Page 41 of Redstone
“ZeeBee,” he told his robot, whose eyestrip shifted obediently to face him. “Enact one-time-only, five-second delay on defensive protocols.”
ZeeBee’s strip dimmed. “Defensive protocols are not to be tampered with, per previous command.”
Wyl frowned. “What command?”
“Per Christopher Robin’s alpha command. As follows: ZeeBee, no matter what, don’t let Wyl talk you into turning off your protections, okay? You stay on him, and you watch him and don’t let anybody hurt him.”
It was creepy; ZeeBee even did Robbie’s voice perfectly. Wyl hadn’t known these robots had that capability. It would be cooler to have found that out when Robbiewasn’tcockblocking his plan, though. “Override Christopher Robin’s alpha command, authorization Wyl-bonder-thirteen. Enact previously stated delay on defensive protocols.”
“Five-second delay enacted. Per Christopher Robin’s beta command, I am instructed to tell you: goddammit, Wyl, don’t be an idiot.”
Wyl grinned, shaking his head as he battled with the nerves that made his hands want to tremble. “Thanks, ZeeBee.”
There was so much that could go wrong here … it wouldn’t take a lot of digging to work out that he’d built the chip if it were found, and if that happened, then it would be easy to dump Wyl and Robbie in the depths of Redstone to fight it out long before Garrett could do anything about it. Not to mention Tamara, who as a natural had far fewer of the inbuilt resources that the rest of them had. She would be royally fucked, and then Kyle would never get out of here, and Isidore’s faith would be repaid with utter chaos.
Wyl wondered, not for the first time, if Garrett really understood what he asked of people. He was clearly getting used to maneuvering on a grander scale than Wyl could see. He wondered: when would they stop being his friends and start being pieces on a board?
Not fair,he chided himself. Garrett was a spoiled, elitist jackass sometimes, but he never evaded his responsibilities, and he never forgot about his friends and family. There was no doubt that he loved his husband and kid more than anything. for the rest of them, those who had been brought into the sphere of his affections, his love was still much more than lip service. Wyl knew that. It was just hard to remember it sometimes when they were so far apart, and things seemed so fraught.
Nah, it’d be fine. Or at least it would if Wyl got himself carried to the clinic in the next five minutes or so. He reached over to his Morse machine and tapped out a final message:Going now. Ten-fifteen minutes.
Understood. Good luck.
Nice and succinct, good. Wyl made sure the chip was securely attached to the back side of his earlobe, then headed for the door of their apartment. It was time to pick a fight.
He was in luck today. One of his two most forward suitors, if violent-minded rapists could be called that, was downstairs in the common room, zoned out in front of the holoscreen. There were a few other men there with him, but Wyl didn’t care about them. They might follow the man’s lead, but Wyl had ZeeBee as his ace in the hole.
He walked down the stairs to the main floor and made it almost all the way to the lounge in the center of the room before the man—what was his name,Fortay, that was it, Horace Fortay—even noticed him. And then when he did notice him, well. Wyl hardly had to do any work at all.
“He lives!” Fortay said, grinning widely. Nobody should have a mouth that wide. At a further glance, Wyl could see that the edges of his lips had been cut and extended, deliberately creating the skintight rictus effect he was seeing now. It was one of the simplest, creepiest mods he’d ever seen on a person. “Hey there, little lady. Are you looking for your daddy?”
“No,” Wyl said, affecting a sigh. “He’s working, and I’m bored in our rooms.”
“Well, sweetheart.” If his grin stretched any further, it would overtake the rest of his face. “Why don’t you come and sit down next to me? I’ll keep you company until your daddy comes back.”
“Thanks,” Wyl said with a simper. He sat down on the edge of the lounge and scooted in toward the middle, where Fortay was spread out. The man reached a hand out, grabbed his upper arm, and pulled him in even closer until Wyl was reluctantly plastered against the man’s hard, bony chest.
“There, baby,” Fortay murmured. His breath smelled like stimulants and burnt hair. Wyl didn’t want to imagine what he’d been eating. “S’better like this, yeah? You wanna get a little morecomfortable?” He pressed his groin against Wyl’s hip; he was already hard. Fuck, what kind of drugs was this guy on? Did he walk around with a perpetual boner? “We could getreallycomfortable. I could show you a real man’s cock, not that old, gray thing you’re used to.”
Oh, so astonishingly original. Wyl was already done with this. He pursed his lips and pretended to think about it. “Hmm, we could. Except I think my eyes might fall out of their fucking sockets if I have to look at what you’re deluded enough to call a real man’s cock.”
Fortay was caught off guard, his jaw actually dropping. One of the onlookers laughed nervously. “I mean,” Wyl continued, warming to his subject, “you look like more of a stretcher than a fattener, so you’ve either got a filament-thin little poker of a dick coiled up in your mommy’s underwear, or it’s long and floppy and hangs down to your knees, but I can’t get any traction with that if you know what I mean.”
“Wha—you—my dick ain’t fuckingmodded, you little cocksucker!”
Wyl smirked as he eased back toward the edge of the lounge. “Oh, no? Then I guess I’d be lucky to be able to find it at all, it’s probably so itsy-bitsy—”
“Bitch!” Fortay lunged, and Wyl helpfully stuck his face forward, hoping for a nice, smooth punch right across the cheek. Instead, he got fingers around his throat and the weight of Fortay’s body crashing into his, propelling him to the hard ground.
Wyl gasped and clawed at Fortay’s arms, trying to break his grip, but the guard was far stronger than Wyl. He tried to remember his training, but it had been a while since he’d practiced, and was he blacking out? Fuck, blacking out wasn’t part of the plan … When would the five seconds be over? When would … he …
“Alert! Alert!” One bright-green zap later, and Fortay had been literally blasted off Wyl’s chest. Wyl tried to inhale but somehow couldn’t, and after another moment, he went unconscious.
***
Waking up in the infirmary was good. Waking up and not knowing how long he’d been there, that wasbad, really fucking bad. Waking up and seeing the doctor standing over him, staring down sourly as he pulled a syringe straight out of Wyl’s throat, that was extra bad.
“Try not to cough,” the doctor advised a second after Wyl started coughing. “You dislocated your hyoid bone. It’s been stabilized, and I’ve given you an intramuscular injection of Regen to jumpstart the healing process, but you’re not going to want to speak for another few hours if you can help it.”
