Never Love A Stranger Part 36

is. It's a gamble, all right, but one that may pay off."

Annie looked back at James' ruined body and blinked hard. "So you agreed to blow up the time machine'"

"The TDM is ' unstable," James said. "It did not take a great deal of explosive to destabilize it."

"You let them put explosives inside you," Annie said. "In your abdomen. James, that's crazy. There had to be a better way."

"There was no other way that would permit me to return with you," James said. "I wanted ' to see you

as I died. Perhaps that was selfish of me."

"No," she whispered, and heard her voice break. "I wouldn't want you to die alone."

"I had ' another reason. A less selfish one. I did not want you to spend ' the rest of your life hoping I

might return. Waiting for me. I thought it would be best ' if you knew for certain that I was dead."

She gave a broken sob. "You were right, James. I would have waited for you. Forever."

"I wish you did not have to lose ' a second love this way, Annie."

She swallowed hard, struggling to steady her voice. "I wish I didn't have to lose you, James. But if I have to lose you, I'd rather be with you when you die." Lifting his hand, she pressed her lips against it. She felt his fingers move feebly against hers as he tried to squeeze her hand with his, with very little success. A fresh flood of tears spilled down her cheeks at the realization that he was so weak he could barely move his own hand.

At that moment there was a peremptory knock on the door. "Annie!" Annie recognized Kay's distressed tones, and she raised her own voice. "Come in, Kay!" A moment later Kay stalked in, holding Clark on her hip. She glared at the naked Gar with suspicion.

"What are you doing here, you son of a b.i.t.c.h' What are you doing to her'" Gar held his hands out in a gesture of peace. "I mean your friend no harm," he said. Kay sniffed with contempt and turned to Annie. "Where the h.e.l.l have you'" She broke off with a horrified gasp as she saw James. Annie looked up at her friend. "He's dying, Kay." "Jesus." Still clutching Clark, Kay dropped on her knees beside James and studied his gaping wound.

She looked appalled. "If he were a human, he'd be dead already." She looked at James. "Isn't there anything I can do' Stop the, uh, bleeding'" "No," James said in his mechanical voice. "Too many of my internal organs are ' missing or damaged. In the future, they could be replaced, but there is no technology ' available in your time."

Kay looked up, getting a good look at Annie for the first time, and her eyes went wide with surprise. Annie could understand why. The last time Kay had seen her, she'd looked civilized, if not glamorous. But now she was bedraggled, filthy, and badly sunburned. Not to mention totally naked. "What the h.e.l.l happened to you two'"

"Long story," Annie said.

"Couldn't be that long. You and James just left a couple of hours ago."

"Two hours ago!"

"Yeah. Don't you remember' James left, and I asked you if you were going to let him throw himself to

the wolves."

Annie nodded. "I remember. You asked me if I was a coward, and I went after him. You were supposed to stay at the hotel." "I waited for an hour. Then I couldn't take it any more. I decided to drive over here, and then to my condo, and see if you showed up. I was worried about you, Annie." "With good reason," Annie said. "Kay, for us it's been a couple of days."

"Days'"

"We went to the future. It's really a long story. But Dekka is dead, and he's on our side now." She pointed at Gar.

"So are you telling me I can't beat him up again'"

"I'm afraid so. He's actually been a lot of help. We wouldn't have gotten through it without him."

The clack of high heels suddenly resounded on the wood floor, and Annie jerked her head up. "Kay, did you leave the door open'"

"Oh, h.e.l.l," Kay said, looking stricken. She bounded to her feet, but before she made it two steps a familiar face peered around the corner and stared at James' ruined abdomen with avid interest.

"Well, now," said Susan Takahas.h.i.+. "Isn't this fascinating'"

Chapter 30.

A cold thrill of rage went through Annie. If James had to die, at least he deserved to die in peace. She wouldn't stand by and let his last few moments be turned into a media circus. She dropped James hand and stood up, all but snarling with fury.

"Leave him alone."

"It looks like he needs help," Susan said.

"There's nothing anyone can do for him," Annie said. "Least of all you."

Susan started to walk toward her, and Gar immediately stepped into her path, taking his cue from Annie's belligerent att.i.tude. "Get the h.e.l.l out of here," he said, bristling.

Susan lifted a hand and casually pushed him, and he flew several feet across the kitchen, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor. Annie felt a jolt of shock. A small, delicate woman like Susan shouldn't be able to knock a big guy like Gar off his feet so easily.

Susan smiled as she paused on the other side of James. Deliberately, she rolled up the sleeve of her blouse and held out her arm.

And peeled away a long section of skin.

Annie gaped as circuitry and artificial muscles were revealed. "You're a humanoid," she said accusingly.

"That's what I love about humans," Susan said. "They're so d.a.m.ned observant." She knelt next to James, peeled back the skin on his arm, and with quick, efficient movements connected their arms by a clear plastic tube. With her other hand she pulled out some sort of small machine from her pocket and held it near James' abdomen. It emitted a buzzing sound, and the clear liquid stopped oozing from him.

Seeing Annie gawk at her, she explained, "This'll keep him alive until we can get the parts we need."

"The parts'" Annie echoed.

"How are you planning on getting parts'" Kay drawled. "I've never seen a humanoid parts supply store around here."

Susan flashed a grin. "Believe it or not, I'm not the only humanoid in this time period, and neither is James. There are quite a few of us. Several were designed with some knowledge of engineering, and they serve our community as doctors. We keep a supply of parts around because we can't afford to be discovered. If something goes wrong with one of us, it has to be fixed in a hurry, before someone notices it."

"So you're telling me you've all just blended into human society'" Annie said.

Susan nodded. "No one's ever guessed what I am." She looked at Annie. "Not until now."

G.o.d knew Annie had never guessed. She saw the anxiety in the woman's dark eyes and realized the tremendous risk she'd taken in exposing her true nature. She'd be taken apart, bolt by bolt, if anyone ever discovered what she was.

"We won't tell anyone," Annie promised. "None of us will."

Looking at James' arm, she saw fluid pumping through the tube that connected the two humanoids. "Are you sure you can save him' He's hurt so badly'."

"This' We're not as fragile as you humans, Ms. Simpson." Susan waved her hand toward the ruined, gaping hole where James' abdomen ought to be and flashed her cheerful grin. "Trust me. This is no big deal."

"How many of you are there'"

Annie sat on Susan Takahas.h.i.+'s couch, James beside her, his arm around her waist. Incredible though it seemed, the humanoid "doctor" had been able to repair James' ma.s.sive injuries in a matter of hours. Annie had stood next to him and held his hand the whole time, while he gritted his teeth, gasped, and occasionally moaned with pain. Apparently there was no painkiller that worked effectively on humanoids, and no way of safely rendering them unconscious while they were operated on. Being put back together had obviously been an excruciatingly painful procedure.

But despite the agony he'd suffered, he was whole again.

Susan Takahas.h.i.+ shrugged. "We don't know for sure how many of us there are in this time," she answered. "There may be some we haven't found. I suspected James was one of us from the moment I saw him, and I was almost certain once the evidence from that wreck surfaced. I recognized the odd burn marks on the tree near that smashed-up car at once. That's why I kept trying to get James to come talk to me."

"You can't even tell if someone's a humanoid or not'" Kay asked. She was sitting on the floor, Clark in her lap, with Gar next to her.

Susan shook her head. "It is impossible to be certain. But the way most humanoids look is something of a giveaway. We tend to have a slightly idealized appearance."

If that meant stunningly gorgeous, then Annie was inclined to agree. Susan was striking, in a delicate way, and the doctor who had "operated" on James had been unbelievably lovely, with brilliant red hair that made Annie feel that her own auburn hair looked rather dingy by comparison. Charles had been incredibly handsome, too. And then, of course, there was James'.

"We may never know for certain how many of us there are," Susan said. "There are quite a few of us here. But we are always looking for more."

"Why are there so many of you cl.u.s.tered here'" Gar asked.

Susan shrugged. "I made it through on my own. But once I had established a life here, a sympathetic Bureau agent contacted me. He helped quite a few other humanoids escape through the TDM, and I a.s.sisted them in learning to blend in. He was a rogue agent. A decent human who took exception to what the Bureau had done to the humanoids. He was able to keep our location in time concealed, but eventually the Bureau caught on to what he was doing, and he was forced to escape to this time himself. After that, no more humanoids came through that we know of, other than James. But there may have been others that we're unaware of."

Annie noticed Gar staring at Susan speculatively, and she remembered his words. My father was killed by a humanoid ' the humanoid killed him and used the TDM.

She deliberately steered the conversation in another direction before he could think too hard about the subject. If Susan had killed a human to gain her freedom, she didn't particularly want to know about it. Not after everything Susan had done for them.

"I guess there won't be any more coming through now that the TDM's out of commission," she said.

"No," Susan said. "And that's for the best, judging from what you and James have told us. Our people are alive, and they have a chance to make a life, a civilization, for themselves. It's a great deal more than they had before."

"Too bad you can't go back," Kay said.

Susan shook her head. "Most of us don't really want to go back. We have lives here. But we are greatly relieved to know that our friends have lives of their own in the future. We are ' grateful to you, Ms. Simpson."

"Me' I didn't do anything. It was James."

"On the contrary, you did a great deal. You took in a stranger in trouble and helped him outwit his pursuers. You stayed with him even when you learned that he was a machine. A robot. That is more than any other human has ever done for us, aside from that one lone Bureau agent. If you had not helped James, this outcome would not have been possible."

Annie swallowed. "I was glad to help."

"And that is part of what makes you an unusual human. You'." She looked at Kay and Gar. "And your friends."

"I'm curious," Kay said. "How have you managed to blend into society'"

"It took some effort," Susan said. "We had to find a way to obtain the doc.u.ments that are required in your world. I found a person who was willing to provide birth certificates, driver's licenses, and other

paperwork, and he produces doc.u.ments when we need them. We'll get the necessary paperwork for James right away."

"Thank you," Annie said in relief. "That's a big load off my mind. I knew James needed that stuff, but I

didn't have a clue how to get it."

"Criminal connections do come in handy," Susan said with her irreverent grin. She looked at Gar, and

her smile faded slightly. "I suppose you will need papers, too. I'll see to that as well."

"Thank you," Gar answered.

Annie frowned. "I'm curious about one more thing, Susan. You don't age. How can you blend into

society' Don't people notice you never get older'"

Susan shrugged her slender shoulders. "None of us have been here longer than ten years, so we

wouldn't have aged significantly. But obviously we will have to appear older at some point. We intend to use cosmetic means to age ourselves."

"But eventually someone will notice you never die. That's kind of a giveaway, you know'"

Susan nodded. "A dead giveaway, so to speak. Yes, we have given thought to that. When that becomes