Chapter Nine

It was hard to sleep knowing there was a deadly weapon in the basement. Natasha tossed and turned on her pillow. Her dreams were not soothing. She saw herself going back to Nick, telling him she had forgiven him and was ready to try to make it work again. She moved all of her clothing and books back into the home they shared as a married couple. Then he had Sharla in his bed once again. Even though she hated him for it, Natasha knew there was nothing she could do. She had already pulled herself out of the situation once, but she didn’t have the courage to do it again.

Waking in a panic, Natasha studied her bedroom in the dim light and assured herself that she was still in her father’s house, far away from her filthy cocksucker of a husband. She settled back into sleep and a new dream. This time, she wore a thin layer of black silky material that made her core light up as it moved across her skin. There was a man with her in bed, but it wasn’t Nick. He was tall and dark, with brilliant eyes that cut through her like a knife. The stranger ran his strong hands over her body, relishing in her curves as his lips tickled her neck.

Natasha could feel his cock between his legs, pushing into her hip. She wanted to turn to him and feel every inch of him, but it was more fun to play with him. His muscles were hard and firm under her hands, and she wanted everything to last.

As the man moved his weight on top of her, the dream ended, and she was alone once again. Frustrated and wide awake now, she pulled her vibrator from the top drawer of her nightstand and finished herself off, imagining that her sexy dream man was with her. In her fantasy, he found Natasha irresistible and whispered naughty things to her as he made her come. After she brought herself to a tense peak, arching her back and moaning softly, she realized the man was Fury. It was truly a fantasy - something like that could never happen.

The sun was beginning to stream in through her curtains. Natasha hoisted herself out of bed and opened the closet doors. “I need to get some new clothes,” she muttered as she browsed through an assortment of t-shirts, club clothes, and scrub tops. Natasha didn’t want to dress too cute and give John the wrong idea, but she didn’t want to be a complete slob, either. She decided on a fitted tee with a Red Sox logo and khaki capris.

The doorbell rang in a couple of hours. John stood on her doorstep with a small bag of tools in his hands and a smile on his face. He didn’t know how to dress either. At the office, John was usually in a button-down shirt and khakis, or scrubs if he had to do surgery that involved a computer chip. Today, he wore a dark blue polo, jeans, and Timberlands. He looked nice, but not too dressy.

“Hi, John. Come on in. I appreciate you stopping by.” Natasha opened the door wide to admit him.

He smiled and stepped into the house. “It was no problem. I don’t usually have a lot to do on Sundays. How are you doing after the funeral?”

“As well as can be expected, I suppose.” It was sweet of him to ask. Everyone Natasha knew at the CRC had contributed to a large bouquet of flowers. It sat with the baskets of flowers from the funeral home in the living room. She didn’t have a place to put them yet.

“Good. So where’s your new TV? I’m glad you didn’t ask the people at the store to do it. They’re competent, but they charge way too much.” John glanced around the living room, raising an eyebrow when he saw the flat-screen television already set up over the fireplace.

Shutting the door, Natasha prepared herself to be ridiculed or exposed. “To tell you the truth, I need your help with a different project. I didn’t want to tell you about it over the phone and risk you avoiding me.”

John’s brows furrowed. “Okay...”

“It’s not a television. It’s hard to explain. It might be best if I showed you.” The nurse turned and threaded her way through the house toward the basement door. “It’s down here. Promise me that you won’t tell anybody about it, okay? It’s not the kind of thing I want everyone to know about.”

Interest quickly replaced his concern. “No problem.”

Natasha’s limbs felt numb as she led John down the stairs. There was no telling what would happen down there once John saw the cyborg, but she needed help. When they reached the landing, she turned to him. “Are you ready?” At his nod, she turned on the lights.

Having already seen what was in the basement, Natasha was free to pay complete attention to John as he absorbed the picture. At first, his eyes scanned the cluttered workbench and looked at the labels of various storage boxes. It wasn’t until he took a few steps into the room that he noticed the cyborg in the corner.

“Holy shit!” he cried. “What have you done, Natasha?”

“It wasn’t me.” Natasha fought the panic rising in her stomach. She kept herself between John and the stairs in case he tried to run off without hearing her side of the story. “He’s my father’s project. I didn’t even know about him until a few weeks ago. I don’t know what to do with him. I’ve been reading through my father’s logs, and I think he might just need the upgrade. I was hoping you could do it for me.”

John looked at Natasha, then to the cyborg, then back again. He ran his hand through his hair and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I don’t know. This is a big deal, Natasha. Do you know what the law says about this kind of thing?”

Natasha frowned. Perhaps John wasn’t going to be as much help as she had imagined. “I’m vaguely familiar with the laws. But they’re not going to help me now. Fury’s already here. If I report him, he’ll be terminated. You and I both know from working with the cyborgs every day that they don’t deserve that.” She heard herself start to plead, ready to promise him anything if he could take care of it for her. “I don’t want to go to jail, and I don’t want him to die. I think if we can get him on the right track, everything will be okay.”

The tech leaned against the workbench now, fidgeting nervously and looking like he was going to pass out. He took in a deep breath and blew it out through his lips. “I suppose I can try, at least. Tell me what you know.”

A rush of relief flew through Natasha’s body. “Only as much as I could gather from the files on Dad’s computer. I haven’t tried to get him out of his cell or run any tests. The reports show that hasn’t gone well before.”

“You can’t even get him out?” John exploded. “Just what kind of monster do you have here, Dr. Frankenstein?”

“There’s no need to be insulting.” Natasha looked at the cyborg for the first time since they had come to the basement. “He’s not a monster.” He certainly didn’t look like one. With his bulging arms, strong legs, and lantern jaw, he could have been mistaken for a hard-working soldier or a great underwear model.

“Okay, let’s try a different question. How far did Neil get into the cyborg process? Is he weaponized?” John looked incredibly frustrated as he studied the man in the box.

Natasha tried to recall everything she had read in the reports about Fury. She had pored over them until well past midnight, trying to figure out everything her father had done to the soldier. “I think so. He’s got a standard-issue plasma gun in his right hand. He has an enhanced skeleton as well.”

John nodded. “All of that seems relatively standard. What about cybernetic parts?”

“All internal.” More of the information from the laptop was coming back to her now that John was interrogating her. “He had several organs replaced when they brought him into the project.”

The tech started fishing through his tool bag. “His software is going to be complicated. The cyborgs with artificial arms or legs are simple. Replacement organs require a more sophisticated chip that is capable of keeping their emotions in check.” He pulled out a tiny monitor and turned it on.

Natasha frowned. “It’s a shame. I wish those damn things could just be removed.”

“You and I both know that’s impossible,” John replied, moving closer to the soldier and examining his life support system carefully with the monitor. “The implantation process is too deep into their psyche for that. Sometimes it can even affect their brains, resulting in terrible anger.” He frowned at the results on the monitor.

The nurse nodded. Natasha had seen older cyborgs firsthand whose chips had begun to wear down. Equipment failure did not only cut them off from their cybernetic interfaces, leaving them feeling lost and uncertain, it could produce an effect in cyborgs similar to brain damage. Accounts frequently came in about soldiers whose higher-level activity was steadily decreasing. It was only a matter of time before the Cyborg Rehabilitation Center included a nursing home addition.

“So do you think you can help him?” she asked hopefully.

John shrugged. “It’s tough to say. Maybe. It’s going to require a lot of research and a little experimentation. Unfortunately, the software that he needs is not something we can download off the Internet. It’s military-grade, and FY-485’s is more complicated than what you’ll find in the majority of our cyborgs. I’m going to have to get it from work.” His mouth formed a thin line as he thought about the task ahead of him.

“Is it something I can get for you?” Natasha offered. “He’s my problem, and I don’t want you to lose your job over me.”

John shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We have the software in the Tech Department, and it would be far more conspicuous for you to come down there to get it than me. I should be able to load it onto a portable drive and bring it over here.”

“Okay.” They stood in silence for a while, thinking about the future. “There’s something else I should tell you about him.”

“Yeah?”

Now it was Natasha’s turn to look uncomfortable. “When I came down here yesterday, Fury was awake. I hadn’t done anything to him or touched his life support system. I’m sure he opened his eyes and looked right at me.”

John had put the monitor back in his bag and was fishing around for something else, but after Natasha spoke, he stopped and stared at her openly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“He was awake. I was down here looking around, trying to figure out what to do, and I’m sure he opened his eyes.” Natasha immediately regretted repeating herself. John knew exactly what she said the first time. “My husband was here trying to start a fight with me. Do you think the noise might have woken him up?”

“Probably not. The cells are designed to be soundproof. And you know they’re not asleep, despite what it looks like to us. They’re not active. Even if they heard noises, they’re not going to get up without receiving the activation signal on their computer. Maybe you shouldn’t be staying here. I don’t want to be here myself! If FY-485 is self-activating, there’s no telling what he will do. What if he opens his cell in the middle of the night?” John shook his head vigorously as he zipped up his tool bag.

“I’ve thought about that possibility. But he’s been here for the last six months and he hasn’t done anything renegade like that so far. Do you think it’s likely that he’ll start with me?” Natasha hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. If Fury freed himself and went rampaging throughout the city, there was no chance of keeping him a secret.

John was visibly sweating now. “I don’t think there’s much I can do today. I’ll need to look a few things up in the manuals, and I didn’t bring the right tools. Working on a cyborg requires different instruments than installing a television.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t like lying to you. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t call up a coworker and ask him to come check out my cyborg over the weekend.” Natasha winced, hoping he wasn’t too upset.

As unsettled as John was by the cyborg in the basement, he didn’t seem upset with Natasha at all. “That’s all right. But I think I should go home and start working on a couple of plans.”

“Do you need the information from Dad’s computer? There is plenty of stuff in there about Fury.”

“Sure, that would help.” John followed Natasha back up the stairs to Neil’s study, where she had left the computer.

She dug in the desk drawer for a flash drive, inspired by John’s mention of one and reluctant to hand over the entire laptop. “It will just take a minute,” she assured him. “The files are all located in one spot.”

“No problem. But I want to ask you something while you’re rooting around in there.”

Plugging the flash drive into the side of the computer and opening up the file explorer, Natasha nodded for him to go ahead.

“I noticed on the cyborg’s cell that his identification number has been scratched out. I know everyone had a nickname for this cyborg. Is that what you call him when you give him commands? Fury?”

She thought about the cyborg standing in the cage. John sounded worried about his name. “Sure. I was surprised by it at first, too, but Dad started using that name, and it stuck. I guess it’s a little violent, but it suits him. Looking at Fury now, I can’t imagine calling him anything else.”

John nodded uncertainly, took the flash drive, and promised to keep in touch. When Natasha showed him out the door, she closed it behind him and leaned back against it. What had she gotten John into? The poor guy was a sweetheart and didn’t deserve to get dragged into a scandal. But she had to do something to help Fury. She refused to let him just rot in the basement. And it wasn’t a good thing he was self-activating, if John’s reaction meant anything.