Read No Going Back for Free Online Page A

it.” He paused for breath. “You’ve already lost.”
    I pulled a black pill from the strip in my pocket.
    He didn’t resist at all when I put it in his mouth. In a few seconds, he was out.
    I flipped him over and pulled off his mask. I didn’t recognize him, but that meant nothing. I spent most of my time alone with Lobo. The stars of the moment, the wealthy, the current heads of this or that government or multi-planet corporation—I didn’t keep up with any of them, and I didn’t care about them.
    He was probably telling the truth as he knew it, but few people bother to carry through on such threats. Doing so is expensive and time-consuming. Of course, if he was as old and rich as he said, he might well be willing to spend the money to pay someone to track me down. The bigger concern was that he was interested in how I had healed. I could not let anyone know about the nanomachines in me.
    My only alternative, though, was to kill him in cold blood. I’ve killed people, more than I care to remember, but almost always in combat and never when I could figure out a different solution. About five years ago, I had killed a man to keep my secret. The image of his body, decomposing as he slumped onto a desk and the nanomachine cloud literally disassembled him, still invaded my dreams from time to time. I didn’t want any more such nightmares.
    No, I wouldn’t kill him. He was right about that. I’d do what I’ve done for years now: Finish the mission, then run somewhere far away and leave as few traces of my passage as I could.
    I stood.
    I’d lost precious time. Lobo would be waiting and wondering what I was doing. He would also, I realized, have seen the security camera footage of me being shot. Even he could not learn of the nanomachines in me.
    I ran for the exit, went through the first door, and opened the second door carefully.
    Lobo sat on the ground five meters away.
    Four guards were slumped on the ground, two on either side of the doorway.
    “Are they dead?” I said over the comm.
    “It’s nice to see you, too,” he said. “You’re welcome for coming to your rescue. Speaking of which, how are you walking?”
    “He was a lousy shot,” I said. “Two flesh wounds. A lot of blood at first, but no real damage.”
    For a second, he said nothing.
    Whenever Lobo pauses, I wonder about the huge number of calculations his massive brain must be making, what it is doing with all that computing time.
    “Good,” he said. “To answer your question, no, I did not kill them or anyone else here. As you asked, I tranked them. Now, would you please finish so I can transmit the footage and we can leave?”
    Rather than waste time answering, I ran back inside. I went straight to the first guest in front of me, stretched him out flat on his back, and removed his mask. The process took only a few seconds for most of them. Those in exoskeletons required more time, as I had to force them down. Once down and receiving no instructions to stand, they stayed put, for which I was grateful.
    That left the children.
    I considered trying to march all the pedestals to Lobo, but they were too tall to go into him, and they moved slowly. None of the kids looked particularly heavy, so carrying them wouldn’t be hard.
    I went to the pedestal by the door. No opening buttons or other controls were visible. I couldn’t do anything with it. I might well be able to break the transparent shield around the boy, but it felt strong. Even if I could break it, I’d risk cutting the young boy, who still sat with open but unmoving eyes.
    I tuned into the machine frequency and listened for the pedestals. After a few seconds, I located them.
    “Unacceptable!” one said.
    “Completely!” another agreed.
    “We are not in any of our designated positions,” another said, “but we are also not allowed to move ourselves. These are exactly the type of stupid design decisions that any machine could correct, were we simply given the autonomy to do