Marcus 582: Book Three of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined (22 page)

“Please…please let this work,” he prayed. He pressed a fingernail and out popped a titanium spike. He had never used them for this purpose, but he sent the smallest electrical charge he could through it. Gently, ever so gently, he touched the electrified spike to Rachel’s processor. He yanked away at the zing that passed back from her through him. Rachel’s body seized in his arms. He had to hold her carefully to avoid the spike hurting her until he could manage to retract it. The little spikes allowed him to scale all kinds of surfaces, but they could also tear through an enemy cyborg’s prosthetics. He was not meant for delicate tasks.

Rachel’s painful groaning started up an ache in his whole body. He fought tears again. A couple of tense minutes went by while he was frozen and unable to move himself. Eric’s hunched over position finally broke through his frightened stupor. Reaching over, he grabbed Eric by the back of the neck and gently lowered him down until his unconscious friend was stretched out beside him. Rachel still lay in arms, only occasionally making sounds like a hurt animal.

At this moment, more than ever, he hated all cyber scientists. Two people he cared about could be dying because of their damn cybernetics, while he was helpless to stop it from happening. Incapacitating emotions ruled him, which made his cyborg status a joke.

Listening to Rachel’s painful groaning and Eric’s stark silence caused him to feel the worst case of helplessness he’d ever endured. It was as bad as being kept in an electrified cage and made to watch his fellow cyborgs be dismembered piece-by-freaking-piece. His tortured past blended seamlessly into the present moment. His processor was spinning so hard out of control he wasn’t even able to track the time that passed while he worried.

Profound relief caused him to start trembling when Kyra Winters, a repentant scientist at least, rushed through Rachel’s door in a dead run.

Going straight to work, Kyra didn’t even speak to him. She dropped to Eric’s side and started checking his still open panel. Then, sighing, she closed it before crawling across Eric’s body to get to Rachel. Marcus noted Kyra didn’t meet his gaze while she investigated his handiwork on her.

Rachel stirred and moaned under Kyra’s prodding. To his shock, Kyra lifted her head and smacked Rachel fairly hard across the cheek. Rachel’s eyes reluctantly popped open and her gaze slowly focused.

“Hello. Who are you?” Kyra demanded.

They both stared as Rachel struggled to formulate an answer. Her hand rose to her throat and rubbed the spot where the resonance implant used to be installed.

Her voice was nearly non-existent, not much more than a rusty whisper, when she finally did get some words out. “I am Eric…
no
…I…am…Rachel 235,” she croaked.

Marcus watched Kyra visibly melt. She sat back on her butt and hugged her knees, sniffling into the arms she wearily crossed over them. Kyra sat that way for a full sixty seconds before finally lifting her tortured gaze to his.

“You saved her, Marcus. I was so scared you wouldn’t be able to do it all. And even then…sometimes it doesn’t work. I knew I wasn’t going to make it in time to do it myself.”

Marcus stared down into Rachel’s calm, but confused face. He stroked her cheek and frowned when she moved away from his touch.

“Who…are…you?” she asked.

Marcus felt fresh tears stream down his face. He’d never felt less like a cyborg since he’d been restored. Facing Rachel’s blank stare, he was only a man terrified of losing the most important person in his life. He answered from his heart.

“My name is Marcus Kells, and you are Rachel Logan, the woman I love. Don’t you remember us?”

When she shook her head against his lap, it was the sweetest of tortures. He didn’t lose Rachel to death, but he may have lost her to something worse. He closed his eyes and ordered himself to find some damn control over his emotional responses. Rachel was alive. He needed to quit feeling sorry for himself and be grateful for at least that.

Taking in a deep breath, he opened his eyes and looked beside him. “Was Eric bullshitting me or is he really going to be okay?”

Kyra rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hand. She groaned and laughed.

“No. He wasn’t bullshitting you. This is how he was made, but not for this exact purpose. I would have thought he’d have come around by now. It shouldn’t be much longer. We need to get everyone to my lab. Nero is meeting us there with replacement parts for Rachel. I should have her restored in a few hours. Discovery of what happened will have to wait until I can investigate what was done to her. I’m going to change out her processor to increase her safety factor. I won’t leave any technology in place that makes her susceptible to being someone’s puppet.”

Marcus nodded and gently closed Rachel’s panel. He straightened her hair to hide the access button again. By the time he’d finished, she looked almost normal. The whole time he touched her, she just quietly studied his face.

Beside him, Eric finally stirred and then sat up with a start. Eric grabbed his arm and squeezed hard. “Did you find your balls? Did it work?”

Marcus smiled sadly and nodded. “Yes, I found my balls. It worked, smartass. Are you happy now?”

Eric laughed and nodded. “Yes, I am.” He looked at Rachel. She was lying in Marcus’s lap just quietly looking at them both.

“Hey pretty lady. How are you feeling?”

They all watched her shake her head again.

“She’s having trouble speaking again,” Marcus said.

Eric frowned at the news. “Well, damn it. You never got to hear her sexy voice, did you?”

Marcus chuckled, causing Rachel’s head to bob in his lap. But at least this time, she cuddled back into it. It was enough for him to know their connection was surfacing despite all the trauma.

“Her smile tells me everything important I need to know. I don’t care if she ever speaks again so long as she’s still alive to smile at me.”

Eric snorted at his poetic speech for Rachel’s benefit. Marcus grinned and dropped his gaze to Rachel who was staring up at him in awe. He smoothed back her hair. “You really are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. I lost my shit when I thought you were going to die.”

All eyes went to the door when Peyton stomped through it, more furious than they’d seen him be in a long time.

“The damn top-of-the-line AI unit was taken out with a virus transmitted on a secure wireless channel, one not supposed to be common knowledge outside of Norton. He’s not damaged at all, just going through a complete reboot. The freaking bot is not going to have any clue afterward about what happened in the last few hours. What the fuck is going on? It’s just like what happened in Nathan 180’s building. All security records have been erased for the time all the shit went down. Creator Omega is either a very shrewd security programmer or he has created geeks who are.”

“He’s come the closest of anyone in actually making new creator source code,” Kyra admitted sadly, letting her husband pull her to her feet. “And worst of all—I think the UCN knows who he is and exactly what he’s doing. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out they’re funding his efforts.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll find him with or without the UCN’s help,” Eric declared. “When Rachel gets all her memories back—we’ll find him and we’ll stop him from ever doing this again.”

Eric reached out a hand and helped Rachel stand up. She wove a little, but didn’t seem surprised when Marcus put his arm around her to keep her steady. “If you need a lift, I’ll happily carry you.”

When Rachel shook her head and looked alarmed, Marcus laughed at her reaction.

“All bets are off today. I’m not going to beg to help you. I’m just going to do what my heart tells me to,” he warned. “And don’t be pulling away from me or I’ll do it right now. I haven’t recovered from you almost dying so don’t ask me to let you out of my sight. Baby, that’s not going to happen for a long, long time.”

Marcus grinned when fire lit her eyes. “It’s because I love you,” he said flatly. “I should have told you before. I love you. I have for a long time.”

The fire faded and was replaced by confusion. He grabbed her chin. “It will all work out—one way or the other. You’re alive. I’m alive. And my smartass best friend in the whole world is still alive to torment me. That’s all I care about right now. We’ll worry about the rest tomorrow. Okay? Just let me help for now. I don’t want the world to see me losing my shit again.”

Her nod against his fingers made him feel lighter. Her hand coming to pat his cheek was reassuring. It really was the little things in life that made it worth living.

“Eric, when you’re fully functional again, I want you to install the most badass security system in this apartment that has ever been made,” Marcus ordered.

“I may have to invent it then,” Eric declared. “This one was my best.”

“Invent it then,” Marcus declared. “Rachel and I are freaking tired of looking over our shoulders every five seconds for bad guys with stupidly advanced tech toys which shouldn’t even exist.”

He grinned when Rachel’s head nodded against his shoulder in agreement. He kissed her hair and let himself feel grateful for what they had.

Chapter 17

Kyra focused on the task at hand, glad now she had taken a binary snapshot of the processor and its code before proceeding. Nero had dropped off her supplies and returned to his work, not happy with her decision to install the yet untested com code processor in Rachel. But she was following her instincts…and her inclinations about how cybernetic controllers should work. She’d have to take a look at the old processor herself later…or maybe tomorrow. Eric was sitting in the kitchen and waiting to get his spare chip back. That would have to come first.

“Want me to make him leave?” Peyton asked quietly.

Kyra shook her head, knowing exactly who her husband meant. “Why would I make him leave? I never made you leave.”

“That’s different.”

Kyra stopped and raised her gaze to the man she needed the way she needed air. It was a constant amazement to her that she could want someone who had such a great capacity to irritate her. “You watched me do a full restoration on every one of your men, including the one pacing by the door. How is Marcus wanting to watch Rachel’s restoration different?”

Peyton pretended to give it some thought. He had no answer. It was just his primary opinion on the matter. He’d learned to let a few of those go un-analyzed—like he was this one.

“It just is,” he declared, fighting his mouth twitching when Kyra rolled her eyes. His wife’s rebellious snort as she returned her attention to Rachel didn’t surprise him.

“I’m not too far from finishing. I’m using the existing wiring because we don’t have time to get into replacing it right now. If she still can’t talk afterwards, then we’ll look at replacing that as well.”

Ignoring both men huffing over her every statement took a lot of energy, but in the end it was worth it. She had successfully installed the new processor and the necessary chips, plus two prototypes Nero had made especially for Rachel. It had been yet another thing he’d been unhappy about, but fortunately she was used to her assistant’s complaining about her decisions.

On some level though, Nero’s warning had taken hold of her conscience. Momentary doubt caused her to pause and triple-check her work before starting the reboot.

Was she being as bad as Creator Omega?
She’d put something experimental in nearly half of the cyborgs she ended up restoring. Sometimes their chips were insufficient, worn out, or just not good code for their integrated life. Wasn’t that the same as putting several experimental components into Rachel? The only difference is she’d had months to decide what Rachel needed.

Closing her eyes, Kyra prayed to the entire list of deities she’d researched online and written down to memorize. After Nero’s comments about her lackluster spiritual life, she decided it couldn’t hurt to align herself with some positive powerful energies, even if they were invisible. No one had to convince her about how powerful a person’s mind was when motivated by any strong belief.

“Want me to start the reboot? I think I could. I’ve watched you do it enough,” Peyton offered.

Kyra’s opened her eyes to see concern in her husband’s gaze. “No. I was just thinking deeply about something. I’m fine now. I have no reservations about this.”

She touched the reset on the processor and Rachel’s body jerked at the first surge of power through it. Sadness took her over for a few moments when she realized the girl’s worst nightmare about cyborgs had just become her inescapable reality. There really wasn’t a damn thing she could have done differently to prevent it from happening. She just hoped Rachel would forgive her for the creative liberties she’d taken with her cybernetic revision.

“Okay. The installation is done. The new processor came pre-set with a command to keep her hibernating while it collects data and builds memory storage. You and Marcus can head back to Norton with her while I put Eric’s logic chip back in. When he wakes up, we’ll head back to Norton together and meet you there. Three cage rooms are empty. Pick whichever one you want for her, just check in with Nero so he can set up monitoring on it. I imagine Eric will want to take over when he gets there.”