Page 82 of Amethyst Flame
I couldn’t argue that point, not when I’d seen the dragon configuration for myself. I swallowed hard. “There’s still a lot they can learn from us.”
He took off his sunglasses and squinted at me across the small slice of desert between us. “Don’t lie to yourself, Imogen. You’ll never let me get close enough to find out anything about you. But you know nobody is going to fight for our lives as hard as we will.”
I glared at him because today’s pitch proved he’d lied to me yesterday. He’d promised me that his Best Minds were dedicated to finding answers to save him, and now he was saying the opposite. Yet another liar.
He looked away but didn’t try to cover up with his sunglasses again. “We’re infected with molecular robots integrated into every aspect of our biology. It’s not going to be fun to evict them.”
“I didn’t ask for fun,” I shot back. When had I ever asked for more than fucking survival and maybe some pizza and/or donuts? At least my moths and I wanted the same things. “Just tell me.”
“The hives are weapons,” he began. When I took a breath to argue, he raised his voice and continued, “Yeah, Ruskin might post manifestos about free, clean, limitless energy, but we know the Department of Defense is the one who wrote the biggest check for development.” He frowned until I settled back on my heels. “Weapons are for war. Wars can be won…or lost. If we want to get rid of our hives, we have to lose the fight.”
He paused, and I stood there for a second. “That…that’s what you got? Lose a fight?” I’d been doingthatmy whole damn life. But in this context? “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
He shook out his hands, and thin ropes of blue lightning descended from his fingertips, sparking and hissing. “The only thing my father’s team hasn’t tried is a hive against hive confrontation. My father refused to authorize a molecular battle with my hive against free-ranging nanobots. He said he didn’t want to kill me, but I know hereallymeant he didn’t want to destroy my hive. But I don’t care if my hive is destroyed. You and I didn’t ask to be part of these experiments. So only we should get to decide what risks we want to take and what we’re willing to do to get out from under this.”
He twisted his wrists in opposing circles, and the blue lightning followed the gesture in twin sparkling circles. For a moment, I was mesmerized by the deadly pinwheels. I’d never tried anything like that…
Then my brain caught up with what he was proposing. “It’s impossible, Will. Some greedy psycho already attempted to take the hive back from me. Hurt like hell. I was sick, exhausted, maybe even dying from it. And then to escape, I had to fight with everything I had left, which should have burned through the last of my moths. I passed out, and I think everyone would’ve told you that I was empty. But the bugscame back.” And at the time, I’d been delighted with the secret knowledge that I hadn’t been defeated. But knowing what I did now, the moths’ return took on a more ominous and inevitable doom.
“But you weren’t fighting another hive,” he argued. “Now you will be.”
I took a step back. “Wait a second. So you think if we fight, our moths will just…cancel each other out? How will that stop the degradation? Or the other symptoms you were talking about? I’m not on board with this plan until I understand how it works.”
“You don’t have to agree,” he said. “You just have to fight.”
I took a much longer step back. This asshole wasn’t on the way to crazy. He was already there!
He lashed out with the blue whips.
I yelped and jumped out of the way. “What the hell—”
“Fight me, Mo. Take me down.” He whipped at me again.
Blue sparks crackled toward me, but I swept them aside with my [shield] gesture. Maybe gained myself a few moments to talk some sense into this madman.
“Will, no! This makes no sense. It’s a bad idea, and trust me, I know bad ideas.” I dodged again when the blue whips snaked toward me, but this time I wasn’t fast enough, and one of the flickering tendrils licked across my cheek.
Not gonna lie. It hurt. And pissed me off. Which I suspected was his intent.
I released my protection with an outward flick of [shove] that set him back a few paces—and pushed the big gray SUV, digging furrows in the gravel. I hadn’t meant to give it that much energy, but apparently my hive was pissed too.
I forced my bugs to disperse in a fading violet halo. “I’m not going to fight you, Will,” I called. “There’s no way our hives are perfectly matched. Even if this works—which it won’t—likely only one of the hives would be wiped out. Only one of us would be free.”
“Maybe, but it’s a chance I’ll take.” His lip curled in a sneer. “Or do you like being somebody’s windup toy, Mo? Was it secretly always your dream to be a development footnote in Ruskin’s stock portfolio? Maybe you just can’t imagine anything better, and you will just keep goofing along like always, talking smack, eating trash, and taking shit until the hive hollows you out in the end.” When he tilted his head, his eyes lit with the blue glow of his hive, so it seemed like I was staring through his head to the empty sky behind him. “I guess that’s not so different from the life you had ahead of you anyway, is it?”
He spun his wrists again, and the spitting, hissing chains of blue lightning unfurled all the way to the ground. Sparks of blue jittered in the dust, lifting a haze around us. Somehow I knew if he caught me with one of these whips, it would do worse than hurt this time.
“I’m not going to fight you,” I repeated stubbornly. “Even if my hive defeats yours, it might kill you.”
His face twisted. “I’ll be free, or I’ll die trying.”
I sucked in a harsh breath, almost choking on the dust and my fear. No matter how bad it had gotten, no matter how freaked out I’d been, I’d never contemplated ending it.
And going back to the Desert Freeze didn’t count.
I wasn’t Ruskin’s proof of concept. I wasn’t Dane’s side-chick spy. I wasn’t the manic pixie dream girl-bot of some anonymous DOD check writer. And I wasn’t going to be Will’s executioner. Although I had to admit, I appreciated his unstated acknowledgment that I had a chance at defeating him.
My butterflies hovering over our alarming little showdown warned me about movement in the area…and then showed me a vantage of another SUV lumbering down the dirt road toward us. The Kidnapper!
