Free The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) by Niall Teasdale Page B

and found a short, kimono-style wrap to put on. It was late evening in New York, but she felt Helen-san would forgive her and she wished to discuss the possibility of staking out Aphrodite Cybernetics with her superior.
    Topeka.
    Fox had commandeered one of the interview rooms in the Palladium building to get her maintenance done. Technically, it meant that someone could be watching from the observation room, but she was fairly certain no one would be. No one had asked why she needed an engineer from New York to handle some routine maintenance either.
    ‘Sorry to drag you out here, Sonya,’ Fox said, tilting her head forward so that her very own personal technician could plug in a cable.
    ‘You know you don’t need this for almost another week?’ Sonya replied.
    ‘Uh-huh, but I’m going down into the Southern Protectorate, and I’m not entirely sure how long I’ll be there.’
    ‘Good enough excuse, I guess. Any problems?’
    Fox considered that for a second. There had been one or two adjustments made since her skin had been added. Minor things which Sonya had handled with small tweaks in configuration. Sonya had turned up at Jenner a couple of days after the skinning process and Jackson had taken her through pretty much everything in and around Fox’s body. Despite her relative youth, she was a couple of years younger than Fox; Sonya was one of MarTech Technologies’ senior technicians and apparently some sort of mechanical genius. She was half French-Canadian, a petite sort of blue-eyed blonde with a penchant for pleated skirts and hoodies. Fox figured she was regretting the latter in the Topeka heat. Unlike Jason, she had not even a hint of a French accent.
    ‘No,’ Fox said. ‘No problems I can think of. This’ll be a good test though.’
    ‘You’ve got access to power down there?’
    ‘Should have. I’ll be near Tulsa if all else fails. Did you bring the stuff I asked for?’
    ‘Uh-huh. It’s all in the van. You planning on starting a war?’
    ‘No, I just want to be ready for one if it starts.’
    Sonya chuckled. ‘Fair enough. Uh, have you tried out that fix I put in last time?’
    Fox knew she was blushing. ‘Not extensively. It seemed like you’d solved the immediate problem.’
    ‘Good…’
    ‘Uh, next time I see my boyfriend, if he’s still my boyfriend, I’ll do a proper test.’ Sonya was smirking; Fox knew she was smirking. The problem had been some rather sensitive regions in Fox’s artificial vagina which had almost caused a seizure when Fox had ‘tested that everything was working.’
    ‘Okay… Good plan. Maybe you could… record it. You know, make a sensie. For diagnostic purposes, obviously.’
    ‘I am not letting you have virtual sex with my boyfriend. Aside from anything else, Jason’s from the RFQ as well. You’re probably cousins.’
    ‘That is terrible racial stereotyping. We’d be second cousins at worst. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Everything’s responding within design parameters.’
    ‘Great. Let’s see what you’ve got in the van then.’
    Sonya unplugged her diagnostic unit from Fox’s neck. ‘More than you asked for, actually. Mister Martins asked me to bring the new pistols out for the staff here.’
    ‘The production versions are ready?’
    ‘I guess so. I’ve got pistols for everyone.’
    ~~~
    ‘So what’s so great about it?’ Jonathan asked, turning Fox’s new pistol over in his hands.
    ‘Ten-millimetre, electromagnetically launched micromissiles,’ Fox replied. ‘Jackson managed to get infrared homing into a ten-mil munition. I’ve been using the prototype for a while, but this is the production version, with all the kinks worked out and the bells and whistles added. Like the tactical light on the front there. That’s new.’
    Compared to the blocky prototype, the new model was sleeker. It was built more like a large, conventional semi-automatic pistol with muzzle vents and an under-mounted tactical light/laser