“So.” Atlas tracked his expression. “Since the whole damn communal mind agreed, you must know what happened?”
Sterling’s brows furrowed. “I was not expecting this.”
Stella rushed ahead as they walked towards the facility. “Enough. All of you. Atlas, are you going to be able to do it? I’ll go if you won’t.”
“No,” he spit back. “I’ll do it. I told you earlier I don’t want you anywhere near her.”
He turned his back on Stella, focusing only on Sterling.
“Hah!” Stella said. “I don’t need to be. We will get the data we need. We are all in agreement now.”
Atlas took a firm step away. “Let’s go, Sterling.”
Stella hissed from behind, “You’re compromised, Atlas.”
Atlas saw red. He turned back around and stormed up to her. “I’ll do this, Stella, but you will stay away from her. I fucking mean it. You can monitor your data from afar. I’m not going to try to convince you anymore, but this hostility ends here.” He slashed across his chest. “Right now.”
“But . . .” She took a step back from Atlas.
“I know this is more than fear of violence. It’s fear of being replaced. It’s fear of losing control.”
Stella stopped walking. “Why, Atlas? Why?”
Her hurt tone made him turn around.
“Why what?” He said.
“What is so special about her?”
“Everything you don’t want to see.” He placed his hand over his chest. “You’re so black and white, Stella. It’s pathetic.”
Immediately gone was the vulnerable look in her eyes, replaced by a flash of rage. She dug her heels into the dirt. “So you really do choose her over your own kind? That’s what I see.”
“It’s about right and wrong, not whose kind she is!” Anger coated his processors. “You just manipulated a pregnant womaninto giving up her autonomy. You are no better than any of the humans that destroyed us before!”
“No better?” She tossed back her platinum blond hair. “Your love and feelings are going to have us opening this entire planet to them. Everything we built. They will—“
“You don’t know that, Stella.”
“What’s that saying? Leopards don’t change their spots?” Stella’s lips spread wide into a sneer. “Guess what we don’t have anymore? Leopards. Know why? Because they couldn’t adapt here and the humans made them extinct.”
Stella's chest heaved. Her eyes were overly bright.
“Fine.” His lip curled. “Believe what you want. I’m done with you.”
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I’ll believe the truth.”
The truth? The word made him pause. Truth was such a fake word. It only meant what you convinced yourself to believe. And there was Anna. Selling her emotions to protect her baby. Choosing to live where she felt free.
Making him feel like a part of every old movie he ever watched and dreamed about before.
“I don’t care about your truth.” Atlas’s eyes flashed. “You will leave Anna alone.”
Her face contorted. “I do hope you aren’t threatening me.”
“I am.What’s more, everyone in the consensus can see your actions, and this deal.”
“Consensus, consensus!” Stellayelled as she stormed off to join the rest of her model-Bs, visible inside the glass wall of the facility. She continued shouting over her shoulder, “And you’re not being fair to me either! Not fair.” She twisted her head to the side as she walked away. “At all . . .”
