“The…lieutenant…did not stare…at my legs,” Rachel protested.
Seetha laughed. “Are we going to go through this debate with every cyborg we fix? They’re all going to ask me out, and I’m going to politely decline without hurting the fragile male ego hiding inside the machinery. Just a bit ago I was going out on coffee dates with losers I found through online dating services. Now Kingston West is back in my life and I’m not letting anything get in the way of my second chance with him. He’s the one for me…whether it’s the smartest thing or not.”
Rachel crossed her arms, but smiled. “King…you like him…a lot.”
Seetha smiled and nodded. “Yes. I like him. No one makes me feel as wanted as he does. I don’t think attraction gets more real. It took me two years to fall in love with the man, and we were together five more after that. Being apart the last two years didn’t make it go away. I haven’t met anyone more interesting.”
Seetha grinned when Rachel sighed over her story and went to retrieve her portable. She had insisted Rachel make all the extended notes about what was done to each patient. It gave the younger woman something more productive to do than just fetch tools for her.
“When is he coming?” Seetha asked, her nervousness a lump in her throat.
“He?…You mean…Captain…Talon?” Rachel said, swallowing hard as the words numbed her throat. She must be talking too much.
Seetha nodded, keeping her eyes on what she was doing. “Yes—Captain William Talon—William 874. I hear I have to fix his legs.”
She was surprised to see Rachel’s hand suddenly appear on her arm to rub it gently.
“Do not…be afraid…I am…here,” Rachel said, forcing the words out as fast as she could.
Seetha nodded and smiled. The younger woman had a heart of gold. “Well, good then. You won’t have to worry about this one asking me out. If he remembers me at all, he’ll be as uncomfortable as I am about seeing him again.”
“Okay….No…flirt…ing,” Rachel ordered.
Seetha snorted. “Oh girl, no worries. I’ve seen William hundreds of times. The man creeps me out.”
***
Marcus was still a half hour from appearing, but she couldn’t wait any longer. There were others in her queue. Kyra supervised as two newly restored cyborgs helped lift Captain William Talon into the transport chair. She’d had it created expressly for restorations which had fallen short in the functional leg department. A sexy male voice interrupted her thinking.
“Don’t worry, Captain Talon. Engineer Harrington will get you working again in no time. And the female scenery in the prosthetics repair lab makes the time pass quite nicely while you’re being fixed.”
Kyra’s gaze moved from the sexy lieutenant to the morose Captain Talon, who didn’t respond to the mention of Seetha’s name, much less to the charming lieutenant’s joke. She patiently waited until he was firmly situated in the chair before interjecting into their conversation. Flanked by the two large men, the chair floated inches above the composite stone floor on a cushion of air. It was one of Seetha’s suggestions and had been a good one.
“Do you recall Engineer Seetha Harrington, Captain Talon?” Her first answer was his usual dismissive snort for every question she asked.
“Back to the memories…why should I remember her, Dr. Winters? I’m sure you’re just dying to tell me what else I have wrong with me.”
Kyra ignored his attitude to offer her zinger. “We pulled her out of the same work camp where we found you. In fact, Engineer Harrington is the reason you’re here.”
She watched William shake his head in denial. If possible, his frown got deeper. Glaring seemed to be the default setting for his gaze.
“Knowing the woman is involved in this clusterfuck does not make me anxious to meet her. You need to stop trying to reassure me. It’s not helpful.”
Kyra shrugged. “Well, you may not remember her, Captain, but Engineer Harrington definitely remembers you. Normally after an assimilation, you have near total recall of recent events. You told me you remembered helping the guard bots in the camp. Engineer Harrington reports she saw you nearly every day.”
“Are you calling me a liar, Dr. Winters?”
Kyra turned and met his pain-filled gaze. “No, I’m not. I’m just asking questions trying to solve the mystery of the first cyborg I have restored who didn’t get his memories back.”
Her comment was answered by another dismissive snort. “You worry about all the wrong the things…as do most people. You think people like me are the prisoners, when you’re all just hamsters in a giant cage. Well, I know what I am and I know what it takes to survive.”
Kyra nodded. “You’re not a prisoner any longer, Captain. You’re a survivor. I think you will eventually find out everyone you meet here is a survivor of one kind or another.”
She looked up and smiled at the male standing outside Seetha’s lab.
“Ah…Marcus…thank you for coming. I have to see to a couple of urgent matters. Will you help Seetha and Rachel with Captain Talon’s repairs and stay until I get back?”
“No problem, Doc. I’ll be happy to keep an eye on things.”
Kyra nodded with relief. “Wonderful. I’ll try to be back before Seetha finishes.”
Chapter 17
Marcus held the door open for the cyborg and his transport chair to pass through, nodding at the other two cyborg escorts who were now off the hook. After the man and chair were completely inside, they pointed at their backsides, trying to communicate to him that Captain Talon was a giant ass. He nodded and saluted, figuring they would know then that he got the message.
Rachel smiled as she saw Marcus duck his head and grin about something. It was amazing how a movement so simple could transform his face. Marcus so rarely showed happiness of any sort and she often forgot he could feel his emotions. She’d never met a more serious man.
Pulling her mind from her cyborg keeper, she reluctantly approached the handsome, but somber Captain Talon. She indicated to him to dock his chair in the space rigged for it. Though she’d heard Kyra talking about how deeply cynical the restored cyborg was, at the moment he was being polite, cooperative, and patient as he waited for Seetha to put in an appearance.
It wasn’t long before Seetha did arrive, huffing like she’d been running. Rachel inclined her head to the transport chair, but didn’t say anything. She was saving her voice and sparing her throat from the pain.
Seetha stopped abruptly in front of the chair and stared at the man, taking in the total picture. Her inner alarms went off, sending loud messages, which she unfortunately had to ignore. Her job was to repair the man, not to be afraid of him.
“Hello, William. In case you don’t recall who I am, I’m Engineer Harrington. I hear you’re having a problem with your cybernetic legs.”
William nodded. “Yes. I can feel my mind ordering them to work, but it isn’t happening. It’s like there’s a block between my brain and them.”
Seetha nodded, her gaze dropping to his muscular legs. William’s normal tone of voice was only half as scary as his cyborg one. Seetha set her qualms about him aside and relaxed as much as she could force herself to do. The presence of Rachel’s cyborg keeper—Marcus something or the other—offered marginal reassurance. She recalled he’d been one of the men in the group who’d helped free her. Still—she would have felt tons better if Kyra Winters could have been present.
“Okay. Let’s take some measurements and see what we can find out.”
Before she could ask, Rachel was there and holding out the Biomedical Scope Meter for her to use. “Thank you—scary, helpful assistant of mine.”
Rachel smiled briefly at her teasing. Finally, she took the meter, calibrated the setting she needed to read, then pointed it at William’s legs. When it sounded an alert for the finished task, she saved the information and pointed it at his head, specifically at the side which held his cybernetic compartment. The alert sounded again and her jaw dropped a l
ittle as she compared both readings.
She smacked the meter against her hand before looking at a frustrated William. “The readings say your legs are fine. I assume you would disagree.”
William snorted. “Do I look fine to you? I can’t fucking walk. Did you get your engineering degree from one of those cheap-ass online schools?”
Seetha narrowed her gaze. “No. Why? Did you pay them too much for your nasty attitude class, and now you can’t get your money back?”
William snorted and grinned. “Okay. Nothing wrong with your sense of humor, I see. That’s actually refreshing in this sorry-ass place.”
Seetha stared into a gaze she could see once again didn’t recognize her. It seemed like she was destined to interact with cyborgs who’d forgotten who she was. Responding to his blank expression, she fell into the old habit of ignoring his memory loss.
“You should be grateful for this place, William. Tomorrow you might actually remember me for once. We’re finally out of that damn work camp, and no one is going to wipe your data storage anymore.”
“Yeah. That’s the myth I keep hearing,” William said, frowning at the floor.
“If these readings are correct, I think your leg problem is more of a glitch than a real issue. I need to get into your cybernetics compartment and pull your prosthetics chip to see if it’s a circuit gone bad. I haven’t seen that particular problem happen to any restored cyborg yet, but it’s the first possibility we need to rule out. It would explain the blocked signal if the chip is defective.”
“Defective? This body passed up being defective when I became a prisoner of war. Now I’m nothing but a junk metal heap with part of a real brain.”
Seetha snorted. “Fortunately for you, I specialize in fixing those. Rodney was some of my best work.”
“Rodney who?”
Seetha walked away to search for the tools she needed. “That wasn’t his ID—I just called him that. You might remember him. He was a common companion at your side. Rodney was AI Unit G356, who is no more to be found in this world. That metal head has gone to the great junk heap in the sky, if you happen to believe in the afterlife.”
“Metal head,” William repeated, putting both hands on his head as the intense pain shot through him.
“Man, that headache looks bad. I’ll work fast so Dr. Winters can address it for you.”
She carried her tools back to William’s chair and held out the one she routinely used to extract chips. “Here’s what I’ll be using to work on you. Is it okay if I remove your chip and get a reading directly from it?”
“Wait…” William winced as he stared at her. “I do remember. AI Unit G356 was bringing you to me. Why? God—my head is killing me. What am I supposed to do? Tell me the last thing you remember him saying to you,” William demanded, dropping his gaze from hers to stare at his unmoving legs.
Seetha thought it was an odd question, but decided to answer it. Her memories of the camp were awful, but it would be worse to not know what happened there.
“He said you had been programmed to relocate me. Frankly, I took that statement to mean permanently and with no forwarding address, so I ran away from him…and you,” Seetha said softly.
“Yes. I remember it now. And I know what I’m supposed to do,” William said firmly, lowering his hands as his head finally stopped pounding. “Engineer Harrington…you have been determined to be a criminal and a threat to global security. I have orders to end your life and prevent you from further contact with people you might harm. Compliant with authorization MD458J93 I hereby carry out my assigned task. In accordance with UCN mandate 965 of the annihilation statues, I will be as merciful and as quick as possible.”
In shock over his firm statements regarding her criminal status, Seetha dropped her tool-filled hands and stared at the glassy-eyed cyborg still seated in the chair. “I don’t understand, William. Who gave you orders? I was never a criminal. I was a prisoner in the work camp just like you.”
She still didn’t understand, even when William stood up unassisted. Her shocked gaze dropped to his perfectly functional legs before rising again to his merciless glare in total surprise. Dumbly, all she could think was her equipment hadn’t been malfunctioning after all. Somehow the cyborg had been faking his leg problem.
She watched his eyes darting back and forth, his eyelids fluttering as he lifted a hand and stretched it out.
Before she could react and back away from his reach, her body was literally lifted and tossed across the room. Luckily the hand doing that to her had come from her back, not her front. Rachel was suddenly at her side, arriving just as she lifted her now thumping head from the hard floor. Her hand went to her scalp where a bump was forming already. They watched William touch Marcus in the chest. Some kind of current flowed from one cyborg into the other, but both shook like they had hold of electrical wires.
“Stop it, William. You’re killing him,” Seetha yelled, struggling to her feet with Rachel’s help.
But it was too late, Marcus seized a final time and dropped like a stone. William looked at the fallen man, grabbed his head with both hands, and groaned in genuine agony. Apparently, his headache had returned full force. He yelled…loudly…before speaking more calmly.
“No…no. This is wrong—all wrong. Pain. Have to stop the pain. Must kill Seetha Harrington.”
Before she could stop her, Rachel left her side and approached the malfunctioning cyborg.
“William 874…I am…Rachel 235. How…may I…assist…you?”
Seetha watched in terror as William held his head and rocked. He opened his eyes and looked at Rachel who was standing on the other side of the fallen Marcus.
“Head pain…can’t…stop it. Fucking…orders…” he said.
“I can help…wait here,” Rachel said succinctly, turning slowly and robotically as she walked to the tools table.
Stunned by the girl’s intervention into the scene, Seetha watched as Rachel sorted through the items on the table. Her attention was soon drawn back to William though when she felt his gaze focusing on her again. She backed up two steps, just as he started toward her.
Then suddenly William was jerking and flailing all his limbs. Spasms rocked him from head to toe. Seconds later, her cyborg hit man was a motionless heap on the floor beside Marcus. Behind the fallen William, a terrified Rachel held a high voltage discharger in her trembling hands. Seetha ran around both downed men to clasp a now shaking Rachel in her arms.
“Oh Goddess—thank you—thank you. I thought I was a gone girl for sure,” Seetha said, hugging her tightly. “Now run and get help, baby. I’ll run too if I see William coming around again.”
She turned loose of Rachel and ran to check vitals on Marcus. Rachel paused and looked down at Marcus on her way to the door. Seetha glanced up. “It’s okay, I think. His pulse is steady, but he’s out completely. Kyra will know how to bring him around. From what I can tell, he’s still very much alive.”
Rachel nodded then and walked quickly to the door and out it.
Seetha felt her heart accelerating as she realized she was now alone. But she reluctantly moved to William. Touching the man who tried to kill her twice was going to give her more nightmares, but she needed to know if he was dead, or just faking it like he had his leg problem.
She felt on his neck and found a pulse. Okay—he was knocked out, but still alive. Now she was for sure living on borrowed time if she was present when he found consciousness again.
When the lab door burst open, it turned out to be a panicked King, followed by an anxious Peyton and Eric. King glared at the men on the floor and at her before rushing over and lifting her free of the fallen bodies.
“It’s okay. I’m fine,” she whispered, hugging him back.
The scariest male she’d ever seen in her life was shaking in fear. She didn’t like it. She moved her lips along his tight jaw before whispering in his ear.
“Put me down now, Kingston. I have things to do here. Yes, William trie
d to kill me again…but something’s not right about it. I have to try and figure it out.”
Peyton glanced frantically around. “Where’s Kyra? Why isn’t she here?”
“She’s working elsewhere. We had a full house today. King, turn me loose so I can think,” Seetha demanded, slapping his shoulders and squirming free.
She froze when Peyton’s gaze came to hers.
“Can you pull programming chips?”
Seetha nodded at the question. “Yes. I sometimes have to program a chip directly in order to fix a problem. I memorized all the standard chips a cyborg has so I would know what each did.”
“Good. Pull Captain Talon’s damn military chip. Take it completely out, but try not to destroy it. I want Kyra and Nero to look at it,” Peyton said.
Seetha glanced at Peyton, just as Rachel appeared nearby with the tools she needed. She turned to the woman. “Better rest your voice box. We’re going to be doing a lot of talking later.”
Stooping to the fallen man, Seetha felt for the release of his cybernetic panel. Once opened, she quickly found the military chip. On extraction, she saw the chip was connected to a set of three wires so thin they were nearly invisible to the naked eye.
“What the hell is this?” she demanded, moving the chip carefully so she could get to the wires for a closer look. “Rachel, bring me an ammeter.”
When it was handed over, Seetha placed it on the wires. The amperage was much higher than it looked like the wires could carry.
She glanced up at Peyton and Eric, who were bent over Marcus checking his vitals. “Is Marcus okay? He saved my life.”
“He’s alive. Okay is relative. His body is pulsing—that’s what it does to heal itself,” Eric said. He glanced at William and nodded to him with his chin. “Captain Talon is likely doing the same thing. Self-healing is part of being a cyborg.”
Profoundly relieved for Marcus…and mildly relieved for William as well…Seetha sighed over Eric’s pronouncement. Then she turned a curious gaze to Peyton. “What prompted you to suggest pulling his military chip?” She watched Peyton and Eric exchange strange looks.
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