Page 22 of Kiss of Steel

“Right. So, you have no reason not to sleep in our room tonight. I’m not going to let you sleep on the cold, hard floor—and I’m damn sure not going to. I don’t want to hear any arguments.” She pivoted and fled the room.

* * * *

Honoria flounced out of the room. Once again, the wife who was supposed to be unassuming and remain in the background had taken charge, and he didn’t follow orders anymore. Surprisingly, he was more amused than outraged. More touched by her concern than resentful.

If it put her mind at rest, he would sleep in the bed. There was no logical reason why he shouldn’t…other than…other than…he didn’t know why.

The floor was better than his unpadded, narrow bunk at base where another cyborg had slept right above him. If he didn’t watch out, he’d hit his head on the bunk. At least on the floor, he had space to stretch out—not that he did because, after a lifetime on the shelf, he slept arrow-straight with his arms folded across his chest.

His cock felt heavy and achy. Was it normal to wake up with a hard-on? It hadn’t happened before. He rarely got erections, and now he’d had two in as many days. He adjusted himself, trying to get comfortable. He needed to urinate, but he would have to wait until the erection subsided.

As he pulled on a clean shirt and donned his boots, he recalled his former life. He’d existed for a decade without any autonomy, every action prescribed, from when and where he slept to what he ate and when. Physically, he equated to a thirty-five-year-old man, but he’d only been alive for ten years, emerging from the gestation tank a mature adult. When life was a living hell, ten years seemed like an eternity.

The living conditions weren’t as bad as what he’d been forced to do—kill on command.

The vast majority of his targets deserved to die. Earth fared better without the scourge of humanity. Pedophiles, rapists, serial killers, terrorists, genocidal insurgents, murderous drug cartel members. Steel had seen the darkness and malevolence up close, and he suffered no regrets about erasing their existence.

Other cases weren’t so black and white. Sometimes he wondered if he’d been told the truth. Sometimes they’d given him only the sketchiest information—name, location, and nothing else. How could he be sure he’d done the right thing? But that wasn’t supposed to matter. A cyborg didn’t question; he followed orders.

Solutions’ primary clientele consisted of clandestine government agencies and programs and the deep state itself, the powerful individuals of the secret shadow government that manipulated policy and actions. When official laws and processes didn’t provide the desired result, alternative solutions were employed.

Was evidence insufficient to convict a celebrity of heinous sex crimes? The company took care of it. Did a third world country dictator threaten peace and freedom across the globe? Solutions made the world safer. Were political rivals and opponents out of step with the party line of the ruling class? They offered a permanent fix for that, too.

The company garnered a few private clients, willing to serve anyone with the means and willingness to pay their fee; guilt or innocence didn’t matter. Whether they were doing good or evil depended on who had hired them and why. The terrorist dictator could as easily have been a client as a target.

He couldn’t stomach the uncertainty anymore.

The connection to the deep state had saved company executives after the Chicago incident. The deep state couldn’t let Solutions execs go to prison; they needed their services too much. But once the massacre went public, there had to be a show of justice. So, they went through the motions of a trial, the executives received a slap on the wrist, the cyborg involved was destroyed, and the others temporarily mothballed.

Coming off another ambiguous assignment, Steel had been more determined than ever to liberate himself.

Then Solutions targeted him for termination.

Anger and resentment still smoldered, but on Refuge there could be no outlet, no way to settle the score. He would be unable to avenge what had been done to him, what he’d been forced to do.

On the positive side, thinking of Solutions had fixed the tumescence problem. He went to take a leak.

Chapter Eleven

Honoria entered the mercantile to a ring of a bell and a swirl of smells—smoldering herb cakes, grain, eggers, perfumes, and many other odors she couldn’t place. The size of the place had been deceptive—the width was narrow, but the store stretched the full length of the passage between buildings. Clothing hung on racks. Food was stacked high on shelves. She spied hardware, electronics, medicines, housewares, toiletries, and a cage of small rodents.

Dark hair beaded and braided, a forty-something human woman swept in from the back, a loose kimono flying out behind her like a cape. Beneath the purple robe embroidered with gilded thread, she wore a gold unitard that molded a long, lithe body.

“You must be Honoria!” she exclaimed with a welcoming smile. “I’m Maven.”

“You know who I am?”

“Of course! We don’t get many new arrivals, and I’ve been expecting you. I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been requesting help for ages.”

“Um…I’m not supposed to start work until tomorrow. I came in to see the store. I’ve been exploring, checking things out.” Heat crept into her face. Not just the ranch. She’d checked things out all right. How could she have anticipated he’d be stark naked in the empty bedroom? Sitting across from him at breakfast had been an embarrassing affair for her, although he’d appeared unaffected, again ordering three meals. He’d consumed a huge mound of eggs—which she assumed had come from eggers—and smoked meat, probably horniger. She could understand his hunger after not eating for so long, but at this rate, he would run out of credits.

After breakfast, they’d parted company, Jason going to check out the outbuilding in the paddock, and she to the co-op. Along the strip, she discovered a small robo-operated laundry, which Phibious hadn’t mentioned.

Maven laughed. “No worries. I’ve managed by myself this long; I can last another day.”

“It will be just the two of us working here?”

“Just us, and you got here in the nick of time. Two wagon loads of merch were delivered earlier this week. It needs to be shelved before the swarm of locusts descend. Visitors are coming the day after tomorrow. If there’s anything you wish to buy—snag it now because in two days, it will be gone.”

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