Chapter 12

Andena waited until Harrold was far enough away that he couldn’t hear her conversation with Haruz.

“You know Haruz,” she said, “I must admit I’m impressed by the way you handled those rowdy guys.”

She had trouble keeping a straight face as he turned to look at her.

“Watch your mouth, little angel,” he murmured, “Just take me to Meleda as you promised.”

“That means I have to carry you there.”

She was amused by the way he grunted, “I don’t care, as long as you get me there ASAP.”

She knew she had the advantage as his muscles were still weak but she didn’t want to abuse that. She reckoned that he had learned his lesson when he refused help to get off the table after the vines had released him. Andena smiled as she remembered his tirade; when he’d accused Uso of doing a lousy job. Uso had promptly left them alone and the only way of getting out of his compromising situation was to accept Andena’s offer of help. He had caved in after she had told him she would help if he promised to visit Lunn the following day. He had muttered about the unfairness but had conceded when she had agreed to carry him to Meleda after he had faced the group.

“It would be best to carry him with his chest resting on your back Andena. You can retain control by holding his arms.”

Andena was pleased with her core’s suggestion and replied, “Thanks for your input Z.”

“Right, we don’t have much time, so let’s go,” she said as she lifted him on her back to take him to Meleda.

She was still amazed by the ease with which she was able to move his body, but was also conscious of the need not to hurt him. She asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he retorted with a somewhat strained voice, “Let’s go.”

Andena was pleasantly surprised by his acceptance of the situation and moved towards the complex as fast as she thought she could manage. As they arrived at the complex she warned him, “She might look a little different than the last time you saw her.”

His low rumbling voice resonated in her back making her suddenly aware that their skin was only separated by two thin layers of fabric. He gasped as they arrived at Meleda’s room. His breathing was shallow and his voice was close to Andena’s ear as he spoke softly, “Well, at least she has a healthy colour in her cheeks again.”

It was clear from his voice that seeing his sister lying there was troubling him. Meleda’s face was less bloated and her relaxed smile gave Andena a good feeling. “Yes,” she replied, “she looks a lot better already.”

They stood there for a moment staring at Meleda who was completely cocooned in vines, until Haruz said, “I don’t know about you, but this position is starting to get uncomfortable. I think we should go back before Harrold wonders what we are up to.”

Andena had no trouble carrying him but knew that eventually the pressure on his chest would become unbearable for him.

“Okay,” she replied with a cheery voice, “let’s go and strap you into the wheelchair.”

“Not funny, Andena.”

“Oh come on, cheer up Grumpy. It’s only for a few days.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Hey!” Andena snapped, “Stop shouting in my ear.”

“Then stop calling me names.”

She snorted, “Look who’s talking. You deemed me to have wings.”

Haruz grumbled and she started to giggle.

“What?” Haruz asked annoyed.

“You did it again,” she replied with a sing song voice.

He huffed in desperation and growled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Andena saw Harrold impatiently waiting with the wheelchair and decided to redirect their conversation by asking, “What are you going to tell the group when you enter the briefing room in a wheelchair?”

Haruz was silent for a moment and said in an unsteady voice, “I’m not sure yet. I guess I’ll come up with something and I’m sure they will completely forget that I’m in a wheelchair as soon as I brief them about the aliens.”

Harrold’s face lit up considerably as he saw them arriving and asked, “Ah, finally! And? Did you like the tour, Haruz?”

Andena couldn’t stop laughing when Haruz grunted again without saying a word.

“Oh, grumpy aren’t we?” Harrold murmured as he moved the wheelchair closer.

When Andena heard Harrold call Haruz grumpy, the urge to laugh was so strong that she almost dropped Haruz. Haruz groaned, clearly not amused that he was the victim of the funny situation.

“Enough!” he spat.

She realised that she had teased him enough and as she let him gently slide into the wheelchair she said in a serious tone, “I’m sorry, but it was funny.”

The frustration was evident on his face but as soon as he saw her sincere expression, his angry glare changed to a calmer, almost quizzical look.

He took a deep breath and spoke in a controlled voice as if nothing had happened, “We’d better hurry up. We need to brief everyone as soon as possible before the situation gets out of hand.”

Tancred stared remorsefully at the metal gate which was the only thing holding him captive in the cold and chilly cave. He needed to know whether Haruz had told him the truth about the risk of electrocution and had decided to take the risk. It had been a painful experience as the surge from the gate was so strong that he had been rendered unconscious for several hours. When he came to, he was in a foetal position at least ten feet away from the gate. He knew he had been out for at least four hours because the daylight had been replaced by the darkness of the night. His body was sore all over and the numbness in his hand persisted for several days but didn’t stop him from working on strengthening his muscles.

When he saw a small bird land on one of the bars of the gate he knew he had a chance of escaping. All he had to do was jump towards the bars without touching the floor. However, it was frustrating that the openings between the bars were too narrow for him to escape. He was able to squeeze his body between the bars but his head was the only obstacle to regaining his freedom.

His struggle with the withdrawal symptoms had taken a huge toll on his body and he reckoned he would need at least two more weeks before he would be strong enough to widen the opening between the bars. He was grateful to be able to use the android’s heavy body for weightlifting exercises. His only concern was the sparse availability of food. He had lost several packages of instant meals to the rats but had managed to save the other packages by storing them in the metal box which he had found in the truck. The idea of finishing the rat trap that he had started filled him with dread.

Achieving balance in the amount of food needed to fill him and the amount needed to train his body was difficult. He knew that failure to do enough strengthening exercises each day might result in him having to eat rats for dinner if he was still too weak to pry the bars open. If he overdid the exercises, he would need more time to recover resulting in him using up his supply of instant meals before he could free himself.

He knew that by doing nothing he could live a few weeks longer as they would most likely bring him new supplies of food. However, he didn’t want to wait for that. He would rather die attempting to escape than risk being humiliated again. He had sworn to kill Haruz and his pathetic group of people and that thought gave him the strength to keep at the strict exercise regime he had set himself.

Joshua couldn’t believe his ears when he heard Olga mention the name Gynusida. A torrent of forgotten memories - which he had tried so hard to banish from his life - flooded his brain. The harsh punishments inflicted on him by his father after Gynusida had officially complained about his lack of effort still made him shudder. He was surprised by his own reaction towards Olga and it had not been his intention to laugh at her. He knew that he had unintentionally hurt her and the only thing he could do would be to comfort her by giving her a warm hug. He loved being close to her and couldn’t resist kissing her neck. He had truly felt for her when he had learned of her past suffering and was relieved that in the end, she was able to set the past discomfort aside.

“What are you staring at, Josh?”

The way she had wrapped her arms around his waist felt amazing, and as he traced the soft skin of her lower arm he said, “Oh, nothing really, just thinking.”

He felt her chin resting on his shoulder as she softly asked, “Do you want to share your thoughts?”

He intertwined his fingers with hers as he said light-heartedly, “Oh, I was thinking about the time I spent with Gynusida and the fact you were his student as well.”

“Hmm, yes,” she murmured, “we have more in common than I realised.”

He chuckled before saying, “Yeah, we are both first class nerds.”

He yelped as he felt her teeth pinching his earlobe but was surprised to hear her huskily whispering, “I’ll forgive you for calling me a nerd, but only because of the first class ranking.”

Joshua turned around and was happy to see a mischievous smile on her lips. He longed to kiss her. He moved slowly but steadily forward. He waited briefly before devouring her mouth with all the passion he felt in his body. Her soft moan charged his desire to an even higher level. She eagerly responded by grasping his hips to pull him closer. The warmth of her soft body pressing against him made his passion intensify and he lifted her off the floor wanting to find a more comfortable spot.

They both jumped when they heard a man clearing his throat. Joshua knew instantly that it was Lunn and he hastily moved away from Olga. As he looked at her shocked expression, he gave her a little wink which made her smile weakly.

He turned to Lunn as he asked with a polite but tremulous voice, “Lunn, what an unexpected pleasure. How did you get in?”

He was not surprised to see Alice walk into the room as well. She remarked with a somewhat guilty smirk, “I took the opportunity yesterday of adding our optical cards to the access memory of the lock.”

Olga snorted and said with a sarcastic tone, “Well, any normal person would still be inclined to knock.”

“Yes, well,” Lunn said as he looked amused, “I’m sorry we barged in like this but we were keen to know whether you had been successful with the first android.”

Joshua knew she was annoyed beyond reason and gently squeezed her hand trying to get her to calm down. He knew he needed to defuse the tense situation and continued in a cheery voice, “Right. We are happy to tell you that we managed to activate android Zero-one successfully. Its functions are within the set parameters and at the moment it’s charging its battery.”

“I could have told you that they were about to enter the laboratory, Miss Olga,” said the android, “Zero-six recognised Miss Alice’s footsteps. Do you want me to warn you next time?”

Joshua was gobsmacked by the question and it seemed he wasn’t the only one. All four were staring at the android which looked at them with a neutral expression.

Olga was the first to utter, “Err, yes, that would be nice Zero-one. In fact, if anyone is about to enter the laboratory I think we would like to be notified.”

“I’m afraid that we can only recognise Miss Alice and Double-zero’s footsteps at the moment.”

“That’s fine, for now.”

Lunn looked in astonishment at Olga as he asked, “Who the hell is Double-zero?”

Joshua felt a little apprehensive when Olga turned to him with an expression which hinted that he should do the honours of telling them about the hybrid. As he thought about how to approach the subject, he realised that his story might be disturbing for outsiders.

“Ah yes,” he retorted nervously, “Double-zero is a special case.”

“Special case?” asked Alice.

“Yes, you see, Double-zero is a hybrid, that is, an android built into a female body.”

Alice and Lunn both gasped and after a tense moment of silence Lunn growled, “Don’t tell me she has red hair?”

Joshua didn’t like the feral look on Lunn’s face and swallowed a few times before plucking up the courage to nod.

“Andena,” whispered Lunn, “the poor girl.”

“This is sickening!” spat Alice, “how could you do that to her?”

Joshua stuttered, “It, it was the only way; she would have died otherwise.”

“What?” screamed Alice, “did she actually agree? Tell me asshole, did she have the chance to give her consent or did you just mutilate her in the name of science?”

Olga stepped between him and Alice and shouted, “Stop attacking him! Do you really think that we had any say about what was happening at Bionex? You just had to do what Mr. Yousima wanted or you found yourself dumped off the cliff.”

“Oh really?” asked Alice, “I’ve seen enough on the media to understand that you and Mr. Yousima were really close.”

Joshua saw Olga’s face turn pale as she gasped at Alice’s totally inaccurate assumption.

“You haven’t a clue what was going on at Bionex. Do you really think I had any fucking choice in the matter?” screamed Olga.

“Okay, okay!” boomed Lunn’s voice in the room, “Enough! Everybody stop!”

Joshua had trouble keeping a straight face as Olga and Alice huffed at the same time.

Olga said with a brittle voice, “You really don’t want to know what happened in the labs at Bionex. Double-zero was the only one who survived the full upgrade.”

“Full upgrade?” asked Alice with disgust.

Joshua stepped in because he could see that Olga was having trouble keeping herself from crying and said, “Double-zero is supposed to function like Zero-one because they have exactly the same computer core.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Lunn said, “if Andena is a fully functional android she wouldn’t have been able to escape from the Bionex building and she wouldn’t have changed into smart clothes and left the lab again.”

Joshua gasped and asked, “Are we sure that we’re talking about the same person?”

Alice addressed the android with a tight voice, “Zero-one, at what time did Double-zero leave the laboratory the day before yesterday?”

“Double-zero left the laboratory at eleven fifteen that day.”

Alice tapped on her tablet a few times and handed it to Lunn who sighed heavily. “Double-zero is Andena.”

As he pinched the bridge of his nose he asked Joshua, “You said that she is supposed to function like Zero-one but clearly that is not the case and you knew that already didn’t you?”

Joshua was taken aback by Lunn’s sharp observation and he stammered, “She, she had a fight with Mr. Yousima when he tried to assault her. We thought she had gone rogue but Zero-one told us that they had a normal conversation with her.”

“They?” asked Alice incredulously, “are you telling me she can communicate with the other androids?”

“Yes, as long as the distance is not greater than nine hundred feet, we can communicate with each other,” replied Zero-one.

“Right,” said Lunn, “so we can assume that Andena somehow changed back to a ‘normal’ person again, got all dressed up and left the lab clearly with a set purpose. Alice, do you have any info on where she went?”

Joshua could see the uneasy look on Alice’s face as she consulted her tablet and she answered with a taut voice, “She headed in the direction of the Archon headquarters but I’m not absolutely sure whether she got there or not. We don’t have many cameras in that area which I can tap into.”

Lunn’s lips tightened as he seemed to ponder Alice’s answer. Joshua saw Olga looking at him with a quizzical look and he was almost sure that she had the same question.

He asked, “Why would Double, err, I mean Andena, go to the Archon headquarters?”