Flesh Blood Steel Read online

  Terse words from the other end.

  “I know you have, and that’s why I don’t get this enthusiasm. I’m still not convinced he’s with us. It could all be a ploy, a way to infiltrate Crown, and you’re making it possible.”

  An inquisitive remark.

  “Cut our losses. Put a bullet through his brain and drive on. He’s already served his purpose. We don’t need him anymore.”

  Jake managed not to stiffen in his seat, but the skin over his sternum constricted, and his pulse quickened.

  Another pause, much longer than before, followed Moore’s words. Jake got the feeling that the person speaking had broken contact for a moment to confer with someone else. When next it spoke, its tone and cadence had changed. This was a new speaker, Jake realized. The voice was deeper, more resonant, and it spoke in terse, declarative sentences for several beats while Moore listened in silence.

  Moore took his hands from his pockets to fold his arms, his shoulders tense. “Yes. Understood. Yes, I will.”

  The call must have ended. Moore pulled the passenger door open. Janet, Anya’s former prison mate, was sitting up there sipping a Coke.

  “We’re hopping a flight,” Moore said. “Anya, you got the tickets?”

  “Done. And I forwarded all our ID information along with electronic passports. We’re all set.”

  “Do I have to tell you guys no guns?” Moore asked.

  “Not even the itty bitty ones?” Janet asked with a smirk.

  Moore gave her what Jake’s mom used to call an old fashioned sort of look, the type of deadpan stare that told the speaker they weren’t funny, not even a bit, but in an odd sort of jovial way. Moore didn’t smile, but there was something warm in his face when he looked at Janet, something Jake wouldn’t have thought possible from the before seeing it.

  They piled out of their stolen vehicles. Calvin and another guy from the other car volunteered to drive them to long-term parking near the terminal.

  “Won’t they be seen on cameras?” Jake asked as he followed Anya and the others inside.

  “No. It’s odd, La Guardia seems to be having trouble with their cameras tonight.”

  “Is there anything you can’t do with a computer?”

  She smiled. It was a genuine expression, not put on, and Jake realized it was the first time he had seen its like from her. “You know, we’ve always wanted magic—humans I mean. Folks used to make up magical words, and write down spells to live longer, cure diseases—”

  “Turn lead into gold,” Jake supplied.

  “Yeah, that sort of thing.” Anya gave him a nod. “But it took programming to make magic real. If you know the right incantation, the perfect place and time to say it, you can make just about anything happen.”

  Jake had to repress a shiver. What did that mean for a guy with a computer in his brain?

  Their group remained together, Moore in the lead, bypassing the ticket desks and luggage carousels. A set of escalators lifted them to the main security checkpoint where a long line of travelers stood waiting. Most of them held their shoes and belts in their hands. Not much had changed with airport security in the last thirteen years.

  “How are we supposed to get through that?” Jake asked Anya in a low voice.

  “Watch.”

  A tall blonde woman dressed in a TSA uniform stood off to one side, scanning the crowd. Moore discreetly lifted a hand to her, and she hurried over.

  “How many?” she asked.

  “Nine,” Moore said.

  “We can do that. Everyone’s got proper ID?”

  Moore nodded.

  “Follow me.” The woman bypassed the line, heading for a closed security checkpoint. It was blocked off by one of those elastic barricades that link together. She unfastened one end to let Moore and the others pass then put it back in place. Jake heard a couple of people in the crowd mutter about special treatment, but that was all. They were through security in seconds. The other TSA agents paid them no attention whatsoever.

  The blonde woman shook Moore’s hand and then ambled away as if she had never seen their group.

  “Was she with Dissolution?” Jake whispered.

  Anya nodded. “We have people everywhere.”

  Jake wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He scanned the long concourse where they stood, people milling around them like a river breaking on rocks, and considered running. A global corporation that employed cyborg assassins and waged wars in foreign countries was after him, and he was running from them with an equally brutal group of killers whose motives he didn’t begin to understand.

  Anya tugged at his shirt sleeve. “Come on. We don’t want to chance missing our flight.”

  Jake reluctantly followed her. His thoughts turned again and again to the conversation between Moore and the mystery person (people?) outside the terminal. Obviously, the big man was talking about Jake. He had called him Harris. And he had seemed adamant that they leave Jake behind, but the nearly inaudible voices on the phone hadn’t listened. They wanted something, something Harris could deliver. Jake wasn’t pleased by the pictures that conjured in his head.

  “Have you ever flown?” Anya asked.

  “Once, when I was a little kid,” Jake said. “We didn’t have a lot of money.”

  Anya nodded. They had reached their gate, and she took a seat near the greeter’s podium by the door.

  Huge jets, far more streamlined than just thirteen years ago, taxied past the bank of windows on this side of the terminal.

  “Those don’t look like regular planes to me,” Jake said.

  “They’re sub-orbital,” Anya said.

  “We’re going into space?” Jake felt his eyes go wide.

  “Close. We’ll get some weightlessness, but not for long. It’s only a forty-five minute flight.”

  Jake whistled. He may not have flown much in his life—what he thought of as his normal life—but he was certain a flight from New York to Paris had taken longer than that back in his day.

  While he stared at the sleek jets taxiing to and from the runways, a much larger vessel floated into view. Blocky and covered in metal plating, it looked like a cross between a small aircraft carrier and one of those blimps sports casters used to cover football games. It hovered a scant fifty feet above the nearest terminal building on a series of fans built into its undersection. Jet engines that spewed blue-white fire at odd intervals propelled the massive craft along like a whale lazily flicking its tail. Written on its side, just below a crew compartment festooned with windows, was printed the name Cymobius in giant white block letter.

  Jake jerked upright, his heart suddenly throbbing in his chest, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

  “What is it?” Anya scanned the crowds, obviously looking for a human threat.

  Jake touched her wrist and pointed. “They found us.”

  “Oh. Them.” Anya sounded relieved, and her expression confirmed her tone. “Don’t worry. Those guys aren’t after us, otherwise they’d already be in here. Cymobius is one of the top security companies in North and South America. Every airport, stadium, and strip mall you go to will likely have a Cymobius security team running around. They’re everywhere.”

  Jake relaxed a little, though his heartrate remained high, and his cybrid kept playing out scenarios of how he should react if armed guards showed up in this crowd. “Won’t they be on alert to look for us?”

  “Not the ones in this airport. Not today. Dissolution has people everywhere too.”

  Jake nodded, thinking of the woman who had let them pass through security without getting checked. “What sort of ship is that? Looks like something from a sci-fi movie.”

  Anya shrugged. “They just call them airships. They use those fans on the bottom in conjunction with hydrogen...I guess you’d call them balloons inside the structure to float like that. They’re not fast like a jet, but Cymobius uses them for weapons platforms and to deploy troops, or security personnel in this case. Anyway, don’t worry about
them. They’re not here for us, I promise.”

  Jake nodded though he wasn’t about to take his eyes off the ship. Fortunately, it did nothing untoward, simply floated languidly across the airport’s infield, turning west until it disappeared from view. Maybe Anya was right, but he was too on edge to feel totally relaxed with what amounted to a Cymobius flying tank circling him.

  “So I guess you don’t recall ever visiting Europe?” Anya said in a I’m changing the subject sort of tone. “This will be like your first time.”

  Jake nodded.

  “You don’t look pleased at the idea.”

  Jake debated telling Anya about overhearing Moore’s conversation, but decided against it. Of all the people he had met since waking up in this body, he trusted her the most. She had treated him well, even tried to help him despite the odd circumstances, but Jake wasn’t certain how far to take that trust. A phrase Moore had said kept fishtailing its way through Jake’s mind: He’s served his purpose.

  What did that mean? Was Moore simply saying Jake had won their group free, or was it something else?

  “I’m not looking forward to meeting these Crown people you mentioned earlier,” Jake said before his silence could make Anya suspicious.

  “I—” She pursed her lips. “I hadn’t considered it, but you’re probably right. I can’t imagine them leaving you be. They’ll want to interrogate you.”

  “Does interrogate mean torture?” Suddenly, Jake’s cybrid was feeding him scads of information about the best exit strategy from this terminal, running a series of simulated attempts through is head in a matter of seconds. It was all he could do to ignore them and focus on Anya’s words.

  “No,” she said. “No one’s going to torture you. They’ll want to assure themselves that you’re telling the truth about your memory loss. I think I can help there. And they’ll probably want to watch you for a little while to be certain you’re no threat to us.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I don’t know. Maybe they’ll ask you to join us permanently. We could use you.”

  Jake’s stomach grew suddenly tight. Why would anyone want renowned assassin on their team? He could think of only one reason.

  Chapter 12

  Review

  Their flight from New York to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport was largely uneventful. Jake enjoyed peering down at the sphere of the world, the horizon a vast, blue curve beneath them, as gravity gave way and his stomach seemed to rise. Late evening slipped away into deepest night as the jet dropped back toward the Earth, the roar of wind like thunder playing across the fuselage. But the view, and even the experience, did little to assuage Jake’s fears and unmitigated confusion.

  Two men dressed in jeans and sport coats met them when they landed. One was British. He did most of the talking with Moore. The other was French, though he spoke English well. He served as their guide, helping them clear customs, arranging transportation, chatting with food vendors.

  Jake found himself ensconced in a sleek, black taxi between Anya and some girl about their age as they zoomed away from the airport. Opposite him—this taxi seemed more like a limo than a regular car—sat Calvin with their French guide next to him. The Frenchman did a remarkable job acting discreet. He hardly looked at Jake except for a momentary glance now and again. But it was easy to see by his forced nonchalance that he knew who and what Jake was. And that he feared him.

  For his part, Jake paid the man no mind. Probably this was some minor functionary in the Dissolution movement. Muscle sent to assess the situation.

  They headed out of the city, following unlined roads into the countryside of France south of Paris.

  “Do you know where we’re headed?” Jake asked.

  Anya shook her head. “Never been here before. None of us have.”

  “Not even Moore?”

  “I don’t think so,” Anya said.

  “He’s never met these Crown people?” Jake whispered to keep Moore, who sat up front with their driver, from hearing.

  “No.”

  Their French guide made as if he hadn’t heard a word, but the way he moved his eyes said otherwise.

  Jake leaned back in his seat to watch the land unfold outside the window. Stands of maple trees, interspersed between farmland, rolled ever onward under silver moonlight. Old stone buildings and churches arose here and there, tucked into darkened hillsides or else scattered amongst farms revealed by weak overhead lights. They seemed out of place next to more modern structures like stucco apartments and two story houses shrouded in vinyl siding.

  Something was odd here. It went beyond what Jake’s waking mind was fast accepting as reality—the fact that he was part robot, his only friends some sort of rebels against the world whom he didn’t trust, and that cyborg assassins were after him. His cybrid was worrying at a problem it hadn’t yet brought to his full attention, but now that he was thinking about it, the fact boiled up into his consciousness.

  Why was this Moore’s first time meeting someone from Crown?

  Jake had no clue why that question bothered him, or more rightly, his cybrid. What was so odd about it? Judging by their reactions when he had first met them, Moore’s team had—and probably still—feared Jake just from his reputation as an assassin. It made sense that, should someone within their organization capture the boogie man called Harris, that person would look like a hero to the rest of the group.

  But if that were true, why had Moore resisted the idea of bringing Jake to France on the phone? He had acted as though his people were coming here with or without Jake, and that he would have preferred the latter.

  That meant Jake was overestimating his worth, at least to Moore. The big man didn’t deem Jake’s presence enough to warrant meeting Crown. Moore must have thought he was going to meet them regardless, which meant he, Moore, had done something worthy of such a meeting beyond capturing Jake.

  Perhaps this meeting was a long time coming? Moore may have been due to a visit with Crown. Picking up Jake on the way was just a fortunate coincidence. Except Moore clearly didn’t see Jake’s presence as a good thing.

  The car slowed, pulling Jake from his reverie. The driver said something in French. Jake felt that he almost understood the words, though he had taken Spanish in high school.

  “Is this right?” the driver asked, or so Jake imagined.

  Their guide said something to the effect of: “Turn left—it’s that gravel lane.”

  They pulled onto a well-maintained dirt road hemmed in on both sides by thick forest. Had he not known where he was, Jake might have mistaken it for any country lane back home in the States.

  He leaned close to Anya’s ear and whispered, “I understand what they’re saying. Sort of.”

  She nodded, though her mouth turned down at the corners. “You speak seventeen languages. Or you did anyway. Do you feel like your memories are coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake said, shrugging. “I don’t think so.”

  The driver stopped at a reinforced gate that blocked the road. A guard dressed in green fatigues and carrying an AK-47 strapped to one shoulder sauntered over to the car. The driver rolled down his window, but he looked shaken, too freaked out to speak.

  “Heya,” said the French guide, getting the guard’s attention.

  The guard said nothing when he saw the guide in the back, merely nodded, and then moved to open the gate.

  “Sir,” said the taxi driver, speaking French and peering at their guide in his rearview mirror, “I think you should all get out now. I can’t drive further.”

  Jake marveled as the words unfurled in his head, almost as fluently as English.

  “Oh?” the guide asked. He seemed perfectly relaxed at the news. Maybe Jake wasn’t understanding them well after all.

  “I’m not getting involved in anything illegal, sir,” the taxi driver said. “Get out here and I’ll go. You won’t see me again.”

  The guide’s face remained passive, almost bored. H
e pointed at the guard who stood now by the open gate, an impatient scowl on his face.

  “You see that man? If I say the word, he will put a bullet through your heart and drop you in a shallow grave. He will not question my motives. He will do as he is told. He is a soldier, you see. Trained. Bred for killing.”

  At that phrase, bred for killing, Jake took a longer, more interested look at the guard. But no, he wasn’t a cybrid, just a large, capable-looking man who didn’t like opening his gate.

  The guide continued. “I, on the other hand, am not a born killer. If you finish your job, I will pay you double when we reach our destination and send you on your way. Which deal do you like best?”

  They drove another fifteen minutes, bumping over chuckholes in the road as the driver pushed his taxi just a little faster than was necessary. Eventually, the tunnel of trees they followed opened into a rough circle where stood a ramshackle house. The two story building’s once white walls were dingy, smudged with dirt and what looked like black mold.

  True to his word, the guide doubled the driver’s toll when they got out and sent the man away frightened but unharmed. A second taxi disgorged the rest of their group just as two more armed guards in fatigues stepped from inside the building to greet them.

  Jake had a feeling their cars had been watched from the road, and that their approach could have been met with assault rifle fire at any time.

  “Hugo,” said one of the new guards to their French guide, “Seanan wants to see only Moore and Harris. You think it’s safe?” His eyes roamed over the group as he spoke, clearly not certain who was who. He passed over Jake without a second glance.

  Jake knew he wasn’t catching every word of the French they spoke, but plenty enough to understand them. Their facial expressions made it easier.

  “No,” said Moore in halting French, “it is not safe. I no trust him.”