Lucy cried out and her back arched in reaction to a sharp pain shooting down her spine.
Rachel jumped back and away as Marcus rushed over to stand guard in case Lucy went nova on them. She swallowed and cleared her throat so she’d sound as calm as possible. “Let me give you a sedative, Lucy. You shouldn’t be hurting so much.”
“No. Don’t shut it off. The pain… it’s Meara calling me again.” She moaned as tears flooded her eyes. Listening to that old communication hurt so badly now. “Damn it, Meara… fuck… no… don’t do that… shit.”
Lucy was breathing hard when she felt Meara disconnect. The headstrong woman hadn’t even waited for a response, just tossed out the information and cut off their link. Her eyes sought and found Marcus. “Tell Peyton they’re going inside the facility. They think Creator Omega is in there. They don’t want to risk him escaping. They believe the building is scheduled for destruction and that he’ll run before it happens.”
“Are you in severe pain?” Rachel asked, coming closer again.
“My head hurts badly but it stopped the minute Meara stopped our connection. That’s way better than it was.”
“That’s twice Meara has contacted you. Why hasn’t Aja been in touch?”
Lucy turned at the surprising question from Marcus. “She’s either in hibernation or out of range or…”
Marcus stuck out a hand and held up a palm. “Nope… we’re not going there yet. I just wanted to know the potential reasons.”
“Don’t worry. Aja’s not dead,” Lucy said firmly. “Meara and I would both know if she was dead. It’s the worse feeling in the world.” She squirmed in the chair, testing her restraints. “Can I get up now? I really need to use the bathroom.”
Rachel pushed a button on some wrist device she wore and Lucy felt all her restraints unfasten at once. She leaned forward and rubbed her wrists while looking at the surprising girl. “Did you do this automation?”
Rachel nodded. “Yes. It’s like…” She glanced at Marcus who shrugged and then put her gaze back on Lucy. “I seem to have completed a cyber science degree without realizing it. Kyra told me my new processor was capable of learning anything I wanted to learn, but it’s a strange feeling to be able to pick up things so easily. Sometimes my brain rebels with headaches.”
“In my opinion, getting used to new cybernetics always feels strange. People weren’t meant to be machines. Our brains rebel every time,” Lucy said. She slid from the chair and shuffled off to the bathroom inside the lab.
Rachel looked at Marcus. “We probably should have waited for Kyra to say it was okay to let her go, but I don’t think she’s going to be a problem. Do you?”
Marcus pulled the portable pulse cannon free of the strap across his lower back. He held it in his hands. “No worries either way. I’ve got the situation covered. This thing may look small, but it can still take down King.”
“Poor King. His size should not be a constant source of amusement. All that man does is work at his restaurant and serve as your weapon standard.”
Marcus grinned. “You just like his food.”
“Everyone likes his food,” Rachel said, arching an eyebrow. She walked back to the table beside the cyber chair and picked up her portable com so she could make notes. “Lucy turned out okay considering we had to switch her back to her old processor for a while.”
“Will she feel any long-term effects?”
“No idea,” Rachel said. “Seetha said each change of processor affects the personality a little because the moment it gets installed new synapses immediately start forming in the brain. She said it was a bit like those human pivotal moments when someone you love dies or something stressful happens. It’s all trauma to your mind which eventually adapts as best it can.”
They both flinched when they heard Lucy call out from the bathroom. In his hurry to get to her, Marcus yanked the bathroom door off its hinges and flung it aside. Lucy was leaning on the sink with the water running and tears streaming from her eyes. Even knowing what the female cyborg was capable of, Rachel moved forward and put an arm around the now tearful Lucy. She reached out and turned off the water for the captain whose vulnerability was now plain to see.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked.
Lucy shook her head. “No… I… some memories are returning—very bad memories.”
“We had to switch on your old processor for a bit. It wasn’t for long. With you unconscious the whole time, we were hoping nothing would come of it,” Rachel explained.
“Guess it didn’t work because I remembered something Kyra needs to know.”
“That the man you killed wasn’t Jackson Channing?” Rachel shrugged when Lucy’s startled gaze met hers. “You woke up briefly and screamed that at us before passing back out.”
Lucy blinked. “How did Kyra take the news?”
“She buried him personally, Lucy. She thinks you’re delusional about what happened.” Rachel slid an arm around Lucy’s waist. “Let’s go back to the chair. I won’t strap you down again, but you need to rest a bit more. Then we’ll hook you up with the wrist com that Eric left for you. It’s got a channel just to him.”
“Eric went with Peyton?” Lucy’s heart sank… but she wasn’t surprised.
“Yes,” Rachel answered, guiding her patient back. Lucy hadn’t even noticed Marcus aiming a weapon her way. She helped the older woman into the chair. “Now. Just lean back and rest. You went through a lot today.” She picked up the painkiller Kyra had left for her to administer. “This is going to fix the pain in your head but it will not take you completely under. You need it to heal so please let me give it to you.”
“Fine. But for the record, I’m not delusional about what I remembered. It was real,” Lucy insisted, as Rachel injected the contents of the plunger into the base of her skull. She closed her eyes and swallowed as the pain eased away. She wouldn’t accept delusion as the answer, given the horror of what she kept recalling. “Let me ask you something. If Jackson Channing were still alive, what do you think that crazy bastard would be doing with his time?”
Marcus lowered the weapon. “Are you going to hurt anyone today, Lucy?”
“Not if I can help it, Marcus. Rachel’s safe with me. I promise,” Lucy replied.
“Good. I’ll do some investigating into his death after you fall asleep.”
“I’d really appreciate that,” Lucy said, before letting the drug have its way.
Rachel watched Lucy go under and then turned to the cyborg she adored. “Do you actually believe what Lucy said about Dr. Channing?”
“No, but I can tell she definitely believes it,” Marcus answered truthfully. “I have to work from that point of reference. You know how captains are.”
“Not really,” Rachel said, quirking her mouth. “My experience with the military is limited to sleeping with you. That’s all I want to know about it.”
Marcus snickered. “Wow. You really are getting smarter. I’m glad. Captains are all intelligent assholes who think they’re always right.”
“Thought them being right is why they were made into captains?” Rachel countered.
Marcus chuckled at her quick reply. He was still getting used to the ‘new’ Rachel, but she was still the same in all the ways that mattered to him. “Yeah. It’s crazy how that works,” he answered finally. “Mostly I need to go relay what Lucy said about Meara and Will to Peyton. I can’t do it inside these walls. Fucking Norton. I hate this place. I’d like to burn it to the ground.”
Rachel laughed as her always grumpy, yet kind-hearted lover stomped out the lab door.
Jake and Tad were breathing hard as they stared down at the woman who’d fought them for the last twenty hours even while the super cyborg-stopping drugs they’d given her were working into her system.
“I don’t know why Bradley 360 had his sights set on that other female. This New World Companion is so much prettier. Look at that set of knockers, Jake. They’re perfect.”
“Shut u
p, Tad. And keep your hands off her. This is one of the two who killed Bradley—the stupid bastard. He was greedy and look what it got him.”
“You shut up, Jake. She didn’t kill us, did she?”
Jake snorted. “It took a pulse cannon and two large doses of cyborg knock-out to take her down, you idiot. She kept waking up the whole way here and nearly kicking our asses each time, remember? Now help me restrain her so we can get back to what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Can’t I just…”
“No,” Jake said firmly. “We’re going to be getting our own New World Companions soon. They’re going to be just as beautiful and programmed to do whatever we want. I am not going to let you screw that up just because you want to screw every female you come across. You need to be taking that med the boss gave us like you’re supposed to. It keeps your man urges down. Besides, this specific female is not meant for that purpose. He said she was a trained assassin and that we shouldn’t mess with her. He has plans to fix her and use her to help us.”
“Fine,” Tad said, sighing in disappointment. “I still don’t know why we didn’t go after the redhead too. He wanted them both.”
“We couldn’t go after the redhead because the killing machine showed up.”
“Oh. Right,” Tad said, recalling the man dressed in black. “He’s the guy the boss calls his second worse mistake.”
“That’s the one—William 874,” Jake said. “The cyborg decoder identified him even with his face covered.”
Jake lifted and carried the woman in black into a cell. Tad grumbled some more but helped chain her to the bed. Then they left the cell and put a padlock and chain on the door of the metal cage to keep her in—just in case she woke up and broke her chains.
“Now that she’s locked up, I realize she wasn’t all that hard to capture. I bet we could get the redhead too,” Tad said.
Jake checked the padlock one final time—just to be sure. “The only reason we managed to get this one is that she wasn’t looking for us after the redhead fought with her and ran her off. We’re damn lucky the second set of drugs finally worked. That was the longest twenty miles I’ve ever traveled with a dangerous captive. The boss said this cyborg could kill us in an eye blink if she got hold of us right.”
“I think she did break my jaw. It’s healing back though.”
Jake grunted. “If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be able to talk.”
“Oh, right,” Tad said, laughing a little.
“Doofus,” Jake said. “How can you forget so much? You were going to be a medical doctor. You only had one semester left.”
Tad chuckled. “So were you. I don’t care what I’m forgetting. This is way better. We do a few jobs and reap big rewards. I love being buff and strong.”
Jake nodded. “I agree… which is why I’m not going to let you mess this up for us. Now come on. We’re supposed to go back and keep an eye on the other two. No telling what they’ve been doing while we’ve been gone.”
Grinning, Tad pushed a hand through his shoulder-length hair. He liked that it covered up the panel in his head and the meds port on the back of his neck. “They’re probably still running around in their little black outfits and making all kinds of notes. They seemed to be the spy crew. I’m glad I’m not a spy. That would be so boring. All they do is stare and whisper. We couldn’t even hear what they were saying at the distance we were.”
“Spy crew?” Jake laughed. “You come up with the craziest shit.”
“Hey,” Tad said, punching Jake’s arm. “Spies are real.”
“So are idiots,” Jake replied.
Then he took off running with Tad on his heels—just as he’d hoped. They should be back to the grounds in just over an hour. Without any cargo over their shoulder, the return trip wouldn’t take long at all.
“There are four AIs out front now,” Will whispered. “There could be even more inside.”
Meara scanned the length of the building. “Maybe it’s the change-over. Let’s wait a few moments. That usually doesn’t take long.”
About five minutes later, two of the AIs disappeared while the other two took over the post.
“Down to two. I like those odds much better,” Meara whispered.
Will nodded. “Let’s give the old ones time to go dock themselves.”
Meara giggled. “Dock themselves? Don’t look now, but yer age is showing again.”
“What would you call it?”
Meara snorted. “Return to their charging stations?”
“Charging stations. Docks. You knew what I meant.” Will sighed heavily. “Why in the hell do we keep having these stupid conversations?”
“This seems like our normal conversation to me,” Meara supplied.
Will settled for an eye roll. “They’re starting their patrol. Get your arrow ready. Take out the farthest one away when he’s down the side a bit more. I’ll take out the other one.”
“How?” Meara hissed. “With yer bare hands? I don’t see ya having yer weapon at ready.”
Will grunted in answer. “I’m not wasting the pulse cannon on them. We might need it inside on something worse. You don’t know what new weapons that Creator Omega bastard might have come up.”
“Alright,” Meara said, pulling her last electronic scrambler from her quiver. Too bad Aja hadn’t returned with any refills. “Say when, Captain He-Man Bot Killer. I got yer back.”
“I say now,” Will said, ignoring her jibe. He kept low as he ran through the fence.
Meara waited until the AI guard saw Will and yelled for him to stop before letting her arrow fly toward the other one who was already turned and coming back to assist.
As her target hit the ground in a shocking mess of exploding parts and melting fake skin, she was already running to catch up with Will, who had fairly quickly managed to separate his AI target’s head from his shoulders.
“How are ya doing that?” Meara exclaimed, eyeing the two parts with envy. “I might have a bit of trouble getting past how human they look, but once I did, I’d definitely like to know how to yank their fecking heads off so easily.”
“They haven’t changed the basic construction of bots in years. There are only two long bolts holding their head on. The trick is knowing where to yank.”
“Obviously,” Meara said, following Will as he hurried inside. The man was just full of surprises.
13
Silence descended inside Peyton’s head the moment he crossed some invisible line. He no longer felt that familiar connection to everything electronic around him. His ears heard nothing but the wind blowing through the trees. He noted his satellite communication was cut off as well, which meant he couldn’t even send a mental message to the members of his Marine fire team who’d tagged along to help.
Whoever the hell was guarding this place had installed some sophisticated signal jamming and it seemed targeted specifically to restored cybernetic soldiers. He was starting to believe that Creator Omega really was here. He seemed particularly gifted at thwarting all the security measures Kyra put in place to protect their abilities.
Peyton held up a hand and the nine volunteers walking forward with him all stopped where they were. He tapped the old-fashioned com bent in front of his mouth that he’d recently refurbished. It was one of seventeen old communication devices that he’d reworked, mostly for something to do. Ironically though, twelve of those devices were being used for their original purpose today.
When Eric informed him that his entertainment satellite had totally lost the coordinates of the place, he’d thrown the ancient headsets into his ready bag before leaving. Instincts, Kyra would have said. Human instincts that were warning him that he was going to need them.
“All posts. All posts. This is Peyton. There’s some sort of defense shield in place that shuts down wireless capabilities. We don’t know what ears are listening to this old signal so maintain com silence until it’s necessary to break it.”
The old coms worked on ancient
radio signals instead of the modern wireless ones. Peyton wasn’t sure what kind of situation he was getting into, but he’d bet the sophisticated signal jammer blocking wireless contact wasn’t programmed for something as old as the weak radio signal coms, which only worked for a short range.
He reached up and tapped the talk button again. “Proceed with caution to the rendezvous point. Keep your eyes open and your new ears on alert. Peyton out.”
Damn, he was glad his hobbies were so helpful. His headset crackled with static in his ear.
“Peyton? This is Eric. Can you hear me?”
Peyton tapped the com again. “Peyton here. Go ahead, Eric.”
“King and I found two transport carriers just inside the signal line. One has two unconscious guys in white lab coats and two hibernating New World Companions on it. They’re all out cold. The other carrier has one dead guy, one nearly dead guy, and nine hibernating college-age kids in med pods who’ve all been cybernetically converted. It’s obvious Meara and Will have been conducting a rescue mission.”
“Kids turned into cyborgs? That fucking bastard…” Peyton said low. “What’s your assessment of the newly converted?”
“Kids look completely human under a general perusal. No artificial limbs or cybernetic enhancements are visible, but you can practically see them growing muscles and brain matter in their sleep. They all have discreet neural panels on the right side of their heads and a med port on the back of their necks. We won’t know the full extent of their changes until they wake up. Want me to wake one and get some info about what happened?”
“Negative. Let’s hold on that. They’re better off sleeping through this shit.” Peyton’s cybernetic eyes scanned the area. It was far too quiet for a forest. Animals were smart enough to avoid the creepy place. “Do what you can to secure the carriers and cargo.”
“Already doing that. King wants to come back. He says he’s too mad to stay here. Looks like he’s in the mood to smash something.”
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