“Easily done since I don’t look like me,” he reminded her.
Nisrine canted her head, golden ringlets dancing across her shoulders. “You’re right. You’d look better.”
She swept past him and touched the gate’s speaker button after the unexpected compliment.
No answer. Kaiden scanned the manicured lawn, a perfect sea of closely clipped green offset by aromatic flowers bobbing in the warm breeze. The house appeared quiet, windows open, the driveway occupied by a convertible positioned before the two-car garage. Hover marks, a scorch created from years of firing up the high-power engine, dominated both sides of the drive.
“Usually two cars there, but the one present is registered to Hubert Watson. Our guy could be inside watching the telly since racing season began a couple days ago.”
“The gate isn’t locked. We could try an old-fashioned knock on the door,” she suggested.
“Great i—”
“Good afternoon,” a cheerful voice called from the left. An older woman with gray hair covered by a rose bonnet waved at them over the fence of the neighboring house. “Haven’t seen your faces around here before.”
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Kaiden replied. “We’re just in town paying a visit to some relatives, is all.”
“Oh, goodness me, always such a pleasure to see family. Are you related to the doctor or Matilda, dear?” She trained her eyes on Nisrine, pleasant smile still in place.
A second of hesitation granted him access to a vast network of information. The doctor had eight siblings, six of them sisters, most of them blonde.
“Pamela is Hubert’s younger sister. We don’t visit these parts much, busy as we are over in Ponchatoula, but we wanted to swing by for a spell,” Kaiden said as Nisrine parted her lips to speak. When her eyes raised to his face, they were impressed.
“Well, Matilda left about two hours ago with the little ones, but I imagine Hubert is inside. I won’t keep you. I’m sure he’ll be so glad to see you both. He talks about you all the time, Pamela. Says the family’s proud of your recent graduation from Ponchatoula State, but he didn’t say you were married.”
“It was very sudden,” Nisrine said. “We had little time for planning.”
“Oh,” the neighbor replied. Her eyes dropped to Nisrine’s abdomen. “You go on through the gate, dear, and get out of this heat. Tell Hubert to make you that herbal tea I sent over. I’m always giving them the extras from my garden, you know.
“Thank you, ma’am—”
“Oh, Missus Beechum, dear, but you call me Maggie.”
“Maggie,” Nisrine continued, smiling. “I will be sure to let him know.”
“Pleasure meeting you, Maggie. Thanks for the friendly welcome.”
After Maggie returned to the pale, mother-of-pearl-pink gazebo dominating her front yard, Kaiden and Nisrine gravitated to the gate again. It opened with a gentle push.
“Ladies first.”
His gallant gesture had a double bonus—her smile and the view as he followed the path behind her. The blue skirt swished back and forth with each step.
“We’re breaking character,” he reluctantly admitted, aware of Maggie’s watchful gaze. Before they could go far, he offered his arm. A dozen or more stone steps led to the house on the hill where an old-fashioned, heavy knocker graced the wooden door. The wealthier residents of the planet lived in a society blended with the best aspects of modern convenience and the luxurious, nostalgic veneer of the past.
“Looks like there’s a door buzzer beneath the knocker and magnetic locks, too,” Kaiden muttered as he raised the knocker to reveal a lit panel with a retinal scanner and small button marked guests. He buzzed in with a gloved hand, as true gentlemen and ladies didn’t enter the public view with bare fingers.
How did Thandie survive eighteen years here? She deserves a bloody medal for enduring this until adulthood.
“No answer but…”
“But what?”
Kaiden stared at the door. “I’m picking up a rapid heartbeat. Anxious. Panicked.”
Before Nisrine could respond, the light on the access panel flashed from red to green. The locks clicked open.
“Welcome,” a voice with a deep, Tallulah accent greeted them through the speakers. “I’ve been expecting you.”
They stepped inside, dropping their smiles and enthused fake greetings the moment the door shut behind them.
“I’m in his home security feed now and the place is empty except for the study. This way.”
As predicted, the horse races played on an older-style television, its enormous curved screen unlike the hologram sets favored by the technologically advanced. Although he wouldn’t admit it to most, Kaiden favored them, too.
“Doctor Watson?” Kaiden called. “We know you’re alone in the house.”
“Good. As I said, I’ve been waiting for you both.”
The top of a blond, balding head revealed Hubert Watson in an oversized armchair facing the screen.
With his gun drawn from beneath his jacket, Kaiden moved into the room first, with Nisrine guarding his back. Her own pistol came from beneath her dress, where she’d worn it holstered to one slim, stockinged thigh.
Definitely not the time to think about those thighs and how much he wanted both around his neck, but Nisrine had a habit of doing that to him. He took in their surroundings instead and searched for danger. In the theme of the traditional gentleman’s study, alien trophies from various planets decorated the walls, the presence of dead animals an apparent mark of wealth. One shelf featured the tusk from some strange creature, the head of another. On a table, a giant set of talons curved from the green-striped, reptilian claw of another beast, resting on a polished wood pedestal.
Most planets had outlawed trophy hunting, but not Tallulah. When faced with implementing a host of new edicts, the grand duke had threatened to secede from the UNE if it was made into law. The queen had given in, if only because it wasn’t worth the fight yet, but Kaiden heard it was on the table at parliament again at the behest of the Lexar.
Because the enormous, eight-foot-tall alien race who had crushed their species fifty years ago thought killing animals for decorative parts was barbaric.
While Kaiden approached the doctor in his chair, Nisrine remained on alert, moving to scan the other exit from the room.
“Have a seat. It’s only me, after all. An unarmed man against two trained operatives.”
“You knew we were on the way to interrogate you?”
Watson chuckled nervously. “Who doesn’t know? What we did, what we’re doing, it was bound to be discovered eventually. Especially after your escape. I always imagined you’d come after me one day.”
“How did you know it was me at your door?”
The doctor turned his chair to face them, his empty hands resting in his lap. “I designed your camouflage programming. The nanites we used on you are top of the line. It took me years to create them, and now, every last one in existence has become a part of you.”
“You didn’t recreate your work?” Nisrine asked.
“The project was lost with the servers. It would take me years to duplicate without a live sample from Kaiden.”
“And your other projects?”
The doctor sighed, shoulders sagging. “You weren’t the first. You aren’t the last. I was assigned to your case, so I don’t know the details of the others beyond the fact they exist.”
“Bullshit.” Kaiden took a step forward. “You have to know more than that.”
“I and each of my colleagues were assigned a base of our own to conduct our experiments and work. You were the sum total of that work, years of innovation and effort poured into one man after dozens, if not hundreds, of failures. Don’t you understand? You were the perfect subject.”
“Kaiden is more than a subject,” Nisrine spat. “What you did to him, the tortures you forced him to endure… you should be ashamed.”
Watson flinched but didn’t avert hi
s watery blue eyes. “Don’t you think I know that? I haven’t worked since the day our project was discovered. My usefulness to them has ended, and it’s only a matter of time before they understand.” He turned to face Kaiden. “Take my advice and get out. Both of you return to your ship before it’s too late. Rejoin the Jemison and forget about this while you have the chance.”
“Too late for what?” Nisrine’s skeptical expression matched the sense of creeping dread hastening Kaiden’s heartbeat. Something was wrong. He couldn’t place it.
“Before they decide you’re too dangerous to live.”
“I can’t do that,” Kaiden said.
“I suspected you’d say as much. In that case, there’s a clinic,” he told them with reluctance. “I have never been beyond the reception room, but I would pick up orders there sometimes.”
“Where?”
“Here, on Tallulah. Jacksonville.” He took a pad and pen from his desk, then scribbled an address.
“Why are you telling us this?” Kaiden finally asked. “What’s the catch?”
The doctor gave a fragile, bitter smile. “Did you believe we were all monsters without compassion? That we can’t feel regret for what we did? Son, I entered this career to help people. I haven’t done a thing to help anyone since the day I began working for Admiral—”
It happened before Kaiden had the chance to disarm the trigger. The man arched in his seat and gritted his teeth, clamping down on the tip of his tongue. Froth escaped between his lips.
Kaiden and Nisrine hurried to him, but it was too late. Doctor Watson slumped in the chair. The corner of his mouth drooped and his lifeless eyes stared, froth and spittle on his mouth.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“Chip fried his brain.”
“Can’t you stop it?”
Kaiden shook his head. “It’s too late. A split second is all it takes.” After a low groan, he straightened and ran his fingers through his hair. He swore again, releasing a stream of expletives he’d normally avoid using in the presence of a woman. “Now what do we do?”
Nisrine tore the sheet from the notepad. “We check out the lead he’s given us and hope it’s legitimate.”
“Quiet a moment.” Kaiden canted his head. The subtle purr of an approaching car touched his senses. He glanced out the window to see a red Cadillac hovermobile sliding into the drive. “His wife is home.”
“We have to tell her what happened.”
“Do you really want to risk it? I don’t want to answer questions. We can leave and allow everyone to think it was natural causes. A stroke maybe. Tallulah doesn’t do invasive autopsies unless foul play is suspected.”
“But the neighbor saw us—”
“She’s currently undergoing treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. Unreliable witness. I don’t know if you realized this, but his death was too inconvenient. Or should I say, convenient for the people we’re seeking. He nearly said a name then. He was one breath from telling us a name.”
Her mouth snapped shut and she dropped her gaze to the address. “You’re right. Someone is listening.”
“Aye, and whatever they’re using…” He tried to sort through the various signals streaming through the air but couldn’t grasp it. The exertion made his brain throb, the sensation of being shaken disrupting his concentration until at last, he latched onto the buzzing current and rushed to the bookshelf. He removed an old-fashioned tome, made with actual paper and leather binding, and flipped it open to reveal a surveillance bug no larger than an actual insect, adhered to the edge of the rear cover.
“I don’t know who you are, but you won’t get away with it. I’ll find you just like I found him. And you’ll wish you’d used that goddamned kill chip on yourself. You can count on that.” He crushed the device with his thumb then shoved the book onto the shelf again.
Downstairs, the door opened.
“Hubert, dear, I’m home.”
“We need a way out,” Nisrine whispered. “A way without the nosy neighbor watching.”
An alarm blared, its piercing shriek calling all attention to the plantation-style home across the street. Maggie rushed to her fence and leaned against it to watch.
“Did you do that?” Nisrine asked.
“Aye. C’mon, we can go out the window.”
A pleasant breeze entered through one of the wide windows, their second-story location requiring him to jump once he climbed onto the ledge. The fall would have been hell on a normal man’s knees, but each of his joints had been reinforced with top-of-the-line shock absorbers.
Above him, Nisrine began to remove her heels.
“Screw that. Jump and I’ll catch you.”
She pushed off the ledge and dropped through the air. He caught her along with a face full of fluffy tulle and silk.
An hour later, as they were cruising through the system’s space, Kaiden couldn’t help himself but to tease, “You know, you made one glowing pregnant woman. The only quick weddings on Tallulah are shotgun weddings.”
“Next time I’ll be sure to pad my dress,” she grumbled.
The amusement at Nisrine’s expense was a much-needed distraction from the rest of their discovery. Despite all of their effort, the bad guys knew they were on the way.
Chapter Nine
Kaiden had a plan, but what surprised him most was that Nisrine was cool with his wild scheme. Walking through the clinic’s front door was practically a suicide run, but all he had to do was give her a long enough distraction to sneak inside. And since his cyborg body had already withstood the test of bullets in the facility on Azura, it made sense to put himself in the line of fire.
If they caught on.
“That’s our place,” Kaiden said into the comms. He tucked his hands into his coat pockets and lingered beneath a flickering streetlight. Nisrine crouched across the alley beside a dumpster, her stealthsuit activated and rendering her as little more than a shimmer of bending light. “Looks typical.”
Their target occupied a corner lot in the slums of Tallulah’s greatest shame, a failed early colonial city that the planet’s grand duke swore he’d reclaim in time from the criminal element who thrived on the misery of others.
Jacksonville, the second oldest city on Tallulah, was a social experiment turned lost cause. Back at the time of the planet’s colonization, one of the many founding governors had wanted to erect a city resembling the ways of old Earth. In the end, he came to regret it when crime ran rampant and took over the streets.
Tuning in to the police bands for even a couple minutes had given Kaiden a headache, the number of crimes astronomical. He thought if they didn’t return to their ship soon, they’d probably find the invisibility cloak deactivated and the hull stripped.
“Looks like it’s closed,” Nisrine whispered. “Security appears subpar, though.”
“Aye, from the outside, but I’m picking up movement within. Maybe I can get into the CCTV system.”
There wasn’t one. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t a video feed attached to the security. It wasn’t an uncommon tactic, as many megacorps preferred defending their secrets from intrusion via the old-fashioned way of armed patrol routes.
They thought they were smart, but Kaiden was craftier. Upon finding the comm network, he spread out his senses and listened. When a tickle of noise passed across his hearing, he strained to bring it into focus. As he did, the noise rolled with crystalline clarity across his and Nisrine’s shared line.
“Destroy everything. Two agents are on the way. We can’t leave a trace of evidence.”
“What about him?” a second voice asked. “Anyone safe to leave?”
“Negative. Sanitize and clear everything.”
He listened for a while as one of the men on the communication channel gave orders to his team, and once he had a clear understanding of their locations throughout the small medical complex, he flashed Nisrine a thumbs-up.
“We’re good. They’ve got motion-detecting sensors
on the roof, in each window, and at the entrances, but no cameras outside or in. I can take the technological defenses down long enough for you to get in,” Kaiden said.
Quiet streets surrounded the medical complex, as if the local crime syndicate and street gangs knew what occurred within its walls. All of the adjacent buildings were dark, the boarded windows caked with grime and dirt.
Kaiden shuddered. With grim speculations on his mind, he lowered the trip sensors and removed all barriers between Nisrine and her goal. He watched her scale the wall of the building, and once she’d ascended to the top, disappear within through an air-circulating vent.
“I’m in,” she said minutes later.
“Let’s see how they feel about my arrival then.”
“This is only a guess based on what I’ve seen so far through the vent, but we probably won’t have the opportunity to take anyone alive,” Nisrine warned. “They’re armed to the teeth and planning to scrub this place from the map. We’ll have to go in hard.”
“Understood.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Kaiden had entered a building prepared to take a life. He glanced at the readout on his Desert Eagle and moved to the front of the building.
No one greeted him outside. The building was a smooth, pale metal and brick structure on the side of a mostly deserted street. A flickering street lamp buzzed noisily nearby, casting a pale glow over the chain link fence surrounding the clinic. Its neon sign glowed brightly, advertising 24/7 medical care.
“Well then. Suppose it’s time I got seen for these phantom limb pains,” he muttered out loud.
Kaiden rang the intercom. “Hello?” After a long pause, he rang three more times, laying on the buzzer until someone finally answered.
“Jacksonville Medical is currently undergoing renovations. We’re unable to see to your needs at this time.”
“Frag that, man. I’m really hurtin’,” Kaiden said, dragging out his best regional dialect. “There’s got to be a doctor inside, right? Just need something for the pain. I don’t need to be seen. Just somethin’ to take the edge off this pain. I got cybernetic limbs that don’t cooperate and phantom pains you wouldn’t believe.” He gave a pause then added in a desperate voice, “Please.”
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