Chapter Six
Kristoff
The tugging pulled me away from the House of Healing, as I had known it would, down several residential streets lined with the odd-looking Earth houses. The paved streets were already hot even though judging by the position of the sun, it wasn’t even mid-morning yet. The blue shoe covers I was wearing on my feet were already in shreds and tatters, causing me to long for my heavy black uniform boots.
Even more than the boots, I missed my weapons. The assassin droid had very few weak spots and I had nothing but my bare hands to put it out of commission. That would have to be enough—I just hoped I reached it before it got to Charlotte.
Because if it touched her and injected her with nanites from the receptors in its palms…
I couldn’t even think about it. Following the incessant tugging, I ran, praying I wouldn’t be too late.
Charlotte
“So how did you know I lived here?” I asked, as I rummaged around in my purse for my cell phone. “I mean—”
I turned my head and my sentence ended in a startled gasp. Instead of staying in the living room area while I went through to the tiny kitchen to dig in my purse, Carlos had come up right behind me. And he had moved so quietly I hadn’t heard a thing.
“Uh, I mean…” I took a step back, my hand still in my purse. “I didn’t think anyone but my friend Sebastian, the other intern, knew where I lived. Did you ask him?”
But of course he couldn’t have asked Sebastian, I suddenly remembered. He had been sent home to sleep the same time I was. Also, how would Carlos ask anyone from the hospital where I lived since he was driving home when he had his flat tire? There should have been no way he knew where my apartment was. So how had he found me? Had he been…following me?
“Sure, I asked him,” he said, nodding agreeably and taking another step toward me. “He told me just where to find you.”
I took another step back, my polite smile frozen on my face and my hand still in my purse.
“Um, if you don’t mind, it’s kind of a mess in here,” I said, my voice coming out high and tight. “If you, uh, want to wait in the living room, I’ll bring you the phone when I find it. I know it’s in here somewhere.” I gestured at my overstuffed purse and tried to laugh but it came out sounding nervous and fake.
Carlos shrugged and smiled, not actually answering. He didn’t move either—he just stood there, staring at me. His eyes were brown but when he moved his head, I saw a flash of silver in them which was…weird. Really weird.
“Um…” My searching hand finally found something but it wasn’t my phone—it was the taser I had bought after I was attacked in college. A Vipertek VTS (in black—not pink because screw the companies that think everything a woman uses has to be pink and girly.) It looked a little like a small, black flashlight and it fit right in the palm of my hand. I gripped it now, my fingers sweaty with anxiety.
Carlos—was it really Carlos?—took another step towards me. He was close now—too close. Well inside my personal space.
“Carlos,” I said, trying to make my voice firmer. “If you could just go back to the living room I would really appreciate it. I’m not comfortable having you in this part of my home.”
Instead of backing off, he took another step forward and grinned. It was a terrifying expression because it didn’t reach his eyes at all. They were cold and emotionless and…and silver. They were pure silver now!
I gasped and took a step back, bringing the taser out of my purse with one swift gesture. I pointed at the person I was pretty sure wasn’t actually Carlos and waved it menacingly.
“Get back,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so high and frightened. “Get away from me.”
“Empress,” it whispered and its voice sounded nothing like the kindly old janitor’s now. “Goddess…”
The words sent a shiver down my back. Goddess—that was what Kristoff had called me! What did it mean? What the Hell was going on?
The Carlos-thing took another step towards me and I couldn’t take it anymore. I thrust the taser right in its face and pressed the trigger button.
Often just firing the taser off into the air is enough to back down a would-be attacker. I knew because I had used it once or twice on dates that tried to get too handsy—(this was before I gave up on dating in favor of practicing medicine and not thinking about how I couldn’t get sexually excited, of course.)
The taser is supposed to emit a bright surge of electric charge and make a loud, intimidating crackling that sounds like the world’s biggest bug zapper frying the world’s biggest bug. Lots of guys run for the hills when they see it, so there’s no need to even actually use it on them.
To my dismay, instead of the bright bluish-white crackle of electrical current between the two test prongs, all I got was a slight, sputtering sizzle. Oh no—when was the last time I had charged the damn thing? I usually plugged it up and charged it every night religiously but lately my schedule at the hospital had been so topsy-turvy I must have forgotten to do it.
I tried again with the same effect—the weak, sparking sizzle—not very scary at all. At least, not to the Carlos-thing, which just kept coming.
“Goddess,” it said again and put out its hands to grab me.
“Get back!” I shouted, jumping back myself. Just then a movement behind the Carlos-thing’s back caught my eye. My heart stuttered in my chest as I recognized Kristoff, my patient of the night before. His skin was a normal deep tan now and he was wearing scrubs and a lab jacket which he must have stolen from the hospital. But it wasn’t what he looked like or what he was wearing that interested me—it was the fact that he was somehow in my home and he appeared to be stalking the thing that was stalking me.
Catching my eye, he gave a slight shake of his head and put a finger to his lips. The message was clear—don’t say a word and just keep the thing’s attention.
“Who are you?” I demanded of the Carlos thing, still backing slowly away, just out of reach of its grasping hands. “Who sent you? What do you want with me?”
To my surprise, it answered me—well, sort of.
“I am not programmed to answer such questions,” it said in a stilted, mechanical voice, all traces of Carlos’ soft accent completely gone now.
“Well, what are you programmed to do?” I asked it.
Behind it, Kristoff was closing in. There was a knife block sitting on my kitchen counter—it had been my mother’s and she gave it to me when I left for college, even though I had never had much interest in cooking. Kristoff grabbed the hilt of the biggest knife and slid it silently out of its sheath.
“I am programmed to kill,” the Carlos-thing said and rushed at me.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
I screamed and ducked to one side, just barely managing to get out of the way of the charging Carlos-thing
At the same time, Kristoff stepped smoothly forward and buried the knife to the hilt in the back of its neck.
There was a popping, grinding sound and suddenly the thing’s silver eyes started blinking and glowing, emitting beams of colored light that flashed off and on like some kind of demented disco ball. At the same time it jerked and writhed, as though it was inventing a new dance. And then, from behind the paper thin wall that separated my apartment from Mr. Peterson’s, a car commercial came on playing the song, Funky Town. “Gotta make a move to a town that’s right for me…”the commercial crooned while the assassin-droid flashed and jerked.
It was freaking surreal.
Oh my God—this is crazy! This can’t be happening, can it? I thought, trying to get as far as I could from my would-be killer’s flailing limbs while the car commercial invited me to go to Funky Town. This has to be some kind of a dream.
But it was no dream. Despite my evasive maneuvers, the Carlos-thing still managed to brush my cheek with the fingers of one flailing hand. The place where it touched me burned like fire and I gave a cry and grabbed for my face.
“Goddess-damn it!” Kristoff growled. He made a ruthless gesture, twisting the knife hard.
Suddenly, the lights stopped and the Carlos-thing went completely limp, sagging like a marionette whose strings had been cut. The image of Carlos—stooped shoulders, gray hair, kindly wrinkled face—flickered and was gone. In its place was a smooth, glossy silver figure. It was vaguely man-shaped—it had two arms, two legs, a torso and head, anyway. But it had no face at all—it was just smooth, blank silver.
“Oh my God,” I whispered but Kristoff didn’t waste any time looking at the now-limp silver figure. He dropped it to the floor and strode over to me, stepping over the fallen ex-Carlos as though it wasn’t even there.
I looked up at him, wide-eyed.
“What are you—” I began but before I could finish, he was already taking my face in his big, warm hands and examining my cheek. “Hey!” I protested, as he turned my chin from side to side, as though looking for something. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?”
“The droid brushed your cheek with its hand. I saw it.” His deep voice was grim. “I have to be certain it didn’t inject you with nanites. If it did—”
“Nanites? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your face—your cheek is red. Do you have a portable magnetic field?” he demanded.
“Do I have a what? No—of course not! You think I keep an MRI machine in my pocket or something?” I demanded. “And why would I need one, anyway?”
“To corrupt their memory and short out their circuitry, of course,” he said, sounding impatient, as though I ought to know this stuff already. “Look, if the nanites reach your brain, or even your mucus membranes, you’re going to be in big trouble.”
I wanted to brush him off and tell myself he was talking crazy—the things he was saying certainly sounded crazy, anyway. Then I remembered that he had tried to warn me about Carlos—or the thing that had looked like Carlos, anyway. That hadn’t turned out to be so crazy, now had it?
Also, my cheek was still burning like fire where the thing had touched me which seemed like a really bad sign. So I supposed I had better take him seriously.
“Microwave rays will work too,” he said urgently. “Or an electromagnetic pulse.”
“I don’t have either of those,” I said blankly. “I mean, I have a microwave but I’m not going to stick my head inside it. Even if I wanted to, it won’t turn on unless the door is shut.”
“You must have something I can use.” He sounded frustrated beyond belief. “Think, my Lady! Though some have named you a Goddess, you are all too mortal and easy to kill.”
“Well, short of running back to the hospital and walking into the MRI room…” I started but then my eyes fell on my refrigerator which was right behind him.
I don’t go for knick-knacks much, but I do like to get souvenirs when I travel or do something memorable. Fridge magnets are small, cheap, and easy to transport—I have a pretty good collection of them. In fact, they cover the whole front of my refrigerator.
“Would one of those smaller magnets do?” I asked, pointing at my crowded fridge. I had one from San Francisco that was rainbow colored and one from London that was shaped like Big Ben. Another—a gift from Zoe—had a picture of a happy 50’s housewife standing in front of the stove saying, “Make your own damn dinner.”
“These are magnetic?” Kristoff turned to my fridge and grabbed a white phantom mask from the time Zoe and Leah and I had splurged and gone to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Straz—the Tampa Performing Arts center.
“Well, yes—weakly magnetic,” I said. “They—”
But he was already rubbing the magnetic side of the phantom mask over my cheek. His other large hand was buried in the hair at the nape of my neck to hold me still and there was a look of intense concentration on his finely chiseled features that somehow kept me from complaining.
At last he stopped and dropped the magnet on the counter. Taking my face in both hands, he examined me again, his eyes whirling rainbows.
“How are you?” he demanded. “How do you feel?”
“Fine, I think.” I took a deep breath and reached up to touch my cheek. It didn’t burn anymore, so that was good. “Did you, uh, get them out?”
“I incapacitated them,” he said. “Disrupted their functions. As long as you don’t feel a burning sensation you should be fine.”
“I don’t.” I touched my cheek again. “I feel normal.” Well, as normal as I could with a seven-foot tall muscular giant looming over me and cupping my face in his hands.
“Good.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “I was almost too late. You should not have incapacitated me with drugs last night, my Lady. How can I protect you if I am unable to stand by your side and fight?”
“I didn’t know you were sent to protect me from that…that thing.” I nodded at the collapsed silver figure and shivered. “I thought you were just some crazy guy—you grabbed my friend, Sebastian by the neck!”
“He was disrespecting you,” Kristoff said, as though that excused nearly strangling someone to death. “He got off lightly by Majoran standards. No one dares to act or speak so disrespectfully in the presence of the Goddess-Empress on Femme One, lest they lose their head.”
“What? Why do you keep calling me that?” I demanded. “And who are you, anyway?”
Kristoff took a deep breath and ran a hand through his blue-black hair. Then he looked at me directly.
“My Lady,” he rumbled. “A better question might be who are you and what is your true identity?”