Seth: Futuristic Spy Romance (Cyborgs: More Than Machines) (5 page)

Back in a tunnel, with no light and a horny recruit staring at her ass …

“Would you mind not following so close?” she grumbled. She could practically feel the heat of his grin even if she couldn’t see it.

“What’s wrong, gorgeous?
Feeling
hot
? Turned on by our intimate setting?”

“No, but that sandwich
you gave me is making my tummy rumble and not in a good way. If I were you, I’d give myself some breathing room.”

The excuse shocked him into laughing. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Me either,” she grudgingly admitted. “But seriously. Keep a little space in case I run into something, like a pit. I might need you to haul me out.”

She was only half kidding.
It was pitch-black inside the narrow tunnel, and she could only feel ahead of her, which hampered their speed as she groped the floor of the duct before allowing herself to crawl forward. It seemed like an eternity before gray light filtered in through some kind of vent.

“I see
something,” she murmured.

“Is this where I tell you to go toward the light? Or should we bypass it in case it’s a trick?”

“Tell you what. I’ll go where it’s not pitch-black, and you keep going. Scream if you find something. Say like rats or a dark hole.” As for her, she’d had enough of rubbing her knees raw and second-guessing whether she’d made the right choice. She’d take her chances with what lay beyond the grille.

“Is this your way of saying you’re not enjoying our adventure?”

“This isn’t an adventure. Or have you forgotten who we work for?”

“
All work with no fun makes for a—-”

“Good soldier,” she finished. “Now shut up, just in case there’s someone up ahead.” It was probably too late
for stealth, given they’d not exactly been quiet. But, still, she wanted to concentrate on what might possibly await in the light. Hopefully not guns trained on the opening.

While
she’d mostly believed him when he said this was probably part of their test, a tiny kernel of doubt also existed and wondered if the test was one of patience that required her keeping her ass sitting in a chair back in the boring white room.

Too late now.
Peering through the mesh screen of the barrier over the duct, she noted an empty room. How anticlimactic. The walls were the same pristine white as the one she’d left, but instead of furniture or people, the only items of note were four doors, each a different color.

How odd.

Pushing at the grille with hands dusty from their crawl, it swung away from the opening with nary a squeak. With some inching and squirming and an oops from him as his hand touched a body part he shouldn’t have—a grope she enjoyed a tad too much—she managed to get herself to ease out of the opening, legs dangling down first. She dropped to the floor, landing in a crouch, eyes darting around as she searched for movement.

A part of her expected alarms to go off or for troops to come rushing in, guns aimed. Nothing happened.

“Look out below,” Seth sang. She dodged out of the way a moment before he landed with a flex of his knees. He grinned at her. “Well, that was fun.”

“
You obviously don’t get out enough.”

“Oh lighten up, gorgeous. Admit it, this is kind of exhilarating.
Top-secret selection by the brass. A locked room. A concealed way out. Think of this as a quest, a puzzle quest. Solve the riddles, and we win a prize.”

“Or get dishonorably discharged.”

“Pessimist.”

“You’re one of those annoying people who sees the glass as half full
, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m the one who doesn’t care and chugs it before asking for more.
But enough about my amazing philosophy when it comes to life. What have we here?”

“A room with doors. Yay. And to think I crawled through a dark tunnel for this excitement.”

“Alone time with me is always exciting.”

She groaned. “Can’t you be serious for a minute?”

“Nope.” Seth wandered the perimeter of the room, peeking at each portal in turn.

She remained in her spot, arms crossed, watching him.
“So, Sherlock, what’s our next move?”

“Does your asking mean you’ve conceded to my superior intellect and abilities?”

“No. But, since you’re the one with the bright ideas, I’m sure you have a plan.”

Because at this point, Anastasia didn’t.
Four doors. No signs. And no instructions. Did she choose her favorite color? Was there a pattern? Had she missed a clue somewhere along the way? She worried about making the wrong decision. Thus far, crazy and outspoken or not, Seth seemed to know how to play the game the military had them engaged in.
Sink or swim time.
She’d trusted him up to this point, might as well see if he could take them all the way.

“
A plan? Bah. Plans are for the meticulously organized. I think better on the fly. It’s one of my better traits.”

“Somehow, that’s not reassuring.”

He just grinned in reply and turned back to his perusal of the space. He mused aloud. “So which door do we pick? Red, for the color of my passion, which throbs for you.”

She made a moue of distaste but couldn’t help the flutter of her heart.

“Blue for the beauty of your eyes?”

He wouldn’t win her over with corny compliments, even if she stored them.

“Green for the envy all the other girls are going to feel when they realize I’m a taken man?”

Taken?
By who? Seth had a girlfriend? And yet he flirted with her? “You jerk.”

“Why jerk?
I believe in fidelity, and I should hope you do too.”

“I’m not a cheater, but given your actions with me, apparently you
are. What does your girlfriend think of you flirting with other women?”

“I don’t know
. You tell me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have presumed to call you my girlfriend yet, given we haven’t even gone out on our first date, but I’m glad to see I’m not the only one feeling the instant attraction. What do you say once we pass this latest test, we go to dinner and then back to my bed in the barracks, or if you’d prefer some privacy, I know of a supply closet.”

“
I never meant— That is I am not your—” His smile grew wider and wider the more flustered her words emerged. “No.”

“Oh come on, gorgeous. Why not?”

“Because.”

“My mother always said because wasn’t an answer. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Fraternizing is against military rules.”

“Yes
it is, and yet soldiers marry each other all the time.”

How had they gone from talking about dinner to marriage?
“Why is it so hard for you to accept no for an answer?”

“Determination is my middle name. You might as well give up now. We will get to know each other better
, even if I have to coerce you into agreeing.” He grinned.

Flattered, she couldn’t help a spurt of warmth, but she wasn’t about to show it.
She growled. “Fine. I’ll make you a deal. We’ll go to dinner and then your place if you can choose the correct door and get us out of here, alive, and not in trouble, within the next fifteen minutes.”

“Hmm. That doesn’t give me much time to do my hair.”

His what?

Seth finger combed his short locks, straightened his somewhat wrinkled uniform
, and then strode to the yellow door, swinging it open. He swept her a bow. “After you.”

“
What’s in there?”

Seth didn’t even bother to peek. “
Our future life together.”

How corny.
Yet how true. She just hadn’t realized it at the time.

They strode through the door to find the odd balding man standing there with a clipboard.

“Fantastic,” he mumbled. “And so much quicker than the others too.”

“You mean we passed the test?” she asked.

“With flying colors. Although, in a real situation, less talk might be better. But I’m glad to see a duo emerging. We could use a close-knit pair of the opposite sex in the project.”

“Project?” She blinked
, trying to process what that could mean and still stunned that Seth had been proven right all along.

“Yes.
What did you think these batteries of tests were for other than to select candidates? You’re lucky you chose the right partner. Others in your group didn’t fare so well.”

“What happened to them?”

“Nothing that will cause permanent damage.”

She swallowed hard at the nonchalant way the little man said it.

“But who cares about the failures? You two made it through. Although, I do have to ask, Private Murray, what made you decide on the yellow door instead of the others?”

Seth wander
ed the room, peeking at the various screens flashing images on the wall. He didn’t pause in his snooping as he spoke. “Anyone who paid attention would have seen the clues.”

Anastasia almost said
“What clues?” but, not wanting to appear stupid in front of the civilian, kept her mouth zipped shut.

“Could you elaborate?”

“I noticed the red door bore singe marks around the edges, as if the paint had been exposed to heat. That kind of heat doesn’t usually bode well, especially for those of us who like our hair. The blue door exuded extreme cold, even while shut, and being a West Coast boy, I prefer to avoid that kind of chill. The green one smelled funny, and my mother always said to avoid things with bad odors. Which left the yellow door.”

“Or the vent,” prompted the man with the clipboard.

“Yeah, the vent.” Seth shook his head. “No, that wasn’t an option. While my partner was bravely sacrificing herself by checking out the room first, I ran a little test. I sent a button I pulled loose rolling along the vent floor. Not hard, just enough to see what might lie ahead. Except it didn’t come to a stop, but kept on rolling, and then pinging as if it bounced down a steep slope. Seeing as how I didn’t know what was at the bottom, it seemed healthier to take my chances with some doors, especially once recruit Kettle ascertained the room was free of hostiles.”

Anastasia could only gape at Seth as he calmly listed his reasoning, none of which would have occurred to her.
She also couldn’t believe how he’d made it seem as though she’d sacrificed herself on purpose.

“Excellent deductions.” The crazy man scribbled happily away
, and Seth tossed her a grin. In a murmur for her ears alone, he said “And I always did love yellow.”

T
o think she owed the events that came next to the fact he liked the color of sunshine.

Deep in space, still arguing …

“We need to go back or, at the very least, send Joe and the others a message,” Seth demanded as he paced the slim confines of the cockpit.

“No can do,” his wife blandly replied. “Or did you want to ruin my groundwork and put a target on your
homeworld?”

He froze and spun to pin her with a glare, which she ignored as she studied her console.
“Of course I don’t want to draw attention to them. But the fact the company has cyborgs in their possession and is torturing them is information they should have.”

“And, if they’re quick about
acting, they’ll discover it at those coordinates I gave them.”

“Were you always this stubborn and frustrating?” he growled.

“Yes. It’s one of my more endearing traits.”

Funny how when she threw his own favorite lines back at him they weren’t as entertaining. He clenched
his fists lest he punch something. For a moment, he could almost sympathize with Aramus. The ornery cyborg constantly lamented how Seth drove him nuts.
I finally understand how he feels.
He didn’t enjoy it one bit, but he strove to not let it show.

“What is this super secret plan of yours that requires my help?”

“It’s not super secret, just complicated.”

“So lay it out for me.”

“I can’t. Not entirely.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do then.”

“I think I found a guy who knows the location of the company head and source for cyborgs.”

“You found both? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“You should know I don’t joke.”

“There was a time you did.”

“Things have changed.”

“So you keep telling me. Tell me about the guy. Who is he
, and where do we find him?”

“He’s a
scientist, and he’s on board the ship we’re rendezvousing with.”

“
So what’s the problem? If he’s on board, then you obviously can get close to him. Hack his computer files and find out where it is. You have the skills. You don’t need me for that.”

“Just one problem. The location isn’t recorded anywhere. Trust me, I’ve looked
and looked deep. If this guy is aware of the location, then he didn’t save it anywhere anybody could find it. My best hypothesis is that it’s in his head.”

“
I get it now. You want me to torture him to get the info? Why not do it yourself? Or have you gotten squeamish again? I thought our missions cured you of that.”

“
If you’re implying I’ve grown soft, then I would be more than happy to prove you wrong. In very painful detail.”

“Ohh, gorgeous, tease me why don’
t you.”

The dirty look she shot him just made him laugh. “Pervert.”
It was muttered under her breath, but he caught it anyway. His smile widened. “If I thought I could pry it out of him, I would. However, I can’t just torture one of the crew without getting caught. And, trust me, I’ve thought about it. I’ve run all the possible scenarios for taking him without notice and extracting the intel, but none of them show a viable rate of success. At least not according to the dozen or so simulations my BCI ran.”

“Then boyfriend or not, it’s time you resort
ed to an unbuttoned blouse, a wink, and some bow-chica-wow-wow.” With a click of his tongue and a roll of his hips, Seth mimed a dirty act, all the while grinning as he waited for her to explode. To his surprise, she didn’t get annoyed with his suggestion. On the contrary, a smirk appeared on her face.

“That’s exactly the plan I had in mind
. Only one problem. Our target isn’t into women.” She eyed Seth from head to toe, and he had an urge to run as he realized where this was going. “I’ll give you one guess as to what I need you for.”

“You want me to seduce him?”
Um, yeah, that unmanly squeak? It came from him.

“Seduce. Flirt. Shake your tight booty at him until he’s ready to spill anything to have an intimate moment with you.”

“There’s no other way of getting this info?”

“None. Do you really think I’d have gone to find you and risked my cover if there was another way
?”

“No,” was his disgruntled reply. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you’ll owe me for this.”

“Think again,
husband.
” She sneered the word. “Once you get me what I need, I’ll give you access to the cloaking technology and dump your ass on the nearest way station.”

“While you what? Flit off to tackle the head of the snake on your own
?”

“Have you ever known me to flit?”

“No. But I do remember your stubbornness in doing things solo even when having a team or someone as backup would have served you better.”

“Why, Seth, are you volunteering to help me?”

Was he? Seeing as how they both had a common goal—finding the origin of the cyborgs and the company and eradicating it—yes. “I always did enjoy a challenge.”

“We’ll ta
lk more about it once you’ve gotten the location of the cyborg origin.”

Oh
, they’d talk more before that, hopefully with fewer words and more tongue. “How long until we meet up with this mother ship of yours?”

“A week or
so, give or take a day. It’s not like they’re sitting still.”

A week to try and glean more information.
A week alone with the woman of his dreams. A week to convince her to dump her boyfriend, believe him when he told her he’d never done her wrong, and to get her to fall in love with him again.

Piece of cake.

Or not.

Standing from her seat, she stretched before she turned and finally met his gaze.
“The autopilot is on, and since there’s nothing better to do, I’m going to put myself in stasis mode to recharge my mental and physical batteries.”

Put
herself in a deep sleep?
Oh no, she’s not taking the easy way out and avoiding me.
While some cyborgs swore by long periods of rest to build up extra stores of energy, the truth was most could get away with following a human regime of a few hours of downtime a day. Just like they could go days on end without rest or food. All part of the wonderful world of cybernetics.

Isn’t it time you became a cyborg? Eat what you want, when you want
. And without gaining an ounce of fat. No need for a toilet. Today’s enhanced units recycle all materials to almost 100% efficiency.

With those kind of benefits, why did the military need to force the unsuspecting into the program? Probably because cyborgs were created as cannon fodder for the wars humans started and as guinea pigs to test out the environments of new and hostile planets.
Add to that no pay, no vacation, and no playtime, and you have the definition of a slave. It would take something a lot less intelligent than a machine to realize what a raw deal this was.
And the humans wonder why we revolted.

But back to his wife, who thought she could avoid a long
, overdue conversation by putting herself into a coma-like state.

“Sleep? But we have so much to catch up on. Such as, why you never gave me a chance to prove the charges against me were bogus.”
Instead of trusting him, she’d let her jealousy consume her and refused to listen.

“
Prove what? I saw the video.”

“A doctored video.
You know, there’s this thing called splicing and editing. Even kids can do it nowadays with the technology we have. No matter what you think you saw, I never cheated on you.”

“Really
? Because in case you didn’t know, I saw you and heard you with my own two eyes and ears flirting with that Russian slut at the ball the tsar threw. You going to tell me I imagined that too?”

Ah yes, the infamous last dance. He
’d been masquerading as a rich playboy, she as an embassy bigwig’s arm candy. They’d both flirted and smiled with other people as part of their cover. “I was doing my job. We were spies, remember? Our mission was to ferret out information about nuclear arms and deals by any means possible.”

“And we both know you’d do anything to win.”

“Kill. Steal. Lie. Even flirt, yes. But I never seduced that woman.” Even if he’d awoken in bed naked with her and possessing no recollection of how he’d gotten there.

Of course, she’d bring that salient point up.
“If you’re so damned innocent, then how did you end up in the sack with her?”

“I was drugged.”
It was the only explanation. Drugged or the Russian bitch got a hold of one of his programming codes and shut him down. He’d not even known about that kill switch in his neural interface until later. He’d long since gotten rid of it, but he’d often wondered if Natasha, that marriage-wrecking spy, had used it. And, if she had, who gave it to her?

“
Drugged?” Anastasia snorted. “Sure you were. By then, we were both swimming in nanos. No way a simply mickey took you out.”

“
Well, she did something. Drugged me or zapped me or something. Believe it or not, it’s the truth. Next thing I knew, I woke in my hotel bed with her on top of me trying to get a little too personal.”

“Aha, so you admit being in bed with her.”

“Yes. I never denied that. But nothing happened. I told her to get the fuck off. She did and laughed, saying she’d gotten what she wanted. When I demanded she explain, she pointed a gun at me, blew me a kiss, and walked out. I immediately reported what happened to our handler, who told me not to worry about it.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”
Anastasia frowned. “Our handler is the one who told me about it.”

“Joel is the one who showed you that
damned video?”

“Yes.
He also told me it wasn’t the first time he’d caught you screwing around on me.”

“
He did what? That son of a bitch! I’m going to kill him.” Slowly and with a lot of pain. Seth was trained in the art of keeping his victims alive for maximum torturous effect.

“Too late. He got taken out in the revolts at the cyborg training camp he was assigned to.”

“Pity.”

“Yes, because now I have a few more questions for him because he
’s also the one who gave me the order to hunt you down and execute you.”

“
Then you won’t be surprised to discover he’s the one who told me you’d gone rogue and gave me the same order.”

“What?”
The surprise in her eyes and exclamation was genuine.

“You heard me.
I also got the order to execute, wifey poo, except I refused to comply.”

“I never heard about that. And you never told me.”

“You never gave me a chance.”

Her lips flattened into a straight line.
“I was angry.”

“Say it like it is. You had a
jealous temper tantrum.”

“I did not.”

“Did too. Which in itself was unusual. I mean think about it. You didn’t bother to question. Didn’t bother to dig. You just accepted what they told you. Then hunted me down and refused to even listen.”

The furrow on her brow deepened. “What are you saying?”

“I think it wasn’t just normal jealousy and anger at work. I think they used your programming against you.”

“
No, I would have …” She didn’t complete her thought. She whirled and stared at what passed for their window into space. Right now it showed scrolling numbers instead of distant stars. When she did finally speak, her tone was low, almost a whisper. “You think they tampered with my emotions and thought process?”

“Yes.”

“You’re accusing them of playing us against each other.”

“I am totally telling you they did. I would have proven it to you
, too, if you hadn’t freaked out and run away. Not your fault. You weren’t the only one with hidden bombs in your brain.”

“I didn’t run. I asked to be reassigned.”

“And yet, the girl I knew, the girl I fell in love with would have never run from a fight.”

She didn’t answer, but her body language spoke for her.
Her shoulders slumped, and a weary sigh leaked free. “You said they ordered you to kill me, yet you didn’t. Why?”

“For some reason, they either didn’t try the same trick with me, or it didn’t work.
Joel gave me some half-assed story about you flipping to the other side and that I was to kill you if I saw you. I didn’t believe a word of it, of course. Before I could ask you about it, you had your jealous meltdown and told me I was a dead man if I didn’t leave. So I left, figuring you’d come to your senses.”

“But I didn’t.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“
There’s one thing I don’t get though. If you knew they fucked you over—“