Never Love A Stranger Part 24

Kay hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. Annie left the room at a dead run.

James was nowhere to be seen. She figured he had already gone downstairs, so she headed for the stairwell and jogged down.

When she reached the lobby, James was just exiting the building. Fortunately James, with his size and his long golden hair, was about as inconspicuous as a lion pacing down the sidewalk. She followed him,

managing to keep a reasonable distance behind him. He never once glanced back over his shoulder, which sent an odd quiver through her.

It was clear he had no notion she might have followed him, and that he had actually expected her to let

him go without a struggle. Obviously he had no idea what he meant to her.

She doubted James had a clue that he might be important to anyone.

He did not look around, just walked on with an easy, long stride that looked like a saunter but was actually so fast she practically had to run to keep up. She wondered if he had any destination in mind, or

if he just intended to wander around the vicinity until Dekka and her compatriot found him. She suspected he had not bothered to formulate a plan. He had given up.

She wished she had had the time to come up with a plan.

Just then she saw a blue car pull up to the curb. The window rolled down, and she saw a dark-haired woman lean her head partway out to speak to James. Annie broke into an all-out run. James pulled open the back door of the car and settled himself into the back seat. Before he could close the door, she had flung herself over his lap, into the back seat.

"Annie!" he whispered in shock.

Dekka looked back at them. Her lips curled in an unpleasant smile. "Well, well. Still devoted to your robot lover, I see."

Feeling somewhat undignified, face down on the seat with her rump sticking up in the air, Annie struggled to right herself. She sat up and glared at Dekka. "That's right. I am."

"Get her out," Dekka said to the man in the driver's seat. Annie recognized the no-nonsense, ruthlessly trimmed hair and the solid, square jaw of the man named Gar. He started to open the door.

"Hold it," Annie snapped. "You try to haul me out of here, and I'm going to scream b.l.o.o.d.y murder. There are a lot of people around. You don't want to cause a scene, do you'"

Dekka practically rolled her eyes. "Be reasonable," she said. "You really don't want to go where we're going."

Annie lifted her chin. "Wherever you're taking James, you're taking me too."

"Fine," Dekka snarled under her breath. "We'll just take her along."

"We can't do that," Gar protested. "If the baby was in fact Clark Sterling, then this is his adoptive mother. She has to stay here." Annie realized she had them in an awkward situation. A grim smile twisted her lips. "If you'll let me and James out," she said, "I promise not to make a scene." Beside her she felt James stiffen. "Annie," he objected, "I thought we agreed--" "I'm not going to let them kill you, James." She turned toward Dekka. "He isn't going to alter the future, Dekka. He had a chance to kill Clark and he didn't. He's no threat to you. Let him go." "I'll never let him go," Dekka hissed. Gar looked uncomfortable. "Dekka, maybe it would be best if--" "No!" Dekka's eyes glowed with a furious light. "I have waited for this moment for a long time. I won't be deprived of it now." Annie looked into Dekka's wild, angry eyes and shuddered. Kay had been right. Dekka was too far gone into hatred to bargain. But Annie refused to give up now. "Let him go, Dekka. Let him go and the future won't be changed. But if you don't let him go I swear I will find some way to change everything. I swear it."

Dekka looked at her with a trapped expression, then she glanced at the man. "She knows too much,"

she muttered. "We have to take her along."

d.a.m.n. That was definitely not the answer she'd been hoping for. Annie lunged for the door, intending to

fling it open and start screaming, but Dekka held up the device she'd hurt James with the day before.

"Behave yourself, Ms. Simpson, or James will suffer for your actions."

Annie froze.

Dekka cast an impatient look at Gar. "Well, what are you waiting for' Get moving."

Gar hesitated for a long moment. Annie had the feeling he didn't agree with this course of action, but evidently Dekka had seniority. Reluctantly, he nodded. The car pulled out into traffic, bearing them toward the suburbs.

Annie shot a glance at James, seeing him staring at her with a hard expression on his face. He looked p.i.s.sed off. "Surely you didn't really expect me to let you go to your death," she said.

"It would have been the sensible thing to do."

"Yeah, well, I've never been noted for being sensible."

James took her hand, looked down at it, and swallowed hard. "I only wanted to protect you, Annie.

And now I have failed at that as well."

"You didn't fail," Annie said, stung. "I made that decision on my own. It wasn't your decision to make.

It was mine."

"I simply do not understand why you would risk your life for mine."

Despite the serious nature of their predicament, Annie grinned wryly. "If you really don't understand that, James, then you have a h.e.l.l of a lot to learn about women."

The car wound out past the suburbs, into the fields that still bordered the city. Gar turned down a narrow road, pulled over to the side, and stopped. "Get out," Dekka ordered. "And don't try anything, or James will suffer for it."

Obediently, Annie scrambled out of the car, with James following more slowly. They were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, she noticed. There wasn't much point in making a scene here, because there was no one to hear her screaming. She wondered if Dekka had brought them out here, away from prying eyes, to execute them. It was not a cheering thought.

Dekka put a hand on Annie, and Gar touched James' shoulder. Dekka touched the golden bracelet that Annie had noticed earlier, and the world around them changed with startling abruptness. There was a terrible, gut-wrenching moment of disorientation. Annie felt disconnected from James, but even worse, she felt disconnected from her own body. She couldn't seem to see, or hear, or feel anything.

She felt herself drop onto a hard surface, and she struggled to her feet as her eyes slowly came back into focus. Beside her, James was coming to his feet as well. They had been standing outside, but now they were in a small, enclosed s.p.a.ce. The walls were a softly glowing, silvery metal, and there were no windows. Evidently they were underground.

Dekka smiled coldly at Annie. "Welcome to the future, Ms. Simpson."

The future. Annie remembered what James had said: 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.

Apparently they thought their mission was complete. Which wasn't good news for either her or James.

She covered her trepidation with as much bravado as she could muster, looking around scornfully at the bare, unadorned walls, then back at Dekka. "I can't say I'm impressed."

Dekka's mouth tightened. "I suppose it would be too much to expect a barbarian to be impressed by the accomplishments of a people who have achieved time travel."

"A barbarian' I'm crushed." Annie looked around at the featureless walls. "So where are we'"

"This building is the Bureau's headquarters," Dekka said briskly. She waved her gun, herding them out of the small room and through a room filled with electronic components. "A singularly appropriate place for the last remaining humanoid to be destroyed, since it was the Bureau who organized their destruction in the first place. How lucky you are to be here to witness this historic event, Ms. Simpson. And how unfortunate that you will in all likelihood not appreciate it properly."

They stopped in a room that was as featureless as the first one, although somewhat larger, and the door faded into nonexistence behind them. Annie surrept.i.tiously continued to glance around, trying to come up with some sort of plan to get them out of here. But it was difficult to formulate a plan when she couldn't even see the door any more. The walls were blank, with no cracks or k.n.o.bs that she could see. It was like being in a glowing silver box. At any rate, if this building really was the Bureau's headquarters, she doubted they could get very far.

An expression of evil satisfaction settled on Dekka's features as she lifted the whip and pointed it at James. Annie started toward her, only to find herself somehow trapped as Gar touched the wall.

She couldn't move.

She wasn't sure if she was confined in some sort of force field, or whether they had somehow managed to paralyze her from the neck down. Either way, she couldn't move a muscle below her shoulders, no matter how hard she struggled.

She realized with horror that they meant for her to stand by and watch while they killed James.

James glanced at her gravely. "I am sorry that you have to see this, Annie."

"James'." she whispered. Pain and fear settled into her chest, squeezing her heart until she couldn't breathe. She would have given anything to save him somehow, to save him from the agony she knew they were going to inflict on him.

But there was nothing she could do.

Dekka's finger brushed the whip, and the white light flared out. James winced but remained standing.

Annie realized that Dekka intended to make the process as slow and agonizing as possible. She couldn't bear to watch. Her gaze flickered away, toward Gar, and she realized that he was watching James with an expression of naked pain on his features--much the same expression that she herself wore.

"You don't want him to die," she said.

Gar did not look at her. His gaze remained fixed on James. "Don't be absurd," he said shortly. "He has to die. Too many humans have died because of him."

Beneath his curt tone she thought she heard a shadow of uncertainty. She pressed harder. "He killed them in defense of his people," she said. "Do you really blame him for that'"

Gar was silent. Dekka turned up the whip slightly, and James' face contorted. Annie saw Gar swallow hard, but his gaze was locked on James, as if he couldn't look away.

James meant something to him. She was certain of it.

"Are you really going to stand by idly and let him be tortured to death'"

"He cannot be killed," Gar said dully, as if reciting a slogan. "He is a machine."

Annie stared at him a long moment, seeing his throat working convulsively. She had the oddest impression that he was struggling to keep from bursting into tears. At last, softly, she said, "He is your friend, isn't he'"

Despite the fact that her eyes were fixed on James with an unpleasantly fanatical glow, Dekka evidently heard the conversation. "Don't waste your time attempting to sway Gar, Ms. Simpson," she said coolly. "He knows where his duty lies."

"Do you, Gar'" Annie asked. "Do you think your loyalty should be to the Bureau, or to your friend'"

The light brightened, and James fell to his knees. Annie fought not to look. She fixed her attention on Gar. "He's suffering, Gar," she said with soft intensity. "Dekka is going to make him suffer horribly before he dies."

She saw the man's jaw clench. "Dekka," he said in a strangled voice, "couldn't we just--"

Dekka turned her head and regarded him with contempt. "Don't be a fool!" she snapped. "If you don't have the stomach for this, then leave. I'll take care of it." Annie saw Gar turn away. Her last chance for getting James out of this mess alive, she realized bleakly, was about to walk out of the room. "Gar!" she snapped. "Don't you care that he's in pain'" "I have a duty to society," Gar whispered. "I swore to uphold it." "What about your duty to your friends'" He did not answer. He walked away slowly, his wide shoulders bent in defeat. Dekka smiled coldly and turned up the intensity on the whip. Annie saw James collapse to the floor, heard him make a disturbingly human sound of pain, almost a sob. "Gar," he gasped. "Gar."

Gar's head came up. He hesitated. And then he seemed to make a decision.

In a single swift motion, he drew his gun, swung around, and fired it at Dekka.

Annie's mouth fell open as Dekka disappeared in a blast of light. All that was left, she saw with mingled distaste and shock, was a puddle of goo on the floor that reminded her of the demise of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.

Slowly, painfully, James levered himself up on his hands and looked up at the man. "Gar," he whispered

again.

Gar pointed the gun at him. His hand trembled. "I'm sorry, James," he said, "but all I can offer you is a quick death."