Rampion by Susan Trombley

Author:Susan Trombley [Trombley, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

When he awakened, he was securely tied to one of the seats in Rampion’s tower room with metal cables that had been twisted around his chest and arms, as well as his hips—all the way down to his ankles. Rampion stood in front of him, looking down at him with eyes that were now purple.

The exact shade of Rapunzel’s eyes.

“Oh, no.” Gothel shook his head, trying to deny the evidence before him.

“I have made myself the perfect, handsome prince for Rapunzel. This is as it should be. We are meant to be together, just as all the romance movies would show it. We are fated. Why else would everything have happened the way it did?”

“I have sensors all around this place, dammit! I would have known if she’d tripped them.”

Rampion’s smile looked far too sly for Gothel to believe he had only just begun his plotting. “They were simple enough to hack into to conceal her visits.”

“You damn fool machine!”

He tried not to allow the feeling of betrayal to take hold inside him. Of course, Rapunzel would disobey him, and of course, she would find Rampion. He had been the blind fool who had underestimated them both. He was paying for it now. He just hoped Rapunzel wouldn’t also end up paying for it.

“She was fated to find me, and your pass code was very appropriate, don’t you think? Do you not realize that you are the villain of this piece?”

Gothel stared at Rampion, taking in his shockingly human-looking appearance. He couldn’t help but be impressed by how much Rampion had accomplished on his own. “I had figured as much,” he said wryly. “Name always gave me problems—least until most humans forgot about the old stories.”

“And now ‘Rapunzel’ is here!” Rampion’s ecstatic smile looked eerily lifelike, and somehow, he had painted or enameled his teeth to no longer gleam like metal. “It is fate! Destiny!”

“No, you idiot. It’s just unimaginative parents. They probably went down a list of ‘princess’ names and plucked that one out of the list because it sounds different. Stop making this more than a coincidence. Use yer logic. Yer a machine, for god’s sake!”

Rampion’s eyes narrowed on Gothel, and the AI leaned closer to him. “I am human now. I have done everything to become one.”

Gothel sighed, eyeing Rampion’s new skin. Bioluminescence rippled along his skin as Gothel stared at it—a sign of the unicellular kayota that lived within it to give his computer brain neural feedback. Gothel knew from experience just how effective that feedback loop was—how lifelike it felt.

“You can’t just ‘become’ human. You either are, or you ain’t. Why would you want to be human anyway? It ain’t like they done a very good job with their species.”

Rampion waved away his words with an airy gesture. “I will show humanity the way to perfection. When I have married the princess and taken my rightful place at her side, we will rule her colony, improving upon the inhabitants until we are strong enough to conquer the other colonies.

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