Kingston 691

by Donna McDonald

  “Did Peyton go nuts on Doc any way at all?” King asked.

  Nero laughed. “No, he flirted with her until she confessed what was going on, then he got angry. Peyton believed Kyra had captured him during a field mission your team was conducting. It was very traumatic for him later when Kyra removed the block and let him process all his time in the Cyber Husband program. He felt even more angry then, and destroyed everything in his confinement cage. Who could blame him? Not me. I’d have been mad too to know I’d been bought and sold by my government.”

  King crossed his arms. “Peyton at least got to keep all of his past though, no matter how shitty it was to discover it. I don’t have any real sense of what I went through being Seetha Harrington’s Cyber Husband. Tell me something—do you think this stuff you’ve found is technically mine as well as Norton’s?”

  Nero thought about it briefly and then nodded. “I guess you could say I consider this information to be yours as well. Why?”

  King lifted his gaze and his chin. “Because I want everything I forgot about my time with Seetha Harrington put back into my head.”

  Nero blinked and stared. He chuckled softly, but stopped instantly when he saw King glaring at his amusement. “Well…I…don’t really know how to answer without risking an ass-kicking. It doesn’t exactly work that way.”

  “Why the hell not? Just put it all on a chip and stick it back where it came from.”

  Nero shook his head as he spoke. “No. I can’t do that, King. You don’t have room for all this data, and you can’t give up what you have been collecting since your restoration. We could put the Cyber Husband chip back, but only with some very basic information on it. But the rest…?”

  Nero’s arm swept out to include both their viewing consoles.

  “You’re going to have keep the rest of this on some kind of external disk. In a sense, watching the vids and reading the reports will be a way of partially putting the information back. Well, except it will be processed mostly by the human side of your brain this time, and as you know, you won’t retain everything that way. Unless you are gifted with an eidetic memory, your human mind will be very selective about what it decides to keep. You might have recall of one or two percent.”

  King heard the words and processed the logic, but he wanted back the memories of the laughing woman on the vids. He also wanted to be the chuckling man who recorded the info again. Both of those desires were rapidly becoming his obsessions. He had every right to have all his memories returned.

  “Maybe I’m not being clear about what I want, Nero. I want all of my life back which includes this information. I don’t want to hear how impossible it is. Just tell me how you or Doc can make it happen.”

  Nero huffed out a breath and leaned back in his chair. He made himself hold King’s gaze.

  “King, listen to me—you’re obviously having some kind of mini-meltdown about this because your request is not logical at all. I am totally unprepared for your question about restoring this data because it never occurred to me you would feel emotionally possessive about it. Most former Cyber Husbands would be glad to forget the time they spent as some rich woman’s personal slave. They would consider your complete lack of knowing any details about Seetha Harrington to be a huge blessing.”

  “Well it’s not a blessing for me, so get prepared and give me a real answer. I want all the information about Seetha back where I can access it anytime I want—with whatever side of my brain needs it,” King exclaimed.

  “But why?” Nero demanded, unable to hold back his surprise at the illogical demand. “What is so important about an unfair contract you were cybernetically forced to fulfill? Regardless of what you see happening in those recordings, the data still points to the fact you were responding to Seetha Harrington based on your Cyber Husband programming. You just had longer to learn her preferences and positive response triggers. Of course you became an expert about her, you had seven years worth of reference information stored.”

  King sighed and looked at his hands. “That explanation sounds both reasonable and logical. My need to reconcile this is not, but it is imperative for my peace of mind. Four women bought me, yet I’m only emotional about one. Every time my processor pauses by where Seetha’s information should be and isn’t, I get royally pissed and want to break things. I figure if you put all the information back, then my processor might not cause me to keep having that extreme reaction.”

  “King…” Nero began, then paused as he tried to find the right words. The big man still intimidated him. “Processors don’t cause emotional reactions. They run programs and that’s all. The emotional reaction is coming from another source within you. You’re a bit like an amnesia victim. Part of your trauma is dealing with the unknown beyond your mind’s grasp. Have you tried talking to Seetha Harrington about your time with her? It is quite possible your human side is the one that’s angry because it needs closure to move on. Relationships go through that all the time. I would consider needing it to be a very normal human reaction to your unique circumstances.”

  King snorted. “Unique circumstances? Every time I look at Seetha Harrington, I feel guilty all the way to my toes, only I don’t know for what. She’s just an attractive stranger I barely know and didn’t recognize. Yet all I can think about since I saw us in a picture together is…well I have serious man thoughts about what I’d like to do with her. I’ve been ignoring her to see if the physical interest would go away, but that doesn’t feel right either. I’m afraid to be in the woman’s company right now. I don’t trust myself not to act inappropriately, one way or the other.”

  “King, some females affect a man detrimentally. They’re like a nemesis. Maybe Seetha Harrington is yours. I heard you made the giant fist-sized hole in the conference room door when Norton sidestepped their responsibility for what happened to her.”

  Nero grinned at King’s solemn nod. At least the man was being honest with himself. It was more than he had managed to do with the women who’d crossed his path.

  “My self-control around her is shaky,” King said.

  “It might be, but you’re not going to hurt your former wife,” Nero declared, sure of it to his bones. King would be more likely to hurt him for asking so many questions, or for daring to disagree.

  “You don’t know that—and I don’t know that,” King stated flatly.

  “Okay—if you’re really that worried, we’ll put the Cyber Husband chip back in as soon as Kyra clears it. Lights will flash in your mind if her body signals stress from anything you say or do around her. Peyton wouldn’t let us remove his chip, but he was programmed specifically for Kyra. He says it helps him be kind to her.”

  “Fine. Then program me for Seetha Harrington again so I can be kind to her. Somebody in this damn place surely knows how to do that still, even if it is forbidden now.”

  Nero scratched his head. “Of course—it’s not hard to code the chip—and Seetha Harrington’s data is available still—but I’ll still have to run it by Kyra. Before we take that action though, as your restoration manager, I’m personally going to insist you talk to her first. If afterwards you still feel the same need to be reprogrammed for her, then we’ll proceed with your request. I’d rather try to fix this organically if we can.”

  “Fine. I’ll go talk to her. When can I get my copy of our relationship records.”

  Nero grinned. “Hang tight for another fifteen and I’ll send you out of here with a complete set on disk. I made a compressed file of the data which will expand once you open it. You will need to invest in one of the newer portables with at least twenty yottabytes of storage.”

  King nodded. “Thanks. I’ll pick one up on my way back to the restaurant.”

  Chapter 7

  It was impossible not to watch herself walk down the hallway because the one-way mirrored labs constantly reflected her image back to her. She couldn’t help being a little pleased about how the comfortable ankle boots made the most of her long legs. The layered
haircut she had gotten had finally tamed the wild, black locks she’d been sporting. Her taller than average height was emphasized now by both her post-captivity thinness and a new well-fitting dress.

  She’d chosen it because it was the color of the turquoise water off the coast of the island where she had been born. Her biological parents had died in a hurricane when she was six, and only a few months later, she’d come to live with the Harringtons in New Virginia. Her adoptive mother would have been proud of the presentation she made today in her clothes.

  Half lost in the past, Seetha realized she was walking a little too slowly and quietly alongside the smaller woman she was visiting with. Under other circumstances, the white-coated woman might have reminded her a bit of her mother—if her mother had possessed an off-the-testing-charts scientific mind.

  “I was surprised to get your call, Dr. Winters. I’m also surprised you’d want me here given I hate Norton Industries and all it stands for right now. They can tell the world any story they want, but I will never believe what happened to me was caused by a database accident. Those bots were well educated about me when I got there. I was expected, kept there on purpose, and handled like a prisoner the whole time.”

  Kyra nodded. She didn’t doubt Seetha Harrington’s theory. She only played nice with the UCN and worked at Norton because it was in the Cyber Soldiers’ best interests for her to keep their high-profile enemies as close as possible.

  “Since I went public with my intentions to restore the cyborgs, I have encountered the UCN’s convoluted justice many times. Norton Industries is the biggest tool they use to carry out their atrocities. This is why I enjoy seeing poetic justice done whenever possible. I hang onto and use all the power I can wrestle from their hands. Fortunately, your employment suits that purpose for me. It is my call who works on my team, not theirs.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m following what you’re saying,” Seetha said, trying not to raise her eyebrows over what she thought the scientist was implying.

  Kyra snorted at the intrigue lighting Seetha Harrington’s gaze. She had always been a sucker for a sharp thinker. “Let me rephrase my rant. When I heard Norton opened up a contract for someone to help us calibrate prosthetics on the restored cyborgs, I instantly thought of what they did to you. The way I see things, they owe you much more than two years worth of salary, but you’re not likely to win a concession, not even if you sought legal recourse. However, if after a year you can list both Norton and the UCN as employers on your work profile, then your next career move should be quite lucrative for you. Plus, it will give me great pleasure to wield my secret powers here and get you hired as one of my team. It will also make the UCN very, very nervous about screwing with you…or me.”

  Seetha inclined her head. “I won’t pretend it wouldn’t be good to have some revenge, but what if I suck at the work? My calibration experience has been mostly on AI units. Like many engineers, I’ve done minor repairs to a couple cyborgs, but nothing like this position would require.”

  Kyra smiled. “I know what you’ve done. I reviewed your work record in detail. You’re innovative and seem to have a good eye. Based on that, I’m sure you’ll figure out the work once you get into it. The average Cyber Soldier’s prosthetics can be more advanced than what you’ve seen to date, but the functional mechanics running off the basic processor I’m using for restoration are almost exactly the same as an average AI unit’s. I did that on purpose. The processor’s primary purpose is to facilitate their physical enhancements…not fuck with their thinking.”

  Seetha felt herself making a face over the woman’s swearing as she thought about it. “You certainly make the job sound feasible…and frankly, interesting. So if I did want to take the job, when would you want me to start?”

  Kyra stopped walking and looked up into a clear gaze. It was remarkable how well the woman had come through her ordeal. If Seetha Harrington had PTSD symptoms, they were not showing on her face. She smiled, thinking it very interesting that this smart woman had bought an extremely physical man like King. But then again…she’d sure adapted to Peyton very easily…even before he was completely himself.

  “How about starting tomorrow?” Kyra asked.

  Seetha laughed loudly, forgetting to be polite. The scientist was very direct—but clueless. Either that or Dr. Winters just didn’t care how messed up she potentially was, though maybe the scientist’s ideas about sanity were based on very different criteria than most people’s.

  “I’m afraid I would have to decline if you make starting tomorrow a requirement. I won’t be clear of Norton’s head-shrinkers—I mean therapists—for a couple more weeks. Seeing them was a requirement for receiving the restitution payment. You may want to know I have been steadily declining all offers of medication. I don’t need it. Occasional lack of sleep never killed anyone. I have good days and bad days, but the bad ones don’t stop me from functioning. If that had been the case, I wouldn’t have been alive to be saved when King and your husband found me.”

  Kyra nodded. “Okay. How about you call me with a start date when you have one? I’d really like you here no later than two weeks. In the meantime, I’ll try to do easy restorations that don’t require much mechanical tweaking.”

  “Dr. Winters…” Seetha began, only to be interrupted.

  “You don’t work for me yet…call me Kyra. Peyton and King have discussed your situation so much in front of me, I feel like I know you already. Plus, I saw your mother at King’s restaurant. Since I’m sure you hear about my scandalous work every time you turn on your home com, formality seems somehow wrong between us.”

  Seetha sighed. This cyber scientist was a strange bird. “Okay…Kyra…here’s my next question. Are you offering me this job because of my skills…or because of Kingston West?”

  Kyra laughed, and then promptly realized she should have anticipated the question. Anyone with a healthy ego would want to know that information. Fortunately, she didn’t have to prevaricate, which was a good thing because she didn’t lie well.

  “King’s concern for you would not be a good enough reason for me to hire you. I’m not a selfless person when it comes to my work. The truth is I hand-pick everyone for my team because I only want people working on the soldiers who are capable of real compassion. If you don’t do a good job fixing them, then I’ll find someone who will. Every soldier deserves to be put right to the best of Norton’s ability, both physically and mentally.”

  “Sounds like you get to call all the shots on what gets done,” Seetha blurted, then wished she could take back her snarky reply. “Sorry. My filters aren’t working. That comment was out of line.”

  Kyra smiled, but narrowed her gaze. “Don’t worry. I’m not easily offended, and yes—I call all the shots that count. We do the cybernetic adjustments I determine are necessary and the ones the restored soldier requests be done. The only stipulation I have is we never reduce basic functions. No soldier will be put into a transport chair just because he hates his prosthetic legs. Those sorts of grumblings are dealt with in focused counseling where he gets to see how hard life will be if he chooses not to remain independently mobile. The minimum criteria for a successful restoration is that the soldier gets to walk, talk, and think independently of his cybernetics. So…are you interested in helping us or not?”

  Seetha looked around. “I…I don’t know yet. I’m usually more decisive than this, but I’m still trying to accept I’m not in the work camp any longer. Can I answer when I’m a little less overwhelmed?”

  Kyra nodded and grinned. “Yes. I’ll give you two days. I’m too impatient to wait longer and I need someone as soon as I can get them hired.”

  “Okay. I guess I know when I’m being warned about what kind of boss you’ll be,” Seetha declared.

  “Perhaps,” Kyra said, grinning at the woman. “But I am an outstanding ally…and yes I mean everything I say.”

  “Dr. Winters…” Seetha paused when she got a funny look and raised eye
brows again. “Sorry…Kyra…before you go, can I ask you a personal question about King?”

  Kyra nodded and relaxed enough to start walking again. “Yes. Of course you can ask. I may or may not answer, but you can ask.”

  Seetha sighed at the social dodge and lifted her chin. She had no reason to be embarrassed about her curiosity, and yet she was. King hadn’t contacted her since her return, which spoke volumes about his lack of interest. Yet at the same time, she needed to know how he was faring so she could cross off one more thing on her finally-get-over-King list.

  “I just wondered if you knew if King was happy about being restored.”

  Kyra tilted her head at the sincere question as she pondered what to tell the woman.

  “A restored cyborg is an odd mixture of raging emotions trying to make peace with the flat logic, which will always be a part of their thinking. It takes a good while to get used to being both cyborg and human at the same time, even though they were exactly the same mixture when first created. Do I think King’s better off on the whole for being restored back to that state? Absolutely. He’s definitely gone on with his life much faster than the average restored soldier seems to. I think it’s because his old military friends are a great support group. The original six I restored are all doing better than the average cyborg at adjusting.”

  Seetha nodded, thinking of Eric. He and King had seemed to be good friends. She’d passed out from stress on the ride home, so she really hadn’t gotten to watch King interacting with the others. She’d woke up to find herself leaning against his arm. Then he’d delivered her to her sobbing mother and walked away without looking back. He hadn’t contacted her since, not even to see how she was faring.

  “Accepting your fate and making the best of it is not the same thing as being truly happy. I guess I want to know how King dealt with his cyborg past…and me…if he ever remembered me at all. Norton took our time together away from him, but those seven years of our relationship will always be with me. I genuinely cared about him, which is why his happiness remains important to me. That’s the only way I can explain why I’m asking. You can tell me if you think this is none of my business. I’m sure King would feel that way about it.”