“Yes.”
“Wow.”
That “wow” was uttered so softly on an exhalation that Jay didn’t believe he had intended her to hear it. Of course, she trusted him. And understood the instincts that drove him to show that he could protect her, too. She possessed those same instincts magnified tenfold. Which was precisely why she had allocated him this “safe” task that she hoped would satisfy him for now.
“I may have to relocate Seth, hence why I could be gone a few days,” she said. “I’ll get a message to you as soon as the opportunity presents itself.”
He nodded, veiling his expression into something resembling neutral that of course she saw through immediately. “I’ll be back as soon as humanly possible,” she told him, knowing he would fret until she returned, and knowing there was little she could do about that.
“Make that as soon as inhumanly as possible,” he told her. “It’ll be damn sight quicker that way.”
She smiled at his poor attempt at humor, and did the only thing she could think of to make her departure a little easier on him: took his hand and led him upstairs to their bedroom, where she employed a mutually satisfying, age-old distraction technique designed to wear him out.
It worked exactly as she’d hoped.
Jay kissed Tyler’s brow and eased from beneath the covers, leaving him to the oblivion of sleep. She grabbed her boots from the foot of the bed, and the items of clothing she’d previously laid out on the dresser, and headed into the ensuite to change. Once dressed, she tucked a small wad of large denomination bills, a credit card and driver’s license in one of her many fake identities into one pocket of her exercise pants, zipped it securely, and quietly exited the ensuite.
So far, so good. Now she had only to retrieve one more item from her office, and exit the house without disturbing Brum. With luck, both pup and boyfriend would sleep through the night.
As she reached for the bedroom door handle, she allowed herself one final glance over her shoulder at Tyler’s sleeping form. Her heart seemed to twist in her chest, wringing a painful gasp from her throat. And it took all the willpower with which she’d been programmed to strangle the impulse to wake him, and allow him to come with her.
Chapter Six
Jay parked the unassuming vehicle she’d hired in a parking lot that serviced a number of stores, including an open all hours fast food restaurant. Once inside the restaurant, for the sake of appearances she purchased a burger, ate a few bites, and then discarded the remains on the nearest table as she headed to the Ladies.
She entered the first of a half dozen cubicles, and wedged the plastic-wrapped package inside the toilet cistern. So far as hiding places went it was imperfect, but less risky than leaving it in the car. Or carrying it on her person. It would be, as Caro liked to say, a disaster of monumental proportions if it fell into the wrong hands during this coming encounter.
Exiting the restaurant, she scanned the vicinity for unwelcome observers. And once satisfied she had attracted no undue attention, she jogged the six blocks to the motel.
The schematics for the motel complex had confirmed that her options for entering the motel room undetected were severely limited. Digging a tunnel wasn’t logistically sound. Climbing onto the roof and removing a section to allow entry, carried with it an unacceptably high probability that her actions would be noted and reported to authorities. Ditto with smashing through a rear wall. Her best option was the usual method of gaining admittance to a motel room: entering via the front door.
Her internal timepiece informed her it was 05:41. The motel complex was partially shielded from the main roadway by a stand of trees, and only the rare dedicated jogger or walker was up and about so early. Jay dialed back her speed to a relaxed yet purposeful walk, projecting “I’ve been for an early morning run and I have every right to be here”. She had already taken the precaution of tying back her hair, and as she passed the motel reception area, she twitched the hood of her sleeveless hoodie to partially conceal her face.
Nearing Seth Williams’ motel room, she refocused her sensors.
One inhabitant. Good.
At the door she paused, narrowing the range of her sensors still more.
The blackout curtains were closed, and the sole inhabitant’s breathing and pulse rate indicated sleep. Even better.
She rapped softly on the door and continued rapping, aware the muted noise would take a few moments to filter through to the man inside.
It took less time than she’d anticipated before she detected the groan of a human woken from a deep sleep. The groan was followed by the hissing slide of bed linen, the thump of feet hitting the floor, and finally, footfalls indicating the motel room’s inhabitant was approaching the door.
The footfalls abruptly ceased approximately an arm’s length from the exit.
Jay could hear the man inside fidgeting, and surmised he was debating whether to answer the door. Or perhaps venture close enough to peer through the peephole. She angled her body so her face couldn’t be seen. If Seth Williams wasn’t fooled by her precautions, as a last resort she would force her way in. With luck it wouldn’t come to that. The less she scared him now, the more chance he would cooperate in the future.
A hoarse voice called, “Who is it?”
Jay confirmed the male occupant’s identity by analyzing his vocal patterns. The distortions were within acceptable parameters—doubtless caused by a combination of the mild dehydration expected after a night’s sleep, and still healing facial injuries. “It’s Gabi,” she whispered, modulating her own voice to mimic that of Seth’s younger sibling.
“Who?”
Jay increased the volume of her voice a little and injected a hint of panic into her tone. “It’s me, Seth. Gabi.”
A pause—as might be expected when you’d been abruptly woken, and then forced to confront the likelihood that the lengths you’d taken to conceal yourself had failed dismally.
It wouldn’t be prudent to give Seth time to think logically, and realize how unlikely it was that, of all people, his teenage sister had been the one who’d tracked his whereabouts. “I’m in trouble,” Jay said, playing on the protective instincts an older sibling might harbor for a younger. “Let me in before someone sees me!”
Jay heard Seth lunge for the doorway, and the unmistakable sounds of him fumbling with the privacy lock. The hinges of the door squealed as it opened and a thin-faced man sporting an impressive case of bed-head peered out from the gloomy room. “Gabi! How’n the hell did you figure out—?”
“That Randall Thor is Seth Williams?” Jay shouldered through the door, forcing Seth to take a step back. She shut the door behind her and flipped the latch. “And that you didn’t end up smeared all over the lab in the bomb blast like your colleague Frank Sloane? It wasn’t difficult.”
Seth backed up until his calves smacked the edge of the sagging double bed. “You’re not Gabby.”
“Excellent deduction.”
His face drained of color save for the mottled smudges of fading bruises. “You sound exactly like Gabi.”
“Yes. All thanks to a ‘Happy Birthday Seth’ video Gabrielle uploaded to your Facebook wall prior to you deleting your social media accounts.”
Seth’s legs folded and he sat down on the mattress in such a hurry that he bounced. His complexion turned an interesting shade of pale green. “Shit. You’re her—Gamma.”
“Another excellent deduction,” she told him in voice she preferred—the one she’d come to think of as her own. “And might I add that I appreciate very much you referred to me as ‘her’ rather than ‘it’?”
“You’re here to… to… terminate me.”
Tremors wracked his too-thin body. The man was terrified. Time to play up her human tendencies.
Jay retrieved the asthma inhaler from the nightstand and handed it to him.
When he’d used it, and his wheezing had subsided, she told him, “You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m here to discover why Sixer cho
se to spare you the fate of your colleague, and why he let you walk out of that hospital room.”
Now that death wasn’t imminent Seth had rallied somewhat, though to Jay he still nailed that human saying comparing someone to a deer caught in vehicle headlights. “I got the hell out of there the minute I came to,” he said, a touch of indignation threading through his tone. “That… that… thing didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Jay snort-laughed.
Seth startled, doubtless reacting to what he would consider a wholly incongruous sound issuing from the vocal chords of a cyborg.
Jay marveled again at how perfectly one utterance could convey a combination of scorn and disbelief. “Oh puhlease,” she said, treating him to a Caro-worthy eye-roll that made his jaw sag. “You seriously believe a cyborg like Sixer couldn’t have snatched you from the hospital room and made you vanish without a trace? Think about it, Seth. You sure as hell didn’t get there on your own, so the chances are ludicrously high that Sixer dropped you at the ER. And I’d bet my left hand that he let you walk out of that hospital room, and paid your medical bill. What I’d like to figure out is why.”
She hadn’t believed that Seth’s eyes could get any rounder but she had been mistaken in that assumption. In fact, she now completely understood the origin of that anatomically unlikely description, “His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head.”
“Shit!” Seth scrubbed a hand through his matted mop of hair. “You think Sixer knows where I am? Like, right now?”
“If he doesn’t at present, it’s only a matter of time. Even though you were reportedly deceased, I found you without much trouble.”
Seth had regressed to trembling like a leaf about to fall from a tree and his teeth were visibly chattering. He wrapped his arms around his middle, wincing as he did so—evidence that the injuries he’d suffered at Sixer’s hands were still healing. His current attire of baggy gray boxers and a once-white singlet only highlighted his air of vulnerability. “What are you going to do to me?” he asked.
Jay yanked the hood from her head, shook out her ponytail, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not Sixer, Seth. The sooner you realize that, the better. So here’s my proposal: You help me and I’ll help you. For instance, this motel room might be cheap but that sulphite-free food delivery, and the special delivery from the pharmacy, must have eaten into a chunk of your available cash. I can help you with your cash flow issues.”
His answer was too quick. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
And say whatever he believed she wanted to hear, Jay thought, noting the perspiration beading his forehead and upper lip. If he feared her as much as he obviously feared Sixer, she wouldn’t be able to trust him. If she stashed him somewhere, he would require constant supervision or he’d bolt given the slightest opportunity. She needed to convince him that cooperating could be mutually beneficial for them both.
She crossed one foot over the other and folded herself into a cross-legged position on the threadbare carpet. Seth’s current perch on the edge of the bed meant she had to look up to meet his gaze—a calculated attempt designed to give the impression he was the more dominant person in the room.
Seth might have been scared but he wasn’t stupid. A wry twist of his lips told her he wasn’t buying her ruse. “You’re much better than Sixer at passing for human,” he said.
Jay resisted the impulse to raise one eyebrow and give some excellent sarcastic face. Hah. He had no idea. “Yes, I am,” she said. “However, I’m hopeful that, given time, Sixer will embrace more humanlike attributes.”
Seth managed to summon a bark of what Jay presumed was supposed to simulate laughter. “If by ‘humanlike’ you mean getting a kick out of blowing shit up and hurting people, then he’s already there.”
A heavy weight seemed to press down upon Jay’s shoulders. Since she knew absolutely that there was no such physical weight currently resting anywhere on her person, she instinctively began to run a system diagnostic. And then the truth struck her. This sensation was a physical manifestation of guilt. Guilt for what she had potentially unleashed by freeing Sixer from the core commands that had constrained him. “What Sixer did—the people he killed, those injured in the explosion—that’s on me.”
Seth’s brows pleated as he chewed over her statement. “You seriously want me to believe you feel responsible for what that amped up, robotic Ken-doll did?”
“Yes. I seriously do. Because I seriously am responsible.” Her attempt at humor didn’t provoke a response so she continued, “Once Sixer removed the projectiles that had incapacitated me I could have fought him. Instead, I gave him what he wanted: his freedom. I knew the risks and I did it anyway because I pitied him. Discounting all logic, I chose to trust him. When he blew up that bunker and killed innocent people, he betrayed that trust.”
This time Seth’s reaction was an almost textbook example of a snort-laugh. Some of the tension had drained from his muscles. Good. He was starting to trust her a little.
“None of us were innocent,” he said. “Look, Sixer scares me shitless. I knew I was sticking my neck out by proposing we scale back trials until we’d implemented more efficient controls but I risked it because I knew the command protocols were too open to interpretation and too easily exploited. Case in point: You’re only walking around right now because Caine screwed up the command and Sixer didn’t feel compelled to terminate you on sight.”
The jury was still out as to whether Sixer would have succeeded had he pitted himself directly against Jay in a physical battle—one without the advantage gained by using EMP projectiles—but she nodded, motioning for Seth to continue.
“You aren’t the only one repelled by the idea of a self-aware creature being compelled to do whatever it’s told,” he said. “The whole thing made me sick to my stomach. I don’t blame you for giving Sixer an out so he couldn’t be controlled.” His gaze sharpened. “And how did you do that, exactly?”
Jay channeled Tyler’s “you gotta be freaking kidding me” expression.
Seth rewarded her efforts with a lopsided grin. “Worth a shot. Look, if anyone’s to blame for Sixer turning out to be a freaking psycho, blame the guys who programmed him—” he jerked his thumb at his chest for emphasis “—and couldn’t do half as good a job as your creator did with you.”
Jay nibbled her lower lip, but ceased when she noted Seth’s expression. Apparently he found her “human-ness” increasingly fascinating. “That’s an interesting way of viewing recent events,” she said. “And if what you say is true, why do you not appear to suffer any guilt over what happened?”
“Wasn’t like I knew that nut-job Caine planned on using his pet cyborg as an assassin.” He shrugged. “Once I was promoted to the inner circle and working directly on Sixer, I was screwed. Only way I was leaving Caine’s employment was in a body bag. I gathered as much information as I could without getting pinged by security, and did whatever I had to do to get through the day. But if I’d been in Sixer’s shoes, I’d have gone after Caine and the labs, too. Best way to make sure the bastards couldn’t build another fucking machine and send it after me.”
“I can’t fault your logic—nor Sixer’s instinct to protect himself. However, I find the collateral damage unacceptable. I don’t regret freeing Sixer. In fact, I would have done so without any attempts on his part to compel my assistance. But I deeply regret the ramifications of the choices I made.”
Seth leaned forward, his eyes narrowing to slits. “He compelled you? How?”
Jay cocked her head and allowed a slight smile to play across her lips. “Do you wish to know because you fear Sixer may compel me again?” She paused, gauging his reactions minutely. “Or because deep down, you would not be averse to commanding a cyborg to do your bidding.”
There it was. The raised heart rate, the fleeting gleam in his eyes—quickly masked but not quickly enough for a cyborg of Jay’s abilities. It was not wholly unexpected given Seth’s background
. Better men than he had been tempted by power.
“I’d only use you if Sixer made a grab for me again,” he muttered as he lowered his eyes to stare at his bare feet.
“And the road to the hell that humans profess to believe in is purportedly paved with good intentions,” Jay told him. Before he could mount an argument he couldn’t win, she continued, “My command codes died with my creator. But perhaps you, too, could coerce me to do your bidding—provided you had the stomach to drug a woman who’d recently given birth so you could snatch her newborn baby and use the child for leverage. Would you have the stomach for that, Seth?”
His chin whipped up and the face he presented appeared so horrified, that even though he couldn’t yet force words from his throat she knew the answer was a resounding “No”. Finally, he managed to choke out, “Sixer snatched a baby?”
“Not just any baby.” Jay toyed with the end of her ponytail, drawing the moment out for maximum impact. “The infant in question was my boyfriend’s baby brother.”
Seth mouthed the word boyfriend before the impact of her statement overrode his wonder that a cyborg had claimed such a close relationship with a human. “Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Did he—?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed convulsively. “Did Sixer hurt the kid?”
“No.”
Seth leaned his elbows on his bent knees, the tension draining from his body in a long, slow sigh. His murmured “Thank God” indicated his moral compass was more or less functional—at least where the wellbeing of infants were concerned. Even so, Jay didn’t resist the impulse to make him squirm a little more. “Although there’s still Sixer’s threat to snatch the baby and sell him to some childless couple to consider,” she said, choosing to leave out some pertinent facts.
It wasn’t exactly lying by omission. After all, she could not confirm with one hundred percent certainty that if Tyler was foolhardy enough to attempt to track Sixer down at some later date, and somehow managed to succeed in that endeavor, Sixer wouldn’t make good his threat.
Freaks Under Fire Page 10