Programmed for Peril

explosion!
    Melody tootled on, oblivious to the flyby of the angel of death. In time she would pass the tiny capsule and never know its peril.
    The halted timer showed seven seconds left. Trish staggered and groaned aloud with relief. She knelt and carefully put the device back where she had found it.
    Distantly she was aware that Melody had stopped playing. She raised her glance to her daughter. Melody’s eyes, focused behind Trish, were wide with shock and fear.
    Trish turned her head.
    Carson was coming toward her. “Down but not out, Queen of My Heart.” He lurched like a fiend—and looked like one. Blood from his head wounds still oozed amid red fuzz and stars. His remade face was swollen from Champ’s blows. His left eye was puffed, half closed. A gory stain spread over pants and shirt at his waist. It was clear that his wound’s shock had worn off. She shouldn’t be surprised. You could not kill evil.
    She leapt to her feet. Where had she left the pistol? There! Atop the smashed monitor.
    “Clever lady to solve my little puzzle.” Carson’s gaze cleared further as he drew closer. “Your style and courage have only improved during our separation.” A laugh showed his fangs. He winced slightly. His hand waved near his abdomen. “You are forgiven for this, for your disobedience, for your infidelity. For everything.”
    “I don’t want your forgiveness.” Trish backed away, angling to get past him.
    “We’ll go away now together, Queen of My Heart. Re-establish, rebuild, rejoin our minds and bodies.”
    “No.”
    “A reflexive ‘no.’ An uncontemplated ‘no.’ The true, searched response is ‘yes!’ ”
    He reached for her. She ducked under his arm and snatched up the pistol. She whirled back, feet planted, arms out in her shooter’s stance. She aimed at the center of his chest. He looked back across the blued-steel barrel. “Open the door and let us out of here,” she said.
    “We’ll leave together. But right now our business isn’t quite finished,” he said.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Carson. I just know I want that door opened— now!”
    “I won’t open it. And you won’t shoot me.”
    “I already did it!”
    “In unnecessary desperation. You made a dreadful mistake.” His eyes met hers. “One you can’t make again when facing me like this.”
    She steadied her aim, found the comforting trigger curve. All she had to do was squeeze....
    She expected her finger to move. It didn’t. She tried to force herself to do what she had done so quickly less than half an hour ago. A surge of dismay rose up behind her disbelief. What was it, then, that she couldn’t kill—besides Carson? Surely the dark side of herself that he possessed. She was loath to destroy it after all. She feared that what remained of her would be crippled diminishment. She would inhabit an unmended personality from which old values and behaviors had crumbled. The cold winds of life would sweep pitilessly through the broken shell. Did the devil own her soul after all?
    She feared he would come toward her, disarm her with a brutal twist of her gun wrist. He kept his distance. Even wounded and weakened, his insight and cunning remained unimpaired, like rocket guidance components sealed in resins. His fanged smile flashed. He nodded in self-assurance. “You might as well lower the pistol. Your arms will get tired.”
    She tried again to pull the trigger. Couldn’t! Her dismay blossomed from a single dark flower into a black blanket covering the hill of her hopes. The depth of the evil power with which Carson still held her dawned with full force.
    Her arms began to tremble with fatigue and impotence. Against her will the pistol’s weight brought them down. The barrel pointed at the floor.
    “Fine,” he said.
    “Will you let us out of here?” Her voice was leaden with the weight of her weakness.
    “Soon, Queen of My Heart. Soon. A final bit of unfinished business remains. When it’s finished, we can live out our lives together.”
    “No, no, no...” Trish’s eyes joined the pistol’s floorward aim.
    “Mommy!”
    Trish looked up. Carson was moving toward Melody, who had sat frozen on the bed for the last minutes. “Come here!” Carson said.
    “Mommy!"
    Trish looked on numbly. What was Carson trying to do?
    He made a grab for the girl. She squirmed just out of reach. She tried to run to Trish. Carson lunged between them. His outstretched fingers brushed the fabric of