“If you want us to speak as equals, you might want to not threaten to mutilate me,” he pointed out.

  “Oh, but here’s the thing. We really can’t speak as equals, because we’re not.”

  That, admittedly, was hard to argue with. “It depends on how you define equals,” he said.

  “Stop with the semantics, Warner Vogel. One of us can murder the other without breaking a sweat.”

  “So that’s your plan, then? Murder me?” He chuckled. “We both know you’re not going to murder me. You risked a lot to come here and wait for me, and it wasn’t so you could, as you charmingly put it, rip my arm off.”

  Watching her became more unnerving with every passing second. She didn’t move a muscle, and he couldn’t clearly see her face, yet he knew she was observing his every move with the keenness of a bird of prey.

  “Why are you here, Freya no-last-name?”

  “My kind doesn’t have last names,” she said evenly, a note of contempt clear in her voice. “I gave up the privilege of having one as I gave up my freedom. For my country. It’s nothing the likes of you could understand.”

  “There are worse things to give up than one’s freedom, Freya.”

  She still didn’t move. Warner wondered if there was a way to activate night vision mode in his right eye without her realizing. He was making promising breakthroughs with mental command, but for the time being, it still required a small but noticeable tilt of the head that just might set her off. He was confident she wouldn’t make good on her threat, but with a berserker, you couldn’t be too careful.

  “Such as?”

  His good eye began to get used to the penumbra, and now he began to see more of her even without the night vision. Ramirez’ jacket was long gone, and she wore mismatched, unfamiliar clothes that drowned her, but Warner wasn’t kidding himself: none of it would so much as slow her down.

  “Integrity. Conscience. Doing what’s right.”

  A small chuckle came from the dark. “Well, I guess you should know—you don’t have any of these things.”

  Ouch.

  “Indulge my curiosity,” she said. “What went through your head when you opened that door? I was so sure you wouldn’t. And then you did.”

  “We had an agreement, didn’t we?”

  “I just as easily could have been lying.”

  He pondered that. “Sometimes risks pay off.”

  “Sure—in chess, maybe. I have a theory. Care to hear it?”

  He raised his eyebrows at the rhetorical question.

  “You had everything to gain and nothing to lose,” Freya said. “Worst that could happen was I kill you. And you didn’t care about that at all. That I might also kill Ramirez wasn’t much of a concern for you either.”

  “I only felt kind of bad about Quinn,” Warner admitted.

  Freya nodded, clearly satisfied with herself. “That’s why I went easy on Quinn.”

  “Quinn might beg to differ.”

  Freya ignored that. “Do you think the others know you did it on purpose? Do you think Ramirez knows?” she mused. “Lyssa—Lyssa definitely knows.”

  “Lyssa probably does know,” Warner conceded. “But she can’t prove it or do anything about it. I may not have your proficiency at keeping secrets, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Besides, plausible deniability is on your side. Later, you can say I ambushed you at your apartment and threatened unspeakable torments. Everyone would believe it.” Her eyes narrowed in amusement. “But I see you’ve already thought about this too. I’d like to remind you that I’m no longer in a cage, Warner Vogel.”

  “You really don’t need to remind me.” And that was God’s own truth. “By the way, you don’t have to just sit there in the dark. You can kill me at any moment, you’ve made that clear, so you might as well let me turn the lights on.”

  She stayed silent.

  “Can I turn the lights on?” he prompted.

  “I also know all your sensors are disabled,” she pointed out. “I was able to get in here—”

  “Through the hidden entrance,” he said. “You found it. Of course you did.”

  “Without being detected,” she finished smoothly like he hadn’t spoken. “It’s not smart.”

  He thought of something to say, but his usual argument about privacy felt kind of hollow.

  “Go ahead,” she said, “turn the light on.”

  That’s better. This time, he smiled only to himself as he cautiously opened his phone. In the periphery of his vision, Freya didn’t move, but he knew that if she decided to, there wasn’t much he could do to avert his fate. Somehow, the thought of calling anyone never crossed his mind. He did exactly what he’d told her: turned on the overhead lights.

  Freya got up from the armchair. Bug hopped smoothly off her lap, but didn’t run off: instead, he arched his back and rubbed his side against her calf. Warner had never seen him do that with anyone. Guess there’s a first time for everything.

  What the hell were those rags she had on? She looked less threatening in the bright light, deceptive though that impression might be. She was dirty. Dust streaks ran across her face, smears of something dark red—Warner doubted this was her own blood. Her hair was tangled. She gave off the musky smell of someone who direly needed a shower, with an undercurrent of burnt rubber for some reason.

  He let her circle him. His mind remained on high alert, but he felt his body relax instinctively—if she was going to do anything, she already would have.

  “Calm down,” she said, as if reading his mind, “Death by Unit Six is actually the best way to go.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “That wasn’t the same. If I have orders to kill you, chances are you won’t even see me coming. You won’t have time to understand what’s happening. Here one moment, and the next—” she snapped her fingers, unnervingly close to his ear. He could tell that the involuntary shudder that coursed down his spine amused her. “Now, unless I have orders to make you suffer before you die—”

  “That’s fine. You don’t have to go on.”

  “But I’m having such a good time,” she said cheerfully.

  “Your name. Freya. That’s a goddess from Norse mythology. Interesting choice.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Freya seemingly wasn’t even listening. She inspected the apartment, her attention lingering on the custom-built shelving unit by the window. “You know mythology,” she said with a shrug. “Of course. You’re a book person. I didn’t know you people still had books.”

  “Is that your real name?” he pressed.

  She laughed. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and it cut off as suddenly as it began. “You never ask a girl that, Warner Vogel.”

  “I don’t need to. I have my theories. We don’t know much about Unit Six, but the only other one I had the dubious pleasure of meeting was named Nero. Which happens to also be a name from an ancient civilization, although a different one. I’m guessing that’s no coincidence.”

  She momentarily looked away from the spines on the shelf to flash him a mysterious smile.

  “You got me. It’s not my original name. But it is real. It’s the only name I have.”

  “Do you remember who you used to be before Unit Six?”

  She turned to face him, then looked him up and down with pity in her gaze. “No, of course not. They erase our memories as the final step of the process. So old baggage doesn’t interfere with our new calling.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Can’t have that.”

  The pity in her eyes vanished. She now looked vaguely displeased. “With good reason,” she said. “A lot of people volunteer for it as an alternative to life in prison. Or the firing squad.”

  Warner thought about what Lyssa had told him. About Freya’s laser-altered amygdala.

  “Yeah, I see how that can be a hindrance.”

  “It’s a chance at redemption,” Freya said coldly. “It’s beautiful, in its own way.”

  “From what I can tell, there’s nothing beautiful about the process itself.”

  “That’s the price to pay. Redemption doesn’t come easily.”

  Warner wondered how old she was, how long she’d been in Unit Six, and what on earth she’d done to end up on death row, but he figured he’d pushed his luck enough.

  Freya picked a volume off the shelf and flipped through the pages. Warner gritted his teeth. Her hands left soot-colored prints on the pages, and he’d spent weeks trying to track this particular edition of this novel down through obscure and semi-legal antique shops.

  “Interesting,” Freya gave her verdict, carelessly shoving the volume back into its place. “First time I see one of these in such good condition. It’s funny. Not how I imagined your place.”

  “What did you imagine?”

  “I don’t know—something less boring, I guess.”

  Touché. He’d spent many years adjusting the space to suit his every need, but he never bothered too much with the appearance of it. All the items in here had a practical purpose—nothing strictly decorative to speak of. When he took over the place shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he left it as it was—the previous occupants liked the minimalist look that had cycled back into style at that time, and he decided to keep it. That meant the walls were exposed concrete and shatterproof glass, the fixtures shiny chrome. He told himself it suited him. He never liked the overwrought styles the Keepers preferred in their homes. Or maybe Lyssa was right, and he was just a contrarian.

  He did add a few features to the place for his own convenience, such as the secret entrance. And a couple of other things.

  “Look, I may not have a sex dungeon in here, but I have a gym, if it interests you.”

  In guise of an answer, Freya raised her eyebrows enough to let him know it didn’t interest her in the slightest.

  “I suppose you need to train, too,” he said, feeling lame.

  “I don’t. It’s inefficient. A waste of time.”

  “Of course. How did I not know that.”

  “Enough with the sarcasm. And it’s not that shocking. If your side had supersoldiers—if—you’d want them out there winning you the war, not wasting their time doing push-ups.”

  “So my side doesn’t have supersoldiers,” he conceded.

  “And it won’t.”

  “You seem awfully sure. And if you’re so great, why doesn’t your side make an army of Unit Six soldiers and win the war? And every other war while they’re at it?”

  His spine tingled, a warning. He was pushing his luck again, and for a moment, he became sure he’d pushed it too far. Freya fixed him with an unblinking stare.

  “We aren’t born, we’re made,” she said slowly. “In the most literal sense. You don’t get something like a Unit Six berserker from a boot camp. It’s never going to happen. They deconstruct us, body and mind, strip us to the bare bones and then rebuild us again. Different. The problem is, not everyone survives. Most people don’t. That’s why you’ll never have supersoldiers. You don’t have the balls.”

  And that’s why you’re in such a hurry to get back to your creators, he thought. But he’d decided he wasn’t going to lose a limb today, and he’d stick with it. “No,” he said. “Because I, for one, plan on using my technologies for good.”

  Freya laughed again.

  “Such na?veté,” she said. “That’s why your Lyssa locked me in a metal brace and tortured me? To use the technology for good?”

  “Maybe there are some things about this place that you don’t understand,” he said. “Just like I don’t entirely understand your side.”

  “I was sent here on a mission, Warner,” she reminded him. “I know all there is to know about this place.”

  “Is that how you ended up with a bullet in your head? Captured by the enemy, stuck in a cage?”

  What happened next happened almost too fast for his mind to follow. What he did know was that one moment they stood face to face with a few feet of distance separating them, and the next, the floor rushed towards him. His rib cage echoed with pain when he hit the hardwood. His shoulders screamed in agony as she twisted his arms behind his back. Now I’ve done it, he caught himself thinking, but for some reason, he felt no panic. His thoughts didn’t collapse in a chaotic tangle, they flowed with ease, as if this were an elaborate game that was going according to plan. Even though it did hurt. Oh, it fucking hurt!

  “Took you long enough,” he choked out. “You must really be desperate.”

  Her knee pressed between his shoulder blades. He figured it would take her no effort at all to break his spine.

  “You just let me insult you to your face. Some berserker you are. You’ve got nothing on Nero.”

  She slammed his head into the floor. Pain traveled like lightning through his cheekbone and into the base of his neck, down his spine, into his extremities. What the fuck am I doing?

  “There she is, the real Freya. Now do it again, like you mean it this time.”

  She obliged.

  A million stars exploded in front of his good eye. He didn’t have time for any final thoughts, or any thoughts at all. The stars faded, and darkness swallowed him up.

  * * *

  Earlier

  Warner had to keep reminding himself about the armored glass that separated them. A half-smile played on Freya’s lips. Warner thought for a moment that she was about to back out again, to keep toying with him.

  “The device in my head,” she said, “is a failsafe. It makes me unable to disobey my handler’s orders.”

  Warner froze. He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been expecting. That it could kill her on the spot, maybe. That, at least, seemed consistent with what he knew about her kind.

  “What do you mean, unable?”

  “Unable. In the literal sense.”

  “Like a puppet?”

  “No, not like a puppet.” She chuckled. “You’ve seen us in action, that look like a puppet to you?”

  He could only shake his head.

  “I remember how my mind used to work. Before. Not that I was physically forced to obey—it just didn’t ever occur to me not to. I don’t know how else to explain it. My thoughts just flowed a certain way. I had an objective, I had to fulfil the objective, how I felt about it was secondary, and I hardly felt anything about it either way. Something like that.”

  Warner thought about it. “And all of you have one?”

  “Yes.”

  That left him with more questions that hummed in his head like wasps. He had wondered why the berserkers didn’t simply revolt and murder their superiors—well, he supposed he didn’t have to wonder any longer. It made perfect sense, and for that reason, he realized with dismay that he believed her.

  If he believed her, if she told the truth, it changed the game. Oh, it changed the game in so many ways. But they had no time, and he had to keep her talking. He had to learn everything he could from her before Lyssa figured out what was happening and reactivated the surveillance.

  “So why not just tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “We have little in common,” he said. “What seems counterintuitive to me is perfectly rational to you. But I’m starting to understand. You would literally rather bite off your own tongue than admit you didn’t have free will.”

  “That’s what you think it’s about? You disappoint me.”

  “If you claim you were compelled, you’ve got a sure-fire path to full amnesty. A new life here, if you want it.”

  “Amnesty?” She laughed. “A new life? Who do you take me for?”

  “If you go back,” Warner said, “they’ll kill you. And now I understand why.”

  “Warner Vogel, do you think I’m a traitor to my own people? Do you think I’m afraid to die? I thought you were smart.”

  “You thought I was smart,” he said, hiding his smile. “Good to know.”

  She ignored the remark. “I may not be afraid to die, but to die for nothing—it would be a waste. First, I have scores to settle. And that’s something you and I do have in common.”

  It was cold in here, and yet sweat broke out along his spine. This had to be it, the reason he’d been playing with fire—no, playing with a tactical nuke seemed more like it. And it was about to pay off. Or kill him. Maybe both.

  “So the other thing,” he said at last. He felt the conversation tipping towards that point of no return after which nothing would be the same. His mouth went dry, and he had no choice but to discreetly lick his lips. “Nero—”

  “Nero was my handler.”

  He’d known it was coming. Yet here he was, at a loss for what to say.

  “Nero had been my handler for the last ten years,” she said. She didn’t seem to be relishing the effect her words had on Warner. She didn’t seem to be feeling much at all, and the words had been delivered with a bland neutrality.

  Well, Warner thought, this sure as all hell filled in the blanks. He let a few moments go by as everything clicked together in his mind.

  “He’s here, isn’t he,” Warner said at last. “Nero is right here in this city as we speak.”

  Freya gave a very slight nod.

  “You should reactivate the cameras,” Freya said.

  “Wait.”

  “It’s time. Lyssa is going to notice.”

  Goddammit. No. He couldn’t just stop here. Not once he finally got so far—

  “Do it, Warner. And then play along.”

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered under his breath.

  A word from Bug, unofficial witness and official Freya simp:

  From the vantage point of the useless box where the human keeps his fabrics, I observe.

  The genetically perfect hand-to-hand brutality I’ve been waiting for.

  Thump.

  The male’s skull does make that pleasing hollow sound when struck just right.

  She is precise.

  She is mine.

  But if he doesn’t?

  Good.