‘Shall we call that a day?’ Frankie asked, letting his arm go.
‘I think that sounds like a good idea,’ he said, panting.
She smiled and got up, offering her hand to him as he turned onto his back. He smiled up at her and took her hand.
Although, he’d never said anything since joining the group, she had noticed Dion giving her the occasional lingering look. She’d caught him looking at her when he clearly thought she wasn’t watching him. That, along with a few offhand comments, gave her the suspicion that he might actually fancy her a little bit. Or maybe more than a little bit. But he’d yet to ask her out on a date.
That said, she wasn’t sure she would accept. Firstly, she actually kind of liked Gibson rather than Dion, anyway. Gibson was older and had a rough and rugged aspect to him that she appreciated. They had also shared that moment a few weeks back, which she still thought about from time to time. They had been so close to a kiss until they had been interrupted by a call.
Maybe it had been for the better, though; she still wasn’t all that sure about her body and what that meant for a relationship. Xenox had reassured her that she could enjoy a full and normal sex life, but it was still a new frontier for her and part of her was still quite scared of what might or might not happen, which was her second reason for not being overly sure about a relationship.
She did want to embark on another relationship at some point, though, one day when she was feeling a little better about everything. But she wasn’t sure Dion was the right person for her.
‘Good job today, well done. Your skills are improving,’ Frankie said.
‘Thanks,’ Dion answered. ‘Same time tomorrow?’
‘You bet,’ she smiled.
‘You doing anything tonight?’ he asked.
‘Just popping over to see Gibson now he’s back, catch him up on recent events, you know,’ she said.
‘Aaah, sure. Of course. It’s good to have him back,’ he said.
Did she sense some disappointment in him? Maybe. Thinking about that last question, it was possible he was gearing himself up to ask her out on a date, only for her to shut him down before he ever really got started. She hadn’t realised she’d done it, though, until she heard that tone in his voice. She felt bad suddenly, but the deed was done. She didn’t want to lead him on either, so she decided against saying she was free tomorrow or whenever. She was only making assumptions about this thought processes anyway; it might have just been an innocent question for all she knew.
‘Yeah, it is. He’s been through a lot recently. I just want to make sure he’s okay,’ she said, agreeing with Dion.
‘Absolutely; the team needs him,’ Dion said as he walked out of the gym with her.
A few weeks ago, this room had been picked out as a perfect space for a gym and sparring ring. Until now, it had just been one of the unused rooms within the residential part of the A.C.T. base, but renovation was progressing, slowly but surely.
‘I’ll catch you later,’ Frankie said with a smile and walked back to her own quarters, where she wasted no time getting into the shower. Given that she was a cyborg now, she really didn’t need to take a shower after a workout. She didn’t sweat the same way that she used to with her organic body, so there was little need to wash after a session like that with Dion, but, despite that, she almost always did. It was partially habit, and also, given she was going to see Gibson, she did want to look and feel good.
Even with her cybernetic body, she found the shower was still a great way to invigorate herself, and was still essential for washing away the grime from the day, anyway. Although, the only organic part of her was her brain, it was still hooked up to the rest of her body, and still collected signals from it, much like it did before her cyberization. So the stimulus of the water hammering against her synth skin felt just as good as it used to do before all this, soothing her mind and relaxing her.
She soon stepped out of the shower and got dressed, putting on a nice dress, but nothing too fancy. She wanted to feel good, but she wasn’t trying to seduce him or trying to initiate anything. That would be callous in the extreme. No, she just wanted to have a nice night, catch up with Gibson, and chat about what was going on in both of their lives now. She wasn’t even sure if she should bring up the subject of Camille, his now departed wife, or Stephanie, his missing stepdaughter.
She figured she’d just play it by ear and see how things went. He might bring the subject up himself, anyway.
It didn’t take her long to get ready and head out along the corridor to Gibson’s quarters, her heels clicking on the hard floor as she walked. She reached his door and was about to knock when she noticed that it was slightly ajar. Frankie had a flash of suspicion, but discounted it as ridiculous. She was so used to watching her back and seeing corporate subterfuge in everything that she sometimes saw it in the most innocent of situations. She shrugged her shoulders, throwing off the weight of the silly thoughts and figured he must have just left it open for her to let herself in.
They knew each other well enough that it seemed like a natural fit.
She reached for the handle and stepped inside.
‘Hey, Gibson, hope you don’t mind me walking in like this, but you left…’ She stopped mid-sentence on seeing Gibson and Veronica kissing in his living space. Veronica held his head, while he had hold of her arms, and pushed her away to look up at Frankie.
Frankie locked eyes with Gibson for a second.
‘Frankie,’ Gibson started to say.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ Frankie said and backed out the room. ‘I’ll come back later, maybe…’ she said as she walked away.
Had she looked shocked? She couldn’t really remember what face she had made, but felt sure it must have been one of surprise. She felt flushed and embarrassed. Could her body do that? She didn’t know, but she felt like it. So, he and Veronica had a thing going on? Why had she not seen this before? She had no idea that this was going on. It made sense, she guessed. They had been partners for a while in the police force, so maybe they had been seeing each other on and off for a while? Maybe Veronica had been one of the people he had been unfaithful to Camille with? Still, to do this so soon after Camille’s death? Was Veronica this unfeeling?
She heard footsteps behind her.
‘Frankie, wait. Stop. Look,’ he said, grabbing her arm. ‘It’s not what you think. I’m sorry you saw that, but nothing is going on between Veronica and me; it was a silly mistake,’ he said.
‘It’s fine. Honestly, it’s not like we have anything going on between us anyway, and it’s not a big deal. I’m just sorry I walked in on you,’ she said, trying to brush it off and just wanting to be left alone.
‘You didn’t walk in on anything. It was nothing, really,’ he said.
Over his shoulder, she noticed Veronica leave his place and disappear down a side corridor without looking back at them. Was she embarrassed, too?
‘I don’t care, really, and you looked busy, so, we’ll catch up another night, okay? We have plenty of time to talk, so… Look, I’ll see you later, all right?’
Gibson nodded as Frankie backed off from him and then turned away. She walked up to the door of her quarters and went to open it, only to think about sitting in there alone and probably just being upset, and suddenly, it was the last place she wanted to be. So, she kept walking, and before long while in something of a fugue state, she found herself standing on the hanger roof and the flat service area with its elevator machinery and air conditioners. The building was squat and box-like. An unremarkable building sitting amongst the hustle of the towering skyscrapers that stabbed for the clouds above. Even though it was sitting in the lowest part of the city’s mid-levels, the area immediately around the A.C.T. base was not built up too much, and apart from a few elevated highways a few blocks over, there was nothing much above the building itself. It was surrounded on nearly all sides by the huge towers that were commonplace throughout the city, but
there were a few areas, mainly industrial estates, that didn’t rise up too much at all.
Frankie sat herself on the edge of an air conditioning unit and gazed out at the grey and black buildings that surrounded her, with their gaudy neon signs that splashed colour out upon the otherwise colourless tower blocks.
It was quite the sight to behold, and one that she hoped she would never bore of.
It served as a little distraction from her encounter downstairs, for a short while at least, until, as inevitable as the rain in London, she thought about it again.
If she was truly honest with herself, she knew she really did quite like Gibson. It was a crush. She fancied him. But, she had no idea if they really were suitable for each other, and before she could even get to that, she guessed that neither of them was likely in the right frame of mind to be embarking on any kind of relationship, anyway.
Gibson had just lost his wife. She knew there’d been problems there and she knew they weren’t really together other than on paper in a legal sense, but still, losing someone like he had would be tough to get over.
As for herself, she thought, looking down at her body, well, she knew she had her own issues to deal with. She rubbed her fingers over the skin of her arm, feeling the texture there. It felt just like real skin, the effect was impressive, but, she knew it wasn’t. She knew it was artificial, and she knew that the pliable ballistic polymer beneath it that made up her flesh and muscles was also artificial, even though it moved and had a weight to it that felt a lot like real flesh, until you punched it, which made it momentarily harden to resist damage.
It looked real but is wasn’t. Her skeleton didn’t look like an organic human skeleton made from bone, but then, it didn’t need to. It only needed to move correctly and provide a frame to hang her synthetic flesh onto.
Her whole body was all about the final effect looking real, of giving the viewer the impression that she was, in fact, human, but it was all cosmetic, and she knew all too well that she most certainly was not organic.
She was different. She was something new. Was she human? She didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure what that meant in this world of advanced cybernetics. What was human when you could be reduced to just a brain and have everything else replaced? When ninety percent of your body was made in a factory, could you really be called human anymore? She often felt separate from the others in the team, feeling more comfortable sitting alone and keeping people at arm’s length rather than letting them get too close. Getting into a relationship would mean she would have to let someone in; she would need to let someone get much closer to her than anyone had since her cyberization. The idea actually kind of scared her, and she wondered if her thoughts of getting into a relationship with Gibson were somewhat premature.
Not that it really mattered now, anyway. He seemed to be having a nice enough time with Veronica, so maybe he didn’t want to be more than friends with her.
Maybe, she had read into things too much, seen something that wasn’t there, and assumed he thought about her the same way she did about him.
He knew she was a cyborg, he’d seen her after some pretty nasty fights when she’d had an arm or leg ripped off, so he was under no illusion about who and what she was. Had that made him look elsewhere? Had he been disgusted by what she was?
She sighed. That was silly. She was letting her mind get the better of her and take her down some dark paths. Something she really didn’t want to do right now.
An icon flashed in her vision, indicating an incoming call from the A.C.T. director.
She shook her head and banished those melancholy thoughts away for another time before opening the channel to William.
‘Frankie, can you come to the office? I have something I think you should see,’ he said.
‘Of course, sir, I’ll be right down,’ she said. It was likely to be a mission or an event that would need their attention. Which, given recent events, would be a welcome distraction.
She jumped off the unit she was sitting on, made her way off the roof and down into the building, heading beneath the hanger into the sub levels to William’s office. As she approached the door, it opened before she got there, and Brenna stepped out with files under her arm.
Frankie smiled. ‘Brenna,’ she said in greeting.
‘Frankie, he’s waiting for you,’ she said, with a smile that felt slightly sheepish.
After the events that led to the Nano Liberation, Brenna ended up having to eat some humble pie. She’d been brought on as one of the programmers they had liberated from the Corporations that had allowed them to hack the nanobots and insert the virus, but she also had something of a shared history with Doctor Xenox. She’d been another of his protégées, one he’d been friendly with. They had also plotted their joint escape from Psytech, but when the time had come, for reasons that were still not quite clear, Xenox had left alone, leaving Brenna behind.
She’d been subjected to a certain amount of interrogation and naturally held a grudge. With the successful completion of his plan to liberate the nanobots and his exoneration of being involved in some sabotage, Brenna, who had been accusing Xenox of working against them, ended up having to accept that Xenox was not the bad guy at all if she wanted to continue being here in the A.C.T..
Of course, there was no going back for Brenna, Psytech would not be likely to offer her her job back, so, for now at least, she had chosen to stay here and had soon become William’s assistant while she thought about what kind of life she wanted to lead. She kept a low profile, keeping herself to herself, and seemed content for the time being.
‘Thanks,’ Frankie said and walked through the open door into William’s office.
‘Frankie, oh, wow; nice dress. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a skirt before,’ he commented.
‘Probably not; I don’t wear them often,’ she said, glancing down at the fitted black sleeveless number she was wearing.
‘Did you have plans tonight?’ he asked.
‘Not anymore,’ she said, unable to resist the small sigh that came with saying those words.
‘Okay, well, we have an incident that’s currently ongoing, and as it involves some exiles, I thought you’d be interested,’ he said.
‘Go on,’ she answered,
‘Some exiles have been found in a support building in the Undercity. Corporate operatives are on site and shots have been fired,’ he said. ‘We don’t know much more than that, though. Do you want to take this one on?’
‘Absolutely, yes,’ she said.
‘Okay, I’ll make the arrangements. Go get ready, I’ll assemble the team,’ he said.
Frankie paused for a moment. The thought of working with Gibson and Veronica after what had just happened made her momentarily nervous, but she quickly dismissed it. They were professionals. She needed to be able to work with these guys no matter what, and suddenly, she wondered if getting into any kind of relationship with anyone on the team, certainly anyone she needed to trust with her life, was such a great idea after all.
The probability of it ruining everything was too great and then the strength of the team would be compromised, which could ultimately mean death for some or all of them.
‘Everything okay?’ William asked, apparently spotting her moment of indecision and thought.
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she said, coming to her senses again with a smile. ‘I’ll go get ready.’
3.04
The flyer bumped and shook as it shot through rising hot air and turbulence, dropping below the cities mid-levels and down into the shadows of the Undercity. Frankie sat in her seat, keenly aware that Gibson and Veronica kept looking over at her, and seemed keen to say something, They were all dressed in their usual stealth suits with their webbing and personal armour, carrying their rifles.
Frankie had checked her guns over a couple of times, doing her best to distract herself from the tension between Gibson and herself. Cole was also coming with them on this mission, while Dion sat at the termina
l a short distance away, monitoring the comms.
Kalypso and Xenox were sitting this one out and were back at base. Frankie’s team weren’t going far from the A.C.T. headquarters, meaning they could call them in as reinforcements if they needed to.
Frankie gazed out of a window opposite her, watching the city pass by all around them. The older buildings down here in the Undercity lit up by the endless artificial lights looked quite different to the more modern structures above. They were rebuilt to one degree or another after the devastation of World War Three, but the main construction happened above. There was a notion of keeping the old city preserved beneath the new, to remember what had happened, but today, it had become little more than a partially flooded slum, dotted with huge structures that were called support buildings. These were basically massive apartment blocks that doubled as pillars, holding up the sprawling metropolis above.
Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people lived down here where the rent was low and life was cheap. The streets were dangerous, prowled by Jacker Gangs, cruising the back alley’s looking for augmented exiles so they could steal their cybernetics. She’d seen them first hand a few times, back when she used to come down here and try to help those who had become victims of corporate excess. Not to mention the gang that had shot her, setting her on the road to cyberization. The memory of that day was still raw and cruelly clear in her memory, marking the day her life had utterly changed.
Things were different now; she had made a difference. But, back then, the best she could hope for was to visit the camps and try to help the individuals she met. She found she could make a difference to someone’s life by just offering them some help by getting them to one of the back alley cybernetic doctors and appealing to their good nature. The effects of her actions had been small, but powerful. Some of the people she had found back then were on the verge of suicide. They’d lost everything: their jobs, their homes, their families, all because they had fallen on hard times and could no longer pay the Corporations insurance premiums for their Nanobots or prosthetics. Most people who became victims like this either took their own lives or retreated to the camps down here, where once eradicated diseases such as typhoid were commonplace and killing hundreds of people a week.
The Prometheus Trap (The New Prometheus Book 3) Page 3
