Liberation's Desire Read online

  She edged toward her bedroom. “This is all a misunderstanding.”

  “Even so.” He exercised the cold impartiality that at once inflamed her and infuriated her. Black and white logic ruled his world, and he never excused anyone for their crimes. Not even if they had a good reason. “It’s protocol.”

  “I’ll get ready.” She fingered her old robe. “Why don’t I meet you at the Transit Office? In, say, an hour?”

  “The unit will be here by then.” He stretched. His muscles pressed against his uniform, a handsome show. “Anyway, I can’t allow ‘the fugitive’ an opportunity to escape.”

  The apartment building creaked loudly.

  “I swear—” Mercury started.

  “I’m kidding.” He finished stretching and yawned. “Do you have anything to eat?”

  “Sure.” She started for the boxy kitchen reprocessor embedded in the wall behind him. Maybe she was overreacting. “Can you at least tell me the charges?”

  “Identity theft.”

  “What?”

  “My boss thinks it’s identity theft. What else could it be? You’re accused of escaping arrest, public disobedience, conspiracy to commit fraud, and phrenology.”

  Her throat dried. “What?”

  “You heard me.” He shook his head and whistled. “Illegal identification-changing brain surgery.”

  The ice crystallized into piercing stalactites.

  That was what had bothered her about the interaction with the courier. He had asked for her. Usually, when one of her uncle’s friends died, they asked for her uncle.

  The sad notice wasn’t announcing the death of her uncle’s friends. It came for her. Her data had been destroyed. The Robotics Faction had found her. They would ensure she couldn’t be resurrected, and then they would kill her.

  She had to get out.

  Now.

  Haskins twisted in his chair to look at her. His weapon, a stun baton, was clipped to the utility belt encircling his taut waist. “Mercury?”

  She blinked. “Yes?”

  He nodded at her hand, poised over the reprocessor. “Food?”

  “Food? Oh. Oh, yes.” She smacked the old reprocessor to wake it and typed in something—whatever she’d last programmed, she couldn’t even remember—and waited for it to come out, her mind racing.

  Her go-bag was hidden in a ceiling vault over Haskins’ head. It contained contacts and a disguise. The contacts would mask her irises and give her a new identity. One with secret bank accounts, travel documents, fake health history, and everything she needed to get Upstairs, off-planet, undetected.

  But she had always practiced this drill with her uncle. When she’d been skinny and ten, twelve, fifteen. Not alone, an adult woman, with an agent of the law in her apartment and an agent of the Robotics Faction on her doorstep.

  Her knees started to tremble.

  She rubbed them. “Um, you liked those apricot puffs I made last week, but I’ve only got apriums programmed in here. I could go run down to the grocery store.”

  “Apriums are fine.” He rubbed his toned stomach. “Not too many calories. I might not hit the gym.”

  He’d once called her a temptation he couldn’t afford, but he’d been talking about her cooking skills, and he’d made sure she knew it.

  She moved on autopilot. Three green-skinned, red-fleshed soft fruits appeared molecule by molecule in the reprocessor’s window. When the door slid open, she reached inside and pulled them out, then reprocessed a sharp knife and a dessert dish. She cut out the pit, carved the sweet flesh into artful slices, and served it with a delicate silver spoon.

  The spoon rattled as she set it on the table in front of him.

  “Mercury.” Haskins pasted on what he obviously thought was a reassuring smile. “Don’t get all emotional. As long as you’re not guilty, everything is going to be okay.”

  She tried and failed to smile.

  “Can I get something to drink? Like that purple lemonade you made for the class reunion?”

  She reprocessed a giant purple lemon and squeezed the sweet-tart, pithy fruit into glasses. The familiar cooking calmed her. At least enough for her to think straight.

  A small fruit knife wouldn’t do much against a stun baton. What other weapons could her ancient reprocessor spit out? She ticked through kitchen equipment as she squeezed the lemon. Knives were the obvious choice, but it wasn’t like she could really stab Haskins, and he’d know her biggest cleaver was just for show.

  Could she knock him out? No, you couldn’t reprocess medicines at home, especially fast-acting, illegal kinds. Which only meant she didn’t know the codes to program it in.

  Maybe she could spit out a blowtorch. Those were used in all sorts of cooking, and they were terrifying. If she didn’t light her apartment on fire, Haskins would definitely run out and give her room to don her disguise.

  But then she’d be the only person walking out of the apartment, and he wasn’t an idiot. He’d be royally pissed at her prank.

  She thumped the glass in front of him with more force than she meant, already deeply immersed in their imaginary argument, and liquid splashed over her robe sleeves.

  He raised a concerned brow at her. “You okay?”

  She dripped on the table. A sarcastic reply snapped on her tongue. Instead, she sighed. “Yeah.”

  He finished his fruit slices and drink, tossed both dishes back into the reprocessor to be returned to their molecular components, and headed into her bedroom.

  “Hey,” she followed him, “where are you going?”

  He stared around her fluffy, comfortable, pink-and-lavender room in dismay. “You might want something clean on to face the enforcers.”

  His kindness touched her. She started forward. “Thanks. I’ll get—”

  “Ah ah.” He held up a hand. “You have to stay out in the other room.”

  “But I know where—”

  “I’ll figure it out. How hard can it be?” He yanked open a drawer, spilling out a cascade of lacey lingerie. Embarrassment burned his normally expressionless cheeks. “Oops. Uh, out you go.”

  “It would only take a second.”

  “Out.” He pulled open the next drawer, and her old holo cartridges cascaded out. Action-romances, cooking holos, and some old family histories interspersed with dreamy, emotional dramas that she could never get anyone to watch with her. He swore, non-regulation.

  She backed out, returning to the living room. “Don’t make a mess.”

  He muffled some reply.

  She crossed her arms, listening to his fumbling and imagining his circuit of her room. Then, resigning herself to the cleanup, she fingered her old robe and used the dry sleeve to clean up the spill. She pushed in Haskins’ chair, and then she checked to see if she had a screwdriver to fix the squeaky joint.

  Wait.

  Was she an idiot? Now! While she was alone in the kitchen, she had to get to the ceiling safe now!

  Heart thumping, she pulled the table out from the wall, stood on Haskins’ chair, clambered atop the table, and waved her shaking palm over the faux stucco. A number pad appeared. She fumbled the code. The pad blinked but did not open.

  Wrong entry.

  She punched it a second time. Thumbs again. The panel flashed. Oh, no.

  “Where the heck do you keep your real clothes?” Haskins demanded.

  “T-try the closet.” Why was she helping him? She pressed her fist to her mouth.

  “What closet?”

  She dropped her fist lower. “Uh, I mean, just keep looking.”

  “What the heck?” he muttered.

  She took a deep, slow breath. Her fist trembled against her chest. She released the air all at once and punched in the code.

  The panel eased open.

  Thank you.

  There, her emergency pouch. She grabbed it and sealed the tile. The number pad disappeared.

  A joint squeaked in the hall.

  She looked up.

  The only Ro
botics Faction enforcer on Mares Mercury shuffled into her apartment.

  The Faction wasn’t waiting until the unit of enforcers arrived. They had decided to kill her now.

  Her breath lodged in her throat.

  The old robot laboriously raised a deadly neural disruptor. The barrel focused on her forehead.

  She eased off the table and put her arms up. It continued coming for her. She backed away until her back hit the window. Outside, hundreds of feet below, the silver ocean crashed against sodium cliffs. There was nowhere to run.

  The robot squeezed the trigger.

  She ducked.

  A black circle melted her window.

  She screamed. “Haskins!”

  “What now?” Haskins stepped out of the bedroom, a robe dangling from his hands, his back to the robot. “You look like a radiation scare. What happened to your window?”

  She pointed behind him.

  He turned and exclaimed. “What the— What’s the big idea? Put that gun down. I told you to wait outside.”

  Haskins walked the enforcer backward down the hall and out the door. “And stay. Hey, what are you doing with that pistol? No, stay outside. Do you want me to get the deactivation wand? I’m going to have maintenance reprogram you.”

  Oh, wow. This was no joke. She started to strip off her old, lemon-stained robe.

  Haskins’ big frame filled the doorway. “Get your exposure suit. We’re leaving.”

  “It’s by the door.” She peeled the wet fabric from her chest. “I’ll change.”

  “I can’t allow that.” He frowned at her go bag. “What’s that?”

  “My purse.” She hugged the emergency bundle to her sticky chest. “I need to change. I’m all gross.”

  “You look normal.”

  “Haskins, please.”

  His tone hardened to the same official note as all those months ago, when he’d issued her the parking ticket. “Or I can paralyze you for resisting arrest and have the enforcer drag you back. Then you’ll have real charges to face.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Don’t make it worse.” He rested his palm on his shock kit. “You can change at the lock up. Come on.”

  She dragged herself after him.

  The Robotics Faction enforcer waited on her front step. She preceded it down the hall to the elevator while Haskins closed the door on Mercury’s old life and cycled the lock.

  CHAPTER TWO

  On the elevator, Mercury stood between Haskins and the rusted Transit Authority enforcer like a prisoner. The floors passed in silence.

  Without changing its cold, hard expression, the robot raised its neural disruptor at her head.

  Oh, no.

  She pressed against the impenetrable metal wall and held her breath.

  “Hey,” Haskins said sharply.

  The enforcer lowered the pistol again.

  He shook his head, muttering, “I don’t know why it does that.”

  But Mercury did.

  Seventy floors down to the parking garage allowed enough time for two more wrong-identity cycles through her broken ID chip. Then, it landed on her real identity for a few seconds. Just long enough for the dumb enforcer to react, her heart to fly into her throat, and Haskins to snap.

  She put on her exposure suit over her sticky robe and climbed into the Transit Authority go-cart. The enforcer sat directly behind her.

  Haskins leaned into the eye scan to start the engine and wheeled them out of the garage. They entered the empty streets. Light filtered down from the atmosphere shield half a mile overhead. “Put down your visor.”

  “It won’t really make a difference,” she said.

  He didn’t argue that. “It’s protocol.”

  A pinprick hole in their atmosphere shield would pop the asteroid like an over-filled balloon. It would rip all the buildings out of the rock and spaghetti them through the breach at a fraction of the speed of light. Whether her exposure suit visor was open or closed wouldn’t make a difference to her survival.

  “Do it,” he insisted, so she did.

  It was stuffy, but recycled air blew cinnamon past her nose and wafted away the soured laundry odors seeping around the weakened seals of the habitable zones. Ghost asteroid Mares Mercury’s long-closed eateries and hotels, arcades and hospitality centers passed by like the broken remnants of more colorful dreams.

  Through the visor, she was hyperconscious of every movement behind her.

  She could almost feel her chip cycling through her identities. Counting down to the one that would result in a cold murder.

  Three, two, one…

  “Down,” Haskins ordered. “Weapon down!”

  The robot behind him obeyed.

  “For the love of gold dust.” Haskins screeched the cart to a stop and ordered the enforcer out. “Meet us at transit repair. And don’t point that gun at anyone else, or I’ll disassemble you myself. Understood?”

  The robot creaked out of the vehicle and walked down the empty street.

  Haskins shook his head and drove on.

  Mercury turned around to watch its labored steps. Slow. Painful. Inexorable.

  Still coming for her.

  They left the buildings behind and drove onto the flat surrounding the Transit Hub. Behind it, the space elevator of Mares Mercury stretched up to the atmosphere shield at the edge of the sky like a white beacon. It connected the ground to a distant shuttle landing disc, which gleamed like a piece of fallen star, on the outside of the asteroid’s atmosphere bubble. Salvation.

  They eye-scanned through the Transit Hub gate, Haskins parked in an empty visitor’s lot, and they ascended the steps into the glass-fronted hub.

  Inside the first safety airlock, she hung her exposure suit on a guest hanger. The emergency go bag burned in her hands. She was so close. And even though there was almost nobody here, it still might be possible to slip away. “I have to stop at the ladies’ cleansing room.”

  “Check into Detainment first.”

  She would never get away locked into a bare cell, exposed, and identified. Her steps slowed to a drag. “I can’t wait.”

  “Then hurry up.”

  Their flats made a ghostly whoosh, whoosh on dusty tile and the edges of the vast building receded into power-saving dimness. To her left, the Arrivals corridor was a narrow, low-ceilinged hallway lined with lasers. Detainment lay beyond that corridor. To her right, the friendly Departures corridor was a vast open lounge broken up by metal line extenders. They directed the meager visitors onto the mass scale for boarding the space elevator.

  That was where she needed to be, in her disguise and sheltered behind two solid feet of elevator wall, on her way to freedom.

  Haskins strode toward the reinforced Arrivals corridor. “Detainment first. Hurry.”

  “B-but—” She fumbled for a lie and hit on truth. “I’m going to be sick.”

  He sighed and diverted to the Transit Authority Office.

  Which was heavily guarded, locked down like a military submarine, and monitored by the entire station staff.

  She slowed. “I, uh, just need a slight rest.”

  “Then you can rest in Detainment.” Haskins cycled through the multi-tier security into the iron heart of Transit Authority. “Head Officer? We’re back!”

  The office was not what Mercury had expected. Dim and eerily empty rooms faced them. An older woman’s voice echoed from deep in the warren of unused cubicles. “You’re supposed to wait at Mercury’s apartment.”

  “Our enforcer malfunctioned.” Haskins unsealed a medical cabinet and loaded an anti-nausea syringe. “It took the summons too literally. Arm.”

  Behind him, the door to a tiny cleansing room hung tantalizingly open.

  Mercury licked her lips. “I really think I’ll feel better if I could lie down in a cleansing room—”

  “Staff only. Arm now.”

  She peeled back her stained robe.

  He positioned the pen-like syringe and deplo
yed the medicine. It hissed into her arm. “All better.”

  Minty freshness sizzled on the back of her tongue. She coughed up the chemical tang of zinc.

  He recapped the pen. “I used a government medpen on you. What do you say?”

  “Thanks,” she said miserably.

  “That’s right.” He packed it away. “Off we go to Detainment.”

  Behind the gun-studded concrete.

  “Wait!”

  He paused.

  “Please, Haskins.” She indicated her robe. “It will take five seconds to change. You don’t believe I’m guilty. What’s five seconds?”

  He shook his head smartly.

  Desperation loosened her tongue. Despite her uncle’s warnings not to involve civilians, she started to beg. “The truth is, I am in real trouble. I—”

  “I’m not going to lose my job because you have a little drinking problem.” Haskins grimaced at her purple lemon-stained robe. “I feel bad, Mercury, I really do. But can’t you be uncomfortable for a couple more minutes while those guys interrogate you?”

  She closed her mouth.

  “They’re going to let you go. No kid could be guilty of phrenology, and you were eleven years old when those supposed crimes occurred.”

  “Ten,” she said faintly.

  He waved away the difference. “I’m sorry about this, just like I was sorry about that parking ticket on the day of your big cooking test. Mares Mercury might be small, but that’s all the more reason to follow rules. Rules that prevent chaos and nepotism and barbarism. Okay?”

  No, it wasn’t okay. If he did his job, the Robotics Faction would kill her.

  But if she told him the truth, she would put much more than his job at risk.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  Sorry for almost involving him in her problem. Sorry for the hell she was about to put him through instead. Sorry for how much worse he’d feel if he succeeded in delivering her to the robot assassins.

  “Let’s go.” He held out his arm for her to precede him to Detainment.

  She didn’t move. “D-do you have any teeth whiteners? For my smile? A dazzling smile will blind everyone from seeing my ugly old robe.”

  He sighed and bent over a desk. “Maybe in here…”