Kyra stared at her work console, lost in the importance of what she was trying to say.
“At this point in our global history, corruption is rampant among scientists which affects all research and medicine. To make sure my restoration research and results do not die when I do, following the example of the legendary Albert Einstein, I have arranged for mass distribution of all my notes. It is probable that my death has already happened if you are seeing or hearing this recording. Please look for copies of my work and have the results reviewed by ethical scientists not afraid to draw their own conclusions. And if you are a family member of one of the Cyber Soldiers, they need your help now as much as we once needed theirs. Write to your local government and the UCN. Look for your soldier and find out where he has been placed. And most of all—help those like me who believe that every human on this planet deserves the right to define their humanity for themselves.”
Kyra paused the recording again, her finger trembling. She sniffed back the tears that had started falling when she spoke of the children being wired for controllers. Would anyone care but her? With all the money child behavior modification brought Norton, she wasn’t sure. People in general could be made complacent pretty damn easily, no matter how intelligent they were. Her complacency had cost the Cyber Soldiers their freedom for a decade. Now the evil seeds she had sown were starting to grow in ways she had never imagined.
She owed the soldiers more than an apology. She owed them her life in exchange for what she had done to theirs. One day soon she might very well end up giving it for them. Until then, she would continue to try and free them. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she started the recording again.
“I have one last thing to say in what I am sure has been a very disturbing message for most of you. But my final words are just for the Cyber Soldiers. Thank you for stepping up and volunteering. You each made a heroic sacrifice and the world you saved had no right to turn you into a commodity. Each of you is a person—and yes a ‘human’—regardless of your cybernetics. I’m truly sorry I didn’t get involved in your restoration sooner. No apology, no matter how sincere, will give you back what was taken away for so long. Now my goal until my death is to atone for my scientific sins by waking up the human side of as many of you as I can restore. If I am destroyed for my work, so be it. I hope some of you are understanding this message because I was successful.”
When she pushed the stop command, Kyra let the sob she had been holding back escape. Talking so much about emotional things never seemed to help her. It only made her ill. That was certainly the case for the truth she had just recorded.
Full out bawling on the other hand usually freed the knots in her gut and let her breathe.
“Save recording. Edit out pauses and breaks. Produce output and store in
Mankind Redefined
folder,” Kyra ordered.
When she received acknowledgement that the work was proceeding, Kyra closed her portable and shoved it aside. Laying her head down on her desk, she loudly wept out what she could of her remorse before her last chance to redeem herself arrived.
Chapter 2
Peyton fought the pain contracting his muscles as best he could while not allowing his face to show it. Over time, he had learned to channel the physical torture into a silent exercise that made his body stronger. Through the steady stream of current scrambling his circuitry, he heard the delivery guy speaking to his new
wife
.
“Lady, are you sure about this? Peyton 313 has been fighting his restraints all the way here. He’s not going to be easy to control.”
Kyra nodded without smiling. The thought of the constant torture the cyborg was experiencing made her ill. “Yes. I need a husband and he’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
“Listen. You’re a nice looking woman. Even at your age—and trust me you don’t look a day over fifty—you could be hooking up with a real man instead of this—this
thing
. Peyton 313 has had ten wives and they’ve all returned him. Even though he’s supposedly good in the sack, he eventually gets sent back for exceeding boundaries. Hell, this one’s programming has been upgraded so many times that they’ve had to replace his uplinks twice. The only reason he’s not been sent to a work camp is because my boss thinks he’s too pretty. They would disassemble him for sure if he acted up there.”
Kyra snorted, but told herself not to show her contempt for the man’s words. Compassion and protesting got you nowhere. Mankind in general was too far gone where the cyborgs were concerned. It was time for a new approach.
“I appreciate your concern for me. . .
Lyle,
” Kyra said as she looked at his Norton Industries ID. “But I’ve waited a long time for this particular model. I assure you there’s no need for you to worry at all. I’ll have Peyton 313 toeing the line soon enough. He’s not my first Cyber Husband.”
“Well okay, Dr. Winters—ma’am. My job is just to transport. You’re the one who paid for him. I figure I done my good deed today by telling you the truth. That’s all a simple man can do.”
Kyra smiled as pleasantly as she could considering the man didn’t seem to be able to take a hint at all. “Yes. Thank you for the information, Lyle. Now if you’ll just hand over Peyton 313’s wrist controller, you can be happily on your way with another job well done stamp on your record. I’m sure you’ve got lots of other deliveries to make.”
She watched Lyle shaking his head steadily over her words even as he relinquished the wrist unit to her outstretched hand. Her fingers slid over the buttons until she found the restraint one. She waited until Lyle was half-way down the sidewalk before turning to Peyton. Raising a finger to her lips, she watched his pupils fluctuate in acknowledgement as she released him from the circulating pain.
Kyra kept her tone abnormally cheery in case Lyle was still within hearing range. “Hello, Peyton. You’re even better looking than your online profile. Let’s go inside and get acquainted.”
His simple nod as she ushered him through her front door was promising.
***
Free of the debilitating current at last, Peyton’s body got busy with his muscle recovery. In twenty minutes and four seconds, his muscles would be functioning at optimal capacity again. Before he’d developed his organic neural bypass, recovery would have taken several hours. The bypass hurt like hell to use, but it was effective and outside the control of the cybernetic chips embedded in his brain. He had even been able to recover some memories that had been blocked, such as his original name and his highest military service achievement.
While he followed Dr. Kyra Winters indoors, he reviewed what he’d learned. His name was Peyton Elliot. His rank was Marine Captain. He was forty-seven years old in human years but his body was in the physical condition of a twenty-five year old right down to his remaining organs. Part of that was the efficiency of his new cybernetic heart pump. He had wife number seven to thank for that. She’d run him through with a kitchen knife when he had refused to do something humiliating.
But that incident wasn’t his first husband failure. Wife number two had upgraded him when he’d pretended to be stupid for a time. In fact, every wife had done something new to him, except for wife number six who had done nothing. She had just wanted his company. He had liked wife number six. He had been disappointed when she’d turned him in after meeting a non-cyborg man she had wanted to marry.
He could list facts about each of his ten wives to date, but none had been worth the memory space each now took up in his long-term storage. He had made sure his time with each of them had been as short as possible without raising concerns. If there was a plus to his current husband contract with Dr. Kyra Winters, being chosen again would provide the additional time he needed to finish researching his memories beyond his cybernetic data banks. He was trying to extrapolate enough data from those brain areas to piece together a story his human side could recall as his past.
Those who worked on him at Norton had thought they made him a blank slate with each upgrade, but none of the routine memory wipes of his chips had worked completely on him. Data remained stored out of the reach of every new code and eventually he learned how to bring it forward. Maybe his success was because he had early on taught his physical body to live in harmony with his cybernetic parts. A few years ago he had figured out what Norton had done to him and afterwards vowed never to again forget who he was supposed to be.
The number of his organic bypasses continued to expand though it took a painfully long time to grow each of them. He knew about time only because he had developed a method of tracking it outside of his primary processor’s programming. By his calculations it had been thirteen years, two months, and four days ago since he had received the combat modifications that had turned him into a Cyber Solider. He had learned that the Cyber Husband program was the UCN’s version of military retirement for him and others like him. Once he even vaguely remembered his Major informing him that he was going to have access to all the ‘tits and ass’ a decorated hero could ever want for the rest of his extended life. Well he had wanted no part of their plan then and was determined to escape his cybernetic captivity now.
Though Dr. Winters and her exceptionally well-defined ass didn’t know it yet, she was going to be his last wife. All he had to do was keep her happy and distracted until he could assimilate his latest upgrades and learn to control them as he had his others. From what he had observed in the first five point three minutes of meeting her, some form of frowning seemed to be the woman’s default facial setting. Based on his now extensive experience of females, he decided Krya Winters probably hadn’t been sexually satisfied in years. Satisfied women smiled.
Peyton knew with certainly that he could remedy her poor experiences, but it was unusual of him to have innate enthusiasm for the task. As a Cyber Husband, he’d serviced a lot less attractive women for sure. Kyra was five feet ten, a natural brunette, and nicely shaped, especially considering her age and sedentary profession. Though not very stylish in her clothing choices, there was a natural grace to her movements as she walked which visually appealed to him. A sudden twitching sensation below his waist accompanied his deeper study and signaled a rising attraction of the most basic kind. Strangely, no pulse stimulation had been required for arousal at all. He couldn’t recall having such an organic reaction to any of the other women who had bought him.
“You have a beautiful home, Dr. Winters. Thank you for choosing me to share it,” Peyton said politely. He continued his study of the nearly silent female as they walked through her hallway.
Kyra nodded as she soundlessly crossed the terra-cotta tiled floor in her black non-conducting microfiber sandals. She listened to her new cyborg’s footfalls as he followed close behind. “You’re welcome, Peyton 313. I’m glad you’re here. Let me show you to your quarters.”
“Quarters?” Being away from her would not suit his plans. Peyton lowered his voice to the bedroom huskiness that he knew made most women instantly wet with need. “A Cyber Husband resides in his wife’s quarters, Dr. Winters. I am programmed to meet your every need. May I call you Kyra now?” It was all he could do to hide his surprised reaction to her loud, disbelieving laughter.
“Wow. That’s a very charming bedside manner you have developed there, Peyton 313. Sorry to have to decline, but I do not require your services in bed tonight.”
Since her back was still turned to her new cyborg, Kyra rolled her eyes at their idiotic conversation. At six feet and four inches, her new Cyber Husband was handsome and well-built enough to tempt any woman. So sure, her mind briefly fantasized about taking him up on his offer—just once maybe—even though she couldn’t ethically do that given her other plans for him. A decorated Marine hero like Captain Peyton Elliott deserved a hell of lot more than to live his life as a multimillion dollar gigolo—no matter how nice his shoulders were or how many muscles he sported. Or how sexy his voice was when he was trying to talk her into bed.
She stopped in front of her lab door and cleared her throat before speaking. “Voice authorization: Mankind Redefined Code X Delta 13 Omega Definition.”
After the door slid open, she pressed a button on the access panel forcing it to go into manual initialization.
“After entry of Dr. Kyra Winters, and cybernetic unit Peyton 313, delete all recent access authorizations and commence random cycling of entry codes. Offer prompts for new codes only on the following panel authorization—
Third Time Is Charmed
—with password phrase—
Jackson Is A Cyber Dickwad
.”
A series of lights flashed in multiple sequence. When the initialization for her orders had completed, she stepped across the threshold and motioned her cyborg companion to follow.
Going to stand at the specially designed operating chair, she paused and looked back to see Peyton 313 hovering in the doorway. His human sense of danger was apparently still active.
Kyra swallowed hard and allowed herself a moment of genuine happiness that all the rumors about the man’s cybernetic rebellions were true. Maybe the human part of Peyton Elliott really was still alive inside the cybernetic machine he mostly was at the moment. She certainly hoped so.
She couldn’t afford to buy another Cyber Husband, especially not a pricey one like Peyton. Buying the infamous Marine Captain had wiped out the last of her ill-gotten inheritance from Jackson. She needed her work retirement money to fund other things.
“Come in and sit in the chair,” Kyra ordered, pushing away her distaste for deceiving him. “I’m your wife, Peyton 313. I paid for you and you have to do what I ask. Check your programming.”
“I am not programmed for sadistic or masochistic games. I do not require aides to give you an orgasm, Dr. Winters. My sexual training is sufficient to meet all your pleasure needs,” Peyton declared.