He sighed at the deep shit his do-gooder human inclinations had gotten him into. “Okay, Lucy. I’m ready to go.”
Her return to full attention was just like watching the guard bot booting up to full capacity. Lucy’s gaze quickly cleared of her stupor and she smiled warmly at him. It took all his effort not to frown back. He settled for a nod of recognition and was glad when she didn’t act offended.
Chapter 3
The confining space of Nero’s airjet left him no choice but to wallow in whatever scent Lucy was steadily serving up to his nose. Even though it looked like she hadn’t bathed in months, she smelled like heaven. He thought he could have controlled his reactions to her scent better if she had chosen to shut down and rest, but nothing he’d said had initiated any sort of off mode.
Since her condition might not be stable, he couldn’t afford to mentally shut out her presence, even though Lucy didn’t speak unless spoken to first. He reminded himself the silent woman beside him also had a screaming hellion side. There was no choice but to remain hyper-vigilant when trapped with a cyborg who could turn into a destructive tornado at the slightest provocation.
So he squirmed internally and pretended to be calm while Lucy stared out her window at the clouds as they flew through them. She stared at the surrounding landscape saying nothing about the restored beauty of the mountains. The war had almost decimated them. Unlike the volatile caged soldier who had demanded he shut the hell up and go away this morning, Eric had no idea what this version of the woman was thinking about, if anything at all.
Eric sighed as he glanced at his ragged passenger. “You can talk if you wish, Lucy. I guess I should have said that sooner.”
“Thank you. How long was I held in captivity in that cage?”
After complete silence for so long, Lucy’s quietly spoken question surprised him. “Nearly everything cybernetic requires time tracking. You should have a maintenance file with records you can access. It’s standard issue on all processors.”
Lucy went silent again. Eric knew she was checking.
“I seem to have a defined concept of time, but do not appear equipped with a measurement program. Perhaps I require updating. With your permission, I could perhaps track time manually with a portable com or other tracking device until my next scheduled maintenance.”
Eric set the autopilot and turned to face her. He wanted to make as many face-to-face connections as possible. He was hoping to gain her trust.
Lucy still looked hellcat tough with her messy hair and rugged appearance. But when she spoke she sounded like the sweetest, most refined woman on earth. The contradiction irritated him even though it was definitely making it easier to interact with her.
But he couldn’t help wondering what the real Lucille Pennington had been like before her cybernetic conversion.
“You may track time any way that makes sense to you. To answer your question, I don’t know how long you were in the cage. I found out you were there a year ago… so at least one year. I do know when you were picked up you had a severe head injury. Before the cage, you were probably in some cyber medical facility for a while.”
“I see. When you say year, are you referring to a Gregorian year as calculated in human terms?”
Eric snorted. “Yes. A Gregorian year. You may track it in Unix time if you prefer. I personally choose to track time like regular humans do since I interact with them as much I do with other cyborgs.”
Lucy nodded. “Then I will track time the same as you so that I may keep our schedules aligned. It is my pleasure to do so, Eric 754.”
Eric turned back to the front window and sighed again. He put his focus on the massive expanse of sky outside to remove it from the massive expansion happening in his pants. Every time Lucy spoke like that, his skin crawled in anticipation. It was not a good sign for keeping his intentions noble. It was especially difficult to hear her programmed concessions, even though he knew Lucy didn’t mean a damn word of them.
When the Montana facility came into view at last, he almost crash landed Nero’s airjet in his haste to escape the small space they had been forced to share.
The absence of other transports, a requirement in this remote location, told Eric that Nero had indeed cleared the facility of all its scientists. A quick glance into the labs they walked by showed no one bent over the million dollars microscopes Nero had bought with his own private money.
If Lucy’s weaponry detonated and took the facility out, he hoped like hell Nero had enough insurance to replace it all. Eric had always believed in an afterlife and he didn’t want to spend his feeling guilty over obliterating a bunch of freaking test tubes.
They wandered down the main hallway until they reached what sufficed as guest quarters for non-local visitors. Following his instincts once more, he took Lucy to Rachel’s old room. Rachel had refused to leave wearing anything Evil Brad had purchased for her. As far as he knew, Rachel’s cast-offs were still hanging in the closet there. When Rachel had left the facility, she’d been wearing some of Kyra’s workout clothes and one of Marcus’s ratty t-shirts.
“You can clean up here, Lucy. There’s a large bathroom with a walk-in shower. They keep it stocked with toiletries. I think there is also some spare clothing in the closet that might fit your body. We’ll get you some better things later.”
Eric held the door open, frowning deeply when Lucy dipped her head as she passed by him. They were the same height, but the action made her seem much shorter. What man wanted to live with a woman as meek as this? Not him.
Men always thought they wanted a quiet and obedient woman until they got one. But a lack of conflict often meant she had no lust for life or him. Being around Lucy in this condition made him edgy and uncomfortable. All he could think about was being careful.
“Please accept my gratitude for your consideration of my needs,” Lucy whispered.
Eric held back the long-suffering sigh. Not fighting every second was nice, but he’d much rather have her glaring at him than subservient. She never looked up, even after she entered the space. Then without another word, Lucy disappeared into the bathroom.
Eric closed the door with a quiet snick and stood outside in the hallway until he heard the shower running. Then he walked quickly back down the hallway with his wrist com lifted to his mouth.
***
Though she was programmed not to judge the merits of any male she served, she could not help noting with some measure of surprise that Eric 754 was not completely human like her other contracts. She understood Eric 754 was cyborg like her, a fact which accounted for the firmly toned muscles that stretched his shirt when he moved and a sharp assessing gaze that missed nothing.
In a quick scan aided by some internal process she couldn’t identify, she could tell Eric 754 had received many cybernetic upgrades. He had no detectable weapons, but there were vacant storage compartments sized for anti-security tools, repelling equipment, and small incendiary devices though he had no live rounds on his person.
Eric 754 had also received modest enhancements to his blonde hair and blue eyes, no doubt to better draw female attention. He had also been given a well-modulated voice that was quite pleasing to her ears.
Unfortunately, she had collected a lot more data than just physical details. She had delved into the unpleasant data constrained without blocks in Eric 754’s memory storage. To protect her sanity, she had been taught by the Other within her to ignore such violent findings. The Other had taught her where to put them and directed her only to retrieve them if or when needed. The Other was like an internal guide helping her navigate the complicated programs she was required to run.
Her conclusions through much trial and error had been that too much information hindered her ability to service her contracted male. Though a balance between serving and loathing was difficult to achieve, as her recorded ninety-three percent failure rate proved, she was still programmed to make the effort. It was the only logical action she could discern in her current circumstances. It was the only action her processor would allow her to take.
Trying to stem the data collection and review, she repeated aloud the endless loop running through her companion chip. “Lucy. My name is Lucy. I am a New World Companion.”
For reasons she knew might always remain a mystery to her, Eric 754 had named her Lucy. It sounded as good as any other name to her ears. If she grew to loathe the moniker later, she would simply have to cajole her contract into calling her something else. Her programming forbid her to make such a request outright, but did not forbid her to request an endearment. Companion protocol 578 stated that being granted an endearment would mean her contracted male was pleased with her service.
She recited a list of potential endearments to see how they sounded. In case she was asked to state a preference, she wanted to have something to say.
“Lucy Darling. Lucy Sweetheart. Lucy My Beloved. Lucy My Love.”
As she pondered what Eric 754’s very smooth, masculine voice would sound like saying each, she undressed completely and dropped the nearly worn out clothing into the sanitizer. The unpleasant sight of her scarred nude body in the full-length mirror sent mild shock running through her entire mind. It was almost like looking at the body of a stranger, which was the strangest thought of all. She couldn’t recall the last time she had actually looked at herself this closely. Her memory storage must be more damaged than she realized.
Stepping closer to her image, Lucy ran her fingers over what appeared to be puncture wounds on her breasts and through her navel. It looked like something had been ripped from the skin there. Healing had occurred afterward, but a tiny wound had been left almost as a reminder.
A long buried human instinct rose within her and it warned the cause was something she was better off not recalling. Trusting that ancient curling in her gut, she didn’t bother to inspect the wounds running down her sides or around her thighs. They were all old and at least partially healed, but for a brief moment, she did wonder why her amazing cybernetics had not bothered removing the scars. What if Eric 754 preferred his companion to have an unmarred body? Perhaps over the next few days she could work on facilitating their removal.
And she would do so… when her head stopped throbbing like the percussion band she had once played in during her early education… when she was still human. That’s right. Once she had been human.
Well, she was technically still human. Wasn’t she?
“No. I am Lucy. I am a New World Companion,” she said again, calming the panic that seemed determined to besiege her tired mind which was struggling to function normally.
The shower was indeed spacious enough for two large people. She supposed it was one reason Eric 754 had bought her to this remote location instead of his home. She supposed the other was so he could do what he pleased to her with the benefit of having full privacy.
Their location was remote and the coordinates were not readily accessible by her on-board location chip. She’d noticed that on the trip here when she had struggled to map the route they had taken. Only occasionally had she been able to log information about where they were.
Upon first entry to the facility, another chip had started a detailed scan and provided unsolicited information which it had then recorded faithfully. Though there were recent human heat signatures everywhere they walked, there were no signs of anyone physically remaining. Somehow she would have known if there were actual people still within the building, even if she couldn’t quite pinpoint how she was so sure of such a thing.
All that mattered though was that the absence of others would ensure no one would interrupt them or be bothered by any sounds she might make trying to accommodate the demands of her new contract’s lust.
Most of her information was simply given to her without prompting though she did possess the ability to turn her focus to a task when she had to do so. This morning was a perfect example. She had known instantly that the guard bot had been programmed to shoot her—specifically her. One thing she could readily determine from that ability was that her secondary protocols remained dormant until she managed to form just the right question which would then activate them.
What she needed was some sort of code key to unravel her jumbled mind.
As it usually did, analyzing her situation gave her a massive headache which seemed to affect all of her head, both cybernetics and organic parts.
“Run NWC protocol 100. I need better focus to maintain the prime directive. I am a New World Companion. My contract with Eric 754 has been initiated.”
She repeated her primary directive several more times, the one hard coded on her sometimes confused logic chip. Just like always, saying the words aloud eased a nervous churning in her gut and settled her mind. It also started some sort of chemical chain reaction that created dopamine, which usually calmed her mental confusion… at least it did when everything was working properly.
From the variety of cleansing products tucked into tiny shower shelves, she chose the most fragrant one and set about using it to disinfect herself. The pleasure coursing through her was luxurious but also forbidden for her to feel this strongly. Malfunction or not, she found it impossible to ignore the sensory joy of the suds and the pleasure of washing her body with her hands.