Cyber Dawn (A Ben Raine Novel) (5 page)
Read Cyber Dawn (A Ben Raine Novel) Online
Authors: M.L. Adams
I frowned, unsure why she was apologizing. I then remembered why I was there in the first place.
The software update.
Even injured, the incomplete task drove her crazy. I forced a smile, and said, “It’s okay, Megan. The update can wait. I don’t mind.”
“No . . .”
Sirens wailed from the parking lot below.
One minute.
“Really, it’s okay,” I said. “Save your strength.”
She clenched her jaw and again shook her head, harder this time. “No . . . Ben . . . listen.”
“The paramedics are almost here, Megan,” I said. I wanted her to conserve energy. Instead, she was being her usual stubborn self. “Shh . . .” I whispered as I placed a finger on her lips. “It can wait.”
With surprising strength, she grabbed my wrist and pushed my hand away from her face. “Ben . . . stop.”
I stared at her, eyes wide. “Okay, okay, I’m listening.”
She swallowed hard and coughed. A bead of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. “Ben . . .”
Heavy footsteps stormed down the hall outside her apartment. The door smashed open. “Over here,” an excited voice called out.
I kept my eyes locked on Megan, resisting the urge to look in the direction of the voice. I brushed several errant strands of hair from her face.
She reached up, grabbed my t-shirt, and pulled my face to hers. Through sad eyes and in a voice almost too soft to hear, she said:
“You never had cancer.”
7
While I waited, I stared across the street at my Jeep. Rain had been falling for a half-hour and I knew my back seat and carpet were soaked. Since I was totally obsessed with the black 4x4—a CyberLife “graduation” present from my parents—my gut instinct was to run over and raise the top. But for the first time since I woke up one morning and saw the Jeep in the driveway, I just didn’t care.
By the time I turned seventeen, I had endured a leg amputation, three months of chemo, and a dozen surgeries to install, upgrade and sometimes repair my cybernetic leg and its related control systems. The physical and emotional pain had, at the best of times, been a challenge, and at the worst of times, been nothing short of devastating. Now, however, it felt like a walk in the park compared to the horror I had just witnessed.
As the paramedic finished cleaning the blood off my hands, a line of firemen filed out of Megan’s front door and climbed into their trucks. None of them seemed to be in a hurry.
Not a good sign,
I thought.
I knew in my heart she was dead. There had been too much blood. After she uttered those strange words—
you never had cancer
—her body went slack. A moment later, the paramedics and police officers pulled me away and surrounded her. I was ushered out of her apartment and didn’t see her again.
“Excuse me, Mr. Raine?”
I looked up to see a uniformed police officer standing a few feet away. He was tall and wore a black raincoat over his uniform. I recognized him as one of the officers who first arrived at Megan’s apartment.
“I’m Officer Flynn,” the man said. “When you’re done here, I need you to come with me. Detective Frost has a few questions for you.”
“Is Megan dead?” I asked.
Flynn and the medic shared a quick glance. “I . . . I don’t know, kid. You’ll have to ask the detective.”
Another bad sign.
The medic stood and stared down at me. He shook his head and looked back at the officer. “None of the blood is his,” he said. “His vitals are fine, but he is understandably in a bit of shock.”
Officer Flynn nodded and turned to me. “Please come with me.”
We walked to a nearby patrol car. I hesitated as he held the rear door open.
“Don’t worry, kid, you’re not under arrest,” he said. “No reason to stand outside in the rain though, right?”
I felt like a perp—or at least what I imagined a perp felt like—when Flynn pressed down on my head as I climbed into the back seat of the police cruiser. He shut the door and, for the first time since finding Megan, I was alone with my thoughts.
I tried to focus on a happy memory—like the first time we’d met or when she joined me for a hike on the research campus—but the image of her just before she died seemed to be magnetically attached to my mind. Her labored breathing. The trickle of blood on her chin. Her final words.
You never had cancer.
Lost in thought, I jumped at the sound of the car door opening and closing. A tall man in a blue suit wrenched himself into the back seat opposite me. He had short-cropped black hair that was graying on the sides, a dark complexion, and deep brown eyes. After fumbling to close his umbrella, he extended his hand.
“Hi, Ben. I’m Detective Frost. How you holding up?”
“Megan is dead, isn’t she?” I asked as we shook hands.
The detective hesitated before confirming my worst fear. “Yes, I’m afraid she is.”
I swallowed hard and looked away. Hearing the words put a finality on it. “Thanks for telling me,” I said, resisting the urge to cry. Through all my years battling cancer and the surgeries that followed, I never cried. I wasn’t about to start now. “I couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone else.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Frost replied. “Most cops don’t share more information than they need to. Sorry about that.”
I nodded.
“Ben, I know you’ve been through a lot this evening, but you can understand I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course.”
Frost pulled a pen and a small notebook from his pocket. “I’ve got some basic information from Officer Flynn and your license. I just need to confirm a few things and fill in the blanks.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You’re seventeen, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You’re in high school?”
“Yes. I’m a junior at Endo Valley.”
Frost scribbled notes in the small, black notebook. I wanted to grab his phone and teach him how to use the voice memo feature.
“Your home phone number? I need to call your parents.”
“They aren’t home.”
“No?”
“My parents are in England.”
“England?”
“My dad is a professor at the university,” I said. “He’s been in England for the last two months teaching a course. My mom is with him.”
Frost nodded and made more notes. “Okay, parents are out of town. Who is taking care of you while they’re gone?”
“Our housekeeper, Sofia.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
What does this have to do with Megan?
I thought.
How do my parents and sisters help find Megan’s killer?
“Two sisters,” I answered. “Both are away at college.”
“How do you know the victim?”
“You mean Megan?”
“Yes, Megan. I’m sorry.”
“I met her—” I said, before abruptly shutting my mouth. An image of Megan flipping through the pages of the CyberLife NDA materialized in my mind. Her words followed:
That’s my signature Ben—the one right next to yours. I agreed to be responsible for you. If I hadn’t signed this thing, Merrick wouldn’t have let you go. Trust me.
I eyed Frost, sighed, and wondered when the lies would stop.
My friends. My teachers. My coaches. And now, the icing on the cake—a police officer.
“Ben?” Frost asked, arching an eyebrow. His pen hovered over the paper.
“Just a few days ago,” I continued. “I didn’t know her too well. She was going to tutor me.”
“Tutor you? In what?”
“Math,” I replied, choosing the first subject I could think of. “Calculus.”
The detective eyed my bag. “Mind if I see your textbook?”
“My what?”
“If you were here to study Calculus, you’d bring your textbook, right?”
Frost’s face turned serious. I wondered if he could tell I was lying. I also tried to remember the last time I heard the word
textbook
. With a shrug, I pulled the iPad from my bag, turned it on, and pressed the icon for my Calculus e-book. I angled the screen so Frost could see it.
He eyed it for a moment, then flashed a lopsided grin. “Old fashioned. Sorry.”
Like I didn’t know that from the pen and paper
, I thought.
“Has she tutored you before?”
“No, this was the first time . . . well, supposed to be.”
“How did you meet?”
I hesitated. “Excuse me?”
“How did you two meet?” Frost repeated. “According to her license, she was twenty-seven years old. I doubt you two . . . hung out in the same circles.”
I silently cursed myself and thought of a famous quote from the poem Marmion, which I only remembered because of how closely it related to my life.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!
“Sorry,” I said. “Long night . . . my brain is working a little slow.”
“No problem,” Frost said. “I understand.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to steady myself. “Starbucks. The one by my school,” I finally said. “I was studying there one day and needed help. She seemed nice, so I asked.”
Frost arched an eyebrow and grinned. “Seemed
nice
?”
I blushed, and said, “Okay, I thought she was
cute
. So I asked.”
Frost chuckled as he jotted down my answer.
“Detective Frost, what does any of this have to do with Megan getting killed?”
Keeping his tone neutral, Frost answered, “I’m just trying to figure out who might have wanted to hurt her, Ben, that’s all. If we have access to the last person to see a victim alive, we start there.”
“She was robbed. Isn’t that why?”
“Well, technically, it was a home invasion. At least that’s what it looks like,” he said. “However, when someone is murdered, we look at all the various possibilities. Make sense?”
Robbery, home invasion, whatever
. No matter what Frost called it, it didn’t change the fact that Megan was dead. And questions about my family and how I met her wouldn’t help solve the case.
“Tell me what happened when you found Megan,” Frost continued.
I wasn’t sure if the detective planned the question or was just placating me. Either way, I was glad to finally be
on topic
. I replayed the events, starting with my arrival at Megan’s apartment and ending with the police and paramedics showing up. I left nothing out, save my short conversation with Megan, which wouldn’t have made sense to the detective anyway.
You never had cancer.
Frost listened and took several pages of notes. When I finished, he said, “You should be proud, Ben, you handled things well. Better than most adults, I’d say.”
I nodded, but pride was the last thing I felt. “I just wish I could have gotten there earlier. Maybe done something to stop it.”
Detective Frost shook his head. “No, Ben, Megan was shot. If you had been there . . .” He paused. “Well, let’s just say there wouldn’t have been much you could do.”
A chill shot down my back as the meaning of his words sank in.
What would I have done if I found someone? Could I have defended myself? Or Megan?
The football season put me in pretty good shape, but I knew next to nothing about guns, knives or self-defense. I was fairly certain being an expert Navy SEAL in
Call of Duty
wouldn’t have helped. Suddenly, another thought hit me:
Did Mrs. Bradley and Holly save my life?
After jotting down a few final notes, Frost said, “Okay, Ben, that’s enough for now. Sit tight. I’m going to call your housekeeper.”
I watched as Detective Frost jogged to a group of uniformed police officers standing guard at the front door of Megan’s apartment building. After a brief conversation, he pulled out his mobile phone. A minute later, he walked back to the patrol car and opened the door.
“Come on, Ben,” he said. “I talked to Sofia. I’ll give you a lift home.”
“It’s okay,” I said as I climbed out. “I can drive.”
Frost glanced at my Jeep. “A little soggy in there, don’t you think?”
I shrugged and stared down at a puddle on the ground. Light rain continued to fall, but I made no move to cover up. Wet and cold fit my mood perfectly.
“Look, Ben,” said Frost, resting a hand on my shoulder. “With what you’ve been through tonight, I think it’s best if you don’t drive. I’ll have another officer follow us in your Jeep.”
I still hesitated.
“Trust me,” he said. “I’ve done this many times before. Too many times in fact.”
As I stood in the rain, my peripheral vision caught a glimpse of two men rolling a gurney through the front door of the apartment building. My lips began to quiver and my hands shook.
The detective is right. I’m in no condition to drive.
A minute later, Frost pulled the sedan out of the parking lot and onto the street. I watched Megan’s apartment fade away in the passenger side mirror. When Frost turned at the next intersection, I lost sight of the building.
“Goodbye, Megan,” I whispered to myself. “I’ll miss you.”
8
Who cares if I’m late? I thought. Not like they can get started without me.
According to an email I had received the day before, the agenda for the meeting had two items on it. First, Dr. Merrick wanted me to meet the team of CyberLife doctors and technicians who would be responsible for installing my new neural augment. The surgery had me more nervous than usual. I was no longer a stranger to the process. However, the thought of having a computer attached to my brain was . . . unsettling.
Second, I was supposed to meet my new lead cybernetic technician, something I was less than thrilled about. Since the beginning of the pilot program, Dr. Merrick had been my tech. I liked him and didn’t want to even consider letting someone else tinker with my system. It was also a good feeling to have the CEO of a major corporation solely focused on me. I was his pet project.
Or at least had been.
“I’m sorry, Benjamin,” he had said to me the week before. “As CyberLife grows, so do my responsibilities. I’m afraid I can’t give you the time or attention you deserve. But I promise I’ll check in often and, of course, we’ll still be friends.”
When I finally arrived at my destination, I was met by one of Merrick’s assistants—who was clearly annoyed by my tardiness—and rushed to a conference room. As I stepped inside, my heart stopped. In the center of the room, a dozen serious-looking adults surrounded a giant conference table. Each wore the standard light blue CyberLife laboratory coat. On the far wall, a giant LED screen displayed a rotating 3D model of a human brain. When the brain circled around, I noticed what looked like a small square microchip attached to the back. Of course, I knew it was more complicated than that. Merrick had called my new neural augment a “postage stamp supercomputer.”
“Good morning, Benjamin,” Dr. Merrick said. He reached out and patted me on the shoulder.
“Um, hi, Dr. Merrick,” I replied, not taking my eyes off the group around the table.
“Benjamin, I think you know most everyone here, but I’ll go around the table real quick for a refresher,” he said.
I scanned the faces as Dr. Merrick rattled off their names. I did recognize most of them, all various doctors and techs from the program. At least until Merrick arrived at a blonde woman seated at the front of the table.
In an instant, my mouth went dry.
“Ben, I’d like you to meet Megan Reynolds,” said Merrick. “Your new technician.”
She was beautiful. Long, flowing hair, bright blue eyes, and a giant smile. I immediately liked her, and not just because I thought she belonged on television or in a movie. The last place on the planet I expected to see someone like Megan was a top-secret CyberLife research campus.
“Good morning, Ben,” Megan said, standing and extending her hand. “So nice to finally meet you.”
I smiled and took her hand. Her skin was soft and cool to the touch. When she leaned in, I picked up the faint smell of strawberries. For the first time in my life, I was in love.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I replied, a faint tremor in my voice. I turned to Dr. Merrick, half-expecting him to laugh and say it was a joke. That my real technician was a short, dumpy-looking man with a giant ego and bad breath.
Instead, Merrick continued his introduction. “Megan has been with CyberLife for a little over two years now and is easily one of the smartest people I know. She has a PhD in neural bio-engineering and will play a major role in ensuring your upgraded system works the way it’s supposed to. She’ll be involved in your surgery and all of the ongoing testing and maintenance that happens afterwards. In a way, she’s your new best friend.”
I glanced at Megan, hoping the grin on my face wasn’t too obvious.
“Hopefully, you two will get along,” Merrick said with a wink. “Because you’ll be spending a lot of time together.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. After three years on the CyberLife campus, I had grown tired of the same old routine.
Surgery . . .
Rehabilitation . . .
Physical therapy . . .
Meetings . . .
School work . . .
More surgery . . .
And so on.
When I wasn’t being poked and prodded, I spent my days roaming the sprawling research campus. It had enough trails, rock formations, and mysterious buildings to keep me busy for years. And while I had a blast driving the army of security guards crazy, the older I got, the more time I spent wondering what other kids my age were doing. To say I had grown restless was a huge understatement. Being the star pupil on a campus with three hundred adults and no other kids wasn’t as exciting as it sounds.
After two minutes of staring into Megan’s pretty blue eyes, I thought maybe, just maybe, I could enjoy living on the campus again. “I’m looking forward to it,” I said with a smile.
“Me, too,” Megan replied. “Me, too.”