Programmed To Protect (The Tau Cetus Chronicles) (23 page)

“Yes, sweetheart, I’m awake.”

Ginger glanced at the bedroom wall. “You hibernated for nine hours and thirty-two minutes, Leith.”

“Really?” He couldn’t seem to wipe the silly smile from his mouth. “I guess that means you wore me out last night. I really needed to recharge my batteries.”

The Doll hesitated, obviously confused by his smile. “Is that a good thing?”

Wyatt barked a laugh. “Wearing me out with sex? Yes, it’s a very good thing.”

Ginger smiled back at him. “Then I will endeavor to wear you out often.”

Wyatt leaned in and kissed her briefly on the lips. “I look forward to it, sweetheart. But right now, it’s probably time to get up. We have a full day of training ahead of us.”

Wyatt suggested that Ginger stay in bed while he showered, shaved, dressed and took his morning nutrition pill. By the time he was through, the hour was getting late. They were due at the High Council headquarters by nine.

Catching his reflection in the mirror above the bathroom sink, Wyatt paused to give himself a quick pep talk.

“We
will
win tomorrow. There is no acceptable alternative. I will
not
lose Ginger. I will
not
fail the High Council. I will keep the planet safe.”

Sending those positive thoughts out into the universe was as close to praying as Wyatt could come. With a determined nod at his reflection, he returned to the bedroom.

“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you dressed.”

Ginger threw back the bed covers and stepped easily into the jumpsuit Wyatt held out for her. Zipping it up, Wyatt frowned.

“We’ve got to do something about getting you shoes. Or boots. I don’t like you going around barefoot. You’ll hurt the soles of those beautiful feet.”

“I am made of the strongest material available, Leith. If my soles wear out, my feet can be replaced.”

Wyatt paused. When she said things like that, it was hard to deny she was a machine. Not that he was deluding himself that she was anything else, but with her newfound sentience, it was her
humanity
he saw when he looked at her, not her mechanics.

“Still, I’d like to protect you, sweetheart. And speaking of that, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep your sentience a secret between you and me and Theus for right now.” He gave her a smile. “You’re unique, special, and very important to me. I don’t want to have to worry about someone stealing you away from me while we’re dealing with this takeover threat. Okay?”

“Stealing me away?”

Wyatt laid his hands gently on her upper arms. “Do you remember how you hid your sentience from Mr. Carron and Titus Veraine?”

Ginger nodded.

“Just do that. Just take my orders during our training session like a regular Beautiful Doll would. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Leith. I don’t want anyone to steal me from you.”

“Perfect.” He kissed her quickly, then glanced at the time readout on his wall. “Okay, we really have to get going.”

In Wyatt’s transport, Ginger seemed as fascinated with the trip to the Council headquarters as she had been yesterday. Her gaze took in everything that passed by the window – buildings, people, scenery. But he did notice that her head didn’t skew around nearly as much as usual. Good. She was getting used to the outside world, the world beyond his tiny apartment and Titus Veraine’s lab. Wyatt looked forward to the day he could show her Tau Cetus in leisure.

When they arrived at the Council headquarters, they were greeted by the same small, androgynous-looking government aide who had launched Wyatt on this perilous assignment with Anson Carron a week ago. Today the silvery-blonde aide led them not to Theus’ office, but to the High Council chambers, where a small group of men were already waiting.

Wyatt had never been here before, and his gaze took in the impressive room. A massive rectangular table was set atop a foot-high dais, with five huge chairs arrayed behind it. Hell, they weren’t mere chairs, they were cathedra. Gilded, throne-like seats for the five most important men on all of Tau Cetus.

The vast room had an open area directly in front of the Council’s table, where Wyatt knew representatives from around the planet had once come to present important matters for the Council to discuss and decide upon. It’s where Theus’ men were now milling around, waiting. Beyond this public area was row after row of seats set in a semicircular pattern, where at one time any citizen of Tau Cetus had been welcome to witness the legislative sessions.

But in Wyatt’s decade as a police agent, he could remember hearing about this room being used less than a handful of times. Hell, he was surprised there wasn’t a layer of dust on the furniture. It took a natural disaster, the threat of war, an imminent crisis, or a weighty matter of state to bring all five Council members together these days.

Tomorrow would be one of those times.

Anson Carron’s assassination attempt was definitely an imminent crisis.

There was a low rumble of conversation among the group of men, which drew Wyatt’s attention. He’d expected only five men but there were… He counted quickly. Ten.

He was about to guide Ginger over to the group when Theus swept into the room.

Everyone fell silent, watching as the premier made his way onto the dais to stand by the center chair. Wyatt could feel the power of the man emanating from every inch of his black-haired, black-clothed frame. Hell. Theus was undoubtedly a leader, the embodiment of Tau Cetus’ highest authority.

He got right to the point.

“I’ve brought you all here this morning because our planet is facing a grave threat. The High Council’s defense contractor Anson Carron plans to use his newly-designed robot soldiers to assassinate our five Council members and grab control of Tau Cetus for himself.”

“What?”
The group of ten men seemed to start speaking all at once, but Theus held up a hand to silence them.

“Mr. Carron has demanded a meeting tomorrow of the entire Council, ostensibly to demonstrate the ability of his robot soldiers to protect us. In reality, he intends to kill us. The High Council needs your help. Your protection.” Theus waved his hand toward Wyatt. “This is police agent Leith Wyatt. He’ll be training you in how to defeat Carron’s soldiers.
There is a way.
Each one of you men will either be paired with a robot or with a Council member. Agent Wyatt has brought a Beautiful Doll for us to practice on, to learn how to defeat the machines. Agent?”
Ten sets of eyes – no, make that twelve, including Theus and Ginger – turned toward Wyatt. He cleared his throat. “I’ll be honest. There’s no way we can defeat these robots in one-on-one combat. They’re too strong.”

The group of ten men shifted uneasily on their feet.

“The only way to defeat them is to neutralize them by the element of surprise.” Wyatt stepped toward Ginger, and put a hand on her waist. “There’s an off switch located here, on the left side of their bodies near their waist. Carron doesn’t know that we know about it. He won’t be expecting us to target that switch. That gives us the advantage in this fight. The difficulty will be in finding it through the robots’ standard-issue camouflage jumpsuits – like this one Ginger is wearing – and activating it before they get their hands on you.”

“You?”
one of the men repeated, arching an eyebrow. “Not
us?
You won’t be part of this operation?”

Wyatt grimaced. “Carron has threatened me. He thinks by his threat that he’s manipulated me into helping him, while in reality I’ve reported all the details of his overthrow plans to Theus. Carron wants me at his side during the demo, which will actually help me take him into custody as soon as the robots are neutralized.” Wyatt paused, and gave Theus’ men a hard look. “But know this. I’ll be right here to offer my back-up to you men if needed.”

That last part of his answer seemed to satisfy them.

Wyatt nodded. “Now. Let me demonstrate how this works.” He gave Ginger a tiny wink of reassurance, then depressed her switch. She went completely still. He turned back to the men. “Easy as that. And today you’re all going to learn how to do it.”

Wyatt conducted the training session in two waves. The first was to have each man methodically practice isolating the switch on Ginger, and then shutting her down. When Wyatt felt comfortable that the men had mastered locating the switch, he asked Ginger to feign attacking the men, just short of hurting them. That second wave of training was much more difficult, because the men had to defend themselves from Ginger’s attack, while trying to find a way to get to her switch. Despite Ginger holding back, she inflicted a lot of bruises.

Wyatt watched the action, gauging, assessing. After two hours of practice, he called a time-out. The men fell into chairs along the circular front row, exhausted.

Wyatt tapped a finger to his lips. “Okay, our initial assessment was correct. If the robots get a clear shot at you, our chances of winning this fight are zero. So we have to act first.” He started to pace in front of the men. “When they arrive, I’ll try to guide Carron’s robots to line up in front of the Council table for the demo. If I can do that, make sure you stand on your robot partner’s left side. That will give you easier – and closer – access to its off switch.” He turned quickly, strode over to Ginger, and shut her down. Then he turned back to the men. “The other idea, which I didn’t want the machine to hear, is this: If I can’t get the robots to line up – in other words, if you wind up facing your opponent for this demo, try moving a lot, confusing it, faking it out. That might make it easier for you to have an opportunity to go in for the kill.”

He moved to switch Ginger back on. It was only because Wyatt knew her so well that he noticed the way her head tilted slightly toward the side in question when she revived. He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but turned quickly back to the men.

“Now. Who wants to try?”

Ferren – one of the men at the end of the row of chairs – rose and came to stand face-to-face with Ginger. Ginger gave Wyatt a look, but he waved a hand, indicating that they should proceed. Ginger frowned, but turned to face her opponent, who immediately – and quite startlingly – threw his hands into the air, waved them around, danced on his feet, dodged left and right, and made loud, animalistic grunting noises. Wyatt saw Ginger try to follow his movements even as he ducked, spun, lunged toward her, and reached her off switch.

As she froze in that confused position, Wyatt heard Theus bark a laugh from his seat on the dais, and clap his hands twice. “Well done, agent Wyatt. Brilliant. We’ll defeat Anson Carron’s sophisticated machines by acting like a bunch of primitive idiots. The ignominy of it will serve him right.”

Wyatt nodded grimly. “I’ll let him know the demonstration will go ahead tomorrow.”

Chapter Thirteen

Wyatt hadn’t slept at all last night. How could he? The fate of Tau Cetus would be decided today.

As if the pressure of the upcoming confrontation with Anson Carron weren’t enough to keep him awake, Wyatt had been too exhausted to sleep. Damned how that sometimes happened. After yesterday’s grueling morning session with Theus’ ten men, he and Ginger had spent the entire afternoon training the four surrogate council members in how to neutralize a robot, and then even privately practiced with Theus himself – something that shouldn’t have surprised Wyatt, but had.

Hell, Theus was strong enough to control almost the entire planet, so why wouldn’t he want to control his own fate? It was only to be expected.

After everyone was as physically and mentally prepared as they could be for the confrontation with Carron’s soldiers, Wyatt had insisted that he and Ginger train together at home. He might be relegated to sticking by Carron’s side during the robot demo, but he wanted to be absolutely certain that he could help out during the fight, if needed.

This operation would not fail because of him.

His personal training session had lasted well into the evening, and he’d instructed Ginger not to hold back. She’d learned her lesson after Ferren’s fake-out earlier in the day – as Carron’s robots surely would learn that lesson today, especially if not every one of Theus’ men could get to the off switch of their assigned robot immediately – so Wyatt had ended up bruised and aching after his session with Ginger. After that, it was all he could manage just to pop an evening nutrition pill before falling desperately into bed.

But sleep would not come.

No matter. His lack of sleep was nothing compared to what they faced today. The fate of the planet would be decided within hours. Hell, adrenaline would keep him awake if nothing else.

Now, if only he could do something about the knot in his stomach.

He ran a hand through his hair as he stood, naked, staring out the window of his bedroom.

“What are you looking at, Leith?”

Ginger’s question reached him from the bed, where they’d both been until a few minutes ago, when Wyatt’s nervous energy had finally forced him to get up and get moving.

“I’m looking at all those people down there,” he explained, his gaze trained out the pane of glass at the tiny figures below. “The citizens of Tau Cetus are going about their business, blissfully unaware that their lives might change dramatically this afternoon.”