“Hey. . .Doc. Can’t. . .open. . .my eyes. How. . .damaged. . .are they?”
Peyton heard himself struggling to form simple words and was surprised. His mouth was dry, which meant he was also dehydrated. Running a quick check, he realized he’d not taken in any liquid in thirty-seven hours. He didn’t need much since the cybernetic gills in the back of his neck took in moisture from the air. They must not be working optimally either.
“Can. . .I have. . .some. . .water?”
Peyton was gratified when a cup was instantly lifted to his lips in response to his request. He tried to reach up to hold it, only to find his wrists restrained. Fighting off panic as he had been taught to do, he sipped long on the straw that slid between his lips. The moment the water hit his stomach, his mind cleared enough to start running diagnostics on what he was ingesting. A nearly one hundred percent answer that it was just filtered tap water returned fairly quickly. It reassured him that he was not in immediate danger and the quick answer meant his diagnostic programming was still in place.
So now on to the next dilemma. Had he been captured by a military unfriendly? He tested his restraints discreetly as he sipped again.
Kyra saw her captive struggle, winced inside, but pushed away her guilt. “Easy there, Captain Elliott. I can’t take the chair restraints off until I’ve made a full determination of your condition. You’re not going to be harmed any further. Most of the physical pain is over for good as well.”
Peyton was quiet for a moment while his neural processor scanned her words for meaning and tone. Again, nothing alarming returned. “Your explanation is accepted for now. Where am I? I sense no others in the facility except us.”
“This is not a normal medical facility. You’re in my home. I’m helping you resolve a problem with your cybernetics that couldn’t be addressed elsewhere. How do you feel? Can you determine the extent of your damage?”
Kyra pulled the cup away from his mouth and set it aside. She checked the readout on the homemade EEG machine that she had wirelessly connected to his neural processor. So far, so good. Peyton showed no escalating signs of mental or physical agitation. There were some minor signs of fear, but even blind and partially paralyzed, the man gave no real indication of being overwhelmed. An accelerated pulse was the only clue she had that his human side was becoming aware of his incapacitated situation.
“Try to relax, Captain. You’ve suffered a recent head injury,” Kyra explained. The statement wasn’t really a lie from her point of view. Plus it was to her advantage to keep him as calm as possible.
Peyton made himself relax and ordered his neural pathways to report any strange anomalies. They fired and leapt over all circuits unhindered. Hiding the shock of his newly discovered freedom, he hastily ran the cyber doctor’s requested checks.
Would he be able to lie about the controller being dysfunctional? Could he hide such a thing from a cyber medic?
“I am currently functioning at ninety-seven point three percent efficiency on most systems. I can’t open either of my eyes though I read no damage to the implants. It seems to be my eyelids that lack the ability to perform as I desire. Based on the lack of nerve sensitivity below my hips, I would say my legs are also paralyzed. Genitals are still responsive. Paralysis appears to be partial.”
Kyra patted his hand. “Any paralysis you detect should be temporary. At least it was in the others.”
“What others?” Peyton asked.
“Others who have suffered your same level of damage,” Kyra said softly, giving nothing away. That would come soon enough. “May I check your vitals and draw some blood?”
She watched Peyton wrinkle his face with confusion. When was the last time anyone asked the man’s permission to do something to him? Probably before his cybernetics were installed.
“Captain? May I do my checks?”
Peyton frowned. Why did the doctor’s softly asked questions make him angry at her and at himself? It was highly illogical. His genitals twitched and provided a potential explanation. Her scent was alluring and distracting. Plus her voice caused him to have a strong physical reaction to her.
“I’m a soldier, not a medic. Proceed as necessary, Doc. By the way, when did I get a cybernetic heart? No injury in my service records merits that replacement.”
Kyra swallowed nervously. The discrepancy between his human memories and his cybernetic data bank was already beginning to make itself known. “The heart transplant didn’t happen during your normal military service. Several years ago a woman stabbed you with a kitchen knife. You wisely left the knife in place until help arrived. To fix you, they had to replace your human heart with a cybernetic one. It must have been traumatic for you. I’m not surprised you don’t have immediate recall of the incident.”
“Traumatic?” Finding the word amusing, Peyton laughed at her term. “I’m a Marine, Doc. Traumatic shit is the least of what I signed up for, right?”
He listened to her walking around and heard her tapping on some sort of keyboard.
“I think my left eyelid is twitching. Make sure you write that down in my record. I don’t want them to give me cyber eyelids that blink a thousand times a minute without stopping. It took me months to get used to my new eyes.”
Kyra snorted at his joke. “When we met, the first thing I liked about you was your sense of humor. I’m glad to see it survived your cybernetic programming being severely altered. I’m not sure why the rewiring process affected your visual implants. That’s a new side effect. But no worries, I can probably fix that if it lingers. I feel certain your legs will return to normal now that you’re conscious again. Want some more water?”
“Yes. Please.” Inspired to be nice to the lady doctor with the sexy voice, Peyton tacked on the polite word, glad to hear himself sounding normal. He cleared his throat after two more swallows. “So tell me—are you half as dead sexy as you sound?”
Kyra nearly dropped the water cup in surprise at his question. “Captain Elliott—are you flirting with me?”
Peyton laughed at her genuine surprise because it mirrored his. “I honestly don’t know where that comment came from. There’re not a lot of women out in the field and I don’t think I’ve had leave in a while. At least, I can’t remember if I did. You smell really good and I could listen to you talk all day.”
Kyra frowned as she studied him. “What’s the last thing you do remember?”
Peyton sighed. “Right eyelid starting to twitch. I’m not sure. Let me search my data banks. No—I can’t. I guess those are damaged too. My head hurts. Can I answer later?”
“Your data banks are not damaged, just temporarily inaccessible. I unhooked them for your own good. You needed time to mentally adjust from your cybernetic repairs,” Kyra explained, carefully choosing her words.
She walked to a glass cupboard and drew out syringes and swabs.
“Temporarily inaccessible—that’s geek speak, Doc. You must be a cyber scientist,” Peyton concluded.
Kyra nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Yes. At least I used to be a cyber scientist. Now I guess I’m a freelance medical professional. I specialize in helping heal cybernetic problems.”
Peyton heard some nuance in her voice, one he couldn’t identify as a personality indicator, but it made him want to share his true thoughts with her. “When I got the cybernetic enhancements, I thought I would hate them because any cyber scientist could dink with them whenever he or she wanted. But most of the time, I find them useful as hell. Hurt like a son of a bitch when I got combat modified though. The first thing they did was run a frigging wire through my brain. I passed out like a gazillion times during the process. They kept waking me up with some sort of shock therapy. But I guess you know all about that stuff, don’t you?”
Kyra swallowed, thinking about the process, and how many times she had assisted when it was done to soldiers. Then she thought about the same process being done on children. There was no getting around full disclosure. But it didn’t hav
e to happen today.
“Yes, I know all about that stuff, Captain Elliot. Sometimes I wish I didn’t. Sometimes I wish I was just a simple woman with a simple life. Instead of having fun in college, I chose to study science. I’m afraid the novelty of being smart wore off for me long ago.”
“Wow—that’s deep. And I thought I was jaded,” Peyton complained, trying to run analytics to see what had happened to his controller.
Kyra sighed wearily. “I’m in my fifties and have seen too much. I changed when I found out fate was a cruel bitch. Now I’m one too. It’s worked out better for me than being nice to everyone. But I am really sorry to have caused you further pain. You’ve suffered enough.”
Peyton snorted at the melodramatic apology, even though her tone carried sincerity. “Don’t be so damn hard on yourself, Doc. We all have a job to do. Can I ask what kind of perfume you’re wearing? It seems familiar to me.”
Kyra laughed out loud. “Perfume? It’s called sweat and stink after two days of working on you. Yesterday morning before you got here it was a spritz of citrus body spray after my shower. It took you much longer to wake up than I thought it would.”
“You still smell pretty good to me. I sure as hell don’t mind being the reason you got all sweaty,” Peyton declared, liking her quick indrawn breath. But where the hell was this flirting stuff coming from? He was in no condition to seduce a field medic. Shit. “Geez, I’m sorry, Doc. I don’t know why I keep thinking about you that way. I guess it’s because I like your voice and it’s boring as hell in this chair.”
“Don’t worry about it, Captain. Just dial it down a couple notches. I’m a lot older than you. Oh yeah. . .and I’m gray and wrinkled and grossly overweight,” Kyra added, her tone sharp as she made up lies. She tied the tourniquet band around his arm. “Make a fist for me. Good. Now release.” When he did, she drew out five vials of blood.
“Thanks for working on me all night,” Peyton said. “Hey, I just remembered yesterday. Some guy brought me here in a frigging carrier pod like I was a refrigerator. He tried to talk you out of letting me stay. What a dipshit. And you’re not gray or wrinkled. You’re a nicely built woman with an excellent ass. Damn it—sorry. Guess that should have been filtered a little before I said it. Wow—remembering you makes my head hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“Stop rushing things, Captain Elliott. Enjoy this little mental vacation because it won’t last long,” Kyra ordered.
Peyton allowed himself a chuckle. His chest couldn’t move much with the restraint so tight across it. “So tell me, Doc. Are you always so pessimistic about your patients?”
Kyra shook her head over her reaction to the dimple in his cheek. It made him very appealing and made him seem very human. “Actually, I’m the most optimistic person alive on our planet at the moment. There aren’t many people left in the world who think the way I do. I hope you agree with that one day.”
“I’m sure I will. So when are you turning me loose, Dr. Optimistic?” Peyton asked.
“Your new cybernetic processor is in the process of rewiring itself to your existing chips. Until that process is complete in three days, I’ll have to keep you in some sort of restraints. I have mobile ones and a cage where you will sleep. The changes to your programming are indeterminate in outcome. The precautions are for my safety more than yours. There is no threat to you here unless you count me as one.”
“You’re certainly a threat to my raging libido. Is that what you mean?”
Peyton laughed low when she sighed heavily again.
“Don’t fret so much, Doc. I hear what you’re saying. There’s a possibility I could get a power surge and turn into a killing machine. I get that. You’re doing what’s necessary.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Kyra said, instantly agreeing with his deduction.
“I’m disappointed. You completely missed it that time, Doc. That was sarcasm,” Peyton declared.
“No, Captain. It wasn’t. The chance of you becoming an out-of-control killing machine is a very real possibility. A powerful shock to your cybernetics right now could do a lot of unexpected things to you in your current condition. Until your upgrades stabilize, the alterations to your original programming could produce erratic behaviors.”
Kyra walked to a table where the mobile restraints she had removed from Alex’s broken body still rested. He had been almost the same size as Peyton, which was good because she hadn’t had money to buy new ones. Pushing the negative thoughts about her failure with Alex away, she snapped and code-locked the mobile remote firmly around her wrist before carrying the rest of restraints back to Peyton. She was startled to find him openly staring at her.
“Hey, you do look every bit as good as you sound. Did you lie to me because you’re married or something? Your face is really familiar. I feel like we met for some other reason than me getting hurt.”
“Let’s go with the ‘or something’ explanation,” Kyra said finally. She lifted the mobile wrist restraints to show him. “Are you willing to wear these? I will have to test their effectiveness before I remove the chair restraints.”
“Pain? I’m not really into that sort of kink, but if restraints are my only option to get out of this chair, I guess I’m game,” Peyton declared, winking at her sudden flush.
Kyra pressed her mouth into a line as she snapped and locked the mobile restraints on his wrists. “I was briefly divorced. Before I could really get used to that status, it turned into being widowed too. And I’m glad to report that the sick bastard I married is dead. So you see, Captain Elliott, I’m not a pleasant woman these days. I have no time for sex games, including innuendo that’s going nowhere.”
Kyra bent, lifted the legs of his jeans, and snapped the ankle restraints on him. She made sure they rubbed against his bare skin.
“Who said anything about games? I just thought you might want to know I was interested in case you were interested back,” Peyton declared, staring at the top of the woman’s bowed head. Her position on her knees in front of him gave him wicked ideas, but he thought telling her might be just a little too honest. Her exasperated sigh over his comments made him grin.
“After the bedtime story I’m going to tell you this evening, you won’t want anything to do with me at all, much less anything sexual. The only important thing you need to file away in your newly rebooted data center is that you will always have a choice in every life decision from now on. I did my job well this time. Trust me when I say that being attracted to me would create a situation neither of us could handle.”
Peyton watched her pace twenty feet away and well out of his reach. “What is it you’re keeping from me, Doc?”
“Many things,” Kyra said sadly. “Ready for our test, Captain?”
“Not really. See? I’m being honest again,” Peyton declared, grinning at her frown. Pain suddenly shooting through his extremities had him swearing viciously. “Why don’t I remember anything hurting like this before? My fucking legs are working again by the way. And I almost pissed myself thanks to your restraints. Hope you think that’s enough testing because that’s all I can take.”
Satisfied by his fierce complaining, Kyra walked back to the chair and knelt at his feet again. She had thumb-printed the chair restraint locks so a light swipe across the sensor instantly opened them. After the ankle ones were removed, she removed the one across his chest. Lastly, she moved to his wrists, pausing as she met his questioning gaze. She had to tell him what she was feeling. The urge was too compelling and his gaze was too full of hope.
“Today you are more yourself than you’ve been in a long time, Captain Elliot. Since this may be the only nice conversation you and I are ever going to have, I want to thank you for your military service and all the amazing things you’ve done. I’ll even admit that you’re far more charming than your record indicated. In another time and another place, I might have been willing to play all kinds of games with you. But this is definitely not that time or place. We are
suspended between heaven and hell right now, and neither of us is an angel.”
“Lady, I don’t know what kind of magic you have in your voice, but my dick gets rock hard just listening to you. Sleep in the cage with me tonight and I’ll show you heaven. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman as much as I want you right now. Sorry if the speed of my interest offends your sensibilities. I’m listening to a little voice that keeps yelling inside me. It’s saying this may be my one and only chance to get you to see I’m more than just some super soldier machine in need of fixing.”
Kyra felt her lip tremble and bit it hard to make it stop before she answered. “I already know that about you. That’s why I’m doing this. Now don’t make me like you any more than I already do.”
“See? I knew you liked me,” Peyton bragged, wishing she’d come a lot closer. She smelled amazing.
Kyra wondered if Peyton’s desire for her was a lingering aftereffect of all those years of Cyber Husband programming? He would have studied her file extensively because Norton would have made him do so. He would have learned all he could about her likes and dislikes. That’s how the program worked and she hadn’t removed that chip—on purpose. She needed him to like her at least a little.
Peyton stared at the woman’s disappointed face. She looked ready to cry and he couldn’t stand seeing her that way. “How about a kiss to test your theories about us, Doc? Just one. I need it and I think you need it too. You’ve already admitted you aren’t married. Look—my wrists are still chained to the chair. What could one kiss hurt? Come on—what do you say?”
Kyra sighed. She was as exasperated with him as she was charmed by his pleading. Tomorrow Peyton Elliott was going to hate her. She was one hundred percent sure of it because it had been proven twice already with her restorations.
Tomorrow when Peyton Elliott knew the truth, he would hate his life and those who had consigned him to his living hell. Tomorrow the machine would be partially back and Peyton would not be this light-hearted, mostly human version of himself. He would be a new kind of redefined cyborg. While no one knew what that was going to be like—not even her—she would bet her retirement Peyton was still going to hate her after he integrated the present with his past.
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