Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Audra knew he was a cyborg, and hadn’t recoiled in horror. In fact, she’d kissed him as if her life depended on it. Had kissed him and wrapped herself around him as completely as the vines around the street signs outside.
And Gage couldn’t return the embrace because he was strapped to the chair.
This was torture. But he’d survived worse.
Although sporting an erection in a room full of strangers just because the woman of his dreams had her lush backside on his leg and pressed to his hip was the sweetest kind of agony that he’d be happy to suffer for an eternity, there were issues to be dealt with.
He pulled his gaze away from Audra and looked up at the man everyone called Doc. He seemed to be the leader of this ragtag band. “The voice in my head controls my leg. And Audra has some sort of tracker in her.”
Gage turned his head to look into the depths of her ocean-blue irises. “That’s how I found you so easily.”
She looked like he’d punched her in the gut.
“You mean, all that time and effort crisscrossing and backtracking to trick the bloodhounds, and it was for nothing?” He nodded.
“H-how could you track me? I only used my bugout bag and the clothes in it, and I put that together years ago before anyone could have suspected a thing.”
He shrugged. Or at least tried to. The others had done a solid job of securing him, admittedly with his help.
“I don’t know. I just know that shortly after I agreed to find you, your location showed up as a red dot in my targeting eye.
Probably some sort of GPS locator, it only went away when I found you at the motel and then again when I entered Doc’s perimeter. ”
“My dear, have you had any surgeries? Perhaps they slipped in a tracker?” Doc asked Audra. She tensed in Gage’s arms. Would she admit she’d had cancer? Would she mention her treatment?
“No.” She shook her head, frowning at a thought. “But what about an injection? Remember that virus scare a few years ago? The Pentagon offered vaccines free to employees and most of us took it. Conspiracy theorists claimed they were using the vaccine to tag us with trackers.”
A couple snickers followed, but the tall woman with auburn hair who’d introduced herself as Eve sighed. “Yeah, MadDog beat that drum pretty hard. It’s what made him so popular among the conspiracy crowd.”
“I guess conspiracy theorists sometimes get it right.” Adam turned to Doc. “You got the goods to scan for a hidden tracker?”
“If it’s metal, I can find it.” Doc walked to the far side of the room, which looked like a cross between a surgery room and a mad scientist’s lab.
Tubes, scopes, screens, robotic arms, examination tables, and a wall of tubs overflowing with cybernetic parts and materials.
Doc shuffled through a few drawers until he pulled out what he was looking for.
He returned to their group holding a thick wand, about a foot in length and three inches in diameter with a bulbous end. One flip of a thumb, and a low hum emanated from it.
“Um, babe. Should I be jealous?” David, the Hispanic man asked.
Everett Dean, the man responsible for the cybernetic industry, snickered. “Do we need to give you some alone time, Doc?”
“Please tell me that’s for external use only.” Luann muttered.
Doc sighed in exasperation. “Get your minds out of the gutter. It’s a hand-scanner. If Audra has anything metal in her body bigger than a nail head, this should find it.”
Gage kissed her on the ski-slope tip of her nose. “Better get off me, beautiful. Wouldn’t want my parts confusing the scanner.”
Damn it felt good to say that. He loved being open with his attraction to Audra.
He loved that he didn’t have to hide his cyborg status.
The weight of fear no longer drowned him in secrecy.
He didn’t have to test each word out of his mouth for fear he might let something slip that would get him in trouble or cause a panic.
Years of caution slipped away like shadows in the night, leaving him with a lightness, a hope, he hadn’t known was possible.
All because a voice had told him to find Audra.
All because she’d befriended him in the first place.
Audra followed his suggestion, but with the reluctance of a sullen child told to give up a favorite toy.
Her reaction made his heart soar. Maybe she really, honestly liked him.
Their lives weren’t exactly meant for romance, but knowing she returned some of his feelings would carry him through whatever the future held, just like the memory of their morning in the conference room had eased the void of his lonely nights these past weeks.
A minute later, Doc found something. Staring at the readout on the wand, he reported to the group.
“Looks like there’s a capsule about the size of an inchworm resting at the base of your skull.
” He reached out and pressed against the area with two fingers, searching for the exact location.
“It’s actually not far beneath the surface.
A quick topical cut and we could extract it. ”
Audra paled at the news. “Um, do we need to extract it at all? If your GPS scrambler is so effective, is there really a need for the surgery?”
“Audra, dear. I’m working to ensure cybernetic individuals have the freedom to live their lives without fear.
” Doc turned her to face him, his expression soft with understanding.
“I can’t in good conscience work toward that goal, yet keep you a prisoner within these walls because your position can be tracked.
But I won’t force you, either. And you don’t have to make that decision right now. ”
“Thanks Doc.” Relief swept across her face and she sat back down on Gage’s lap as if that was her assigned seat. Not that he was complaining. He’d be her chair anytime she wanted.
“Now, for you.” Doc pulled a stool closer to Gage and plopped onto it.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The rest of our friends here with cybernetic parts had a chip in their CPU command center. It allowed an external source to override the individual’s system, their choice.
This is what I believe happens when a cyborg supposedly goes rogue. ”
Gage pondered the information. “That makes sense.”
“You say the voice controls your leg. Does it affect any non-cybernetic parts?”
“No. Just my leg. Fortunately, my leg isn’t armed. So, all the voice really does is annoy me.”
Doc canted his head. “Merely annoying, huh? Describe how you know someone else controls it and it’s not just a glitch?”
Gage thought for a moment. “I haven’t used my leg for its intended purpose since they pulled me out of active duty and tucked me away at the Pentagon.
Sometimes I step wrong and the connective materials scream, but it’s never glitched.
Then a week ago, a voice started talking in my head and told me to fetch Audra.
The red dot appeared in my cybernetic eye to lead me to her.
When I refused to interrogate her, the voice got pissed, my vision flashed red, and my leg activated.
I had to run to the bathroom so my barrel didn’t rip through my pants. ”
Audra gasped, then giggled. “That was because of your leg? I thought you were having explosive diarrhea.”
Gage laughed at that, and the others chuckled as well. Here, he’d worried that she might realize he was a cyborg, and she’d worried he was stinking up her motel bathroom.
Adam stepped forward. “Gage, when I first passed you on the road, you were convulsing around like you were having a seizure or something. Was that your leg?”
“Yeah… the voice was really pissed at me by that point. It was spearing me with pain in the head and jerking my leg around. Made walking a bit of a challenge.”
“But it was only affecting your leg?”
Gage nodded.
David spoke up. “When my vision flashed red, I tried to kill Eve. It’s like my whole body was overtaken and out of my control, not just the cybernetic parts.”
“Same thing happened to me, too.” Adam agreed.
“I’m curious how it affected the others so much more than it apparently affects you.” Doc rubbed his chin as if pondering a philosophical question.
Everett cleared his throat. “The easiest way to figure that out is to open Gage up and inspect his systems.” When everyone gasped in shock and whipped their attention to him, he held his hands up.
“I’m not suggesting we do that, it’s just the easiest way.
But we could also use a modified x-ray machine.
What Gage is describing doesn’t sound like the system I designed.
At the risk of sounding arrogant, if it’s not a Preditech system, then it’s inferior.
Which might explain how Gage could override the override. ”
“Actually, there’s no need for that.” Audra placed her hand over Gage’s heart for support as she sat upright. He already missed her warmth. “I worked in the contracts department gleaning information. The DOD has been outsourcing more and more cybernetics to China because they’re cheaper.”
“Yep. Inferior.” Everett nodded at the confirmation to his statement. “But Preditech got R&D money for the job. Why outsource the production?”
“Sorry. That wasn’t explained in any of the contracts.” Audra shrugged. Then she turned and palmed Gage’s cheeks. “Your leg is a modified Preditech design, manufactured by a competitor here in America who won the bidding war. But your CPU is from China.”
Gage’s gut hollowed. He had devoted his entire adult life to the preservation of the American way, risking life and limb to uphold the country’s tenets of freedom and exceptionalism, only to end up with inferior cybernetic parts made by the lowest bidder?
Betrayal beat in his chest. He’d done everything his country had asked of him, and it couldn’t be bothered to return the favor.
Was this how Audra had felt when she’d learned her childhood vaccines had been useless against cancer?
He cleared his throat, tight with the emotions roiling through his body. “Guess it’s a good thing they disbanded the Gamma phase, huh.”
“Man, that sucks, Gage. Preditech would have done right by you. But still, an override of the system, even one from China, should be complete.” Everett motioned to Adam and David as proof. “You shouldn’t have been able to isolate and defy those commands.”
“Maybe it has to do with training?” Luann offered, also motioning to Adam and David.
“Police officers and firemen are trained to work together. But soldiers are trained to work as a cohesive unit, right? First responders don’t have their individuality stripped away and then rebuilt as just one part of a collective whole like soldiers do.
Maybe without his squad, the command was less effective. ”
“Except soldiers are trained to obey orders. Which is exactly what I haven’t been doing.”
“You might have something there, Gage.” Doc was nodding his head. “The voice could also have something to do with it. Being able to tie the involuntary command to an external source makes it easier to control.”
“I was thinking the same way, Doc.” Gage rested his chin atop Audra’s head. “I talk to the voice like I would the high school bully. It infuriates him and then my leg moves like he’s trying to punish me for my defiance.”
“And here they probably thought they were sending a docile, submissive soldier.” Audra murmured against his neck with a smile in her voice.
Luann huffed in disgust. “At least that much is consistent. They give us cybernetic parts and a CPU, and then assume we haven’t a thought or an emotion they haven’t put there.”
“I think it all comes down to Richard Hawks, DCO Director.” Everett pulled Luann into his arms.
Audra turned in Gage’s lap to face the rest of the group. “Yes. And I have information that could break him.”