Free Archangel Down: Archangel Project. Book One by C. Gockel

heard one of the ‘bots whir beneath the bed.
    “The tattoo on your wrist, the forced labor … ” he said quietly. “It sounds like other historical events. May I ask what they had you doing?”
    Noa’s body stiffened. “Things that should be done by a ‘bot, even on Luddeccea.”
    James stared off into the distance again. She took a long suck on the soup. Soup, heated floors, a mattress, a quilt … Her left thumb went to the stumps of her ring and pinky fingers. She was safe, for now, and so many other people were not.
    “The scars on your abdomen are old, but the injury on your hand has barely scabbed over—an accident during labor?” James said out of the blue.
    Noa’s whole body went still. She felt her heart rate increase, a prickle on her brow. “I … ” Noa said. Her lips stayed parted. She remembered the guards holding her down, the ax, the pain—but more seeing them take away her rings, the rings Timothy gave her. “Can’t talk about it,” she said.
    Without missing a beat, he said, “Who is Timothy?” And Noa felt like the atmosphere had become too thin.
    She took a deep breath, smelled wood, floor polish, and James—he smelled impossibly good for a man who’d been on the run, and who now seemed set on mentally torturing her—and she smelled herself. “I reek,” she said, because she couldn’t say anything else.
    James said nothing. Hopping to her feet, soup packet in a death grip, she looked around frantically, reminding herself he probably couldn’t help his hyper-augmented brain. James hopped up immediately beside her. She was distantly aware of his fingers, just below her curled arm—as though he was preparing to catch her if she fell. Seeing a door slightly ajar, she said, “Bath?” She couldn’t meet his eyes, but she saw him nod in the periphery of her vision. She set off toward the door without a backward glance.
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    J ames stood outside the bathroom , head bowed. For a moment he had a vision of Noa, lying at the bottom of the tub, her eyes wide open, her lips parted, and no air coming from her lungs. Stepping closer, he pressed his ear against the door. He felt static just beneath his skin. What was he doing? Why was he standing here obsessing?
    Above the roar of the faucet, he heard the sound of Noa sloshing, and then he heard her sigh. He shook his head, irritated that the sound made him feel as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He stepped back from the door and the edges of his vision went hazy. James felt himself waver on his feet. He was still hungry.
    Backing away fast, he stumbled down the hall past the familiar pictures that felt unfamiliar and unreal. He stepped into the kitchen. There was something about the place that reminded him of the set of a play he’d once performed in during college. Going to the cupboard, he pulled more emergency rations out—sealed packets of soup, boxes of shelf-stable soy milk, crackers, and several jars of peanut butter. Going straight for the peanut butter, he grabbed a spoon from the correct drawer without a pause, opened the jar, and scooped a heaping helping into his mouth. Every taste bud in his mouth was jumping with joy. His eyebrows rose as he took another bite. He didn’t remember loving peanut butter this much. Was it just hunger, or the fact that he’d nearly died … he smacked his lips and licked off all the salt. Or was it just that the peanut butter tasted real? He wanted to slow down and savor every gooey, oily, salty bite, but couldn’t keep from shoveling spoonful after spoonful into his mouth. As his stomach started to fill, his mind returned to something else that felt very real: he and the Commander—Noa—were wanted by the local government.
    The ethernet was still inaccessible, so they could not call in the Republic’s authorities for help. Opening the soy milk container, he washed down a quarter of a jar of peanut butter. The Holocaust, the Gulags in the old Soviet Union, the Khmer