Seth: Futuristic Spy Romance (Cyborgs: More Than Machines) (14 page)

Things on board the ship turned chaotic overnight. Refugees from the planet they were supposed to rendezvous with came aboard with wild tales of marauding cyborgs—score for the home team!—and brought along specimens that required guarding, along with a whole lot of disorder that Anastasia could have done without. But none of that compared to the more worrisome news that Seth’s cover was compromised.

Jerry spilled the beans. “You won’t believe this,” he exclaimed. “But we’ve caught one of the infamous spy models.”

“Say again?” Anastasia looked up from her tray of cafeteria grub—off-white bland mashed potatoes covered in a lumpy brown sauce served with a hunk of something she preferred not to analyze with desiccated looking green peas.

“I said we caught a spy model, or are about to. Stanley’s drugging him as we speak.”

“Cyborgs can’t be drugged.” She spoke without thinking, but Jerry didn’t catch her adamant claim, probably because it was common knowledge that human drugs didn’t work on cyber units. Or didn’t used to.

The smug look on Jerry’s face indicated otherwise. “They can now. I developed the formula
to paralyze the bastards while you were gone.”

“And didn’t tell me?” She couldn’t hide the accusatory tone.

“I was still running tests to make sure. But I’ve finally found a way to temporarily stop the nanos from doing their nullifying act to drugging agents, which in turn means we can incapacitate cyborgs long enough for us to terminate them.”

“Holy shit.” Where Jerry took
her expletive as praise, she, on the other hand, meant it more as holy-shit-we’re-in-bigger-fucking-trouble-than-we-thought. She also kicked herself now too for not having taken care of Jerry before this. Seth had mentioned the man was more dangerous than she thought, that he knew more than he admitted, and she’d foolishly not caught on. Because of her failure to properly judge a target, now Seth would pay the price.

“So they’re going to kill him?”

“He’s too dangerous to leave loose.” Jerry’s eyes glittered with malice. “Cyborgs are an abomination that need to be stopped by any means necessary. Don’t you think?”

I think I should have torn your head off and used it as a soccer ball a long time ago,
but regret wouldn’t save her stupid husband. Meanwhile, Jerry waited for a reply. “Cyborgs are monsters.”

His smile widened. “I’m so glad you agree.
Would you believe there are some that think they’re just misunderstood and deserving of a second chance? They’re so misguided they even formed a group under the leadership of one of those inhuman bots.”

“
Really? I’d not heard about that.” Not entirely true. She’d heard rumors, but thought nothing of them. A cyborg on earth was one obviously bent on suicide. Any group formed with a cyber-unit at its head would be short lived at best.

“
The media has been keeping it hush hush so as to not panic the population. But this group exists alright and is being run by some cyborg calling himself Adam.”

Adam
? Interesting because she’d once known an Adam. No way. It had to be a coincidence. It couldn’t be the same one. But, then again, the cyborg world was a small one and she’d not spent much time on earth lately, nor had she spoken to Adam in quite some time. Something she should perhaps rectify.

Once she completed her current mission
, she’d have to look into this group. If Adam was indeed in charge and had managed to wrangle some human supporters, then maybe there was a chance for cyborgs to eventually live in the open. Or at least tell the world the truth so that their sad story wouldn’t get repeated. “Does he have many followers?”

“Enough that he’s going to need taking care of. The problem has been infiltrating his group. They’ve proven wily so far. Or so I hear. It’s why my work is so important. The higher
-ups want to capture him and make a public example of him, but to do so, we need to make sure we can control him first.”

Damn, this was all bad news and information Seth and the others needed to be made aware of.
Just one big problem. Seth was about to get his ass taken out.

Jerry’s wristband pinged
, and he cast a brief glance to the display. “And the cyborg is down. The drug worked. If you’ll excuse me, I volunteered to join the extermination squad. I want to see the effects of my work first-hand.”

“You’re going there right now? Can I come?” The request slipped out of her.

“Of course you can.” As if they were going on a lovely picnic instead of an execution, Jerry tucked her hand in his arm and led her toward Stanley’s quarters. They joined a group of armed soldiers on the way.

Smoke practically poured from her ears as
Anastasia analyzed the situation furiously. What to do? What to do! If she moved to protect Seth, she’d blow her cover.
But I can’t let them kill him.

At the same time, making a move to defend him meant they’d be fighting to get off the ship, a ship in the middle of space, filled to the brim with humans, many of them armed. No matter which way she calculated it, the odds came out against them.

Cyborgs were impressive fighters. They could take on huge numbers of enemies at a time and emerge victorious, but even she and Seth—if Seth recovered in time from the drug—couldn’t hope to prevail against an entire military craft of armed soldiers and scientists like Jerry, with cyborg elimination experiments at hand.

What else
, other than this so-called drug, does he have at his disposal?

She still hadn’t made up her mind when they entered the room at the heels of the military squad. The scene that greeted her made her gasp.

On the floor, splayed in an ignoble heap, face buried in the synthetic fiber flooring, was Seth. Stanley leered in triumph as he rolled his drugged date onto his back.

She couldn’t help but gasp when Seth’s face came into view.
His vivid blue eyes were open and staring, but when she tried to send a wireless message, it bounced back. It seemed his BCI wasn’t receiving. But she’d wager he was well aware of his surroundings and events, and probably cursing them.

Th
e military grunts advanced on him, laser pistols out and aimed. Seth didn’t budge. Jerry snickered at her back. Stanley grinned and rubbed his hands in glee. Talk about an unfolding nightmare.

A
trio of soldiers held their guns aimed at Seth while a fourth positioned himself at his head, gun aimed for a fatal shot. She had only a split second to decide her next move.

They can’t kill him.
Things couldn’t end this way. Not after everything they’d gone through together. They’d just found each other again. She’d only just realized how the military had played a part in splitting them up. She needed him. Loved him. But the situation was impossible. She couldn’t save them both. If she acted, they’d both die.

But rationality couldn’t control her.
Even if she was more machine than flesh, her human emotions still ruled a major part of her, and that part refused to let the man she loved die. Without warning, not even a battle cry, Anastasia lunged.

The first soldier slumped to the floor without a sound, which probably had to do with the fact she snapped his neck so quickly he never had time to voice a protest.

The second soldier managed a startled, “What the fuck?” before the kick she aimed at his gun-toting hand shattered his wrist. He dropped his weapon with a strident scream.
Bet you he wishes he could turn off his pain receptors like a cyborg now,
she thought with cold malice.

The third gun
-toting military grunt became the recipient of her famed left hook, but she didn’t pause to admire the blood as it spattered over a shocked Stanley, who watched the unfolding events with his mouth gaping. She had to keep moving before they had time to react.

The fourth soldier hesitated a moment too long
, trying to decide between targets—her or Seth. Idiot. Logic said active dangers were of higher priority than comatose ones. But, then again, how could she expect a simple human to understand that? He died still trying to make up his mind.

Which made the jab at the base of her spine the more inexplicable.

I incapacitated all the enemies.
So who stabbed her? And why was she falling to the floor, oops, not anymore. A hand caught her by the hair and kept her from sinking all the way.

“I can’t believe I was dating a fucking cyborg bitch. That explains why I couldn’t pry her damned thighs apart.” Jerry’s nasty remark barely made its way through the fog in her head.

The jerk drugged me!

It seemed she’d made more than one miscalculation about her boyfriend. She could almost hear Seth’s mocking,
Told you so.

And
, wow, was the drug ever freaking potent. Her eyes blinked, once, twice, threeeeeeee …

Awareness returned instantly, but
it didn’t come without questions.
Where am I?
The last thing Anastasia recalled, she’d taken care of the soldiers threatening Seth then—

That fucking prick Jerry
had drugged her!

Some boyfriend he turned out to be. It seemed she’d not fooled him as thoroughly as she’d thought. Something must have warned him that she
was more than just human. It seemed obvious now that she analyzed the situation. He’d intentionally baited her with Seth’s demise, waiting to see if she’d react and confirm his suspicions.

How she wanted to have her programming checked for having fallen into his neatly laid trap.
She also wanted revenge. Once she got her hands on him, she’d kill him, slowly, and painfully. But, first, she needed out of the cryogenic capsule she found herself encased in.

While she’d never been an occupant of one before, she’d observed enough of them from the outside to recognize where she currently found herself.
Coffin shape, tight squeeze, tubes inserted in her body, filtering nutrients and drugs into her body. Good thing she didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, or she might have panicked. However, not fearing small spaces didn’t mean she didn’t feel trepidation. The heavy shielding on the casing prevented her from wirelessly accessing any networks.

The bigge
st question running through her mind, though, was in whose custody did she reside? Was she still on board the military ship with Jerry and Stanley, the walking dead men? Was she about to become the newest test subject at a company laboratory? Or did someone else have her in their possession, because the face peering at her through the fogged glass was not one she recognized and, with his unshaven jaw and shaggy hair, didn’t appear to belong to either the military or the geek crew the company usually hired.

With a hiss and a few mechanical clicks, the lid to the capsule popped open.

Limbs still sluggish meant she couldn’t grab him by the throat and choke him for answers so she had to settle for a fierce scowl and snarled, “Who the hell are you?”

“MJ. And you are?”

Ha, like she’d tell him anything until she got a better grasp on the situation. “What the fuck happened?” was the next question out of her mouth, followed by, “Where’s Seth?”

The stranger
, not at all perturbed by her profanity or attitude, fiddled over the capsule’s tubes and control panel. He spared her a brief glance. “What happened? I was kind of hoping you’d tell us. Why were you frozen? Who are you? And how do you know Seth? Is he in one of the capsules as well?”

“How I know him and who I am are none of your business.”
But she found it interesting that this MJ knew of Seth. It was the only reason she didn’t immediately kill him. He might have answers she needed, such as where her husband was.

She yanked at the tubes still sticking out of her skin, determined to find out for herself what the hell was going on.

“Hey, what are you doing? We have to do this carefully lest you accidentally bleed out …” The man in the stained medical coat tapered off, his eyes tracking the way her wounds sealed shut, cutting off the sluggish flow of blood. “You’re a cyborg.”

“In the flesh, or not. Depends on your perspective.”
She bared her teeth in a feral smile.

He didn’t
flinch or run. Brave fellow. “You’re a female cyborg.”

“Duh. Was it my tits that gave it away?” was her sarcastic retort.

“Are all the capsule occupants cyborg?”

“I have no idea. Like I said, I don’t even know how I got in one to start with.”

“I don’t know the how, but I can tell you that we found you on a military vessel in cahoots with the company. They ambushed us in space, but we managed to turn the tables on them. Unfortunately, the ship self destructed before we could discover too much. But not before we managed to salvage a few things, like these here capsules. There were originally six in total, but we only managed to recover five before the ship exploded into space debris.”

Not all the capsules survived? An icy feeling gripped her. It couldn’t be fear. She’d conquered that emotion a long time ago. Tell that to her frantically racing heart, clammy hands
, and the fluttery panic in her stomach. She pushed past the stranger, unheeding her nudity as she scanned the room.

Not much to see. She
appeared to be in some kind of medical area, an outdated one given most of the equipment bore a layer of dust and an air of disuse.

Spotting the other capsules, she strode to the first one and
peered through the glass. The haze over the window wouldn’t give her a clear view. She began typing on its keypad, looking for information on its occupant. Data streamed by on the small electronic screen. None of it jumped out at her, so she moved onto the next. And the next. On the third, she spotted something in the flow of information that had her releasing a pent-up breath. “I think this is him.”

She didn’t even realize she
’d spoken aloud until MJ pushed her aside and said, “Let me take care of this. It’s kind of tricky. The military or company, whoever encased you in these cryo chambers, didn’t want you woken up. They put some intricate traps in place meant to kill the sleeper if you’re not careful in the thawing process.”

With her hands shaking, her mind a muddle, and fear still an unpleasant companion, she stepped aside and let the doctor do his thing.
Killing Seth because of her irrational need to see him safe would not do either of them any good, although she’d like to know when he suddenly became so important again in the grand scheme of her life.

What happened to just using him and ditching him when I was done?
Or the better question, now that she believed him when he said he never strayed, now that she was almost one hundred percent certain her mind had been messed with, why was she so afraid to give him back her heart?
It is I who betrayed him in the end.
But would admitting her mistake and asking for forgiveness accomplish anything?

Logic said Seth deserved better than her and the blatant disregard she’d shown. Not to mention, she still had a quest to finish. A quest perhaps forever out of reach with her
carefully cultivated cover ruined.

The
lid to the capsule popped open a crack. Gases escaped with an ominous hiss. Anastasia crowded close and breathed an audible sigh of relief as Seth’s slumbering face appeared amidst the fog.

“Is he going to be okay?” she asked as the stranger kept punching at the keypad.

“It’s Seth. Short of a nuke or decapitation, I doubt anything could kill him.”

“You know him?”

“Just about every cyborg does. He’s played a huge part in our liberation. And driven just about everyone nuts at one point or another.”

“That sounds like Seth.”
And confirmed her guess that the man who’d released her was a cyborg, which meant he got to live.

“From your tone, I’m going to guess you’re acquainted, and not just recently.”

“We’ve known each other a long time. We were changed around the same time period.”

“And you are?”

“Anastasia.”

“My wife.” While said in a drowsy, gravelly tone, there was no mistaking Seth’s words.

The relief was instant. She didn’t think. She acted—and slugged him in the gut.

“Ow,”
Seth grunted. One eyelid peeled open, and a blue orb squinted at her. “What was that for?”

“For being such a jerk.”
And for scaring me into admitting I still love and need you.

“And here I would have called myself chivalrous for volunteering to enter one of these sleep coffins so you wouldn’t wake up alone.”

She froze. “You did what?”

“Well,
what did you expect me to do? I mean you did, after all, come to my rescue like some wondrous galaxy Valkyrie. Your moves were like something out of The Matrix. Smooth and deadly. I really thought you were going to single handedly rescue us, and then your prick of a boyfriend jabbed you with a needle. I guess he used the same drug on you that they used on me.”

“You saw all that and yet did nothing?” she interrupted. “I could have used a hand.”

“Hey, I was still recovering, and I didn’t want to get in your way.”

She glared at him.

“Okay, so I enjoyed the show. Sue me. Do you know how long it’s been since I got to admire someone with your skill level when it comes to a fight?”

She couldn’t help but preen at his praise.
“Fight? Ha. I took those guys out before they could even fire a shot.”

“Exactly. It was poetry in motion.”
Seth sighed.

MJ
snorted. “I see being frozen hasn’t fixed his warped sense of humor.”

“
Now I really believe you when you say you know him,” she muttered.

“MJ and I go way back,” Seth said with a grin. “He loves me.”

“I’d love you better if you were mute,” grumbled MJ.

“
We all would. But not until I get the rest of his story.” She poked Seth. “Go on. You still haven’t gotten to the part where you ended up a Popsicle. Let me guess, Jerry drugged you with a second syringe?”

“
Not exactly. He stabbed you and grabbed you by the hair, which, I’ll admit, made me a little mad, but I didn’t get truly pissed until he squeezed your boob. I was understandably a tad upset. No man enjoys having his woman groped, just like no husband should ever tolerate anyone ogling their bare-assed wife. Which reminds me, MJ, please give my wife something to cover herself, lest I have to remove your eyes for having gazed upon her naked splendor.” Seth might have made the request in a light tone, but the coldness in his eyes said, “Do it or else!”

“Your wife?” MJ couldn’t hide his incredulity.

“Yes, my wife. Didn’t I already mention that? A wife that, I might add, you’ve seen naked, which I find myself not liking one bit. So I suggest if you want to keep your head intact you offer her an item of clothing.”

U
nable to hide his astonishment, while at the same time biting back a grin, MJ stripped off his white coat and handed it to her.

“Thank you, MJ.
I would have disliked having to kill you.”

“Ha, says the man who can barely twitch his baby finger right now.”

While Anastasia slipped on the coat, Seth and MJ bantered back and forth, the teasing conversation of friends, with violent tendencies. While amusing—especially when MJ threatened to purple nurple Seth while he was still half frozen—she had questions. “If you guys are done playing my penis is bigger than yours, could we get back to how the hell we ended up as coffin Popsicles.”

“As mentioned, I got a bit upset when your boyfriend grabbed your tit.”

MJ interrupted. “Hold on, I thought you said she was your wife. You let your wife date other men?”

“I was undercover,” she said. “And we
are separated.”

“We had a misunderstanding,” Seth added.

“It’s complicated.”

“I’ll say,” MJ replied
, followed by a low whistle. “I’ve got a super brain, and I’m having problems following.”

“
Suffice it to say, we had a bit of a squabble and went our separate ways for a few years. Now we’re reunited and determined to make things work.”

“He is. I still want a divorce.” At Seth’s stern glare, she smirked. Love him or not, she wasn’t about to give in too easily. A man like Seth enjoyed a challenge. It was what kept their relationship fresh.

“We’ll discuss this later,” Seth promised.

“Whatever. Right now, I’m still waiting to hear what the fuck happened. How come you managed to shake off the drug
? Jerry seemed pretty sure it would knock you out and for a while.”

“Ha. As if. I am cyborg. Nothing can take me down permanently.”

“Except for a well-aimed laser cut or sword,” MJ interjected.

“Why must you all persist in such pessimism?” Seth moaned with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s called recognizing our limits, idiot. Now back to the drugs. How come it affected me so much worse than you? We both received the same upgrades. We both have the same nanos.”

“Ah, but mine have since been modified by Einstein. The military and company aren’t the
only ones with scientists. We’ve been working on improving our resistance and immunity.”

“
You just always have to one-up me,” she grumbled. “So, if you’re so impervious, how did you end up being captured? I would have thought you’d have fought your way clear and escaped into space. Why the hell did you give yourself up?”

“
Simple, dear wife. They would have killed you. As soon as Jerry threatened your life, I agreed to their terms.”

B
y all the titanium in her body, he’d managed to shock her. He’d let them turn him into an ice cube to save her? Oh how she loved him. “You jerk. Why must you keep doing things like that?”