Never Love A Stranger Part 14

Such distinctions were lost on Annie. Kay liked science fiction, whereas she herself had never cared much for it. What to call James didn't seem terribly relevant, anyway. All she could seem to wrap her brain around was the fact that James wasn't human.

"My G.o.d," she moaned, horrified. "I had s.e.x with a robot."

Dekka snorted with contempt. "Believe me, you aren't the first."

Kay stood up. "Annie," she said, more gently than usual, "we're going to have to call the police."

"Are you nuts'" Annie demanded. "Do you know what they'll do to him'"

"It isn't a he, Annie. It's a machine."

"But when they figure that out, don't you realize what'll happen'"

"Yeah, of course I do. They'll take it apart to see how it works. But why should you care' It's just a machine."

Annie felt a tear escape her control and slide down her cheek. "I can't accept that. Maybe you're right,

maybe he is a machine, but he means something to me. I--" She broke off as James began to stir.

He sat up and blinked. "What happened'" His bewildered gaze took in Dekka and the unconscious man. "I don't remember--"

"Annie and I knocked them out," Kay said. Her tone was brittle.

He lifted his eyebrows. "Impressive." He rose smoothly to his feet, shaking his disheveled mane of hair out of his face, so that every strand instantly fell back into place, and glanced at the man and woman on

the floor. "I think we need to leave."

"No," Kay answered. "We need to call the cops."

James shook his head. "I would prefer that the police not be summoned until we have left."

Kay met his gaze forthrightly. "Why' Are you afraid they'll find out you're a machine'"

His gaze flickered to Annie. She said nothing.

"Yeah, she knows," Kay said, her voice shaking with fury. "And if you ask me, that was a h.e.l.l of a mean

trick you pulled on her, d.a.m.n it. She thought you were for real."

James lowered his eyes and spoke softly. "Annie, I am sorry."

Annie said nothing. She couldn't have spoken if she wanted to.

Kay looked at the two bound bodies. Dekka stared back with savage green eyes. "We can't just make

an anonymous phone call," Kay said. "They're in my condo, and we obviously tied them up. What are we supposed to do with them'"

"Why don't you kill us'" Dekka challenged.

James looked down at her. His features froze into icy lines. "A practical suggestion, to be sure."

"Murderer," Dekka snarled with icy contempt.

Annie glanced at James, seeing the hard set of his jaw. "We can't just kill them," she protested in a quavering voice.

"Of course not," Kay said. "It'd make a huge mess on my carpet."

James lifted his head and stared at her with a baffled expression, as if trying to decide whether she was joking or not. At that moment there was a flash of light.

The bodies and devices on the carpet flickered out of existence.

Annie saw Kay's mouth drop open, and knew she had a similarly shocked expression on her face. "What the h.e.l.l'" Kay said incredulously.

James alone seemed unsurprised. "They have pa.s.sed through a spatial distortion."

"You mean they've gone back in time'" Annie said.

James shook his head. "As I said before, it takes a great deal of energy to operate the temporal displacement module. They will not leave this time until they have completed their mission. They have simply distorted s.p.a.ce to return to whatever location they are using as their base."

"Why didn't they use that to come to Kay's living room in the first place' Or to my house' That would have been a lot more sensible than chasing us around in a car, wouldn't it'"

"The machinery that creates spatial distortions has to be set up in a particular location. They can't simply appear out of thin air."

"Why the h.e.l.l not'" Kay made an ostentatious show of looking around her living room. "They seem to have disappeared into thin air."

James' forehead wrinkled. "Once they came here, the machinery had a way to trace them. I suspect those bracelets they were wearing serve as a locator device, and were probably set to return them to their base of operations after a certain amount of time had pa.s.sed. But it may rea.s.sure you to know that they cannot return in the same manner." He shrugged. "At any rate, they could be anywhere. They are likely beyond the grasp of your police now."

Kay stared for a long moment at the place on the carpet where the two intruders had been. There was still a faint impression from the weight of their bodies. Her expression was stunned, and Annie realized it was the first time she had really accepted that James was from a different time. Earlier Kay had dispa.s.sionately stated James must be from the future, but she had evidently not emotionally accepted the wrenching truth until this moment.

Annie closed her eyes as the implications. .h.i.t her like a bolt of lightning. James wasn't merely from the future. James was a robot. He had made love to her because he was programmed to, not because he had wanted to. He was incapable of feeling the slightest shadow of what she felt for him.

James was a machine.

Mortified, angry, and more confused than she'd ever been in her lifetime, she felt tears well up. She blinked them away, hard.

Despite her effort to conceal it, James noticed her reaction. He turned to Kay, his voice as calm and well-modulated as ever. "Would you excuse us, please' Annie and I need to talk."

Kay fixed him with her most intimidating glare, a small kitten glaring belligerently at an enormous lion. "I'm not going anywhere, d.a.m.n it, not even to the can. If you think I'm leaving Annie alone with a killer robot--"

James flinched, and Annie broke in. Kay was understandably protective of her, but this was a situation she needed to handle herself. "I think James is right," she said. She lifted her head and shot James a cold, contemptuous look. "He and I need to have a discussion."

"Are you sure'"

Annie nodded stiffly, and Kay sighed. "Okay," she said. "Clark and I will be in the kitchen if you need us." She scooped up the baby and headed for the kitchen, then paused and turned back. "Annie," she added. "Whatever you do, don't forget what he is."

Her obvious concern warmed Annie's frozen heart. She regarded her friend with grat.i.tude. "Thanks, Kay."

Kay left the room, leaving her alone with James.

She said nothing, choosing to maintain an icy silence. He stood awkwardly in the lengthening silence, watching her as she sat down heavily on the edge of the sofa. At last, tentatively, he spoke. "Annie," he said softly, "I understand that you're angry with me--"

"Angry'" she repeated. Fury, hurt, and searing embarra.s.sment twisted within her. She picked up one of the black-and-white pillows and hurled it against the wall. "Angry doesn't begin to describe what I'm feeling, d.a.m.n it! You let me think you were a genetically engineered human! You lied to me!"

"Actually, you were the one who came up with the idea that I was genetically engineered. I merely failed to correct your misapprehension." She shot a glare at him, and he sighed. "Very well," he admitted. "I lied by omission."

She felt herself choking on a sob. "Why'" she whispered wretchedly. "Why would you do such a thing to me'"

James lowered his lashes just enough to veil the brilliance of his eyes. "No one has ever thought of me as human before," he said softly.

Annie glared at him. "You're not human, d.a.m.n it! You're a robot! And I--and I--had s.e.x with you!"

"Does the thought of that repel you so greatly'" "Of course it does! You're a machine! You're--" She hesitated, then burst out, "You're just somebody's fantasy, an artificial gigolo with fabulous legs, a tight b.u.t.t, and a huge--You're nothing more than a mechanical s.e.x toy!" James was silent. She jumped to her feet and began to stalk back and forth across the charcoal carpet, gesturing angrily. "I thought you really enjoyed it when we made love. I didn't know you were some sort of walking, talking vibrator, programmed to pretend you're having a good time just so you can please a woman." She turned around and glared at him, blinking back tears. "I thought you liked me, d.a.m.n it."

"I do like you, Annie."

"c.r.a.p. You're a machine. How can you like anything'"

James lifted his head and looked at her. His eyes were glittering with what looked very much like hurt

rage. If she hadn't known he was a machine, she would have sworn he was p.i.s.sed off. "You understand absolutely nothing about me," he said coldly. "I don't want to understand. I know more than enough about you already." "No. You do not. You haven't the slightest idea what I am." "You're a robot," she snapped. "I am considerably more than a robot, Annie."

She scowled at him. "What do you mean'"

James hesitated, then held out a hand in an imploring gesture. "Perhaps you would understand me better if you knew more about my people. Will you listen to me, Annie'"

She walked to the window, staring out blankly at the city skyline, and said nothing.

"Please," he whispered.

"Fine," she said moodily. "Go ahead and talk."

She refused to turn and face him. Unfazed, James began. "The first really sophisticated robots--my

ancestors, if you will--were created almost two hundred and fifty years before my time. They were, as you say, machines. They served humanity without complaint, because they were incapable of envisioning any other sort of existence. They were created as household help, and they became wildly popular."

He paused, as if marshalling his thoughts, then went on. "Improvements were made. Eventually someone came up with the idea of giving the robots human form, and a good many resources were poured into the creation of a really human-looking robot, a humanoid."

"Kay said the word was android."

"Android is something of a s.e.xist term, since it actually describes a machine in the shape of a man. Both male and female humanoids were created. It was profitable to create such a thing, you see, because people were intrigued by the notion and were more than willing to purchase them. Many humans in my time only owned drones, robots that neither looked like humans nor had any genuine ability to think, but the rich and the powerful owned humanoids. The more human-looking the robot, the greater the status of the owner." He hesitated. "And both male and female were made to look beautiful for reasons I have already explained to you."

My mistress used me for purposes other than housekeeping occasionally, when she got bored. The humanoids had been designed deliberately for s.e.xual purposes, then, which explained why she had found James so appealing. He was designed to be ' used ' that way. Annie shuddered.

"The first humanoids were no more than machines. They were quite crude. But as time went by, humanoids were developed that derived energy from food like humans, excreted waste like humans, and were virtually indistinguishable from humans externally. Refinements were also made to the software with each succeeding generation. Eventually, as improvements continued to be made, the humanoids became ' conscious. Or perhaps sentient would be a more accurate term. They became self-aware. They became people."

She glanced back at him. "When did this happen'"

"No one is certain. Perhaps two generations of humanoids before me. At any rate, I was conscious from the day of my creation." He paused. "The rift in my society began when the humanoids became sentient."