Free B785 by Eve Langlais Page A

files I accessed, I was a juvenile delinquent in foster care who came to their attention because I hacked a secure website.”
    “Must have been some hack.”
    “Apparently, the CIA took offense at a fourteen-year-old getting past their safeguards.”
    She whistled. “Holy shit. They got to you young. How old are you now?”
    “According to records? Twenty-five. Apparently, they kept me incarcerated for quite a number of years before entering me in the cyborg program.”
    “No wonder you’re so clueless. You never really had a chance to live.” Her sad tone made him shift uncomfortably. Used to his past, he’d never before had someone pity him for it. Most envied him his intelligence.
    Uncomfortable with the turn in conversation, he took an example from her and changed the subject. “You said the military gave the females different aspects. What abilities did you get?”
    “I got a smorgasbord. Quick healing. Impervious to pain. An enhanced skeletal structure and embedded armor around my ribcage.”
    “They put a shield around the organs in your torso?” Einstein couldn’t hide his scientific curiosity at such a strange concept.
    “Yup. They wrapped me in some kind of weird metal, shaped to look like a rib cage and stuff, then covered it back over in skin, tissue, and muscle. Pretty neat, huh? And you’d think it would be hell on metal detectors, but somehow, I don’t know how they did it; you can’t tell it’s there at all on x-rays.”
    Hell indeed since it meant she could hide anything within the metallic cocoon. Something of his dismay must have shown on his face.
    Her smile faded. “Shit. I just proved Captain Rude right, didn’t I? I could have some bug inside me or something worse hiding, waiting to blow us all up.”
    “Surely you would have noticed given you seem to have retained all your memories.”
    “The memories of my time before I shut myself down. Who knows what the general did to my body after I turned my will to live off?”
    Einstein tried to reassure her. “Placing an explosive or any tracking device within you seems like a waste of technology if you were slated for destruction. Not to mention, if he had a way to locate you, why would he wait until now to use it? If we assume you were hijacked by pirates and sold to the brothel as stolen merchandise, then surely the general would have activated it by now and retrieved you.” Or blown her up so make sure the wrongs hands didn’t get a hold of her.
    “You know what they say about assumptions.” At his blank look, she shook her head. “I’ll explain later. In the meantime, we have to go with what we know. And that’s very little since my blackout. While I slept, how do we know what happened to me? Aramus is right to be suspicious. Heck, I don’t completely trust you guys yet. For all I know, you’re lulling me into a false sense of security so you can hand deliver me to the devil.”
    “Never.” A vehement reply, which tumbled without thought from his lips.
    “I know you think that, but who knows what programming time bombs remain planted, hidden in our BCIs waiting for the right moment to explode.”
    “I assure you, my mind harbors no hidden subroutines. I’d have found them by now.”
    “Has anyone ever told you how cute you are when you talk like a geek?” She grinned at him and Einstein ducked his head, pleased at her mention of cute. “Enough chit-chat, charming. Time for action. You promised the boss you’d probe me.”
    “We don’t have to.”
    “Oh, but I insist.”
    “I’ll be as unobtrusive as possible,” he promised.
    “Well, that’s no fun,” she pouted, skipping alongside him.
    No fun was going to be him trying to not view her as a woman. Alive, full of energy, and intriguing in so many ways, Einstein wondered how he’d get through an intense examination because just the mere thought had his malfunctioning dick semi-erect.
    Maybe he should be the one submitting himself for an exam with her at the