Programmed To Protect (The Tau Cetus Chronicles) (5 page)

A heart attack…

Damn it. Why did that image have to conjure up the vision of Jai Turner being shot in the chest, and ending up with an artificial heart?

Wyatt’s jaw tensed, and he leaned in even closer. “You nearly killed my partner, you bastard. If I were you, I’d watch my step. There’s always a chance my ‘hired gun’ might just go off unexpectedly at some point during this operation.”

Carron fought to get himself under control, turning slightly purple before managing to get a grip on his temper. Wyatt probably shouldn’t have threatened him like that, but he felt a certain satisfaction seeing the man rage over the powerlessness of his situation.
I’ll make him pay for what he did to you, Jai. Even if it’s just by being a constant, annoying hair up Carron’s pompous ass.

Theus had been right to cut Carron off at the knees. Taking away his power was the perfect way to control him. But Wyatt’s satisfaction faded slightly with Anson Carron’s next words.

“Yes,” Carron breathed tightly, his eyes narrowed. “I’ll watch my step. But I’d advise you to do the same, agent Wyatt. Keeping the peace can be a very dangerous occupation.”

Chapter Four

The dress blues or the duty blues?

Dress? Duty?

Damn it!

Leith Wyatt had been standing in front of his closet for the last fifteen minutes. He should
not
be debating this. Having established his authority over Anson Carron yesterday, there was no reason to wear his dress uniform to Carron’s manufacturing facility today.

But if I wear the standard one-piece jumpsuit, there’s no way Ginger—

“Stop it!”

Nothing
was going to happen with Ginger today. In fact, not again. Ever. He’d been an idiot to let things get so far yesterday.

Wyatt rotated his shoulders to release some of the tension there.

Okay, so the experiment with Ginger had at least settled one issue. He’d found out for himself that Beautiful Dolls really were
programmed for pleasure
. Incredible pleasure. Their legendary skill was no myth. But now that he’d established that fact, there was no reason to see Ginger again.

Titus Veraine might make damned sure I see her again.

Wyatt scowled.

During the long hours of last night as Wyatt lay in his bed going over the events of the day, he’d definitely considered that sex with the Beautiful Doll had been intended as a trap. It could have played out in any of several ways.

First: Having seen the demonstration of the soldier crushing that concrete block, Wyatt never should have let Veraine leave him in a room alone with a robot, even if she was a sexbot programmed to please. Ginger could easily have killed him, and Carron – angry that the High Council had sent Wyatt as its representative to deal with him – could have dumped Wyatt’s body somewhere far away and told Theus that Wyatt had simply never shown up at the factory.

Scenario two: Knowing Ginger was a sexbot, Wyatt should never have trusted his vulnerable cock to the uncertainty of her mouth. Hell, she could have maimed him for life. Castrated him, on Carron’s orders.

Three: At the very least, before indulging in the most incredible oral sex of his life, he should have thought to check the room for cameras. Hell, he wouldn’t put it past Anson Carron to use a video disc of the encounter to get him yanked from this assignment for dereliction of duty.

The only small reassurance Wyatt felt on that last possibility was that before yesterday, Carron didn’t know Theus had assigned Wyatt to be a liaison between him and the High Council. So, hopefully, there had been no cameras in Titus Veraine’s programming lab to record what had happened there.

At least not yesterday. Today was a different story.

Damn it all.

Why did Ginger have to be so beautiful? Why did her gorgeous red hair have to feel like silk when he’d buried his fingers in its lush waves to hold her talented mouth closer to his cock yesterday? Why did her smile seem so sweet, so sincere?

Wyatt shoved his fingers through his hair. Shit. He had no experience with Beautiful Dolls. Yesterday he’d been taken aback by Ginger’s human-like reactions – her gratitude when he’d thanked her for the blow job, her delight when he’d told her they were both ‘programmed’ for their jobs. Reactions totally unexpected from a robot.

She was fascinating. Which meant Ginger was his enemy every bit as much as Anson Carron, because Carron or Titus Veraine could use her to manipulate him.

Wyatt shifted on his feet. Did Theus know that Carron and Veraine had kept back a Beautiful Doll from the soldier conversion? The fact that Veraine hid Ginger in a utility closet indicated her existence might be secret, but even so, was it necessarily illegal?

After all, what was criminal about using a sexbot for the function it was created? For them
or
for him?

Stop rationalizing, Wyatt.
You have a job to do and it does
not
involve sex.

With a sigh, he donned his dress uniform. He was determined to prove he was strong enough to resist the temptation which gorgeous Ginger represented. Without the protection of his duty blues.

At least that’s what he told himself.

The ride to Carron’s manufacturing facility seemed quicker today, and when Wyatt parked his transport, even Bruiser-the-guard let him pass with no problem after Wyatt turned over his weapon.

Inside, however, was a different matter.

A thin, white-coated minion with wiry brown hair, thick glasses, and a pock-marked face intercepted Wyatt as soon as he walked in the front door.

“Welcome, agent Wyatt, welcome!” he effused. “I’m Loris Rhean. Mr. Carron has asked me to serve as your personal guide while you’re here in our facility. I will answer any questions you may have and help you in any way I can.” The man clapped his hands together and smiled broadly, revealing a gap between his two front teeth. “Oh, my. I’m so excited. Being your guide is quite an honor for me.”

Wyatt frowned. His guide? Or his
guard?
He didn’t need either one. But it looked like Carron wanted him watched every moment, so Wyatt was going to be stuck with this effervescent sycophant.

At least it’ll keep me away from Ginger…

Right. And maybe Wyatt could even get some useful information out this toady.

“Fine,” he said briskly. “I’d like to get a more detailed look at the factory floor today.”

“Certainly, certainly,” Rhean agreed brightly. “Right this way, please.”

Wyatt already knew the way, but he let the mincing assistant lead him down the concrete corridor toward the main factory floor. Good lord, if Wyatt wasn’t mistaken, this Rhean character was actually skipping. There was an odd little spring in his step, as if gravity wasn’t entirely holding him to the ground.

Great. And I’m stuck with this idiot.

“Umph.”

Wyatt squinted. It seemed Rhean was having a bit of trouble sliding aside the heavy metal door at the entrance to the manufacturing floor. What a wuss. Wyatt gave him a hand rolling the door on its track, and for his aid, Wyatt got an ever bigger smile from the smarmy man, and a mild fluttering of his eyelashes.

Good God.

Wyatt turned and marched directly to the first machine Carron had showed him yesterday. This was where the initial lump of polymer started its journey to become a robot soldier. He turned to Rhean.

“Here’s a question for you. Why do the androids have to look like people at all? Why go to so much trouble? Why not make them – I don’t know – faceless, generic?”

Rhean lay what looked like an affectionate hand on the machine, which made Wyatt wonder if he’d ever taken advantage of the Beautiful Dolls himself.

“That’s an easy question to answer, agent Wyatt. Since we were already involved in the very detailed work of creating lifelike sex robots for Beautiful Dolls, it was simply more efficient to keep the basic parameters of the manufacturing process when we switched over to robot soldiers. We just did away with some of the more intricate details, like the individuality of their faces, the variety of their body types, their height, hair color, sex organs, that sort of thing.”

Wyatt supposed that made sense. Why re-invent the wheel when Carron could modify it slightly to fit his new purpose?

Smart. He threw a quick glance at the glass-walled office nestled in the corner, high above the factory floor, but Wyatt could see no sign of Carron in there. Where was he today?

He turned back to Rhean. “Speaking of Beautiful Dolls, why didn’t Carron keep that business going? Seems like an awfully big moneymaker to give up.”

Rhean sighed dramatically. “Our factory is running day and night just to fulfill the High Council’s first shipment order, agent Wyatt. We could
never
continue to make the intricate Dolls and meet the Council’s deadline, too.”

Wyatt digested that answer, and then added a probable rationale of his own.
And I’m sure Anson Carron prefers his new position of powerbroker over his former profession as a mere pimp
.

Even if it might not pay as much.

It pays him in prestige...

Right. Anson Carron was now a supplier to the High Council. Not many companies on Tau Cetus could claim that.

“How long does it take to create each individual soldier?”

“We can reliably produce twenty-five per day, as long as we continue to operate nonstop. Programming them is obviously the thing that takes the most time.” Rhean gave Wyatt a wistful smile. “We had a bit of a head start, since Beautiful Dolls already had one hundred working models. Those beautiful sexbots needed to be modified, of course, but it didn’t take as long as creating one from scratch.”

Beautiful? Oh, yeah, this guy definitely made use of the Dolls himself. Only question was whether he preferred the male variety.

Wyatt turned his head and rubbed his chin.
Hmm.
Twenty-five soldiers per day… times the last six months of manufacturing… plus one hundred original sexbots. Calculating quickly, Wyatt estimated that Carron’s robot army was almost ready for deployment.

That certainly matched up with the rows and rows of completed robot soldiers he’d seen yesterday.

“Walk me through the process. I want to see exactly how it’s done.”

Wyatt spent the next two hours examining the intricacies of every machine on the floor. He had to admit he was impressed by the streamlined operation. Once assembled, the robot soldiers were sent to the programming labs, then, after encoding, they were delivered to the storage area around the corner from the factory floor. Anson Carron might have once been little more than an oily purveyor of prostitution, but he’d obviously always been an efficient businessman.

Hell. This was a monumental undertaking. No wonder Carron was running his manufacturing facility day and night.

“How can Anson Carron insure quality control with this round-the-clock schedule?”

“We test every tenth soldier, agent Wyatt. We’ve had no problems so far, and we’re confident we can keep up this schedule.” Rhean gave Wyatt his best gap-toothed smile. “Premier Theus can count on us!”

Sycophant.

“Good,” Wyatt said dismissively. “Then I’ll get right to work organizing their transportation to Terra Acer.”

Rhean immediately held up what looked like a distressed hand, his mouth forming a perfect letter o. “Oh, wait, wait. Our head programmer, Titus Veraine, wants me to bring you to his lab when we’re through here.”

Wyatt paused. He’d managed to put all thoughts of Ginger out of his mind for the last few hours, but now temptation reared its ugly head.
She’s so close. At least go see her. What can it hurt?

Stop it!

“We’re done here,” Wyatt growled. “And I have work to do.”

Rhean gnawed at his bottom lip. “I really think Titus Veraine needs to speak with you, agent Wyatt.”

“About what?”

“Unfortunately, I’m not privy to that information. But it must be something important, because I have direct orders to take you there.”

Wyatt raised an eyebrow. He briefly wondered what this lightweight would do if Wyatt simply turned and left. Would the man come skipping down the hall to try and stop him?

Remember, Bruiser is outside. You’d have a bit more trouble getting past
him
if they want to keep you here…

True.

And you wanted a chance to show you’re stronger than temptation, right? That’s why you wore your dress uniform. Here’s your chance to prove it.

Besides, he supposed there was a chance Veraine might have something legitimate to discuss with him.

“All right. Lead on.”

Wyatt endured another broad, gap-toothed smile from the wiry-haired assistant, who immediately turned to guide him from the factory floor, down a hallway, and toward a set of double doors.
The programming labs.
Again, Wyatt already knew the way, but he offered no protest at the sycophant’s eager escort.