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Remembering her ongoing phone call, Lexie raised her cell, shaking, to her ear. “Father? I’m going to clear this up. If you can have the man wait? Good. I’ll call back.” She disconnected, her arm falling slack. “You’re ... you’re a machine?”
He lowered his arm further into her view. “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t know pain.”
She shrunk back at first, horrified, yet, moments later, found herself drawn in. It was as if he’d simply peeled back a curtain. With one trembling finger, she prodded his folded skin. “It’s real?”
He nodded. “Human skin, enhanced.”
“You ... you bleed?”
“No. But ...” Taking hold of her hand, he drew her gently up from the ground and pressed her palm to his chest.
She counted his even heartbeats, her eyes spreading wider. “I don’t understand. You look like a man.”
“I am a man.”
Retrieving her hand, Lexie mashed two fingers to the bridge of her nose, her eyes sliding shut. “This is too much.” When she opened them, his arm appeared as it was before with no sign of any injury.
“You’re not Kent Spivey,” she said, mostly to herself.
However, he replied. “I’m Kent Spivey for as long as I’m assigned to watch the priest.”
Her thoughts altered. “Father Royce? He’s just an old man. What could anyone possibly want with him?”
In response, Kent cupped her elbow in his palm and steered her toward the Community Center doors. “Is there somewhere we can go?” he asked. “Somewhere private? I will show you.”
Her stomach swished this way and that, the ocean seemingly bottled inside.
What else could there possibly be for her to see? None of this made sense. He said he was a man, yet he clearly wasn’t. He talked like anyone else, only—
She stared up at him, and his words returned. I don’t know pain. No pain. No emotion. Was that the machine’s fault? But he’d reached out to her earlier, a tender gesture.
Lexie tossed her head to clear it. “There’re offices inside. We’ll go there.”
Pushing the double glass doors open, she forced an uneasy smile to her lips. A pair of older ladies greeted her, the closer of the two sweeping her into a tight embrace.
“Lexie, darling, we’re so glad you’ve come. Frieda and I were just wondering when you’d arrive.” The woman released her and glanced at Kent. “You’ve brought a friend?”
“K-Kent.” Lexie cleared her throat. “Father Royce’s new gardener.” Probably he didn’t want her to share the whole robot-thing.
“Wonderful. It’ll take no time then.”
Lexie nodded and reversed. “Uhm ... I ... we ... need a minute before we get started. I promised Kent I’d show him around. If ... if that’s okay.”
The woman’s brow wrinkled, but she didn’t protest. Lexie jerked her chin toward a hallway, waiting for him to follow, then sped her steps until they were out of the ladies’ sight. Entering one of the empty offices, she shut the door behind them, at the last moment, snagging a chair and tilting it under the knob.
“Okay, so what am I supposed to see?” she asked. “And is it going to scare me half to death?”
He took her arm and led her over to a table set to one side. Tapping her into an empty seat, he sat down as well, facing her. “Don’t be afraid. Look at my eyes.” His face calmed, any sign of life fleeing, and in a split second, his eyes turned from brown to black, and a picture appeared.
She leapt in place, one hand rising to her throat. “That’s ... that’s Father Royce, but ...” The photo changed to one she’d seen in his office. The stone carving. It switched again to another man, one she didn’t recognize and zoomed in on a book in his hand. On it was the same symbol.
Kent’s eyes cleared, his pupils returning. Hesitant, Lexie stretched out her arm toward his face. His skin was smooth and warm. Fine stubble grew on his cheeks.
“Someone is after Father Royce because of the stone?” she asked softly, drawing her fingers along his jaw. “The other man ... the one with the book. Who is he?”
“Was,” Kent corrected. “He’s dead.”
Her bottom lip curled involuntarily between her teeth.
“Whoever killed him may come for the priest. I’m here to stop them.”
Arriving at his neck, she paused. “Will that be enough? Wouldn’t it be better to know who is after him?”
“That isn’t my job,” Kent returned.
She dropped her hand to her lap. “I’m confused. You’re a man, as real feeling as any I’ve ever seen, yet, I saw you’re not. You make choices and decisions like a man, but you can’t choose to solve this mystery? That sounds more like a ... a robot. Are you programmed somehow? They can turn you off and on at will?”
“I do what I’m told,” he replied.
She pursed her lips. “What am I going to do with you? I love Father Royce. He’s like a grandfather to me. I won’t take you back there if you’re going to ... to ... I don’t know, do something crazy. Plus, the real Kent Spivey is there. What do I do about that?”
“I’ll explain,” he said.
“That you’re a ... a ... What did you call yourself?”
He stood to his feet. “Cyborg. I’m a man run by a machine. And no, I won’t explain that, and neither should you.”
“Then what?” She followed him up from the table. “I should tell him. I should run you off. I don’t know you from anyone else. You could be the very people out to hurt him. You haven’t convinced me.”
He faced her then and stepped close. Her words fell away.
“You are Lexie Hollis, born December 7, 1996. You are five-foot-six inches tall and weigh one hundred twenty-one pounds. If you prefer, I can also tell you your body measurements in inches, and your clothing sizes, down to your underthings.”
She coughed. “Not ... not necessary. You studied up on me. I get that. Still it doesn’t explain ...”
“This room is exactly twelve feet, two inches long,” he continued. “From the floor to the ceiling, it’s eight-foot ten. The table over there is ...”
“All right. You’re smart. I’ll add that in,” she replied.
“I am able to calculate anything I need and retain it,” he said. “I can lift a car with both hands if I need to. I use no weapons but my mind and my fists, though if I shoot a gun, it’s pinpoint accurate. If I were the bad guy, you’d be dead. I am not the bad guy. I am ...”
“A cyborg,” she finished, exasperated.
“I am 653, manufactured June 3, 2015.”
Lexie blew out a breath. “I’m not going to call you 653. That’s ... odd. And I want to know what you mean by ‘manufactured,’ but now is not the time or the place, so I guess you’re Kent Spivey, our new gardener. I’ll keep the rest to myself.”
He seemed satisfied then, relaxed almost. “I’m not so good with manners,” he said.
She laughed once and headed for the door. “That explains a lot.”
“What exactly are you going to do ...?”
653 gave Lexie no time to finish her question, but exited the car and strode toward the front porch of the manse. Father Royce, settled comfortably in a wooden rocker, offered him a friendly smile. The man at his side, however, did not. In fact, he seemed particularly disagreeable.
“My apologies for the mix up,” 653 said. “I can clear this up with one phone call.”
“I don’t see what difference any phone call will make,” the real Kent Spivey grumbled. “I have the birth certificate ... although not on me ... and a driver’s license to prove who I am.”
653 extracted his wallet and flipped it open. “So do I.”
Both Father Royce and the real Kent Spivey leaned in.
“It says that’s his name,” Father Royce stated.
653 turned to Lexie. “The agency you contacted, that one that sent you the application. Call them and ask. That should clear it up.”
She stared at him, unspeaking, for a moment.
She’d been amazingly tolerant considering all he’d shown her. He’d only ever had to reveal himself once, and that man hadn’t taken it so well. People weren’t ready for his kind, but preferred to live believing that the cycle of life continued like normal. He was proof that it didn’t. He had no mother or father, yet had been born and grown like any human child. However, it was all done in a lab now, so that when he was of age, they could implement the machine-side of him.
To think, years ago, they’d cloned a sheep and that had been a controversy. Now, they could create men and women from scratch. All it took was the right DNA.
“You want me to call the agency?” she asked.
He nodded. “If they say, I’m not him, then I’ll leave.”
She obeyed, the phone mashed to her ear, her eyes on his face. “Hello? This is Lexie Hollis. I spoke with you about needing a gardener for Father Royce ... Yes, the priest. We ... we seem to have a mix up. We have two men here saying they’re both the man we hired ... Yes ... Yes, he’s twenty-five. But the application you sent us said ... It was a mistake. Oh. No, that takes care of it. I appreciate your time.” She hung up, her gaze never leaving him.
“Well?” the real Kent Spivey asked.
She sighed. “There were apparently two men with the same name. They sent yours by mistake. He’s who we need.”
Irate, the man thrust from his seat, his face flushed red. “This can’t be true! I was sent an acceptance and ...”
Father Royce struggled to his feet. “My dear sir,” he said, “our sincere apologies. But, we only need one gardener, and as my dear child, Lexie, confirmed, it seems the younger Mr. Spivey is the one we’ve hired. I do apologize for all your troubles.”
In disbelief, the real Kent Spivey glared at 653, expelling a heated breath. “Don’t want the dumb job anyhow,” he snapped.
Lexie passed 653 to stand at Father Royce’s side. Patting the elderly man’s shoulder, she nudged him toward the door. “You should lie down for a while, and I’ll prepare us some supper. We’re having pork chops tonight. I know that’s your favorite.”
She encouraged him indoors, leaving 653 on the porch. It was quite some time before she returned. “You have things?” she asked. “Clothing and such?”
He nodded.
“Go get them, and I’ll show you to your room.”
Digging his duffle back from the front seat of his truck, he followed Lexie inside, and there, halted. Calculations downloaded into his brain – the square footage of the space, the distance and number of the stairs, the length of the hallway straight ahead. Brushing his fingertips on the wall, he detected what type and color of paint it was, and below his feet, the particular strain of wood and number of boards.
Aware she’d continued ahead, he headed after her, through the house into a large kitchen then left into a well-furnished bedroom.
“I hope this’ll work for you,” she said.
He dropped his bag at his feet. The room was twelve by fourteen-foot nine. It contained one window, size, eighteen by twenty-four, and through it, stood a sapling oak, Quercus virginiana, exactly sixteen-feet-two inches from the manse to the base of the trunk.
“It’s fine,” he replied.
She leaned on the doorframe, her arms folded over her chest. “How did you know they’d say you were him?”
At the agency, she meant. “I didn’t send myself here,” he replied. “They would cover their tracks.”
“They? You say ‘they’ a lot,” she continued. “‘They,’ who’re after Father Royce. ‘They,’ who sent you here. Who are ‘they,’ the government?”
“The government is weak,” he replied. He turned his back to her. A dresser made from South American mahogany, Swietenia macrophylla, sat against the wall.
“So not the government. Who then? Concerned citizens?”
“You can say that.”
“Concerned citizens with a lot of money,” she added.
“Money is no object, nor is intelligence.”
Her arms unfolded and fell to her sides. She pulled herself upright. “Tell me this, Kent. Do you ever want to rebel? Not do what ‘they’ ask?”
“Rebellion is forced change,” he stated. “It is appropriate when used against dictatorships or cruelty, not when applied to situations one can handle on your own.”
“That’d be a ‘no’ then,” she replied. “That doesn’t bother you? Having no will of your own? Seems like that’s not like a man at all, yet you claim you are one.”
“The will is the seat of rebellion. I am not taught to go against it. I ...”
Something in her lit.
He’d never argued these things with anyone before. His handlers, of course, didn’t require it. They understood. Others like him, also, accepted facts for how they were. But humans were fickle and, he was learning, females more so.
She walked up to him and spoke evenly, without any evidence of anger. “You’re taught to feel nothing. Is that it?”
“Emotions are human. They get in the way.”
“You don’t believe that,” she returned. “I saw your face in the car, saw something rise in you which you didn’t understand.” She took his hand and pressed it at the base of her neck. “Go ahead. Explore. I want you to know.”
His palm warmed against her, and the burn in his gut reignited. He shouldn’t go here, shouldn’t be doing these things. It served no purpose for him to understand her or discover what she was like. Yet, standing there, he couldn’t stop. He traveled his palm over the surface of her skin, delving down her torso and across the flat of her stomach. At her hip, he raised his gaze.
“I said you were beautiful. I stand by that.” Very beautiful. More than he’d ever thought.
She closed the distance between them and tilted her face upward. “There’s more to it than that. I can say you’re handsome all day long and never realize it. Not until I’m right here ...” Her voice grew quieter, “right where I can feel you, do I know Kent Spivey for real. Don’t tell me you’re still numb.”
The shape of her seemed fitted to him, her rich curves ... pleasant. He looked down at her. He shouldn’t think that way either. Humans were not there to enjoy. Yet, the longer they stood together, the tighter his grip became, until her every breath seemed an extension of his.
She lifted her chin, her lips parting, and the flame in his gut sparked. Heedless, unthinking, he captured her mouth, and everything he’d ever known went up in smoke.
Kent kissed like a man, not a machine, his breath warm and moist, his lips salty, his tongue confident, curling alongside hers. Lexie parted, her eyes on his face. “I ... I should go ... cook supper.” Turning her back, she made her escape.
She didn’t go far, however, Kent’s room being right off the kitchen, but moved to the sink where, her palms mashed hard to the porcelain, she collapsed. Sucking in deep breaths, she attempted to steady herself.
What had made her behave like that? Did it really matter if he felt anything or not? He’d said he was here to protect Father Royce. It was simple enough to let him and not ask questions.
His footsteps approached, but she refused to look up.
The minute he’d touched her face, something inside her reached out. Worse, something inside him reached out. He was as much a man as he was a machine, he said, but it seemed like the man side of him held secrets she’d bet the mysterious “they” knew nothing about. You simply couldn’t mass-produce people. Ultimately, God was in control of even that.
Kent’s hand on her shoulder spun her around. Facing him, the blood drained from her face. He was confused.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that. Even by human standards, that’s not how it’s done.”
“Kissing?” he asked. “I’ve seen kissing. I’ve never experienced it.”
She swallowed on a dry throat. “And?”
He gave as close to a smile as she figured he had. “I enjoyed it. I can’t recall enjoying anything before.”
“Never?”
“As I said, I feel nothing. They think it’s more effective.”
“It’s not more effective,” she returned. “People fight for what they believe in, and they believe in what they’re passionate about. You simply can’t defend someone without it.”
“You make a convincing argument.” His hand fell away, but he didn’t shift his position in front of her.
She leaned back on the sink, the rolled edge hard against her spine. “I don’t believe they can repress it either. The Scripture talks about joy and sorrow. Jesus Himself wept.”
“John 11:35,” Kent replied.
“You’ve read it?”
“I have thousands of books inside my head. The Bible is one of them.”
Pulling herself upright, she slipped past him to the refrigerator, opening the door and removing a package of meat. “Then you know,” she said. She slit the plastic wrap and stretched for the salt and pepper in the upper cabinet. “I don’t think you can make people anyway.”
Reaching into a lower cabinet next, she extracted a frying pan, but in setting it on the stove, their eyes locked.
“You said you were manufactured,” she repeated.
He nodded. “Designed from a DNA sequence.”
“As a baby?”
“A cell, an embryo, a fetus. In a lab.”
It sounded so ... inhuman, but then, that was the point. “Didn’t a human do that?” she asked.
He dipped his chin. “Yes.”
“Maybe that person was afraid of their emotions,” she continued. “Maybe they were hurt by someone and passed their pain onto you. But even their pain is a better experience than having no experience at all. If you’re part human, it seems to me that part of you can feel things, you only have to tap into it.”
She set the pan on the stove and returned for the pork chops. Adding a little oil, she dropped them in, their sizzle filling the room. She was conscious of him standing there, but made no effort to acknowledge it. He stood silent for a long time, then walked into her view.
He was more handsome now after their kiss than he had been before, the memory of it enhancing his appeal, and her thoughts twisted within. How could she feel this way about someone who was ... whatever he was? And why didn’t that fact scare her? Because it didn’t. She wasn’t frightened of him at all. If anything, she was attracted.
To a machine. A man. She castigated herself. He was a man. He’d certainly responded like a man.
“I can’t become what I’m not,” he said. “I’m here to do a job, so that’s what I must do.”
She angled toward him, and, her thoughts choking her, gathered herself. “That’s the machine speaking. Think, instead, like a man. Be who you were when I kissed you.”
“Say I do. What happens?” he asked. “I go against the code built in me, become the first cyborg to know human emotions, and everything they’ve built falls apart. Suddenly, nothing’s in their control. Suddenly, I’m not in control, and control is part of who I am. I don’t think one kiss is enough set everything aside and risk that.”
“Isn’t it?” she asked. “One kiss is only the tip of the iceberg. Don’t you want to know what comes next?”
His brow wrinkled, and she could almost hear his thoughts whizzing past. He crossed his arms over his chest, and heaven, help her, she wanted to throw herself at him. Instead, she returned to watching the pan.
“I don’t think you can change what men of great knowledge spent so many years to create, hours in the lab, years of technologic advancements, just through one kiss,” he said.
On impulse, she raised one hand to sit square on his chest and, leaning in, brought her mouth to within an inch of his. The ripple of his muscles seemed to expand against her. His mouth parted, the tip of his tongue darting out.
Her voice dropped low. “I just did.”