“An artificial night, but that’s sufficient for our purposes.” Abel holds his arms over the surface of the water, like he’s repulsed by the idea of getting any wetter than he already is. “Labs will shut down. Scientists will sleep. And that gives us a chance to find and steal the thermomagnetic device.”
“How long can we hide out from the Queen and Charlie?”
“They will have ordered the Georges to report any unusual arrivals in the past several hours. Ours will be one of them.”
Noemi’s gut clenches. “That means they’ll find the Daedalus.”
“Perhaps not immediately, but eventually,” he says, like that’s no big deal. “We’ll have to steal another ship for our escape.”
Stealing a ship? That’s someone’s livelihood. Maybe their home. What would happen to Zayan and Harriet if someone stole their vessel? They’d be ruined, forever. They might even starve. “Maybe we could just—stow away, or something.”
“Few ships will be large enough to hide on for any length of time, and most of those will be Earth fleet vessels with strict security.” Abel glances sideways at her, then slowly adds, “The visitors here are not Vagabonds. They’ll be leading scientists and businesspeople. Government officials. Representatives of various corporations. In other words, they’ll be people who can afford a new ship.”
He understood. Abel followed her thoughts, recognized her concern.
Noemi feels again the unease that first stirred in her when Abel made that pun about digging deeper. When he teased her about setting off security alarms. It had been jarring to realize Abel had a sense of humor. His earlier snarking might simply have been his superiority complex at work, but those gentle little jokes… Mechs aren’t supposed to be able to think that way.
And they certainly don’t show insight into human feelings. Not like this.
It’s an illusion, Noemi tells herself. A simulation of consciousness instead of the real thing. She knows artificial intelligences can be programmed to mimic human thought to an uncanny degree. Supposedly even Earth outlawed that practice long ago, as part of the regulations that kept AI from evolving to the point of endangering humanity rather than serving it. But someone like Burton Mansfield might consider himself above the rules. He might have used the old tricks that could make wire and electricity simulate the workings of a human brain.
That thought scares her. However, the other alternative is far worse—that Abel isn’t merely mimicking consciousness. That he is, in some small way, alive—
Heavy metal clanging startles Noemi from her reverie. Abel freezes in place. “What was that?” she asks.
The nearby machinery seems to answer her, rumbling as gears or turbines begin to move. Are they deeper into Cray’s substructure than she’d realized? Have they walked beneath some critical piece of machinery, maybe something that would have the thermomagnetic device she needs?
But the metallic thumps she’s hearing sound… primitive.
“I can’t be certain without control audio to compare it to,” Abel says, “but this is almost certainly the sound of water-flow mechanisms switching into gear. An automatic function, probably set to a timetable.”
“Does that mean they’re about to shut the river off?”
“… I believe it means they’re turning it on.”
Behind them, upstream, a roaring sound begins to grow—louder and louder by the second. Noemi’s eyes widen. “We have to get out of here.” Safety ladders, emergency beacons, I know we saw some—
But there’s no time. The roar blots out everything except the vast dark wave crashing toward them. Beneath her, the water of the river swells slightly, and then the wave’s on top of them, slamming into her.
Noemi might as well have crashed into a wall of pure iron. The force of the water knocks the breath out of her lungs and spins her violently upside down, side to side and back again. She reaches out desperately, trying to figure out which way is up, but it’s impossible. The torrential current scrapes her along rough stone, but she has no way of knowing if that’s the river bottom, the wall, or even the ceiling.
It’s too strong for her. She can’t find purchase, can’t help herself in any way. The river has her now. She’s been underwater, unable to breathe, so long that her chest aches and the world’s getting dizzy around the edges.
Her fear is on the verge of becoming panic when an arm wraps around her waist and tows her to the surface. Noemi gasps for breath as Abel holds her back against the wall. The river’s so high that the ceiling, once ten meters overhead, is almost close enough to touch—and the current has grown even stronger, churning and frothing the water rushing around them. Abel clings to a metal strut with one hand and her waist with the other, holding them in place without any sign of strain.
Bruised and winded, Noemi can’t talk at first. Finally she manages, “I always—thought—I was a—good swimmer.”
“No human could withstand currents this strong.” Abel says it without any of his usual superiority. “We need to find another platform, like the one we jumped from in the first place.”
The ceiling of the tunnel had been higher there, if Noemi remembers correctly. Some of the platforms would be built up taller than the river even at its fullest flow—not much taller, but enough for her to get out. “How do we do that?”
“I take us along the wall. You hold on to me.”
Noemi hesitates only briefly before sliding her hands around Abel’s neck as if embracing him. He has broader shoulders than she’d realized, wide enough for her to rest her aching arms on. She turns her face away from his, resting her head at the curve of his neck, so she can look out for the next platform or anything else up ahead.
Abel says, “It would be advisable for you to use your legs as well.”
Of course it would. Noemi wraps her legs around his waist, pressing their bellies together, embarrassed by her own embarrassment. How ridiculous to feel shy about clinging to him so intimately. It’s no more personal than sitting in the seat of her fighter.
Or it shouldn’t be. But now that they’re this close, she’s reminded powerfully of how human his body feels. He’s warm despite the cold water, strong despite the current. His hand feels good along her back. And there’s even a scent to his skin—not artificial, but natural and even pleasant—
Please stop sniffing the robot boy, Noemi tells herself, jerking out of the trance.
Not that Abel noticed. He’s concentrating on carrying her, even though he doesn’t seem to have any difficulty making his way along the cavern wall. His pale fingers find handholds on the tiniest ridges or swells in the rock. They move forward with painstaking slowness, Abel never faltering.
She remembers what he told her about being able to remain submerged. “If I weren’t here, you could just walk along the bottom of the river, couldn’t you?”
“If you weren’t here, it is highly unlikely I would be here either.”