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“This way.” Setting Lexie on her feet, 653 led her from the building into the parking garage. Here, he halted. “We’ll take that one.” He nodded toward a black SUV parked halfway down.
“Can ... you do that?” she asked.
“They owe me,” he said. Bearing his gaze down on the door, he emitted a signal from his eyes, unfastening the electronic locks. “Get in.”
He trained his attention on the ignition next. Extending one finger, he focused his energy into the tip, selecting the correct wireless signal, then jabbed it onto the ignition button, and the SUV cranked.
“How did you ...” Lexie began.
653 didn’t try to explain. “They thought it might be necessary to borrow vehicles,” he said instead.
“Steal, you mean.”
He stared at her.
“If it doesn’t belong to you, it’s stealing.”
He mulled that over. “Yet another thing they lied to me about.” Throwing the SUV into reverse, he backed out and headed for the exit.
Her hand crossed the console, clasping his. “What ... what happened? They plugged you in, and it was like ... like you were gone.” Strain showed in her voice.
He squeezed her fingers. “I’m not sure. I felt knowledge draining out me, and I was powerless to stop it. But then, I heard your voice, and it was as if some other part of me took over.”
“Your spirit man.”
He pulled onto the street, turning right. Then a strong signal pierced his mind. He reached for his head.
“What’s ... what’s wrong?”
“They’re trying to override my system. I have to ...”
He scanned the alleys, pulling into one and driving to the end. He threw the SUV into park.
“I need you to do something for me,” he said, “but you have to remember, I can’t feel pain, so it won’t hurt at all.”
Lexie’s skin washed pale. “O-okay.”
“I’m going to open up my chest. You must remove the sensor I indicate.”
She nodded.
He shed his shirt and dug his fingers into the skin over his breastbone, with a grunt, peeling it back on either side. Lexie’s eyes spread wide, and he followed her gaze to where his exposed heart beat a steady rhythm.
“It’s ... it’s ...”
He interrupted her. “Focus, Lexie. I can only stay this way for thirty seconds. You have to concentrate.”
She pulled in a breath.
“Do you see the blue chip?” he asked.
She bobbed her head.
“Pull it out, but don’t touch it to anything else.”
Her fingers stretched toward him, the tips trembling slightly, she halted, squeezing them tight and unfolding them again.
“Twenty seconds. Be quick,” he said.
Reaching further, she touched her forefinger to the chip and slid it upward and out. Dropping it on the console, she exhaled.
“Okay, now one more thing,” he said. “Ten seconds left.”
“Wh-what?”
“To the right of it, there’s a cable. Disconnect it.”
She swallowed, the muscles in her neck flexing. “I ... I can’t.”
“You have to or they’ll follow me to the end of the earth. Please, Lexie, only five seconds left.” His arms trembled with the weight of his skin, and it began to heal, slowly growing over the wound he’d created. “Lexie.”
Sticking her hand back inside his chest, she grasped the cable and yanked.
His vision blurred. Slumping forward over the wheel, he gazed blindly at the darkness in front of him, his skin closing over his chest cavity and smoothing, once again, perfectly formed.
“Are you ... are you okay?” Her voice cracked.
“I ... can’t see.”
Her hands fell on his arm, then lifted to his face. She turned his head around with her palm. “I’ll drive. Let me help you into the passenger seat.”
This took quite a few minutes to accomplish. Though his inborn sense of direction remained the same, he found his lack of vision to be insightful. He knew certain humans navigated this way all the time, but he’d never encountered one to know how they managed. Groping along the roof of the SUV, he felt his way downward into the seat. Lexie’s hands left him, the door clacking shut. Seconds later, the driver’s seat expelled a whuff of air.
“Doesn’t this thing have GPS? Won’t they trace it?”
He nodded. “I could fix it, but not without sight. For that, we’re going to have to visit someone.”
The car began rolling backward, and he folded his hands in his lap.
“Visit someone? And what’s with that woman not knowing Jack?”
“Angela,” he said. “Angela isn’t the head of things. She’s more a coordinator, but she has power to order corrections.”
“She tried to wipe out your memory.”
He laid his neck back on the head rest. She had, and it hadn’t worked. His stomach flip-flopped. It had begun, the change that would alter his kind forever.
“She’s allowed, but will be reprimanded for losing me.”
“And Jack?”
He turned his face toward her voice. “As I said, she isn’t the head, so there’s much she doesn’t know.”
“Wait ... you obey these ... people ... knowing stuff they don’t? Why would you do that?”
“Some cyborgs are given specific tasks,” he said. “Essentially our makeup is all the same, but this one may lean more toward mechanics, that one toward strength. They program this in. I was chosen long ago as memory. It was risky, but the man in charge spoke to me directly, out of hearing of the others. He said a time would come when he wasn’t around, and I was the one who’d hold the code.”
The car slowed. “You have to tell me where I’m going. So far, I’ve gotten us ...”
“Six point two miles,” he said.
“Right.”
He reached for her hand, and locating her arm, slid his fingers down to hers. She curled them together and their palms warmed. “624 Palmer Way.”
The SUV moved forward again, and Lexie tugged his arm closer. “Don’t you see it?” she asked. “Not literally see, but what’s happening here?”
653 shook his head. “I’m somehow free of them, but need repairs.”
“Not that,” she said. “The bigger picture, why God chose you.”
“I don’t understand God. He’s intangible and yet everywhere. Wise and yet no one has programmed Him.”
“All true,” Lexie replied, “but you said you were given the code. You, Kent, the cyborg who now thinks and feels for himself. That’s ...”
“Life-changing for everyone,” he finished.
“Father Royce said the symbol was new birth. The Bible talks about new birth. Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus in John three. He said ...”
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” 653 finished.
“This is your moment,” she continued. “Your ‘new birth’. What God is beginning in your physical form comes from what He’s working in your heart, and it doesn’t stop there. He wants the others to experience it. But you are the one with the know how to do it.”
If she was right, then this had gone far beyond what he could imagine, far beyond anything they’d ever planned for it to be, and was entirely in the control of Lexie’s God.
“You asked about 852,” he said.
Freeing her fingers, his cooled in the air. The car tipped left and right and came to a stop.
“Yes, Jack. Who is he?”
“My brother, and we’ll wait here for our donor.”
Her breath rushed inward, and her hand returned to his. “Your ... your donor?”
653 nodded. “I found him a number of years ago. He used to work for the Organization creating fetuses.”
“Don’t say it like that. It’s ... horrible.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied, “but that’s what they are. They’re never allowed to go any further, or aren’t supposed to. But our donor took a few into his own care and developed them, him and others who lost their jobs.”
“Lost them for what?” she asked.
653 recalled the incident, the shake-up, and the arguments. Angela acting triumphant. “Breaking the rules, you’d call it. They’ve formed something called the Underground. That’s where 852 resides, except for some reason my donor sent him after me.”
“He ... he doesn’t take the same directions you do?”
653 shook his head. “No. He can pick up the same signals, but he’s not programmed to obey them. Also, because we’re related, he knows where I’m at and how I’m doing.”
“We should get out,” she said. “But this place looks empty.”
“It is,” he said. “We’re ditching the car.”
“We are? Then how ...”
Groping for the door handle, 653 pushed it open and stood. He shut it soundly. Lexie arrived at his side seconds later.
“It’s just a house. What do we do?” she asked.
He inhaled. “We wait.”
He stood in place, his sightless gaze straight ahead, and the rumble of an engine crept up the drive. A man approached, his even gait telling him clearly who he was. He curved one hand over his shoulder. “You’ve gone and done it, huh?”
653 dipped his chin. “It was necessary.”
The man breathed in deep. “Then, we’ll refit you, but perhaps you’d like to introduce me first.”
653 curved one arm around Lexie’s waist. “This is Lexie. We’re in love.”
“Love?” the man’s voice rose. “Have you advanced that far?”
653 nodded. “Yes.”
“Amazing. Never thought I’d see it ... Lexie, my name is Dietrich Serguyen, 653’s donor.”
“Father,” she corrected. “I’m tired of all this unemotional, detached nonsense. You’re his father ... and Jack’s.”
“Jack?” Dietrich asked.
“852,” 653 replied.
“Ah, a good boy, a little headstrong though. Well, we keep standing here, and they’ll catch up. If you’ll follow me ...”
Led after Lexie, they moved down the drive to another vehicle. She curled against him, her head falling to his shoulder, and overcome, he searched for her lips. She tasted sweet, even more than he’d imagined. Is that how it worked? Once you fell in love, your other senses changed as well?
She’d saved him. She’d drawn him back from the edge of nothingness, done something impossible in his heart, and he had no idea where he his life would lead now, except he was free at last to choose to live it.
What could he say to her that could possibly equal that? His eyes moistened.
“You’re crying.” She dabbed at his skin with her fingertips.
“Because I’m happy,” he replied.
Light flashed in his eyes, with it a vivid range of colors, and slowly, 653’s gaze focused. Dietrich gazed back at him from behind the technician working in his chest. A smile on his face, his gray eyes twinkled.
“There you are. Good to have you back,” he said.
“Lexie?” 653 asked.
“Is with my wife.”
653 focused on Dietrich’s face. “You’re married?”
Dietrich nodded, causing rapidly graying hair to fall over his high forehead. “Indeed. Splendid woman and smart as a whip.”
653 didn’t understand that expression, but his need for any explanation was suppressed by greater questions. “So you saw her naked. You know what comes next.”
Dietrich tossed his head back and laughed.
Unsure why that was funny, 653 said nothing, but waited for him to finish. His donor was human, after all, and, therefore, inclined to emotion.
“I’m jealous,” 653 continued.
This stopped Dietrich’s laughter. He straightened, shaking out the sleeves of his shirt. “My boy, we need to do a study on you. I want to know everything you’ve experienced, all the emotions ...”
“Confusion, comfort, happiness, fear,” 653 began. “I didn’t like that one.”
“No one does. Go on.”
“Lust.”
Dietrich folded one arm beneath the elbow of the other, his finger upside his temple, and smiled. “For the girl?”
653 nodded.
“I like her. She’s very strong inside.”
She was. From the start, she’d faced what he’d told her, daring him to change. She’d put him in this place. Her and God.
“Anger,” 653 added, “and, now, jealousy. I didn’t know there were so many emotions or that they fed off each other. I like it, then again, I don’t.”
“No, I imagine that’s true.” Dietrich lowered his arm, swinging it at his side. “You left one emotion out. You said you love her.”
He nodded. “I do. It’s something I can’t escape.”
“Now, that’s a very good way of putting it. Tell me ...” Dietrich paused. “How committed are you to this transformation? Others have tried and failed. The reason I ask is because we need you here. Of all the cyborgs I created ...”
“Children,” came a familiar female voice. “Of all the children you created. He’s your son.”
653 hopped down from the examination table and opened his arms. Lexie flew into them, and he captured her mouth, his mind no longer on the task or the room or his donor standing there, but on fueling the state of his heart. How could they have denied him this? How could he have ever wanted to settle for life without it?
Yes, they were right. Emotion clogged your thinking, and it was easier to operate without it. But with it, life was so much better.
She kinked her neck backwards. “You can see me?”
He smiled, pleased to feel happy. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
She returned her cheek to his chest, and 653 looked over his shoulder at Dietrich. “Father,” he said. “You’re my father, and I’m your son.”
Dietrich inclined his head. “I suppose so.”
“Where is my mother?”
A soft cough came from the side, and 653 switched his gaze to the woman standing there. She was lovely, round and curvaceous, with sparkling green eyes. Her hair, a reddish-brown, fell in waves over her shoulders.
“That’d be me,” she said.
He loosened his grip on Lexie and turned. “You’re my mother?”
Her eyes moistened. “Yes.”
For the first time in his life, 653 began to sob. Uncontrollable, cleansing, he gave into the emotion clogging his chest, until it was as if he couldn’t breathe. Lexie reached up to his face, her hand cupping over his cheek, and at her touch, he blinked back his tears. He glanced from her to his mother and then to his father. “I am committed,” he said, “and I want to get married.”
Dietrich tilted his head. “You’re sure about that?”
He nodded. “I want to know what comes next.”
Lexie giggled, her laughter warming his skin, and was joined by the mirth of his mother and father.
“Father Royce can do the ceremony,” he continued.
At his name, Lexie’s laughter ceased. “Father Royce.” Her grip on his shirt tightened, pulling it askew. “Kent, they’ll go after him. We have to return. He’s in trouble.”
He squeezed her small frame. “He has 852.”
“Jack,” she said. “But don’t you need to tell him to expect trouble? Or will he know already?”
“He knows,” Dietrich said. “I spoke with him, and he’s removing the Father to a safe location. We’ll meet him there.”
“Where?” Lexie asked.
Dietrich nodded at 653. “He knows, and we have a plane to catch.”
Lexie turned her gaze out the window of the plane and marveled at how small she felt. She’d had that same sensation when she’d flown one other time, as if the world were this tiny marble and she and ant living on it.
“It makes God seem bigger, seeing things from up here,” she said.
Kent’s hand on her shoulder brought her eyes to his face.
“Logic says He isn’t bigger in shape,” he replied, “but only in power, authority, and wisdom.”
She smiled. “Moses saw God’s back parts once. I guess God knew he couldn’t handle seeing everything. But point is, He has a back, limbs. Plus, man was made in His image, so we look like Him.”
Kent wrinkled his brow.
She patted the back of his hand. “It’s okay. Don’t try to figure it out. There are some things about God we have to trust Him with. That’s faith, believing for something you can’t see.”
“I can see now,” he said.
She laughed, once. “Not actually see, more ... like this plane. We can’t see the air, but we trust that it’s there. We can’t see the airport we’ll land at or whether or not Jack got Father Royce there, but you believe he did.”
“Prophecy,” Kent said.
She pursed her lips. “Sort of, but not exactly. You have to be careful about prophecies. Listen to God in your heart because sometimes what man says he makes up in his head. Oh, he may believe it, think every word is true, but in the end, it isn’t and people get deceived.” She slanted against him and shut her eyes. “Tell me the story, the one about how you came to be. I want to know the truth.”
Kent cleared his throat, and she peeked between her lashes. This made him uncomfortable, and for that reason, he needed to tell it. Whatever was kept inside always became a weight, and Kent needed no more weights.
“Go ahead. I can take it,” she said. “They made you in a lab?”
“Yes. We never spoke. We only listened and remembered what we were told.”
That sounded awful. How could anyone process children as if they weren’t living, didn’t have thoughts, make choices? “When ... when did they do the machine?” she asked.
He did his best to explain. They were born, he said, and grew. They developed muscles and organs. But at a certain age had the machine inserted, a long, complicated surgery, of sorts. Lexie suppressed a shiver.
“I was ten,” he stated, matter of fact. “My system needed adjustments for several years. You have to quit growing, after all, but there was no harm in that because we didn’t feel anything.”
She inhaled. “I don’t see how you can put a machine in anyone and it function, but I guess that’s what makes them smarter than me. Then again, how you can create children and not want to love them is beyond me.”
A quiet cough came from their right. Lexie gazed past Kent at his father.
“I couldn’t,” Dietrich said. He reached for his wife’s hand. “We couldn’t. We were paid to contribute our DNA, told to believe in the cause. They wanted to do good, save lives, they said, and they’ve done that. But I ask, at what expense? Pamela and I ... we saw our likeness in those faces and begged them to stop.”
Lexie stared at him for a moment and dared herself to ask what batted at her brain. “You have five children and she has three?”
Dietrich inhaled. “I wish it was that small.”
“But he said there were two others like him and one other like Jack ...”
“With those combinations of donors ... parents ...” He corrected himself. “However, there are hundreds of combinations, and unlike geneticists, where sometimes cells don’t combine, no combination ever fails.”
Lexie’s throat tightened. No combination ever failed, but that mean there could be thousands of their cyborg children out there. It was horrible and heartbreaking.
“We have contact with only thirty,” Dietrich continued. “Having 653 with us will be our greatest achievement.” He turned his gaze to Kent’s and some ... knowledge ... passed between them. “I regret what might have been, and ask you to forgive me.”
Kent’s face grew uncertain. “What is forgiveness?”
His gaze moved to hers, and she considered her answer for a long time. “It’s letting go of what the other person did as if they never did it at all ... like when Angela tried to wipe your memory out.”
Kent’s father sat forward. “She wiped your memory?”
Kent nodded. “Tried and failed.”
A grin arose on his father’s face, and he thrust one fist victorious in the air. “Don’t you see?” he asked. “This is it! This is the moment.” He turned to his wife and kissed her soundly. “They’ve lost control. By, George, they must be in a panic now.”
“We’ve made them afraid,” Kent said.
His father’s face calmed. “Very afraid, and that means they’re right where we want them.”
“Where’s that?” Lexie asked.
He glanced her direction. “On the run.”