Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Wow. And yet could she be surprised?
Only C.P. Phalen would buy a property where the listing included, in addition to 8 BR, 9.5 baths, professional-grade kitchen, detached heated garage, and in-ground pool, a “Counterterrorism Escape and Containment Area.”
At least that was what a little plate read on the inside of the doorjamb.
And then she didn’t think anymore about labels. It was all about what was inside: On a stainless slab in the center, a human-form collection of nuts, bolts, and mechanicals was orientated as a body would be on its back. The arms were flush with its sides, its legs out from the sockets, the feet splayed wide at the ankles. There were no clothes on the unit, and patches of its skin-like covering were intact in some places.
“Holy… crap,” she breathed.
The face had been dissected, the fibers that seemed like swaths of muscles pulled off the metal cheeks and put in glass dishes over on a series of shelves, the eyes already gone because Daniel had taken them to make sure the cyborg couldn’t function. Parts of the neck had likewise been examined… and the chest as well.
There was no heart at the sternum—and she shouldn’t have been surprised by that. She was, though.
It was so… human-like, and yet utterly manufactured.
A work of man, not God. A killing machine with no conscience.
“I hate this thing,” she said, as she approached it cautiously. “And I keep expecting it to come alive.”
Joining Daniel next to the table, she felt a creeping tension at the back of her neck. When Daniel had told her that he’d spoken to a friend of his, she hadn’t asked a lot of questions. But now that he’d taken her here? She wondered what kind of conversation had been had.
“Help me roll this fucking thing over?” he said. “Toward us.”
Lydia didn’t hesitate, but she hated touching the cool metal, and the feel of the flexible wires, and the sticky, corded connections between the “bones.” Gripping the rib cage, she dropped down into her legs and shifted backward. The unit was very heavy, heavier than a human of the same size. And as soon as the cyborg was balanced on its side, she started running through scenarios where it suddenly woke up on the attack.
What the hell are we doing? she thought to herself.
With a fumble in his pocket, Daniel took out a penlight and triggered the beam into the nape area. “Okay, got it. Can we roll things all the way over so it’s facedown?”
“Yup.”
Sinking down into her thighs again, she circled the torso at the ribs and shoved forward at the same time she flipped it back with a yank. The jerky maneuver worked okay—but it was like tossing a pancake that weighed as much as a sofa. That was slippery. Fortunately, Daniel caught the thing and kept it from falling off the other side onto the floor.
Then he was back at it with the penlight. “Shit.”
“What?”
“It’s been dissected. There’s nothing salvageable. Let’s put it back.”
On his cue, she muscled the unit again, and as it flopped to the faceup position, the metal clanging was a reminder—not that she needed it—that they were dealing with technology, not anything that lived and breathed.
Daniel stared down grimly. Then he put his hand on the center of the chest, where the heart would have been if it had been mortal.
“This is what’s coming for us, Lydia—I know because it’s what I would do if I had control of them. If I had a target, I’d send them instead of anything that was mortal.” He moved down the body. “These things are a design triumph. They’re perfect for fighting. No food, no sleep, no conscience or independent thought. Just a battery source and a set of orders. It’s the future of warfare.”
Lydia thought back to when she’d faced off with one of them, alongside Blade, up on the mountaintop.
“Let’s all leave,” she murmured. “Let’s just pack up… and go.”
After a moment, Daniel shook his head. “I think they’re going to find us wherever we are.”
* * *
Standing over the mechanical soldier, Daniel reflected on how helpful Rubik had been—after the guy had lost his shit for a while about the mole in his program. With the flip-out in the rear view, Daniel had gotten along with the deeper reason for the call. The favor had been granted—to an extent.
An over-the-burner-phone connection was a poor substitute for Rubik being on-site and getting hands-on with the cyborg. But Daniel’s brain was a sponge, and he had retained most of what had been explained.
Unfortunately, with the power plant being so wrecked, there was no way of working with the thing. He’d been hoping to reverse engineer the unit, and send it back to its master with a tracker. A Trojan robot, so to speak.