His Reboot Girl (Emerald City #3) (3 page)

Adele twisted and struggled, but Donny held her tight, yanked her arm, and pushed it against her shoulders.

“Donny, stop. Please,” she said.

He shook her like a cat shakes a mouse. “Stop your fucking whining. I told you he’d never buy it.”

My instincts on that had been right. I allowed a second of satisfaction, before I blocked off my emotions. There’d be time later to be triumphant, once this danger had been neutralized. I had to somehow get the weapon from him.

This entire charade, the supposed retrieve-memory-prove-my-innocence tale, had been for one reason only—to get them into this lab. I’d given them access this far, but they needed more. What about the bombing? The news report had been genuine; I’d no doubt about that.

Thoughts flashed and spun inside my brain, in the time it took Donny to push Adele to her knees and snap a set of restraints on her wrists. She whimpered when he fastened them behind her back and looped them through a fixed leg on one of the benches.

“Donny.” She sounded close to tears. “I helped you, I made this possible.”

I stared at nothing and kept my face blank. One down, one to go.

My attention diverted to the woman on the floor. Without even thinking about it, I smoothed a lock of stray hair away from her eyes.
She hates getting her hair cut.
How did I know that?

Another memory swamped me. Yawning as I entered a darkened room.
My bedroom
. Tired from working late in my office, I’d dropped my clothes on the floor and headed for bed, only to find someone already there. “You must be frozen.” That husky, sleep-roughened voice again. “Let me warm you.”

Donny’s voice was an unwelcome interruption. “Leave her, and get your ass over here.”

I lifted my head slowly, and took a shallow breath, to work through the surge of pain from my head and neck. Was it getting worse? I glared at him. “Why would I do that?”

The corners of his lips pulled up, and he smirked. “I’ll hurt your girlfriend if you don’t.”

I nearly said her name—
Dorothy
—but I managed to keep my mouth shut.

“I don’t know who you mean.”

His eyebrows quirked. “Poor Adele, forgotten already?” Without taking his eyes off me, he dug into a pocket and tugged out a thin strip of shiny metal. “You won’t have any objections if I do this?” He snapped it tight around her throat, and the ends clicked together with tiny powerful magnets.

“Scott?” Panic threaded Adele’s voice, but I didn’t move. He could be bluffing.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” His voice made my skin crawl. “You should. You invented it.”

I kept my blank, uninterested expression. “I don’t remember.”

“Scott, you disappoint me. Your early wetware prototypes needed this reinforcement collar.”

I remembered in a flash. The first subjects had worn the collar, connected wirelessly to the embedded chip. It was only later, when I’d developed the surface-mounted chip—applied via a micro-tattoo—that I’d dispensed with the collars.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“They’re really easy to adapt, you know. It doesn’t take much to align them to the pain receptors.” Donny pushed Adele’s head down, and pressed the back of the collar. I saw a flash of metal, heard a crunching noise and then she shrieked.

“Donny! Oh my God, get it out of me.” Her words all ran together, high pitched and frightened. “Scott, please,
please
, make him stop.”

“It’s hooked into her spinal cortex now.” Donny released her, but she stayed hunched over, sobbing. I knew she’d lied to me, tried to fool me for her own ends, but the sound of her tears made me cringe.

“You sure you don’t remember how to access the systems?”

Donny and I stared at each other, like the gunslingers of old. I refused to give in. “Go fuck yourself.”

Slowly, as though he had all the time in the world, Donny fished his phone out of another pocket. He frowned as he stared at the screen, then swiped and tapped for a moment. Adele shuddered all over and moaned. Donny tapped some more, and this time, Adele lifted her head and screamed.

“Sorry, Scott,” he said. “I can’t hear you over the noise.”

Her cries tore through me, and he knew it, the fucker.

Adele howled, her body trembling from head to foot. “Make him stop,” she begged me, tears pouring down her face. “Please, Scott.” Her makeup ran in black smears over her cheeks, and she began to twist violently. “I can’t… It’s going—” Her head thrashed from side to side.

I’d seen enough. “
Okay
.”

Donny just smirked some more. He tapped his phone again, and Adele’s wails ratcheted up a notch. “Can’t hear you.”

“Fuckin’ stop. Okay?”

He lowered the phone and gazed at Adele, then back at me. “You’ll log into the system?”

Adele’s muffled sobs made me want to puke. I’d done this. “As far as I can, yes.”

“Not good enough.” He lifted the phone once more. “I wonder how far up I can turn this?”

No matter what she’d done, what her plans had been, I couldn’t watch him torture her.

“I’ll get you in.”

My memory wasn’t returning fast enough. I remembered snippets about my optogenetics work—and now Donny spoke about it, the wetware prototypes—but the details were out of my grasp.

I know how to make it work.
I’d wanted to say that, but had held back. What had I been thinking of? Some breakthrough, definitely, but in which field? If I gave Donny only partial access to my vault, would he be smart enough to know?

“Take the collar off her,” I said.

“Not until you give me access.”

The woman lying on me stirred, and I held my breath. Was she waking up? With a tenderness I didn’t know I possessed, I swept another strand of hair from her face.

“I could collar
her
instead. Would that get you moving?”  Donny sounded as though he would enjoy doing that.

The air jammed in my lungs. No. I wouldn’t let that happen. “I’m coming.” Who
was
she? I knew she was important. Could this be Dorothy? No. I knew Dorothy was blonde.

Could I stumble and crash into Donny, and grab the phone and the gun? Or just the gun? Unlikely. What if I snatched up a piece of equipment and beat
him
over the head with it? I scanned the nearby surfaces, but there was nothing within reach.

“I’m waiting, Scott,” he growled. My eyes were drawn to the pistol, as he tapped it against his thigh. I didn’t know how far I dared push him.

As gently as I could, I eased the woman to the floor. She groaned, and my stomach tightened at the sound. I had to get her to safety. With a grunt, I pushed myself to a kneeling position, waited for the world to stop dancing before my eyes, and then slowly hauled myself upright, using the nearby counter as support.

Donny stood there, gun in one hand, phone in the other. I couldn’t take him by force, so I’d have to be smart.

I staggered over to the screen he’d been using earlier. A quick glance confirmed they’d been trying to break into my vault.

This wasn’t my lab. I knew that. I’d been here, though. My best guess would be LindenCore was a subsidiary of CyGes, and they’d been subcontracted to do some of my testing. Their systems would be connected to the main data network, but with a smaller physical site, there’d be less in the way of on-site security. Especially in the middle of the night. 

The second I started to log in, it would register in the main datacenter, but that alone wouldn’t send up any red flags. If I fluffed the login, it’d lock me out of the core network, but what would Donny do then? That wasn’t a great idea.

“What do you want access to?” I asked.

“Your vault.” The words
you moron
were implied.

“Which part? It’s segmented. There are different logins for each area.”

“The wetware protocols.”

Could I remember the authentication sequence? I hadn’t even remembered my own name until I heard it. I flattened my palm over the reader, and extended my hand so all four fingerprints were read at once. The login screen appeared immediately, a winking cursor awaiting instructions.

Fuck. What was the format? I swallowed hard, and then gazed at the screen, hoping for inspiration. I hovered my fingers over the keypad, unsure what came first.

“Come on, you should know this like the back of your hand,” Donny said.

Was it my name first? Or the vault name? Or a passkey? I closed my eyes and tried to visualize how it looked. How it
should
look.

Nothing.

I pushed at the black hole in my memory, and winced at how painful it was. Beads of sweat broke out across my forehead. What was the fucking access protocol?

I know how to make it work.

What had I been thinking of?

“Get a move on, or there’s going to be more screaming.”

I scowled at Donny. “If I fuck this up just once, I’ll be locked out of the system.” I spoke through gritted teeth.

“Well you’d better get it right.”

Think, Scott
. The wetware protocols were based on the simple premise of linking up the human brain to others in a bio-neural network. Information could be shared at the speed of light. Instructions sent and received as a single thought. I’d struggled with the response times, but had cracked that problem some time ago.

I swiped at my forehead.
Think
. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I tried to blank out my thoughts. One name emerged from the darkness. Dorothy.

I wouldn’t have used her name; that would be too easy for anyone to hack. Likewise, her birth date, registration number, or any of the other publicly stored information.

“I said
hurry
. Who d’you want me to hurt next? I’m easy on that score.”

Hurt
. I’d hurt Dorothy. The black curtain lifted to show me a crowded room, family, friends and strangers, all dressed up and elegant. I’d sunk to my knees, a ring in my hand, and proposed to Dorothy. I caught a glimpse of her face, her smile quickly turning to a grimace of horror.

“I’m sorry.” She’d backed away, one hand over her mouth, as she tripped over her own feet in her haste to put some distance between us. “I can’t. I’m so sorry.” She’d stumbled, and then recovered. The band had faltered in their song, and silence had fallen over the entire room. As I knelt there, dying a thousand public deaths, she’d turned and fled, taking the remnants of my heart with her.

The band. They’d been playing her favorite song. One by Lionheart. Something about Paris?

I flexed my fingers, and typed:

10DaysInParis

The flashing cursor blinked once, twice, and then cleared. I held my breath.

Welcome SCrowe

A list of options scrolled down the screen. I exhaled in a rush, the force making me dizzy for a second.

“
Yes!
” Donny leaned over my shoulder, the gun within grabbing distance. Almost.

My reactions were too slow at the moment, and I knew I couldn’t do it without making the situation a hundred times more dangerous. I bit down on my frustration. When I made my move, like with the login, it’d be a one-shot deal.

“Is it in the Projects area?” He gestured at the screen with his phone.

I wasn’t telling him I didn’t have the faintest idea. Instead, I fixed a calm mask on my fears, and leaned back a fraction. “It’s your turn to give me something. A measure of good faith, if you like.”

“Like what?” He sounded amused.

“Let the women go. Adele and the cleaner.” I flexed my fingers as though getting ready to type. “I’ll give you what you’re after, but I want them out of here.” I sucked in a harsh breath. “And then give me the collar. I’ll wear it.”

“The women are my insurance.” Donny stepped back. “Get me into the wetware vault and
then
I’ll let them go. Not before.”

I glanced at the cleaner. She lay unmoving on the floor. She ought to be waking by now, unless he’d done some serious damage. Fear coiled in my gut. I’d make this bastard pay.

Praying I could do this without having to think, I scanned the folder list, and selected Projects. Typing at high speed, I let my fingers move in the pattern that came naturally to them and entered a six-digit code. I then selected another folder, typed another code, and finally came to a series of vaults.

“These are the links.” I sagged, nausea rising in my throat. “Everything I have, it’s here.” Years of work. Hundreds of test cases. Information that, used correctly, could give one man control of a private army. The military had funded most of this work. The CyGes corporation would not be happy.

Donny stared at the data links, a greedy smile spreading on his face.

“Free the women,” I said. “That was the deal.”

“What? Oh, yeah.” He scanned the room, his eyes narrowed. “Get your ass over there.” He jerked his chin at the far wall.

For fuck’s sake!
I dragged myself across the room and dropped to the tiled floor, just as he snapped a restraint around my wrist, and fastened the other end to the leg of the bench.

Adele lifted her head to meet my stare. She no longer looked frightened, or even distressed. A grin was spreading across her face. “Nice one, Donny. Let me up.”

“Yep.” He leaned over, unclipped her restraint, and then pulled her into his arms. “We did it, babe. You were right.”

I wanted to beat my head against the wall. How stupid was I? I’d thought Adele had been the brains here, and I’d been right. It had all been an act, and I’d believed it. I swallowed my humiliation. “The collar?”

“Fake.” Adele tugged it off, and I saw the metal catches on the back were just for show. They would have scraped the surface of her skin, but nothing more. She was an accomplished actress.

“Are you going to let the cleaner go?” It was a struggle, but I kept my voice hard, squashing down my anxiety.

“Let me see.” Adele assumed a thoughtful pose, tapping her lips with one finger. “No.”

“You can’t hold us here forever. The morning staff will be arriving in a few hours.”

“A lot can happen in that time.” She turned back to Donny, and together, they started downloading my work onto the data sticks Donny produced from under his hoodie.

If they stole everything in that vault, they’d be here for another half hour at least. Was there anything I could do to stop them? They were engrossed in their work. I shifted position and slid to the length of my restraint. I could just reach the fallen woman.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Can you hear me?” I stroked one finger down her cheek and marveled at how soft her skin felt.

I longed to hold her close, to nestle her in my arms, but I couldn’t get near enough.

“Donny, she needs medical attention. Let her go.”

He ignored me, intent on the screen in front of him. What could I do? Frustration swamped me, and I rammed my fists into my thumping temples again. I was fucking useless like this. Or was I?

The security protocols I’d created were watertight. I’d built in redundant systems to mitigate against this very risk. But how did they operate?

The wetware protocols.

I know how to make it work.

That was it. They
didn’t
work yet. There’d been a massive flaw in the neural interface—one that had taken me months to isolate, and even longer to work out how to bypass, only to realize it would take me years to make it functional. I needed to
grow
the cells that would have the protocols embedded, and that process could not be hurried. It took humanity one terrifying step closer to full artificial intelligence, and I’d been unsure about taking that step. So unhappy, I’d been ready to close down the project.

I’d been on my way to see someone. Dorothy? A jagged memory lurked just out of reach, and I tried to focus on it, only to have it melt away again.

Even thinking hurt, and I blinked, trying to clear my vision of the black spots that loomed before me.

I forced myself to look at the digital clock on the wall. The numbers blurred and danced, before steadying for a moment. Donny and Adele had been busy copying data for ten minutes. Allowing for a margin of error, I had around fifteen minutes to come up with a plan. One thing was for sure. They’d never let us walk out of here when they finished.