Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Audra fought the urge to intervene.
Doc and the gang were taking the precautions they deemed necessary to keep everyone safe in case Gage went rogue, not that they used that term or said as much. But seeing him strapped to a chair like a criminal before an executioner… it broke her heart.
Her head hurt from everything that had happened since she’d woken up this morning.
Her argument with Gage. Luann and Adam showing up at her motel room to take her to her brother.
Doc and his rebel alliance with their amazing fortress under the earth.
Finally getting to see Dennis again after all these years apart.
And now this. Gage once again at her doorstep, having found her within a ridiculously brief amount of time.
Fortunately, Dennis had somehow known about Gage’s arrival, which had given them time to plan their approach.
Adam and David had been prepared to render Gage unconscious.
But that hadn’t been necessary. Gage had come willingly.
He’d followed her down the stairwell and into the room without question.
Like a puppy. With full faith that he would be safe.
Or maybe with full faith that he could keep her safe. She wasn’t certain. Either way, Adam and David had effectively eliminated Gage’s ability to keep anything safe. He was at their mercy, and had offered himself up to it like a sacrificial lamb.
His warm chocolate gaze found her as the others fussed around him, his expression calm and without accusation. Like he’d already come to peace with the possibility he’d be crucified for his sins.
Audra covered her mouth and tried to swallow around the lump there.
If she wasn’t careful, she’d have Gage as the next Messiah on the cross with a whole religion named after him.
Gageanity. Gageism. Gageim. The absurdity of it—of this whole situation—hit her hard and she laughed past the lump and through her fingers.
The force shoved tears to her eyes and spit out of her mouth.
She hurried to the side of Doc’s brightly lit laboratory room and washed her hand and face in the sink. Hysteria tap danced along her extremities like a performer awaiting its cue to leap onstage and under the spotlight. If she couldn’t keep it together, she was a liability to everyone.
A warm hand squeezed her shoulder and she looked up to see Eve beside her, mushing her lips together as if spreading a layer of lip gloss along them.
“I know it’s hard to watch.” The other woman admitted, sadness in her eyes as if she’d lived the same moment.
“It’s for his safety as much as for ours.
If something goes south, he won’t be in danger of hurting anyone, himself included. ”
“What could go wrong?” That was a stupid question. Cyborgs went rogue. Went rogue and hurt people until authorities gunned them down during their mindless rampage.
“Lots of things could go wrong. Cybernetic systems are just fancy computers, and things happen.” Everett spoke softly as he stepped to her side, his gaze always on Luann.
He would know about those fancy computers, since he’d designed them, but his honest answer didn’t instill much confidence in Audra.
He nodded toward Gage. “Adam, David, Luann… they’ve all been strapped down in this room at some point. ”
“And lived to tell about it, my dear.” Doc added as he reached into a nearby cabinet for a towel. “Gage here has the advantage of being a conscious and willing participant.”
As if to prove Doc’s point, Gage tensed, testing the straps of the metal chair he sat in. “Luann, that ankle strap is a little loose.”
“On it.” David bent down and tightened it.
When they were all in agreement Gage was as secured as possible, everyone turned to Doc. Before Doc could say anything, Gage beat him to it. “Are you the one who installed a signal scrambler surrounding the area? Is it secured?”
Doc pushed his rimless glasses up his nose and nodded. “Yes. And we’re also protected by yards of impenetrable concrete above us. There’s very little risk of any signal getting through.”
“But, not no risk?” Gage smirked.
“I never say never.” Doc had the grace to admit. “But we’re as safe as the combined brain power in this room can make it.”
“I was an EOD, Doc. I get that there’s never no risk.” Gage chuckled, then his expression grew somber. “There’s a voice in my head. It hears and sees what I hear and see, but to the best of my knowledge, it can’t read my thoughts. It also controls my—”
His face paled and he glanced in Audra’s direction. His lips thinned in a tight line and he turned his attention to the floor in front of him.
Several seconds ticked by, but his willing participation seemed to be over.
Everyone else looked around at each other in confusion, no doubt wondering what to do next.
Audra approached Gage, even as someone gasped and motioned for her to stay back.
But she couldn’t stay on the sidelines of this situation.
She’d lived her whole life on the tenuous edge.
The iffy ledge of her adopted family’s pretend love.
The unseen periphery of school. The fringe of relationships… work, personal, and romantic.
She didn’t want to be on the outside of whatever it was Gage was going through. Having experienced his strength and protection, she wanted more. She wanted him to feel similarly safe.
Gently resting her hands on his knees—he flinched at the touch, the same way he’d flinched when she’d laced her fingers in his that fateful morning in Higgenbotham’s conference room, like a man unaccustomed to voluntary human touch—then she kneeled in front of him.
“Gage, I know we don’t know each other very well.
” Her voice was soft, as if there was an intimate bubble surrounding just the two of them.
His gaze never wavered from hers, strong and steadfast. And trusting.
She took a deep breath. She needed to say something that would encourage him to open up, but where to begin?
“I… I know two secrets. The first one is that you’re a cyborg.
You lost a leg to a bomb and now have a cybernetic one with machine-gun capabilities. ”
Gage’s eyes widened in shock and he huffed out a breath like someone had punched him in the gut. He shook his head as if to deny her words, but his own affirmed them. “H-how did you know?”
“Well, that’s my other secret.” Audra glanced around at the room to address everyone.
“The last time I saw my brother over ten years ago, he tasked me with infiltrating government contracts for insight into the Department of Cybernetic Oversight and the misuse of cybernetic individuals.” She turned back to Gage. “That’s how I learned you’re a cyborg.”
He looked truly gutted. Had she told him his dog was dead, he couldn’t look more devastated.
He glanced at the others, worry creasing his forehead.
She’d outed him to an audience, and that was information that could get a cyborg killed by a frightened mob.
He didn’t know the people in this room well enough to trust them with such dangerous information.
“You’re in good company, Gage. Luann, David, me… we’re also cyborgs.” Adam stepped forward and patted Gage’s shoulder. “Let’s see, weaponized leg… that makes you…”
Adam turned to Everett who nodded as if confirming Adam’s hunch. “Gamma phase. It was the first military contract. Unfortunately, the DOD wanted to go cheap and insisted on outsourcing parts from China.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, shaking his head. “China isn’t known for the quality of their weapons. Sorry you got stuck with a bum leg, Gage.”
“It works okay, as long as I have a solid stance.” Gage looked at his leg, where Audra’s hand still rested. “If I move too much during action, the recoil/reload malfunctions and the ammo jams.”
“And the cyborg gets their appendage blown up all over again.” Luann’s voice was soft and sad. “How many Gamma phase cyborgs died just to learn that little tidbit.”
“Wish I could say none, sweetheart.” Everett put his arm around her and she turned her face into his chest. “But I can only say none under my watch.”
“No one blames you, Everett.” Doc assured him.
David shook his head. “Hate to disagree, babe, but a lot of us do blame him. It’s not fair and it’s not even correct, but that’s the way it goes when you’re trying to rehab through the worst pain of your life and looking for someone to blame it on.”
Their conversation continued, but faded into the background when Gage looked at Audra, his face crumpled with worry. “Did you know I was a cyborg when we… when you…”
“When we made love in the conference room? Yes.” She squeezed his thighs.
He was a solid mass of muscle, but his cybernetic leg lacked the give of human tissue.
When he’d dropped his pants that day, she’d seen the horrible scar that zig-zagged from his inner thigh, up his torso, and around his hip.
The pain he must have endured when he injured his leg and then when rehabilitating with a cybernetic one…
the strength he had called upon to survive…
everything he’d gone through in his devotion to his country, only to get tucked away in a bullshit desk job and forgotten, no doubt with the hope that he would wither away or kill himself or somehow cease being an annoying little liability and reminder that the government had fucked up… It both humbled and enraged her.
Hot tears on behalf of Gage’s experience burned in her eyes and she laid her head on the solid bulk of his cybernetic thigh. “I’ve known you were a cyborg for years, but could never figure out how to tell you.”
He strained against the bonds keeping him in place, trying to get closer to her. “Shhh, beautiful. Please don’t cry. I can’t—” He swallowed hard. “I can’t wipe your tears or hold you until they pass. I can’t do anything right now. Don’t. Don’t make me suffer like this.”
A sob tore from her throat and she launched her body into his, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him with all the need she’d tamped down these past months. These past years.
Her momentum was too much and they careened backward, but something stopped their fall and set them upright. “We got ya.” Adam’s voice carried a thread of humor.
“Lord save us from horny cyborgs.” Luann laughed.
Audra ignored the slight tenderness in her chest as she hauled her body onto Gage’s lap. He pulled away from her lips just enough to whisper against them. “Don’t ever be farther from me than this. Please.”
She ducked her head to his neck and buried her face on the crook, inhaling his unique scent. “Not willingly.”