“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Manny, I’ll give you that.” Pulling away, she notices her charge leaning heavily against the door. Wet and shivering, Kirsten looks the picture of misery itself and Koda immediately removes her jacket and walks back to her. “Here.” Easing the young woman away from the door, she slips the large coat around her shoulders and pulls it close around the neck. She notices Manny’s stunned look from the corner of her eye, and turns to face him directly. “She’s one of us.”
“Dayum. Good costume!”
Kirsten gives a short nod, too miserable to do anything else at the moment.
From several feet away, a commotion springs up, and before Koda can turn, a black and silver blur bolts past her and drives Kirsten back down into the snow.
“Shit!” Manny yells, reaching for his gun.
“Wait.” Dakota narrows her eyes, then relaxes as she recognizes the dog’s posture. The big dog is all squiggles as he greets his mistress with mighty kisses and soft whimpers. Grabbing him by his heavy ruff, she pulls him back and looks down into the young woman’s slobber covered face. A slight smirk curls her lip. “Friend of yours?”
“Asimov! M-my dog! Where did you find him?”
“Long story,” Koda replies, reaching down and helping the woman to her feet. “C’mon, let’s get you back to the base and into something warm and dry, alright?”
“Ellsworth?”
Dakota nods.
Kirsten’s smile is anything but pleasant. “Lead the way.”
2
After doing an amazing rendition of a mule refusing to follow the carrot, Kirsten manages to convince Manny to set the helicopter down just away from her dilapidated van. The area is swarming with droids drawn to the copter, but the closest is still a good distance away. Koda hops out after Kirsten and pins her cousin with a look. “Get ready to get this beast off the ground in a split second, got me? Even if you have to leave us behind.”
“Can’t promise that, cuz. You just be careful. I’ll be waiting.”
Shaking her head, Dakota trots off after her charge, gun at the ready.
Already at the van, Kirsten yanks the doors open and dives inside, blindly searching for what she needs. Her spare laptop is pulled out first, followed by her eyeglass case, which she slips into one of the myriad of roomy pockets of her borrowed jacket. Her burning, stinging eyes remind her that her contacts are still in place, and with a quick blink, she removes them and tosses them back into their saline bed. The earbud follows.
Before she can reach for the sack containing what’s left of her clothes, she hears a low voice through the ringing still in her ears.
“It’s time to move. Come on.”
Though the voice is perfectly calm, conversational almost, Kirsten can easily detect the subtle undercurrent of urgency, like the hint of oak in a fine white wine. She responds without thinking, backing out of the truck until she is once again standing in knee-deep snow.
“Move. Now. Don’t stop until you’re in the helicopter.”
She can hear them now, all around, offering no attempt at stealth. Her pulse quickens and her legs move into a trot, and then an all-out sprint before she’s even aware she’s running.
Manny is leaning out the side of the helicopter, his SA58 Mini FAL laying down bursts of covering fire. Stopping for a split-second, he reaches out and pulls Kirsten inside before returning to his task, covering his sprinting cousin.
Leaping, Koda dives head first into the chopper, tosses down her spent Uzi, and grabs Manny’s weapon, firing into the thick brush that surrounds the van as Manny jumps into the pilot’s seat and wrestles the BlackHawk skyward. The androids break out of cover by the dozens, all firing their weapons at the swiftly rising chopper. It is only Manny’s excellent skill that keeps them alive and one piece as he dips and dodges in an aerial ballet worthy of Baryshnikov.
Once they’re fully airborne and away from the androids’ deadly menace, only then does Koda allow a small, silent sigh of relief escape from between her lips.
The rest of the trip is made in complete silence.
3
Kirsten jumps from the helicopter before it has even fully touched down, her laptop swinging by her side with each step she takes. Asimov, hackles raised by his mistress’ obvious anger, follows along directly at her heel.
Manny makes as if to take off after the strange, though admittedly attractive, woman, but is stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Looking up at his cousin in question, he notices a familiar little twinkle in her eyes—the same twinkle she’d sport when they were kids, daring him to go on an adventure he knew he’d get his hide tanned for. He’d never been able to resist it then, and becoming an adult hasn’t changed that any.
Relaxing, he follows her lead as they make their way through the knots of soldiers and civilians toward a large, empty hangar.
Kirsten bulls her way through the same throng, her eyes fixed steadily on one person alone. Sebastian Hart, obviously the commander of this base, stands in the middle of a crowd, towering above them all. His uniform is immaculately pressed; the brass polished to a blinding shine. His smile is part politician, part kindly grandfather, and all fake.
She’s met him before, at one or another of the myriad of insufferable cabinet meetings she’d been forced to attend as Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Robotics, Bionics and Android Sciences. To her, he was just another military blowhard, willing to do anything with anyone just to get the funding he desired. She trusted him and his cohorts about as far as she could throw a tank.
As she continues to push through a crowd filled with happy pilots celebrating their successful mission, a small part of her recognizes that what she is about to do will likely significantly dampen ebullient spirits. Happiness is an emotion hard to come by lately, and part of her is loathe to put an end to it. Her father’s voice, as it often does now, soothes into her mind, reminding her that winning small battles is nothing if the war itself is lost. And it is that which spurs her on until she is standing in front of the General, eyes flashing.
“General Hart?”
The general looks down at the small, bedraggled woman standing before him. “Yes?”
The smack of palm against flesh is loud in the suddenly silent square. Blinking owlishly, Hart lifts a hand to his lips. It comes away tinged with blood. Asimov growls low in his throat, a warning to the soldiers who are staring at Kirsten as if at a viper poised to strike.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
Silence answers her.
“You don’t recognize me, do you.”
After a moment, horrified comprehension dawns, and the general pales as his eyes widen still further. “M-Madame Chairman!”
A murmur goes through the crowd.
Kirsten smiles. It’s not a very pleasant one.
“But how…where…when…?”
“I’m curious, General. Did you check to see if there were any human beings left alive in Minot before you decided to blow the base to kingdom come?”
Hart’s face reddens. “Impossible,” he declares flatly. “Minot was an android factory. They would have left no one alive.”
“Mm. That sure, were you? Were you even aware that there were at least a dozen of your own soldiers on that base when you sent those planes up?”
“They were ordered to turn back!”
“And if they refused to obey your orders because, unlike you, they weren’t positive that everyone was dead?”
“Impossible.”
“Oh, very possible, General. I was on that base when you sent your planes in, General Hart. And I would have been blown to bits if your soldiers hadn’t risked their own lives rescuing me.”
The redness drains from the man’s face like water through sand. His normally ruddy cheeks turn a color best suited to curdling milk and his Adams Apple bobs as he takes a hard swallow. “I—didn’t… .”
Kirsten smiles again. “But that’s not even the worst part,” she continues in a conversational tone. “Do you want to guess what the worst part is, General?”