Code of Vengeance: The Complete Collection, page 22
Bryce caught movement up above. He swiveled, his pistol leading his sight.
There were offices up there, and Br00-S was entering one.
Bryce cursed.
Every instinct of self-preservation told him going up there was a horrible idea, but it was also his responsibility. Natalie had to be up there.
Bryce took the steps three at a time, grateful for the amount of exercise he still got in his older age.
He reached the hallway outside the door and took a moment to catch his breath. The door was open but there wasn’t a sound from inside.
He was a moment away from entering when he heard the gunshot, loud in the confined space of the office.
Fighting against his instinct to run, Bryce entered the doorway, his pistol clearing the room. “Police! Put your weapons down!”
There was a lot to take in. Br00-S was directly in front of him. Behind the robot, partially obscured, Natalie was on her back in a tipped-over chair. She had a weapon out and pointed in Bryce’s direction, and he instinctively trained his own pistol in her direction.
He didn’t notice the man in the room right away because Br00-S was between them. The second of delay almost cost him his life.
The man stepped out from behind the robot, his pistol trained squarely on Bryce.
Bryce swiveled, but the man had the drop on him. The other man’s pistol barked twice, and the detective felt as though he had been kicked hard in the chest. He tumbled backwards out of the office and onto the floor outside.
The man exited calmly, stepping over Bryce as he did so. Bryce tried to move, to stop the man from leaving, but his body wasn’t responding to his commands. Even worse, he felt as though he couldn’t force his lungs to draw in air.
He didn’t know how long he lay there, but after what felt like an eternity without oxygen, he was able to draw a breath. When he did, he saw Nat kneeling over him.
His first thought, odd as it was to him, was that she was an attractive young woman. If only she’d get rid of the piercings.
As his senses cleared, he realized she was speaking to him.
“Are you okay?” The look of concern on her face made him worry about his own health.
He nodded, an action that sent a fresh wave of agony down his spine. Getting a full breath of air, he said, “I’m wearing armor.”
The look on her face changed from concern to relief.
She continued to kneel there, a far-off look in her eyes, as Bryce came to. From a glance, he could tell the girl was in shock. Despite that, though, she kept a remarkably cool head.
He worked himself up to his elbows and then to a sitting position. Every movement hurt, but the slugs hadn’t pierced the body armor. He’d have a hell of a pair of bruises for the next week or two, but he was alive, and that was enough.
Bryce looked around. Br00-S stood in the same place. In fact, it looked as though he hadn’t moved at all.
Bryce glanced between the robot and Nat, the question unspoken in his eyes.
Nat raised the weapon in her hand, the same one he had mistaken for a pistol when he entered the room. On closer inspection, though, he realized it wasn’t one.
“I disabled him. Not sure how long it will take him to come out of it, but the entire place was a trap designed to get him to kill.” She shuddered at the memory. “It was what I used to want, too. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t bring myself to let him.”
“You did the right thing.” It sounded trite, even to Bryce, the moment he said it.
She fixed him with a curious stare. “Did I? Felix, the man who shot you, was responsible for killing the journalists who were going to break some story on Sapiens First. He had Kleon and Proskey killed. I’m certain he would have killed me, and he had no problem shooting a detective. I’m not sure I shouldn’t have let Br00-S go ahead.”
“Revenge isn’t justice.”
She scoffed. “Justice is an old-fashioned ideal, Detective. We don’t live in that world anymore.”
Bryce hated that he didn’t disagree. Even if he’d managed to somehow catch Clive Proskey as a criminal, the man never would have spent a day behind bars. He was too well-connected.
They both turned as they noticed the movement in the office.
Br00-S had returned to life.
Bryce wasn’t often nostalgic for the old days. People who were tended to forget about all the modern conveniences they had available to them. But he did sometimes miss sitting across from a suspect or witness and using every instinct available to figure out if the person was telling the truth or not.
There were the glances, the nervous tics, and so much more that slipped beyond conscious awareness. So much of being a good detective, at least back in the day, had been about being able to trust your gut, to know when you were getting close to the truth.
All of that training and experience meant nothing, though, when you were dealing with a robot. Their facial expressions could mimic those of humans, but if they didn’t want to reveal anything, it was an easy task to turn facial functions off. A human could never completely hide their feelings, but robots could.
Right now, Bryce would have given up most of his meager paychecks to know what the robot was thinking. As far as the detective could tell, Br00-S had gotten the closest he’d ever been to his goal, only to have it snatched away at the last moment by the person who was supposed to be his partner.
The lack of anger in his voice was even more terrifying than if he had shouted. “Why did you do that?” he asked Nat.
Bryce had to give the girl the credit she deserved. He wouldn’t have thought any less of her if she’d turned and run from that steely gaze, but she stood up and faced Br00-S.
“I couldn’t let you kill him.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would make you a murderer, just like him.”
Bryce opened his mouth to remind them they were both criminals, but then shut it again. This probably wasn’t the time or the place to be discussing legal definitions.
“He deserves to die,” the robot said, the voice impossibly calm.
“Agreed. But we don’t get to make that decision.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Catch him. Let Detective Lewis bring him in for trial.”
“There’s not enough evidence to convict him.”
“Not of the crimes you know he’s guilty of, but he’s definitely guilty of shooting a police officer. He’ll go to prison.”
The robot seemed to debate. “How do I find him?”
Bryce looked between the two partners. He noted that Br00-S hadn’t said anything about not killing Felix yet.
Nat seemed to think the same thing, because she was silent for a moment or two.
“Do you promise not to kill him?” she asked.
Br00-S remained silent.
Nat sighed, caught in a position she probably didn’t want to be in. “Fine. I trust you to make the right decision. He had a cell phone while he was here; he was playing with it the entire time. You’ll be able to track it.”
Bryce wasn’t sure he would have made the same decision as Nat. There was no telling what Br00-S would do with the information, and frankly, Bryce wasn’t as trusting as Nat was of her partner.
He was startled when Br00-S spoke up. “I’ve got his location.”
Bryce was impressed. He understood the process. If the phone was active during a certain time, you could identify the specific phone from service records. Then it would be an easy matter to ping the phone to find its current location. It was the sort of operation they did in the precinct all the time. But there, it took days to jump through all the legal loopholes and get the pertinent records. The robot, clearly hacking into their systems, had done it in seconds.
The robot took off, not bothering to give the humans any more information.
Nat looked at Bryce. “We better follow him. Can you move?”
Bryce nodded, and she helped him to his feet.
Together, they stumbled after the robot, hoping they could prevent another murder.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Br00-S’ processors felt chaotic. He was used to his logic systems operating smoothly, one step sliding seamlessly into the next. He could stream thousands of inputs together and make sense of them. But not anymore. Everything was a jumble. His thoughts ran in circles whenever they didn’t hit a dead end. All he knew was anger.
Part of it was directed at Nat. How dare she? When he was so close, with Felix begging for the very end Br00-S wanted to give him.
But most of his rage was for Felix. Br00-S imagined pointing the gun at him and pulling the trigger. The programming that had once prevented him from harming humans was a relic of the past. It didn’t even register as a process anymore.
But with the ability to kill came the question. Should he?
Felix was guilty. If he hadn’t pulled the trigger himself, he had still been responsible. There was no death penalty anymore, but if ever a man deserved it, it was him.
Why should the guilty not be punished? An eye for an eye was one of the oldest laws humans had ever created. Enforcing it was a tradition as old as written history.
There was more, though. Nat and Bryce, the two humans he knew best, had tried to stop him. They were good people, and if they didn’t want him to, what part of his moral code was missing?
Perhaps they were just weak.
Something nagged at the back of his mind, a memory, clamoring for attention in the midst of the chaos that was his mind. He pushed it aside. Time for remembrance could come later.
Tracking Felix was no challenge. For all the man’s preparations, he was undone by a simple mistake. He didn’t turn off his phone. Based on the GPS signal, Felix was on foot, and with every step Br00-S took, he closed the distance. He was in no rush, though. The chase gave him time to consider his next step.
Br00-S could hear the sirens in the distance. The police had come to arrest the men who tried to kill him. Justice, such as it was, churned forward, slogging through the corruption of society that held it back.
He knew Nat and Bryce were following him. They wanted to stop him. He wondered what they would try. They couldn’t outsmart him, and he was stronger than they were. Nat and her weapon had caught him by surprise once, but it wouldn’t happen again.
After a few more minutes, Felix came into view. Br00-S considered simply following him until he collapsed from exhaustion, but it wasn’t a very reasonable thought, as tempting as it was.
Better to take him by surprise.
There weren’t many paths forward for Felix. There was no challenge as Br00-S took to the rooftops and paralleled the man’s course.
As soon as Felix walked through an isolated area, Br00-S made his move. He leaped from the rooftop and landed in front of his target.
His look of surprise was almost enough revenge for Br00-S right there.
Almost.
The change in the man was fascinating. When prepared, when the moment was of his choosing, Felix had been ready to give his life for his cause.
Not here. Not when it wasn’t recorded by six cameras for the world to see. Br00-S had noticed them, of course, but hadn’t cared.
They made all the difference for Felix, though. Out here, in a deserted street, his death, and thus his life, would be meaningless.
Felix fell and scrambled backward as Br00-S pointed the pistol at him with his good arm.
There were so many options. Br00-S could pinpoint any of the organs or any of Felix’s joints. At this range, his chance of missing his shot was less than one percent.
Killing would be easy. All he needed to do was apply pressure to the trigger.
His finger tightened, just a fraction of an inch. He felt the tension as he reached the firing point of the weapon. Felix would have killed Nat. Br00-S was certain of it.
And then the memory hit with full force, the one that had been in the back of his mind for the past few minutes. How could he have forgotten? The chaos in his processors… he had felt something very similar before.
He had felt it when he touched Alex’s mind.
Br00-S’ finger twitched on the trigger, not quite applying enough pressure to make it fire. An overwhelming rush of sorrow crashed over him like a wave breaking across a jagged peninsula. He missed them so much.
He pulled the trigger twice.
He heard her well before he saw her. Her footsteps were light, but not light enough to escape his hearing.
Br00-S was up on a rooftop, about a block away from where he shot Felix. He watched from the shadows of an air conditioning unit as the police took the screaming man into custody. Br00-S had shot and broken both the man’s shoulders. He couldn’t imagine the agony he had caused, but he didn’t much care. Felix lived.
Nat found him with little difficulty. He wasn’t quite sure how, but the simplest explanation was that she had tracked him as he fled the scene. Detective Lewis would have been distracted by the commotion and his responsibilities. It had taken Nat a while to find him. He could have left, but he wanted to watch the conclusion to his journey and ponder his own decision and the realizations he’d come to in the past few hours.
Humans were weak. They had brains that barely seemed to function, protected by a laughable layer of skin and bone which did little but provide the illusion of safety.
But there was something beautiful in the chaos of their minds.
Br00-S couldn’t be sure if it was his ingrained programming speaking or his original thoughts. But he wanted to protect humans. He wanted to keep Nat safe from harm.
Even if that meant harming others.
Nat stood next to him, taking in the scene silently.
“Is it over?” she asked.
Br00-S had been wondering that exact same question. Felix was the one who had ordered the deaths of Alex and Roger. He started the boulder rolling down the hill, unaware that it would eventually lead to his own downfall.
“Yes. It’s over.”
Nat’s shoulders relaxed, and Br00-S could see the answer was important to her.
The silence stretched between them. He could tell she had another question for him, but she was afraid to ask it. After a few minutes, she found the courage. “Why didn’t you kill him?”
He wondered how to tell her about his revelation, or if he even should.
He didn’t. It was still too fresh and too personal. But he could tell her where it led. “As much as I wanted to, when the moment came, it didn’t feel right.”
Nat’s eyes darted over to him, and he got the sense she was trying to dig deeper and find the meaning underneath his words.
Below them, the ambulances pulled away, their silent flashing lights fading as they turned the corner. Only the forensic bots were left, and from his hack into the police system, Br00-S knew they were almost finished with the scene. When the morning came, the workers on their way to their jobs wouldn’t even know what happened in the street.
Nat’s voice was firm. “Several years ago, my baby brother died in an accident at home. I blamed the robot housekeeper.”
She started to say more, but her voice choked up.
Br00-S knew enough about her that the connections came easily. That was why she had helped him all this time, why she had wanted to know more about what he was doing. In the end, her goal had been the same as Felix’s last-ditch plan. Suddenly, he understood what it meant for her to shoot him back in that room, to prevent him from killing Felix the first chance he had.
He reached across and gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze.
He was surprised when she turned to him and embraced him.
Gently, he wrapped his arms around her.
After a few minutes, she gently pushed herself away. She looked up at him. “So, what are we going to do next?”
Br00-S grinned. “I have absolutely no idea.”
Epilogue
They climbed down the sewer hatch together, finding themselves in a surprisingly roomy tunnel. Nat had been expecting something… dirtier, she supposed. It was dark and cold, but far less creepy than she’d anticipated.
Bryce led the way, his high-powered flashlight providing the light he and Nat needed to move through the tunnel. Behind them, Br00-S made his own way.
“It wasn’t easy to find someplace with power and data that was mostly off-grid, but when I had the bright idea of looking through past arrest records, I came across this place,” Bryce said.
Nat wondered where all of this was heading. “Are you going to tell us what this is about?”
She could hear the smile in his voice as he replied, “Soon.”
Two turns later, he stopped in a fairly large cavern, half constructed, half natural.
“What is this place?” she asked as Bryce shone his light around the room.
“I’m thinking it could be your new home.”
Nat started. “Huh?”
The detective turned around, keeping his flashlight low so he wouldn’t blind her. “You two don’t really know what you’re doing next, right?”
Nat shook her head.
“Well, until you do, you need a place to stay. We’re still interrogating Felix, but there’s one thing that’s clear. Whatever conspiracy Sapiens First is putting together, we’ve only stung it. They might come after you, they might not, but this is the safest place I could find. I’m sure after a few hours in official records, you two could make this place completely disappear.”
Nat looked around the cave with new eyes. It was dark and cold, but that was nothing a few lights and a portable heater couldn’t fix. She saw the power and data lines running overhead, so they’d have everything they needed, at least for a while.
She supposed others might not like living in a cave, but she saw it as a rent-free opportunity for them to figure out what came next. She didn’t really care much about Sapiens First anymore. They had found the man who ordered Alex and Roger dead. Staying out of sight probably wasn’t a terrible idea for a while, but as far as she and Br00-S were concerned, their work was done.
