She looked up at him, a feral light in her eyes as Jason blubbered like a child. Right at that moment she looked like she could take on the entire fleet and win. Lesson learnt, a woman scorned was a dangerous thing. A very dangerous thing. He’d just never appreciated how much and was suddenly glad it wasn’t his balls she had a pulse pistol to.
Unarmed, with his hands out to his side, he tried to instill calm and reason in his voice and expression. “Honestly, you don’t want to do this. Once you start killing, take someone else’s life…then there’s no going back. Something inside you changes forever. It’s not pretty…but it’s easy.”
“What do you mean, easy?”
She wavered, easing up with the hand that held the pistol and Jason slumped in the seat a little, no longer held up by the barrel between his balls. Johnny hoped the guy didn’t get too comfortable, that was still a fully charged pistol she had pointed at his genitals.
“Killing is easy, justice isn’t.”
Keeping his voice calm, he moved forward. She tracked him every step of the way, Jason’s whimpers little more than background noise.
“You kill him and they’ll make him a hero. Put a spin on it. The brave Captain waylaid by pirates…or killed by his jealous ex-wife. You’ll be hunted down, shot in some back alley somewhere or your ship blown out of the sky to avoid the truth getting out.”
He reached the back of the chair, but didn’t try to take the pistol from her. “You can’t kill him, Milly—”
“Oh god, thank you.” Jason blubbered. “Listen to the man, he’s talking sense. You can’t kill me, just let me go and I’ll forget you were even he—”
“Forget?” Johnny’s voice cracked like a whip. “Oh, I didn’t say anything about forgetting, now did I? Oh no, we’re taking you back, sunshine. You’re going to pay for your crimes.”
Jason twisted, craning his neck and trying to look at Johnny behind him before Milly reclaimed his attention with a shove of her hand. Her dark eyes considered Johnny with interest.
“Go on.”
Johnny smiled, feeling the damaged part of his face pull. Hooking his fingers into the neckline of his shirt he tore it down the middle, then ripped a wide strip all the way around to tie over his face as an impromptu eyepatch. It cut his vision down by half but if the shit hit the fan, it would be the work of a moment to rip it off.
“Crimes?” Now that Milly didn’t seem in imminent danger of shooting him, Jason’s courage picked that moment to reappear. “I’ve got friends in high places. You think you’re going to get anything to stick? All I have to say was that I suspected you were carrying arms for terrorists. How long do you think you’ll manage to stay out of a cell?”
Johnny shook his head. Just how dumb was this guy?
“Oh I think we’ll manage to avoid that altogether. Remember the Payne extraction?”
Jason started, his face paling even further as Johnny rounded the chair to look at him.
“Payne extraction…No, I think you have the wrong g—
fuckfuckfuck!
” He whimpered as Milly powered up the pistol.
“I was married to you, you piece of shit. You think I don’t know when you’re lying? Now talk. Payne extraction.” She slid a sideways glance at Johnny. “What was the Payne extraction?”
Johnny folded his arms over his chest.
“It was my last mission, the day the Fleet decided to terminate the Zodiac project. We were sent in to recover Christian Payne. Templeton was sent in with us as observer.”
Milly started. “You mean Christian Payne, co-president Brooks-Payne?”
He nodded, his eyes still on Templeton. “That’s the one. He got himself in a bit of bother…his shuttle was hijacked on a surface to space hop. They sent us in to retrieve him.”
Templeton started to shake his head.
“No, that’s not possible. We killed you all. Every one of you!”
“Not all…” Johnny put his hand on Milly’s shoulder, easing her back. “Remember the medivac. Yeah…there were two of us there.”
“But, you were gone… You didn’t see anything.”
Johnny tapped his temple. “That’s the thing you gotta watch with cyborgs. What one of us knows, we all know. I heard Harris begging, I heard you laugh. I heard you kill that girl…and now you’ll pay.”
He ached to wrap his fingers around Templeton’s throat and send him to meet his maker. But he wouldn’t. No, they had to take him back, with the evidence stored in his long-term memory they had enough to get the human authorities to lock him up and throw away the key.
“He killed a child. You have evidence of that?” Milly asked sharply, pulling the pistol away and giving the man in the chair a look of pure disgust. “Just when I thought my opinion of you couldn’t any lower.”
“As if I care what a little cyborg-loving whore thinks,” he spat, emboldened by the fact the pistol wasn’t caressing his balls anymore. “Whatever you have, it’ll never get outside the admiralty. It’ll be squashed.”
Milly grinned as she motioned for Johnny to un-clip him. “Which is why I’m not sending it to the admiralty. No, I think the media stations will have far more fun with it. Can you upload a copy to the
Starflame’s
computer?”
Johnny smiled. “Already done it.”
He had to admit it, the girl had style. If there was one way that the fleet wouldn’t be able to cover up Templeton’s crimes, it was by splashing it all over the news streams. The guy would go from the darling of the fleet and high society to a man hunted and reviled for killing a child. He’d also killed five cyborgs, but that would make no difference. They’d known what they were doing. Known that every mission there was a chance they wouldn’t come back. Emilia Payne had just wanted to go with her daddy to see what he did at work.
Lips twisting in disgust, he ripped the straps holding Templeton and yanked the guy to his feet. “I hope they fucking crucify you. Now move.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You won’t get away with this, you know. My people will find you…you’ll pay.”
Johnny shoved him again, making him stumble along the gantry.
“Keep moving, asshole,” Milly barked out as she waved the pistol in his general direction. The urge to shoot him in the ass was becoming more and more tempting. She debated putting a few bolts into the floor around his feet to see him dance, but, no expert on these things, she didn’t know how much charge the pistol had left.
They reached the hold she and Johnny had been held in and Jason slowed down, his face twisted in disgust at the bodies littered around the door, both in and out of the room.
“You can’t put me in there. I… I have claustrophobia,” he announced, clinging to the rails like a kid who didn’t want to go where his parents told him. Milly sighed. What was next, stamping his feet?
“I don’t give a shit,” Johnny growled, a hard hand reaching out to yank him from the rail and half throwing the smaller man toward the door. Jason stumbled, arms pinwheeling before he fell on top of one of the troopers lying dead on the floor.
Instantly he was back on his feet, the light of triumph in his eyes as he turned and leveled a pistol, obviously from the corpse, at Johnny.
“Ha! Now the boot is on the other foot, isn’t it?”
Milly had him in her sights in an instant. “Forgetting something, Jason?”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “I know you, Milly. You don’t have it in you to kill a man.”
Hatred contorted his face as he aimed at the cyborg. “I’ll send you to the same place as the rest of your bastard squad. If I’d known you’d survived, I’d have hunted you down a long time ago. Fucking animals.”
He was threatening Johnny.
Milly didn’t think, just squeezed the trigger. Three bolts spat from the pistol in her hand. Jason jerked as each hit him, dark stains spreading out from each impact point. He staggered backward, throat working soundlessly as he stared at her through shocked, unfocused eyes before he crumpled to the floor in a pathetic little heap. His arm sprawled out over the edge of the walkway, the pistol he’d stolen from the corpse falling from his nerveless fingers into the darkness of the hold below.
“Good shot. Thank you.”
She snapped the pistol around and aimed it directly at the center of Johnny’s chest as something inside her snapped. Jason had lied and cheated throughout their marriage, then tried to steal her ship and have her killed. Johnny had lied to her to get aboard, posed as a bot to get her into bed.
God, I told him I could fall in love with him.
Heat washed over her at the things she’d admitted thinking he was just a bot, the things she’d let him do to her in bed.
“Milly?” His voice was wary, the look in his eyes more so. Good, he should be wary. He was a damn liar, just like the rest of them.
“Back up. Into the hold,” she ordered, her voice as cold as she could make it. “I don’t care who you are, what you are, I don’t want you near me. When we get back to the station, I want you off my ship. I don’t want to see you again.”
“He’s in the hold. I suggest you get him out of here before I call station security.”
Milly folded her arms as Cyn, the bot creator approached, all delicate grace and slender curves with a bot-carrier in tow. Of course, Milly knew the truth now. Cyn was a cyborg, just like Johnny. The two of them were in it together.
Were they lovers as well?
She ignored the stab of pain through her heart at the thought. Of course they were. What man could resist the taller woman’s beauty and the aura of grace that surrounded her like a cloak? Milly hardened her heart and managed a cool smile as the cyborg woman stopped in front of her.
Cyn could probably snap her neck in one movement, but she no longer cared. The last twelve hours had been full of tough choices and she’d run out of “give a crap” about anything now. She’d taken inventory, relieved to find her cargo was more or less intact, debated whether or not to just vent the bodies to space, and then, when she knew she couldn’t do that, taken the decision whether or not to inform the authorities straightaway or give Johnny a chance to leave.
Cyn inclined her head, studying Milly with an implacable gaze. “Thank you.”
“For what? Telling you to come and fetch your lying, no-good friend before the authorities arrive? I may be many things, but I won’t be an accomplice to murder. Which is what’ll happen when they find him in the hold. Bots generally do not bleed.”
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. It shook, but she ignored it, her expression warning the other woman to do the same. “Just get him out of here. And tell him if I see him sniffing around my ship again, I’ll report him to the authorities myself. Do I make myself clear?”
Cyn nodded, looking as though she wanted to say something for a moment, but then her expression cleared. Must be great to be able to do that, Milly thought with bitterness. To be able to order up an expression or an emotion and have others believe you.
“Crystal clear. I’ll tell him. May I?”
She motioned toward the airlock. Milly nodded and moved out of the way, watching as Cyn moved past her, pulling the anti-grav stretcher behind her. At least she’d thought ahead. Milly hadn’t even considered how Cyn would get Johnny out. The crudely bandaged wound on his face would attract too much unwanted attention, but the closed stretcher, commonly used by bot-shops to retrieve out-of-power or damaged bots, was perfect.
She watched until Cyn was out of sight and then turned to head back up to the bridge. The news stations had already received an anonymous tip off containing the evidence from Johnny’s memory banks, but she wasn’t so naive as to think that they wouldn’t be able to track the source of the message eventually. The time it took them to track her down, though, had allowed her to get into dock and would allow Johnny to get clear. All she needed to do now was alert the authorities and they’d have themselves a nice little party.
She shook her head as her boots rang out on the metal deck plating. What a merry life she led.
“You, are a fucking idiot. Didn’t I tell you this was a bad idea?”
Johnny winced as Cyn poked about in his eye socket, using micro tools to reseat the replacement synth organ over his implant.
“Hmm, no. I think you were too busy laughing.”
He lay on the construction table in the room behind Cyn’s shop, surrounded by bots as she worked on the damage to his eye. It hurt like a bitch and he felt like shit. The adrenaline that had been carrying him through the situation on the
Starflame
had long since worn off, leaving him bruised and battered. As it was, he was lucky Cyn had had a synth somewhere near his color that she could tweak.
“Well, you are an idiot.” Her expression was serious as she leaned in to check her work. Frowning, she caught the edge of her lip between her teeth, a habit she had when she was concentrating, as she tweaked the placement of the synth.
He knew he was an idiot. He’d had plenty of time to think while locked in the hold for the journey back to the base. He was the king of idiots. First for thinking he could pose as a sexbot and get away with it. Oh sure, for a one-off fuck, he could have gotten away with it, had her return him to the shop and they’d have both gone their merry ways. But as soon as he’d touched her, that had been it. He wanted to be part of her life. Not as a bot, as a man. Her man. For life.
“What woman would be happy about being lied to like that? You surprised she’s pissed at you? I’m surprised she didn’t fill you full of damn holes.
Or
turn you over to the authorities. You’re damn lucky…
we’re
damn lucky. If she’d so much as mentioned the word cyborg with Lindsey about, we’d both be sunk.”
He sighed, grateful for another topic of conversation to latch onto. Anything to avoid talking about the situation with Milly.
What situation,
the little voice in his head taunted him.
She told Cyn she didn’t want to see you again. Cut your losses and move on.
If only it were that simple. He loved her. The emotion wrapped around his heart, an ache which throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
“I keep telling you, we’re not in danger from Lindsey. Unless we give him cause, he needs at least three intergalactic warrants to investigate us. If he does, all he’ll find is two plus fives,” he assured her.
Their cover was bulletproof. He knew it and she knew it. Any investigation Lindsey could do would only flag them as citizens with over five percent unregistered cybernetics. An offence, but not one that would immediately list them for termination.
“And the instant anything else flags up on the watcher nets we have in the systems, we’ll be gone.”
“But…it’s
Lindsey,
John. You know what he’s like. All those stories.”
“Could be just that. Stories.” He wrapped a hand around her wrist and looked up at her earnestly. “He’s also a man. You’re a very beautiful woman. You said it yourself. He asked you out to dinner. His interest begins and ends there.”
White teeth bit into the plump flesh at the side of her lip again, her indecision written all over her face. Johnny didn’t say anything, just waited. As soon as she’d told him about the incident with Lindsey in the station security office, he’d known there was more to it.
Sure enough, it hadn’t been long before she’d revealed the guy’s interest had been more on kissing her and getting a date than grilling her about any links to rogue cyborgs. After all, with how slender and delicate-looking Cyn appeared, like a reed that would snap in a strong wind, no one in their right mind would suspect what she really was. Hiding in plain sight…it had always worked well for them.
“Go to dinner with him,” he urged, dropping his hand as she started to work healing up the tear in his eye socket. Within minutes he’d be back to his normal appearance, all the damage concealed under a new layer of skin as it healed from within. “But we’ll leave anyway. Start again somewhere new. Perhaps the outer rings… They were advertising for the Traxos system on the streams a while back.”
She nodded as she wielded a dermal healer over his face. Heat prickled his skin uncomfortably, but he held still. Ever the worrier with the contingency plans and insurance policies, Cyn already had a backup in case anyone picked up that he’d been aboard the
Starflame
. A bot lay on the next construction table, identical in height and weight to him, his tattoo scrawled over its abdomen, with similar damage to its face. Instead of the implant and bloody skin, the plasti-flesh was torn to reveal a riveted cheekbone and a shattered eye stalk minus it’s eye. Anyone came asking and she’d reveal it as the bot she’d “recovered” from the
Starflame
.
Cyn clicked the healer off and looked at him critically. “Okay, handsome, I think you’ll do at that. Right, I have a date to get ready for. Are you going to start the move?”
He sat up, taking the mirror she handed to him and looking at his reflection. No evidence of his injuries showed in the smooth skin and his eyes looked identical, as though he’d been born with both. A swift grin splitting his face, he handed the mirror back, dropped a quick kiss on her cheek and slid off the table.
“I’ll put things in motion. Then I have to persuade a certain lady I’m not a total douchebag.”
What the
hell
was she doing?
It was the same question she’d asked herself hundreds of times this evening as she slid into a seat at the back of the club, trusting to the darkness and the crowd to conceal her from the man about to strut his stuff on stage. She was lucky to even get in. The queues outside had snaked out into the main concourse, women wailing and moaning over the fact this was Johnny Ram’s last performance. Ever.
Biting her lip, Milly wriggled in her seat to get comfortable and nodded her thanks as the waiter delivered her drink. She didn’t even look at it, grabbing the long, cool glass to take a drink as the music started. The alcohol slid down her throat as smoothly as silk. Real good quality stuff when she’d ordered the house standard.
Remember to check what they charged…
Her thoughts trailed off as the curtains were whipped aside and Johnny appeared on stage. Her heart thudded, aching as it turned over in her chest.
Mine, my man,
all her instincts clamored at once as he stalked across the stage. Back in his “cyborg” costume, his skin was coated in a sheen of oil, the bronze-gold color highlighting his sculptured muscles. Muscles she’d explored, traced with her fingers and her lips, mapped with her tongue. Heat exploded through her body as she remembered their nights together. What he looked like braced over her, his eyes dark with passion as he drove into her, claiming her completely.
Her fingers closed tight around the slender glass. Why was she torturing herself like this? It had just been a game to him. Pose as a sexbot, easy way to get sex from a woman who’d turned him down for dinner. He was a liar, pure and simple.
A liar who’d saved her life twice. Who’d stood by her when he could have pretended to be just a bot and hidden in the hold during the hijack. A liar who’d asked her to marry him.
A liar she’d killed her ex-husband for. A chill rolled through her again. When she’d seen Jason aiming at him everything had stopped. He could so easily have been killed. If Jason had owned a scrap of sense he’d have fired as soon as he’d gotten that pistol in his hands. Thankfully, he hadn’t. True to form, he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to gloat and taunt Johnny before he killed him.