Kingston 691: Book Two of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined (22 page)

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 little 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 tried 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.

“A female cyborg told us her military chip was being used to torture her. We didn’t see how it was possible, but she was very adamant and loudly insistent it was the truth.”

Seetha snorted. “Given what I’m seeing here, I would say she’s right. The back of William’s military chip is wired directly into his brain with enough amperage to cause the mother of all headaches. Who the hell would do that to anyone?”

Kyra rushed into the room, her face color turned ashen when she saw Marcus on the floor unconscious. Peyton stood and grabbed her as she clutched her portable to her chest with both hands.

“What happened?” Kyra demanded.

“We’re all good now. Calm down. I need you to come here and look at this,” Seetha ordered. “I think we may have found the source of William’s headaches.”

Kyra took a deep breath to steady her nerves before going to kneel by her newest, and most unhappy, restoration. She peered at the wires on the back of his military chip and then met her engineer’s gaze. “How much amperage is being passed through them into his brain?”

“Less than point one, thank the Goddess. Not enough to kill him, but definitely enough to cause the mother of all headaches. Problem is…I don’t know what’s going to happen if we snip the connection.”

“I do,” Kyra said firmly. “The chip pulls power from the solar generator for his cybernetics. The wires need to be removed altogether, but cutting them should sever the connection for now without harming the individual too much. Don’t put the military chip back. His return to consciousness would reboot it. Captain Talon would end up looping through the commands on it again.”

“We can’t let that happen. He shocked the shit out of Marcus. The current passed through one of his hands. He still had some reserve left afterward. He was coming after me when Rachel zapped him in the back with our high voltage discharger.”

Kyra swallowed, fought her burning eyes, and sighed. She should have listened to her instincts and never left William alone with Seetha and Rachel. “Cut the wires and get that damn chip out of him. God only knows what he’ll be like without it, but we need to look at the coding on it right away.”

“Any of the original military coders still around for consulting purposes?” Seetha asked. “It might make your deciphering a lot easier.”

“Yes, but not on my team. They were all reassigned after the war ended. But one of them works for Norton fairly regularly. He’s in the resources department.”

“I suggest contacting him or her. If it’s okay, I’d like to sit in on the meetings,” Seetha said, snipping each wire carefully. The man’s body went completely still when the last wire was cut. She looked down at William in horror. “Did I just kill him?”

Kyra felt for a pulse. It was slow, but still strong enough to sustain life. “No. I think you just cured Captain Talon’s constant headache. I hope for all our sakes you did.”

Seetha let out a sigh and stood with the chip in her hand. She was staring at it when Kyra stood to peer at it too.

Kyra frowned and rubbed her forehead. “Fine. I’ll give Dan a call and see when he’s scheduled to be on site again.”

“Dan?” Seetha’s alarm system went off. She met King’s equally alarmed gaze. “His name wouldn’t be Dan Masterson, would it?”

“Yes. That’s right. He did your background check. It’s his new job now, among other things. No one really knows what he does when he’s not investigating new Norton employees.”

“That secretive bastard,” King declared.

“We don’t know it’s him, King.” Seetha said sharply, but she looked at Kyra. “Don’t contact the man. King and I know exactly where he’s going to be tomorrow night. Is there any way you can hide what’s happened here for a day?”