Freaks in the City (3 page)

“Jay’s right,” Michael said. “Your mom’s got
a lot on her mind. She’s not been herself lately. Don’t worry, I’ll
talk her ’round.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Given Marissa’s vehemence, Jay did not
believe Michael would be successful in “talking her ’round”.

Michael must have read her doubt because he
said, “From what I hear, she liked you well enough before she
learned you weren’t human.”

“Yes,” Jay said, because it was true. But it
was also true that Marissa’s previous “like” did not count for
anything at present.

They both walked Michael to the door and
waved him off. Jay shut the door after him and considered how best
to broach the deafening silence. “That went well,” she finally
said.

Tyler grabbed her ’round the waist and drew
her in close, resting his chin atop her head. Jay cuddled into his
chest. She liked this position. She analyzed her responses, her
feelings
, and decided it made her feel… safe. Loved.

“I was being sarcastic,” she felt compelled
to tell him.

“I kinda got that.” His chuckle vibrated
through his chest and she felt the tension in his muscles
dissipate. A wave of contentment washed through her. She might be a
“thing”, but she’d understood her human boyfriend well enough to
make him laugh and to give him a measure of comfort when he needed
it. Even Marissa would have to concede that counted for
something.

~~~

Mike got into the car, leaned back against
the seat, and closed his eyes. The dull throb behind his eyes
signaled the onset of a headache.

“I suppose you told them.”

He opened his eyes to confront his wife.
“No, I didn’t. I promised I wouldn’t let the cat out of the bag
because you wanted to wow him with our news. When are you are going
to start believing I keep my promises?”

Her gaze slid away. “Maybe when we’re old
and gray and you haven’t upped and vanished on me again.”

Mike blew out a heavy sigh. “I’ve explained
myself over and over, Riss. How many more times can I apologize for
wanting to keep you and the kids safe?” He jabbed the key in the
ignition, started the engine, and flicked the indicator. Once he’d
safely pulled into the flow of traffic he said, “When are you
planning on telling him, then?”

Marissa turned her face away to stare out
the window. “I don’t know. When
she’s
not around I
guess.”

“Make it soon, Riss.”

She jerked her head around to glare at him.
“Or else, what?”

“Or else, nothing. He’s our son. He deserves
to know. So does Caro.”

Marissa hunched down in her seat, trying to
get comfortable. When she closed her eyes, the bluish shadows
beneath them were more evident. She looked exhausted. Even the
bright auburn of her hair seemed dulled. “I’ll invite them both
down for a weekend—just the two of them. We’ll tell them both
then.”

“Okay,” Mike said. Anything to keep the
peace. Anything to keep his family together. He’d already lost them
once. He didn’t want to lose them again.

~~~

The techs were intent on putting the cyborg
through its paces—too intent to notice him slip through the
security doors and take a seat in the topmost row of the viewing
chamber. Another man might applaud his employees’ single-minded
focus. Evan Caine, CEO of Goodkind Electronics, was
unimpressed.

This sector of the Experimental Research and
Development Department was located in an underground bunker. Only
five people were permitted to enter without first being cleared by
Caine. He owned all five, body and soul. The more senior of these
two techs, Sloane, was one of the five. He’d been with Caine for
more than two decades now, but that was no excuse to be lax. Not
when the stakes were so very high. Not when another cyborg was at
large—a rogue cyborg that had thus far eluded Caine and bested him
time and time again. If anyone—or
thing
, in this case—was
capable of breaking into this facility, bypassing the stringent
security measures, and sabotaging his life’s work, it was the
cyborg that called itself “Jay Smith”.

Caine curled his lip and contemplated how
best to reprimand the techs for their inattentiveness so the moment
would be emblazoned on their memories for the terms of their
natural lives.

Safe behind the glass fiber-reinforced
polyester resin composite window of the viewing chamber, Sloane, a
grizzled, beefy man in his forties, thumbed his mic. “Cyborg
Six-Point-0 confirm voiceprint Sloane, Goodkind Employee ID
7-8-3-1-2.”

“Voiceprint Sloane confirmed. Good afternoon
Mr. Sloane.”

“Commence course on my mark. Three. Two.
One. Mark.”

The cyborg exploded into motion.

Caine settled back to observe its
progress.

The muttering of the two techs took on a
note of excitement as Six-Point-0 neared the midway point of the
Navy SEAL-styled obstacle course devised to test its physical
capabilities. Apparently Six-Point-0 was acquitting itself
well.

Caine leaned forward in his seat. He had
always been a betting man. If the cyborg beat its previous time by
ten seconds or more he would administer a private reprimand rather
than hauling these two up before their peers.

Six-Point-0 launched itself over the
hip-high vaults that comprised the last obstacle, taking them two
at a time. It sprinted to the line, planted its bare feet, and
ground to a halt, awaiting further instructions.

“Cyborg Six-Point-0, confirm course
time.”

“Three minutes thirteen-point-four
seconds.”

Despite appearing human in all the ways that
counted, the cyborg’s voice lacked some quintessential human
characteristic. If Caine had to describe its voice he would call it
“flat”—an unscientific term, but apt. He knew the techs were
irritated by this slight flaw, that to their minds it marred the
perfection of their creation. Caine didn’t care about barely
detectable deficiencies in Six-Point-0’s vocal capabilities.
Ultimately, Six-Point-0 wouldn’t need to speak. It would only need
to destroy.

Sloane consulted a chart. “Looking good,
Sixer,” he said, using the nickname a female tech—a hardcore
Philadelphia 76ers fan—had given the cyborg.

Caine frowned. He’d stripped the woman of
her seniority and reassigned her to grunt work for what he saw as
her misguided attempt to humanize Six-Point-0, but the nickname had
obviously stuck.

“Eleven seconds off the previous time,”
Sloane said.

“Incorrect,” the cyborg countered, its voice
echoing through the chamber. “My time has improved by
eleven-point-six seconds.”

“Cyborg Six-Point-0, enter standby mode.
Confirm.”

“Standby mode confirmed.”

Sloane toggled the mic to off and exchanged
a glance with his colleague. “Thought we’d sorted that damned
glitch.”

The younger man—Williams—groaned, slumping
lower in his chair. “Everything was fine during the last
trials.”

“Better schedule another full diagnostic. If
Sixer decides to correct Caine without prompting, the shit will hit
the fan.”

“God knows I get enough backchat from my kid
sister without putting up with this sort of BS at work,” Williams
said, rolling his shoulders and tilting his head from side to side
to stretch out his neck muscles.

“Pity we didn’t think to install a remote
mute switch.” Sloane scratched the stubble on his chin.

“There’s an idea. Mute your kids or your
nagging wife at the flick of a switch. Be a best-seller, I
reckon.”

Caine stood and shot his cuffs. Enough of
this banter. Six-Point-0’s supposed “glitch” was inconsequential.
Running diagnostics to fix something that had no need to be fixed
was a waste of time and money—
his
time and
his
money.
The cyborg had been programmed to verbally respond to basic
commands from a select group of people identified by their
individual voiceprints, and even then only if given a correctly
sequenced, logical command. Only Caine could override any
instruction or programmed behavior. He could compel the cyborg to
do anything at all. It was his creature, his tool. And if its
newfound tendency to backchat irritated him, he would merely
command it to be silent in his presence.

Sloane had caught Caine’s movement. He
nudged Williams.

Caine couldn’t be sure but he thought he
heard Williams mutter something to the effect that their asses were
toast.

Sloane pushed up from his chair and stood to
attention. “Good afternoon, sir. Our latest results are promising.
There are a couple of minor issues we need to work through
but—”

Caine’s sharp hand gesture cut Sloane short.
“It’s time for the next phase. We will see how Six-Point-0 copes
when pitted against a group of our best fighters in a hand-to-hand
combat situation. Six volunteers will suffice.” He paused to let
his words sink in. “I have cleared my schedule for the next two
hours.”

Williams slanted a panicked gaze at Sloane,
who stood stony-faced, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts. The
younger man visibly swallowed and foolishly decided to take matters
into his own hands. “Mr. Caine. Sir, I would, uh, strongly advise
against pitting Sixer, uh, I mean, Six-Point-0, against human
opponents. We—” his nervous hand gesture included Sloane “—are not,
uh, entirely confident that Six-Point-0 won’t see the men as a
threat. And, uh, seriously injure the volunteers.”

Caine switched his focus to Sloane.

“I recommend we draw volunteers from our
security forces,” Sloane said. “They’re certain to give Six-Point-0
a good workout.”

“Make it so.” Caine resumed his seat. He
could have left the techs alone and returned to his office. The
padded leather chairs were far more comfortable than these molded
fiberglass ones, and his PA would be at his beck and call. He
stayed because he enjoyed the discomfort of others, and he wanted
to observe Williams’ reactions firsthand.

The young tech had an extraordinary mind. He
was an asset to this program. But Williams had a regrettable
tendency to voice his opinion unasked. Such outspokenness might be
valued in the world of cybernetic research and development, where
Williams had proven himself before succumbing to the lure of the
big money Goodkind Electronics had offered. Now Williams needed to
learn to jump when Caine told him to jump, and only ask how high on
the way up. And, asset or not, Caine saw no benefit in keeping
Williams around if the man didn’t know when to shut up and follow
orders.

Williams seemed to realize he’d blotted his
copybook for he abruptly became all business. Caine watched,
evaluating the way the two men divvied up the tasks. Williams
arranged for a cache of martial arts weapons, while Sloane co-opted
volunteers from the available pool of security forces. Both men
barked crisp orders into their mouthpieces. Satisfied, Caine pulled
an eReader device from the inner pocket of his jacket and immersed
himself in the latest edition of The Economist.

He finished scanning the business pages and
had just skipped to the obituary as the men began filing in. A
glance at his wristwatch showed forty-eight minutes had passed. He
pocketed his eReader, and cast his gaze over the volunteers. They
were ex-military professionals—as were the majority of his security
division. One, he recognized as a member of the extraction team
that had so resoundingly failed in its first attempt to capture
Gamma. The man had been injured by shrapnel in the explosion. Shiny
puckered scars dribbled down his face and neck, vanishing beneath
the form-fitting long-sleeved t-shirt he wore tucked into his khaki
pants.

Caine stood, and made his way to the waiting
men.

“Select your weapons from the cache,” he
told the volunteers. “The aim, gentlemen, is to take the opponent
down by whatever means possible. Anything goes.”

Scars narrowed his eyes, assessing the
figure standing in the center of the sparring mats through the
viewing chamber’s window.

Caine glanced at Six-Point-0, seeing the
cyborg through the other man’s eyes.

“Sixer” stood feet apart, hands clasped
behind its back, staring straight ahead. The cyborg appeared to be
in its late teens or early twenties. Average build. Average height.
Even, unremarkable features. Lank brown hair, overly long for
Caine’s taste. A kid on the cusp of manhood. Nothing special. The
techs had done an admirable job ensuring Six-Point-0’s physical
form would not stand out in a crowd. Only his unnatural stillness
proclaimed he might not be what he seemed.

Caine flicked his attention back to Scars,
eager to witness the man’s reaction.

It did not disappoint. The man’s jaw worked,
and his hands clenched and unclenched, clenched again. When he
caught Caine staring, Scars made a visible effort to relax and his
expression smoothed into a cold, merciless mask.

Caine acknowledged the man with a brief nod.
Excellent. Scars would not balk at inflicting maximum damage upon
his opponent. He believed he had something to prove.

“Commence trial, gentlemen,” he told the two
techs.

Sloane toggled his mic. “Cyborg Unit
Six-Point-0 confirm voiceprint Sloane, Goodkind Employee ID
7-8-3-1-2.”

“Voiceprint Sloane confirmed. Good afternoon
Mr. Sloane.”

“Cyborg Unit Six-Point-0, enter standby mode
and await further instructions.” Caine read Sloane’s lips as he
muttered to Williams, “Pays to be careful. God help these poor
bastards if Sixer develops another weird-ass glitch.”

“Standby mode confirmed.”

Williams punched in a ten-digit code. The
locks on the door leading into the huge workout area disengaged,
and the door slid open with an agonized hiss.

Sloane addressed the volunteers. “Thank you
for volunteering your time and expertise. We’ve provided you a
range of weapons. If you have knives on your persons, feel free to
use them. Otherwise, a selection has been provided. Firearms are
not permitted. Those of you carrying firearms are to leave them
here. Once you’ve selected your weapons, please form a circle at
the edge of the mats and await instructions.”