Chapter 41 #2
“I can’t leave her. I won’t.” Ronin was the one wasting time now.
She’ll die if I do nothing.
“My name’s Cooper. Captain Edward Cooper. You have my word that she will receive the best care we can offer. The faster you cooperate, the faster we can take care of her.”
An electric tingle skittered across Ronin’s cheek. He nodded once, extending his arms. “Be gentle with her. Her left arm is broken, and her ribs might be fractured.”
Walker and Garrison stepped forward and carefully collected Lara. Ronin was unable to remove his optics from her until she was carried out of sight.
This is the only chance she has.
“Captain Cooper,” Newton said, “I can assure you that I will vouch for—”
The captain raised a fist, silencing Newton. “You’re unknowns.”
A heavy metal door opened somewhere behind the spotlight. Boots marched over the concrete floor as six more armed soldiers entered the corridor, surrounding Ronin and Newton.
“These gentlemen will escort you inside,” Captain Cooper said. “You will keep your hands to yourselves. They will not answer questions, so don’t bother asking. Any sudden movements that can be interpreted as hostile will be treated as such.”
The soldiers separated, with four taking positions behind Ronin and Newton while the other two remained ahead.
“Should you consider doing any of my men harm, it may be of interest to you to know that some of them are bots. They’re just as physically capable as both of you, and much better armed. I trust you’ll behave.” Cooper stepped aside, waving the escort forward.
Ronin followed the soldiers in front of him automatically, his processors dominated by thoughts of Lara.
Would she be all right? Where was she now?
This facility’s size, layout, and personnel were mysteries to him.
It could take days of searching to locate her on his own, and she didn’t have that kind of time.
They proceeded through a doorway, and one of the rear guards slammed the steel door shut behind them. The corridor narrowed here beneath a low, arched ceiling, but the electric lights were working, and the floor was clean. Bundles of pipe and conduit ran along the walls.
Ronin couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he’d never see Lara again, that the time he’d spent with her was all he’d ever have, that those moments would be the only ones they’d ever share.
There’d been no goodbye, no parting words of love. There’d been only the pain on her face and the agony of her cries. Why was that last, terrible event so much more powerful than everything preceding it? Why did it overshadow all the rest of their time together?
The corridor hit an intersection, and Ronin turned left with the group, logging step counts and measurements in his memory. They were moving in the direction of the old base.
“Where is she?” Ronin asked.
“You guys actually walk around out there?” one of the soldiers asked as though he hadn’t heard Ronin’s question. “Like, through the storms and everything?”
“Doesn’t affect bots the same,” another answered. There was an odd, contradictory blend of smoothness and rigidity in his posture and gait that wasn’t entirely human. The pointed stripes on his chest meant he was a sergeant.
Beside Ronin, Newton perked up, brow plates rising. “That is correct, but it does have a number of averse—”
“I just ain’t been off the base in a long time,” the first soldier interrupted.
“You’ve never been off the base, Ramirez,” the sergeant said, and the group fell silent.
Their boots thumped on the floor, undercut by the clacking of Newton’s metal feet, and their equipment harnesses jingled softly.
The hum of the lights was barely audible through the other noise.
None of it could distract Ronin from thoughts of Lara.
His processors tumbled through hundreds of thousands of possibilities.
“Where is she?” he repeated.
“Who?”
“The woman I brought here.”
“Oh, the one that looked like pounded meat?” Ramirez asked. “You do that?”
Anger flared in Ronin, a harsh, electric buzz through all his systems, catching him off guard. His hands closed into fists so tight that his actuators flashed warnings through his interface.
“Shut the fuck up, Ramirez,” three of the other soldiers said simultaneously.
Warlord had called Lara meatbag, infusing the word with venom and disgust. For this man to casually refer to her in so similar a fashion and ignore her humanity, for him to suggest that Ronin had injured her, that he would ever harm her…
Newton caught Ronin’s forearm, squeezing.
Ronin dropped his gaze to the floor. He was here to save her. He had to hold that at the front of his mind. Through clenched teeth, he grated, “Don’t talk about her that way again.”
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” the sergeant said. “Kid just doesn’t know how to think without speaking yet. Doc’s going to do all she can to fix your woman.”
Before Ronin could respond, the group arrived at another large metal door.
One of the leading soldiers stepped forward to open it.
A wave of sound spilled out, a jumbled mess comprised of dozens of voices and activities.
Ronin was ushered through into a huge chamber filled with people conversing and performing a variety of tasks.
His optics swept over the space as he walked with the soldiers, who followed a set of colored lines painted on the floor.
Most of the people were human, but many bots were amongst them—not just synths, but older models resembling Greene from the market.
Everyone was well-groomed, clean, and dressed in cared-for clothing.
Ronin couldn’t identify all the work they were doing, and both the names and functions of many of their tools were unknown to him.
He’d never seen anything like this place during his travels.
Overhead, three uniformed soldiers stood upon walkways hanging from the high ceiling, staring down at Ronin and Newton as they were escorted past.
There were several doors along the walls, and two large corridors led out of the chamber. Armory, Barracks, Stockade was written in red letters over one, Laboratory, Administration, Infirmary in green over the other.
The infirmary…was that where they’d taken Lara?
The green line on the floor broke away from the rest, turning down that corridor. The soldiers continued along the red line, passing beneath the sign that said Stockade.
The corridor narrowed. The group proceeded through a series of turns, past more doors and hallways, walking ever deeper into the facility. Finally, they entered a large room lined on one side with small cells.
Newton and Ronin were guided into a chamber with a long table. Some of the people sitting at the table wore uniforms, but others were dressed in plain clothing.
“Have a seat,” said the man at the head of the table, gesturing to the open chairs in front of Ronin and Newton. He was broad shouldered with brown skin, short-cropped black hair sprinkled with gray, and a clean-shaven face. The insignia on his blue jacket marked him as a colonel.
Ronin sat as the soldiers who’d escorted him took up positions around the perimeter of the room. Seconds of relative silence ticked by. The room’s temperature was gradually climbing, and at least one human wore a sheen of sweat on his face.
“I’m Colonel Jack Rodriguez,” the man in blue finally said, “Head of Security in this facility. Given your open association with Warlord, and the fact that you came in through an entrance that hasn’t been discovered in two hundred years, I currently find myself very concerned about the safety of my people. ”
Ronin focused his optics on Rodriquez. “The woman we brought in, what’s her status?”
“She’s in critical condition. Doctor Cooper and her staff are doing all they can to stabilize her.”
“I want to see her.”
“That’s not how this works. You represent a potential threat. Until I’m certain that threat is nonexistent, I—”
“Warlord is the one who beat her and left me deactivated. We’re unarmed, and we didn’t resist when your men took us into custody. We knew where the entrance was because my companion has used it in the past.”
All eyes swung to Newton.
He blinked and sat up straighter. “I’ve come and gone through that entryway fifty-nine times.”
One of the non-uniformed men rose from his chair, hands flattened on the table. He was gray-haired, though his neat beard was a bit darker, and had age lines on his pale face. “Newton?”
Newton turned his head to regard the man. Hushed exclamations arose from those gathered, too many and too varied for Ronin to bother isolating any single one.
“William?” The plates around Newton’s mouth lifted in a smile. “In all my years away, I somehow disregarded the effect of time. It’s no wonder I didn’t recognize any faces as we entered. Another bit of foolishness on my part.”
“I was a boy when you left.” William gestured to the younger man seated beside him. Their resemblance was immediately apparent despite their age difference. “My son, Will. He has a child of his own.”
“That’s Newton?” Rodriguez asked, his stoic face turned toward William.
“Yes. He’s no threat to us.”
Newton nodded. “I can assure you, neither myself nor my companion mean to harm anyone here. We came because Miss Brooks was gravely injured, and I lacked the means to tend her.”
Rodriguez’s eyes shifted to Ronin. “Who are you?”
“Ronin. I am… I was a dustwalker, most recently out of Cheyenne.”
“You’re built like a soldier. Right down to your hair. Recall any of that time?”
“Images, occasionally. My memory was damaged in the Blackout. I have no specifics.”
“Have you retained any of your combat programming?”
“I’ve survived fifty-one thousand, six hundred and forty-eight days in the Dust. Ended a lot of individuals that meant me harm. Don’t know what I’ve retained and what I’ve lost, but it doesn’t seem to have much bearing anymore.”
“That’s over one hundred and forty years,” someone said. A hush fell over the group.
William rubbed his chin, studying Ronin. “We might be able to restore your memory. There are several bots here who’ve gone through the procedure with few complications.”
It was the logical course for Ronin to follow to learn where he came from, what he’d done before, who he was. To be whole. It would give him the answer he’d been seeking since being reactivated.
But what was he missing now? Knowing what his place had been in a dead world wouldn’t help his future.
He was already whole. Lara had given him purpose, had given him meaning.
His core programming didn’t matter, and it never truly had.
Seeking it had served only as a reason to move forward, as motivation to keep him going, and he no longer needed it to drive him.
Ronin shook his head. “My only concern is Lara.”
William smiled and nodded, easing into his chair. “Very well.”
The colonel leaned forward. “As soon as there’s an update—”
“You trust Newton’s word that I’m not here to cause trouble. Let me be with her. That’s all I want.”
Rodriguez frowned, brows falling low.
“The work Doctor Cooper and her team have to do is very delicate,” William said.
“You’ll get in the way.” Rodriguez met Ronin’s optics and held his gaze. “If you want them to have the best chance of saving her, you’ll give them the space they need to work. In the meantime, I want you to tell us everything you know about Warlord’s forces. Numbers, armament, defenses. All of it.”