by Tasha Black
“No?” Peter asked. “What about the constant promises that he never seems to get around to? He dangles that carrot just out of reach, but something else always comes up. And he swears he will totally make it up to you, next time. Sound familiar?”
Their dinner…
“I think I should go,” Cordelia said. She couldn’t cry in front of Peter. Even if he was right.
“No, please wait,” Peter said, placing his hand over hers.
It made her want to cry even more.
But Peter understood. He understood her because he also lived in West Worthington’s shadow.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, I would hate to see you get hurt. You were always so nice to me. You deserve for someone to treat you like you are special. To put your needs first sometimes,” he looked knowingly into her eyes. “Please stay.”
Cordelia flushed with pleasure in spite of herself. She knew she should go. But she couldn’t seem to make herself leave.
And why shouldn’t someone talk to her this way?
As she wavered, Peter signaled the waiter.
Two glasses of wine appeared immediately.
“You’ve got to try this. It is an amazing vintage,” he urged her.
Cordelia was struck by Peter’s nonchalance about treating her to a fancy meal. She had been under the impression that he was West’s charity case.
“You seem to be doing well,” she ventured.
“I always manage to land on my feet,” he smiled.
Just then, another waiter appeared with their dinner. Before Cordelia had a chance to ask Peter more about his new job, they were exploring the dishes on the table.
French-Thai fusion was not something Cordelia would have chosen, but it was delicious and interesting. And the waiter kept coming to refill her wine glass. After the second glass she meant to stop.
“One more glass won’t hurt,” Peter told her with an indulgent smile. She peeled her hand off the top of her glass and watched as the waiter filled it once more.
“So before you worked for West, did you really work at the zoo?” Peter asked.
Cordelia nodded, and wiped her mouth on the linen napkin.
“No wonder you were so good at dealing with the two of us,” he teased. “What did you do there?”
“I worked with big cats and canids,” she replied, smiling at the memory.
“Canids?”
“Dogs and wolves of all types.”
“You mean you cleaned up after them?” Peter asked. “Or you were a like a vet?”
“I was a keeper, so I fed them, cleaned up after them, and watched over them to be sure they were… happy,” she explained. “Mostly I studied their behavior, in and out of captivity. I was working on my thesis. Until…”
“Were you there when the levee burst?” he asked.
He didn’t have the ghoulish glint in his eyes that people normally had when they asked that question.
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, you probably don’t like to talk about it,” Peter said quickly.
“No, it’s okay, it was… awful. I mean you can imagine, right?” she replied carefully.
She blinked and she swore she could hear it again, the cries and screams of the animals.
“Did you have to put any of them down?” he asked.
“At first we weren’t going to put any of them down. We didn’t know the levee had burst. The drainage has never been good at the zoo, with the glacier receding. And with the storms… well, we weren’t surprised to see a few inches of water.
When we got word what had happened, we didn’t have the manpower or vehicles to transport them all. We decided to move as many as we could to higher ground.”
“How did you do that?” Peter asked.
“It wasn’t easy. The animals can be very dangerous, even the herbivores. And they’re separated from each other for a reason. But when the alternative was drowning… we had to focus on getting them to a safe place, and then sort out what to do once we got there. A lot of the animals we saved initially ended up dying in those crowded pens on the crest.”
“But you were with big cats and canids, right? You couldn’t just go in there and get them,” Peter said.
Cordelia shook her head. He seemed genuinely interested. She couldn’t remember the last time she had talked so much about herself. It was nice, even if the subject was a little dark.
“So, what happened?” he asked.
“They were put down,” she answered, looking at her hands.
“All of them?” he asked incredulously.
“Some escaped,” she replied, looking down still. Even now, years later, she could barely keep the lie.
“Oh yeah, the dogs,” he said.
“Yes, the dogs,” she nodded.
“Why doesn’t anyone go after them?” he asked.
“They’re too smart,” Cordelia replied. She couldn’t help feeling a little proud of the African dogs, in spite of herself, and knowing that what she had done was wrong.
“You miss the animals, don’t you?” Peter asked.
“Every day,” Cordelia replied.
When she shut her eyes at night she still pictured Ruth and Rachel, the tiger sisters, capering in their enclosure.
“And do you miss the job?” he asked.
She laughed.
“It’s easier with animals,” she replied. “You always know where you stand.”
Peter laughed too. And then the conversation just seemed to flow.
Cordelia found herself telling him about her family, her dreams for Jess, funny stories about working at the zoo and even funnier ones about working for Worthington Enterprises.
Peter laughed in all the right places.
This was the dinner she wanted with West.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, when the realization made her quiet.
“It’s late, I need to get home,” she replied with a smile.
He put his arm around her as he walked her out. His arm was warm and she felt a little hazy after three glasses of wine.
When they reached the street, a stiff breeze blew between the buildings and lifted Cordelia’s hair.
Peter leaned down to tuck it behind her ear.
She found herself looking at his mouth, it looked thin and cruel compared to West’s sensual lips. But would she mind so much if he pressed it against hers?
He pulled back instead, and slipped a business card out of his wallet.
“I’ve got a new startup getting some momentum. When you’re ready for a less hostile work environment, give me a call,” he said, tucking it into her jacket pocket. “I promise I won’t say I told you so.”
His hand lingered against her hip.
“You know where to find me,” he whispered.
Before she could think of how to reply, a taxi pulled up and Peter was opening its door for her.
As the lights of the city gave way to the relative darkness of Cobble Slope out the window, Cordelia found herself thinking not about Peter or West, but about the wild dogs and their new home in the ruined part of the city.
35
West’s new feet struck the marble floors of Worthington Enterprises with resounding effect.
His cane - he’d had a new one custom made from the same carbon fiber and titanium that made up his new bones - tapped a light rhythm as he walked. He didn’t really need it, but that was hardly common knowledge. People would be expecting him to still be recovering, and sometimes it was easier to live up to public expectations than to be bothered with explanations.
Besides, Cordelia told him it made him look sophisticated.
He didn’t remember the lobby of the building being so large, the ceiling so high, the lighting so dim.
The place was almost empty at this hour. Most of his employees would have gone home for the day. The woman working the security desk didn’t seem to recognize him. Amazing what an eyepatch and beard could do to your image.
He reached the elevator and hesitated. He’d thought he
wanted to come here. But he felt lost without Cordelia shadowing him.
She’d said she was having dinner with a friend. But there was something off about the way she had said it.
West knew he had not officially staked any claim on Cordelia. But he felt the bond between them growing. Didn’t she feel it too?
Would she really leave him alone to go on a date?
He’d paced the living room until Jess complained that he was making her nervous.
So he decided to visit Mallory Pruitt. Mallory was overseeing the work being started on the new lab. It was the only thing happening in the building that he gave a flying fuck about.
And he had two reasons to talk to her.
First in his mind was making sure she had everything she needed to complete the new lab as soon as possible so that they could help Jess and the other kids.
But he couldn’t help also wanting to know more about his own prosthetics.
What happened at the gym had been so incredible. As soon as he left he began to question whether it was really possible. Maybe the Punchomatic had been malfunctioning.
But that didn’t explain the chains snapping.
He needed some questions answered.
Resolved, he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for B4, the new home of Medical Prosthetics. The whole lab was being rebuilt on one of the lower levels. He didn’t want to wait for the mess to be cleaned up on the twelfth floor. Dalton told him it was better for security that way, allowing for private access. West was now a big fan of the lack of windows.
He hadn’t been higher than ground level since the fall. He was sure he’d be okay with it, but he wasn’t in a hurry to find out.
The doors swished closed, but the elevator didn’t go anywhere. West pushed the button again. It didn’t light. That was impossible. He had clearance for every floor. This was his goddamn building. The biometric sensors should have…
West almost smacked himself.
He pushed the button again, this time with his left hand, the one that still had a fingerprint. The button lit and the elevator started its downward journey.
He wondered if he could have the sensors calibrated to read his new hand. One more question for Mallory.
He strode into Med Pros like he’d never left. The construction was going well. It looked like there wasn’t much left to get the place up to spec. And thanks to the flash drive he’d saved from the carnage upstairs, they would hit the ground running. Mallory told him they would have been set back years without it.
People in lab coats began whispering almost immediately. There was no doubt about who he was down here.
Good thing he’d made every one of them sign Machiavellian NDAs. No one could make so much as a peep that they’d seen him.
One tech darted over to the farthest table in the room and spoke in a low voice to the pink-haired woman wearing what looked like virtual reality goggles.
She removed them and beamed as she hurried in his direction.
“Hey, West!” she cried.
“Mallory.”
He extended his hand, and she shook it reverently. Mallory lingered in his grip, basking in the marvel of her own creation. She looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
Despite the pink hair, and the Ms. Pac-Man t-shirt under her lab coat, or even calling him by his first name, West couldn’t help but smile. This was the person who had given him back his life. The investors could go fuck themselves if they had a problem with her.
Everyone in the lab seemed to be staring. He had a feeling they were far more interested in the tech he wore than in anything to do with him.
“What can I do for you?” Mallory asked, finally releasing his hand.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“Sure, sure. You look great!” she said, ushering him to a slightly raised room at the center of the lab, like some sort of control center.
West didn’t remember a room like this in the old lab. Mallory clearly had her own ideas about how things should be done.
Good.
Once they entered, he realized he could see every desk in the lab from inside the clear glass walls.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Mallory said shyly. “I feel like a more effective leader if I’m accessible and I can keep an eye on everything that’s going on.”
“No, it’s fantastic, well done, but I was hoping we could speak… more privately,” West admitted.
“Not a problem.” Mallory grabbed a remote from her desk and pressed a button.
The clear glass instantly turned opaque white.
Mallory leaned back to rest her hips against her desk.
“Pretty neat, huh? It’s completely soundproof. Even jams mobile device signals when the veil is up. Of course, it will all be voice controlled when it’s finished. And this shade of white is a little harsh, but you get the idea,” she explained.
“Listen,” he said. “We need to talk about the limits of my new components.”
“Why?” Mallory was up again and pacing. “Are you having a problem? I knew this would be too much.”
Something about her manner made West think about the brief glitch at the end of the workout session, when his legs wouldn’t work for a minute.
“No, no. Nothing like that,” he said lightly. “I was just wondering exactly how strong these things are. I don’t want to damage them.”
Mallory stopped pacing and barked out a little laugh.
“Did I say something funny?” West asked.
“Sorry. It’s just the idea of you damaging your prosthetics.” she explained. “We build them to stand up to several lifetimes worth of the harshest punishment.”
“Why? It’s not like I’m going to leave them to my grandchildren,” he said.
“True. But it’s also not like you would want to have one replaced or repaired either. We make them out of top of the line alloys and nanofibers, so they’re much more resilient than the real thing - a case of man outperforming nature. Although some of the polymers are actually based on the molecular structure of spider silk. It is an interesting process. They—”
“—I’m sure it is,” he interrupted. He and Mallory had differing opinions on the meaning of the word interesting. “So, I understand they are tough, but how strong are they?”
“That… is a complicated answer,” she said thoughtfully.
“Try me,” he replied.
“Well, the short version is, they’re as strong as you need them to be,” she began.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“We calibrate them to the user. The one we put on little Sean Cooper is basically the same as yours. But we obviously imposed stronger safeguards on his. You are physically very… fit.” Her cheeks colored a little. “So we tried to match the output more closely to someone with your particular attributes.”
“So they are scalable?” he asked.
“Exactly,” she confirmed.
“Up to what?”
“That’s where it gets complicated.” she said. “Here in the lab, one of our arms could jack up a car. Attached to a person is another story. To put it plainly, the squishy parts of the body just aren’t strong enough to handle that kind of load.”
“So you’re telling me that little Sean Cooper could lift up a car?” he asked.
“No,” she explained, “his arm could. Or rather, it could have before we gave it to him. We set the max force to be considerably lower than it’s capable of.”
“Then why even have the capability?” he asked.
“How fast does your motorcycle go?” Mallory asked in reply.
“Around 200 miles per hour.”
“But you drive it around here,” she said, “where that would never happen. Better to have it and not need it, right? If we have a design that maxes out at lifting a school bus, then we will never put it in danger of overloading from lifting up the groceries. But the safeguards are important. If Sean Cooper tried to lift a car, his legs would snap like twigs before it
got an inch off the ground.”
“But not mine,” West replied.
“Pardon?”
“Not my legs. They’re just as strong as my arms.” He remembered the heavy bag, tumbling across the gym. “Stronger.”
“That’s true,” Mallory said. “However, there are still several weak points between the two.”
“But I could push them a lot further than someone with just an arm,” he said.
“Theoretically.”
“So we could probably turn up the max force on mine.”
“I’m not sure what you have in mind,” Mallory said, a hint of anxiety creeping into her voice. “But I would have to advise strongly against exceeding the tested limits. There’s more to it that just tensile strength. We really don’t know how it would affect the system as a whole. We’ve never even tested the idea of multiple prosthetics on one person. Your situation is new ground for all of us.”
“Could we ramp it up incrementally? Test it here in the lab?” he asked.
Her expression changed. She couldn’t hide her curiosity.
“I’m not going to lie. That would be amazing,” she said with a smile. “From a purely research-based standpoint, of course.”
“Of course,” he smiled back.
“We could set up a time in a few weeks, after the rest of the work here is complete,” she offered.
A few weeks?
West was impatient, but getting the lab set up to take care of the kids was more important than his own experiments. He could find plenty to keep him busy between now and then.
“Sounds good, I’ll be in touch then,” he said, offering her his hand again.
She went for a fist bump this time, grinning like she’d just won a prize.
“Great, West, I’m really looking forward to it.” she said, grabbing the remote to remove the privacy screen from the office.
Instantly, West’s cell phone started buzzing like crazy. He’d missed 3 calls from Cordelia and 4 text messages.
Where are you? Sean Cooper has been abducted.
Are you okay?
Where are you?
???
The words swam on the screen.
Sean’s family didn’t have money. There was no ransom on the line here. There was only one reason for someone to go after Sean.
