by Kristie Cook
“Why?”
“Well, I was what one would call a ‘nerd.’ Tall, lanky, no social skills, and eye glasses as thick as a Coke bottle.”
Kaitlyn tried to match the mental image with the man sitting beside her, but she couldn’t.
“When you have an IQ as high as mine, it’s hard to fit in. I skipped ahead in school, so I was always around older kids, and they didn’t want anything to do with me. Plus, I would get lost in my own world and didn’t care about anything else.”
“What changed?”
He was silent for a moment. “My father left when I was twelve. He always wanted an athletic son, someone he could be proud of. He wanted to go to football games, not science fairs. One day, he just walked out on me and my mom and never came back. I guess I thought if I could be the son he wanted, he would return.”
“Did he come back?”
“Nope.”
Kaitlyn didn’t know what to say. Finally, she said, “I don’t think he left because you weren’t athletic enough. That doesn’t seem to make sense.”
“You’re right, but I was a kid, I didn’t know that at the time. I guess, in a way, I’m glad. Glad he left, glad he didn’t come back. It was good for me to get out of my comfort zone. I started running and lifting weights. I joined a couple of clubs in school and learned to be more social. By the time I made it to college, I wasn’t such an awkward disaster.”
“I don’t remember what I was like when I was younger.”
Lucas entwined his fingers with hers. “I’m sure you were amazing.”
“Quess found a Facebook page that had images of me on it. She said I needed help in the style department because my clothing was lame. But that doesn’t tell much about my personality, does it?”
Lucas squeezed her hand. “I think what’s important is who you are now. You have a second chance at life. I know that’s easy for me to say, since I’m not in your shoes, but I’d hate for you to be miserable for the rest of your existence.”
Kaitlyn didn’t even think about the consequences of her next question; she didn’t consider how awkward it would be for him to answer. “Why did they have to take my memories?”
Lucas stiffened, his face stricken. It was a minute before he gathered his thoughts and was able to answer. “We thought it would be easier for you to adjust to your new life if you couldn’t recall your old one.”
“I don’t even know if I have any family.”
“If you knew you had family, would you want to see them?”
Kaitlyn thought it over for a few moments and shook her head. “No. I know that life is over. They think I’m dead. I also understand the reason for the secrecy. I guess I just wish I could remember it.”
“I’m sorry, Kate.” Lucas tugged her into a bear hug, speaking against her hair. “We were working blind. We had no idea what we were doing. You’re the first of your kind.”
Kaitlyn pulled away and met his gaze. “Maybe you’ll do better with the next project.”
She caught a flicker of something in his eyes. The facial program scanned images, looking for its equivalent. The answer promptly blinked on her internal screen: regret, or maybe sadness.
“It would help our next project if we told Harrington and Adams that you still have emotions. That way, we’ll know it isn’t necessary to erase them for the next … person.”
Kaitlyn turned away. “I don’t want that. At least, not right now. Don’t tell. Please.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
The wind blew. Lucas shivered, and Kaitlyn wondered what that felt like. She sat with her back to him, gazing out over the darkening yard. The fence was visible in the distance, the one that penned her in.
“Lucas, when will I be leaving?” she asked quietly.
“The day after tomorrow you’ll meet with the committee. Then they’ll negotiate. I’m not sure how long that will take. Could be days, weeks, or even months.”
“Is there any way out of this?”
“As you know, there are always alternate scenarios. However, Harrington is dead-set on releasing you to the government. I can’t think of a single reason that would convince him otherwise. Believe me, it’s been keeping me up at night trying to come up with something Harrington would go for.”
“I could run away.”
Lucas turned to face her. “Yes, you could run away, but then what? You would be on your own. What if something happened with your programming? Like the way you shut down the other day. It would be impossible for you to hide in society. The upgrades have helped, but you’d still have trouble blending in for a long period of time with the general populace. Not to mention you have GPS installed. They’ll find you.”
As much as she hated to admit it, she knew he was right. Perhaps the new life wouldn’t be bad. Maybe she would come to enjoy her new existence the way she had the compound. It would certainly be easier to accept the changes if Lucas was there with her.
“Could you come with me? Maybe work for the government and oversee the project?”
Sighing, Lucas ran his hand through her hair. “If only it were that easy. But I’m not ready to give up. I’m going to hound Harrington to make sure he insists that we have some oversight of the project. It should be easy enough to convince him that it’s needed in order to proceed with stage two.”
“More cyborgs?”
“Eventually. It took us a long time to find you, and I don’t think it will be any easier to find a new subject. We’ve been searching all of this time with no luck. Not many people offer to donate their body to science within the age requirements and fitness abilities.”
“I’m …” Kaitlyn scanned her memory banks, trying to come up with the correct word to fit the situation. “Grateful for the time we were able to have together.”
Cupping her face in his hands, Lucas leaned in to kiss her gently. The kiss quickly intensified. When he kissed her, everything else faded away. All she was aware of was his scent, his lips on hers, and how warm his hands felt on her body.
Abruptly, her sensors picked up on another presence; apparently he couldn’t block out everything. Kaitlyn’s eyes flew open, and she pulled away, jumping up. “Someone is coming.”
Lucas looked around and didn’t see or hear anything, but he knew better than to question her. He stood up, brushing off his slacks. “We should head back.”
“I wish we could stay here forever. Away from everyone.”
“Me too,” he said softly. He stepped closer and kissed her one last time.
As they were walking back, one of the guards came into view. “There you are. We lost you on the cameras after a while and became concerned. Everything okay?”
Lucas nodded. “We’re fine. We were just taking a walk and testing out Katilyn’s new upgrades. We must have been in a blind spot.”
“There are a couple of those, unfortunately. Perhaps we should have someone patrolling those areas more often,” the guard said, more to himself than to them.
“Not a bad idea.” Lucas tried for ambivalence, but his voice sounded strained to Kaitlyn.
With a quick nod, the guard walked in the opposite direction.
“So much for that hiding spot,” Kaitlyn said sadly.
“We’ll just have to find another.”
Kaitlyn was suddenly flooded with sadness. Even if it is only for one more day …
Chapter Sixteen
Mr. Harrington strolled into the laboratory on a wave of expensive-smelling cologne. “Who’s up for paintball?” he boomed, breaking the silence so abruptly that Professor Adams jumped at his desk. “I need to stretch my legs, and we should try out the new equipment.”
Kaitlyn bit the inside of her lip and looked down at her sneakers to keep from smiling. She loved the rare chances she had to roam in the woods, and playing a true sport instead of staged tests was even better. This only happened when the highly competitive Harrington was around.
“I’m game,” Lucas said from behind his desk. He snuck a peek at Kate and th
eir eyes met across the room.
“How about you, Adams?” Harrington asked with a smile.
The professor chuckled, holding up both hands. “I think I’ll pass this time. My old body can’t keep up with you youngsters. Last time we played, I had bruises for a week. I’m sure Quess would be interested.”
“Call her. Some of the guards are going to join us as well.” Harrington turned to Kaitlyn, sizing her up. “They like a challenge.”
Adams picked up the phone to call his granddaughter as Lucas asked, “Teams or individual?”
“Individual,” Harrington answered with a wolfish smile.
Lucas groaned. Kaitlyn always won when they played individual.
“Let’s get suited up.” Harrington rubbed his hands together in front of his face. “Kaitlyn, no body gear for you.”
She nodded. They would have the camouflage to help them, and her pale skin would be like a beacon in the sunlight, giving them somewhat of an edge. Theoretically, she thought with an inward grin, her hard drive already computing the odds.
Half an hour later, the players gathered in the foyer before making their way outside, deep into the property. It was a crisp fall day, and the sun shone brightly through the bare tree limbs above them as they came to a stop in the area they used for paintball.
After defining the boundaries, Dr. Harrington laid out some basic ground rules.
“Okay, it’s a free-for-all. Everybody against everybody. If you’re hit and out, move to this area.” He pointed at a spot on the map. “Once there’s only one person left, they’re the winner. We’ll have a three minute ‘get in place’ period, then we’ll start. Any questions?”
Heads shook. A few of the guards had smiles in anticipation of the fun.
Harrington clapped once. “Spread out. Three minutes. Go.”
There was a mad scuffle as the guards jostled each other and ran off into the forest, but Kaitlyn calmly walked into the nearest grove of trees and stopped. Crouching down, she watched the internal clock in her head count down three minutes as she closed her eyes and focused on the sounds around her. Her built-in tactical computer worked through several different strategies based on her knowledge of the area, and her assessments on all of the various players, as well as what they might do given their backgrounds, physical fitness, injuries, and even attitudes she had observed in the past.
Before the three minutes were up, she had decided on a course of action. Not necessarily the most tactically sound, but given her enhancements, it would be a good test of how much of an advantage she really had. A slow smile spread across her face. She loved the hunt.
Right on the mark, she opened her eyes and took off running at full speed through the shrubs and the trees. She had a mental image of where targets might be, and that image refreshed dozens of times a second as she took in more sights and sounds. They couldn’t have made it too far in three minutes.
A sense of calm engulfed her body. She was in her element.
Without breaking stride, she started to engage. One at a time, she took out the enemy.
The targets didn’t even hear her coming before they felt the sharp sting of paintballs splatting against them. A couple of times, someone saw her before she shot them, but of all the eight other people playing, only one of the guards came remotely close to hitting her, sort of a ‘spray and pray’ style attack when he thought she would expose herself in a gap between some trees.
After a session lasting only nine minutes, Harrington decided to lay out a handicap for Kaitlyn for the next round.
“Well that was interesting. And painful,” Harrington said. “Let’s see if we can prolong the next game just a bit. Kaitlyn, I’m going to pair you with Quess. She’s your principal who you have to protect. Lucas, you’ll be a principal as well, with Tim, Jimmy, and Cal on your team. I’ll be the third principal with Craig and Terry on my team. If you’re hit, you’re out. If your principal is hit, your whole team is out. Three minutes to get set. Questions?”
Again, no one said anything, and the teams moved away from each other into the woods.
“What are we going to do?” Quess asked eagerly.
“Not get shot.” Kate smiled.
Quess nodded, gripping her paintball gun tightly with both hands.
Kaitlyn ran an analysis on her friend, noting the bead of sweat at her hairline and the pinch between her brows. “You’re nervous.”
Quess laughed. “Don’t do that!”
“Don’t be nervous.” Kaitlyn grinned. “Either way, if we win or lose, this will be fun. Let’s go.”
“I have to say, it’s pretty awesome how badass you are,” Quess muttered as they moved forward.
Kaitlyn didn’t respond, but at times like this, she almost enjoyed her new body.
With the new team configuration, the second session lasted more than twice as long, twenty-one minutes, but the outcome was the same. Lucas’s team lost a member to an early engagement with Mr. Harrington’s team before they broke contact and sprinted away, but after that, Kaitlyn made short work of the other two teams.
Instead of running, this time Kaitlyn moved silently forward through the brush with Quess positioned about one meter to her right rear. Every minute they would stop, crouch, and Kaitlyn would take in the sights, sounds, and smells around her, updating her internal tactical “map” and changing direction or the speed of their movement.
She was crouched at the top of a hill, listening, when she heard the crack of a branch in the distance. Kaitlyn motioned for Quess to lay prone behind a tree and cover her. Studying the most likely avenue of approach, Kaitlyn maintained her crouch and waited.
After only a few minutes, she saw the first member of Harrington’s team, Terry, cross perpendicular to her position about forty meters away. Not wanting to squander her chance to take out the entire team at once, Kaitlyn waited until she had all three members identified and tracked, then in rapid succession, she shot each one in the chest. Engagement time: three seconds. She heard a few slang words mumbled as they made their way off the playing grounds.
She repeated the same tactic with Lucas’s team, again waiting until the three remaining members were in sight. Right before she fired, a brief thought flashed through her mind: I wonder if Lucas will be upset that I shot him?
Lucas looked up and grinned, shaking his head.
Before she moved on to the next target, Kaitlyn returned the private smile.
Once everyone was back at the start point, Harrington wrapped up the game. “While I enjoyed that immensely, it’s time I get back to the lab. I don’t think I’m alone in not wanting to be shot by Kaitlyn anymore?”
Several of the guards looked over at Kaitlyn, nodding in agreement as they murmured their admiration.
Harrington surprised Kaitlyn by draping his arm around her shoulder. “I couldn’t be more proud. You are simply incredible.”
She wasn’t sure why they were so impressed. She was programmed to be this way.
Chapter Seventeen
“Where are we going?” Kaitlyn whispered as they crept past another cluster of brick buildings obscured by darkness.
Quess smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see …”
Kaitlyn had never been to this side of the compound, and couldn’t help but wonder what Quess was up to. The young girl had pulled her from her room after dinner and acted like they were stealth bombers, sneaking through the compound as they ducked behind walls as employees passed, unaware.
Tomorrow was the big day. Kaitlyn’s ‘unveiling,’ as Harrington liked to call it. As much as she enjoyed spending time with Quess, she was really hoping to see Lucas alone.
Now, outside in the cold, dark evening, they flitted beneath the orange circles of lamplight, Quess encouraging Kaitlyn to move faster.
“Why are we in such a hurry?” Kaitlyn asked with a chuckle.
Quess skidded to a stop, gazing up at a large brick building with no visible windows, and ignored the question.
“This way
.” Quess grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door.
Kaitlyn did a scan of the outside of the building: All clear. The door screeched against the concrete, and then they entered.
Inside, it appeared to be a large, dimly lit warehouse. Aisles and aisles of metal shelving were filled with food and other supplies, but a thermal scan proved they were alone.
What in the world is Quess up to now?
They zigzagged through the aisles toward the back of the building. At the open loading dock sat a Jeep, parked halfway into the building. Lucas jumped out of the vehicle and swung the back door open.
Just the sight of him caused a flush to spread across her face as her body temperature climbed several degrees.
“Get in. We don’t have much time.”
Without hesitation, Kaitlyn climbed into the back of the Jeep. Lucas covered her body with a soft blanket, but she lifted the blanket and peered out.
“What about Quess?”
Quess looked down into the back of the Jeep. “I’m just an accomplice this time. Stay safe, Kaitlyn.”
Kate nodded and pulled the blanket back over her head.
“Be still. We just have to make it through the guard gate. If we get caught, let me take the blame, don’t harm the guard.” The back door clicked into place. Moments later, the engine came to life and they rolled slowly down the road. Kaitlyn’s senses were on high alert, listening for any sign of danger.
Seven minutes later, the Jeep stopped. She could hear the window roll down. “Hey, Matt. Long day?”
“The usual. We’ve been doing random checks of vehicles. Lucky you, you’ve been flagged. Step out for a minute, will you, Lucas?”
“Since when?” Lucas asked.
“Started this morning. Hop out, will you?
“Look, it’s been a long day, man. I just want to get home,” Lucas said smoothly.
Kaitlyn’s breathing remained steady, and her mind raced to figure out the best course of action.
“Out of the car, Lucas.”
The door opened, and there was a thump as Lucas dropped to the ground. “Ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.
“Pop the hood,” the guard barked, all business.