Freaks in the City Read online

  Perhaps a shower would help—a cold one. With the spray setting on high so the fierceness of the water would pummel some commonsense and logic back into her head. Humans—males, especially—resorted to this method when they needed to banish inappropriate desire and clear their minds. It was worth a try.

  Jay reached into the shower cubicle and turned the dial to cold and the pressure to maximum. She pretended not to notice Tyler choking on his mouthful of mouthwash when she stripped off before stepping beneath the water. She stood beneath the icy-cold stream, letting it needle her skin, waiting for the unnatural heat that had bloomed in her body to cool.

  When she exited the en suite, Tyler was sitting up in bed, his sketchpad resting on his bent knees. He gaze flicked to her, skimming the short royal-blue robe she wore. A dull flush painted his cheeks as he bent his head to his sketchpad again.

  His blush was interesting—or perhaps gratifying was a more accurate word. She interpreted it to mean he liked the way she looked while wearing this article of clothing.

  She rather liked the way he looked wearing this article of clothing, too. He’d borrowed it a couple of times, such as the time he’d gotten oil paint and mineral turps on his clothes and she’d insisted on putting them through the washer. She had to admit that butt-skimming faux-silk robes did things for tall, physically fit guys like Tyler. Good things. Really good.

  She absently stroked the lapel of her robe, remembering.

  He’d bought it for her with his first paycheck from his on-campus job in the college auditorium ticket office. “I noticed you don’t own one,” he’d said when he handed her the package. “I chose the shade to complement your eyes—hope you like it.”

  She had liked it. Very much. It wasn’t real silk but that didn’t matter to Jay. She’d never received a gift before—ever. Not even the gift of a name. The significance of choosing the right name had been too overwhelming for the man who’d created her. So in the end, knowing she required a name to fit in to human society, and wanting to honor the man who’d sacrificed his life for her, she had taken Alexander Durham’s middle name of “Jay” for her own. It was more acceptable than the designation Cyborg Unit Gamma-Dash-One.

  She shook off the too-vivid memories of her creator and replayed the moment Tyler had presented the robe to her in her mind. That memory was one to treasure, one she’d fixed in her permanent memory banks and replayed over and over.

  If the warm glow of pleasure simmering in her belly hadn’t been riches enough, Tyler’s comment about choosing the color to complement her eyes had formed a lump in her throat. That he would spend his paycheck on a gift for her, that he’d chosen it specifically with her eye color in mind…. Overwhelming.

  She paused her current thought-thread and anchored herself into the here-and-now.

  “What are you drawing?” she asked, fishing a t-shirt—one of Tyler’s that she’d appropriated—and a pair of cotton sleep shorts from the tallboy. She doffed the robe, laying it atop the tallboy. And then she pulled the t-shirt over her head, and bent to step into the shorts.

  “You.” His voice sounded strange—slightly hoarse and lower than usual.

  She climbed into bed next to him. “You sound strange. I hope you’re not getting a cold.”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m not getting a cold.”

  She laid her palm on his forehead, gauging his temperature.

  “Satisfied?”

  “Yes. May I see your sketch?” It would have been easy to sneak a look, but Jay respected Tyler too much to do such a thing. No artist—regardless of the art form involved—liked to publicly display their work before they were ready to do so.

  He angled the sketch pad toward her.

  Jay blinked, momentarily disconcerted. Tyler had captured her listening to her iPod, gazing dreamily into space, lips slightly parted.

  Did she, Jay Smith, AKA Jaime Smythson, truly look like this? She mentally photographed the sketch, retrieved an image of herself from her databases, and compared them both. It was an accurate rendition so far as sketches went, but she finally concluded that he was so blinded by his feelings for her he’d unconsciously improved her.

  Tyler answered her unspoken question in that uncanny way he sometimes had. “This is you, Jay. And you are beautiful. But it’s not just your physical form that makes you beautiful, it’s what’s inside you—who you are.”

  “What’s inside me makes me beautiful? You are referring to my soul, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “But, what?”

  “But I don’t have a soul. I’m not human. I’m a machine—a very advanced one, granted—but a machine all the same.”

  He gently tapped her nose with his pencil. “Of course you have a soul.”

  She could argue otherwise but she knew how stubborn Tyler could be. And deep down she wanted it to be true. “If you say so.”

  “I do say so.” He yawned as he set aside his sketchpad, and reached for the panel of light switches by his side of the bed. “Lights out?”

  “Yes.” Jay shimmied down beneath the covers and lay on her side, facing the door, away from Tyler.

  His move. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be—human males making moves on the females? Not that Jay could understand the logic. Why should males have to be the ones who approached females and actively courted rebuffs?

  Tyler smacked the light switch. Darkness blanketed the room and Jay’s optics immediately compensated.

  He scooted over to her side of the bed and draped an arm about her waist. “Is this okay?” he murmured.

  “It’s more than okay,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

  He snuggled closer, spooning. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting me stay.”

  She folded her arms across his hand and held his palm over her heart. “Goodnight, Tyler.” And as she lay there, listening to his breathing slow and deepen as he relaxed into sleep, she felt very, very lucky. Perhaps there was a God, after all, and maybe, just maybe, He’d given His blessing to a cyborg who wished with all her heart she could become what her boyfriend wanted her to be. Human.

  The night deepened. Jay entered the same semi-downtime state she used when performing mundane tasks. Right now, the mundane task at hand was simulating sleep.

  The one crucial aspect she hadn’t considered was her dreams. Cyborgs weren’t supposed to have the capacity to dream—how could they, when their brains were nothing but glorified computers? But Jay had begun dreaming during her downtime periods ever since the night Father had commanded her to end his life. He was old, dying of cancer, and he’d insisted the only way to protect her from those who hunted her was for him to take her command codes to his grave.

  She’d fought the command but the compulsion was too strong. That dream—of Father’s passing and the aftermath, when she’d shed tears for the first time—hadn’t faded over time. It was still as vivid as it’d ever been. Jay knew not even deleting the memory from her permanent databanks would allow her to forget.

  This time, the dream was a new one—a replaying of true events but with a horrifying twist. It looped over and over, like a visual version of a broken record. And despite resting safe in Tyler’s arms, she could not break free of the dream….

  ~~~

  She can sense them closing in. It’s imperative she lure them away before they storm her apartment via the skylights, and everyone inside the building risks becoming collateral damage. The people hunting her don’t care about Tyler or Caro or their father Michael, who had inadvertently led the extraction team to Jay’s door, and put his own children in harm’s way. They don’t care about innocents like Matt and Em and the rest of the girls’ baseball team. They don’t care about anyone or anything except for their mission objective: retrieving Cyborg Unit Gamma-Dash-One, AKA Jay Smith.

  She’s always known this day would come. She’s prepared for every possible eventuality. She’s always prepared,
she never makes mistakes. Except… encountering Tyler has changed all that. Now she is driven to protect him. His safety is paramount. Because of him, she truly feels alive. Because of him, she wants to live so badly she aches with the wanting. The pain of leaving him—even if she knows it is the only way to keep him safe—is a giant fist squeezing her heart.

  One leap takes her down half a flight of stairs. There’s no need to cover her tracks. She won’t be coming back to this place. She rips two bricks from the wall, reaches into the exposed cavity to snatch the wrapped package she’s hidden there. She shoves it down the back waistband of her jeans and heads for the doors.

  She glances up the gloomy stairwell, hears the squeal that confirms the reinforced door of her apartment is closing. In seconds Tyler and his father will be locked inside her apartment along with Tyler’s twin, Caro, and the other oblivious partygoers. For now, it’s the only place they will be safe. But she can’t think about Tyler right now. He’s her weakness, and she can’t afford to be weak.

  The instant before the door locks engage she punches out a stairwell window with her fist. It’s a “Look! Here I am, so come and get me!” gesture, and the shattering glass sounds abominably loud over the now faint thrum of the music playing upstairs. Just to be certain, she allows herself to be seen, luring the extraction squad away from the building, away from Tyler and Caro and the other humans she’s come to care about.

  Movement in the shadows. Someone’s sharp inhalation. A muffled footstep. A whispered acknowledgement to the person listening and barking orders on the other end of the comms device. More movement, furtive and quick.

  She sprints toward a parked car and they follow, exactly as she planned. A wholly un-cyborg-like feral smile curves her lips. Only once before has she allowed them to get this close to her. They will be unable to resist the trap she has set.

  She ducks behind the car, waits…. And as they break cover, she upends the car on its side, using it as a shield as she darts toward the next vehicle.

  Despite her precautions a bullet rips into her side, just below her ribs. She runs a quick diagnostic, determines the bullet has been designed to lodge in her body, and emit a signal to scramble her circuits and render her helpless. She emits an electronic counter-signal that will dampen the effects but it’s too risky to leave the bullet where it is. She digs it out with her fingernails and stashes it in her pocket to analyze at a more opportune moment.

  The wound is deep. She licks two fingers and shoves them into the wound, coating it with her saliva to stop the bleeding and aid healing. The injury won’t slow her down, but the fact that she failed to dodge the bullet makes her chest tight and her breath come in short sharp pants.

  Her fists clench and she grinds her jaw. Now she easily recognizes this emotion. Anger. She takes out her frustrations on the nearest vehicle—a florist’s van—and launches it into the air.

  A part of her realizes emotional overload is playing havoc with her control—hence this little temper tantrum. She inhales, counts to five, exhales. The possibility that all the surrounding properties in the vicinity are empty of people is remote. She doesn’t wish to be responsible for the deaths of Snapperton residents whose only crimes are curiosity.

  She’s off and running, zigzagging down the street in a random pattern. If a bullet hits her this time, it’ll be pure luck.

  She leads the extraction squad to a new housing estate. Construction has stalled due to lack of sales. Those residents who can afford the pricey houses have no desire to live cheek by jowl with the commercial district bordering the estate. Her pursuers will believe she’s chosen this particular property because it’s one of the few completed buildings, affording her maximum cover. But there is nothing random about her selection. She purchased the property to ensure it remained vacant. It’s booby-trapped with C4. All she needs to do is flick the switch on the remote timer in her pocket to begin the countdown.

  The first man senses her stalking him and whirls. He hesitates, vacillating between his gun—a known quantity—and his as yet unproven EMP weapon. He chooses the EMP but she is already reacting, knocking the weapon aside with her forearm and chopping him across the throat.

  She had no intention of killing him—she pulled her blow so she didn’t crush his windpipe. He’s only following orders, after all. But as he lands he smacks his skull on the lip of the concrete garden edging.

  Before she chose to hide in Snapperton, before Tyler, she would have felt neither regret nor sorrow, nor anything at all over this man’s senseless death. Now she feels something. It’s fleeting, a twisting sensation in her stomach, a brief overwhelming sadness and regret that shrouds her before she can shrug it off. It’s yet another indication of how she’s evolving.

  One by one, she takes out the rest of the squad. She’s more careful now, more aware of how fragile humans can be. She knocks each man unconscious before fracturing one leg and the fingers of both hands, ensuring each man is incapable of wielding a weapon. It would be more efficient—easier—to kill. But even if she kills them all now, the killing won’t stop. The man calling the shots, the man who wants to possess her and her secrets, to use and control her, will keep sending people after her.

  There is only one way to stop this. He must believe she’s been obliterated, leaving behind no useable remains.

  She drags the last man out of harm’s way and heads for the backyard of the property. For her plan to succeed she must leave evidence behind—incontrovertible evidence.

  She pulls the wrapped package from the waistband of her jeans, tears away the protective wrapping. She knows what she is—she’s always known. So why is it suddenly so shocking to gaze at this hand—so humanlike until one looks closer and sees gleaming metal where there should rightly be bones. This hand she has constructed would be considered a scientific miracle but it is still artificial, inhuman. Like her.

  She flings the hand into swimming pool. And after one last scan of the vicinity, she thumbs the timer-switch to start the countdown.

  Ten. Nine. Eight—

  Tears sting her eyes, pool, and track down her face. She doesn’t want to leave Tyler but to keep him safe she has to give him up.

  Five. Four. Three—

  She spots movement from the corner of her eye.

  Her heart skips a beat and then plummets to her toes. Tyler. She’d recognize him anywhere. He shouldn’t be here.

  He shouldn’t be here!

  Somehow, he is. Somehow he’s tracked her. He’s standing by the ranch slider, squinting into the darkness, searching for something.

  Searching for her.

  Even though logically she knows it’s too late to save him, with every fiber of her being she’s compelled to try. She launches herself at him just as the explosion lights up the sky.

  The blast sears the clothes from her body, snatches her breath. She will survive of course, and for the first time since her creation she hates that she’s practically indestructible… because this fragile human boy she loves with all her heart is not. He’s dead. And she is responsible—

  ~~~

  A noise ripped Tyler from sleep. He lay there, heart thumping, blinking in the darkness to shake off the last remnants of unconsciousness. Sometime during the night he’d rolled on his back and sprawled across the bed, taking up his share of the mattress and someone else’s. He lolled his head to the side to check on Jay, half-expecting to find she’d gotten up during the night and left him the bed. But she was still there, lying on her side, facing away from him.

  A moan, like someone in pain, threaded its way to his ears.

  “Jay?” He rolled over, hand outstretched to shake her awake.

  Another moan, more anguished than the first.

  He froze mid-gesture. The fine hairs on his nape stood to attention. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones.

  Instead of touching her, he groped for the light switch, bathing the room in a warm, comforting glow.

  “No!” The shout that is
sued from her contorted mouth sounded like it’d been torn from her throat.

  A nightmare. That’s all it was. A nightmare. Okay. He could deal with this.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. “It’s okay, Jay,” he crooned in a singsong voice. “It’s just a bad dream. It’s not real.”

  She shuddered beneath his touch and he shook her again. “Wake up, Jay.”

  “No! You weren’t supposed to follow me, Tyler. You were supposed to be safe.”

  Chills skated up and down his spine. He rolled her onto her back and smoothed the tangle of hair from her cold face. Tears smeared her smooth, too-pale cheeks. His heart contracted. This was one badass nightmare all right.

  “You weren’t supposed to die. Noooooo!” Her howl reverberated through the room, bouncing off the walls.

  Shit! Tyler clamped down on his shock and knelt beside her to shake her harder this time, his voice ringing loud and insistent in the silence. “It’s okay, Jay. I’m here. I’m not dead. It’s okay. Wake up.”

  Her eyes snapped open but her gaze was vacant, like there was nobody home. And then she screamed his name so loudly that he had to clamp his hands over his ears. “Tylerrrrrr!”

  The bedroom door burst open and Nessa skidded to a halt in the middle of the room. “What the hell is going on? You two murdering each other or something?”

  Damned if he wasn’t grateful to see her. He sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly to calm his racing heart. “Jay’s having a nightmare. She thinks I’m dead. I can’t wake her up.”

  Nessa approached the bed and stood staring down at Jay. “Shit. She doesn’t look too hot. What did you give her?”

  “What the fuck makes you think I’ve given her anything?”

  Nessa snorted. “Gee, I dunno. For one, that Pete guy reeked of pot. And two, the way she’s lying there staring at nothing, like she’s on a really bad trip or catatonic or something.”