Cosmos Raines groaned as he felt his body react to the voice. Maybe programming his new AI with Jessica Rabbit’s voice hadn’t been his brightest idea.
“There’s always an incident going on somewhere in the Middle East, RITA,” he replied, not looking up from the circuit board he was soldering.
“There’s a soldier missing,” RITA said.
Cosmos closed his eyes. “I’m sure the military is looking for him.”
“You will be needed to ensure the best outcome, Cosmos.”
Cosmos sighed and placed the soldering iron back in theholder. His nose twitched as the smoke tickled it. He pushed back his chair and rose, stretching his six-foot-two frame before slouching.
“Posture, love,” RITA said.
Cosmos scowled and glared at the camera on his desktop. RITA’s programming was advancing faster than he’d expected. She was also bossy.
“I’m not bossy. I care about you. You work too hard,” RITA said.
“How the hell?—”
He bit off his question and decided he needed a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Maybe he needed to work on the robot he was designing instead of the artificial intelligence programming. If he’d done that in the first place, the robot could have made him a sandwich.
And cleaned up the warehouse a bit,he thought with a grimace when he noticed the trash can was overflowing and there was a stack of dirty dishes in the sink.
“It isn’t difficult to decipher your expression. Getting back to the missing soldier, I have a location lock on him,” RITA shared.
Cosmos paused in washing a cup and looked at the camera. “If you know where he is, why didn’t you just forward the information to the military?”
“I have. A team is in route, but you will still be needed.”
“For what?” he asked, wiggling his nose when he noticed the sludge coating the bottom of the coffee pot. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed it.
“Markos Aeto isn’t alone. It isn’t the male civilian he is with that concerns me—well, he does, but for a different reason—it’s the young girl.”
Cosmos frowned. “There’s a kid?”
“Cosmos, you need to read the report I’ve put together. This issomething you will want to know,” RITA replied, her voice dropping even deeper with concern.
Ten minutes later, Cosmos murmured, “Aw, shit,” as he stared at the screen. “RITA, see what we can do to help those kids—without getting me killed preferably.”
“I’m on it, love,” RITA replied.
Undisclosed location in the Middle East
Darkness had teeth.
It chewed at the edges of Kiki’s vision as she crouched in the shadows of the crumbling wall, the acrid scent of sand, sweat, and blood teasing her nose. The sharp hum of the generator and the buzz of insects drawn to the halogen floodlights were loud in her ears.
In front of her, two men hung from a wooden A-frame—suspended by blood-soaked wrists, stripped of their dignity, beaten, and barely conscious. Brie knelt between them. Small for her age. Barely older than Kiki. Her face was tilted toward the dirt as if she was trying to disappear.
The men on the frame were not her target, but Kiki was tired of doing what she was told.
She didn’t blink. She blocked out everything else: the armed guards pacing, the laughter near the trucks, the weight of her own heartbeat pressing against her ribs. She narrowed her entire world to the A-frame.
A hand landed on hershoulder.
She flinched.
The touch was light. Slender fingers. But Kiki’s muscles tensed like steel coils.
