She walked slowly toward Brad but stopped short of getting too close yet. “I confess I’m. . .well, I’m impressed. . .no, make that intrigued. I want to know more about how you made Gloria. But first. . .you’re right, I owe you thanks.”
Brad smiled. “For bringing you the opportunity of a lifetime? My pleasure, Kyra.”
Kyra shook her head. “No. For that too maybe, but mostly for getting Jackson permanently out of my life. If you stayed, then you knew you were the only decent man he brought to me that evening. The others. . .I still can’t bring myself to talk about what they did to me. It made me hate being touched for a very long time.”
Brad lowered the gun until it pointed to the floor. “I’m sorry you married such a shitty man. And you’re welcome. Jackson’s brain was like totally gone by the time he bit the big one. You were the bribe he used on the Chancellors to get his funding. They didn’t test him anymore and they approved the Cyber Wife program, all because of the Kyra sex party. I never thought that was fair. That should have been your program and your funding. You’re the one who earned it.”
Kyra swallowed and ordered herself not to throw up at hearing she was again responsible for even more cyborg misuse.
“Can I. . .can I hug you? I just realized I’ve never even hugged you in all the time we’ve known each other.” While Brad stared, she walked just a little closer, but stopped short and looked at the floor again. “I’m nervous. . .this is not easy for me. You scare me a little with that pulse cannon in your hand.”
When he reached out and grabbed the front of her jacket to pull her the rest of the way to him, Kyra used all her strength to push Brad hard against the bars of the cage. The gun fell just as she yelled, “Marcus, quick! Grab him!”
Hands reaching through the bars wrapped themselves around Brad’s arms like a vice.
“Thank you,” Kyra said, nearly breathless with fear as she pushed off Brad. She was shaking as she ran to the console and hit the open command on all the cages. “As far as I’m concerned, you all passed your mental tests. I have a new definition of crazy now.”
“But Kyra. . .how could you do this to me? I thought we were finally. . .you know. . . bonding,” Brad declared.
His genuine confusion made Kyra come back to stand in front of him again. Eric appeared at her side, but it didn’t deter her.
“Maybe you could argue that I agreed to being with you that night, but now I know you could have stopped those other two men from doing what they did to me. Jackson could have as well. But both of you did nothing. I can only imagine what you’ve done to poor—Gloria—or whatever her real name is. But you know what Brad? You’re wrong about cyborgs. The human side of them will always find a way to make itself known. I tried to tell Jackson. He never believed me. Just look what your creation gave me when you introduced us.”
Kyra held out her hand with the sweeper gleaming in her palm. Then curling it back into her palm again, she swung her closed fist and punched Brad as hard as she could until his head spun. So much adrenalin was pumping through her at the action, she didn’t feel anything but a tiny sting on her knuckles.
Looking stunned over her violence, Brad’s gaze swung to the woman still standing on the other side of the room. He opened his mouth, but Kyra put the hand she hadn’t used to punch him over it. She raised her other in a fist again where Brad could see it.
“Oh no you don’t, you sneaky bastard. If you say anything, anything at all, I’m going to rip off your testicles and let Gloria do whatever she wants with them. Eric, there’s some wide tape in that desk drawer under the console. Get it so we can make sure this guy doesn’t utter another syllable.”
“Damn Doc. You can be one scary science bitch when you want. I hope you never get pissed at me,” Eric declared, scrambling to do what she asked.
Kyra snorted at his teasing. “Punching Brad is nothing. You have no idea how scary I can be. There’s a good reason Peyton called me Dr. Frankenstein.” She probably shouldn’t have admitted such a thing in front of her newly freed captives, but in her anger, the truth had slipped out. Her mind was already planning what to do with Brad and it wasn’t going to bother her a bit.
Still riding her adrenalin rush from punching Brad, Kyra let her gaze bounce around the room. All the cyborgs were watching her closely but their smirking scrutiny didn’t faze her resolve. She was finally clear about what needed to be done and Peyton was right. Blowing up Norton wasn’t the answer. With crazies like Brad running loose in the world, the cyborgs definitely needed her to stay alive.
Her hand was shaking hard by the time Eric made it back with the tape. Out of the corner of her eye, Kyra saw King climbing slowly to his feet. Now if only Peyton would come around.
“Master Sergeant West, when you’ve recovered, will you carry Peyton to our room? I can’t stand seeing him on the floor.”
King stumbled out of the cage, staring in wonder at the unbelievable scene. “What the hell happened here? Did I miss everything?”
“Yeah, but we’re used to that,” Eric said, slapping a third piece of tape over evil Brad’s mouth.
Calmer now that Brad couldn’t speak, Kyra walked into the cage where Marcus still had a death grip on Brad through the bars. She put a shaking hand on one arm. “It’s okay, Marcus. We’re safe now. Thanks to you—we’re all finally safe.”
Marcus let go of Brad as suddenly as he had latched onto him. The shocker was when he burrowed into Kyra’s arms instead. Pretty soon, her sobbing was as loud as his as she rocked them both in her arms.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you had to go through this. We’ll find your family when we can. Peyton will help. That man can do anything. I know because he talked me into loving him.”
Marcus nodded against her shoulder before letting her go. “Thanks for hugging me, Doc. Crying is a bitch of a reaction. Now my head hurts like a mofo. Got any aspirin?”
Kyra laughed and nodded. “Yes, but it won’t cure your despair. Nero has food and maybe even some beer in this place. I’m a tea woman myself, but I’ll see you guys have what you need to feel more appreciated. Now let’s get you all out of here. Eric’s right. Only bad guys belong in cages.”
She grabbed his hand and pulled Marcus out with her. There were two more men standing around Peyton now. One he’d called Vincent. The other he’d called Steve. All five were looking at her, waiting no doubt for orders. She wished their captain would wake up and take over that work. She had stuff she needed to do.
“Let’s get Peyton to his room. Then I have to check on Nero to see how badly Brad drugged him. I suggest we put Dr. Smith here in Marcus’s cage. Tie him to the bars until we can decide what to do about him.”
She watched as Vincent and Steve dragged Brad into the cage while he thrashed and squealed under the tape over his mouth, but it didn’t stop them from securing him to the bars with more of the tape Eric had fetched.
“What about her—evil Brad’s woman?” Eric asked, pointing across the room.
Kyra sniffled, but refused to let the tears fall as she walked to the woman named Gloria. Her body was quickly running out of the chemicals that had kept her upright and functioning for her showdown with the obviously insane Dr. Smith. Eric and Marcus followed closely behind her.
“Can you understand what I’m saying?” she asked. At Gloria’s nod, Kyra nodded back. “Good. I will have to study your wiring to see what can be done about reversing Brad’s handiwork.”
Kyra started to walk away, but thought of another question. She turned back. “Can you act on your own volition and make independent decisions so long as Brad is kept from speaking to you?”
She saw panic flare in the woman’s eyes. Kyra took that to mean the woman had no clue what was going on with her situation. Sighing, she rubbed the woman’s arm. “Don’t be alarmed. We’ll deal with whatever happens. Just try to act in normal ways. Okay? Just try. . .”
“It’s okay, Doc. I’ll watch her for you.” Marcus interrupted, wiping his eyes on
his sleeve. “I’ll also make sure she doesn’t break the bad guy out.”
Kyra turned to look at Brad, now secured to the side of the cage. His squealing had ceased, but he still seemed stupefied about how he had lost control of the situation. Ironically, Brad’s revelation about her abusers had given her a sick kind of leverage at the UCN. And because of it, she now had a potential means of resolving her mistakes on a much larger scale.
King started to lift Peyton from the floor, but before she could blink Peyton was on his feet and King was flying across the room to land hard against a wall. His massive body left an impressive dent behind as he fell to the floor. When he bounced up almost instantly, there was full-out fury in the giant’s glare, directed at Peyton. Kyra winced and prayed the lab wasn’t about to be torn apart.
“What the fucking hell, Captain? Is this beat-the-shit-out-of-King week or something?”
Peyton’s wild roaming gaze finally focused, and he held out a hand. “Kyra? Are you okay? Did Brad hurt you?”
Kyra shook her head as she headed straight for the safety of Peyton’s arms. She hugged him as tight as she could and then backed away to talk to him. “I’m fine. We’re all fine. Marcus saved us.”
“No, I didn’t,” Marcus denied. “You did. You fed the man’s crazy until he cracked.”
Kyra winced at the description of her chat with Brad. “Peyton, I need you to check something. Were you recording what happened or did the pulse cannon interfere?”
Peyton went still as he checked. “Yes. I have a record. And a visual for most of it. You were smart to turn my head.”
“Good. Don’t review it yet. I don’t want you coming back to beat up Brad. I have other plans for him. We’re going to make another little movie, better than our last one. In fact, this one will be a live performance. Care to help me with my evil plans, Captain Elliott?”
“Will it involve you crawling into my lap and kissing me again?” Peyton asked, listening to the snickers of his men. God, it was good to hear them laughing. He had missed them.
“No. This movie is not going to be a love story. This movie is going to be a horror flick for the UCN. And you may not like me much afterward because some of it is going to be real as well,” Kyra said.
Peyton shrugged. “It’s okay, Doc. I’m really good at dealing with all kinds of scary shit.”
He walked over to arm hug King. “Sorry. I was in survival mode.”
King snorted. “Lucky for you I’m feeling mellow today.”
Kyra sighed and bit her lip as they left the cage room and walked down the hall. She wanted to laugh hysterically when her mind finally registered just how badly she needed to pee.
***
Several hours after the Brad crisis had passed, Kyra stood weeping in the industrial shower attached to the room she had been sharing with Peyton. The day’s events were mostly behind them. Whatever drugs Brad had given him, Nero was fine now, but truly hadn’t remembered anything. He had watched Peyton’s recording of Brad’s attack on her with a coldness she’d never seen him exhibit. Afterward he had kissed her cheek and hugged her tightly before heading off to talk with the newly freed cyborgs.
But Nero’s disillusionment with a man he’d thought was his best friend was only part of the reason she was weeping. Who knew how many other Brads were out there, building on her original technology to make custom cyber slaves? Stopping that sort of greed for power was going to be a never-ending battle. Her head hurt just thinking about it.
Her body hurt too, but for a thousand other reasons.
And she wondered how many more hits her heart could take before it just exploded inside her chest. She was so caught up in her misery she didn’t hear Peyton slip into the shower with her.
“You’ve got to find a better reaction to catching the bad guys than crying. I mean I know you’re a girl and all, but hell Doc. . .this weeping shit has to stop. If anyone should be upset, I should be. You would have been killed if Brad had turned that weapon I built on you, and I would never have known it even happened. We need to develop some kind of pulse-cannon-proof vest for you to wear.”
Peyton turned Kyra around and pulled her flush against his body. Her wet, soapy arms slipping around his middle were sexily erotic and just about the most sensual experience they had shared to date. He backed her up a step, until the water sluiced between them and washed the soap off her. He ran his hands over her short spiked hair and got instantly hard. . .well, in six point five seconds anyway. But measuring the time it took said nothing about the mystery of how the intelligent cyber scientist’s every touch and word made it happen. There was just something fundamentally sexy about the woman in his arms.
He shifted when one of Kyra’s talented hands left his back and slid between them with no hesitation at all. Peyton gave himself a minute to enjoy what she was doing before breaking the intimacy with words that badly needed to be said.
“Is that the same hand you used to punch Brad?”
He was disappointed when her hand dropped away from what she had been doing, but he understood.
“I know you told me not to, but the guys couldn’t stop talking about it, so I replayed the whole recording. What Jackson did to you—his deception as a lover and his complicity in hurting you—it was all wrong, Kyra. That night wasn’t about your ex-husband’s changing sexual preferences—that was just about greed and control. You know that, right? All those men conspired against you when you were vulnerable.”
“Yes. Intellectually, I know that’s exactly what happened,” Kyra agreed.
Peyton reached down and lifted her chin with one hand until she was looking at him. He used his other hand to guide one of hers back to his erection. “Your past makes no difference to me. Your hand is wrapped around the best proof. But mostly I’m glad you didn’t let what happened break you. If you had, we wouldn’t be here naked together and about to have shower sex for the first time.”
Kyra laughed even as she sobbed. “You sound awfully sure about our sexual future in the next ten minutes or so, Captain Elliott. I don’t like men very much right now.”
“Good thing I’m still a cyborg then.” Peyton smiled as he lifted her by the backs of her legs which he wrapped around him. “But I think from now on, we’re going to call what we do lovemaking instead of sex. I’m ready to try making a more human type of connection. How about you?”
Kyra sniffled a little harder as Peyton backed her up against the shower wall, but she still helped him navigate his way into her. Instead of moving though, he held her completely still on him. She lifted her questioning gaze to his. “What are you waiting for? I feel you throbbing inside me.”
Peyton put his forehead against Kyra’s. “Well, that’s the most amazing thing about doing this with you, Doc. I’m not waiting for anything anymore. I don’t how it happened, but I found everything in you I’m ever going to need. Do you think what I’m feeling about you could be love? I’d like to say that to you, but I was waiting until I was sure. This feeling isn’t rational enough to be defined and measured. It hurts my brain—but in a good way.”
Kyra sighed and leaned forward for a kiss. “Maybe this is love. We’re going to have to do a lot of research before I can be sure myself. Fortunately, I have some experiments in mind that can test your theory. Want to volunteer your services in my science lab?” She squeezed around him as tightly as she could.
Laughing at her metaphor, Peyton withdrew a little and slid home again. Every stroke was more thrilling than the last. It was complete acceptance. . .and yet also choice.
“How about I volunteer for the rest of our lives together—however long that ends up being?”
“Is that some sort of cyborg inspired marriage proposal, Captain Elliott?” Kyra heard herself panting heavily as she asked the question.
Peyton shook his head, slinging water off them both as he picked up speed. “No. We’re already married. I just want us to stay that way no matter what kind of status change you manage to wrangle for C
yber Husbands who want out of their deals.”
“Umm. . .if you’re sure staying is what you want. . .”
“Doc—you’re what I’ve wanted since I laid my cybernetic eyes on you.”
Kyra nodded at her good fortune, closed her very human eyes, and gave her worried mind over to how amazing Peyton was making her feel.
Chapter 20
“Why can’t I just wear my lab coat over regular clothes?” Kyra protested.
Peyton looked away to hide his grin. “Because you look badass in your apprehension gear. Wear the speak-through too. They’ll think you’re talking to someone about them.”
“Why is black the color of our gear? Why not brown or gray? Those are the colors of most landscapes. You don’t see black on anything except old pavement and there’s not much of that left. Land vehicles are used only in third world countries now. Peyton? Are you still listening to me?”
Peyton laughed at her chastising tone. “Yes, Doc. You know damn well the Cyber Husband chip won’t let me tune you out completely. Even without pain, it flashes lights through my brain every time you fuss at me. Now to answer your question—black clothing never gets noticed unless it’s a short dress on a tall woman wearing four-inch heels.”
Kyra sighed. He always answered her, but sometimes she still didn’t understand what he was saying. But this wasn’t one of those times. Sighing, she made a mental note to look for a short black dress and four-inch torture devices to match. Maybe she had some in her old closet. She didn’t remember. At least she wouldn’t have to dumb down her conversation for him.
“Okay, Captain Elliott. I get your point. I’ll wear the black clothes.”
She watched as Peyton stopped what he was doing and froze. Since the other five cyborgs had become a part of their daily lives, his freeze-ups happened often. But she’d learned it was just him centering his attention on their wireless communication.
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