Chapter 16 Sem
Having a concrete plan always helped keep my anxiety from running away with me.
My plan for today was to gather as much wood as I could carry for as many trips as I could tolerate before I went hypothermic again.
Then I’d try to start a fire, cook for Elanie, then take apart the backup comms I’d stolen from the pod and see if it could be repaired. It was a good plan. Totally doable.
I hoped.
With one last glance around the open clearing to the north of our cave, double-checking for tracks and not finding any, I slipped into the trees blanketing the mountains.
It was undeniably beautiful here on Golgunda.
Orange and lavender skies, towering pines, rocky peaks rising steeply in the distance.
But there was something off about this place too.
No birds twittered above me. No critters scurried away as I made my way deeper into the woods.
My empathy worked on animals too. It wasn’t as clear, but it worked well enough to know that the woods I walked through were empty.
Completely. It was eerie, the silence. Unnatural.
Whoever had terraformed this rock didn’t give two shits about creating a sustainable ecosystem.
Or about Portisan thermodynamics. Stars above, it was cold as hells.
I blew on my hands, then I rubbed my arms while jogging in place. Anything to generate heat. Not that any of it worked with my cold-blooded tendencies. Do you know what had worked? Being the little spoon.
Look, I’d be lying through my teeth if I said that waking up cocooned in Elanie’s arms wasn’t one of the most perfect sensations I’d ever experienced.
But I couldn’t do it again. In part because I liked it too much.
I liked her too much. Enough to follow her across an entire solar system.
I didn’t regret it, but I hadn’t only followed her so I could be her knight in shining armor.
I’d done it because I was into her. Smitten.
Mildly obsessed. I couldn’t deny it anymore.
And even though she’d fired me, she’d once been my patient.
I’d been her physician. Being mildly obsessed with her was inappropriate.
Cuddling with her, even for warmth, was inappropriate.
Probably. I didn’t know. I’d have to think about it some more.
But even more important than my confusion over my professional boundaries was the fact that I refused to harm or weaken her in any way.
I had no idea how long we’d be here, but neither of us would survive the week if my life continued to hinge on her strength.
And since I’d rather freeze to death than drain another drop of her energy unnecessarily by playing let’s heat up the Portisan, I needed to be useful and self-sufficient.
I needed to be someone who made her life easier, not harder.
Someone she could rely on. Someone who could get her home.
And then, once we were safe, once more time had passed since she’d sat topless on my examination table, maybe I’d shoot my shot.
Maybe I’d tell her all my favorite things about her.
Like her honesty, her directness, her inability to be anything other than exactly who she was.
Like how beautiful her eyes were and how I liked the way my heart stumbled over itself when I caught her looking at me.
How my skin tingled when I heard her laughter.
When I saw her legs. Her hips. Her ass. Saints, her ass…
Shaking my head, shaking off the sense memory of lying nestled against her curves, I got back to work.
Moving as quickly as I could, I filled our satchel, and then my arms, with evergreen boughs that smelled like Yuletide as their sharp needles pricked my skin through my now-filthy shirt.
Keeping myself clean wasn’t high on the list of priorities.
Warmth, food, safety. Getting back home.
That was what mattered, even though the idea of smelling bad around her made my jaw clench.
Maybe I could rub some of the pine needles under my armpits.
Might be pokey, a little sticky, but vanity never came without a cost, right?
These were my thoughts as I left the shelter of the woods.
It made me more than a little suspicious that hypothermia had started to set in again.
Hustling back to the cave, I rounded the southern border of the lake, wondering what Elanie had been up to while I’d been gone.
If she’d been resting like I’d asked. Probably not.
She was stubborn, not easily swayed. That was another thing I liked about—
My breath caught, my feet burying themselves in the snow as my heart leaped into my throat. We weren’t alone. Someone was prowling outside our cave. They’d found us. Saints of the deep, I should never have left her alone.
Despite my pulse roaring in my ears, I moved silently over the snow, trying to see who—or what—it might be and what weapons they might have.
As soon as I was close enough to make out the details of their body, the curved line of their back, the narrow slope of their shoulders, the shiny pinkness of their pajamas, a bone-deep relief washed over me.
It wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t some roving marauder. It was only Elanie, and she was definitely not resting her feet. But why was she hunched over like that, frozen in place on her hands and knees in the snow?
“Elanie?” I stepped closer. “Are you okay?”
Her jaw was clenched, her breathing harsh and ragged as sweat beaded across her brow. Every muscle in her body strained, strung taut like she was fighting the pull of some invisible leash.
“What’s wrong?” I took another step. “What are you doing out here?”
“He’s…calling…me,” she hissed between her gritted teeth. “Have…to go. Have to…leave.”
The hells you do. “Is it the voice?” I asked, holding my hands out with my fingers splayed. “The one that brought us here?”
“Can’t…resist. Hacking my…neural interface. Controlling my…motor cortex.”
When I moved even closer, she bared her teeth.
“Stop. Might…hurt you.”
After a split second of paper-thin contemplation, I said, “Worth it.”
Dropping the sticks in the snow, I swept in fast, hauling her into my arms and carrying her writhing and struggling back into the cave.
“Put…me down,” she grunted. “Don’t want to…hurt you.”
“Shh,” I tried to soothe, narrowly avoiding taking a foot to the balls as I set her down on the ground.
“Hurts,” she moaned, clutching her head, curling into a fetal position. “Can’t…resist. Thoughts…not mine. I’m not…me.”
Pacing around her, not knowing what the fuck to do, I racked my brain. She said she was being hacked. The voice, whoever it was, had to be using some sort of signal to compel the bionics to leave their ships. Could be satellite. Maybe military subspace relays. Or—
Saints, how could I have missed it?
I turned back to the cave opening, then wheeled around, squinting into the darkness of the deeper chamber.
“Are you still connected to the SBN?” I asked.
That had to be it. That was why the Shared Bionic Network was active all the way out here. It was him. It was coming from him.
When she didn’t answer, I got to my knees beside her. Sweeping her sweat-soaked hair back off her forehead, I said, “Elanie. I need to move you to the back of the cave.” It was a long shot, but it was the only shot we had. “I think you’ll be safe from the voice there.”
“Don’t…touch me,” she snarled when I tried to roll her onto her back.
“Oh, now.” A nervous laugh. “Let’s not get all growly.” But when I reached for her again, she did, in fact, growl. Shit. Studying her, planning my attack, I wondered how quickly she could break each of my bones if she wanted to.
“Fuck it. If I die, I die.”
With a desperate lunge, I thrust my arms under hers, clasped my wrists around her chest, and yanked.
She screamed and yowled and kicked at the ground while I hauled her toward the back of the cave.
“Elanie,” I pleaded, my grip on her loosening as her fingernails raked down my arms. “Stop struggling.”
“Can’t…stop. Let me…go.”
That was the last warning she gave me before she broke my hold, flipped over, and reared above me like a furious rogue wave.
I shrieked, a keening sound of pure, unadulterated terror. But I didn’t give up. Not yet. Lunging for her again, I bear-hugged her waist and pulled one last time, not stopping until my head hit the back wall of the cave. Out of breath, my adrenaline flagging, I collapsed.
She continued to glare at me with violence in her eyes, and I knew that while I’d done what I could, it wasn’t enough. I’d failed her. And because I’d failed her, maybe I deserved her cold, unfeeling, un-Elanie expression as she wrapped her thighs around my neck and squeezed.
“Stars save me. Wake up, Sem. Please don’t be dead. Wake up!”
I came to, coughing and grasping at my throat. I heard myself make a sound like uhng.
“I couldn’t stop.” Her hands were on my shoulders, pulling me up. “I almost killed you. Again!”
“Please don’t shout,” I rasped while my head pounded back to some semblance of normal functioning. “It’s okay.”
She was on her knees in front of me, her eyes round and glassy in the dim light. “It’s not okay. I’m so sorry.”
“Honestly, I’m fine,” I tried to insist while succumbing to another coughing fit. My entire body shook in violent spasms. Not only had I just been choked out by the most perfect set of legs in the entire Known Universe, but I was also still freezing.
“You’re not fine. I’m not fine.” Her face paled, then she covered it with her hands. “I’m dangerous. I’m…deadly. I am a deadly person.”
Dizzy, weak, but giddy with relief, I said, “Come here,” and wrapped my arms around her as she leaned into me. She was herself again. She was Elanie. Getting her away from the cavemouth had worked. Saints be praised, it had worked.
“Is it gone?” I rocked her gently in my arms while heat radiated from her. Probably because she’d increased her internal temperature again to warm me up. “Is the voice gone?”
When she nodded against my chest, I buried my nose in her hair, inhaling the crispness of snow, the mustiness of the cave, and under that, vanilla and cinnamon. Just a trace, but enough to set me immediately at ease.
“Can you access the SBN back here?” I asked.
“The SBN? Why—” Her shoulders stiffened. Then all at once, the tension gave way. “Of course. That’s how he’s getting to the bionics, isn’t it? To me?”
“I think so.”
“No.” Her voice was thin, ghostly. “The signal must be muted this far under the mountain.”
“Can you disconnect from the network entirely?”
She blew out a breath, everything about her seeming to deflate.
“The SBN is hardware, not software. It’s so deeply embedded in my neural cortex that it’s nearly impossible to access without decommissioning me.
Unless you happen to be a brain surgeon with expert knowledge of enhanced synaptic microcircuitry. ”
“I did a neurosurgery rotation in med school,” I said. Then admitted, “But I barely passed. So that’s probably a no.”
“An EMP would work, if we had one.” She pulled her knees up toward her chest like she was trying to hide by making herself as small as possible. “But then I’d be gone too.”
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“It would frag the SBN, but it would frag my memory too.” She tapped on her temple.
“We’re still mostly AI up here, so I’d be wiped to my last backup.
And that’s only if I could actually get to my last backup, which is on the ship.
All the way out here? It would be like a full factory reset.
No memories. No personality. No”—she gazed down at herself, at my arms still wrapped around her—“me.”
“Well, that settles that.” I held her more tightly, the thought of no more Elanie running through my veins like ice. “You just can’t leave the cave anymore.”
She turned in my arms to look at me, indignant. “That’s ridiculous. What if I have to pee?”
“Hmm,” I murmured. “I guess you’ll just have to make it quick.”
She groaned, then laughed. And I laughed too, rocking her until the cave grew quiet again. Just that ever-present drip, drip, dripping in the walls.
“What did he say?” I eventually asked. “The voice?”
With a barely perceptible shudder, she said, “Join us. Never be a servant again. Be free, Elanie. Join Golgunda and be free.”
The skin along my neck prickled, the hairs along my arms rising in a slow wave.
“I don’t want to join them, Sem.” She nestled into me, curling her fingers into my shirt, holding on for dear life. The rare show of vulnerability rattled me more than anything else had so far. “I don’t want to be free. I want to go back to our ship. I want to go home.”
“I know,” I said into her hair, running my hand up and down her back, over the soft silk of her pajama top. “I know. And we will, I promise.”
I just had to figure out how.