Peyton 313 (8 page)

Kyra paused to sigh. She could never explain this well enough to make it less horrible than it was.

“Alex knew about my failure with Marshall, so I don’t think he had much faith in me being able to free other cyborgs. I saw the severe depression occurring, but short of making Alex completely reliant on his cybernetics again, I couldn’t really stop his experiences from affecting his mind. I tried giving him anti-depressants in his food but they interfered with his cybernetic functions. I offered to reboot him back to what he was, but chose not to force him when he declined. Like with Marshall, I had removed the creator file completely, so I lacked a cybernetic way to override his wishes. When the lowest point of the depression hit, Alex decided there was no real hope for mankind. He said the world was too far gone for any one person to do anything worthwhile. After Alex killed himself, for a while I believed that he might be right. That was four years ago.”

“So how did you pick me to be your next cyborg guinea pig?” Peyton asked, still feeling guilty for his attraction to someone like her.

“Well that’s the ironic part of my story, Captain Elliott. You were always my first choice because of your military record, but I could never afford to buy you until recently. Being turned back in so often finally brought your husband price down into a range I could afford. When your tenth wife returned you, my bid was accepted the same day. Two weeks later and here you are—both human and cyborg—now with a new capacity to make your own decisions about your life.”

“It’s damned easy for you to tout your alleged success, but you’re not the one trapped in a frigging cage. From my point of view, this is an epic fail on your part,” Peyton declared. He glared at her when she didn’t immediately respond to his taunt.

Kyra stared at the floor trying to choose her words carefully. “You know. . .a well-developed sense of humor is one of Mother Nature’s most successful mental protection systems. I don’t know why people think cyborgs are not still human. Your sense of irony seems as well developed as mine.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Dr. Winters.” Peyton rose again and walked to face her through the bars. She had yet to move from the chair and seemed to have absolutely no fear of his escalating anger. Her serene expression royally pissed him off, but worse, acute disappointment churned in his gut. He was appalled to realize he still wanted to kiss her again. His mind was obviously fucked up in a way he couldn’t understand yet.

“You owe me an explanation. Answer the damn question,” he ordered, his voice hard.

“Okay. You’re right, Captain Elliott. What I did to you isn’t any different. It is just as despicable as the original conversion. But I was—and still am—out of options to do anything else but try to restore you now. I don’t blame you for being angry at me or at the unfairness of your circumstances. Anger is a healthy response. It’s quite normal to hate someone for playing God with your life.”

Kyra stood and walked to a file cabinet to pull out a drawer. She lifted a folder full of papers from its depths and brought it back with her.

“With your cybernetics only partially engaged, I realize you can’t use your enhancements to tell truth from lies right now. The good news is that your confusion is an honest part of the human condition. Once your cybernetic memories are re-assimilated, you should be able to make an accurate determination using both parts of your brain. I’m only asking you to suspend your anger until I can finish telling you what I have to. This folder is a start. If you want to see where you’ve been the last decade, here’s your Cyber Husband record. I printed it out so you could read it.”

Peyton reached a hand through the bars. He narrowed his gaze when she dropped the folder and kicked it across the floor. He stooped to drag it into the cage with him. “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me, Doc?”

“No more than you trust me right now,” Kyra said wearily, going back to her chair. She sat and watched as he thumbed rapidly through the file. “Do you recognize any of the women?”

Peyton shook his head, but paused over one. “Some cause a vague emotional reaction.” He held up a picture. “Is this the one that stabbed me? Looking at her makes my gut clench in alarm.”

Kyra nodded. “Yes. That’s the one. Trauma has a way of creating a mental record that can’t be removed or even blocked very well. Marshall’s Cyber Husband price was low because he had a low rating in bedroom skills. At the time I bought him, I didn’t see that as a red flag of any sort because I wasn’t buying him for that purpose. Back then I wasn’t smart enough to realize his sexual problems might have been caused by trauma during his military service. The human mind influences the physical body. This is true even for cyborgs whose human sides are kept unaware. It’s no different than a non-cyborg human staying in mental denial.”

Peyton ignored her philosophizing. “Forget your other monsters, Dr. Frankenstein. We’re talking about me now. Is the woman who stabbed me still incarcerated for her actions?”

As he waited for her to answer, Peyton stared at the photo of the woman who had almost killed him. She looked cold and unfeeling. Kyra Winters was trying to convince him that was the case for her as well, but why wasn’t he buying it? If her story was true, she’d killed two cyborgs already. His death might be her next goal.

His gaze went back to his jailer who looked ready to weep any second.

What the hell was he supposed to believe about Kyra Winters?

When his gut clenched in sympathy again, but for her sadness, he warned himself not to get soft just because the mad scientist cried over everything. Ignoring the interest of his man parts in her was no easier.

Kyra squirmed in the chair as she answered Peyton’s question. “The woman who stabbed you was never incarcerated. She was merely banned from purchasing through the Cyber Husband program again. Her story is that you tried to hurt her and she defended herself. Such stories are never questioned because of your military past and the fact that you still have all your physical enhancements. Fear of cyborgs has been purposely propagated.”

Peyton frowned. “I may not remember the incident, but I’m fairly certain I would never try to harm a woman unless it was a life or death situation.”

Kyra sighed and studied her feet. It was always hard to explain because it was wrong—simply wrong. “At this time in our country, there’s no legal punishment for any human damaging a cyborg. This is especially true if you own the cyborg or they work for you. If you happen to actually kill a cyborg belonging to someone else, you can only be sued for a shit ton of restitution money. Cybernetically enhanced individuals are little more than high-priced commodities these days. They are treated the same as non-organic robots.”

Peyton continued to look through the file. “What recourse is there for a cyborg when a rich crazy woman gets hold of him?”

“None,” Kyra answered flatly, knowing he was including her in that comment. “But you’ll be happy to know I never did anything with you worthy of that glare you’re trying hard not to give me. I’m not one of those women, even though I used their process to obtain access to you.”

“Really? I think you are one of them. You kissed me and gave me hope before you cruelly took it away with your story. If you ask me, that’s a pretty lousy thing to do to a man who can’t remember the last decade of his life.”

Peyton sifted through more pages, but stopped when he came across the advertisement for him. It was surreal to see such a large fee next to his photo.

“I swear I didn’t kiss you to add to your torment.” When Peyton didn’t answer back, Kyra returned to silently waiting until he had flipped through the rest of the documentation.

Finally Peyton looked up from the folder in his lap. “None of this makes any sense to me. I served my country as best I could. Hell, I gave them everything they wanted, including several normal working parts of my body—like my damn eyes for instance. I used to have blue eyes. Why the hell would the military betray me by taking my free will away?”

“For the same reason I have you in a cage, Captain Elliott. Everyone in the world is afraid of what you might do with your cybernetics if your human side ever gets angry enough. Norton made you as much of a human robot as they possibly could because they figured out exactly how to control the cybernetic side of you.”

Kyra swiveled in her chair as she tried to find words to describe the reasons she had felt the need to take such drastic measures with him. Finally, she turned back.

“I’m afraid too, but in the last seven years, I’ve learned that controlling another human being is just one illusion piled on top of another. Before your processor fried, you confessed you had been seeking your own escape. Somehow you were teaching your human mind to connect organically to your cybernetic chips. I think it’s only a matter of time before it starts to happen for other cyborgs. A quiet revolution is most likely underway, Captain Elliot. When it really gets going, the cyborgs are going to need a leader to help them fight for their remaining humanity.”

Peyton shook his head and wondered who might have helped her create all the content he was reading. If it was a lie, she had some talented hacks working with her.

If it was the truth—?

No, it couldn’t be
.
It was too hard to believe.

“How much did you pay for me, Dr. Winters?”

Kyra ignored the question. She saw no purpose in him knowing what she had spent. “Just so we’re clear with each other, I only kissed you yesterday because I wanted to kiss you. It’s been a long damn time since I kissed anyone. Judging from how good it was, I have no doubt that your sexual training is as top notch as advertised. The reason I didn’t indulge completely was because I didn’t want to become just another woman taking advantage of you. My bigger purpose is far more important than any passing attraction I might be feeling.”

“I assure you the only sex training I have was gotten on my own. Me never legally marrying doesn’t mean there weren’t plenty of women in my life,” Peyton declared.

“There’s no need to defend your kissing skills to me, Captain Elliott. You have one of the highest ratings in the Cyber Husband program for your bedroom skills, and one of the lowest for your level of cooperation during all other activities. Apparently, your wives bought you for a handsome lap dog only to find out you were mostly a mongrel.”

Tired of talking about Peyton’s life with other women, Kyra rose and paced around the room while he thumbed through the file again.

“It says my price is fifteen million. Did ten women actually pay that for me?”

Kyra snorted at how Peyton posed his question. There was no disbelief in the exorbitant amount, just amusement. “That pleased tone of voice kind of gives away how you feel about being worth so much. You might want to stop smiling and take this seriously. Being a Cyber Husband wasn’t the glamorous life you’re imagining.”

Peyton snorted. “It’s an obscene amount of money to spend for a man’s company—that’s for sure. And probably bullshit too. I keep waiting for you to tell me what the punch line is to the joke.”

Kyra turned and glared at him. “Fine. Here’s the punch line. I paid eight million dollars.
You were on sale.
” It made her incredibly happy when the folder fell to Peyton’s lap.

“You’re lying.”

“No. I assure you I am not,” Kyra replied dryly, glad to hear at least a little doubt ringing in Peyton’s denial.

“Where the hell did you get eight million dollars? No offense, but if I’m number three, it stands to reason you paid big bucks for the others as well. Are you just some bored cyber scientist who gets her kicks from tweaking the cyborgs she buys?”

Peyton’s accusation irritated her but only because it had come up so soon. She had always planned to reveal the truth while he was still safely in the cage. She had just hoped to gain a smidgeon of trust from him first. Apparently, trust was not going to be a possibility. She was going to have to settle for grudging respect.

“My ex and I were separated and divorced years ago, but as his only human wife, I remained his only eligible legal heir at his death. When one of his Cyber Wives killed him, she went back to Norton for complete redefinition. Not that they would have let her keep the money, but apparently I was still named in his will. We never had any children together because Jackson didn’t want them.”

“Jackson?”

“Yes. Jackson Channing. For almost fifteen years, I was married to the primary creator of the Cyber Soldier program.”

Peyton set the file aside and rose to walk to the bars. “He’s in my human memories. He helped me choose my enhancements. I remember talking to him before they were done. He didn’t seem very evil to me.”

Kyra nodded. She understood what Peyton was saying. That early version of Jackson hadn’t been the warped one.

“Programming for cybernetic enhancements was very straight forward when the first soldiers were converted. Cybernetic programming was used mostly to increase natural abilities and repair the soldier’s bodies when necessary. Programs didn’t run codes concurrently without pause. That discovery came later, as did others that made your participation in the Cyber Husband program a possibility. Before the peace pact was officially signed, Jackson had figured out how to completely control anyone with a cybernetic processor and torment chips installed. The first work I did for you was to remove all those capacities from your cybernetics. I’ve come to think it’s reprehensible to subvert someone’s humanity so totally.”

Peyton lifted his shoulders. “So you want me to believe that you’re a reformed cyber scientist with a guilty conscience.
And
I’m also supposed to believe you did this restoration to help me.”

Since she didn’t even harbor it as a fantasy, Kyra shook her head. “I’m just a person who is trying to right her mistakes in life before she dies. The constant code control factor led to the recycling of cyborgs instead of their disposal. At first, I was convinced it was a good thing that soldiers like you were being spared outright execution. Then Jackson expanded his cybernetic research to include converting women. Failures of cybernetics in females are still numerous. But in the end it was the work being done children that finally snapped me out of being complacent. Jackson didn’t make children into full cyborgs. He just installed controllers in them so their parents wouldn’t have to work so hard. Child discipline technology made my ex-husband more of a fortune than his original cybernetics work did.”