Steelheart Read Free Page B

stop them from looting his apartment, or selling what remained of his body. They wanted to survive—and so did Doon.
    The boy, and the woman who had killed him, were just the way Doon had left them. The smoothbore had disappeared. The synthetic stepped over the bodies, peered out into the night, and scanned for heat. He saw three small blobs, rats most likely, scurry along a wall. Warmth, the product of a well-hidden campfire, leaked through an upstairs window. He stepped out into the sleet. The temperature registered on his sensors but caused no discomfort. His boots left marks in the slush.
    Home—if that word could be used to describe the cold, half-flooded utilities vault where he passed his nights—was about a mile away. The arm made a bulge under his duster. A bulge that street thieves might find interesting. No one bothered him, though—which was just as well.
    Doon slowed as he approached his temporary home, checked to ensure that none of his carefully arranged telltales had been disturbed, and lifted the cover. Metal squealed as the lid swung upward—and squealed again as darkness closed over his head. The hinges could have been oiled— but why bother? Especially when they functioned as a burglar alarm.
    The crypt—for that was how Doon thought of it—was little more than a precast cable vault. He found the battery-powered lamp and turned it on. Heavily armored three-inch fiber-optic cables squirmed in from the sides, mated within the privacy of a connector box, and went their separate ways.
    The space was dark, cold, and damp. Not uncomfortable really, but depressing, since the parameters that provided Doon with a sense of well-being had been set to match those common to humans. Why? To help synthetics fit into human-dominated society? Or to limit their ability to compete? As with so many other things, there was no way to know.
    Doon sat on a ledge, his back to a corner, and arranged the arm across his thighs. He stroked the limb lovingly, thought about the pleasure it would bring, and felt guilty about the manner in which it had been obtained. What if the bounty hunters had missed Sojo? Would he have committed the same crime that they had? The synthetic winced internally and reached for the lamp. Darkness would do little to lessen the pain—but there was no reason to watch.
    Doon had experienced the subroutine twenty-three times before and felt nothing but dread. The first sensation was similar to what a bio bod might have described as an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. That was followed by a distinct lurch as his thought processes locked up, his body became rigid, and the video started to play.
    Doon saw the girl, saw his bullets hit her, and wanted to scream as the robotic equivalent of pain racked his body. The girl died, fell, and died again, over and over until the synthetic knew her features by heart, and would dream about them for years to come. Because androids do dream—at least the Creator's did, according to algorithms he had devised.
    Then it was the bounty hunter's turn to punish the creature who had ended his existence, and what the synthetic felt was no less painful than all the lives the Junkman had taken, or the one he had wasted.
    It was the same price all synthetics paid if they took a human life—even if they killed in self-defense, or to protect another. Some said it was the Creator's idea, a way of ensuring that his creatures remained subservient. Others claimed he had opposed it, and been forced to agree. Not that it made much difference to Doon.
    The synthetic watched the Junkman die for the tenth time, felt pain lance through his electronic nervous system, and clutched the arm to his chest. Darkness was his only friend.
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    2
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    an' gel / n / a ministering or guiding spirit
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    The sentient spy sat SS-4A, also known as Michael, looked down from the heavens via a relatively old fashioned optical imaging