Chapter Seven
“Nervous?” Carter asked.
Beth swallowed. “A little.” What if the scan discovered something seriously wrong? What if she had an inoperable brain tumor? However, the uncertainty in general worried her the most. She’d assumed she had the logistics job in the bag and would be on her way to a brand new ordinary life. Instead, she’d been virtually arrested, and now had to rely on the very man who’d taken her into custody.
Strangely, she did trust him. He had vowed to keep her secret, and she believed he would.
If she got a clean bill of health, and he released her, what then? Where would she go? What would she do? If Aym-Sec had figured out her records had been falsified, another employer could, too—and they might turn her over to the police.
Aym-Sec still might.
She winced. Worry and stress seemed to bring on the headaches.
“It’s going to be fine,” Carter said. “I’ll be in the adjacent observation room, watching the entire procedure.”
She couldn’t see, but she heard the doors close, and then the vertical transporter descended, throwing her off-balance. She bumped into Carter. He steadied her with his hand on her arm, and she felt a tingle clear down to her toes. She steeled her spine to prevent herself from leaning into him.
“Sorry about the precautions,” he said.
“It’s all right. I understand.” She touched the visor. She’d had to wear the blinder while being escorted to and from the top secret area of Aym-Sec. If the company put this much emphasis on security, then maybe the O’Sheas couldn’t get to her. Of course, it all depended on Carter keeping her confession to himself. The transporter stopped, the doors opened, and she detected changes in temperature and scent. The air had a different quality; it almost seemed purer, or maybe sanitized?
“This way.” He guided her out.
A little pang of disappointment shot through her when he released her. Get a grip. The arousal his presence stirred in her was new, disconcerting, inappropriate. A clone who’d lived all but the last week on the O’Shea satellite, she’d had no opportunity to acquire any experience with men, but she’d studied up on sex.
The first thing she knew with 100 percent certainty was that Carter wouldn’t be interested in a not-so-cheap knockoff of his former girlfriend, a clone, a woman he’d suspected of some crime. She had too many strikes against her.
“This medical facility is the best in the galaxy.” His gravelly voice, and their footsteps, seemed quieter here. Soundproofing, maybe?
What did they do here? Why did a security firm require an advanced medical facility anyway?
Two days had passed since Morhain and Butler had taken her into custody. She operated under no illusions; she was being detained. What she saw, where she went, who she spoke to were controlled and monitored. She’d spent the night alone in a small dormitory in an isolated wing at Aym-Sec. A cantina and showers were around the corner. Every time she ventured out of her dorm, somebody happened to be in the corridor. It was unobtrusive, but obviously they had her under watch. Her baggage had appeared in her room, and although nothing had been disturbed, she guessed it had been searched. Carter would leave nothing to chance.
He was a powerful man, dangerous. She’d escaped from a gilded prison only to become his detainee. Yet…he didn’t evoke the same trepidation the O’Sheas did. When he would allow her to leave or what would happen to her, she couldn’t guess, but he’d pledged to help her, and she trusted him.
“In here,” he said.
A door whooshed open, she brushed against the frame, and the panel hissed closed.
“You can take the visor off now,” he said.
She removed it and blinked in the bright light. Panels and gadgetry took up two of the white walls. Robotic arms folded into accordions over their control units. Long muzzled barrels resembling weapons were swiveled out of the way. Her gaze focused on a tubular silver pod with a transparent cover.
Her stomach clenched, and she felt the blood drain from her face. Dizzy, she swayed. A small sound escaped her throat.
He steadied her with a hand to her elbow. “What’s wrong?”
She pointed to the pod.
“The body scanner?”
“I-I assumed I’d be sitting in a chair, that the scanner would be handheld. It looks like the maturation pods at Clo-Ventures.”
She had no memories of her embryonic development in the gestation tank, but did recall bouts of consciousness in the maturation pod. “I remember waking up at Clo-Ventures and feeling trapped, feeling smothered, but being unable to get out.”
She’d hammered her fists against the glass until they were bloodied. Then they’d shot her with a sedative that knocked her out but caused nightmares of men with ridged foreheads and deep malevolent eyes peering at her, reaching for her.
“How about if I hold your hand through the procedure?” he asked.
“I’m such a baby…” But, with Carter close, she felt more confident she could get through it. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen. Probably he and Liza had held hands all the time. Couples did that, although she’d never had the opportunity. All the pleasantries of male-female relationships were new. She had yet to experience her first kiss.
Don’t make more of this than it is. He’s being considerate. Not romantic.
A bald man built like a storage locker barreled into the procedure room. “Sorry I’m late,” he addressed Carter. “I got hung up.” He looked at Beth. “I’m Dr. Julius Swain. I’ll be supervising your brain scan today.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said. He wore medical whites, but she never would have guessed he was a physician. He looked more like an enforcer or a bodyguard. There were a lot of those types around Aym-Sec, she’d noticed.
Carter jutted his chin at a mirror high on one wall. “Instead of watching from the observation deck on the other side, I’m going to stay with her during the procedure.”
“No problem.” Swain nodded. “Do you have any questions?” he asked Beth.
“H-how long will it take?”
He glanced at Carter before answering, and she got the oddest sense a message passed between the two of them. “The overall scan, about fifteen minutes. If we detect an anomaly, the diagnostic could take a little longer.”
“Will it hurt?”
Swain chuckled. “No. It’s like a bioscan, only more comprehensive. In addition to analyzing your electromagnetic output, an ultrasound beam will map out your brain. If there’s something in the tissue that shouldn’t be, we’ll find it.”
That sounded simple enough. But scary.
“Are you ready to begin?”
She took a deep breath. “Yes.”
Carter helped her into the scan tube, and she lay flat on her back. “Put your hand through here.” He pointed out a sleeve. She slipped her arm through it up to the elbow, and he grasped her hand. “All right?” he asked.
She nodded.
“During the scan, you can speak, but try not to move,” Swain said.
“Okay.”
“I’m going to close the lid now.” The doctor nodded at Carter.
“I’m right here. You’ll be able to see me. I’ll be holding your hand,” Carter said.
“Okay.”
The lid slid over the top of the pod. Her heart rate skyrocketed, but she could see Carter’s rough, smiling face and feel his cool, firm grip. She drew strength from him. Her racing heart began to calm. I can do this. It’s going to be okay. If he believed it, she could believe it, too.
* * * *
Swain’s fingers flew over the control panel, keying in the procedure codes. “We’ll do the EMR first,” he said aloud. A light on the panel lit up, indicating the Electrical Magnetic Resonance analysis was in progress.
The cyborg doctor shot a message direct to Carter’s microprocessor. I reviewed the medtech’s bioscan. Everything appeared normal, which is a very good sign. To be sure, we’ll do a complete workup. After the EMR, I’ll do a deep tissue sonar scan. Between the two tests, if there’s a tumor, an aneurysm, an abscess, subdual hematoma, a traumatic brain injury, any kind of bleeding, any unusual electrical activity, a parasite, or any foreign matter, it will show up like a shuttle runway landing beacon.
“Is the scan going to start soon?” she asked.
“It already has,” Swain said.
Her eyes widened. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Told you,” Swain said.
Could her headaches have been caused by the cloning process? Carter asked. He didn’t feel it violated the spirit of his promise to reveal the information to Swain. Everything discussed at Cy-Ops was confidential, and the doctor needed her full medical history.
She’s a clone? Hmm…there could be residual effects, but we must rule out those other things first.
Carter suspected Beth had suffered a lot. Cloning technology had existed for almost as long as cyberscience, but he’d never considered the toll the creation process might place on the clones themselves. What would it be like to be born in a vat? To come into consciousness in a tank? He couldn’t imagine the psychological impact of such emotional deprivation. And then to have the “parents” who’d directed your creation reject you—and threaten to kill you?
He half regretted his vow not to report the O’Sheas to the authorities, but short of exacting cyborg justice on their asses, his hands were tied. Ironically, their forgery to create a separate identity for her protected them from prosecution on the more serious cloning violation. They could argue they’d never intended to deceive. Their threats were too nebulous to stand up in court, despite how intimidated Beth had felt. No specific threat. No crime.
He hated technicalities. The worst thing he could do to the O’Sheas would be to publicize what they had done, but that would violate his promise, stigmatize Beth—and draw dangerous attention to Aym-Sec. It could blow Cy-Ops’s cover.
Swain squinted at the digital data streaming across his medscreen. EMR is within a normal range. That’s a positive, though not definitive, sign. “So far, so good,” he said aloud for Beth’s benefit. Her readouts for stress and fear are heightened, but that’s to be expected, he added.
I could have told you that. It was fortunate he was a cyborg; her grip on his hand would have crushed an ordinary human’s bones.
The machine beeped, signaling the completion of the test.
“That part was normal,” Swain announced. “Are you still doing okay?”
“Fine,” she replied in a small voice.
Carter squeezed her hand. “Not much longer now.” He sought her gaze, and her lips curved into a grateful smile.
He aimed to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, but this woman pushed his ambition to a whole new level. Although he’d been suspicious at first, and had had to treat her as a threat, those concerns had been resolved. The more he got to know her, the less she resembled Liza. Her expressions, her emotions, her way of speaking—totally different. No surprise she hadn’t been able to become the daughter the O’Sheas had wanted.
He would do everything in his power to see she got a strong foothold in the galaxy and could make it on her own.
Sympathy wasn’t all he felt for her.
Her silky soft skin registered with the cyberreceptors in his hand to transmit erotic signals to his brain and his dick. He shifted on the stool and ordered nanos to cool the rising heat. Acting on the growing attraction would be unprofessional. She’d had little experience with life and even less with men. It didn’t take a microprocessor to add the sum of two plus two. She’d spent her entire short life on the O’Shea satellite. She was an innocent, whereas he’d lived enough to count as two lives. She needed someone far less jaded than a battle-weary cyborg…and, why was he thinking about this?
“The next phase will begin soon.” Swain punched in another code. “Please remain perfectly still again. Do you need to move around first?”
She flexed her fingers then took hold of his hand again. “No, I’m fine. Let’s do this.”
“Just get it over with, right?” Swain grinned.
“Something like that,” she replied.
A physician before he became a cyborg, Swain went into cybermedicine instead of field operations after his transformation. All other Cybermed doctors were unaltered humans. Having undergone the surgery, nanocyte infusion, and challenging postoperative physical therapy, Swain brought a depth of empathy to the process no other physician could. He was the best damn Cybermed doc around. The best physician in the galaxy period.
A brain scan was a simple procedure. A medtech could have performed it, but Carter wanted the best.
He squeezed Beth’s hand and shot a message to Swain. Proceed.
I’m going to expand the parameters and conduct a full central nervous system scan. “Okay, Beth. With this diagnostic, lights will flash, but you won’t feel any pain. Maybe a slight warming sensation along your spine, but that’s about it.”
“Should I close my eyes?”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
She closed her eyes.
A unit lowered out of the ceiling. The bed on which she lay began to glow as the machine crawled over the pod. His cyberhearing detected a hum, which was probably inaudible to her.
Swain watched the screen as the holographic image of her brain took shape. The frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes of the cerebrum formed, then the cerebellum.
Well? Carter asked.
So far, everything looks normal.
As the image of the midbrain, the pons and medulla, appeared, Swain squinted. Hmm…
Carter’s pulse rate spiked. What do you see?
Nothing. Swain raised his gaze to bright lights overhead. I thought I caught a shimmer, but it’s the light. He touched a button and redirected the illumination off the monitor. That’s better.
Don’t scare me like that.
Sorry. Everything is clear, normal so far. We’ll finish up with the spinal cord. “We’re almost done,” he announced aloud.
The scanner crawled from neck to tailbone then reversed.
Swain examined the spinal images then took another look at the brain data. She’s healthy. I don’t see any kind of disease process or disorder. Do you want to give her the good news? The bed went dark, and the scanner lifted back up into the ceiling. Swain punched a button, and the cover on the pod slid back.
Her eyes popped open.
“You’re clear!” Carter grinned.
“Really?” Her eyes brightened with hopeful tears.
“Really.”
“There’s nothing in your head.” Swain beamed a toothy smile. “Well, besides the stuff that should be there.”
Stuff? You did attend medical school, didn’t you? Carter shot at him.
Completed almost a semester, Swain fired back.
“If my brain is normal, what’s causing the headaches?”
“In my professional opinion, your headaches were caused by either the swiftness of the maturation process or stress.”
Carter helped her out of the pod. “Thank you!” She threw her arms around him. Her head bumped his chin, and soft breasts pressed against his chest. Her scent filled his nose. His body responded to the stimuli, arousal receptors firing. For a split second he allowed himself to imagine…what if…
She pulled away to give Swain a quick hug.
After the doctor exited the imaging lab, Carter passed her the visor. “I have to ask you to wear this again,” he said apologetically. Beth was who she said she was, but she still didn’t have the security clearance to enable him to reveal the existence of Cyber Operations. As yet, he couldn’t allow her to see the inside of Cybermed. He’d established the standard operating procedures; he couldn’t be the one to violate them.
“I understand.” She donned the visor and held out her arm. He hooked his elbow through hers and led her out of the medbay.