That evening was spent on the outskirts of another destroyed community. Smoke still drifted from a few of the structures, indicating that the fires had taken place within the last couple of days. Not wanting to look at the burned out buildings and bodies, they set up a camp a kilometer or so before the first building.
Sitting under the clear summer sky, it was hard to believe that anything could be wrong with the universe. It reminded Portia of the times when they had started being intimate, and they traveled from place to place, looking for somewhere they felt comfortable enough with to call their home. Their route had taken them from Western Canada, across the prairies, and finally to the shores of Lake Erie. The community hadn't welcomed them, but they hadn't shut them out, either. Finding accommodation in the back of an abandoned hotel had been easy, since no one wanted to live there, and fixing it up themselves had given them a sense that they belonged.
Now, that belonging was threatened by whomever was attacking the communities on the lake. It would have been acceptable had the communities just been attacked, but these had been savagely destroyed, the occupants brutally killed where they stood. In the last community, they had passed by an area where it looked like the residents had been gathered before being executed.
Portia laid wrapped in Andy's arms, content with just being held, looking at it as a shield against the harshness of reality. He tried to ease some of her tension away by gently rubbing her back.
"Do you want to go back?" he whispered.
"Do you?"
"I don't know," he admitted, his lips brushing her ear.
"Why are you whispering?" she asked, her voice low.
"It's creepy here," he said, slight embarrassment in his voice. "I keep expecting the dead to rise and come walking out of the mist."
Her eyes automatically flicked to the fog coming off the lake and enshrouding the community in the distance. "No more horror novels for you, sexy." She pulled her gaze away and tried to put it out of her mind.
"I think when I upgraded," he whispered, " I might have tweaked my emotional impulses a bit too high. I'll have to fix that when we get back."
"Can't you fix them now?"
"Take too long," he said.
"Just make sure you don't reset your intimacy level," she said and leaned back into his arms.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he whispered, and held her until she fell asleep.
~~~~~~~~
Four sets of eyes watched from a burned out structure on the edge of the community then crawled back a little further so they wouldn’t be seen or heard.
One of the men faced the other three as he folded up a pair of binoculars and put them in an outside coat pocket. "We'll wait until they leave. If they come through here, then they're ours. If they go around or the other way, then we'll follow."
"Why don't we just take them now?" one asked. "There's just two of them, and we can use the horses."
"Why?" the first one, obviously the leader, asked. He reached out, grabbed the other man by the collar of his jacket and brought him close. "You questioning me?"
"No." He was pushed to the ground.
"Didn't think so." The leader faced the other two. "Any questions from you."
"Nope."
"Not a one."
"Good." He walked away, but turned back. "Those two are strangers, and we have no idea who they are, or even why they're here. They could be a couple just travelling, or they could be bounty hunters, armed to the teeth, looking for us."
"Us?" One asked. "How the hell would they know who we are."
The leader sighed in annoyance. "Not us, us." Long black hair swinging around his back as he shook his head in anger. "Us, as in who’s been torching the communities."
"They couldn't know. We don't leave no one alive."
"That we know of." He looked at one of the men. "Go to the main camp, now. Tell them to hold off the attack on the next place." He paused as if considering something then took his binoculars out and handed to the man. "Go take a good look at them, then describe these two to the boss, and see if she recognizes them."
The man took the binoculars without a word and headed to where he could spy.
The leader looked at the other two. "We’ll load the rest of the supplies tomorrow. No sense in waking the lovebirds and having them discover us."
~~~~~~~~
"Get any rest?"
Andy glanced at her as he put the rest of their limited equipment back into saddlebags. "Not really," he admitted. "It felt like someone was watching us." He secured the closing on the bag and easily mounted the horse. "The sooner we’re away from here, the better. There has to be a settlement along here that they haven’t hit yet." He looked along the old road that ran along the lakeshore.
"We’ll find someplace," she assured him, wondering why this was unsettling him more than her. He should be able to control the emotional impulse to things better than she could, but it seemed like he was struggling with it. She fleetingly wondered if they should have postponed this trip for a few days to see how his new upgrades reacted with his original ones.
She gently nudged her horse into a trot and drew up to ride next to Andy. She had to admit that he was right about one thing. This place was indeed creepy. Shame though she thought looks like this was a beautiful community at one time. The structural outlines of some buildings remained up, the beams burned into some grotesque reminder of just how cruel people could be. In the past one hundred years, Earth had undergone its forth world war, betrayal and near annihilation but a once friendly alien species, and now, this. By the looks of the ruins, she could almost picture what the area had looked like after rebuilding following WW4. This was nothing more than a lakeside community that thrived on tourism…and now, it was gone forever.
They had nearly made it out of the community before three people blocked the road in front of them. Andy easily guided his horse to another road, stopping when a shot hit the ground by the horse's hoof, sending it skittering back.
"You're not going anywhere," someone said.
Andy and Portia glanced at each other before facing the three men again. "We're just passing through," Andy said easily.
"Where you from."
"About a day’s ride from here," Portia replied. "What happened here?"
"Where you passing though to?" the man asked, ignoring her question.
"We’re looking for two men who may have passed through here not quite a month ago," Andy said, elaborating on the truth, deciding to keep as much to the truth as possible, if not flexible. He kept a neutral expression, but watched each man warily. "Anyone pass through here lately?"
"They got a bounty on them?"
"No." Andy nodded politely. "Thank you for your hospitality, but we will be going."
"How about you two just get off the horses."
"We’d prefer to get going."
"And we’d prefer to rob you," came the reply. "So, get off the horses."
Portia waited to see what Andy would do, and tried not to be annoyed or scared as he easily slid off the horse. He took a step toward her to help her dismount, and ended up with a gun smacked to the back of his head. She gasped as he fell to his knees, but put a hand to stop himself. He shook his head slowly, angry that he hadn’t anticipated something like that, and got back to his feet.
Portia jumped from the horse and went to his side. Andy faced the three men, his hands clearly by his side to show no weapons.
"I was just helping her dismount," he said calmly, his programming switching into high gear as it searched for the best way to handle this.
The obviously leader of the men motioned to him. "You, over there," he looked at Portia, his eyes raking over her body. "The lady can stay with us."
The way he said it, and the look he gave her made Portia took a step back, which caused one of them to walk after her. He had a knife in his hand, motioning her towards him with it.
"Don't," Andy said as he walked past him. He shut his mouth as the man stopped in front of him. Andy felt pain in his stomach, followed closely by Portia's scream. He looked down to see a knife being withdrawn from his midsection, and sagged slightly while his internal system shunted things around to protect him from the sudden shock.
The man who had stabbed him stared at the knife, confused at the lack of blood. He looked at Andy's stomach, and took a step back. "He's a fucking android," he said.
Andy's mind whirled at the events, and looked at Portia. She looked terrified, not only because he had been injured, but also because these men knew what he was, and would probably try to destroy him for his interior systems.
"Kill the 'droid, and bring the woman," the leader said and turned away. "We’ll show her what a real man can do."
Andy looked back, and didn't even hesitate as the man came towards him again. He took a step toward the man, startling him enough to react. Sidestepping to the left, Andy reached out with a clawed hand and raked it across the man's throat. Blood spurted out as the man fell to the ground, grasping at the hole where his throat had been.
The other two men reacted quickly, one shooting at Andy as he quickly approached them. He ignored the shots that entered his body, and spun before reaching one man, delivering a lethal kick to the side of this head, then continued in one fluid motion to grab the leader by the neck and squeeze. The man dropped his weapon as Andy applied pressure, and clawed at his hands as he gasped for air.
"Where are you from?" Andy demanded in an eerily calm voice. The man continued to claw at his hand, leaving marks, but doing nothing to ease the pressure. Andy brought his other hand up and slammed it into his face. Blood splattered on his hands and arm. "Where!"
"A day's ride south-east," the man managed to gasp. His eyes grew wide as the pressure continued.
"Did you destroy this community."
The man didn't answer, then sunk to his knees as the pressure increased. "We..." he tried to cough, but it came out as a gagging wheeze.
"We what." Andy sighed in annoyance. "I'm going to say something, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong. Does your settlement send out people to ask for bartered goods, then you attack if you find what you like."
The man glared at him and managed to get his weapon back in his hand. He brought it up quickly, but yelled in agony as Andy’s other hand shot out and bent the wrist back so hard that the snap startled the horses.
"Yes, or no," Andy said as he tossed the gun behind him.
"Yes," the man gasped.
"Do you know a woman named Leza." The widening of the man’s eyes was enough of an answer for Andy.
"Fuck you, machine." His eyes went wider as the pressure continued, then slumped from lack of oxygen.
Andy continued to squeeze, an unreadable expression on his face, and didn't stop until he felt a slight snap under his hand. He threw the lifeless body away to the side and stared at it.
Portia watched warily as Andy turned, avoiding her gaze as he reached for his horse. He stopped and looked at his hands, then stepped around the horse and started to run towards the lake.
"Andy!" She called out after him, worried for what he might do, and shocked at what she had just witnessed. How those hands that had brought her such pleasure could have brought death to others was beyond her. She could do nothing but stare as the events had unfolded quickly in front of her, and was astounded at how ‘dark’ Andy seemed to look. Instead of the usual easy-going features, he had looked every inch the avenging angel straight from hell.
She took the reigns of his horse, mounted hers, and set off at a trot after him.
Andy ran straight through the community, past the still smoldering buildings, straight for the lake. He could hear Portia yelling out to him, but ignored her. He reached the lake and stopped, then waded in to his knees and dove under the water. He surfaced quickly, welcoming the cold water. He had to get the blood off him and scrubbed his face before diving under again.
Portia stopped by the lake’s edge and watched as he washed the death off his body. She wondered if he’s be able to wash the images of what he had done out of his memory as easily. She watched as he slowly walked out of the water and headed towards her.
"Let’s go," he said, got on to his horse, and rode away.
~~~~~~~~~
The small fire cast shadows over their bodies as they sat silently. Not wanting to intrude, Portia waited while Andy stared blankly into the flames. He had been silent since they left the community, and had avoided both her gaze and looking into her eyes for the entire day.
Andy was trying to come to terms with what he had done. Although he had killed before, he had never done it in such a callous manner. He had never used his hands to kill, and he wondered how he could. His hands were designed to bring pleasure, not death. He knew it had something to do with the government programming he had downloaded, most likely something in the covert area, or having the knowledge of how to kill over a hundred ways with his bare hands.
He rubbed his hands on his legs, and finally looked at Portia. He had to stop himself from looking away when he saw the concerned yet weary expression on her face as she watched him. He got up, moved to the other side of the fire and sat beside her. She put her arms around him and he leaned into her, and looked back into the flames that kept them warm.
They were silent for a long while, before Andy suddenly spoke. "We should go back." He kicked a rock towards the fire, watching as it hit a small twig, sending sparks into the sky. "We found out what we needed."
"Okay."
He closed his eyes against the incrimination he thought he heard in her voice. "I’m sorry," he finally said. "I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why it happened, and I don’t…" he stopped, searching for the right thing to say. He sighed. "I’m suppose to be able to handle the emotions, but… that was the third community we saw, and…I don’t know…I was angry with them, I guess, and then the thought of them destroying me, and leaving you with them so they could…."
Portia tightened her embrace around him, bringing her face into the hair that hung down to his shoulders. "It’s okay," she whispered.
"He was unconscious, and I killed him anyway," Andy said, frustration and a little pain in his voice. "I killed him because I wanted to." He kicked another rock into the fire. "And now I can’t stop thinking about it, and I can’t stop the guilt, and I can’t stop being disgusted in myself. My system is fritzing...I can feel it, but it’s not crashing. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s like my emotional program is stuck in some loop that I can’t get out of."
"Thank you."
Andy blinked slowly, unsure if he heard her correctly. "For what?"
Portia moved so she could look into his face. "You saved my life…you saved me from whatever they had planned for me. I owe you my life, and I love you for it." She leaned in and gave him a soft kiss.
Andy returned the kiss, relieved that she didn’t hate him for what he had done. He still had to work through what had happened, and had to find out why it was affecting him the way it was. Part of him thought it might be purely an evolution of his programming, since he was designed to learn and adapt, combined with the bastardized upgrade he had given himself in place of the required one. He searched his base program for some hint or coding that would point out the answer.
~~~~~~
The woman stood above the three bodies on the ground and made a small tsking sound. She looked from the ripped out throat on one to the bruising on the neck on another, and finally settled on the third. She turned to the people with her.
"From your description, I think I recognize the pair, but…" she looked back at the bodies. "Uhhh… Andy and…oh, what did he call her…Paula, no, Portia. But he’s a pretty boy. I don’t think they could do this."
"You want us to look for them, or continue hitting communities."
She looked at the man who spoke. "They killed three of my people, so yes, we’re going to look for them. We’re also going to hit the last community."
"Last?"
"Knowing when to quit is the key to survival," she said, and gave him a patronizing smile. "If we destroy everyplace, then we’ll have no one to rob and kill next summer."
"Yes, ma’am." He paused for a moment. "Shall I send the supplies back across the river with a few men, while we search and attack?"
"Sounds good," she said, then turned and walked back to the horses that were waiting. She climbed on the back of one, her long blonde hair blowing in the late summer breeze and set off back towards their temporary camp.
~~~~~~~~
Passing through the same communities again didn’t desensitize them against the shock of what had happened. Not stopping to look this time, they made it through three of the communities by nightfall, with one to go before they made it back to their home. They both hoped that there would be a home to go back to, but neither voiced their concern.
Stopping for fear of harming one of the horses on the uneven ground, they sat huddled together for warmth, not wanting to risk a campfire in case there were other’s lurking in the darkness.
Andy raised his body temperature to a pleasing level and tried to relax as he scanned the moonlit landscape. He strained his senses as far as he could, and, satisfied that they were alone, turned his attention back to the woman with him.
He started kissing her neck, then stopped when she didn’t respond. He pulled back and smiled slightly when he realized that she was asleep. Bringing her with him, he leaned back to lay on the ground, and turned part of his attention to mending the wounds he had ignored until now.
Since his self-healing synthetic skin was able to feel pain, the knife had hurt going in, but he was too angry at the time to feel the guns shooting at him. He had two of the holes mended, and two to go before he would be complete.
~~~~~~~~~~
Leza sat on a box and raised her leg so she could place her foot on it. She leaned against her bent knee and regarded the two men before her. They stared back through battered faces. The two had been tied up in the small tent for nearly a month. As soon as they arrived in the camp with her from the settlement, they had taken one look around, realized that is was not what they had expected, and tried to make a run for it.
"Tell me about Andy," she said.
"Andy who?" one of the men asked.
Leza nodded to someone, and the man fell forward as he was struck from behind. "How about Portia?" she asked instead.
The other man looked at her with an expression made of fear, and defiant anger. "Only that he had you pegged."
"He did, did he?" she lowered her leg and leaned forward. "And how did he have me pegged?" she asked in an artificially sweet voice. "Hmm?"
The man assumed that he was already dead, and decided to yank a few chains on his way out. "He talked with you, and didn’t believe you. Convinced the mayor to not trust you, either."
Leza pouted slightly. "That wasn’t very nice of him, was it." Her expression changed to malice. "I want to know about his past."
"Didn’t know them until about a year ago, when they came to the settlement. Always kept to themselves. His woman mingled, but he was a loner."
"Interesting," Leza said. "Thank you." She looked at the man behind them. "Kill them, get rid of the bodies, and break camp."
The man on the ground looked panicked. "No, wait…" his protests died out with a single gunshot to the back of the head.
Leza walked across the camp, annoyed that her plans were being bothered, and annoyed that she hadn’t been able to get Andy into bed when she was at the settlement. If they caught up with the two, she still might be able to work something out with him, in exchange for his woman’s life.
~~~~~~~~~
Portia rubbed her face sleepily, wanting to spend more time with her eyes closed, but knowing that she should be getting up. She could feel the heat of Andy beside her, and snuggled in closer for a few minutes of comfort to ward off the early morning chill. Summer was quickly giving way to autumn, and soon the chill would continue throughout the day.
She marveled at how quickly time went by, and admired how the seasons came and went, not bothering with cosmically trivial things like near destruction.
She stretched lightly, finally surrendering to waking. Sitting up, she glinted in the sunlight that was already heating up the air, and stood to get the circulation moving in her body.
She looked down at the form still on the ground. "Andy?"
He rolled over and ignored her.
"Time to get up."
"Mmmfffttt," he mumbled and stayed where he was. After a few moments, he opened an eye and peeked at her. "I’m tired."
She tried not to smile at the deliberate whine in his voice. She crouched down beside him. "How much rest did you get?"
"Not enough," he replied, his voice suddenly sounding grouchy. He frowned as she started to stand, and reached out quickly to grab her wrist, and pull her down on top of him. "However," he said, his voice and expression changing to mischievous, "I could be persuaded to get up."
Portia smiled at him, surprised at the lust that seemed to be in his eyes. He had always been more than ready for sex before, since it was his programming, but she had never remembered him being this…horny. Perhaps he was right, and his emotions were glitching on him.
"What did you have in mind?" she breathed, already having a fairly good idea since his hand had worked its way down the front of her pants and was caressing her.
"I was thinking of you, me, right here, and damn the entire world for an hour or three." He kissed her, his tongue and fingers entering her body together, and encountering wetness at the same time.
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