Peyton 313 (11 page)

“I give up. I’m obviously not understanding what I’m reading. How could an entire decade of my life be so completely suppressed just by a software program? It seems too improbable to be true.”

Kyra sighed softly as she thought about how to explain it to him. “Before the universal peace pacts were completed, military prisoners of war, including cyber soldiers, were kept on rigidly busy schedules during their captivity. Tasks they were forced to do were part torture and part reward. Surviving the daily grind of getting through them gave prisoners little time to think creatively, much less plot or plan escapes. Those drastic survival routines were an effective tool to keep them physically tired, but the bonus was they worked on their minds as well. When the mind is kept too busy, it forgets how to stop and reflect on anything.”

She got up to pace, studying the floor as she looked for the right words.

“Keeping the mind too busy to do anything but follow routine is pretty much what the constant code programming does to a cyborg’s brain. Your cybernetic chips are kept one hundred percent preoccupied with running a variety of routine tasks. The theory is that the part of the brain producing emotions simply doesn’t get a chance to express itself. In other words, your emotional reactions never got to have their turn using your brain’s synapses. But Peyton, even before you came to me, you were already proving that assumption to be false in some ways. It was just taking your human mind a bit longer to figure out how to exert itself alongside your constantly running cybernetic programs.”

Peyton set down the reading device and stood to pace. It was an action he’d been repeating for the last five hours. His logic chip said the small, walking movement provided nothing beneficial. The other unexplainable motivation compelled him to keep walking until something changed. He decided both reactions were equally frustrating.

“I hate being mentally pulled in two widely varying directions. Every decision now is excruciating. I was just mentally debating whether or not pacing was beneficial. What kind of fucking shit is this to live with? Is it going to be like this forever?”

Kyra sighed at his complaint because she couldn’t answer it. “I don’t know. So far I’ve had a sixty-six percent failure rate with restored cyborgs. I’m hoping you’ll live for a very long time and be able to give the world enough data to eventually answer those sorts of questions.”

Walking back to sit, Kyra swallowed the knot of guilt in her throat and turned to face her keyboard. She switched screens to make a note about what he’d said. Her fingers slipped from the keys when she heard a loud bang behind her. She turned back toward him just as Peyton hit the bars with his fists again. Her gut clenched in disappointment over his show of anger. She waited until he’d calmed enough to go back to his bed and sit before asking her question.

“Are you trying to escape, Captain?”

Peyton shook his head. “No. I’m just blowing off steam. Guess I’m a little louder about slamming around than the average scientist you’re used to seeing get angry.”

Kyra swiveled back and forth in her seat. She hated having to chastise him, but she had to share the information. “You have a chip capable of advising you about acceptable levels of force appropriate for each situation. The software in the chip measures PSI quite efficiently. There’s no reason your new processor can’t access that chip for the necessary data whenever you have need. Are you trying to do so and failing?”

Peyton glared. There was smart and there was smartass. He doubted Kyra Winters knew the difference. “Sure, Doc. I’m failing to access my chips. Why not use that excuse to explain my frustration?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Why don’t you tell me what you think is happening?” Kyra ordered calmly.

“Okay, I’ll tell you. I have an urge to rip a couple of these prison bars out of their sockets. Then I want to go find the ones who made the decision to fuck with my life and beat the shit out of them.”

Knowing she was one of those people, Kyra turned calmly back to her keyboard to hide her realization. Obviously Captain Elliot was too emotional at the moment to answer her queries with any degree of rationality. It was promising that he felt so strongly, but at various points she had seen high levels of emotion in both Marshall and Alex too.

Hearing Kyra typing rapidly, Peyton smacked his cybernetic hand loudly on the bars to get her attention again. “Doc—if you write any of that crap fest of whining down, I swear I’m going to spank you hard when I get out of here. If you expect to get anywhere with me, you need to learn the difference between a pissed-off comment and a serious answer.”

“That’s quite a statement coming from the non-emotional cyborg who just became an irrational human again yesterday,” Kyra said, continuing to type her note. “And swearing at me under your breath is not going to get you out of that cage any sooner, Captain.”

Peyton snorted at Kyra’s starchy reply. A part of him—especially the one below his belt—was secretly pleased that, despite being a crybaby, the woman was ballsy enough to talk back to him. He found her defensive attitude reasonable and acceptable given all she had confessed. Since a government level ass-kicking was off the table at the moment, the entertaining distraction of goading the guilt-ridden doctor was at least mildly entertaining.

“Okay. What if I promise to be a good cyborg during your freakish experiments, Dr. Winters? What will that kind of behavior get me?”

Kyra didn’t turn again. . .and she didn’t take the bait. “I’m sure you’re good at a great many things, Captain Elliott. But I bet having patience was never one of them—not even before your cybernetic enhancements. The assimilation process takes time. I suggest you accept that reality as soon as possible.”

“Calling me impatient is not an accurate assessment of my character. You don’t know me that well yet. I would say my patience level depends on what I am patiently waiting for,” Peyton declared. Since she refused to look up at him, he found himself watching Kyra’s bent head as her fingers flew across the virtual keyboard. They never stopped for long. What the hell could the woman be writing?

“Assessing your true character is going to be a risky theory to test, but since we may have to relocate soon, I’m going to have no choice but to take that leap of faith with you. Tomorrow we’ll do some psychiatric testing. If that goes well, I’ll let you out of the cage,” Kyra said.

Peyton sat and leaned back on the bed. That was mostly good news. So one more day in the cage, instead of two. He could deal with that.

“Let’s talk about something other than me. Do you really think you’re being watched by the mysterious UCN?” He noticed his stoic mad scientist didn’t even flinch at the question before nodding. A quick scan of her vitals told him the truth before her words could. Damn it. She was being honest. He had hoped she was exaggerating.

“I don’t just think I’m being watched, Captain Elliott. I know I am.”

Kyra connected the final disk to the console unit and set the copy process into motion. Then she drew in a relieved breath and blew it out.

“Let’s use your UCN query as a segue. To preserve what I’ve done, I need to leave the UCN’s investigation team something to find when they break the codes on my lab security. For that, I need your help—if you’re agreeable.”

“What’s agreeable feel like? Right now I’d much rather go punch the hell out of someone’s face. But I admit that little hesitation in your voice intrigues me. What are you nervous about?”

He listened as Kyra snorted, wanting to snort himself when she didn’t look at him. Her skin temperature rising was a direct giveaway, but he didn’t comment on her blush.

“I see you’ve re-established full access to your Cyber Husband chip. You’re interpreting my vocal signals very well,” she said.

Peyton snickered. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m utilizing a very human talent called ‘paying close attention’. I’m a damn Captain in the Marines, or at least I was for a large part of my real life. Paying close attention was part of my officer training, and that happened long before the cybernetics were installed.”

Kyra still didn’t turn around, but mostly so he wouldn’t see her blushing. “No. I hate to disagree with you, but I must. What you’re doing is listening for changes in my voice modulation and all men have to be taught to do such a thing. Almost no male does that innately. The average man doesn’t think what a woman says is important enough.” She barely stifled a long-suffering sigh when she saw Peyton grin at her irritated tone.

“My ability to pay attention to you doesn’t sound very romantic when you talk about it that way, Dr. Winters. My brain thinks you’re pretty damn interesting for a sexy mad scientist bitch. The rest of me doesn’t seem to care what you do for a living.”

Kyra let the frustrated breath escape. “Didn’t we just have a discussion about your flirting and decide it was a bad idea? That goes double now that you hate me. However, I hope you can set your hatred aside to aide me in the process of keeping your restoration a secret until it’s one hundred percent completed. To buy us some time, I want to make a video to convince any investigation team I was tweaking your Cyber Husband programming to suit my aggressive sexual needs.”

“
Aggressive sexual needs?
Sounds very kinky, Doc. Why the hell would you do that sort of tweaking to a former Cyber Husband? I was sexually trained, remember? I can already tell you’re not that kind of woman.”

“My sexuality is irrelevant to the ruse. Just answer my question, Captain Elliott. Are you willing to help me or not?”

Peyton picked up the reading device to hide his smile. How could you like a person who might be trying to kill you—or worse? His lower man parts certainly seemed to think Dr. Winters was worth the risk. But what did they know? His dick might be pointing her way every time they talked, but it couldn’t advise him what to do about trusting her.

“So let me see if I understand this right. For the sake of fooling some imaginary investigative team, that may or may not be
actually
investigating you, I’m supposed to let you take advantage of me after all. I guess I should have known you were going to turn out to be like all the other women who paid millions of dollars to sleep with me.”

When Kyra swiveled in her seat and glared full-on at him, everything below his waist drew tight as he waited for her response.
Stand down
, Peyton ordered, lowering his gaze to his lap. In addition to all the other shit he was learning, now he was fighting the urge to laugh at his nearly out-of-control body reactions. He had gone from wanting to throttle the politely scientific Dr. Winters to wanting to fuck the woman until she didn’t remember who or what she was.

Yes—indeed. The woman was lucky he was still in the cage.

“So am I right?” Peyton demanded, unable to keep the grin off his face as he asked.

Kyra shook her head firmly, then swallowed a couple of times until her temper cooled. His snarky summary hurt, but she didn’t have to react to it.

“No, Captain Elliott. I’m not going to take advantage of you. I just want to fake that sort of relationship to create a cover story. I have no footage of Marshall touching me, but I have a modest tape of me and Alex. If I leave that one to be found, plus one of you and I kissing, that should be enough data to create suspicions. I want the UCN to believe I’m doing sexual research instead of restoration work on you.”

“Did you have consensual sex with the Alex cyborg? Tell me the truth, Doc. I want to know.”

“What I did with Alex is separate from what I am asking of you. It has no relevance to our discussion.”

“That disclaimer still sounds like a yes.” Peyton frowned as he suddenly imagined her hotly kissing someone else the way she had him. If such a thing had happened, it would have been well before their lip lock, but imagining the scene still pissed him off. His mental pictures typically did not cause him anxiety. Maybe he just needed more data about what she described. “Tell me the truth, Doc. I don’t know why I care about your relationship to him, but I do.”

Kyra turned back to her notes. For a minute she ignored Peyton’s pleading and started typing again. But being touchy was not going to win her points with the man in the cage. “Rather than simply repeating it’s none of your business, I will say politely that I see no reason to answer your query at this time.”

Peyton shrugged even though she wasn’t watching him. “Maybe I just want to hear how far you’re willing to go for the sake of your mad scientist scheme.”

“I’m fifty-two years old, Captain Elliot. What I do with a man is no one’s business but mine and his. And I saw Alex as a man, not just a cyborg. It is a matter of discretion to keep my interactions with him private.”

When the computer showed her task completed, Kyra swiveled around in her chair to glare at Peyton again.

“Your libido should level soon. After that, the sexual urges you have for me will likely pass. Until that time, keep in mind I wear the controller remote for your restraints. I will gladly use it if you get out of line.”

Peyton snorted, then chuckled at her snit. “Well, you already know that’s going to happen. Isn’t that why all those other millionaire women sent me back? You were right about them not having any complaints in the bedroom though. It’s amazing what kind of miracles cybernetic pulses can inspire.”

Kyra didn’t answer his taunt. Pocketing the last of the data disks, she got up and walked to the lab door. “I’ll be back shortly. I need a break. You can take some time to think about my request while I’m gone.”

Peyton stared at the lab door after it closed, listening for her receding footsteps. He stood and walked to the door of his cage. Scratching an opening in the artificial skin of one finger of his cybernetic hand, he used some electrical current siphoned off his cage to magnetize it. Reaching his arm between two bars as far as he could, he pointed his magnetized metal fingertip at the cage key she had carelessly left on the desk in her haste to evade his questions.

The key fob, obviously some low metal alloy, unfortunately remained unaffected. But nearly every other metal object on the work table came flying his way.