by Lisa Lace
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“It might be a good thing if he did, in a way,” John argued. “It would mean that he’s safe, and he hasn’t been arrested or injured.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” But it wasn’t enough to convince her to stop worrying. Whether Fury left of his own volition or not, she needed to know the truth.
“Well, make sure you tell me what you find out.” John ended the conversation, leaving Natasha alone in the horrible silence of the house.
The quiet didn’t last for long. When there was a knock at the door, Natasha’s heart leaped into her throat and spilled a copper taste over her tongue. Was it Fury? Had he forgotten his key?
It was Nick again. He had recovered from his drunken binge and stood straight and confident in front of the door. He looked relaxed, hooking his thumbs into the tops of his pants pockets. Nick always looked like he was wearing the same clothes: a tight, black band t-shirt with ripped jeans. Natasha couldn’t believe she had ever married him.
“Did you need another copy of the divorce papers?” she asked innocently, noticing they weren’t in his hand and wondering if the attorney had received them yet.
“No, I still have my first set. But I came here for the complete opposite reason.” He walked into the house without being invited and looked around, scrutinizing the room and imagining how much money he could get for the contents at auction. “I can’t sign those papers. As I’ve said before, I want you back with me.”
Natasha didn’t close the door, hoping Nick would realize he wasn’t welcome. “And as I’ve said before, I’m not interested. I’m not dumb enough to go back to someone who cheated on me. Since you think I’m a filthy whore, maybe you shouldn’t want to get back together with me either.”
Nick folded his skinny frame down onto the couch. He leaned against the back cushion and spread his arms out wide, looking every bit the king of the castle. “I thought that for a minute, myself. But then I found out what happened in this house. I know your secret, and you’re going to move back in with me unless you want everyone else to know about it.”
“Did you find out about me? It’s true, I never make spaghetti sauce from scratch, and I drink decaf.” Natasha was nervous, and Nick was making her grasp at straws. She didn’t want to give anything away. Nick could be referring to anything.
Her husband threw his head back and laughed. “It’s nothing that simple, and you know it. Shut the damn door so we can talk.”
The nurse looked down at the doorknob in her hand. Closing the door would mean sealing herself in with someone repulsive. She wasn’t sure she could sit on the middle cushion of the couch after Nick had touched it with his ass. But if he was talking about Fury, she didn’t want to risk a neighbor walking by and overhearing the conversation. She decided to close it slowly but stayed nearby in case she needed to bolt out of the door.
“Don’t look like you’re afraid of me,” Nick reprimanded. “I’m your husband, after all. And you’re coming back.”
“You keep saying that. Why don’t you get to the point?”
Nick leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as a grin spread across his face. “I know about your buddy. I know he isn’t a legal cyborg - and that he hasn’t been fixing anything.”
A chill spread over Natasha’s skin as she stared at the unwanted guest in her living room. Her vision dimmed around the edges. She felt like sitting down, but that would mean letting go of the doorknob and getting closer to Nick. It would also mean admitting he was right.
“Quit making things up. Your lies aren’t going to get me back.” As soon as she spoke, Natasha could hear the hoarseness in her voice. Nick had her trapped.
“There were an awful lot of people who lost their jobs at Cyborg Sector when it shut down. Your father wasn’t the only one affected. Those people have had to go out into the world and find other jobs. Believe it or not, some of them come in and drink at my bar. Do you know what happens when a man gets drunk?”
“Of course I do. He sleeps with his employees.” Natasha wondered if Nick would reveal his cards before she showed any of hers.
“He starts talking.” Nick answered the question himself. “The more beers you set in front of him, the more he says. Make a few of them beers free, and you can find out anything you desire. You see, you think I’m in the alcohol business, but I’m really in the information business. I’ve learned enough to bring down several large companies this afternoon if I wanted to.” He sat back again, looking confident.
In the logical part of her brain, Natasha thought he was exaggerating. He might know a few things, but he was the kind of man who always felt he needed to have the upper hand in every interaction. Still, she listened carefully.
“Colin White comes into my bar all the time, and he helped me put the pieces together. Your friend is an illegal cyborg, isn’t he? You’ve broken a lot of laws and violated ethical codes that Cyborg Sector won’t be happy about. You might spend time in jail, and they’re going to kill your pet, of course. I don’t think you want any of that to happen, do you?” He cocked a blonde eyebrow at Natasha.
Nick looked disgustingly happy. He had her over a barrel, and there was no point in denying it. Natasha wished she could knock the smug look right off of his ugly face. How had she ever let herself care for someone who was so cruel inside? He knew that Fury’s life was at stake, but he wasn’t the least bit concerned.
“I think there’s even more to this story, too, but I’m still researching it. I do know that there are reports that have come in about something roaming the neighborhood at night. Tell me, my gorgeous wife, do you have any idea what it has been doing out there unsupervised?”
Reports? Had someone seen Fury? Natasha had been content to fall into a pattern of existing side by side with the cyborg. Why hadn’t she asked him about his nightly trips? At the very least, he hadn’t been careful enough.
“What do you want?” Natasha leaned heavily on the doorknob.
“I think you know. I’ve told you time and again, but you don’t listen to me.” He stood up from the couch and crossed the room to her. Nick only stood a half a head taller than Natasha, but he could be intimidating when he wanted to be. His eyes danced with a cold light. “You’re coming back to me. Get your stuff back into my house.”
Before she could react or back away, Nick smacked a wet kiss onto her lips. He put a hand on the doorknob, covering hers as he turned his hand roughly and pulled the door open. “Two days, my love.”
Natasha slammed the door and locked it, then ran to the kitchen to wash out her mouth.
Chapter Twenty-Six
John showed up at Natasha’s house that evening with Chinese takeout and a bulky shoulder bag. He looked as disheveled as she felt, with wrinkled clothes and bags under his eyes. The tech studied her face for only a moment before coming in and setting his things down. He knew from the look on her face there had been no word of Fury.
Natasha had spent the afternoon berating herself. She should have given Fury a phone or made him take hers. She could have put up more resistance about him leaving the house. Maybe she should have moved to a remote location in Canada, where people were more sympathetic to the cyborg cause. However she looked at it, there was something she could have done differently.
But there was also the fact that the cyborg only did what he wanted to do. He probably wouldn’t have taken a phone even if Natasha had insisted, and they’d already fought enough about him going outside. And Canada? Fury didn’t think he had anything to hide.
“What’s all that stuff?” Natasha asked as she took the food from him and gestured at the bag on the loveseat.
John ran his hand through his brown hair and adjusted his glasses before he spoke. “I thought I would take a nap this afternoon after I got off the phone with you. I’d been up late working on my book, and I’d only had a few hours of sleep before you called.”
“I didn’t mean to inconvenience you.”
“No, no. You don’t need to apologize. I couldn’t fall asleep because I was thinking about Fury. There’s still more to learn about him. We know he’s not a typical cyborg. We haven’t determined why.”
Natasha paused in the doorway to the kitchen. It was something she hadn’t thought about before. “Wasn’t it because he was dangerous and had violent urges? All of Dad’s logs stated he lost control whenever he went into the field. They couldn’t work with him.” She carried the takeout boxes to the table and began opening them.
John followed her. “The explanation sounds good, but it’s pretty vague when you stop and think about it. Why did Fury have this problem? It isn’t typical for cyborgs.”
Natasha paused with her hands on a pair of chopsticks as she thought about John’s words. A flush of shame burned her cheeks. Why hadn’t she thought about such things before? She had accepted the soldier for what he was without questioning why. Even her father’s notes hadn’t provided insight on this topic. Was there something he knew that she didn’t?
“You understand, don’t you?” John’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “I felt like an idiot when I realized I had never looked into it closely before. All the cyborgs used to be humans, and that gives them an unpredictable element. I began to wonder if Fury was a man with anger issues before he became part of Cyborg Sector or if there was a different reason. What if we did something to him and made him this way?”
John fetched the bag from the living room and pulled out a laptop computer. He pushed aside the cartons on the table to make room for it, spilling a container of soup in his efforts but only halfheartedly wiping it up with a thin napkin. “There was one other thing I didn’t understand. If a software upgrade and a little bit of work with Fury were enough to help him regain his humanity, then why hadn’t your father done it himself? Dr. Daniels was a brilliant scientist. No offense, but I don’t see how you and I together could accomplish something he couldn’t.”
Natasha finally found her voice again. “That’s a lot to think about.” She tossed a handful of paper napkins on the spilled soup, determined to clean it up before it made a stain.
“Exactly. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. In my mind, I saw a programmed killer named Fury out on the streets, and it didn’t make sense to me. I went out of my way to speak with the guy from Cyborg Sector I was telling you about.” John had his laptop open and was typing quickly on the keyboard.
“The one who can hack the system?”
“That’s the one. He seemed to know a lot about what went on behind the scenes, which makes sense considering he was their chief computer technician. After he spent some time snooping around the files, he managed to find this.” John lifted the laptop to show Natasha the screen.
Natasha sat down to look at the file carefully. It was a profile from Cyborg Sector on a soldier named FY-485. The first things that caught her eye were the letters at the beginning of the serial number. She thought they were used to designate the source of a body. ADs were from the army, MDs from the general military, and PDs were private donors. It was rare to encounter a PD, but she had never heard of an FY before. Had the cyborg been a special donor? Was it someone who wouldn’t usually qualify for the cyborg program - but got pushed through due to a large monetary donation or political influence? The prefix FY sounded like someone’s idea of a bad joke.
She began reading the intake and procedural details on the profile. The man had been in a car accident and suffered massive internal damage. He needed cybernetic organs to survive, but muscles, and skin would regenerate given enough time. A surgeon named Colin White had operated on FY-485, upgrading the failing body parts. The notes indicated that the biochip did not line up correctly with the neurological pathways in the subject’s brain, but Dr. White had still managed to make the operation a success. There were many more paragraphs, but her eyes were growing tired.
“I don’t understand.” Natasha pulled herself away from the screen. “What exactly am I reading here?”
“This is the original file for FY-485, who is currently known as Fury. It was encrypted and hidden so it wouldn’t be visible if anyone looked for it casually. But my connection knows how to find things like this, and he was able to break the encryption for me. The profile visible to everyone else — including your father — looks like this.” With a few keystrokes, John brought up a different page.
The cyborg’s serial number was the same, as was the intake date. The written information, however, was far shorter and less detailed. The only thing Natasha could discern from the profile was that the cyborg had cybernetic organs, an enhanced skeleton, and a plasma gun in his hand. Natasha already knew this about Fury. She had learned it from her father’s files.
“There’s almost nothing here.” The nurse sounded frustrated and confused.
“Exactly. The surgeon had a problem when he started operating. The doctor would have had to make an accurate record of the surgery as it happened since the assistants have to sign off on the operation. He put it into the system as it was, let everyone see it, and slipped a little cash into a cubicle to have it encrypted and a new document put in its place.”
“Okay.” Natasha tapped her fingertips against her lips as she thought about John’s revelation. The biochip wasn’t a perfect match for the cyborg, and going through with the procedure might have contributed to his vicious personality. “But how did the update help him? If his brain was affected by the surgery, wouldn’t the changes persist despite any software changes?”
John grinned. “I think we got lucky. I couldn’t specialize the update for Fury because he wasn’t in the system at the rehabilitation center. They only track cyborgs who have entered the release program. My theory is that using software designed for someone with a successfully implanted biochip changed something fundamental about Fury. If we had downloaded the proper software, he would still be just as violent as before.”
“That seems like a one-in-a-million chance.” The redhead stared at the computer screen without absorbing anything. “How can something like that happen?”
“It’s the human element we can’t control. The update happened to be a perfect match for Fury. Just like matching up various factors for organ transplants, some things are compatible with people in a surprising way. I don’t have any proof, of course, but it’s the best theory I have, and it fits the facts.” The tech’s eyes shone brightly. He was thrilled to have a theory about the cyborg. It was too bad he could never reveal it to the world without exposing Fury.
“This sounds crazy.” Natasha ran her hands over her eyes and tipped her head up at the ceiling.
“We’re just getting started. I have more things to show you.” John went back to work on the computer, closing the documents he had pulled up and opening something new. “I thought about something else when I spoke to you this morning, but I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure. The soldiers from Cyborg Sector were designed to be robots and blindly follow commands.”
“Right. That’s why I was having problems with Fury in the beginning. He didn’t always listen to me.” Natasha shifted in her seat, impatient to see what John had discovered.
“They also had trackers embedded into their bodies. They helped the cyborgs position themselves correctly on the battlefield and made it possible for human commanders to know their location. The release program never removes the tracker. Even if they did, Fury never went through the official release process.” John turned the computer to Natasha again and pointed at the screen.
Numerous biometric readings illuminated the screen. “Do I see what I think I’m seeing?”
“Absolutely,” John confirmed. “We can’t determine his precise location yet, but we can verify Fury is alive.”
“That’s amazing!” For the first time that day, Natasha felt a sense of relief. She thought her head might float right off her shoulders and bump against the ceiling. Even though Natasha would have given anything to have Fury sitting with them at the dining table, he w
as still alive. The knowledge gave her hope, and she was going to hold on to it as long as possible.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Fury strode down the dark sidewalk waiting for something to happen. Ever since he saved the girl in the alleyway, he had hungered for the next taste of adrenaline in his blood. He knew this was what he was meant to do. The cyborg understood what his life had been before the pain and the operations. His life had been larger than he had imagined, and probably bigger than Natasha knew.
He had considered telling her the truth. It was a revelation to discover he had worked on the police force. Natasha would have wanted to know that, but he was waiting for the right opportunity to tell her. Whenever Fury decided to open up to her, he would also have to explain what he hoped to do every time he walked out the door. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and there was no point in making her worry. He wasn’t going to stop, no matter what anyone thought.
The rest of the first night had been quiet. The cyborg had been unable to find anyone else in need of assistance. But his failure only drove him to look harder the next time he went out. The neighborhood was more peaceful than before. Soft lights glowed from the houses around him. A dog barked in the distance, and a loud television blared through an open window. Everything felt normal.
Fury’s mind drifted back to the previous night’s escapades. They had taken place in a residential area only a few blocks from Natasha’s house, and he was eager to see the rest of the town. The tall streetlights, made to look like old-fashioned gaslights, had already been turned off for the evening. The traffic signals blinked red for the few cars on the street at the late hour. Downtown, stores stretched across either side of the road, offering pet supplies, dental services, and used clothing.