Kingston 691

by Donna McDonald

  Seetha closed her eyes and prayed for strength to better deal with the current version of King today. Coming unglued over her former husband’s reformatted brain was what got her into the trouble she was in. Enough was enough. She forced her eyes open and forced them to look at the male smiling kindly at her in concern.

  The other cyborg yelling at King brought her attention back to their greater reality. So did King pulling off his shirt and handing it to her with not a shred of self-consciousness over revealing his massive muscles. She stared at his naked chest, blasted by lust even in the middle of the worst chaos she’d ever known. When he shook his shirt at her and frowned over her lack of response, she finally took it from his fingers only to stare at it in her hands. She wanted to laugh and swear at the irony of her life when the still comforting scent of him wafted up from the damn fabric to her nose.

  “Your clothes tore as you pulled away from your attacker. I thought you might want to cover up. I don’t need it for protection here in this heat,” King explained, frowning at the way the woman was staring at his shirt like putting it on was the worst fate she could imagine. It was bad enough he was fighting the urge to hug her, even though she was a stranger. It was taking all his self-control not to give in to the urge to do whatever it took to remove the anguish from her gaze.

  His processor was racing to figure out why the hell this complete stranger set off every internal alarm he possessed. Just looking at her gave him a whopping headache.

  “Hey King. Are we going to take the cyborg you blasted back with us? He’d be just one more we wouldn’t have to come rescue later, right?”

  King’s gaze was still on the woman in front of him as he talked to Eric. “Maybe. Check with Peyton about the guy and tell him we found Seetha Harrington,” King ordered.

  Seetha nodded. “Yes. You found me…and just in time.”

  When her voice reflected the shock she was no doubt feeling, King studied her for signs of an impending emotional implosion. Anyone—human or cyborg—could easily see Seetha Harrington was valiantly struggling to keep her shit together. At the moment, she was biting her very full, very sexy bottom lip so hard her teeth were leaving indentations. Her color kept coming and going, like she was forgetting to breathe. Finally, King couldn’t stand watching anymore. He turned away from his mounting worry and saw a wide-eyed Eric pondering the unconscious man at his feet.

  “Don’t worry about him coming around. The pulse shuts down both sides of a cyborg.”

  “How can you be sure he’ll stay that way though, King? Nothing keeps me down for long,” Eric bragged, mostly to cover his concerns. He took a step back from the fallen cyborg before closing his eyes so he could wirelessly tune in to Peyton who’d gone to oversee the distraction Marcus had caused.

  Scanning the area and seeing no further signs of danger to them, King pulled his gaze from Eric to look back at the woman they’d come to rescue. He smiled in relief knowing she was safe with them finally, and was disappointed when she looked away without returning his friendly gesture. While he’d been listening to Eric, she had discreetly pulled his shirt on over her head and down over her torn clothing. Seeing his shirt on her pleased him way more than was reasonable to feel about a perfect stranger—only he guessed she wasn’t exactly one. After all, the woman had once bought and owned him.

  When she refused to hold his gaze for more than a couple seconds, King wondered what the hell Seetha Harrington was thinking. Concern over her state of mind made him lose track of what he’d been intending to say, so he resorted to reciting mission details to fill the uncomfortable silence. Well, at least the silence was uncomfortable for him.

  “Finding you was much easier than we expected. Something is cloaking your ID chip signal and keeping it from pinging back to our scanner.”

  King watched her shrug. She grabbed the front of her as her torn clothing shifted under his shirt. Why hadn’t she just discarded it? He was surprised she had any modesty left given what she’d endured that day. He heard her clear her throat to talk.

  “The bots electromagnetically destroyed my embedded ID chip the day I got here. Whoever is running this place must have known you were coming because they were in the process of delivering me to the cyborg you shot who I think got programmed to kill me. I decided not to make it easy for him. I ran away from my guard bot just before I saw you. Those are pieces of Rodney your friend scattered around over there with his weapon. My eyes saw him get blown away, but I’m going to have nightmares about that squeaky SOB for a long damn time.”

  King heard the irritation in her tone and watched her eyes flash in anger as Seetha glared at what remained of the bot—and at the cyborg on the ground. He opened his mouth to tell her how brave she was for trying to escape, despite the terrible odds of succeeding, but Eric interrupted before he could get the words out.

  “Peyton said to bring him. The information the cyborg has might be useful in piecing together what happened here.” Eric looked down at the man. “Damn—up close he’s pretty big. He’ll drag the ground if I try to carry him.”

  King snorted at the wary look on Eric’s face. “Leave him be, Shorty. Take care of Ms. Harrington. I’ll carry him.”

  “Me? Take care of a pretty woman? Sure. It would be my pleasure,” Eric declared, smiling widely as he walked to where King and his tall, good-looking, former contract wife stood. “Hello Ms. Harrington. It’s very nice to see you alive.”

  “Hello, Eric. It’s very nice to be alive,” Seetha declared, trying her best to be cheerful, despite the adrenaline crash she was experiencing.

  She glanced at King, who was now glaring at the younger cyborg, probably because he was trying so hard to be charming to her. She suspected Eric’s husband chip had been recently upgraded because he seemed to be splicing all his new phrases into his conversation with her.

  “You look much better in person than you did in the satellite feed, Ms. Harrington, but then everyone looks kind of emaciated on screen these days. Most actresses would kill to have your sleek bone structure,” Eric declared, holding out his hand for her to shake.

  Seetha laughed tiredly and gave him her hand. “Sleek bone structure, eh? This emaciated body was created by a strict diet of local fruit and preserved food bars for more months than I feel like recounting. Maybe I’ll write a book about how I got this thin and make a bloody fortune. If I spew out the leftover adrenaline still pumping through me, I’ll try not to hit you with my further emaciation efforts.”

  King frowned at Eric’s bad flirting and knocked the younger man on the shoulder in warning as he strode by. “Stop hassling her. Here—carry my weapon,” he ordered, shoving the pulse canon at the grinning male. He was rewarded by the same male’s outright laughter as he ungracefully hefted the large cyborg’s dead weight up far enough for a fireman’s carry.

  King positioned the man and then turned to Seetha. “Do you know this cyborg’s registration number?” He instantly regretted seeing the smile Eric had caused fade as she straightened and nodded.

  “Yes. It’s William 874. I don’t know anything about him other than that, but I can tell you anything you want to know about any of the AI units in this place. They made me their maintenance engineer.”

  “William 874. I’ll look him up in the system,” Eric said quickly, taking the handheld from his pocket before hoisting both pulse canons over one shoulder. “Can you walk without assistance, Ms. Harrington?”

  “Walk? Are you kidding me? I will run again if it means a chance of getting the hell out of here,” Seetha exclaimed.

  Eric laughed at the passion in her statements and motioned for Seetha Harrington to follow behind the massive King, who was striding away with a tall and well-built cyborg wrapped around his neck and shoulders like a scarf.

  “Sometimes I forget how big King is. It’s obvious though when he’s carrying a full grown man as easily as he would a child,” Eric said, noticing the woman’s gaze hadn’t once left King’s naked back.

&nbs
p; Seetha snorted as she stared. “I know exactly how big Kingston 691 is. He used to be my Cyber Husband.” She figured Eric knew that about her already, but she put the truth out there to show him that she wasn’t afraid to admit it. If they had intentionally come after her as King claimed, it was a safe guess their homework had included her former relationship to the cyborg who couldn’t remember her.

  “When was the last time you had any news from outside the work camp?” Eric asked as they walked.

  “Work camp? Is that what this place is? I knew they did some sort of digging and mining, but I never once saw any ore produced. The AI units I worked on got banged up all the time, but they made sure I never knew any details about how they got damaged. They built a stone table in the middle of the camp that served as my workbench. I travelled between that place and my cell daily. It was my entire life.”

  Eric stopped his research to study the woman. “So you definitely haven’t heard the big news about what’s happened while you’ve been in here.”

  “No. Like what, for instance?” Seetha asked.

  She stumbled in her nearly worn-out sandals as they headed quickly toward a person-sized hole someone had carved in the metal security fence with a cutting torch. She’d seen the metal barricade at a distance, but had never once gotten close to it, not even in the early days when she had made the bots chase her down before she’d work on them. Now she was stepping through the opening and out into the relative freedom of the jungle beyond her prison.

  Turning to glance back at the wall from outside it, Seetha shuddered thinking about all the times she’d tried to escape on her own. What would she have done if she’d succeeded in getting over the fence? Dying in the jungle was the thing that came to mind now. Reality hit her hard and fast as she accepted she would never have made it out on her own.

  She turned back to see Eric studying her closely. “I’m sorry. Being rescued is just as overwhelming as being a prisoner. I haven’t been away from the bots for a long, long time. It’s a bit strange to think they won’t be coming after me and dragging me back to my cell.”

  Eric shrugged and smiled. “Understandable thoughts—given your newly liberated circumstances.”

  Seetha laughed at the phrase. “Am I liberated? One thing I’ve learned is that there are all kinds of prisons. I was already in a mental one when I ended up here. Too bad I had to learn my lesson the hard way about picking my battles.”

  She smiled when she saw Eric was still paying attention. “You’re a good listener. Now tell me your big news about what I’ve missed.”

  Eric smiled. She was sharp, even traumatized. “Okay…here it is. A few months ago one of the original scientists of the Cyber Soldier program figured out how to restore all the cyborgs. It’s worked pretty well, but has changed a lot of things.”

  Seetha’s gaze went to the King’s back again just as he turned and walked up a ramp. Her mind scrambled with what she was hearing as he disappeared inside the air transport vehicle.

  She turned and looked at the man walking calmly by her side. “So King is…is he still a cyborg?”

  Eric shrugged. “Yes. We’re all still what we were made to be physically, but now we don’t take orders from anyone. Dr. Winters liberated us from the AI programming they were using to constrain us. She found a way to give us back most of our human decision making.”

  Seetha sighed. A weight was being lifted from her by the news. “I see. Is King still in the Cyber Husband program?”

  Eric shook his head. “Hell no. None of us are. King’s a free man and back on the market as they used to say in the twentieth.”

  Seetha snorted at his use of slang, which was correct, but surprising from a cyborg.

  “I spent my life savings to buy King’s contract. I will never regret it because he gave me the best seven years of my life. Maybe its poetic justice the man doesn’t remember a single second of it while I can’t forget. Restoration sounds like it's given him a real chance to start over. Hell…I’m all about it, if that’s the case. I’m glad for you too, Eric. I’m glad for all of you. I just hope King buys a restaurant. The man loves to cook. No amount of updating ever took that away from him.”

  Shock was starting to set in. A bone-deep exhaustion of biblical proportions was making itself known in her every weary muscle. Seetha sighed, still trying to adjust to the fact she was being rescued instead of facing her death.

  “Let’s change the subject before I get maudlin. How did you manage to find me? I snuck away from my family and didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”

  Eric opened his mouth, wondering how much he should share. No one had set boundaries on sharing revelations with her.

  “Your mother told King you were missing. She’s the reason he came after you.”

  He watched the changing expressions on her face as they climbed up the ramp. After what she’d been through, Seetha Harrington wasn’t any more in touch with her real feelings than King was. They lived in her gaze though. He saw her eyes flash with some strong emotion.

  “My mother probably thought the worst of the situation. I was so disillusioned by what happened. My plan was to get away from the hell my life had become, but all that happened was I traded one hell for another.”

  “Cyborgs feel the same way about the war versus the last decade of oblivion,” Eric said. He pointed to a seat. “Make yourself comfortable. The others should be returning soon. Our departure might be a little exciting if the distraction crew happens to bring other company back with them.”

  Seetha snorted. “I hear you. I’ll strap in and be ready to go when you guys are.”

  Eric turned and passed the handheld to King, who had just finished securing their latest rescued cyborg to a seat. “William 874 doesn’t have too much onboard. Looks like standard issue cybernetics—faster legs, stronger arms, etc. I didn’t see anything concerning.”

  King nodded, sneaking a look at Seetha who was rubbing her stomach. Her eyes were closed. He felt Eric’s hand on his arm and met his serious and sympathethic gaze.

  “It’s better than you think. She’s lucid and rational, but it’s probably going to take some time to fully recover. I’ll make sure you get the seat next her going home,” Eric said.

  King nodded and looked at Seetha’s closed eyes before heading forward to get the air transport engines started.

  Chapter 5

  King crossed his arms as he, Peyton, and Kyra listened to Chancellor Owens making his weak-ass explanation. The man didn’t have a shred of genuine compassion in him.

  “The UCN investigation has determined that what happened to Seetha Harrington was an unfortunate bureaucratic error. Her Peace Brigade application somehow got coded with the wrong location. She was supposed to be assigned to an archeological project in a small village just north of the Zanzi Ore facility. As to Ms. Harrington’s allegations she was incarcerated when she was dropped off there, the AI units attending her merely followed standard protocol. Her confinement and supervision were for her protection from malfunctioning AI units and defective cyborgs.”

  “Engineer Harrington was denied the ability to leave, Chancellor. She was a prisoner. She also lost over a hundred pounds from lack of proper nourishment,” Kyra said firmly.

  “Her doctor’s exam shows she was not physically harmed in any significant way. Though the UCN is not willing to admit to any intentional wrongdoing, all the members of the committee are deeply concerned such a situation could have existed this long without being discovered. Restitution in the form of two years of the highest level salary for a Calibration Engineer has been approved. It is generous compensation for work as an AI unit maintenance engineer.”

  “Money won’t make up for the nightmares,” King exclaimed, wishing the man was there in person with him again. He’d remind him how it felt being someone’s prisoner. Peyton’s hand on his arm sent him back to silence. He glared at the screen when Chancellor Owens lifted an eyebrow at his outburst.

  “I don’t understa
nd why you care about this at all, Mr. West. What is your current connection to Ms. Harrington? If I understood the data in her records, she returned you to Norton and severed your husband contract to her well before her incident. She listed the reason as overall dissatisfaction with your husband services. Why would you care about someone who obviously did not care for you?”

  Fearing King was going to attack the monitor if the chancellor kept talking about Seetha Harrington so negatively, Kyra cleared her throat and interjected again. “Chancellor Owens, what about the allegations Seetha Harrington made about the cyborg at the facility being programmed to kill her? What did your investigation reveal about that?”

  Chancellor Owens frowned. “It revealed nothing of concern. When your cyborg vigilantes breached the security fence, William 874 was programmed to seek her out and detain her for safety reasons. The cyborg was serving as a backup guard there. Did you discover anything different during his restoration?”

  Kyra lifted her chin. “William 874 is scheduled for restoration, but I didn’t want to do anything to him until the UCN had finished all their research into the matter.”

  The man on the screen waved his hand. “Get it done, Dr. Winters. That cyborg was one of the later models converted, so he shouldn’t be complicated. The reason he was at the facility is because he didn’t take to his military cybernetics well. Since we no longer sanction the involuntary use of cyborgs for manual labor tasks, William 874 has been replaced with an advanced, self-aware AI unit out of Japan. The mines were put back into operation within two days of his arrival. So you see, there’s no need for further concern. The new model AI unit also took over the repair tasks Engineer Harrington was doing. At this time, no charges are being pressed against Mr. Elliot or Mr. West for damages occurring from their extreme methods of extraction, but in the future, it would be preferable to warn us. We might have saved the bots all the repair work they had to do.”