Strange.
He’d expected the place to be guarded, but it was empty. Not even a bird was in sight. The area felt dead, as if the world itself had forgotten about it.
He scanned the walls, carefully examining every single building.
Cameras.
Of course.
He snorted.
Did they really think cameras would stop a cyborg?
Nightmare inhaled, focusing on every camera he could see, and seconds later, his mind connected with their system. Another second passed, and he came to a halt.
A defense program.
Bravo.
At least, MedAct was smart enough to protect the cameras, but they weren’t smart enough to protect this area.
Didn’t matter.
Taking out the defense program would be a child’s play. He cleared his throat, and went to work, slowly breaking into the software that stopped him from moving forward. He made a few twists, replaced a few zeros and ones, aaannddd …
Crash!
He felt it happen, as he disconnected himself from the now-dead cameras.
Nightmare grinned.
Idiots.
They made this way too easy.
He left the motorcycle behind and approached the door in the middle of nowhere. It was a big metal door with a warning sign in red written on it.
Entry forbidden for unauthorized personnel.
His grin darkened. Well, technically, he was personnel since he belonged to MedAct. He was their creation, but that was where it ended.
Nightmare pulled the door.
Locked.
Well, he would’ve been disappointed if it hadn’t been. It would’ve turned MedAct into a joke.
He had a hard time taking them seriously. It didn’t matter that his bound one was the present CEO of MedAct. He’d never take the company seriously. Not after what he’d learned.
Anger boiled in his veins for everything he’d been through because of them, and if Carolyn had been alive, he would’ve killed her.
Watching that bitch suffer as she died slipped him by, and that fueled his anger even further.
She deserved to be dead, but she should’ve died by his hands.
He didn’t doubt that Jade didn’t know anything about the bond, not anymore, but it was still beyond him how such information was not in every MedAct doctor’s grasp.
How could they not know?
Nightmare took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax.
He had to focus.
He had to find Jade.
Nightmare grabbed the handle firmly and yanked. He did it a second time, then a third. Something broke on the inside of the door as it started to bulk outward.
His lips twitched. Well, he wasn’t a cyborg for nothing. All he needed was a little bit of determination, a few more pulls … and the door gave in.
Luckily, the handle didn’t break; instead the lock on the inside broke with a loud snap, leaving the entrance useless.
He’d barely broken a sweat as he opened the door and stared at a long staircase leading down.
The seriousness of the situation took over. If he did this, he risked his own life, he risked the Fighters’ lives. Just because he’d managed to turn off the cameras didn’t mean they’d find out that he was here, and no one would come to save him if everything went south.
Jade was in there.
She’d left him.
Sure, he understood why.
He understood she’d had to go. If she wanted to stay in disguise, she couldn’t wait a few more weeks to go back to MedAct. By then it would be too late, but all that didn’t justify that she’d left him!
Nightmare clenched his teeth.
If he’d just listened to her, they wouldn’t be in this situation. They could’ve come up with a plan to get ahold of the information she was now trying to obtain on her own.
He’d just had to keep telling her no, that he needed her to be safe.
Nightmare shook his head.
Of course, she hadn’t listened.
He sighed.
That woman would be the death of him.
Mentally, he prepared himself for whatever was to come, and started to walk down the stairs.
It was time to get this over with.
The long concrete tunnel at the bottom of the stairs was well lit, but it looked nothing like the Fighters’ headquarters.
There the walls were white, and everything had a sterile, well-taken-care-of-feeling. Here, the walls were dull, colorless. They made him feel like he really was underground.
He kept his gaze high, focused on what was up ahead. There was nowhere to hide. He could only go forward, and the tunnel seemed to go on forever.
If anything happened, if someone saw him, he could only turn around and run, and hope not to get shot in the back.
After what felt like several agonizing minutes, the tunnel finally came to an end.
Nightmare ended up in front of two double doors with glass windows. He peeked through one window. There was a hallway painted in bright yellow. There were doors on both sides, an elevator with metal doors was nearby, and to the right, he glimpsed stairs just next to where the hallway turned.
Nightmare tried the door handle.
It was open.
Great.
He could continue.
Nightmare went through as quietly as possible, quickly looking around. No one seemed to be aware of his presence. No alarm had gone off yet. Hopefully, he’d managed to sneak in unnoticed, but where should he go to find Jade?
A sign further down the hallway to his right caught his attention. He approached it and read.
Underground floor 4: Archive.
He smiled. Perfect. This was where he’d find Jade.
Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention.
Nightmare turned around.
About twenty feet away, there was a blonde woman wearing a wide smile. It wasn’t a nice smile, but the excitement in her brown eyes was unmistakable.
Nightmare tensed, and for a short moment, he could do nothing but stare.
Those eyes …
He knew them.
Two huge dark-haired cyborg soldiers stood behind her, and unlike the woman, they weren’t smiling. Their gazes were set on him, their hands on their holsters.
Shit!
He whirled around, ready to flee.
Two more cyborg soldiers blocked his way. They towered over him with their seven feet frames, mountains of muscles, and emotionless faces.
Cold chills shot down his spine.
He wasn’t small, with his six feet five-inch frame, but the cyborg soldiers made him feel like he was.
They were built for war.
He was built for love.
He was also outnumbered.
Two of them grabbed him and shoved him against the wall.
A short wave of pain surged through his body. He groaned, as dizziness washed over him.
Thankfully, it faded fast and Nightmare grabbed their hands to pull them away, but the cyborg soldiers’ grips were like solid rock.
There was no getting away.
The tall woman approached him. She had a masculine appearance, with broad shoulders, strong jawline, and thick eyebrows. She reminded him of someone who’d spent years and years in the military with her straight posture, her hands behind her back, and strong gaze.
He jerked back when she left a feather-light touch on his cheek.
“What a sweet surprise,” the woman said, her smile even darker than before. Her eyes were filled with confidence. “I didn’t expect to meet you here again … here where everything started.”
Nightmare could only glare, and disbelief filled every part of him. Memories washed over him like a flood of fire, hurting him all over again.
“Have you come back home, Zero? Have you come back so we can continue where we left off?” Her voice was sweet now, way too sweet, with a dark and twisted undertone.
His lower lip tr
embled. “You can’t be—” The words almost didn’t come out.
“Can’t be what, sweetheart?” She was teasing him.
He shook his head. Sweat broke out on his skin as fear grabbed him, entering his soul. “She’s dead. You can’t be—”
The woman moved closer, invaded his personal space, as her hand glided over his chest.
The touch made him almost jump out of his own skin. His bond to Jade instantly reacted. It wasn’t the slightest pleased with being touched by another woman, a woman he wasn’t bound to. The touch was intimate after all, but the pain he’d expected to feel didn’t come.
Deep down, he exhaled.
Thank God the damn thing was locked away.
The woman couldn’t hurt him.
“And yet, here I am,” the woman said. “Say my name. You know me.”
Nightmare had never felt this small in his life, as when he stared into the eyes of his creator. “Carolyn.”
CHAPTER 27
Jade opened the door to the archive room and peeked inside. The lights were off and the room was silent. She hit the light switch before entering.
Olive giggled behind her and tipped inside the room on her toes. “It almost feels like we’re doing something forbidden.” She closed the door behind her.
“We are,” Jade said and looked around.
That killed her colleague’s grin. “We are? I thought you were kidding when you asked me to hack the private server.”
“I wasn’t.”
The room was smaller than her office, and it was windowless. All there was in there was a huge computer, extending from one side of the room to the other. It was about seven feet tall, fifteen feet wide, and as broad as her desk.
Whoever designed it must’ve had a good taste for delicate and elegant things. The entire thing was in white, silver, and gray. To reach the hardware, a digital password had to be entered on the glass door to the right, and it would dissolve itself for as long as it was needed.
A lot of fancy blinking was also going on all over it, but the computer didn’t make a sound.
Two black screens were attached to it in the middle, and Jade approached one of them. She touched it, and it lit up.
Olive approached with obvious hesitation in her step. “Why exactly do you want me to hack the server? Don’t you have access to it?”
“Not everything. Some information, I can only access with the approval of the Council. I’ve tried to get access to it several times, but they never allowed me to see it. I never understood why until now.”
The doctor licked her lips. “Why?”
“Because, if I’m right, MedAct’s past is much darker than I thought.”
Olive cleared her throat. “I’m not so sure this is a good idea.”
Jade pushed a few buttons on the screen. “I could threaten you. I could use your job against you. I could fire you for not helping me.”
Her colleague’s eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
She raised her palm to calm her. “But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to ask you kindly.” She grabbed the woman’s hands and looked her deep in the eyes. “Please, help me.”
Olive remained still for a long moment. Then she shook her head, and let out a big sigh. “What’s going on, Jade?”
“I need someone I can trust. I need someone who has access to this area and who can hack the server, and you’re the only one I can trust right now. If I tell you everything that’s happened, you’ll laugh and think I’m crazy. The only way for me to prove to you something fishy’s going on with MedAct is if you hack the server. The proof will be thrown in your face.”
She hoped.
The doctor sighed again, but gave her a kind smile. “You have to give me more than that. I’m not going to hack MedAct’s private server just because you’re MedAct’s CEO, and who knows if I’ll even be able to get in. Maybe the information you seek is so well guarded it’s impossible to reach.”
Jade bit her lip. She could only hope that wasn’t true, but did she dare reveal more? Would she believe her?
She took a deep breath.
There was only one way to find out.
“I wasn’t on vacation.”
Olive frowned, then her eyes narrowed. “Then where were you?”
She hesitated, but only for a second. “With the Fighters.”
“What?” The question was a yelp-yell.
Jade placed a hand against her lips. “Shh! Someone might hear you. No one can know what we’re about to do here.”
Olive pulled her hand away. “You were with the Fighters? Are you kidding me?” She seemed more intrigued than angry.
“Nightmare had been shot. They kidnapped me to save his life.”
“Oh, wow. I want to hear everything about it.”
She nodded. “Fine, but later. Right now, I need you to hack that computer.”
Her colleague still didn’t move.
Jade cursed silently. It would take years to convince Olive to do what she asked. Her friend was stubborn, but she had one last card to play. “Soul is with them.”
A loud gasp went through the room and Olive’s eyes went big as bowls. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
She shook her head. “No, he joined them voluntarily, but I didn’t see him when I was there.”
“But … how ... I mean … why?” The doctor looked ready to cry.
Jade grabbed her hands. “I don’t know what happened to him, but don’t worry, he’s safe and in good hands. The Fighters aren’t what we thought they were, but if you want to help Soul, if you want to find out what drove him to do this, you need to help me hack that computer.”
Olive sobbed, dried away a tear, nodded, then turned toward the computer. Seconds later, she was pushing digital buttons on one of the screens.
Jade blinked. That had gone unexpectedly easy. She’d expected extended arguing and convincing, but thankfully, it didn’t turn out like that.
Time was precious.
Olive remained silent for several minutes, and Jade didn’t dare to disturb her. Her concentration was complete.
Occasionally, it seemed like she was having a tough time, other times, she grinned from ear to ear, as if she’d just solved the greatest mystery of life.
“I need your password,” the doctor finally said. “It’ll make it easier, but there are several passwords I need to figure out for us to access the information.”
Jade nodded. “Those are the Council members passwords. Mine is M-E-D, all caps, then eighteen four six hundred twelve.”
Olive punched it in. “Thanks.” She went quiet again.
Jade returned to watching her. Her colleague sure knew what she was doing. Her fingers worked fast, and with determination. It was amazing how easy she made it look, but it wasn’t easy, far from it.
MedAct’s defense system was highly evolved and defended. One mistake, and both of them would spend the rest of their lives behind bars. The room would swarm with cyborg soldiers within seconds.
They’d entered this area because both had access. Olive had access because of her technical skills. She not only took care of the cyborg soldiers, she also helped repair computer programs, made sure all servers ran smoothly, and other things Jade barely understood.
Her own expertise was centered in how to create a cyborg, how to write a cyborg’s program, but computer programs were something completely different, because cyborgs weren’t computers. They were sentient beings with cybernetic components.
With each passing minute, nerves ratcheted awake within Jade. With every solved password, she came closer and closer to the secrets that’d been kept from her.
“Yes!” Olive announced, after what felt like several hours. She dried the sweat away from her forehead. “I did it. It was a close one, but I did it. It was more difficult than I thought, but this is MedAct we’re talking about. I had to go through several defense systems, but thanks to your password, it became easier
.”
Jade exhaled. “Thank you.”
The worst was over.
Her colleague gave a tired smile. “You’re welcome.” She moved aside.
Jade took Olive’s place, and her heart rate shot up. With a shaky hand, she started to look around. The unknown filled her with tension.
She pulled out two portable hard drives no bigger than coins from her pocket, and handed one to Olive. “Transfer everything.”
“Got it.” The doctor-tech grabbed the device and went to the other screen.
Jade focused on the screen in front of her. Her hands still trembled as she started to look through the files as all information was being downloaded.
Most of the files were logs of progress and tests that’d been performed. Other files shared information about how cyborgs came to be, and how long it took to create them.
Jade scrolled through it all, only noticing a few details here and there. A sentence made her stop.
“Their pointless lives mean nothing to me.”
Had Carolyn written that?
Jade kept scrolling. A folder caught her attention.
Zero.
Sweat broke out on her forehead as she clicked it.
Inside were hundreds of other folders, each named with a date. She clicked on the first one, the one with the oldest date.
Inside was a bunch of written information, but also a video. Her hand shook so hard she didn’t succeed in opening it until her third attempt.
The video started to play, displaying some kind of old-fashioned infirmary, filled with equipment she didn’t recognize, computers with keyboards that were barely used anymore, closets, and a single bed.
Scientists, or doctors, dressed in white robes moved around the bed, some wrote something on papers, others talked.
Then, a woman came into view.
The woman was Carolyn Williams, the creator of MedAct and the cyborgs. Jade recognized her, even if it’d been years since she last saw an image of her.
Carolyn seemed to be in her mid-thirties. She was attractive, tall, and wore plenty of makeup. Her somewhat frizzy and blonde hair hung loosely down her shoulders as her brown eyes looked straight into the camera.
Her intense determination made Jade go taut, awakening a pinch of insecurity within her. It was an unusual feeling, but the strength this woman radiated was not to play with, and the cold undertone in her expression didn’t put Jade at ease.
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