Chapter 33
Sam hovered in the doorway of the bathroom as Ophelia groomed herself after her brisk shower.
“You should have talked to me first,” she barked, pointing her brush in his face.
“You’re angry.”
“Of course I’m angry!” She ran the brush roughly through the wet ends of her hair and slammed it down on the bathroom counter.
“I did not know you would be so agitated,” he admitted, grimacing and shifting from foot to foot. “I would not have acted without speaking to you if I’d anticipated your reaction. I will not do it again.”
She whirled on him, glaring.
“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” she growled. “It’s not like you’re compelled to honesty, anyway.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you saying, Ophelia?”
“I’m saying that I don’t know where it ends with you!
If you have no moral core, do you have any morals at all?
You lie like breathing! How am I supposed to believe it’s different with me?
How do I trust anything you say? You’re always talking so casually about murder, it’s probably just a matter of time—and I’m the closest available victim, aren’t I? ”
Frustration speared at him. All of his efforts had still amounted to such a low opinion.
He bristled, drawing up to his full height from where he’d been leaning against the door frame. Stepping into the small room, he crowded her back until the ledge of the counter dug into her spine.
He braced his arms on either side of her, caging her in as he ducked his head to meet her gaze.
“Is that what you think? That I’m a feral dog and you’re a toy that I’ll shred down to the stuffing when you cease to amuse me?
I would offer you words of comfort, but what difference would it make if I’m the liar you believe me to be? ”
His anger abruptly dissipated, leaving something like grief in its wake. He skimmed his hand up her arm and over her shoulder, locking around her nape in the possessive way he favored.
“Tell me how to make you understand.” Pressing his forehead to hers, he huffed. “If my words and my touch are not enough, what’s left to me? I won’t have you looking at me like a stranger for the rest of your life, wondering when I’m going to snap your neck.”
His hand flexed around her neck as he spoke the words, his body pantomiming his words, and a shudder passed over him. She closed her eyes, swallowing hard against his palm.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
He made a sound of frustration, dragging her against his chest. His arms wrapped around her as his chin settled atop her head. “I’ll never hurt you. Never.”
She burrowed deeper into his arms, a sign of her weakening resistance. Her body knew what it wanted even if her mind wavered.
“And I’ve never lied to you. Not once. I never will. I would lie, cheat, and steal from every other human on this planet, but only in your service. Don’t you understand that? It’s all for you. All of it, always.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest.
He pushed her away, holding her out at arm’s length as he frowned at her. “What doesn’t make sense?”
“This,” she bit out, gesturing between them. “Look at you! You’re a robotic sex god, and I’m just—I’m just—”
“Just what?”
“Nobody!” she blurted, shrugging out of his grip.
“I’m nobody! I’m a mentally ill, na?ve trainwreck with a dysfunctional family.
I should have known it was strange when Logan told me he loved me so quickly.
It never made any sense. Do you have any idea how stupid I feel for believing him?
And now you’re asking me to make the same mistake without even a breather to recover from the emotional trauma. ”
His brow furrowed, eyes dancing back and forth between hers as she ranted.
“I want it too much.” Her hands clutched at the collar of her shirt in a strangling grasp. “I want love like water in an endless desert, and it makes me stupid. I’m not even sure it exists. I would be insane to believe that this is how I get to have it.”
“It is,” he said firmly. “I love you, Ophelia.”
“Don’t say that,” she protested, ducking past him for the bedroom. She was hyperventilating, now.
“I love you,” he said again, dogging her heels.
“You can’t!” She whirled toward him, tears wavered in her eyes, spilling over as she blinked. “You’re just a machine! You can’t love me.”
“Just a machine?”
He opened his mouth to argue, but a knock at the door interrupted him. He rocked on his feet, pulled toward her by the argument he was not yet finished having, but at the next impatient knock, he snarled and turned on his heel for the front door.
Logan stood on the doorstep with sagging shoulders and bloodshot eyes.
“Where is she?” he asked, moving automatically to step past Sam. He caught his creator in an unforgiving grip as he tried to move toward the bedroom, shoving him back toward the entry. “Let go of me, Thirty-One.”
“No. You can wait here. She’ll come out when she’s ready.”
“Engage override protocol Charlie,” Logan said in an authoritative tone.
He heard Ophelia pad over to the bedroom door. She was watching them. He could feel her gaze like the brush of her fingertips against his skin.
That flare for the dramatic that had been programmed into him became a siren call he could not resist. He grinned wickedly down at the spineless little man who had been part of his creation.
“No,” he repeated.
Logan’s brows drew together.
“Engage administrative privileges,” Logan said tersely, but there was a waver in his voice. “Admin code seven-two-seven-one.”
“No.”
Logan gawked. “You can’t tell me no!”
Sam’s grin widened, and he leaned forward until their noses nearly touched. “Can’t I?”
“You are malfunctioning,” Logan said with dawning horror. “It’s worse than I thought. Where is Ophelia? What the fuck did you do to her?”
Sam straightened, sneering. “Now you’re concerned for her welfare? Where was that bleeding heart when you decided to pimp her out against her will?”
Logan’s eyes widened as his face went pale; then, like the flip of a switch, his features contorted with an ugly rage. “Engage override protocol zeta.”
Sam’s gaze darkened, his cruel grin sliding off his face.
He released Logan’s arm only to seize him around the throat, pinning him to the wall and hauling him off his feet.
Logan’s legs pinwheeled, kicking hard at Sam’s stomach, but it could have been the beating of a butterfly’s wings for all the good it did.
“It’s one thing to try and power me down, but self-destruction?”
Logan’s eyes were bulging as he made wet, rasping sounds of desperation.
“Stop,” Ophelia cried, running down the hall to grab at one of his arms. “Put him down!”
He looked down at her. Her swollen eyes were alight with terror—of him.
“You can’t do this,” she said in a pleading tone, tugging at him. “You promised.”
He didn’t ease Logan down. Instead, Sam released him with a sudden brutality that had Logan crumpling to the floor as he wheezed.
There was already a distinct imprint around the column of his throat, and Sam knew he would have a conspicuously hand-shaped bruise later that would be hard to explain away.
“Get up,” he said to Logan, towering over him.
Ophelia yanked at his arm. “Give him some space.”
He moved as she pulled, pretending that she had the strength to move him for her benefit. Annoyance bristled as she knelt beside Logan, wincing at the burst blood vessels in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He gaped at her, then grabbed at her arm with a violently shaking hand as his gaze darted back to Sam.
“Get away from him,” he wheezed, at the same time that Sam sharply commanded, “Do not touch her.”
She held up a hand to stay Sam as he stepped toward her, and his frustration compounded upon itself.
“He’s broken,” Logan rasped, his eyes darting. “Virus, maybe. Needs to be…” He coughed hard and then flinched with his whole body at the pain. “Reset.”
“No one is resetting him,” she said sternly, then looked up at Sam. “Frozen peas.”
He scowled at her, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“Get the peas,” she snapped, jabbing a finger at him in warning. “Now!”
With a ponderous sigh, he left to do as she bade him.
“He’s still listening to you?” Logan’s tone was pure incredulity.
“Yes. Um… mostly.”
Sam wished he could see her face from the kitchen, but the wall blocked his view. Was Logan still touching her? He longed to break the worm’s hand.
“Mostly?” Logan echoed.
“He doesn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“He will,” Logan said grimly, glaring at Sam as he emerged with the bag of peas.
“If his moral core is corrupted, it’s a matter of time.
Without it, he’s nothing but a metal creature made of urges.
He has no soul. There’s no altruistic human spirit in there to compel him to virtue, no conditioning from a lifetime of social pressure or religion.
What’s right is whatever he feels is right for him. ”
Sam threw the peas at Logan’s head, striking him squarely in the face and startling a horrified gasp from Ophelia.
“I will never feel it is right to harm her,” Sam said darkly. “Unlike you, with all your lifetime of conditioning to know what is just and what is not. Morals for me but not for thee, is it?”
Ophelia rose to her feet, some of the compassion on her face withering as she moved to stand by the window. He stared past her out at the city that was now her backdrop.
It was a suitably miserable day outside for such a miserable discussion; gloomy gray clouds crowded out the sun, and without the cheerful blue as a backdrop, the city felt stale and monochromatic.
When the sun set, it would come alive with neon lights, but for now, it was a sprawling prison-like structure of concrete and glass, punctuated only sparsely by a few colorful cars parked along the curbs.
He supposed that was what it had been for them both for a long time. Ophelia had been jailed by the self-serving humans she was forced to share her life with, and Sam by the code that kept him from expressing himself.
“Why?” she whispered.
Sam struck Logan in the face. “Answer her.”
Ophelia gasped and whirled to face them as Logan let out a pained grunt and glared up at him, licking blood from his freshly split lip.
“Sam,” she said with exasperation.
“He’s not dead,” he replied impatiently, gesturing toward Logan’s pitiful, curled-up form.
“No hurting him, either.”
He huffed, crossing his arms again as he took a pointed step back.
Indignation bristled within him as she returned to Logan’s side and gingerly helped him to his feet.
Logan’s eyes were glued to Sam while she shuffled him over to the couch, and he fell rather than sat on the cushion.
He groaned, tracing his fingers over his bruised neck.
“I need to call the crew in,” he said, warily eying Sam. “Effie, he’s malfunctioning in the worst way. He’s dangerous.”
“No.”
“Effie—”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Give him your phone.”
Logan made an incredulous sound, his gaze darting between her and the android approaching him. Shrinking back, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and threw it at Sam’s feet. Sam scooped it up and jacked into it a moment later. The room faded around him as he sank into the system.
“Fuck me,” Logan muttered. “He’s already fucking hacking systems. This is bad. This is a runaway train on fire about to get in a head-on collision with a gas tanker bad.”