Kingston 691: Book Two of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined (18 page)

At Norton, she turned over her handheld with the hiring barcode in an email to the AI guard on duty. He swiped a finger across the code and his simulated face instantly put on the mask of a welcoming smile. The sophisticated unit reminded her of the work camp. He would have stood out among its more archaic versions which looked like old movie robots. Willing herself to focus on current things, she pushed those negative thoughts away. With a cyborg around every corner here, a rebellious AI would never stand a chance of hurting anyone.

“Welcome to Norton Industries, Engineer Harrington. You are expected. Once you receive your new ID, you will use it to enter and leave the premises.”

He directed her to a side scanner entry where they took her picture and provided a physical badge. She had yet to get her internal ID chip replaced. It was a small rebellion against a technology which in her career she had embraced in most ways.

She walked through the specialty scanner and headed for the sky lift, frowning when the first person she ran into was Dan Masterson. He nodded and stuck a hand in his pocket.

“Good morning,” he said, staring at her fresh badge. “I see you’re all processed and ready for work.”

Seetha nodded. “Yes. I’m heading to see Dr. Winters now.”

“Very good. Welcome to Norton. Have a blessed day, Ms. Harrington.”

Seetha stepped into the sky lift. “Same to you, Mr. Masterson.”

But she didn’t buy his sentiment as sincere. Her alarms just wouldn’t stay quiet when he was in sight. She made another mental note to ask Kyra Winters about him.

***

It took two people helping her, but finally she found her new boss in a lab where the cyber scientist was talking to a man in a medical transport chair. The woman turned and smiled in relief when she saw her come in.

“Seetha—great. So glad you’re here. We’ve been hanging out and waiting for your arrival. Come take a look at Sergeant Menlow’s legs. Both contain enhanced cybernetics and were working fine before we changed out his processor. Now he can’t walk. I haven’t been able to determine the cause of his malfunction.”

“Good morning. Is this one of those trial by fire moments, Dr. Winters?” Seetha asked.

She watched Kyra Winters grin and shrug inside her white coat. Snorting over the woman’s unapologetic ways, she shook her head. “Got a Biomedical Scope Meter laying around here?”

“Rachel, this is Engineer Harrington. Can you help her find what she needs?”

Seetha saw the younger woman nod without speaking. Judging from the metal box in her throat, there were good reasons she kept her silence. Seetha took the scope meter from her hand and thanked her.

Stepping in front of her surprised patient’s chair, Seetha showed the device to him. She was used to deactivating AIs for her tasks, but had mentally prepared for how to deal with those who would remain awake and alert while receiving adjustments.

“This will allow me to collect data about how your new processor is talking to your enhancements. Depending on what we find, I may have to make some adjustments. Those will require going into your cybernetic panel. Everything I do will require your consciousness, so there’s no need to be concerned about what’s happening to you. I’ll explain everything as we go along.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am. I’ll kiss your ass if you get me up and out of this chair,” the man told her.

“
Ma’am?
Maybe I should have put on some makeup this morning. Do I really look that old?”

Seetha laughed at his chuckle as she turned on the device. She pointed it at his legs, took a reading, and then pointed it at his head.

“Charming offer about the ass kissing too, but I had my ass kissed a couple times already today. I’ll settle for a thank you if this works.”

She smiled when the man laughed fully and whispered ‘lucky bastard’ to her under his breath. She was flattered of course. All Cyber Soldiers looked like polished weight lifters. The guy wasn’t bad looking at all—far from it.

But he wasn’t King.

She smiled at remembering her scream of pleasure and King yelling in response. At the same time the meter finished and displayed Sergeant Medlow’s results.

Seetha nodded as she looked first at the meter, and then at him. “Good news, Sergeant. I believe I can fix you.”

She turned to the woman named Rachel. “Hi, Rachel. I’m Seetha, not Engineer Harrington. Please call me by my name. Do we have a Forensic Calibrator like the kind used for prosthetic surgeries?”

Rachel nodded, searched through a series of tools scattered on a nearby table and selected one. She carried it back with her and handed it over. Seetha smiled. “Great. Thank you.”

She walked to the side of the man and gently felt around his scalp.

“Feel for a button—well more like a tiny bump. Press on it and the panel will open,” Kyra directed.

Seetha found it and did her best to catch the panel cover when it flew open, hoping the man hadn’t felt the jar too much. She looked inside his cybernetic panel, knowing what to expect after having already studied a basic one in mechanical drawings. After a short inspection, she found the chip she was looking for. She slid it gently from the compartment and held it in her hand while she worked on it. Noting the tool was voice activated, she tapped the mic symbol and lifted the end of it to her lips.

“Forty-five degrees camber zero and direct positrons to the legacy point.” She walked around her patient and held the tool away. “What are you? About five foot ten?”

He looked surprised at her accurate guess, but nodded.

Seetha moved the tool back to her mouth. “Angles of varying degrees are needed between eighty-five and eighteen, calibrate to flex for five feet ten inches in height.”

Moving the tool away from her mouth, she touched it to the chip in her hand. There was a snap in the chip and a singing sound from the tool.

Making a pleased face over the positive notifications of her success, Seetha stepped to the man and gently slid the chip back into place. “Okay. Before I close up, let’s see how this works first. It may take a few moments. I’m a virgin engineer in this sort of work and not sure how long calibration takes for restored cyborgs.”

She stepped back and watched the man close his eyes. A minute or two passed while they all waited. When he opened them again finally, the man blinked several times, and then grinned as he stood up and took some steps. His grateful gaze came to hers. Seetha promptly decided this work wasn’t going to suck after all—Norton be damned.

“Reach up and close your cyber compartment,” she ordered. “You can’t go around with your lid open like that. It makes you look like you have bad hair.”

The man laughed as he did what he was told. Then he took a couple of steps, grabbed her arms, and kissed her soundly on the mouth before she could move away. Seetha stumbled back a little when he let her go and sucked in her bottom lip when Kyra Winters laughed.

“Well done, Engineer Harrington. Welcome to my team.”

Seetha snickered. “The perks are way nicer than you explained,” she said. “Just do me a favor. Don’t tell Kingston about them. We kind of have a new arrangement and I’m thinking he wouldn’t approve.”

She laughed when Kyra made a zipper movement across her lips and turned to leave. Sergeant Medlow thanked her again before he left. At the door her new boss paused and turned back.

“I have two more restored cyborgs with similar issues. When you’re ready, Rachel can bring them to you.”

Seetha nodded. “Let me look around first so I know what I’ve got to work with here.”

“Certainly,” Kyra said, smiling as she exited.

Seetha turned to Rachel when they were alone. “Voice box replacement?”

She watched the young woman walk to a nearby table and pick up a large handheld. She typed an answer and then brought it to her. Seetha skimmed it. “Glad to hear your throat will be healed enough for the voice box to work soon. I think I would explode if I couldn’t talk.”

Rachel smiled and shrugged.

“Okay,” Seetha said. “Let me get myself oriented here. Looks like you guys have top of the line tools. Beats what I’m used to working with.”

Humming, Seetha prowled around and wished for many future days as great as this one.

Chapter 14

“What does it mean?” King demanded.

Nero shrugged. “Perhaps it means you have similar tastes in furniture.”

“It isn’t just similar, Nero. It’s the same damn furniture. You should have seen Seetha’s face when she made me search for a damage mark on the dining table to prove it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a setup somehow, but what the hell kind of sense does that make? Who would lure me to an auction in the residence where we lived together just to watch and see what I would do? Seetha was in the work camp when I bought the stuff. It seems too far-fetched, and useless, for someone to experiment on me. Everyone knows I’ve forgotten her. It’s in all the reports.”

“None. It makes no sense,” Nero said firmly. “There would be nothing gained from forcing such an odd coincidence…or at least nothing logical. Have any genuine memories returned concerning your time with her?”

King shook his head. “No. But every time she tells me something about the past, I get upset or emotional or both. Once in a while I tell her about it. Most of the time I hide my reaction. She’s still immersed in it and things like the furniture do not help her leave the past behind.”

“Have you told her about the recordings?” Nero asked.

King shook his head. “No. They’re only going to make her mad at me again. I was waiting until she liked me enough to forgive me for keeping it from her.”

“Don’t wait too long. That almost never works out. I’ve lost several women to what they referred to as my tendency to ‘emotionally shut down’ around them,” Nero said bitterly.

“Do you do that?” King asked.

Nero snorted, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve had two or three say it so there must be some validity to the statement. That’s too much evidence to discard.”

King paced around Nero’s lab, which functioned like a giant white office space for the man. “Is it possible someone is studying me even though I’m restored and allegedly a free man?”

“Possible? Yes. Probable? No. I think all cyborgs are being monitored, but I see no reason to focus on any specific one. Well, Peyton is watched closely, but they were using him to capture Kyra. He also seems to be able to defy most programming—even if just a little.”

King sighed and shook his head. Then he ran a hand through his hair and felt his cybernetic compartment. “Something isn’t right here. I don’t know what it is, but my guard is up.”

“Want to talk to Kyra and Peyton about this?”

King nodded. “Yes. Unless you think I’m being crazy.”

“Cyborg crazy or human crazy?” Nero asked, grinning as he typed a message to Kyra and Peyton.

King snorted. “What’s the difference?”

“Human crazy does things on a whim without applying any logic to the reasons. Cyborg crazy is more deliberate and purposeful, even if out of character for the cyborg.”

King ran a hand through his hair. “I think if it were a cyborg studying me, I would sense that somehow. They would be strategic, methodical, and so careful in their study would be obvious by that alone.”

“Kyra will be free in an hour. Peyton can join us then too. Can you wait?”

King nodded. “Yes. The restaurant is closed for dinner two days a week and this is one of them. I’m planning to spend the evening with Seetha—after we’re done here.”

“So are you two back to being cybernetically married?” Nero asked.

King shook his head, snorting at Nero’s idea of a joke. “No, we’re getting to know each other…again…and trying to figure out what we want. Our situation is complicated.”

Nero snorted. “You can say that with truth. Usually we have to counsel former Cyber Husbands on all the reasons they can’t kill the women who bought them. You’re one of only like three cyborgs out of all the ones we’ve restored who’s remained involved with a contract wife.”

King stared at the floor. “Every time she opens her mouth she says something that makes me smile. If I didn’t know a thing about her, I still would ask her out. She’s witty and interesting and confident about herself. Two years of being a prisoner in a work camp didn’t break her. Now she’s come to work for a program funded by her worst enemy. She has bigger balls than most men I know. Nero…I think I’m genuinely falling for her. Am I crazy? It makes me feel crazy to say this out loud.”

Nero shook his head. “No. It’s no crazier than Peyton falling for a cyborg creator. After those two, you’re going to have to stretch much harder than falling for an old contract wife to exceed their unlikely relationship.”

“Doc is special though. And if you knew Peyton better…you’d understand how much she is exactly what he’s always wanted in a woman.”

Nero laughed. “Please do not pass this along to the happy couple, but not understanding Kyra and Peyton’s relationship is the primary reason I stopped dating. Peyton tried to kill her once, but she writes that off like it never even happened. If what they have together is the real thing, I obviously don’t stand a chance in hell of getting it right.”

King snorted and stared at the younger man, who still had a lot to learn about handling life’s unexpected twists and turns. So far, he and Seetha had beaten the odds and found joy again. “Suddenly I feel a whole lot luckier.”

Nero turned his surprised glance to King. “I didn’t say I wasn’t getting lucky…I just said I wasn’t dating. Picking up women is not my problem.”

King rubbed a hand over his face and counted his blessings.

***

He adjusted his glasses and waited patiently while the gray-coated assistant unlocked the lab door to let him enter. He leaned closer as the man bent to swipe his Norton ID card through the reader.

“Emergency override authorization Z11JM5. Protocol DRJ-780. The command is as follows...you will erase all memory of this lab access and my presence here.”

“Affirmative. Order received and will be carried out,” the assistant replied.