Nate's Fated Mate(66)

"Damn you, Jackson. Damn you to hell and back. I'm glad one of your creations killed you for this fucking shit. What the hell were we thinking when we did this to living people?"

She heard the camera begin recording again and gladly moved on to the easier task of replacing Peyton's upgraded circuit boards with older models she had programmed herself.

Well, Nero had done some of the work, but she had checked the content several times. The only override left was hers and it was there to prevent the newly configured cyborg from taking negative action against himself.

She had learned that hard lesson with Alex when she couldn't prevent him from jumping to his death.

"Two big ones down and only a hundred things left to go. Hang in there, Captain Elliott. I'm working as fast as I can."



Eight hours after Peyton's delivery to her doorstep, Kyra sat exhausted in her desk chair recording her final notes as she waited for Peyton to wake up on his own. Depending upon the amount of damage the reboot had caused, his upgraded cybernetics might take some time to integrate with her older processor code. No master chip was running the show for his body any longer. All Peyton had was a basic repair-as-needed processor that worked in the most rudimentary of robotic machines, even those not melded to an organic human. 

Of course, there was no guarantee the new programming would work as she hoped. For all she knew, she might find herself trapped in her lab with a mad killing machine when he came around. That had happened with her first experiment. She'd had to euthanize Marshall 103 after only a few days when it was obvious his mind had not been able to rebuild normally. Having removed the creator code file, she had essentially left herself with no recourse to reboot him again.

After she had released Marshall from his torture, she had also had to remove the evidence of her changes to him. Adding insult to injury, and to cover her modifications, she had taken Marshall's dead body to a burial facility for immediate cremation. She had collected his cybernetic parts and had the metals melted for recycling while she watched.

Experiment number two had gone a little better. Alex 287 had physically recovered and survived the emotional roller coaster of the assimilation process. However, living with the shame of what he had endured as a cyborg turned out to be more than Alex could handle. A few months after his restoration, Alex had committed suicide by throwing himself off a mountainside where they had gone for what Kyra thought would be a relaxed and healing weekend for him.

Alex's cybernetics had tried to fix him as they were made to do, but they had not been able to repair his body after such a traumatic fall. Kyra had eventually come to realize the jump had been intentional on his part. She'd had to retrieve Alex's broken body by helicopter. Then she'd had to repeat the body disposal process to once again hide her modifications from being discovered.

Kyra sighed with regret for both Marshall and Alex, even as she manually typed notes about what she had removed and left in Peyton's cybernetic compartment. After hours of talking about what she was doing, her voice was more tired than her hands.

She accepted that nearly anything could happen with Peyton, and that some awful things probably would, but it had still been a risk worth taking. In his life as a soldier, Peyton had both killed and saved people. If the restoration actually worked on him, Peyton could do what was necessary to liberate the rest of his kind.

Most of his fellow servicemen were in the Cyber Husband program. The UCN had arrogantly used the soldier's military careers as part of their advertising. Though he had been far more expensive than Marshal or Alex, she had gladly spent the last of Jackson's bequeathed blood money buying Peyton's freedom.

Bone-tired from all the work and worry, Kyra finally turned away from his unmoving body and laid her head on her desk. Before letting exhaustion claim her, she prayed that the third time really was going to be charmed.





Chapter Four





An insistent female voice kept asking him questions and interrupting his attempts to run diagnostics. Peyton rolled his head, trying to get his eyes to open so he could see who was speaking. His uncooperative eyelids were still organic, but his actual eyes had been replaced with golden orbs that could read infrared as well as see flawlessly in the dark. The military had spared no expense giving him premiere implants. He must have been damaged in the field again. If true, then the woman talking to him must be a field medic. It was the most logical deduction.

"Hey... Doc. Can't... open... my eyes. How... damaged... are they?"

Peyton heard himself struggling to form simple words and was surprised. His mouth was dry, which meant he was also dehydrated. Running a quick check, he realized he'd not taken in any liquid in thirty-seven hours. He didn't need much since the cybernetic gills in the back of his neck took in moisture from the air. They must not be working optimally either.