Marcus 582: Book Three of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined (23 page)

“Cage room?” Peyton asked.

“But I want to take her home,” Marcus declared.

Kyra ignored her husband’s question and focused on the most prominent person in Rachel’s cyborg life.

“Rachel has about nineteen or so hours of processing data ahead of her. We don’t know how much she’ll recall or what she’ll be like when she wakes up. In case she doesn’t remember any of us, it would be best to constrain her so she won’t hurt anyone or herself. The cage is not for punishment, Marcus. It’s for her safety. Plus, we can guard her better there.”

Marcus shook his head. He couldn’t handle putting her into a cage. “I’ll watch her. I promise.”

“No,” Kyra declared. “I’ve learned the hard way to think like my husband. The person who’s after Rachel has come for her twice. There’s no guarantee he won’t come back to finish her off. She’s more vulnerable than ever right now and I don’t want him to have a chance to get both of you. Until we figure out how to adequately secure at least one of your residences, Rachel is better off at Norton where I know the cameras work. Plus, we can take better care of her there in case the restoration doesn’t go smoothly. If she wakes and remembers all this, I’m sure she’ll understand where she is and why we put her there. Once we see evidence of her stability, we’ll let her out.”

Marcus ran a hand over his head. His hair was growing shaggy again. Rachel said it looked sexier with the beard he now kept trimmed. Everything he was at the moment was because of the woman he now had to lock away in a cage.

“I can’t…” he began, but then saw on Kyra’s face the choice truly wasn’t his. “Okay, Doc. But I’m staying in the room if not in the cage with her.”

Kyra thought about it for a minute. “That’s an acceptable compromise, but you need to mentally prepare for the worst. If she wakes up angry at the world like some do, you’ll hear about how much she detests you. Are you sure you’re ready to hear that much truth from her?”

Marcus nodded tightly. He was lying, and his aching head conclusively proved it, but he still wanted to be there. In fact, he couldn’t imagine not being there, no matter what Rachel’s reaction to him would be.

“Okay. But I get to carry her,” he said, going to the medical chair. Kyra had removed the straps already. Rachel looked like she had when he thought she was going to die. He hoped she looked alive tomorrow, no matter what she did or didn’t remember.

Kyra sagged as she watched Marcus carry the comatose Rachel out to their airjet. She turned to her husband. “I don’t trust his judgment. He’s very much a hurting man at the moment. You need to keep an eye on him…on both of them, Peyton.”

Peyton bent and kissed his wife. “Make yourself a cup of tea before you work on Eric. I’ll take care of Marcus and Rachel, but you have to take care of my wife while I’m gone.”

Kyra nodded, and for once didn’t argue with her husband. She needed a booster and another internal pep talk before she could tackle working on yet another cyborg she had come to care too much about. Every repair she made was starting to feel like working on family. Her objectivity had gone away long ago. And to think—caring too much was the very reason she had gone into science instead of studying medicine. Sighing over the irony of her life, she headed to her kitchen.

***

Rachel woke in darkness and looked around her. Where was she? A sick déjà vu assailed her when saw the ceiling overhead turned into metal bars. She rolled to her side and pulled the plush blanket covering her up to her chin. Across the room, she could see the outline of a man sitting silent in a chair, his eyes staring without seeing, lids blinking in evenly spaced intervals. She instantly knew what he was. He was a cyborg at rest. She couldn’t pinpoint the source of her knowledge, but her confidence level about its accuracy was nearly a hundred percent.

She flinched under the blanket when he rose and started walking around. She heard him sigh like he was tired beyond what he could endure. He seemed very emotionally distraught for a cyborg. That wasn’t what cyborgs were like. Did that mean her guard was human?

When he started walking toward the bars of her prison, she closed her eyes and hoped he hadn’t caught her staring. She also almost wished she hadn’t seen him. The way he kept brushing his hand through his hair made him seem boyish and caring which was very appealing to her.

When she realized how much she wanted to trust his body language, it was all she could do to keep from snorting. Someone had put her in a freaking cage for pity’s sake. Her focus should be on getting out of it—not on the chances of indulging her out-of-sorts libido.

Honestly, she had always had the worst taste in men. Wasn’t that how she’d gotten herself into this stupid situation?

Shock at the huge number of memories returning had her rising involuntarily to sit up. She blinked at all the images suddenly running through her head. The geeky smart guy she’d been dating had drugged her. She’d come to consciousness tied to a chair. He had calmly explained how he was going to make her into the perfect woman. He told her the transformation would be glorious, which was why he was going to name her
Gloria
afterward.

Then he put a breathing mask over her face. In the middle of the night she’d woke up in a cage…just like this one. She hadn’t been able to talk and there had been so much pain in her head she kept passing back out every time she moved.

“Rachel? Are you okay?”

She turned to face the pacing man with the nice butt. He moved very gracefully. His lean muscles and trim form looked good on him. Sure, he was a little rough around the edges, but his tone sounded genuinely concerned. She opened her mouth to answer his question—just to be polite.

A husky, barely audible rasp of sound emerged from her mouth. “No,” she croaked.

Her hand moved to her throat and stroked it. At least there was some sound. She definitely remembered not being able to speak at all when she’d surfaced before. This must be a different time. She turned her head. The man outside the cage was definitely not the one who had done this to her.

She rubbed her throat again. An image of something metal being installed there flashed through her mind.

“The resonance implant is gone now. Do you remember it being removed?” he asked softly.

Rachel shook her head. The movement made her so dizzy she had to grab it with both hands. “Hurts…bad.”

Marcus wrapped his fingers around the bars he’d refuse to electrify. Rachel didn’t have the prosthetic strength to bend them. He couldn’t handle treating her the same as they did the restored Cyber Soldiers.

“I know it hurts. It will get better. I promise. You should try to get some more rest. It’s only been thirteen hours. You have about six more to go before your data integration process will be completed.”

Data integration?
Rachel’s hands dropped to the bed.
Processor?
She patted her chest furiously as she glared at him. “Cyborg? Me?” she rasped.

Marcus gripped the bars so hard it was a wonder he didn’t accidentally bend them. “Yes,” he answered truthfully. “You’re a cyborg. And now you’ve been restored…whatever that ends up meaning for you.”

“Brad…is dead?” she asked roughly.

Marcus snorted and banged his forehead on the bars. “No. God, I wish…but not yet…unfortunately. Dr. Winters turned him into a cyborg because of what he did to you…well, and to her. Do you remember any of that happening? It was months ago now.”

This time she shook her head more slowly, relieved when the dizziness stayed away.

“It’s okay, Rachel. I’m sure it will all come back in time.” Marcus swallowed hard. “Do you remember me?”

Rachel tilted her head and studied him. She looked into his eyes. Yes. She definitely could see concern there. She could see a lot and didn’t mind it for the most part. He was attractive…not her usual type…but she was done with geeky boys anyway. He looked a little familiar, but she didn’t quite remember. Maybe memories of him would come back later…like he said.

“It’s okay—I shouldn’t have asked yet. Don’t think too hard about it. That only makes the headaches worse. We’ve survived a lot…you’ve survived a lot…you’ll get through this too. I’m just happy to see you alive and talking and….”

Marcus lifted his chin and held her gaze. He smiled to see her questioning stare. He’d seen that look enough times to know the person inside her head was at least her.

“You look just as young and fresh and beautiful as you always have to me. It took me a long time to admit my feelings for you because I always figured you were too new and good for someone as broken as me. But even if you never remember us, you should know you saved my life…I mean my real life. Because of you I know now I’m a hell of a lot more than some military war machine. You forced me to find my humanity again. In the last couple of weeks, I think you’ve made me feel just about every emotion possible.”

Rachel didn’t know what to say back. The amount of personal torment in his speech certainly had her taking a closer look at him. Just how well did she know the cyborg facing her?

Pushing her cover off, she slowly rose to her feet. She looked down at her clothes in dismay. They were hideous…or at least far too conservative. Her shoes looked like foot coverings some hundred and fifty year old woman would wear. Wow, she was dressed ugly. Somehow her clothes didn’t seem right, but she wasn’t quite sure why she felt that way.

Glancing back up, she started walking forward. She smiled a little when she saw his gaze stay fixed on her legs, which were entirely covered in her conservative slacks. She stopped inches away from where he gripped the bars.

“Yes. I know what your legs look like. No. You don’t typically dress this way. You should have seen the outfit you wore when you were mad at me. It was uglier. These are the clothes you were wearing the night you were taken. I think you dressed like this to make Edward comfortable. Normally you wear sexy short skirts, snug fitting tops, and nothing on your bare legs, which I know for a fact go all the way up to heaven. You can officially go back to wearing them. I’d rather worry about all the attention you get than ever see that appalled expression on your face again,” Marcus said softly.

Rachel looked away and tried not to smile at his comment. But it sure answered a lot. More than she had wanted to know actually.

“Are we…” She stopped to clear her throat. Speaking hurt so bad. “Lovers?” she rasped out finally, settling on the one word.

The man looking at her nodded slowly. “Yes. We are friends, lovers, and everything good two people can be to each other. You make my life worth living. Protecting you gave me a purpose when I didn’t have one. I hope one day you let me try and return the favor by making you happy beyond your wildest dreams.”

Rachel blinked, feeling woozy. To brace herself, she reached out and wrapped her hands over his on the bars. He entwined his fingers with hers to hold her in place. Groaning, he leaned his forehead on the metal.

A few seconds later she heard his breath hitching.

He was crying…crying for her.

Her heart opened to him on its own. She could practically feel the emotions he felt. They might both be cyborg…but the moment happening between them was a very human one. Déjà vu visited once more—this time though it felt much better.

She squeezed his hands with hers, trying to let him know. Memories pushed and struggled to break through until they finally made it past some barricade in her mind. When they popped up, they were full blown and powerful. She remembered them being together…he had kissed every inch of her.

“Mar…cus…Kells,” she croaked in a fractured, excited whisper.

His hopeful gaze meeting hers brought another image. This one was of him in a cage just like this and he had been crying on some kind older woman’s shoulder. And Brad Smith had been tied up outside of it because Marcus had pushed past his pain to do what had to be done. Marcus had saved them all from the man who had done this to her.

Emotions swarmed and collided. They rose to be felt…then settled. When the worst of them had subsided, she was left feeling numb. She wondered if he’d had to go through the same when he’d figured out what had happened to him. This was certainly the pits.

“Very dizzy,” she whispered, her fingers sliding out from under his. Her body sank and eventually her knees hit cool metal and stopped.

“
Eric. Open the damn door
,” Marcus yelled. The metal barrier swung aside before the echo of his demand had faded. He rushed into her prison and scooped Rachel up into his arms.

“Mar…cus,” she rasped proudly, promptly deciding she liked his husky, relieved laughter when she said his name.

She used the last of her energy to pat his cheek, her fingers lightly grazing the trim beard on his chin. It tickled her fingers. She wondered what it would feel like running over the rest of her. Maybe it already had. Maybe it would again. Hope made her smile. Feeling safer in his arms than she had before she’d awakened, Rachel sighed and let sleep claim her.

Marcus carried Rachel to the bed and sat on it just holding her. If a few tears dripped on her butt ugly shirt while he got the rest of his sniffling out, he doubted Rachel would care. He’d seen her shock when she’d finally noticed what she was wearing.