Peyton 313: A Cyborg Adventure

Chapter 5-3

“Really? I think you are one of them. You kissed me and gave me hope before you cruelly took it away with your story. If you ask me, that’s a pretty lousy thing to do to a man who can’t remember the last decade of his life.”

Peyton sifted through more pages, but stopped when he came across the advertisement for him. It was surreal to see such a large fee next to his photo.

“I swear I didn’t kiss you to add to your torment.” When Peyton didn’t answer back, Kyra returned to silently waiting until he had flipped through the rest of the documentation.

Finally Peyton looked up from the folder in his lap. “None of this makes any sense to me. I served my country as best I could. Hell, I gave them everything they wanted, including several normal working parts of my body—like my damn eyes for instance. I used to have blue eyes. Why the hell would the military betray me by taking my free will away?”

“For the same reason I have you in a cage, Captain Elliott. Everyone in the world is afraid of what you might do with your cybernetics if your human side ever gets angry enough. Norton made you as much of a human robot as they possibly could because they figured out exactly how to control the cybernetic side of you.”

Kyra swiveled in her chair as she tried to find words to describe the reasons she had felt the need to take such drastic measures with him. Finally, she turned back.

“I’m afraid too, but in the last seven years, I’ve learned that controlling another human being is just one illusion piled on top of another. Before your processor fried, you confessed you had been seeking your own escape. Somehow you were teaching your human mind to connect organically to your cybernetic chips. I think it’s only a matter of time before it starts to happen for other cyborgs. A quiet revolution is most likely underway, Captain Elliot. When it really gets going, the cyborgs are going to need a leader to help them fight for their remaining humanity.”

Peyton shook his head and wondered who might have helped her create all the content he was reading. If it was a lie, she had some talented hacks working with her.

If it was the truth—?

No, it couldn’t be. It was too hard to believe.

“How much did you pay for me, Dr. Winters?”

Kyra ignored the question. She saw no purpose in him knowing what she had spent. “Just so we’re clear with each other, I only kissed you yesterday because I wanted to kiss you. It’s been a long damn time since I kissed anyone. Judging from how good it was, I have no doubt that your s****l training is as top notch as advertised. The reason I didn’t indulge completely was because I didn’t want to become just another woman taking advantage of you. My bigger purpose is far more important than any passing attraction I might be feeling.”

“I assure you the only s*x training I have was gotten on my own. Me never legally marrying doesn’t mean there weren’t plenty of women in my life,” Peyton declared.

“There’s no need to defend your kissing skills to me, Captain Elliott. You have one of the highest ratings in the Cyber Husband program for your bedroom skills, and one of the lowest for your level of cooperation during all other activities. Apparently, your wives bought you for a handsome lap dog only to find out you were mostly a mongrel.”

Tired of talking about Peyton’s life with other women, Kyra rose and paced around the room while he thumbed through the file again.

“It says my price is fifteen million. Did ten women actually pay that for me?”

Kyra snorted at how Peyton posed his question. There was no disbelief in the exorbitant amount, just amusement. “That pleased tone of voice kind of gives away how you feel about being worth so much. You might want to stop smiling and take this seriously. Being a Cyber Husband wasn’t the glamorous life you’re imagining.”

Peyton snorted. “It’s an obscene amount of money to spend for a man’s company—that’s for sure. And probably bullshit too. I keep waiting for you to tell me what the punch line is to the joke.”

Kyra turned and glared at him. “Fine. Here’s the punch line. I paid eight million dollars. You were on sale.” It made her incredibly happy when the folder fell to Peyton’s lap.

“You’re lying.”

“No. I assure you I am not,” Kyra replied dryly, glad to hear at least a little doubt ringing in Peyton’s denial.

“Where the hell did you get eight million dollars? No offense, but if I’m number three, it stands to reason you paid big bucks for the others as well. Are you just some bored cyber scientist who gets her kicks from tweaking the cyborgs she buys?”

Peyton’s accusation irritated her but only because it had come up so soon. She had always planned to reveal the truth while he was still safely in the cage. She had just hoped to gain a smidgeon of trust from him first. Apparently, trust was not going to be a possibility. She was going to have to settle for grudging respect.

“My ex and I were separated and divorced years ago, but as his only human wife, I remained his only eligible legal heir at his death. When one of his Cyber Wives killed him, she went back to Norton for complete redefinition. Not that they would have let her keep the money, but apparently I was still named in his will. We never had any children together because Jackson didn’t want them.”

“Jackson?”

“Yes. Jackson Channing. For almost fifteen years, I was married to the primary creator of the Cyber Soldier program.”

Peyton set the file aside and rose to walk to the bars. “He’s in my human memories. He helped me choose my enhancements. I remember talking to him before they were done. He didn’t seem very evil to me.”

Kyra nodded. She understood what Peyton was saying. That early version of Jackson hadn’t been the warped one.

“Programming for cybernetic enhancements was very straight forward when the first soldiers were converted. Cybernetic programming was used mostly to increase natural abilities and repair the soldier’s bodies when necessary. Programs didn’t run codes concurrently without pause. That discovery came later, as did others that made your participation in the Cyber Husband program a possibility. Before the peace pact was officially signed, Jackson had figured out how to completely control anyone with a cybernetic processor and torment chips installed. The first work I did for you was to remove all those capacities from your cybernetics. I’ve come to think it’s reprehensible to subvert someone’s humanity so totally.”

Peyton lifted his shoulders. “So you want me to believe that you’re a reformed cyber scientist with a guilty conscience. And I’m also supposed to believe you did this restoration to help me.”

Since she didn’t even harbor it as a fantasy, Kyra shook her head. “I’m just a person who is trying to right her mistakes in life before she dies. The constant code control factor led to the recycling of cyborgs instead of their disposal. At first, I was convinced it was a good thing that soldiers like you were being spared outright execution. Then Jackson expanded his cybernetic research to include converting women. Failures of cybernetics in females are still numerous. But in the end it was the work being done on children that finally snapped me out of being complacent. Jackson didn’t make children into full cyborgs. He just installed controllers in them so their parents wouldn’t have to work so hard. Child discipline technology made my ex-husband more of a fortune than his original cybernetics work did.”

Peyton gripped the bars. His fingers squeezed hard around them as he closed his eyes against the picture his mind drew of her descriptions. “Hurting children really is despicable. I saw enough of that during the war. You don’t know what hell is until you see a toddler wired with bombs.”

“Yes. Hurting children is despicable. But what I’ve done to you—and what I did to Marshall and Alex—is just as evil. Worse than that, I haven’t given you the choice of staying ignorant. Despite being one of the original creators, I am fully cognizant of my limitations. When I’m dead, there will be no one left alive who can run this sort of experiment as fast as I can. Any success with you is really a success for all Cyber Soldiers.”

Peyton opened his eyes to stare at her again. Her head was down and her shoulders were bowed. She looked fragile in her doctor’s coat and he felt himself wanting to comfort her. It was absurd to want more personal contact with a woman who had just confessed to buying and killing two cyborgs for the sake of her experiments. He was her captive and he couldn’t let himself forget it just because his d**k still liked her. If this contradictory thinking was part of being human, he wasn’t sure it was worth staying like he was currently.

“What the hell are you trying to do with me, Doc? If you expect to ever have my cooperation, you need to tell me exactly what you have planned.”

Kyra looked at the floor. “I thought if you had access to all your cybernetics, and full access to your human side as well, that you might be able to find a way to liberate those who have been unfairly enslaved by the technology.”

“And if I refuse to go along with you?” Peyton asked.

Her head snapped up on his instant response. “Not to brag or anything, Captain Elliott, but I have the lion’s share of power in our relationship at the moment. If I wanted to, I could knock you out, put you back in the chair, and install a different processor very similar to the military one I took out of you. Then I could return you physically to Norton, just like your other wives did. You’d go back to being the most challenging cyborg in the Cyber Husband program with no one ever knowing what I attempted.”

“But then what would happen to your mad scientist plans?” Peyton asked.

“Nothing. Nothing happens. I’ve spent all of Jackson’s blood money. It’s not like I’m going to get a r****d for returning you. Until a cyborg’s programming is disrupted, there’s no way to talk to him or her about volunteering for my experiments. So if I feel sorry for you and give you up, it doesn’t matter what I planned. Norton and the UCN won’t let me continue playing the role of reformed scientist. You’re the last chance to atone that I will ever have in my life.”

Peyton clicked his finger tips against the bars. “Fifty isn’t all that old when your life expectancy is a hundred and fifty. You haven’t even hit mid-life yet.”

“With so many cybernetic parts, your life span could very well be twice mine and you know it,” Kyra answered.

Peyton shrugged. “My longevity is ironic considering I never expected to survive my military service.”

“Captain... ” Kyra stared at Peyton knowing there was no way she could make him understand why she had done what she had done to him until he understood his past. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you refuse to help me.”

“Yeah, Doc. I figured that s**t out already.”

Letting go of the bars, Peyton trudged back to the sterile looking bed and sat down on it. It would have been very nice to have spent a few hours with the wicked woman riding him to an oblivion that took them both beyond this f****d-up situation. Some women just didn’t know when to stop talking.

Peyton sighed heavily in disappointment as he glared. “Since I can’t stop you, go ahead and do your worst to me. Let’s see if I survive full restoration better than my weak-a*s predecessors.”

“I’m not asking you to be nice to me or to tolerate this situation without hating every second of it. I just don’t have the luxury of feeling guilty about taking your humanity away from you again.”

Peyton snorted at her half-a*s apology. Her chastisement only made him more wary.

“Too bad, Dr. Winters. I’m not your priest, or your girlfriend, so I can’t make you feel better for f*****g with my brain again. If I die, don’t jump off a cliff like your last Cyber Husband did. Get some mental help. You obviously need it.”

Kyra shook her head. “Of all the regrets I may ever have in my life, I can’t believe passing up the chance to sleep with a wiseass like you might actually be the one that will keep me up at night.”