When Bialar returns to Gemmi's quarters, he finds her hunched over a portable console, fingers flying on the keypad. Her lips are compressed into a thin line, her brow furrowed in concentration. He notes with some disappointment that she hasn't bothered to bathe, or to let her hair down as she usually does at night.
"Turn away from me," she barks, without taking her eyes off the small screen.
"Not your usual request," he remarks. "If this is some experiment..."
She raises her eyes to look at him with a pseudo-confidence he recognizes from his military days. What he sees in her now is the delusory calm of someone whose actions are driven by utter desperation. "I want to help you. Turn away from me so I can access your memory."
He opens his mouth to argue, then closes it. Protesting would be an exercise in futility. His little Kalish goddess will do as she pleases, or as the Scarrans command her, and with his actions linked to Talyn's continued existence, he can't stop her. He turns his back, as she requested, flexing his fists in frustration.
Gemmi rises from her chair and comes to stand behind him. He feels the cool touch of her fingers on the back of his neck, then hot agony as something slices through his synthetic skin. A moment later, he reels, and she catches him in her arms. She stumbles with him to the bed, where they collapse together.
After perhaps a tenth arn, he is able to speak. "What did you do to me?"
She tangles a hand in his hair and brushes her cheek against his. "The only thing I could to protect you. Bialar, I don't know what will happen to me. I had to leave you able to defend yourself. No one else knows I removed the contingency codes. If they did--"
"I understand. Without the leverage of the fail safes, they would have no use for bioloid 354 or 355."
He searches her eyes, looking for any hint of deception, and finds none. Even so, how can he trust her to choose his wishes over those of her superiors? If asked a few arns ago, he would have said that she cares nothing for Bialar Crais, only for the accomplishment of having resurrected him. Removing the fail safes, if that's truly what she did, will place her career, even her life, in jeopardy. The Scarrans will hold her accountable for any of his actions that compromise their plans. He cannot afford to trust her word, not when doing so requires him to believe that she cares for him as much as he does for Talyn or Aeryn.
There is only one way to tell if she has done what she claims. One small act of violence should result in excruciating pain for him, a final warning that he is about to trigger the self-destruct. He squeezes her wrist until her fingers relax, allowing him to remove her hand from his hair. Still holding her wrist, he sits up and then strikes her across the face with a hard, open-handed blow. He should be in blinding pain, yet what he feels is something else entirely.
Gemmi gasps and tries to twist away from him. Even in his Sebaccean body he would have been able to dominate her. With his titanium frame and biomechanoid muscles, he does not even need to exert himself.
He strikes her again, savoring the rush of gratification he hasn't felt in over two cycles. As a bioloid, he will never again experience the sweet intoxication of reslak, but what he feels now is the same exhilaration that has always come when he is able to release his frustrations through physical force.
With one hand, he pins both her wrists to the wall above the bed. He can truly possess her now, on his own terms, as his own man, not her creation. He uses his free hand to pull at her clothing and his own. As he enters her, crushing her body with his, she turns her face away, biting her lip to keep from calling out. A trickle of blood runs from the corner of her mouth and down her chin, spreading as it mingles with the stream of tears flowing from her eyes. Even now, she protects him with her silence.
That thought shatters his violence-induced euphoria. He disengages from her and steps back, careful to keep himself between her and the door. "Gemmi, I-- I had to know if the fail safes were truly gone."
She nods, not meeting his eyes. "I know. I'm Kalish, Bialar. Empiricism is in my blood. I understand the need for experimental proof. I was the only possible subject for that experiment. Anyone else would have alerted the Scarran guards." The blood still trickling from the corner of her mouth belies the lack of emotion in her voice.
"It was more than an experiment, and for that I am sorry." He wishes she had a transponder for him, that she could read his circuits as he used to be able to read Talyn's. Then she would know that he means what he is about to say. "I will not harm you again. You have my word." He wants to touch her, wants to be with her as he was before tonight. He wishes he could remove the memory of the last few macrots from her mind as easily as she lifted the fail safes from his.
She does meet his eyes now, her expression one of genuine curiosity. "Talyn's violent outbursts are not coincidence, are they? That's why you didn't want me to modify him. You thought you could teach him to control his flawed thinking as you have your own."
He sits down on the edge of the bed farthest from her and nods. "A Leviathan's neural network is constructed of blocks from both its parents. Since Talyn had no natural father, his thinking was heavily shaped during our initial link. He had... gaps that needed filling, and I provided the only available template."
Gemmi draws her legs up and rests her chin on her knees, crossing her wrists in front of her ankles. "If I had seen the other data spools of Crais, I would never have advocated this endeavor. What I saw in the older data streams... I didn't think it meshed with what I found on Talyn's memory spools. Now I see it's all part of the same whole."
"Are you regretting your creation?" His own voice sounds hollow as he asks that question. If Gemmi gives the wrong response, he may have to break his promise not to harm her. For Talyn's sake, he cannot allow her to discontinue the project.
She shakes her head. "It's not that. You were never my creation. I couldn't have envisioned such a construct of contradictions."
He moves closer to her, expecting her to dart for the door.
Instead, she leans into him and puts her head on his shoulder. "Like I said before, you won't hurt me unless you have a reason to. So I'm not scared of you, no matter what you've done. Perhaps you're right, and the battles you and Talyn fight against yourselves make you stronger. I think-- I know it's that strength that I love."
He wipes the blood from her mouth with his sleeve. "Perhaps Talyn and I both need our algorithms altered."
The door flies open, admitting two uniformed Kalish, a man and a woman, both carrying weapons. The woman raises hers and recites, "Senior Technician Gemmina Treana Delonik, upon analysis of your evaluation, you have been recommended for further assessment. Failure to comply will necessitate the use of force."
Bialar stands, tensed and ready to fight, but Gemmi grabs his arm. "Remember the fail safes! Don't do anything stupid!" She stands up, throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, then brings her mouth close to his ear to whisper, "You need the data chip in my portable console. They prepared a prowler for you to take when they found Moya. Just take the chip and go!"
The Kalish man shakes his head in disgust. "She really is farbot. What do you think we should do with 354?"
The woman snaps a ring around Gemmi's neck and Bialar watches in horror as the eyes that have regarded him with so many emotions now go blank. "Leave it here. I don't think it'll be much trouble, not with Gemmi's fail safes. She's farbot, no doubt, but she was a competent tech."
Bialar feels a familiar emotion sweep through him, carrying reason away at starburst speed. He seizes the woman's holstered weapon and shoots them both in the chest. As he suspected, the gun only fires a weak EMP, enough to stun the victims, but not enough to do lasting damage.
He rips the collar from Gemmi's neck and she convulses, falling to her knees beside her attackers.
When she regains enough control to speak, she hisses, "I told you to go! You should have left me! What the frell are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to guard these two. You're going to find Jayza and Talyn."