Lifeless by Adrianne Strickland

Author:Adrianne Strickland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adrienne strickland, adrian strickland, science fiction, sci fi, sci-fi, teen, teen novel, teen reads, teen lit, young adult, young adult fiction, ya, ya fiction, ya novel, young adult novel, wordless
Publisher: North Star Editions
Published: 2015-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

fourteen

Drey shot Swanson a stern look, as if they were a bickering married couple, which would have made me laugh under normal circumstances. But he didn’t challenge Swanson’s edict that I had to go with them, in spite of the fact that it was middle of the night and I was headed to bed. Not to mention that I was exhausted and a bit drunk.

“Come on,” Drey said, gesturing down the hallway to the elevator like Swanson had. “I’ll explain on the way.”

“This can’t be good.” It was another thing I wouldn’t have said aloud if not under the influence … and not the last thing. “So why are they here?” I nodded at Swanson and Carlin.

Drey didn’t answer. Neither did the other two, but there was an awkwardness lingering between all of them as they moved for the elevator with me in their wake. Swanson must’ve been there to make sure Drey did whatever he was supposed to do, and maybe Carlin was backup. The first step was to drag me out of bed, obviously, and I wondered what the rest of it would involve.

I only waited as long as it took the mirrored elevator doors to close on the four of us to say, “So?”

Drey cleared his throat. “The situation is that one of Cruithear’s and Khaya’s automatons is … malfunctioning

… and the City Council decided it should be exterminated immediately.”

I suddenly felt dizzy. “And they want me to do it.”

They all nodded in the mirrors.

I’d finally reached the stage where I had to kill something human-sized. An automaton might not actually be human, but it sure as hell looked like one. This was the penultimate stage before the real thing. No, not a thing—an actual human.

I’d already killed an automaton, months ago in the Alps, but I’d been damned-near out of my mind from the Word of Death at the time and hardly remembered it. This definitely didn’t feel familiar.

“And this couldn’t wait until morning?” I wished it could have waited forever, though even I knew that was an impossibility.

“It was acting unpredictably and had to be sedated,” Swanson said.

Carlin spoke up, in a surprisingly deep voice. “The City Council thought it would be best to deal with it immediately, to avoid any embarrassing indiscretions.”

“Oh, like, the truth that they exist?” My words were heavy with sarcasm.

“Something like that,” Drey said.

They almost sounded like they’d rehearsed this. An uncomfortable idea began to form in the fog of my mind. What if this was planned? What if they wanted me near the automaton for a different reason? What if the City Council had determined I’d failed at being the Word of Death, never mind that I was just getting a grip on it? These three had come late at night so I’d be confused and sleepy, all the easier to lure into the same room with it …

But that didn’t make sense either. Why bother waking me up first? They could have just sneaked into my room and shot me with a decent dose of whatever Ryse had given me when she’d made me kill Khaya’s garden.

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