by Lisa Lace
“There’s no need to be insulting.” Natasha looked at the cyborg for the first time since they had come to the basement. “He’s not a monster.” He certainly didn’t look like one. With his bulging arms, strong legs, and lantern jaw, he could have been mistaken for a hard-working soldier or a great underwear model.
“Okay, let’s try a different question. How far did Neil get into the cyborg process? Is he weaponized?” John looked incredibly frustrated as he studied the man in the box.
Natasha tried to recall everything she had read in the reports about Fury. She had pored over them until well past midnight, trying to figure out everything her father had done to the soldier. “I think so. He’s got a standard-issue plasma gun in his right hand. He has an enhanced skeleton as well.”
John nodded. “All of that seems relatively standard. What about cybernetic parts?”
“All internal.” More of the information from the laptop was coming back to her now that John was interrogating her. “He had several organs replaced when they brought him into the project.”
The tech started fishing through his tool bag. “His software is going to be complicated. The cyborgs with artificial arms or legs are simple. Replacement organs require a more sophisticated chip that is capable of keeping their emotions in check.” He pulled out a tiny monitor and turned it on.
Natasha frowned. “It’s a shame. I wish those damn things could just be removed.”
“You and I both know that’s impossible,” John replied, moving closer to the soldier and examining his life support system carefully with the monitor. “The implantation process is too deep into their psyche for that. Sometimes it can even affect their brains, resulting in terrible anger.” He frowned at the results on the monitor.
The nurse nodded. Natasha had seen older cyborgs firsthand whose chips had begun to wear down. Equipment failure did not only cut them off from their cybernetic interfaces, leaving them feeling lost and uncertain, it could produce an effect in cyborgs similar to brain damage. Accounts frequently came in about soldiers whose higher-level activity was steadily decreasing. It was only a matter of time before the Cyborg Rehabilitation Center included a nursing home addition.
“So do you think you can help him?” she asked hopefully.
John shrugged. “It’s tough to say. Maybe. It’s going to require a lot of research and a little experimentation. Unfortunately, the software that he needs is not something we can download off the Internet. It’s military-grade, and FY-485’s is more complicated than what you’ll find in the majority of our cyborgs. I’m going to have to get it from work.” His mouth formed a thin line as he thought about the task ahead of him.
“Is it something I can get for you?” Natasha offered. “He’s my problem, and I don’t want you to lose your job over me.”
John shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We have the software in the Tech Department, and it would be far more conspicuous for you to come down there to get it than me. I should be able to load it onto a portable drive and bring it over here.”
“Okay.” They stood in silence for a while, thinking about the future. “There’s something else I should tell you about him.”
“Yeah?”
Now it was Natasha’s turn to look uncomfortable. “When I came down here yesterday, Fury was awake. I hadn’t done anything to him or touched his life support system. I’m sure he opened his eyes and looked right at me.”
John had put the monitor back in his bag and was fishing around for something else, but after Natasha spoke, he stopped and stared at her openly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“He was awake. I was down here looking around, trying to figure out what to do, and I’m sure he opened his eyes.” Natasha immediately regretted repeating herself. John knew exactly what she said the first time. “My husband was here trying to start a fight with me. Do you think the noise might have woken him up?”
“Probably not. The cells are designed to be soundproof. And you know they’re not asleep, despite what it looks like to us. They’re not active. Even if they heard noises, they’re not going to get up without receiving the activation signal on their computer. Maybe you shouldn’t be staying here. I don’t want to be here myself! If FY-485 is self-activating, there’s no telling what he will do. What if he opens his cell in the middle of the night?” John shook his head vigorously as he zipped up his tool bag.
“I’ve thought about that possibility. But he’s been here for the last six months and he hasn’t done anything renegade like that so far. Do you think it’s likely that he’ll start with me?” Natasha hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. If Fury freed himself and went rampaging throughout the city, there was no chance of keeping him a secret.
John was visibly sweating now. “I don’t think there’s much I can do today. I’ll need to look a few things up in the manuals, and I didn’t bring the right tools. Working on a cyborg requires different instruments than installing a television.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t like lying to you. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t call up a coworker and ask him to come check out my cyborg over the weekend.” Natasha winced, hoping he wasn’t too upset.
As unsettled as John was by the cyborg in the basement, he didn’t seem upset with Natasha at all. “That’s all right. But I think I should go home and start working on a couple of plans.”
“Do you need the information from Dad’s computer? There is plenty of stuff in there about Fury.”
“Sure, that would help.” John followed Natasha back up the stairs to Neil’s study, where she had left the computer.
She dug in the desk drawer for a flash drive, inspired by John’s mention of one and reluctant to hand over the entire laptop. “It will just take a minute,” she assured him. “The files are all located in one spot.”
“No problem. But I want to ask you something while you’re rooting around in there.”
Plugging the flash drive into the side of the computer and opening up the file explorer, Natasha nodded for him to go ahead.
“I noticed on the cyborg’s cell that his identification number has been scratched out. I know everyone had a nickname for this cyborg. Is that what you call him when you give him commands? Fury?”
She thought about the cyborg standing in the cage. John sounded worried about his name. “Sure. I was surprised by it at first, too, but Dad started using that name, and it stuck. I guess it’s a little violent, but it suits him. Looking at Fury now, I can’t imagine calling him anything else.”
John nodded uncertainly, took the flash drive, and promised to keep in touch. When Natasha showed him out the door, she closed it behind him and leaned back against it. What had she gotten John into? The poor guy was a sweetheart and didn’t deserve to get dragged into a scandal. But she had to do something to help Fury. She refused to let him just rot in the basement. And it wasn’t a good thing he was self-activating, if John’s reaction meant anything.
CHAPTER 10
Unable to think of anything except the cyborg, Natasha went back into the basement. It felt different down there now that she had shown it to John. It wasn’t a private place hidden from the world any longer. Someone else knew about it.
Natasha crossed the room and pressed her hands against the cell. Sharing the secret with John had made her bolder. She wasn’t sure why, but now she hoped the cyborg would open his eyes again. She wanted to see the valiant look in his eyes she had only gotten a glimpse of the night before. In the instant when he had looked at her, he had bored straight into her soul.
She knew she was making a mistake, but entered the code onto the keypad despite her reservations. Her father had been able to bring Fury all the way out of Cyborg Sector into his home, only tranquilizing him for the actual van ride. Surely it couldn’t hurt to have the cyborg out in the basement for a few minutes. Her father had done it, and according to his logs, nothing had happened.
The cell door released, triggering the life support
system to activate the cyborg. In a few seconds, his eyes opened once again. The ocean blue eyes tunneled into her, sending bolts of energy through her body. She stepped closer, intrigued and wanting more. Her lips parted, unsure of what she should do next.
Fury averted his gaze suddenly, staring off into the distance over her head as all cyborgs were trained to do in Cyborg Sector. The spell was broken. He was nothing more than a soldier in a box.
Standing close to Fury, Natasha reached around his brawny body and unhooked the life support system. She gently disconnected the wire that attached to his biochip. Now he was fully autonomous.
“Fury. I am Natasha Daniels. Do you understand me?” She had never worked in Cyborg Sector, but she knew the basics of protocol exchange after activating a cyborg. Now she wished she had remembered to ask John if he could reprogram Fury and make him recognize her as a superior. It was too late now.
“Yes, sir.” His voice was deep and intense. It reverberated through her chest and sent thrills through her core.
“Come out of your cell and stand in the middle of the room, please.” It didn’t hurt to be polite to an illicit cyborg, right?
“Yes, sir.” Without hesitation, Fury stepped out of the clear plastic box and continued moving forward until he was in the center of the room. He stopped, eyes looking straight ahead.
“Thank you.” Natasha circled him, taking in his sturdy frame, sculpted chest, smooth buttocks, and powerful arms. He stood over a head taller than her, making her feel like they were a different species. She had to remind herself that he had been a human once.
There was some work Natasha could do on her own without John. It would help if she had access to medical equipment. Her father had only equipped the laboratory with research gear. She needed syringes to take blood samples. An MRI machine would be even better. Natasha didn’t even have a stethoscope. She wanted to know everything about Fury’s fabulous body, both inside and out.
For the time being, she had to use her hands and eyes. “I’m going to take your pulse. I promise it won’t hurt. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
Gingerly, she pressed two fingers against the inside of his wrist. Fury’s heart pounded inside him, sending blood through his veins like a raging river. Natasha felt her heart rate rising to match his. His pulse seemed unnaturally quick considering that he was only standing, and it sent a rush of excitement through the nurse.
“Okay.” She released his wrist from her trembling grip. “That’s all I can do today. Return to your cell, please.”
The cyborg stood stock-still, as though he hadn’t heard her. She decided to repeat herself. “Fury, return to your cell.”
The moment of silence from the soldier stretched out uncomfortably. How could Natasha cage a beast that was twice her size and refused to obey? Finally, he opened his mouth. “Yes, sir.” He turned and stepped back into the box, backing in so she could reconnect him to the life support system.
“Thank you.” Natasha breathed the words. Her hands shook so badly that she almost couldn’t hook up all the wires and tubes. She closed the door and pushed it until she heard a click - then pushed it again just to be sure it was closed.
“Goodnight, Fury.”
CHAPTER 11
Deep in the middle of the night, when the excitement of the day had dissipated, there was a stirring in the basement of the Daniels house. Natasha had gone to sleep long before.
Fury’s interface turned itself on without being activated. A bright green box that focused on and identified the objects around him overlaid everything. Fury queried his system for any new information, but his library was months old. The only fresh data was his interaction with the woman. He began to process the day’s events.
Fury had not seen Neil Daniels for days. He didn’t know where Dr. Daniels was, and no one had assigned him a new commander. Without a clear chain of command, Fury was prepared to start giving himself orders, if necessary. But the woman called herself a similar name, and he was willing to play along with her. Fury had seen Natasha here before, but she hadn’t acted like a superior. She had screamed and flailed like he was pointing a weapon at her.
After Natasha had disappeared up the stairs, she had briefly reappeared to retrieve a device from the work table. He had been programmed with a directive long ago to avoid looking anyone in the eye. He saw no reason to disobey this command, but he remained aware of her presence.
Her uniform looked nothing like that of his previous commander. Fury activated his scanners to learn more about this new superior officer. She wore tiny garments underneath her outfit. One of them wrapped around her waist and clung tightly to her ass. In the front, it dipped down between her legs. The structure of wire and fabric she wore around the top supported a pair of perky, round breasts. His infrared filter revealed that these articles of clothing covered the hottest parts of her body. He was not able to finish a complete analysis before she disappeared again.
When the woman returned, Fury once again used his system to process her. Facial recognition did not register her, and he could not download external information about her. His computers were active but not connected to the network. He was going to need time to evaluate her thoroughly.
She ordered him to leave his cell. Fury followed orders and stepped to the center of the room. Just as he was about to scan her again, his system shut down. He had no files to access, no directives, and even his weapons system was down. He was alone.
The woman touched his arm with light and gentle fingers. He could feel her pulse, slow and steady before it increased to a quickening staccato rhythm until it synchronized with his. She watched a small device on her wrist as she went through this process, but he could not understand the purpose of it.
“Return to your cell, please,” she said.
Fury didn’t move. His built-in computer did not give him a precalculated conclusion. He was not sure if he should obey or disobey the woman. Something began to invade his thoughts. It was an idea that didn’t come from his processor. Before the seed could germinate in his mind, his interface activated again. It warmed up immediately and put the ever-present green boxes around potential targets. Though nothing in his system required him to follow the woman’s orders, he had complied so far.
He decided to return to his cell as ordered. The woman had to lean into the box so she could reattach him to the machinery. He could feel the brush of her hair and smell her scent. The woman’s breath felt hot against his neck as she leaned in closely to connect his biochip. Her entire body trembled, quivering against him as she worked.
A wave of heat took over his body, emanating from between his legs and rising through his body. His interface, which alerted him about any major malfunctions in his body, didn’t register an anomaly. Fury had no name for the sensation and no orders telling him what to do.
The cell door closed, and the life support system deactivated him before he could perform further analysis.
CHAPTER 12
Too distracted to focus on her job, Natasha struggled through the beginning of the work-week. She barely listened to her patients when they came into the exam room, instead finding herself preoccupied with looking at the hard bodies under civilian clothes. Some had discovered a great enthusiasm for food, beer, or both, and their once fit bodies were beginning to go soft. For the out-of-shape cyborgs, Natasha prescribed a demanding regimen of vigorous exercise.
There were others whose only hobbies were continuing to train like they were still soldiers. They had straight spines, firm arm muscles, and broad shoulders. They reminded Natasha of the cyborg in her basement, whose toned body couldn’t be hidden by any clothing.
The line of thought made her realize that Fury was shockingly fit despite his time away from Cyborg Sector. Natasha wondered if her father had let him out to exercise. She would have to review the logs again.
“What do you think I should do?” The patient’s question startled Natasha back to reality.
; “I’m sure everything will be okay. The real world can be a big adjustment,” Natasha blurted out. She had a canned response to almost every problem presented by her patients. They could solve most of their problems with perspective and time, but she didn’t want to let a deranged cyborg slip through the program either. “Why don’t you go over your symptoms with me again?”
After Natasha had finished talking to the cyborg, she returned to the front desk and looked at her schedule for the rest of the afternoon. “Rough day?” Brittney asked.
“You could say that. I’m not sleeping well. I can’t seem to keep my attention on my patients.” Natasha slumped against the counter as she scanned the appointment chart.
“That’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot. You have to give yourself time. Don’t forget that we’re going out tonight.”
“What? I think I forgot already.”
Brittney sighed. She had expected this reaction. “Mexican and margaritas with the girls, remember? You already said you would go, so you can’t back out now.”
“Oh, right.” It was only a vague memory at this point. They had scheduled the outing before John had come over, and her brain had been too full in the meantime to think about girls night out.
“It’s going to be great. You’ll see!”
When Natasha pulled up to The Spicy Jalapeno on the south side of town, she wasn’t sure anything was going to be great. The restaurant was strung with many small lights, and colorful signs hung everywhere reminding patrons of the drink specials. The atmosphere reminded her of an eternal Cinco de Mayo, and it turned her stomach. Finding the rest of her group was easy. They sat at a long table in the center of the room where young, dark men were already putting large glasses of alcohol into their hands.
“Yay! Natasha! I’m so glad you’re here!” Brittney jumped up to give her a hug. “Sergio, get my girl the biggest margarita you have!” The young waiter grinned and hurried off to the kitchen to comply.
“I’m not drinking too much tonight, Brittney. I still have to drive home.”