Peyton 313 (28 page)

Kyra didn’t like the determined look on Peyton’s face. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to wake up my men and then we’re going to see if the sweeper has been used.”

Kyra put her hand on his arm. “No—wait. Rushing the wake-up process is not a good idea. Let me do a quick search for the com field and see if I can find any traces. It would show up on any basic scanner. That’s why the technology was not very successful commercially. It actually aided espionage. It only works if no one is looking for its use.”

Peyton knew Kyra was practically weaving from her exhaustion. If he started shit about the missing sweeper tonight, neither of them was going to rest. Tomorrow they would have enough to deal with. “Do the scan and then we’ll make a decision,” he said, finally agreeing.

Kyra walked over to her handheld, smiling as she lifted it from the bed. “You’ll be happy to hear that Brad’s not the only resident tech genius here. I upgraded this handheld myself. I was bored after Jackson moved out and it gave me something to do with my time. It’s been so useful that I’m considering converting another. I can do as much with this little antique device as Nero can with his new top-of-the-line portable. The best part is that my power source is a prototype crystal that I bought for a small fortune, but one day it will be less than a dollar. So the future application of my device will be inexpensive as well as a huge power saver.”

“Sounds like your handheld could make you some serious money,” Peyton said, trying to make conversation while they waited on the scan to complete.

“Of course it could, but I have never needed more money. Okay—we’re clear. There are no traces of sweeper signal use within the facility. If you want, I can set the scan program to notify us if anything gets detected while we’re resting.”

“Yes. Do that,” he ordered.

Peyton checked the bed and the bathroom thoroughly before he finally looked at her again.

“Time to sleep, Doc. Tomorrow we have to alert everyone who’s helping. No one is safe if we’ve got a traitor.”

Kyra nodded as she climbed into bed fully dressed and passed out.

Chapter 19

They fought about whether or not they were purposely avoiding the cage room, even though they had checked the monitors. As expected, they witnessed a myriad of reactions ranging from outright anger to stoic staring off into space. Peyton insisted they tell Nero about the missing sweeper first. Brad happened to be with him, so they got to tell both men at once.

“This is going to be one of those days that totally suck,” Kyra said, when they were out of earshot. Behind them Brad and Nero were still arguing about who could possibly have taken the sweeper.

Peyton nodded as they walked. “The only two people who knew about it, other than you, were equally alarmed that it was missing. They exuded nearly the same adrenalin levels. If one of them took the device, it’s not obvious. Their mutual yelling fest about it makes me think it was neither of them.”

Then suddenly the inevitable couldn’t be avoided any more as they stopped outside the cage room. Kyra bit her lip and realized she was breathing hard.

“You don’t have to go in. I can face them without you,” he offered.

“No. I can’t avoid their condemnation forever—no more than I could avoid yours,” Kyra answered, swallowing hard.

“Okay then. Let’s do this.” Peyton touched the panel beside the door and it slid open smoothly. Inside, five sullen, angry men stared at them from behind bars.

“What the hell is going on, Captain?” King demanded.

Peyton stepped forward. “I know. This whole situation is FUBAR’d. At least you didn’t destroy your bed like I did while I came to terms with it.”

Kyra cleared her throat. “Your anger is normal, Master Sergeant West. And you’ll be able to control it and all your other emotions soon. Your mind is already busy making it possible. I removed all sources of programming pain from what’s left of your cybernetics.”

King snorted at the doctor’s scientific explanation and turned away before he let loose a stream of cursing guaranteed to turn the air blue. “Science can never explain how the world we saved conspired against us.”

Not knowing what to say back to the man’s rational, calm statement, Kyra simply turned away. In doing so, she met the heated glares of the others with as much courage as she could exhibit while Peyton went on talking.

“Your confinement is a necessary, but temporary precaution. I spent time in a cage a few weeks ago and now I’m out. If you’ve taken the time to look at the intel I provided, you’re as up to speed as I am. Individual concerns will be addressed, but at the moment we have bigger problems. The UCN and its agents are trying to stop Dr. Winters from freeing more cyborgs like us. Her life is now in danger because she’s worked out the restoration process most of the world still believes is impossible. I was her first success. You five are the next ones because I will not accept less than your full recuperation.”

King hit the bars of his cage rattling them with the force of his anger. “Are you telling us every Cyber Soldier was turned into a slave?”

Peyton nodded. “Yes. A cyborg remains unaware of their captive situations until Dr. Winters frees them. I don’t know how yet, but I plan to change that for all cyborgs. To do it, I’m going to need your help—
all
of your help.”

“What happened to our families. . .our
real
families? How could they just go along with this shit and let us be sold to the highest bidder?”

Kyra looked at Lance Corporal Marcus Kells and lifted her chin to answer his question.

“Like you were deceived about the restoration, your families were deceived into thinking that cyborgs were nothing more than war-time killing machines. Some families demanded proof. When that happened, you were programmed to act in ways that validated what the military wanted your family to think.”

Marcus glared at her. “So you’re telling me my children think their father is nothing more than a robotic killing machine?”

Kyra shook her head. “No. . .not. . .necessarily. I can’t actually say what they think. Hopefully someday you can find that information out for yourself. But today is not that day. Today you get to decide how you’re going to handle what was done to you. You can get too mad to help and that would prove them right. Or you can let the agony of your captivity eat away at your gut until you see your own death as some kind of answer. That’s what two cyborgs did before Peyton, who got mad and destroyed his bed. Please choose what motivates you to survive this and take back control of your fate. Anger seems a more healthy reaction, but just remember we’re in hiding from the world and beds aren’t exactly falling from the sky here.”

She saw Marcus turn away from her lecture to stare blankly off into space. She made a mental note to keep an eye on him.

“When do we get out of the cage?”

Kyra turned to look at Corporal Eric Anderson. “In approximately three days you’ll be released. Your emotions are returning and it takes a bit of time to process them all. On the third day, you’ll be mentally tested. If you pass, you’ll be let out of the cage. Two weeks after that, if all goes well, your mobile restraints will be removed.”

“You mean these fancy bracelets?” Eric asked, holding up his wrists to look at them in disgust. “We used these on POWs we captured. Now I’m wearing a set. This is a bucket load of shit, Doc.”

Kyra nodded. “Yes it is. Worse—if I have to activate it for one of you, all of you will feel the impact. I regret this extreme action but there are humans helping here that have to be protected. Despite Captain Elliott’s relative success, restoration is still an indeterminate process.”

Eric snorted. “Hey now, Doc. What kind of word is ‘indeterminate’? Didn’t Captain Elliott tell you we were the good guys?”

Kyra’s lip trembled, but she refused to cry. Another charming cyborg. They seemed to get to her most. “Yes. Captain Elliott did tell me that, and I believe him, Corporal. I wish I had a better way to handle the situation, but this is all I know to do at this time.”

Peyton’s hand clamping hard on her shoulder instantly stopped the tears that had started flowing. “That’s enough explaining, Kyra. They’re okay with precautions because nothing bad is going to happen. Right, Marines?”

Kyra counted their nodding heads—everyone nodded but Marcus. She started to say something to get his attention, but the door sliding open behind her stopped the words from reaching her mouth. She watched Peyton turn and move lightning fast toward whoever entered, but a pulse cannon blast to his chest sent him flying past her.

“
No!
” Kyra yelled as Peyton landed in a heap on the floor. She looked at Brad in shock before running to Peyton’s side.

“Relax. Borg Man is going to be fine, Dr. Winters. Up close like this, I can see how someone his size would be fun in the sack for you, but don’t tell me you actually care about what happens to him? He’s a cyborg. He’s never going to love anyone who helped make him the freak of nature he is.”

Brad’s words fell on her, heavy as stones. But she couldn’t let them break her. Kyra brushed a hand over Peyton’s head and turned his face gently until his still open, cybernetic eyes were facing in Brad’s direction. She hoped Peyton’s recording mechanism worked while he was unconscious because she wanted a record of what happened, even if it was just recording her death. Her body would never be able to handle a pulse cannon blast the way a cyborg’s could.

She rose slowly from the floor and stepped toward Brad so she could better face him. “Where’s Nero?”

“Last time I saw Nero, he was taking a well deserved nap while I turned off all room monitoring so you and I could talk in private. He’s very peaceful right now. I doubt he’s even going to remember the little chat he and I had about the missing sweeper. I still think he took it to study it, but I couldn’t drag the truth out of him no matter what I pumped into him. Drugs these days are so amazing in what they can do. And they work great on people who are still all human.”

Kyra stopped when she was a few feet away from him. “I don’t understand, Brad. I thought you were going to help us free the cyborgs. And I thought you were Nero’s friend.”

Brad swung the hand with the pulse cannon still in it. “Free more of them? I don’t think so. All soldier models should be incinerated. They’re not safe to be around and we don’t need them anymore. We only need the
idea
of them. There are way better uses for cybernetics—like my new girlfriend here.”

Her gaze followed Brad’s head inclining in the woman’s direction.

“Dr. Winters, meet Gloria. She’s doesn’t talk because I don’t let women give me too much shit. She does everything I say now, don’t you, Gloria? If I were a bragging sort of guy, I would say she is my most important achievement so far.”

“Did you pass your last mental exam, Brad?” Kyra glanced at the woman by his side who was staring blankly ahead.

“Now that’s not nice—not nice at all, Dr. Winters. I can’t believe you’re insulting me after I did you such a big honking favor.”

“What big favor?” Kyra demanded.

Brad smiled. “We’ll get to that before your mechanical boy toy wakes up. First, we need to find that sweeper I gave you. Losing it was pretty careless for a woman with a twenty million dollar bounty on her head. I say no one is going to turn you in to the UCN unless it’s me. You’re the smartest person alive on this planet—well, next to me, that is. I have other plans for you, Dr. Winters, and you can rest assured I will treat you a lot better than Jackson Channing ever did. He didn’t deserve to breathe the air you breathed, which is why he doesn’t get to breath air anymore.”

“What. . .what plans do you have for me?” Kyra stammered.

She was amazed the question came out at all because she was numb inside. Brad had obviously sacrificed his sanity to act out some kind of power trip. Nero was drugged and Peyton was unconscious. All other potential rescuers hated her guts at the moment because she had them locked in cages. If Peyton had been awake, he would have said the current situation was further FUBAR’d and he would have been absolutely right.

Grinning, Brad pointed the pulse cannon at King. He shot a pulse through the bars of the cage and they both watched the giant go down hard, flipping the bed over as he fell.

“Stop it, Brad. There’s no need to harm any of these men. They can’t get out of the cages to hurt anyone.”

Kyra stepped in front of King’s cage so Brad couldn’t shoot a second time without hitting her. Something told her that would be a last resort for him. It was her fault King’s cybernetic shields weren’t activated. It had taken three bursts to bring him down when they had been working.

“You don’t have to do anything more to hurt anyone. Just tell me what you want, Brad. You have my full attention,” Kyra ordered.

“Good. Can I call you Kyra now? How long have we known each other? It’s been oh. . .what? Seven or eight years now I think. But in all the time that’s passed, I never forgot a single moment of what being with you was like. It was nice of Jackson to invite me to his Kyra sex party, but even nicer that the two Chancellors let me go first.”

Kyra put a hand to her gut. She wanted to throw up—right after she screamed. Her head was shaking no and she couldn’t seem to prevent that from happening. “You. . .you were one of the men Jackson brought to me?”

Brad smiled. “Well don’t get all mushy on me. . .
Kyra
.”

Her head wouldn’t stop shaking. “I was blindfolded. There was only supposed to be one of you. . .not. . .not three. I didn’t know who and didn’t want to know. After you finished. . .it was supposed to stop. But Jackson wouldn’t let it stop. He let the others do anything they wanted. They did things I never agreed to doing.”

“I know. I stuck around and watched. It was so not cool of him—which is why I programmed his Cyber Wife to kill him. Now she sits and stares out a window all day long, waiting on me to come get her and undo her wiring like I promised. But I haven’t had time to take care of that little piece of unfinished business. It’s been nothing but busy, busy, busy since you bought Borg Man.”