Cypher initiated his ship’s cleaning bots just as the thrusters under him reverberated to life. “I don’t have a choice.”
“So why are you leaving?”
Cypher tangled his hands into his hair, closing his eyes. Cyborgs hated secrets. His brethren who cared wanted to know. “It’s a security matter. One I can’t fix remotely. I tried. Trust me, I’d rather not leave either.” For a week, he’d tried.
“Doesn’t happen to do with you going to compete in the Terraform Zero Championship this year, does it?” Jayce grinned.
Cypher leveled Jayce a glare. “You looked me up?”
“Oh, come on, we all know. We’re just waiting for you to come out, Cypher. Come out of the closet, please—” Jayce’s grin grew “—the big bad closet you’ve made your home, Cypher. Come out. Pretty please.”
Cypher pushed Jayce out of his way, and the other Cyborg stumbled back, dropping his cig. Cypher was one of the biggest there was, only eclipsed by a mere handful of his peers. Jayce cackled and righted himself, picking up his cig.
“Get off my ship, Jayce.”
“I knew it! So that was who you were talking to when I came in. Your partner! I’m going to tell everyone!” Jayce spun to the exit, his piercings flickering from the neon lights from the consoles. “Holy hell. Looks like Jayce has the inside scoop. I’ll be drinking for free all week.”
“That’s not…”
But Jayce was already out of his bridge. Cypher gritted his teeth as he listened to Jayce laugh his way down the corridor. He ordered the doors closed to his vessel when Jayce was gone.Fire-breathing motherfucker.
More images of Vee Miles were waiting for him when he turned back to the task at hand.
‘Your threats don’t scare me, creeper.’
Her voice still sounded in his ears.
My threats should, little girl. They really should.
He sat heavily in his captain’s seat and requested allowance for take-off. He loaded the pictures in his head while he waited, knowing somewhere Jayce was laughing while Breco demanded answers from him. Cypher’s fingers twitched.
Not my problem now.
He leaned back, cracked his neck, and projected the images. There were several dozen. He flipped through the ones of her from her childhood, noting Vee’s hair color hadn’t always been red but at one point was a light brown. When he got to her more recent images, he studied each one a little longer than the last.
His brow furrowed.
Vee Miles was cute. Not like a child or a kitten but a woman who had all the features to be adorable. Chubby cheeks, heart-shaped face, wide eyes. And her hair was red. Gleaming neon red.Like her media site. Makes sense. Females like to match.Her hair fell just a little past her shoulders in waves.
She stood smiling in a navy blue skin-tight suit with retro earbuds hanging around her neck.
Cypher leaned back and rubbed a hand over his mouth. Was this really the culprit who stole his identity? It didn’t make sense.
Scrolling through the data in his head, he delved deeper into her past.
Vee had no higher education in information technology, nor did she belong to any shady organization. She didn’t have a degree at all. There were no arrests or dealings with the law. She was born and raised on Earth and lived in a studio apartment in New America City, where she had resided alone for the past four years.
She owned a cat.
Instead, everything in her file indicated she was a gamer, an avid Terraform Zero player, and a rising star in the field of planetary colonization—according to leaderboards. That’s how she made her money. There was nothing that indicated a skilled hacker or a master network manipulator.
Riffraff, juvenile.Cypher grumbled. That’s what she was. She hadn’t yet learned the universe wasn’t a game, at least not the kind anyone wanted to play. Even her clothes were either too loose or too tight, too grungy and sometimes way too revealing. She didn’t even know how to dress properly.
Who the hell was this woman? And how did she get her hands on classified information about him?
He couldn’t stop studying her picture.
Vee looked like someone in need of a handler, to give her a hard lesson in life. She was beautiful when she smiled. Innocent, fresh. The antithesis of everything his kind was and represented; hard, battle-worn space warriors with a penchant for alien blood andultimatecontrol.
