Marcus 582: Book Three of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined (4 page)

“Here,” she said, her tinny voice working smoothly on the one syllable word.

She heard him mumble thanks as he slid the glasses back onto his face. Few people wore vision correction devices over their eyes. They looked strange to her, but beneath the dark frames his turquoise eyes were intensely attractive and thoughtful looking. He was all that was geek—and therefore off limits—but his tight clothing revealed muscles he was obviously proud to show off. He was not classically handsome nor did he possess a chiseled six-pack like the soldiers, but he was not a weak intellectual either.

Her interest was piqued despite the promises she’d made to herself.

“I know I should have my eyes repaired, but I’m allergic to anesthesia…” He stopped and stared at her. “Does it hurt?”

Rachel climbed to her feet and rubbed her butt. She snorted when his gaze followed her hand. “No. Just…bruised…ego,” she replied, dipping her head and smiling when he laughed.

He pointed at her throat. “I meant your implant…does
it
hurt…when you talk?”

“How…did…this…hap…pen,” Rachel said as she touched her neck and pretended shock when she felt the implant.

A second laugh from him lifted her spirits more than anything had in days. Their crazy conversation was a lot like flirting.

“Did you have to get it because of an accident?” he asked.

“Yes.” The simple one-word answer rolled easily off her tongue. Even if she had wanted to rant about the truth to a random handsome stranger she’d knocked down, explaining would have taken more capability than she had today.

“I’m sorry. It was rude of me to ask. I tend to get too curious, and…”

“Want…to get…cof…fee…after…work?”

Rachel watched him rub his face, and then he grinned wide.

“Yes, I’d like that very much,” he said, nodding. “What’s the number of your handheld?”

“Have none,” Rachel answered, shaking her head.

“Okay. No problem.” He smiled and pulled a card from his pocket to give to her. This is me…and you can reach me at this com number. I’m new here at Norton. I’m a programmer. Where do you work?”

Rachel sighed and pointed back down the hall to the lab. “Cy…borg rest…or…a…tion.”

“Wow. Impressive. Are you an engineer or scientist?”

Rachel shook her head. When he stooped to pick up his electronics, she knelt down to help. “I am…a lab…tech.”

“I thought you looked a little young. Plus, you’re dressed way too cute to be a scientist.”

Rachel smiled at the compliment, but didn’t respond.

“So are you a student? Is that why you’re working as a lab grunt?”

“No. Just…poor,” Rachel chuckled—or tried to—no sound came out. It was flattering to think she still looked young enough to be in school. She put a hand to her throat when she felt the buzzing vibration in her chords.

His sympathetic smile was like a hug. She put a hand to her chest. “I…am…Ra…chel.”

“I’m Nathan,” he said, shuffling the load in his arms. “I’d pat my chest if my arms weren’t full.”

Rachel snorted. It was odd to be laughing every other sentence. Nathan was a funny guy.

“It was nice running into you…well mostly nice. At least we met. Now I’d better get back to work. Where should I meet you later?”

Rachel smiled. “Scan…ner? 5…ish?”

Nathan nodded. “Sure. Perfect timing. See you then.”

She watched Nathan walk away and then turned in the same direction to go back to the lab.

Meeting Nathan for coffee would at least cover the lie she’d told to Marcus.

Now all she had to do was find a better way to make money and a fairy godmother to undo her past.

“Ha…ha…ha...” she murmured as she trudged back.

Chapter 3

Still in shock that some guy had actually been waiting for Rachel at the scanners, Marcus followed them to a coffee shop four blocks from the Norton building. He hesitated about going inside because he didn’t want to risk Rachel catching him. Through the door, he frowned when he saw her laughing at something the geeky guy had said.

To be fair, her date’s gaze hadn’t left Rachel’s face the whole time she was talking, unlike his which after this morning had been on her legs the whole time he’d followed discreetly behind her. His growing physical obsession with her was probably because he hadn’t had sex since he’d left the Cyber Husband program. It didn’t bode well for his chances of rectifying his celibate state when the only woman he wanted was now on a date and smiling at another man.

Maybe Rachel hadn’t been lying. The geeky guy did look young enough to have been a college friend of hers. Yet there was something not quite right about him…and not just the fact he was making Rachel smile at nearly everything he said.

Marcus felt his cybernetically boosted mind scramble as it tried to find the real reasons for the churning in his gut. Maybe it was him and not the guy. He was no longer sure. Concern for Rachel had made his processor spin madly all day.

Ordering himself to enter a calmer state, Marcus focused on his competition more closely. What was bothering him? Maybe he needed to make a list.

First, geeky guys didn’t normally have weightlifting pecs pushing against their shirts.

Second, muscle guys didn’t usually carry enough technology on their person to conduct a military level maneuver. His old team hadn’t taken half the geeky guy’s electronics when they went to bust King’s wife out of the UCN work camp. Still…having technology didn’t necessarily mean the man was not to be trusted. Sometimes Eric carried that much equipment when he wasn’t working.

There was just no getting around the inevitable. To make a real determination of the situation, he needed to get closer and see if he could figure what the guy was really trying to get from Rachel.

A large group of what appeared to be genuine students was headed his way. Marcus took a lightweight jacket and knit hat out of his backpack. He pulled both on to cover as much of himself as possible. Popping a large pair of sunglasses on over his eyes, he tucked his chin down and followed the group inside, lingering on their edges until he saw a much better surveillance location.

There was an unclaimed table just behind a revolving advertiser. Its constantly changing landscape of rotating commercials was the perfect cover. The attention of anyone looking in that direction would be drawn to the revolving panorama first. This included the geeky guy he didn’t trust and the woman he was protecting who just happened to be sitting with her back to it. He calculated that in most cases, his presence would be totally overlooked, especially if he kept his head down.

Pulling out a small portable, Marcus lit it up and pretended an interest in something on the screen. What he really did was tune instantly into Rachel’s conversation with her date, his cybernetics easily filtering out the rest of the vocal chaos going on around him.

***

Rachel sipped her coffee and looked over the rim of the cup at the attractive man sitting across from her. He was very good looking. So why wasn’t she enjoying this more? Maybe her lie to Marcus was tainting her enjoyment. She certainly felt guilty for no damn good reason.

“So you’re helping the legendary Dr. Winters restore cyborgs.”

Rachel nodded as she drew in a breath before attempting to speak. “Yes.”

“That must be interesting work. I can always tell one when I pass them in the hall. They’re a bit like the sophisticated AI units manning the security scanners for most UCN buildings. They nod, but rarely speak unless you speak to them first. I have just two words to describe that behavior—
very creepy
.”

Rachel shrugged. “You get…used…to…them.”

“Maybe,” Nathan replied, shrugging himself. “Have you run across any rogues yet?”

“Rogues?” Rachel spoke the one word question even though Captain William Talon came immediately to mind.

“Yes. You know—what they talk about on the news. Rogues. Cyborgs you can’t control or help. They’re the ones who are more machine than human.”

Nathan’s inference wasn’t lost on her even though she’d certainly seen evidence of what could happen when a cyborg’s cybernetics weren’t programmed right. However, that wasn’t the average guy Seetha calibrated and fixed. What she and Seetha mostly repaired were non-working cybernetic arms and legs.

The brains of most cyborgs were only mildly advanced and not really threatening to her. It was the mega-intelligent human brain she had learned to fear. Evil Brad’s genius had been her downfall. Kyra Winters might not be evil, but she was more intimidating.

Yet for all her own reservations, Rachel thought Nathan’s uneducated attitude was unfair considering the sacrifices the Cyber Soldiers had made for the global war effort. Whether you supported cybernetics or not, they were the only reason the world had found peace.

She lifted her chin and met Nathan’s questioning stare. “No…rogues. All…norm…al…so…far,” Rachel reported, articulating each syllable carefully, so he couldn’t misunderstand. Looking into his disbelieving gaze, she had the realization she wouldn’t have told him more, even if she could have talked freely. His negative comments had significantly dampened her pleasure to have run into him today.

“Normal is a strange descriptor for people who’ve had themselves converted into robots. I even heard there’s a female cyborg in Norton’s top-secret detainment center who went rogue. Rumors are that she tears up her holding cell all the time. They can’t shut her down or destroy her because of some high level technology she carries. They also say she tried to kill several of her caretakers. I don’t see why they don’t just gut her cybernetic compartment and start over with her programming. I’ve studied cyborg conversion extensively. Before he died, Dr. Channing worked out several different ways to override a cyborg’s tendency toward violence. I don’t see why they aren’t using them on her.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. Shock at his fanatic outburst must have shown on her face because Nathan stopped ranting and backpedaled as fast as he could.

“God, I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m talking work…
your
work…and all I know are rumors about it. You probably get enough day-to-day cyborg drama without me going on and on. I’m just fascinated with the whole reversing program. It’s seems so high risk…and so unnecessary…given how successfully they were being managed.”

“But…they…are…hum…an.”

Rachel watched Nathan nod at her comment, but his gaze darting away from hers revealed he was not in agreement. She wondered what in Nathan’s background had caused him to be so anti-cyborg restoration, especially when he was so young. She was just a teenager when the soldiers were converted. Nathan was probably a few years younger than her.

“I guess you would have to think that in order to keep doing what you do, Rachel. Frankly, I felt better when the government was in control of the cyborgs. I hope you don’t think badly of me for holding that view.”

Rachel sighed a little, but shrugged. And then she wondered how Nathan would view her mechanized condition. Would he think she should be controlled and monitored by the government too?

“By…def…i…ni…tion…I…am…cy…borg,” Rachel confessed boldly, just to see what he would say.

When he looked shocked at her revelation, Rachel thought better of her direct questioning and patted her throat. Nathan would probably run screaming from the table if she reached up and popped open her cybernetic compartment. To her genuine surprise, he immediately shook his head. She almost rolled her eyes. Nathan was the hottest looking male she’d spent time with in a long time, but her impromptu date was turning out to be as disappointing as everything else in her life.

“An implant is not the same thing…not the same at all,” Nathan argued. “You have a single prosthetic that you can’t help having. Your brain hasn’t been totally rewired. You haven’t been programmed to be an unfeeling killing machine. Therefore, you are not by definition a cyborg.”

“Hope…not,” Rachel said. Inside, she was thinking that it was a good thing her wistfulness wasn’t reflected in her monotone response.

She didn’t expect Nathan to take her comment as a joke so she was highly offended when he burst out laughing. His flip attitude about cyborgs bothered her too much to enjoy his attractiveness any longer. Nathan’s oversimplification of the conversion work that had made men like Marcus what he was…well, it wasn’t fair. It was obvious Nathan knew nothing about real cyborgs.

“I hope not too…you’re way too cute,” Nathan said, favoring her with a wink.

Rachel felt a frown taking over her mouth. It was the only thing that kept her from blurting out the truth to her shallow-minded date. She might not be completely cyborg, but she wasn’t completely human either. No one had a definition for what she was—not even her. She was Bradley Smith’s hacked up science experiment gone wrong and broken in ways Nathan would never guess.

Having a full blown cybernetic compartment—which had required the removal of some human brain matter—meant her conversion could not be reversed. The UCN had her listed as a cyborg in their database alongside plenty of others who had been trained to be killing machines. Nathan’s lack of compassion for what he obviously hadn’t given serious thought to suddenly irked her too much to even finish her coffee before leaving.