The A.I. Gene (The A.I. Series Book 2) by Vaughn Heppner

Author:Vaughn Heppner [Heppner, Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Published: 2017-04-04T06:00:00+00:00

-2-

The days passed in dreadful monotony and growing terror and despair.

Walleye talked her ear off and then started up on the other one. The words kept pouring out of him. She wished he’d zone out so she could search for the stitch-gun.

At times, she dozed off. When she woke, when she moved, Walleye jerked upright. He must have fallen asleep after she did. As soon as she woke, he perked up and starting jabbering away with his stream of words.

She wanted to scream at him, but she was too scared. Instead, she nodded endlessly, making a few “ohs” and “ahs” along the way.

On what might have been the third day, she started comparing the two of them.

Long-term cryo sleep ate away at the human body. It just happened super-slowly. That had been one of the chief problems for the cryoarchs. Special cryo units injected growth serum into the frozen occupant. That serum helped to maintain the sleeper’s equilibrium.

Her cryo unit hadn’t been a specialty one. She was skinnier than when she’d gone in. She wasn’t skinnier than Walleye, though. He was like a skeleton.

It seemed in the few days that she’d been awake, that Walleye had been gaining weight and strength.

She managed to ask him about that during breaths that interrupted his endless words.

That started him on another line of thought. Yes. He’d starved for months on end in order to stretch out the food supply. He’d calculated it carefully. Now, though, with the spaceship braking, heading toward them, he was eating regularly again. He hadn’t felt this fit since entering the escape pod.

The renewed strength seemed to have reduced the number of times he zoned out. The endless talking seemed to be helping him sharpen his wits, too.

June finally decided Walleye had been as close to insane as a person could be and still function enough to make a few good decisions. That’s why he’d woken her. The steady food, her company, maybe having a problem so that boredom no longer dulled his mind, was reawakening the sharp and deadly Walleye, the sane mutant assassin.

It would be harder to kill him now, June decided. Her desire to do so had sharply dropped off. Maybe she was getting used to him. Maybe he was making more sense finally—

June stared at the tiny control unit embedded in a bulkhead. She’d looked out it once. She didn’t want to do that again. The sight—the loneliness of their position—terrified her.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” June asked him after the fourth day.

Walleye zoned out at the question. He sat like a statue. It started freaking her out. This was too long.

She turned away.

His eyes focused, it seemed. A tight, evil little grin stretched onto his hideous face.

“It don’t look good for us, Luscious,” Walleye said, sounding more like the old assassin she remembered.

“I don’t want to be a drone,” she said.

“Me neither.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Don’t know. Been thinking about it a ton. I’ve decided we’re going to have to wait and see.

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