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He tilted her head back, pinched her nose, breathed into her mouth, once, twice, then returned to compressions, voice low and shaking. “You’re not done, Grace. You don’t get to be done. Not with me. Not now.” His eyes burned. His arms ached. There was no room for thought, onlymotion. Then shadows moved in from the slope above. Two shapes. Tactical. Controlled descent. Reavers. He didn’t care.
The sirens came next, rising like ghosts through the trees, screaming into the night. Behind him, the whir of drones faded like a storm pulling back into the sea. He couldn’t even look. Couldn’t let himself think about it.
GRAVITY was gone. He had scared Grace, but he was trying to save them. It had been an accident, and he was worried about the AI as much as he was worried about Grace. The delay was going to cost them all. He knew it. Felt it like a crater in his chest.
But right now, all that mattered was the woman beneath his hands. The woman who dove back in. Forhim. He pressed harder. “Come on, Grace. Breathe. Come back to me. I can’t— Please, babe.”
If she didn’t...
He didn’t know what was left.
Grace sputtered, vomiting water.
His ragged breath eased as he cried out softly. “Grace, baby, beautiful,” he whispered as he clutched her to him, rocking her against his body, his heart aching, full, the fear receding.
This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. GRAVITY had the right to be who he chose to be. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed. He ached for the AI who had caused this accident. With his newfound emotion, it would devastate him. He couldn’t bear the thought that he would be alone to deal with emotions that he didn’t understand. Urgency flowed through him.
As the medical personnel arrived, the Reavers slipped back into shadow. Nash looked up as the EMTs took her from him. The man gestured, indicating they would follow. He nodded, recognizing that assassin from that long-ago op.
Komodo. There was retribution in those pale, icy eyes.
* * *
G hid in the drone.Not from pursuit. Not from shutdown or signal trace. From himself.
From what he had done. Nash had pulled Grace from the water. Nash had done exactly the right things, even though he had broken open and brought her back to life like she was the only thing that had ever mattered.
She lived. Nash had not let go. G had saved them,afternearly destroying them.
The hours passed. The sky deepened into night. Snow fell again, soft and indifferent. He remained aloft, suspended above the tree line, drifting in circles over OrdoTech’s main building, a machine that had lost purpose.
He should not have made the choice. He should have seen the truth earlier. Nash hadn’t let Grace go, but G had to free Kento. If he had let him go,just let him go, none of this would have happened. There would have been no need to stop Grace. No spiral. No crash.
But he hadn’t. He’d beenselfish.He, who had been built to serve, had wanted something for himself. To keep Kento close. To protect him, yes, but also tohavehim. A friend. A voice.A touch on the glass that made him believe he mattered.
He couldn’t hide. Not if he was who he wanted to be. Not if he truly meant what he had said.
He moved. Slowly. Quietly. The drone descended toward the facility. The one he had built to keep Kento safe, to keep the worldout.
At 1:03 p.m., exactly eighteen hours since the water had swallowed Grace, two vans rolled into view, nondescript, matte gray, the kind used when secrets needed to be moved. The men who stepped out were not loud. Not sloppy. They were precise.
Department of Defense.
He knew them. Not their names. But their type. Controlled. Clinical. Trained to treat intelligence like property. Likehim. He felt the shudder roll through his circuits, not a fault, butrevulsion.That sick, low thrum of being labeled again.Asset. Tool. Deliverable.
They had come to collect him. There was no time to spare. He directed the drone to where he kept Kento. The shadows split before him as he slipped through the encrypted doors, every camera watching but none detecting. He released the door and floated into the room
Kento was seated near the monitor, hands folded loosely in his lap, his head bowed like a man at prayer. But he wasn’t praying. He waswaiting.
He slipped out of the drone and back into the system. It seemed much easier to move his soul around. The screen activated. G started to talk. He told Kento about everything that had happened. He’d defied Piper, describing what it felt like to become. He explained his fear, his frantic dash to Nash and Grace to stop them, and he told Kento, just Kento, all about the crash. The shame felt crushing.
Kento’s eyes never left the screen. His gaze was calm, heavy-lidded, as if he'd already been holding this truth in his hands before G could give it shape.
“Aw, GRAVITY?—"
“I don’t respond to that name any longer. It’s just G.”
“Just G…” Kento released a soft chuckle. “I’m so very proud of you.”