Seth: Futuristic Spy Romance (Cyborgs: More Than Machines) by Eve Langlais Page A

would. However, I can’t just torture one of the crew without getting caught. And, trust me, I’ve thought about it. I’ve run all the possible scenarios for taking him without notice and extracting the intel, but none of them show a viable rate of success. At least not according to the dozen or so simulations my BCI ran.”
    “Then boyfriend or not, it’s time you resort ed to an unbuttoned blouse, a wink, and some bow-chica-wow-wow.” With a click of his tongue and a roll of his hips, Seth mimed a dirty act, all the while grinning as he waited for her to explode. To his surprise, she didn’t get annoyed with his suggestion. On the contrary, a smirk appeared on her face.
    “That’s exactly the plan I had in mind . Only one problem. Our target isn’t into women.” She eyed Seth from head to toe, and he had an urge to run as he realized where this was going. “I’ll give you one guess as to what I need you for.”
    “You want me to seduce him?” Um, yeah, that unmanly squeak? It came from him.
    “Seduce. Flirt. Shake your tight booty at him until he’s ready to spill anything to have an intimate moment with you.”
    “There’s no other way of getting this info?”
    “None. Do you really think I’d have gone to find you and risked my cover if there was another way ?”
    “No,” was his disgruntled reply. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you’ll owe me for this.”
    “Think again, husband. ” She sneered the word. “Once you get me what I need, I’ll give you access to the cloaking technology and dump your ass on the nearest way station.”
    “While you what? Flit off to tackle the head of the snake on your own ?”
    “Have you ever known me to flit?”
    “No. But I do remember your stubbornness in doing things solo even when having a team or someone as backup would have served you better.”
    “Why, Seth, are you volunteering to help me?”
    Was he? Seeing as how they both had a common goal—finding the origin of the cyborgs and the company and eradicating it—yes. “I always did enjoy a challenge.”
    “We’ll ta lk more about it once you’ve gotten the location of the cyborg origin.”
    Oh , they’d talk more before that, hopefully with fewer words and more tongue. “How long until we meet up with this mother ship of yours?”
    “A week or so, give or take a day. It’s not like they’re sitting still.”
    A week to try and glean more information. A week alone with the woman of his dreams. A week to convince her to dump her boyfriend, believe him when he told her he’d never done her wrong, and to get her to fall in love with him again.
    Piece of cake.
    Or not.
    Standing from her seat, she stretched before she turned and finally met his gaze. “The autopilot is on, and since there’s nothing better to do, I’m going to put myself in stasis mode to recharge my mental and physical batteries.”
    Put herself in a deep sleep? Oh no, she’s not taking the easy way out and avoiding me. While some cyborgs swore by long periods of rest to build up extra stores of energy, the truth was most could get away with following a human regime of a few hours of downtime a day. Just like they could go days on end without rest or food. All part of the wonderful world of cybernetics.
    Isn’t it time you became a cyborg? Eat what you want, when you want . And without gaining an ounce of fat. No need for a toilet. Today’s enhanced units recycle all materials to almost 100% efficiency.
    With those kind of benefits, why did the military need to force the unsuspecting into the program? Probably because cyborgs were created as cannon fodder for the wars humans started and as guinea pigs to test out the environments of new and hostile planets. Add to that no pay, no vacation, and no playtime, and you have the definition of a slave. It would take something a lot less intelligent than a machine to realize what a raw deal this was. And the humans wonder why we revolted.
    But back to his wife, who thought she could