Authors: Maree Anderson
She rounded on him, eyes narrowed in a fierce glare, teeth bared, hands clenching and unclenching, clenching again. “You drugged me and kidnapped my newborn son, you unholy robot bastard. And then you shot my son’s girlfriend and kidnapped her, too. The only thing you
deserve
is me taking you apart, piece by piece, and pulverizing your components to dust. Now get out of my fucking house.”
Sixer debated revealing how messy the process of dismembering him and destroying his components would be, and thought better of it. There was a high probability Marissa Davidson had a strong stomach, and would not balk at such an undertaking. “Since you have been informed of my actions,” he said instead, “I suppose your ungrateful attitude is understandable—although you might be relieved to know that Jay threatened me with far worse if I came near you or your family again.”
“Of course she did—I’d expect nothing less. Though her threat obviously hasn’t worked, has it?”
“It was a close thing,” Sixer admitted. “I very nearly decided to let you take your chances.”
He observed curiosity warring with anger and fear on her expressive face. Curiosity won. “What did Jay threaten you with, exactly?” she asked.
“Reprogramming me so that I no longer had free will and afterward, giving
you
control over my core commands. This was once she had proven she could render me helpless and thus carry out the threat, you understand.”
Marissa blinked. “Jay came up with that? Well, that’s, uh, very inventive of her.”
“Yes. Very inventive indeed. I can think of no worse punishment than to be at the mercy of
your
commands.”
Her lip curled. “You’d wish you’d never woken up and become sentient after I’d finished with you.”
Sixer waited for her to continue. And waited some more. Finally, she asked, “Why?”
“Why did I phone in a warning and then show up in person to assist, knowing Jay would unleash the full force of her fury on me? I did it because….” He sought the words to explain a concept he didn’t fully understand himself. “Because it was the right thing to do. Does this conclude our chat?”
“I think so.”
“Perhaps your thought processes would be more efficient if the infant was a little quieter. He appears quite distressed.” Sixer waved a hand. “Please do whatever required to quiet him.”
Marissa scowled, but scooped the infant from the crib and laid him on a table covered with padded plastic. She pulled back the tabs on his diaper and reached for a container of baby wipes.
Sixer’s nostrils flared. What was that odor?
It emanated from the diaper. He observed Marissa’s expression, expecting she would be gagging, but she’d only wrinkled her nose—not because she was offended by the odor, but because she was making silly faces to amuse the infant.
“I find it difficult to believe such a strong odor could come from such a young human. What have you been feeding him, Marissa?”
“The usual,” she snapped.
“And that would be?” He asked not to irritate her, but from genuine interest.
“I breastfeed him—not that it’s any business of yours.” Her words could have been interpreted as rude but her tone lacked its previous vehemence.
Sixer watched as she expertly cleaned the infant’s genitals and buttocks, placed the used wipes in the soiled diaper, rolled it up and secured it with the tapes. The odor subsided, and the infant’s wails subsided into hiccupping sobs. When she had re-diapered him, she picked him up and draped him over her shoulder, rubbing his back and murmuring soothing noises.
“He requires nourishment,” Sixer announced, after a few moments observing the infant’s lip movements, and the way he nuzzled his mother’s shoulder.
“I know. And you need to leave. Now.”
Sixer opened his mouth to comment but Marissa wasn’t having any of his reasoned arguments. “Get out of my house, Sixer. Right now.”
He contemplated various responses, and discarded them all. “Very well.”
He’d reached the doorway when he heard her sigh. And then she murmured, “I can’t believe I’m saying this but thank you for keeping us safe.”
He didn’t turn. “You’re welcome,” he said, shutting the door quietly behind him.
As he jogged down the stairs, he analyzed the encounter from start to finish, beginning with the intercepted phone call.
What had truly prompted him to warn Marissa Davidson and put himself in a position where he could intercede if necessary?
Sixer didn’t know.
If he’d been human, he might have believed his decision stemmed from a desire to redeem himself for past deeds. However, given what he was, it was illogical to even consider expending time and effort on such an intrinsically human concept.
But as much as logic dictated Sixer reject the notion of seeking redemption, when it came to Marissa’s continued wellbeing, something compelled him to toss logic to the wind. And by the time he’d let himself out the back door, Sixer knew that he would again risk Jay’s considerable wrath if the situation called for it. He would keep a watch over Marissa Davidson and her infant until he’d solved the mystery behind the trio of fake FBI agents. And Jay would, as humans liked to say, just have to learn to deal with it.
Sam Ross paused outside the room to get his shit together. He firmly believed Bea sensed his moods. It benefited no one for him to be upset by her lack of progress. Or perhaps the lack was entirely his, for he’d come to realize those seemingly random blinks of her eyelids and incomprehensible moans were her efforts to convey her needs, and he was still struggling to decipher them. Somewhere inside that perfect physical shell, there was an active, intelligent mind, patiently waiting for the key to unlock the mental prison she’d retreated behind. And sometimes
impatiently
, if the times she withheld even those responses from him, and simply lay wherever she’d been placed like an exquisite corpse, were any indication.
Sam didn’t care that Bea wasn’t human, that she was a cyborg. Sure, it’d been a helluva shock to learn the truth: He’d thought his brain might explode when Sally and Marg had finally sat him down and filled him in on Bea’s history, and he’d learned what they were dealing with. And sure, Sam’s core belief system had taken a hit at being hired to help a
cyborg
, but ultimately, that knowledge hadn’t irrevocably changed his views about his calling and how to treat his patients.
Bottom line? Bea was his patient. She was a sentient being who’d been horribly maltreated. She deserved the chance to experience everything life had to offer her. Damned if he’d give up on her. And damned if he’d let
her
give up, either. So, as he shouldered through the bedroom door, juggling the breakfast tray Sally had left out for Bea, he thrust aside his frustrations and put on his game face—a confident smile designed to convey his deep-seated belief that Bea would eventually conquer anything she set her mind to… which morphed to outright, stomach-lurching astonishment when he saw not one Bea, but two.
His
Bea lay on her back, covered by a sheet, exactly as he’d placed her the night before. The other Bea reclined on the spare side of the bed, her head and shoulders propped against the padded headboard, arms crossed beneath her breasts, sneaker-clad feet crossed at the ankles.
Huh. She wasn’t identical to his Bea, as he’d first thought. She appeared a little older—two or three years, maybe? Hard to tell for sure. Her mane of hair was a rich chestnut rather than raven, and it crackled with life, barely confined by the elastic band that had wrestled it into a ponytail. And her skin wasn’t porcelain-pale like Bea’s, but a pale golden shade, as though she’d been kissed all over by a benevolent sun. Even so, the resemblance was uncanny. She could be a future version of Bea—a healthy, fully functional Bea, brimming with potential.
“Hope you brought enough for two,” Bea-Mark-Two said.
She could speak.
Sam hurriedly dumped the tray on the dresser before he dropped it and incurred Sally’s wrath. His stomach was still doing somersaults and now his head was spinning, too, but it was the tightness in his chest—like a vice squeezing his heart—that threatened to send him crashing to his knees. The animation in her face. The spark of amusement in her eyes. The… the… sheer
life
exuding from her.
This
was what Bea could be, if only Sam could find a way to help her. But right now, the stark contrast between Bea, and this girl who could be her older sister, was almost too painful for him to bear.
He stumbled to the armchair he’d dragged alongside Bea’s bed so he could read to her each day. Fisting a hand and rubbing his breastbone, he flopped into the chair and stared at the newcomer.
“Your heart rate’s elevated but it’s nothing to be concerned about,” the visitor informed him. “That tightness in your chest should ease soon as the shock wears off.”
His stomach lurched again. Intellectually he accepted she was a fully functioning version of Bea, which meant he understood that of course she was a cyborg, too. But now, with that truth smacking him upside the head with everything that it meant? Well, it was a little hard to deal with all at once.
“You’re… you’re….” Incredible? Amazing? Heartbreaking?
“The next model up from this defective Beta unit.”
Sam stiffened. “Shut your mouth. Don’t ever call Bea that again or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Her gaze drifted to the open book atop the table beside the chair. “Read me a story?”
One eyebrow had arched, so perfectly conveying disdain that Sam’s breath caught in his throat. Such a small physical response. If
his
Bea could be taught to express herself in such a way—
Bea-Mark-Two snapped her fingers, yanking him from his reverie. “You’re in no position to judge me, when you’ve dehumanized her by naming her after a letter of the alphabet.”
Her tone dripped such loathing that Sam’s jaw sagged. “Bea is short for
Beatrice
,” he felt compelled to say in his defense. “We would never—”
“We?”
Sam shut his mouth, cursing beneath his breath.
Bea-Mark-Two’s lips curved in a knowing smile. “Don’t worry. You haven’t told me anything I don’t already know.” She tapped her temple. “My mad cyborg skills tell me that inside this lovely, spacious house, there are currently two non-humans of the cyborg persuasion, four humans—two women and two males, including yourself—and one canine.”
Sam frowned at her, confusion making him incautious. He could accept the notion that Bea-Mark-Two had scanned the house and picked up the presence of Sally and Marg—the latter could well have gotten back from her mysterious trip sometime in the wee small hours. But the rest didn’t add up because no way would Sally or Marg have allowed a strange male in the house without informing him. They were both über-protective of Bea, and Sam could think of no reason either woman would jeopardize Bea’s safety by permitting strangers inside the house. “I’m the only male with access to this house,” he blurted. “And we don’t have a dog.”
“The extra male is my boyfriend, and the canine belongs to me. I’d like them back, please. Now would be good.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“I believe you. Unfortunately for you, that doesn’t negate the truth of the matter.”
Sam could only watch, enthralled, as Bea-Mark-Two rolled gracefully off the bed and sauntered around the mattress toward him. Everything worked as it should—muscles coordinating limbs in a fluid economy of motion that was beautiful to witness. She was so perfect in every way that his heart broke anew for everything Bea had been denied. “What do they call you?” he whispered.
“I named myself,” she said. “I’m Jay. And just so’s you’re aware, that’s J-A-Y, not the tenth letter of the alphabet. What’s your name?”
“Sam,” he managed to get out through a throat constricted with hope that one day Bea might be able to talk like this, emote like this, move like this miraculous creation that had halted before him, and now stood staring down at him.
“Nice to meet you, Sam. You seem like a nice guy, so I’d like to tender my apologies in advance.”
“For what?” he asked, staring into her blue, blue eyes, mesmerized.
“For this.”
He registered a blur of movement from her fist. Pain jabbed his skull and then blackness engulfed him.
~*~
Brum yawned and made a wuffling noise. Tyler, who’d been hustled into the study and relegated to a spare chair, stroked the pup’s belly and tried to appear relaxed, like he was totally going along with Marg’s wishes.
He darted a glance at her face and encountered a too-knowing smirk that told him he wasn’t fooling her one iota.
Shit
. But rather than react, he did the smart thing by keeping a neutral face, gathering as much info as he could, and waiting for some kind of opportunity to present itself. Not that there was much info to gather from this very orderly study, and with Marg watching him like a hawk. It wasn’t like there were any papers strewn across the desk, enticing him to try and read them upside down, or anything other than a neat lawn with some nice gardens to spy through the window.
The woman wearing a fussy, floral apron straight from some home baking show, swabbed the wound on Marg’s ribs. Marg inhaled with a hiss, but that gunmetal gray gaze didn’t waver from Tyler’s face. He resisted the compulsion to lie through his teeth and assure her that he’d do exactly as he’d been ordered. He had no doubts whatsoever she would make good on her threat to truss him like a turkey and leave him under her bed if he caused her any trouble, and he wanted to delay
that
fate for as long as possible.
Floral Apron probed the wound. She screwed up her nose in sympathy when Marg’s breathing hitched. “Ouch. I’ll call Sam to take a look. It might need stitches—”
“It’s just a scratch, Sally. Slap a butterfly dressing on it so I don’t bleed on another t-shirt, and quit mothering me. I have things to do.”
Floral Apron—
Sally
—rolled her eyes in such a perfect “What on earth have I done to deserve this?” gesture that Tyler might have laughed if he wasn’t pissed to the max about his current situation. Damn he hated knowing he was bait. It royally sucked. Because as soon as Marg made the call, Jay would come running… and do exactly as Marg wanted, just to keep him safe.