Shee-it.Was that a hint that Allen had figured out what Jay was? Tyler’s heart pounded so loudly it seemed to thunder in his ears. He quickly dropped his gaze to his feet and fiddled with a shoelace in an effort to hide his expression from Allen’s too perceptive artist’s gaze. When he thought he had his reactions under control, he straightened and dared dart a glance at the older man.
Allen’s gaze was distant, his features lax and peaceful—so completely the opposite of a man closely observing his target to confirm some suspicion, that Tyler allowed himself to relax.
“McPhee’s the only one who had the balls to tackle a full piece rather than dabble,” Allen finally said. “But he had no intention of selling the painting—he always intended it for Jay. And, if I accurately recall her expression when he promised it to her, she has no desire to sell it.”
“Definitely not,” Tyler said. “It’s far too precious.”
Allen’s expression turned smug. “A talented man, that McPhee.”
“You’re a gifted artist, too, Allen. I saw one of your works in a local gallery a few months back. It was….” He struggled to find the right words and gave up the battle. He’d speak from the heart and hope Allen didn’t take offense. “It was fucking incredible.”
“Why thank you, Tyler.”
Noting the suppressed laughter, Tyler felt heat crawl up his neck. “Sorry. Guess I’ll never make an art critic, huh?”
This time, Allen laughed outright. “Probably not, lovey. But I’ll take ‘fucking incredible’ over the overwrought, adjective-ridden bullshit that’s usually attributed to my paintings any day.” He scratched his chin with one paint-grimed fingernail. “To return to our original subject, I can save you some sleuthing. I’ve already quizzed Beanz staff and can confirm none of them dropped off the envelope. Meaning someone knew Jay had an association with me. And that someone strolled right through my gate, bold as brass, and stuffed the envelope under my studio door.”
Tyler unsuccessfully hid a wince. “It kinda looks bad, doesn’t it?”
Allen’s brows arched. “Perhaps. Or it could all be very innocent. Even so, the thought of some stranger snooping around my private property when they could have simply stuck the envelope in my mailbox makes me a little edgy. May I ask what was in it?”
“A photo. Of a… relative.”
Tyler didn’t see any real harm in revealing that. Ditto with revealing as much of the truth as possible. “One Jay didn’t know she had,” he added. “But there’s just a name on the back of the photo—no contact details.” Fingers crossed Allen wasn’t on Jay’s level when it came to detecting deliberate ambiguities meant to shield the truth.
“Ah. A bona fide mystery, indeed. Sorry I can’t shed more light on it.”
A hunch prodded—too insistent to ignore, so Tyler went with it. “Can I borrow some sketch paper and a pencil? I want to see if you recognize someone.”
Curiosity lit Allen’s eyes but if he had questions, he kept them to himself. “Of course,” he said, unfolding his lanky form from the bench and ambling toward the studio doors.
Tyler hesitated, debating whether that had been an invitation to follow. Allen didn’t allow just anyone into the inner sanctum of the studio: He was leery of letting strangers view the various incomplete artworks scattered around. Tyler had been invited inside once, when he’d swung by after class to pick up Jay but she’d committed to staying on a bit longer. He’d give everything he owned to spend an afternoon with Allen and McPhee and the rest of the class, observing their techniques—maybe even working on one of his own projects… if he could work up the courage.
“You coming or not?” Allen threw over his shoulder. “Morning’s not getting any younger.”
Tyler didn’t need to be asked twice. He catapulted from his seat and sprinted up the stairs into the studio.
Inside, Allen handed over a sketchbook and a charcoal pencil. “This do you?”
Tyler flipped open the sketchbook and took his first broad sweep with the charcoal. The quality of both paper and pencil made his mouth water. They were, for want of a better description, beautiful to use.
As he sketched and smudged and shaded, bringing the face fixed in his brain to life on the page, part of his mind wandered to more prosaic matters. Jay would have happily purchased all Tyler’s art supplies, except he had made it abundantly clear he wasn’t a charity case. So far, she’d respected his wishes and only splurged for his birthday or Christmas gifts. Now, using some of the supplies Allen seemed to take for granted, Tyler wondered if he shouldn’t quit being so uptight and use the credit card Jay had given him, rather than stubbornly working his ass off to afford even cheap, substandard supplies.
He tuned back in to the real world and checked his sketch of the woman he’d encountered out front of Beanz.
Hmmm. Good enough. Rotating the sketchbook, he handed it to Allen. “Recognize her?”
Allen examined the sketch. “Beautifully rendered, Tyler. Well done.”
Warmth pooled in the pit of his belly at the compliment and, worried he would make a dick of himself by tripping over his tongue if he spoke, he let the arching of his brows ask the question.
“She’s an interesting looking woman,” Allen said. “But no, I don’t recognize her. Should I?”
Tyler hid his disappointment with a shrug, glad for the distraction provided by Brum, who’d scampered back into the studio and now butted his head against Allen’s calves, demanding attention.
McPhee materialized from wherever he’d been lurking, and held out an imperious hand for the sketchbook. Tyler’s stomach flipped and rolled as he awaited the verdict, and he privately admitted it wasn’t only because he still held some small hope his hunch would pan out, and maybe McPhee would recognize the woman’s face. A compliment from this man would be a real confidence-booster.
“Good job, lad,” McPhee pronounced. “An excellent rendition of her, too.”
Excitement drowned Tyler’s pleasure at McPhee’s approval. “You’ve seen this woman before?”
McPhee nodded. “As I left Miss Jay’s house after dropping off the painting and delivering that envelope for Allen. I never forget a face—certainly not one as memorable as hers.”
Tyler swallowed to moisten a suddenly dry throat, and hoped his eagerness didn’t show. “Oh?”
His laidback response seemed to have worked because McPhee readily volunteered more information. “She was leaning on a car bonnet—looked to me as though she was waiting for someone,” he said. “The vehicle was parked out front of the neighboring property.” His brow creased into deep furrows. “An unremarkable sedan—light gray in color. A Honda Accord, I believe.”
Tyler’s breath caught and he had to force his next question from his throat. Please God he sounded casual. “Don’t suppose you recall any of the license plate at all?”
One of McPhee’s bushy eyebrows formed a perfect arc. “Of course I do, lad. In fact, I recall the entire plate.” He tapped his temple with a gnarled forefinger. “Trick memory.”
Tyler’s breath gusted from his lips. Man, Jay was gonna be stoked!
And then McPhee delivered his ultimatum. “And provided you tell me exactly what’s going on, I might be inclined to share that piece of information with you.”
Tyler stared helplessly at McPhee, and debated whether to back off and let Jay handle him.
Ah, crap. If the gleam in the old dude’s eyes was any indicator, it was far too late for that. Fingers crossed he could keep his stories straight… and that McPhee was as accepting as Allen had been of Tyler’s attempts to avoid revealing the whole truth.
Chapter Nine
The weapon in Seth’s hand wavered and then the muzzle tipped slowly downward. “You sure you want me to do this?” he asked again.
“Yes. I’m sure.” Jay now understood why humans offered prayers to various deities in the hope of being granted something desirable—more patience, for example.
“But what if my aim is off?”
“Then it’ll take a little longer than anticipated for me to heal.” Of course, if he shot her in the head, her capacity to heal herself might fail and she could suffer permanent impairment, but she saw no reason to add to his stress levels.
He blotted beads of perspiration from his brow with the back of his wrist… using the hand currently holding the weapon.
“Seth. Please watch where you’re aiming. If you accidentally shoot the projectile into the wall or ceiling—”
“Shit!” He yanked his hand down, and reassumed the stance she’d painstakingly coached him to assume. “Sorry. It’s just I’ve never had to, you know, shoot someone at point blank range before.”
Jay refrained from correcting him. Seth was unlikely to appreciate an explanation of the exact definition of “point-blank range” at this current moment. Instead, she gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
“Jesus-H-Roosevelt-Christ,” he said, “will you please quit smiling? It’s bad enough I have to freaking shoot you, without you standing there and grinning like you’re expecting to enjoy it or something.”
Jay schooled her features to neutrality and confined her answering sigh to a soft, inaudible exhalation. “Sorry.”
“’Sokay. You ready?”
She bit back a retort to the effect that she’d been standing here, “ready”, for four-point-seven minutes, and merely nodded.
Seth muttered something that might have been his version of a prayer, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.
Jay pulled a picture of Tyler from her databanks and fixed it in her mind. But as projectile pierced her flesh, the picture exploded in a kaleidoscope of crackling sparks… and everything went black.
~*~
A discordant buzzing, like a horde of angry bees, echoed in her skull. Seconds passed—or perhaps minutes, she wasn’t certain—before the buzzing faded, allowing her to identify a male voice swearing beneath his breath. She analyzed the voice and identified it as Seth Kyle Williams.
How much time had passed? Had he proven himself friend or foe?
Since that second question was impossible to determine as yet, her instincts for self-preservation prompted her to fine-tune her auditory sensors until she could make out exactly what he was saying.
“She’s not waking up. She should have woken up by now. Fuck. Fuck! I knew this was a bad idea. We should have tested the fucking things on Sixer—be doing the world a favor if that piece of shit never woke up. Fuck, Jay. Why did you make me do this to you? And what the fuck am I gonna tell your boyfriend?”
Ah. Friend, then. For surely no foe would sound so desolated by the prospect of her demise. Apparently Seth had successfully extracted the DEP—Directed Energy Projectile, as he’d insisted on renaming the reengineered bullet. Apparently, he could be trusted, after all.
The knowledge made her smile. It would not have been an easy task to eliminate a human she genuinely liked if Seth had played her false. Of course, she’d had a contingency plan in the event he had decided a comatose cyborg was more to his liking. But it was… nice to know the countermeasures she’d planned would not be required.
“Shee-iit. Is that—? Damn, it is! You’re awake and you’re fucking smiling while I’m standing here freaking out? You… you… heinous robot bitch!”
Jay forced open her eyelids, focused, and found herself staring into a pair of worried gray eyes. “It worked,” she told him, the words a barely intelligible croak. She swallowed to lubricate her throat and tried again. “It worked. We possess a weapon that will incapacitate Sixer with one shot.”
“Yeah,” he said, lips curving in such a woeful attempt at a smile that it took Jay longer than it should have to correctly identify the expression.
She experimentally wriggled her toes. And then her fingers. All good.
“You put me on the gurney,” she said, wondering why he would exert himself to do so. She was, after all, heavier than her physical appearance suggested, and unconscious bodies were often referred to as “dead weight” for good reason.
“You were standing stock-still in the middle of the room—not the optimum position for minor surgery. I could have tipped you onto the floor, I guess, but that’s not very hygienic. I figured the gurney was the best option.”
“Hygiene is not something to worry about when performing minor surgery on me, but thank you.”
“How are you? Everything working properly?”
“I believe so.”
Her attempt to sit up was unsuccessful and barely raised her spine from the gurney before she was forced to give up and flop back against it. This didn’t overly concern her, however. It was far too soon to be concerned. In an effort to distract Seth, she asked, “Have you checked the weapon and the firing mechanism for damage?”
“Yeah. It’s sweet. Sixer’s going down for sure.”
“If I am not mistaken—which is a distinct possibility given my current state—you are unhappy.”
“Hell yes, I’m unhappy!”
“Why?”
“Because you shouldn’t have tested this on yourself, Jay. You were out for so long after I dug out the fucking DEP, I was beginning to think it had permanently scrambled your core programming or something equally dire.” He fumbled in the pocket of his chinos for his inhaler, and took a puff to calm his ragged breathing.
Jay accessed her internal timekeeping mechanism, which had stopped as soon as the projectile’s electro-magnetic-pulse shorted out her systems. It was a simple matter of calculating the length of the “blank” that had occurred while her systems had not been taking in any data.
“I was ‘out’ for a total of forty-three-point-two minutes,” she informed Seth. Longer than she’d anticipated, but not a time span to be overly concerned about. “How long do you estimate it took you to locate and remove the projectile?”
“I performed the extraction around twenty minutes after I got you on the gurney—give or take.” At her raised eyebrows he added, “There were no complications, and the actual extraction went like clockwork. But my hands were shaking so I took a moment—okay, more than a moment—to get my shit together before I started the extraction.” He compressed his lips. “So sue me.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to respond to his snippy tone by saying something pithy. Instead, she murmured, “I appreciate your caution.”
“Least I could do. You know, having fricking shot you, and all.”
Jay chose to ignore the sarcasm. “Allowing for the time taken to get me on the gurney—say, five minutes?” She waited for his nod. “Adding the delay while you composed yourself, and the time taken to perform the extraction—”
“Five minutes at most.”
“Thank you. Then we can reasonably assume a window of approximately fifteen minutes after removal of projectile before a system reset occurs and functionality begins to return.”
While she observed him mentally running the data, Jay considered the viability of a projectile that could emit a sustained EMP over a specified time span. For now, it was not a priority but she would keep it in mind.
“Fifteen minutes?” Seth mused. “Yeah, that’d be my take.” A flush crawled up his neck. “Shit. You must think I’m a dipshit-and-a-half.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because I was too keyed up to think of using a stopwatch to note down exact times, and now we’re guessing. Talk about Science 101 epic fail.”
“Not at all.” She’d didn’t deem it necessary to admit having recorded the incident on a hidden security cam—part of her contingency plan had Seth played her false.
She tensed her abdominals, propping her torso on her elbows in another effort to sit up.
Seth promptly slipped an arm about her back to assist. When he released her, Jay glanced down at her belly. The wound had been closed with neat sutures. She pulled down her t-shirt. “Nice job. I couldn’t have done better myself. Thank you, Seth.” Because she was mindful of the care he’d taken with her, she didn’t
mention that the sutures had been unnecessary: The wound would heal regardless, and wouldn’t leave a scar.
“I’ve stitched a few wounds in my time,” he said.
She waited for him to elaborate but he only murmured, “Speaking of bullets,” and held out a small metal basin. “While I was waiting for you to return to what passes for the land of the living for sentient cyborgs, I cleaned it. I didn’t screw with it, if that’s what you’re wondering—was waiting for you to wake up and give me permission.”
She caught and held his gaze. “I trust that had I not eventually regained functionality, you would have taken steps to discover my modifications and replicate them.”
“You betcha. No way I’d toss away my best chance of taking Sixer down if you’d not come through.”
He scratched his head, looking…. What did humans call that slightly embarrassed “you got me” expression again? Ah. Sheepish. “I planned on giving you twenty-four hours to wake up,” he said. “Not that I could have held out that long without going ape-shit with worry.”
“An extremely generous time span,” Jay told him. “It is unlikely I would have afforded you the same recovery period had our situations been reversed.” She examined the projectile. Noting it had come through the experiment unscathed, she flipped it back into the basin. “It should require only a recharge to be fully effective. I have two more identically modified projectiles. This one is all yours, Seth.”
Rather than snatch it up and immediately begin dissecting it, Seth set the basin aside. “I can tell you one thing I’d change about the design,” he said.
Freaks Under Fire Page 15