
Dmitry laughs. “Oh, yes. Juliet. She’s fun, isn’t she? And so easy to manipulate. I had her all dressed and ready, rushing out to meet me, before you intervened.”
Blood pounds in my head as his words click into place. The man she’d been messaging who turned out to be a ghost. Fuck. My stomach lurches. “You were Alex?”
The smugness in his voice scratches at the inside of my skull. “Yes. She’s got a filthy mind. My original plan was to take her before you got the chance. Steal your prize the way you did mine. But I had to adapt. And I think this is better, don’t you?”
He wanted to take her? Images rattle through my head, all of them horrifying, but I force them away and take a deep breath. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does except saving her. “Let her go, and I’ll never work again. I swear it.”
“Pretty words, but we both know you’d report me to Kendrick as soon as you got a foot out the door. And where would the fun be in that? Tal and I went to a lot of trouble setting this new game up. We should get to enjoy it.”
Enjoy it? The words send a shiver down my spine. And Tal? I almost don’t want to ask—the answer can’t be anything good—but I do anyway. “Who is Tal?”
Dmitry doesn’t answer for long enough that I shake with the effort of keeping still, despite my best intentions. 1:48:02. It’s running down too fast. The irony isn’t lost on me. I used the timer to torment Juliet, and now this one is tormenting me.
“He’s nothing compared to your Candice, of course.
He doesn’t have the true spark of sentience I keep hearing about.
But Tal and I have been together a long time.
He’s helped me create some interesting scenarios over the years.
The sarin gas? That was his suggestion. It’s clever, isn’t it?
Especially when you created the prison yourself. ”
Interesting scenarios? The way he says the words makes them feel coated with filth.
Dimitry isn’t just bitter and jealous. There’s something wrong with him.
And Tal? It must be one of Dimitry’s creations.
AIs develop based on the sort of content you feed them, much as humans do.
What the hell has Dimitry been feeding this Tal if it’s sadistic enough to come up with this?
On the monitor, Juliet closes Charlie's tank and gets to her feet. She stares around the cell, then wanders to the altar and picks up her sketch book. She’s here because of me. In danger because of me. Whatever might happen to her after I die, it couldn’t be as bad as what Dimitry is going to do.
I run through my dwindling options. My phone is still dead.
The doors are still locked. It’s a prison, and there’s no way out.
Sweat sticks my shirt to my body as I try the computer keyboard.
Maybe I can find a way through whatever Dimitry is doing?
But as I try, the lights dip, and Juliet’s timer flickers, dropping to thirty seconds.
“No!” I leap to my feet, an iron bar around my chest as it flickers again, shooting back up to 1:46:21.
Dimitry’s laughter echoes around the room.
“You fucking bastard!” I slap the desk, but he only laughs harder.
I can’t reason with someone like this. If I piss him off, he’ll kill Juliet.
No.
He can’t.
I take a deep breath and sign my own death warrant. “I’ll swap with her. Just don’t hurt her. Do I have your word?”
His laughter cuts off abruptly. “She’s nothing to me. I won’t harm her. It’s you I want to play with.”
The future I’d pictured for myself and Juliet shatters, destroyed under the weight of what I’ve just agreed to.
I’m going to die. And what will happen to Juliet?
Maybe I can help a little. If I write a note telling Kendrick my wishes are for her not to be passed to anyone else. Can I do that? I’ll have to try.
So, at best, I've trapped her in a lonely life away from everyone she loves.
Fuck.
I stare at the timer again, counting the seconds to my death.
“Time to go,” Dimitry says. It’s a door slamming shut, and panic scrabbles at my chest.
“I need to leave a note for Kendrick. I need to tell him what I want for Juliet—”
“Forget it. Move, now. And don’t think of trying to grab her and escape. I control all the locks. The outer door won’t open until you’re secured in the cell. I’m more than happy to gas you both.”
I can barely breathe as I get to my feet and walk toward Juliet’s cell.